How can you say that ? Thanks to commercial involvement and consequently greatly increased popularity we have an order of magnitude more information available on the net. Granted some of it is pure junk but, hey isn't that the case with any medium ?
I can say that a consequential factor in the latest recession and downturn of tech jobs, the treatment of highly skilled tech people is do to overzealous VCs and large corporations expanding into a medium they didn't understand.
By the way, I hope you do recognize that real progress is made mainly thanks to financial incentives being present and NOT because of good will of some people.
While this is true, some things should NOT be a part of internatioal corporatism. The example in this case are learning instutions. Whats to prevent someone from getting an unbiased, multifaced education?
A decent fight ? Remember , napster is being accused of breaking existing law.
Throughout history, the most drastic changes to oppression and the "Image of a boot, stamping on the human face, forever" have been from a small but growing circle of rebels doing illegal things to prove they are for whats right and just. (Right and just are subject to interperatation, but some things are pretty clear) [see: boston tea party, Europian Rennesance et al.]
Almost all/.ers know that the current state of the net was born out of the hard work and research of mostly public and a few private academic institutions.
During the late 90s, we all know that changed, mostly for the worse
Now we're seeing the clash of the 'geeks' who have had their last haven against the extreme capitalism invaded, and we're not taking this lightly at all.
Problem is, there is so damn few of us to matter...
But to stay on topic... what crossed my mind is: I'm seeing the current 'net floating towards a balance of 2 seperate entities: the aolmsnyahootimewarner.megacom variety, and the berkelyslashdot.orgu.
Capitalism can have their side, nobody here cares about that if they stay on their side of the fence. But what happens when the 4-letter acronyms start invading our home turf Universities, the havens of intellectualism. The slashdots, kuro5hins.
As an aside, some universities are driven by some corporate entities to some extent, mostly out of necessity to keep admission and tuition costs from inflating to unreachable heights. A state university here is well known to have its biology department almost totally funded by a select few multinational drug corporations, mostly to keep its head afloat. Now, the biology department has mostly turned into a cheap research lab for those companies.
So what does this mean for our last fortresses of defense? What I'm fearing is the 4-letter acronyms start attacking the universities after they have done cleaning up the blood of non-conformant ISPs wishing to take a final stand for their users rights (or greed, whichever is fine by me). Oh, well we all know they have done half-hearted attempts before, but nothing very serious. I think they're waiting until they're finished testing where they can push the government and the people before the final 'battle' will begin.
I can't see where it will go from here. All I can see is a horrible bloody mess between the 4 letters and the multinationals that run some universities, with the rest trying to hold out on their own. The outcome? I can't say... just years and years of hurtful words, damaged egos, broken spirits and one side not willing to give into the other. After it all clears, possibly, the best will stand and can say "we are standing because we are here for what is right"
But we can't do it at the corporate level. Fighting with ISPs, organizations and such all take money. We simply can't even to begin to raise enough money to even put up a decent fight [see: napster, et al]. What we can do is take a stand at the intellectual, thoughtful, insightful level. Win with ideals, not money. Its the only chance we have.
Then you should still be caring.... they have yet to bring in any revenue whatsoever.
Neither have a lot of failed dotcoms, I can think of a few that should have had a better chance to survive than napster.
Back up a second. Napster sponsored large, free concert tours (Limp Bizkit comes to mind). It seems Napster doesn't have money just due to the lack of income. It seems partially due to bad management. I'll admit, yes a large chunk is due to lawyers... though isn't the ACLU and EFF helping? I can't remember.
Then, I challenge you to provide factual reports on where the money went. (if there ever was any)
The fact is that they don't have money, not a lot of internet companies do today. Its the fact that they expected to make a lot of money for shady activity. That was my point, I never said they were rich bastards, or even close. Shawn Fanning is probably living off Ramen and Water, as a lot of tech people are today, sadly.
Normally I don't bitch about spelling errors, but if you are going to bust on other people for their choice of words you had damn well better make sure your own post is error-free.
I never pick on spelling or grammar, I never said I was the best typest/speller... but his response straight up calling me an "asshole" consistantly was uncalled for, no? I spent time writing my short essay to have clear and consice thoughts (though not error free) and he comes up and starts swearing and flaming. Is that justified?
Course, you can then say was it justifed for me to respond in that manner, but can't we have a little fun in life?
Hm, true, but from what I gathered... if there was any way to fuck the RIAA (at that time) she'd be all for it.
Course, she hates the 'cruddy' quality of mp3s, and I agree somewhat. Mostly this has to do with awful encoders *coughrealnetworks. LAME@192vbr is pretty good but the almighty Fraunhaufer@256 is about perfect
Firstly, asshole, what most people use it for is irrelevant
I like your choice of words. VARY INTELLEGENT SIRS.
It is unreasonable to hold Napster accountable for the fact that peoplem that people blah blah blah
Where, oh where, did I EVER say that napster was held accountable for what the users did? No, I never once said that. The point (if I can use your wonderful choice of words) asshole, was the fact that napster knew exactly what its service was being used for, then lied straight faced about it and pretended it didn't exist.
I said::I don't care what the RIAA tells me to do, I want to respect what the ARTISTS want. If Lars Ulrich comes up and says "I don't want you do to this with our work" then I won't. When Courtney Love says "Go ahead, and make sure you give the RIAA a finger when you do", I'll damn well support that girl as much as I can
Please, asshole, know what the person said before trying to hold an argument with them, asshole.
Am I the only one thats just a little tired of napster?
I stopped caring the day they became a company and took a dollar knowing full well that their company was founded on people trading music they don't have the 'rights' to. I hate IP laws as much as the rest of the/. community, but their business model depended on college age people trading illegal mp3s. Furthermore, they continued to be under the guise of "Oh, we're only here for the independant artists!"
Sure...
How is that different from the RIAA saying "We're fore free speech and openess" when clearly they're not"?
Napster can be good for independant artists, and I've been introduced to many great new sounds with napster, but the vast majority of the use is trading music that artists didn't give permission for. Note, I said 'artist' and not 'RIAA/Record Label'. I don't care what they say I can and can't do with things, I'd rather respect what the person who created it wishes. Unfortunatly the RIAA/Record label doesn't allow them to speak for themselves.
Back on track, I feel that if some greedy VCs and possibly Shawn Fanning himself didn't try to turn Napster into a cash cow, things would be pretty different today. Frankly, Napster and all the people that are involved in the shadyness can be buried in the bottem of the dotcom cesspool for all I care.
Lets get it over with, one way or another, and mote on to new more promising, more open technologies like jrxe, gnutella, freenet, and others.
I find this topic interesting and all the discussion around it because this is the exactly the technology we use for our ISP here in Iowa. Check out their homepage for a look. The reason we do this is that here, in remote areas in the midwest telcos don't think we're worth enough for DSL, or even cable (even though we have digital cable from AT&T). Its not bad speed, standard rates are 128k/sec but you can purchase up to 1.5 m/sec. I get great signal all the time (which is the hardest part of the whole ordeal) and unless the main servers go down, I don't have any downtime.
Hey, don't knock it till you try it...
Slashdot Mirror
How can you say that ? Thanks to commercial involvement and consequently greatly increased popularity we have an order of magnitude more information available on the net. Granted some of it is pure junk but, hey isn't that the case with any medium ?
I can say that a consequential factor in the latest recession and downturn of tech jobs, the treatment of highly skilled tech people is do to overzealous VCs and large corporations expanding into a medium they didn't understand.
By the way, I hope you do recognize that real progress is made mainly thanks to financial incentives being present and NOT because of good will of some people.
While this is true, some things should NOT be a part of internatioal corporatism. The example in this case are learning instutions. Whats to prevent someone from getting an unbiased, multifaced education?
A decent fight ? Remember , napster is being accused of breaking existing law.
Throughout history, the most drastic changes to oppression and the "Image of a boot, stamping on the human face, forever" have been from a small but growing circle of rebels doing illegal things to prove they are for whats right and just. (Right and just are subject to interperatation, but some things are pretty clear) [see: boston tea party, Europian Rennesance et al.]
How much copyright infringment was going on the Internet pre-commercialization (early 90s)?
Not so much copyright infringement, thats a whole other grey area. More like, fair use
Almost all /.ers know that the current state of the net was born out of the hard work and research of mostly public and a few private academic institutions.
During the late 90s, we all know that changed, mostly for the worse
Now we're seeing the clash of the 'geeks' who have had their last haven against the extreme capitalism invaded, and we're not taking this lightly at all.
Problem is, there is so damn few of us to matter...
But to stay on topic... what crossed my mind is: I'm seeing the current 'net floating towards a balance of 2 seperate entities: the aolmsnyahootimewarner.megacom variety, and the berkelyslashdot.orgu.
Capitalism can have their side, nobody here cares about that if they stay on their side of the fence. But what happens when the 4-letter acronyms start invading our home turf Universities, the havens of intellectualism. The slashdots, kuro5hins.
As an aside, some universities are driven by some corporate entities to some extent, mostly out of necessity to keep admission and tuition costs from inflating to unreachable heights. A state university here is well known to have its biology department almost totally funded by a select few multinational drug corporations, mostly to keep its head afloat. Now, the biology department has mostly turned into a cheap research lab for those companies.
So what does this mean for our last fortresses of defense? What I'm fearing is the 4-letter acronyms start attacking the universities after they have done cleaning up the blood of non-conformant ISPs wishing to take a final stand for their users rights (or greed, whichever is fine by me). Oh, well we all know they have done half-hearted attempts before, but nothing very serious. I think they're waiting until they're finished testing where they can push the government and the people before the final 'battle' will begin.
I can't see where it will go from here. All I can see is a horrible bloody mess between the 4 letters and the multinationals that run some universities, with the rest trying to hold out on their own. The outcome? I can't say... just years and years of hurtful words, damaged egos, broken spirits and one side not willing to give into the other. After it all clears, possibly, the best will stand and can say "we are standing because we are here for what is right"
But we can't do it at the corporate level. Fighting with ISPs, organizations and such all take money. We simply can't even to begin to raise enough money to even put up a decent fight [see: napster, et al]. What we can do is take a stand at the intellectual, thoughtful, insightful level. Win with ideals, not money. Its the only chance we have.
*Off soapbox now
Then you should still be caring.... they have yet to bring in any revenue whatsoever.
Neither have a lot of failed dotcoms, I can think of a few that should have had a better chance to survive than napster.
Back up a second. Napster sponsored large, free concert tours (Limp Bizkit comes to mind). It seems Napster doesn't have money just due to the lack of income. It seems partially due to bad management. I'll admit, yes a large chunk is due to lawyers... though isn't the ACLU and EFF helping? I can't remember.
Then, I challenge you to provide factual reports on where the money went. (if there ever was any)
The fact is that they don't have money, not a lot of internet companies do today. Its the fact that they expected to make a lot of money for shady activity. That was my point, I never said they were rich bastards, or even close. Shawn Fanning is probably living off Ramen and Water, as a lot of tech people are today, sadly.
Normally I don't bitch about spelling errors, but if you are going to bust on other people for their choice of words you had damn well better make sure your own post is error-free.
I never pick on spelling or grammar, I never said I was the best typest/speller... but his response straight up calling me an "asshole" consistantly was uncalled for, no? I spent time writing my short essay to have clear and consice thoughts (though not error free) and he comes up and starts swearing and flaming. Is that justified?
Course, you can then say was it justifed for me to respond in that manner, but can't we have a little fun in life?
Hm, true, but from what I gathered... if there was any way to fuck the RIAA (at that time) she'd be all for it.
Course, she hates the 'cruddy' quality of mp3s, and I agree somewhat. Mostly this has to do with awful encoders *coughrealnetworks. LAME@192vbr is pretty good but the almighty Fraunhaufer@256 is about perfect
Firstly, asshole, what most people use it for is irrelevant
I like your choice of words. VARY INTELLEGENT SIRS.
It is unreasonable to hold Napster accountable for the fact that peoplem that people blah blah blah
Where, oh where, did I EVER say that napster was held accountable for what the users did? No, I never once said that. The point (if I can use your wonderful choice of words) asshole, was the fact that napster knew exactly what its service was being used for, then lied straight faced about it and pretended it didn't exist.
I said ::I don't care what the RIAA tells me to do, I want to respect what the ARTISTS want. If Lars Ulrich comes up and says "I don't want you do to this with our work" then I won't. When Courtney Love says "Go ahead, and make sure you give the RIAA a finger when you do", I'll damn well support that girl as much as I can
Please, asshole, know what the person said before trying to hold an argument with them, asshole.
feeinding the trolls
Am I the only one thats just a little tired of napster?
I stopped caring the day they became a company and took a dollar knowing full well that their company was founded on people trading music they don't have the 'rights' to. I hate IP laws as much as the rest of the /. community, but their business model depended on college age people trading illegal mp3s. Furthermore, they continued to be under the guise of "Oh, we're only here for the independant artists!"
Sure...
How is that different from the RIAA saying "We're fore free speech and openess" when clearly they're not"?
Napster can be good for independant artists, and I've been introduced to many great new sounds with napster, but the vast majority of the use is trading music that artists didn't give permission for. Note, I said 'artist' and not 'RIAA/Record Label'. I don't care what they say I can and can't do with things, I'd rather respect what the person who created it wishes. Unfortunatly the RIAA/Record label doesn't allow them to speak for themselves.
Back on track, I feel that if some greedy VCs and possibly Shawn Fanning himself didn't try to turn Napster into a cash cow, things would be pretty different today. Frankly, Napster and all the people that are involved in the shadyness can be buried in the bottem of the dotcom cesspool for all I care.
Lets get it over with, one way or another, and mote on to new more promising, more open technologies like jrxe, gnutella, freenet, and others.
I find this topic interesting and all the discussion around it because this is the exactly the technology we use for our ISP here in Iowa. Check out their homepage for a look. The reason we do this is that here, in remote areas in the midwest telcos don't think we're worth enough for DSL, or even cable (even though we have digital cable from AT&T). Its not bad speed, standard rates are 128k/sec but you can purchase up to 1.5 m/sec. I get great signal all the time (which is the hardest part of the whole ordeal) and unless the main servers go down, I don't have any downtime. Hey, don't knock it till you try it...