If there were no IP laws, DRM and technologies like DVD encryption would be far more widespread, as they would be the only method for content creators / publishers to protect their work. Open formats like the CD would never be deployed - instead, creators would try to limit playback to their own propriety devices..
Utter stupidity. Tell me, why not impose 'import tariffs' against every supermarket, shoe shop or other merchant that tries to sell you something? After all, by your logic they are taking away jobs from you and thus making you poor!
This whole 'corporations are/are not people' question is really irrelevant to the question of whether Nike should be allowed to make statements on its labour practices. Ultimately, those statements are being made by *people*, who happen to be the company's employees. Why should they lose their free speech rights just because they happen to work for a corporation?
A more interesting question is, what effect would the ability to 'print' arbitrary objects at home have on laws restricting access to guns, drugs and other prohibited objects? How is the government going to ban 'assualt weapons' if I can download the plans for an AK-47 off Gnutella and print a few out?:-)
In an ideal world, government monopoly utilities might work - but in reality, they are prone to exactly the same kind of abuse as private monopolies. Instead of excess profits being collected by investors, they go to unions, cross-subsidised users and the government instead. And for customers, there is no escape until the next election when you can maybe vote for a party that might just consider lowering rates, *if* they keep their promises.
By the way, Singapore isn't a very good example - government control of ISPs has led to censorship far worse than anything enforced in countries with privately run ISPs such as Australia or the USA. When I lived there, all three state-run ISPs used mandatory proxies to filter out objectionable websites! And it is hard to say if those companies really were profitable at all, despite being granted a monopoly - they (and Singapore Airlines) have access to incredibly cheapr capital through the government's enforced CPF saving scheme that takes 40% of everyone's income and returns a pathetic 3%!
By the way, I don't know what California-style problems the privatized Victorian electricity industry is supposed to be experiencing. I've lived there for years (during which the workforce in the power industry was reduced from ~25000 during the old government molopoly days to ~9000 today), and have yet to experience a single power failure. Yet in the old days, outages were common - I remember as a child having to use candles to light the house for hours on several occasions due to power failures.
Stories like this show exactly how government funding of science leads to government control and bias. Sometimes that bias is to the left and sometimes to the right, but it is almost always leads to research justifying expanded government power (ie - global warming, banning abortions, umpteen environmental scares, the dangers of drugs, etc..)
It is naive to think that science funded by anyone can be free of bias. The best hope if for funding to from as many independant sources as possible, such as companies, universities and charitable foundations.
If I was planning to use the Internet to do something really nasty (like email members of my terrorist cell or release some destructive worm), an unsecure wireless network would be the best way to do it.
Dial-up ISPs log caller phone numbers, and cybercafes, hotels, etc.. have security cameras and people who might remember my face. With wireless access, I could connect from a parked car without anyone noticing or any record of my presence being kept.
Corporations in the 1700s were often granted monopoly privileges that nobody would stand for today, usually in the name of the 'public good'. Is that what you really want to go back to?
And what exactly is wrong with companies wanting to make money, as long as they do it within the law? Almost all employees have the same aim as well..
It seems to me that the commercialization of the Internet has brought so much new capacity online that it is more reliable than the old days, due to the existance of competing long-haul cables operated by different companies.
For example, back in the early 90's Australia was served by a single 10mbps trans-pacific Internet connection. If it went down (as frequently happened), the whole continent was cut off! Today there are several links to the rest of the world, and outages of that kind are unknown. Guess who paid for those links? That's right, for-profit commerical corporations.
I'm sure that most people in China doing computer recycling would prefer an easier job, but how is banning or restricting the export of hardware to China going to create those jobs? Of course they only do that kind of work because the alternatives are even worse.. but don't we all?
If you are running any kind of web-based interface that can do dangerous things and normally requires a password to login (such as webmin), referers are very useful for protecting you from malicious links.
For example, if you had webmin on localhost and visited a web page with HTML like <img src='http://localhost:10000/proc/run.cgi?cmd=rm+*' > webmin will check the referer and save your files from deletion. Without referer headers, there is no way to tell the difference between the user intentionally doing something, and the browser being fooled into opening some dangerous URL!
If these directors win their case, that is to stop TV stations showing movies by the thousands of other directors who don't give a shit if their movie is interrupted by commercial breaks? After all, a for-profit TV station is hardly going to show movies that they cannot make any money from..
Their 'victory' may turn out to be a loss if the result is that their movies are never shown on TV again.
I'm not sure if developing countries really benefit from not having IP laws in the long run. For example, I know people in Malaysia (a country where almost all software and movies are sold openly by pirates) who tried to produce a home-grown music videotape of songs by local singers.
Guess what happened - pirated immediately copied it, and the original producers ended up with thousands of unsellable tapes! So maybe the US is actually doing these countrys a favour by encouraging them to enforce IP laws.
A certificate says nothing about the quality of the website or the business behind it - it just proves that the SSL connection has not been hijaaked. Some having some consumer group issue certs makes no sense.
As an australian, I hate it too. Basically, the government is taking your money in taxes and using it to buy drugs for you at a rate only slightly lower than you would pay if you bought them yourself.
All this does it remove the choice of which drugs to buy from the patient, and places it in the hands of the government! Reducing the amount spent on drugs in not necessarily a good thing if it means people are denied access to treatments.
And if people do use this technology to screen unborn children, so what? Is anyone being harmed if a couple choose to abort or not implant an embryo with a serious defect?
It is already quite common to test for Down's Syndrome and other common congenital disorders using both non-generic (ultrasound) and genetic (amniocentis) methods. If something is detected, the parents can choose to abort and try again..
All those complaining about how long-lasting lightbulbs have been suppressed by the evil lightbulb cartel should ask themselves "when was the last time I had to change my car's headlight bulb?" Those things last for ages, but cost a lot. You get what you pay for..
With its vision of a centrally planned future
in which every individual is a willing slave
of an all-poweful state, I think Looking
Backware should be considered a distopia !
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe because in the USA capitalism is allowed to thrive, while in africa it is supressed by dictators?
How can a publicly funded broadcaster be independent of the goverment - haven't you ever heard the saying 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'?
This would cut off large ISPs like AOL whose subscribers send lots of messages Hotmail users ..
If there were no IP laws, DRM and technologies like DVD encryption would be far more widespread, as they would be the only method for content creators / publishers to protect their work. Open formats like the CD would never be deployed - instead, creators would try to limit playback to their own propriety devices ..
Would that really be an improvement?
Utter stupidity. Tell me, why not impose 'import tariffs' against every supermarket, shoe shop or other merchant that tries to sell you something? After all, by your logic they are taking away jobs from you and thus making you poor!
Like they say, 90% of everything is crap. However, the 10% of good stuff differs from person to person :-)
A man who is in favour of internet censorship by the government? No thanks ..
This whole 'corporations are/are not people' question is really irrelevant to the question of whether Nike should be allowed to make statements on its labour practices. Ultimately, those statements are being made by *people*, who happen to be the company's employees. Why should they lose their free speech rights just because they happen to work for a corporation?
A more interesting question is, what effect would the ability to 'print' arbitrary objects at home have on laws restricting access to guns, drugs and other prohibited objects? How is the government going to ban 'assualt weapons' if I can download the plans for an AK-47 off Gnutella and print a few out? :-)
In an ideal world, government monopoly utilities might work - but in reality, they are prone to exactly the same kind of abuse as private monopolies. Instead of excess profits being collected by investors, they go to unions, cross-subsidised users and the government instead. And for customers, there is no escape until the next election when you can maybe vote for a party that might just consider lowering rates, *if* they keep their promises.
By the way, Singapore isn't a very good example - government control of ISPs has led to censorship far worse than anything enforced in countries with privately run ISPs such as Australia or the USA. When I lived there, all three state-run ISPs used mandatory proxies to filter out objectionable websites! And it is hard to say if those companies really were profitable at all, despite being granted a monopoly - they (and Singapore Airlines) have access to incredibly cheapr capital through the government's enforced CPF saving scheme that takes 40% of everyone's income and returns a pathetic 3%!
By the way, I don't know what California-style problems the privatized Victorian electricity industry is supposed to be experiencing. I've lived there for years (during which the workforce in the power industry was reduced from ~25000 during the old government molopoly days to ~9000 today), and have yet to experience a single power failure. Yet in the old days, outages were common - I remember as a child having to use candles to light the house for hours on several occasions due to power failures.
Stories like this show exactly how government funding of science leads to government control and bias. Sometimes that bias is to the left and sometimes to the right, but it is almost always leads to research justifying expanded government power (ie - global warming, banning abortions, umpteen environmental scares, the dangers of drugs, etc..)
It is naive to think that science funded by anyone can be free of bias. The best hope if for funding to from as many independant sources as possible, such as companies, universities and charitable foundations.
There's always dial-up .. personally, I found $10 per day a very reasonable fee last time I stayed at a hotel with STSN.
If I was planning to use the Internet to do something really nasty (like email members of my terrorist cell or release some destructive worm), an unsecure wireless network would be the best way to do it.
Dial-up ISPs log caller phone numbers, and cybercafes, hotels, etc.. have security cameras and people who might remember my face. With wireless access, I could connect from a parked car without anyone noticing or any record of my presence being kept.
Corporations in the 1700s were often granted monopoly privileges that nobody would stand for today, usually in the name of the 'public good'. Is that what you really want to go back to?
..
And what exactly is wrong with companies wanting to make money, as long as they do it within the law? Almost all employees have the same aim as well
It seems to me that the commercialization of the
Internet has brought so much new capacity online
that it is more reliable than the old days, due
to the existance of competing long-haul cables
operated by different companies.
For example, back in the early 90's Australia was
served by a single 10mbps trans-pacific Internet
connection. If it went down (as frequently
happened), the whole continent was cut off!
Today there are several links to the rest of the
world, and outages of that kind are unknown.
Guess who paid for those links? That's right,
for-profit commerical corporations.
I'm sure that most people in China doing computer recycling would prefer an easier job, but how is banning or restricting the export of hardware to China going to create those jobs? Of course they only do that kind of work because the alternatives are even worse .. but don't we all?
Wouldn't that mean that prices would go up for ..
people in China and every non-US region? Living
in region 4, I wouldn't be too happy about that
If you are running any kind of web-based interface
' >
that can do dangerous things and normally requires
a password to login (such as webmin), referers
are very useful for protecting you from malicious
links.
For example, if you had webmin on localhost and
visited a web page with HTML like
<img src='http://localhost:10000/proc/run.cgi?cmd=rm+*
webmin will check the referer and save your files
from deletion. Without referer headers, there is
no way to tell the difference between the user
intentionally doing something, and the browser
being fooled into opening some dangerous URL!
If these directors win their case, that is to stop TV stations showing movies by the thousands of other directors who don't give a shit if their movie is interrupted by commercial breaks? After all, a for-profit TV station is hardly going to show movies that they cannot make any money from ..
Their 'victory' may turn out to be a loss if the result is that their movies are never shown on TV again.
I'm not sure if developing countries really benefit from not having IP laws in the long run. For example, I know people in Malaysia (a country where almost all software and movies are sold openly by pirates) who tried to produce a home-grown music videotape of songs by local singers.
Guess what happened - pirated immediately copied it, and the original producers ended up with thousands of unsellable tapes! So maybe the US is actually doing these countrys a favour by encouraging them to enforce IP laws.
A certificate says nothing about the quality of the website or the business behind it - it just proves that the SSL connection has not been hijaaked. Some having some consumer group issue certs makes no sense.
As an australian, I hate it too. Basically, the government is taking your money in taxes and using it to buy drugs for you at a rate only slightly lower than you would pay if you bought them yourself.
All this does it remove the choice of which drugs to buy from the patient, and places it in the hands of the government! Reducing the amount spent on drugs in not necessarily a good thing if it means people are denied access to treatments.
And if people do use this technology to screen unborn children, so what? Is anyone being harmed if a couple choose to abort or not implant an embryo with a serious defect?
..
It is already quite common to test for Down's Syndrome and other common congenital disorders using both non-generic (ultrasound) and genetic (amniocentis) methods. If something is detected, the parents can choose to abort and
try again
All those complaining about how long-lasting lightbulbs have been suppressed by the evil lightbulb cartel should ask themselves "when was the last time I had to change my car's headlight bulb?" Those things last for ages, but cost a lot. You get what you pay for ..
With its vision of a centrally planned future in which every individual is a willing slave of an all-poweful state, I think Looking Backware should be considered a distopia !