Dmitri Sklyarov should be freed. Here is my reasoning:
-Fair Use rights. Consumers have historically had a "fair use" right which basically allows them to do nearly anything with a personally owned, copyrighted work. A consumer is allowed to take an electronic device apart to study it. He is allowed to photocopy a book if he desires. He may make a copy of a music recording to alter the format it's stored on. The tool that Dmitri worked on (in Russia, and distributed by a Russian firm), makes it easier for a consumer to exert his Fair Use rights. Unless the Congressional intent of the DMCA was to eliminate nearly all Fair Use rights, Dmitri is in jail illegally, and should be released and compensated for his troubles ASAP.
One sad note in this episode is that we (consumers) may be better off if the case against Dmitri goes to trial. It is likely that the DMCA will be labelled as unconstitutional if it goes to the Supreme Court, which I'm sure it would as neither party would be willing to accept a defeat from a lesser court.
I don't understand your argument that Washington's law against falsified headers, etc. in Unsolicted Commercial Email is narrowing First Ammendment rights. Are you arguing that a business has a First Ammendment right to commit false advertising? This law has no effect on an individual passing non-commercial email to their hearts content, falsified headers or not. It only comes into play when dealing with commercial spam. Businesses do not have a right to falsely advertise their products. Plain and simple. And this law makes false advertising by spammers (in the form of falsified headers, etc.) illegal and subject to civil legal action. I'm sure that you don't mean to suggest that businesses have a constituonal right to lie about about their products, do you?
One of the big problems here is that according to copyright/fair use law, I as a consumer am allowed to copy anything I purchase. I am also allowed to give these copies away. I am *not* allowed to sell them. The MPAA/RIAA want to take this right away from consumers now that making copies is trivial.
In the past, copies were generally not as good a quality as the original, and I had to purchase the media to put the copy on. Digital copies can be exact copies of the original with no loss in quality, and most people have plenty of space on their hard drives for some MP3's, etc.
How can you determine what is a pirated copy and what is a fair use copy? Or would you have use give up the right to copy legally purchased data altogether? I have over 1,000 CD's, and I have ripped many songs off of those MP3's to be used on my computer, because it is more convenient than constantly swapping CD's. Is that illegal? What if I want to copy those MP3's to another computer? Is that illegal? What if I want to send an MP3 to a friend because I think he might like the band- should that be illegal? Where exactly would *you* draw the line as to what's legal and what's not??
So, you claim that the interface is irrevelent? I have the feeling that most people who use computers (and I count everyone, not just "computer geeks") would argue that interface is everything. Do you think computers would be as common as they are today if all of them still ran only a command line interface?
I agree that the current Mac OS still has problems, but show me an OS that doesn't! Hmmm.... Linux can't use DVD's, various flavors of Windows have poor color-matching and "drag-and-drop" capabilities, the Mac OS lack preemptive multitasking, etc.
You consider the problems with the Mac OS more important than those with other OS's. Fine. Other people feel differently. If I absolutely must have access to DVD's on my computer, Linux is worthless (at least for now...). If I need the best color-matching capabilities for my desktop publishing business, Windows is lacking. It all depends on what your requirements are. If all you care about is which OS is the most "modern", then yes, use a version of *nix! The Mac OS may not be best suited for needs, so Don't use it!. Use what works best for you, just remember that what works best for you, doesn't necessarily work best for some one else.
As for what constitutes an OS, I would have to say that the GUI of the Mac OS is part of the OS. It cannot be separated, so how is it not part of the OS? As for saying that the Mac GUI is only popular on the Mac, isn't that kind of pointless? The Windows GUI is only popular on PC's, and since it's so common, it must be the most popular, hence "best" GUI available, right? So all those GNOME and KDE GUI's aren't popular either, since they don't run on the majority of computers out there, right? All I can say is who cares about popularity. If the OS and GUI and platform work for you and let you do your job, great. What else matters?
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Dmitri Sklyarov should be freed. Here is my reasoning:
-Fair Use rights. Consumers have historically had a "fair use" right which basically allows them to do nearly anything with a personally owned, copyrighted work. A consumer is allowed to take an electronic device apart to study it. He is allowed to photocopy a book if he desires. He may make a copy of a music recording to alter the format it's stored on. The tool that Dmitri worked on (in Russia, and distributed by a Russian firm), makes it easier for a consumer to exert his Fair Use rights. Unless the Congressional intent of the DMCA was to eliminate nearly all Fair Use rights, Dmitri is in jail illegally, and should be released and compensated for his troubles ASAP.
One sad note in this episode is that we (consumers) may be better off if the case against Dmitri goes to trial. It is likely that the DMCA will be labelled as unconstitutional if it goes to the Supreme Court, which I'm sure it would as neither party would be willing to accept a defeat from a lesser court.
I don't understand your argument that Washington's law against falsified headers, etc. in Unsolicted Commercial Email is narrowing First Ammendment rights. Are you arguing that a business has a First Ammendment right to commit false advertising? This law has no effect on an individual passing non-commercial email to their hearts content, falsified headers or not. It only comes into play when dealing with commercial spam. Businesses do not have a right to falsely advertise their products. Plain and simple. And this law makes false advertising by spammers (in the form of falsified headers, etc.) illegal and subject to civil legal action. I'm sure that you don't mean to suggest that businesses have a constituonal right to lie about about their products, do you?
One of the big problems here is that according to copyright/fair use law, I as a consumer am allowed to copy anything I purchase. I am also allowed to give these copies away. I am *not* allowed to sell them. The MPAA/RIAA want to take this right away from consumers now that making copies is trivial.
In the past, copies were generally not as good a quality as the original, and I had to purchase the media to put the copy on. Digital copies can be exact copies of the original with no loss in quality, and most people have plenty of space on their hard drives for some MP3's, etc.
How can you determine what is a pirated copy and what is a fair use copy? Or would you have use give up the right to copy legally purchased data altogether? I have over 1,000 CD's, and I have ripped many songs off of those MP3's to be used on my computer, because it is more convenient than constantly swapping CD's. Is that illegal? What if I want to copy those MP3's to another computer? Is that illegal? What if I want to send an MP3 to a friend because I think he might like the band- should that be illegal? Where exactly would *you* draw the line as to what's legal and what's not??
So, you claim that the interface is irrevelent? I have the feeling that most people who use computers (and I count everyone, not just "computer geeks") would argue that interface is everything. Do you think computers would be as common as they are today if all of them still ran only a command line interface?
I agree that the current Mac OS still has problems, but show me an OS that doesn't! Hmmm.... Linux can't use DVD's, various flavors of Windows have poor color-matching and "drag-and-drop" capabilities, the Mac OS lack preemptive multitasking, etc.
You consider the problems with the Mac OS more important than those with other OS's. Fine. Other people feel differently. If I absolutely must have access to DVD's on my computer, Linux is worthless (at least for now...). If I need the best color-matching capabilities for my desktop publishing business, Windows is lacking. It all depends on what your requirements are. If all you care about is which OS is the most "modern", then yes, use a version of *nix! The Mac OS may not be best suited for needs, so Don't use it!. Use what works best for you, just remember that what works best for you, doesn't necessarily work best for some one else.
As for what constitutes an OS, I would have to say that the GUI of the Mac OS is part of the OS. It cannot be separated, so how is it not part of the OS? As for saying that the Mac GUI is only popular on the Mac, isn't that kind of pointless? The Windows GUI is only popular on PC's, and since it's so common, it must be the most popular, hence "best" GUI available, right? So all those GNOME and KDE GUI's aren't popular either, since they don't run on the majority of computers out there, right? All I can say is who cares about popularity. If the OS and GUI and platform work for you and let you do your job, great. What else matters?