As some point, are you going to answer the question about what rights you think you have when you buy a CD? I know you keep saying "Copyright law", but what do you think that covers?
For example, have you ever organised a public event involving playing music over a PA? I'd be interested to know how US or state copyright laws deal with that. In England, we have to buy a per-event public performance license which entitles us to play any music (I don't know if we also have to own the associated media or whether that covers an MP3 ripped from Napster). The money raised goes into a fund (along with broadcast license money) which then gets distributed to the recording industry pro rata on sales i.e. it goes into execs and major artist pockets, regardless of what gets played.
Do you believe that your purchase of a CD means that you can play it to several thousand people at a pay event? If not, why not? It's your CD, right? What's the difference whether you play it alone, with a few friends, or for a few thousand friends?
(As an aside, what's "American Copyright law"? Does that cover the USA, Canada and Mexico?)
Also, you are forgetting that the moth's will apparantly completely destroy the corps in the wild. In the lab, they can be fed controlably
OK, good point, and thanks for the larvae correction below. However, we're still generating X tonnes of extra moth larvae, which eat Y tonnes of biomass. Just because we can choose what we feed them doesn't mean that they eat any less.
This isn't the same problem as breeding (e.g.) sterile mosquitoes, where the harmfull effect that we want to avoid is that they are disease vectors. This is a simple biomass calculation and the total cost to us is (wild larvae + lab larvae). Does anyone have detailed figures?
It's a sad state of affairs when we're surprised that a court comes down on the side of of common sense. That said, this is a nice preliminary finding, and we can but hope that the rest of the case proceeds in a similarly reasonable manner (whatever the result).
In particular, I like the part about patents being distinguished by technique and not application, so you don't necessarily get a new patent just for writing down some existing art and pencilling "...but on a web page" on the end.
Is the US legal system in danger of finally getting a clue, do we think?;)
It's an interesting resource, but it's a little mendacious to give advice on P2P at the moment, considering the number of unresolved cases flying around. "Do nothing!" is the only safe advice right now.
Witness the disclaimer "Nothing contained herein constitutes legal advice--please discuss your individual situation with your own attorney", which I'm sure many people will happily ignore and quote this article as gospel.;)
the effect on the moth population will likely be negligible
Sounds to me like the effect on the moth population will be beneficial. We're going to breed jillions of these things (where do we get food for the lab moths?) then release them into the wild.
On the year of release, you have masses more moths eating your cash crop. Next season, you have fewer moths, but you'll never wipe them out unless your sterile lab moths are completely irresistable (gene splice from Natalie Portman?).
So in a couple of seasons, the wild moths have bred their numbers up. Meanwhile, the biolabs are breeding up their own populations (reminder: where do we get food for the lab moths?), and we just cycle over and over. The biolab boys will never create (or sell) enough moths to eradicate the wild population, even if they could, because they'll put themselves out of business.
The net effect on the total moth population over time? Probably an increase: we're deliberately nurturing the fuzzy little things, and remember, they eat the same in the wild or in a lab.
Work through the economics of this: money goes from farmer to biolab for the moths, biolab gives some of the money (indirectly) back to farmer to buy produce to feed the moths. Miss out the middleman, and have Joe Farmer just give a whole bunch of produce to the biolabs so they can feed lab moths so that wild moths won't, er, eat a whole bunch of Joe Farmer's produce. Wow, nice scheme - for the biolab guys and the moths.;)
Let me see... buy loads of sterile moths. The fertile + sterile moths fill their little mothy bellies and make a little mothy luuurve.
Next season, you have a drop in the mothy population proportionate to the number of sterile moths you bought (assuming you didn't make them super attractive with the mothy equivelant of a Natalie Portman gene). Hurrah! You have 10% fewer moths eating your cash crop this year, and all you had to do was to pay for the privilege of having 10% more moths eating it last year! And of course you now have to keep buying new moths every year, what with sterility not being hereditary.
Still... I'll the first batch is free. Sound familiar?;)
The UK [does] not recognise Sealand. Since the 1987 expansion of Britain's territorial limits, Sealand has been within the our sea boundaries.
I hate nit picking as much as the next geek (i.e not at all), so I'll just point out the innacuracy in the article. There's no such thing as a "British" or "UK" court, and likewise, an expansion of "Britain's" sea boundary would be on a jurisdictional basis. If it ever does come to a fight over Sealand, it'll go through the English courts, then ultimately to the House of Lords and post-ultimately to the European Court of Human Rights.
A small point perhaps (especially if you live in England, which views the UK much as the USA views the rest of the world;) ), but we're talking about just such small legal distinctions and jurisdictional arguments.
Oops, mea culpa. Sorry, didn't mean to propagate that "trial by media" crap.
OK, rephrase. Part of the defence of the 7 line Perl script is that it's short, but only because this means it can be written on a bit of paper and communicated easily person to person in an old fashioned way that even a judge can understand (thus strengthening the First Amendment argument). Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has been arguing that CSS is so weak that it shouldn't count as a copyright protecting mechanism. Again, it's the intent that matters, not the quality of the mechanism.
Can you give any references to this idea that I get a "license" with a book or CD? Can you point to where such a thing exists in law or practice?
Sure. Off the back of a Papa Roach CD, readable before purchase. "All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited."
Interesting that they specify lending, as fair use says this is bollocks. However, the relevant part is the public performance clause. If there's no license (explitic or implicit) attached to the CD, what's to stop you doing whatever the hell you want with it, including playing it in the presence of as many people as you want?
Before anyone misinterprets that, I'm not talking about broadcasting it, I'm asking why it's fair use to play "your" CD in the presence of 5 friends or workmates, but not 6? Those numbers are from English law precedent on workplace "public performance", BTW, I don't know the USA take on this.
Can you just clear up what it is that you think you're getting when you buy a CD, and what precisely you view your rights and limitations as?
as he doesn't offer an electronic version of his books, it isn't really competing with anything
I'm currently preparing a novel for paper publication, and I'm damn sure the rights contract will explicitely give or withhold rights in all media including e-versions and "shit that doesn't exist yet" (yes, legalese can and often does phrase things that vaguely - look at the DMCA).
It occurs to me that a forward looking science fiction author should've thought of exploiting the "shit that doesn't exist" methods years ago, rather than waiting for a print oriented agent or publishing house to do the work for him. It seems to me that Harlan's pissed mostly because he's only now realising that he should have pro-actively shut the door and put a meter on it before the horse bolted.
What, exactly, makes you believe you're allowed to make another copy of a CD, when your first one wears out or is destroyed?
Er, how about that purchasing the CD buys you a limited license to play the tracks? Look at the "resale" clause on your CD sleeves (or in a book, DVD...). Understand that the license is a separate asset. It's tied to the ownership of the medium, but not its existence. Your purchased license doesn't evaporate if your CD does.
See the comments above, I know this isn't an encryption, but a "copyright protection mechanism" issue. But I can't let this one slip.
We need test cases to determine what a "copyright protection mechanism" is, and we have to start at the gonzo end and work our way up. Look at DECSS - a 16 year old cracked it without too much trouble. I don't think "It was easy, so they didn't try hard enough for it to count" is going to wash as a defence.
IMO, it's the intent that's the issue, not the quality of the mechanism. For example, the RIIA could argue that just setting the copyright bit in an MP3 could be enough to qualify. Daft, but no dafter than pig latin, right?
It's a nonsense to claim this ruling is an implicit recognition of Sealand.
Blah blah blah. It's a nonsense for any country/state/region/city/individual to claim independence; such claims are never recognised by the mutha-land, and are always dismissed as "nonsense". Independence, as many US types will happily tell you, is only achieved by repeatedly asserting and defending that your claim is not nonsense, usually with guns.
Regardless, science needs to focus on what it applies to, and leave the mysteries of the origin of life to those who can best understand them.
By which you mean people who cheerfully torture each other to death over the most pedantic aspects of the interpretation of a theory derived by the "I fear the alternative" process, unsupported by evidence and validated only by repeated assertion, intimidation and brutal censorship? Those gals^H^H^H^H guys?
Technically, any copying infringes the copyright. What you have on your side is "fair use" precedent, which is just court speak for "Aww, c'mon, be sensible." Copyright law says that you cannot even create a backup of the music data, but fair use precedent says "Don't be silly, of course you can."
The problem with "fair use" is that it's just precedent covering specific circumstances; it doesn't effect the copyright or licensing per se. And courts can happily ignore precedent under a couple of circumstances: the facts are materially different from the precedent setting case; or if they feel like it (see the Supreme Court Gore Exemption).
To answer your question, it's highly unlikely that the RIIA would pursue individuals who are using Napster to download tracks that they own licenses for, but they could do it on the basis (true or not) that there is a material difference between using Napster and making a personal backup on hard media. They don't have to be right, they just have to intimidate users enough to get a body of non-legal precedent while preventing it ever actually coming to court and getting a fair use precedent against them.
I've got a lot of respect for the guys at Sealand, but they're a very small fish and this might end up being exceedingly bad for them if the RIIA decide to squash them.
Anyone who's serious about doing this should consider another host country - China. Think about it. No copyright or IP laws, so Napster is both perfectly legal and doctrinally sound in China, plus even the RIIA might think twice about spilling China's pint. OK, the reliability isn't great, but that'll only improve with investment.
Their main claim to sovereignty is that the UK ignored them for many years, writing them off as a bunch of loonies
From http://www.sealandgov.com/history.html : "The result of this lawsuit in Chelmsfort/Essex was a spectacular success for Sealand's claim to sovereignty. In its judgment of 25 November 1968, the court declared that it was not competent in Roy of Sealand's case as it could not exert any jurisdiction outside of British national territory. This is the first de facto recognition of the Principality of Sealand. English law had ruled that Sealand was not part of the United Kingdom, nor did any other nation claim it, hence Prince Roy's declaration of a new Sovereign State was de facto upheld."
Which is a bit whacko, but then again, name me a nation that's been formed by any means other than robust and repeated assertion and defence of its autonomy.
- The Trek writers cannot develop characters that are remotely believeable. Only mindless, one dimensional cliche's.
Darn tootin'. Have you read the cast list for this new series? It reads like TOS meets Andromeda via Buffy. Shudder. Is anyone else picturing a Kevin Sorbo lookalike playing Captain Bulge Gently (or whatever the fcuk he's called)?
This cast list looks like they've cherry picked the current SF/youth TV. For example, the British Bloke might as well be called Wesley Wyndham-Price from that character description.
Originality? Courage? I'm sure they've heard the words.
You can't just put "Jedi", that's as meaningless as "Jehovist". You have to pick a sect, dammit!
Midichlorist - Old Republic conservative, based on solid scientific principles and prone to much sitting around looking grim and warning about Prophesies.
Immaculatist - Believer in the Immaculate Conception of Anakin Skywalker, marking the end of Midichlorianism rationalism and the beginning of a New Age of "anything goes" psuedo-mystical twaddle.
Intuitist - Imperial period Jedi, eschewing all knowledge of earlier abominations such as Midichlorians and Immaculate Conceptions; a much purer, simpler religion.
As an aside, do not give any money to a lawyer unless you get a personal recommendation from a trusted friend. Most lawyers are lazy, deceitful lying assholes who will drip feed you what you could find out easily enough for yourself by studying some case law.
Put one up and shoot him and let's get on with it.
on
Pluto Mission Back?
·
· Score: 2
It's sick, but I keep thinking that the best thing that will happen to the space program is when a US astronaut dies in orbit or beyond. The holy grail of "never lost one in space" comes at the cost of redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
Apologies, but screw that. In commercial aviation and particularly shipping, safety is secondary to commercial considerations. It's simply cheaper to kill a few stick jockeys every year than it is to run quintiple backups. NASA are obsessed with protecting an investment per astronaut that's so high that they refuse to quantify it, saying that it's too complicated to calculate (really!). Forget it, let's just start lobbing dozens of big dumb boosters up there carrying a couple of Homers and a trained chimp.
Would you, however, go into books a million and photocopy every book in the place and make copies of that to give to anyone who wanted one?
Dodgy analogy. But let's talk it through.
I find a book with a price tag that's too high. I'm not going to buy it, so Joe Author has lost a sale. He's not getting my money anyway. So who gets hurt when I copy that content? Who loses? Quantify the dollar value of Joe Author's loss; and let's stick to money, because that's what this debate is about, not principles.
Let me anticipate your next argument (I'll even put some clever words in for you): "But your a priori knowledge that you can get the content without paying disinclines you to pay for it! You can't say with all honesty that you won't pay for it, because you know you can get it without paying."
And my reasoned response: WELL, DUUUUH. It's a commercial reality now. Here's another slightly less flawed analogy to make my point.
You pick up a magazine off a rack and start reading it. At which point do you cross the line from making a purchase decision, to stealing the content? The vendor can see what you are doing: at which point does she decide it's theft and tell you to stop reading?
This is a grey area. Technically what you are doing is theft, right from the moment you open the magazine. But the pragmatic commercial reality is that this is a necessary dilution of the IP to promote a sale. I suggest that we're now reaching that stage with online IP; the RIIA's self delusion aside, enough people (60 million?) now view "free browsing" as completely acceptable.
Or do you think magazine vendors should be prosecuted by publishers for knowingly collaborating in the theft of their property? And did you know that libraries lend out music? Think that one through.
Slashdot Mirror
As some point, are you going to answer the question about what rights you think you have when you buy a CD? I know you keep saying "Copyright law", but what do you think that covers?
For example, have you ever organised a public event involving playing music over a PA? I'd be interested to know how US or state copyright laws deal with that. In England, we have to buy a per-event public performance license which entitles us to play any music (I don't know if we also have to own the associated media or whether that covers an MP3 ripped from Napster). The money raised goes into a fund (along with broadcast license money) which then gets distributed to the recording industry pro rata on sales i.e. it goes into execs and major artist pockets, regardless of what gets played.
Do you believe that your purchase of a CD means that you can play it to several thousand people at a pay event? If not, why not? It's your CD, right? What's the difference whether you play it alone, with a few friends, or for a few thousand friends?
(As an aside, what's "American Copyright law"? Does that cover the USA, Canada and Mexico?)
Also, you are forgetting that the moth's will apparantly completely destroy the corps in the wild. In the lab, they can be fed controlably
OK, good point, and thanks for the larvae correction below. However, we're still generating X tonnes of extra moth larvae, which eat Y tonnes of biomass. Just because we can choose what we feed them doesn't mean that they eat any less.
This isn't the same problem as breeding (e.g.) sterile mosquitoes, where the harmfull effect that we want to avoid is that they are disease vectors. This is a simple biomass calculation and the total cost to us is (wild larvae + lab larvae). Does anyone have detailed figures?
It's a sad state of affairs when we're surprised that a court comes down on the side of of common sense. That said, this is a nice preliminary finding, and we can but hope that the rest of the case proceeds in a similarly reasonable manner (whatever the result).
In particular, I like the part about patents being distinguished by technique and not application, so you don't necessarily get a new patent just for writing down some existing art and pencilling "...but on a web page" on the end.
Is the US legal system in danger of finally getting a clue, do we think? ;)
It's an interesting resource, but it's a little mendacious to give advice on P2P at the moment, considering the number of unresolved cases flying around. "Do nothing!" is the only safe advice right now.
Witness the disclaimer "Nothing contained herein constitutes legal advice--please discuss your individual situation with your own attorney", which I'm sure many people will happily ignore and quote this article as gospel. ;)
the effect on the moth population will likely be negligible
Sounds to me like the effect on the moth population will be beneficial. We're going to breed jillions of these things (where do we get food for the lab moths?) then release them into the wild.
On the year of release, you have masses more moths eating your cash crop. Next season, you have fewer moths, but you'll never wipe them out unless your sterile lab moths are completely irresistable (gene splice from Natalie Portman?).
So in a couple of seasons, the wild moths have bred their numbers up. Meanwhile, the biolabs are breeding up their own populations (reminder: where do we get food for the lab moths?), and we just cycle over and over. The biolab boys will never create (or sell) enough moths to eradicate the wild population, even if they could, because they'll put themselves out of business.
The net effect on the total moth population over time? Probably an increase: we're deliberately nurturing the fuzzy little things, and remember, they eat the same in the wild or in a lab.
Work through the economics of this: money goes from farmer to biolab for the moths, biolab gives some of the money (indirectly) back to farmer to buy produce to feed the moths. Miss out the middleman, and have Joe Farmer just give a whole bunch of produce to the biolabs so they can feed lab moths so that wild moths won't, er, eat a whole bunch of Joe Farmer's produce. Wow, nice scheme - for the biolab guys and the moths. ;)
Let me see... buy loads of sterile moths. The fertile + sterile moths fill their little mothy bellies and make a little mothy luuurve.
Next season, you have a drop in the mothy population proportionate to the number of sterile moths you bought (assuming you didn't make them super attractive with the mothy equivelant of a Natalie Portman gene). Hurrah! You have 10% fewer moths eating your cash crop this year, and all you had to do was to pay for the privilege of having 10% more moths eating it last year! And of course you now have to keep buying new moths every year, what with sterility not being hereditary.
Still... I'll the first batch is free. Sound familiar? ;)
The UK [does] not recognise Sealand. Since the 1987 expansion of Britain's territorial limits, Sealand has been within the our sea boundaries.
I hate nit picking as much as the next geek (i.e not at all), so I'll just point out the innacuracy in the article. There's no such thing as a "British" or "UK" court, and likewise, an expansion of "Britain's" sea boundary would be on a jurisdictional basis. If it ever does come to a fight over Sealand, it'll go through the English courts, then ultimately to the House of Lords and post-ultimately to the European Court of Human Rights.
A small point perhaps (especially if you live in England, which views the UK much as the USA views the rest of the world ;) ), but we're talking about just such small legal distinctions and jurisdictional arguments.
Oops, mea culpa. Sorry, didn't mean to propagate that "trial by media" crap.
OK, rephrase. Part of the defence of the 7 line Perl script is that it's short, but only because this means it can be written on a bit of paper and communicated easily person to person in an old fashioned way that even a judge can understand (thus strengthening the First Amendment argument). Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has been arguing that CSS is so weak that it shouldn't count as a copyright protecting mechanism. Again, it's the intent that matters, not the quality of the mechanism.
Can you give any references to this idea that I get a "license" with a book or CD? Can you point to where such a thing exists in law or practice?
Sure. Off the back of a Papa Roach CD, readable before purchase. "All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited."
Interesting that they specify lending, as fair use says this is bollocks. However, the relevant part is the public performance clause. If there's no license (explitic or implicit) attached to the CD, what's to stop you doing whatever the hell you want with it, including playing it in the presence of as many people as you want?
Before anyone misinterprets that, I'm not talking about broadcasting it, I'm asking why it's fair use to play "your" CD in the presence of 5 friends or workmates, but not 6? Those numbers are from English law precedent on workplace "public performance", BTW, I don't know the USA take on this.
Can you just clear up what it is that you think you're getting when you buy a CD, and what precisely you view your rights and limitations as?
as he doesn't offer an electronic version of his books, it isn't really competing with anything
I'm currently preparing a novel for paper publication, and I'm damn sure the rights contract will explicitely give or withhold rights in all media including e-versions and "shit that doesn't exist yet" (yes, legalese can and often does phrase things that vaguely - look at the DMCA).
It occurs to me that a forward looking science fiction author should've thought of exploiting the "shit that doesn't exist" methods years ago, rather than waiting for a print oriented agent or publishing house to do the work for him. It seems to me that Harlan's pissed mostly because he's only now realising that he should have pro-actively shut the door and put a meter on it before the horse bolted.
What, exactly, makes you believe you're allowed to make another copy of a CD, when your first one wears out or is destroyed?
Er, how about that purchasing the CD buys you a limited license to play the tracks? Look at the "resale" clause on your CD sleeves (or in a book, DVD...). Understand that the license is a separate asset. It's tied to the ownership of the medium, but not its existence. Your purchased license doesn't evaporate if your CD does.
Er, are you being ironic or moronic?
This has nothing to do with the US, and in any case, it's hardly a new idea. Ever heard of the Trabant?
See the comments above, I know this isn't an encryption, but a "copyright protection mechanism" issue. But I can't let this one slip.
We need test cases to determine what a "copyright protection mechanism" is, and we have to start at the gonzo end and work our way up. Look at DECSS - a 16 year old cracked it without too much trouble. I don't think "It was easy, so they didn't try hard enough for it to count" is going to wash as a defence.
IMO, it's the intent that's the issue, not the quality of the mechanism. For example, the RIIA could argue that just setting the copyright bit in an MP3 could be enough to qualify. Daft, but no dafter than pig latin, right?
How you get such big karma, swallowing bait of this sort?
It's a nonsense to claim this ruling is an implicit recognition of Sealand.
Blah blah blah. It's a nonsense for any country/state/region/city/individual to claim independence; such claims are never recognised by the mutha-land, and are always dismissed as "nonsense". Independence, as many US types will happily tell you, is only achieved by repeatedly asserting and defending that your claim is not nonsense, usually with guns.
Regardless, science needs to focus on what it applies to, and leave the mysteries of the origin of life to those who can best understand them.
By which you mean people who cheerfully torture each other to death over the most pedantic aspects of the interpretation of a theory derived by the "I fear the alternative" process, unsupported by evidence and validated only by repeated assertion, intimidation and brutal censorship? Those gals^H^H^H^H guys?
Technically, any copying infringes the copyright. What you have on your side is "fair use" precedent, which is just court speak for "Aww, c'mon, be sensible." Copyright law says that you cannot even create a backup of the music data, but fair use precedent says "Don't be silly, of course you can."
The problem with "fair use" is that it's just precedent covering specific circumstances; it doesn't effect the copyright or licensing per se. And courts can happily ignore precedent under a couple of circumstances: the facts are materially different from the precedent setting case; or if they feel like it (see the Supreme Court Gore Exemption).
To answer your question, it's highly unlikely that the RIIA would pursue individuals who are using Napster to download tracks that they own licenses for, but they could do it on the basis (true or not) that there is a material difference between using Napster and making a personal backup on hard media. They don't have to be right, they just have to intimidate users enough to get a body of non-legal precedent while preventing it ever actually coming to court and getting a fair use precedent against them.
I've got a lot of respect for the guys at Sealand, but they're a very small fish and this might end up being exceedingly bad for them if the RIIA decide to squash them.
Anyone who's serious about doing this should consider another host country - China. Think about it. No copyright or IP laws, so Napster is both perfectly legal and doctrinally sound in China, plus even the RIIA might think twice about spilling China's pint. OK, the reliability isn't great, but that'll only improve with investment.
Their main claim to sovereignty is that the UK ignored them for many years, writing them off as a bunch of loonies
From http://www.sealandgov.com/history.html : "The result of this lawsuit in Chelmsfort/Essex was a spectacular success for Sealand's claim to sovereignty. In its judgment of 25 November 1968, the court declared that it was not competent in Roy of Sealand's case as it could not exert any jurisdiction outside of British national territory. This is the first de facto recognition of the Principality of Sealand. English law had ruled that Sealand was not part of the United Kingdom, nor did any other nation claim it, hence Prince Roy's declaration of a new Sovereign State was de facto upheld."
Which is a bit whacko, but then again, name me a nation that's been formed by any means other than robust and repeated assertion and defence of its autonomy.
- The Trek writers cannot develop characters that are remotely believeable. Only mindless, one dimensional cliche's.
Darn tootin'. Have you read the cast list for this new series? It reads like TOS meets Andromeda via Buffy. Shudder. Is anyone else picturing a Kevin Sorbo lookalike playing Captain Bulge Gently (or whatever the fcuk he's called)?
This cast list looks like they've cherry picked the current SF/youth TV. For example, the British Bloke might as well be called Wesley Wyndham-Price from that character description.
Originality? Courage? I'm sure they've heard the words.
You can't just put "Jedi", that's as meaningless as "Jehovist". You have to pick a sect, dammit!
Midichlorist - Old Republic conservative, based on solid scientific principles and prone to much sitting around looking grim and warning about Prophesies.
Immaculatist - Believer in the Immaculate Conception of Anakin Skywalker, marking the end of Midichlorianism rationalism and the beginning of a New Age of "anything goes" psuedo-mystical twaddle.
Intuitist - Imperial period Jedi, eschewing all knowledge of earlier abominations such as Midichlorians and Immaculate Conceptions; a much purer, simpler religion.
As an aside, do not give any money to a lawyer unless you get a personal recommendation from a trusted friend. Most lawyers are lazy, deceitful lying assholes who will drip feed you what you could find out easily enough for yourself by studying some case law.
It's sick, but I keep thinking that the best thing that will happen to the space program is when a US astronaut dies in orbit or beyond. The holy grail of "never lost one in space" comes at the cost of redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
Apologies, but screw that. In commercial aviation and particularly shipping, safety is secondary to commercial considerations. It's simply cheaper to kill a few stick jockeys every year than it is to run quintiple backups. NASA are obsessed with protecting an investment per astronaut that's so high that they refuse to quantify it, saying that it's too complicated to calculate (really!). Forget it, let's just start lobbing dozens of big dumb boosters up there carrying a couple of Homers and a trained chimp.
Are you saying that you surf without a filtering proxy? Really? Are there some people still doing that? ;)
Would you, however, go into books a million and photocopy every book in the place and make copies of that to give to anyone who wanted one?
Dodgy analogy. But let's talk it through.
I find a book with a price tag that's too high. I'm not going to buy it, so Joe Author has lost a sale. He's not getting my money anyway. So who gets hurt when I copy that content? Who loses? Quantify the dollar value of Joe Author's loss; and let's stick to money, because that's what this debate is about, not principles.
Let me anticipate your next argument (I'll even put some clever words in for you): "But your a priori knowledge that you can get the content without paying disinclines you to pay for it! You can't say with all honesty that you won't pay for it, because you know you can get it without paying."
And my reasoned response: WELL, DUUUUH. It's a commercial reality now. Here's another slightly less flawed analogy to make my point.
You pick up a magazine off a rack and start reading it. At which point do you cross the line from making a purchase decision, to stealing the content? The vendor can see what you are doing: at which point does she decide it's theft and tell you to stop reading?
This is a grey area. Technically what you are doing is theft, right from the moment you open the magazine. But the pragmatic commercial reality is that this is a necessary dilution of the IP to promote a sale. I suggest that we're now reaching that stage with online IP; the RIIA's self delusion aside, enough people (60 million?) now view "free browsing" as completely acceptable.
Or do you think magazine vendors should be prosecuted by publishers for knowingly collaborating in the theft of their property? And did you know that libraries lend out music? Think that one through.