lol; actually, my sig refers to my own friends/foes list. Whenever I see insightful comments, I make the person a friend so I view their comments at a higher score. It really made the content of slashdot improve, but then one day I discovered I was over the limit.:)
Weird; I think I agree with almost everything you say. Especially to cut off channels that independent artists have the same access to as the major record labels. I think the biggest tragedy of copyright is that it tends to benefit entrenched media/institutions/"content producers" and penalize the little guy's innovation.
The main thing I would disagree with is your definition of value. Actually I think we talking about two different kinds of value; you're right that when they report the value lost or "stolen" through copyright infringement they are basically making numbers up. Value is really determined only from the effects of independent parties choosing to buy and sell for each other; in other words, if you're willing to pay $X for it, it's worth $X.
My first UNIX installation was NetBSD/mac68k on a 100 Mb SCSI Zip disk. Blew my mind. I was so thrilled just finally know "the root password" on a machine. I remember I had to hex edit Apple's file partitioning software to recognize the Zip drive.
I think I used that system for a couple of small scale school projects. Never got it networked, but I dialed up to the school's server a couple of times.
Copyright law allows the copyright holder to steal my natural rights to free speech and to do as I will with my property (my right to duplicate any bits I have in any storage medium) and to engage in willful exchanges with others (my right to let someone else duplicate those bits into their storage medium).
OTOH, copyright infringement steals a statutory right of the copyright holder.
Me, I say repeal the statutory right in favor of the natural rights.
Copyright infringement still doesn't fit the definition of theft, because you still haven't affected someone else's property contrary to their wishes. If I copy bits off of my brother's hard drive, I've affected my hard drive and his hard drive, but noone else's. The original bits that belonged to someone else are still sitting on whatever medium they were recorded on, and neither my brother nor I has disturbed them or that storage media. Therefore, neither of us has used anyone's property contrary to the wishes of its owner, and neither of us has committed theft by any definition.
As for the Oxford English Dictionary, whether material or immaterial, the original bits and the medium they are recorded on are both still in the possession of the owner, so nothing was "taken."
Copyright is devaluation, not theft. Legal shennanigans to the contrary are just attempts to restrict the natural rights of others (contrary to their wishes, I might add).
The value of a good or service is rightfully established only by free individuals exercising their right to choose to engage or not engage in willful exchanges. Any attempt on the part of government to affect the value of a good or service must necessarily involve the infringement of the rights of one or more parties involved in the potential exchange.
(When did they put in a posting length limit? I've never hit that before. Did I really rant that much?:) )
Competition may undercut prices to devalue their competitors' products. This should not be illegal. It is an individual's right to do with his property as he chooses. If he chooses to sell it and take a loss, that is his right. While this might cause trouble for his competitors in the short-term, in the long-term he will not be able to sustain his loss, and the price will rise again, allowing more room in the market for competition to return. (Or else he will fund the loss with sales of another product, in which case competition can shift to competing over the new product.)
I do not believe content duplication should be illegal, because all it does is devalue the property of another. I believe that property consists only of the tangible medium in which the content is recorded. When I use my media to duplicate the content a friend possesses in his media, the value of the media upon which the original content is recorded may decrease, but I have not damaged or stolen the media, nor have I killed or injured anyone. Copyright law unfairly gives a third party control over an exchange between two individuals on the basis of perceived devaluation of that third party's property. Since devaluation of property is not a sufficient reason for which to restrict fundamental rights, this is unacceptable.
In the long term, devaluation due to content duplication may cause a product's value to go to zero. However, this is not always the case. RedHat Linux CDs may be duplicated without restriction, yet they still retail for $5 at Linux Central, and original RedHat CDs from RedHat with support retail for over $40. Even if the value of the content were reduced to zero, it would still not be a sufficient reason to restrict the rights of others. There is a time during which the value of the content is positive; in this time the originator of the content can secure a (non-exclusive) profit. Once the value of the content is zero, the originator needs to move on and compete on a different product. Rights should not be infringed to guarantee profitability to anyone for any reason.
Currently United States law restricts my rights, supposedly to encourage innovation. This is a tradeoff I would refuse if asked. Even if the innovation of others is encouraged, I would not choose to have my rights infringed by law. I refuse to take advantage of the law to restrict the rights of others regarding content I create, and I choose to work within the system to persuade others of the importance of these rights in the hopes that this unfair restriction may one day be removed.
Duplication of creative content is not stealing since the original owner of the content still possesses it. Why is duplication considered to be so immoral? Duplication is devaluation; while the original owner still has the bits, those bits are no longer worth what they were before. Supply has increased, and intersects with the demand curve at a lower point, which means the same bits now sell at a lower price.
Obviously the creators of the content would like to insure that they remain the sole entity allowed to collect revenues for the content, and also insure that the price point is as high on the demand curve as possible. But do they have this right? Does their self-interest override that of other people?
The Constitution provides a limited-time monopoly on duplication of content to its creator, and our legal system has inferred that this monopoly may be transferred. Not everyone involved in early American government agreed with this idea, however. In particular, Thomas Jefferson pointed out that the spreading of ideas could not be stopped, benefitted the public, and could not be said to have truly harmed the originator of the ideas since he still possessed them.
The real question is not whether duplication is illegal, or whether it is immoral; it is whether it should be illegal. Not all activities that are illegal should be illegal; not all activities that are immoral should be illegal, either.
The supposed harmful effect of duplication is devaluation of the original. I say "supposed," because it is entirely likely that the loss of value to the content originator is far exceeded by the economy's gain in value as the content is reproduced. But should activities be illegal just because they devalue someone else's property?
I believe that rights should be absolute and unlimited except as they interfere with the rights of others. I believe the government exists solely to protect those rights from infringement by others within and without the government's jurisdiction. Individuals have the right to do whatever they choose with their person or property, so long as it does not interfere with another individual's right to do so. In other words, any activity engaged in by two individuals must involve the consent of both, and requires the consent of noone else.
This sometimes allows activities that I personally might find abhorrent. As a Christian, I find many activities to be wrong that the general public does not. However, this does not give me a right to regulate their activities or infringe upon their rights. Individuals may say things I disagree with; they do not need my consent to speak. However, I may or may not consent to listen. So long as the activity of another individual does not without my consent harm or kill me, or damage or confiscate my property, those activities should still be legal.
Activities that devalue the property of another do not actually harm that individual. The individual still possesses the property, and the property has not actually changed. These activities should be allowed. If an individual spreads information about a defective product, the defective product is devalued. The right to speak out about this product should of course not be infringed. Even if a product is not defective in any way, an individual might mount a campaign to convince the public not to buy the product: by advertising an alternative, for example. Advertising a competing product may devalue the original, but it should not be illegal.
Competition may undercut prices to devalue their competitors' products. This should not be illegal. It is an individual's right to do with his property as he chooses. If he chooses to sell it and take a loss, that is his right. While this might cause trouble for his competitors in the short-term, in the long-term he will not be able to sustain his loss, and the price will rise again, allowing more room in the market for competition to return. (Or else he will fund the loss with sales of
If you don't know what a gigabyte is, it's hard to know how large of a hard drive you need.
And if you never listen to what you're told or bother to think about it, it's hard to know what a gigabyte is. I know there's plenty of people who haven't heard, but I just know a lot of people who like to revel in their ignorance. When someone explains something, they grin and say, "Well, that's just too complicated for me." Then they want someone else to work it out for them.
In a land where everyone's proud of not being able to set their VCR clocks (in other words, proud of being too lazy to read simple instructions, or too scatterbrained to follow simple instructions), shouldn't warning bells go off whenever we elect such self-admitted technophobes to Congress and hear them assert, "We've got to get tough on computer crime!"?
Actually, copyright has been a big issue in Bible publication since 1901, when the American Standard Version translation was published. The religious public did not like the idea that the text was "owned" by the publishers, Thomas Nelson and Sons. The publishers, however, claimed that their translation was copyrighted "to ensure purity of text." History has demonstrated for 2000 years that people like to hack up the Bible to make it say things it does not, so this seemed like a valid concern.
Ironically, the ASV is the only major English translation other than the King James Version of 1611 (and its later revisions in the 1700s and 1800s) that is not under copyright. With the current racket of extending copyrights, that will remain true indefinitely since most other major English translations were published after 1922.
The ASV text is thriving on the Internet and Palm Pilots, since it's one of the few English Bible texts that can redistributed. I haven't heard of anyone trying to alter and distribute the text, so it would seem that Thomas Nelson and Sons' concerns about purity of text were just a smokescreen that paved the way for legitimizing in the public's eye the profiteering off of Bible translations, an activity that seems perfectly palatable in our era of "intellectual property," but seemed repugnant and sacreligious to this country a century ago.
I don't agree with the concept of copyright in a general sense, and I think it is a crying shame that I can't post a major modern English translation of the Bible on the Bible website I run so that people can read it without extraneous commentary I believe to be irrelevant and erroneous, which they will find if they look on any of the sites that pay for the expensive licenses to reproduce these Bibles online.
Yeah, it's a joke. I'm quite the geek. Or so I'm told. I like all the anime and SCO posts here everyone else seems to complain about; does that qualify me?
Other people have answered well, particularly with the constitution that specifies this for us, but I have the same question back on you. Where do you get off telling me what I can and cannot do with something I purchased? With a book I purchased? With paper, pen, or other media I purchased? With a 75-year old book I inherited from my dead grandfather? Where do you get off interfering in my life?
It's only the Constitution that gives you this right. It's not a natural right, or an inalienable right, or a self-evident right. The framers of our legal system debated this heavily. Look, buddy, just because you put in a lot of work into something does not mean I'm "stealing" if I make something just like it. It doesn't mean you're entitled to anything. Only the market can decide if your hard work has value.
Odd; I was going to suggest that a year ago, I found having a laptop in class with Octave (a Matlab clone) to be indispensible. Is it possible your post is a bit contradictory?
You are right; they have to specify the type of mail. And "commercial" alone won't do it. Think of your unsolicited phone calls. In addition to salesmen, you have surveys and other junk.
Due to postings on usenet for a couple of years in the mid-90's, my school email address is registered in a million databases as open to receiving religious mail. Every week I get somebody else deciding to add me to their daily devotional list. That's not commercial, but it's just as unwelcome.
Slashdot Mirror
lol; actually, my sig refers to my own friends/foes list. Whenever I see insightful comments, I make the person a friend so I view their comments at a higher score. It really made the content of slashdot improve, but then one day I discovered I was over the limit. :)
How did this get modded up to 4 when the poster just cut and paste out of the article? What a waste of modpoints.
Nice job proving nobody reads the article, though. ;)
What, no "ugly"?
But if you count total man-hours, what's the big deal about having the accident at the celebration? Isn't it supposed to be consecutive man hours?
Oh, wait, he's a PHB. Maybe that's the point...
Weird; I think I agree with almost everything you say. Especially to cut off channels that independent artists have the same access to as the major record labels. I think the biggest tragedy of copyright is that it tends to benefit entrenched media/institutions/"content producers" and penalize the little guy's innovation.
The main thing I would disagree with is your definition of value. Actually I think we talking about two different kinds of value; you're right that when they report the value lost or "stolen" through copyright infringement they are basically making numbers up. Value is really determined only from the effects of independent parties choosing to buy and sell for each other; in other words, if you're willing to pay $X for it, it's worth $X.
Hey, I ran into the same bug today, and it is being fixed.
Enjoyed reading your very informative explanation of copyright history (and I knew to hit reply to get the rest, too).
Do you also think going into stores and stealing items is your natural right? In both cases you have lowered the value of the owners property.
Actually, no; if you steal a tangible possession, it does not necessarily lower in value.
My first UNIX installation was NetBSD/mac68k on a 100 Mb SCSI Zip disk. Blew my mind. I was so thrilled just finally know "the root password" on a machine. I remember I had to hex edit Apple's file partitioning software to recognize the Zip drive.
I think I used that system for a couple of small scale school projects. Never got it networked, but I dialed up to the school's server a couple of times.
Interesting. How about "stealing a right"?
Copyright law allows the copyright holder to steal my natural rights to free speech and to do as I will with my property (my right to duplicate any bits I have in any storage medium) and to engage in willful exchanges with others (my right to let someone else duplicate those bits into their storage medium).
OTOH, copyright infringement steals a statutory right of the copyright holder.
Me, I say repeal the statutory right in favor of the natural rights.
We're talking orthogonally to each other because you are discussing how the law is, while I am discussing how it should be.
Copyright infringement still doesn't fit the definition of theft, because you still haven't affected someone else's property contrary to their wishes. If I copy bits off of my brother's hard drive, I've affected my hard drive and his hard drive, but noone else's. The original bits that belonged to someone else are still sitting on whatever medium they were recorded on, and neither my brother nor I has disturbed them or that storage media. Therefore, neither of us has used anyone's property contrary to the wishes of its owner, and neither of us has committed theft by any definition.
As for the Oxford English Dictionary, whether material or immaterial, the original bits and the medium they are recorded on are both still in the possession of the owner, so nothing was "taken."
Copyright is devaluation, not theft. Legal shennanigans to the contrary are just attempts to restrict the natural rights of others (contrary to their wishes, I might add).
The value of a good or service is rightfully established only by free individuals exercising their right to choose to engage or not engage in willful exchanges. Any attempt on the part of government to affect the value of a good or service must necessarily involve the infringement of the rights of one or more parties involved in the potential exchange.
(When did they put in a posting length limit? I've never hit that before. Did I really rant that much? :) )
Competition may undercut prices to devalue their competitors' products. This should not be illegal. It is an individual's right to do with his property as he chooses. If he chooses to sell it and take a loss, that is his right. While this might cause trouble for his competitors in the short-term, in the long-term he will not be able to sustain his loss, and the price will rise again, allowing more room in the market for competition to return. (Or else he will fund the loss with sales of another product, in which case competition can shift to competing over the new product.)
I do not believe content duplication should be illegal, because all it does is devalue the property of another. I believe that property consists only of the tangible medium in which the content is recorded. When I use my media to duplicate the content a friend possesses in his media, the value of the media upon which the original content is recorded may decrease, but I have not damaged or stolen the media, nor have I killed or injured anyone. Copyright law unfairly gives a third party control over an exchange between two individuals on the basis of perceived devaluation of that third party's property. Since devaluation of property is not a sufficient reason for which to restrict fundamental rights, this is unacceptable.
In the long term, devaluation due to content duplication may cause a product's value to go to zero. However, this is not always the case. RedHat Linux CDs may be duplicated without restriction, yet they still retail for $5 at Linux Central, and original RedHat CDs from RedHat with support retail for over $40. Even if the value of the content were reduced to zero, it would still not be a sufficient reason to restrict the rights of others. There is a time during which the value of the content is positive; in this time the originator of the content can secure a (non-exclusive) profit. Once the value of the content is zero, the originator needs to move on and compete on a different product. Rights should not be infringed to guarantee profitability to anyone for any reason.
Currently United States law restricts my rights, supposedly to encourage innovation. This is a tradeoff I would refuse if asked. Even if the innovation of others is encouraged, I would not choose to have my rights infringed by law. I refuse to take advantage of the law to restrict the rights of others regarding content I create, and I choose to work within the system to persuade others of the importance of these rights in the hopes that this unfair restriction may one day be removed.
Duplication of creative content is not stealing since the original owner of the content still possesses it. Why is duplication considered to be so immoral? Duplication is devaluation; while the original owner still has the bits, those bits are no longer worth what they were before. Supply has increased, and intersects with the demand curve at a lower point, which means the same bits now sell at a lower price.
Obviously the creators of the content would like to insure that they remain the sole entity allowed to collect revenues for the content, and also insure that the price point is as high on the demand curve as possible. But do they have this right? Does their self-interest override that of other people?
The Constitution provides a limited-time monopoly on duplication of content to its creator, and our legal system has inferred that this monopoly may be transferred. Not everyone involved in early American government agreed with this idea, however. In particular, Thomas Jefferson pointed out that the spreading of ideas could not be stopped, benefitted the public, and could not be said to have truly harmed the originator of the ideas since he still possessed them.
The real question is not whether duplication is illegal, or whether it is immoral; it is whether it should be illegal. Not all activities that are illegal should be illegal; not all activities that are immoral should be illegal, either.
The supposed harmful effect of duplication is devaluation of the original. I say "supposed," because it is entirely likely that the loss of value to the content originator is far exceeded by the economy's gain in value as the content is reproduced. But should activities be illegal just because they devalue someone else's property?
I believe that rights should be absolute and unlimited except as they interfere with the rights of others. I believe the government exists solely to protect those rights from infringement by others within and without the government's jurisdiction. Individuals have the right to do whatever they choose with their person or property, so long as it does not interfere with another individual's right to do so. In other words, any activity engaged in by two individuals must involve the consent of both, and requires the consent of noone else.
This sometimes allows activities that I personally might find abhorrent. As a Christian, I find many activities to be wrong that the general public does not. However, this does not give me a right to regulate their activities or infringe upon their rights. Individuals may say things I disagree with; they do not need my consent to speak. However, I may or may not consent to listen. So long as the activity of another individual does not without my consent harm or kill me, or damage or confiscate my property, those activities should still be legal.
Activities that devalue the property of another do not actually harm that individual. The individual still possesses the property, and the property has not actually changed. These activities should be allowed. If an individual spreads information about a defective product, the defective product is devalued. The right to speak out about this product should of course not be infringed. Even if a product is not defective in any way, an individual might mount a campaign to convince the public not to buy the product: by advertising an alternative, for example. Advertising a competing product may devalue the original, but it should not be illegal.
Competition may undercut prices to devalue their competitors' products. This should not be illegal. It is an individual's right to do with his property as he chooses. If he chooses to sell it and take a loss, that is his right. While this might cause trouble for his competitors in the short-term, in the long-term he will not be able to sustain his loss, and the price will rise again, allowing more room in the market for competition to return. (Or else he will fund the loss with sales of
Copyright infringement ... You're taking content
Bzzt, wrong! In copyright infringement, nothing is actually taken. The original owner of the bits still owns them. Next contestant, please!
For someone all hung up on definitions and using terms properly, you could at least get this part a little more accurate.
If you don't know what a gigabyte is, it's hard to know how large of a hard drive you need.
And if you never listen to what you're told or bother to think about it, it's hard to know what a gigabyte is. I know there's plenty of people who haven't heard, but I just know a lot of people who like to revel in their ignorance. When someone explains something, they grin and say, "Well, that's just too complicated for me." Then they want someone else to work it out for them.
In a land where everyone's proud of not being able to set their VCR clocks (in other words, proud of being too lazy to read simple instructions, or too scatterbrained to follow simple instructions), shouldn't warning bells go off whenever we elect such self-admitted technophobes to Congress and hear them assert, "We've got to get tough on computer crime!"?
I do. Check the site.
Actually, copyright has been a big issue in Bible publication since 1901, when the American Standard Version translation was published. The religious public did not like the idea that the text was "owned" by the publishers, Thomas Nelson and Sons. The publishers, however, claimed that their translation was copyrighted "to ensure purity of text." History has demonstrated for 2000 years that people like to hack up the Bible to make it say things it does not, so this seemed like a valid concern.
Ironically, the ASV is the only major English translation other than the King James Version of 1611 (and its later revisions in the 1700s and 1800s) that is not under copyright. With the current racket of extending copyrights, that will remain true indefinitely since most other major English translations were published after 1922.
The ASV text is thriving on the Internet and Palm Pilots, since it's one of the few English Bible texts that can redistributed. I haven't heard of anyone trying to alter and distribute the text, so it would seem that Thomas Nelson and Sons' concerns about purity of text were just a smokescreen that paved the way for legitimizing in the public's eye the profiteering off of Bible translations, an activity that seems perfectly palatable in our era of "intellectual property," but seemed repugnant and sacreligious to this country a century ago.
I don't agree with the concept of copyright in a general sense, and I think it is a crying shame that I can't post a major modern English translation of the Bible on the Bible website I run so that people can read it without extraneous commentary I believe to be irrelevant and erroneous, which they will find if they look on any of the sites that pay for the expensive licenses to reproduce these Bibles online.
A good programmer can write Perl in any language. :)
(Just kidding. ;) )
Mr. Shoe-Bomb also failed
There was a Perl programmer on that flight.
Yeah, it's a joke. I'm quite the geek. Or so I'm told. I like all the anime and SCO posts here everyone else seems to complain about; does that qualify me?
http://intyos.spatula-city.org/
Other people have answered well, particularly with the constitution that specifies this for us, but I have the same question back on you. Where do you get off telling me what I can and cannot do with something I purchased? With a book I purchased? With paper, pen, or other media I purchased? With a 75-year old book I inherited from my dead grandfather? Where do you get off interfering in my life?
It's only the Constitution that gives you this right. It's not a natural right, or an inalienable right, or a self-evident right. The framers of our legal system debated this heavily. Look, buddy, just because you put in a lot of work into something does not mean I'm "stealing" if I make something just like it. It doesn't mean you're entitled to anything. Only the market can decide if your hard work has value.
Odd; I was going to suggest that a year ago, I found having a laptop in class with Octave (a Matlab clone) to be indispensible. Is it possible your post is a bit contradictory?
You are right; they have to specify the type of mail. And "commercial" alone won't do it. Think of your unsolicited phone calls. In addition to salesmen, you have surveys and other junk.
Due to postings on usenet for a couple of years in the mid-90's, my school email address is registered in a million databases as open to receiving religious mail. Every week I get somebody else deciding to add me to their daily devotional list. That's not commercial, but it's just as unwelcome.