What you are saying is that you force your users to have IE on their desktops in order to use your software. Well that's your problem for removing the user's options.
Some of the software which is braindead in this way has absolutly nothing to do with browsing the web in the first place...
Would you also think it's insane to break up a monopolist like Microsoft, since that would likely also impair your business?
If someone's business was partnered with the "front" for a major drug dealer or terrorist organisation then this issue probably wouldn't have even been raised. No doubt quite a few people who do this have no idea what is behind whoever they may be doing business with. However it's been obvious since the early 1990's that Microsoft is an entity prefectly prepared to bend and break the law. Hardly anyone can say "not fair we didn't know we were dealing with a bunch of crooks".
The article stated that Elcomsoft did not prohibit access for american people so it is subject to the US law.. is this necessary then?
Where a similar argument was used against a US based company a US court basically said "tough". If France cannot tell Yahoo! how to conduct their business it's the height of double standards for the US to tell any European company what they can and can't do.
Piracy for money will always be worth enough that somebody will break into a factory, steal one of the machines, and pirate millions of copies.
They don't need to steal any machine (especially if the machine is something like a CD/DVD production line.) All they need do is gain the use of such a machine. They may even pay a factory to run off some extra copies. Since the actual production cost is a fraction of the retail price.
It could very well destroy the common person's ability to create their own content. Want to create a home movie? You'll have to buy a $10,000 device. Want to record your daughter's piano recital? You'll have to pay $100 in patent fees to some company.
Also even if you pay out that money the independant producer might not get any kind of DRM they can use. e.g. a band might want to send a demo CD to a label which will be tagged as "do not copy and don't play after a certain date". But I doubt the RIAA would want "their law" used against their members...
All of the news media stories I've seen don't even seem to mention this. That and calling it "security" really confuses the issue, so that the average person doesn't understand the true implications.
How much of the mainstream media isn't owned by the entities pushing for this law? Also, the last few months especially, have shown how biased and selective many mainstream "news" media are. Many people don't appear to notice, even where there are obvious inconsistances.
Your making the assumption that the requirements of the Bill are met with software.
In order to even attempt to meet these requirements you'd need a lot of custom hardware. Most of the hardware you'd need to replace is nothing like general purpose computers sat on people's desks. Some of it is at least easily accessible in telephone switching centres, radio and TV stations. Some of the least acessible bits are geosynchronous orbit.
Linux won't meet the requirements for DRM that the SSSCA requires. If any Linux distributor decided to implement DRM, the open source nature of the software would allow the user to easily disable or remove it.
It's not that more difficult to patch programs which are only ever distributed as binaries. Especially if they are written in a well structured way. If they are not it is harder to ensure that they will work correctly in the first place.
If you think the SSSCA will allow for easily bypassed DRM, you don't understand what they're going for.
It's more that the advocates of DRM don't understand that what they are asking is fundermentally impossible. If you want to deliver sound and/or video for people to hear and watch then it can be trivially copied. How do you make a speaker which can only be heard by a human ear and not a microphone or a display device which can only be seen by a human eye, but not a camera? There is the added problem that the material could exist in unencrypted format anyway. How do you stop an audio tape or a film print being digitised. How about material shipped to radio and TV stations for broadcast, how do you mix encrypted audio and video?
The real problem is that there is no way for the SSSCA requirements to be met without trusted hardware that will only load a trusted O/S. Trusted in this context means 'RIAA approved'. There is no way that Linux could meet that criteria.
So the US is seriously going to toss it's entire telecommunications system? In which case I'm sure the likes of Alcatel, Nortel, Nokia, Ericcson, etc might be prepared to offer a special product line to the US...
The computing industry is given 12 months to deploy a technology that does not exist and whose sole purpose is to protect profits.
Also a technology which probably cannot work. Effectivly it is nearly as daft as trying to legislate fundermental constants.
And guess what OSes would become illegal if the SSSCA passed? Anything but Windows. Do you think Microsoft would license their patent to Linux? Do you think Linux distros could afford to buy it?? No. MS would become a government-mandated monopoly as the only OS legally allowed by federal law.
How long would the US survive without a postal service, without the NYSE, without The Internet, etc, etc.
Yes, the SSSCA *IS* that far-reaching. This isn't just about our eroding fair-use rights, its about MS/Disney/MPAA/RIAA putting open-source out of business.
Closely followed by their members. Plenty of open source used in film production, not just Titanic and Shrek...
Then he has the right to transer ownership to this site. And the student has already given up all rights.
However what happens if the copyright holder has already licenced the work under in a way incompatable with simply handing over copyright or placed it in the public domain? Both of which copyright holders are explicitally allowed to do in the first place.
Uh, I read the first amendment like this: "Congress shall make no law [...] [making it possible for anyone to abridge someone else's] freedom of speech, or the press [...]" If a law enables companies to suppress free speech by allowing those companies to file SLAPP lawsuits, isn't that a law abridging the freedom of speech, even if only indirectly?
Since the text of the US constitution does not specify that it must be direct how does it being indirect affect the argument? Also the definition of scope used is the effect of the law not it's title or intent...
Antitrust laws are certain socialist instead of capitalist. Capitalism believes in a free market. Antitrust law put value in society over the gouging a trust can do to it's consumers. They came about because of rampant capitalism in America which showed the actualy harms of allowing corporations to do whatever they want.
Monopolies arn't "capitalist", indeed they tend to inhibit capitalism.
The only information we have to worry about losing is that which is forgotten by the masses.. for it is in danger of not being replicated and passed around.
Having very long term copyright means that there is a vast number of not popular works which may end up lost for ever. If they were in the public domain they could possibly be used as source material for new works...
This goes through all of the technicalities of signposting things so that people in the future will stay away from them or be aware of dangers into the future.. even if they can't understand English
This only helps much if everything were to be designed this way. Very rarely do archelogists find things specifically intended to be found. More likely they go through some old trash...
The same goes for a technologically advanced race, even with absolutly no reference, they would quickly notice the small pits and from there be able to extract the raw data. If a few different CD's were compared you would very easily decifer the data format, and begin to interpret it.
Not so easy when they don't know if the data is speach, music, video, computer program, etc. Especially if it is compressed and/or encrypted.
Think firstly for example, when the pyramids were built each took upto (and over) 50 years to be built, most costing thousands or tens of thousands of human lives in the process.
If this number of people were killed in the construction where are the bodies? Remember that the ancient Egyptians preserved their dead. Whilst there is evidence of people being injured and receiving medical treatment there are not huge numbers of people killed through construction accidents
Can we do that? Hell no! (we're not barbarians! anymore)
Plenty of people were killed in construction of dams, bridges and tunnels in the last 150 years. The death toll building the Panama canal was certainly in this range...
We have actual flying machines, far more persuasive than the wishful interpretations of credulous fools.
Our flying machines are made of materials which would corrode to nothing in a fairly short space of time. If our civilisation collapsed (when civilisations collapse then tend to do destructivly, buildings which remain are quite likely to torn down and used for their materials) people in the future would mostly simply have handed down word of mouth. (Quite possibly corrupted to the point of having a legand about an emperor from North America who rode on the back of a giant eagle and cast down death upon their enemies.) However actual flying machines have turned up in Egyptian tombs, objects which look like (high speed) aircraft have been found in South America and there are many ancient Indian texts refering to both civiian and military use of flying machines.
and apparently Middle Earth had rings that let you turn invisible, and Naboo had an democratically-elected monarchy.
You don't need to look too far into history to find a constitutional monarchy which actually did elect monarchs. It's kind of hard to miss a chain of volcanic islands in the middle of the Pacific...
*Copies* of "books 2000 years old..." These books survived because they were copied and recopied and recopied.
Problem is that people have forgotten that this applies to computer data as much as paper, if anything with a shorter timescale. e.g. Laser disks probably should have been transfered to a website somewhere around 1995.
Very few actual books survive. None if you are talking about folios. A few scrolls have survived in their original form. The point--always so easy to miss--is that the solution is dynamic and not static. Someone needs to care enough to keep copying this stuff. That's the great thing about digital data. At least it doesn't degrade.
Though the media might well degrade. So what's important is to copy the data to new systems...
It is an absolute certainty that in 50 years, 100 years, all your CDs, DVDs, floppies, zip disks, etc, etc, will be useless and any data stored thereon will be unreachable.
Part of the issue is the data only being on a certain type of removable media. The Google usenet archive has posts older than 1986 perfectly accessable. Even though many of the original computers used to compile and send them were scrapped years ago. Where data is stored "on line" it is quite likely that it will be transfered, converted into new formats, etc. Where it is stored on an off line removable media it can easily end up forgotten until the media is obsolete. Problem is that up until recently most computer data wound up with the only copy on removable media.
Slashdot Mirror
What you are saying is that you force your users to have IE on their desktops in order to use your software. Well that's your problem for removing the user's options.
Some of the software which is braindead in this way has absolutly nothing to do with browsing the web in the first place...
Would you also think it's insane to break up a monopolist like Microsoft, since that would likely also impair your business?
If someone's business was partnered with the "front" for a major drug dealer or terrorist organisation then this issue probably wouldn't have even been raised. No doubt quite a few people who do this have no idea what is behind whoever they may be doing business with.
However it's been obvious since the early 1990's that Microsoft is an entity prefectly prepared to bend and break the law. Hardly anyone can say "not fair we didn't know we were dealing with a bunch of crooks".
The article stated that Elcomsoft did not prohibit access for american people so it is subject to the US law.. is this necessary then?
Where a similar argument was used against a US based company a US court basically said "tough". If France cannot tell Yahoo! how to conduct their business it's the height of double standards for the US to tell any European company what they can and can't do.
Europe is a lot stronger socially and politically than you might think and the UK is still the richest country in the world...
Unfortunatly the UK government has frequently insisted on following US "leads" even over the objection of other parts of the EU.
Where the US leads, others will follow.
For how much longer though... France and Germany are certainly unhappy with the idea of blindly following the US.
Piracy for money will always be worth enough that somebody will break into a factory, steal one of the machines, and pirate millions of copies.
They don't need to steal any machine (especially if the machine is something like a CD/DVD production line.) All they need do is gain the use of such a machine. They may even pay a factory to run off some extra copies. Since the actual production cost is a fraction of the retail price.
It could very well destroy the common person's ability to create their own content. Want to create a home movie? You'll have to buy a $10,000 device. Want to record your daughter's piano recital? You'll have to pay $100 in patent fees to some company.
Also even if you pay out that money the independant producer might not get any kind of DRM they can use. e.g. a band might want to send a demo CD to a label which will be tagged as "do not copy and don't play after a certain date".
But I doubt the RIAA would want "their law" used against their members...
All of the news media stories I've seen don't even seem to mention this. That and calling it "security" really confuses the issue, so that the average person doesn't understand the true implications.
How much of the mainstream media isn't owned by the entities pushing for this law? Also, the last few months especially, have shown how biased and selective many mainstream "news" media are. Many people don't appear to notice, even where there are obvious inconsistances.
Your making the assumption that the requirements of the Bill are met with software.
In order to even attempt to meet these requirements you'd need a lot of custom hardware. Most of the hardware you'd need to replace is nothing like general purpose computers sat on people's desks. Some of it is at least easily accessible in telephone switching centres, radio and TV stations. Some of the least acessible bits are geosynchronous orbit.
Linux won't meet the requirements for DRM that the SSSCA requires. If any Linux distributor decided to implement DRM, the open source nature of the software would allow the user to easily disable or remove it.
It's not that more difficult to patch programs which are only ever distributed as binaries. Especially if they are written in a well structured way. If they are not it is harder to ensure that they will work correctly in the first place.
If you think the SSSCA will allow for easily bypassed DRM, you don't understand what they're going for.
It's more that the advocates of DRM don't understand that what they are asking is fundermentally impossible. If you want to deliver sound and/or video for people to hear and watch then it can be trivially copied. How do you make a speaker which can only be heard by a human ear and not a microphone or a display device which can only be seen by a human eye, but not a camera? There is the added problem that the material could exist in unencrypted format anyway. How do you stop an audio tape or a film print being digitised. How about material shipped to radio and TV stations for broadcast, how do you mix encrypted audio and video?
The real problem is that there is no way for the SSSCA requirements to be met without trusted hardware that will only load a trusted O/S. Trusted in this context means 'RIAA approved'. There is no way that Linux could meet that criteria.
So the US is seriously going to toss it's entire telecommunications system? In which case I'm sure the likes of Alcatel, Nortel, Nokia, Ericcson, etc might be prepared to offer a special product line to the US...
The computing industry is given 12 months to deploy a technology that does not exist and whose sole purpose is to protect profits.
Also a technology which probably cannot work. Effectivly it is nearly as daft as trying to legislate fundermental constants.
And guess what OSes would become illegal if the SSSCA passed? Anything but Windows. Do you think Microsoft would license their patent to Linux? Do you think Linux distros could afford to buy it?? No. MS would become a government-mandated monopoly as the only OS legally allowed by federal law.
How long would the US survive without a postal service, without the NYSE, without The Internet, etc, etc.
Yes, the SSSCA *IS* that far-reaching. This isn't just about our eroding fair-use rights, its about MS/Disney/MPAA/RIAA putting open-source out of business.
Closely followed by their members. Plenty of open source used in film production, not just Titanic and Shrek...
According to the website, it runs $0.50/student/year.
They are being paid to take away someone's IP? This dosn't smell right at all...
Then he has the right to transer ownership to this site. And the student has already given up all rights.
However what happens if the copyright holder has already licenced the work under in a way incompatable with simply handing over copyright or placed it in the public domain?
Both of which copyright holders are explicitally allowed to do in the first place.
OK, I'll bite. How did "Blue Peter" lose an early Dr. Who episode?
They wanted to use a clip, but the tape was not returned to the archives.
Uh, I read the first amendment like this: "Congress shall make no law [...] [making it possible for anyone to abridge someone else's] freedom of speech, or the press [...]"
If a law enables companies to suppress free speech by allowing those companies to file SLAPP lawsuits, isn't that a law abridging the freedom of speech, even if only indirectly?
Since the text of the US constitution does not specify that it must be direct how does it being indirect affect the argument? Also the definition of scope used is the effect of the law not it's title or intent...
Antitrust laws are certain socialist instead of capitalist. Capitalism believes in a free market. Antitrust law put value in society over the gouging a trust can do to it's consumers. They came about because of rampant capitalism in America which showed the actualy harms of allowing corporations to do whatever they want.
Monopolies arn't "capitalist", indeed they tend to inhibit capitalism.
The only information we have to worry about losing is that which is forgotten by the masses.. for it is in danger of not being replicated and passed around.
Having very long term copyright means that there is a vast number of not popular works which may end up lost for ever. If they were in the public domain they could possibly be used as source material for new works...
This goes through all of the technicalities of signposting things so that people in the future will stay away from them or be aware of dangers into the future.. even if they can't understand English
This only helps much if everything were to be designed this way. Very rarely do archelogists find things specifically intended to be found. More likely they go through some old trash...
The same goes for a technologically advanced race, even with absolutly no reference, they would quickly notice the small pits and from there be able to extract the raw data. If a few different CD's were compared you would very easily decifer the data format, and begin to interpret it.
Not so easy when they don't know if the data is speach, music, video, computer program, etc. Especially if it is compressed and/or encrypted.
Think firstly for example, when the pyramids were built each took upto (and over) 50 years to be built, most costing thousands or tens of thousands of human lives in the process.
If this number of people were killed in the construction where are the bodies? Remember that the ancient Egyptians preserved their dead. Whilst there is evidence of people being injured and receiving medical treatment there are not huge numbers of people killed through construction accidents
Can we do that? Hell no! (we're not barbarians! anymore)
Plenty of people were killed in construction of dams, bridges and tunnels in the last 150 years. The death toll building the Panama canal was certainly in this range...
We have actual flying machines, far more persuasive than the wishful interpretations of credulous fools.
Our flying machines are made of materials which would corrode to nothing in a fairly short space of time. If our civilisation collapsed (when civilisations collapse then tend to do destructivly, buildings which remain are quite likely to torn down and used for their materials) people in the future would mostly simply have handed down word of mouth. (Quite possibly corrupted to the point of having a legand about an emperor from North America who rode on the back of a giant eagle and cast down death upon their enemies.)
However actual flying machines have turned up in Egyptian tombs, objects which look like (high speed) aircraft have been found in South America and there are many ancient Indian texts refering to both civiian and military use of flying machines.
and apparently Middle Earth had rings that let you turn invisible, and Naboo had an democratically-elected monarchy.
You don't need to look too far into history to find a constitutional monarchy which actually did elect monarchs. It's kind of hard to miss a chain of volcanic islands in the middle of the Pacific...
First broadcast October 1958, still going, 25-odd presenters since then. Famous over here for:
Missing from the list are
Losing most of one of the early Dr Who episodes
Having a prop camp fire catch light
Getting their garden at Television Centre vandalised, etc...
*Copies* of "books 2000 years old..." These books survived because they were copied and recopied and recopied.
Problem is that people have forgotten that this applies to computer data as much as paper, if anything with a shorter timescale. e.g. Laser disks probably should have been transfered to a website somewhere around 1995.
Very few actual books survive. None if you are talking about folios. A few scrolls have survived in their original form. The point--always so easy to miss--is that the solution is dynamic and not static. Someone needs to care enough to keep copying this stuff. That's the great thing about digital data. At least it doesn't degrade.
Though the media might well degrade. So what's important is to copy the data to new systems...
It is an absolute certainty that in 50 years, 100 years, all your CDs, DVDs, floppies, zip disks, etc, etc, will be useless and any data stored thereon will be unreachable.
Part of the issue is the data only being on a certain type of removable media. The Google usenet archive has posts older than 1986 perfectly accessable. Even though many of the original computers used to compile and send them were scrapped years ago.
Where data is stored "on line" it is quite likely that it will be transfered, converted into new formats, etc. Where it is stored on an off line removable media it can easily end up forgotten until the media is obsolete. Problem is that up until recently most computer data wound up with the only copy on removable media.