Well, there weren't any details on how the subscription service would be set up, but one would hope it would be some flat rate for unlimited downloads. $10 - $15 would be reasonable for that kind of access, though I can already imagine the fr33 muzIk kiddi3z already kvetching about how "music should be free." As in beer, of course; some (not all, but some I'm sure) couldn't care less if the actual artists are free as in speech - for such an example see, Offspring, latest CD, Sony, controversy.
The article implied the artists would get paid royalties. In a perfect system, the artists would be directly paid all of the money, but then, nothing's perfect. I'd like to know how Napster/BMG plans to divide up the royalties. Number of downloads? Number of songs on the network? And what about indie artists who aren't a member of a label that signs on with Napster? What about artists belonging to labels that might still wish to litigate after the service kicks in?
There are still a shitload of unanswered questions, and lots of time in which to answer them.
Do firefighters on a volunteer department get paid anything more than a token stipend?
About $20 per call. Since the department's coverage area increased a year ago, there have been a lot more calls.
Was this your father's primary job?
No, he's also an electrician at a Big Three auto plant (here's a hint; one of their concept cars, debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, runs Linux).
If not, then my response to the suspension would have been a hearty "bite me...fight your own fires."
And then it would have happened again to another couple firefighters. These guys see it as a duty; it's not exactly fun, but they do it anyway. My dad's been doing this for 25 years, and it's only in the past two or three that the town has started trying to pull crap like this. They felt it was better to organize before things got too bad, rather than let the morale of the entire department be tanked by a bunch of politicians. All, except for one vehemently anti-union guy, backed the union drive, because they all knew (from watching it happen live, in person) it could just as easily happen to them.
After viewing the wide array of "Unions suck/Unions are for the lazy" posts here, I figured I should throw in my Cdn$0.02.
A couple years ago, my dad and another firefighter were suspended for speaking out at a town council meeting. The volunteer department found out through a 1-inch town newspaper item that their ladder truck was being farmed out to a nearby large city for a while, despite being told four weeks before the truck was staying in town. The firefighters had serious concerns about farming out the truck; the town has several tall buildings on the south end, and the ladder would have been moved to a department a good ten minutes away from where they normally were. The chief, who was involved in the decision to transfer the truck, said nothing about the decision to the crew.
At the next town council meeting, most of the department showed up. One firefighter, a lawyer, spoke for the group in front of the council about their concerns, both about the transfer of the truck and the secrecy in which the deal was shrouded. Despite being very civil and calm, the council ripped him, then called the chief up to back them up. After he was done speaking, he nearly ran out of the chamber. My dad followed and had a somewhat heated conversation with him. After the council meeting, my dad spoke with media that were on hand.
A couple days later, letters were delivered to my dad and the other firefighter. Indefinite suspensions! For speaking! My dad might have been suspendable for arguing with the chief, but the lawyer/firefighter was clean; there was no reason to suspend him. After a month, both firefighters were brought back on board. Soon after, some of the firefighters started looking into organizing. Despite several attempts to avert the organizing by the chief, the fire became a member of the Teamsters, and the first organized volunteer department in Canada.
The union wasn't brought in to increase wages, or let the firefighters be lazy; on the contrary, lazy people don't risk their lives around open flames on a regular basis for fun. They were brought in to preserve job security, to ensure fairness in disciplinary situations, and to ensure the firefighters have a group to defend them should the town try something stupid like that again.
So, yes, unions are still sometimes necessary in this age. If nothing else, tech workers might find them useful in making sure they aren't overworked by fly-by-night dot.coms that are likely to end up on FuckedCompany.com in the near future.
Much like big corporations, unions aren't all bad.
Now suddenly you can stick a CD in your drive and a $0.60 CD-R in your burner, hit dupe and you have a 100% copy.
Not to mention, you can purchase a Phillips CD recorder, promoted in ads that encourage people to make copies of their CDs.
Lest we forget, VHS did not kill the movie industry, cassette tapes did not kill the music industry, and it appears CD-R, the upcoming DVD-R formats, and compression formats like MP3 still won't kill the music and movie industries. As you mention, MP3s don't sound as good as CDs. DivX-encoded movies don't look as good as DVDs. So the business about "perfect digital copies" being traded over the Internet will continue to be fantasyland until most people have cable/DSL or better (much better).
It seems out of paranoia, the media giants are willing to push overly cumbersome digital formats on people that do nothing to preserve an individual's ability to use their own legally-purchased bits as they wish, outside of making copies and selling or giving away those. Like the Divx pay-per-view DVD format before, these technologies will be soundly rejected by technophiles and early adopters as overbearing. Ultimately, so-called "anti-piracy" actions will prove counterproductive, as users will run into just as much trouble, if not more, using the digital "secure" formats, than the pirates these techs are supposed to stop. Stuff like "Why can't I have this song on both my computer and my portable MP3 player?" Stuff like (if CPRM is forced into the ATA spec) "Excuse me, but why can't I send these songs I produced to my friends?"
Big Business really needs to think about how many customers it is willing to inconvenience and turn away to knock out casual copying, instead of going after the hard-core pirates who make hundreds of copies of CDs. As the head of a Canadian media association once said to a class I was in, perhaps the industry will have to learn to live with casual copying, go after the full-blown mass pirates, and just encourage people to purchase full-quality, legal copies because it's the Right Thing To Do.
Minors may not use unfiltered computers with Internet access, even if a parent gives permission or a teacher deems the site to be wrongly filtered.
You're kidding me.
You're not kidding me?
Wonderful way to protect censorware companies from having to actually update their lists. Also a rather interesting removal of individual power from parents and teachers. I guess a lot of bleating about "giving educational choice back to the parents" only extends as far as where parents can spend their money, not what their children can look at, even when the filtering software is clearly wrong in the eyes of the adults involved.
"My son needs to look up 2600.com for a project on hackers." "My daughter is doing a research project on breast cancer." "Why can't I see any sites about Wicca? I'm doing a project for religion class." Legitimate queries, all of which under law can only be met with, "I'm sorry, but I can't shut down the filter."
Consider that many filters not only try to block sexual pornography, but often sites about other religions, left- and sometimes right-wing political philosophies, gay and lesbian sites, peacefire.org, and anything else that doesn't fit the political agenda of the software company's target market. Fortunately, some (most?) filters allow the degree of blocking to be tailored, but how often will the administrator in a library or school be knowledgable enough to not just block everything out of worry or paranoia?
Yeah, it'll scare off the porn jockeys, but they can just claim to be looking up something else and have the filters turned off anyway. Not to mention intelligent, knowledgable students (the existence of which I'm sure will be considered dangerous to the public good, since they tend to know realfacts, not goodfacts) who already know how to get around filters will do so, and probably get accused of "hacking" by teachers who should know better.
If I were an American resident, I'd already have sent off some rather long letters to representatives about this moronic law, and I'd send a comment to the FCC now telling them software should not be implemented in taxpayer-funded facilities. that serves to restrict political and religious freedom. Find a filter that blocks only pornography, or recommend that filters be set only to block sex and extreme violence (and hope the latter doesn't block sites about the horrors of the Holocaust). Of course, I'd love to say "don't follow the law at all, it's badly-conceived", but I somehow doubt it would be taken seriously.
DMCA, UCITA, CIPA - government of the people, for the people?
However this is the classic argument used by software pirates throughout time. Duh big software makes too much money anyways! Anyways I'm just copying bits and it didn't cost them nuttin'!
So all copying is theft? That is exactly what you imply here. What if I make a copy of the songs on my CDs to my hard drive so I don't have to swap CDs all the time, while at the same time creating my own personal jukebox? In fact, that's exactly what I've done. Interesting that you mention drugs anyway, since those are normally covered by patent law, not copyright law, which is at issue here. We're not discussing something where the physical object itself is the item of value, but the information drawn from the object. I haven't seen a single reasonable comment claiming everything should be free. What I have seen are comments saying it should be possible to reasonably copy and use information without ripping off the creator. Using DeCSS to send a decrypted MPEG-2 stream to a CD-burner so a guy can sell copies is clearly wrong. Using DeCSS to send a stream to an MPEG-2 viewer so a Linux user can view DVD video, or adapting the CSS-decryption code for use in a player, isn't.
In a world where it's possible to rape old ladies in parks, what's wrong with raping old ladies in parks? In a world where it's possible to manipulate the stock market, what's wrong with manipulating the stock market? In a world where it's possible to hack into banks and syphon funds out of other people's accounts into your own, what's wrong with doing that?
So in a world where it's possible to copy anything at all, it's wrong to make copies? Rape results in the physical and mental harm of another. Market manipulation results in an unfair advantage over others. Siphoning funds is theft. Copying results in...well, if someone relies on controlling the copying and distribution of a piece of information, they could be harmed if someone else went out and created copies of a work they control and distributed it to others, for sale or for free. Does that justify removing a person's ability to copy, even if there are many legitimate uses for the technology? Or should actions be taken to define when copying and distribution of a work legitimately harms someone, and when copying a work for your own use and convenience is OK?
Totally irrelevant red herring intending to portray the existing system as fundamentally flawed, but unfortunately the basis is absurd and ridiculous
Actually, the existing system is supposed to allow for created works to enter the public domain after a limited period of time - in Canada, the author's life plus 50 years. This way, people can freely enjoy and draw from the work of another long after they can no longer benefit from the work, enriching the nation's cultural heritage. Action was taken in the US to end this, by extending copyright protection indefinitely. So the situation outlined is now, in fact, valid, especially when the entities that benefit from that indefinite protection are not known for allowing even "unintentional" use of one of their copyrights to go unpunished.
And that reward system is for YOU to decide???
Of course not. But when money is no longer sufficient for reward of a work, because anyone can have a copy without handing over money for it, what will be the reward for making something good? Reputation is usually the defining element among open-source programmers; good programmers are given more weight, their work given more merit, and they are more likely to be given money to continue their work. They won't profit from distribution of work; they will profit from producing good work that becomes popular. It may not be widely relevant, but there are already a few examples of people being paid to continue work on freely-available projects, simply because people stand to benefit from good-quality work coming from these programmers. Not to say that everyone should be forced to work in this model, but it shouldn't be completely discounted either.
Relevance?
The DMCA takes away many rights people have enjoyed with their own legally-purchased copies; among them, fair-use rights (you can use a work as you wish, as long as you aren't trying to make money from or distribute someone else's work without their permission) and reverse-engineering for the purpose of playing a legally-purchased work in another medium by the purchaser among them.
And yet, you still refuse to reply to his six questions and answers...come now. You can rise above name-calling, can't you? You've been implying intellectual superiority so far; now prove your side.
Yes I should have realized that a message that begins with Ordinarily, I don't feed the mentally-handicapped trolls, as it rewards the wrong kind of behavior, but there are certain misconceptions being thrown around that... was a good, insightful foray into legitimate discussions.
That, and his five questions, are a sight better than "Fuck you loser." I get the feeling you either didn't read past that first line, or you did, realized you can't counter his points, and fell back on the tried-and-true misdirection tactic of calling your opponent a Communist. As another poster pointed out, communist regimes tend to exert even greater control over information, as do fascist ones. DeCSS and the CSS-decryption-using players for Linux would be locked up in such systems, perhaps with the creators being arrested.
Wait a sec, the MPAA did try to have one of the "creators" arrested, even though he didn't actually write it. And his government let him go, because the charge was B.S.
How about DeCSS : Is that REALLY for people who just want to watch their rightfully owned DVDs on their Linux boxen?
Of course, the actual part of the code the MPAA is scared of, the CSS-decryption code, really is used to allow people to view DVDs on Linux boxen. I've used applications built around it. DeCSS can be used for that purpose; send the output stream to an MPEG-2 viewer, and voila. You won't have sound, just the video.
I have quite a few friends who use Napster to find rarities, unreleased songs, and live tracks - stuff you won't find in stores. Mind you, 95% of the userbase is leeching like mad, but a $4.95 charge will probably end a lot of that - and with that, you'll be paying to download the music legally anyway.
There isn't any book piracy. That's why we don't restrict copiers.
It's similar to the fact that I need to put a chain on my bike but not my house.
We have a winner! The most brainless statement made in this forum yet!
Book piracy - making a copy of an existing work - is much closer to the subject at hand, content protection, than stealing a bike. The issue is:
1) Can I make a copy of a work I've purchased the rights to enjoy?
2) Under what circumstances can I make such copies?
3) What can I do with those copies?
The media industry would like those answers to be "No", "None", and "Nothing"; they wish to be the only source for all copies of a work, even if that prevents you from, say, ripping an MP3 of a song on a CD you own because you don't want to put the entire CD in to listen to that one song. They want you to have to pay for that single MP3, even though you already purchased the rights to listen to that song.
In some extreme views, the industry also wants to to be the only source for all creative works, as independent artists they can't control are a threat. Hence, place a hammerlock on the tools of creation and distribution.
It sounds a bit paranoid, but then, so does ECHELON.
Things like Napster, Divx, DeCSS work as long as the purveyors and users are the minority leaches, while the rest of society supports the infrastructure.
Two things I find rather funny.
1) You buy the MPAA line that the CSS-decryption code in DeCSS is only used by leeches. On the contrary; the code is used by OMS, and a plugin for Xine that allows people to view encrypted DVDs. I guess I'm a leech...
2) You use the spelling of the old, defunct Divx that was a serious first attempt at enforcing pay-per-use with physical devices. Most people didn't stand for it. It was a first strike at the concept of unlimited usage, and it came too early. Be assured, things like HDCP and SDMI-like systems will be introduced much more quietly in the future to ensure everything is pay-per-use, not to mention laws that ban "time-shifting" and "fair use".
I think the article took a turn for the worse near the end when it sort of proclaimed that we're in a brave new world where everything should be free, etc, because it can be copied.
I don't think he implied that at all. I think he was saying content providers should figure out a way to work with the distribution possibilities offered by digital technology, instead of trying to force controls and limits on that technology such that it's far more of a hassle to use than formats limited by physical scarcity. These technologies do make it easier for an independent artist to create and distribute works, and that scares those who normally have a hammerlock on "traditional" passages of distribution.
Without the capitalist incentive these reams of independants don't seem to be bothering.
Wow. You don't get out to music cafes and pubs much, do you? It's not as if one can get rich playing at one; a lot of bands do it to get exposed, or for the hell of it. Many do hit pubs and cafes to make a buck, but it's a hard buck to make. The independents are out there; you're just not looking for them.
Somehow this would be resolved by raping the media companies and depriving the only ones who are creating viable entertainment of the right to control their creations? How utterly absurd and foolish.
I've bolded those particular words, because I have a problem with that. You say the major media companies are the only ones creating "viable entertainment." I have a few CDs from either independents or very small labels that aren't tied very closely to the major corps at all, and they create very viable entertainment. Above you imply you aren't looking very hard for independent acts to support and enjoy; here, you prove it.
This is an interesting article and all about a true fly-by-night company without a clue, but I'd forgotten about LinuxOne, and realized how happy I was about that fact when I saw the name "LinuxOne" on the front page. Please, why give these jokers any kind of exposure? The only place I want to see the name "LinuxOne" is in the FuckedCompany Hall of Fame.
I'd say the "AI Info Bot"'s reply to Gross' first e-mail says enough about how much attention this company really wants, or deserves.
I never went to public schools, and this is the sort of thing that makes me support school vouchers more and more, but that's a completely different issue.
Hell, screw vouchers. The more I find out just how screwed up schools have become in a few short years, the more I just want to home-school my future brats, assuming I don't just avoid the whole issue and get dogs.
As a matter of fact, it hit kuro5hin six minutes before I hit "submit" on my submission. Followed the story for about a day beforehand; I forget how I first ran across it. Drudge Report, perhaps. Had a good argument with a SlashNET regular about whether the kid deserved jail or not.
I'm embarrassed that this is happening is Canada. But I think the kid will get off, and the cops and crown will have a lot of questions to answer.
It's inconceivable that this kid had to spend a month -- his birthday, Christmas and New Year's -- in jail for something that he wrote.
You know what really rips my ass about this? Over a month ago, the police didn't give a flying shit about the bullies, even though the kid came home bloody. Now that the story's in the open, suddenly they say they're going to "investigate." Excuse my francais here, but what a pile of fucking bullshit. I guess the poor kid should have just gone and smacked a grade 10 with a limp around; he'd have gotten in less trouble for doing worse. I mean, come on here! Eleven - eleven! - children (and that's exactly what the cowards are) beat a guy bloody, and get off scot-free as long as no one outside of town hears about it. Kid writes a story born out of that incident, and he goes to jail????? Can you say "fucked-up priorities"? Not only do I hope the kid gets off, but I also hope the school, police, and Crown attorney get an embarassing, expensive civil suit slapped against them. The kid could surely win.
People who complain about society "being in trouble" and kids "getting worse" should look no farther than schools and authorities that let "a bit of boys being boys" get by, while a kid who writes about his frustration rather than acting on it gets locked away for fear he might "go postal." What bullshit.
...a Ottawa-area 16-year-old got bail after spending a month in the can for reading a story in drama class. I shit you not.
On the one hand, it was a story about a student who blows up his school after years of abuse from bullies and ignorance from teachers. On the other hand, it was written for a drama assignment after years of abuse from bullies and ignorance from teachers, including an incident about a week before where he was pushed to the ground, kicked in the head several times, and went home bloody. His parents contacted the school and police about the incident, but got no help. No schools or students were directly named in the story. Despite a police search of the school and his home finding no weapons, bombs, or "plans", he was arrested anyway on the charge of "uttering death threats".
Phil Ferreira's behaviour on Slashdot and at ReviewBoard was much, much worse. Insulting the real author, changing the story in question to fit his own version of the facts, attacking anyone who came up with proof of his own bad behaviour...wow. I found my jaw dropping as I read further down the thread and it became pretty clear the whole thing was blowing up in ReviewBoard's collective face.
Oh, yes it is. The law was struck on July 31. The Justice Ministry had until Sept. 29, 2000 to appeal. At this point, the best they can do is rewrite the law to allow medicinal use while continuing to prohibit recreational use. However, medicinial use will have to be allowed under the new law, advancing Canadian law a bit farther than it was before.
In a best-case scenario, the Justice Ministry would just decriminalize the drug and move on to more pressing issues. I've already outlined the worst case, outside of "outside pressure" encouraging the government to ignore the decision and reinstate the law untouched.
Just a reminder that on July 31 of this year, the federal law banning possession and growing of marijuana expires in Ontario due to an Ontario Appeals Court ruling striking said law down as unconstitutional. Reason: no provision for medicinal users! The feds had a chance to rewrite it, but it appears they're going to let ti slide.
After July 31, the law comes open for attack around the rest of the country, and is likely to fall really fast.
And I imagine there will suddenly be a lot of "pressure" to reinstate the law during the months of June and July from "certain parties." Considering that our prime minister isn't exactly known for having a backbone in the face of international pressure (what can you say about a guy who treated former Indonesian dictator Suharto like a good person and friend while protesters were pepper-sprayed outside?), I can only hope he grows one and holds the line. It'd be nice to see some sanity show up on the North American continent.
...check out the "talkback." It degenerated into a MS vs. Linux flamewar even faster than usual for a ZDNet talkback. And, as someone pointed out to me on LinuxToday, these posts are supposedly moderated; the worst trolls could have been excised.
I found the anti-Linux/Linus shots even more vicious than usual, in between shots from people who haven't read the Advocacy HOWTO (guilty). I swear, there are about five reasonable, well thought-out posts, total. It's just unbelievable; you'd think these people's lives were threatened by Linux or something. I mean, shit, it's only a kernel with an OS built around it, it's not as if we're discussing the Middle East or something.
Also if you get the chance, take a look at 2.4.0; I've been running it since the night it appeared (probably one of the first people to get and compile it), and it's been smooth sailing. 'Course, now that a wider audience is poking at it, more bugs and problems will be smoked out, but the last few tests and the prerelease seemed pretty darn stable. Worth a look if you're up for resetting your precious uptime:)
1) Colormax did not acquire the patent. They "exclusively licensed" the patent from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
2) According to the press release, the patent involved covers both "the human genes responsible for common, hereditary, red-green colorblindnes," and "a revolutionary test for color blindness based on a simple analysis of the actual genes that cause the problem."
So it's still a dumb patent, but be sure to include institutions of higher learning within range of your flamethrowers for stupid shit like this. I can see patenting the test...but the genes? Hell, probably 1/4 of our species is prior art. It's not as if they artificially created the gene (like in some biotech industry patents); they just found it.
I'm sure if Newton discovered gravity today, he'd just be a doctor at Cambridge, and the school would immediately patent it. What a fscked-up world this is.
No, it's not. Perhaps the last six months of 2000 were just particularly bad, but I know lately I've been trying to ignore increasing numbers of stories with inaccurate information or plainly busted links. This story pushed me over the edge. I'm not the only one who's noticed this, either.
So there've been some inaccurate stories, and sometimes the 2-line commentary on the story suggests that it was skimmed, at best. In about 90 seconds flat
Hell, I'd be impressed if the authors at least took that long. Even a 90-second skim would serve to make some of the synopses a bit more accurate than they turned out to be.
In particular, there seem to be certain types of stories almost guaranteed to hit the front page with little or no perusal by the authors; specifically, anti-Microsoft, GPL-related, ICANN/domain-name related, and patent-related. These also tend to be the stories where Slashdot shoots itself in the foot. I considered submitting an article today about MS being sued for discrimination against African-Americans, but then I figured, why fan the flames?
consider that anyone who thinks it looks important will click on the damn link for themselves and see that there was a mistake.
Of course, as the comments section has shown, there are a lot of people who just read the synopsis without trying to follow the links for further information. I almost moved on from the story myself, except I'd looked at LinuxToday barely five minutes before and hadn't seen such a story posted.
Everything is process./.'s process seems pretty robust to me.
I disagree. The broken links I can handle to some extent. Evidence that links in articles to be posted aren't even being checked on a cursory basis needs to be followed up on. There's simple mistakes, and then there's blatant signs of either sheer laziness or mounting stress that need to be dealt with before the slide continues.
I suspect, however, that Taco has been somewhat smacked back into reality by this incident. This will hopefully reduce the amount of broken-link/misrepresented stories posted in the next little while (hey, if you're going to put it on the main page for everyone to look at, you can at least take the time to get it right.)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there weren't any details on how the subscription service would be set up, but one would hope it would be some flat rate for unlimited downloads. $10 - $15 would be reasonable for that kind of access, though I can already imagine the fr33 muzIk kiddi3z already kvetching about how "music should be free." As in beer, of course; some (not all, but some I'm sure) couldn't care less if the actual artists are free as in speech - for such an example see, Offspring, latest CD, Sony, controversy.
The article implied the artists would get paid royalties. In a perfect system, the artists would be directly paid all of the money, but then, nothing's perfect. I'd like to know how Napster/BMG plans to divide up the royalties. Number of downloads? Number of songs on the network? And what about indie artists who aren't a member of a label that signs on with Napster? What about artists belonging to labels that might still wish to litigate after the service kicks in?
There are still a shitload of unanswered questions, and lots of time in which to answer them.
Let the "last night of Studio 54" feelings begin.
Do firefighters on a volunteer department get paid anything more than a token stipend?
About $20 per call. Since the department's coverage area increased a year ago, there have been a lot more calls.
Was this your father's primary job?
No, he's also an electrician at a Big Three auto plant (here's a hint; one of their concept cars, debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, runs Linux).
If not, then my response to the suspension would have been a hearty "bite me...fight your own fires."
And then it would have happened again to another couple firefighters. These guys see it as a duty; it's not exactly fun, but they do it anyway. My dad's been doing this for 25 years, and it's only in the past two or three that the town has started trying to pull crap like this. They felt it was better to organize before things got too bad, rather than let the morale of the entire department be tanked by a bunch of politicians. All, except for one vehemently anti-union guy, backed the union drive, because they all knew (from watching it happen live, in person) it could just as easily happen to them.
After viewing the wide array of "Unions suck/Unions are for the lazy" posts here, I figured I should throw in my Cdn$0.02.
A couple years ago, my dad and another firefighter were suspended for speaking out at a town council meeting. The volunteer department found out through a 1-inch town newspaper item that their ladder truck was being farmed out to a nearby large city for a while, despite being told four weeks before the truck was staying in town. The firefighters had serious concerns about farming out the truck; the town has several tall buildings on the south end, and the ladder would have been moved to a department a good ten minutes away from where they normally were. The chief, who was involved in the decision to transfer the truck, said nothing about the decision to the crew.
At the next town council meeting, most of the department showed up. One firefighter, a lawyer, spoke for the group in front of the council about their concerns, both about the transfer of the truck and the secrecy in which the deal was shrouded. Despite being very civil and calm, the council ripped him, then called the chief up to back them up. After he was done speaking, he nearly ran out of the chamber. My dad followed and had a somewhat heated conversation with him. After the council meeting, my dad spoke with media that were on hand.
A couple days later, letters were delivered to my dad and the other firefighter. Indefinite suspensions! For speaking! My dad might have been suspendable for arguing with the chief, but the lawyer/firefighter was clean; there was no reason to suspend him. After a month, both firefighters were brought back on board. Soon after, some of the firefighters started looking into organizing. Despite several attempts to avert the organizing by the chief, the fire became a member of the Teamsters, and the first organized volunteer department in Canada.
The union wasn't brought in to increase wages, or let the firefighters be lazy; on the contrary, lazy people don't risk their lives around open flames on a regular basis for fun. They were brought in to preserve job security, to ensure fairness in disciplinary situations, and to ensure the firefighters have a group to defend them should the town try something stupid like that again.
So, yes, unions are still sometimes necessary in this age. If nothing else, tech workers might find them useful in making sure they aren't overworked by fly-by-night dot.coms that are likely to end up on FuckedCompany.com in the near future.
Much like big corporations, unions aren't all bad.
Now suddenly you can stick a CD in your drive and a $0.60 CD-R in your burner, hit dupe and you have a 100% copy.
Not to mention, you can purchase a Phillips CD recorder, promoted in ads that encourage people to make copies of their CDs.
Lest we forget, VHS did not kill the movie industry, cassette tapes did not kill the music industry, and it appears CD-R, the upcoming DVD-R formats, and compression formats like MP3 still won't kill the music and movie industries. As you mention, MP3s don't sound as good as CDs. DivX-encoded movies don't look as good as DVDs. So the business about "perfect digital copies" being traded over the Internet will continue to be fantasyland until most people have cable/DSL or better (much better).
It seems out of paranoia, the media giants are willing to push overly cumbersome digital formats on people that do nothing to preserve an individual's ability to use their own legally-purchased bits as they wish, outside of making copies and selling or giving away those. Like the Divx pay-per-view DVD format before, these technologies will be soundly rejected by technophiles and early adopters as overbearing. Ultimately, so-called "anti-piracy" actions will prove counterproductive, as users will run into just as much trouble, if not more, using the digital "secure" formats, than the pirates these techs are supposed to stop. Stuff like "Why can't I have this song on both my computer and my portable MP3 player?" Stuff like (if CPRM is forced into the ATA spec) "Excuse me, but why can't I send these songs I produced to my friends?"
Big Business really needs to think about how many customers it is willing to inconvenience and turn away to knock out casual copying, instead of going after the hard-core pirates who make hundreds of copies of CDs. As the head of a Canadian media association once said to a class I was in, perhaps the industry will have to learn to live with casual copying, go after the full-blown mass pirates, and just encourage people to purchase full-quality, legal copies because it's the Right Thing To Do.
Minors may not use unfiltered computers with Internet access, even if a parent gives permission or a teacher deems the site to be wrongly filtered.
You're kidding me.
You're not kidding me?
Wonderful way to protect censorware companies from having to actually update their lists. Also a rather interesting removal of individual power from parents and teachers. I guess a lot of bleating about "giving educational choice back to the parents" only extends as far as where parents can spend their money, not what their children can look at, even when the filtering software is clearly wrong in the eyes of the adults involved.
"My son needs to look up 2600.com for a project on hackers." "My daughter is doing a research project on breast cancer." "Why can't I see any sites about Wicca? I'm doing a project for religion class." Legitimate queries, all of which under law can only be met with, "I'm sorry, but I can't shut down the filter."
Consider that many filters not only try to block sexual pornography, but often sites about other religions, left- and sometimes right-wing political philosophies, gay and lesbian sites, peacefire.org, and anything else that doesn't fit the political agenda of the software company's target market. Fortunately, some (most?) filters allow the degree of blocking to be tailored, but how often will the administrator in a library or school be knowledgable enough to not just block everything out of worry or paranoia?
Yeah, it'll scare off the porn jockeys, but they can just claim to be looking up something else and have the filters turned off anyway. Not to mention intelligent, knowledgable students (the existence of which I'm sure will be considered dangerous to the public good, since they tend to know realfacts, not goodfacts) who already know how to get around filters will do so, and probably get accused of "hacking" by teachers who should know better.
If I were an American resident, I'd already have sent off some rather long letters to representatives about this moronic law, and I'd send a comment to the FCC now telling them software should not be implemented in taxpayer-funded facilities. that serves to restrict political and religious freedom. Find a filter that blocks only pornography, or recommend that filters be set only to block sex and extreme violence (and hope the latter doesn't block sites about the horrors of the Holocaust). Of course, I'd love to say "don't follow the law at all, it's badly-conceived", but I somehow doubt it would be taken seriously.
DMCA, UCITA, CIPA - government of the people, for the people?
However this is the classic argument used by software pirates throughout time. Duh big software makes too much money anyways! Anyways I'm just copying bits and it didn't cost them nuttin'!
So all copying is theft? That is exactly what you imply here. What if I make a copy of the songs on my CDs to my hard drive so I don't have to swap CDs all the time, while at the same time creating my own personal jukebox? In fact, that's exactly what I've done. Interesting that you mention drugs anyway, since those are normally covered by patent law, not copyright law, which is at issue here. We're not discussing something where the physical object itself is the item of value, but the information drawn from the object. I haven't seen a single reasonable comment claiming everything should be free. What I have seen are comments saying it should be possible to reasonably copy and use information without ripping off the creator. Using DeCSS to send a decrypted MPEG-2 stream to a CD-burner so a guy can sell copies is clearly wrong. Using DeCSS to send a stream to an MPEG-2 viewer so a Linux user can view DVD video, or adapting the CSS-decryption code for use in a player, isn't.
In a world where it's possible to rape old ladies in parks, what's wrong with raping old ladies in parks? In a world where it's possible to manipulate the stock market, what's wrong with manipulating the stock market? In a world where it's possible to hack into banks and syphon funds out of other people's accounts into your own, what's wrong with doing that?
So in a world where it's possible to copy anything at all, it's wrong to make copies? Rape results in the physical and mental harm of another. Market manipulation results in an unfair advantage over others. Siphoning funds is theft. Copying results in...well, if someone relies on controlling the copying and distribution of a piece of information, they could be harmed if someone else went out and created copies of a work they control and distributed it to others, for sale or for free. Does that justify removing a person's ability to copy, even if there are many legitimate uses for the technology? Or should actions be taken to define when copying and distribution of a work legitimately harms someone, and when copying a work for your own use and convenience is OK?
Totally irrelevant red herring intending to portray the existing system as fundamentally flawed, but unfortunately the basis is absurd and ridiculous
Actually, the existing system is supposed to allow for created works to enter the public domain after a limited period of time - in Canada, the author's life plus 50 years. This way, people can freely enjoy and draw from the work of another long after they can no longer benefit from the work, enriching the nation's cultural heritage. Action was taken in the US to end this, by extending copyright protection indefinitely. So the situation outlined is now, in fact, valid, especially when the entities that benefit from that indefinite protection are not known for allowing even "unintentional" use of one of their copyrights to go unpunished.
And that reward system is for YOU to decide???
Of course not. But when money is no longer sufficient for reward of a work, because anyone can have a copy without handing over money for it, what will be the reward for making something good? Reputation is usually the defining element among open-source programmers; good programmers are given more weight, their work given more merit, and they are more likely to be given money to continue their work. They won't profit from distribution of work; they will profit from producing good work that becomes popular. It may not be widely relevant, but there are already a few examples of people being paid to continue work on freely-available projects, simply because people stand to benefit from good-quality work coming from these programmers. Not to say that everyone should be forced to work in this model, but it shouldn't be completely discounted either.
Relevance?
The DMCA takes away many rights people have enjoyed with their own legally-purchased copies; among them, fair-use rights (you can use a work as you wish, as long as you aren't trying to make money from or distribute someone else's work without their permission) and reverse-engineering for the purpose of playing a legally-purchased work in another medium by the purchaser among them.
Relevance?
CPRM. Enough said.
And yet, you still refuse to reply to his six questions and answers...come now. You can rise above name-calling, can't you? You've been implying intellectual superiority so far; now prove your side.
Yes I should have realized that a message that begins with Ordinarily, I don't feed the mentally-handicapped trolls, as it rewards the wrong kind of behavior, but there are certain misconceptions being thrown around that... was a good, insightful foray into legitimate discussions.
That, and his five questions, are a sight better than "Fuck you loser." I get the feeling you either didn't read past that first line, or you did, realized you can't counter his points, and fell back on the tried-and-true misdirection tactic of calling your opponent a Communist. As another poster pointed out, communist regimes tend to exert even greater control over information, as do fascist ones. DeCSS and the CSS-decryption-using players for Linux would be locked up in such systems, perhaps with the creators being arrested.
Wait a sec, the MPAA did try to have one of the "creators" arrested, even though he didn't actually write it. And his government let him go, because the charge was B.S.
Profanity; the last resort of the sore loser.
How about DeCSS : Is that REALLY for people who just want to watch their rightfully owned DVDs on their Linux boxen?
Of course, the actual part of the code the MPAA is scared of, the CSS-decryption code, really is used to allow people to view DVDs on Linux boxen. I've used applications built around it. DeCSS can be used for that purpose; send the output stream to an MPEG-2 viewer, and voila. You won't have sound, just the video.
I have quite a few friends who use Napster to find rarities, unreleased songs, and live tracks - stuff you won't find in stores. Mind you, 95% of the userbase is leeching like mad, but a $4.95 charge will probably end a lot of that - and with that, you'll be paying to download the music legally anyway.
There isn't any book piracy. That's why we don't restrict copiers.
It's similar to the fact that I need to put a chain on my bike but not my house.
We have a winner! The most brainless statement made in this forum yet!
Book piracy - making a copy of an existing work - is much closer to the subject at hand, content protection, than stealing a bike. The issue is:
1) Can I make a copy of a work I've purchased the rights to enjoy?
2) Under what circumstances can I make such copies?
3) What can I do with those copies?
The media industry would like those answers to be "No", "None", and "Nothing"; they wish to be the only source for all copies of a work, even if that prevents you from, say, ripping an MP3 of a song on a CD you own because you don't want to put the entire CD in to listen to that one song. They want you to have to pay for that single MP3, even though you already purchased the rights to listen to that song.
In some extreme views, the industry also wants to to be the only source for all creative works, as independent artists they can't control are a threat. Hence, place a hammerlock on the tools of creation and distribution.
It sounds a bit paranoid, but then, so does ECHELON.
Things like Napster, Divx, DeCSS work as long as the purveyors and users are the minority leaches, while the rest of society supports the infrastructure.
Two things I find rather funny.
1) You buy the MPAA line that the CSS-decryption code in DeCSS is only used by leeches. On the contrary; the code is used by OMS, and a plugin for Xine that allows people to view encrypted DVDs. I guess I'm a leech...
2) You use the spelling of the old, defunct Divx that was a serious first attempt at enforcing pay-per-use with physical devices. Most people didn't stand for it. It was a first strike at the concept of unlimited usage, and it came too early. Be assured, things like HDCP and SDMI-like systems will be introduced much more quietly in the future to ensure everything is pay-per-use, not to mention laws that ban "time-shifting" and "fair use".
I think the article took a turn for the worse near the end when it sort of proclaimed that we're in a brave new world where everything should be free, etc, because it can be copied.
I don't think he implied that at all. I think he was saying content providers should figure out a way to work with the distribution possibilities offered by digital technology, instead of trying to force controls and limits on that technology such that it's far more of a hassle to use than formats limited by physical scarcity. These technologies do make it easier for an independent artist to create and distribute works, and that scares those who normally have a hammerlock on "traditional" passages of distribution.
Without the capitalist incentive these reams of independants don't seem to be bothering.
Wow. You don't get out to music cafes and pubs much, do you? It's not as if one can get rich playing at one; a lot of bands do it to get exposed, or for the hell of it. Many do hit pubs and cafes to make a buck, but it's a hard buck to make. The independents are out there; you're just not looking for them.
Somehow this would be resolved by raping the media companies and depriving the only ones who are creating viable entertainment of the right to control their creations? How utterly absurd and foolish.
I've bolded those particular words, because I have a problem with that. You say the major media companies are the only ones creating "viable entertainment." I have a few CDs from either independents or very small labels that aren't tied very closely to the major corps at all, and they create very viable entertainment. Above you imply you aren't looking very hard for independent acts to support and enjoy; here, you prove it.
Let's see:
Still no products that anyone uses.
Still no IPO.
Still no business plan.
Still no legitimacy.
This is an interesting article and all about a true fly-by-night company without a clue, but I'd forgotten about LinuxOne, and realized how happy I was about that fact when I saw the name "LinuxOne" on the front page. Please, why give these jokers any kind of exposure? The only place I want to see the name "LinuxOne" is in the FuckedCompany Hall of Fame.
I'd say the "AI Info Bot"'s reply to Gross' first e-mail says enough about how much attention this company really wants, or deserves.
I never went to public schools, and this is the sort of thing that makes me support school vouchers more and more, but that's a completely different issue.
Hell, screw vouchers. The more I find out just how screwed up schools have become in a few short years, the more I just want to home-school my future brats, assuming I don't just avoid the whole issue and get dogs.
As a matter of fact, it hit kuro5hin six minutes before I hit "submit" on my submission. Followed the story for about a day beforehand; I forget how I first ran across it. Drudge Report, perhaps. Had a good argument with a SlashNET regular about whether the kid deserved jail or not.
I'm tempted to write letters.
I'm embarrassed that this is happening is Canada. But I think the kid will get off, and the cops and crown will have a lot of questions to answer.
It's inconceivable that this kid had to spend a month -- his birthday, Christmas and New Year's -- in jail for something that he wrote.
You know what really rips my ass about this? Over a month ago, the police didn't give a flying shit about the bullies, even though the kid came home bloody. Now that the story's in the open, suddenly they say they're going to "investigate." Excuse my francais here, but what a pile of fucking bullshit. I guess the poor kid should have just gone and smacked a grade 10 with a limp around; he'd have gotten in less trouble for doing worse. I mean, come on here! Eleven - eleven! - children (and that's exactly what the cowards are) beat a guy bloody, and get off scot-free as long as no one outside of town hears about it. Kid writes a story born out of that incident, and he goes to jail????? Can you say "fucked-up priorities"? Not only do I hope the kid gets off, but I also hope the school, police, and Crown attorney get an embarassing, expensive civil suit slapped against them. The kid could surely win.
People who complain about society "being in trouble" and kids "getting worse" should look no farther than schools and authorities that let "a bit of boys being boys" get by, while a kid who writes about his frustration rather than acting on it gets locked away for fear he might "go postal." What bullshit.
* 2001-01-09 03:53:18 Student Jailed For Reading Violent Story in Class (articles,censorship) (rejected)
Guess it wasn't "geeky" enough.
...a Ottawa-area 16-year-old got bail after spending a month in the can for reading a story in drama class. I shit you not.
On the one hand, it was a story about a student who blows up his school after years of abuse from bullies and ignorance from teachers. On the other hand, it was written for a drama assignment after years of abuse from bullies and ignorance from teachers, including an incident about a week before where he was pushed to the ground, kicked in the head several times, and went home bloody. His parents contacted the school and police about the incident, but got no help. No schools or students were directly named in the story. Despite a police search of the school and his home finding no weapons, bombs, or "plans", he was arrested anyway on the charge of "uttering death threats".
More details in these Ottawa Citizen stories:
A teen's "Twisted" cry for help - this article also has the story that started it all.
Writer jailed for his 'imagination'
Prominent lawyer to defend teen writer
Phil Ferreira's behaviour on Slashdot and at ReviewBoard was much, much worse. Insulting the real author, changing the story in question to fit his own version of the facts, attacking anyone who came up with proof of his own bad behaviour...wow. I found my jaw dropping as I read further down the thread and it became pretty clear the whole thing was blowing up in ReviewBoard's collective face.
How embarassing.
Er, that's not true.
Oh, yes it is. The law was struck on July 31. The Justice Ministry had until Sept. 29, 2000 to appeal. At this point, the best they can do is rewrite the law to allow medicinal use while continuing to prohibit recreational use. However, medicinial use will have to be allowed under the new law, advancing Canadian law a bit farther than it was before.
In a best-case scenario, the Justice Ministry would just decriminalize the drug and move on to more pressing issues. I've already outlined the worst case, outside of "outside pressure" encouraging the government to ignore the decision and reinstate the law untouched.
Just a reminder that on July 31 of this year, the federal law banning possession and growing of marijuana expires in Ontario due to an Ontario Appeals Court ruling striking said law down as unconstitutional. Reason: no provision for medicinal users! The feds had a chance to rewrite it, but it appears they're going to let ti slide.
After July 31, the law comes open for attack around the rest of the country, and is likely to fall really fast.
And I imagine there will suddenly be a lot of "pressure" to reinstate the law during the months of June and July from "certain parties." Considering that our prime minister isn't exactly known for having a backbone in the face of international pressure (what can you say about a guy who treated former Indonesian dictator Suharto like a good person and friend while protesters were pepper-sprayed outside?), I can only hope he grows one and holds the line. It'd be nice to see some sanity show up on the North American continent.
...check out the "talkback." It degenerated into a MS vs. Linux flamewar even faster than usual for a ZDNet talkback. And, as someone pointed out to me on LinuxToday, these posts are supposedly moderated; the worst trolls could have been excised.
I found the anti-Linux/Linus shots even more vicious than usual, in between shots from people who haven't read the Advocacy HOWTO (guilty). I swear, there are about five reasonable, well thought-out posts, total. It's just unbelievable; you'd think these people's lives were threatened by Linux or something. I mean, shit, it's only a kernel with an OS built around it, it's not as if we're discussing the Middle East or something.
Also if you get the chance, take a look at 2.4.0; I've been running it since the night it appeared (probably one of the first people to get and compile it), and it's been smooth sailing. 'Course, now that a wider audience is poking at it, more bugs and problems will be smoked out, but the last few tests and the prerelease seemed pretty darn stable. Worth a look if you're up for resetting your precious uptime:)
1) Colormax did not acquire the patent. They "exclusively licensed" the patent from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
2) According to the press release, the patent involved covers both "the human genes responsible for common, hereditary, red-green colorblindnes," and "a revolutionary test for color blindness based on a simple analysis of the actual genes that cause the problem."
So it's still a dumb patent, but be sure to include institutions of higher learning within range of your flamethrowers for stupid shit like this. I can see patenting the test...but the genes? Hell, probably 1/4 of our species is prior art. It's not as if they artificially created the gene (like in some biotech industry patents); they just found it.
I'm sure if Newton discovered gravity today, he'd just be a doctor at Cambridge, and the school would immediately patent it. What a fscked-up world this is.
That's crap.
/.'s process seems pretty robust to me.
No, it's not. Perhaps the last six months of 2000 were just particularly bad, but I know lately I've been trying to ignore increasing numbers of stories with inaccurate information or plainly busted links. This story pushed me over the edge. I'm not the only one who's noticed this, either.
So there've been some inaccurate stories, and sometimes the 2-line commentary on the story suggests that it was skimmed, at best. In about 90 seconds flat
Hell, I'd be impressed if the authors at least took that long. Even a 90-second skim would serve to make some of the synopses a bit more accurate than they turned out to be.
In particular, there seem to be certain types of stories almost guaranteed to hit the front page with little or no perusal by the authors; specifically, anti-Microsoft, GPL-related, ICANN/domain-name related, and patent-related. These also tend to be the stories where Slashdot shoots itself in the foot. I considered submitting an article today about MS being sued for discrimination against African-Americans, but then I figured, why fan the flames?
consider that anyone who thinks it looks important will click on the damn link for themselves and see that there was a mistake.
Of course, as the comments section has shown, there are a lot of people who just read the synopsis without trying to follow the links for further information. I almost moved on from the story myself, except I'd looked at LinuxToday barely five minutes before and hadn't seen such a story posted.
Everything is process.
I disagree. The broken links I can handle to some extent. Evidence that links in articles to be posted aren't even being checked on a cursory basis needs to be followed up on. There's simple mistakes, and then there's blatant signs of either sheer laziness or mounting stress that need to be dealt with before the slide continues.
I suspect, however, that Taco has been somewhat smacked back into reality by this incident. This will hopefully reduce the amount of broken-link/misrepresented stories posted in the next little while (hey, if you're going to put it on the main page for everyone to look at, you can at least take the time to get it right.)
...how stupid do all the people who quite obviously didn't even try to follow the link feel right now?