I can understand bashing Microsoft because of their business practices, bug-laden software etc., but not because the OS you prefer doesn't support Hebrew as well as Windows does. Use whatever software works best for your situation, and quit whining.
The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.
There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references.
In April, 1999, Fortune magazine columnist Stuart Alsop seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.
Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates (yeah, right) or what?
Let's see, how can I rationlize my 13 gig mp3 collection? If some fact of nature made it virtually impossible to sell a house without a real estate agent, they might be able to get away with charging 90% commissions instead of 7%. In my book THAT would be stealing, legal or not, and that is what music companies have been doing to musicians and their fans for nearly a century. Everything becomes obsolete eventually, even copyrights. Progress is a wonderful thing.
As Lessig points out near the end of the interview, although the RIAA wants to protect the properties they already own, the big issue for them is protecting their control over what gets published in the future and how it gets published. Their real fear of the uncontrolled nature of the Internet is that it threatens their position as a funnel between the artists and the public.
As Lessig also stresses, the potential of P2P extends far beyond music exchange and the interests of the RIAA. The greatest damage to innovation will occur if the courts, lawmakers and the public continue to look at P2P as a single-use technology.
The fact that you CAN do something may not mean it SHOULD be done, but it certainly does mean it WILL be done. The wisdom or lack of wisdom of scientists doesn't matter. The decision makers are business people, who are probably speculating right now on what form the cloning industry will take. Some thoughts...
Reproduction: My guess is that some people with the vanity and bucks may have themselves cloned in lieu of having randomly variant children. Then consider all the yuppies who would pay top dollar for the cells of the bright and beautiful. Gifted child, hah! We got Linus Pauling here. Most of us will stick with the old fashioned way.
Organ replacement: Growing an extra human body for spare parts will be far too expensive for the masses. Once the cloning scientists work out the mechanics, I believe they and the genome scientists will shoot for mass-produceable plug-and-play body parts and really good anti-rejection drugs. The organs will probably be grown in pigs, or some new animal engineered for the purpose. Like any other industry it will trend toward standardization, low cost, simplicity and maximum market. Do you want fries with those McKidneys?
Food: Speaking of fries, let's face it, somebody somewhere is gonna grow big juicy chunks of cholesterol-free, ozone-layer-friendly filet mignon in a tank. At first it will probably be popular in high-class restaurants in Japan, where it will enjoy daily massages before being harvested. When the price drops to cruising altitude we'll all be eating it and loving it. I'm buying stock in Soylent Corp. as soon as they IPO.
Back in the early 80's, when HBO was broadcast through the air, the entertainment industry said it was illegal to make your own antenna, but it wasn't. Then they scrambled the signal and told people it was illegal to unscramble it, but it wasn't. Now they are telling people it is illegal to decode some bytes on a disk. It isn't.
The only way the industry was able to make TV scrambling stick was with 2-way communication between the home receiver and the transmitter, because circumventing that system requires sending a fraudulent (illegal) signal to the transmitter. To protect DVDs they will have to force develop a similar system whereby the player must get a new decryption key from the movie company every time you play the DVD. For now they are merely using their time-honored tactic of legal intimidation until the necessary technology comes online. The really significant battle will be between entities like the MPAA and the DVD player manufacturers who decide not to go along. Whoever has the best lawyers will win. Ask OJ.
Before cheering for the ACLU as the default good guy, try actually reading their wordy and convoluted letter explaining why they are protesting. In a specific example in the letter, they contend that McDonalds Farm of Scotland and McDonalds Restaurants would somehow have more equal freedom of speech if the farm could use a domain name like McDonalds.farm instead of, I suppose, something like McDonaldsFarm.com. You could just as well argue that the burger company's freedom of speech is being limited in exactly the same way by the lack of a McDonalds.Burgers domain. As much as I agree with more variety in TLDs, I just don't find the ACLU's arguments compelling, or even rational.
Exactly. Why is this an issue in the first place? Unless there is a technical reason for limiting the content of the last part of a TLD, I'm sure both ICANN and the ACLU have more interesting things to do with their time.
Happens all the time. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that more than 5400 dead Georgians voted in the recent election. Clearly a better accounting system is needed.
The Look article didn't discuss Look's marketing strategy, but it did mention they would no longer be selling to households. This suggests to me that Look may have been trying to compete on the wrong turf.
Right now the two strongest wireless markets are places where there is little or no infrastructure (deep rural areas, third-world and developing nations), and densely developed urban areas where running new cable and fiber is expensive.
Wireless simply isn't necessary for the vast home market. It's too expensive and it doesn't really buy you anything at a time when home users are still generally content with 28.8 modems. What will enable wireless to compete there is when it gets enough visibility elsewhere that it starts to make wired technology look old fashioned. Then it will be the new thing that's better than the old thing, and that's when Mom and Pop will buy it.
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I can understand bashing Microsoft because of their business practices, bug-laden software etc., but not because the OS you prefer doesn't support Hebrew as well as Windows does. Use whatever software works best for your situation, and quit whining.
The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.
There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references.
In April, 1999, Fortune magazine columnist Stuart Alsop seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.
Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates (yeah, right) or what?
Let's see, how can I rationlize my 13 gig mp3 collection? If some fact of nature made it virtually impossible to sell a house without a real estate agent, they might be able to get away with charging 90% commissions instead of 7%. In my book THAT would be stealing, legal or not, and that is what music companies have been doing to musicians and their fans for nearly a century. Everything becomes obsolete eventually, even copyrights. Progress is a wonderful thing.
As Lessig points out near the end of the interview, although the RIAA wants to protect the properties they already own, the big issue for them is protecting their control over what gets published in the future and how it gets published. Their real fear of the uncontrolled nature of the Internet is that it threatens their position as a funnel between the artists and the public.
As Lessig also stresses, the potential of P2P extends far beyond music exchange and the interests of the RIAA. The greatest damage to innovation will occur if the courts, lawmakers and the public continue to look at P2P as a single-use technology.
The fact that you CAN do something may not mean it SHOULD be done, but it certainly does mean it WILL be done. The wisdom or lack of wisdom of scientists doesn't matter. The decision makers are business people, who are probably speculating right now on what form the cloning industry will take. Some thoughts...
Reproduction: My guess is that some people with the vanity and bucks may have themselves cloned in lieu of having randomly variant children. Then consider all the yuppies who would pay top dollar for the cells of the bright and beautiful. Gifted child, hah! We got Linus Pauling here. Most of us will stick with the old fashioned way.
Organ replacement: Growing an extra human body for spare parts will be far too expensive for the masses. Once the cloning scientists work out the mechanics, I believe they and the genome scientists will shoot for mass-produceable plug-and-play body parts and really good anti-rejection drugs. The organs will probably be grown in pigs, or some new animal engineered for the purpose. Like any other industry it will trend toward standardization, low cost, simplicity and maximum market. Do you want fries with those McKidneys?
Food: Speaking of fries, let's face it, somebody somewhere is gonna grow big juicy chunks of cholesterol-free, ozone-layer-friendly filet mignon in a tank. At first it will probably be popular in high-class restaurants in Japan, where it will enjoy daily massages before being harvested. When the price drops to cruising altitude we'll all be eating it and loving it. I'm buying stock in Soylent Corp. as soon as they IPO.
Wake up and smell the gravy!
Back in the early 80's, when HBO was broadcast through the air, the entertainment industry said it was illegal to make your own antenna, but it wasn't. Then they scrambled the signal and told people it was illegal to unscramble it, but it wasn't. Now they are telling people it is illegal to decode some bytes on a disk. It isn't.
The only way the industry was able to make TV scrambling stick was with 2-way communication between the home receiver and the transmitter, because circumventing that system requires sending a fraudulent (illegal) signal to the transmitter. To protect DVDs they will have to force develop a similar system whereby the player must get a new decryption key from the movie company every time you play the DVD. For now they are merely using their time-honored tactic of legal intimidation until the necessary technology comes online. The really significant battle will be between entities like the MPAA and the DVD player manufacturers who decide not to go along. Whoever has the best lawyers will win. Ask OJ.
Before cheering for the ACLU as the default good guy, try actually reading their wordy and convoluted letter explaining why they are protesting. In a specific example in the letter, they contend that McDonalds Farm of Scotland and McDonalds Restaurants would somehow have more equal freedom of speech if the farm could use a domain name like McDonalds.farm instead of, I suppose, something like McDonaldsFarm.com. You could just as well argue that the burger company's freedom of speech is being limited in exactly the same way by the lack of a McDonalds.Burgers domain. As much as I agree with more variety in TLDs, I just don't find the ACLU's arguments compelling, or even rational.
Exactly. Why is this an issue in the first place? Unless there is a technical reason for limiting the content of the last part of a TLD, I'm sure both ICANN and the ACLU have more interesting things to do with their time.
Happens all the time. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that more than 5400 dead Georgians voted in the recent election. Clearly a better accounting system is needed.
The Look article didn't discuss Look's marketing strategy, but it did mention they would no longer be selling to households. This suggests to me that Look may have been trying to compete on the wrong turf.
Right now the two strongest wireless markets are places where there is little or no infrastructure (deep rural areas, third-world and developing nations), and densely developed urban areas where running new cable and fiber is expensive.
Wireless simply isn't necessary for the vast home market. It's too expensive and it doesn't really buy you anything at a time when home users are still generally content with 28.8 modems. What will enable wireless to compete there is when it gets enough visibility elsewhere that it starts to make wired technology look old fashioned. Then it will be the new thing that's better than the old thing, and that's when Mom and Pop will buy it.