You seem to be the one with the perception difficulties.
You can link to GPLed code, as long as you do it through RPCs and other mechanisms, or directly to LGPLed code, and still have the rights to sell your oh-so-precious code.
Nobody who writes GPLed code wants your code, that's pure egotism on your part. All they want is to share with like-minded types. You're free to use their code and produce nothing, they're not sharing to get code back; They're sharing to help people learn, by producing a self-perpetuating supply of source code.
I'm not against people choosing to spend money buying a program, but I see nothing wrong with people not having to. It's not socialist to use free software, it's smart. Why bother reinventing the wheel when everyone can pitch in and do it better and cheaper? It's only socialism if you're forced to play along. You're perfectly free to do as you do and not join in.
I know exactly why you don't want to use GPLed software, you never tried to hide it and I got it immediately. You don't want anyone else to have your code and it's such a big deal that you're willing to reimpliment a lot to do it. Go for it. Just don't whine about it.
Why should the authors of open source care about you not wanting to share?
You want to use other people's code and not let anyone see yours... I can't see why people aren't jumping to help you. If you weren't trying to get your greedy hands on their work, you wouldn't care how it was licensed. If you were willing to give them the same courtesy they gave you, you'd release your code. If you were simply an adult, you'd at least stop whining about how rude other people are for not giving you their code.
Go write your own code from scratch you greedy antisocial twit.
According to other Slashdotters, both Mozilla and Safari load and display the page well, if not perfectly, allowing users to do everything up to (they didn't try to go further) placing orders, if you spoof browser identification.
Considering that there isn't any webpage WMP integration, it is likely that Buy.com is simply lazy and unwilling to test functionality in other browsers.
Time on IRC has convinced me that people don't want laws to solve problems (Murder a problem? Pass a law against it, or find a technical solution) but to allow themselves to have power over others.
There are IRC variants where/ignore works at the server level, and where flooding has pretty much been solved. People still whine about ops more than they talk. It's all a power trip. Ops was invented basically to let someone keep order. Once order is being kept, ops aren't required. Yet go into a channel and 60% of people are opped, and the other 40% are sucking up to them.
I think most laws that people want are to allow them to stick their nose into other people's business, not to stop an actual problem.
However, I know people aren't grown up enough to handle themselves without laws. Anywhere you've got a commons, you've got spoilers who are willing to destroy it rather than share, even if their only contribution was in fencing it off.
Maybe we need to investigate a monarchy. We'll use genetic engineering to breed a super-intelligent being and let them rule.:) And hey, if it fails, we've got a cool super-beings-run-amok situation that'll be foder for b-movies for hundreds of years!
Gifts don't come with warranties. Free software is a gift, just like a free cookie. Why should the software have a warranty and not the cookie?
The only "warranty" either comes with is that the giver can't intend to do harm, or expect that harm will occur and not warn the receiver. In other words, I can't give you a poisoned cookie without telling you. But, if I tell you that the cookie is poisoned to the best of my knowledge, it's legal; you could want to use it for rat poison.
For software, if I know it's got a virus and don't tell you, I'm at fault. If it simply might be harmful I only need to represent it properly, "Free software: Only partially tested!" to absolve myself of *all* damages.
Perhaps it should say "Therefore, by modifying or distributing [...] you indicate your acceptance of this License [or that your actions violate copyright law]"
That might make it clear enough for people like you.
The GPL is doing you a favor by assuming that your otherwise unauthorized distribuition of the copyrighted file is done so in accordance with the GPL. Otherwise, you're liable for damages of up to $150k per file, per copy. You can claim that you didn't agree to the GPL when distributing the file, and everyone will accept it, but then the issue is why you knowingly violated its copyright.
The GPL is incredibly secure, in that you can only accept it if you implicitly agree that it's valid. If you don't agree, you don't accept it, and you have no extra rights at all.
So, is SCO violating the provable copyrights of all of the contributors of original work, or they agreed to the GPL. Which is it? Even if they could prove (hah) that they own some of the code in the kernel, unless they own Linus's original work from university, they're violating his copyright by distributing it.
What reason is there to expect that EULAs are valid?
They're post-sale contracts. This sort of thing has never been legit.
When they show you the license in the store, and you must overtly agree to it to buy the product, then they may be legal. Until then they're lies.
But, they'll have to be a lot simpler. Judges are already invalidating long small-print contracts for regular consumers. If it takes a law degree to understand, you can't possibly enter into it knowingly. Thus, the company should reasonably know that nobody reads (and hence, nobody agree to) their contracts.
Further, the concept of post-sale restrictions was decided in the early 1900s, with the First-Sale doctrine. Books were being sold with 'contracts' inside the cover limiting resale rights. It didn't work then, it won't work now, even if the many issues keeping EULAs from being valid contracts were fixed.
(Such as, they disclaim consumer rights they aren't allowed to disclaim under the Magnuson-Moss warranty act. Many EULAs disclaim all responsibility even if the product doesn't function at all, etc. Not allowed, and in fact, likely criminal to claim.)
You do everyone a disservice by saying that EULAs might be valid. It's misleading and can be very damaging.
That's how you wipe the drive... Not what the parent poster wanted. And you don't need to specify a blocksize (bs=..) with dd. By default it'll go till either the input file is done, or the output file is full.
To wipe just the free space, do:
cat/dev/zero >/mnt/windows/empty_file
That'll create a file full of zeros, using up all the free space on the drive. When it's done it'll complain about being out of space and stop. You then delete the file and all the empty sectors have been filled with zeros.
The only thing this doesn't do is wipe the cluster slack, the unused space at the end of a file where it doesn't fill a full cluster. For that you need either a specialized utility, or you copy everything off the drive, zero it all, then copy everything back.
If I wrote a software license that said "You may not distribute this software provided on floppy", it didn't take away your right to distribute it on floppy because you didn't have that right.
When you download GPLed software you have no right to distribute it. It can't take away anything away that you don't already have. It gives you limited rights which happen to not include one that you want.
Taking rights away is only done by another kind of license, the EULA. They aren't binding without the UCITA, but they are an example of a license that takes away rights that you have by default.
If one of us is a zealot, I think it's the one attacking the GPL because it doesn't let him horde other people's work.
Quite right. If I had access to military incendaries I'd find excuses to test them...
You can tell this isn't a required procedure though, or that nobody cared enough to audit it. It's very hard to burn a clump of paper, even by pouring kerosene on it. What you need to do is start a fire and slowly dump the paper into it, in small enough clumps that it burns before it lands.
Now, if you hooked the exhaust of a vacuum into a furnace (or barrel of kerosene even) and used the vacuum to slowly pick up the powder and blow it into the fire with a rich dose of air, this would probably be very effective. And the rough airflow past the fan and through the machine would serve to break up clumps.
What you miss is that Mozilla can use GPLed code, but because they don't wish to release Mozilla only under the GPL, they do not.
You could grab the Mozilla code, roll the khtml code into it, and release a GPL-only version of Mozilla. As I can see it, the only thing stopping you is that you want the ability to lock people out of the source at some point.
Your side wants the ability to horde the work of others, the GPL side wants to share with everyone who is willing to return the favor.
Clearly, the GPL is a better license to promote open source (as in, visible source for your OS and Apps). This is evidenced by the reactions of those who would restrict the source.
The GPL takes nothing, it only offers slightly less, very slightly, than you may want.
I say "freedom" because you are perfectly free to not contribute code. Don't distribute modified GPLed code and there's no obligation placed on you. Use it for yourself, or read it for ideas, and you're fine. Even make copies for a friend. None of those require you to share your own code. You have the freedom to horde.
You want the "freedom", quotes again, to have *my* cake, and eat it too. I don't think that's very free.
You can assign a copyright without a contract. It's a gift. And like a gift, there are many special considerations, but it's still valid. If you do want to assign copyrights though, you should probably use the standard dodge of the $1 payment to make it a contract. It's a bit clearer.
As for warranty, I don't think there's *any* inherent warranty in a gift, except that you didn't maliciously misrepresent it. In other words, if because of my mistake, my free software formats your drive and microwaves your cat, it's not my responsibility. But, if I know it'll do this and tell you it's safe, I am guilty of a crime. I know companies like MS want there to be an inherent warranty in free software, but it's not consistent with how western law views gifts.
As for agreeing to a copyrighted contract, I can't see any problems with it.
Except that they sell printers with half-full tester tanks of ink. So you get maybe $10 worth of ink. (Well, $.35 worth, but a normal retail of $10...)
Just buy a Canon. They use seperate tanks for each color and they haven't tried to make them at all hard to refill. A syringe and a sticker is all that stands between you and a $25 bottle of 250ml of black ink, enough to last for the lifetime of the printer.
Yeah, democracy is so much worse than absolute totalitarian rule of the guy whose ancestors stole the most land.
Maybe pure libertarian ideals work in an Ayn Rand book, but try the real world sometime. People are cruel. Rich people with a ton of money and no laws to stop them have the power to be very cruel.
In these days of companies suing review sites for negative reviews, that's not as easy as it sounds.
Then there's the fact that this violates every major libertarian ideal. If you buy something you <b>own</b> it. Buy Lexmark wants to sell things and still control them. They also want this state, which you are so fond of, to force people to go along with it.
If you got rid of the DMCA, I'd say the market should decide. But with the DMCA hurting consumers you <b>NEED</b> a law to help consumers or they'll get screwed.
Canon doesn't play games with ink. At least, not on their S line of inkjets, and up. (I've seen the $120 - $300 range, and the $450+ range, not the really cheap ones)
Every ink is in a seperate tank, they're just simple plastic tanks without any mechanics, both cheap to replace and easy to refill if you want to go that way. They also don't "run out" of ink until the tank is dry.
And, on my S750, a $175 range printer when new, it came with full tanks of ink unlike most of the competition.
I'm sure they still overcharge for ink, but not disgustingly, so I usually buy brand-name stuff. It's funny, but the company that let me buy what I wanted got me to buy their product...
Canon is good. They use a seperate tank for every color (and one for black), even on their 6+1 ink photo printers. Their ink tanks are also just little plastic boxes with a sponge in them. If you want to buy 3rd-party ink you can get the really cheap stuff that you put in with a syringe.
They're also honest. Many people complain of printers "running out" of ink with a third of it still sloshing in the tank. My printer warns me it's getting low at that point but it doesn't stop printing until the tank is empty and the sponge is looking dry.
The ink is the primary reason I bought Canon. Refills for it were much cheaper than for other printers, much easier to DIY, and they didn't try to stop it. I'm quite happy with the quality too.
Exactly, don't legislate. Don't let laws get in the way of people buying a product and OWNING it. You know, you pay your money, you have the right to do anything with the product... It's an old idea, but one that I think is still valid.
It's not like Lexmark is just making it hard to get replacement ink, they've done that forever. They're now using unjust laws like the DMCA to withhold ownership rights. Strike down the DMCA, let the market decide if Lexmark can succeed doing this.
What if making a chocolate bar is trivial when you look at it. You smack your head and say "Of course, all I do is..." and minutes later you have created a chocolate bar equivalent to the one in the store, without $1 worth of effort. Is it wrong for you to do this? I mean, if you make your own chocolate (or more reasonably, grow your own vegetables) that's one less sale for the store owner, for the farmer, less work for the trucker, etc.
By doing something for yourself that someone else could do for you, you're depriving them of an opportunity to do it, and make a buck. Stop picking your nose, you could hire a homeless person to do it for you! Okay, so it's silly, I don't mean it to be a concrete example.
Think of a patent. You come up with a way of doing something, that I could presumably learn by watching you, but I'm not allowed to do it once I learn it. This is contrary to human nature. Think of watching someone play chass. You learn how they do things and you can go apply that knowledge when you play the game.
Now think of it in a copyright context. I hear you whistling a little tune you composed in the shower. It's perfectly within my ability to whistle the same tune, and I consider it catchy, but I'm not allowed to. (Or, I could, but not if you'd 'fixed it in a tangible media (wrote it down)' before I heard it. Why not? It's unlikely that you spontaneously created in that shower with this idea in your hear. Likely you've been exposed to the world, and in it, snippets of people whistling other tunes. Your whistling is based off of what other people did, but I'm not allowed to base my whistling off of what you did... Seems broken. (O Fortuna by Carl Orf(?) is a case of this. He based it off the work of others, yet his estate sued Apotheosis for making a work based on his work based on a work based on...)
I don't mean this to justify running out and distributing copied CDs. It's to show that "Information Property" or IP is an arbitrary thing, not a natural right. We copy many things that we see, it's how we learn as children, but some things we aren't allowed to copy... This argument is also intended (the professional nose picker) to suggest that we don't owe anyone a guaranteed living. That shopkeeper is fine as long as people want what he sells. We don't see many stores around selling buggy whips, to use the common example, but nobody laments for the buggy-whip salesman. He found another job, probably in the automotive industry that obsoleted his old job.
I'll summarize by saying that I think it's wrong and cruel to take what somebody created and not compensate them at all, but this how the world (and people) function. You can't pass a law holding back the sea, or stopping people from whistling a tune they heard. Instead we need a way to compensate people who write tunes that everyone is free to whistle. And, if the important thing is the tune, then the shopkeeper better look out because when that tune can be communicated over the internet instead of on plastic disks, he's going to be out of a job, just as if people found a way to magically duplicate those chocolate bars we started by talking about.
I think we'd agree that buying a CD isn't paying for the media, or we'd be allowed to copy them freely. So we're obviously paying for the right to listen to the music.
This was expressed in terms of copies because the law is hundreds of years old. Copies of a book weren't an integral part of reading it like copies of software are made to run it, etc. If a fair law were being written now the law would say something about not distributing to people haven't been granted permission, not about copies.
In this light, of what I consider the intent of the law to be, I feel perfectly justified in downloading the contents of a CD I bought. If I sell the CD I sell my rights to the music. If it was stolen, I'm still the legal owner and I believe I own the right to listen to the music.
Technically, downloading a copy of a CD I own involves posessing two copies, but as I don't believe that's the point of the law, and that I'd be allowed to create the other copy from the original disc, an action that results in exactly the same results, I don't see the harm.
And yes, before you ask, I do acknowledge that downloading music I don't own, and never have owned, is a violation of the spirit of the law, as well as the letter.
Copyright law was actually intended to increase the public's access to new works. Letting a movie mildew in the basement should be illegal.
Seriously. If you want to keep something private, don't release it and don't ask for copyright protection. When you ask for copyright protection (explicitly, or implicitly) you're agreeing to a social contract where we (the people) protect your commercial interest in it, in trade for you creating it and after a limited period of time, releasing it for everyone.
I propose that copyright should lapse if you don't make a "reasonable" effort to keep something "in print" (as appropriate for its type of media). Also, as long as there is some commercial interest. Otherwise copyright should expire five years from the date of last publishing, or twenty eight years (seems as good as any other number) from date of creation, whichever is more.
I'd also say that for a protected work (DVDs with CSS, uncopyable CDs, etc) you should only get copyright protection if you register an unprotected copy with the Library of Congress, for distribution after copyright expires. If you don't, you don't get copyright protection, your choice. If you want theoretically unending protection, use technological means, if you want short-term, but legally enforced protection, apply for copyright.
There's no good reason you shouldn't duplicate that poster. Copyright law exists only to encourage creators to create. The creators long-since stopped getting anything from sales of that poster, and indeed, by the copyright laws that they were under (and presumably encouraged them to create) at the time, that post should now be in the public domain.
Don't be bound by one-sided agreements. Copyright is supposed to benefit everyone, not just Disney (etc). When it starts benefitting only Disney, we should stop paying attention to it.
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You seem to be the one with the perception difficulties.
You can link to GPLed code, as long as you do it through RPCs and other mechanisms, or directly to LGPLed code, and still have the rights to sell your oh-so-precious code.
Nobody who writes GPLed code wants your code, that's pure egotism on your part. All they want is to share with like-minded types. You're free to use their code and produce nothing, they're not sharing to get code back; They're sharing to help people learn, by producing a self-perpetuating supply of source code.
I'm not against people choosing to spend money buying a program, but I see nothing wrong with people not having to. It's not socialist to use free software, it's smart. Why bother reinventing the wheel when everyone can pitch in and do it better and cheaper? It's only socialism if you're forced to play along. You're perfectly free to do as you do and not join in.
I know exactly why you don't want to use GPLed software, you never tried to hide it and I got it immediately. You don't want anyone else to have your code and it's such a big deal that you're willing to reimpliment a lot to do it. Go for it. Just don't whine about it.
Buy an OS upgrade for all those 9x machines that are otherwise working perfectly, plus enough hardware to run the new OS at the same level?
Why not download a patch to enable NTLM2 support for 9x? I'm sure if it's not out now, someone will code it up within a day.
Oh yeah... nm.
Why should the authors of open source care about you not wanting to share?
You want to use other people's code and not let anyone see yours... I can't see why people aren't jumping to help you. If you weren't trying to get your greedy hands on their work, you wouldn't care how it was licensed. If you were willing to give them the same courtesy they gave you, you'd release your code. If you were simply an adult, you'd at least stop whining about how rude other people are for not giving you their code.
Go write your own code from scratch you greedy antisocial twit.
According to other Slashdotters, both Mozilla and Safari load and display the page well, if not perfectly, allowing users to do everything up to (they didn't try to go further) placing orders, if you spoof browser identification.
Considering that there isn't any webpage WMP integration, it is likely that Buy.com is simply lazy and unwilling to test functionality in other browsers.
That's their right, but I'll shop elsewhere.
Time on IRC has convinced me that people don't want laws to solve problems (Murder a problem? Pass a law against it, or find a technical solution) but to allow themselves to have power over others.
/ignore works at the server level, and where flooding has pretty much been solved. People still whine about ops more than they talk. It's all a power trip. Ops was invented basically to let someone keep order. Once order is being kept, ops aren't required. Yet go into a channel and 60% of people are opped, and the other 40% are sucking up to them.
:) And hey, if it fails, we've got a cool super-beings-run-amok situation that'll be foder for b-movies for hundreds of years!
There are IRC variants where
I think most laws that people want are to allow them to stick their nose into other people's business, not to stop an actual problem.
However, I know people aren't grown up enough to handle themselves without laws. Anywhere you've got a commons, you've got spoilers who are willing to destroy it rather than share, even if their only contribution was in fencing it off.
Maybe we need to investigate a monarchy. We'll use genetic engineering to breed a super-intelligent being and let them rule.
Gifts don't come with warranties. Free software is a gift, just like a free cookie. Why should the software have a warranty and not the cookie?
The only "warranty" either comes with is that the giver can't intend to do harm, or expect that harm will occur and not warn the receiver. In other words, I can't give you a poisoned cookie without telling you. But, if I tell you that the cookie is poisoned to the best of my knowledge, it's legal; you could want to use it for rat poison.
For software, if I know it's got a virus and don't tell you, I'm at fault. If it simply might be harmful I only need to represent it properly, "Free software: Only partially tested!" to absolve myself of *all* damages.
Perhaps it should say "Therefore, by modifying or distributing [...] you indicate your acceptance of this License [or that your actions violate copyright law]"
That might make it clear enough for people like you.
The GPL is doing you a favor by assuming that your otherwise unauthorized distribuition of the copyrighted file is done so in accordance with the GPL. Otherwise, you're liable for damages of up to $150k per file, per copy. You can claim that you didn't agree to the GPL when distributing the file, and everyone will accept it, but then the issue is why you knowingly violated its copyright.
The GPL is incredibly secure, in that you can only accept it if you implicitly agree that it's valid. If you don't agree, you don't accept it, and you have no extra rights at all.
So, is SCO violating the provable copyrights of all of the contributors of original work, or they agreed to the GPL. Which is it? Even if they could prove (hah) that they own some of the code in the kernel, unless they own Linus's original work from university, they're violating his copyright by distributing it.
What reason is there to expect that EULAs are valid?
They're post-sale contracts. This sort of thing has never been legit.
When they show you the license in the store, and you must overtly agree to it to buy the product, then they may be legal. Until then they're lies.
But, they'll have to be a lot simpler. Judges are already invalidating long small-print contracts for regular consumers. If it takes a law degree to understand, you can't possibly enter into it knowingly. Thus, the company should reasonably know that nobody reads (and hence, nobody agree to) their contracts.
Further, the concept of post-sale restrictions was decided in the early 1900s, with the First-Sale doctrine. Books were being sold with 'contracts' inside the cover limiting resale rights. It didn't work then, it won't work now, even if the many issues keeping EULAs from being valid contracts were fixed.
(Such as, they disclaim consumer rights they aren't allowed to disclaim under the Magnuson-Moss warranty act. Many EULAs disclaim all responsibility even if the product doesn't function at all, etc. Not allowed, and in fact, likely criminal to claim.)
You do everyone a disservice by saying that EULAs might be valid. It's misleading and can be very damaging.
That's how you wipe the drive... Not what the parent poster wanted. And you don't need to specify a blocksize (bs=..) with dd. By default it'll go till either the input file is done, or the output file is full.
/dev/zero > /mnt/windows/empty_file
To wipe just the free space, do:
cat
That'll create a file full of zeros, using up all the free space on the drive. When it's done it'll complain about being out of space and stop. You then delete the file and all the empty sectors have been filled with zeros.
The only thing this doesn't do is wipe the cluster slack, the unused space at the end of a file where it doesn't fill a full cluster. For that you need either a specialized utility, or you copy everything off the drive, zero it all, then copy everything back.
Sorry, but them's the facts.
If I wrote a software license that said "You may not distribute this software provided on floppy", it didn't take away your right to distribute it on floppy because you didn't have that right.
When you download GPLed software you have no right to distribute it. It can't take away anything away that you don't already have. It gives you limited rights which happen to not include one that you want.
Taking rights away is only done by another kind of license, the EULA. They aren't binding without the UCITA, but they are an example of a license that takes away rights that you have by default.
If one of us is a zealot, I think it's the one attacking the GPL because it doesn't let him horde other people's work.
Quite right. If I had access to military incendaries I'd find excuses to test them...
You can tell this isn't a required procedure though, or that nobody cared enough to audit it. It's very hard to burn a clump of paper, even by pouring kerosene on it. What you need to do is start a fire and slowly dump the paper into it, in small enough clumps that it burns before it lands.
Now, if you hooked the exhaust of a vacuum into a furnace (or barrel of kerosene even) and used the vacuum to slowly pick up the powder and blow it into the fire with a rich dose of air, this would probably be very effective. And the rough airflow past the fan and through the machine would serve to break up clumps.
What you miss is that Mozilla can use GPLed code, but because they don't wish to release Mozilla only under the GPL, they do not.
You could grab the Mozilla code, roll the khtml code into it, and release a GPL-only version of Mozilla. As I can see it, the only thing stopping you is that you want the ability to lock people out of the source at some point.
Your side wants the ability to horde the work of others, the GPL side wants to share with everyone who is willing to return the favor.
Clearly, the GPL is a better license to promote open source (as in, visible source for your OS and Apps). This is evidenced by the reactions of those who would restrict the source.
The GPL takes nothing, it only offers slightly less, very slightly, than you may want.
I say "freedom" because you are perfectly free to not contribute code. Don't distribute modified GPLed code and there's no obligation placed on you. Use it for yourself, or read it for ideas, and you're fine. Even make copies for a friend. None of those require you to share your own code. You have the freedom to horde.
You want the "freedom", quotes again, to have *my* cake, and eat it too. I don't think that's very free.
You can assign a copyright without a contract. It's a gift. And like a gift, there are many special considerations, but it's still valid. If you do want to assign copyrights though, you should probably use the standard dodge of the $1 payment to make it a contract. It's a bit clearer.
As for warranty, I don't think there's *any* inherent warranty in a gift, except that you didn't maliciously misrepresent it. In other words, if because of my mistake, my free software formats your drive and microwaves your cat, it's not my responsibility. But, if I know it'll do this and tell you it's safe, I am guilty of a crime. I know companies like MS want there to be an inherent warranty in free software, but it's not consistent with how western law views gifts.
As for agreeing to a copyrighted contract, I can't see any problems with it.
The only "freedom" you don't have with the GPL is withholding you modifications. Interesting that you complain about this...
Except that they sell printers with half-full tester tanks of ink. So you get maybe $10 worth of ink. (Well, $.35 worth, but a normal retail of $10...)
Just buy a Canon. They use seperate tanks for each color and they haven't tried to make them at all hard to refill. A syringe and a sticker is all that stands between you and a $25 bottle of 250ml of black ink, enough to last for the lifetime of the printer.
Yeah, democracy is so much worse than absolute totalitarian rule of the guy whose ancestors stole the most land.
Maybe pure libertarian ideals work in an Ayn Rand book, but try the real world sometime. People are cruel. Rich people with a ton of money and no laws to stop them have the power to be very cruel.
In these days of companies suing review sites for negative reviews, that's not as easy as it sounds.
Then there's the fact that this violates every major libertarian ideal. If you buy something you <b>own</b> it. Buy Lexmark wants to sell things and still control them. They also want this state, which you are so fond of, to force people to go along with it.
If you got rid of the DMCA, I'd say the market should decide. But with the DMCA hurting consumers you <b>NEED</b> a law to help consumers or they'll get screwed.
Canon doesn't play games with ink. At least, not on their S line of inkjets, and up. (I've seen the $120 - $300 range, and the $450+ range, not the really cheap ones)
Every ink is in a seperate tank, they're just simple plastic tanks without any mechanics, both cheap to replace and easy to refill if you want to go that way. They also don't "run out" of ink until the tank is dry.
And, on my S750, a $175 range printer when new, it came with full tanks of ink unlike most of the competition.
I'm sure they still overcharge for ink, but not disgustingly, so I usually buy brand-name stuff. It's funny, but the company that let me buy what I wanted got me to buy their product...
Canon is good. They use a seperate tank for every color (and one for black), even on their 6+1 ink photo printers. Their ink tanks are also just little plastic boxes with a sponge in them. If you want to buy 3rd-party ink you can get the really cheap stuff that you put in with a syringe.
They're also honest. Many people complain of printers "running out" of ink with a third of it still sloshing in the tank. My printer warns me it's getting low at that point but it doesn't stop printing until the tank is empty and the sponge is looking dry.
The ink is the primary reason I bought Canon. Refills for it were much cheaper than for other printers, much easier to DIY, and they didn't try to stop it. I'm quite happy with the quality too.
Exactly, don't legislate. Don't let laws get in the way of people buying a product and OWNING it. You know, you pay your money, you have the right to do anything with the product... It's an old idea, but one that I think is still valid.
It's not like Lexmark is just making it hard to get replacement ink, they've done that forever. They're now using unjust laws like the DMCA to withhold ownership rights. Strike down the DMCA, let the market decide if Lexmark can succeed doing this.
What if making a chocolate bar is trivial when you look at it. You smack your head and say "Of course, all I do is ..." and minutes later you have created a chocolate bar equivalent to the one in the store, without $1 worth of effort. Is it wrong for you to do this? I mean, if you make your own chocolate (or more reasonably, grow your own vegetables) that's one less sale for the store owner, for the farmer, less work for the trucker, etc.
By doing something for yourself that someone else could do for you, you're depriving them of an opportunity to do it, and make a buck. Stop picking your nose, you could hire a homeless person to do it for you! Okay, so it's silly, I don't mean it to be a concrete example.
Think of a patent. You come up with a way of doing something, that I could presumably learn by watching you, but I'm not allowed to do it once I learn it. This is contrary to human nature. Think of watching someone play chass. You learn how they do things and you can go apply that knowledge when you play the game.
Now think of it in a copyright context. I hear you whistling a little tune you composed in the shower. It's perfectly within my ability to whistle the same tune, and I consider it catchy, but I'm not allowed to. (Or, I could, but not if you'd 'fixed it in a tangible media (wrote it down)' before I heard it. Why not? It's unlikely that you spontaneously created in that shower with this idea in your hear. Likely you've been exposed to the world, and in it, snippets of people whistling other tunes. Your whistling is based off of what other people did, but I'm not allowed to base my whistling off of what you did... Seems broken. (O Fortuna by Carl Orf(?) is a case of this. He based it off the work of others, yet his estate sued Apotheosis for making a work based on his work based on a work based on...)
I don't mean this to justify running out and distributing copied CDs. It's to show that "Information Property" or IP is an arbitrary thing, not a natural right. We copy many things that we see, it's how we learn as children, but some things we aren't allowed to copy... This argument is also intended (the professional nose picker) to suggest that we don't owe anyone a guaranteed living. That shopkeeper is fine as long as people want what he sells. We don't see many stores around selling buggy whips, to use the common example, but nobody laments for the buggy-whip salesman. He found another job, probably in the automotive industry that obsoleted his old job.
I'll summarize by saying that I think it's wrong and cruel to take what somebody created and not compensate them at all, but this how the world (and people) function. You can't pass a law holding back the sea, or stopping people from whistling a tune they heard. Instead we need a way to compensate people who write tunes that everyone is free to whistle. And, if the important thing is the tune, then the shopkeeper better look out because when that tune can be communicated over the internet instead of on plastic disks, he's going to be out of a job, just as if people found a way to magically duplicate those chocolate bars we started by talking about.
I think we'd agree that buying a CD isn't paying for the media, or we'd be allowed to copy them freely. So we're obviously paying for the right to listen to the music.
This was expressed in terms of copies because the law is hundreds of years old. Copies of a book weren't an integral part of reading it like copies of software are made to run it, etc. If a fair law were being written now the law would say something about not distributing to people haven't been granted permission, not about copies.
In this light, of what I consider the intent of the law to be, I feel perfectly justified in downloading the contents of a CD I bought. If I sell the CD I sell my rights to the music. If it was stolen, I'm still the legal owner and I believe I own the right to listen to the music.
Technically, downloading a copy of a CD I own involves posessing two copies, but as I don't believe that's the point of the law, and that I'd be allowed to create the other copy from the original disc, an action that results in exactly the same results, I don't see the harm.
And yes, before you ask, I do acknowledge that downloading music I don't own, and never have owned, is a violation of the spirit of the law, as well as the letter.
Copyright law was actually intended to increase the public's access to new works. Letting a movie mildew in the basement should be illegal.
Seriously. If you want to keep something private, don't release it and don't ask for copyright protection. When you ask for copyright protection (explicitly, or implicitly) you're agreeing to a social contract where we (the people) protect your commercial interest in it, in trade for you creating it and after a limited period of time, releasing it for everyone.
I propose that copyright should lapse if you don't make a "reasonable" effort to keep something "in print" (as appropriate for its type of media). Also, as long as there is some commercial interest. Otherwise copyright should expire five years from the date of last publishing, or twenty eight years (seems as good as any other number) from date of creation, whichever is more.
I'd also say that for a protected work (DVDs with CSS, uncopyable CDs, etc) you should only get copyright protection if you register an unprotected copy with the Library of Congress, for distribution after copyright expires. If you don't, you don't get copyright protection, your choice. If you want theoretically unending protection, use technological means, if you want short-term, but legally enforced protection, apply for copyright.
There's no good reason you shouldn't duplicate that poster. Copyright law exists only to encourage creators to create. The creators long-since stopped getting anything from sales of that poster, and indeed, by the copyright laws that they were under (and presumably encouraged them to create) at the time, that post should now be in the public domain.
Don't be bound by one-sided agreements. Copyright is supposed to benefit everyone, not just Disney (etc). When it starts benefitting only Disney, we should stop paying attention to it.