You said;
"...but if your mailbox is full of it its more likely your carelesness [sic] with your e-mail address..."
How on God's green earth can you be "careless" with an email address? Keep it secret and never tell a soul? Kinda limits the usefulness of it, now doesn't it.
I take it you don't actually work anywhere that requires you actually USE your email address do you. My email address is prominently displayed on my business card, it is listed along with the rest of my contact information as part of my email sig. and I make sure all of my clients have it to contact me. Add to that the various venders, and other sales type people we actually purchase from and there are plenty of people who have my email address. I guess you would consider that being careless.
Of course I could always change it, reprint my business cards, change my sig., and propagate my "new" email address to all of my clients and contacts. After spending large sums of time and money, guess what? I guess I'm being "careless" again. Silly me actually trying to get some USE out of my email address.
New problem same as the Old problem, or to put it another way; "Get email address, use email address, get SPAM, rinse, lather, repeat."
Um, you said;
"...Last time I checked the use of air travel was a private-not public means of travel. As such it is private property and the government's job is to protect private property..."
That's not actually accurate. If you recall the topic of this article Gilmore is suing the Feds for requiring people to identify themselves, i.e. secret federal laws. Also, if you check out this site (http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n060402b.html) you will see that the ACLU is helping 5 men in lawsuits against the airlines for illegally removing them from flights;
"... The lawsuits allege that the removals constituted illegal discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "
(See also: http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n060402a.html)
In one of the legal filings related to the above (at http://www.aclu.org/court/dasrath.pdf page 3) I quote the following;
"Federal law expressly provides that an "air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person in air transportation to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or ancestry." 49 U.S.C. 40127(a)."
Which I believe makes air travel a PUBLIC not PRIVATE means of transportation. Most likely that is because of the following (taken from the Parties/Defendant section of the same document noted http://www.aclu.org/court/dasrath.pdf page 4);
"...As of May 7, 2002, Continental Airlines, Inc. had received at least $317,537,751 in federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Transportation, pursuant to sections 101 and 103 of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, P.L. 107-42."
So, your statement; "...if you don't like the way the airline industry sets the rules you don't have to fly..." is incorrect on many levels. In this case I don't believe it is an "airline rule", it's a federal government rule. Additionally, even if it was an "airline rule" they don't have the right to arbitrarily define whatever rules suit their fancy. Once they decided to go into business serving the public they lost that ability. Bus companies can't prohibit Jewish people from boarding, restaurants can't refuse to serve blacks, and stores can't refuse to sell to Wiccans.
Or perhaps you would simply say, if that Jew doesn't like the Greyhound's rules he doesn't HAVE to ride Greyhound, if that black doesn't like Denny's rules, he doesn't HAVE to eat there, and if that Wiccan doesn't like the Sacred Lamb Bible store's rules, she doesn't HAVE to shop there.
I don't think that El Al uses flawed predictive profiles. They use a simpler, more effective, and unfortunately more costly system. They treat EVERYONE as a terrorist.
They intrusively search you, perhaps multiple times, subject you to varying levels of psychological testing (NOT gee, he bought a one way ticket, wears a turban, and has a relative in the Middle East). If you are found lacking, THEN you are entered into their database as someone who failed, (barely passed?) their "screening". Then if you try to board a flight again, you can be summarily arrested, denied passage, or required to undergo an even more invasive evaluation, if that's possible.
There is a BIG difference between entering people who you KNOW are trouble, and compiling a list of people who MIGHT be trouble. Like the difference between law enforcement keeping a "rap sheet" (list of convicted crimes and arrests) and a list of everyone who bought fertilizer and a copy of the Q'ran, just in case....
(not having flown El Al personally, I can only comment on what I have read)
Well I'm glad to see that my original post spurred such lively commentary.
renehollan, I applaud your attempts to fight for "reasonable DRM" unfortunately such a beast only exists with unicorns and dragons. You mentioned that you don't own copyrighted works you license them. Um, no, you OWN them. By buying into that argument, you have already forfeited the argument. Every book, every audio CD, every VHS tape that I have bought, I own.
Ruben Safir, president of NYLXS is quoted as saying (http://www.theregus.com/content/6/25660.html),
"If someone breaks into my house and steals my CDs, who calls the cops, me or the music industry?"
Safir asked. "If it's me, then that's my property."
He's completely right. There was a case recently where Adobe tried to sue a retailer for "unbundling" the software that accompanies hardware. Adobe claimed that the software was licensed for use with that hardware only. The judge said that if it looks like a sale, smells like a sale, and feels like a sale, then it's a sale.
All copyright does is retain the following six rights for a limited time; reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution, public performance, public display, and digital transmission. Even these exclusive rights are tempered by both the first sale doctrine and the principle of fair use.
The doctrine of first sale means that once a copyright holder has sold a particular copy of the work, his say over when you do with it ends. This wasn't just something dreamed up for retailers that just happens to be beneficial to the public. It is based in common law (codified into the 1976 Copyright Act). Without it, the would be no such thing as a Free Public Library, without it, the copyright holder could require you never to read it out loud to anyone, or to only read it between the hours of one and three in the morning, while standing on your head, naked, with a carrot shoved up your arse. It means that I can legally, lend it to a friend, read it out loud to my children at bed time, scribble notes in the margin, burn it to keep warm in the winter, or tear it up and line my bird cage with it. It also means that I can open up a used book/VHS/music store and sell used versions well below the asking price for new ones. Yes, the *AA hate it, yes they'ld love to "license" everything to you. No, it's not inevitable, and it's not in the least bit helpful for anything except lining the *AA's pockets. I've recently heard that there are now e-books (of titles in the public domain of all things) that claim to be licensing the book to you. In the EULA it explicitly states that you cannot read it aloud. So much for children's bedtime stories.
The principle of fair use is the ONLY thing that reconciles copyright with the first amendment. (see: http://www.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.html) Without "fair use" copyright would be rendered unconstitutional by the first amendment. There are even some scholars that claim federal copyright IS unconstitutional, although a state copyright wouldn't suffer from that problem, but I digress. You are correct when you state that;
"However, there has never been an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate the exercise of any fair use." but you loose it when you go on to state;
"I'm merely arguing that, with technically unbreakable DRM, there should be an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate as much fair use as possible." The problem isn't "....technically unbreakable DRM" the problem is making it illegal to try and break DRM, and then making it illegal to NOT buy DRM encumbered items.
It's not illegal for someone to listen in to your conversations when you converse in public. Conversely, it is not a requirement that you are legally bound to make eavesdropping as convenient as possible, say by speaking in a loud clear voice in a language that the eavesdropper understands. It is not illegal for the cops to raid your house and seize your computer with a properly executed search warrant, but the fifth amendment ensures that you don't have to make sure all of your data is in unencrypted ASCII, in the language of the local constabulary, in files clearly named with descriptive titles to facilitate searching. Do you see where I am going with this?
So long as *AA plays within the bounds of copyright and first sale, they are welcome to try whatever "pay per view" DRM type schemes their black hearts desire. I don't have a problem with it. The problem, which first caused major headaches with the DMCA is when they enlist the law to prop up these schemes. I should be allowed to do what ever I want, short of harm someone else, or their possessions, with whatever I own. Soldering a couple of wires in my VCR, or reprogramming my CD player should be my business. If I can figure out a way to decode satellite broadcasts, there shouldn't be a law against it. They are indiscriminately beaming television into my house and through my body. If I am bright enough to figure out a way to see it, good for me. If their business model doesn't work, then they should change their business model. That of course started us down this whole "broadcast flag" fiasco, but I'm digressing again.
DMCA makes tools, ideas, knowledge, illegal because it impinges on some company's business plan. That is just wrong. If someone is breaking the law, then take them to court. To do otherwise out of expediency moves us from a democracy (where you are innocent until proven guilty) to a totalitarian autocracy (where you are guilty, we just can't prove it, YET) Photocopiers aren't illegal, VCR's aren't illegal, heck I am willing to bet that more people have been killed with baseball bats than Linux boxes running DVD software, but they are still legal. The 2600 case had a judge declare that the DMCA makes it irrelevant how many non-infringing uses a technology has, one infringing use is enough to have that item declared illegal. This leads us to the silly proposition of having to take Pilot, Sharp, and Crayola et. all. to court for manufacturing and distributing a technology used to circumvent a copy protection device. (markers used in coloring in the edges of CD-ROM's to defeat copy protected discs).
*AA doesn't want to work in the realm of copyright and first sale, the market has shown time and time again that where there is a choice, people will take unencumbered over crippled every day. Look at the failed DivX fiasco. The content producers produced and sold a DRM encumbered product. It suffered from many of the flaws that the current crop of DRM does. You can't buy product, only license it. you can't play it on any device except for the one you've licensed it to, and even if you have "bought" the key to play it an unlimited number of times, you can't play it in your neighbors player, and if that player dies, you are out of luck, all of your "keys" go with it. What happened? Very few people bought it. Too many restrictions, they bought lower quality VHS tapes, or unencumbered (relatively speaking) DVD's. How about SDMI? Another attempt that was stillborn. No one wanted to make a product that would cost more and be less useful. Especially if the next guy was selling unencumbered players. The success of the Rio meant that SDMI devices wouldn't fly.
Hence the DMCA and the CBDTPA. If the DRM dreams of the *AA's have any hope of succeeding they have to first make it illegal to work around it. That goes back to your statement about requiring "...copyright holders to facilitate as much fair use as possible." They don't, they just shouldn't make it illegal for people to break through any DRM schemes they come up with in order to facilitate fair use. If they think that I am infringing on their copyright, they can take me to court. Let a judge decide if cracking the DVD encryption scheme in order to watch the legally acquired copy of the Matrix DVD on my Linux player is fair use. Don't make the tools I use to modify my own computer, in my own house illegal. Once you do that, what's to stop them from making it illegal to watch the Matrix in my bedroom, or between the hours of six a.m. and nine a.m. Sunday mornings?
Eventually, the *AA's will have to live with the fact that they cannot control every use of everything that they hold a copyright on. Software houses learned that lesson, I hope, years ago. Remember when every computer program came with all sorts of wacko copy protection schemes? Like randomly typing in words from the manual (please enter the fifth word, in the fourth paragraph, on page ninety-two to continue), it was more of a pain to the paying customers than a hindrance to the copyright infringer. If they succeed in locking up broadcast television, then no one is going to move to HDTV. Why pay 100x the cost to watch television, when you can't even tape your soaps while you are at work, or tape that kids program so that you can play it for your five year old, when she is sick and awake at two o'clock in the morning? If DRM that is illegal to bypass for any reason comes to pass, say goodbye to the Library, the used whatever store, your personal collection. Say goodbye to the first amendment, to innovation, to spirited discourse.
Copyright has basically been extended to infinity minus a day. Every time something from Disney or Sony is bout to enter the public domain, the copyright term gets extended. It's a mockery of the phase "for a limited time" in the Constitution that provides for copyright. Copyright is about compensating artists and authors to create, so that the public domain is enriched. The goal is to provide the most material to the public, that they can do with as they wish. That they can create tomorrow's great works on the backs of today's. It was never meant to be a state mandated license to print money. If we extend the copyright of Mickey Mouse to 2,000 years Walt Disney is still not going to create another work. The really sad part is that allot of Disney's works are derivative of works in the public domain. Isn't it ironic that they are trying so hard to keep their works out of the public domain, to keep the next Disney from basing something even greater on that?
Isn't it sad, that our Congressmen are letting them, and that you are defending their right to steal our culture from us?
Why on God's green earth should we be forced to live with "reduced resolution" for "fair-use"?
We should have fair-use access to whatever we purchased in whatever resolution we have purchased it in. If I buy a HDTV quality version of something, why should I be forced to try and use an analog VHS quality version to do my research?
When I purchase a book, my photocopier isn't limited to 75% scale, slightly fuzzy copies. I can space/time/resample my audio CD-ROM collection in all of its full digital glory, I'm not limited to 128bit mpg quality, or analog cassette quality. So, once again I ask, why should I be forced to deal with this stupidity;
"... you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals..."
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful. If you buy that argument, then VCR's CDR's, and photocopiers should be illegal. You can always take notes when you are watching that television show or movie, perhaps make a few sketches, like those courtroom sketches you always see, if you need to comment or parody. You want to space shift that song, memorize it and sing it to yourself in the car, surely you don't have fair use rights to the music that you own (at least not in the format that you have purchased it in), no one is stopping you from humming in the shower, in the yard, or even to your children at night. As for photocopiers, they only exist to help people infringe copyrights. If you need to make a copy you can just copy it yourself, by hand. If you aren't up to the task, I hear that large groups of men, I think they were called monks, used to copy and illuminate (that means copy the pictures too) books and maps in special buildings, monasteries right?
If you want to make "fair-use" of a book, then obviously you wouldn't mind laboriously copying it by hand, right?
Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong, but couldn't Flash ROM be there to support GPRS?
from their website (http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/faq.jhtml ?sub_nav_section=FAQs&prod_cat_name=Treo#general5)
"Q. Will your product be upgradeable to GPRS?
A. Yes. In the second half of the year, Handspring plans to offer a software upgrade that enables Treo to work on GPRS networks. The upgrade will be available from Handspring's web site. The current hardware in Treo is GPRS-ready."
You said; "There are at least three people downloading a popular song from me before I can even look at the damn thing..."
The solution, set your download directory to be a different one than your shared directories. After you check out the file(s) you've downloaded, then move them to your shared directory.
In fact that is just good practice in general. It helps cut down on the people sharing partially downloaded files.
You said; "No. You are not transferring ownership of the disc. You are handing the disc to someone with the expectation that they are going to return it at some (near term) later date."
From (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/tutorial/basics2a.htm l) "The First Sale Doctrine
A distinction not always recognized is that ownership of the physical item, such as a book or a CD, is not the same as owning the copyright to the work embodied in that item. Under the first sale doctrine, ownership of a physical copy of a copyrighted work, like a book, permits lending the item, reselling the item, disposing of the item, burning the item, and so forth, but it does not permit copying the item in its entirety. That is because the transfer of the physical copy does not include transfer of the copyright to the work. A transfer or assignment of copyright must be signed and in writing to be valid..."
or from (http://www.idsa.com/firstsaleopposition.html) "What is the "First Sale" Doctrine?
The "First Sale" doctrine is a key element of the legal framework to encourage dissemination of copyrighted works. As now codified in the Copyright Act, the doctrine allows the owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner. This provision enables, for example, wholesalers to sell copies to retailers, libraries to lend copies to patrons, and individuals who have lawfully acquired copies of works to give them to friends or family. The doctrine states (with some exceptions) that the copyright owner's exclusive distribution right no longer applies to a particular copy once it has been sold the first time. "
or even from (http://www.ala.org/oitp/copyr/firstsale.html)
"First Sale is a historic user protection in copyright law. The doctrine basically says that purchasers of tangible products containing copyrighted information, such as books or music CDs, may dispose of those works in any way they wish. They may sell them, give them away, loan, or rent them, for example. Libraries, which regularly purchase works and loan them to users, are clearly very dependent on First Sale."
etc., etc., ad nauseum....
You said; "Libraries and rental stores are explicit exceptions. Libraries don't make a profit lending things nor are they likely to have new, "exclusive" content... "
Are you saying that I make a profit lending my CD-ROMs to my friends and family? Or perhaps you meant that I somehow manage to get my hands on EXCLUSIVE content? The only library exemptions are exemptions on the prohibition of copying. Lending isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by "First Sale".
You also said; "...See, you may own the actual physical metal and plastic disc, but you do not own the data it contains. The industry believes you don't own anything at all. They've leased the disc and contents to you and they have the right to terminate that lease at will."
The copyright holders may want you to believe that you have leased the data, but copyright and especially "first sale" applies anytime you purchase a copyrighted work fixed in a tangible medium. The sale/lease/rental of intangible works is still a bit of a gray area, but if they sell you the book, CD-ROM, DVD, you have a couple of centuries of law to stand on.
In fact, according to Judge Dean Pregerson ( http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/hague-jur-com mercial-law/2001-November/000364.html ) "The judge, in the case Adobe vs. Softman heard in the Central District of California, has ruled that consumers can resell bundled software, no matter what the EULA, or End User License Agreement, stipulates. Specifically, the ruling decrees that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, consumers should have the same rights they'd enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book. They can't make copies, but they can resell what they own."
[also at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/bclt/pubs/s wbook/#copyright Softman Products v. Adobe Systems 171 F.Supp.2d 1075 (C.D. Cal.2001)]
So actually, (at least in the 9th circuit) I do own the data it contains. Admittedly, this case was about software, not CD-ROMs or DVDs, but I draw your attention to the last portion of the statement;
"...consumers should have the same rights they'd enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book. They can't make copies, but they can resell what they own."
It illustrates that this judge at least, and I would suspect most judges, view music CD-ROMs as having the same protections as books have enjoyed all of these years, no matter how badly the publisher may wish it otherwise. That includes all of the privileges under "Fair Use" and the "First Sale Doctrine".
I think that illustrates that my initial statement that "First Sale", not copyright governs the lending of the original legally obtained copy of an audio CD-ROM, or DVD. Furthermore lending your CD-ROM to your friends/family/perfect stranger is perfectly legal.
As always, IANAL so consult with your local barrister/judge if you want legal advice.
Since the ITAR (or is it the commerce department now) regs changed so that people didn't have to scan in the source code to PGP overseas there hasn't been an "i" version. PGP Freeware is available globally as PGP 6.5.3, PGP 6.5.8, PGP 7.0.3. (http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freewar e/win2k/)
Since NAI stopped publishing the complete source code for the latest versions, and then Phil left, I'm not sure how far I would trust the later versions.
Now I'm not saying that he wasn't distributing the non-free versions, but just because someone is posting a late non-"i" version doesn't necessarily mean that it's not the free version.
Um... "Pirates" are/were people whole took over ships, usually at gun point. They stole property, and endangered lives.
What we are actually talking about are people who "infringe copyright". Usually no one is endangered, and in most cases nothing is even stolen.
The whole system of copyright is broken. It only benefits large corps. The whole point of copyright was to enrich the public domain. Nothing has gone into the public domain for decades.
"Fair-use" is the pressure release value that lets copyright coexist with the "First Amendment". By effectively eliminating fair-use they have put copyright at odds with the first amendment.
Unfortunately, if they succeed in making all nonfinancially compensated use of all works illegal, they are just going to make most of the population criminals.
We just have to look back to prohibition to see how well THAT works.
So, please, don't continue to confuse the issue by using loaded words like "pirates" to describe "copyright infringement".
Actually it is well established that "Fair Use" explicitly includes the right to make a backup of copyrighted works that you legally own. In fact I believe that the digital audio recording law (it's exact name escapes me at the moment) required that at least 1 exact digital copy be allowed to be made.
The DMCA doesn't say that you can't make that perfect backup copy, it just says you can't get around whatever technical problem the copyright holder thows in your way to prevent you from actually exercising that right.
I think what they are doing is trying to get a declaratve judgement. The law allows you do get a judgement saying that what you are doing is legal so that others can't hold the threat of a lawsuit over your head.
It was the same thing that Dr. Felton tried to get after the RIAA threated him with a law suit for publishing his paper on the flaws in the SDMI protection schemes.
I didn't suggest doing nothing instead of instituting a "red-light" district. I suggested making an explicit "child-safe" TLD. As you have stated; "...How many adult site operators do you know would actually try for the.kid TLD? Not many, and those that do would get sued...." That is a much better approach than trying to force every web page creator on the planet to submit to some illusive binding arbitration.
Just stop and think about what you are saying. Anyone on the planet (or at least in the US) who wants to create a web site has to first create it, then submit a copy of it to the classification committee, depending on the board's ruling apply for a domain name, hope one's available, post their web site, propose a change to a page of the web site, resubmit that change to the committee, if the change requires a new classification, either apply for a new TLD for that page, or perhaps for the whole site (can't link from one TLD to another). Make another change, rinse lather repeat... Watch the whole creative/dynamic/democratic entity that is the internet cease to exist. These aren't novels or motion pictures we're talking about, but web sites.
You said; "... We already have legislation that makes it illegal to provide pornography to minors. Apply the same legal standard...."
Talk to congress, the Supreme Court (in the USA) has already stated several times (CDA, COPA, soon CIPA) that you CANNOT apply the current legal standard of what is or isn't pornography, nor what is or isn't harmful to minors to internet content. The classic Miller test is wholly unsuited to the internet because there are NO local community standards that can be applied to the whole internet. What is harmful to minors in Tennessee might be considered down right tame in New York City. What is pornographic in Iran might not even raise an eyebrow in Las Vegas, let alone Denmark. There is NO existing standard, that the all of the US, never mind the planet can agree on. Any attempt to forcibly categorize content based on subjective opinion involves censorship. As the saying goes, "I don't know art, but I know what I like."
You said, "...Do you really think anything less than 90% of internet sites wouldn't fall in rank and file(assuming advertising and customerbase follows)?..." Yep, it has already been proposed that web sites rate themselves, remember RSACi? That was the attempt to have sites rate themselves based on content. Adult, violence, nudity, etc. How many sites follow it? According to your logic that number should be 90% plus. I think you'll find that the actual number is far far less. In fact most news organizations (CNN, TIME, NBC, New York Times, etc.) at one point publicly stated that they WOULD NOT under any circumstance rate their web sites. Why? Because it opens the door to arbitrary censorship. If most web sites won't even put a simple RSACi rating tag on their site, what makes you think that all of the sudden they want to play musical TLDs?
I think you have missed the difference between providing a "child-safe".kid TLD and forcing web sites into a "red-light".xxx TLD. Perhaps you should reread my initial response.
The former involves only those sites that want to be considered "child-safe". The rest of the planet doesn't have to do anything different than it does today. No musical TLDs, no arbitrary committee regulating every web page on the planet, no censorship. Parents can easily restrict their children to the.kid TLD.
The latter involves randomly changing TLDs, the www portion of the internet reduced to a static set of sanitized pages, rampant arbitrary censorship based on some committee's idea of what is wholesome. People actively working to subvert the process (creating a page without committee review). Parents blocking the.xxx TLD and hoping that their children don't come across a "pirate" (in the radio sense) web site.
I am a parent and this issue isn't frustrating at all. I find SPAM much more problematic. Reprogram the major browsers to prevent mouse-trapping, auto-pop up/under windows, and server side UI changes would solve most of the current problems with surfing. Add simple blocking and most importantly supervision and your just about there. A.kid TLD where youngsters could play would be a nice addition, like having a children's room in the library, or a children's museum, but it isn't necessary.
Like the Supreme Court said to the government at the end of the CDA trial (and I'm paraphrasing, badly) "In your attempt to make the Internet safe for children, you cannot reduce the discourse to that suitable for the sandbox." or to say it another way
"You can't prevent everyone on the planet from swearing, but you can keep them from swearing in YOUR house."
The problem that ALL.xxx,.p0rn,.prn,.bad ideas have is WHO gets to decide what web pages should be regulated to an adult TLD and which do not. Don't kid yourself in thinking that people would WANT to move into the internet equivalent of the Warsaw Getto.
Do pages that feature nudity belong in.xxx? If that's the case then I guess that's where most of the museums will end up?
What about sites that talk about sex? Ok, then so your family planning and medical sites are now located under.xxx.
Hate, drugs, non-Protestant religions? How about feminists? Commies? Bonsai-kitty?
What if my site is non-xxx material today, I put up a picture on the front page of two people having sex tomorrow, and take it down the next day? Does my site go from my-site.com to my-site.xxx to my-site.com? If so who does it?
While the idea of legislating a "red-light district" sounds all well and good in practice, it doesn't work. The only thing it does is make it easier to marginalize certain ideas. Just because you don't like looking at pictures of naked people doesn't make it evil. Just because I don't worship your Judeo-Christian God doesn't make me evil. Just because you think that the King James version of the Bible is the literal word of God doesn't make you good.
You said; "... Otherwise your 3rd & 4th choices are self regulation(yeah what bullshit) and flat out having the government do all of the classification(suck ass)..."
What you are forgetting is that mandating a.xxx TLD IS government regulation. Did the fact that a US Senator is proposing legislation somehow slip past?
The only truly effective way is to (gasp) take responsibility for what you view and what you allow your children to view. I don't let my children watch XXX rated movies, or even R or PG-13 movies if I haven't watched them first. I don't let them surf the web in the privacy of their bedrooms, or at all when they are very young, and I pay attention to what they are watching on TV or read.
If you must have a "kid-safe" portion of the web, a more sensible approach would be to establish a.kid TLD. Only allow web sites that are "kid-safe" (whatever that means) to have domains in the.kid TLD. Monitor it, and if they have pages that violate the rules governing the.kid TLD drop them. The difference being that if you WANT to advertise a "kid-safe" web site, you can (i.e. disney.kid, nickalodian.kid, pbs.kid) The rest of the planet doesn't have to deal with it. Otherwise you end up with the untenable position of CNN having to put some of it's pages in CNN.com and some in CNN.xxx depending on what story they are running.
Of course if you do that you loose the power to decide which ideas are "good" and which are "bad". There is a much larger stigmatism attached to establishing an "adult" "naughty" area of the net than there is in establishing a "children's" area.
With a.xxx TLD, a self appointed group of people get to decide what ideas are wholesome and which are naughty. They get to force people whose ideas they don't agree with into an easily segregated area of the net, and can readily identify and stigmatize members of the adult population that choose to be exposed to unwholesome ideas.
With a.kid TLD, individual web site owners get to decide if they want to abide by a set or rules that enable them to obtain a.kid TLD. Concerned parents can use the.kid TLD to more easily filter their children's (or their own) access to the web and limit it to the equivalent of the "children's room" in the library. The rest of the adult population doesn't have to DO anything, and there is no stigma attached to visiting the.kid domain.
So... I guess it all boils down to the question of, Do you REALLY want to carve out a kid-friendly place on the internet (.kid), or exile any web pages/ideas that you find unwholesome to an internet getto? (.xxx)
Someone once said that it is much easier to wear shoes, than to try and make the entire world safe to walk barefoot.
First off, the argument is about telco's capping supposedly "flat rate" unlimited access because P2P apps use one heck of a lot of bandwidth.
Secondly, ISP's are trying to claim the mantle of "Common Carriers" (at least in the US) and the legal shield that provides.
What a person does with the "bits" they've bought is completely irrelevant to the ISP, or it should be. Your moral pronouncement about the legality of trading files does not add to the discussion.
The problem is that ISP's don't want to be seen as the electric company of the twenty-first century. If this were any other utility it would be perfectly clear that your announcement is ridiculous. Here a parallel to help you;
Telephone company: Most telephone companies in the US offer flat rate local calling plans. They aren't allowed to limit your use of the phone, You can call whoever you want to for as long as you want to.
Does it matter if you are a terrorist communicating with your local cell and planning to blow up the post office? Nope.
How about planning that lynching for next week? Nope.
I know, surely the phone company should block harassing calls to the local abortion clinic? Nope. That's not their responsibility. You can call whomever you like, the legality or not, of what you are talking about isn't any of the phone companies business.
Can the telephone company limit you online time because you have a teenager that spends every minute when she's not in school tying the phone line? Nope.
I know, when people are using dialup internet access they started tying up circuits for hours on end. Could the telephone company charge them more because they were actually using the unlimited flat rate plan they had bought? Nope, though some tried.
I know, the telephone company could block calls to ISP modem pools, after all, calls to ISP's were using one heck of a lot of bandwidth compared to people who didn't call ISP's. Perhaps, the should simply disconnect you if you are tying up your phone line for more than two hours at a time. Everyone knows that this new fangled internet thing is used mainly for trading illegal files and breaking into company's computers.
I mean really, what can you do with the internet that you couldn't already do without it, and more importantly without being a telephone hog? The telephone company bases it profits on oversubscribing, they plan on most people only using the phone for a couple of hours a day, if you are using more than that they should start disconnecting you, or blocking what numbers you can call.
Sounds silly, no?
Then why is it ok when your ISP does it?
Re:What a non story! A waste of space!
on
XP, Phone Home
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Of course an Internet search would be sent over the internet, duh....
The question is, why if I search with Google, or Yahoo, is Microsoft getting a record of who I am and what I'm searching for?
(And for those of you out there that think all microsoft is doing is dling files when you do a LOCAL search, isn't that what WEB BUGS in html email do????)
Just because it there isn't legislation now, doesn't mean their won't be.
Pre 1997 No Electronic Theft Act there was no law saying that you couldn't copy that audio tape and give copies to all of your classmates. There was no law that said you couldn't trade VHS copies of the simpsons with 10,000 of your closest friends.
Pre 1998 DMCA there was no law that banned unlicensed DVD players, or prevented you from playing CD-ROM's on whatever sort of player you could get it to run on. There was no law that said you had to read a file on a particular machine.
Pre 2002(3?) Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) there was no law that prevented you from running an open source operating system, digitizing your garage band, making digital movies of the kids.
The RIAA and the MPAA have successfully, so far, managed to ban quite a bit of things that we used to take for granted, because they claimed it cost them potential profits. Now publishers/authors are claiming that the sale of used books is costing them potential profits. Just because they haven't suggested making that illegal YET, doesn't mean they can't, or won't at least try.
Diamond, IBM, Philips, Sun, RedHat, (and dozens of other technology companies) stand to loose a ridiculous amount of potential profit if Sen. Hollings gets his way. That didn't seem to stop the CBDTPA from being introduced.
Just because there isn't legislation banning the resale of books NOW, doesn't mean that there won't be.
It would be nice if we could stop that before it happens, rather than try to fight yet another silly, rights depriving, only on the books to enrich some group of companies, law.
I think I wasn't very clear. When I said; "I think with the NET law you can't make copies and give them away either"
I wasn't talking about NET as in the Internet, I meant "The No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997".
Here's a quote from a page on cryptome ( http://cryptome.org/bauchner.htm ); "The legislation highlights the concerns of businesses who fear the dissolution of their market model. Prior to the Act, individuals who did not profit from copyright infringement were not subject to criminal sanctions. The NET Act, criminalizes the willful distribution of at least $1000 worth of copyrighted material in any 180 day period."
You should probably read the entire page. It's a little dry, but very enlightening.
Infringing copyright had to be done for commercial gain. If you gave it away, you were legal. If you were a company and gave it away to boost sales of another product, that was for commercial gain, and you were illegal.
People ripping CD-ROMs and trading them on Napster were legal before the NET act. After all it wasn't done for comercial gain (except perhaps Napster's).
When's the last time you resold Microsoft Office? How about Autodesk's AutoCad? Adobe PhotoShop?
How long does an auction of software on eBay last?
I always thought that when I bought a box containing a manual and a CD-ROM I was free to resell it when I didn't want/need it anymore. Most EULA's expressly forbid that.
What about Adobe's e-books? Can I resell THAT book? What, it's cryptographically tied to my machine? If I try to make it so I CAN resell it, will I end up like that poor Russian programmer?
When it becomes as easy to copy books as it is with software or music, don't you think someone will want to ban its resale?
I mean who would have thought that figuring out how to play your Celine Dion CD-ROM on your computer's CD-ROM drive, or that shiny new DVD of the Matrix on your GNU/Linux box would be illegal?
All ready established law has a disturbing way of changing when large sums of money are involved....
Last I knew in the U.S. (unless there's yet another sneaky law just around the corner) we have something called the "First sale doctrine" it basically boils down to the copyright holder looses the right to say what you can do with a work, (book, CD-ROM, VHS tape, etc.) once they have sold it to you. You can lend it, sell it, give it away, burn it, wallpaper your bathroom, or wipe your bottom with it. The only thing you can't do is make copies and sell them (I think with the NET law you can't make copies and give them away either).
So a library just has to buy a book like anyone else and they have the right to loan it out as often as the like. No additional charge levied or required. Sometimes a publisher will produce a "library edition" which has a better binding for libraries, and probably cost more.
That's one of the reasons that e-book publishers are so upset over libraries. They want to license the title, not sell it.
We've bought into that silliness with software and now they want to push that lucrative, rights withering model to everything else. Licensed music, movies, books. Seems like a real convenient way to get around silly little things like the "First Sale Doctrine" and "Fair Use".
The problem is that unlike software, or even movies, books have been around near forever and people (especially libraries) have gotten used to actually BUYING books.
Unlike the disorganized groups of people fighting EULA's and the MPAA/RIAA, libraries are pretty well organized.
They have the added PR benefit of being real hard to miscatagorize as "evil, thieving, hacker pirates, hell bent on bringing down the American way".
Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.... If you are going to defend yourself, at least try and stick to defending what you said....
Your original position was that a person could "steal" intellectual property, I countered with examples illustrating that based on the common understanding (perhaps even the legal one) of stealing, that it was impossible to "steal" a piece of intellectual property. Now, I'm not saying that you couldn't violate a patent, nor infringe on a copyright, but that isn't the same as stealing. On to your counter examples....
1."Virginity is not a tangible thing. When I raped that little boy I didn't take anything from him. He's still got everything he had before I touched him." You are right, he still has everything that he has before, except perhaps his piece of mind. But you are illustrating "rape" not theft. No points here.
2."Since the bruises I gave her healed, my girlfriend is in exactly the same condition she was in before I hit her. Consequently, no damage was done." Actually damage was done, non-permanent damage being a temporal thing. That's defined as "battery" (For the lay people out there, assault is when you threaten to hurt someone, battery is when you actually do.) Note, beating up your girlfriend is not stealing. You haven't stolen anything. A closer analogy might have been vandalism. Still no help trying to cast something intangible as being stolen.
3."Identity is an intangible thing. Just because I used your name, and your social security number, doesn't mean you've lost anything. You still have them both." Here you might succeed in confusing a few people, since this is commonly referred to as "identity-theft". I would propose that this is the same sort of mistake people like yourself make when they claim that copying a song is theft. It isn't. You can't "steal" someone's identity anymore than you can steal an idea. What you are doing is committing one or more of the following; fraud, possessing "false documents", deceit, defamation of character, etc. If you want to claim that you are me, that in and of itself isn't a crime. In fact I can pretend to be President Bush. Now if I procure a drivers license with president Bush's name and my face, or get a few credit cards in Mr. Bush's name, run them up and don't pay the bills, etc. I have broken any number of laws, but Mr. Bush is still the president, and I'm still just a "wanna-be" he still has his identity. So nope, nothing "stolen" here either. Try again.
4."Land value is an intangible thing. Just because I trashed my yard and consequently lowered the appraised value of yours doesn't mean I've done anything to you. You still have everything you had before." Hmmm... Thank you for making my point. The above case doesn't equate to "stealing". There are obviously other laws that have been broken, but theft isn't one of them. You stated; "...doesn't mean I've done anything to you." You are absolutely correct, you haven't. "...you still have everything you had." yes indeed I do. You have changed the market conditions, but you haven't stolen anything from me. So this is yet another example of something that is not stealing.
5."Land value is an intangible thing. Just because we regulated you out of using it for any reason doesn't mean you've lost anything. You still own the land." This one is a little trickier. While I still have the land, I have lost the right to do what I wanted with it. The land still hasn't been stolen from me though. So you have yet again failed to illustrate and example of a non-tangible being stolen. Your last example of course is one with a close analogy to what the RIAA and MPAA want to do. Namely tell you what you can or can't do with what you already own. It falls apart on a couple of points, so I'll take a moment to digress. First off, in this country, unless you are a region, you never actually "own" land. If you don't believe me, buy a plot of land and don't pay your taxes for a few years. Land is "leased" from the government. Even if you "own" it outright, you still have to pay taxes on it. Secondly, land use regulations generally deal with the effects your actions have on the long term effects to that land, or its effects on others. Since you are in fact "leasing" the land it makes sense.
So none of your examples serves as an illustration of how one may "steal" an intangible object.
You then go on to discuss the effects on the valuation of the painting of someone making a copy. First, you have forgotten the value in a work by a particular artist. There are people who will pay millions for an original painting by a famous artist, even though there are millions of high quality copies in circulation. How much did the "Mona Lisa" last sell for?
While this is obviously an undesirable effect to you, it isn't stealing. In fact, doing something that lowers the value of your work/possession in most cases is expressly legal. Here are a few examples;
You build barrels, and make good money as a cooper selling barrels to the brewery. I invent aluminum kegs and the bottom falls out of your business. Have I stolen from you?
You own the only orange tree in Florida. It's worth millions. Someone plants an orchard down the road, I guess you should take them to court for "stealing" from you.
You own the patent on betamax video recorders, Another company invents VHS, everyone buys VHS recorders, your patent is basically worthless now. I must have missed that epic court battle.
I could go on for quite a while with examples of how doing something that lowers the valuation of your possession, without stealing or even touching your possession is perfectly legal. So why would should there be a moral imperative for me to refrain from doing something that might devalue your possession? Especially if the "value" is tied to an artificial scarcity.
If you bring a tanker truck of potable water into a region that is suffering a deadly drought, should I feel morally obligated NOT to bring my own fleet of tanker trucks into the region and give away water knowing full well that I will utterly destroy the market value of the water that you were selling?
As to Enron, what they did was illegal, but it wasn't stealing. Manipulating stock prices in the manner that was done was already illegal under various laws, Insider trading, fraudulent accounting practices, etc. While this, along with most of the above examples are illegal, sometimes terrible things, none of them are stealing.
Your last bastion of hope is a retreat into a dictionary definition of stealing. A valiant attempt. Unfortunately the dictionary defines the common use of a term not the legal definition of same. Which is why most laws and legal documents are painstakingly detailed. But even there you fall short.
Your first definition doesn't specify what is taken, "...without permission or right." It is assumed that something has to be tangible to be taken in that context, like a bike or a television.
Your second definition, "to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgement." Doesn't get you there either. If I copy your painting and label it "a copy of painting X originally by artist Y I have acknowledged your work, hence I have NOT stolen anything. In legal terms that might copyright infringement. If I tried to pass it off as solely my own work then plagiary, perhaps even forgery. Still not stealing.
Then you skip to the fifteenth definition (what happened to the other 12 definitions?) "acquired at a cost far below it's real value." Now, unless I am gravely mistaken you are into the realm of colloquialisms. Such as "I got this VCR at 80% off in that going out of business sale. It was a steal." So unless everyone who shops during sales, or buys antiques at yard sales should be sent off to prison, that doesn't fit either.
So no, you have NOT established that you can in fact steal a song. Not even the dictionary can help you.
Copyright infringement may be illegal, but it is NOT stealing.
You said; "It seems to me that a better anology would be software... after all, that's what a music CD is. "
Unfortunately, the Judge in the DeCSS case, specifically said that the movie of a DVD was NOT software. That was why the interoperability sections of the DMCA didn't apply. I would guess that same line of reasoning would apply to the audio content of a CD-ROM.
Not that he's right, that's just what he said.
Personally, I don't think the audio on a CD-ROM is anymore software than the html file that this response is stored in.
Audio tracks, video tracks, text files, they are _data_ NOT software, no matter how badly Bill Gates and his ilk try to confuse the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh?
You said;
"...but if your mailbox is full of it its more likely your carelesness [sic] with your e-mail address..."
How on God's green earth can you be "careless" with an email address? Keep it secret and never tell a soul? Kinda limits the usefulness of it, now doesn't it.
I take it you don't actually work anywhere that requires you actually USE your email address do you. My email address is prominently displayed on my business card, it is listed along with the rest of my contact information as part of my email sig. and I make sure all of my clients have it to contact me. Add to that the various venders, and other sales type people we actually purchase from and there are plenty of people who have my email address. I guess you would consider that being careless.
Of course I could always change it, reprint my business cards, change my sig., and propagate my "new" email address to all of my clients and contacts. After spending large sums of time and money, guess what? I guess I'm being "careless" again. Silly me actually trying to get some USE out of my email address.
New problem same as the Old problem, or to put it another way;
"Get email address, use email address, get SPAM, rinse, lather, repeat."
Uggg......
Um, you said;
"...Last time I checked the use of air travel was a private-not public means of travel. As such it is private property and the government's job is to protect private property..."
That's not actually accurate. If you recall the topic of this article Gilmore is suing the Feds for requiring people to identify themselves, i.e. secret federal laws. Also, if you check out this site (http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n060402b.html) you will see that the ACLU is helping 5 men in lawsuits against the airlines for illegally removing them from flights;
"... The lawsuits allege that the removals constituted illegal discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "
(See also: http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n060402a.html)
In one of the legal filings related to the above (at http://www.aclu.org/court/dasrath.pdf page 3) I quote the following;
"Federal law expressly provides that an "air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person in air transportation to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or ancestry." 49 U.S.C. 40127(a)."
Which I believe makes air travel a PUBLIC not PRIVATE means of transportation. Most likely that is because of the following (taken from the Parties/Defendant section of the same document noted http://www.aclu.org/court/dasrath.pdf page 4);
"...As of May 7, 2002, Continental Airlines, Inc. had received at least $317,537,751
in federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Transportation, pursuant to sections 101 and
103 of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, P.L. 107-42."
So, your statement; "...if you don't like the way the airline industry sets the rules you don't have to fly..." is incorrect on many levels. In this case I don't believe it is an "airline rule", it's a federal government rule. Additionally, even if it was an "airline rule" they don't have the right to arbitrarily define whatever rules suit their fancy. Once they decided to go into business serving the public they lost that ability. Bus companies can't prohibit Jewish people from boarding, restaurants can't refuse to serve blacks, and stores can't refuse to sell to Wiccans.
Or perhaps you would simply say, if that Jew doesn't like the Greyhound's rules he doesn't HAVE to ride Greyhound, if that black doesn't like Denny's rules, he doesn't HAVE to eat there, and if that Wiccan doesn't like the Sacred Lamb Bible store's rules, she doesn't HAVE to shop there.
I don't think that El Al uses flawed predictive profiles. They use a simpler, more effective, and unfortunately more costly system. They treat EVERYONE as a terrorist.
They intrusively search you, perhaps multiple times, subject you to varying levels of psychological testing (NOT gee, he bought a one way ticket, wears a turban, and has a relative in the Middle East). If you are found lacking, THEN you are entered into their database as someone who failed, (barely passed?) their "screening". Then if you try to board a flight again, you can be summarily arrested, denied passage, or required to undergo an even more invasive evaluation, if that's possible.
There is a BIG difference between entering people who you KNOW are trouble, and compiling a list of people who MIGHT be trouble. Like the difference between law enforcement keeping a "rap sheet" (list of convicted crimes and arrests) and a list of everyone who bought fertilizer and a copy of the Q'ran, just in case....
(not having flown El Al personally, I can only comment on what I have read)
Well I'm glad to see that my original post spurred such lively commentary.
renehollan, I applaud your attempts to fight for "reasonable DRM" unfortunately such a beast only exists with unicorns and dragons. You mentioned that you don't own copyrighted works you license them. Um, no, you OWN them. By buying into that argument, you have already forfeited the argument. Every book, every audio CD, every VHS tape that I have bought, I own.
Ruben Safir, president of NYLXS is quoted as saying (http://www.theregus.com/content/6/25660.html),
"If someone breaks into my house and steals my CDs, who calls the cops, me or the music industry?"
Safir asked. "If it's me, then that's my property."
He's completely right. There was a case recently where Adobe tried to sue a retailer for "unbundling" the software that accompanies hardware. Adobe claimed that the software was licensed for use with that hardware only. The judge said that if it looks like a sale, smells like a sale, and feels like a sale, then it's a sale.
All copyright does is retain the following six rights for a limited time; reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution, public performance, public display, and digital transmission. Even these exclusive rights are tempered by both the first sale doctrine and the principle of fair use.
The doctrine of first sale means that once a copyright holder has sold a particular copy of the work, his say over when you do with it ends. This wasn't just something dreamed up for retailers that just happens to be beneficial to the public. It is based in common law (codified into the 1976 Copyright Act). Without it, the would be no such thing as a Free Public Library, without it, the copyright holder could require you never to read it out loud to anyone, or to only read it between the hours of one and three in the morning, while standing on your head, naked, with a carrot shoved up your arse. It means that I can legally, lend it to a friend, read it out loud to my children at bed time, scribble notes in the margin, burn it to keep warm in the winter, or tear it up and line my bird cage with it. It also means that I can open up a used book/VHS/music store and sell used versions well below the asking price for new ones. Yes, the *AA hate it, yes they'ld love to "license" everything to you. No, it's not inevitable, and it's not in the least bit helpful for anything except lining the *AA's pockets. I've recently heard that there are now e-books (of titles in the public domain of all things) that claim to be licensing the book to you. In the EULA it explicitly states that you cannot read it aloud. So much for children's bedtime stories.
The principle of fair use is the ONLY thing that reconciles copyright with the first amendment. (see: http://www.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.html) Without "fair use" copyright would be rendered unconstitutional by the first amendment. There are even some scholars that claim federal copyright IS unconstitutional, although a state copyright wouldn't suffer from that problem, but I digress. You are correct when you state that;
"However, there has never been an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate the exercise of any fair use."
but you loose it when you go on to state;
"I'm merely arguing that, with technically unbreakable DRM, there should be an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate as much fair use as possible."
The problem isn't "....technically unbreakable DRM" the problem is making it illegal to try and break DRM, and then making it illegal to NOT buy DRM encumbered items.
It's not illegal for someone to listen in to your conversations when you converse in public. Conversely, it is not a requirement that you are legally bound to make eavesdropping as convenient as possible, say by speaking in a loud clear voice in a language that the eavesdropper understands. It is not illegal for the cops to raid your house and seize your computer with a properly executed search warrant, but the fifth amendment ensures that you don't have to make sure all of your data is in unencrypted ASCII, in the language of the local constabulary, in files clearly named with descriptive titles to facilitate searching. Do you see where I am going with this?
So long as *AA plays within the bounds of copyright and first sale, they are welcome to try whatever "pay per view" DRM type schemes their black hearts desire. I don't have a problem with it. The problem, which first caused major headaches with the DMCA is when they enlist the law to prop up these schemes. I should be allowed to do what ever I want, short of harm someone else, or their possessions, with whatever I own. Soldering a couple of wires in my VCR, or reprogramming my CD player should be my business. If I can figure out a way to decode satellite broadcasts, there shouldn't be a law against it. They are indiscriminately beaming television into my house and through my body. If I am bright enough to figure out a way to see it, good for me. If their business model doesn't work, then they should change their business model. That of course started us down this whole "broadcast flag" fiasco, but I'm digressing again.
DMCA makes tools, ideas, knowledge, illegal because it impinges on some company's business plan. That is just wrong. If someone is breaking the law, then take them to court. To do otherwise out of expediency moves us from a democracy (where you are innocent until proven guilty) to a totalitarian autocracy (where you are guilty, we just can't prove it, YET) Photocopiers aren't illegal, VCR's aren't illegal, heck I am willing to bet that more people have been killed with baseball bats than Linux boxes running DVD software, but they are still legal. The 2600 case had a judge declare that the DMCA makes it irrelevant how many non-infringing uses a technology has, one infringing use is enough to have that item declared illegal. This leads us to the silly proposition of having to take Pilot, Sharp, and Crayola et. all. to court for manufacturing and distributing a technology used to circumvent a copy protection device. (markers used in coloring in the edges of CD-ROM's to defeat copy protected discs).
*AA doesn't want to work in the realm of copyright and first sale, the market has shown time and time again that where there is a choice, people will take unencumbered over crippled every day. Look at the failed DivX fiasco. The content producers produced and sold a DRM encumbered product. It suffered from many of the flaws that the current crop of DRM does. You can't buy product, only license it. you can't play it on any device except for the one you've licensed it to, and even if you have "bought" the key to play it an unlimited number of times, you can't play it in your neighbors player, and if that player dies, you are out of luck, all of your "keys" go with it. What happened? Very few people bought it. Too many restrictions, they bought lower quality VHS tapes, or unencumbered (relatively speaking) DVD's. How about SDMI? Another attempt that was stillborn. No one wanted to make a product that would cost more and be less useful. Especially if the next guy was selling unencumbered players. The success of the Rio meant that SDMI devices wouldn't fly.
Hence the DMCA and the CBDTPA. If the DRM dreams of the *AA's have any hope of succeeding they have to first make it illegal to work around it. That goes back to your statement about requiring "...copyright holders to facilitate as much fair use as possible." They don't, they just shouldn't make it illegal for people to break through any DRM schemes they come up with in order to facilitate fair use. If they think that I am infringing on their copyright, they can take me to court. Let a judge decide if cracking the DVD encryption scheme in order to watch the legally acquired copy of the Matrix DVD on my Linux player is fair use. Don't make the tools I use to modify my own computer, in my own house illegal. Once you do that, what's to stop them from making it illegal to watch the Matrix in my bedroom, or between the hours of six a.m. and nine a.m. Sunday mornings?
Eventually, the *AA's will have to live with the fact that they cannot control every use of everything that they hold a copyright on. Software houses learned that lesson, I hope, years ago. Remember when every computer program came with all sorts of wacko copy protection schemes? Like randomly typing in words from the manual (please enter the fifth word, in the fourth paragraph, on page ninety-two to continue), it was more of a pain to the paying customers than a hindrance to the copyright infringer. If they succeed in locking up broadcast television, then no one is going to move to HDTV. Why pay 100x the cost to watch television, when you can't even tape your soaps while you are at work, or tape that kids program so that you can play it for your five year old, when she is sick and awake at two o'clock in the morning? If DRM that is illegal to bypass for any reason comes to pass, say goodbye to the Library, the used whatever store, your personal collection. Say goodbye to the first amendment, to innovation, to spirited discourse.
Copyright has basically been extended to infinity minus a day. Every time something from Disney or Sony is bout to enter the public domain, the copyright term gets extended. It's a mockery of the phase "for a limited time" in the Constitution that provides for copyright. Copyright is about compensating artists and authors to create, so that the public domain is enriched. The goal is to provide the most material to the public, that they can do with as they wish. That they can create tomorrow's great works on the backs of today's. It was never meant to be a state mandated license to print money. If we extend the copyright of Mickey Mouse to 2,000 years Walt Disney is still not going to create another work. The really sad part is that allot of Disney's works are derivative of works in the public domain. Isn't it ironic that they are trying so hard to keep their works out of the public domain, to keep the next Disney from basing something even greater on that?
Isn't it sad, that our Congressmen are letting them, and that you are defending their right to steal our culture from us?
Why on God's green earth should we be forced to live with "reduced resolution" for "fair-use"?
We should have fair-use access to whatever we purchased in whatever resolution we have purchased it in. If I buy a HDTV quality version of something, why should I be forced to try and use an analog VHS quality version to do my research?
When I purchase a book, my photocopier isn't limited to 75% scale, slightly fuzzy copies. I can space/time/resample my audio CD-ROM collection in all of its full digital glory, I'm not limited to 128bit mpg quality, or analog cassette quality. So, once again I ask, why should I be forced to deal with this stupidity;
"... you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals..."
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful. If you buy that argument, then VCR's CDR's, and photocopiers should be illegal. You can always take notes when you are watching that television show or movie, perhaps make a few sketches, like those courtroom sketches you always see, if you need to comment or parody. You want to space shift that song, memorize it and sing it to yourself in the car, surely you don't have fair use rights to the music that you own (at least not in the format that you have purchased it in), no one is stopping you from humming in the shower, in the yard, or even to your children at night. As for photocopiers, they only exist to help people infringe copyrights. If you need to make a copy you can just copy it yourself, by hand. If you aren't up to the task, I hear that large groups of men, I think they were called monks, used to copy and illuminate (that means copy the pictures too) books and maps in special buildings, monasteries right?
If you want to make "fair-use" of a book, then obviously you wouldn't mind laboriously copying it by hand, right?
Ugh...........
Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong, but couldn't Flash ROM be there to support GPRS?
l ?sub_nav_section=FAQs&prod_cat_name=Treo#general5)
from their website (http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/faq.jhtm
"Q. Will your product be upgradeable to GPRS?
A. Yes. In the second half of the year, Handspring plans to offer a software upgrade that enables Treo to work on GPRS networks. The upgrade will be available from Handspring's web site. The current hardware in Treo is GPRS-ready."
If I was in charge of my company's networking I'ld be keeping an eye out for interesting chalk marks around my building....
You said;
"There are at least three people downloading a popular song from me before I can even look at the damn thing..."
The solution, set your download directory to be a different one than your shared directories. After you check out the file(s) you've downloaded, then move them to your shared directory.
In fact that is just good practice in general. It helps cut down on the people sharing partially downloaded files.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Um... you said;
"It's redhat w/o NO services running."
So is it redhat WITH services running? (In which case how's that different than RedHat?)
or did you mean;
It's redhat with NO services running?
Got to watch those double negatives...
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Hmmm, where should I start?
m l) ..."
m mercial-law/2001-November/000364.html )
s wbook/#copyright Softman Products v. Adobe Systems 171 F.Supp.2d 1075 (C.D. Cal.2001)]
You said;
"No. You are not transferring ownership of the disc. You are handing the disc to someone with the expectation that they are going to return it at some (near term) later date."
From (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/tutorial/basics2a.ht
"The First Sale Doctrine
A distinction not always recognized is that ownership of the physical item, such as a book or a CD, is not the same as owning the copyright to the work embodied in that item. Under the first sale doctrine, ownership of a physical copy of a copyrighted work, like a book, permits lending the item, reselling the item, disposing of the item, burning the item, and so forth, but it does not permit copying the item in its entirety. That is because the transfer of the physical copy does not include transfer of the copyright to the work. A transfer or assignment of copyright must be signed and in writing to be valid
or from (http://www.idsa.com/firstsaleopposition.html)
"What is the "First Sale" Doctrine?
The "First Sale" doctrine is a key element of the legal framework to encourage dissemination of copyrighted works. As now codified in the Copyright Act, the doctrine allows the owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner. This provision enables, for example, wholesalers to sell copies to retailers, libraries to lend copies to patrons, and individuals who have lawfully acquired copies of works to give them to friends or family. The doctrine states (with some exceptions) that the copyright owner's exclusive distribution right no longer applies to a particular copy once it has been sold the first time. "
or even from (http://www.ala.org/oitp/copyr/firstsale.html)
"First Sale is a historic user protection in copyright law. The doctrine basically says that purchasers of tangible products containing copyrighted information, such as books or music CDs, may dispose of those works in any way they wish. They may sell them, give them away, loan, or rent them, for example. Libraries, which regularly purchase works and loan them to users, are clearly very dependent on First Sale."
etc., etc., ad nauseum....
You said;
"Libraries and rental stores are explicit exceptions. Libraries don't make a profit lending things nor are they likely to have new, "exclusive" content... "
Are you saying that I make a profit lending my CD-ROMs to my friends and family? Or perhaps you meant that I somehow manage to get my hands on EXCLUSIVE content? The only library exemptions are exemptions on the prohibition of copying. Lending isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by "First Sale".
You also said;
"...See, you may own the actual physical metal and plastic disc, but you do not own the data it contains. The industry believes you don't own anything at all. They've leased the disc and contents to you and they have the right to terminate that lease at will."
The copyright holders may want you to believe that you have leased the data, but copyright and especially "first sale" applies anytime you purchase a copyrighted work fixed in a tangible medium. The sale/lease/rental of intangible works is still a bit of a gray area, but if they sell you the book, CD-ROM, DVD, you have a couple of centuries of law to stand on.
In fact, according to Judge Dean Pregerson ( http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/hague-jur-co
"The judge, in the case Adobe vs. Softman heard in the Central District of California, has ruled that consumers can resell bundled software, no matter what the EULA, or End User License Agreement, stipulates. Specifically, the ruling decrees that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, consumers should have the same rights they'd enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book. They can't make copies, but they can resell what they own."
[also at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/bclt/pubs/
So actually, (at least in the 9th circuit) I do own the data it contains. Admittedly, this case was about software, not CD-ROMs or DVDs, but I draw your attention to the last portion of the statement;
"...consumers should have the same rights they'd enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book. They can't make copies, but they can resell what they own."
It illustrates that this judge at least, and I would suspect most judges, view music CD-ROMs as having the same protections as books have enjoyed all of these years, no matter how badly the publisher may wish it otherwise. That includes all of the privileges under "Fair Use" and the "First Sale Doctrine".
I think that illustrates that my initial statement that "First Sale", not copyright governs the lending of the original legally obtained copy of an audio CD-ROM, or DVD. Furthermore lending your CD-ROM to your friends/family/perfect stranger is perfectly legal.
As always, IANAL so consult with your local barrister/judge if you want legal advice.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Wouldn't "lending the original CD-ROM" be covered by the "first sale doctrine"?
Since you aren't making a copy of the CD-ROM, if you lend it to your friend, copyright law has absolutely no bearing on it.
If I want to resell, lend, use for target practice, a CD-ROM that I have legally purchased, it's none of the record companies business.
If it was, used records stores and libraries would have been out of business years ago.
IANAL, so your mileage may vary....
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Since the ITAR (or is it the commerce department now) regs changed so that people didn't have to scan in the source code to PGP overseas there hasn't been an "i" version. PGP Freeware is available globally as PGP 6.5.3, PGP 6.5.8, PGP 7.0.3. (http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freewar e/win2k/)
Since NAI stopped publishing the complete source code for the latest versions, and then Phil left, I'm not sure how far I would trust the later versions.
Now I'm not saying that he wasn't distributing the non-free versions, but just because someone is posting a late non-"i" version doesn't necessarily mean that it's not the free version.
Um... "Pirates" are/were people whole took over ships, usually at gun point. They stole property, and endangered lives.
What we are actually talking about are people who "infringe copyright". Usually no one is endangered, and in most cases nothing is even stolen.
The whole system of copyright is broken. It only benefits large corps. The whole point of copyright was to enrich the public domain. Nothing has gone into the public domain for decades.
"Fair-use" is the pressure release value that lets copyright coexist with the "First Amendment". By effectively eliminating fair-use they have put copyright at odds with the first amendment.
Unfortunately, if they succeed in making all nonfinancially compensated use of all works illegal, they are just going to make most of the population criminals.
We just have to look back to prohibition to see how well THAT works.
So, please, don't continue to confuse the issue by using loaded words like "pirates" to describe "copyright infringement".
Thank you.
Actually it is well established that "Fair Use" explicitly includes the right to make a backup of copyrighted works that you legally own. In fact I believe that the digital audio recording law (it's exact name escapes me at the moment) required that at least 1 exact digital copy be allowed to be made.
The DMCA doesn't say that you can't make that perfect backup copy, it just says you can't get around whatever technical problem the copyright holder thows in your way to prevent you from actually exercising that right.
I think what they are doing is trying to get a declaratve judgement. The law allows you do get a judgement saying that what you are doing is legal so that others can't hold the threat of a lawsuit over your head.
It was the same thing that Dr. Felton tried to get after the RIAA threated him with a law suit for publishing his paper on the flaws in the SDMI protection schemes.
Question, did you actually READ my response?
.kid TLD? Not many, and those that do would get sued. ..."
..."
.kid TLD and forcing web sites into a "red-light" .xxx TLD. Perhaps you should reread my initial response.
.kid TLD.
.xxx TLD and hoping that their children don't come across a "pirate" (in the radio sense) web site.
.kid TLD where youngsters could play would be a nice addition, like having a children's room in the library, or a children's museum, but it isn't necessary.
I didn't suggest doing nothing instead of instituting a "red-light" district. I suggested making an explicit "child-safe" TLD. As you have stated;
"...How many adult site operators do you know would actually try for the
That is a much better approach than trying to force every web page creator on the planet to submit to some illusive binding arbitration.
Just stop and think about what you are saying. Anyone on the planet (or at least in the US) who wants to create a web site has to first create it, then submit a copy of it to the classification committee, depending on the board's ruling apply for a domain name, hope one's available, post their web site, propose a change to a page of the web site, resubmit that change to the committee, if the change requires a new classification, either apply for a new TLD for that page, or perhaps for the whole site (can't link from one TLD to another). Make another change, rinse lather repeat... Watch the whole creative/dynamic/democratic entity that is the internet cease to exist. These aren't novels or motion pictures we're talking about, but web sites.
You said;
"... We already have legislation that makes it illegal to provide pornography to minors. Apply the same legal standard...."
Talk to congress, the Supreme Court (in the USA) has already stated several times (CDA, COPA, soon CIPA) that you CANNOT apply the current legal standard of what is or isn't pornography, nor what is or isn't harmful to minors to internet content. The classic Miller test is wholly unsuited to the internet because there are NO local community standards that can be applied to the whole internet. What is harmful to minors in Tennessee might be considered down right tame in New York City. What is pornographic in Iran might not even raise an eyebrow in Las Vegas, let alone Denmark. There is NO existing standard, that the all of the US, never mind the planet can agree on. Any attempt to forcibly categorize content based on subjective opinion involves censorship. As the saying goes, "I don't know art, but I know what I like."
You said, "...Do you really think anything less than 90% of internet sites wouldn't fall in rank and file(assuming advertising and customerbase follows)?
Yep, it has already been proposed that web sites rate themselves, remember RSACi? That was the attempt to have sites rate themselves based on content. Adult, violence, nudity, etc. How many sites follow it? According to your logic that number should be 90% plus. I think you'll find that the actual number is far far less. In fact most news organizations (CNN, TIME, NBC, New York Times, etc.) at one point publicly stated that they WOULD NOT under any circumstance rate their web sites. Why? Because it opens the door to arbitrary censorship. If most web sites won't even put a simple RSACi rating tag on their site, what makes you think that all of the sudden they want to play musical TLDs?
I think you have missed the difference between providing a "child-safe"
The former involves only those sites that want to be considered "child-safe". The rest of the planet doesn't have to do anything different than it does today. No musical TLDs, no arbitrary committee regulating every web page on the planet, no censorship. Parents can easily restrict their children to the
The latter involves randomly changing TLDs, the www portion of the internet reduced to a static set of sanitized pages, rampant arbitrary censorship based on some committee's idea of what is wholesome. People actively working to subvert the process (creating a page without committee review). Parents blocking the
I am a parent and this issue isn't frustrating at all. I find SPAM much more problematic. Reprogram the major browsers to prevent mouse-trapping, auto-pop up/under windows, and server side UI changes would solve most of the current problems with surfing. Add simple blocking and most importantly supervision and your just about there. A
Like the Supreme Court said to the government at the end of the CDA trial (and I'm paraphrasing, badly) "In your attempt to make the Internet safe for children, you cannot reduce the discourse to that suitable for the sandbox." or to say it another way
"You can't prevent everyone on the planet from swearing, but you can keep them from swearing in YOUR house."
I think that YOU are missing the point.
.xxx, .p0rn, .prn, .bad ideas have is WHO gets to decide what web pages should be regulated to an adult TLD and which do not. Don't kid yourself in thinking that people would WANT to move into the internet equivalent of the Warsaw Getto.
.xxx? If that's the case then I guess that's where most of the museums will end up?
.xxx.
.xxx TLD IS government regulation. Did the fact that a US Senator is proposing legislation somehow slip past?
.kid TLD. Only allow web sites that are "kid-safe" (whatever that means) to have domains in the .kid TLD. Monitor it, and if they have pages that violate the rules governing the .kid TLD drop them. The difference being that if you WANT to advertise a "kid-safe" web site, you can (i.e. disney.kid, nickalodian.kid, pbs.kid) The rest of the planet doesn't have to deal with it. Otherwise you end up with the untenable position of CNN having to put some of it's pages in CNN.com and some in CNN.xxx depending on what story they are running.
.xxx TLD, a self appointed group of people get to decide what ideas are wholesome and which are naughty. They get to force people whose ideas they don't agree with into an easily segregated area of the net, and can readily identify and stigmatize members of the adult population that choose to be exposed to unwholesome ideas.
.kid TLD, individual web site owners get to decide if they want to abide by a set or rules that enable them to obtain a .kid TLD. Concerned parents can use the .kid TLD to more easily filter their children's (or their own) access to the web and limit it to the equivalent of the "children's room" in the library. The rest of the adult population doesn't have to DO anything, and there is no stigma attached to visiting the .kid domain.
The problem that ALL
Do pages that feature nudity belong in
What about sites that talk about sex? Ok, then so your family planning and medical sites are now located under
Hate, drugs, non-Protestant religions? How about feminists? Commies? Bonsai-kitty?
What if my site is non-xxx material today, I put up a picture on the front page of two people having sex tomorrow, and take it down the next day? Does my site go from my-site.com to my-site.xxx to my-site.com? If so who does it?
While the idea of legislating a "red-light district" sounds all well and good in practice, it doesn't work. The only thing it does is make it easier to marginalize certain ideas. Just because you don't like looking at pictures of naked people doesn't make it evil. Just because I don't worship your Judeo-Christian God doesn't make me evil. Just because you think that the King James version of the Bible is the literal word of God doesn't make you good.
You said;
"... Otherwise your 3rd & 4th choices are self regulation(yeah what bullshit) and flat out having the government do all of the classification(suck ass)..."
What you are forgetting is that mandating a
The only truly effective way is to (gasp) take responsibility for what you view and what you allow your children to view. I don't let my children watch XXX rated movies, or even R or PG-13 movies if I haven't watched them first. I don't let them surf the web in the privacy of their bedrooms, or at all when they are very young, and I pay attention to what they are watching on TV or read.
If you must have a "kid-safe" portion of the web, a more sensible approach would be to establish a
Of course if you do that you loose the power to decide which ideas are "good" and which are "bad". There is a much larger stigmatism attached to establishing an "adult" "naughty" area of the net than there is in establishing a "children's" area.
With a
With a
So... I guess it all boils down to the question of, Do you REALLY want to carve out a kid-friendly place on the internet (.kid), or exile any web pages/ideas that you find unwholesome to an internet getto? (.xxx)
Someone once said that it is much easier to wear shoes, than to try and make the entire world safe to walk barefoot.
First off, the argument is about telco's capping supposedly "flat rate" unlimited access because P2P apps use one heck of a lot of bandwidth.
Secondly, ISP's are trying to claim the mantle of "Common Carriers" (at least in the US) and the legal shield that provides.
What a person does with the "bits" they've bought is completely irrelevant to the ISP, or it should be. Your moral pronouncement about the legality of trading files does not add to the discussion.
The problem is that ISP's don't want to be seen as the electric company of the twenty-first century. If this were any other utility it would be perfectly clear that your announcement is ridiculous. Here a parallel to help you;
Telephone company: Most telephone companies in the US offer flat rate local calling plans. They aren't allowed to limit your use of the phone, You can call whoever you want to for as long as you want to.
Does it matter if you are a terrorist communicating with your local cell and planning to blow up the post office? Nope.
How about planning that lynching for next week? Nope.
I know, surely the phone company should block harassing calls to the local abortion clinic? Nope. That's not their responsibility. You can call whomever you like, the legality or not, of what you are talking about isn't any of the phone companies business.
Can the telephone company limit you online time because you have a teenager that spends every minute when she's not in school tying the phone line? Nope.
I know, when people are using dialup internet access they started tying up circuits for hours on end. Could the telephone company charge them more because they were actually using the unlimited flat rate plan they had bought? Nope, though some tried.
I know, the telephone company could block calls to ISP modem pools, after all, calls to ISP's were using one heck of a lot of bandwidth compared to people who didn't call ISP's. Perhaps, the should simply disconnect you if you are tying up your phone line for more than two hours at a time. Everyone knows that this new fangled internet thing is used mainly for trading illegal files and breaking into company's computers.
I mean really, what can you do with the internet that you couldn't already do without it, and more importantly without being a telephone hog? The telephone company bases it profits on oversubscribing, they plan on most people only using the phone for a couple of hours a day, if you are using more than that they should start disconnecting you, or blocking what numbers you can call.
Sounds silly, no?
Then why is it ok when your ISP does it?
Of course an Internet search would be sent over the internet, duh....
The question is, why if I search with Google, or Yahoo, is Microsoft getting a record of who I am and what I'm searching for?
(And for those of you out there that think all microsoft is doing is dling files when you do a LOCAL search, isn't that what WEB BUGS in html email do????)
Just because it there isn't legislation now, doesn't mean their won't be.
Pre 1997 No Electronic Theft Act there was no law saying that you couldn't copy that audio tape and give copies to all of your classmates. There was no law that said you couldn't trade VHS copies of the simpsons with 10,000 of your closest friends.
Pre 1998 DMCA there was no law that banned unlicensed DVD players, or prevented you from playing CD-ROM's on whatever sort of player you could get it to run on. There was no law that said you had to read a file on a particular machine.
Pre 2002(3?) Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) there was no law that prevented you from running an open source operating system, digitizing your garage band, making digital movies of the kids.
The RIAA and the MPAA have successfully, so far, managed to ban quite a bit of things that we used to take for granted, because they claimed it cost them potential profits. Now publishers/authors are claiming that the sale of used books is costing them potential profits. Just because they haven't suggested making that illegal YET, doesn't mean they can't, or won't at least try.
Diamond, IBM, Philips, Sun, RedHat, (and dozens of other technology companies) stand to loose a ridiculous amount of potential profit if Sen. Hollings gets his way. That didn't seem to stop the CBDTPA from being introduced.
Just because there isn't legislation banning the resale of books NOW, doesn't mean that there won't be.
It would be nice if we could stop that before it happens, rather than try to fight yet another silly, rights depriving, only on the books to enrich some group of companies, law.
I think I wasn't very clear. When I said;
"I think with the NET law you can't make copies and give them away either"
I wasn't talking about NET as in the Internet, I meant "The No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997".
Here's a quote from a page on cryptome ( http://cryptome.org/bauchner.htm );
"The legislation highlights the concerns of businesses who fear the dissolution of their market model. Prior to the Act, individuals who did not profit from copyright infringement were not subject to criminal sanctions. The NET Act, criminalizes the willful distribution of at least $1000 worth of copyrighted material in any 180 day period."
You should probably read the entire page. It's a little dry, but very enlightening.
Infringing copyright had to be done for commercial gain. If you gave it away, you were legal. If you were a company and gave it away to boost sales of another product, that was for commercial gain, and you were illegal.
People ripping CD-ROMs and trading them on Napster were legal before the NET act. After all it wasn't done for comercial gain (except perhaps Napster's).
Sorry for my lack of clarity.
Really?
When's the last time you resold Microsoft Office? How about Autodesk's AutoCad? Adobe PhotoShop?
How long does an auction of software on eBay last?
I always thought that when I bought a box containing a manual and a CD-ROM I was free to resell it when I didn't want/need it anymore. Most EULA's expressly forbid that.
What about Adobe's e-books? Can I resell THAT book? What, it's cryptographically tied to my machine? If I try to make it so I CAN resell it, will I end up like that poor Russian programmer?
When it becomes as easy to copy books as it is with software or music, don't you think someone will want to ban its resale?
I mean who would have thought that figuring out how to play your Celine Dion CD-ROM on your computer's CD-ROM drive, or that shiny new DVD of the Matrix on your GNU/Linux box would be illegal?
All ready established law has a disturbing way of changing when large sums of money are involved....
Last I knew in the U.S. (unless there's yet another sneaky law just around the corner) we have something called the "First sale doctrine" it basically boils down to the copyright holder looses the right to say what you can do with a work, (book, CD-ROM, VHS tape, etc.) once they have sold it to you. You can lend it, sell it, give it away, burn it, wallpaper your bathroom, or wipe your bottom with it. The only thing you can't do is make copies and sell them (I think with the NET law you can't make copies and give them away either).
So a library just has to buy a book like anyone else and they have the right to loan it out as often as the like. No additional charge levied or required. Sometimes a publisher will produce a "library edition" which has a better binding for libraries, and probably cost more.
That's one of the reasons that e-book publishers are so upset over libraries. They want to license the title, not sell it.
We've bought into that silliness with software and now they want to push that lucrative, rights withering model to everything else. Licensed music, movies, books. Seems like a real convenient way to get around silly little things like the "First Sale Doctrine" and "Fair Use".
The problem is that unlike software, or even movies, books have been around near forever and people (especially libraries) have gotten used to actually BUYING books.
Unlike the disorganized groups of people fighting EULA's and the MPAA/RIAA, libraries are pretty well organized.
They have the added PR benefit of being real hard to miscatagorize as "evil, thieving, hacker pirates, hell bent on bringing down the American way".
Tsk, Tsk, Tsk....
If you are going to defend yourself, at least try and stick to defending what you said....
Your original position was that a person could "steal" intellectual property, I countered with examples illustrating that based on the common understanding (perhaps even the legal one) of stealing, that it was impossible to "steal" a piece of intellectual property. Now, I'm not saying that you couldn't violate a patent, nor infringe on a copyright, but that isn't the same as stealing. On to your counter examples....
1."Virginity is not a tangible thing. When I raped that little boy I didn't take anything from him. He's still got everything he had before I touched him."
You are right, he still has everything that he has before, except perhaps his piece of mind. But you are illustrating "rape" not theft. No points here.
2."Since the bruises I gave her healed, my girlfriend is in exactly the same condition she was in before I hit her. Consequently, no damage was done."
Actually damage was done, non-permanent damage being a temporal thing. That's defined as "battery" (For the lay people out there, assault is when you threaten to hurt someone, battery is when you actually do.) Note, beating up your girlfriend is not stealing. You haven't stolen anything. A closer analogy might have been vandalism. Still no help trying to cast something intangible as being stolen.
3."Identity is an intangible thing. Just because I used your name, and your social security number, doesn't mean you've lost anything. You still have them both."
Here you might succeed in confusing a few people, since this is commonly referred to as "identity-theft". I would propose that this is the same sort of mistake people like yourself make when they claim that copying a song is theft. It isn't. You can't "steal" someone's identity anymore than you can steal an idea. What you are doing is committing one or more of the following; fraud, possessing "false documents", deceit, defamation of character, etc. If you want to claim that you are me, that in and of itself isn't a crime. In fact I can pretend to be President Bush. Now if I procure a drivers license with president Bush's name and my face, or get a few credit cards in Mr. Bush's name, run them up and don't pay the bills, etc. I have broken any number of laws, but Mr. Bush is still the president, and I'm still just a "wanna-be" he still has his identity. So nope, nothing "stolen" here either. Try again.
4."Land value is an intangible thing. Just because I trashed my yard and consequently lowered the appraised value of yours doesn't mean I've done anything to you. You still have everything you had before."
Hmmm... Thank you for making my point. The above case doesn't equate to "stealing". There are obviously other laws that have been broken, but theft isn't one of them. You stated; "...doesn't mean I've done anything to you." You are absolutely correct, you haven't. "...you still have everything you had." yes indeed I do. You have changed the market conditions, but you haven't stolen anything from me. So this is yet another example of something that is not stealing.
5."Land value is an intangible thing. Just because we regulated you out of using it for any reason doesn't mean you've lost anything. You still own the land."
This one is a little trickier. While I still have the land, I have lost the right to do what I wanted with it. The land still hasn't been stolen from me though. So you have yet again failed to illustrate and example of a non-tangible being stolen. Your last example of course is one with a close analogy to what the RIAA and MPAA want to do. Namely tell you what you can or can't do with what you already own. It falls apart on a couple of points, so I'll take a moment to digress.
First off, in this country, unless you are a region, you never actually "own" land. If you don't believe me, buy a plot of land and don't pay your taxes for a few years. Land is "leased" from the government. Even if you "own" it outright, you still have to pay taxes on it. Secondly, land use regulations generally deal with the effects your actions have on the long term effects to that land, or its effects on others. Since you are in fact "leasing" the land it makes sense.
So none of your examples serves as an illustration of how one may "steal" an intangible object.
You then go on to discuss the effects on the valuation of the painting of someone making a copy. First, you have forgotten the value in a work by a particular artist. There are people who will pay millions for an original painting by a famous artist, even though there are millions of high quality copies in circulation. How much did the "Mona Lisa" last sell for?
While this is obviously an undesirable effect to you, it isn't stealing. In fact, doing something that lowers the value of your work/possession in most cases is expressly legal. Here are a few examples;
You build barrels, and make good money as a cooper selling barrels to the brewery. I invent aluminum kegs and the bottom falls out of your business. Have I stolen from you?
You own the only orange tree in Florida. It's worth millions. Someone plants an orchard down the road, I guess you should take them to court for "stealing" from you.
You own the patent on betamax video recorders, Another company invents VHS, everyone buys VHS recorders, your patent is basically worthless now. I must have missed that epic court battle.
I could go on for quite a while with examples of how doing something that lowers the valuation of your possession, without stealing or even touching your possession is perfectly legal. So why would should there be a moral imperative for me to refrain from doing something that might devalue your possession? Especially if the "value" is tied to an artificial scarcity.
If you bring a tanker truck of potable water into a region that is suffering a deadly drought, should I feel morally obligated NOT to bring my own fleet of tanker trucks into the region and give away water knowing full well that I will utterly destroy the market value of the water that you were selling?
As to Enron, what they did was illegal, but it wasn't stealing. Manipulating stock prices in the manner that was done was already illegal under various laws, Insider trading, fraudulent accounting practices, etc. While this, along with most of the above examples are illegal, sometimes terrible things, none of them are stealing.
Your last bastion of hope is a retreat into a dictionary definition of stealing. A valiant attempt. Unfortunately the dictionary defines the common use of a term not the legal definition of same. Which is why most laws and legal documents are painstakingly detailed. But even there you fall short.
Your first definition doesn't specify what is taken, "...without permission or right." It is assumed that something has to be tangible to be taken in that context, like a bike or a television.
Your second definition, "to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgement." Doesn't get you there either. If I copy your painting and label it "a copy of painting X originally by artist Y I have acknowledged your work, hence I have NOT stolen anything. In legal terms that might copyright infringement. If I tried to pass it off as solely my own work then plagiary, perhaps even forgery. Still not stealing.
Then you skip to the fifteenth definition (what happened to the other 12 definitions?) "acquired at a cost far below it's real value." Now, unless I am gravely mistaken you are into the realm of colloquialisms. Such as "I got this VCR at 80% off in that going out of business sale. It was a steal." So unless everyone who shops during sales, or buys antiques at yard sales should be sent off to prison, that doesn't fit either.
So no, you have NOT established that you can in fact steal a song. Not even the dictionary can help you.
Copyright infringement may be illegal, but it is NOT stealing.
You said; "It seems to me that a better anology would be software... after all, that's what a music CD is. "
Unfortunately, the Judge in the DeCSS case, specifically said that the movie of a DVD was NOT software. That was why the interoperability sections of the DMCA didn't apply. I would guess that same line of reasoning would apply to the audio content of a CD-ROM.
Not that he's right, that's just what he said.
Personally, I don't think the audio on a CD-ROM is anymore software than the html file that this response is stored in.
Audio tracks, video tracks, text files, they are _data_ NOT software, no matter how badly Bill Gates and his ilk try to confuse the issue.