From this it seems that M$ is really trying to get the government to invalidate the GPL
That would be playing a dangerous game -- the result could be a legal precedent that limits or even invalidates the MS EULA, especially if the judge figures out that MS is trying to blow smoke up his robe. /.
No, it's a problem. It's that the rights of the artists aren't being respected that I think is the problem. And with CD writers and MP3s and Napster, the artists have lost control of the uses of their recordings.
Artists have not lost control over the uses of their recordings. Artists never had control over the uses of their recordings. Artists were never supposed to have control over the uses of their recordings.
What they (or whoever they sell to) have is a temporary monopoly over the distribution of copies of their works.
This blurring of the fundamental distinction between reproduction and access is a key element of recording industry Newspeak, behind which they hide their grab of new monopoly privileges which are nowhere to be found in the Constitutional basis of American copyright law. /.
actually, I was demonizing him for being a hypocrit, by bashing on me for making a (incidental to the point of my post) personal comment and then going on to whine about how the poor little boy scouts were being hurt by IP.
Your straw man irritates my sinuses, so let's return to those thrilling days of yesteryear and read the actual argument in question:
These are songs which
have been sung around the campfire for decades, some which my grandfather probably sung when he was a boy, which would have obviously been public domain and freely used if copyright had not been stretched and beaten into submission by organizations like the RIAA--and here, they were trying to extract royalty payments from the Boy Scouts!
(Emphasis added to make it a bit more obvious that the objection was is not to IP per se, but to the encroachment of IP into what had been the public domain.) /.
Secondly, this is the LAST census. Do I believe them?
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.
-- United States Constitution, Article I, Section 2
Of course, it would hardly be the first time the government has blatantly violated the Constitution.... /.
As much as I'm sure all of you honest, law-abiding citizens loathe such a plan, the sad fact is that it's a bi-product of our zero accountability society.
Yes; it's a by-product of a system that does not punish politicians and bureaucrats when they violate the rights of citizens.
If the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, why aren't legislators who pass un-Constitutional laws in prison? /.
An example of this is what happened with the aborted sequel to Babylon 5. TNT wanted to make it into a combo Baywatch/WWF in Space. Fortunately the author (jms) told them where to go. If that is what they want, then let the marketroids write it themselves.
They tried, but they lost their orange crayon and had to quit. /.
It is ridiculous to tear down barriers to government abuse -- much less to give the government new powers to abuse -- simply because they sometimes get away with abuses already. It's like deciding that, since a teenager will sometimes sneak a drink anyway, you might as well give him the key to the liquor cabinet. /.
Your straw men are aggrivating my hay fever, so let's blow a few of them away:
In an emergency, I won't be able to drive fast. How can I get my spouse/child/parent to the hospital in time?!
There are white trucks with red flashing lights, a siren and trained personnel called ambulances that handle this sort of thing.
As anyone familiar with basic arithmetic will realize, the time it takes for an ambulance to cover distance 2X is going to be greater than the time for a car to cover distance X (X = distance between emergency and hospital) unless the car's speed is less than half the speed it is physically possible to drive (which will clearly not be the case in an emergency situation).
But what if I'm in a remote area?
There's almost always some sort of "official personnel" nearby
Er, is this some new definition of the word "remote" with which I have not been familiar?
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! This invades my privacy!
If you're so naive to believe that this is a "new" problem created by this device, go ahead.
The new problem is that a government bureaucrat can track someone by pushing a few buttons in his comfy office. This makes tracking for trivial and illegitimate causes much more likely than the old system, under which agents in the field had to go observe in person and risk getting caught. (Example: If G. Gordon Liddy had been able to listen in on Democratic Party HQ by simply flipping a switch in the White House basement, we probably wouldn't know to this day that he'd done it.)
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! They'll know I'm speeding / visiting a prostitute / buying drugs / running guns!
GOOD. These are ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.
"The government will know I'm visiting somebody on the Enemies' List / buying anarchist literature / running antiwar protests!
(Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Can't Happen Here[tm].)
/.
There is no political will in the United States to stop speeding.
Local authorities in the US have no desire to stop speeding. Their game plan is to set speed limits 15-20 MPH below the normal speed of traffic, and randomly pick out people from whom to collect tribute, er, fines. /.
In it, he describes man's view of the Earth from the Moon in surprisingly accurate detail, with the idea that the Earth would "rise" and "set", and have phases the way the moon does from Earth's view.
It would have phases, but not rise and set in the usual sense of the words -- the Earth stays in place as seen from the Moon, because the Moon keeps the same face to Earth at all times (a fact known to anybody with normal eyesight who pays attention for a few weeks).
(Because the Moon's orbit is a bit elliptical, it does "wobble" back and forth a bit relative to Earth, so Earth would oscillate from just above the horizon to just below the horizon as seen from areas near the limb of the Moon.) /.
"Reform" that limits the ability of private organizations to advertise would increase the relative power of the established mass media (by reducing the ability of everybody else to disseminate a political message). Given that the mass media are owned by the same people who bought the DCMA, that would worsen, not strengthen, the position of people attempting to restore fair use rights.
Worse, it would make hash of the First Amendment. Even under existing contribution regulations, the IRS is proposing to regulate Web links on pages published by non-profit organizations. McCain-Feingold would open the floodgates to similar abuses against any individual or organization in the country. /.
If a content provider takes steps to ensure that I cannot do some of the things that copyright says I can do, then that sends a clear signal that the content producer does not want copyright law to apply to their product.
Law (at least in the US) doesn't work that way, as entertaining as it would be in some cases (imagine if Bill Clinton sued you and you were allowed to take the stand and lie as much as you wanted because Clinton has signaled that he does not want perjury law to apply to him....). /.
Cuba has survived four decades of economic blocade
Pah-leeze. I favor ending the embargo for the simple reason that it would deny Castro and his apologists this stupid excuse. Blaming the systemic problems which have cropped up in every communist nation on the embargo (not a "blockade" -- Cuba can trade with every other nation in the world) is ludicrous on the "frog with no legs is deaf" level.
you complain that its luxuary imports like cars are ageing
Reasonably recent and functional cars are routinely available in countries with (partially) free markets. /.
TV/Movie/Music "production" groups gave much more heavily to the Dems than the GOP, but Cable/TV/Radio stations/owners gave more heavily to the GOP than the Dems.
Yes, and it's the former who gain the most from de facto abolition of fair use rights -- broadcast stations don't make more money if you have to buy a replacement copy of a recording because you couldn't back it up or transfer it to a new platform, and in fact they lose audience if consumers can't effectively time-shift programming.
If Dubya is smart (I know that a lot of you are thinking "yeah, and if pigs can fly...") he'll try to reverse some of these Clinton-era political payoffs to Hollywood. /.
I have written my Congressman and Senator, the previous President and as of this morning, I have written the new President on these matters.
The best practical political suggestion I can think of is to channel the anti-Hollywood sentiment in the GOP as a force for Good (protection of fair use rights, setting copyright terms at a reasonable length, etc) rather than Evil (censorship). The catch is that this requires politicians to function beyond the knee-jerk level.
/.
I thought the concept of "fair use" didn't extend to for-profit ventures.
Not so. People who write reviews for pay have no less (and no more) fair use right to quote snippets for commentary purposes as people who write reviews free of charge. /.
At what point did the Internet change from being a government-sponsored communications entity to being the great bastion of unregulated free-speech and anonymity?
When private ISPs first connected to it, of course. When it was run purely by government agencies for government purposes, those agencies had the right to control it for the same reason I have the right to control the use of the computer sitting in front of me. Once that situation changed, the government lost this property-based right, and has no such right on any other basis.
the idea that the purpose of the Internet was such an anarchy was a self-appointed decision by anti-establishment people who imposed their own social agenda on a communication medium
Insofar as I can parse this statement, it seems to be asserting that some anacho-fascist cabal forcibly imposed the agenda of rejecting all forcibly imposed agendas.
They acted without authority
They acted without authority to impose an absence of authority?
My brain hurts.
and today scream with indignation when governments exercise their due powers
Er, the claim that censorship is part of any government's "due powers" is what you're required to prove before your argument can be taken seriously.
anarchic rules
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
I should not have to tell you that a great many things done on the Internet are irresponsible, reprehensible and damaging to the interests of others
You have misframed the argument in a manner which avoids the issue. If I say that you seem profoundly clueless, that may be irresponsible and reprehensible, and insofar as anybody believes me it is certainly damaging to your interests, but you really have no recourse except to offer a rebuttal. If, on the other hand, I say something actionable, you do have recourse, because I would then be violating your rights, not your far more expansive "interests".
They ignore the fact that when any tool or system becomes destructive of our society, we have the right to disband or destroy that tool or system.
No, you don't.
For examples, the Industrial Revolution was destructive of the existing pre-industrial society, and yet Luddite mobs had no right to "disband or destroy" the private property of the industrialists.
I won't feel sorrow if the government regulates Internet content, provided that it is in keeping with the laws of our nation.
Er, "Congress shall make no law...." IS the law of our nation.
/.
That these corporations may weild the government as a weapon against us it irrelevant
This is preposterous -- deny corporations the ability to weild the government as a weapon, and all they can do to anybody who isn't an employee is make bad faces at them. /.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be playing a dangerous game -- the result could be a legal precedent that limits or even invalidates the MS EULA, especially if the judge figures out that MS is trying to blow smoke up his robe.
/.
Artists have not lost control over the uses of their recordings. Artists never had control over the uses of their recordings. Artists were never supposed to have control over the uses of their recordings.
What they (or whoever they sell to) have is a temporary monopoly over the distribution of copies of their works.
This blurring of the fundamental distinction between reproduction and access is a key element of recording industry Newspeak, behind which they hide their grab of new monopoly privileges which are nowhere to be found in the Constitutional basis of American copyright law.
/.
Your straw man irritates my sinuses, so let's return to those thrilling days of yesteryear and read the actual argument in question:
(Emphasis added to make it a bit more obvious that the objection was is not to IP per se, but to the encroachment of IP into what had been the public domain.)/.
/.
/.
Given that there are several Supreme Court precedents upholding the right to speak anonymously, how can they possibly expect this to survive challenge?
/.
Yes; it's a by-product of a system that does not punish politicians and bureaucrats when they violate the rights of citizens.
If the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, why aren't legislators who pass un-Constitutional laws in prison?
/.
That's absurd -- if somebody said he was going to burn down the school would you relax because nobody has matches?
/.
They tried, but they lost their orange crayon and had to quit.
/.
A two-hour version of the In Living Color sketch "The Wrath of Farrakhan", directed by Spike Lee?
/.
"Less well-financed criminal operations" == "a crook who can't afford a used 386 system with a 9600-baud modem"
I think /. folks shouldn't just have a knee-jerk reaction but should try to think of reasonable government encryption regulation.
Reasonable regulation means curtailing, not expanding, the powers of government agencies which establish a clear track record of abuse.
/.
It is ridiculous to tear down barriers to government abuse -- much less to give the government new powers to abuse -- simply because they sometimes get away with abuses already. It's like deciding that, since a teenager will sometimes sneak a drink anyway, you might as well give him the key to the liquor cabinet.
/.
In an emergency, I won't be able to drive fast. How can I get my spouse/child/parent to the hospital in time?!
There are white trucks with red flashing lights, a siren and trained personnel called ambulances that handle this sort of thing.
As anyone familiar with basic arithmetic will realize, the time it takes for an ambulance to cover distance 2X is going to be greater than the time for a car to cover distance X (X = distance between emergency and hospital) unless the car's speed is less than half the speed it is physically possible to drive (which will clearly not be the case in an emergency situation).
But what if I'm in a remote area?
There's almost always some sort of "official personnel" nearby
Er, is this some new definition of the word "remote" with which I have not been familiar?
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! This invades my privacy!
If you're so naive to believe that this is a "new" problem created by this device, go ahead.
The new problem is that a government bureaucrat can track someone by pushing a few buttons in his comfy office. This makes tracking for trivial and illegitimate causes much more likely than the old system, under which agents in the field had to go observe in person and risk getting caught. (Example: If G. Gordon Liddy had been able to listen in on Democratic Party HQ by simply flipping a switch in the White House basement, we probably wouldn't know to this day that he'd done it.)
The government will know where I'm going! They'll know exactly what I'm doing! They'll know I'm speeding / visiting a prostitute / buying drugs / running guns!
GOOD. These are ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.
"The government will know I'm visiting somebody on the Enemies' List / buying anarchist literature / running antiwar protests!
(Please don't make yourself look more foolish than you already do by asserting that harassment of political dissidents Can't Happen Here[tm].)
/.
Local authorities in the US have no desire to stop speeding. Their game plan is to set speed limits 15-20 MPH below the normal speed of traffic, and randomly pick out people from whom to collect tribute, er, fines.
/.
It would have phases, but not rise and set in the usual sense of the words -- the Earth stays in place as seen from the Moon, because the Moon keeps the same face to Earth at all times (a fact known to anybody with normal eyesight who pays attention for a few weeks).
(Because the Moon's orbit is a bit elliptical, it does "wobble" back and forth a bit relative to Earth, so Earth would oscillate from just above the horizon to just below the horizon as seen from areas near the limb of the Moon.)
/.
Worse, it would make hash of the First Amendment. Even under existing contribution regulations, the IRS is proposing to regulate Web links on pages published by non-profit organizations. McCain-Feingold would open the floodgates to similar abuses against any individual or organization in the country.
/.
Law (at least in the US) doesn't work that way, as entertaining as it would be in some cases (imagine if Bill Clinton sued you and you were allowed to take the stand and lie as much as you wanted because Clinton has signaled that he does not want perjury law to apply to him....).
/.
That does seem to be one of the basic tenets of Communism.
/.
Pah-leeze. I favor ending the embargo for the simple reason that it would deny Castro and his apologists this stupid excuse. Blaming the systemic problems which have cropped up in every communist nation on the embargo (not a "blockade" -- Cuba can trade with every other nation in the world) is ludicrous on the "frog with no legs is deaf" level.
you complain that its luxuary imports like cars are ageing
Reasonably recent and functional cars are routinely available in countries with (partially) free markets.
/.
Why on earth would you predict that when the evidence indicates a correlation in precisely the opposite direction?
/.
Yes, and it's the former who gain the most from de facto abolition of fair use rights -- broadcast stations don't make more money if you have to buy a replacement copy of a recording because you couldn't back it up or transfer it to a new platform, and in fact they lose audience if consumers can't effectively time-shift programming.
If Dubya is smart (I know that a lot of you are thinking "yeah, and if pigs can fly...") he'll try to reverse some of these Clinton-era political payoffs to Hollywood.
/.
The best practical political suggestion I can think of is to channel the anti-Hollywood sentiment in the GOP as a force for Good (protection of fair use rights, setting copyright terms at a reasonable length, etc) rather than Evil (censorship). The catch is that this requires politicians to function beyond the knee-jerk level.
/.
Not so. People who write reviews for pay have no less (and no more) fair use right to quote snippets for commentary purposes as people who write reviews free of charge.
/.
When private ISPs first connected to it, of course. When it was run purely by government agencies for government purposes, those agencies had the right to control it for the same reason I have the right to control the use of the computer sitting in front of me. Once that situation changed, the government lost this property-based right, and has no such right on any other basis.
the idea that the purpose of the Internet was such an anarchy was a self-appointed decision by anti-establishment people who imposed their own social agenda on a communication medium
Insofar as I can parse this statement, it seems to be asserting that some anacho-fascist cabal forcibly imposed the agenda of rejecting all forcibly imposed agendas.
They acted without authority
They acted without authority to impose an absence of authority?
My brain hurts.
and today scream with indignation when governments exercise their due powers
Er, the claim that censorship is part of any government's "due powers" is what you're required to prove before your argument can be taken seriously.
anarchic rules
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
I should not have to tell you that a great many things done on the Internet are irresponsible, reprehensible and damaging to the interests of others
You have misframed the argument in a manner which avoids the issue. If I say that you seem profoundly clueless, that may be irresponsible and reprehensible, and insofar as anybody believes me it is certainly damaging to your interests, but you really have no recourse except to offer a rebuttal. If, on the other hand, I say something actionable, you do have recourse, because I would then be violating your rights, not your far more expansive "interests".
They ignore the fact that when any tool or system becomes destructive of our society, we have the right to disband or destroy that tool or system.
No, you don't.
For examples, the Industrial Revolution was destructive of the existing pre-industrial society, and yet Luddite mobs had no right to "disband or destroy" the private property of the industrialists.
I won't feel sorrow if the government regulates Internet content, provided that it is in keeping with the laws of our nation.
Er, "Congress shall make no law...." IS the law of our nation.
/.
This is preposterous -- deny corporations the ability to weild the government as a weapon, and all they can do to anybody who isn't an employee is make bad faces at them.
/.