You were supposed to reference the famous phrase "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
It's interesting that the phrase isn't always true. (IMO) The Palestinians have an enemy (Israel) and many other countries are enemies of Israel, but I don't think that the Palestinians really have any friends. Proxy != Friend.
Here we go. Once they win this, I predict that they'll send out Thousands? Millions? of letters to people and give them the opportunity to atone for their "copyright sins", for the low, low price of $N dollars per song, where $N is some reasonable number like $10? $100?. Because after all, they could get the people for 150k per song in a lawsuit but they're being generous and don't want to destroy their valuable customer base, there will be an amnesty. Kind of like the BSA.
I wish I had patented this business method: make something that's easy to make and for people to steal and get laws passed making massive penalties for stealing it, then once everyone's stealing, get more laws passed that make it easy to automate finding the thieves, then go out and get more money than you ever would have gotten if nobody had stolen anything.
Sort of. They make examples of a few people to show that they can ruin people as they see fit. Then they send out massive amounts of letters telling people that they can be "forgiven" during some "grace period" if they pay off the **AA. And, many people will do it. Mass extortion. I would do it if I were in their position. Think about it: You have a law that says doing X is wrong, and when somebody does X, the **AA's can get up to $150000 per X violation. Tens of millions of people do X hundreds of times each, which means that X gets committed billions of times. Multiply billions*150000 and they only have to get a small percentage of the money ("It could be 150k per shot, but we'll be generous and make it 100 per shot payable in installments.") and they got lots of money and lots of people who are a nice revenue stream. I think they'll try to go that far. I don't think they'll succeed, but I expect them to try, because I would do it if I were in their shoes, and I can't believe that I'm more evil and devious than the **AA's.
I think they'll say to people "We could ruin you and bankrupt you, because look! you owe us $BigAssNumber. Instead, we'll cut a deal with you. If you pay us $SmallerNumber, like maybe 10k, 100k over your lifetime, and sign this thing saying that you're a worthless shit and that all your base are belong to us, and that you will suck our cocks any time we want, we will "Forgive you" this time. But don't ever become a terroristic IP-stealing pirating copyright thief again!"
Then, once they've extracted their pound of flesh form a few people, they get the printer cranked up and send out a flood of those letters telling everyone in the whole world that they can be "forgiven" for their sins for the low low price of just $159.95 per month for the rest of their livse!:)
I don't know if they'll succeed, but if I were in their position, and had millions of people who each committed hundreds or thousands of acts (billions of acts) such that I technically could get 150,000 per act (technically hundreds of trillions of dollars "owed to me"), I would at least try it. Why the fuck not? It's free money if the legal system rolls over and goes your way. And if your ship is sinking, why not take everyone else with you? If you get even a small portion of this, you can retire to Mexico even if everyone hates you here.
Little people are getting sued over doing business over the Internet. Slashdot itself uses.gifs. I violate the.gif patent every time I go to/. Maybe you use lynx or something. Do you have a webpage up? Until last summer you could have gotten sued by BT over hyperlinks for your website. They lost the case, but it was still something that was known waaay before they got the patent and they still managed to drag a company to court for months before it was thrown out. Do you have a program called XPaint in your version of Linux? I do. Have you ever distributed a copy of linux? If it had this program on linux, then you were distributing patented software. Even if you did it before you knew that Unisys was going to become anal about this. I admit that if you sit in your house and use your computer by yourself and never tell anyone what you're doing, and never distribute linux then you're not infringing. That's by definition since patents (AFAIR) don't cover private use. But, if you want to use the Internet, there are lots of things that you use and you probably don't think about that may be patented like the examples above. The point isn't whether or not these things get thrown out eventually, the point is that the legal system is willing to give the patent owners a chance to go after people, thereby costing the victims a lot of money and time.
I could use a commadore 64 to write code that runs on an intel pc...or even pen and paper. You can't prove that I used an infringing computer or methods to develop my software.
And you would never use any other type of computer anywhere else in your life? Do you believe that you have to go back to C64's to avoid infringement, or do you think that a modern OS on a modern computer can be run while doing the normal things that people do without infringing patents in any way?
I know that my post was a rant, but you're being pedantic here. Do you honestly believe that there are companies out there engaging in patent lawsuits and getting software patents that don't use modern computers? That don't use anything over the Internet that has been declared off limits by some company dredging up some 15 year old patent nobody ever heard of? I suppose that anything is possible, but not very likely. I would be willing to put up DO you code on a C64 to avoid patent infringement issues? Probably not. I don't. I will accept that peolpe who only use 20-year old+ computers and don't use the Internet can be sure that they're free of infringing on patents. And anyway, making software doesn't have anything to do with software patents, so the standard should be ever using modern computers.
They are and 99% of them (guesstimation) are not in violation of an patent laws.
I don't consider most of those devices to be computers. I think it would be very hard to go through life without being able to use real computers of some kind (including PDA's and such).
So you wrote this to hear yourself speak? I doubt that. Not asking for constructive criticism of your arguements is the surest way to always have crappyarguements. You have no idea that the method I'm using to access slashdot violates any patents. This blows another hole in your arguement with yourself.
You're right. It was a rant. OTOH, chances are, you ARE using a modern computer and you are accessing this site using that computer and you are infringing on somebody's patent while using that computer. And even if you're not accessing this post with modern computers, then you have in the past used them and you will in the future. Nice way to miss the point of my rant by coming up with a lawyerly pedantic counterexample. Just tonight I learned that somebody was still using an Atari 800 to do her word processing, so I know there are people who don't use mdoern machines. But I seriosuly doubt that you are, and I would guess that something in the process you used to get to this site v
Since there are so many broad software patents out there that reinvent things that have been known for a long time and are used all over the place, it's no longer possible to use computers without violating those patents, perhaps software patent supporters need to be forced to be consistent.
Since using computers --> knowingly violating software patents
knowingly violating software patents --> not respecting software patents
not respecting software patents --> your software patents aren't enforceable
Companies that want to try to enforce their software patents should have to prove that they don't use computers, and they can't use them ever again so that we can all be sure that they respect software patents. That's a small price to pay for being consistent and not being a lying hypocrite when going out to defend your IP space right? You merely have to respect other peoples' IP, as you would have others respect your IP. How hard can that be? It's not like computers are in everything these days.
And don't bother flaming me over this. The very fact that you're reading this means that you're knowingly violating software patents this very moment, or perhaps you're getting this as a printout from someone else who was knowingly violating software patents to read this. So, you don't respect software patents, either.
Re:How can they make this work?
on
Open Source DRM
·
· Score: 1
sshhhhhh.... if you keep quiet nobody will notice...
Nobody should crack any sort of DRM for the next 15-20 years.
Maybe they finally realize that hacker == "person who likes to tinker and discover things" and that cracker == "person who likes to break into things"
By accepting the "geek" definitions of these words, MS has let its true plans slip. Their new Palladium/TCPA/AYBABTU plans will stop _hackers_ since people won't be able to tinker and play with their computers anymore. Unless they're "approved" corporate drones working on "approved" projects. So, you see, they really are going to get rid of hackers, and I think it's a real shame.
That's what I think they should have done with those energy companies that purposely blacked out California a few years ago. Go through all accident/death reports from that time period, and find any and all deaths and/or injuries that could have been caused by the lack of power, and then haul every person from the lowly operator who flipped the switches up to the highest execs who oversaw this abuse into court and charge each of them with premeditated murder or assault for every one of the cases where someone died or was injured.
Darn. If I had the money I would try to overturn this by using the first/. discussion about retarded Amazon patents as prior art. Wouldn't that be a little awkward and ironic....
That's exactly my point. If all of these expressions of thought that get stored as strings of bits are copyrighted and not patented, then software shouldn't be patented either. They're all instructions that machines use to do stuff. I am complaining that people are patenting things that should be copyrighted.
Remember folks. Every time you turn on a computer and use it or you write a piece of code, you're violating SOMEBODY'S software patent, so you shouldn't support this. The only reason they haven't come after you is that you're not worth it.
Which is why the people bleating about how software patents should be valid don't bother me.
Besides the fact that they're patenting unpatentable expressions of abstract thought like books or movies or pictures or music or any other creative output that that can be recorded in physical form as a string of bits in some kind of EM storage device, these complainers don't respect software patents. Here's why:
They obviously use computers, since I'm reading their opinion online.
If they support patents, they know something about software patents so they should realize the scope and number of software patents out there.
Therefore they must know that they violate software patents every time they turn on their computers. If not, perhaps they need to perform some due diligence to be sure that they're not infringing on someone else's IP.
So, since they willfully engage in activities that they know are going to cause them to violate software patents, they don't respect software patents.
Since they don't respect software patents, they can't possibly enforce their own software patents in court. And besides that, only a complete hypocrite would blatantly ignore everyone else's "rights" in a certain area while asserting their own "rights" in that area vigorously.
Since they can't possibly enforce any software patents in court, they can not gain any advantage from actually having software patents.
Therefore, software patents are useless to them.
So, to put it quite simply, if you people to believe that you respect software patents, then you can't use computers of any kind in any way in your life. If you give up using computers completely to be able to get software patents, then I think I might respect your position. If you give up using computers completely, then drop me an email to tell me how it's going.
Suppose that in the future, every digital work is protected by DRM
People will be faced with the stark reality of how burdensome copyright restrictions are, and see the benefits of freely copiable and distributable works.
The problem is this. They will make it so all information about free alternatives is defaulted to "unapproved". This is the big issue with DRM hardware. It isn't about people controlling their own works, which I don't mind too much. It's that by locking down the systems, they can make it so that only approved information can flow across the network. Thereby conveniently throttling independent expression. THAT'S the big problem. This crap about uni's not getting stuff as easily is bunk. The main problem is that even if people want to distribute their stuff for free, it may end up that they can't without going through the artificial hoops put up by the copyright/hardware industries.
I agree, however, I have no clue how The Sims became such a hit. It
It's a hit because girls like to play with dollhouses. Boys need their dolls to have guns and they need to blow things up when they play pretend. Girls are happy playing "rl" with their dolls.
.sig says it all. They won't prosecute or prove that you broke the law unless they have to. This is about mass extortion. They want to get $N dollars per song out of people now and put them on a shitlist and force them to pay more in the future once they have things locked down. Even if people don't pay up, they can have object lessons and use it to fuck you over once they force you into their pay-per-use world.
Interesting point. I like Star Trek (not love!) and I would have seen this movie once maybe twice depending on who wanted to go, but I refused because of the MPAA. I think I will write Rick Berman and tell him this. Perhaps they should take a poll asking how many of their core fans refused to see it because geeks won't support movies anymore...
Did anyone else want to see this but refuse to see it due to the MPAA sucking, or am I the only one left who cares?:P
Somewhere USA, Feb 2 2003: In a dramatic raid today, FBI agents stormed the home of John Snyder, apprently after being tipped off by a patriotic watchdog group representing all that's good about America. The group is helping to hunt down the disloyal communistic and unfreeistic citizens who sap the strength of this nation by having a rather lax attitude toward (intellectual) property laws. The unnamed group let the FBI know that there were some "terroristical activities" going on out there at Mr. Snyder's home. In a speech today promoting his "making surety no children is left behind" school reform proposal, President Bush eloquently expressed his thoughts on this sad day: "It's a saddifying daytime in Amuricuh when one be taking up causes against the many of those United States. We will not buy over to these extortional threats and pirates and start to change things. We will stop material breach of weapons of mass IP destruction. Axis of Evil Bad. John Snyder Bad. Axis of Evil Bad."
I intentionally invoke the Nazi clause because it pisses people off, and because it's a good offensive counterexample to the argument that goes "if it's legal it's ok". And, I was using it before I ever heard got on the Net really, so I never really thought about it in terms of Godwin's Law.:)
Slashdot Mirror
You were supposed to reference the famous phrase "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
It's interesting that the phrase isn't always true. (IMO) The Palestinians have an enemy (Israel) and many other countries are enemies of Israel, but I don't think that the Palestinians really have any friends. Proxy != Friend.
Here we go. Once they win this, I predict that they'll send out Thousands? Millions? of letters to people and give them the opportunity to atone for their "copyright sins", for the low, low price of $N dollars per song, where $N is some reasonable number like $10? $100?. Because after all, they could get the people for 150k per song in a lawsuit but they're being generous and don't want to destroy their valuable customer base, there will be an amnesty. Kind of like the BSA.
I wish I had patented this business method: make something that's easy to make and for people to steal and get laws passed making massive penalties for stealing it, then once everyone's stealing, get more laws passed that make it easy to automate finding the thieves, then go out and get more money than you ever would have gotten if nobody had stolen anything.
Invading foreign countries to rape their natural resour...oh wait. Scratch that. I didn't say anything. Honestly.
If I were going to go back through time, I would at least do some sanity checking.
do
{
come_up_with_crafty_plan_to_r00l_the_past();
}
while (history_shows_me_getting_caught());
Then once I exit that loop, I would go back in time and implement the plan where I don't get caught.=D
There has to be some other underlying reason to move to block e-mail for this one group of internet users,
<tin-foil-hat>Does any part of AOLTW compete with DSL, like umm cable modems maybe? </tin-foil-hat>
Are they going to sue everybody?
Sort of. They make examples of a few people to show that they can ruin people as they see fit. Then they send out massive amounts of letters telling people that they can be "forgiven" during some "grace period" if they pay off the **AA. And, many people will do it. Mass extortion. I would do it if I were in their position. Think about it: You have a law that says doing X is wrong, and when somebody does X, the **AA's can get up to $150000 per X violation. Tens of millions of people do X hundreds of times each, which means that X gets committed billions of times. Multiply billions*150000 and they only have to get a small percentage of the money ("It could be 150k per shot, but we'll be generous and make it 100 per shot payable in installments.") and they got lots of money and lots of people who are a nice revenue stream. I think they'll try to go that far. I don't think they'll succeed, but I expect them to try, because I would do it if I were in their shoes, and I can't believe that I'm more evil and devious than the **AA's.
I think they'll say to people "We could ruin you and bankrupt you, because look! you owe us $BigAssNumber. Instead, we'll cut a deal with you. If you pay us $SmallerNumber, like maybe 10k, 100k over your lifetime, and sign this thing saying that you're a worthless shit and that all your base are belong to us, and that you will suck our cocks any time we want, we will "Forgive you" this time. But don't ever become a terroristic IP-stealing pirating copyright thief again!"
:)
Then, once they've extracted their pound of flesh form a few people, they get the printer cranked up and send out a flood of those letters telling everyone in the whole world that they can be "forgiven" for their sins for the low low price of just $159.95 per month for the rest of their livse!
I don't know if they'll succeed, but if I were in their position, and had millions of people who each committed hundreds or thousands of acts (billions of acts) such that I technically could get 150,000 per act (technically hundreds of trillions of dollars "owed to me"), I would at least try it. Why the fuck not? It's free money if the legal system rolls over and goes your way. And if your ship is sinking, why not take everyone else with you? If you get even a small portion of this, you can retire to Mexico even if everyone hates you here.
Little people are getting sued over doing business over the Internet. Slashdot itself uses .gifs. I violate the .gif patent every time I go to /. Maybe you use lynx or something. Do you have a webpage up? Until last summer you could have gotten sued by BT over hyperlinks for your website. They lost the case, but it was still something that was known waaay before they got the patent and they still managed to drag a company to court for months before it was thrown out. Do you have a program called XPaint in your version of Linux? I do. Have you ever distributed a copy of linux? If it had this program on linux, then you were distributing patented software. Even if you did it before you knew that Unisys was going to become anal about this. I admit that if you sit in your house and use your computer by yourself and never tell anyone what you're doing, and never distribute linux then you're not infringing. That's by definition since patents (AFAIR) don't cover private use. But, if you want to use the Internet, there are lots of things that you use and you probably don't think about that may be patented like the examples above. The point isn't whether or not these things get thrown out eventually, the point is that the legal system is willing to give the patent owners a chance to go after people, thereby costing the victims a lot of money and time.
I could use a commadore 64 to write code that runs on an intel pc...or even pen and paper. You can't prove that I used an infringing computer or methods to develop my software.
And you would never use any other type of computer anywhere else in your life? Do you believe that you have to go back to C64's to avoid infringement, or do you think that a modern OS on a modern computer can be run while doing the normal things that people do without infringing patents in any way?
I know that my post was a rant, but you're being pedantic here. Do you honestly believe that there are companies out there engaging in patent lawsuits and getting software patents that don't use modern computers? That don't use anything over the Internet that has been declared off limits by some company dredging up some 15 year old patent nobody ever heard of? I suppose that anything is possible, but not very likely. I would be willing to put up DO you code on a C64 to avoid patent infringement issues? Probably not. I don't. I will accept that peolpe who only use 20-year old+ computers and don't use the Internet can be sure that they're free of infringing on patents. And anyway, making software doesn't have anything to do with software patents, so the standard should be ever using modern computers.
They are and 99% of them (guesstimation) are not in violation of an patent laws.
I don't consider most of those devices to be computers. I think it would be very hard to go through life without being able to use real computers of some kind (including PDA's and such).
So you wrote this to hear yourself speak? I doubt that. Not asking for constructive criticism of your arguements is the surest way to always have crappyarguements. You have no idea that the method I'm using to access slashdot violates any patents. This blows another hole in your arguement with yourself.
You're right. It was a rant. OTOH, chances are, you ARE using a modern computer and you are accessing this site using that computer and you are infringing on somebody's patent while using that computer. And even if you're not accessing this post with modern computers, then you have in the past used them and you will in the future. Nice way to miss the point of my rant by coming up with a lawyerly pedantic counterexample. Just tonight I learned that somebody was still using an Atari 800 to do her word processing, so I know there are people who don't use mdoern machines. But I seriosuly doubt that you are, and I would guess that something in the process you used to get to this site v
Since there are so many broad software patents out there that reinvent things that have been known for a long time and are used all over the place, it's no longer possible to use computers without violating those patents, perhaps software patent supporters need to be forced to be consistent.
Since using computers --> knowingly violating software patents
knowingly violating software patents --> not respecting software patents
not respecting software patents --> your software patents aren't enforceable
Companies that want to try to enforce their software patents should have to prove that they don't use computers, and they can't use them ever again so that we can all be sure that they respect software patents. That's a small price to pay for being consistent and not being a lying hypocrite when going out to defend your IP space right? You merely have to respect other peoples' IP, as you would have others respect your IP. How hard can that be? It's not like computers are in everything these days.
And don't bother flaming me over this. The very fact that you're reading this means that you're knowingly violating software patents this very moment, or perhaps you're getting this as a printout from someone else who was knowingly violating software patents to read this. So, you don't respect software patents, either.
sshhhhhh.... if you keep quiet nobody will notice...
Nobody should crack any sort of DRM for the next 15-20 years.
I'm going to resubmit this and see if I can get it posted again.
No, really. Hear me out.
Maybe they finally realize that hacker == "person who likes to tinker and discover things" and that cracker == "person who likes to break into things"
By accepting the "geek" definitions of these words, MS has let its true plans slip. Their new Palladium/TCPA/AYBABTU plans will stop _hackers_ since people won't be able to tinker and play with their computers anymore. Unless they're "approved" corporate drones working on "approved" projects. So, you see, they really are going to get rid of hackers, and I think it's a real shame.
Hey, lookit my .sig. :)
That's what I think they should have done with those energy companies that purposely blacked out California a few years ago. Go through all accident/death reports from that time period, and find any and all deaths and/or injuries that could have been caused by the lack of power, and then haul every person from the lowly operator who flipped the switches up to the highest execs who oversaw this abuse into court and charge each of them with premeditated murder or assault for every one of the cases where someone died or was injured.
Darn. If I had the money I would try to overturn this by using the first /. discussion about retarded Amazon patents as prior art. Wouldn't that be a little awkward and ironic....
That's exactly my point. If all of these expressions of thought that get stored as strings of bits are copyrighted and not patented, then software shouldn't be patented either. They're all instructions that machines use to do stuff. I am complaining that people are patenting things that should be copyrighted.
Remember folks. Every time you turn on a computer and use it or you write a piece of code, you're violating SOMEBODY'S software patent, so you shouldn't support this. The only reason they haven't come after you is that you're not worth it.
Which is why the people bleating about how software patents should be valid don't bother me.
Besides the fact that they're patenting unpatentable expressions of abstract thought like books or movies or pictures or music or any other creative output that that can be recorded in physical form as a string of bits in some kind of EM storage device, these complainers don't respect software patents. Here's why:
They obviously use computers, since I'm reading their opinion online.
If they support patents, they know something about software patents so they should realize the scope and number of software patents out there.
Therefore they must know that they violate software patents every time they turn on their computers. If not, perhaps they need to perform some due diligence to be sure that they're not infringing on someone else's IP.
So, since they willfully engage in activities that they know are going to cause them to violate software patents, they don't respect software patents.
Since they don't respect software patents, they can't possibly enforce their own software patents in court. And besides that, only a complete hypocrite would blatantly ignore everyone else's "rights" in a certain area while asserting their own "rights" in that area vigorously.
Since they can't possibly enforce any software patents in court, they can not gain any advantage from actually having software patents.
Therefore, software patents are useless to them.
So, to put it quite simply, if you people to believe that you respect software patents, then you can't use computers of any kind in any way in your life. If you give up using computers completely to be able to get software patents, then I think I might respect your position. If you give up using computers completely, then drop me an email to tell me how it's going.
Suppose that in the future, every digital work is protected by DRM
People will be faced with the stark reality of how burdensome copyright restrictions are, and see the benefits of freely copiable and distributable works.
The problem is this. They will make it so all information about free alternatives is defaulted to "unapproved". This is the big issue with DRM hardware. It isn't about people controlling their own works, which I don't mind too much. It's that by locking down the systems, they can make it so that only approved information can flow across the network. Thereby conveniently throttling independent expression. THAT'S the big problem. This crap about uni's not getting stuff as easily is bunk. The main problem is that even if people want to distribute their stuff for free, it may end up that they can't without going through the artificial hoops put up by the copyright/hardware industries.
I agree, however, I have no clue how The Sims became such a hit. It
It's a hit because girls like to play with dollhouses. Boys need their dolls to have guns and they need to blow things up when they play pretend. Girls are happy playing "rl" with their dolls.
And that old rabble-rouser opposed ratifying the Constitution butterly.
I'm not picking on you for the typo. It just made me laugh thinking about how funny that would have been to see...and I have no moderator points.
.sig says it all. They won't prosecute or prove that you broke the law unless they have to. This is about mass extortion. They want to get $N dollars per song out of people now and put them on a shitlist and force them to pay more in the future once they have things locked down. Even if people don't pay up, they can have object lessons and use it to fuck you over once they force you into their pay-per-use world.
You shouldn't AC insult me. I won't feel bad.
Interesting point. I like Star Trek (not love!) and I would have seen this movie once maybe twice depending on who wanted to go, but I refused because of the MPAA. I think I will write Rick Berman and tell him this. Perhaps they should take a poll asking how many of their core fans refused to see it because geeks won't support movies anymore...
:P
Did anyone else want to see this but refuse to see it due to the MPAA sucking, or am I the only one left who cares?
Somewhere USA, Feb 2 2003: In a dramatic raid today, FBI agents stormed the home of John Snyder, apprently after being tipped off by a patriotic watchdog group representing all that's good about America. The group is helping to hunt down the disloyal communistic and unfreeistic citizens who sap the strength of this nation by having a rather lax attitude toward (intellectual) property laws. The unnamed group let the FBI know that there were some "terroristical activities" going on out there at Mr. Snyder's home. In a speech today promoting his "making surety no children is left behind" school reform proposal, President Bush eloquently expressed his thoughts on this sad day: "It's a saddifying daytime in Amuricuh when one be taking up causes against the many of those United States. We will not buy over to these extortional threats and pirates and start to change things. We will stop material breach of weapons of mass IP destruction. Axis of Evil Bad. John Snyder Bad. Axis of Evil Bad."
I intentionally invoke the Nazi clause because it pisses people off, and because it's a good offensive counterexample to the argument that goes "if it's legal it's ok". And, I was using it before I ever heard got on the Net really, so I never really thought about it in terms of Godwin's Law.