Kazaa, et al DOES NOT have control over the network. The only thing they control is the authentication mechanism. Once you're authenticated, you have complete, unfettered access to the network and Kazaa has no control over what you do/don't share.
You're right that it's not like Napster, but it's not like Sony either. Remember, judges have an eye on the supremes, and they know which way the government and their paymasters in the MPAA/RIAA want them to go. All a court has to do is to push the Napster ruling a little further and ask why, if Kazaa has servers, they can't monitor the transfers.
And when it comes down to it, there's no reason other habit. That works for incumbent telcos and ISP's, but Kazaa is new to the party, and the rules haven't been set in stone yet. This one could easily go either way, but I fully believe that Kazaa are boned.
They did not even contact the developers of Gnucleus before they ripped off their software
OK, deep breaths. They are 100% compliant with the GPL license, as I think the reporting debacle on here showed. Do we say that every commercial X/GNU/Linux distro "rips off" Linus, and GNU and KDE/Gnome and a whole load of other developers? No, we say that they promote them, bring them to a wider audience, support and develop them, and contribute their revenues back to the whole.
So let's give Morpheus enough rope to hang themselves. If they spend their ad money developing the client, and if they keep releasing source, and if they don't bring an assload of hurt to the whole project, then they'll be providing the same service as a commercial linux distro.
Do I think that'll happen? No, based on their past behaviour, I think they'll fork off a version that will refuse to serve content to other Gnutella clients while still leeching from them, flat out refuse to release the source, and bring the Men In Black to the party. But let's give them a little time to prove their guilt please.
Mopheus, who is now using the restamped Gnucleus software, is on a true P2P network, and it would be next to impossible to shut them down.
Here's the danger.
It can easily be shown that most Kazaa traffic is copyrighted material. They need to use the Sony VCR defence that there are non-infringing uses and avoid falling into the Napster trap of admitting control over the network.
They've flat out blown it on the second point, and are completely boned. Morpheus on the Kazaa network was doomed. They were going to get found guilty of contributory infringement for sure.
Now they're on Gnutella. With the same users, doing the same activities.
Can you see the way this would look to a court? Picture a restaurant where mobsters meet, cleaning their guns and jawing about how many cops they've whacked. The restaurant owners hear that the FBI are filming the restaurant, ready to make a bust. So then they put on blindfolds and earplugs and say "Oh, but now we don't know what our customers are doing. I think we've got a large party of nuns in tonight, I can't really tell with this stuff on."
Pretty weak defence? I think so. And the nasty-nasty is that now Morpheus is just another Gnutella client, so if Morpheus does go down, why should any client - or specifically any client developer - be let off. Because they're not making money, I hear you say. Because it's just like making copies for friends and family. It's fair use.
No it damn well isn't. If I hear one more Slashdotter claim that personal/friends/family copies are "fair use", I will quite seriously bust a gut. Here are the allowable purposes for making a copy of a copyrighted work: (1) criticism and comment, (2) parody and satire, (3) scholarship and research, (4) news reporting and (5) teaching. Don't argue this with me, quote a specific case of a court saying that copies for friends and family are OK. Any judge that drew the line in the sand and said that Gnutella was OK because it's not commercial would have the MPAA/RIAA would asking for his or her head on a plate, and I'm not talking rhetorically.
Morpheus joining the Gnutella network is the best move possible for Morpheus - and the worst move possible for Gnutella. This one is going to get ugly.
"MusicCity has failed to pay any amounts due to Kazaa BV under the parties' license agreement"
Note the "any". You don't need rocket science to work out that you can only give people the benefit of the doubt for so long before deciding that you're being scammed and are never going to see one penny. Ironic, nes pas, that Kazaa kick of Morpheous for freeloading on their work and IP, when the vast majority of Kazaa's income is coming from serving ads to people making copies of copyrighted material (self included, I'm not being pejorative)?
"[Morpheus] has said that Kazaa BV was able to change settings stored deep inside Morpheus users' computers as they logged on to the file-trading network"
Who there, conspiracy theorists. The "setting" is question is probably just the "bool bClientIsAuthorised" flag based on the reply from the Kazaa authentication servers. There's nothing sinister going on here. This is the way the Kazaa network is supposed to work (now). Authorised clients paying for connection to the Kazaa authentication servers. Since they went authentication to throw off giFT, Kazaa has been a client-server/P2P hybrid. Maybe Morpheus didn't get that, but I'm sure the giFT team can explain it to them.
StreamCast's Griffin conceded last week that there had been some dispute over licensing terms for the peer-to-peer software. But he said that a wholesale shutdown of the Morpheus network would have violated the terms of his contract with Kazaa BV. In a message to Morpheus users this weekend, Griffin pointed fingers at Kazaa BV and warned people not to use the company's software.
Translation: "Those bastards actually make you pay to play! I mean, they expect us to hold up our end of the contract as well as them holding up theirs. What's with that?"
The RIAA reacted to this development quickly last week. "We have been saying all along that they control the system, and this proves it," RIAA Senior Vice President Matt Oppenheim said in a statement last week.
Sure, or you could have subpoena'd the giFT team to tell you that...;-)
What you absolutely must understand is that Morpheus is a commercial service. The "100% spyware free!" boast was a marketing plot. They thought they could make money off of freeloaders (like me, remember?). Trouble is, Kazaa had the same idea, and Kazaa own the keys to that particular part of the Magic Kingdom.
Now Morpehsu is going to try and make money off of Gnutella. Well, here's a pretty pickle. Does the Gnutella network want a for-profit service in there, attracting the ire of the MPAA and their bought politicians (and judges who, lest we forget, have an eye on promotion to the Supremes, and can tell which way the political winds are shifting)? I doubt it. Can Gnutella do anything about it? Of course not. They can't pull a Kazaa and block Morpheus, either by force majeur or through obscurity.
Screw who said what to who between Kazaa and Morpheus. That's yesterday's news, it was doubtless all about the bottom line, and given the characters of the organisations in question (proprietary, commercial, legally dubious), we simply can't expect anything like honest answers from anybody. It's "Morpheus versus Gnutella", or "Morpheus with Gnutella" that's the issue now. This is shaping up to be the first big test of how well open source can survive in a hostile environment, with layer upon layer of juicy morality quandaries to pick over.
Is it wrong for Morpheus to "freeload" off of Gnutella? But they're license compliant, and they bring a whole lot of content with them. And the whole Gnutella network is - de facto - already about freeloading. But making profit off of it just fuels the MPAA/RIAA's law-buying machine...
This one is going to run and run. I for one am going to settle down with some popcorn and enjoy the (truly) free show.;-)
So typically American - force your viewpoint and "morals" on others
Funnily enough, I'm not a citizen of the USA, but I'm writing for the benefit of the majority Slashdot audience. Oh, feel free to share (not force) your viewpoint on us.
Personally I think the US should be much more liberal with the death penalty, and actually carry it out once it has been issued, and not wait the usual 15 years
And personally, I agree with you, for crimes where violence is used or threatened. That includes corrupt abuse of power by politicians and law enforcement. It does not include tax evasion, fraud, or property theft. I have no problem with the method, only the application.
Of course you, never having been to China, wouldn't know that. So much easier to pontificate, isn't it?
Mmm, it would probably be petty and pointless to mention a one week business trip to Beijing, right? Unless I use it as an opportunity to mention how taken I was with the city, and yes, how safe I felt there.
You'll note that I agree that the US legal system is a joke when it comes to dealing with petty crimes. I also agree that executions should be carried out quickly. The idea that a capital crime should be more appealable fundamentally wrecks the whole concept of a criminal legal system that deals in innocence and guilt. While I'm at it, I'd like to see public physical punishment be used for minor crimes. Yes, aka torture. Most truly successful systems of social justice used limited physical violence quite successfully before liberals and lawyers decided that was bad for Freedom and business respectively.
If you go back and read what I wrote, you'll find that it mostly consists of some easily verifiable statements of fact. They will no doubt affirm the preconceptions of some readers, but do please bear in mind that I am pointing out that the US government is only better (or worse, depending on how you feel about hypocrisy) by degree regarding executions, and that I do try and present a gentle counter that suggests that maybe the US system isn't all peaches-and-cream.
Or, I could just have launched into a pontificating attack. Would that have provoked thought, or just attracted denial and spite, do you think?
Kiddy porn isn't illegal on "The Internet" so it's fine to do it there. Right? Of course not!
Ah, if only the real world was so black and white. When you say "kiddie porn", you invite us to consider morally reprehensible images of pre-teens and agree with you by reflex.
Now let's discuss a relevant example. You get sent a posed image of a nude 15 year old girl from Japan. Is that illegal?
Well, it's not illegal in Japan. Age of consent is 13, with protections against exploitation. Argue the morality of that, but not the legality (unless you want to argue exploitation, but we'll assume a clued up 15 year old who's making money, it does happen). Where does the illegality start? When the packets cross US borders? When they enter equipment owned by a US company, even if that's in Japan? Is the act of sending the material outside of Japan illegal? Illegal in who's jurisdiction? Is it illegal for you to keep the images ("of course!" to quote you). Are you beholden to report the receipt to US law enforcement, and if so on what grounds? Should US law enforcement try to have the sender extradited? Should they try to prosecute the sender's associates in the USA?
This case isn't black and white. If you want to discuss it, bring your wisdom to bear on the above example rather than setting up a strawman.
Fortunately, most of the rest of the world is moving towards the same kind of draconian copyright laws. And by "fortunately" I mean "unfortunately"
Try and keep up; the UK had the Design, Copyright and Patents Act way back in 1988. It took another ten years to slither its way across the Atlantic, disguised as the DMCA.
It's not that hard to hit the delete button [...] What does irritate me is [that as a Yahoo! user] I'm a victim of spamguards [...] It's about the right to choose
I do take the point that filtering breaks the traditional model of the 'net, but that "traditional" model was largely set up RFC's that came out of academic institutions, and now that so many of these institutions (as you say) are filtering, perhaps the basic model has changed. We've moved away from an assumption of innocence, simply because when it met the cold reality of the Average Human Being, it became economically and socially unsustainable.
But that's not what you're talking about at all. You're only interested in your freedoms. Are you saying that you don't have the right to choose to pay for a mail service that uses your money to pay to handle unfiltered spam traffic?
Of course not, you're on Yahoo!. What you're saying is that you want a completely free-as-in-beer service, but that you want them to pick up the bill for handling spam to protect your free-as-in-speech experience.
Sounds to me like you're not pro-choice or pro free-speech at all. You're pro-beer. Last I checked, 'net access wasn't a right, not is it enshrined that it should be free-as-in-beer.
Incidentally, I put myself through university in the early 90's, when the net was free as in speech, but definitely not as in beer. If you want a free as in speech 'net experience, you can still do what I did, and choose to pay for access to it. If you choose not to pay, then you're hardly in a position to complain that you're not getting your money's worth.
as much as you might joke that spammers should be lined up and shot, that gets a lot less funny when you're dealing with the Chinese government
In case anyone thinks you're being cute, it's entirely possible that spammers might be executed in China. A brief overview of the crimes that people have been executed for are:
Political activism
Murder
Rape
Manslaughter through drink driving
Pimping and forcible prostitution
Stealing cultural relics
Taking bribes
Tax evasion
Credit card fraud
Surprised by any of the last ones? In 1979, there were 28 types of crime that carried the death penalty in China. By 1995, that had risen to 74, mostly by the addition of "economic offences". They admit to executing well over a thousand people a year (often after a public show trial or displaying the convicts in public places), and it's suspected that a lot more get a bullet in the head without even a record being made.
Unfortunately, the USA has a policy of not criticizing China's execution policy (or that of any other state), as we have some cleaning up of our own to do. Engaging cynicism mode, you might ponder that the only part of it that our partially hereditary, 90% incumbent political class really object to is the crackdown on corruption and bribe taking, but of course, rank retains its priviledges in China, and the biggest criminals get jail time while their minions are executed.
On the other hand, there is a certain horridly attractive efficiency to show trials and summary execution. Compare and contrast with the US system of interminable legal wrangling over minor technicalities, occasionally leading to fines that are either trivially small or unrealistically big, neither of which typically get paid.
When you read the very occasional article that "Spammer X is fined Y dollars", remember that's just the first step in actually making them responsible for their actions. Even if you can get the fine to stick to them and not their shell company, if they don't pay to a third party or collection agency, they have to be brought back to court again, and it has to be proven that they haven't paid, at which they generally plead poverty and agree to pay off their $5 million debt at $10 a month. And if they don't pay that... you see where this goes? Judges are loathe to jail people over non payment of fines unless they're taking a political stand against them. It's only nice, police, law abiding folks that pay fines. If you want to keep pursuing a third party to make them pay, you have to keep paying up front to do so. The only winners are, as usual, the lawyers.
A major flaw with this is the fact that at most riots, the police want the suspects to leave
Not always. During the WTO demonstrations in London last summer, the response to a very small proportion of violent demonstrators was to box large numbers of (overwhelmingly peaceful) people in and stop them leaving. We're talking all day here, until the demonstraters were cold, hungry and just wanted to go home. Illegal detention, say the detractors; screw the damn hippies, say proponents (when translated from Weaselese).
Any device that gives control is going to be looked on favourably.
To give some perspective, credit where credit is due: British riot police have learned some long, hard lessons, and are, I think, the finest in the world.
I participate in fairly large scale historic reenactments including shield wall and mixed infantry and cavalry actions. In fact, reenactors were solicited as police extras in a recent film about the 1984 British miner's strike, because we are used to doing shieldwalls and charges.
But our level of expertise stops at the 1984 level, when the British riot police used haphazard tactics and made a lot of mistakes. Eighteen years later, they are simply astonishing to watch in action, and they do it (largely) without using chemical weapons or firearms or even batons, they do it through slick manouvres and integrated foot and horse actions that put the right amount of deterrent in the right place at the right time, to stop conflicts before they start.
Argue the morality of controlling political demonstrations, but don't forget that crowd control also involves preventing injury at otherwise good natured public events. And you can definitely do that without fancy chemical weapons, you just have to invest in training. Crowd control is about people, not about technology.
5. Gateway, Dell, Compaq, HP, and Apple, seeing a way to kill off the screwdriver shops and hobbyist market, form "People Against Radio and Television Interference" (PARTI).
Uh, why invent hypothetical situations, when the SSSCA is about to make this de facto real soon now?
the single most important thing about GPL code is the copyright. All else flows from there
No, GPL is a copyleft, all rights reversed.:-)
And it's precisely that falacious attitude (and the smiley) that is going to cause my employer a world of pain, and quite likely lose a few of my colleages their jobs (at a minimum).
Your point about "free software authors" in general might be true (in a vague kind of way), but GPL is different from other open licenses, and it's specifically the GPL that Microsoft object to, because it's so strong. And the strength is founded on copyright.
If you come away from this debate with only one thing in your head, it should be this:
Open source is copyrighted. If you can't be bothered reading the license any further, then stop there, and do not use it. Unless you read, understand and fully comply with the whole license terms, you are committing theft, and you should be hung out to dry.
The whole "hey man, chill out, information wants to be free" attitude is a nice dream, but in a world populated by Microsofts, GPL needs to be strong and not lassez faire.
If GPL is as bad as Microsoft says it is, why do they keep drawing attention to it?
Partly to keep their own employees' minds on it, I suspect. I work for a commercial software developer, and I can point at at least four GPL violations in our current R&D project. I have in fact raised this with my team, and with local management, and explained that this is theft. They seem unconcerned. It's open source. It's free. We just have to ackowledge it, right? Right? Er, OK, once the thing hits the market, I'll be sure to ask the copyright owners of the source about that, OK? Idiots. I hope they do let it hit market like this, they've had enough warnings.
Microsoft's chief technical officer Craig Mundie reaffirmed the importance of the protection of intellectual property and copyright within the software industry.
Curious slant. Because the single most important thing about GPL code is the copyright. All else flows from there. Without strong copyright, you have no leverage for the licensing terms. Go and read any GPL source, and you'll find a copyright, and you'd better believe that they mean it. What Microsoft actually disagree with is this:
The source is available. Even if you're just a user with no intention of modifying or copying it, you can look at and see how it works. Open source developers can't bullshit their way out of their screw ups, and it makes Microsoft look arrogant when they mumble their "security through obscurity" mantra even in response to known exploits.
The source is open. Under strict terms, but that means that it's like a hydra; they can lop off heads by absorbing developers or distributors, but new developers can keep springing up to compete, starting on an even technical footing. It's pointless of them even trying. Buying up GPL developers will just send a message that there's money in open source, creating even more competitors. They have to actually compete with GPL. In fact, I believe that GPL is the only real long term competitor to Microsoft in commodity servers and desktops, and competition gives us (as users and developers) greater choice and faster improvements.
The GPL terms. They call it viral, meaning it in a pejorative way. I agree that it is viral, but I believe that's a good thing. I'm not a huge fan of RMS, and I'm happy that there are alternatives to GPL, but at the moment, it's actually a huge giggle to see Microsoft eyeing it up like the apple in Eden, all that tempting juicy goodness right there in front of them. Only it's copyrighted, and there's a cost to using it, and the cost is to GPL their code. It's too much too pay, but for a harrassed developer on a deadline, it's soooooo tempting.
Sooner or later, Microsoft will get caught releasing a product with GPL code in it, simply because many developers don't understand the terms of the GPL, or how serious the copyright part is. I'm not sure what the results of that will be, but I bet it'll be great fun finding out.;-)
When I first got my laptop the battery would last about 3 hours before having to recharge. About a year later, it would last barely 1 hour
Tell me about it. I get between an hour and a couple of seconds (really) out of my carefully nursed 16 month old NiMh, replacement cost $150 for a generic version. The joke is that most sellers warranty a minimum of 80% of the rated capacity after one year or so. Anyone got a success story claiming under such a warranty, or is it always "caveat: unless, of course, you abuse the battery, which we can detect by the fact that it's not holding charge, har har"
I suspect the basic problem is crappy cheapo chargers in laptops, that cook the battery. My NiMh overheats rapidly during charging (I juggle it to try and keep it cool), which is a good way to kill it dead. If you were a manufacturer would you spend more to put in a charger that would reduce your replacement battery sales? I think not.
I first got my laptop the battery would last about 3 hours before having to recharge. About a year later, it would last barely 1 hour.
As it's a lithium ion, the most likely cause is that the laptop is fitted with a minimum cost charger which is cooking it slowly to death. Put it this way: why would a manufacturer spend more money to put in a decent charger that denies them repeat battery sales? Hmmm
I'd advise taking your battery out as soon as it's charged, especially if it starts heating up. Put it back in every few days to keep it charged. Also, you shouldn't need to do a deep discharge on a lithium ion, and you can actually damage a cell by letting it get too low.
...to the standard right click menu is "Bugger off and never return".
The definition of a clueless developer? One that barriers entry to a site with a huge Flash intro, makes you wait for ten (twenty, thirty...) seconds while it starts loading, fades up the "skip intro" in six point yellow-on-lime, wobbles it around the bottom of the animation for five seconds, then fades it out.
Still, at least The Weekly manages to maintain a sense of humour about it.
Why don't we see more standardisation for things like digital camera batteries, laptop batteries and so forth?
I think you sum it up nicely. It's the revenue from spares and replacements. I bought a used laptop with a dead NiMh from eBay for about $270. The battery manufacturer (Solomon) isn't even selling these batteries any more, but there's a generic Duracell equivelant, ranging from $105 for the dumb battery to $150 for the smart version.
Consider that this pack is pretty much equivelant to 10 x 1.5 (actually 1.2)V MiMh AA's, costing $50 or less for ten good cells. The dumb pack is charging a 100% markup for the form factor and contacts, and (no doubt) a very cheap recharger. The NiMh in my other laptop gets very hot while charging, which is about the last thing you want to happen.
An interesting how-to on making up an external power pack for a digital camera using 5 x 7Ah F cell NiCd's (totalling about ten times a typical laptop battery's capacity) can be found here.
To power a 12V laptop, you need 10 x 1.5v cells (which actually deliver about 1.2V each). Using various types of (e.g.) Sanyo NiCd's (although I'd prefer NiMh's, as cadmium is nasty-nasty), you could use:
KR-1100AAU : 12 Ah, 240g
KR-5000DEL : 54 Ah, 1.5kg
KR-7000F : 75 Ah, 2.3 kg
KR-20000M : 240 Ah, 6.4 kg
Compare and contrast with my 3.5Ah pack at about 250g. Even with stock AA's, I'd get over three times the capacity and life. If I wanted to lug a lump of battery around, I could run the thing for days off of battery power. Actually, my laptop expects 19v DC in through the power jack (to recharge the 12v internal battery), so you could multiply all these figures by up to 1.5, if you felt like (realistically) powering a laptop for a working week off of a 7 lbs F cell pack.
Consider the "need to know" shortcuts in this article. For example "1859, when the first lead acid battery was made in France". This was the first cell using Planté type plates which are still in use today, but the history of lead acid and other cells goes back a bit further than that. It's a reasonable shortcut, but it does illustrate that this kind of article only skims the very surface. If you want insights, you have to go and do your own research.
On the other hand, they do make an important point: "Of the billions [of cells and batteries] sold each year, most wind up in landfills and incinerators". Well, that's pretty much true of AA type alkalines and carbon-zincs, but actually clunky old automotive lead acids are now recycled 95% of the time. NiCad's though are death in a tube: nobody wants to touch the bloody things. NiMh's and Lithium Ions are a little nicer, if you can find a local recycler who will handle them. Power Express used to accept small amounts of NiMh's and LiIons by mail, but they've changed their site and I can't find any mention of it now, which perhaps indicates the volatility (ha ha) of the recycling market. If you want some sleepless nights, have a look here for a decent overview of what you can and should be recycling.
Oops, but then we slip into the land of delusions again: "Batteries, which have long been derided for polluting the environment, will soon do their part to clean it up, MIT's Sadoway said. The same research that is shrinking cell phones has a higher purpose: an exhaust-free electric car."
Uh huh. Like the T Zero? Again, the site has changed, and I now can't find mention of the technologies, but from memory, it's either 300kg of lead acids (shorter range or quicker death from deep discharges) or nickel metal hydrides (landfill ahoy) with quoted replacement costs and times of $3000 and 3 years for the lead-acids. Yes, that's 100kg of lead, acid and plastic to be recycled every year for every vehicle, or about half a pound (and $2.75) a day. OK, it can be recycled, and the problem is concentrated rather than distributed. But it's a lot of nastiness to deal with, and remember that rules only apply to nice middle income people. Scurrilous low income types are just going to abandon their twenty year old wrecks (complete with 200kg of lead) in the nearest ditch, street corner, or even front yard. We'd better be prepared to treat these things as environmental time bombs and have policies in place to collect and recycle them, with or without the owner's consent. Designing in a large recycling burden just makes less sense than investing in a clean and long lived internal power source.
I think that the intro sums it up: the problem is chemistry. There's only so much energy you can store in a sealed unit. If we want significant energy density from a renewable source and no ongoing recycling nightmare, then we have to go to hydrogen cells or even good old fashioned alcohol burners. Sealed cell technology is not the long term answer to our energy needs, and we can't just blame the manufacturers for that, seeing as how it's us that keeps buying their products by the billion then (mostly) throwing them in the trash.
let's entrust my entire network's security to a $.25 (or cheaper) part that has the highest failure rate of any storage medium ever
Oh, please. How often do you reboot a firewall? Once every six months? Once a year? Once per power failure?
And if the floppy has rotted during this time, you do have an image on a more stable medium somewhere inside your intranet, right? If not, well, you deserve what you get, I suppose.
For five bucks, I wouldn't expect too much with the bride...
Picture a quarter-of-a-million-guys-on-one-gal bukkake....;-)
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
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by definition, a work in the public domain has no copyright, hence isn't a protected work. However, the stuff about distribution of circumvention devices still holds.
Exactly. The DMCA assumes guilt if you try and obtain devices to put the content in the public domain, then the SSSCA assumes guilt if you try and obtain devices to use public domain content.
Anyone who's still thinking that the SSSCA can't possibly intend to mandate devices that will only manipulate watermarked content had better wake up quick. That's the only way it will "work" from the MPAA/RIAA's point of view. Just making it hard for Joe Consumer to rip his SSSCA-CD-2's isn't enough if he can get ripped ones online. The hardware has to stop him playing unprotected content as well. I can't see it any other way.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
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The DMCA already does this. There is no exception for circumventing protection of works that have passed into the public domain.
The point about the SSSCA though is that if someone else breaks the law to obtain the tools to strip the copy protection (on public domain content!) and then gives you a copy, then you still have to break the law to obtain uncrippled hardware that will play the unwatermarked content.
It's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. The copied content itself is legal, but you aren't allowed to use it.:(
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
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As long as unprotected file formats exist, all it takes is one offshore hacker to write the file converter, and it's game over for the copy protection.
Mmm, I know. But all you're saying is that as long as you get away with it, it's no foul, no penalty. I don't believe that not getting caught is a substitute for not having the insane law in the first place.
And how long do you really think it will be before SSSCA-2 mandates hardware that only deals with content with an approved watermark? I mean, the DMCA was unthinkable - before it happened. The SSSCA was unthinkable - and now it's happening. If we don't draw the line here, where will we draw it?
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that it's not like Napster, but it's not like Sony either. Remember, judges have an eye on the supremes, and they know which way the government and their paymasters in the MPAA/RIAA want them to go. All a court has to do is to push the Napster ruling a little further and ask why, if Kazaa has servers, they can't monitor the transfers.
And when it comes down to it, there's no reason other habit. That works for incumbent telcos and ISP's, but Kazaa is new to the party, and the rules haven't been set in stone yet. This one could easily go either way, but I fully believe that Kazaa are boned.
OK, deep breaths. They are 100% compliant with the GPL license, as I think the reporting debacle on here showed. Do we say that every commercial X/GNU/Linux distro "rips off" Linus, and GNU and KDE/Gnome and a whole load of other developers? No, we say that they promote them, bring them to a wider audience, support and develop them, and contribute their revenues back to the whole.
So let's give Morpheus enough rope to hang themselves. If they spend their ad money developing the client, and if they keep releasing source, and if they don't bring an assload of hurt to the whole project, then they'll be providing the same service as a commercial linux distro.
Do I think that'll happen? No, based on their past behaviour, I think they'll fork off a version that will refuse to serve content to other Gnutella clients while still leeching from them, flat out refuse to release the source, and bring the Men In Black to the party. But let's give them a little time to prove their guilt please.
Here's the danger.
Can you see the way this would look to a court? Picture a restaurant where mobsters meet, cleaning their guns and jawing about how many cops they've whacked. The restaurant owners hear that the FBI are filming the restaurant, ready to make a bust. So then they put on blindfolds and earplugs and say "Oh, but now we don't know what our customers are doing. I think we've got a large party of nuns in tonight, I can't really tell with this stuff on."
Pretty weak defence? I think so. And the nasty-nasty is that now Morpheus is just another Gnutella client, so if Morpheus does go down, why should any client - or specifically any client developer - be let off. Because they're not making money, I hear you say. Because it's just like making copies for friends and family. It's fair use.
No it damn well isn't. If I hear one more Slashdotter claim that personal/friends/family copies are "fair use", I will quite seriously bust a gut. Here are the allowable purposes for making a copy of a copyrighted work: (1) criticism and comment, (2) parody and satire, (3) scholarship and research, (4) news reporting and (5) teaching. Don't argue this with me, quote a specific case of a court saying that copies for friends and family are OK. Any judge that drew the line in the sand and said that Gnutella was OK because it's not commercial would have the MPAA/RIAA would asking for his or her head on a plate, and I'm not talking rhetorically.
Morpheus joining the Gnutella network is the best move possible for Morpheus - and the worst move possible for Gnutella. This one is going to get ugly.
Note the "any". You don't need rocket science to work out that you can only give people the benefit of the doubt for so long before deciding that you're being scammed and are never going to see one penny. Ironic, nes pas, that Kazaa kick of Morpheous for freeloading on their work and IP, when the vast majority of Kazaa's income is coming from serving ads to people making copies of copyrighted material (self included, I'm not being pejorative)?
Who there, conspiracy theorists. The "setting" is question is probably just the "bool bClientIsAuthorised" flag based on the reply from the Kazaa authentication servers. There's nothing sinister going on here. This is the way the Kazaa network is supposed to work (now). Authorised clients paying for connection to the Kazaa authentication servers. Since they went authentication to throw off giFT, Kazaa has been a client-server/P2P hybrid. Maybe Morpheus didn't get that, but I'm sure the giFT team can explain it to them.
Translation: "Those bastards actually make you pay to play! I mean, they expect us to hold up our end of the contract as well as them holding up theirs. What's with that?"
Sure, or you could have subpoena'd the giFT team to tell you that... ;-)
What you absolutely must understand is that Morpheus is a commercial service. The "100% spyware free!" boast was a marketing plot. They thought they could make money off of freeloaders (like me, remember?). Trouble is, Kazaa had the same idea, and Kazaa own the keys to that particular part of the Magic Kingdom.
Now Morpehsu is going to try and make money off of Gnutella. Well, here's a pretty pickle. Does the Gnutella network want a for-profit service in there, attracting the ire of the MPAA and their bought politicians (and judges who, lest we forget, have an eye on promotion to the Supremes, and can tell which way the political winds are shifting)? I doubt it. Can Gnutella do anything about it? Of course not. They can't pull a Kazaa and block Morpheus, either by force majeur or through obscurity.
Screw who said what to who between Kazaa and Morpheus. That's yesterday's news, it was doubtless all about the bottom line, and given the characters of the organisations in question (proprietary, commercial, legally dubious), we simply can't expect anything like honest answers from anybody. It's "Morpheus versus Gnutella", or "Morpheus with Gnutella" that's the issue now. This is shaping up to be the first big test of how well open source can survive in a hostile environment, with layer upon layer of juicy morality quandaries to pick over.
Is it wrong for Morpheus to "freeload" off of Gnutella? But they're license compliant, and they bring a whole lot of content with them. And the whole Gnutella network is - de facto - already about freeloading. But making profit off of it just fuels the MPAA/RIAA's law-buying machine...
This one is going to run and run. I for one am going to settle down with some popcorn and enjoy the (truly) free show. ;-)
Funnily enough, I'm not a citizen of the USA, but I'm writing for the benefit of the majority Slashdot audience. Oh, feel free to share (not force) your viewpoint on us.
And personally, I agree with you, for crimes where violence is used or threatened. That includes corrupt abuse of power by politicians and law enforcement. It does not include tax evasion, fraud, or property theft. I have no problem with the method, only the application.
Mmm, it would probably be petty and pointless to mention a one week business trip to Beijing, right? Unless I use it as an opportunity to mention how taken I was with the city, and yes, how safe I felt there.
You'll note that I agree that the US legal system is a joke when it comes to dealing with petty crimes. I also agree that executions should be carried out quickly. The idea that a capital crime should be more appealable fundamentally wrecks the whole concept of a criminal legal system that deals in innocence and guilt. While I'm at it, I'd like to see public physical punishment be used for minor crimes. Yes, aka torture. Most truly successful systems of social justice used limited physical violence quite successfully before liberals and lawyers decided that was bad for Freedom and business respectively.
If you go back and read what I wrote, you'll find that it mostly consists of some easily verifiable statements of fact. They will no doubt affirm the preconceptions of some readers, but do please bear in mind that I am pointing out that the US government is only better (or worse, depending on how you feel about hypocrisy) by degree regarding executions, and that I do try and present a gentle counter that suggests that maybe the US system isn't all peaches-and-cream.
Or, I could just have launched into a pontificating attack. Would that have provoked thought, or just attracted denial and spite, do you think?
Ah, if only the real world was so black and white. When you say "kiddie porn", you invite us to consider morally reprehensible images of pre-teens and agree with you by reflex.
Now let's discuss a relevant example. You get sent a posed image of a nude 15 year old girl from Japan. Is that illegal?
Well, it's not illegal in Japan. Age of consent is 13, with protections against exploitation. Argue the morality of that, but not the legality (unless you want to argue exploitation, but we'll assume a clued up 15 year old who's making money, it does happen). Where does the illegality start? When the packets cross US borders? When they enter equipment owned by a US company, even if that's in Japan? Is the act of sending the material outside of Japan illegal? Illegal in who's jurisdiction? Is it illegal for you to keep the images ("of course!" to quote you). Are you beholden to report the receipt to US law enforcement, and if so on what grounds? Should US law enforcement try to have the sender extradited? Should they try to prosecute the sender's associates in the USA?
This case isn't black and white. If you want to discuss it, bring your wisdom to bear on the above example rather than setting up a strawman.
Try and keep up; the UK had the Design, Copyright and Patents Act way back in 1988. It took another ten years to slither its way across the Atlantic, disguised as the DMCA.
I do take the point that filtering breaks the traditional model of the 'net, but that "traditional" model was largely set up RFC's that came out of academic institutions, and now that so many of these institutions (as you say) are filtering, perhaps the basic model has changed. We've moved away from an assumption of innocence, simply because when it met the cold reality of the Average Human Being, it became economically and socially unsustainable.
But that's not what you're talking about at all. You're only interested in your freedoms. Are you saying that you don't have the right to choose to pay for a mail service that uses your money to pay to handle unfiltered spam traffic?
Of course not, you're on Yahoo!. What you're saying is that you want a completely free-as-in-beer service, but that you want them to pick up the bill for handling spam to protect your free-as-in-speech experience.
Sounds to me like you're not pro-choice or pro free-speech at all. You're pro-beer. Last I checked, 'net access wasn't a right, not is it enshrined that it should be free-as-in-beer.
Incidentally, I put myself through university in the early 90's, when the net was free as in speech, but definitely not as in beer. If you want a free as in speech 'net experience, you can still do what I did, and choose to pay for access to it. If you choose not to pay, then you're hardly in a position to complain that you're not getting your money's worth.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the USA is too ignorant to distinguish between Chinese academics and the Chinese government.
What's that you say? You personally don't represent the entire USA? Well, shucks, maybe that's true for people in other countries too.
In case anyone thinks you're being cute, it's entirely possible that spammers might be executed in China. A brief overview of the crimes that people have been executed for are:
Surprised by any of the last ones? In 1979, there were 28 types of crime that carried the death penalty in China. By 1995, that had risen to 74, mostly by the addition of "economic offences". They admit to executing well over a thousand people a year (often after a public show trial or displaying the convicts in public places), and it's suspected that a lot more get a bullet in the head without even a record being made.
Unfortunately, the USA has a policy of not criticizing China's execution policy (or that of any other state), as we have some cleaning up of our own to do. Engaging cynicism mode, you might ponder that the only part of it that our partially hereditary, 90% incumbent political class really object to is the crackdown on corruption and bribe taking, but of course, rank retains its priviledges in China, and the biggest criminals get jail time while their minions are executed.
On the other hand, there is a certain horridly attractive efficiency to show trials and summary execution. Compare and contrast with the US system of interminable legal wrangling over minor technicalities, occasionally leading to fines that are either trivially small or unrealistically big, neither of which typically get paid.
When you read the very occasional article that "Spammer X is fined Y dollars", remember that's just the first step in actually making them responsible for their actions. Even if you can get the fine to stick to them and not their shell company, if they don't pay to a third party or collection agency, they have to be brought back to court again, and it has to be proven that they haven't paid, at which they generally plead poverty and agree to pay off their $5 million debt at $10 a month. And if they don't pay that... you see where this goes? Judges are loathe to jail people over non payment of fines unless they're taking a political stand against them. It's only nice, police, law abiding folks that pay fines. If you want to keep pursuing a third party to make them pay, you have to keep paying up front to do so. The only winners are, as usual, the lawyers.
Not always. During the WTO demonstrations in London last summer, the response to a very small proportion of violent demonstrators was to box large numbers of (overwhelmingly peaceful) people in and stop them leaving. We're talking all day here, until the demonstraters were cold, hungry and just wanted to go home. Illegal detention, say the detractors; screw the damn hippies, say proponents (when translated from Weaselese).
Any device that gives control is going to be looked on favourably.
To give some perspective, credit where credit is due: British riot police have learned some long, hard lessons, and are, I think, the finest in the world.
I participate in fairly large scale historic reenactments including shield wall and mixed infantry and cavalry actions. In fact, reenactors were solicited as police extras in a recent film about the 1984 British miner's strike, because we are used to doing shieldwalls and charges.
But our level of expertise stops at the 1984 level, when the British riot police used haphazard tactics and made a lot of mistakes. Eighteen years later, they are simply astonishing to watch in action, and they do it (largely) without using chemical weapons or firearms or even batons, they do it through slick manouvres and integrated foot and horse actions that put the right amount of deterrent in the right place at the right time, to stop conflicts before they start.
Argue the morality of controlling political demonstrations, but don't forget that crowd control also involves preventing injury at otherwise good natured public events. And you can definitely do that without fancy chemical weapons, you just have to invest in training. Crowd control is about people, not about technology.
Uh, why invent hypothetical situations, when the SSSCA is about to make this de facto real soon now?
- the single most important thing about GPL code is the copyright. All else flows from there
No, GPL is a copyleft, all rights reversed.And it's precisely that falacious attitude (and the smiley) that is going to cause my employer a world of pain, and quite likely lose a few of my colleages their jobs (at a minimum).
Your point about "free software authors" in general might be true (in a vague kind of way), but GPL is different from other open licenses, and it's specifically the GPL that Microsoft object to, because it's so strong. And the strength is founded on copyright.
If you come away from this debate with only one thing in your head, it should be this:
Open source is copyrighted. If you can't be bothered reading the license any further, then stop there, and do not use it. Unless you read, understand and fully comply with the whole license terms, you are committing theft, and you should be hung out to dry.
The whole "hey man, chill out, information wants to be free" attitude is a nice dream, but in a world populated by Microsofts, GPL needs to be strong and not lassez faire.
Partly to keep their own employees' minds on it, I suspect. I work for a commercial software developer, and I can point at at least four GPL violations in our current R&D project. I have in fact raised this with my team, and with local management, and explained that this is theft. They seem unconcerned. It's open source. It's free. We just have to ackowledge it, right? Right? Er, OK, once the thing hits the market, I'll be sure to ask the copyright owners of the source about that, OK? Idiots. I hope they do let it hit market like this, they've had enough warnings.
Curious slant. Because the single most important thing about GPL code is the copyright. All else flows from there. Without strong copyright, you have no leverage for the licensing terms. Go and read any GPL source, and you'll find a copyright, and you'd better believe that they mean it. What Microsoft actually disagree with is this:
Sooner or later, Microsoft will get caught releasing a product with GPL code in it, simply because many developers don't understand the terms of the GPL, or how serious the copyright part is. I'm not sure what the results of that will be, but I bet it'll be great fun finding out. ;-)
Tell me about it. I get between an hour and a couple of seconds (really) out of my carefully nursed 16 month old NiMh, replacement cost $150 for a generic version. The joke is that most sellers warranty a minimum of 80% of the rated capacity after one year or so. Anyone got a success story claiming under such a warranty, or is it always "caveat: unless, of course, you abuse the battery, which we can detect by the fact that it's not holding charge, har har"
I suspect the basic problem is crappy cheapo chargers in laptops, that cook the battery. My NiMh overheats rapidly during charging (I juggle it to try and keep it cool), which is a good way to kill it dead. If you were a manufacturer would you spend more to put in a charger that would reduce your replacement battery sales? I think not.
As it's a lithium ion, the most likely cause is that the laptop is fitted with a minimum cost charger which is cooking it slowly to death. Put it this way: why would a manufacturer spend more money to put in a decent charger that denies them repeat battery sales? Hmmm
I'd advise taking your battery out as soon as it's charged, especially if it starts heating up. Put it back in every few days to keep it charged. Also, you shouldn't need to do a deep discharge on a lithium ion, and you can actually damage a cell by letting it get too low.
...to the standard right click menu is "Bugger off and never return".
The definition of a clueless developer? One that barriers entry to a site with a huge Flash intro, makes you wait for ten (twenty, thirty...) seconds while it starts loading, fades up the "skip intro" in six point yellow-on-lime, wobbles it around the bottom of the animation for five seconds, then fades it out.
Still, at least The Weekly manages to maintain a sense of humour about it.
I think you sum it up nicely. It's the revenue from spares and replacements. I bought a used laptop with a dead NiMh from eBay for about $270. The battery manufacturer (Solomon) isn't even selling these batteries any more, but there's a generic Duracell equivelant, ranging from $105 for the dumb battery to $150 for the smart version.
Consider that this pack is pretty much equivelant to 10 x 1.5 (actually 1.2)V MiMh AA's, costing $50 or less for ten good cells. The dumb pack is charging a 100% markup for the form factor and contacts, and (no doubt) a very cheap recharger. The NiMh in my other laptop gets very hot while charging, which is about the last thing you want to happen.
An interesting how-to on making up an external power pack for a digital camera using 5 x 7Ah F cell NiCd's (totalling about ten times a typical laptop battery's capacity) can be found here.
To power a 12V laptop, you need 10 x 1.5v cells (which actually deliver about 1.2V each). Using various types of (e.g.) Sanyo NiCd's (although I'd prefer NiMh's, as cadmium is nasty-nasty), you could use:
Compare and contrast with my 3.5Ah pack at about 250g. Even with stock AA's, I'd get over three times the capacity and life. If I wanted to lug a lump of battery around, I could run the thing for days off of battery power. Actually, my laptop expects 19v DC in through the power jack (to recharge the 12v internal battery), so you could multiply all these figures by up to 1.5, if you felt like (realistically) powering a laptop for a working week off of a 7 lbs F cell pack.
Consider the "need to know" shortcuts in this article. For example "1859, when the first lead acid battery was made in France". This was the first cell using Planté type plates which are still in use today, but the history of lead acid and other cells goes back a bit further than that. It's a reasonable shortcut, but it does illustrate that this kind of article only skims the very surface. If you want insights, you have to go and do your own research.
On the other hand, they do make an important point: "Of the billions [of cells and batteries] sold each year, most wind up in landfills and incinerators". Well, that's pretty much true of AA type alkalines and carbon-zincs, but actually clunky old automotive lead acids are now recycled 95% of the time. NiCad's though are death in a tube: nobody wants to touch the bloody things. NiMh's and Lithium Ions are a little nicer, if you can find a local recycler who will handle them. Power Express used to accept small amounts of NiMh's and LiIons by mail, but they've changed their site and I can't find any mention of it now, which perhaps indicates the volatility (ha ha) of the recycling market. If you want some sleepless nights, have a look here for a decent overview of what you can and should be recycling.
Oops, but then we slip into the land of delusions again: "Batteries, which have long been derided for polluting the environment, will soon do their part to clean it up, MIT's Sadoway said. The same research that is shrinking cell phones has a higher purpose: an exhaust-free electric car."
Uh huh. Like the T Zero? Again, the site has changed, and I now can't find mention of the technologies, but from memory, it's either 300kg of lead acids (shorter range or quicker death from deep discharges) or nickel metal hydrides (landfill ahoy) with quoted replacement costs and times of $3000 and 3 years for the lead-acids. Yes, that's 100kg of lead, acid and plastic to be recycled every year for every vehicle, or about half a pound (and $2.75) a day. OK, it can be recycled, and the problem is concentrated rather than distributed. But it's a lot of nastiness to deal with, and remember that rules only apply to nice middle income people. Scurrilous low income types are just going to abandon their twenty year old wrecks (complete with 200kg of lead) in the nearest ditch, street corner, or even front yard. We'd better be prepared to treat these things as environmental time bombs and have policies in place to collect and recycle them, with or without the owner's consent. Designing in a large recycling burden just makes less sense than investing in a clean and long lived internal power source.
I think that the intro sums it up: the problem is chemistry. There's only so much energy you can store in a sealed unit. If we want significant energy density from a renewable source and no ongoing recycling nightmare, then we have to go to hydrogen cells or even good old fashioned alcohol burners. Sealed cell technology is not the long term answer to our energy needs, and we can't just blame the manufacturers for that, seeing as how it's us that keeps buying their products by the billion then (mostly) throwing them in the trash.
Oh, please. How often do you reboot a firewall? Once every six months? Once a year? Once per power failure?
And if the floppy has rotted during this time, you do have an image on a more stable medium somewhere inside your intranet, right? If not, well, you deserve what you get, I suppose.
Picture a quarter-of-a-million-guys-on-one-gal bukkake.... ;-)
Exactly. The DMCA assumes guilt if you try and obtain devices to put the content in the public domain, then the SSSCA assumes guilt if you try and obtain devices to use public domain content.
Anyone who's still thinking that the SSSCA can't possibly intend to mandate devices that will only manipulate watermarked content had better wake up quick. That's the only way it will "work" from the MPAA/RIAA's point of view. Just making it hard for Joe Consumer to rip his SSSCA-CD-2's isn't enough if he can get ripped ones online. The hardware has to stop him playing unprotected content as well. I can't see it any other way.
The point about the SSSCA though is that if someone else breaks the law to obtain the tools to strip the copy protection (on public domain content!) and then gives you a copy, then you still have to break the law to obtain uncrippled hardware that will play the unwatermarked content.
It's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. The copied content itself is legal, but you aren't allowed to use it. :(
Mmm, I know. But all you're saying is that as long as you get away with it, it's no foul, no penalty. I don't believe that not getting caught is a substitute for not having the insane law in the first place.
And how long do you really think it will be before SSSCA-2 mandates hardware that only deals with content with an approved watermark? I mean, the DMCA was unthinkable - before it happened. The SSSCA was unthinkable - and now it's happening. If we don't draw the line here, where will we draw it?