So why is it ok for the FSF to protect their copyrights and not ok for the RIAA and MPAA?
I'll bite! The RIAA and MPAA are limiting the freedoms of individuals for the benefit of corporations. FSF and the GPL are limiting the freedoms of corporations for the benefit of individuals. Rule #1: Always err on the side of the individual. For instance, compare "Undamaged corporations and damaged individuals" versus "damaged corporations and undamaged indiduals". In the broadest possible sense, you're a fool to pick the first over the second. Because if the individuals are undamaged, then by definition, who cares about the corporations?
I wonder if they tell the kids the artists are starving since the RIAA gives them $0.00000083 for every CD sold.
It's worse than that. Though, there's plenty to learn about math and piracy, no file sharing necessary. Here's a taste:
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
...
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
The LawMeme article also felt off topic. Discussing the competativeness of business models and essentially picking the winner of the File Sharing Superbowl? I'm not certain that the merits of centralized versus decentralized file sharing warrants broad discussion, especially when the focus is only on the eventual popularity of the essential companies. I'd rather see an article on the deeper implications of compulsory licensing for file sharing.
If reselling music like this goes without repercussion, it seems like it could be the foundation for a really nice peer-to-peer music swapping application. You make an initial investment for say 100 songs, then buy and sell songs from your library at a fixed fee of $1. So after the initial investment, it's zero-sum. I guess the DRM of it could be tricky though. It gets more fun+fast when you keep a cache of the songs you sell, transferring only the rights to play, so if you want to "repurchase" it again later, it's a really fast download. Anyway, just thinking out loud...
I found this interview with Burt Rutan. There's a particular question and answer that I'm sure the Slashdot crowd will enjoy:
Q: How do you feel when you see imitations of your designs? Do you feel flattered?
A: Well, you know, for about 14 years, I was in the home-built business, selling plans. And during that time, several different outfits essentially copied what I was doing in structural ways, aerodynamic ways. And I think it is a compliment if people go out and copy what you do. If you turn around and sue, that pretty much puts you at a stop, at a stymie. That kind of an approach essentially stopped the Wright brothers in their tracks in the late '10s. They let others advance the art because they were patenting the airplane. And you know, once they started working with lawyers, they were doomed.
Given the capabilities of modern IT, it makes much more sense to use software as the core of the system, in the same was as software is the core of a device like the Segway, or the stair-climbing robot, or the telescopes that consist of a thousand small mirrors, not one large one.
Control system engineers as well as artificial intelligence scientists (where the two fields are slowly meeting at a point called "intelligent systems") might take offense at equating their entire fields to IT.
Re:I had a feeliing it would get posted to slashdo
on
Linux Router Project Dead
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I am less than dimly aware of LRP. But, just from reading the comments here on Slashdot, you've severely misrepresented the state of the project itself by all-together failing to mentionLEAF.
You complain that you could find no one to contribute, "Untrue to the opensource dogma, actually finding people to contribute work to a project is a task in and of itself." And that you weren't even recognized for your work, "Acknowledgement and referral would have at least been acceptable."
In this, you have wronged the hard work of people that have contributed to, improved, maintained, and taken leadership of something you started. The failings you've claimed are a reflection of yourself, not the community. Whatever is going on, you need to be significantly more honest with not only the community, but significantly more honest with yourself.
the thing you most notice is that when no-one is talking, it is actually *silent* - you don't realise it until you try VoIP howe much noise is in a normal analog call.
The background white noise in an analog phone call is artificially inserted ("comfort" noise). Studies showed users were not comfortable with a "dead" line, where the static reassures them the connection is still active.
What always makes me mad is that id spent the last X years creating the engine and content; and specifically spent a nontrivial amount of time putting that demo video together. Where in that process does Gamespot think they've earned the right to piss their ugly ass logo on the bottom right for the duration of the video? Oh right, Gamespot doesn't want the trailer to be mistaken for anyone else's property than their own, because they've contributed so much. Err...
Presume a world where a massive amount of information can be gathered on every individual, whenever and wherever they are. This is in the real world, not just cyberspace (think billions/trillions of cheap, miniscule, networked sensors). Where are the ethical boundaries on the use of that information as it relates to our privacy, safety, personal freedoms, etc?
Speeding up evolution means lots of mutations and lots of death of everything not better. Mucking around with the genome is not evolution, it's just mucking around with the genome. Blah...
That's good, though. That's the way academia works. You make an assertion, of course what you assert isn't quite right, and though the process you find more interesting things to say. In this case, that not only do you need to constain the board configuration, but that you also need to constrain the sequence of tiles in some way. Excellent! Hell, you could even get a second paper out of it!:)
I imagine "winning" in Tetris would be defined as "not-losing". I'd guess the goal of a winning algorithm would be for an initially empty board to calculate a strategy to never stack-out (lose) for any arbitrary inifite sequence of Tetris pieces.
Probably to help prove that, the tool you'd want is an algorithm to determine if an arbitrary board is winable or losable for any given N-finite sequence of pieces; where N is the number of remaining empty grids divided by four. You'd want to use that algorithm to determine a large set of initial board configurations that you'll never leave for any given sequence of pieces. That first algorithm is probably the one they say is NP-hard.
In addition to red, green, and blue OLED materials, Kodak researchers have successfully formulated white-emitting materials. Using a dual emitting layer--each emitting in a complementary color--they have produced white OLEDs that yield not only an excellent white hue, but a good color stability over a wide range of light levels. The white hue is easily adjustable to any shade from pale yellow to light blue. The device life exceeds exceeds 20,000 hr (Figure 2).
"The only thing Verizon is protecting is Verizon's own business interests," [RIAA President Cary] Sherman said.
Oh man, that's pure comedy.
I can just see the RIAA at a huge table eating piles and piles of chocolate cakes, their faces smeared with icing. Their mouths full, spitting out huge chunks of cake, they muffle through chipmunk cheeks, "The only thing Verizon wants is piles of chocolate cakes."
Just to play Devil's Advocate for a perhaps overly idealistic argument:
Rights management only restricts you with respect to rights managed media.
Those that truly believe in an open culture (or at least a less restricted one) can create one... sans rights management. Why do we need the latest cookie cutter pop rock? Or the latest fill-in-the-blanks action movie?
We are creative. We can create. We don't have to buy into the world they're creating. We can create our own. ("They" = those that would assert undue control over they way we... live.)
Yes, it'd be a better place if everyone played nice. But some aren't. So screw them. The only power they have is the power we give them. It wouldn't even be a "boycott", because that implies under ideal circumstances we want the rights managed garbage they'll be shoveling.
...
Well, there it is. Unless the lowest energy state really is absolute greed. In which case, it doesn't matter how many cultures you (re)create, they'll always drift back to the one we have now.
Hrumph... that's what I get for reading 1984 yesterday. But I think perhaps there's at least a kernel of truth in there.
Ok, all of your disagreements amounted to: "It doesn't affect me so i don't know but it shouldn't change anway", "I'm too lazy to learn a new way.", and "I can't think of a better way so there must no be one."
I'd say his commentary ammounted to "The ratio of benefit to breakage seems far less than one." And, I agree with him. Most of the proposed changes are nitpicking -- which is to say the final distance between the originial language and the "overhauled" language is not very far, and for all that effort, you bought incompatability.
Give me templates and typedefs. Those are changes worth breaking the language over. Those are suggestions that can hold their weight in a "Top 10 Java 3" list.
I had exactly the same experience as the parent post. In fact, I had to double check that I didn't write it myself.
Interacting with programs throught the keyboard has been inbred with QWERTY -- application evolution in the real world toword make QWERTY easier to use. And it's not just Unix. For instance, in MS Windows, the standard Cut (CTRL-X), Copy (CTRL-C), Paste (CTRL-V) are very QWERTY-centric, as well.
Eventually you realize almost all keyboard shortcuts and common commands have been optimized for QWERTY. If you switch to something else, you've made those unoptimal unless you rebind them... in every application.:(
Well, you're not saying anything constructive. But, yes, you have still failed to show any comprehension of points made by Flint.
Actions are VERY different than a political viewpoint.
Irrelevant. You're not even in the same discussion.
If an author joins certain political groups, enacts in the real world his personal philosophy, mulches babies, rapes mothers, and makes deals with the Devil, should you boycott his or her literature? Well, if the book has something to say, it's still worth reading. THAT'S Eric Flint's point, and by extension my point about Warcraft 3. Clue in.
Slashdot Mirror
So why is it ok for the FSF to protect their copyrights and not ok for the RIAA and MPAA?
I'll bite! The RIAA and MPAA are limiting the freedoms of individuals for the benefit of corporations. FSF and the GPL are limiting the freedoms of corporations for the benefit of individuals. Rule #1: Always err on the side of the individual. For instance, compare "Undamaged corporations and damaged individuals" versus "damaged corporations and undamaged indiduals". In the broadest possible sense, you're a fool to pick the first over the second. Because if the individuals are undamaged, then by definition, who cares about the corporations?
Myth.
... that was the original idea of the Brothers W.
Reference?
It's worse than that. Though, there's plenty to learn about math and piracy, no file sharing necessary. Here's a taste:
The LawMeme article also felt off topic. Discussing the competativeness of business models and essentially picking the winner of the File Sharing Superbowl? I'm not certain that the merits of centralized versus decentralized file sharing warrants broad discussion, especially when the focus is only on the eventual popularity of the essential companies. I'd rather see an article on the deeper implications of compulsory licensing for file sharing.
If reselling music like this goes without repercussion, it seems like it could be the foundation for a really nice peer-to-peer music swapping application. You make an initial investment for say 100 songs, then buy and sell songs from your library at a fixed fee of $1. So after the initial investment, it's zero-sum. I guess the DRM of it could be tricky though. It gets more fun+fast when you keep a cache of the songs you sell, transferring only the rights to play, so if you want to "repurchase" it again later, it's a really fast download. Anyway, just thinking out loud...
There's a joke in engineering. When it doesn't work (which is often), you say, "Well, it worked in simulation." Everyone has a good laugh.
... and I'm getting really sick of Firebird (re)filling in the wrong subject line after a preview. Sorry.
Given the capabilities of modern IT, it makes much more sense to use software as the core of the system, in the same was as software is the core of a device like the Segway, or the stair-climbing robot, or the telescopes that consist of a thousand small mirrors, not one large one.
Control system engineers as well as artificial intelligence scientists (where the two fields are slowly meeting at a point called "intelligent systems") might take offense at equating their entire fields to IT.
You complain that you could find no one to contribute, "Untrue to the opensource dogma, actually finding people to contribute work to a project is a task in and of itself." And that you weren't even recognized for your work, "Acknowledgement and referral would have at least been acceptable."
In this, you have wronged the hard work of people that have contributed to, improved, maintained, and taken leadership of something you started. The failings you've claimed are a reflection of yourself, not the community. Whatever is going on, you need to be significantly more honest with not only the community, but significantly more honest with yourself.
The background white noise in an analog phone call is artificially inserted ("comfort" noise). Studies showed users were not comfortable with a "dead" line, where the static reassures them the connection is still active.
What always makes me mad is that id spent the last X years creating the engine and content; and specifically spent a nontrivial amount of time putting that demo video together. Where in that process does Gamespot think they've earned the right to piss their ugly ass logo on the bottom right for the duration of the video? Oh right, Gamespot doesn't want the trailer to be mistaken for anyone else's property than their own, because they've contributed so much. Err ...
Presume a world where a massive amount of information can be gathered on every individual, whenever and wherever they are. This is in the real world, not just cyberspace (think billions/trillions of cheap, miniscule, networked sensors). Where are the ethical boundaries on the use of that information as it relates to our privacy, safety, personal freedoms, etc?
Speeding up evolution means lots of mutations and lots of death of everything not better. Mucking around with the genome is not evolution, it's just mucking around with the genome. Blah...
That's good, though. That's the way academia works. You make an assertion, of course what you assert isn't quite right, and though the process you find more interesting things to say. In this case, that not only do you need to constain the board configuration, but that you also need to constrain the sequence of tiles in some way. Excellent! Hell, you could even get a second paper out of it! :)
Funny.
Probably to help prove that, the tool you'd want is an algorithm to determine if an arbitrary board is winable or losable for any given N-finite sequence of pieces; where N is the number of remaining empty grids divided by four. You'd want to use that algorithm to determine a large set of initial board configurations that you'll never leave for any given sequence of pieces. That first algorithm is probably the one they say is NP-hard.
Oh man, that's pure comedy.
I can just see the RIAA at a huge table eating piles and piles of chocolate cakes, their faces smeared with icing. Their mouths full, spitting out huge chunks of cake, they muffle through chipmunk cheeks, "The only thing Verizon wants is piles of chocolate cakes."
God bless America.
Rights management only restricts you with respect to rights managed media.
Those that truly believe in an open culture (or at least a less restricted one) can create one... sans rights management. Why do we need the latest cookie cutter pop rock? Or the latest fill-in-the-blanks action movie?
We are creative. We can create. We don't have to buy into the world they're creating. We can create our own. ("They" = those that would assert undue control over they way we... live.)
Yes, it'd be a better place if everyone played nice. But some aren't. So screw them. The only power they have is the power we give them. It wouldn't even be a "boycott", because that implies under ideal circumstances we want the rights managed garbage they'll be shoveling.
...
Well, there it is. Unless the lowest energy state really is absolute greed. In which case, it doesn't matter how many cultures you (re)create, they'll always drift back to the one we have now.
Hrumph... that's what I get for reading 1984 yesterday. But I think perhaps there's at least a kernel of truth in there.
I'd say his commentary ammounted to "The ratio of benefit to breakage seems far less than one." And, I agree with him. Most of the proposed changes are nitpicking -- which is to say the final distance between the originial language and the "overhauled" language is not very far, and for all that effort, you bought incompatability.
Give me templates and typedefs. Those are changes worth breaking the language over. Those are suggestions that can hold their weight in a "Top 10 Java 3" list.
I had exactly the same experience as the parent post. In fact, I had to double check that I didn't write it myself.
:(
Interacting with programs throught the keyboard has been inbred with QWERTY -- application evolution in the real world toword make QWERTY easier to use. And it's not just Unix. For instance, in MS Windows, the standard Cut (CTRL-X), Copy (CTRL-C), Paste (CTRL-V) are very QWERTY-centric, as well.
Eventually you realize almost all keyboard shortcuts and common commands have been optimized for QWERTY. If you switch to something else, you've made those unoptimal unless you rebind them... in every application.
Err... maybe I mean 12 and 60 are two such numbers. Anyway, here's a link to what the hell I'm talking about.
Actions are VERY different than a political viewpoint.
Irrelevant. You're not even in the same discussion.
If an author joins certain political groups, enacts in the real world his personal philosophy, mulches babies, rapes mothers, and makes deals with the Devil, should you boycott his or her literature? Well, if the book has something to say, it's still worth reading. THAT'S Eric Flint's point, and by extension my point about Warcraft 3. Clue in.