In what way does it manifest silliness? It would seem to me to be a case entirely free from vapid claims of validity (microsoft hit with a full court press, and lost) or infringement (likewise, microsoft threw full guns at it, and lost).
To the contrary, the case shows the seriousness of these law and their claims when properly applied.
It shows silliness because of the content of the patent. This isn't something non-obvious or hard to research. It's plugins! It's like patenting vulcanization and then suing every tire manufacturer after they've been doing it for years. That is the silliness.
Everybody. The patent system has driven R&D in the United States for more than two hundred years.
Nobody said all patents were a bad idea, please pay attention. This is a software patent. There has been every indication that software patents have actually hurt the computing industry in this country and slowed innovation. Then, of course, the fact that we are talking about a specific class of frivolous patents that have prior art but were granted anyway.
There is lots of evidence to the contrary. What do you have to support your proposition.
Again, we are talking about a specific set of frivolous patents, so yes there is alot of evidence that they hurt innovation.
If you say so. Odd how many inidividual inventors seem to make the biggest political push for stronger patent laws, with large companies tending to push for more relaxed "patent harmonization" approaches.
Talk about presenting evidence to backup your claims....
What's worse is that the printed word has no recourse for copy protection at all. There is no way whatsoever you can discriminate between a human eye and a scanner, so how can you say it's okay for one and not the other? They'll have to jump straight to cease and desist letters.
Along the same lines, software mixing of the sound in the sound card. Alsa supports this at the driver level, yet it's not enabled by default for some reason. It should work like Windows has had it forever, you install sound card drivers and you can play multiple sounds. Period. I still can't get Alsa to mix multiple sources on my intel8x0 card without xmms with alsa support crapping out on me. That's not even counting software mixing of/dev/dsp, though hopefully that will go away with the 2.6 kernels.
This is so obscure to the average user as to be a non answer. Most people want thier CD tray to eject and most people don't know the proc filesystem. Therefore the solution to the Cd tray ejecting problem can't use the proc filesystem.
In every thread like this Slashdot should just put a filter on the word "steal" and all it's derivatives and replace them with copyright infringement. It would save a hell of alot of correction/arguing.
Of course, if they're going to filter for correctness they could add a spell checker too:)
Yes they have, they have sued people for sharing as little as five songs. They are suing thier customers because they want to scare the bejesus out of everyone, therefore they try to sue the most average people they can find. It has nothing to do with costing them money, it's a smear campaign and they have said so themselves.
Personally, I don't think "infringement" correctly identifies the act either, and perhaps a new legal term needs to be written into law to concretely define it.
"infringement" does accurately define it legally, simply because it doesn't convey the message you want it to doesn't make it wrong or mean that it needs to be rewritten. As far as the law is concerned "copyright infringement" is entirely accurate to describe what is going on.
Clearly the industry is losing music sales to file-sharing (among several other factors), and yes, they could benefit from updating their business model, but no amount of rationalizing will change the fact that downloading music you haven't paid for is wrong.
Illegal, yes, but morally it's a gray area, some people think its reprehensible and some think it's fine as long as the artist makes a living, others thing it's the way to do things (information wants to be free). So no, you can change the fact that it's wrong, because morally it's ambiguous to alot of people, you aren't the only one who gets to decide what's right and wrong.
Personally, I can't understand how strong copyright by default behavior has only been in our society for about 30 years, yet it is considered up there with murder and rape as acts that are always going to be wrong and can never be considered right under any circumstance. Before 1971, most of the copyrightable work out there wasn't copyrighted at all. Before that, copyright lasted 14 years plus a 14 year extension. Before that, copyright didn't even exist, the Ancient Greeks got along without it just fine while contributing alot to art and science. Yet today it's considered an inalienable right that cannot be altered. Go figure
I don't know what kind of crack these guys are smoking, but Teletext is a horrible way for a website to look. The writing is pretty good too, I wish it was just a normal website where I didn't have to sacrifice babies to the Interface gods to read it.
I think you do this so you can justify getting copies of music without paying for it.If you felt that filesharing was wrong, you would probably try to discourage people from engaging in it, not go around trying to obfuscate the issue. Otherwise, why would you be trotting out a pedantic, misleading argument that can only encourage most people to keep stealing music.Oops, I meant keep engaging in copyright infringement.
And if you weren't trying to argue against it and get people to realize that it's bad you wouldn't be using the word stealing. At least he's accurate.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft. I can't do it. I don't think you can, either.You cannot use the concept of paying people for their hard work if you enjoy the fruits of their labor, since not doing that is stealing.
Nobody said it isn't analagous to stealing, or that it's not like stealing at all. You yourself said that it is different than actual stealing, so why is it such a big deal to actually call it something else? It's like you said, you're changing the wording to push your agenda, even if you think the law and God himself are on your side. Pot meet kettle.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation, not the copying, then maybe you wouldn't be so anal about making this one little pathetic point.You would understand that the actual physical copy of the data isn't what's important. It's the work that went into making the data in the first place.
This is a capatilist economy, and how much it takes to make a product does not matter to anyone but the producer. You are not better than everyone else simply because you "understand what it costs" to make music. This is capitalism, and nobody gives a damn how much it cost you to make something.
Oh, and BTW. If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary. It's the same thing.
It's also the same thing to steal Windows source code and stick it in the Linux kernel. If the playing field were even, i.e. no copyright, then both situations would be fine. The playing field is far from even, however.
Nobody is holding them responsible for file-sharing, merely forcing them to breach the privacy of thier users so they can be held responsible. Of course, this is all legal under the DMCA, but SBC is challenging that, I think.
You think that ISPs want to let their users suck 100% of their bandwith 100% of the day on P2P? Why do you think that quite a few Universities have gone to throttling/closing those ports?
Universities have begun throttling thier ports because they don't make money off of you using thier network. Furthermore, most Universities offer you access with much greater upload and download capacity than your standard DSL/Cable modem. The killer app for broadband is p2p, and the universities don't care because they're not in the business of selling broadband. These companies, however, are.
Download caps and excess charges are partially deterrents and partially moneymakers. Much like speeding tickets.
If I take your GPL'd code, rip off the license, and stick it in my closed-source Microsoft application, how exactly are you hurt? Were you planning on making my application at some point and now I've stolen future users from you? Do you honestly think someone will say "eh, why should I use that program when I can get 30 seconds of it by buying this one?"
I'll bite troll. Take out the part about closed-source Microsoft application and replace it with GPL. If you sample a Creative Commons work, and release your new song, it is under the Creative Commons. Otherwise you would be violating copyright. So you can take that song that sampled you and sample it yourself, there is no closed-source equivalent going on here. And the Microsoft bit doesn't even fit at all. You really need to brush up on your trolling.
In some instances, piracy can actually be more damaging than traditional theft. Unlike traditional theft, where a person steals a specific number of tangible objects, one product in digital format can alone be used to generate hundreds of thousands of near-perfect digital copies within hours. In the case of software piracy, for example, the developer has not been deprived of his product in the traditional sense it has merely been copied. Yet, he faces the grim reality that his product is now available around the world, often for free, to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. In very real terms, even though he retains his property, the digital victim is in a much worse position than the victim of a more traditional theft. To him, the theft is clear and the harm couldn t be more real.
This may be against the law, but it's also the reason most people I know pirate. The publisher refuses to make thier product available in this manner, so someone else does it for them. In any other industry, this is innovation, but because of copyright it is considered "theft" and "harm". If Ford made a car, and you bought it, and could manufacture an exact copy for a penny a car, you would put Ford out of business. It would be perfectly legal, assuming you changed the Trademarked Ford logo and didn't step on any patents. Or more accurately, you could copy a 1970 Ford Mustang for a penny a car, since patents would surely have expired by then. Do this with software, however, and it's considered bad. To distribute software more cheaply than the publishers is punished, because they might lose business and suffer "harm".
"But you didn't write the software!", that doesn't matter, because in the Ford example, you didn't design the car. What counts is what you actually produce, not what you invested.
>You seemingly don't get where yoga/meditaion is about... Sientific books/ articles you might want to read are published on these >techniques. I suggest you do;-)
You missed that first word. Enforced. If the company forces you to sit there for 15 minutes per day, its New Age bullshit. If you don't want to meditate it's doing nothing but waste your time. Allowing you to meditate, that's different, but that's not what's going on here.
Except that the scarcity is artifical. Created by law to encourage innovation. How does letting a movie sit and rot in a movie studio's back room encourage innovation and/or new creative works? Remember, "Intellectual Property" is an invention of law, to serve a purpose. You can't argue like it is actual property, because it isn't. I don't think people should disrespect it, because it is the law, but it is not by any definition, legal or otherwise, the same as physical property. So rules of scarcity are different. There is no reason that movie shouldn't be abundant, so why is it a good thing that it isn't?
You're right, it doesn't give you the right to make a copy under the law, but why is it considered a good thing?
It is being used quite extensively in places like China where people are persecuted for what they say, and access to information is limited. If you call that crap, well, I can't say I agree.
As for Marxist, you are right, its how much people are willing to pay for it. So do it mean shoplifters are just good capitalists? If its not worth paying for, its not worth stealing...
The worth of an object is relative to each person. The shops charge $X, enough people are willing to pay that for the store to be profitable. Shoplifters have nothing to do with it, they simply don't think it's worth the money but worth the risk instead.
If a musician charges $Y for a bunch of MP3s and nobody pays, it's the musician's fault, it has nothing to do with everyone not understanding the "true value of a work of art". If nobody pays for MP3s then you can't act like you understand the profession of artist because you do. Everyone else doesn't think it's worth the money, so it's not to them. If it's worth it to you, fine, but artists have to understand the majority of the world doesn't think what they offer is worth paying for simply to listen to. Get over it.
Also, you just proved my previous point. You're not paying for the file, but the music. Music is a service, not a product. Growing up in a "Copyright by default" society has clouded the wording of the issue to make it look like it is a product. Would you pay for these if it weren't run by Apple, but had someone else's DRM embedded in the file? Even with the same restrictions on the file, but MS or Real ran the show. Do you trust them to let you listen to your music forever? Apple's DRM is a service, that you pay for because you trust them. Same thing with quality, ease of use or any other reason you pay to download it from Apple.
Unlike most of these napster babies, we know what it costs to produce items that have no physical value, but more aestetic or personal value.
I hate to tell you this, but we don't live in a Marxist country. Nobody gives a shit how much it costs to make. It's all about how much people are willing to pay for it. And if 90% of the world thinks mp3's aren't worth paying for, then they're not, regardless of how much they cost to make.
And look at it like this, no matter how much you spend at the iTunes store, would you spend as much if the store was poorly designed, slow and/or run by someone other than Apple? Hmm, maybe you're not paying for the actual file after all, but the service instead....
And since European countries have nukes we'd be reduced to glass as well. In the nuclear age you don't conquer the world through open force, but intimidation and threat of force. MAD. And we are increasing our use of MAD by quite a bit lately.
Because you have to write your applications for ESD or ARTS output. Anything that outputs to OSS will still lock the whole system. Most close source applications don't give you a choice of sound system output, its OSS or bust. Even the recently released NWN client only outputs OSS. Alsa setup by default would software mix everything coming in OSS as well. It would also handle input copying to multiple applications..
Slashdot Mirror
In what way does it manifest silliness? It would seem to me to be a case entirely free from vapid claims of validity (microsoft hit with a full court press, and lost) or infringement (likewise, microsoft threw full guns at it, and lost).
....
To the contrary, the case shows the seriousness of these law and their claims when properly applied.
It shows silliness because of the content of the patent. This isn't something non-obvious or hard to research. It's plugins! It's like patenting vulcanization and then suing every tire manufacturer after they've been doing it for years. That is the silliness.
Everybody. The patent system has driven R&D in the United States for more than two hundred years.
Nobody said all patents were a bad idea, please pay attention. This is a software patent. There has been every indication that software patents have actually hurt the computing industry in this country and slowed innovation. Then, of course, the fact that we are talking about a specific class of frivolous patents that have prior art but were granted anyway.
There is lots of evidence to the contrary. What do you have to support your proposition.
Again, we are talking about a specific set of frivolous patents, so yes there is alot of evidence that they hurt innovation.
If you say so. Odd how many inidividual inventors seem to make the biggest political push for stronger patent laws, with large companies tending to push for more relaxed "patent harmonization" approaches.
Talk about presenting evidence to backup your claims
What's worse is that the printed word has no recourse for copy protection at all. There is no way whatsoever you can discriminate between a human eye and a scanner, so how can you say it's okay for one and not the other? They'll have to jump straight to cease and desist letters.
Along the same lines, software mixing of the sound in the sound card. Alsa supports this at the driver level, yet it's not enabled by default for some reason. It should work like Windows has had it forever, you install sound card drivers and you can play multiple sounds. Period. I still can't get Alsa to mix multiple sources on my intel8x0 card without xmms with alsa support crapping out on me. That's not even counting software mixing of /dev/dsp, though hopefully that will go away with the 2.6 kernels.
This is so obscure to the average user as to be a non answer. Most people want thier CD tray to eject and most people don't know the proc filesystem. Therefore the solution to the Cd tray ejecting problem can't use the proc filesystem.
In every thread like this Slashdot should just put a filter on the word "steal" and all it's derivatives and replace them with copyright infringement. It would save a hell of alot of correction/arguing.
:)
Of course, if they're going to filter for correctness they could add a spell checker too
Yes they have, they have sued people for sharing as little as five songs. They are suing thier customers because they want to scare the bejesus out of everyone, therefore they try to sue the most average people they can find. It has nothing to do with costing them money, it's a smear campaign and they have said so themselves.
Personally, I can't understand how strong copyright by default behavior has only been in our society for about 30 years, yet it is considered up there with murder and rape as acts that are always going to be wrong and can never be considered right under any circumstance. Before 1971, most of the copyrightable work out there wasn't copyrighted at all. Before that, copyright lasted 14 years plus a 14 year extension. Before that, copyright didn't even exist, the Ancient Greeks got along without it just fine while contributing alot to art and science. Yet today it's considered an inalienable right that cannot be altered. Go figure
I don't know what kind of crack these guys are smoking, but Teletext is a horrible way for a website to look. The writing is pretty good too, I wish it was just a normal website where I didn't have to sacrifice babies to the Interface gods to read it.
And if you weren't trying to argue against it and get people to realize that it's bad you wouldn't be using the word stealing. At least he's accurate.
Nobody said it isn't analagous to stealing, or that it's not like stealing at all. You yourself said that it is different than actual stealing, so why is it such a big deal to actually call it something else? It's like you said, you're changing the wording to push your agenda, even if you think the law and God himself are on your side. Pot meet kettle.
This is a capatilist economy, and how much it takes to make a product does not matter to anyone but the producer. You are not better than everyone else simply because you "understand what it costs" to make music. This is capitalism, and nobody gives a damn how much it cost you to make something.
It's also the same thing to steal Windows source code and stick it in the Linux kernel. If the playing field were even, i.e. no copyright, then both situations would be fine. The playing field is far from even, however.
Nobody is holding them responsible for file-sharing, merely forcing them to breach the privacy of thier users so they can be held responsible. Of course, this is all legal under the DMCA, but SBC is challenging that, I think.
Universities have begun throttling thier ports because they don't make money off of you using thier network. Furthermore, most Universities offer you access with much greater upload and download capacity than your standard DSL/Cable modem. The killer app for broadband is p2p, and the universities don't care because they're not in the business of selling broadband. These companies, however, are.
Download caps and excess charges are partially deterrents and partially moneymakers. Much like speeding tickets.
We didn't let teenagers control the nuclear weapons for either side, thank God.
"Man, I got another D, that teacher is so gonna get it. Noone understands me, I'm about to break! It wont hurt to launch just one nuke!"
Thank you, drive through.
"But you didn't write the software!", that doesn't matter, because in the Ford example, you didn't design the car. What counts is what you actually produce, not what you invested.
>> Enforced yoga, meditation [...]
;-)
>You seemingly don't get where yoga/meditaion is about... Sientific books/ articles you might want to read are published on these
>techniques. I suggest you do
You missed that first word. Enforced. If the company forces you to sit there for 15 minutes per day, its New Age bullshit. If you don't want to meditate it's doing nothing but waste your time. Allowing you to meditate, that's different, but that's not what's going on here.
Except that the scarcity is artifical. Created by law to encourage innovation. How does letting a movie sit and rot in a movie studio's back room encourage innovation and/or new creative works? Remember, "Intellectual Property" is an invention of law, to serve a purpose. You can't argue like it is actual property, because it isn't. I don't think people should disrespect it, because it is the law, but it is not by any definition, legal or otherwise, the same as physical property. So rules of scarcity are different. There is no reason that movie shouldn't be abundant, so why is it a good thing that it isn't?
You're right, it doesn't give you the right to make a copy under the law, but why is it considered a good thing?
It is being used quite extensively in places like China where people are persecuted for what they say, and access to information is limited. If you call that crap, well, I can't say I agree.
The worth of an object is relative to each person. The shops charge $X, enough people are willing to pay that for the store to be profitable. Shoplifters have nothing to do with it, they simply don't think it's worth the money but worth the risk instead.
If a musician charges $Y for a bunch of MP3s and nobody pays, it's the musician's fault, it has nothing to do with everyone not understanding the "true value of a work of art". If nobody pays for MP3s then you can't act like you understand the profession of artist because you do. Everyone else doesn't think it's worth the money, so it's not to them. If it's worth it to you, fine, but artists have to understand the majority of the world doesn't think what they offer is worth paying for simply to listen to. Get over it.
Also, you just proved my previous point. You're not paying for the file, but the music. Music is a service, not a product. Growing up in a "Copyright by default" society has clouded the wording of the issue to make it look like it is a product. Would you pay for these if it weren't run by Apple, but had someone else's DRM embedded in the file? Even with the same restrictions on the file, but MS or Real ran the show. Do you trust them to let you listen to your music forever? Apple's DRM is a service, that you pay for because you trust them. Same thing with quality, ease of use or any other reason you pay to download it from Apple.
I hate to tell you this, but we don't live in a Marxist country. Nobody gives a shit how much it costs to make. It's all about how much people are willing to pay for it. And if 90% of the world thinks mp3's aren't worth paying for, then they're not, regardless of how much they cost to make.
And look at it like this, no matter how much you spend at the iTunes store, would you spend as much if the store was poorly designed, slow and/or run by someone other than Apple? Hmm, maybe you're not paying for the actual file after all, but the service instead
Its called a refrigerator
And since European countries have nukes we'd be reduced to glass as well. In the nuclear age you don't conquer the world through open force, but intimidation and threat of force. MAD. And we are increasing our use of MAD by quite a bit lately.
Because you have to write your applications for ESD or ARTS output. Anything that outputs to OSS will still lock the whole system. Most close source applications don't give you a choice of sound system output, its OSS or bust. Even the recently released NWN client only outputs OSS. Alsa setup by default would software mix everything coming in OSS as well. It would also handle input copying to multiple applications..