IIRC, when you buy something from another state in such a way that you don't immediately pay sales taxes (e.g. ordering from out of state online or print catalogs) you're required to remit the appropriate amount of sales taxes that you would pay had you bought it in your own state.
For some items, in some states, paying sales tax in another state and then bringing the item over may require you to pay an additional 'use' tax. You generally see this for big-ticket items like cars, where a neighboring state has a significantly lower tax. Sounds a little too much like an interstate duty for me to be happy with it (why do we have a Federal government then?) but this won't stop the man from making you pay.
Normally of course, unless you're audited, no one ever pays these taxes. Bad luck for you, I guess.
Well if it's merely thought that's the big deal just wait until geneticists develop animals that don't have thought processes. By your argument here, we ought to be able to do anything we like to them.
Personally, I think that eating animals is acceptable; being cruel for the sake of cruelty is not. But they're different things.
I love the oil example. Did it slip by you that OPEC is a cartel? If the government had the authority to (and it's good we don't - soverignity is a good thing for all nations to respect) we would also break them up. If OPEC is bad, why the hell do you imagine that Standard Oil, which was quite similar when you get down to it, be any better?
Additionally, the government is not holding a gun to anyone's head for once. MS exists because the government allows them to; that's how corporations work. And the government gets to set the rules for everyone, including MS. MS has had the chance to defend themselves, and they have the chance to appeal the decision to the highest court we've got. And the buck stops there.
But if the government decides, through the rule of law and through the courts that the best way to prevent MS from harming the economy (which MS has done by preventing competition, stunting innovation and of course, if the 'don't do things that are bad for the economy' crowd is right, has the economy by the short hairs) is to break them up, so be it.
You have a better suggestion? One that takes into account the fact that MS has shown no willingness to change, and has willfully broken agreements with the government not to act in particular anticompetitive ways? Well then, let's hear it.
As for open source code, that's largely IMHO so that the two companies can't collude and continue to create hidden API calls, etc. without it being quite obvious. But the code is still copyrighted; the government has not taken that away. Partially, I'm sure, because it might be interpreted as a 5th amendment taking. (though one wonders if the copyright might simply be voided. It too was granted by fiat of the government. And what they giveth, they can taketh away)
like i said - and i'm not trying to flame here - windows did not make things more accessible. it was simply popular. but as far as making it easy for people to use computers, i think MS has probably set us back quite a lot.
And yeah, I know that the Mac was to some extent related to the stuff at Xerox. Do know however, that the father of the Mac, Jef Raskin, was working on that stuff since IIRC the 60's; the tour of Xerox was well after the beginning of the Mac project, and was intended to convince Steve Jobs to listen to his engineers, who were already perfectly familiar with GUIs. Steve was the only person who learned anything from Xerox that day, and still managed to miss ethernet and laser printing.
No one is preventing students from speaking because they might say something religious. Rather, the school may not endorse religious speech. As the decision says: The delivery of a message such as the invocation here--on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer--is not properly characterized as "private" speech.
Obviously, if the student wants to say anything else they may. And if the student wants to say something religious, they may, provided that they don't do so in their capacity as a student officer, that they don't do so with the supervision of faculty in their official capacities, that it doesn't use exclusive school property (e.g. the PA system, which is not free to use) and that it's not at school sponsored events.
Even if it hurts the industry immediately, there are two other issues here.
First, the industry will recover. Computers will not suddenly stop functioning b/c there is more competition. We are very very likely to see an even greater number of cool new things come along. If monopolies were good, why don't we have one big company that does everything? Do you really believe that it would be good?
Second, MS broke the law. They broke many laws. Then they almost certainly perjured themselves in court which is in itself an extremely serious charge. Should they be allowed to get away with this merely because they're a big company? Hell no. Everyone is under the mantle of the law. MS is not an exception.
I'm browsing with Netscape. I started out using an Apple IIe. Currently, I have and use a Mac. (Call me Nemo)
MS has not made computing any more accessable to people than anyone one else, particularly. DOS was a clone of CPM. Windows was a clone of the Mac. (and other sources)
If OS/2 had caught on, you wouldn't claim that Windows made things accessable; there's a big difference between accessability and popularity.
This isn't quite correct. No work created since, IIRC the late 1920's has entered the public domain by means of the copyright expiring. The date is, coincidentally enough, just prior to when Mickey Mouse cartoons started.
Works that did expire were retroactively given their copyright back - this is why you don't see "It's a Wonderful Life" EVERYWHERE anymore around Christmas. You have to pay for it again.
More than anyone, that would be the French. However, none of the Allied nations is clear of responsibility in regards to the excessive punishment of Germany after WWI. But that doesn't absolve Germany for WWII either. There was a lot of poverty all over during the Great Depression.
And in fact, Bungie has long been pissed off about the whole problem of getting software into stores and such. They've got some rants about it.
But frankly, I'm very sad about their selling out. Maybe those of us that remember Minotaur and who played the 'Do not distribute' Marathon Beta should get t-shirts: "I remember when Bungie was cool"
Now, *THERE'S* a Star Wars clone. One thing I'm looking for myself though is a 70's-80's sf cartoon movie that ran on Nickelodeon in the mid-80's, and was probably European. I remember that some of the people lived in Casseopiea (the constellation stupid, not the PDA) but that's about it.
Well it's debatable if the big planet instant terraformer device in Total Recall was supposed to be real or a hokey science fiction prop. Remember, that when Ahnuld goes to get his memory screwed with the first time, he's getting a science fiction action memory on Mars, involving alien technology and terraforming.;)
Well Mononoke is a Miyazaki movie, and does actually bear quite a bit of resemblance to one of his earlier (famous) movies, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. (never ever look for the dub)
But they aren't as similar as a lot of American cartoons tend to be. More or less all of Miyazaki's movies are good. I suggest looking for Castle of Cagliostro, Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro. There are a lot of other films he's done as well, and they're worth checking out.
FYI, interfaces closely tied to the real world like MS Bob had been around since IIRC IBM prototypes from the late 70's early 80's. Also the PDA UI General Magic put out just before Bob came out was remarkably similar. I don't think that MS actually came up with the idea for Bob either. That's both sad and frightening.
Of course the Apple/// (or was that ]|[ ?) was infamous for not having a fan when it really really needed one.
The thermal expansion/contraction cycles caused by using the machine and powering it down caused the chips to work their way out of their sockets. (among other significant hardware problems)
The remedy was to pick the thing up a few inches (annoying b/c of the weight and poor balance;) and drop it.
IIRC, Apple finally pulled them all back, spent some time reengineering them, and put them back on the market. Where they were never bought. And all this at about the time of their fabulous IPO. The Lisa project was the next giant failure, not terribly long afterwards. If DTP hadn't come along for the Mac (also fanless) Apple would probably have died.
Anyway, the lack of fans has Steve Job's fingers all over it. The guy is notorious for hating fans as well as making very poor choices for hardware that are completely unrelated to how things operate in the real world. Look at the history of NeXT sometime. It's insane. He's good for the company evidently, but as a PR guy. I wouldn't let Jobs make real decisions in a million years if it were up to me.
i thought halon bonded to oxygen, rather than displaced it. otherwise any cheap gas in large quantities would work - carbon dioxide immediately comes to mind.
not that the fire is much better, but halon systems tend to have a lot of thought put in when they're installed.
One small correction: it is legal to distribute copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder PROVIDED that the copies of the material you're distributing was made with permission.
So you can sell an authorized CD, you can't sell an mp3 you ripped from the CD. This seems like common sense, but the big moneyed copyright holders are actively working to infringe on this right. (and they've tried before too)
It's not enough to win this fight; we must remain forever vigilant.
Of course, as it happens the record companies are trying to have 99.44% of the works written by bands under contract to them retroactively converted to works for hire (through legislative means - not mutually acceptable contracts).
this would mean that virtually every artist who's recorded music for one of the big 5 would permanently lose their copyright, even if this had not been part of the contract to begin with.
I think you're overreacting. There are virtually no good absolute positions to take in the real world. You can say that killing is always wrong, but how do you work in military actions, self defense, suicide, etc? Similarly while it's _generally_ good for people to be able to do as they like without crossing the path of an external controlling agency, this does not mean that it is always good.
Our model in the states is basically to set up the ground rules so that a system of checks and balances prevents anyone from being able to assert unassailable power over the other players. It's worked remarkably well, and isn't quite as reliant as earlier attempts were on nigh-omniscient machiavellian people to keep everything running smoothly.
If MS is just another company in the industry they only have to worry about the same laws that their competitors deal with. When they are no longer akin to their competitors though, things no longer work well. You can keep lizards as pets. You cannot keep Godzilla as a pet, it just won't work. (particularly when he picks up a bus and throws it back down)
Remember, we're trying to develop a society that is good for everyone - this is not going to be something that can be reduced to a single universal law, so we shouldn't sweat that.
Anyway, we change the rules for MS, giving them three choices: 1)follow the rules for monopolies 2)willingly stop being a monopoly, become a normal company again and play by the normal rules 3)keep it up and we'll ensure that you do 1 or 2.
So I don't think that non-monopolys should need to open their protocols. But if it helps to keep things working in a situation which left unchecked would fail, then monopolies should have to. (as the situation warrants)
Again, fair use exists no matter what the law says (aside from the Constitution - but it can be wrong too e.g. slavery)
The AHRA could have claimed that mp3s are illegal, but it wouldn't matter once it hit courts that, unlike the Congress (in this corporate day and age) respect the Constitution.
First you agree that when there was no copyright before, artists were barely compensated (this is untrue by the way; there were wealthy one as well) then you say that if we had no copyright again, artists would not be compensated at all.
Publishers didn't used to make so much money either - other people would print the same books.
There was no fixed time limit. As I said, the norm throughout most of history has been for copyright to be a thoroughly alien concept. Strangely enough, there were still plenty of creators in every society that wasn't struggling just to survive.
You ignore the fact that someone, sometime is going to create works. And you further ignore the fact that many of these works are going to be commissioned. BCPB copies works commissioned by BCPB. BCPA copies works commissioned by BCPB. And I'm sure that there are no small number of other publishers, C, D, E, etc. who commission nothing. However, what precisely is different from the current situation other than time? Right now, if BCPB is willing to wait for 90 years or so, they can copy anything BCPA puts out, and vice versa.
As I said, this will make competition much more powerful.
But personally, I can see the use for copyrights; like you I agree that they are far too long. They are also too expansive. I've discussed what I'd like to see in other posts, if you're interested.
What I don't care for much however is this common ignorance of history that many people exhibit. Copyrights are not normal, they are not necessary, (convenient perhaps, but not necessary) and many of the greatest works in history were created in environments without copyrights.
Besides - what makes you think that non-famous authors make a lot of money. It's a lot like musicians; even very good/popular authors still usually have a day job. There are only a *very* small number that can completely support themselves off of their writing.
Additionally, while fair use is (largely) written into law, it was around for a long time beforehand and exists because of natural rights and the extreme limitations on copyrights. Congress _could_ say that Valenti is right, but the courts would be obliged to overturn that.
Ripping your own mp3s is also fair use - it's invovled in many situations.
First, downloading the file for fair use is part and parcel of fair use. You do not have to buy a book in order to quote from it.
Of course, 17 USC 1201 tries to make an end run around fair use by permitting people to exercise it (as if it was possible to constitutionally prohibit it) but not permitting people to fairly access it which is a prerequsite to fair use. However, this is so blatantly unconstitutional that it will pretty likely be overturned.
Second, while IANAL, IIRC it's giving it to other people that's infringement. But it's ok to be on the receiving end as long as you don't further redistribute it.
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IIRC, when you buy something from another state in such a way that you don't immediately pay sales taxes (e.g. ordering from out of state online or print catalogs) you're required to remit the appropriate amount of sales taxes that you would pay had you bought it in your own state.
For some items, in some states, paying sales tax in another state and then bringing the item over may require you to pay an additional 'use' tax. You generally see this for big-ticket items like cars, where a neighboring state has a significantly lower tax. Sounds a little too much like an interstate duty for me to be happy with it (why do we have a Federal government then?) but this won't stop the man from making you pay.
Normally of course, unless you're audited, no one ever pays these taxes. Bad luck for you, I guess.
Well if it's merely thought that's the big deal just wait until geneticists develop animals that don't have thought processes. By your argument here, we ought to be able to do anything we like to them.
Personally, I think that eating animals is acceptable; being cruel for the sake of cruelty is not. But they're different things.
I love the oil example. Did it slip by you that OPEC is a cartel? If the government had the authority to (and it's good we don't - soverignity is a good thing for all nations to respect) we would also break them up. If OPEC is bad, why the hell do you imagine that Standard Oil, which was quite similar when you get down to it, be any better?
Additionally, the government is not holding a gun to anyone's head for once. MS exists because the government allows them to; that's how corporations work. And the government gets to set the rules for everyone, including MS. MS has had the chance to defend themselves, and they have the chance to appeal the decision to the highest court we've got. And the buck stops there.
But if the government decides, through the rule of law and through the courts that the best way to prevent MS from harming the economy (which MS has done by preventing competition, stunting innovation and of course, if the 'don't do things that are bad for the economy' crowd is right, has the economy by the short hairs) is to break them up, so be it.
You have a better suggestion? One that takes into account the fact that MS has shown no willingness to change, and has willfully broken agreements with the government not to act in particular anticompetitive ways? Well then, let's hear it.
As for open source code, that's largely IMHO so that the two companies can't collude and continue to create hidden API calls, etc. without it being quite obvious. But the code is still copyrighted; the government has not taken that away. Partially, I'm sure, because it might be interpreted as a 5th amendment taking. (though one wonders if the copyright might simply be voided. It too was granted by fiat of the government. And what they giveth, they can taketh away)
like i said - and i'm not trying to flame here - windows did not make things more accessible. it was simply popular. but as far as making it easy for people to use computers, i think MS has probably set us back quite a lot.
And yeah, I know that the Mac was to some extent related to the stuff at Xerox. Do know however, that the father of the Mac, Jef Raskin, was working on that stuff since IIRC the 60's; the tour of Xerox was well after the beginning of the Mac project, and was intended to convince Steve Jobs to listen to his engineers, who were already perfectly familiar with GUIs. Steve was the only person who learned anything from Xerox that day, and still managed to miss ethernet and laser printing.
No one is preventing students from speaking because they might say something religious. Rather, the school may not endorse religious speech. As the decision says: The delivery of a message such as the invocation here--on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer--is not properly characterized as "private" speech.
Obviously, if the student wants to say anything else they may. And if the student wants to say something religious, they may, provided that they don't do so in their capacity as a student officer, that they don't do so with the supervision of faculty in their official capacities, that it doesn't use exclusive school property (e.g. the PA system, which is not free to use) and that it's not at school sponsored events.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Even if it hurts the industry immediately, there are two other issues here.
First, the industry will recover. Computers will not suddenly stop functioning b/c there is more competition. We are very very likely to see an even greater number of cool new things come along. If monopolies were good, why don't we have one big company that does everything? Do you really believe that it would be good?
Second, MS broke the law. They broke many laws. Then they almost certainly perjured themselves in court which is in itself an extremely serious charge. Should they be allowed to get away with this merely because they're a big company? Hell no. Everyone is under the mantle of the law. MS is not an exception.
I'm browsing with Netscape. I started out using an Apple IIe. Currently, I have and use a Mac. (Call me Nemo)
MS has not made computing any more accessable to people than anyone one else, particularly. DOS was a clone of CPM. Windows was a clone of the Mac. (and other sources)
If OS/2 had caught on, you wouldn't claim that Windows made things accessable; there's a big difference between accessability and popularity.
This isn't quite correct. No work created since, IIRC the late 1920's has entered the public domain by means of the copyright expiring. The date is, coincidentally enough, just prior to when Mickey Mouse cartoons started.
Works that did expire were retroactively given their copyright back - this is why you don't see "It's a Wonderful Life" EVERYWHERE anymore around Christmas. You have to pay for it again.
More than anyone, that would be the French. However, none of the Allied nations is clear of responsibility in regards to the excessive punishment of Germany after WWI. But that doesn't absolve Germany for WWII either. There was a lot of poverty all over during the Great Depression.
And in fact, Bungie has long been pissed off about the whole problem of getting software into stores and such. They've got some rants about it.
But frankly, I'm very sad about their selling out. Maybe those of us that remember Minotaur and who played the 'Do not distribute' Marathon Beta should get t-shirts: "I remember when Bungie was cool"
Who's seen "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin"?
Now, *THERE'S* a Star Wars clone. One thing I'm looking for myself though is a 70's-80's sf cartoon movie that ran on Nickelodeon in the mid-80's, and was probably European. I remember that some of the people lived in Casseopiea (the constellation stupid, not the PDA) but that's about it.
Well it's debatable if the big planet instant terraformer device in Total Recall was supposed to be real or a hokey science fiction prop. Remember, that when Ahnuld goes to get his memory screwed with the first time, he's getting a science fiction action memory on Mars, involving alien technology and terraforming. ;)
Well Mononoke is a Miyazaki movie, and does actually bear quite a bit of resemblance to one of his earlier (famous) movies, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. (never ever look for the dub)
But they aren't as similar as a lot of American cartoons tend to be. More or less all of Miyazaki's movies are good. I suggest looking for Castle of Cagliostro, Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro. There are a lot of other films he's done as well, and they're worth checking out.
FYI, interfaces closely tied to the real world like MS Bob had been around since IIRC IBM prototypes from the late 70's early 80's. Also the PDA UI General Magic put out just before Bob came out was remarkably similar. I don't think that MS actually came up with the idea for Bob either. That's both sad and frightening.
Of course the Apple /// (or was that ]|[ ?) was infamous for not having a fan when it really really needed one.
;) and drop it.
The thermal expansion/contraction cycles caused by using the machine and powering it down caused the chips to work their way out of their sockets. (among other significant hardware problems)
The remedy was to pick the thing up a few inches (annoying b/c of the weight and poor balance
IIRC, Apple finally pulled them all back, spent some time reengineering them, and put them back on the market. Where they were never bought. And all this at about the time of their fabulous IPO. The Lisa project was the next giant failure, not terribly long afterwards. If DTP hadn't come along for the Mac (also fanless) Apple would probably have died.
Anyway, the lack of fans has Steve Job's fingers all over it. The guy is notorious for hating fans as well as making very poor choices for hardware that are completely unrelated to how things operate in the real world. Look at the history of NeXT sometime. It's insane. He's good for the company evidently, but as a PR guy. I wouldn't let Jobs make real decisions in a million years if it were up to me.
i thought halon bonded to oxygen, rather than displaced it. otherwise any cheap gas in large quantities would work - carbon dioxide immediately comes to mind.
not that the fire is much better, but halon systems tend to have a lot of thought put in when they're installed.
One small correction: it is legal to distribute copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder PROVIDED that the copies of the material you're distributing was made with permission.
So you can sell an authorized CD, you can't sell an mp3 you ripped from the CD. This seems like common sense, but the big moneyed copyright holders are actively working to infringe on this right. (and they've tried before too)
It's not enough to win this fight; we must remain forever vigilant.
Of course, as it happens the record companies are trying to have 99.44% of the works written by bands under contract to them retroactively converted to works for hire (through legislative means - not mutually acceptable contracts).
this would mean that virtually every artist who's recorded music for one of the big 5 would permanently lose their copyright, even if this had not been part of the contract to begin with.
and you're DEFENDING the companies?
I think you're overreacting. There are virtually no good absolute positions to take in the real world. You can say that killing is always wrong, but how do you work in military actions, self defense, suicide, etc? Similarly while it's _generally_ good for people to be able to do as they like without crossing the path of an external controlling agency, this does not mean that it is always good.
Our model in the states is basically to set up the ground rules so that a system of checks and balances prevents anyone from being able to assert unassailable power over the other players. It's worked remarkably well, and isn't quite as reliant as earlier attempts were on nigh-omniscient machiavellian people to keep everything running smoothly.
If MS is just another company in the industry they only have to worry about the same laws that their competitors deal with. When they are no longer akin to their competitors though, things no longer work well. You can keep lizards as pets. You cannot keep Godzilla as a pet, it just won't work. (particularly when he picks up a bus and throws it back down)
Remember, we're trying to develop a society that is good for everyone - this is not going to be something that can be reduced to a single universal law, so we shouldn't sweat that.
Anyway, we change the rules for MS, giving them three choices:
1)follow the rules for monopolies
2)willingly stop being a monopoly, become a normal company again and play by the normal rules
3)keep it up and we'll ensure that you do 1 or 2.
So I don't think that non-monopolys should need to open their protocols. But if it helps to keep things working in a situation which left unchecked would fail, then monopolies should have to. (as the situation warrants)
Can't compare apples and oranges my friend.
Again, fair use exists no matter what the law says (aside from the Constitution - but it can be wrong too e.g. slavery)
The AHRA could have claimed that mp3s are illegal, but it wouldn't matter once it hit courts that, unlike the Congress (in this corporate day and age) respect the Constitution.
Do you see a bit of inconsistancy here?
First you agree that when there was no copyright before, artists were barely compensated (this is untrue by the way; there were wealthy one as well) then you say that if we had no copyright again, artists would not be compensated at all.
Publishers didn't used to make so much money either - other people would print the same books.
There was no fixed time limit. As I said, the norm throughout most of history has been for copyright to be a thoroughly alien concept. Strangely enough, there were still plenty of creators in every society that wasn't struggling just to survive.
You ignore the fact that someone, sometime is going to create works. And you further ignore the fact that many of these works are going to be commissioned. BCPB copies works commissioned by BCPB. BCPA copies works commissioned by BCPB. And I'm sure that there are no small number of other publishers, C, D, E, etc. who commission nothing. However, what precisely is different from the current situation other than time? Right now, if BCPB is willing to wait for 90 years or so, they can copy anything BCPA puts out, and vice versa.
As I said, this will make competition much more powerful.
But personally, I can see the use for copyrights; like you I agree that they are far too long. They are also too expansive. I've discussed what I'd like to see in other posts, if you're interested.
What I don't care for much however is this common ignorance of history that many people exhibit. Copyrights are not normal, they are not necessary, (convenient perhaps, but not necessary) and many of the greatest works in history were created in environments without copyrights.
Besides - what makes you think that non-famous authors make a lot of money. It's a lot like musicians; even very good/popular authors still usually have a day job. There are only a *very* small number that can completely support themselves off of their writing.
At least they weren't saying "The Marconi" or "The Ameche." (whoever knows what the latter is, and where that name come from gets a no-prize ;)
Additionally, while fair use is (largely) written into law, it was around for a long time beforehand and exists because of natural rights and the extreme limitations on copyrights. Congress _could_ say that Valenti is right, but the courts would be obliged to overturn that.
Ripping your own mp3s is also fair use - it's invovled in many situations.
First, downloading the file for fair use is part and parcel of fair use. You do not have to buy a book in order to quote from it.
Of course, 17 USC 1201 tries to make an end run around fair use by permitting people to exercise it (as if it was possible to constitutionally prohibit it) but not permitting people to fairly access it which is a prerequsite to fair use. However, this is so blatantly unconstitutional that it will pretty likely be overturned.
Second, while IANAL, IIRC it's giving it to other people that's infringement. But it's ok to be on the receiving end as long as you don't further redistribute it.