What if the publishing industry demands similar rights? They'd need the ability to make any book or magazine spontaneously combust if they thought there was a danger of their copyrights being violated. Just imagine... someone finds an interesting article in a magazine, so they decide to photocopy it and pass it around the office. Instantly the magazine and the photocopy both ignite and turn to ash, thus preventing the unauthorized duplication. People would never (hopefully) allow this situation to occur... but somehow the rules all change when it's software.
What is a greater cost to society? Handing out clean needles to people, or years and years of HIV/AIDS treatment? People think that giving people needles will 'send the wrong message', or make it seem like we condone the illegal drug use... this is total bullshit. They're going to do it whether they have clean needles or not. Show some compassion, and take the opportunity to educate these people while they are picking up their needles.
which are something PHB-types can understand. Pay phones can be used for all kinds of "bad things" like: calling 1-900 sex numbers, making drug deals, making obscene or prank phone calls, etc... the point is, we have laws to deal with the people who cause trouble for others. We don't try to prevent the "bad things" by blocking certain numbers, or monitoring phone calls, or having security guards watch over public phone users. There is no reason to have a different set of rules for the same content carried over different communications media.
Slashdot Mirror
What if the publishing industry demands similar rights? They'd need the ability to make any book or magazine spontaneously combust if they thought there was a danger of their copyrights being violated. Just imagine... someone finds an interesting article in a magazine, so they decide to photocopy it and pass it around the office. Instantly the magazine and the photocopy both ignite and turn to ash, thus preventing the unauthorized duplication. People would never (hopefully) allow this situation to occur... but somehow the rules all change when it's software.
What is a greater cost to society? Handing out clean needles to people, or years and years of HIV/AIDS treatment? People think that giving people needles will 'send the wrong message', or make it seem like we condone the illegal drug use... this is total bullshit. They're going to do it whether they have clean needles or not. Show some compassion, and take the opportunity to educate these people while they are picking up their needles.
which are something PHB-types can understand. Pay phones can be used for all kinds of "bad things" like: calling 1-900 sex numbers, making drug deals, making obscene or prank phone calls, etc... the point is, we have laws to deal with the people who cause trouble for others. We don't try to prevent the "bad things" by blocking certain numbers, or monitoring phone calls, or having security guards watch over public phone users. There is no reason to have a different set of rules for the same content carried over different communications media.