I'm USian and I use it intentionally. I think it's an important reminder. Corporations provide a legal entity for various purposes, but those aren't the reasons anybody talks about them. Corporations don't make decisions, corporations don't act, corporations don't hold press conferences or testify under oath, corporations don't invent things.
Lessig: copyrights last too long. How about we start by squaring the laws with the Constitution's explicitly stated purpose?
PP: ohh, but the big companies have soooo much money! Let's just whimper and die and ignore this guy. He's probably just stupid like all those academics anyway. I mean, he believes in principles — how stupid is that?
"Designated Agent"s "represent at least a 15 percent share of the music publishing market"
"If a copyright owner does not choose to be represented by an additional designated agent,
the General Designated Agent shall represent the copyright owner and musical works (or portions of musical works) owned or controlled by the copyright owner.
— i.e., you can't license your own music. You will be "represented" by one of the biggest companies.
Unless, of course, you enter into a "voluntary agreement" with some other organization that covers (insert "relevant" twice)
everything you own
everything they do
That's not all of it, but I'll call that the worst.
Can we bump the 5-point cap to 10, please? Better, can we get the story updated to include a flat retraction?
I read the link, went looking for other sources, and came back looking for somebody else who'd actually done any reading.
I can only hope ipaction trusted a mole trying to discredit them. "all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately" is the most despicable kind of lie. It corrupts public discourse. It devalues free speech. The people doing that have the morals of the Bushies: they think "it's ok if we do it, because we're the good guys". And that's what evil looks like in the mirror.
Notice that there are a number of options for how you publish your PDF. One of the key ones is to use the ISO 19005-1 standard for PDF
Standard PDF is... an option.
Fact is, they earned their reputation. A careful reading of what's in that post says volumes: nowhere in that do they promise not to. They don't consume it? Why is standard PDF "an option" then? What's going to read the non-standard PDF they can produce?
Here's what Microsoft needs to say:
We don't and we don't intend to ever produce anything we call PDF that doesn't follow pre-existing freely available standards published under an independent organization's name, be that Adobe or the ISO. If we do wind up doing that, it's a bug. We're willing to open-source the complete PDF-producer plugin to be sure any bugs get fixed and the plugin stays current. We're trying to provide value for our customers here. We know we have a lot of ground to make up, we know why, and we're hoping to make up a big chunk of that here, today, now.
How much do you want to bet Microsoft flatly refused to bind themselves to writing.pdf's readable by code implementing only Adobe's spec?
Play out the scenarios. Ask yourself what Adobe could usefully say in that situation. Microsoft can't openly vandalize.pdf just yet, for reasons we all know too well, so this move just lets them make Adobe look bad. It's a set up for later. It's a damn shame all Adobe's other options are worse.
Re:Proof we are not a democracy
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
Your vote is useless because everyone else ends up voting for the person out of two they hate the least.
It's difficult to exaggerate the response her ideas provoked in the Republican Party.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 5, Insightful
venting on Slash about the end of society
Who'd-a-thunk anybody could strawman that post?
Have you never once wondered why almost no one objects to Google's ubiquitous ads?
Perhaps you think it's because they bribe us with all those cool toys. I thought about that. I don't believe it.
I think it's because they offer the ads. They're easy to ignore.
You can skip right over them without even noticing.
But, say the networks, if they can't shove ads in your face for twenty minutes an hour, and sue you for ignoring them, they'll go broke? They're running ads for companies that can't sell their product without bludgeoning people into insensibility. "Revolutionary new garden tool!!!! Makes a great gift!!!!". Christ, buddy, they're trying to sue us for not watching spam.
Seven coin flips. 128 possible outcomes. 42 of those split five and two and 58 are at *least* that lopsided with toss-up odds. That who-did-more count will mislead the ignorant and irk the rest.
Notice something? Nobody uses Paint. Nobody uses Wordpad. Nobody uses Notepad. Nobody uses Outlook Express. Nobody plays Solitaire and Minesweeper.
Why would anybody wrap so much verbiage that's apparently intended seriously around such a blatant troll? Worst of all, you forgot Space Cadet!. Sheesh.
TFA's context for rice bowl etc. was for the games, true. That's why I spent so many words on the machines themselves: I really was taking the words out of context. I liked the imagery so much I got a little sloppy, I can see that now. oh, well. Just a Wii little mistake.
unless Bush knew that certain reports were in fact not true or if he was intentionally trying to mislead people
Public skepticism was rampant. Active-duty generals were publicly contradicting his civilian war-planners' estimates. U.N. inspectors were publicly calling his evidence "shit after shit after shit".
You'll want a simple bowl of rice and soup every now and then.
Who knows how long ago theysaw the opportunity? But they've got a big chunk of the market all to themselves, and everything Nintendo says earns them fans. MS and Sony are hurtling off down the high-inertia major-loss-leader path while Nintendo picks up their rice bowl and has a nice lunch.
Calling them "minor league" is off the mark... [etc]
They don't understand the motive. It shows in their writing: it seems they perceive how the ordinary business part works quite well, and they're impressed, but the open-source part they just don't get at all. It baffles them, it angers them, that people will behave in ways the cash-profit motive doesn't predict.
And if the notion that MySQL's customers actually acknowledge their own laziness — that they know quite well they're paying MySQL to do work they could just as well do themselves, and in some cases actually did — is alien, the fact that a MySQL founder can actually say, in front of all his employees and current and potential customers, that he sees greedy lazy people, absolutely infuriates them. That, and he can still make money? Of course they're going to try to undermine that.
I wouldn't call the users lazy by reporting problems.
That wasn't "lazy" in the pejorative sense, and that's what they don't get.
I mean, you can just hear the tune underneath his words:
gree-dy la-zy cus-to-mers have S-Q-L at home! EEEee!.
Slashdot Mirror
You just think you're booting off that DVD.
His name Mel?
Lessig: copyrights last too long. How about we start by squaring the laws with the Constitution's explicitly stated purpose?
PP: ohh, but the big companies have soooo much money! Let's just whimper and die and ignore this guy. He's probably just stupid like all those academics anyway. I mean, he believes in principles — how stupid is that?
Got anything else to offer? Oh."Try to relax."
- "Designated Agent"s "represent at least a 15 percent share of the music publishing market"
- "If a copyright owner does not choose to be represented by an additional designated agent,
the General Designated Agent shall represent the copyright owner and musical works (or portions of musical works) owned or controlled by the copyright owner.
— i.e., you can't license your own music. You will be "represented" by one of the biggest companies.Unless, of course, you enter into a "voluntary agreement" with some other organization that covers (insert "relevant" twice)
That's not all of it, but I'll call that the worst.
Can we bump the 5-point cap to 10, please? Better, can we get the story updated to include a flat retraction?
I read the link, went looking for other sources, and came back looking for somebody else who'd actually done any reading.
I can only hope ipaction trusted a mole trying to discredit them. "all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately" is the most despicable kind of lie. It corrupts public discourse. It devalues free speech. The people doing that have the morals of the Bushies: they think "it's ok if we do it, because we're the good guys". And that's what evil looks like in the mirror.
Bitkeeper.com
He's been doing almost exactly that for years.
I said they earned it. I offered an idea that I think would help them shed that load.
Want to argue they didn't earn it?
Want to argue that wouldn't drain a lot of it?
Want to argue why it would be a bad move?
In short, want to actually address the point?
Any time. Give it your best shot. I'll give you the last word.
From that link:
Standard PDF isFact is, they earned their reputation. A careful reading of what's in that post says volumes: nowhere in that do they promise not to. They don't consume it? Why is standard PDF "an option" then? What's going to read the non-standard PDF they can produce?
Here's what Microsoft needs to say:
And that, would be the end, of that.Has anybody asked whether they've rounded up some serious talent and started talks with Warner Bros?
Play out the scenarios. Ask yourself what Adobe could usefully say in that situation. Microsoft can't openly vandalize .pdf just yet, for reasons we all know too well, so this move just lets them make Adobe look bad. It's a set up for later. It's a damn shame all Adobe's other options are worse.
It's difficult to exaggerate the response her ideas provoked in the Republican Party.
Have you never once wondered why almost no one objects to Google's ubiquitous ads?
Perhaps you think it's because they bribe us with all those cool toys. I thought about that. I don't believe it.
I think it's because they offer the ads. They're easy to ignore.
You can skip right over them without even noticing.
But, say the networks, if they can't shove ads in your face for twenty minutes an hour, and sue you for ignoring them, they'll go broke? They're running ads for companies that can't sell their product without bludgeoning people into insensibility. "Revolutionary new garden tool!!!! Makes a great gift!!!!". Christ, buddy, they're trying to sue us for not watching spam.
Seven coin flips. 128 possible outcomes. 42 of those split five and two and 58 are at *least* that lopsided with toss-up odds. That who-did-more count will mislead the ignorant and irk the rest.
There's a physical button right there on the box that tells it not to download things while you're not using it.
TFA's context for rice bowl etc. was for the games, true. That's why I spent so many words on the machines themselves: I really was taking the words out of context. I liked the imagery so much I got a little sloppy, I can see that now. oh, well. Just a Wii little mistake.
And you call that "the nature of intelligence".
There's no arguing with that.
Lei Feng, would it?
And if the notion that MySQL's customers actually acknowledge their own laziness — that they know quite well they're paying MySQL to do work they could just as well do themselves, and in some cases actually did — is alien, the fact that a MySQL founder can actually say, in front of all his employees and current and potential customers, that he sees greedy lazy people, absolutely infuriates them. That, and he can still make money? Of course they're going to try to undermine that.
That wasn't "lazy" in the pejorative sense, and that's what they don't get.I mean, you can just hear the tune underneath his words:
... and Prince of Persia itself ...