My point is that people want to buy what they want to buy. You might want to sell only what you want to sell. But what if consumers don't want to buy that? It seems patently absurd to me for the RIAA to be complaining about people stealing something that isn't for sale: compressed music files. Can I go into a store and buy an ISO9660 CDROM with professionally encoded MP3's on it? No. So how can you say that I'm stealing something?
If the RIAA wants to complain about theft, let them sell what they claim people are stealing.
-russ
You claim, in your September 4 Infoworld column, that Napster is all
about greed. The jury is still out on that. And it will stay out
until you can go buy the MP3 for an artist you hear on the radio, or
even an artist you heard when you were a teen (e.g. 10CC, or Seals and
Crofts, or Styx). Whenever you interfere with a market -- whenever
you tell people that they can't buy something -- you get a black
market.
Napster functions exactly like a black market, except that the price
is solely your time spent finding a good copy of what you want. Black
markets aren't about greed -- they're about buying what you want to
buy, not necessarily what's for sale. The RIAA wants to sell music
one way, and consumers want to buy it another way. They happen to be
paying a low price to get it that way, but there's no reason that has
to last.
If the RIAA *really* wants to find out if Napster is about greed or a
new business model, it'll go into competition with Napster. Surely
the RIAA knows how to set up a web server big enough to sell the same
content available via Napster. And they have very little to lose by
doing so, since most people are aware of the existance of Napster, and
frankly, Napster works, at least if you want a popular piece of music.
Only then will we be able to say whether Napster is about stealing or
sharing. One thing this economist can tell you for certain: the RIAA
will be as successful at suppressing music file copying as the US
government has been at suppressing some drugs. And the US government
has been throwing many people in jail for decades -- something the
RIAA has only fantasized about doing.
Does anybody know what URL their software emits to take you to the information on the product? It would be nice to be able to actually *use* the thing the way D:C intended.
-russ
Put a magnet on one side of a copper plate. A penny is a useful approximation. Now attack a paperclip to the other side of the penny. Notice how readily the magnetism goes through the penny? Copper screening isn't going to do shit to keep any magnetism out.
-russ
We're talking about computers here. By that measure, the DMCA applies to everything, because everything computers do processes information. For example, I can't access slashdot without running a special program designed to decode slashdot's output. Does that mean the DMCA applies to Slashdot, and reading slashdot is a crime? I don't think so -- Judges aren't that stupid.
-russ
That would be a stretch. First you need to have a technological measure that effectively controls access. Was Base64-XOR effective in controlling access? Not hardly.
-russ
This guy is confused. Trademarks and patents have to be defended. Copyright does not. He's talking as if they were the same thing. He needs to sit down and have a good talk (and listen!) with his lawyer.
-russ
Yes, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. Nobody is misusing their intellectual property by using their hardware. Intellectual property would be a patent on barcoding, but they don't have one. Intellectual property would be a copyright, but I can use their hardware without breaking the shrink-wrap on their copyrighted software.
They should feel free to ask us not to use their hardware, but when they try to force us not to, I refuse to cooperate with their impolite request.
-russ
This is an excellent idea. We haven't had sufficient resources to create a matrix of license compatibility. Would you volunteer to do such a thing? If you don't have that much time, then at least you can support us by linking to us, and show companies that you think OSI certification is important. Now that we have 501(c)3 approval, we're going the rounds, looking for donations. We'll only get them if we're appreciated (and that is how it should be). So when you see an open source product, ask if it's OSI Certified Open Source.
-russ
Oh, after I submitted, I realized: do you think there is an obvious incompatibility with the GPL? I don't think it's that obvious. Perhaps you could explain it to me?
-russ
Because it requires all contributors to dual-license their code. It's GPL+"you must dual-license". It saves them from having to reject code from authors who refuse to dual-license. That's worth something.
-russ
The code doesn't care. Only the copyright holder cares. In this instance, do you think the copyright holder of any GPL'ed software would care if it was linked into NASM? It imposes on additional restrictions on distribution, other than some difference in language over the acknowledgement of authorship.
Obiviously I don't think I'm making any error here.
-russ
I'm a programmer, now a lawyer... TO hell with your 'license' crap.
That's exactly WHY I bother to be on the OSI board: so that programmers can look for the OSI Certified Open Source certification mark, and be comfortable developing and redistributing their improvements.
-russ
They say you can distribute with the same permissions as the GPL, as well as under their own license. Basically, all they're saying is that they plan to dual-license, and that any contributors should expect that their contribution might be sold by the authors (along with the majority of the package written by the authors).
Given the GPL permissions, RMS would be hard put to say it's not free software. And if they submit it to OSI, I'd give due consideration to approving it. That is, at first glance I don't see anything that violates the OSD.
-russ
There's a reason why I read at level 1. Bullshit like this is the primary one. Don't you have a life? Can't you pick on somebody who's alive to defend themselves?
I never agreed to any such contract. The CDROM (which I hadn't examined until now) says that by opening the software I agree... I don't agree, so I didn't open the software.
-russ
No, he deserved it. Just because a few greedy people got their hands on a pile of.us delegations, that doesn't mean that he can malign the rest of us.
-russ
.US names are not locality-based. They are locality-assigned. Unfortunately, while this makes perfect sense for assignment, it is not useful. On the face of them,.us names look like they're a description of the location of the service being accessed.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps because eMusic does not sell the music I want to buy?
-russ
My point is that people want to buy what they want to buy. You might want to sell only what you want to sell. But what if consumers don't want to buy that? It seems patently absurd to me for the RIAA to be complaining about people stealing something that isn't for sale: compressed music files. Can I go into a store and buy an ISO9660 CDROM with professionally encoded MP3's on it? No. So how can you say that I'm stealing something?
If the RIAA wants to complain about theft, let them sell what they claim people are stealing.
-russ
You claim, in your September 4 Infoworld column, that Napster is all
about greed. The jury is still out on that. And it will stay out
until you can go buy the MP3 for an artist you hear on the radio, or
even an artist you heard when you were a teen (e.g. 10CC, or Seals and
Crofts, or Styx). Whenever you interfere with a market -- whenever
you tell people that they can't buy something -- you get a black
market.
Napster functions exactly like a black market, except that the price
is solely your time spent finding a good copy of what you want. Black
markets aren't about greed -- they're about buying what you want to
buy, not necessarily what's for sale. The RIAA wants to sell music
one way, and consumers want to buy it another way. They happen to be
paying a low price to get it that way, but there's no reason that has
to last.
If the RIAA *really* wants to find out if Napster is about greed or a
new business model, it'll go into competition with Napster. Surely
the RIAA knows how to set up a web server big enough to sell the same
content available via Napster. And they have very little to lose by
doing so, since most people are aware of the existance of Napster, and
frankly, Napster works, at least if you want a popular piece of music.
Only then will we be able to say whether Napster is about stealing or
sharing. One thing this economist can tell you for certain: the RIAA
will be as successful at suppressing music file copying as the US
government has been at suppressing some drugs. And the US government
has been throwing many people in jail for decades -- something the
RIAA has only fantasized about doing.
Silly Russell, somebody just posted that information, PLUS it was in one of the other slashdot articles about the :Foo:Cat.
-russ
Does anybody know what URL their software emits to take you to the information on the product? It would be nice to be able to actually *use* the thing the way D:C intended.
-russ
Put a magnet on one side of a copper plate. A penny is a useful approximation. Now attack a paperclip to the other side of the penny. Notice how readily the magnetism goes through the penny? Copper screening isn't going to do shit to keep any magnetism out.
-russ
We're talking about computers here. By that measure, the DMCA applies to everything, because everything computers do processes information. For example, I can't access slashdot without running a special program designed to decode slashdot's output. Does that mean the DMCA applies to Slashdot, and reading slashdot is a crime? I don't think so -- Judges aren't that stupid.
-russ
Democracies fail when the politicians realize that they can buy citizens' votes with their own money.
That would be a stretch. First you need to have a technological measure that effectively controls access. Was Base64-XOR effective in controlling access? Not hardly.
-russ
They do have IP rights on specific issues of their barcoding,
Oh? Like what? Copyright, patent, or trade secret?
-russ
This guy is confused. Trademarks and patents have to be defended. Copyright does not. He's talking as if they were the same thing. He needs to sit down and have a good talk (and listen!) with his lawyer.
-russ
Yes, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. Nobody is misusing their intellectual property by using their hardware. Intellectual property would be a patent on barcoding, but they don't have one. Intellectual property would be a copyright, but I can use their hardware without breaking the shrink-wrap on their copyrighted software.
They should feel free to ask us not to use their hardware, but when they try to force us not to, I refuse to cooperate with their impolite request.
-russ
It's not GPL-compatible, because it requires that the GPL copyright holder remove restrictions. I was wrong.
-russ
Yep, you're right, and I'm wrong. The NASM Public license is a free software license but it's not GPL compatible.
-russ
This is an excellent idea. We haven't had sufficient resources to create a matrix of license compatibility. Would you volunteer to do such a thing? If you don't have that much time, then at least you can support us by linking to us, and show companies that you think OSI certification is important. Now that we have 501(c)3 approval, we're going the rounds, looking for donations. We'll only get them if we're appreciated (and that is how it should be). So when you see an open source product, ask if it's OSI Certified Open Source.
-russ
Oh, after I submitted, I realized: do you think there is an obvious incompatibility with the GPL? I don't think it's that obvious. Perhaps you could explain it to me?
-russ
Because it requires all contributors to dual-license their code. It's GPL+"you must dual-license". It saves them from having to reject code from authors who refuse to dual-license. That's worth something.
-russ
The code doesn't care. Only the copyright holder cares. In this instance, do you think the copyright holder of any GPL'ed software would care if it was linked into NASM? It imposes on additional restrictions on distribution, other than some difference in language over the acknowledgement of authorship.
Obiviously I don't think I'm making any error here.
-russ
Contributors automatically agree to dual-licensing by the authors. The GPL requires a separate agreement or copyright assignment.
-russ
I'm a programmer, now a lawyer... TO hell with your 'license' crap.
That's exactly WHY I bother to be on the OSI board: so that programmers can look for the OSI Certified Open Source certification mark, and be comfortable developing and redistributing their improvements.
-russ
They say you can distribute with the same permissions as the GPL, as well as under their own license. Basically, all they're saying is that they plan to dual-license, and that any contributors should expect that their contribution might be sold by the authors (along with the majority of the package written by the authors).
Given the GPL permissions, RMS would be hard put to say it's not free software. And if they submit it to OSI, I'd give due consideration to approving it. That is, at first glance I don't see anything that violates the OSD.
-russ
There's a reason why I read at level 1. Bullshit like this is the primary one. Don't you have a life? Can't you pick on somebody who's alive to defend themselves?
Sheesh
-russ
I never agreed to any such contract. The CDROM (which I hadn't examined until now) says that by opening the software I agree ... I don't agree, so I didn't open the software.
-russ
No, he deserved it. Just because a few greedy people got their hands on a pile of .us delegations, that doesn't mean that he can malign the rest of us.
-russ
.US names are not locality-based. They are locality-assigned. Unfortunately, while this makes perfect sense for assignment, it is not useful. On the face of them, .us names look like they're a description of the location of the service being accessed.