We would not be here today if at ANY TIME in the past, we followed the policy you just stated.
I highly doubt that, but greetings to you, warmonger. Now, present some evidence that is enough to prove that spying on non-hostile countries (and even allies) is a good thing.
Just be happy for your freedoms.
I guess I should also be happy that the TSA molests people at airports, yes? After all, they claim to be doing it for our own safety, and if that stops the big, evil terrorists, then it must be good! Just be happy for your freedoms; ignore the violation of people's rights.
Peace, love and all that jazz to fellow humans, but leave the shit work to the politicians and spooks that love it.
I'd rather leave as little as possible to those worthless government thugs.
They keep us as comfortable as we are today.
The NSA, the TSA, and sometimes even the police make me uncomfortable, and it doesn't stop there. I'm going to need evidence of that, too.
What does it matter? Just because others are doing it doesn't mean we should do it too. How about not spying on those we're not at war with or hostile towards?
So continue the cycle of pointless spying and warmongering! I thought the USA was supposed to be exceptional, not some loser country that just continues doing 'evil' because everyone else is doing it...
If you truly believe that the USA is the only one spying you really need to wake up.
Yeah, having good teachers might also be a good idea...
But it's not going to do any good if you don't let them teach. Right now, they have to teach to the test or the schools lose funding if students do poorly on the useless standardized tests.
Saying that the marginal cost is zero or that the person who stole the item
No one stole anything.
"Do we want expensive movies, books that take years to write, music from people who do prefer studio work?"
Again, where is your evidence that copyright even works? Useless speculation is not evidence. Pointing to societies in the past that did not have copyright that were vastly different from our own in numerous other ways is not good evidence. I would think even you people would agree that we shouldn't strip people of their freedoms without evidence that doing so is beneficial to society.
Now, I don't think such things are accept under any circumstances, but it surprises me how many people just claim that copyright is beneficial when they don't have any proof. Why would you want laws without proof? Your standards are too low, I think.
Then there is has to be a way for money to go back to the producers.
Which they can attempt to find on their own. Let the free market decide, not monopolies enforced by government force.
No, there isn't. I just don't see the point of calling people "freaks." Homosexuals may be "freaks" in that they're a minority, but just about everyone already knows that, so why bother using such wording?
You are right, we can only speculate what a world without copyright would be like.
That's all you needed to say, really. You're not actually trying to justify copyright law after admitting there's basically no evidence that it does any good, are you? After all, the burden of proof is on those who want to restrict others to prove that their restrictions are beneficial (Which doesn't always mean that the restrictions should be put into place, anyway.), not the people who oppose the restrictions.
The fact is, people are greedy.
I can tell; some of them expect government-enforced monopolies over ideas for the sole reason that they don't want to try to find a viable business model.
I think that the point is that the real loss was the expected value of the orange harvest.
Expectations are irrelevant, so there are no real losses.
but I don't see why loss should be limited to things that are physical.
Because saying you're harmed because you 'lost' something intangible seems rather absurd to me. Strangers walking down the sidewalk could just decide to randomly give me money, and indeed, I may be able to do something to cause that to happen, but I am not harmed simply because it does not happen.
With that said, analogies about losing a bunch of plants are inappropriate because there was an actual loss there.
There's a massive difference between someone selling another person's work for profit without them being involved or benefiting... and sharing a fucking song.
And that would be...? In the situation where the data is freely shared, the people downloading it may or may not have bought the product if they could not download it freely. The same is true of situations where someone sold them the data, but as the customers have shown they're willing to spend some amount of money, the chance that the customers would have bought the original product might be slightly higher. I see no "massive" difference.
How is selling the data so much more evil?
Stopping casual sharing requires pure unadulterated fascism and control.
So does copyrights and patents in general; they seek to control what most people can do with their own property, and copyright in particular can involve censorship.
And? The customer might not have bought it if the price were higher.
This is the UK.
You spoke as if you were talking in general.
Any other pointless, incorrect hypotheticals?
How is that pointless or incorrect?
If a movie studio (or game company, etc) spends $100M+ making a product and expects to get at least that much a return on sales but pirates copy and SELL the product for their own profit, that sure as hell does harm to the original producer of the content.
How does that relate to what I said? The amount of money the movie studios chose to spend is irrelevant to the point I made. They lose nothing tangible due copyright infringement. If these companies lose anything, they lose it of their own volition when choosing to make the products in the first place.
If there are no laws or enforcement of that, there is no motivation to invest in large entertainment projects.
You cannot say what a world without copyright and such would be like; you can only spew forth random speculations.
That said, I find it funny how a few sentences later you say that it is just entertainment...
This is such a stupid argument.
To you, perhaps.
A movie in fact *is* entertainment, not some fundamental component of life.
Yes, and? Who said otherwise?
If you don't want to support the creator, don't watch it. How simple is that?
If you don't want to risk not making more money than you spent assembling the data, don't do it. How simple is that? No government monopolies required!
If someone copies a movie for free it's hard to justify the studio claims that they lost money because someone "would have paid for it" - who knows if the "consumer" would have bothered to watch it if they had to pay. But if someone copies a movie and SELLS IT FOR MONEY then obviously that question was answered and the studio has a valid point...
That's absurd. You didn't consider the possibility that the 'fake' products might be sold at a lower price, might be more convenient, or that the creators of the product haven't yet made it available in the country that the 'fakes' are being sold in.
Besides, not gaining something is not the same as losing something, so even if people would have bought the products otherwise, that does not mean harm was done.
Maybe not always, but people do get molested just for trying to get on a plane. Just because something makes people safer (which is where the TSA and bike helmets differ) doesn't mean it should be done.
We do send in our military when (a) you threaten our economic interests or (b) you start killing people in large numbers; as long as you don't do either, we don't give a f*ck how you live.
In other words, our government wants to be the world police. Sending in the military for either of those things is something I find unacceptable.
He can't interfere with the operation of a school.
He didn't.
Would you feel threatened if your classmate celebrated images of your fictional death by sharing them with others?
How I would or would not feel in such a situation is irrelevant to the fact that preserving individual liberties is more important than not hurting people's feelings.
Why would they be afraid of someone shooting up a school due to an iPhone game simply because guns are generally legal in the US? That makes no sense to me. We need not react to every possibility where someone could get hurt; that attitude just erodes our freedoms.
(Memo to OP: banning certain types of video games is one of many 'third rails' on which there is no room for moderates on Slashdot. You are either with the herd or you are an absolute, total, f****ing brainless totalitarian thug who should be locked in a prison cell with sex offenders).
I don't believe they should be locked away for having that opinion, but I do believe people who think we should ban certain types of video games (Who suggested that, anyway?) are authoritarian imbeciles; no truly free country would do such a thing.
Slashdot Mirror
We would not be here today if at ANY TIME in the past, we followed the policy you just stated.
I highly doubt that, but greetings to you, warmonger. Now, present some evidence that is enough to prove that spying on non-hostile countries (and even allies) is a good thing.
Just be happy for your freedoms.
I guess I should also be happy that the TSA molests people at airports, yes? After all, they claim to be doing it for our own safety, and if that stops the big, evil terrorists, then it must be good! Just be happy for your freedoms; ignore the violation of people's rights.
Peace, love and all that jazz to fellow humans, but leave the shit work to the politicians and spooks that love it.
I'd rather leave as little as possible to those worthless government thugs.
They keep us as comfortable as we are today.
The NSA, the TSA, and sometimes even the police make me uncomfortable, and it doesn't stop there. I'm going to need evidence of that, too.
You don't need to be a cheerleader for the government, you know. It's perfectly possible to have a mind of your own.
I'd love to see the NSA completely destroyed.
Obama never promised to stop spying on foreign nations and such a policy would be completely irresponsible.
Not if those countries aren't hostile towards us.
What does it matter? Just because others are doing it doesn't mean we should do it too. How about not spying on those we're not at war with or hostile towards?
Because they are doing it right back at us.
So continue the cycle of pointless spying and warmongering! I thought the USA was supposed to be exceptional, not some loser country that just continues doing 'evil' because everyone else is doing it...
If you truly believe that the USA is the only one spying you really need to wake up.
No one ever said that.
Yeah, having good teachers might also be a good idea...
But it's not going to do any good if you don't let them teach. Right now, they have to teach to the test or the schools lose funding if students do poorly on the useless standardized tests.
Saying that the marginal cost is zero or that the person who stole the item
No one stole anything.
"Do we want expensive movies, books that take years to write, music from people who do prefer studio work?"
Again, where is your evidence that copyright even works? Useless speculation is not evidence. Pointing to societies in the past that did not have copyright that were vastly different from our own in numerous other ways is not good evidence. I would think even you people would agree that we shouldn't strip people of their freedoms without evidence that doing so is beneficial to society.
Now, I don't think such things are accept under any circumstances, but it surprises me how many people just claim that copyright is beneficial when they don't have any proof. Why would you want laws without proof? Your standards are too low, I think.
Then there is has to be a way for money to go back to the producers.
Which they can attempt to find on their own. Let the free market decide, not monopolies enforced by government force.
What we really need is to get rid of standardized tests and realize that one-size-fits-all educations have their limit.
No, there isn't. I just don't see the point of calling people "freaks." Homosexuals may be "freaks" in that they're a minority, but just about everyone already knows that, so why bother using such wording?
You are right, we can only speculate what a world without copyright would be like.
That's all you needed to say, really. You're not actually trying to justify copyright law after admitting there's basically no evidence that it does any good, are you? After all, the burden of proof is on those who want to restrict others to prove that their restrictions are beneficial (Which doesn't always mean that the restrictions should be put into place, anyway.), not the people who oppose the restrictions.
The fact is, people are greedy.
I can tell; some of them expect government-enforced monopolies over ideas for the sole reason that they don't want to try to find a viable business model.
I think that the point is that the real loss was the expected value of the orange harvest.
Expectations are irrelevant, so there are no real losses.
but I don't see why loss should be limited to things that are physical.
Because saying you're harmed because you 'lost' something intangible seems rather absurd to me. Strangers walking down the sidewalk could just decide to randomly give me money, and indeed, I may be able to do something to cause that to happen, but I am not harmed simply because it does not happen.
With that said, analogies about losing a bunch of plants are inappropriate because there was an actual loss there.
They never had the money to begin with, so no. All that happens is they make less money than they might have wanted, but they lose nothing.
There's a massive difference between someone selling another person's work for profit without them being involved or benefiting... and sharing a fucking song.
And that would be...? In the situation where the data is freely shared, the people downloading it may or may not have bought the product if they could not download it freely. The same is true of situations where someone sold them the data, but as the customers have shown they're willing to spend some amount of money, the chance that the customers would have bought the original product might be slightly higher. I see no "massive" difference.
How is selling the data so much more evil?
Stopping casual sharing requires pure unadulterated fascism and control.
So does copyrights and patents in general; they seek to control what most people can do with their own property, and copyright in particular can involve censorship.
So... the blossoms never existed to begin with?
A lower price is still a price.
And? The customer might not have bought it if the price were higher.
This is the UK.
You spoke as if you were talking in general.
Any other pointless, incorrect hypotheticals?
How is that pointless or incorrect?
If a movie studio (or game company, etc) spends $100M+ making a product and expects to get at least that much a return on sales but pirates copy and SELL the product for their own profit, that sure as hell does harm to the original producer of the content.
How does that relate to what I said? The amount of money the movie studios chose to spend is irrelevant to the point I made. They lose nothing tangible due copyright infringement. If these companies lose anything, they lose it of their own volition when choosing to make the products in the first place.
If there are no laws or enforcement of that, there is no motivation to invest in large entertainment projects.
You cannot say what a world without copyright and such would be like; you can only spew forth random speculations.
That said, I find it funny how a few sentences later you say that it is just entertainment...
This is such a stupid argument.
To you, perhaps.
A movie in fact *is* entertainment, not some fundamental component of life.
Yes, and? Who said otherwise?
If you don't want to support the creator, don't watch it. How simple is that?
If you don't want to risk not making more money than you spent assembling the data, don't do it. How simple is that? No government monopolies required!
What does that have to do with what he said?
How does that harm them? They never had the money to begin with.
If someone copies a movie for free it's hard to justify the studio claims that they lost money because someone "would have paid for it" - who knows if the "consumer" would have bothered to watch it if they had to pay. But if someone copies a movie and SELLS IT FOR MONEY then obviously that question was answered and the studio has a valid point...
That's absurd. You didn't consider the possibility that the 'fake' products might be sold at a lower price, might be more convenient, or that the creators of the product haven't yet made it available in the country that the 'fakes' are being sold in.
Besides, not gaining something is not the same as losing something, so even if people would have bought the products otherwise, that does not mean harm was done.
We didn't.
Maybe not always, but people do get molested just for trying to get on a plane. Just because something makes people safer (which is where the TSA and bike helmets differ) doesn't mean it should be done.
We do send in our military when (a) you threaten our economic interests or (b) you start killing people in large numbers; as long as you don't do either, we don't give a f*ck how you live.
In other words, our government wants to be the world police. Sending in the military for either of those things is something I find unacceptable.
He can't interfere with the operation of a school.
He didn't.
Would you feel threatened if your classmate celebrated images of your fictional death by sharing them with others?
How I would or would not feel in such a situation is irrelevant to the fact that preserving individual liberties is more important than not hurting people's feelings.
What do you think? How do you feel?
100% irrelevant.
Posting videos of you "shooting" your classmates calls for some sort of action.
Why? Who was physically harmed? No one. Was it even remotely that someone was about to be physically harmed? No.
You are a coward.
No one was harmed. No one was threatened. It's highly unlikely that anyone would have ever been harmed.
We have people like you to thank for the TSA. You are a coward.
Why would they be afraid of someone shooting up a school due to an iPhone game simply because guns are generally legal in the US? That makes no sense to me. We need not react to every possibility where someone could get hurt; that attitude just erodes our freedoms.
(Memo to OP: banning certain types of video games is one of many 'third rails' on which there is no room for moderates on Slashdot. You are either with the herd or you are an absolute, total, f****ing brainless totalitarian thug who should be locked in a prison cell with sex offenders).
I don't believe they should be locked away for having that opinion, but I do believe people who think we should ban certain types of video games (Who suggested that, anyway?) are authoritarian imbeciles; no truly free country would do such a thing.