Copyrights started at _14_ years, with an optional 14 year extension.
Patents started at 14 years too. They've been extended to 17 years and just recently 20 years, and there are actually a number minor extensions possible too under certain circumstances.
Patents have HARDLY been unchanged, and there's an amazingly large amount of debate over patents as well.
Well, during the 2d half, some of the Justices seemed critical of the idea of a thousand year term being limited in any meaningful sense.
What's upsetting them is to know where to draw the line -- 10 years, 50 years, 100 years... it's all characteristic of a question Congress would be better able to answer. Still, the Ct. pretty certainly is not going to surrender its power of judicial review over copyright, so it is nevertheless something they can still decide on.
No, the issue of jurisdiction is whether a court has power to try someone. Assuming that they both applied the same rules, our courts probably would not have a problem with foreign courts claiming jurisdiction over Americans who had been operating businesses abroad.
Enforcing the outcome of a trial OTOH is trickier.
I definately think people should be free to say racist things, and in fact, I am uncertain as to whether that would be morally wrong. (perhaps offending someone is the moral wrong?)
I think freedom of association is definately worth protecting. However, if you want to run a business, which is significantly different than simply associating with people you want to be with, then you're going to be saddled with an additional burden.
Does this imperil liberty? I can't see that it does. It is certainly nothing like outlawing a political party or religious group.
Would you abolish laws on criminal conspiracy and aiding and abetting for violating associational rights?
In the one case, government demands that A serve B regardless of A's wishes, or face punishment.
In the other case, government demands that A not go onto B's land regardless of A's wishes, or face punishment.
If slavery is so expansive then objection to it becomes unsupportable unless you're simply advocating anarchy. If you want the rule of law then there's pretty certainly going to have to be a way to force people to comply with those laws even if they don't want to of their own accord.
Here, I don't believe this is slavery. No businessman is stupid enough to claim that he is not reliant on governmental regulation. Government enforces contracts. It breaks up trusts. It keeps banks solvent. It supports the system of commercial paper that permit the buying and selling of goods reliably at a distance in time and space. It provides property law. Business cannot thrive without government and frankly, would be so impovershed without it that it would barely exist.
This is vastly different from a standpoint of abhoring and fighting slavery -- real slavery -- in all its forms.
So the difference seems obvious to me. What makes you think that a regulation on business such as requring them to provide lighted exit signs in event of fire is the same as putting people in chains, treating them as property, and whipping them into submission are similar?
Slavery is not JUST involuntarily serving another. I admit; the difference is difficult to articulate. But I am certain that if you asked a hundred people whether or not ordinary regulation is the same as chattle slavery, you'd get a hundred people telling you you're a fool for even having to ask.
Why? By the same token, do you believe that they can refuse to accept black passengers? It took a law quite similar to the ADA to compel businesses to serve regardless of race, religion, etc.
Second, unlike entry into a building, there are alternative airlines.
A) What if they all are like that? Does he have to drive? B) Didn't work the last time, when there was a white resturant and a black resturant -- it has an effect on commerce that is regulable. Besides which, it's grossly unfair to force someone to go elsewhere.
But the ADA AFAIK doesn't affect non-commercial entities. Your private home page is fine, in the same way that you don't have to put wheelchair ramps on your house, or let anyone in who wants to. Businesses are typically open to the public; this means the WHOLE public as a rule.
It's a great complaint; I hope that he wins. Besides these kinds of accomodations frequently are helpful to everyone. Those cut-out ramps at street corners (provided they have the bumps) are really handy if you're wheeling stuff around on a handtruck. Everyone likes elevators. I can hear, but I like to have the captions turned on when I watch TV or DVDs.
Actually no. The logic is that the government can regulate commerce. For example, if you had a coal mine where black lung is a danger to the workers, the government might step in and require you to provide masks, etc. so as to not endanger them. While they might respect your right to mine coal, it might not be in your best interests to do so safely, but the government has got a legitimate interest in safety. For example government response in the case of epidemics.
For various practical reasons in the US, the federal government has broad authority over interstate commerce. And the courts have defined that to be extremely expansive. If blind people cannot be served, then this has an effect on commerce. It doesn't have to be significant, though it really could be when you consider all instances of this sort of thing going on.
Thus, it's regulable. Calling it slavery is a ridiculous stretch. If that were an even vaguely credible argument, any sort of law could be deemed slavery, for it interferes with someone's desire to do things. Laws punishing criminal trespass do not make slaves of trespassers because they're told where they cannot go.
So you thought that it was perfectly fine that many businesses in the American South discriminated against blacks until our government started legislating against it, hm? That blacks couldn't go into movie theaters, or resturants, or hospitals that were white-only? (i.e. most of the facilities of those types, and invariably the good ones)
It's great to assume that people won't be asses to one another, and it's wonderful when it actualyl happens. But where there is a history of the contrary, it's probably a good idea to start taking measures against it.
The issue is section 1008 -- but it's not as though Congress defined it very well. Having never truly been tested by the courts either it's quite difficult. I'll poke around for some legislative history, if you like.
They don't have to be. If the industry thinks that they're really imperiled by piracy, they'll force the switch by reducing and then stopping the number of regular CDs they do make. Finding something they all can agree to move to is the hard part.
Copyright is clearly set up to favor the public, not artists. The Constitution says so. The courts have consistantly said so. Until fairly recently, even Congress was willing to go on-record as saying so.
It's only whiney artists like you, and corporate monstrosities that think otherwise. And you're giving public-minded artists like me a bad rep.
Incidentally, you said: "I would hate to sell like one cd and have 2 more unpaid for copies floating around. That's like giving away 2 apples for every one you sell! Kind of a sad business model..." But you are too late. Under the AHRA it is already ENTIRELY legal for people to noncommercially copy music via analog formats and share it thuswise.
I.e. I can buy a CD of yours and make as many tapes for as many people as I want and you can't do anything about it.
This isn't fair use, actually, it's a statutory exception. Fair use would NEVER support something like that. But nevertheless, it is the law.
I have a problem with that. I don't want a license. I want to simply own the entire copy. There's little that I cannot do under the auspices of personal property rights that I would need (or be likely to get) a license for.
Licensure is a really, really, REALLY crappy idea that seriously subverts the policy behind copyright. It should NEVER be supported save under extremely rare circumstances.
Meh. It's not irresponsible, especially. You're still responsible for your own actions in disregarding the law. He _isn't_ unless it's an immediate incitement likely to cause that result. (which it wasn't IMO)
Besides, he's right, at least sometimes. If the gov't passed a law that said, for example, that Islam was an illegal religion, that statute is not in fact the law, though it might take some time for it to actually be overturned. (in that case, probably only days)
If he feels that this law is unconstitutional, then breaking it is perfectly acceptable even PRIOR to it being overturned, for the gov't never had that power in the first place.
Even for a proper law, I don't think that it's a terrible thing. If it's so damned important that you not break it then there will be consequences. If not, then perhaps it was a successful method of political speech, as has been amply illustrated by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
It's subjective, sure, but is that so dangerous that you'd rather labor under the yoke of injustice? It depends on the situation, but if it were egregious, I would simply break the law, the better to fight it.
Some new formats are beginning to appear, as well as some strategies for breaking computer playback of consumer audio formats. Minidisc, Dataplay, DVD-Audio have all been getting floated somewhat. It took a while for CDs to take off, so I can see it being a slow process for them.
And of course, this is for Hillary Rosen's house; Jack Valenti is in the MPAA, not RIAA. (same logic applies though, for DVDs)
Well, I was also baffled by it for a very long time until I realized the reason for it. I'm not sure that the purpose of UI features needs to be evident to the intended audience in order for them to be worth having. There's a lot of subtle factors in most good UIs that make them good but aren't explained to users. (if only because it could get to be silly overkill -- telling developers is a good thing, OTOH)
Anyway, yeah, it's totally something that needs to be done by a browser (or whatnot). So? What's wrong with suggesting browser features?
Actually that can be useful -- provided that it is done properly!
NewsWatcher, a MacOS Usenet reader did that. The idea was this: when you are reading text, and scroll down to the next screen of text, it's best if you know that you want to begin reading from the top of the screen. You do not have to hunt around for where you left off.
However, if the window stops at the end of the text, the last screen of text will typically require you to look for where you left off reading somewhere in the middle.
If the program can display a variable amount of blank space at the bottom of the screen so that the line you want to continue from is pinned to the top, then the problem is solved.
(this is vaguely akin to how in books there will be white space left on a page if it isn't completely taken up by text)
BBEdit _tried_ to do something similar, but fucked it up because they always put a fixed amount of white space in, and that turned out to just be annoying. The white space should be variable, and be resized constantly depending on how much is needed.
I've been thinking about this. However, I don't think that very many users would come to rely on it in a harmful way as you suggest. Particularly if it is made very plain that it is not a guaranteed thing.
However, I'd definately suggest user testing to see how people react, rather than have us all take unsupported wild-assed guesses. Scientific method, and all that, you know.
Oh come on -- what's wrong with the Thunderdome judicial system?;)
Re:What about the feds "undeleting" your data?
on
Undelete In Linux
·
· Score: 1
Does this happen to you very frequently?
Even if it does, am I stopping users who really, really, really are certain they want to do this, and damn the torpedoes, from using a program that right away overwrites the file again and again to ensure that it's not being preserved?
I mean, having a trash can that you can retrieve things out of and that you normally put stuff into does not preclude you from also owning a shredder for those things that you just must get rid of permanently.
But unless you're in the NSA or something, the former will probably be a-ok for your day to day needs.
Well, who really cares if their computer is lightning fast if they have just lost hours and hours of work and will have to recreate it? There is a point where computers are fast enough, and we begin to consider issues of reliability. Which is what this is -- reliability from the perspective of a user. (since users generally don't know and don't care if magical pixies make their computer work so long as it DOES work)
We'll include efficiency as a factor in designing or implementing the sort of undelete system I have proposed. If handling this so degrades performance that a user will NOTICE (and we can have a combination of user testing to find a baseline and the individual computer using its spare cycles to determine where it's at) then we'll reduce the safety net a bit, or at least give the user the option to make the trade-off between stability and usability.
But I suspect that in the vast majority of cases we could do this and it would be no problem whatsoever. No one would notice the lowered performance since they weren't using it anyway.
As for the Unix philosophy, it's dog crap. Every user makes a mistake. You can be a brain surgeon and a rocket scientist but I guarantee that sooner or later you'll mistype an rm command.
Even expert users benefit from increased usability. If this were not the case, the so-called experts would be dicking around with switches on the front panels of their machines, entering raw binary. Even keyboards are there for enhanced usability. What so many people so sadly fail to notice is that the absolute number one goal should be usability. Without usability, nothing else matters.
A trash doesn't work well enough. On the Mac there has been a trash since day one. (perhaps earlier if you consider the Lisa)
Yet there was STILL a significant demand for undelete utilities.
People fuck up. It's a fact of life. It happens to everyone.
Let us then accept that accidents will happen and then make them correctable. Hell, people are willing to go through the fuss of new filesystems for journaling; that's because of a very similar concern.
If I could be assured that every possible step was being taken to keep me from screwing myself (and I've lost important files in this manner before) than I'd appreciate that.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the NY Times just ran an article about Slashdot itself today. They're no TV station, but they are pretty mainstream.
That's Cruella De Vil.
And as already noted, the Vice President has a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Also he has a duty to protect the space-time continuum.
Heh.
Copyrights started at _14_ years, with an optional 14 year extension.
Patents started at 14 years too. They've been extended to 17 years and just recently 20 years, and there are actually a number minor extensions possible too under certain circumstances.
Patents have HARDLY been unchanged, and there's an amazingly large amount of debate over patents as well.
Well, during the 2d half, some of the Justices seemed critical of the idea of a thousand year term being limited in any meaningful sense.
What's upsetting them is to know where to draw the line -- 10 years, 50 years, 100 years... it's all characteristic of a question Congress would be better able to answer. Still, the Ct. pretty certainly is not going to surrender its power of judicial review over copyright, so it is nevertheless something they can still decide on.
No, the issue of jurisdiction is whether a court has power to try someone. Assuming that they both applied the same rules, our courts probably would not have a problem with foreign courts claiming jurisdiction over Americans who had been operating businesses abroad.
Enforcing the outcome of a trial OTOH is trickier.
I definately think people should be free to say racist things, and in fact, I am uncertain as to whether that would be morally wrong. (perhaps offending someone is the moral wrong?)
I think freedom of association is definately worth protecting. However, if you want to run a business, which is significantly different than simply associating with people you want to be with, then you're going to be saddled with an additional burden.
Does this imperil liberty? I can't see that it does. It is certainly nothing like outlawing a political party or religious group.
Would you abolish laws on criminal conspiracy and aiding and abetting for violating associational rights?
In the one case, government demands that A serve B regardless of A's wishes, or face punishment.
In the other case, government demands that A not go onto B's land regardless of A's wishes, or face punishment.
If slavery is so expansive then objection to it becomes unsupportable unless you're simply advocating anarchy. If you want the rule of law then there's pretty certainly going to have to be a way to force people to comply with those laws even if they don't want to of their own accord.
Here, I don't believe this is slavery. No businessman is stupid enough to claim that he is not reliant on governmental regulation. Government enforces contracts. It breaks up trusts. It keeps banks solvent. It supports the system of commercial paper that permit the buying and selling of goods reliably at a distance in time and space. It provides property law. Business cannot thrive without government and frankly, would be so impovershed without it that it would barely exist.
This is vastly different from a standpoint of abhoring and fighting slavery -- real slavery -- in all its forms.
So the difference seems obvious to me. What makes you think that a regulation on business such as requring them to provide lighted exit signs in event of fire is the same as putting people in chains, treating them as property, and whipping them into submission are similar?
Slavery is not JUST involuntarily serving another. I admit; the difference is difficult to articulate. But I am certain that if you asked a hundred people whether or not ordinary regulation is the same as chattle slavery, you'd get a hundred people telling you you're a fool for even having to ask.
Why? By the same token, do you believe that they can refuse to accept black passengers? It took a law quite similar to the ADA to compel businesses to serve regardless of race, religion, etc.
Second, unlike entry into a building, there are alternative airlines.
A) What if they all are like that? Does he have to drive? B) Didn't work the last time, when there was a white resturant and a black resturant -- it has an effect on commerce that is regulable. Besides which, it's grossly unfair to force someone to go elsewhere.
But the ADA AFAIK doesn't affect non-commercial entities. Your private home page is fine, in the same way that you don't have to put wheelchair ramps on your house, or let anyone in who wants to. Businesses are typically open to the public; this means the WHOLE public as a rule.
It's a great complaint; I hope that he wins. Besides these kinds of accomodations frequently are helpful to everyone. Those cut-out ramps at street corners (provided they have the bumps) are really handy if you're wheeling stuff around on a handtruck. Everyone likes elevators. I can hear, but I like to have the captions turned on when I watch TV or DVDs.
Actually no. The logic is that the government can regulate commerce. For example, if you had a coal mine where black lung is a danger to the workers, the government might step in and require you to provide masks, etc. so as to not endanger them. While they might respect your right to mine coal, it might not be in your best interests to do so safely, but the government has got a legitimate interest in safety. For example government response in the case of epidemics.
For various practical reasons in the US, the federal government has broad authority over interstate commerce. And the courts have defined that to be extremely expansive. If blind people cannot be served, then this has an effect on commerce. It doesn't have to be significant, though it really could be when you consider all instances of this sort of thing going on.
Thus, it's regulable. Calling it slavery is a ridiculous stretch. If that were an even vaguely credible argument, any sort of law could be deemed slavery, for it interferes with someone's desire to do things. Laws punishing criminal trespass do not make slaves of trespassers because they're told where they cannot go.
So you thought that it was perfectly fine that many businesses in the American South discriminated against blacks until our government started legislating against it, hm? That blacks couldn't go into movie theaters, or resturants, or hospitals that were white-only? (i.e. most of the facilities of those types, and invariably the good ones)
It's great to assume that people won't be asses to one another, and it's wonderful when it actualyl happens. But where there is a history of the contrary, it's probably a good idea to start taking measures against it.
The issue is section 1008 -- but it's not as though Congress defined it very well. Having never truly been tested by the courts either it's quite difficult. I'll poke around for some legislative history, if you like.
They don't have to be. If the industry thinks that they're really imperiled by piracy, they'll force the switch by reducing and then stopping the number of regular CDs they do make. Finding something they all can agree to move to is the hard part.
You don't have that right.
Copyright is clearly set up to favor the public, not artists. The Constitution says so. The courts have consistantly said so. Until fairly recently, even Congress was willing to go on-record as saying so.
It's only whiney artists like you, and corporate monstrosities that think otherwise. And you're giving public-minded artists like me a bad rep.
Incidentally, you said: "I would hate to sell like one cd and have 2 more unpaid for copies floating around. That's like giving away 2 apples for every one you sell! Kind of a sad business model..." But you are too late. Under the AHRA it is already ENTIRELY legal for people to noncommercially copy music via analog formats and share it thuswise.
I.e. I can buy a CD of yours and make as many tapes for as many people as I want and you can't do anything about it.
This isn't fair use, actually, it's a statutory exception. Fair use would NEVER support something like that. But nevertheless, it is the law.
I have a problem with that. I don't want a license. I want to simply own the entire copy. There's little that I cannot do under the auspices of personal property rights that I would need (or be likely to get) a license for.
Licensure is a really, really, REALLY crappy idea that seriously subverts the policy behind copyright. It should NEVER be supported save under extremely rare circumstances.
Meh. It's not irresponsible, especially. You're still responsible for your own actions in disregarding the law. He _isn't_ unless it's an immediate incitement likely to cause that result. (which it wasn't IMO)
Besides, he's right, at least sometimes. If the gov't passed a law that said, for example, that Islam was an illegal religion, that statute is not in fact the law, though it might take some time for it to actually be overturned. (in that case, probably only days)
If he feels that this law is unconstitutional, then breaking it is perfectly acceptable even PRIOR to it being overturned, for the gov't never had that power in the first place.
Even for a proper law, I don't think that it's a terrible thing. If it's so damned important that you not break it then there will be consequences. If not, then perhaps it was a successful method of political speech, as has been amply illustrated by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
It's subjective, sure, but is that so dangerous that you'd rather labor under the yoke of injustice? It depends on the situation, but if it were egregious, I would simply break the law, the better to fight it.
Some new formats are beginning to appear, as well as some strategies for breaking computer playback of consumer audio formats. Minidisc, Dataplay, DVD-Audio have all been getting floated somewhat. It took a while for CDs to take off, so I can see it being a slow process for them.
And of course, this is for Hillary Rosen's house; Jack Valenti is in the MPAA, not RIAA. (same logic applies though, for DVDs)
What happens though when all new CDs won't even play on a Mac? Even if you couldn't burn a mix on an IBM, it's better than nothing.
Relying on Apple is foolish. They'll cave or become even more irrelevant. Fighting DRM across the board is a far better option.
Well, I was also baffled by it for a very long time until I realized the reason for it. I'm not sure that the purpose of UI features needs to be evident to the intended audience in order for them to be worth having. There's a lot of subtle factors in most good UIs that make them good but aren't explained to users. (if only because it could get to be silly overkill -- telling developers is a good thing, OTOH)
Anyway, yeah, it's totally something that needs to be done by a browser (or whatnot). So? What's wrong with suggesting browser features?
I know. And at any rate, changing the page doesn't properly address the problem.
All I was saying was that there are sometimes uses for seemingly useless white space.
Actually that can be useful -- provided that it is done properly!
NewsWatcher, a MacOS Usenet reader did that. The idea was this: when you are reading text, and scroll down to the next screen of text, it's best if you know that you want to begin reading from the top of the screen. You do not have to hunt around for where you left off.
However, if the window stops at the end of the text, the last screen of text will typically require you to look for where you left off reading somewhere in the middle.
If the program can display a variable amount of blank space at the bottom of the screen so that the line you want to continue from is pinned to the top, then the problem is solved.
(this is vaguely akin to how in books there will be white space left on a page if it isn't completely taken up by text)
BBEdit _tried_ to do something similar, but fucked it up because they always put a fixed amount of white space in, and that turned out to just be annoying. The white space should be variable, and be resized constantly depending on how much is needed.
I've been thinking about this. However, I don't think that very many users would come to rely on it in a harmful way as you suggest. Particularly if it is made very plain that it is not a guaranteed thing.
However, I'd definately suggest user testing to see how people react, rather than have us all take unsupported wild-assed guesses. Scientific method, and all that, you know.
Oh come on -- what's wrong with the Thunderdome judicial system? ;)
Does this happen to you very frequently?
Even if it does, am I stopping users who really, really, really are certain they want to do this, and damn the torpedoes, from using a program that right away overwrites the file again and again to ensure that it's not being preserved?
I mean, having a trash can that you can retrieve things out of and that you normally put stuff into does not preclude you from also owning a shredder for those things that you just must get rid of permanently.
But unless you're in the NSA or something, the former will probably be a-ok for your day to day needs.
Well, who really cares if their computer is lightning fast if they have just lost hours and hours of work and will have to recreate it? There is a point where computers are fast enough, and we begin to consider issues of reliability. Which is what this is -- reliability from the perspective of a user. (since users generally don't know and don't care if magical pixies make their computer work so long as it DOES work)
We'll include efficiency as a factor in designing or implementing the sort of undelete system I have proposed. If handling this so degrades performance that a user will NOTICE (and we can have a combination of user testing to find a baseline and the individual computer using its spare cycles to determine where it's at) then we'll reduce the safety net a bit, or at least give the user the option to make the trade-off between stability and usability.
But I suspect that in the vast majority of cases we could do this and it would be no problem whatsoever. No one would notice the lowered performance since they weren't using it anyway.
As for the Unix philosophy, it's dog crap. Every user makes a mistake. You can be a brain surgeon and a rocket scientist but I guarantee that sooner or later you'll mistype an rm command.
Even expert users benefit from increased usability. If this were not the case, the so-called experts would be dicking around with switches on the front panels of their machines, entering raw binary. Even keyboards are there for enhanced usability. What so many people so sadly fail to notice is that the absolute number one goal should be usability. Without usability, nothing else matters.
A trash doesn't work well enough. On the Mac there has been a trash since day one. (perhaps earlier if you consider the Lisa)
Yet there was STILL a significant demand for undelete utilities.
People fuck up. It's a fact of life. It happens to everyone.
Let us then accept that accidents will happen and then make them correctable. Hell, people are willing to go through the fuss of new filesystems for journaling; that's because of a very similar concern.
If I could be assured that every possible step was being taken to keep me from screwing myself (and I've lost important files in this manner before) than I'd appreciate that.