The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX operating system, announced today that it has filed legal action against IBM
In 1995, SCO purchased the rights and ownership of UNIX and UnixWare that had been originally owned by AT&T.
SCO became the successor in interest to the UNIX software licenses originally licensed by AT&T Bell Laboratories to all UNIX distributors,
--------- Split----------
As a result of IBM's unfair competition and the marketplace injury sustained by SCO, SCO is requesting damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
"SCO is in the enviable position of owning the UNIX operating system," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, SCO.
Before the split, SCO == "Old SCO" that became Tarantella.
After the split, SCO == "New SCO" that was Caldera.
So, besides all the other, umm, "interesting" claims and other crap going on, they're playing games with their names to obfuscate the origins of their company and how they got the licenses.
If you look at the press release, they're very upfront about how "Old SCO" bought the rights to UNIX from Novell in 1995 (since transferring those rights from company to company is a big deal).
But they don't say anything about how Old SCO transferred the rights to Caldera, which then changed its name from Caldera to SCO. The second transfer is JUST as important as the first, and I wonder why they didn't mention it. And the name change could not have been done in good faith, or if it had been done in good faith, they would have made it clearer in the press release. I think they're trolling for easy money from people who don't want to investigate this closely.
So, that's the way it worked:
1. Novell sold some rights to Old SCO/Tarantella.
2. Old SCO Tarantella sold its rights to Calders/SCO
3. Calders changed its name to SCO.
It's a shell game.:)
And it also means that they were probably planning this shit as far back as when Calders bought the licenses from Old SCO and they changed their name to SCO.
Dunno. After all of the SCO assets are divided up, someone gets hold of those confidential documents and sues this company for copyright infringement since by buying an SCO license.
After all, they are showing that they don't accept that Linux is under the GPL, which means that copying Linux to "each of the Linux servers running their business" is rather illegal.
So they're pissed that IBM let them willingly infringe their patents until they sued IBM
You realize, of course, that IBM has so many patents that every one of us is probably infringing IBM patents every time we use a computer. IBM throwing its patent weight around is a bad thing, because they could do it to *anyone*.
By definition, a business model that destroys the business is flawed.
I dunno about this. What if you're a buggy whip manufacturer and you know cars are coming, so you decide to squeeze some cash out of the market before you go under?
I think THIS sort of thinking is the reason the RIAA is doing what it's doing. The RIAA knows that it's fucked, and there's no way that suing everybody will keep it in business.
So I figure it's just doing this so it can squeeze as many people as possible for as much money as possible before it goes under.
However, I don't appove of illegal filesharing, so really there's nobody in that fight that I want to see win.
Damn, that's how I feel about it. You tell people what you're thinking about, or you're too quick to answer questions in class, because it's *fun* getting the answer right and they kick your ass at recess. I guess you come off as arrogant and you can't fight back so you learn to STFU.
I've observed some of the same things, and I totally agree with you.
Expect the thieves....errr "copyright infringers" to trot out all of the usual arguments like:
The giant record companies are corrupt
The giant record companies colluded to keep CD prices high,and all I got was this lousy voucher.
They don't pay the artists enough.
They screw artists out of their royalties, therefore I should screw the record companies out of their income.
If I knew the artists were getting the money, I would pay for it gladly.
I'm doing it for the artists. Don't you care about the artists?
Britney Spears sucks. Why would you support her?
Congress is corrupt.
They bribed Congress.
The courts are corrupt.
They bribed the judges.
I don't have the money.
I wouldn't pay for it anyway, so they didn't lose a sale.
Information should be free.
Copyright lasts too long.
All thee RIAA base are belong to me biznatch.
I've been doing this for so long, that now I'm entitled to keep doing this, so they can't take it away.
They jack up the prices so that they can pay money to all of the crappy bands that they have on their labels. I don't want to pay for those shitty bands.
I don't like the DRM on CD's so the only way I can play the music is to download it.
NSync sucks. Do you think supporting them is more important than freedom?
My downloads aren't going to make a difference.
They're keeping the indies from getting mainstream exposure.
The stores don't have any of the music that I like.
If they had my favorite band X on their label, I would buy it, but all they have is crap crap crap!
They waste money on stupid shit like Cristal and promotion and advertising.
I could make better music than they could at 1/10 the cost.
CD's cost less to produce per copy today but cost more.
Look. I'm not going to buy the music anyway, and if I stopped downloading they would still blame the decline in revenue on filesharing, so I may as well join in.
Christna Aguilera sucks. I refuse to support an industry that would produce such crap.
The music is all crap anyway.
There's only one song I want off a CD, so why should I have to pay for the whole thing?
They can't put N million people in jail.
It doesn't matter. I've started an open source P2P project that will have totally anonymous users, perfectly secure encryption, and the license will be set up so it will be illegal for the **AA's or law enforcement to log onto the network, so we'll be totally safe! The project is in the alpha planning stage, and we're looking for coders!
Piracy? WTF are we putting on eyepatches and swords and raiding the **AA headquarters? I'll stop when they stop libeling us with their offensive use of that word.
I only downloaded a few songs.
I only downloaded songs that I can't find in a store anywhere.
I wanted to listen to it on Linux and the only versions available for legal download work on WMP.
Who cares, I'll just set up an index on Sealand and they'll never be able to touch it.
We'll always keep ahead of them technologically, so they can't win.
I don't agree with their business methods.
It's an obsolete business model.
They need to change their business models.
If artists had tip jars, of course I'd pay them for downloading their music. Then I would KNOW where the money's going.
I think the entire concept of copyright is wrong.
I don't think that filesharing is illegal.
I can sample and hear different kinds of music and that will make be buy more CD's.
As soon as a micropayment system is in place that doesn't use corrupt services like Paypal, I can pay the artists directly.
Copyright is largely an artificial construct, unlike theft
Legally, they're different. But, in both cases you're getting to use something for free that you otherwise would have had to pay for, so that the person(s) who produced the thing you're using can makea a living. That to me is stealing. Not the legalese definition of stealing for all of you wannabe slashdot lawyers out there, but because the situations are the same: I get something for nothing when I shouldn't be getting it for nothing.
Also, why isn't theft an artificial construct? Why not go back to the good old days when the only things you could "own" were those things that you could keep by force. Prohibitions against theft, and other property rights are every bit as much "artificial constructS" of societies that copyright laws are.
I think the copyright industry is going to make our lives miserable by trying to take away computers, but I think they'll eventually lose. It doesn't mean that people should hasten their demise by getting something for nothing illegally.
copyright doesn't really make sense in a world where things are easily and cheaply copyable; where the means of production and dissemination is in the hands of everyone.
Copyright makes sense because the means of "production" are not in the hands of everyone. Oh sure, given a piece of data that's already been slaved over, you can easily copy it, but I would hardly call that "production".
Production is where you start with a blank harddrive or tape or film and people sing or act or code or compose or whatever and these actions get recorded by machines and processed and fixed by other people until they look and/or sound good. At that point, "production" is done.
The "production" cost of making the actual physical copies is negligible, and that's really the only part of the "production" cycle that's in the hands of everyone, simply because most people are lazy and not very creative.
The hard part of "production" is what makes up most of the cost of the things you buy. And please, nobody make those snide little comments about how they "waste" money on adverts or other things you find stupid or objectionable.. If you think you can do a better job, do it and come back to me to prove me wrong. If you don't like what they're doing, then you always have the choice to not give them any money. At the same time, you can't just copy their stuff since you "wouldn't pay for it anyway" or "it's too expensive" or "they don't pay the artists enough" or "they engaged in price fixing" or whatever the little BS excuse to justify illegal filesharing is today. I've lost track.
Anyway, they probably are going to fall off a cliff, but I don't think people realize that they aren't going to get the same kind of quality they get now if they allow this to happen. And, although I deplore their tactics on the front of trying to take away computers,, it's not right to copy things illegally.
No I hadn't seen it, but as I said, I think they're a good set of guildelines to follow. Also, I like Carlin, but I think that he jumped the shark when he went on Thomas the Tank Engine:P
.t EXPLICITLY DISCLAIMS any coverage regarding "use" of the software. (You know, 'USE' as in 'USER'.)
This is one of my favorite parts of the GPL. How it sticks its tongue out at all of the EULA's out there by explicitly not granting permission to use the software.:)
Well, I'm not a Christian, either. I do believe in God, or whatever you want to call it, but I think all religions are essentially equivalent, and they're not really the point (as if I haven't pissed off enough people today.:)) But, I think of the 10 commandments as being a decent guide on how to live, and that's the reason they were created IMO.
I don't really buy the "Moses on the mountain" stuff with the burning bush and all that. What I think is that Moses (as such) was leading people and they were screwing up, so he gave them some simple rules they could follow so they wouldn't destroy themselves.
That's why I like them. They don't represent the Word of God to me, they represent the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of people deciding what are the Important Things that people need to understand to get along with each other. And btw, I mean the commandments after the first couple which I realize are directly tied to religion.
Stealing sounds a lot worse than copyright violation, doesn't it? A lot of people in the US are Christians - and there isn't a commandment against copyright violation.
Now that you mentioned this.. You DO realize that you're not supposed to take the ten commandments literally, right? You're supposed to take them as guidelines and use them to help you figure out what's right and what's wrong when new situations arise.
For example, when someone invented the first gun, did that mean that it was ok to shoot people until there were laws prohibiting it, or until religious leaders got up and said it's wrong? Do you go through life thinking that way? Thinking that unless some law or rule specifically prohibits you from doing some cool new thing, then it's ok? Thinking like that is why most laws get passed. People who should know better go around looking for loopholes instead of trying to do the right thing. Then the government has to play catchup to stop those people from hurting other people.
So anyway, when you steal something, you get to use something that you didn't pay for. You're preventing someone else from getting paid for their work, since they should have been paid by you because you're using the thing they produced.
Legally, it matters whether or not the thing produced is an actual thing or a copy of something, but morally it doesn't. Copyright infringement is morally the same as stealing, regardless of what the specific wording of the law says. I know this because when confronted with a new situation like getting music for free that I would otherwise have to pay for, I can draw on my knowledge that stealing is bad (meaning you get something without paying for it when you should be paying for it) so I can conclude that copyright infringement is stealing. This seems like an obvious line of reasoning to me, but perhaps I'm a naive pussy and I should go around trying to screw people over more and spend more time looking for angles to get ahead in life. But, I don't feel like being that way.
Yeah well, I knew I would be picking a fight with the collective when I wrote my first post. I still feel the way I do, and these responses give me a chance to refine my argument and to forestall some of the bad counterarguments I'm likely to encounter. I can hopefully be more precise and steer away from legal definitions of words.
Interesting. The way I look at it is that I get something for free when I should have to pay for it. That's why I equate copyright infringement with stealing. I'll look this up and I may use this instead.
I made an offhand comment in my original post about technicalities and lawyers, so I guess I wasn't clear.
I realize that the law says that copyright infringement != theft. However, there are other issues. Well, there are other issues to me.
If I engage in copyright infringement then I get to use something without paying for it when I should have to pay for it.The person who made the thing doesn't get money for it. That to me is stealing. It's not legally stealing, but morally I think it is. And that's what I care about, because it helps me to determine when laws are just or not.
I only used an offhand comment in the first line of my original post about "technicalities and lawyers", and I didn't make it clear that I was not talking about legalisms. I am talking about the fact that when you illegally copy files, you're getting to use something for free that you should have paid for. In my mind, this is no different than stealing a disk or CD, since in both cases, you get something for nothing when you should be paying for it. I think that copyright infringment and stealing are moral equivalents.
it does however mark the user as dishonest because they are intentionally misrepresenting a reality
It's not the only reality I see. If you look at other realities in terms of how you should treat each other and the golden rule and all of that, then copyright infringement is stealing. If you don't care about that, or if you think the law is the final arbiter of what you should do and everything else be damned, then that's your decision but I don't want to liev like that.
I think people who scream that copyright infringement != stealing and use the technicalities of the law to justify the statement while ignoring any other possible interpretations are misrepresenting a reality, as well.
I don't really know why they would do this, but I seem to remember some old saying about protesting too much or something like that.
When I first posted, I said that they're technically different if you're a lawyer. I was not talking about legalities, but I guess I didn't make the point too well, so I will try to make it clearer in the future.
But, when you infringe copyright, you're getting to use something that you didn't pay for when you should be paying for it. Morally, that's the same as stealing to me. Shrug.
As for the arguments on my use of filesharing. You knew what I meant didn't you. You know damn well that huge numbers of people engage in illegal filesharing and you also probably knew that that's what I was talking about. My bad for not putting the word "illegal" in front of filesharing, but coming up with some examples of where you use filesharing legally doesn't dissuade me from believing that the vast majority if filesharing is illegal and wrong and that the participants know it.
Now if by filesharing, you mean distributing copywrghted material to people who are not authorized to have a copy, then your stament is still false.
If microsoft broke the copyright agreement with Linux, then they are committing copyright infringement, and should be taken to court for that, but NOT for stealing.
No, I think it's true in that case. Illegal filesharing is "copyright infringement" as so many people have pointed out to me today, so it is the same thing as putting Linux into windows.
I expect people like you will sit on your ass and do nothing to try and stop the restriction of computers.
Ok, so what do you do? I mean besides voting and contributing money to organizations, and trying to get people to stop illegally sharing files and such, what should I do?
Why do you think so? Why would anyone have a discussion clarifying the two crimes and somehow leave with the impression that one is not a crime?
This is the problem. I thought that I took care of these legal issues when I posted that they're technically different if you're a lawyer. I then read a response to my post that talked about moral vs legal issues, so I should clarify.
I am not arguing that legally they are the same. However, I think that they are morally the same. As you mention in your definition of copyright infringement, the government decided that it wanted to promote the creation of works by giving certain privileges to the creators of those works. If I go and get the works through other channels, I get to use something that I didn't pay for, and the person who created the thing is deprived of money that she should get. For tha reason, I won't stop thinking that copyright infringement is a type of theft, but I will make it clear that I'm not talking in legal terms when I talk about it.
What? Copyright is completely compatible with the existence of computers.
The issue is that computers make it easy to copy things. It will only become easier, and compression will only make files smaller.If real computers exist, then any sort of artificial copy-protection can be defeated eventually, so they will never stop copyright infringement. If you ask them what an "acceptable level" of piracy is, they will probably say 0, which means that as long as computers exist, they will look for ways to lock down computers more. And, I think they will try to get computers outlawed except for authorized people.
You mean "copyright infringement", not "filesharing", right? Plenty of filesharing goes on without infringing on copyrights.
I would guess that the percentages are really really low. But of course I mean illegal filesharing.
No, we do this because copyright infringement and theft are vastly different things.
I understand where this is breaking down now. The rest of the world is talking in terms of legalisms and the US code, which is ok, but I took care of that in my first line when I said that they're technically different if you're a lawyer.
Then, while responding to one of the posts above, one of the posters brought up moral vs legal issues. So I will use that to respond.
I think they're morally the same. I know that in both cases I am getting something for free that I should pay for, and I am depriving the person who created the thing some money. Honestly, if I weren't interested in something, I don't see why I would try to download it. If I am interested in something, then I know that I have to pay for it to get it or else the person who created it may not create more stuff. I see downloading copyrighed materials without paying for them as the same as stealing. Not legally, but morally. And, I think that's the problem. I will be more careful in the future and I will make it clear that I am not resorting to legalese to make my arguments, but I will not stop equating copyright infringment with stealing.
Do you? If you've never done it, or if you used to and you've already stopped, then I'm sorry. If you do, then I'm right and I called you on it, and it's not an ad-hominem attack.
What a low opinion you have of "most people." I don't think of the masses as unwashed, I don't consider them hoi polloi, and I can't think of anyone I know who would not understand the phrase "copyright infringement." If your friends can't get their minds around it, you can call it "breaking copyright" without abandoning truth. And you should probably also get new friends, since they're dumb as bricks.
My friends can understand it. If I were to ask people on this board to name 2 justices on the Suporeme court, I would guess most people could do it. I doubt that most Americans could do it. Btw, thanks for calling my friends dumb as bricks.:) Most of them aren't.\
Okay. Copyright infringement is illegally copying a creative work. It's bad because if everyone did it, the creative types wouldn't get paid and then they would have no reason to make more works. Then there would be no more commercial music or films or software. Is that simple enough for the masses?
Ok, so they make something and they expect to get paid, but then people come along and use their creations without paying for them. As I said in the first line of my original post, if you want to get into legalese and technicalities, then copyright infringment != stealing, but if I'm getting to use something for free that I should pay for, then I am stealing. Morally, as one poster above pointed out since the legsl issues are not the same as the moral issues. I still think it's morally equivalent to stealing, but I didn't think to make that point in my original post.
Yes. That's a really frickin huge difference: a really good reason why copyright infringement is NOT AS BAD as theft.
Well, I can live with copyright infringement being "theft light" as long as it's considered to be a type of theft. (I know you didn't say that.) but I also don't think its as bad as the **AA's make it out to be. I think downloading a song is about the same as stealing a candy bar. Not robbing a bank as they seem to believe.
Pragmatically, what's the difference? They can't tell the difference, so you are going just as far toward leaving us all with "content boxes" as a regular infringer.
I just tend to go about trying to do the right thing. Not buying their stuff is ok to me, but getting it without paying isn't ok to me. Also, call me a romantic, but I have enough faith in the system that if the **AA's lose money due to people not buying their stuff (honestly not buying it and not filesharing) then they will have a harder time winning than if people are constantly filesharing.
Here's the rub: some people don't believe it's bad. Copyright infringement is illegal, but many people don't equate legality with morality. Distinguishing between the legal and moral uses of "bad" is therefor important.
I realize that some people don't agree with copyright at all. I am not one of them. It's interesting that you bring up the difference between legal and moral issues, since that's exactly what I'm talking about when I call copyright infringement stealing. I said in the first line of my post that if you want to be a lawyer and rely on technicalities, then copyright infringement and stealing are different. But I wasn't talking about that. Morally, they are the same to me. You get to use something that you should pay for (since it's somebody's job to create what you're using) and you don't pay for it. Sounds like stealing to me. If you don't agree, then we have different worldviews.
If by 2030 we have invented a matter duplicator that's as cheap as copying a CD today, will we outlaw it and drive it underground? So that farmers can make a living keeping food expensive,
I think a better analogy is that the matter duplicator takes a great deal of effort to configure it to produce a chair or corn or whatever. The person who first figures out how to produce these things should get compensation for doing that work.
OTOH, if you go out and figure out how to make a chair using this device, then you can do what you want with that information. If someone else did it, then they should get the chance to make some money off their work. That way, they can go and figure out how to make more interesting things.
However, when these things do appear, each individual object being created will be patented anyway, so it's kind of a moot point...
Maybe, instead of using hyperbole and calling things names they are not, if we actually educated people as to what "copyright" and "copyright infringement"
Yeah. After we educate people and let them know that they don't own any software. They've merely licensed software. I don't think most people will understand and care.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly on the production (usually via copies of an original) and distribution of a creative work of art. Copyright infringement is attempting to compete with that production and distribution.
Ok, and the point is that if people want to get that material, then they have to pay the creators a fee. The idea is to keep money going back to the creators so that they can keep making more music/books/whatever.
When you interfere or attempt to co-opt this "production and distribution" system, you're making the materials available to people without giving any money back to the creators. So, what you have is a situation where people who create things are supposed to get some money when people get and use their creations, so that they can continue to create. If you go around this, you're getting something without paying for it as you should. That's stealing. It may not be the legalese definition of stealing, which is why I put that little line about "you're technically correct if you're a lawyer" in my original post, but it's stealing in what I consider to be a commonsense definition. You haven't convinced me.
There are also two other parts of your post that I take issue with:
Maybe they would sympathize with the back street boys and britney spears they've been force-fed, and demand the death penalty for the file-traders.
So what about if it's your favorite group? Why do you resort to talking about a "death penalty" for file traders juxtraposed with pop stars that most people here probably don't like? There's lots of other stuff out there including your favorite bands.And even those indies who give away mp3's are probably doing it to gain fans, not to be nice forever. My guess is that they want to get paid at some point so they can continue to make music. What happens when they decide to make a living of this and ask people to pay? Do you stop listening to them? Do you pay? Do you steal...err infringe their copyrights because they're sellouts now? Any argument you make for or against filesharing should work equally well with your favorite band in place of some artist you can't stand.
and
I thought that the major costs (at least in what the RIAA labels charge the bands) were for promotion and such. I know using a professional recording studio is pretty expensive, but I don't see how it can trump the cost of whatever passes for radio payola these days and other forms of advertising.
All of that is part of production. If you think you can do a better job of running a record label without doing all of this stuff, while still making money, go for it. It might be shady, but most industries are shady at the highest levels.
Note that in the first paragraph I wrote: You're technically correct if you're a lawyer
And you come back with:
Okay, now this may not seem like a big difference, but let me remind you that in the USA, there is a big difference between how property and how information are treated.
So, you decided to get into legalisms about what the US code says, rather than looking at what's really going on using common sense. People are getting to use something that they really should pay for without paying for it. That makes it stealing, even if it's not stealing in the "legalese US code" sense,. it's still stealing in the "hey let's not fuck people over every chance we get even if we can technically get away with it" definition of stealing. You haven't convinced me.
The crime is copyright infringement, not "stealing."
Stop it.
I hate it when people get pedantic and trot this little line of reasoning out. You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
I think you do this so you can justify getting copies of music without paying for it.If you felt that filesharing was wrong, you would probably try to discourage people from engaging in it, not go around trying to obfuscate the issue. Otherwise, why would you be trotting out a pedantic, misleading argument that can only encourage most people to keep stealing music.Oops, I meant keep engaging in copyright infringement.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft. I can't do it. I don't think you can, either.You cannot use the concept of paying people for their hard work if you enjoy the fruits of their labor, since not doing that is stealing.
The closest I can come up with is that you're getting to use something without paying for it, when you should pay for it so the person(s) who created the thing will be able to create more of it. Sort of like how if you go into a CD store and steal something, you're getting to use something without having to pay for it. The difference is that in the case of the store, they have to pay money to make another copy of the item, and in the case of copyright infringment, they don't really have to pay money to make another copy.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation, not the copying, then maybe you wouldn't be so anal about making this one little pathetic point.You would understand that the actual physical copy of the data isn't what's important. It's the work that went into making the data in the first place.
Now, I don't support the **AA's anymore because I can't see how to have copyright and computers, and I think people like you will keep stealing no matter what they do, short of taking away computers. So, I expect people like you will eventually get real computers restricted to a small population of "trusted" people, while the rest of the population has to settle with "content boxes". I won't steal their stuff. I will just refuse to give them money and not use their stuff.
Oh, and BTW. If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary. It's the same thing.
Wrong. Nuh uh. kernel.org isn't a warez site since the GPL allows people to distribute copies of the kernel.
OTOH since these people don't seem to think that the kernel is under the GPL, and since the GPL is the only way you can legally distribute the kernel, this site really IS a Linux warez site.
Slashdot Mirror
There's "The SCO Group", there's "Original SCO", there's "The Santa Cruz Operation", there's "Tarantella", there's "Caldera", on and on...
:) I enjoy it
:)
I'm so confused.
I think that's part of the plan.
Look at this page.
Note the different statements:
The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX operating system, announced today that it has filed legal action against IBM
In 1995, SCO purchased the rights and ownership of UNIX and UnixWare that had been originally owned by AT&T.
SCO became the successor in interest to the UNIX software licenses originally licensed by AT&T Bell Laboratories to all UNIX distributors,
--------- Split----------
As a result of IBM's unfair competition and the marketplace injury sustained by SCO, SCO is requesting damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
"SCO is in the enviable position of owning the UNIX operating system," said Darl McBride, president and CEO, SCO.
Before the split, SCO == "Old SCO" that became Tarantella.
After the split, SCO == "New SCO" that was Caldera.
So, besides all the other, umm, "interesting" claims and other crap going on, they're playing games with their names to obfuscate the origins of their company and how they got the licenses.
If you look at the press release, they're very upfront about how "Old SCO" bought the rights to UNIX from Novell in 1995 (since transferring those rights from company to company is a big deal).
But they don't say anything about how Old SCO transferred the rights to Caldera, which then changed its name from Caldera to SCO. The second transfer is JUST as important as the first, and I wonder why they didn't mention it. And the name change could not have been done in good faith, or if it had been done in good faith, they would have made it clearer in the press release. I think they're trolling for easy money from people who don't want to investigate this closely.
So, that's the way it worked:
1. Novell sold some rights to Old SCO/Tarantella.
2. Old SCO Tarantella sold its rights to Calders/SCO
3. Calders changed its name to SCO.
It's a shell game.
And it also means that they were probably planning this shit as far back as when Calders bought the licenses from Old SCO and they changed their name to SCO.
What happens when we win?
Dunno. After all of the SCO assets are divided up, someone gets hold of those confidential documents and sues this company for copyright infringement since by buying an SCO license.
After all, they are showing that they don't accept that Linux is under the GPL, which means that copying Linux to "each of the Linux servers running their business" is rather illegal.
We can only hope.
So they're pissed that IBM let them willingly infringe their patents until they sued IBM
You realize, of course, that IBM has so many patents that every one of us is probably infringing IBM patents every time we use a computer. IBM throwing its patent weight around is a bad thing, because they could do it to *anyone*.
By definition, a business model that destroys the business is flawed.
I dunno about this. What if you're a buggy whip manufacturer and you know cars are coming, so you decide to squeeze some cash out of the market before you go under?
I think THIS sort of thinking is the reason the RIAA is doing what it's doing. The RIAA knows that it's fucked, and there's no way that suing everybody will keep it in business.
So I figure it's just doing this so it can squeeze as many people as possible for as much money as possible before it goes under.
However, I don't appove of illegal filesharing, so really there's nobody in that fight that I want to see win.
Damn, that's how I feel about it. You tell people what you're thinking about, or you're too quick to answer questions in class, because it's *fun* getting the answer right and they kick your ass at recess. I guess you come off as arrogant and you can't fight back so you learn to STFU.
I'm pretty sure they won't go after the place where I get my linux code.
Expect the thieves....errr "copyright infringers" to trot out all of the usual arguments like:
Copyright is largely an artificial construct, unlike theft
Legally, they're different. But, in both cases you're getting to use something for free that you otherwise would have had to pay for, so that the person(s) who produced the thing you're using can makea a living. That to me is stealing. Not the legalese definition of stealing for all of you wannabe slashdot lawyers out there, but because the situations are the same: I get something for nothing when I shouldn't be getting it for nothing.
Also, why isn't theft an artificial construct? Why not go back to the good old days when the only things you could "own" were those things that you could keep by force. Prohibitions against theft, and other property rights are every bit as much "artificial constructS" of societies that copyright laws are.
I think the copyright industry is going to make our lives miserable by trying to take away computers, but I think they'll eventually lose. It doesn't mean that people should hasten their demise by getting something for nothing illegally.
copyright doesn't really make sense in a world where things are easily and cheaply copyable; where the means of production and dissemination is in the hands of everyone.
Copyright makes sense because the means of "production" are not in the hands of everyone. Oh sure, given a piece of data that's already been slaved over, you can easily copy it, but I would hardly call that "production".
Production is where you start with a blank harddrive or tape or film and people sing or act or code or compose or whatever and these actions get recorded by machines and processed and fixed by other people until they look and/or sound good. At that point, "production" is done.
The "production" cost of making the actual physical copies is negligible, and that's really the only part of the "production" cycle that's in the hands of everyone, simply because most people are lazy and not very creative.
The hard part of "production" is what makes up most of the cost of the things you buy. And please, nobody make those snide little comments about how they "waste" money on adverts or other things you find stupid or objectionable.. If you think you can do a better job, do it and come back to me to prove me wrong. If you don't like what they're doing, then you always have the choice to not give them any money. At the same time, you can't just copy their stuff since you "wouldn't pay for it anyway" or "it's too expensive" or "they don't pay the artists enough" or "they engaged in price fixing" or whatever the little BS excuse to justify illegal filesharing is today. I've lost track.
Anyway, they probably are going to fall off a cliff, but I don't think people realize that they aren't going to get the same kind of quality they get now if they allow this to happen. And, although I deplore their tactics on the front of trying to take away computers,, it's not right to copy things illegally.
No I hadn't seen it, but as I said, I think they're a good set of guildelines to follow. Also, I like Carlin, but I think that he jumped the shark when he went on Thomas the Tank Engine :P
.t EXPLICITLY DISCLAIMS any coverage regarding "use" of the software. (You know, 'USE' as in 'USER'.)
:)
This is one of my favorite parts of the GPL. How it sticks its tongue out at all of the EULA's out there by explicitly not granting permission to use the software.
Well, I'm not a Christian, either. I do believe in God, or whatever you want to call it, but I think all religions are essentially equivalent, and they're not really the point (as if I haven't pissed off enough people today. :)) But, I think of the 10 commandments as being a decent guide on how to live, and that's the reason they were created IMO.
I don't really buy the "Moses on the mountain" stuff with the burning bush and all that. What I think is that Moses (as such) was leading people and they were screwing up, so he gave them some simple rules they could follow so they wouldn't destroy themselves.
That's why I like them. They don't represent the Word of God to me, they represent the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of people deciding what are the Important Things that people need to understand to get along with each other. And btw, I mean the commandments after the first couple which I realize are directly tied to religion.
Stealing sounds a lot worse than copyright violation, doesn't it? A lot of people in the US are Christians - and there isn't a commandment against copyright violation.
Now that you mentioned this.. You DO realize that you're not supposed to take the ten commandments literally, right? You're supposed to take them as guidelines and use them to help you figure out what's right and what's wrong when new situations arise.
For example, when someone invented the first gun, did that mean that it was ok to shoot people until there were laws prohibiting it, or until religious leaders got up and said it's wrong? Do you go through life thinking that way? Thinking that unless some law or rule specifically prohibits you from doing some cool new thing, then it's ok? Thinking like that is why most laws get passed. People who should know better go around looking for loopholes instead of trying to do the right thing. Then the government has to play catchup to stop those people from hurting other people.
So anyway, when you steal something, you get to use something that you didn't pay for. You're preventing someone else from getting paid for their work, since they should have been paid by you because you're using the thing they produced.
Legally, it matters whether or not the thing produced is an actual thing or a copy of something, but morally it doesn't. Copyright infringement is morally the same as stealing, regardless of what the specific wording of the law says. I know this because when confronted with a new situation like getting music for free that I would otherwise have to pay for, I can draw on my knowledge that stealing is bad (meaning you get something without paying for it when you should be paying for it) so I can conclude that copyright infringement is stealing. This seems like an obvious line of reasoning to me, but perhaps I'm a naive pussy and I should go around trying to screw people over more and spend more time looking for angles to get ahead in life. But, I don't feel like being that way.
Yeah well, I knew I would be picking a fight with the collective when I wrote my first post. I still feel the way I do, and these responses give me a chance to refine my argument and to forestall some of the bad counterarguments I'm likely to encounter. I can hopefully be more precise and steer away from legal definitions of words.
Interesting. The way I look at it is that I get something for free when I should have to pay for it. That's why I equate copyright infringement with stealing. I'll look this up and I may use this instead.
I made an offhand comment in my original post about technicalities and lawyers, so I guess I wasn't clear.
I realize that the law says that copyright infringement != theft. However, there are other issues. Well, there are other issues to me.
If I engage in copyright infringement then I get to use something without paying for it when I should have to pay for it.The person who made the thing doesn't get money for it. That to me is stealing. It's not legally stealing, but morally I think it is. And that's what I care about, because it helps me to determine when laws are just or not.
I only used an offhand comment in the first line of my original post about "technicalities and lawyers", and I didn't make it clear that I was not talking about legalisms. I am talking about the fact that when you illegally copy files, you're getting to use something for free that you should have paid for. In my mind, this is no different than stealing a disk or CD, since in both cases, you get something for nothing when you should be paying for it. I think that copyright infringment and stealing are moral equivalents.
it does however mark the user as dishonest because they are intentionally misrepresenting a reality
It's not the only reality I see. If you look at other realities in terms of how you should treat each other and the golden rule and all of that, then copyright infringement is stealing. If you don't care about that, or if you think the law is the final arbiter of what you should do and everything else be damned, then that's your decision but I don't want to liev like that.
I think people who scream that copyright infringement != stealing and use the technicalities of the law to justify the statement while ignoring any other possible interpretations are misrepresenting a reality, as well.
I don't really know why they would do this, but I seem to remember some old saying about protesting too much or something like that.
When I first posted, I said that they're technically different if you're a lawyer. I was not talking about legalities, but I guess I didn't make the point too well, so I will try to make it clearer in the future.
But, when you infringe copyright, you're getting to use something that you didn't pay for when you should be paying for it. Morally, that's the same as stealing to me. Shrug.
As for the arguments on my use of filesharing. You knew what I meant didn't you. You know damn well that huge numbers of people engage in illegal filesharing and you also probably knew that that's what I was talking about. My bad for not putting the word "illegal" in front of filesharing, but coming up with some examples of where you use filesharing legally doesn't dissuade me from believing that the vast majority if filesharing is illegal and wrong and that the participants know it.
Now if by filesharing, you mean distributing copywrghted material to people who are not authorized to have a copy, then your stament is still false.
If microsoft broke the copyright agreement with Linux, then they are committing copyright infringement, and should be taken to court for that, but NOT for stealing.
No, I think it's true in that case. Illegal filesharing is "copyright infringement" as so many people have pointed out to me today, so it is the same thing as putting Linux into windows.
I expect people like you will sit on your ass and do nothing to try and stop the restriction of computers.
Ok, so what do you do? I mean besides voting and contributing money to organizations, and trying to get people to stop illegally sharing files and such, what should I do?
What are you doing?
Why do you think so? Why would anyone have a discussion clarifying the two crimes and somehow leave with the impression that one is not a crime?
This is the problem. I thought that I took care of these legal issues when I posted that they're technically different if you're a lawyer. I then read a response to my post that talked about moral vs legal issues, so I should clarify.
I am not arguing that legally they are the same. However, I think that they are morally the same. As you mention in your definition of copyright infringement, the government decided that it wanted to promote the creation of works by giving certain privileges to the creators of those works. If I go and get the works through other channels, I get to use something that I didn't pay for, and the person who created the thing is deprived of money that she should get. For tha reason, I won't stop thinking that copyright infringement is a type of theft, but I will make it clear that I'm not talking in legal terms when I talk about it.
What? Copyright is completely compatible with the existence of computers.
The issue is that computers make it easy to copy things. It will only become easier, and compression will only make files smaller.If real computers exist, then any sort of artificial copy-protection can be defeated eventually, so they will never stop copyright infringement. If you ask them what an "acceptable level" of piracy is, they will probably say 0, which means that as long as computers exist, they will look for ways to lock down computers more. And, I think they will try to get computers outlawed except for authorized people.
You mean "copyright infringement", not "filesharing", right? Plenty of filesharing goes on without infringing on copyrights.
I would guess that the percentages are really really low. But of course I mean illegal filesharing.
No, we do this because copyright infringement and theft are vastly different things.
I understand where this is breaking down now. The rest of the world is talking in terms of legalisms and the US code, which is ok, but I took care of that in my first line when I said that they're technically different if you're a lawyer.
Then, while responding to one of the posts above, one of the posters brought up moral vs legal issues. So I will use that to respond.
I think they're morally the same. I know that in both cases I am getting something for free that I should pay for, and I am depriving the person who created the thing some money. Honestly, if I weren't interested in something, I don't see why I would try to download it. If I am interested in something, then I know that I have to pay for it to get it or else the person who created it may not create more stuff. I see downloading copyrighed materials without paying for them as the same as stealing. Not legally, but morally. And, I think that's the problem. I will be more careful in the future and I will make it clear that I am not resorting to legalese to make my arguments, but I will not stop equating copyright infringment with stealing.
First you assume that I illegally share files
:) Most of them aren't.\
Do you? If you've never done it, or if you used to and you've already stopped, then I'm sorry. If you do, then I'm right and I called you on it, and it's not an ad-hominem attack.
What a low opinion you have of "most people." I don't think of the masses as unwashed, I don't consider them hoi polloi, and I can't think of anyone I know who would not understand the phrase "copyright infringement." If your friends can't get their minds around it, you can call it "breaking copyright" without abandoning truth. And you should probably also get new friends, since they're dumb as bricks.
My friends can understand it. If I were to ask people on this board to name 2 justices on the Suporeme court, I would guess most people could do it. I doubt that most Americans could do it. Btw, thanks for calling my friends dumb as bricks.
Okay. Copyright infringement is illegally copying a creative work. It's bad because if everyone did it, the creative types wouldn't get paid and then they would have no reason to make more works. Then there would be no more commercial music or films or software. Is that simple enough for the masses?
Ok, so they make something and they expect to get paid, but then people come along and use their creations without paying for them. As I said in the first line of my original post, if you want to get into legalese and technicalities, then copyright infringment != stealing, but if I'm getting to use something for free that I should pay for, then I am stealing. Morally, as one poster above pointed out since the legsl issues are not the same as the moral issues. I still think it's morally equivalent to stealing, but I didn't think to make that point in my original post.
Yes. That's a really frickin huge difference: a really good reason why copyright infringement is NOT AS BAD as theft.
Well, I can live with copyright infringement being "theft light" as long as it's considered to be a type of theft. (I know you didn't say that.) but I also don't think its as bad as the **AA's make it out to be. I think downloading a song is about the same as stealing a candy bar. Not robbing a bank as they seem to believe.
Pragmatically, what's the difference? They can't tell the difference, so you are going just as far toward leaving us all with "content boxes" as a regular infringer.
I just tend to go about trying to do the right thing. Not buying their stuff is ok to me, but getting it without paying isn't ok to me. Also, call me a romantic, but I have enough faith in the system that if the **AA's lose money due to people not buying their stuff (honestly not buying it and not filesharing) then they will have a harder time winning than if people are constantly filesharing.
Here's the rub: some people don't believe it's bad. Copyright infringement is illegal, but many people don't equate legality with morality. Distinguishing between the legal and moral uses of "bad" is therefor important.
I realize that some people don't agree with copyright at all. I am not one of them. It's interesting that you bring up the difference between legal and moral issues, since that's exactly what I'm talking about when I call copyright infringement stealing. I said in the first line of my post that if you want to be a lawyer and rely on technicalities, then copyright infringement and stealing are different. But I wasn't talking about that. Morally, they are the same to me. You get to use something that you should pay for (since it's somebody's job to create what you're using) and you don't pay for it. Sounds like stealing to me. If you don't agree, then we have different worldviews.
If by 2030 we have invented a matter duplicator that's as cheap as copying a CD today, will we outlaw it and drive it underground? So that farmers can make a living keeping food expensive,
I think a better analogy is that the matter duplicator takes a great deal of effort to configure it to produce a chair or corn or whatever. The person who first figures out how to produce these things should get compensation for doing that work.
OTOH, if you go out and figure out how to make a chair using this device, then you can do what you want with that information. If someone else did it, then they should get the chance to make some money off their work. That way, they can go and figure out how to make more interesting things.
However, when these things do appear, each individual object being created will be patented anyway, so it's kind of a moot point...
Maybe, instead of using hyperbole and calling things names they are not, if we actually educated people as to what "copyright" and "copyright infringement"
Yeah. After we educate people and let them know that they don't own any software. They've merely licensed software. I don't think most people will understand and care.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly on the production (usually via copies of an original) and distribution of a creative work of art. Copyright infringement is attempting to compete with that production and distribution.
Ok, and the point is that if people want to get that material, then they have to pay the creators a fee. The idea is to keep money going back to the creators so that they can keep making more music/books/whatever.
When you interfere or attempt to co-opt this "production and distribution" system, you're making the materials available to people without giving any money back to the creators. So, what you have is a situation where people who create things are supposed to get some money when people get and use their creations, so that they can continue to create. If you go around this, you're getting something without paying for it as you should. That's stealing. It may not be the legalese definition of stealing, which is why I put that little line about "you're technically correct if you're a lawyer" in my original post, but it's stealing in what I consider to be a commonsense definition. You haven't convinced me.
There are also two other parts of your post that I take issue with:
Maybe they would sympathize with the back street boys and britney spears they've been force-fed, and demand the death penalty for the file-traders.
So what about if it's your favorite group? Why do you resort to talking about a "death penalty" for file traders juxtraposed with pop stars that most people here probably don't like? There's lots of other stuff out there including your favorite bands.And even those indies who give away mp3's are probably doing it to gain fans, not to be nice forever. My guess is that they want to get paid at some point so they can continue to make music. What happens when they decide to make a living of this and ask people to pay? Do you stop listening to them? Do you pay? Do you steal...err infringe their copyrights because they're sellouts now? Any argument you make for or against filesharing should work equally well with your favorite band in place of some artist you can't stand.
and
I thought that the major costs (at least in what the RIAA labels charge the bands) were for promotion and such. I know using a professional recording studio is pretty expensive, but I don't see how it can trump the cost of whatever passes for radio payola these days and other forms of advertising.
All of that is part of production. If you think you can do a better job of running a record label without doing all of this stuff, while still making money, go for it. It might be shady, but most industries are shady at the highest levels.
Note that in the first paragraph I wrote: You're technically correct if you're a lawyer
And you come back with:
Okay, now this may not seem like a big difference, but let me remind you that in the USA, there is a big difference between how property and how information are treated.
So, you decided to get into legalisms about what the US code says, rather than looking at what's really going on using common sense. People are getting to use something that they really should pay for without paying for it. That makes it stealing, even if it's not stealing in the "legalese US code" sense,. it's still stealing in the "hey let's not fuck people over every chance we get even if we can technically get away with it" definition of stealing. You haven't convinced me.
The crime is copyright infringement, not "stealing."
Stop it.
I hate it when people get pedantic and trot this little line of reasoning out. You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
I think you do this so you can justify getting copies of music without paying for it.If you felt that filesharing was wrong, you would probably try to discourage people from engaging in it, not go around trying to obfuscate the issue. Otherwise, why would you be trotting out a pedantic, misleading argument that can only encourage most people to keep stealing music.Oops, I meant keep engaging in copyright infringement.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft. I can't do it. I don't think you can, either.You cannot use the concept of paying people for their hard work if you enjoy the fruits of their labor, since not doing that is stealing.
The closest I can come up with is that you're getting to use something without paying for it, when you should pay for it so the person(s) who created the thing will be able to create more of it. Sort of like how if you go into a CD store and steal something, you're getting to use something without having to pay for it. The difference is that in the case of the store, they have to pay money to make another copy of the item, and in the case of copyright infringment, they don't really have to pay money to make another copy.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation, not the copying, then maybe you wouldn't be so anal about making this one little pathetic point.You would understand that the actual physical copy of the data isn't what's important. It's the work that went into making the data in the first place.
Now, I don't support the **AA's anymore because I can't see how to have copyright and computers, and I think people like you will keep stealing no matter what they do, short of taking away computers. So, I expect people like you will eventually get real computers restricted to a small population of "trusted" people, while the rest of the population has to settle with "content boxes". I won't steal their stuff. I will just refuse to give them money and not use their stuff.
Oh, and BTW. If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary. It's the same thing.
Wrong. Nuh uh. kernel.org isn't a warez site since the GPL allows people to distribute copies of the kernel.
OTOH since these people don't seem to think that the kernel is under the GPL, and since the GPL is the only way you can legally distribute the kernel, this site really IS a Linux warez site.