It is not so much whether they actually believe uncrackable formats are possible, it is much more whether they believe if it is possible to deter Joe Sixpack from casually copying their stuff.
The professional, so-called pirates, will get around anyway, but Joe Sixpack doesn't generally buy many bootlegs. The proverbial geek in the basement and the hardcore fans do not add up to enough marketshare to count.
Most readers here forget that having a flawed protection is perfectly rational as long as it keeps the masses buying your stuff. It is the difference between a managerial and an engineering mindset, the difference between good enough and technical perfection.
Well, since I always had a hard time with punctuation in my native language and never quite understood English punctuation rules, could you please explain what went wrong in that sentence?
Well, time to read up a bit. Maybe you are confused by the Versailles treaty which was a result of WW I, but Germany does have quite a naval NATO role, especially in the Baltic and Scandinavian theatre.
That MozillaQuestQuest site is pure genius. I wished the slashdot crew would link to it every time they made the mistake to link to MozillaQuest and put the whole shebang in the funny section.
And that my friend, would be the case if none would have thought of plastic boxes before. You can get a patent on applying known concepts in a way that is innovative. For example using a chainsaw for slicing bread (to mention something patently stupid) could be innovative enough to warrant a patent.
HIM is a grunge-like band from somewhere in Scandinavia I think. Could be Slovak as well. Anyway, they have have gained some popularity all over Europe and as soon as these CD's appear inside the EU, Sony will encounter quite a bit of bad publicity and possible some nasty lawsuits.
I wouldn't expose my nice pair of Dali loudspeakers to HIM anyway, but I would be rather annoyed if they would be damaged in the process.
Well, not exactly wrong. What I gathered from the kernel mailing list, the problem seems to be that VIA has shipped a whole series of different chipsets with bugs using the same version number. The problem is that there is no way one could make a nice workaround. As the owner of a motherboard with a VIA 686 chipset I can assure you that is a real PITA. I encountered the most horrible lockups. Luckily enough I had a Promise ATA100 PCI controller and ever since I put my HD on that one my system has been rock solid.
I think you hit the nail on its head. One exception, which should become the rule IMAO is the GnuCash project. I was really impressed that it included its own help browsers(well, it is in fact an integrated version of the Gnome html browser), with high quality documentation. It is definitely on par with a lot of proprietary software, or even better. Another good example, although slightly less easy to navigate is the documentation included in LyX. I wished somone could come up with a scheme that includes the technical density of the man pages and the accessability of the documentation of the aforementioned projects for all the GNU/Linux/Hurd applications.
A techie with an additonal MBA has more value than a BBA with an additional MBA. If your ambitions are to end up in the higher management echelons of the organisations where you want to work, MBA is the way to go. An MBA will provide you with the understanding of the business issues, while your technical background helps you to analyse and manage complexity.
Well, thanks for the reference to the other two theories. I intend to cover more than one theory in my thesis, although I personally am more in favour of the utilitarian one.
Nonetheless, your subscription to the labour theory doesn't matter to the current copyright law, or droit d'auteur as it is called in civil law systems is based on the two I mentioned before, with copyright law having a slightly more utilitarian emphasis than the droit d'auteur. Patent law and trademark are strictly based on the utilitarian view.
I definitely don't want to shove down a certain view by referring to an academic paper. The reason I referred to it is to prove that the current view on copyright is based on those two theories and that an economic analysis proves that at times the prices for protected works are too high. That doesn't require you to accept any of my views, only to accept that your view is one-sided, or at least oriented to copyright law as it should be in your opinion, not to what it is right now.
Well, the two reasons I mentioned are the only two mentioned in the vast amount of legal literature on the subject. I'd love to hear additional ones, since I am writing a thesis on the subject and would appreciate it very much if I could include lesser known doctrines in the field.
On the subject of the 'right' price for works of art, I wouldn't dare to have an opinion on that since I am not an economist but a law student. Economists do have such opinions however. An interesting economic analysis on the current state of intellectual property can be found here. If you read it carefully, you'll see that copyright is supposed to strike a balance, contrary to your absolute view on intellectual property and also contrary to the anti-intellectual stance which is so much en vogue here.
My post wasn't defending intellectual property, it was just explaining the reasoning behind its existence to someone who had an absolute view on property in general. To get back to your comment, I agree that the current system is flawed, although I don't believe that the abundance of art is so natural that there isn't any artificial scarcity needed to promote its creation. You are probably right in the case of software, but most likely wrong in the case of books.
Your reasoning is based on a concept of intellectual property which leaves out one of the two reasons of its very existence. The first reason for intellectual property is based on John Locke: a man should be rewarded for his efforts (and women too, but they didn't matter that much in Locke's time). The second one is that the exclusionary rights are granted on the premise that artificial scarcity is needed to get people to produce works of art. The freedom to copy anything you like is limited in order to get something which can be copied in the first place. Along this line of thinking copyright is a privilige which should not be abused. Artificially high prices which are way beyond the level that is needed to sustain the productions of new works of art are such an abuse. If you take this into account, which you didn't, the whining about DVD prices sounds a lot less petty than it does according to you.
If the view of the MPAA that software is a device, like a crowbar is a device, is followed by the court, this would result in a disaster for the copyright on software. All of a sudden software is no longer an expression with possible artistic value but just a device. In most jurisdictions around the world the design of a strictly functional device cannot be copyrighted. It can be patented and it's appearance can be protected through design law, but no copyright.
There is a possible workaround for you. Order ISDN. Most of these copper-fibre hybrids cannot provide ISDN either. Your telco will then get you copper all the way to the CO. Then either order a migration form ISDN to PSTN and ADSL or order a ADSL subscription on top of your ISDN subscription if that is available in your area. Over here it is, but here is somewhere else on the globe.
I'd like that one to have slave trading included. Colonization allowed you to commit genocide on the indian tribes, which is true to history, but lacked any slave trading, which was an important aspect of that era.
What I think is much more interesting than the inevitable spin in the white paper is the fact that Microsoft has identified Linux as a threat in the field of point of sale applications. For good reason I think, given the fact that although Linux is not particularily suited yet for your grandma's desktop, it is ideal for vertical applications like cash registers. Take a cheap 486 box, put an embedded browser on it, connect it to a touch screen LCD screen (it is amazing how often I see those in shops nowadays), put your POS application on a webserver and off you go.
The point is that you may be a nice guy who is trusted by your neighbours. However, the guy you are selling the data to may not be trusted by your neighbours at all. Since this data regards their lives, they would probably like a say in what happens to it. It is a bit like having a friend, but not expecting to become a friend with all her or his friends and retaining the ability to choose your own friends and the level of trust you put in them.
My mom went to such a course, back in 1987 or something, when harddisks weren't all that common. On the computers at the community college she needed a 5.25" boot disk, our somewhat more advanced XT had a harddisk however. We tried several times to explain that she wouldn't need a boot floppy on our home machine, but to no avail. Which more or less sums up the effectiveness of that particular course. Funnily enough, she figured out how to get along on a Mac completely on her own.
Apparently you do not have a clue whatsoever about what constitute rape in Dutch courts. Let me assure you, the definition is a lot broader than in a lot of other European countries. With regard to the 'screw anything and everything' attitude you refer to, I think looking up the teenage pregnancy incidence in the Netherlands might be enlightening. Somehow I get the feeling you have never been over here at all.
Perhaps the whole thing is as scary to her as it is to you. Being confused and scared of getting embarassed in public does not really contribute to anyones ability to react in a tactfull manner.
Your final note may apply to the US jurisdictions, but definitely doesn't apply to European jurisdictions. I can pretty much decide whether and who to sue in case my copyrights are infringed. Don't you think the world would look slightly different if the record companies had to sue every infringer in order to keep their copyrights?
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It is not so much whether they actually believe uncrackable formats are possible, it is much more whether they believe if it is possible to deter Joe Sixpack from casually copying their stuff.
The professional, so-called pirates, will get around anyway, but Joe Sixpack doesn't generally buy many bootlegs. The proverbial geek in the basement and the hardcore fans do not add up to enough marketshare to count.
Most readers here forget that having a flawed protection is perfectly rational as long as it keeps the masses buying your stuff. It is the difference between a managerial and an engineering mindset, the difference between good enough and technical perfection.
Well, since I always had a hard time with punctuation in my native language and never quite understood English punctuation rules, could you please explain what went wrong in that sentence?
Well, time to read up a bit. Maybe you are confused by the Versailles treaty which was a result of WW I, but Germany does have quite a naval NATO role, especially in the Baltic and Scandinavian theatre.
That MozillaQuestQuest site is pure genius. I wished the slashdot crew would link to it every time they made the mistake to link to MozillaQuest and put the whole shebang in the funny section.
And that my friend, would be the case if none would have thought of plastic boxes before. You can get a patent on applying known concepts in a way that is innovative. For example using a chainsaw for slicing bread (to mention something patently stupid) could be innovative enough to warrant a patent.
HIM is a grunge-like band from somewhere in Scandinavia I think. Could be Slovak as well. Anyway, they have have gained some popularity all over Europe and as soon as these CD's appear inside the EU, Sony will encounter quite a bit of bad publicity and possible some nasty lawsuits.
I wouldn't expose my nice pair of Dali loudspeakers to HIM anyway, but I would be rather annoyed if they would be damaged in the process.
Well, I've never been inside the United States and I don't understand your posting either.
It isn't legal in Amsterdam either.
Well, not exactly wrong. What I gathered from the kernel mailing list, the problem seems to be that VIA has shipped a whole series of different chipsets with bugs using the same version number. The problem is that there is no way one could make a nice workaround. As the owner of a motherboard with a VIA 686 chipset I can assure you that is a real PITA. I encountered the most horrible lockups. Luckily enough I had a Promise ATA100 PCI controller and ever since I put my HD on that one my system has been rock solid.
I think you hit the nail on its head. One exception, which should become the rule IMAO is the GnuCash project. I was really impressed that it included its own help browsers(well, it is in fact an integrated version of the Gnome html browser), with high quality documentation. It is definitely on par with a lot of proprietary software, or even better. Another good example, although slightly less easy to navigate is the documentation included in LyX. I wished somone could come up with a scheme that includes the technical density of the man pages and the accessability of the documentation of the aforementioned projects for all the GNU/Linux/Hurd applications.
A techie with an additonal MBA has more value than a BBA with an additional MBA. If your ambitions are to end up in the higher management echelons of the organisations where you want to work, MBA is the way to go. An MBA will provide you with the understanding of the business issues, while your technical background helps you to analyse and manage complexity.
Well, thanks for the reference to the other two theories. I intend to cover more than one theory in my thesis, although I personally am more in favour of the utilitarian one.
Nonetheless, your subscription to the labour theory doesn't matter to the current copyright law, or droit d'auteur as it is called in civil law systems is based on the two I mentioned before, with copyright law having a slightly more utilitarian emphasis than the droit d'auteur. Patent law and trademark are strictly based on the utilitarian view.
I definitely don't want to shove down a certain view by referring to an academic paper. The reason I referred to it is to prove that the current view on copyright is based on those two theories and that an economic analysis proves that at times the prices for protected works are too high. That doesn't require you to accept any of my views, only to accept that your view is one-sided, or at least oriented to copyright law as it should be in your opinion, not to what it is right now.
Well, the two reasons I mentioned are the only two mentioned in the vast amount of legal literature on the subject. I'd love to hear additional ones, since I am writing a thesis on the subject and would appreciate it very much if I could include lesser known doctrines in the field.
On the subject of the 'right' price for works of art, I wouldn't dare to have an opinion on that since I am not an economist but a law student. Economists do have such opinions however. An interesting economic analysis on the current state of intellectual property can be found here. If you read it carefully, you'll see that copyright is supposed to strike a balance, contrary to your absolute view on intellectual property and also contrary to the anti-intellectual stance which is so much en vogue here.
My post wasn't defending intellectual property, it was just explaining the reasoning behind its existence to someone who had an absolute view on property in general. To get back to your comment, I agree that the current system is flawed, although I don't believe that the abundance of art is so natural that there isn't any artificial scarcity needed to promote its creation. You are probably right in the case of software, but most likely wrong in the case of books.
Your reasoning is based on a concept of intellectual property which leaves out one of the two reasons of its very existence. The first reason for intellectual property is based on John Locke: a man should be rewarded for his efforts (and women too, but they didn't matter that much in Locke's time). The second one is that the exclusionary rights are granted on the premise that artificial scarcity is needed to get people to produce works of art. The freedom to copy anything you like is limited in order to get something which can be copied in the first place. Along this line of thinking copyright is a privilige which should not be abused. Artificially high prices which are way beyond the level that is needed to sustain the productions of new works of art are such an abuse. If you take this into account, which you didn't, the whining about DVD prices sounds a lot less petty than it does according to you.
If the view of the MPAA that software is a device, like a crowbar is a device, is followed by the court, this would result in a disaster for the copyright on software. All of a sudden software is no longer an expression with possible artistic value but just a device. In most jurisdictions around the world the design of a strictly functional device cannot be copyrighted. It can be patented and it's appearance can be protected through design law, but no copyright.
There is a possible workaround for you. Order ISDN. Most of these copper-fibre hybrids cannot provide ISDN either. Your telco will then get you copper all the way to the CO. Then either order a migration form ISDN to PSTN and ADSL or order a ADSL subscription on top of your ISDN subscription if that is available in your area. Over here it is, but here is somewhere else on the globe.
I'd like that one to have slave trading included. Colonization allowed you to commit genocide on the indian tribes, which is true to history, but lacked any slave trading, which was an important aspect of that era.
What I think is much more interesting than the inevitable spin in the white paper is the fact that Microsoft has identified Linux as a threat in the field of point of sale applications. For good reason I think, given the fact that although Linux is not particularily suited yet for your grandma's desktop, it is ideal for vertical applications like cash registers. Take a cheap 486 box, put an embedded browser on it, connect it to a touch screen LCD screen (it is amazing how often I see those in shops nowadays), put your POS application on a webserver and off you go.
The point is that you may be a nice guy who is trusted by your neighbours. However, the guy you are selling the data to may not be trusted by your neighbours at all. Since this data regards their lives, they would probably like a say in what happens to it. It is a bit like having a friend, but not expecting to become a friend with all her or his friends and retaining the ability to choose your own friends and the level of trust you put in them.
My mom went to such a course, back in 1987 or something, when harddisks weren't all that common. On the computers at the community college she needed a 5.25" boot disk, our somewhat more advanced XT had a harddisk however. We tried several times to explain that she wouldn't need a boot floppy on our home machine, but to no avail. Which more or less sums up the effectiveness of that particular course. Funnily enough, she figured out how to get along on a Mac completely on her own.
Apparently you do not have a clue whatsoever about what constitute rape in Dutch courts. Let me assure you, the definition is a lot broader than in a lot of other European countries. With regard to the 'screw anything and everything' attitude you refer to, I think looking up the teenage pregnancy incidence in the Netherlands might be enlightening. Somehow I get the feeling you have never been over here at all.
Perhaps the whole thing is as scary to her as it is to you. Being confused and scared of getting embarassed in public does not really contribute to anyones ability to react in a tactfull manner.
Personally, I would prefer a tombstone made out of explosively sintered ceramics.
Your final note may apply to the US jurisdictions, but definitely doesn't apply to European jurisdictions. I can pretty much decide whether and who to sue in case my copyrights are infringed. Don't you think the world would look slightly different if the record companies had to sue every infringer in order to keep their copyrights?