"But as far as I can see, if you do give some user the source to your entire program, including the bits that were originally released by others under the BSD, then those bits are still under the BSD to that user. Why wouldn't they? You're not the author, you can't relicense the code. Just that you're allowed to do a lot with it doesn't change the license."
How is this an issue? Even if that user got that code from someone under the GPL and not the BSD, they also have a / can have a BSD license to it from the original author. Yes? No? (So I can see why the lack of notice could be an issue.)
"(and as a note: I don't download copyrighted material at all -- for the most part, it isn't worth it. I am just getting fed up with their have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too philosophy)"
Given up reading slashdot have you?
"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster."
Check the bottom of the pages....
I know what you are getting at, but if you use the net, with the laws as they currently stand, it is practically impossible to not download (in some fashion) copyrighted material. That is one of the big problems with the laws as they stand. Pretty much (with a few exception perhaps) everything that gets created and recorded is automatically copyrighted.
(except that they didn't get $$$ - but did they ever expect money in return for CC-NC content?)
My guess would be yes. If they used BY-NC-SA instead of BY-SA, it would possibly be because they do expect money is someone should make commercial use of the work.
I myself think NC makes for poor licenses, but none the less...
I personally prefer GPL and BY-SA though I am not fully happy with BY-Sa as it stands. (Not commenting on the GPL happiness at all.)
Well, the write up says that wikia is a commercial entity. According to the generally accepted thought about the NC option (from what I gather) a for profit corporation cannot avail themselves of any NC based licenses whatsoever.
By definition, it is said, everything they do is primarily for profit.
Personally, I don't like seeing non-Free licenses called copyleft, but that is a different argument. "Copyleft - all rights reversed" just doesn't work well in that case.
I think you misunderstood my request. I was pointing out a way to give the hand countable paper trail ballots others want and what you want at the same time. The paper ballot I refer to is not your to keep, but rather to drop in to the ballot box. The machine would print it to match your actual vote and not your extra papers per your plan.
Something in this all is not making sense to me... Perhaps it is just too early and I was up too late.
So, assuming what you say above is right for a minute, I would say, just print a paper ballot along with the paper receipt providing cryptographic proof that the voter ID you were shown in step 1 voted for the candidate you chose. And you optional receipts... no optional ballots...
Put the ballot in the box outside the booth and carry on with your plan from there on.
I dunno either, if you get your stuff from Novell to get the patent protection, don't you lose that if you take advantage of any of the advantages that the GPL gives you? (Or at least many of the advantages that the GPL gives you.)
Much GPL software is commercial software. You seem to be using the term in such a way that makes it impossible for GPL software to be commercial software. I am just trying to get it cleared up.
"That doesn't seem true at all. Plenty of OSS programs out there release a GPL version for non-commercial uses, and a pay version under a proprietary and for-pay licensing scheme."
What sort of definition of commercial are you using here? I know of no one doing this for my take on commercial. I think I know what you are getting at, but if someone releases a program under the GPL, they cannot tell you that you can only make non-commercial use of that program. You can use it in a commercial setting, you can use it to make as much money as you can, you can even sell copies for as much as you can... all so long as you follow the GPL.
"I think it would be a lot more simple and fairer if we reverted to using simple contracts(license agreements) combined with our copyrights which are well understood and well administered within a common law system."
Seems like you are asking for a hybrid system.
If you are going to go the license route, you can actually get closer to a free market in these things. Do away with copyrights completely and let the contracts do the job. Or let the free market come up with a better solution that doesn't involve the government having to grant monopolies.
If you want to keep the copyright system because you think that the free market cannot do a better job in this instance, don't be surprised if people ask the government to stap in and fix things from time to time. (For loose enough takes on fix....)
"Oh, you're right. But please supply a better system if you can. I'm all ears."
Sure, but first things first.
To me items protected by copyrights and patents do not trade in a free market but rather are items protected by government granted monopolies.
The free market may or may not be able to come up with a better solution to this problem. You would think that free market types (and I mostly consider myself one) would be calling for the government to stop interfering in this market. And in my experience, market players like to pretend they are for the free market when people suggest that the government step in and fix abuses of the copyright or patent situation and they make noise about letting the market decide.
To me, to push for the market to decide is to push for copyrights and patents to be abolished.
Now to the better system. I consider the one enacted by the founders of the US to be better than the one the US has today. Simple enough really.
Now for some of my real thoughts on making this better, see my "Some thoughts on a "Copyright Offensive" at this link:
Could a free market not come up with better ways to encourage and protect creators than government granted monopolies? I am not sure in this case, but I certainly see little willingness to try on anyone's part.
"But IF you are going to share anyway (note the big 'if'), why can't you share with the BSD coders who made it possible?"
Is this an honest question? Isn't it obvious that the GPL folks will not do that because they cannot just share it with the BSD coders who made it possible. To share it with the BSD coders, they would also have to share it with the lock up coders. Something they are unwilling to do and hence their choice of the GPL and not the BSD in the first place. Do you see some third way I am not getting right now?
There are plenty of people who offer dual licenses, one Free and one not Free.
Just because you give away Free licensed work for free, does not mean that you do not want to make money selling licenses to those who are unwilling to deal with the Free license.
"Downloading's a bit different in that you don't need to have the original to download an MP3. The vast majority of downloaders don't have the originals. Ergo, lost profits."
Not having the original does not equate to not having purchased the original and not having the legal right to that purchase. There are many things that can cause one to not be in possession of the original which one purchased.
Furthermore, you may be in possession of an original that is not suitable for ripping for any number of reasons.
And have they ever said that ripping is OK in their eyes in any case?
That said, my recommendation on how to deal with the whole issue is to seek out and support artists who use Free licenses for their work, preferably copyleft ones.
"Plus, after all, the number of distributions has been rising for a long time."
Hmmm, no, it couldn't be! No way Microsoft would be funding all those extra distros so as to have more fodder for FUD. Sorry I brought it up. Please ignore this post.
"Piracy, where the numbers are real or exaggerated,has real damages. What is the dollar cost of copyfraud?"
Well, I am not sure exactly what you are asking, but I will take a guess and have a go at an answer...
Since you nor anyone else can put an actual dollar cost on copyright violations, I will not try and put and actual dollar cost on what is being called copyfraud here.
Real damages... In some instances, ok, hard to pin down, but not hard to imagine that they could exist for some instances while in other instances of copyright violation, the copyright holder actually benefits in a monetary sense.
Real damages in cases of copyfraud... Someone makes a claim of copyright to a work in the public domain. Someone else, not knowing the work is in the public domain pays up. "That would be a real damage."
Someone sees a false claim of copyright to a work in the public domain and so refrains from releasing their new work derived from that work in the public domain and so does not earn the income they could have from that work. "That would be a real damage."
Someone sees a false claim of copyright to a work in the public domain and so hires a lawyer to look into the situation. "That would be a real damage."
Slashdot Mirror
"But as far as I can see, if you do give some user the source to your entire program, including the bits that were originally released by others under the BSD, then those bits are still under the BSD to that user. Why wouldn't they? You're not the author, you can't relicense the code. Just that you're allowed to do a lot with it doesn't change the license."
How is this an issue? Even if that user got that code from someone under the GPL and not the BSD, they also have a / can have a BSD license to it from the original author. Yes? No? (So I can see why the lack of notice could be an issue.)
all the best,
drew
"I don't think the license makes this claim and I've seen very little legal writing to support the conclusion."
Well, here you go;
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/DiscussionDraftNonCommercial_Guidelines
Not that I disagree with your reasoning mind you. Go check the cc-licenses mailing list for many discussion re NC and how much fun it is.
NC is not something I would want to touch.
all the best,
drew
"(and as a note: I don't download copyrighted material at all -- for the most part, it isn't worth it. I am just getting fed up with their have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too philosophy)"
Given up reading slashdot have you?
"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster."
Check the bottom of the pages....
I know what you are getting at, but if you use the net, with the laws as they currently stand, it is practically impossible to not download (in some fashion) copyrighted material. That is one of the big problems with the laws as they stand. Pretty much (with a few exception perhaps) everything that gets created and recorded is automatically copyrighted.
all the best,
drew
http://rukiddinmez.blogspot.com/
R U Kiddin Me?!?!?!
(except that they didn't get $$$ - but did they ever expect money in return for CC-NC content?)
My guess would be yes. If they used BY-NC-SA instead of BY-SA, it would possibly be because they do expect money is someone should make commercial use of the work.
I myself think NC makes for poor licenses, but none the less...
I personally prefer GPL and BY-SA though I am not fully happy with BY-Sa as it stands. (Not commenting on the GPL happiness at all.)
all the best,
drew
http://rukiddinmez.blogspot.com/
R U Kiddin Me?!?!?!
Well, the write up says that wikia is a commercial entity. According to the generally accepted thought about the NC option (from what I gather) a for profit corporation cannot avail themselves of any NC based licenses whatsoever.
By definition, it is said, everything they do is primarily for profit.
Personally, I don't like seeing non-Free licenses called copyleft, but that is a different argument. "Copyleft - all rights reversed" just doesn't work well in that case.
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=178
Underwater Joy
I think you misunderstood my request. I was pointing out a way to give the hand countable paper trail ballots others want and what you want at the same time. The paper ballot I refer to is not your to keep, but rather to drop in to the ballot box. The machine would print it to match your actual vote and not your extra papers per your plan.
all the best,
drew
Something in this all is not making sense to me... Perhaps it is just too early and I was up too late.
So, assuming what you say above is right for a minute, I would say, just print a paper ballot along with the paper receipt providing cryptographic proof that the voter ID you were shown in step 1 voted for the candidate you chose. And you optional receipts... no optional ballots...
Put the ballot in the box outside the booth and carry on with your plan from there on.
Problems?
all the best,
drew
http://pc.celtx.com/search?q=zotz&c=&o=rel
as I posted recently here on /.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256957&cid=20023125
Put the presidential and congressional races on one ballot, the rest on another if you like.
You could even have, national, state, local, and special ballots.
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=178
Underwater Musings
"I dunno."
I dunno either, if you get your stuff from Novell to get the patent protection, don't you lose that if you take advantage of any of the advantages that the GPL gives you? (Or at least many of the advantages that the GPL gives you.)
all the best,
drew
I have no clue how this is supposed to be an answer to the question I asked.
all the best,
drew
"Dual licensing works because people that want to make commercial software and don't want to follow the GPL."
I know what people do, but what definition of commercial are you using?
http://www.innovativefinance.org/home_tools/glossary/C.htm
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=commercial
Much GPL software is commercial software. You seem to be using the term in such a way that makes it impossible for GPL software to be commercial software. I am just trying to get it cleared up.
all the best,
drew
http://pc.celtx.com/search/zotz
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro
"That doesn't seem true at all. Plenty of OSS programs out there release a GPL version for non-commercial uses, and a pay version under a proprietary and for-pay licensing scheme."
7 8
What sort of definition of commercial are you using here? I know of no one doing this for my take on commercial. I think I know what you are getting at, but if someone releases a program under the GPL, they cannot tell you that you can only make non-commercial use of that program. You can use it in a commercial setting, you can use it to make as much money as you can, you can even sell copies for as much as you can... all so long as you follow the GPL.
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=1
Underwater stuff...
"If you *sell* me your car, I can do as I damn well please with it and there's not a damn thing you can say or do about it."
Are you sure he is wrong on that when it comes to cars? Seems to me that you can sell houses with restrictive covenants and easements. (and more?)
In the example he gave, could you perhaps consider the purchaser having to show up for the shoots at certain times as part of the payment?
all the best,
drew
"I think it would be a lot more simple and fairer if we reverted to using simple contracts(license agreements) combined with our copyrights which are well understood and well administered within a common law system."
Seems like you are asking for a hybrid system.
If you are going to go the license route, you can actually get closer to a free market in these things. Do away with copyrights completely and let the contracts do the job. Or let the free market come up with a better solution that doesn't involve the government having to grant monopolies.
If you want to keep the copyright system because you think that the free market cannot do a better job in this instance, don't be surprised if people ask the government to stap in and fix things from time to time. (For loose enough takes on fix....)
all the best,
drew
"Oh, you're right. But please supply a better system if you can. I'm all ears."
Sure, but first things first.
To me items protected by copyrights and patents do not trade in a free market but rather are items protected by government granted monopolies.
The free market may or may not be able to come up with a better solution to this problem. You would think that free market types (and I mostly consider myself one) would be calling for the government to stop interfering in this market. And in my experience, market players like to pretend they are for the free market when people suggest that the government step in and fix abuses of the copyright or patent situation and they make noise about letting the market decide.
To me, to push for the market to decide is to push for copyrights and patents to be abolished.
Now to the better system. I consider the one enacted by the founders of the US to be better than the one the US has today. Simple enough really.
Now for some of my real thoughts on making this better, see my "Some thoughts on a "Copyright Offensive" at this link:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/
If you are interested, please comment there as such things here get locked after a while. I tried it already here:
http://slashdot.org/~zotz/journal/154538
Could a free market not come up with better ways to encourage and protect creators than government granted monopolies? I am not sure in this case, but I certainly see little willingness to try on anyone's part.
all the best,
drew
"But IF you are going to share anyway (note the big 'if'), why can't you share with the BSD coders who made it possible?"
Is this an honest question? Isn't it obvious that the GPL folks will not do that because they cannot just share it with the BSD coders who made it possible. To share it with the BSD coders, they would also have to share it with the lock up coders. Something they are unwilling to do and hence their choice of the GPL and not the BSD in the first place. Do you see some third way I am not getting right now?
all the best,
drew
"I wish Cory would cut the writers some slack and admit that the copyright system, however flawed, is really pretty fair."
7 8
I don't know about Cory, but I think the system is far from fair. Very far from fair. In many, many ways.
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=1
Some CC BY-SA photos for your enjoyment...
I wouldn't say that...
7 8
There are plenty of people who offer dual licenses, one Free and one not Free.
Just because you give away Free licensed work for free, does not mean that you do not want to make money selling licenses to those who are unwilling to deal with the Free license.
Plus, do statutory damages only apply to music?
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=1
"Downloading's a bit different in that you don't need to have the original to download an MP3. The vast majority of downloaders don't have the originals. Ergo, lost profits."
7 8
Not having the original does not equate to not having purchased the original and not having the legal right to that purchase. There are many things that can cause one to not be in possession of the original which one purchased.
Furthermore, you may be in possession of an original that is not suitable for ripping for any number of reasons.
And have they ever said that ripping is OK in their eyes in any case?
That said, my recommendation on how to deal with the whole issue is to seek out and support artists who use Free licenses for their work, preferably copyleft ones.
all the best,
drew
http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=1
Put the presidential and congressional races on one ballot, the rest on another if you like.
You could even have, national, state, local, and special ballots.
Count national first.
What is the maximum number of choices you guys need to make for a national election with no special votes?
all the best,
drew
I have a chess war program which adds randomness to chess.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zbcw
I would be interested in any comments.
all the best,
drew
"Plus, after all, the number of distributions has been rising for a long time."
Hmmm, no, it couldn't be! No way Microsoft would be funding all those extra distros so as to have more fodder for FUD. Sorry I brought it up. Please ignore this post.
all the best,
drew
"ps: the reply button is in the floaty box to the left now."
If they meant original article and existing reply, I can't either and there is no box over to the left for me to do so on this browser...
I have had to switch to the old system in to past if I needed to reply to the article itself.
all the best,
drew
Hey Abbooooooooooot!
s tello+loafing&btnG=Search
http://www.abbottandcostello.net/loafing.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=abbot+and+co
all the best,
drew
"Piracy, where the numbers are real or exaggerated,has real damages. What is the dollar cost of copyfraud?"
Well, I am not sure exactly what you are asking, but I will take a guess and have a go at an answer...
Since you nor anyone else can put an actual dollar cost on copyright violations, I will not try and put and actual dollar cost on what is being called copyfraud here.
Real damages... In some instances, ok, hard to pin down, but not hard to imagine that they could exist for some instances while in other instances of copyright violation, the copyright holder actually benefits in a monetary sense.
Real damages in cases of copyfraud... Someone makes a claim of copyright to a work in the public domain. Someone else, not knowing the work is in the public domain pays up. "That would be a real damage."
Someone sees a false claim of copyright to a work in the public domain and so refrains from releasing their new work derived from that work in the public domain and so does not earn the income they could have from that work. "That would be a real damage."
Someone sees a false claim of copyright to a work in the public domain and so hires a lawyer to look into the situation. "That would be a real damage."
all the best,
drew