ARRO's polemic is built on an unfounded and incorrect belief that the problem of the Middle East is caused by poverty in the region.
If that were true, it could easily be solved by the spending of billions of petro-dollars building hospitals, schools, etc. But wait, hasn't that already been done in Saudi Arabia? And isn't one of the prime architect's of Middle East Terro a Saudi millionaire?
The root of much of the terrorism in the Middle East isn't poverty. It is that a group of people are being forced to accept a reality - the existence of Israel as a country located in the Middle East - that is unacceptable to them.
This situation will not be resolved until that fringe group is either forced to accept that reality, but being shown that it is too expensive to pursue trying to change it through terror, or until Israel no longer exists as a state.
Yes, poverty helps the situation fester, but the people that are driving the terrorism have enormous funding. Iran, Iraq, Saudi millionaries like Bin Ladin, etc. are spending millions and billions to the end of destroying support for Israel, so that they can remove Israel from their world.
If it was true that addressing poverty would change this situation, you would not see militants coming out of and being funded from Saudi Arabia.
Katz, an excellent piece that lays out the great number of issues with which we need to struggle with in the wake of 9/11. Thank you for being willing to go beyond the knee-jerk reactions - many of which unfortunately have been expressed in replies to you - and think about how we balance our rights to be secure in our persons and possessions with our right to be safe in our lives.
If people have not read it, I would highly recommend they read The Bill of Rights by Akhil Reed Amar. Reading this work will cause you to rethink your understanding of what the Bill of Rights does and does not say. How it fits together. And how we might protect our rights in other ways than we currently do.
One of the myths of the Internet world is that we have an absolute right to privacy and annonimity. We need to think through what our pursuit of this means. The powerful have - and will have these rights - if we make them the our be all and end all. David Brin in The Transparent Society works through a different model. A model that would make us safer, but still give us privacy and protection from government agents.
Take the time to read these works. To think about them. Can we build a system that gives us secruity and protects us from self-dealing government agents? I think we can, but it will require us to move beyond next jerk reacations.
And wasn't it Bill Gates that said something along the lines of, "I can't imagine why anyone would want more than 64K of RAM?"
Let's be clear: people will always want more space, performance, and frames per second. We will always be pushing the limits.
If you think things are slowing down, just take a look at the various curves related to number of transistors in a cubic centimeter, density of bits in various storage devices, etc. The singularity is still coming sometime between 2025 and 2035.
A contract is, according to Business Law - A Streamlined Course for Students and Business People by Robert Emerson, J.D. and John W. Hardwicke, LL.B., a legally enforceable agreement, express or implied, with the following elements:
Capacity of the parties
Mutual agreement (assent) or meeting of the minds (a valid offer and acceptance).
Consideration (something of value given in exchange for a promise).
Legality of subject matter.
This contract has all of the elements:
Both parties have the capacity to enter into this agreement.
You submiting your content after reading their contract is clear evidence of a meeting of minds on your part. Them using your content after you submit it is clear evidence of a meeting of minds on their part.
There is a consideration. They are publishing your content for you and your are providing your content to them. They also give you a license to the content to use as along as you give credit. This is consideration.
There is nothing illegal - last time I check that was - about this transaction.
This document is a contract. It might not look like a contract, but it is an agreement entered into by two parties with an exchange of favors.
Until they change it, it is binding on them and you - if you agree to it. If they change it, the current version governs any content submitted up to the change.
If they break it, then you take them to court. You get an order compelling them to honor the agreement. Since they didn't outline a limitation of damages, you could also seek damages from them.
I have worked in a lot of big companies. I am surprised that something this straight-forward, clean, and "right", was able to make it out into the world.
Actually, this is a contract. Any content submitted prior to a change is bound by the license put in place. Of course, if you want to protect yourself, you should capture the existing contract and any revisions. This will allow you to hold them to a particular version of the contract.
Let's be honest, except for some classes of marriage, no one gives contract's "forever".
As many I am sure know, I am a strong advocate of intellectual property rights. I am also an equally strong advocate for balanced intellectual property rights and freedom of expression.
The application of the DCMA against 2600 Magazine and Felten et al, is chilling. Left unchecked, the DCMA will cause a level of self-censorship that will cut off entire avenues of investigation and research.
Given that Felten et al where engaged in research and wanted to publish their findings for the common "advancement of the arts and sciences", it looks like the EFF has a very strong case in this situation.
More of us need to care about intellectual property and copyright law and its development into a framework that will allow us to balance the "advancement of the arts and sciences" with incentives to the creators to create.
So, if you really care about this subject, you need to run, not walk, via the web to the Electronic Freedom Foundation web site and either join or make a significant donation. Why? Because the EFF is going to need a fortune to litigate this case all the way to the Supreme Court.
First, a lot is going to depend on the circumstances that you face. I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but I did run an "underground newspaper" in my college days.
On the plus side, you are at a state school. State schools, as a state institution, are more restricted in the actions that they can take. Basically, you have more consitutional protections than you would have at a private school.
In terms of the ownership of the site, you may or may not have a case. Given that the school purchased and maintained the server, the site may be their property. You created the site using their resources and you may have explicity or implicity agreed to their ownership in whole or part of IP created using their resources.
The key here - and this will be where an attorney will be critical - is how do they treat the ownership of IP created by others that are supported by the University. For example, do they own and control the use of articles written for the school newspaper? Or if someone wrote and produced a play while as student at the University and with the Universities' support would they claim ownership?
You are also going to have to separate the issues that you are facing, but you need to ask yourself if the formal charges which they are pursuing, including the expulsion, are retribution for your "free speech" activities. If you can make this case, it does undermine the other issues.
I don't know how much of this situation is related to content on the bulletin board that you maintained. If they are punishing you for content that you did not create, then you have as a defense the same one that AOL would have. They might be able to take things down, you can't force someone to support speech - even the government - but they can't punish you obscence or libelous content you did not create.
You need a top notch civil right's attorney. I suggest you contact your local ACLU chapter or the Electronic Freedom Foundation . At the ACLU, I would suggest that you contact Carol Gnade (Utah point person), and the EFF, I would suggest that you contact Cindy Cohn.
See if they will take on this case. In fact, based on the facts reported, you might want to see if the want to cooperate on it, given that the issues cross in and out of the online and real worlds.
Well, here are a few points that you miss from my presentation:
The right to determine how to disribute and under what terms is for a limited time.
I believe that the current monopoloies granted to copyright and patent holders are too long. They should be:
Copyright, 20 years or the life of the author plus one year, whichever is shorter.
Patent, 10 years, but the clock doesn't start ticking until the invention can be marketed sans regulatory hurdles (FDA approval for drugs).
Finally, copyrights and patents should only be granted to individuals or groups of individuals. Those individuals or groups of individuals can license them to corporations, but a minimum royalty of 5% of the gross revenues must be paid to and divided among the creators.
Yes, an idea can't by nature be property - at least in the long-term - but the expression of an idea can be.
A song is a creation, no different from a cabinet, that is an expression of an idea. The person who made that creation should - during the time that we as a society have decided to grant them - have the right to determine how and under what terms it is distributed.
It may surprise those that are trying to put me in the Ayn Rand camp, that I believe that the monopolies currently granted under both copyright and patent law run too long. Personally, I believe the following is more appropriate:
Copyrights - 20 years or to the death of the author plus one year, whichever is less.
Patents - 10 years, but the clock starts when the invention can be marketed sans regulatory entanglements (i.e. FDA approvals).
I also believe that Copyright and Patents should only be granted to individuals. They should be licensed to corporations or other individuals with a minimum 5% license fee of gross revenues to be divided among the creators of record.
Ok, the big argumnet to date for support Napster and its kin has been that I want my music in an online format and the record companies and artists don't make it easy for me pay for it in that format.
So, now we have a way to pay them. A way that likely would - if worked right - allow us to reduce the overhead in moving money to the artists. But how do people react they start bitching that they want be able to take stuff without paying the folks that created it. Please, grow up!
If you truly believe in freedom, then the people that create stuff have the freedom to decide how and under what terms their creations are distributed. You on the other hand have the freedom to choose if you will accpet distribution on their terms. If you don't like those terms, then don't use it. Find someone else that will give you what you want on acceptable terms. If you don't like the terms, you don't have a right to take it without their permission ! This is called stealing and it is a direct attack on their freedom to choose how they want to and under what terms they choose to disribute their creations. Attacking someone's freedom is called oppression and that is a bad thing!
Properly executed, a Roxio based distribution technology has the promise of allowing smaller labels to have a reach equal to the big guys. This is a good thing. It means that they can be economically viable.
In case people haven't been paying attention, the world of everything costing nothing on the Internet is quickly disappearing. If people are going to create, they have to figure out how to eat. Some do this by working at a "job" so that they can pursue their "vocation". That is fine, it is their choice. Others want to engage in their vocation full-time. But to do so, they need a way to sell the fruit of their labor. If you like the taste of that fruit and the terms under which they want to provide it to you, then you pay them for it. But you don't take it without their consent.
I don't want to be forced to pay for creations I don't want or under terms I find unacceptable - this is my criticism of RMS and the Free Software Model, I don't want to pay a "software tax" for software I may or may not want - but I also can't take something that another has created without their consent.
Is it really not possible to make things uncopyable? Or is this an article of faith that many of us assume. It seems that it is not truly possible to prove this position.
Now, if you want to ask is is worth the gyrations to make things uncopyable, I will easily answer no.
Of course, the goal may not be to make things uncopyable. Rather, it might be to make it more inconvenient to make a copy than it is to buy it legally.
Thanks for calling my typo to my attention. I should have caught that on my proof.
For people that are supposedly willing to think through issues, I see a ton of knee jerk reactions.
Of course, people are now going to put me in the box of a "MS supporter" or should that be "MS Supporter Scum". I believe in using the right tool for the job. From a business or distribution model point of view, Free Software (as defined in the GPL), OpenSource, Share Source (be what it may), and the Closed Source model are all appropriate. When people start shouting that Free Software is about "freedom", then I start getting worried. Free Software is a model that is useful. Drop the ideology and focus on what you are trying to accomplish.
Really? The folks in the porn business aren't taking advantage of the creators of Apache? How do they - other than the web logs - give anything back to the creators of Apache? Are they giving them credit on their sites? Do they support the community that creates Apache? Do they pay the folks that create Apache? I think that the answer here is no. And guess what, this parallels what the porn industry does to the performers. Is uses them and gives them as little as possible from the value that they created.
Actually, I don't value money all that much. I like the good that I can do with - buying a meal for someone, educating someone, paying someone's medical bills - money, but the reality is that our society shows it value for work through money. And it is clear that the folks in the porn industry value money. So, how they treat the creators of Apache shows a lot about their ethics.
Yes, but has it made any money for the author's of the software that is being run to serve this content?
Actually, the porn-meisters are doing to Apache's creators what regularly do the the folks that are at the "heart" of creating their content: take all the profits and leave them with nothing to show for their hard labors.
As they say, always go for the cheap cut-down rather than intelligent debate, for the cheap cut-down is easier and doesn't require you to stretch your brain.
Ideas - even if they go from Microsoft - are worth considering. Maybe Microsoft is on to something with its Shared Source Philosophy. Realize that it is as much a product of Microsoft's world view as is free software and GPL a product of RSM's world view.
I want to see an open exchange of ideas and an ability to - as was intended originally in our copy right law - "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts...", but at the same time, I want to earn a living from my works. I want to be able to feed my family. If someone will lay out for me a business model that will support a software company that doesn't depend on tons of stupid venture capital funding companies in a Linux-mania that follows a strict OpenSource or Free Software model at the margins that have made so many of us comfortable, then I will sign up right now.
A major issue in the DeCSS cases is are mathematics, alogorithms, source code protected speech?
If mathematics, algorithms, source code are protected speech, then 2600 Magazine is protected when publishing both the DeCSS code and links to the DeCSS code. If these aren't protected speech, than it isn't possible to invoke free speech guarantees when publishing them. This is a major issue. If it goes the wrong way, it would be bad news.
As the original author said, this is a marvelous example of how mathematics is a form of free and protected speech. It is a shame that this example wasn't available for inclusion in EFF's 2600 Magazine brief.
Well, this seems to be a good example of why the "bits about bits" are the most important. If reviews were tagged with a reference to the reviewer that I could cross-reference to a database of all reviews, then I would have been able to find out the interesting fact that this gentleman has only been around for x-months and only reviews Sony movies...
It is also a good example of why anonymity has to be balanced against accountability. If I can just post wonderful puff pieces anywhere and anyway, but don't have to disclose who I am or why I am saying what I am saying, then you get abuses like this one.
We are looking at putting a few fiber optic strands that are difficult to interconnect. Each fiber optic strand can carry a few giga-bits of transmission capacity. It is only going to be used along high power transmission corridors.
I really don't see us getting a lot of bandwidth or getting it in the places that we need. This looks like another "Wired Wet Dream". Though it would be interesting to use the fiber to interconnect the information backbone for the grid. Given that California ISO spent a fortune on a fiber backbone, I could see this as a benefit.
Only a small problem with your argument. The right to create patent and copyright law is delegated to the United States by the Constitution.
I agree with Justice O'Connor's argument, but you seem to miss a small point. The rewarding of authors and creators does promote the "Progress of Science and useful Arts." When an author or creator is able to earn money from their work, they are likely to create more. When that work - all of it, not just the original work - passes into the public domain, we all win.
The whole point of copyright and patent law was an attempt to encourage the "Progress of Science and useful Arts", by at the same time balancing the rewarding of authors and inventors for their contributions while making those contributions public.
If we didn't have the copyright and patent law that we had in this country, we would see a return to the "trade secret" policies of the medieval trade guilds. People wouldn't publish their findings, they would hide them to profit from them.
That said, the monopoly granted by copyright and - to a lesser extent - patents is too long. We should see works passing into the public domain much more quickly. Personally, I would like to see copyrights return to a 20 year monopoly. Patents should be 10 years, but the clock shouldn't start ticking until regulations (FDA drug approval for example) allow you to start marketing the product.
Actual in the world of Copyright Law, rights that are not specifically granted are usally reserved to the copyright holder.
Therefore, if you truly want a right, make sure that it is specifically granted. If you want the right to modify source, then make sure that you have a license to modify. If you want to look at the source, make sure that you have the right to display. If you want to redistribute, make sure you have the right to redistribute. If you want to redistribute your derivative work (your changes), make sure that you have the right to create derivative work and to redistribute them. I could go on and on. I suggest you pick up one of Nolo Press' fine books on the subject.
Actually, the Constitution has nothing to say about modifying source code or binaries or anything else for personal use. I suggest you spend some time reading it over again.
The only area where the Constiturion touches upon Copyright is found in Article 1, Section 8:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; "
The concept of fair use is covered in Copyright Law. I would recommend that you go over to FindLaw to learn a bit more about Copyright Law vs. what is in the Constitution.
It is common in software licenses - including source licenses - to have various rights that are granted or restricted. The right to "copy", "modify", "examine", or "display" are common rights that are granted or restricted.
If a licensor doesn't grant you the right to "modify", than you can't assume that you have it. Just as if I bought a painting, but wasn't given the right to "copy", I can't just go and make copies of them and sell them to all comers.
It wouldn't take the Supremes to shut you down. Any District Court judge would give summary judgement on a violation of a license where you weren't given the rights to modify the source and you modified it.
The needs that you have and addressing them, is what gave birth to the Open Source movement. You want a license that allows you to make needed modifications and share them with others. This is why many enterprise customers are seriously looking at Open Source, because you don't get these right in a standard license and they aren't included in fair use.
So, I went to the links to check the context myself. It looks like freehenson.tripod.com is gone.
Looks like someone has found a great way to muzzle the discussion. How long until slashdot cuts this discussion....
It would be nice to get the original source materials up somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
ARRO's polemic is built on an unfounded and incorrect belief that the problem of the Middle East is caused by poverty in the region.
If that were true, it could easily be solved by the spending of billions of petro-dollars building hospitals, schools, etc. But wait, hasn't that already been done in Saudi Arabia? And isn't one of the prime architect's of Middle East Terro a Saudi millionaire?
The root of much of the terrorism in the Middle East isn't poverty. It is that a group of people are being forced to accept a reality - the existence of Israel as a country located in the Middle East - that is unacceptable to them.
This situation will not be resolved until that fringe group is either forced to accept that reality, but being shown that it is too expensive to pursue trying to change it through terror, or until Israel no longer exists as a state.
Yes, poverty helps the situation fester, but the people that are driving the terrorism have enormous funding. Iran, Iraq, Saudi millionaries like Bin Ladin, etc. are spending millions and billions to the end of destroying support for Israel, so that they can remove Israel from their world.
If it was true that addressing poverty would change this situation, you would not see militants coming out of and being funded from Saudi Arabia.
Katz, an excellent piece that lays out the great number of issues with which we need to struggle with in the wake of 9/11. Thank you for being willing to go beyond the knee-jerk reactions - many of which unfortunately have been expressed in replies to you - and think about how we balance our rights to be secure in our persons and possessions with our right to be safe in our lives.
If people have not read it, I would highly recommend they read The Bill of Rights by Akhil Reed Amar. Reading this work will cause you to rethink your understanding of what the Bill of Rights does and does not say. How it fits together. And how we might protect our rights in other ways than we currently do.
One of the myths of the Internet world is that we have an absolute right to privacy and annonimity. We need to think through what our pursuit of this means. The powerful have - and will have these rights - if we make them the our be all and end all. David Brin in The Transparent Society works through a different model. A model that would make us safer, but still give us privacy and protection from government agents.
Take the time to read these works. To think about them. Can we build a system that gives us secruity and protects us from self-dealing government agents? I think we can, but it will require us to move beyond next jerk reacations.
And wasn't it Bill Gates that said something along the lines of, "I can't imagine why anyone would want more than 64K of RAM?"
Let's be clear: people will always want more space, performance, and frames per second. We will always be pushing the limits.
If you think things are slowing down, just take a look at the various curves related to number of transistors in a cubic centimeter, density of bits in various storage devices, etc. The singularity is still coming sometime between 2025 and 2035.
A contract is, according to Business Law - A Streamlined Course for Students and Business People by Robert Emerson, J.D. and John W. Hardwicke, LL.B., a legally enforceable agreement, express or implied, with the following elements:
This contract has all of the elements:
You take them to court.
This document is a contract. It might not look like a contract, but it is an agreement entered into by two parties with an exchange of favors.
Until they change it, it is binding on them and you - if you agree to it. If they change it, the current version governs any content submitted up to the change.
If they break it, then you take them to court. You get an order compelling them to honor the agreement. Since they didn't outline a limitation of damages, you could also seek damages from them.
I have worked in a lot of big companies. I am surprised that something this straight-forward, clean, and "right", was able to make it out into the world.
Actually, this is a contract. Any content submitted prior to a change is bound by the license put in place. Of course, if you want to protect yourself, you should capture the existing contract and any revisions. This will allow you to hold them to a particular version of the contract.
Let's be honest, except for some classes of marriage, no one gives contract's "forever".
As many I am sure know, I am a strong advocate of intellectual property rights. I am also an equally strong advocate for balanced intellectual property rights and freedom of expression.
The application of the DCMA against 2600 Magazine and Felten et al, is chilling. Left unchecked, the DCMA will cause a level of self-censorship that will cut off entire avenues of investigation and research.
Given that Felten et al where engaged in research and wanted to publish their findings for the common "advancement of the arts and sciences", it looks like the EFF has a very strong case in this situation.
More of us need to care about intellectual property and copyright law and its development into a framework that will allow us to balance the "advancement of the arts and sciences" with incentives to the creators to create.
So, if you really care about this subject, you need to run, not walk, via the web to the Electronic Freedom Foundation web site and either join or make a significant donation. Why? Because the EFF is going to need a fortune to litigate this case all the way to the Supreme Court.
First, a lot is going to depend on the circumstances that you face. I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but I did run an "underground newspaper" in my college days.
On the plus side, you are at a state school. State schools, as a state institution, are more restricted in the actions that they can take. Basically, you have more consitutional protections than you would have at a private school.
In terms of the ownership of the site, you may or may not have a case. Given that the school purchased and maintained the server, the site may be their property. You created the site using their resources and you may have explicity or implicity agreed to their ownership in whole or part of IP created using their resources.
The key here - and this will be where an attorney will be critical - is how do they treat the ownership of IP created by others that are supported by the University. For example, do they own and control the use of articles written for the school newspaper? Or if someone wrote and produced a play while as student at the University and with the Universities' support would they claim ownership?
You are also going to have to separate the issues that you are facing, but you need to ask yourself if the formal charges which they are pursuing, including the expulsion, are retribution for your "free speech" activities. If you can make this case, it does undermine the other issues.
I don't know how much of this situation is related to content on the bulletin board that you maintained. If they are punishing you for content that you did not create, then you have as a defense the same one that AOL would have. They might be able to take things down, you can't force someone to support speech - even the government - but they can't punish you obscence or libelous content you did not create.
You need a top notch civil right's attorney. I suggest you contact your local ACLU chapter or the Electronic Freedom Foundation . At the ACLU, I would suggest that you contact Carol Gnade (Utah point person), and the EFF, I would suggest that you contact Cindy Cohn. See if they will take on this case. In fact, based on the facts reported, you might want to see if the want to cooperate on it, given that the issues cross in and out of the online and real worlds.
Well, here are a few points that you miss from my presentation:
The right to determine how to disribute and under what terms is for a limited time.
I believe that the current monopoloies granted to copyright and patent holders are too long. They should be:
Copyright, 20 years or the life of the author plus one year, whichever is shorter.
Patent, 10 years, but the clock doesn't start ticking until the invention can be marketed sans regulatory hurdles (FDA approval for drugs).
Finally, copyrights and patents should only be granted to individuals or groups of individuals. Those individuals or groups of individuals can license them to corporations, but a minimum royalty of 5% of the gross revenues must be paid to and divided among the creators.
Dear Anonymous Friend -
Yes, an idea can't by nature be property - at least in the long-term - but the expression of an idea can be.
A song is a creation, no different from a cabinet, that is an expression of an idea. The person who made that creation should - during the time that we as a society have decided to grant them - have the right to determine how and under what terms it is distributed.
It may surprise those that are trying to put me in the Ayn Rand camp, that I believe that the monopolies currently granted under both copyright and patent law run too long. Personally, I believe the following is more appropriate:
I also believe that Copyright and Patents should only be granted to individuals. They should be licensed to corporations or other individuals with a minimum 5% license fee of gross revenues to be divided among the creators of record.
Ok, the big argumnet to date for support Napster and its kin has been that I want my music in an online format and the record companies and artists don't make it easy for me pay for it in that format.
So, now we have a way to pay them. A way that likely would - if worked right - allow us to reduce the overhead in moving money to the artists. But how do people react they start bitching that they want be able to take stuff without paying the folks that created it. Please, grow up!
If you truly believe in freedom, then the people that create stuff have the freedom to decide how and under what terms their creations are distributed. You on the other hand have the freedom to choose if you will accpet distribution on their terms. If you don't like those terms, then don't use it. Find someone else that will give you what you want on acceptable terms. If you don't like the terms, you don't have a right to take it without their permission ! This is called stealing and it is a direct attack on their freedom to choose how they want to and under what terms they choose to disribute their creations. Attacking someone's freedom is called oppression and that is a bad thing!
Properly executed, a Roxio based distribution technology has the promise of allowing smaller labels to have a reach equal to the big guys. This is a good thing. It means that they can be economically viable.
In case people haven't been paying attention, the world of everything costing nothing on the Internet is quickly disappearing. If people are going to create, they have to figure out how to eat. Some do this by working at a "job" so that they can pursue their "vocation". That is fine, it is their choice. Others want to engage in their vocation full-time. But to do so, they need a way to sell the fruit of their labor. If you like the taste of that fruit and the terms under which they want to provide it to you, then you pay them for it. But you don't take it without their consent.
I don't want to be forced to pay for creations I don't want or under terms I find unacceptable - this is my criticism of RMS and the Free Software Model, I don't want to pay a "software tax" for software I may or may not want - but I also can't take something that another has created without their consent.
Is it really not possible to make things uncopyable? Or is this an article of faith that many of us assume. It seems that it is not truly possible to prove this position.
Now, if you want to ask is is worth the gyrations to make things uncopyable, I will easily answer no.
Of course, the goal may not be to make things uncopyable. Rather, it might be to make it more inconvenient to make a copy than it is to buy it legally.
Thanks for calling my typo to my attention. I should have caught that on my proof.
For people that are supposedly willing to think through issues, I see a ton of knee jerk reactions.
Of course, people are now going to put me in the box of a "MS supporter" or should that be "MS Supporter Scum". I believe in using the right tool for the job. From a business or distribution model point of view, Free Software (as defined in the GPL), OpenSource, Share Source (be what it may), and the Closed Source model are all appropriate. When people start shouting that Free Software is about "freedom", then I start getting worried. Free Software is a model that is useful. Drop the ideology and focus on what you are trying to accomplish.
Really? The folks in the porn business aren't taking advantage of the creators of Apache? How do they - other than the web logs - give anything back to the creators of Apache? Are they giving them credit on their sites? Do they support the community that creates Apache? Do they pay the folks that create Apache? I think that the answer here is no. And guess what, this parallels what the porn industry does to the performers. Is uses them and gives them as little as possible from the value that they created.
Actually, I don't value money all that much. I like the good that I can do with - buying a meal for someone, educating someone, paying someone's medical bills - money, but the reality is that our society shows it value for work through money. And it is clear that the folks in the porn industry value money. So, how they treat the creators of Apache shows a lot about their ethics.
Yes, but has it made any money for the author's of the software that is being run to serve this content?
Actually, the porn-meisters are doing to Apache's creators what regularly do the the folks that are at the "heart" of creating their content: take all the profits and leave them with nothing to show for their hard labors.
As they say, always go for the cheap cut-down rather than intelligent debate, for the cheap cut-down is easier and doesn't require you to stretch your brain.
Ideas - even if they go from Microsoft - are worth considering. Maybe Microsoft is on to something with its Shared Source Philosophy. Realize that it is as much a product of Microsoft's world view as is free software and GPL a product of RSM's world view.
I want to see an open exchange of ideas and an ability to - as was intended originally in our copy right law - "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts...", but at the same time, I want to earn a living from my works. I want to be able to feed my family. If someone will lay out for me a business model that will support a software company that doesn't depend on tons of stupid venture capital funding companies in a Linux-mania that follows a strict OpenSource or Free Software model at the margins that have made so many of us comfortable, then I will sign up right now.
A major issue in the DeCSS cases is are mathematics, alogorithms, source code protected speech?
If mathematics, algorithms, source code are protected speech, then 2600 Magazine is protected when publishing both the DeCSS code and links to the DeCSS code. If these aren't protected speech, than it isn't possible to invoke free speech guarantees when publishing them. This is a major issue. If it goes the wrong way, it would be bad news.
As the original author said, this is a marvelous example of how mathematics is a form of free and protected speech. It is a shame that this example wasn't available for inclusion in EFF's 2600 Magazine brief.
Well, this seems to be a good example of why the "bits about bits" are the most important. If reviews were tagged with a reference to the reviewer that I could cross-reference to a database of all reviews, then I would have been able to find out the interesting fact that this gentleman has only been around for x-months and only reviews Sony movies...
It is also a good example of why anonymity has to be balanced against accountability. If I can just post wonderful puff pieces anywhere and anyway, but don't have to disclose who I am or why I am saying what I am saying, then you get abuses like this one.
Let's look at this objectively.
We are looking at putting a few fiber optic strands that are difficult to interconnect. Each fiber optic strand can carry a few giga-bits of transmission capacity. It is only going to be used along high power transmission corridors.
I really don't see us getting a lot of bandwidth or getting it in the places that we need. This looks like another "Wired Wet Dream". Though it would be interesting to use the fiber to interconnect the information backbone for the grid. Given that California ISO spent a fortune on a fiber backbone, I could see this as a benefit.
Only a small problem with your argument. The right to create patent and copyright law is delegated to the United States by the Constitution.
I agree with Justice O'Connor's argument, but you seem to miss a small point. The rewarding of authors and creators does promote the "Progress of Science and useful Arts." When an author or creator is able to earn money from their work, they are likely to create more. When that work - all of it, not just the original work - passes into the public domain, we all win.
The whole point of copyright and patent law was an attempt to encourage the "Progress of Science and useful Arts", by at the same time balancing the rewarding of authors and inventors for their contributions while making those contributions public.
If we didn't have the copyright and patent law that we had in this country, we would see a return to the "trade secret" policies of the medieval trade guilds. People wouldn't publish their findings, they would hide them to profit from them.
That said, the monopoly granted by copyright and - to a lesser extent - patents is too long. We should see works passing into the public domain much more quickly. Personally, I would like to see copyrights return to a 20 year monopoly. Patents should be 10 years, but the clock shouldn't start ticking until regulations (FDA drug approval for example) allow you to start marketing the product.
Actual in the world of Copyright Law, rights that are not specifically granted are usally reserved to the copyright holder.
Therefore, if you truly want a right, make sure that it is specifically granted. If you want the right to modify source, then make sure that you have a license to modify. If you want to look at the source, make sure that you have the right to display. If you want to redistribute, make sure you have the right to redistribute. If you want to redistribute your derivative work (your changes), make sure that you have the right to create derivative work and to redistribute them. I could go on and on. I suggest you pick up one of Nolo Press' fine books on the subject.Actually, the Constitution has nothing to say about modifying source code or binaries or anything else for personal use. I suggest you spend some time reading it over again.
The only area where the Constiturion touches upon Copyright is found in Article 1, Section 8:
The concept of fair use is covered in Copyright Law. I would recommend that you go over to FindLaw to learn a bit more about Copyright Law vs. what is in the Constitution.
It is common in software licenses - including source licenses - to have various rights that are granted or restricted. The right to "copy", "modify", "examine", or "display" are common rights that are granted or restricted.
If a licensor doesn't grant you the right to "modify", than you can't assume that you have it. Just as if I bought a painting, but wasn't given the right to "copy", I can't just go and make copies of them and sell them to all comers.
It wouldn't take the Supremes to shut you down. Any District Court judge would give summary judgement on a violation of a license where you weren't given the rights to modify the source and you modified it.
The needs that you have and addressing them, is what gave birth to the Open Source movement. You want a license that allows you to make needed modifications and share them with others. This is why many enterprise customers are seriously looking at Open Source, because you don't get these right in a standard license and they aren't included in fair use.
So, I went to the links to check the context myself. It looks like freehenson.tripod.com is gone. Looks like someone has found a great way to muzzle the discussion. How long until slashdot cuts this discussion.... It would be nice to get the original source materials up somewhere.