Ok, so maybe the p2p apps don't provide much 'educational value', but shouldn't teachers be given a little leeway as far as what they do on their work computers?
Considering that quite a few of these apps come bundled with various types of malware you probably don't want them anywhere near your network in the first place.
As far as legality goes, well, that's not a problem with p2p software itself is it? after all "guns don't kill people...". By banning P2p software outright.
Unless it was obtained for a relevent education reason and installed by a sysadmin it has no business being on there in the first place.
Finally I'm not actually sure that having mp3s, etc, is illegal, only the act of transferring them to others is. Not sure about that though.
It dosn't really if the use of the software is illegal or not. Considering that the installation of the software in the first place probably wasn't "legal".
Basically, every retailer who wanted to sell Microsoft products (and who didn't - even then it was very popular software) had to sign a contract with Microsoft stating that for every competitor's product they sell, they had to pay a 100% royalty back to Microsoft! (you read that right - here's a quick example: if the retailer buys both a MS product and a GO product for $50 a piece, and typically doubles the price to $100 to make a profit, they'd have to pay Microsoft $50 if they sold the GO product, so the retailer is basically forced to sell the GO product for double their usual markup ($150) - 50 to GO, 50 to Microsoft, and 50 to themselves). And as icing on the cake, the retailer wasn't allowed to mention the terms of the contract to anyone.
When talking about a site wide license, yes they can charge you for potential use of the software. In fact this is the whole point of a site wide license!
Actually this is more a "volume licence" since the charging depends on the number of computers. An actual "site licence" would charge X amount for the site. Or even by some metric such as number of people, floor area, etc unrelated to the number of computers.
We also get a lot of software from the book publishers themselves that include supplmental materials to the textbook purchased. Almost to a tee, teachers feel they MUST use that software (use means install and never actually use), but the software is never, ever Linux based.
Sounds like a wetware problem. Installed but never used software is as much use as shelfware, but wastes disk space too. Only Windows encourages the bad habit of end users installing software, too.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but 15-odd years of serious research overwhelmingly confirms that so-called educational software (teaching programs) are generally useless. Most of us who have had to use the crap already knew that.
A lot of it appears to end up purchased for purely political reasons, then wind up as "shelfware". What's really needed is a description of what software for education needs to do. Rather than picking certain packages and saying it must do exactly what that package happens to do. Regardless of if it is actually of any benefit at all.
Have you ever noticed how for the most part every computer on star trek:TNG is primarily 'command line' based? no i don't mean a bach shell, I mean "Computer, dim lights." the voice recognition system Is an extention of command line syntax. True, the weapons arrays and engineering consoles all have graphical displays and buttons, but that is because they work better in those places than a 'pure' command line.
Note that the graphical bits arn't windowing GUI's controlled by a mouse. They are more Multi-Function Displays.
How does open source (and by your inference, Linux) teach kids about how computers work? It's just software. And very complicated software at that.
Well for starters all the details on how it works are freely available. As for complication if anything Windows internals are considerably more complicated than any unix type system.
The advantage Linux and friends have is that they are cheap. With my school district and state strapped for cash, cheap is important.
Another bonus is separation of user and administration type functions. Which is something Windows handles poorly, with some versions of Windows not at all. Leading to systems which are easily breakable.
MS brought in the idea of 'training for business'. Instead of just using a word processor to produce a report or essay it became 'necessary' to learn to use computers as a help to later getting a job. This 'meant' that students had to learn what business wanted: Word, Excel, Access.
In other words, replace education with training.
The assumption was made that when the student went looking for a job 6 or 7 years later the MS software will still be what everyone is using.
How will knowing details of Office 2000 or XP be much use with using Office 2009 anyway?
Frankly, I don't buy the "interstate commerce clause" argument in the bill. The ICC was not meant to be a catch-all loophole for the Fed to pass any damn law it wants on the basis that it MIGHT affect interstate trade.
Also there is a specific part of the US Constitution which should close any such loophole. That being the 10th ammendment.
Where does the constitution mention children have any rights? I'll give you a hint... it doesn't.
It dosn't have to. The document is written that all people (or at least those present in the territory of the US) have rights by default. Where does it say "these rights only apply to US citizens who meet such and such criteria of adulthood"? Even if there ever was such a clause it would have been voided by the 14th ammendment...
how is this more unconstitutional than the movie theatres refusing to allow minors admintance to R rated movies ?
Because here someone buys a ticket to see a movie in someone else's private property. The US constitution regulates government not the conduct of a private business.
It's odd that anyone seriously believes taking away guns is going to stop future massacres. If they can't get a gun, they'll go for a knife, or worse yet, a mototov cocktail.
The deal is not that the video games will make you shoot someone; the deal is that they teach you to shoot straight IF you get angry enough to shoot someone AND you get your hands on a gun.
These games use a keyboard ro joystick to do the shooting. Rather than some kind of glorified light pen with a movable heavy weight inside. Using a real fire arm would require rather different physical actions.
Grossman's hypothesis is that by and large humans are not natural-born killers -- we are like Kubrick and Clarke's apes who stand around posturing and showing our teeth (road rage?) at other apes until we are taught how to kill. In other words, pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is contrary to an animal instinct in us humans not to kill our own kind.
IIRC typically a tiny minority of soldiers do the vast majority of the killing.
The Columbine shooting was a combination of nutty kids and adults who left guns within their fucking reach. It had nothing to do with videogames. But of course, videogames are easier for a Congresscritter to attack.
It's kind of hard to pass an effective law which would outlaw stupidity and/or mental illness:)
In fact, I think it will only strengthen the number of children playing these games.
Except that they will likely be playing "black market" (aka "pirate") copies. Thus comming into contact with people supplying these and quite probably other black market products.
I direct your attention to a phrase, "Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest." Doing things that are not allowed always have a greater draw than almost anything else. The, "ooh, I could get into a lot of trouble for doing this..." aspect makes it all the more exciting.
Conversely if something is perfectly legit fewer people may want to try it. Especially rebelious young people.
While I agree that most of people who play violent game won't be criminals, I still think we have to think about this kind of game. Lot of people, including me, think GTA or other killing game is OK.
The alternative question is if being able to play violent games actually prevents violent people from going out and hurting real people. This isn't a new argument, people were asking the same questions about popular entertainment in Roman times.
Further, contrary to popular belief, the First Amendment does not give carte blanche permission for all speech. For example, Article 3 clearly gives Congress the power to limit speech "as is Deemed Apt for the Preservation of a Free and Fair Societie."
Why do people have so much trouble understanding the meaning of "ammendment". The only thing which can legitimatly overrule the first ammendment to the US constitution is a later ammendment. Things cannot be any other way, otherwise the document loses all meaning. (Similar misreading of the US consitution is involved in applying the "commerce clause" to overrule the 10th ammendment.)
At one point, RealPlayer had some evil trickery in it's install. There was one step which was "Which spam do you want to sign up for?" and the interface was a scrolling list of checkboxes next to "newsletters" you wanted to subscribe to.
Be "support@real.com" got signed up to quite a few:)
I would be very surprised if she isn't sitting back, watching carefully, and getting mad at the States every time they stumble or screw up. If they make an error, she pounces on it and refuses to let them put any weight on the error.
How much rope do Microsoft need to hang themselves?
That'd be a huge mistake. Laws last longer than technologies do. There will come a time when "CD" is extremely primitive and inefficient. Meanwhile, the rest of the law remains in place?
Which is why laws should not mention specific technologies. Which renders the DMCA a bad law on title alone...
It would be amazing to see "Fair Use" in the law books instead of being merely a part of court precedence though.
It's perfecly possible to enumerate such rights in a statute. It is simply necessary to mention only what can be done.
Ammend the constitution. Make it part of our bill of rights. And for the love of God, REPEAL the DMCA!
Probably not a very good idea. Because a) It dosn't need ammending, so much as being applied as written b) The most likely ammendments the current corporate backed bunch would make would include the removal of "limited times" from the IP clause and removal of the first ammendment.
Copyrighted music was already protected under copyright law. Fair use was already protected under other laws. Why do we keep writing and amending and rewriting laws that do the SAME THING as previous laws?
Maybe there are other areas of legislation which need looking into. But everyone is too busy messing around with "supercriminalization" type destractions.
The only thing the DMCA did was make it hard on cryptographers, security analysts, and researchers to do their jobs and report their results. You want unbreakable crypto? (Well, that will likely never happen, but do you want it to be so hard that it isn't worth the effort?) Then honest people have to try to break it and report on it's strengths and weaknesses. If you pass a million laws saying you can't circumvent encryption, someone in another country where our laws don't apply can still do it. People in America who aren't going to obey the laws anyway can still do it. And people who wouldn't steal the music, but just want to break it for the challenge will still do it.
Or possibly for the less abstract purpose of seeing if uss of the encryption system (a lot of potentially strong encryption is let down by a poor implimentation) is actually worth bothering with in the first place.
It is illegal to steal cars, but "slim-jims" are legal, why? Because they can help you get your car open if you lock your keys in.
There are places where so called "burglar tools" are illegal. Even though it is perfectly legal to break into your own house and these often apply to lockpicking tools, which are of little practical use to most burglars anyway.
American politicians know damned well what the law says, what the Declaration and Constitution say, and how things should be run - they've been to law school, the most of them. The fact of the matter is, they don't care.
Or they could care a lot. But care about where the loopholes are or which parts people are least likely to notice their infringing.
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Ok, so maybe the p2p apps don't provide much 'educational value', but shouldn't teachers be given a little leeway as far as what they do on their work computers?
Considering that quite a few of these apps come bundled with various types of malware you probably don't want them anywhere near your network in the first place.
As far as legality goes, well, that's not a problem with p2p software itself is it? after all "guns don't kill people...". By banning P2p software outright.
Unless it was obtained for a relevent education reason and installed by a sysadmin it has no business being on there in the first place.
Finally I'm not actually sure that having mp3s, etc, is illegal, only the act of transferring them to others is. Not sure about that though.
It dosn't really if the use of the software is illegal or not. Considering that the installation of the software in the first place probably wasn't "legal".
The thing is most people don't even recognize that is an illegal act, they think that they are aloud to download thier songs or what ever else.
End users installing anything on a machine owned by their employer is typically against an AUP. It's also frequently covered by anti hacking statutes.
Basically, every retailer who wanted to sell Microsoft products (and who didn't - even then it was very popular software) had to sign a contract with Microsoft stating that for every competitor's product they sell, they had to pay a 100% royalty back to Microsoft! (you read that right - here's a quick example: if the retailer buys both a MS product and a GO product for $50 a piece, and typically doubles the price to $100 to make a profit, they'd have to pay Microsoft $50 if they sold the GO product, so the retailer is basically forced to sell the GO product for double their usual markup ($150) - 50 to GO, 50 to Microsoft, and 50 to themselves). And as icing on the cake, the retailer wasn't allowed to mention the terms of the contract to anyone.
It sounds like a form of racketeering.
When talking about a site wide license, yes they can charge you for potential use of the software. In fact this is the whole point of a site wide license!
Actually this is more a "volume licence" since the charging depends on the number of computers. An actual "site licence" would charge X amount for the site. Or even by some metric such as number of people, floor area, etc unrelated to the number of computers.
We also get a lot of software from the book publishers themselves that include supplmental materials to the textbook purchased. Almost to a tee, teachers feel they MUST use that software (use means install and never actually use), but the software is never, ever Linux based.
Sounds like a wetware problem. Installed but never used software is as much use as shelfware, but wastes disk space too. Only Windows encourages the bad habit of end users installing software, too.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but 15-odd years of serious research overwhelmingly confirms that so-called educational software (teaching programs) are generally useless. Most of us who have had to use the crap already knew that.
A lot of it appears to end up purchased for purely political reasons, then wind up as "shelfware".
What's really needed is a description of what software for education needs to do. Rather than picking certain packages and saying it must do exactly what that package happens to do. Regardless of if it is actually of any benefit at all.
Have you ever noticed how for the most part every computer on star trek:TNG is primarily 'command line' based? no i don't mean a bach shell, I mean "Computer, dim lights." the voice recognition system Is an extention of command line syntax. True, the weapons arrays and engineering consoles all have graphical displays and buttons, but that is because they work better in those places than a 'pure' command line.
Note that the graphical bits arn't windowing GUI's controlled by a mouse. They are more Multi-Function Displays.
How does open source (and by your inference, Linux) teach kids about how computers work? It's just software. And very complicated software at that.
Well for starters all the details on how it works are freely available.
As for complication if anything Windows internals are considerably more complicated than any unix type system.
The advantage Linux and friends have is that they are cheap. With my school district and state strapped for cash, cheap is important.
Another bonus is separation of user and administration type functions. Which is something Windows handles poorly, with some versions of Windows not at all. Leading to systems which are easily breakable.
MS brought in the idea of 'training for business'. Instead of just using a word processor to produce a report or essay it became 'necessary' to learn to use computers as a help to later getting a job. This 'meant' that students had to learn what business wanted: Word, Excel, Access.
In other words, replace education with training.
The assumption was made that when the student went looking for a job 6 or 7 years later the MS software will still be what everyone is using.
How will knowing details of Office 2000 or XP be much use with using Office 2009 anyway?
Frankly, I don't buy the "interstate commerce clause" argument in the bill. The ICC was not meant to be a catch-all loophole for the Fed to pass any damn law it wants on the basis that it MIGHT affect interstate trade.
Also there is a specific part of the US Constitution which should close any such loophole. That being the 10th ammendment.
Where does the constitution mention children have any rights? I'll give you a hint... it doesn't.
It dosn't have to. The document is written that all people (or at least those present in the territory of the US) have rights by default.
Where does it say "these rights only apply to US citizens who meet such and such criteria of adulthood"? Even if there ever was such a clause it would have been voided by the 14th ammendment...
how is this more unconstitutional than the movie theatres refusing to allow minors admintance to R rated movies ?
Because here someone buys a ticket to see a movie in someone else's private property. The US constitution regulates government not the conduct of a private business.
It's odd that anyone seriously believes taking away guns is going to stop future massacres. If they can't get a gun, they'll go for a knife, or worse yet, a mototov cocktail.
Or drive a car into a crowd of people...
The deal is not that the video games will make you shoot someone; the deal is that they teach you to shoot straight IF you get angry enough to shoot someone AND you get your hands on a gun.
These games use a keyboard ro joystick to do the shooting. Rather than some kind of glorified light pen with a movable heavy weight inside. Using a real fire arm would require rather different physical actions.
Grossman's hypothesis is that by and large humans are not natural-born killers -- we are like Kubrick and Clarke's apes who stand around posturing and showing our teeth (road rage?) at other apes until we are taught how to kill. In other words, pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is contrary to an animal instinct in us humans not to kill our own kind.
IIRC typically a tiny minority of soldiers do the vast majority of the killing.
The Columbine shooting was a combination of nutty kids and adults who left guns within their fucking reach. It had nothing to do with videogames. But of course, videogames are easier for a Congresscritter to attack.
:)
It's kind of hard to pass an effective law which would outlaw stupidity and/or mental illness
In fact, I think it will only strengthen the number of children playing these games.
Except that they will likely be playing "black market" (aka "pirate") copies. Thus comming into contact with people supplying these and quite probably other black market products.
I direct your attention to a phrase, "Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest." Doing things that are not allowed always have a greater draw than almost anything else. The, "ooh, I could get into a lot of trouble for doing this..." aspect makes it all the more exciting.
Conversely if something is perfectly legit fewer people may want to try it. Especially rebelious young people.
While I agree that most of people who play violent game won't be criminals, I still think we have to think about this kind of game. Lot of people, including me, think GTA or other killing game is OK.
The alternative question is if being able to play violent games actually prevents violent people from going out and hurting real people. This isn't a new argument, people were asking the same questions about popular entertainment in Roman times.
Further, contrary to popular belief, the First Amendment does not give carte blanche permission for all speech. For example, Article 3 clearly gives Congress the power to limit speech "as is Deemed Apt for the Preservation of a Free and Fair Societie."
Why do people have so much trouble understanding the meaning of "ammendment". The only thing which can legitimatly overrule the first ammendment to the US constitution is a later ammendment. Things cannot be any other way, otherwise the document loses all meaning. (Similar misreading of the US consitution is involved in applying the "commerce clause" to overrule the 10th ammendment.)
At one point, RealPlayer had some evil trickery in it's install. There was one step which was "Which spam do you want to sign up for?" and the interface was a scrolling list of checkboxes next to "newsletters" you wanted to subscribe to.
:)
Be "support@real.com" got signed up to quite a few
I would be very surprised if she isn't sitting back, watching carefully, and getting mad at the States every time they stumble or screw up. If they make an error, she pounces on it and refuses to let them put any weight on the error.
How much rope do Microsoft need to hang themselves?
That'd be a huge mistake. Laws last longer than technologies do. There will come a time when "CD" is extremely primitive and inefficient. Meanwhile, the rest of the law remains in place?
Which is why laws should not mention specific technologies. Which renders the DMCA a bad law on title alone...
It would be amazing to see "Fair Use" in the law books instead of being merely a part of court precedence though.
It's perfecly possible to enumerate such rights in a statute. It is simply necessary to mention only what can be done.
Ammend the constitution. Make it part of our bill of rights. And for the love of God, REPEAL the DMCA!
Probably not a very good idea. Because
a) It dosn't need ammending, so much as being applied as written
b) The most likely ammendments the current corporate backed bunch would make would include the removal of "limited times" from the IP clause and removal of the first ammendment.
Copyrighted music was already protected under copyright law. Fair use was already protected under other laws. Why do we keep writing and amending and rewriting laws that do the SAME THING as previous laws?
Maybe there are other areas of legislation which need looking into. But everyone is too busy messing around with "supercriminalization" type destractions.
The only thing the DMCA did was make it hard on cryptographers, security analysts, and researchers to do their jobs and report their results. You want unbreakable crypto? (Well, that will likely never happen, but do you want it to be so hard that it isn't worth the effort?) Then honest people have to try to break it and report on it's strengths and weaknesses. If you pass a million laws saying you can't circumvent encryption, someone in another country where our laws don't apply can still do it. People in America who aren't going to obey the laws anyway can still do it. And people who wouldn't steal the music, but just want to break it for the challenge will still do it.
Or possibly for the less abstract purpose of seeing if uss of the encryption system (a lot of potentially strong encryption is let down by a poor implimentation) is actually worth bothering with in the first place.
It is illegal to steal cars, but "slim-jims" are legal, why? Because they can help you get your car open if you lock your keys in.
There are places where so called "burglar tools" are illegal. Even though it is perfectly legal to break into your own house and these often apply to lockpicking tools, which are of little practical use to most burglars anyway.
American politicians know damned well what the law says, what the Declaration and Constitution say, and how things should be run - they've been to law school, the most of them. The fact of the matter is, they don't care.
Or they could care a lot. But care about where the loopholes are or which parts people are least likely to notice their infringing.