Also, it's worth pointing out that duplication is, in fact, automatically infringing, as fair use doesn't mean you didn't infringe, it just means the infringement is excused or allowed.
Not really. Definition of "infrigement" is "A violation, as of a law, regulation, or agreement; a breach.".
ISPs should remove copyrighted material posted by people who are not the copyright owner. Intellectual property should be respected.
What if the copyright owners gave permission to post the material? For example, the source for Linux is copyrighted, but the copyright owners gave explicit permission to post it.
If you are really concerned about your "precious intellectual property" getting posted on the Internet DO NOT PUBLISH IT. Lock it up in your safe and don't let anyone see it.
For example, in France we work 35 hours a week, have 6 weeks of paid vacation a year and still we are the most productive people in the world.
That's such BS. I worked for a French/English company in the 90s (from the US office) and I spent several weeks a year working at the Paris office.
Typical programmer hours started about 9:00AM and people started leaving around 6:00PM, but the office didn't really empty until about 8:00PM. Lunch was paid for by the company, so we ate in the office most of the time.
That girl in Jurassic Park was a hacker, and she was always the first to freak out about an approaching dinosaur.
Actually in the book it was the boy who was the hacker - he didn't freak out and he saved the day. But then "Jurassic Park" is low grade SF written for the screen...
So? Swiping copyrighted music was *always* illegal.
Wrong! Swiping copyrighted music is quite fine if the owner of the copyright gives permission (see http://www.magnatune.com for instance). Same as with open source. Linux, for example, is copyrighted but the holders of the copyright give everyone persmission to distribute more copies.
1) I have ALWAYS been taught, and agree, that the author of a block of code, prose, whatever should NEVER perform the testing(or review, correctness evaluation, etc.) Why? The author will tend to write tests that only test for the obvious, i.e. the functionality as intended, and tend to overlook unexpected inputs/results.
Actually there is nothing wrong with writing a test that tests the obvious functionality. It may seem stupid at first, but later as the system grows someone else will make the change that breaks the basic tests.
For example, when I write code that stores data in the database, I always write a stupid test that stores some data and the retrieves it.
Few times these tests broke, because of some other changes later in the life of the project. Without the test we could have wasted hours or days trying to track down a stupid problem.
2) While it is true in some cases that the projects ARE new and requirements difficult to write, the vast majority of software projects today do involve re-inventing the wheel to a degree. i.e. MANY projects are not REALLY creating something new, but just doing it in a slightly different way, and in such cases it should be entirely possible to a minimum define a high level functional document before implementation.
Sure, a high level document that sketches out the top level requirements is needed. But it is useful only as a guide to design and implementation.
Tests can represent very precise requirements, which cannot really come from a high level document. And if you are telling me that I should be writing very detailed requirement doc that no one will read, I'd rather spent my time writing tests (which people can read too) which will verify that the system fulfills the requirements.
you (and many others) are confusing software requirements with design and implementation. if you can conceive it to write the code you *can* write some level of requirements.
I'm not confusing the two. It just typically precise requirements do not exist. One way to write down requirements precisely is to write tests.
For example, let's say I need to write a code to compute the square root and the requirement is that the result is good to 5 decimal places and it's always computed in 5 milliseconds.
I can write a test to the function before writing the function. Running the test verifies that the code conforms to the requirement. Nothing about design here.
In Real Life (TM), requirements are rarely this precise. Sometimes you find things out when you build the system, sometime you find things out when your customer start using the system.
Certainly requirements determine how the system is to be built. There is difference between serving 10 users or 10,000. These types of requirements are much harder to test.
But I have seen cases where a system designed for one user had to be scaled to 10,000. And the scalibility requirement only came up after the success of sigle user version.
A solid requirements based development process and requirements based testing/verification process is the key to large high quality software.
You tacitly assume that it is possible to get solid requirements. When writing avionics software, I'm sure you can, because the problem is well understood and we have good science/math to back it up (eg. GPS nav system).
But in most sofware projects it is impossible to create requirement ahead of time, mostly because the problem you are trying to solve is new and we don't understand it well enough yet.
Are there requirements for the web browser? Were they created before the code was written? WHat about requirements for MS Word?
1. Maybe 1%.
2. 40%. Mostly from www.emusic.com
3. About 1% (MOstly Soundclick and musicians websites)
4. 45%. I have a lot of CDs and vinyl...
5. 13%. I do share CDs with friends...
Currently my home server has about 6000 MP3 files.
[...] it bothers me that there are those who think it's their God-given right to free music or movies simply because they're available to download.
What bothers me more is a bunch of greedy privateers who rob us of the culture we all helped to create. Getting people to pay toll for every piece of art/music/writing for 150 years is insane.
If the copyright expired after 28 years, we would be less likely to to pass things around for free.
Who exactly am I harming when I share recordings of Charlie Parker from 1946?
They seem to have no conception of a need to foster public good will, which is just bizarre for a corporate entity
Not at all. Corporation's responsibility is to make money for its shareholders, not foster public good will. Unless of course that leads to more profits.
For a while they required a special download client. The Linux one was clunky. Today you don't have to use the client program - although it works for me.
I had the "Platinum" membership- and to tell you the truth despite my very non-mainstream tastes, they didn't have a whole lot that I liked.
I like jazz and Emusic has tons of stuff I like. I've been a member for several years already and during the unlimited days I've downloaded several box sets ("Complete Recordings of..."), which were definitely worth the money.
Even today, I manage to use up my 40 tracks every month.
Printers in Linux have been a horrible experience for me
Funny. When I got a printer server to share my printer on the network, Linux worked right out of the box (I have an Epson printer). Took me about 30 seconds to get printing working.
For windows, I had to install special software and fiddle for a while to get it working. Then every now and then windows printing breaks for no reason...
How could the courts ever determine whether "wealth maximinzation" (shouldn't that be "maximization"?) has been achieved? Every American company in existence would be in court defending itself against hindsight. Carly Fiorina would be in prison instead of firing all of her subordinates and raking in millions. There still seems to be a disconnect between the conventional wisdom and the real law
Spelling errors are mine - I had to type the quote it.
This is civil law, so no prison. There are plenty of class action suits by shareholders against companies who's stock tanked.
There was one recently against Red Hat for instance.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. Definition of "infrigement" is "A violation, as of a law, regulation, or agreement; a breach.".
So what you say makes not sense.
Same in US. But you can explicitely specify what rights you are giving the reader/user by using GPL or some Creative Commons License.
No, no, no!!!
To fight patents make sure that prior art is well documented and in public domain.
To fight copyrights release new works with with the Creative Commons license.
Do not get involved in the corporate game. Make them come and play our game.
What if the copyright owners gave permission to post the material? For example, the source for Linux is copyrighted, but the copyright owners gave explicit permission to post it.
If you are really concerned about your "precious intellectual property" getting posted on the Internet DO NOT PUBLISH IT. Lock it up in your safe and don't let anyone see it.
Wasn't it George Carlin who said: "We need quality control, after all who would want to have quality get out of control!".
That's such BS. I worked for a French/English company in the 90s (from the US office) and I spent several weeks a year working at the Paris office.
Typical programmer hours started about 9:00AM and people started leaving around 6:00PM, but the office didn't really empty until about 8:00PM. Lunch was paid for by the company, so we ate in the office most of the time.
We did get 4 weeks vacation....
Tne number of hours you spent in the office is about as valid measure of productivity as counting lines of code.
Only if overworking your employees leads to better products. In many cases it does not.
Nope. "Lord of the Rings" makes much better reading.
Actually in the book it was the boy who was the hacker - he didn't freak out and he saved the day. But then "Jurassic Park" is low grade SF written for the screen...
No.
Wrong! Swiping copyrighted music is quite fine if the owner of the copyright gives permission (see http://www.magnatune.com for instance). Same as with open source. Linux, for example, is copyrighted but the holders of the copyright give everyone persmission to distribute more copies.
Actually there is nothing wrong with writing a test that tests the obvious functionality. It may seem stupid at first, but later as the system grows someone else will make the change that breaks the basic tests.
For example, when I write code that stores data in the database, I always write a stupid test that stores some data and the retrieves it. Few times these tests broke, because of some other changes later in the life of the project. Without the test we could have wasted hours or days trying to track down a stupid problem.
2) While it is true in some cases that the projects ARE new and requirements difficult to write, the vast majority of software projects today do involve re-inventing the wheel to a degree. i.e. MANY projects are not REALLY creating something new, but just doing it in a slightly different way, and in such cases it should be entirely possible to a minimum define a high level functional document before implementation.
Sure, a high level document that sketches out the top level requirements is needed. But it is useful only as a guide to design and implementation.
Tests can represent very precise requirements, which cannot really come from a high level document. And if you are telling me that I should be writing very detailed requirement doc that no one will read, I'd rather spent my time writing tests (which people can read too) which will verify that the system fulfills the requirements.
I'm not confusing the two. It just typically precise requirements do not exist. One way to write down requirements precisely is to write tests.
For example, let's say I need to write a code to compute the square root and the requirement is that the result is good to 5 decimal places and it's always computed in 5 milliseconds.
I can write a test to the function before writing the function. Running the test verifies that the code conforms to the requirement. Nothing about design here.
In Real Life (TM), requirements are rarely this precise. Sometimes you find things out when you build the system, sometime you find things out when your customer start using the system.
Certainly requirements determine how the system is to be built. There is difference between serving 10 users or 10,000. These types of requirements are much harder to test.
But I have seen cases where a system designed for one user had to be scaled to 10,000. And the scalibility requirement only came up after the success of sigle user version.
You tacitly assume that it is possible to get solid requirements. When writing avionics software, I'm sure you can, because the problem is well understood and we have good science/math to back it up (eg. GPS nav system).
But in most sofware projects it is impossible to create requirement ahead of time, mostly because the problem you are trying to solve is new and we don't understand it well enough yet.
Are there requirements for the web browser? Were they created before the code was written? WHat about requirements for MS Word?
2. 40%. Mostly from www.emusic.com
3. About 1% (MOstly Soundclick and musicians websites)
4. 45%. I have a lot of CDs and vinyl...
5. 13%. I do share CDs with friends...
Currently my home server has about 6000 MP3 files.
What bothers me more is a bunch of greedy privateers who rob us of the culture we all helped to create. Getting people to pay toll for every piece of art/music/writing for 150 years is insane.
If the copyright expired after 28 years, we would be less likely to to pass things around for free.
Who exactly am I harming when I share recordings of Charlie Parker from 1946?
Not at all. Corporation's responsibility is to make money for its shareholders, not foster public good will. Unless of course that leads to more profits.
See the book "The Corporation" by Joel Bakan.
I use the Linux client all the time without any problems. But these days you don't have to use the special download program at all.
I like jazz and Emusic has tons of stuff I like. I've been a member for several years already and during the unlimited days I've downloaded several box sets ("Complete Recordings of ..."), which were definitely worth the money.
Even today, I manage to use up my 40 tracks every month.
Hmm.. let's see: Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery....
Yep, these guys knew nothing about music..
I hope my sarcasm is showing..
Funny. When I got a printer server to share my printer on the network, Linux worked right out of the box (I have an Epson printer). Took me about 30 seconds to get printing working.
For windows, I had to install special software and fiddle for a while to get it working. Then every now and then windows printing breaks for no reason...
Spelling errors are mine - I had to type the quote it.
This is civil law, so no prison. There are plenty of class action suits by shareholders against companies who's stock tanked.
There was one recently against Red Hat for instance.