I don't remember all the details, but I thought there was a British law passed many years ago that basically allowed British Naval vessels to commandeer any pirates' vessel and use their crews as forced labor for the British Navy. IIRC, this ended up causing American trade ship crews being 'drafted' into Britain's Naval Service against their wills, even though they weren't 'pirates' per se, just guys trying to make a legitamite buck or two. But since America and Britain didn't get along, Britain just started bending their own rules to allow them to be jerks to their nemesis, America.
Feel free to correct me on the actual facts of all of that, but I don't find Cox to be too overboard with regard to this. How did Dmitri get thrown in jail? He simply came over here to tell us how it was possible to be civilly disobedient, but his company was offering the software to the Russian public primarily, because over there their laws say they're explicitly allowed to copy, for personal use, things like books, even if they are digital copies. But America gets a little greedy (Adobe) and imprisons a guy just trying to make a buck to force other nations to bow to our will (well, the US corporation's/government's will, not the people's will per se).
Just because Mr. Cox can be a little over the top in his explanation of the DMCA and its far reaching consequences, doesn't mean he's necessarily off base in his argument.
I've seen a new software project switch its architecture, primary coding language used, and business requirements every other day for weeks on end. And yes, it did not get off the ground in 8 months. If you want to write a useable, sufficiently involved software program, better spend a good year or two desiging it before you even begin to think about coding it.
We all know it takes M$, one of the biggest and richest software companies, 3 revisions to have a useable, semi-popular product, and another major revision to make it an industry leading software package. Then they polish it up a fifth time just to finally meet many (not all) of actual user requirements and complaints that the previous 4 versions didn't have.
Any open source project should be focusing on design and architecture first. If it takes forever for it to leave the hangar, so be it. If it's got high potential, people will jump on board to help tweak some of the smaller issues here and there as the project moves forward.
Well, if he's installing the wire in an unsecure access ceiling/wall, he probably doesn't want motion detectors going off every time the contractors come in to install more wiring, reconfigure wire runs, etc. as it would be going off way too much each time they bump the secure line. Likewise, he probably needs to protect against outside contractors coming in and messing with things they shouldn't be, on the outside chance that they're not 'just' contractors, but intelligence operatives from the competitor down the street.
The best security is going to be a VP or other interested party, with very tangible reasons for maintaining the integrity of your systems. Sick 'em on the contractors whenever work is being done near your secure line. Encase the line in concrete, asphalt, or some highly volatile chemical capable of melting the line whenever something contacts it, and then don't worry about all those extra lines, junk data, etc. Just make sure you have someone you trust, and knows technically what's going on, to oversee any projects that happen along that 200ft span of wire.
You are pretty selfish. Why don't you upload them back to the servers and people's computers that you got them from you bastitch? I'm sure some of that Indie music that you downloaded actually belongs to the Indie artists, not the RIAA - so you had better turn that computer on, and leave it on, so that all those artists you 'stole' from can go find their music, and download it back to their own computers.
My girlfriend is in law school at Ohio State Univ. They have a wireless network, for the law students at least, that lets them connect in all their classes so that they can look up cases/case law/etc. while in class and taking notes on their laptops. Pretty cool if you ask me.
I'm sure wireless networks will be the new way to go to bring the 'Internet' back to the users and away from the banner ad dominated corporate wasteland out there today. Besides, how is the RIAA going to try and monitor thousands of seperate networks versus one big corporatized MSN 'net? I think my next big investment will be a wireless card so I can start experimenting 'round the home in preperation for the first NAN that pops up near me. And hey, maybe there's even a market for being a NAN set up company that can help those little cookie-cutter home builder communities build there own individual NAN's?
I'm still confused on the logic of the RIAA's arguments. I thought the purpose of a copyright was to give credit where credit was due, and to make those using the copyrighted material, pay the person who created it when money was exchanging hands. For instance, if I buy a book from the bookstore, part of the money goes to the bookstore (the middleman in the transaction), part of the money goes to the publisher (the party that the author pays to massively reproduce his/her work), and the rest goes to the author.
So why is it, that when I've payed the $15.99 for a CD with 12 songs, and I wish to make copies and give it away for free, that I should be labeled a 'music pirate'? I've already done my part to pay the proper person the fee to get their professionally produced CD, and I'm not charging everyone else to listen to the music that I find worthy of my $15.99. I'm trying to show them why they too should spend $15.99 on a professionally produced CD. Software is different because all those software companies have End User License Agreements packaged with the software, that basically say you're not allowed to copy it. You're in effect, leasing the software, not buying it outright.
Eventually, bandwidth and drive space will get so large that we'll be able to send exact disc images of entire CD's around the internet without much hassle or time involved at all. What will they do then?
My solution would be that either you sell the CD's at a higher price to compensate for all the 'sharing' going on, or you play more concerts, or make a person sign, in writing, legal documents saying they'll never copy the CD with your music on it. It's your music, you have the right to charge $100/CD if you want. But then you're alienating all but you most devout fans. If CD's only cost the $0.50 in actual materials it cost to produce them, I'd bet we'd see a lot more meaningful artists out there today. Unfortunately, the USA's capitalistic value system is all about "cheaper, faster, easier", not quality.
So how long until the Japanese come in and revolutionize music production, just like they revolutionized the automotive industry?
Yeah, this must be the new craze. Magnify your low res display to huge proportions with a simple snap-on 'radically new' monitor add-on! Please. I saw a similar add for a long time on www.worldnetdaily.com a while back, but it seems to have recently been removed from their front page listings of 'Special Offers' which is usually just a bunch of junk.
...but ever here at my company (banking industry) there is a lot of reluctance towards linux... Not everyone wants to move away from a commercial solution, be it for maintenance reasons, or just maintaining a standard with other companies.
Which is exactly why it's good for governments to begin the trend of using OpenSource software. My first two years of college I had to spend my time coding in Ada simply because our school sent lots of graduates on to big government defense contractors who all had to use Ada because that's what the US gov't dictated.
Sure, companies don't want to switch, and probably shouldn't switch just yet because they have to operate in conjunction with other companies, but a government is pretty free to dictate to companies what standards to use. If a company wants that plush government contract, and the government says they have to develop the software using OpenSource and Linux, well then, the company will do it.
The RIAA is trying to scare the common user away from piracy. Not a bad way, if you know better.
What's funny is that it's not going to. There were about 3000-7000+ users on Bearshare at any one time over the weekend. When I told my girlfriend about downloading music the other day, she said: "Where!? Since Napster has gone away I've been at a loss! You gotta show me this new service." (I paraphrase her comments). And she's not a tech nerd, and really IS in law school right now!
Really all the RIAA is gonna do is force everyone to just keep developing better and better end runs around their silly attempts to extort ridiculous amounts of cash out of their customers. So in a way, it's possible that someday we'll be thanking their sorry asses for giving us the most encrypted, open, file-sharing, copyright disregarding P2P networks - all because they just couldn't pass up the chance to make a couple more million dollars.
I agree. The reason doctors get paid so well is because they usually have tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in debt by the time they actually make it out of their residency. And I'm sure no one would advocate doctors taking a pay cut so that it only takes their entire life to pay off those debts! Personally, I'm paying off $15,000 of school loans that I accumulated in only 3 yrs (still haven't finished college), so having a good paying job is an important step in supporting the family I hope to one day have.
I was simply saying that love of money is a powerful motivator in a capitalistic society, so enjoy not having any while you can, because it frees you up from bending your will and desires to make that almighty buck for your boss, company, etc. College is a good time for such freedom.
Wrong. They're not passionate about their copyrights. They could care less if a million people copied the tunes, as long as they all paid their $2.00/mp3 for doing so. This whole copyright business with the DMCA is specifically about making the heads of recording studios richer, not about making the actual creators of the music rich, or even given credit for their works.
And yes, once you've been in corporate America, you'll see that this shitty money grabbing politics happens all the time. Enjoy college while you can.
And besides, the only computers they'll end up cracking into to delete files from will be the Britney Spears and NSYNC teenie bopper fans of the world, which just means that they'll be pissing off little teenage girls and boys, who will in turn cry to their parents, who will then go ballistic on the RIAA. Just another wonderful way to alienate their user base even more than they already have.
The battery life seems rather ridiculous. Who would want to wear a watch that can't make it through an entire day at work? Besides, sounds to gimicky and gadget packed to be useful for anyone who isn't an ubergeek.
Well, railroads died because there was better technology out there (personal automobiles) and because of antitrust suits IIRC, and the printing press took out the authoritarian control of the Catholic church and elitist monarchs and gave the power of understanding to the masses, so I don't see why this should be different.
Breaking them up won't help - that will just create a Baby Bell situation where a couple (or lots) of MS Monopoly companies exist in each of their respective markets. What they need to do is enforce stiff monetary penalties (they are one of the richest companies on the planet) payable to the companies they screwed over (at least the ones named in the antitrust case). That would help force them to crank the price of WinXP (and their licensing schemes) to even more ridiculous price levels, thereby forcing companies to switch to a better, and cheaper OS.
That is a very good insight. And as to this statement:
[and at the same time, one can easily argue that this all plays nicely into the hands of 'big business,' and only serves to further the push towards globalization, which is surely the last thing any mid-East terrorist could want!]
I would remind everyone that these guys, while very smart in how to accomplish a particular task, have definitely forgotten to think about the consequences of their actions, both in the here and now and in the afterlife. Chaos only begets chaos (or someone to take advantage of the chaos and bring those in chaos into 'order' - even if that means strict rule by one person, no matter how flawed that 'order' may be). The shear stupidity of what Islamic fundamentalists are trying to promote as 'orderly' just makes me cringe. They're bringing about their own destruction, (and the world's) by destroying.
And in a world where everyone believes there are no absolutes, and all religions, beliefs, etc. can be 'right' for an individual, nothing but chaos can ensue when absolutely no one can agree on anything.
From the article and Rosen's memo: "It is time to get coordinated and aggressive with the new round of peer to peer services. The amount of music being downloaded is, as you know, reaching unprecedented levels. Since college started last week Morpheus traffic was up to 19 million downloads per day. AND THAT'S JUST MORPHEUS. With the imminent launch of legitimate subscription services we have to get our customers back," Rosen told executives at various major labels, Yahoo, Real Networks, Microsoft and AOL in an email.
"I know you want your new businesses to be successful. So do I. Given the overwhelming volume of these alternative services, RIAA can't handle all of the enforcement alone. If they are not controlled more effectively and consumers redirected to legitimate offerings, there won't be new businesses. That's obvious," Rosen continued.
So although it's the customers who are considered to be the actual ones 'violating copyrighted works', we're going to litigate the technology companies who provide all those degenerates the method to 'violate copyrights' in an effort to win back all those degenerates as paying customers once again? That does not make sense to me. Besides, college students are probably RIAA's biggest customer base in the first place, so screwing them over by getting rid of their favorite technology toys sounds like a bad business decision, despite whatever laws you may be trying to uphold. And it's pretty clear that the RIAA is in it for the money, not for protecting artist's interests.
In the workplace, it takes a LOOONNGGG time to can the slackers. After all, you want to have plenty of evidence against them so that you don't get a messy lawsuit about unfair discrimination of their undiagnosed on-the-job narcolepsy after you fire them. So putting up with the slackers usually doesn't stop after high school and/or college.
However, I do think CS students should be required to take at least one in-depth course on how to work in a team setting (and not just a senior project, I'm talking a course dedicated on how to work in a team). There are plenty of programmers and techies out there that don't work well with others, and that makes it harder to get your own work done much of the time in the corporate world.
...that I prefer a pretty unobtrusive site like slashdot to there crappy ads. I use the net to get away from all the marketing bull. If I want to watch ads I'll watch TV, which is also why I usually don't read much stuff on big corporate news websites like Salon all the time while online. The net is not TV, and I'm sick of seeing people try to sell it like it is.
There's a huge difference between banning something outright, and outlawing its woeful misuse.
Guns are a VERY important tool that every American should not be afraid to own. However, those idiots that woefully misuse it to attack other people (animals don't count in that category you PETA lovers) who have not endangered the immediate life of the gun owner, deserve to be dealt swift justice. But that's very different from taking away the responsibilities and freedoms that every generally law-abiding citizen should be allowed.
The previous poster is simply saying that completely disallowing anyone but the proper 'authorities' to own and use those tools which technology has given us is folly. Simply removing a tool from the general public because of the *risk* of one person misusing it is not worth the absolute destruction of the freedom and responsibility that you give up for a *little* added security (if any at all).
According to the Caldera site, you can download the ISOs as well as the source to the server and workstation varieties of Open Linux on a (eh?) "single, non-commercial license."
I get it! They're just being innovative so that they can generate more banner ad views when each user has to burn 1.5megs of bandwidth visiting Caldera's website 3 times in a row to download three sets of ISO's instead of just one for use on those 3 junk computers they have sitting around the house. Now that's +1 Insightful on Caldera's behalf!
I completely agree. Throwing away tools because they could potentially be used for evil is stupid. And don't argue about how they make evil on a grander scale so much easier - Hitler managed to kill millions of innocents with good old FIRE! OOOoohh! What a wonderfully horrendous technology! Let's ban it too!!!
True, that's what this site is about, but political activists usually are niche groups any ways. Besides, I'm sure that there are plenty of people in the USA that care about freedom and liberty (even when related to technology) that could care less about an OS flame war. I think you would find a great many people interested in donating to a PAC that supports getting rid of the DMCA (and preventing future pro-corporation backed laws from being passed.)
I may be considered 'conservative' and pro-wealth in lots of areas in how I vote, but I'd side with the liberals on the DMCA issue and other technology related political issues that are being drafted to further increase monopolistic profits for companies, while screwing over the consumer.
Thanks for the info, but I have tried it out and am not sure if the lack of all the reporting and scheduling of payments/bills/paychecks is going to be a huge hinderance or not. Also, there's lots of dependancies and libraries that you have to install to get it working correctly. It's cool if you don't have investments and recurring things that need scheduled to track, but I do. Kapital claims to be able to do all that, even with their current beta version - plus I want to support KDE so that a really nice Linux front end doesn't get axed because of lack of financial support.
Actually, my main computer just died running Win2k which I was borrowing from my bro' because he wasn't using it at the time. It doesn't even boot up, and from what I've found online, I'll have to do A LOT of work reinstalling CAB files and other crap to get it working again. I never had that kind of problem with Win98SE, so I'm going back to it (it also ran games better than win2k in my opinion which is why i still use windows at all). The latest Windows are too restrictive for my needs, but Linux (I use Mandrake) is nice and open, and free, and encourages using all kinds of different apps on it, not just a particular distro's software.
I was waiting for Kapital to evolve a bit more for managing my finances, and for more games to become available for Linux, but now, I'm just gonna keep a Win98 partition around ONLY for the games. All my other important stuff is going onto a Linux run system from here on out...
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Feel free to correct me on the actual facts of all of that, but I don't find Cox to be too overboard with regard to this. How did Dmitri get thrown in jail? He simply came over here to tell us how it was possible to be civilly disobedient, but his company was offering the software to the Russian public primarily, because over there their laws say they're explicitly allowed to copy, for personal use, things like books, even if they are digital copies. But America gets a little greedy (Adobe) and imprisons a guy just trying to make a buck to force other nations to bow to our will (well, the US corporation's/government's will, not the people's will per se).
Just because Mr. Cox can be a little over the top in his explanation of the DMCA and its far reaching consequences, doesn't mean he's necessarily off base in his argument.
We all know it takes M$, one of the biggest and richest software companies, 3 revisions to have a useable, semi-popular product, and another major revision to make it an industry leading software package. Then they polish it up a fifth time just to finally meet many (not all) of actual user requirements and complaints that the previous 4 versions didn't have.
Any open source project should be focusing on design and architecture first. If it takes forever for it to leave the hangar, so be it. If it's got high potential, people will jump on board to help tweak some of the smaller issues here and there as the project moves forward.
The best security is going to be a VP or other interested party, with very tangible reasons for maintaining the integrity of your systems. Sick 'em on the contractors whenever work is being done near your secure line. Encase the line in concrete, asphalt, or some highly volatile chemical capable of melting the line whenever something contacts it, and then don't worry about all those extra lines, junk data, etc. Just make sure you have someone you trust, and knows technically what's going on, to oversee any projects that happen along that 200ft span of wire.
Ha-ha! :)
I'm sure wireless networks will be the new way to go to bring the 'Internet' back to the users and away from the banner ad dominated corporate wasteland out there today. Besides, how is the RIAA going to try and monitor thousands of seperate networks versus one big corporatized MSN 'net? I think my next big investment will be a wireless card so I can start experimenting 'round the home in preperation for the first NAN that pops up near me. And hey, maybe there's even a market for being a NAN set up company that can help those little cookie-cutter home builder communities build there own individual NAN's?
I should have said: pay the person who created it when money and goods exchanged hands.
So why is it, that when I've payed the $15.99 for a CD with 12 songs, and I wish to make copies and give it away for free, that I should be labeled a 'music pirate'? I've already done my part to pay the proper person the fee to get their professionally produced CD, and I'm not charging everyone else to listen to the music that I find worthy of my $15.99. I'm trying to show them why they too should spend $15.99 on a professionally produced CD. Software is different because all those software companies have End User License Agreements packaged with the software, that basically say you're not allowed to copy it. You're in effect, leasing the software, not buying it outright.
Eventually, bandwidth and drive space will get so large that we'll be able to send exact disc images of entire CD's around the internet without much hassle or time involved at all. What will they do then?
My solution would be that either you sell the CD's at a higher price to compensate for all the 'sharing' going on, or you play more concerts, or make a person sign, in writing, legal documents saying they'll never copy the CD with your music on it. It's your music, you have the right to charge $100/CD if you want. But then you're alienating all but you most devout fans. If CD's only cost the $0.50 in actual materials it cost to produce them, I'd bet we'd see a lot more meaningful artists out there today. Unfortunately, the USA's capitalistic value system is all about "cheaper, faster, easier", not quality.
So how long until the Japanese come in and revolutionize music production, just like they revolutionized the automotive industry?
Yeah, this must be the new craze. Magnify your low res display to huge proportions with a simple snap-on 'radically new' monitor add-on! Please. I saw a similar add for a long time on www.worldnetdaily.com a while back, but it seems to have recently been removed from their front page listings of 'Special Offers' which is usually just a bunch of junk.
Which is exactly why it's good for governments to begin the trend of using OpenSource software. My first two years of college I had to spend my time coding in Ada simply because our school sent lots of graduates on to big government defense contractors who all had to use Ada because that's what the US gov't dictated.
Sure, companies don't want to switch, and probably shouldn't switch just yet because they have to operate in conjunction with other companies, but a government is pretty free to dictate to companies what standards to use. If a company wants that plush government contract, and the government says they have to develop the software using OpenSource and Linux, well then, the company will do it.
What's funny is that it's not going to. There were about 3000-7000+ users on Bearshare at any one time over the weekend. When I told my girlfriend about downloading music the other day, she said: "Where!? Since Napster has gone away I've been at a loss! You gotta show me this new service." (I paraphrase her comments). And she's not a tech nerd, and really IS in law school right now!
Really all the RIAA is gonna do is force everyone to just keep developing better and better end runs around their silly attempts to extort ridiculous amounts of cash out of their customers. So in a way, it's possible that someday we'll be thanking their sorry asses for giving us the most encrypted, open, file-sharing, copyright disregarding P2P networks - all because they just couldn't pass up the chance to make a couple more million dollars.
I was simply saying that love of money is a powerful motivator in a capitalistic society, so enjoy not having any while you can, because it frees you up from bending your will and desires to make that almighty buck for your boss, company, etc. College is a good time for such freedom.
And yes, once you've been in corporate America, you'll see that this shitty money grabbing politics happens all the time. Enjoy college while you can.
And besides, the only computers they'll end up cracking into to delete files from will be the Britney Spears and NSYNC teenie bopper fans of the world, which just means that they'll be pissing off little teenage girls and boys, who will in turn cry to their parents, who will then go ballistic on the RIAA. Just another wonderful way to alienate their user base even more than they already have.
The battery life seems rather ridiculous. Who would want to wear a watch that can't make it through an entire day at work? Besides, sounds to gimicky and gadget packed to be useful for anyone who isn't an ubergeek.
Well, railroads died because there was better technology out there (personal automobiles) and because of antitrust suits IIRC, and the printing press took out the authoritarian control of the Catholic church and elitist monarchs and gave the power of understanding to the masses, so I don't see why this should be different.
The M$ problem goes away. SNAFU once again. ;)
[and at the same time, one can easily argue that this all plays nicely into the hands of 'big business,' and only serves to further the push towards globalization, which is surely the last thing any mid-East terrorist could want!]
I would remind everyone that these guys, while very smart in how to accomplish a particular task, have definitely forgotten to think about the consequences of their actions, both in the here and now and in the afterlife. Chaos only begets chaos (or someone to take advantage of the chaos and bring those in chaos into 'order' - even if that means strict rule by one person, no matter how flawed that 'order' may be). The shear stupidity of what Islamic fundamentalists are trying to promote as 'orderly' just makes me cringe. They're bringing about their own destruction, (and the world's) by destroying.
And in a world where everyone believes there are no absolutes, and all religions, beliefs, etc. can be 'right' for an individual, nothing but chaos can ensue when absolutely no one can agree on anything.
"I know you want your new businesses to be successful. So do I. Given the overwhelming volume of these alternative services, RIAA can't handle all of the enforcement alone. If they are not controlled more effectively and consumers redirected to legitimate offerings, there won't be new businesses. That's obvious," Rosen continued.
So although it's the customers who are considered to be the actual ones 'violating copyrighted works', we're going to litigate the technology companies who provide all those degenerates the method to 'violate copyrights' in an effort to win back all those degenerates as paying customers once again? That does not make sense to me. Besides, college students are probably RIAA's biggest customer base in the first place, so screwing them over by getting rid of their favorite technology toys sounds like a bad business decision, despite whatever laws you may be trying to uphold. And it's pretty clear that the RIAA is in it for the money, not for protecting artist's interests.
In the workplace, it takes a LOOONNGGG time to can the slackers. After all, you want to have plenty of evidence against them so that you don't get a messy lawsuit about unfair discrimination of their undiagnosed on-the-job narcolepsy after you fire them. So putting up with the slackers usually doesn't stop after high school and/or college.
However, I do think CS students should be required to take at least one in-depth course on how to work in a team setting (and not just a senior project, I'm talking a course dedicated on how to work in a team). There are plenty of programmers and techies out there that don't work well with others, and that makes it harder to get your own work done much of the time in the corporate world.
...that I prefer a pretty unobtrusive site like slashdot to there crappy ads. I use the net to get away from all the marketing bull. If I want to watch ads I'll watch TV, which is also why I usually don't read much stuff on big corporate news websites like Salon all the time while online. The net is not TV, and I'm sick of seeing people try to sell it like it is.
Guns are a VERY important tool that every American should not be afraid to own. However, those idiots that woefully misuse it to attack other people (animals don't count in that category you PETA lovers) who have not endangered the immediate life of the gun owner, deserve to be dealt swift justice. But that's very different from taking away the responsibilities and freedoms that every generally law-abiding citizen should be allowed.
The previous poster is simply saying that completely disallowing anyone but the proper 'authorities' to own and use those tools which technology has given us is folly. Simply removing a tool from the general public because of the *risk* of one person misusing it is not worth the absolute destruction of the freedom and responsibility that you give up for a *little* added security (if any at all).
I get it! They're just being innovative so that they can generate more banner ad views when each user has to burn 1.5megs of bandwidth visiting Caldera's website 3 times in a row to download three sets of ISO's instead of just one for use on those 3 junk computers they have sitting around the house. Now that's +1 Insightful on Caldera's behalf!
C'mon.
I may be considered 'conservative' and pro-wealth in lots of areas in how I vote, but I'd side with the liberals on the DMCA issue and other technology related political issues that are being drafted to further increase monopolistic profits for companies, while screwing over the consumer.
Thanks for the info, but I have tried it out and am not sure if the lack of all the reporting and scheduling of payments/bills/paychecks is going to be a huge hinderance or not. Also, there's lots of dependancies and libraries that you have to install to get it working correctly. It's cool if you don't have investments and recurring things that need scheduled to track, but I do. Kapital claims to be able to do all that, even with their current beta version - plus I want to support KDE so that a really nice Linux front end doesn't get axed because of lack of financial support.
I was waiting for Kapital to evolve a bit more for managing my finances, and for more games to become available for Linux, but now, I'm just gonna keep a Win98 partition around ONLY for the games. All my other important stuff is going onto a Linux run system from here on out...