While I think of myself as a moral person, in case it wasn't clear, I am in favor of reforming copyright law in a way which would be more favorable to Napster and its' ilk than against. I am decidedly not supporting the RIAA in this instance, and I'd be suprised to find a matter in which I would side with them.
Secondly, I know that piracy is generally a civil matter. It's obviously not theft - you're not depriving anyone of some tangible thing. Comparisons between immoral criminal and immoral civil laws are still valid though. Both are immoral. It really doesn't matter what the scope of the law is.
Perhaps you could clarify your post so that I can understand your objections better, and respond more clearly?
iirc they actually do tap into the rotation of the platters as a source of power already. specifically to move the heads to the locked position when you power down the disk.
This is not entirely true. I work in Seattle, and live in Bellevue just a few blocks from The Great Beast of Redmond. And yet, I'd love to see them crash and burn. But not nuked - I live too close for that;)
How, precisely? Bearing in mind that political parties in the US didn't really appear until around the time of the French Revolution, and after the Constitution was established.
Large, established businesses have virtually never tried to maximize their profit.
Case in point: Back when videocassettes were brand new, Paramount Studios sued Sony for a similar reason: people would be able to record stuff and obviously the movie studios would all go out of business. What really happened was that the movie studios now make more money off of tape rentals than they do off of showing films in the theater.
Large businesses have no interest in doing anything at all, they just want to keep making money doing the same thing that they were doing when they started making money. IBM thought of microcomputers as toys - they legitimized it, but their real businesses was in bigger computers. Detroit knew that cars were big and fast and had low gas milage. Japan proved them wrong (though the SUV craze is a return of old, bad habits).
So I wouldn't get your hopes up about the music industry. Force them to cope with Napster and we'll see some innovation. Otherwise if we let them have their way it'll just stagnate.
Whether or not copyright violations are good or bad or neither is irrelevant. It's the law. Certainly stupid laws have shown up before - would you classify slavery (quite legal for a very long time) as good during the time that the law permitted it?
Obviously the law cannot dictate people's morals, nor should it.
As for the hypocracy issue, you're quite wrong. The objection to Corel had nothing to do with copyright, it had to do with licensing. In the absence of an acceptable license, copyright laws come into play. These laws would prohibit duplication, which can only be granted on a work copyrighted by someone else via a license. The GPL offers such terms, though you're free to reject them and treat it as any other copyrighted material. Most objections were to the terms of the license. Not copyright law.
As for me, I think that current copyright law is blantantly unconstitutional and should be overturned or repealed. That goes for Linux as well. I'm not hypocritical in that regard anyway.
I don't mind paying taxes for road construction. But are lots of toll roads that are poorly maintained because the tolls go into other projects and not into the upkeep of the actual road. How does that make any sense?
Here in Seattle, a voter's inititive recently passed (and has since been overturned) which lowered taxes on car registration. However it also contained a requirement that voters approve any increase in taxes. Naturally essential services have been the first thing to go, because the government here is punishing voters.
This is doubly true because they have decided to keep the lower taxes - it's just the voting requirement that they were concerned about.
The stupid attitude around these parts by the government re: taxes is clearly seen in the Kingdome fiasco.
A multipurpose enclosed stadium that isn't even paid for yet was blown up. Replacing it are two single-purpose stadiums that voters have repeatedly turned down in elections.
Christ. I say we cap new taxes with similar legislation, and if the damn Mariners and Seahawks want stadiums, let them build their own.
There are lots of limits on what constitutes free speech. In fact, the 'falsely shouting fire in a theater' bit is not exactly the cat's meow anymore.
Mitnick is doing marginally all right on the 5th amendment (they're stalemated, last I heard) but he was definately abused wrt to the 6th amendment.
8th gets hit a lot and aside from Supreme Court decisions regarding the draft, I don't recall that the 13th amendment (which is important) has been superceeded anyplace.
More to the point, do you WANT people to infringe on your rights? Are you aware of the liklihood that you'll give such people (who are simply tyrants, nothing less, no matter what their motivations) an inch and they'll take a mile.
Well the idea of having a government that derived it's powers and legitimacy from the people as opposed to some guy with a shiny hat was pretty unique at the time as well. (Didn't take the French long to try their hand at it though)
But yes, the 2nd Amendment is there because the framers had recognized the importance of a well-armed society when opposing a tyrannical government. After all, they had just lived through it. The spark that started the Revolutionary War was an attempt by the British military to sieze a privately-held armory in Concord, Massachusetts. The alarm having been raised throughout the countryside, farmers and townspeople used their guns to keep their weapons from being siezed.
But the framers were well aware of the fact that the government they established might one day fail and be no better than the one which they had fought for independence from. So many provisions were set up to both sustain the integrity of the government as long as possible (checks and balances between the various branches of the govt.), and many civil liberties were explicitly guaranteed as well.
Note that NONE of the framers didn't believe in the liberties granted in the Bill of Rights. The only reasons that it was adopted seperately were because: 1)It took a while for everyone to agree that additional checks on the government were needed 2)It was risky explicitly listing some, as that might lead people to believe that unlisted rights didn't exist 3)The federal government wasn't thought to have powers to infringe anyway
But pass it did. And so, should the existing US government go too far it is just that it should be overturned, if necessary by force of arms. I sure wouldn't want to be helpless if it came down to that, and neither did they.
As for slavery, a lot of the northern states were opposed to it, and while it had become reasonably popular in the south (there were still indentures, and many people simply hired laborers) it was a very big sticking point. The colonies would simply never have agreed on the issue and their only solution was to shelve it until future generations could resolve things. Attempts were made to limit slavery though - importation ended at a fixed date.
Of course, slavery didn't *really* take off in the south until the cotton gin was developed.
But don't characterize all of the framers as slave owners, or accepting of slavery. Many were, but not all. (nb that it was also still legal in the UK at the time)
Apple's GUI is AFAIK very proprietary, but is not just a rehash of the old Mac UI (in terms of the code, etc). But Carmack is working on X for it, and it already has a terminal if you can deal with that.
'course the most recent thing i have is MacOS X Server 1.0 and I never used it much, so someone else may have more info on this than I do.
A well regulated militia is certainly a good thing.
But the 2nd amendment doesn't let anyone's right to keep and bear arms be infringed whether you're in a militia or not. They're two seperate clauses, and the second isn't dependent on the first.
It doesn't hurt that the unorganized militia (which was used quite a bit in the Revolutionary War anyway, alongside organized militamen and the ocassional professional soldier) encompasses pretty much everyone though.
(cpt - doesn't own a gun, but strongly opposes infringement upon your right to own a gun)
I beg to differ. Uniforms are great if you're an interchangable part. This is why the military uses them (aside from uniforms sometimes having evolved useful features - BDUs are pretty useful, for instance). This is why big business used to use them.
Me, I don't like the idea much. And as it turns out, our society is growing less and less uniform all the time. I wear silkscreened t-shirts and jeans to work. Even if I were in a more formal environment I could still choose from a number of different colors of shirts, slacks, jackets and let's not get into ties. Who the hell would have work a pink shirt fifty years ago?
I say let 'em wear anything that you can wear on the street. T-Shirts are not terribly distracting unless you're the only person who's got one.
Well... an informed and concerned population is the best defense against larval tyranny. If you oppose would-be dictators, and reveal them for what they are to people who care, you'll nip it in the bud.
But having a second line of defense is not a bad plan. Should tyrants assume enough power that morals and laws can't stop them, a greater price must be paid to set things right.
I think that we'd be best off if we'd prepare for what has to be done if we fail, and then do our damnest not to fail. For when we do, we'll no longer get to prepare.
You mean Clarke wrt communications satellites. But there's certainly no lack of stuff that has come from Einstein's work either. Bagels for instance;)
Re:Ground Zero - what is the effect?
on
Microsoft Loses
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· Score: 1
While I do work in the web industry, i'm a graphic illustrator. I can fall back on print media if it comes to it, and i've got a few other tricks up my sleeves....
Re:What if MSFT closed it's doors? Or Windows?
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
I would live with MS being recalled to the ninth level of hell. And my rent (out in Bellevue - the most boring city in the region) might even go down.
Sadly, I live within the minimum safe distance, or else I might be more tolerant of a direct approach to MS.;)
Unless there's some kind of monopoly (ie patents), or the developers of DeCSS et al signed contracts agreeing that they would not do anything (ie trade secrets), it's quite legal to RE.
You're telling me that just 'cos Dell makes computers that I can't make my own? Stupid argument. Even the judges involved in this case aren't that dumb.
Fair enough. I wish that I could vote for 'None of the above' rather than either vote for a guy that I don't like (which only encourages them) or not vote at all (which only encourages them).
Personally, I think that if George Washington were alive now, rather than endorse any politician, he'd probably say something like: "Help! Help! Get me out of this coffin!"
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a little confused here.
While I think of myself as a moral person, in case it wasn't clear, I am in favor of reforming copyright law in a way which would be more favorable to Napster and its' ilk than against. I am decidedly not supporting the RIAA in this instance, and I'd be suprised to find a matter in which I would side with them.
Secondly, I know that piracy is generally a civil matter. It's obviously not theft - you're not depriving anyone of some tangible thing. Comparisons between immoral criminal and immoral civil laws are still valid though. Both are immoral. It really doesn't matter what the scope of the law is.
Perhaps you could clarify your post so that I can understand your objections better, and respond more clearly?
iirc they actually do tap into the rotation of the platters as a source of power already. specifically to move the heads to the locked position when you power down the disk.
This is not entirely true. I work in Seattle, and live in Bellevue just a few blocks from The Great Beast of Redmond. And yet, I'd love to see them crash and burn. But not nuked - I live too close for that ;)
How, precisely? Bearing in mind that political parties in the US didn't really appear until around the time of the French Revolution, and after the Constitution was established.
Should any non-voting entity be allowed to lobby? Personally I don't think so.
Large, established businesses have virtually never tried to maximize their profit.
Case in point:
Back when videocassettes were brand new, Paramount Studios sued Sony for a similar reason: people would be able to record stuff and obviously the movie studios would all go out of business. What really happened was that the movie studios now make more money off of tape rentals than they do off of showing films in the theater.
Large businesses have no interest in doing anything at all, they just want to keep making money doing the same thing that they were doing when they started making money. IBM thought of microcomputers as toys - they legitimized it, but their real businesses was in bigger computers. Detroit knew that cars were big and fast and had low gas milage. Japan proved them wrong (though the SUV craze is a return of old, bad habits).
So I wouldn't get your hopes up about the music industry. Force them to cope with Napster and we'll see some innovation. Otherwise if we let them have their way it'll just stagnate.
Whether or not copyright violations are good or bad or neither is irrelevant. It's the law. Certainly stupid laws have shown up before - would you classify slavery (quite legal for a very long time) as good during the time that the law permitted it?
Obviously the law cannot dictate people's morals, nor should it.
As for the hypocracy issue, you're quite wrong. The objection to Corel had nothing to do with copyright, it had to do with licensing. In the absence of an acceptable license, copyright laws come into play. These laws would prohibit duplication, which can only be granted on a work copyrighted by someone else via a license. The GPL offers such terms, though you're free to reject them and treat it as any other copyrighted material. Most objections were to the terms of the license. Not copyright law.
As for me, I think that current copyright law is blantantly unconstitutional and should be overturned or repealed. That goes for Linux as well. I'm not hypocritical in that regard anyway.
actually knowing him this may be a bit more true than you realize
;)
the freon compressor for instance
Walmart does this a lot. I've heard that the joke in the EPA is that they study Walmart placement to locate wetlands in the first place.
Frankly I can't stand the bastards.
Btw, Sam Walton is dead.
I think that there is not enough accountability.
I don't mind paying taxes for road construction. But are lots of toll roads that are poorly maintained because the tolls go into other projects and not into the upkeep of the actual road. How does that make any sense?
Quite true.
Here in Seattle, a voter's inititive recently passed (and has since been overturned) which lowered taxes on car registration. However it also contained a requirement that voters approve any increase in taxes. Naturally essential services have been the first thing to go, because the government here is punishing voters.
This is doubly true because they have decided to keep the lower taxes - it's just the voting requirement that they were concerned about.
The stupid attitude around these parts by the government re: taxes is clearly seen in the Kingdome fiasco.
A multipurpose enclosed stadium that isn't even paid for yet was blown up. Replacing it are two single-purpose stadiums that voters have repeatedly turned down in elections.
Christ. I say we cap new taxes with similar legislation, and if the damn Mariners and Seahawks want stadiums, let them build their own.
oh yes they do. you don't get rich by saying 'Okay, I have enough money.'
There are lots of limits on what constitutes free speech. In fact, the 'falsely shouting fire in a theater' bit is not exactly the cat's meow anymore.
Mitnick is doing marginally all right on the 5th amendment (they're stalemated, last I heard) but he was definately abused wrt to the 6th amendment.
8th gets hit a lot and aside from Supreme Court decisions regarding the draft, I don't recall that the 13th amendment (which is important) has been superceeded anyplace.
More to the point, do you WANT people to infringe on your rights? Are you aware of the liklihood that you'll give such people (who are simply tyrants, nothing less, no matter what their motivations) an inch and they'll take a mile.
search in /. comments. seriously. you would not believe how often people cite this, and are then corrected as to the details.
having read up on it, i too am in support of the woman that sued McDonalds. there was nothing bogus about the suit.
Well the idea of having a government that derived it's powers and legitimacy from the people as opposed to some guy with a shiny hat was pretty unique at the time as well. (Didn't take the French long to try their hand at it though)
But yes, the 2nd Amendment is there because the framers had recognized the importance of a well-armed society when opposing a tyrannical government. After all, they had just lived through it. The spark that started the Revolutionary War was an attempt by the British military to sieze a privately-held armory in Concord, Massachusetts. The alarm having been raised throughout the countryside, farmers and townspeople used their guns to keep their weapons from being siezed.
But the framers were well aware of the fact that the government they established might one day fail and be no better than the one which they had fought for independence from. So many provisions were set up to both sustain the integrity of the government as long as possible (checks and balances between the various branches of the govt.), and many civil liberties were explicitly guaranteed as well.
Note that NONE of the framers didn't believe in the liberties granted in the Bill of Rights. The only reasons that it was adopted seperately were because:
1)It took a while for everyone to agree that additional checks on the government were needed
2)It was risky explicitly listing some, as that might lead people to believe that unlisted rights didn't exist
3)The federal government wasn't thought to have powers to infringe anyway
But pass it did. And so, should the existing US government go too far it is just that it should be overturned, if necessary by force of arms. I sure wouldn't want to be helpless if it came down to that, and neither did they.
As for slavery, a lot of the northern states were opposed to it, and while it had become reasonably popular in the south (there were still indentures, and many people simply hired laborers) it was a very big sticking point. The colonies would simply never have agreed on the issue and their only solution was to shelve it until future generations could resolve things. Attempts were made to limit slavery though - importation ended at a fixed date.
Of course, slavery didn't *really* take off in the south until the cotton gin was developed.
But don't characterize all of the framers as slave owners, or accepting of slavery. Many were, but not all. (nb that it was also still legal in the UK at the time)
I concur. Just lookit the upcoming Presidential election. Would that I could check off "Send Bush and Gore both on a one-way trip to Hell"
Apple's GUI is AFAIK very proprietary, but is not just a rehash of the old Mac UI (in terms of the code, etc). But Carmack is working on X for it, and it already has a terminal if you can deal with that.
'course the most recent thing i have is MacOS X Server 1.0 and I never used it much, so someone else may have more info on this than I do.
A well regulated militia is certainly a good thing.
But the 2nd amendment doesn't let anyone's right to keep and bear arms be infringed whether you're in a militia or not. They're two seperate clauses, and the second isn't dependent on the first.
It doesn't hurt that the unorganized militia (which was used quite a bit in the Revolutionary War anyway, alongside organized militamen and the ocassional professional soldier) encompasses pretty much everyone though.
(cpt - doesn't own a gun, but strongly opposes infringement upon your right to own a gun)
I beg to differ. Uniforms are great if you're an interchangable part. This is why the military uses them (aside from uniforms sometimes having evolved useful features - BDUs are pretty useful, for instance). This is why big business used to use them.
Me, I don't like the idea much. And as it turns out, our society is growing less and less uniform all the time. I wear silkscreened t-shirts and jeans to work. Even if I were in a more formal environment I could still choose from a number of different colors of shirts, slacks, jackets and let's not get into ties. Who the hell would have work a pink shirt fifty years ago?
I say let 'em wear anything that you can wear on the street. T-Shirts are not terribly distracting unless you're the only person who's got one.
Well... an informed and concerned population is the best defense against larval tyranny. If you oppose would-be dictators, and reveal them for what they are to people who care, you'll nip it in the bud.
But having a second line of defense is not a bad plan. Should tyrants assume enough power that morals and laws can't stop them, a greater price must be paid to set things right.
I think that we'd be best off if we'd prepare for what has to be done if we fail, and then do our damnest not to fail. For when we do, we'll no longer get to prepare.
You mean Clarke wrt communications satellites. But there's certainly no lack of stuff that has come from Einstein's work either. Bagels for instance ;)
While I do work in the web industry, i'm a graphic illustrator. I can fall back on print media if it comes to it, and i've got a few other tricks up my sleeves....
I would live with MS being recalled to the ninth level of hell. And my rent (out in Bellevue - the most boring city in the region) might even go down.
;)
Sadly, I live within the minimum safe distance, or else I might be more tolerant of a direct approach to MS.
That's entirely irrelevant.
Unless there's some kind of monopoly (ie patents), or the developers of DeCSS et al signed contracts agreeing that they would not do anything (ie trade secrets), it's quite legal to RE.
You're telling me that just 'cos Dell makes computers that I can't make my own? Stupid argument. Even the judges involved in this case aren't that dumb.
Fair enough. I wish that I could vote for 'None of the above' rather than either vote for a guy that I don't like (which only encourages them) or not vote at all (which only encourages them).
;)
Personally, I think that if George Washington were alive now, rather than endorse any politician, he'd probably say something like: "Help! Help! Get me out of this coffin!"