It's really simple. Post things that the moderators like. Every time you get moderated up, you get a karma point. Conversely, if you are flaming or trolling, expect to *lose* karma.
Note: what the moderators like is interesting and/or insightful information. It takes a while though -- I've been on Slashdot for a year and a half, posting (on average) once a week and my karma is only 28. (That means that 1 out of every 3 of my posts has been moderated up by one point, but the other 2 have not.) On the other hand, I have *never* been moderated down.
What is important is to NOT worry about karma -- just jump in when you have something meaningful to say. Let karma take care of itself.
The government of the United States may be an employer, but it is a public employer, not a private one. Thus, I can't see any reason why it shouldn't have to obey the Constitution, especially the fourth Amendment.
Courts have previously held that the government has to take into account the fact that it is bound by the Constitution.
And why shouldn't a private employer be held to the Constitution also? They are located in America; shouldn't they have to play by the same rules as everybody else? Something is really wrong here.
My Answering Machine: "Hello?" (pause) Telemarketer: (Thinking he's got a live one): Is Mr. ***** there? MAP: Uh, he's not here right now. Just leave a message after the beep. (Beep) T: WTF???
And it really works. My roommate's mother once called up and got this, and later claimed to have *actually had a conversation with me*. [ROFL!]
A law should be passed that requires anyone sending unsolicited bulk email to pay postage to the U.S. Government. The government gets an Internet tax. The spammer gets to send mail.
Ooo! I like this! The only thing that bothers me is that the courts will probably find that it violates the first ("Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech...") and fourteenth ("...equal protection of the laws...") Amendments to the Constitution.
Besides, knowing Congress, they'd probably want to tax ALL email. (They'll say "It's only fair...")
And if your[sic] wise, you will put your biases and prejedices[sic] aside and use the best tool for the given application!
Precisely. That's why I use *nix -- winbloze has neither grep nor cron.
Re:What about the writer? Cure worse than disease?
on
RMS On eBooks
·
· Score: 2
However, through a tax on internet usage, compensate the writers according to the number of times their work is downloaded or the number of times users "click here to acknowledge the value of this work." The latter click costs the user nothing, but helps the writer's tally. This plan maximizes the free flow of information *and* protects the writer.
I have two things to say:
First, advocating a tax is a Bad Thing. A tax needs someone to administer it -- a bureaucrat -- and Weber pointed out (back in the 1800's) that bureaucracies tend to increase at a rate (of approx. 5.4% per annum) independently of the task they are doing. Taxes themselves also have a funny way of increasing [when the first American income tax was imposed in 1913, it was a 1% tax on the wealthiest 1% of the population -- look at it now.] And don't forget that *every* tax has the armed power of the state behind it.
On the other hand, I have to say that I detect the germ of a good idea in here somewhere. Some kind of "acknowledgement of the value of this work" seems to be a reasonable thing, and compensating writers according to users' judgements also seems reasonable. The only question is: where does the money come from? A user fee? (but then you might as well have the users pay the writer what they beleive his writing is worth -- a variable price instead of a fixed price, as is now the case. You run headlong into the free rider problem that way, though [people who would read, enjoy -- and pay nothing].)
Hmmm -- let me think about this some more...
Not *no* middle-men -- NEW middle-men
on
RMS On eBooks
·
· Score: 2
The fact of the matter is that the prime economic of the internet is the elimination of middle-men.
Remarkable assertion there -- and completely wrong. You've never studied economics, have you?
Just as parasites in an ecology lead, counter-intuitively, to a more diverse and healthy ecosystem, so do middle-men lead to a more healthy and diverse economy. By taking on some of the selling risk, they provide a market for the original sellers. By providing a service for the end buyer, they make their money (although, granted, at some extra cost to the buyer).
Ideally, *it seems*, it would be easier (and cheaper) for the customer to buy their stuff directly from the original seller. But the seller doesn't think so. By selling the product through a number of middle-men, the seller loses the extra costs of dealing directly with customers *and* increases the sales. In fact, the *cost* of serving the customer one-on-one may be more than the profit [per customer] the original seller would make.
On one hand the customer loses. He can't buy the product at the original (lower) price that the middle-man gets. (Of course, the middle-man has to buy a large amount of the product to get that price, whereas the customer would only buy one or two.)
On the other hand the customer gains. If a middle-man stocks a variety of goods (from different retailers), the customer gains both variety and saves time doing it. [For example, look at a grocery store.]
Let's look at two real-world cases.
First case: the old Soviet Union. People would stand in line for hours at one shop, then another, then another. Massive amounts of time were wasted and of course productivity suffered. Why was this bizarre system allowed to evolve? Precisely because it eliminated the middle-man and hence the evil capitalistic idea of profit. Needless to say, no-one [of its users] liked it.
Second case: Amazon.com. (Well, actually the *old* Amazon.com.) The business model was that books could be sold with a just-in-time model -- no warehouses, hence no warehousing costs. Jeff Bezos foresaw that, using only the information transmitted to him by users, he could drop-ship books directly from the publisher. All *he* had to do was BE THE MIDDLEMAN and provide the user with a database containing every book that any publisher had available. That way, a user would not have to go to EVERY publisher looking for a book. Any publisher *could* have done the same thing, but they were locked into a business model that made them the same amount of money whether or not a given book sold. Unfortunately for them, this model required the *physical* shipping of boods to *their* middle-men [bookstores]. Bezos figured out a way to eliminate the atoms in favor of bits.
In fact, he went even further and invented the affiliate program: ANYONE [with a website] could be a middle-man. (OK, technically speaking, an agent since they aren't required to purchase the books they sell. But they *are* there between the customer and the book.)
Actually, we're ON a better model -- Slashdot. The users are *both* the customers AND the suppliers of the information; the Slashdot editors merely act as MIDDLE-MEN to sort out the crud from the gold in what gets posted to be commented on; moderators act as middle-men to sort out the crud from the gold in the comments.
The fact is that middle-men will always exist [caveat: in a free market] because they improve the quality and availability of merchandise. Just because the Net brings a certain amount of efficiency to the process does NOT mean the elimination of middle-men.
How can you explain this thoroughly predictable behaviour pattern by using utility?
utility is what motivates you to make decisions in your own self interest.
What appears to be missing in your example is concept of a unified ego. *IF* a person has a unified ego (i.e. no neurotic self-limiting), then you can perhaps talk meaningfully about utility. When a person does not have a unified ego, then there are *two* functional foci: what he consciously wants and what he unconsciously wants. The two utilities conflict with each other, and nothing is accomplished. However, the fact that no progress is being made is a sign that meta-awareness is necessary. The new, meta-aware -- consicous -- utility is that the problem of frustration must be solved before a unified focus *can* exist. So utility *does* enter the picture -- it's just that the concious focus temporily changes from "being frustrated" to "setting a goal of solving the problem of self-frustration".
Of course, since being unconsiously frustrated largely stems from fear, *that* is the problem that must be solved, and it can only be solved *consciously*.
This reminds me of the old joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the light bulb has to *want* to change. (*rimshot*)
The [First] Amendment should be interpreted so as not to cripple the regular work of the government...
No, you are not the only one. I thought that the regular work of the government was to PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. It's complete nonsense to argue that the government comes FIRST -- in fact, the founding fathers tried to set up a system where the government was LIMITED.
Here's another case where Lord Acton spoke correctly: "Power corrupts -- absolute power corrupts absolutely." Judges should never have been given absolute power; I can think of a dozen cases where the power to Cite for Contempt has been used to silence dissidence.
Make sure you are coming from a university site too. Note that the difference between the two links that makes it work is the addition of a "www" before "guru". The other link is for usage only by staff *within* the university.
BTW, there are *certain* sites that have a "blanket exemption" to link into Penn State's pages: search engines.
hyperlinks on a website from another educational institution (ie. some other university)
Sorry, that won't work. I tried to get there from another educational institution and they wouldn't let me in. All I wanted to do was look at their fscking policy!
If you try to jump to that link, you will find that you are not authorized to read that page. So how are we supposed to know what the policy is?
Furthermore, while what I can see of the policy addresses 1) companies, 2) organizations, 3) governments and 4) universities, it doesn't address the most common entity on the web: INDIVIDUALS!
This story talks about the *legality* of hyperlinking, so the University of Pennsylvania is breaking the law by *not* permitting it.
And, finally, since presumably the University of Pennsylvania relies on public funding (they are *not* a privately held corporation), this treads dangerously close to government-sponsored, pre-emptive *censorship*.
IMHO, either they are doing either a crappy job of teaching students about the fundamental freedoms that generations of Americans have enjoyed, or they are doing an excellent job of brainwashing their students into becoming PHBs.
If you go to 7val.com it works -- but it shouldn't! IIRC, domain names must start with an alpha character (I don't remember which RFC this is in though.).
So that's how we do it, that's how we make an intuitive GUI. Imitate Windows.
Ugh. I think I speak for all of us.;-)
As to the question of "how do we make the GUI more intuitive?": we just need to extend the Open Source model. "All bugs are shallow", right? Think of a user as being one of those "solitary" developers, and set up a way for them to feedback into the system. Perhaps Linus can require that all GUI code come with a mechanism -- say an HTML page that includes a mail form -- to give feedback to the developers of that GUI. Or if the developers are loath to embed their email address, perhaps a forwarding box could be set up somewhere *expressly* for the purpose of receiving and routing feedback. The mail form that comes with the GUI could come with a Subject line already set up (or with some hidden info that encodes what the subject is), so that once the message arrives at the forwarding box, it could easily be sent on to the proper people. Thus the feedback loop is closed and it's a win-win situation for both developers and users.
So that's how we do it, that's how we make an intuitive GUI. Imitate Windows.
Ugh. I think I speak for all of us.;-)
As to the question of "how do we make the GUI more intuitive?": we just need to extend the Open Source model. "All bugs are shallow", right? Think of a user as being one of those "solitary" developers, and set up a way for them to feedback into the system. Perhaps Linus can require that all GUI code come with a mechanism -- say an HTML page that includes a mail form -- to give feedback to the developers of that GUI. Or if the developers are loath to embed their email address, perhaps a forwarding box could be set up somewhere *expressly* for the purpose of receiving and routing feedback. The mail form that comes with the GUI could come with a Subject line already set up (or with some hidden info that encodes what the subject is), so that once the message arrives at the forwarding box, it could easily be sent on to the proper people. Thus the feedback loop is closed and it's a win-win situation for both developers and users.
You don't get things accomplished by continually posting on Slashdot. At some point you have to get off your butt and take to the streets!
...where you can get arrested, get labeled as an anarchist, get an arrest record, pay a whopping fine, give ammunition to those forces calling for a state crackdown, and go home having accomplished nothing but feeling like you've accomplished something.
Protest is to effective political change as masturbation is to sex -- it feels great, but there's no chance at a long-term effect.
A better way to act would be to organize progressive people in your local neighborhood and do something *locally* (NOT stand around with a sign "protesting", though). Put pressure on your local politicians by showing up at their meetings, asking the questions that no-one else will, talk to everybody you can, and organize yourself and your friends into a local political party. All over America people are waking up, organizing (using the Net), and scaring the sh*t out of professional politicians. Be one of *them*, not just some hippydippy-wannabe, who thinks that simply being morally correct is going to change anybody's mind.
(Oh yeah -- before you flame me, let me point out that I've been an activist since the early '80's and have been helping to build the Michigan Green Party for the last 7 years. I know what I'm talking about -- been there, done that. I don't disagree with your ends -- just your means.)
You don't get things accomplished by continually demanding and attacking. At some point you have to get off the streeets and take to the ballot box!
Sec. 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
This is from US CODE - Title 17: Copyrights, Sec. 1008. You will note that it specifically *bars* suing under this title in the case of "the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium [i.e. "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium"] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings". This law does not further specify any attributes of "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium". Nothing here makes an exception for computers. Therefore, making a non-commercial copy (i.e. not intended for resale) of either digital or analog recordings utilizing your computer appears to be PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT.
1. If the ISP's TOS prohibits distribution of copyrighted material, how would enforcing this part of the TOS be any different than enforcing the "thou shalt not spam" part of the TOS?
It's questionable how legal prohibiting the distribution of copyrighted material is in the first place. Prohibiting someone from distributing THEIR OWN WORK seems absurd. Besides, spam is "push" type, but allowing people to download something from your website is definitely "pull" type.
2. Does this ISP have a "non-commercial use" clause in their TOS? If the account is for non-commercial use, this by itself should wipe out any restraint of trade claim.
No information is available about whether the program was being charged for or not. And it seems that IF there was a "non-commercial use" clause in the TOS, that would have been the phrase invoked, as the legal grounds are much firmer.
3. How does one show that one lost money under a claim of restraint of trade for a GPL'd program?
It's not about the money, it's about freedom to engage in trade. There is nothing in the GPL that FORBIDS selling GPL'd software; the source just has to come with it, that's all.
The message I got from their abuse department stated I was "distributing copyrighted software". Not pirated, not illegally, just that it was "copyrighted" so they booted me off the network. For the record, I distribute my own GPL'd program mp3db.
Now let me get this straight. You have written a program. By your authorship, *you* control the copyright. And now you say your ISP has cut off your access because you are distributing your own program? Three words: Restraint of trade.
What you need is a good lawyer who will write for you a pointed cease-and-desist letter, describing the nasty things that happen to entities who engage in restraint of trade (a felony, IIRC). By being unable to distribute your *own program*, you are now incurring actual damages (in the form of revenue losses) and that's enough for a lawsuit. Also check your Terms of Service; my guess is that they are violating it, not you. Not to mention that the denial of your free speech rights should cause the local ACLU to take an interest in this case. I'd also advise you change ISPs, but that goes without saying, doesn't it?
1) gnarph - lager. Gnarph could be a deliberate misspelling of Knarf (that could be an umlauted "a" in there.) Unfortunately, mein Deutsch ist sehr schlect, so I can't go any further with this. (It could also be one of the Scandinavian languages.)
2) Gnarph could be a misspelling of "Nerf". Nerf - lager = a very foamy beer!
America has no central resource for space R&D. Indeed, it has no resources for space R&D at all. Do a search on the phrase "US Space Command" on google.com and feast your eyes on the thousand or so references. USSC has 250,000 employees and *no one's ever heard of it*! That's where all of America's space resources are going. While everyone's watching the civilian side [NASA], nobody's keeping track of America's *military* use of space [USSC].
Slashdot Mirror
Note: what the moderators like is interesting and/or insightful information. It takes a while though -- I've been on Slashdot for a year and a half, posting (on average) once a week and my karma is only 28. (That means that 1 out of every 3 of my posts has been moderated up by one point, but the other 2 have not.) On the other hand, I have *never* been moderated down.
What is important is to NOT worry about karma -- just jump in when you have something meaningful to say. Let karma take care of itself.
Courts have previously held that the government has to take into account the fact that it is bound by the Constitution.
And why shouldn't a private employer be held to the Constitution also? They are located in America; shouldn't they have to play by the same rules as everybody else? Something is really wrong here.
Telemarketer: (Thinking he's got a live one): Is Mr. ***** there?
MAP: Uh, he's not here right now. Just leave a message after the beep. (Beep)
T: WTF???
And it really works. My roommate's mother once called up and got this, and later claimed to have *actually had a conversation with me*. [ROFL!]
Ooo! I like this! The only thing that bothers me is that the courts will probably find that it violates the first ("Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech...") and fourteenth ("...equal protection of the laws...") Amendments to the Constitution.
Besides, knowing Congress, they'd probably want to tax ALL email. (They'll say "It's only fair...")
Precisely. That's why I use *nix -- winbloze has neither grep nor cron.
I have two things to say:
First, advocating a tax is a Bad Thing. A tax needs someone to administer it -- a bureaucrat -- and Weber pointed out (back in the 1800's) that bureaucracies tend to increase at a rate (of approx. 5.4% per annum) independently of the task they are doing. Taxes themselves also have a funny way of increasing [when the first American income tax was imposed in 1913, it was a 1% tax on the wealthiest 1% of the population -- look at it now.] And don't forget that *every* tax has the armed power of the state behind it.
On the other hand, I have to say that I detect the germ of a good idea in here somewhere. Some kind of "acknowledgement of the value of this work" seems to be a reasonable thing, and compensating writers according to users' judgements also seems reasonable. The only question is: where does the money come from? A user fee? (but then you might as well have the users pay the writer what they beleive his writing is worth -- a variable price instead of a fixed price, as is now the case. You run headlong into the free rider problem that way, though [people who would read, enjoy -- and pay nothing].)
Hmmm -- let me think about this some more...
Remarkable assertion there -- and completely wrong. You've never studied economics, have you?
Just as parasites in an ecology lead, counter-intuitively, to a more diverse and healthy ecosystem, so do middle-men lead to a more healthy and diverse economy. By taking on some of the selling risk, they provide a market for the original sellers. By providing a service for the end buyer, they make their money (although, granted, at some extra cost to the buyer).
Ideally, *it seems*, it would be easier (and cheaper) for the customer to buy their stuff directly from the original seller. But the seller doesn't think so. By selling the product through a number of middle-men, the seller loses the extra costs of dealing directly with customers *and* increases the sales. In fact, the *cost* of serving the customer one-on-one may be more than the profit [per customer] the original seller would make.
On one hand the customer loses. He can't buy the product at the original (lower) price that the middle-man gets. (Of course, the middle-man has to buy a large amount of the product to get that price, whereas the customer would only buy one or two.)
On the other hand the customer gains. If a middle-man stocks a variety of goods (from different retailers), the customer gains both variety and saves time doing it. [For example, look at a grocery store.]
Let's look at two real-world cases.
First case: the old Soviet Union. People would stand in line for hours at one shop, then another, then another. Massive amounts of time were wasted and of course productivity suffered. Why was this bizarre system allowed to evolve? Precisely because it eliminated the middle-man and hence the evil capitalistic idea of profit. Needless to say, no-one [of its users] liked it.
Second case: Amazon.com. (Well, actually the *old* Amazon.com.) The business model was that books could be sold with a just-in-time model -- no warehouses, hence no warehousing costs. Jeff Bezos foresaw that, using only the information transmitted to him by users, he could drop-ship books directly from the publisher. All *he* had to do was BE THE MIDDLEMAN and provide the user with a database containing every book that any publisher had available. That way, a user would not have to go to EVERY publisher looking for a book. Any publisher *could* have done the same thing, but they were locked into a business model that made them the same amount of money whether or not a given book sold. Unfortunately for them, this model required the *physical* shipping of boods to *their* middle-men [bookstores]. Bezos figured out a way to eliminate the atoms in favor of bits.
In fact, he went even further and invented the affiliate program: ANYONE [with a website] could be a middle-man. (OK, technically speaking, an agent since they aren't required to purchase the books they sell. But they *are* there between the customer and the book.)
Actually, we're ON a better model -- Slashdot. The users are *both* the customers AND the suppliers of the information; the Slashdot editors merely act as MIDDLE-MEN to sort out the crud from the gold in what gets posted to be commented on; moderators act as middle-men to sort out the crud from the gold in the comments.
The fact is that middle-men will always exist [caveat: in a free market] because they improve the quality and availability of merchandise. Just because the Net brings a certain amount of efficiency to the process does NOT mean the elimination of middle-men.
Well, then it's *not* a privacy violation, is it? And if it's not a privacy violation, then what exactly are the 'privacy issues' of which you speak?
utility is what motivates you to make decisions in your own self interest.
What appears to be missing in your example is concept of a unified ego. *IF* a person has a unified ego (i.e. no neurotic self-limiting), then you can perhaps talk meaningfully about utility. When a person does not have a unified ego, then there are *two* functional foci: what he consciously wants and what he unconsciously wants. The two utilities conflict with each other, and nothing is accomplished. However, the fact that no progress is being made is a sign that meta-awareness is necessary. The new, meta-aware -- consicous -- utility is that the problem of frustration must be solved before a unified focus *can* exist. So utility *does* enter the picture -- it's just that the concious focus temporily changes from "being frustrated" to "setting a goal of solving the problem of self-frustration".
Of course, since being unconsiously frustrated largely stems from fear, *that* is the problem that must be solved, and it can only be solved *consciously*.
This reminds me of the old joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the light bulb has to *want* to change. (*rimshot*)
No, you are not the only one. I thought that the regular work of the government was to PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. It's complete nonsense to argue that the government comes FIRST -- in fact, the founding fathers tried to set up a system where the government was LIMITED.
Here's another case where Lord Acton spoke correctly: "Power corrupts -- absolute power corrupts absolutely." Judges should never have been given absolute power; I can think of a dozen cases where the power to Cite for Contempt has been used to silence dissidence.
"The Crucible" -- a stage drama -- was written by Arthur Miller, who also wrote the famous play "Death of a Salesman".
Make sure you are coming from a university site too. Note that the difference between the two links that makes it work is the addition of a "www" before "guru". The other link is for usage only by staff *within* the university.
BTW, there are *certain* sites that have a "blanket exemption" to link into Penn State's pages: search engines.
Sorry, that won't work. I tried to get there from another educational institution and they wouldn't let me in. All I wanted to do was look at their fscking policy!
Furthermore, while what I can see of the policy addresses 1) companies, 2) organizations, 3) governments and 4) universities, it doesn't address the most common entity on the web: INDIVIDUALS!
This story talks about the *legality* of hyperlinking, so the University of Pennsylvania is breaking the law by *not* permitting it.
And, finally, since presumably the University of Pennsylvania relies on public funding (they are *not* a privately held corporation), this treads dangerously close to government-sponsored, pre-emptive *censorship*.
IMHO, either they are doing either a crappy job of teaching students about the fundamental freedoms that generations of Americans have enjoyed, or they are doing an excellent job of brainwashing their students into becoming PHBs.
First post. Or do not first post. There is no "first post?"!
Simple. Animals don't genetically modify other animals.
Ugh. I think I speak for all of us. ;-)
As to the question of "how do we make the GUI more intuitive?": we just need to extend the Open Source model. "All bugs are shallow", right? Think of a user as being one of those "solitary" developers, and set up a way for them to feedback into the system. Perhaps Linus can require that all GUI code come with a mechanism -- say an HTML page that includes a mail form -- to give feedback to the developers of that GUI. Or if the developers are loath to embed their email address, perhaps a forwarding box could be set up somewhere *expressly* for the purpose of receiving and routing feedback. The mail form that comes with the GUI could come with a Subject line already set up (or with some hidden info that encodes what the subject is), so that once the message arrives at the forwarding box, it could easily be sent on to the proper people. Thus the feedback loop is closed and it's a win-win situation for both developers and users.
Ugh. I think I speak for all of us. ;-)
As to the question of "how do we make the GUI more intuitive?": we just need to extend the Open Source model. "All bugs are shallow", right? Think of a user as being one of those "solitary" developers, and set up a way for them to feedback into the system. Perhaps Linus can require that all GUI code come with a mechanism -- say an HTML page that includes a mail form -- to give feedback to the developers of that GUI. Or if the developers are loath to embed their email address, perhaps a forwarding box could be set up somewhere *expressly* for the purpose of receiving and routing feedback. The mail form that comes with the GUI could come with a Subject line already set up (or with some hidden info that encodes what the subject is), so that once the message arrives at the forwarding box, it could easily be sent on to the proper people. Thus the feedback loop is closed and it's a win-win situation for both developers and users.
Protest is to effective political change as masturbation is to sex -- it feels great, but there's no chance at a long-term effect.
A better way to act would be to organize progressive people in your local neighborhood and do something *locally* (NOT stand around with a sign "protesting", though). Put pressure on your local politicians by showing up at their meetings, asking the questions that no-one else will, talk to everybody you can, and organize yourself and your friends into a local political party. All over America people are waking up, organizing (using the Net), and scaring the sh*t out of professional politicians. Be one of *them*, not just some hippydippy-wannabe, who thinks that simply being morally correct is going to change anybody's mind.
(Oh yeah -- before you flame me, let me point out that I've been an activist since the early '80's and have been helping to build the Michigan Green Party for the last 7 years. I know what I'm talking about -- been there, done that. I don't disagree with your ends -- just your means.)
You don't get things accomplished by continually demanding and attacking. At some point you have to get off the streeets and take to the ballot box!
This is from US CODE - Title 17: Copyrights, Sec. 1008. You will note that it specifically *bars* suing under this title in the case of "the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium [i.e. "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium"] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings". This law does not further specify any attributes of "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium". Nothing here makes an exception for computers. Therefore, making a non-commercial copy (i.e. not intended for resale) of either digital or analog recordings utilizing your computer appears to be PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT.
It's questionable how legal prohibiting the distribution of copyrighted material is in the first place. Prohibiting someone from distributing THEIR OWN WORK seems absurd. Besides, spam is "push" type, but allowing people to download something from your website is definitely "pull" type.
2. Does this ISP have a "non-commercial use" clause in their TOS? If the account is for non-commercial use, this by itself should wipe out any restraint of trade claim.
No information is available about whether the program was being charged for or not. And it seems that IF there was a "non-commercial use" clause in the TOS, that would have been the phrase invoked, as the legal grounds are much firmer.
3. How does one show that one lost money under a claim of restraint of trade for a GPL'd program?
It's not about the money, it's about freedom to engage in trade. There is nothing in the GPL that FORBIDS selling GPL'd software; the source just has to come with it, that's all.
Now let me get this straight. You have written a program. By your authorship, *you* control the copyright. And now you say your ISP has cut off your access because you are distributing your own program? Three words: Restraint of trade.
What you need is a good lawyer who will write for you a pointed cease-and-desist letter, describing the nasty things that happen to entities who engage in restraint of trade (a felony, IIRC). By being unable to distribute your *own program*, you are now incurring actual damages (in the form of revenue losses) and that's enough for a lawsuit. Also check your Terms of Service; my guess is that they are violating it, not you. Not to mention that the denial of your free speech rights should cause the local ACLU to take an interest in this case. I'd also advise you change ISPs, but that goes without saying, doesn't it?
1) gnarph - lager. Gnarph could be a deliberate misspelling of Knarf (that could be an umlauted "a" in there.) Unfortunately, mein Deutsch ist sehr schlect, so I can't go any further with this. (It could also be one of the Scandinavian languages.)
2) Gnarph could be a misspelling of "Nerf". Nerf - lager = a very foamy beer!