This isn't a fault of the system, it's a strength - the strength called 'job security'.
Any idiot can become an MCSE. Hell, just about any generic power user would qualify, since the MCSE really can't do much more than the power user can no matter what his training. If you can't even see the code you're stuck with the same tools as the power user (plus perhaps a few you've crafted yourself, but then you're already beyond 99% of the MCSE's out there).
However, in Unix or Linux it takes some serious dedication to even find some of the fucking tools, much less understand how they're applied. Do you think that was done by accident? No way, Jack; some canny Unix dweebs said "hey, if I make the bloody thing as difficult to master as possible I'm set for life! Sweeeeet!"
And lo! We have commands which do not follow logically from their names, as well as the godawful man pages and info system. It's simply an extension of an old programming truism often used by the unscrupulous: make the code twisted and the documentation nonexistent and company x will be calling you back for support for the life of the program.
Note that I'm not blasting Linux, from when I write this post, but after all these years, and with the advance of age, I find that I've forgotten more about Linux than most of the noobs ever learn. The pain of that is that if I vaguely remember doing operation x several years back and want to do it again, I have to hunt for the bloody information all over again, and with some measure of frustration as now I *know* it's around, I just can't precisely remember *where*.
The thing I want most for Linux: comprehensive documentation. I mean freakin'-fucking-comprehensive, all in dead tree format. Screw job security, I don't have any in this economy anyway.
Microsoft has researchers? Or is it just the one? If so, that would indeed explain the inability of such a huge company to come up with anything even remotely innovative that they haven't stolen from someone else.
Although 'respected' would something of a stretch by any measure....
I've been doing the same thing. Unfortunately, most First World nations seem to be as repressive, or even more repressive, than the United States (e.g., in many European countries it's illegal to exercise free speech or freedom of expression concerning certain 'taboo' topics).
Where to go? What nation has a strong Constitution guarranteeing individual rights, as well as the idea that the best government is the smallest and least intrusive one that can be constructed?
Contrary to what some of the other posters are saying, I think you should use the DMCA to rat the guy out and then sue him. Use whatever tools are available to you and forget the ethical implications.
Why? Everyone and their brother will use the law against *you*; why not turn their own tools against them? Perhaps if the DMCA is used to enforce individual rights, such as your own, others will find a way to use that same law to burn the corporate and government interests who sponsored it in the first place.
In any event, I see laws like the DMCA as just another volley in the war against individual rights. When in war you use whatever weapons are available to you, and to hell with what people think of it. Winners write the history books; losers are forgotten.
So go forth and bitch-slap this son of a bitch as he truly and richly deserves.
Would I have to wear those stupid looking helmets and gay lycra pants that require you to show your 'package' off to everyone in the world? 'Cuz if that's so I'm keeping my car, thanks.
Here here! The older I get the more in favor I am of a completely automated, computer-controlled driving system. Given the complete lack of ability most folks demonstrate when behind the wheel, a computer can't really do much worse - even if that computer is run by Windows.
Manual driving isn't guarranteed by the Constitution, after all. And seeing just how much worse those SUV Boomers and minivan mommas get each year, anything to take the control of driving out of their hands is a *good* thing.
Yes, let's all fund a SOFTWARE company to build rockets. That would be A LOT more efficient than funding, say, NASA.
And we all know how efficient NASA has been over the last two decades. Why, the space shuttle is ever so much more efficient than a regular ol' rocket booster....
It's up to you to protect your property, not the police and the courts.
You're absolutely right: it *is* up to me to protect my property and person. That's what the concept of 'responsibility' is all about.
The police will almost certainly not have the good fortune to happen upon my house while it's being robbed, or to know that it's being robbed even if they do. They'll come *after* the fact, take a report, and most likely never catch the criminal or recover my property. Same thing goes if I'm mugged.
That's why I own a firearm. If you try to rob my house or attack my person, I'll empty the clip into you - that will be the end of your little crime spree. Forever. And you'll deserve every bullet I pump into your body.
But as for the kid, I said that I don't believe in the concept of intellectual property, nor do I think that 'trade secrets' should be protected by the government. It's one thing to walk into the corporation and try to walk out with $50,000 of electronic equipment; hell, if security catches you in the act and kills you, more power to 'em.
It's quite another to steal this bullshit illusion called 'trade secrets'. If you want to keep it secret, take appropriate measures. Fact is, the company's security was so lax some idiot shithead managed to rip 'em off without taking any extraordinary measures whatsoever. Their secrets are no longer secret because they were too fucking lazy to guard them.
Like I said, too bad for them.
But I don't want *my* government wasting its money guarding intellectual property or 'trade secrets'. It's *my* government, or so the theory goes, and it's *my* taxes being perverted to this end. I don't agree with this, or what my taxes are being used to guard.
Still, no one gives a shit what I think about it. The government is a whore for anyone with the money; I'm certainly not going to change its behavior, and there are enough fools who worship the corporate altar to counteract anything I have to say.
The next step is to use a system which is built to protect your identity, like Freent. And it appears that this will happen, given the current situation.
Of course, once this is done corporations will lobby to outlaw any form of online encryption or anonymity whatsoever. It's wholely unconstitutional but what the fuck does that matter anymore?
DirectTV went to extraordinary lengths to protect it
Bullshit. Their measures were wholly inadequate. Just look at the evidence: some snot-nosed 19-year-old brat whose mama should've bitchslapped some manners into him managed to walk right out of the office with CDs full of privileged technical data.
Frankly, I don't see this as a crime, but then I don't believe in this crap about 'intellectual property' either. If a company has trade secrets it's up to that company - not the government - to protect them. If they get out, well, too fucking bad for that company. Shit happens.
And in this case the company in question treated its own security with reckless disregard.
So all those millions of people who work hard than you ever will, and all those people who're smarter than you are (and in comparison to which you're nothing more than a drooling idiot), are flawed in some fundamental manner which dictates that they'll never be as successful as you are.
So what is your supposed superiority based on? The favor of God?
Calvinist trash-talk is always good for a laugh, as the Calvinists themselves are so pathetic in their arrogance.
I am both hard-working and smart, but I'm not so egotistical as to think that my success isn't based largely upon luck. Anyone with half a brain realizes that luck is a huge component of success; to assert anything else is just another way of insisting that you're innately superior to everyone else who doesn't 'make it'.
Let's pause while I laugh my ass off at your hubris.
Intellectuals, the middle-class, and computer professionals are the last demographic republicans want to hear from.
These are the last demographic that *anyone* wants to hear from.
Look around you: most Americans could give a shit about the Constitution or personal rights. Most Americans rejoice when their elected representatives pass laws blatantly violating the Constitution, because it makes them feel like they have some measure of power over their neighbors. They'll trade liberty for the illusion of power and safety any day of the week, and when you mention the Founding Fathers their excuse is "well, they couldn't have foreseen our technological society, so what they thought is irrelevant in this day and age."
As if liberty could ever be made irrelevant by technology.
Yes, the average American is not only no longer interested in freedom or liberty, but actually arrogant enough to think that he or she is somehow wiser than the people who founded this country, and the Constitution on which it's based. Just watch: no doubt some egotistical yahoo will post something along these lines right here, defending the superiority of his view and the grand measure of his wisdom against the likes of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Our Founding Fathers would be crying in their beers right now, if they could see what's happened to their country and their people. They certainly wouldn't be leading a revolution, though; the American people would never support them.
I know there has been at least one recent study that was showing that prayer does have affect on health.
The placebo effect. Psych 101, boy. And it doesn't work if someone else prays for you, only if *you* pray for you. God has nothing to do with it.
Of course, if you can produce a empirical, scientific study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal supporting the idea that prayer affects the health of others, please do so.
So boring that it made mega-bucks and has a huge fan base.
The movie wasn't boring, it just wasn't your cup of tea. Unless you suscribe to the idea that you're the sum total and center of the universe, these two things aren't at all related.
You mean like the U.S. of A.? All hail King George!
Besides, if Bush is losing in the polls come 2004, do you really think there's going to be an election? I figure there'll be some instance of 'terrorism', most likely nuclear in nature, that'll require our brave president to institute national martial law and suspend elections until 'the crisis has passed'.
Heinlein once said the American people, given the fools that most of them are, would gladly vote in a religious dictatorship in the year 2000. So far he looks to be pretty much on target.
As many folks who've been kidnapped by the government and held without recourse to the Constitution, a trial, a lawyer, or even a criminal charge can attest. But hey, so long as it isn't *you* what the fuck do you care?
You talk about the evil of apathy, while at the same time ignoring the evil of group-think, embodied most eloquently by the concept of 'should'. 'Should' is defined by whoever happens to be speaking, and is invariably rooted in their own personal view of how things should work, regardless of the countervailing opinions of others.
General apathy may indeed be counterproductive to personal freedom; but the 'shoulds' of the self-righteous, often followed by mindless arguments about 'the greater good', are just another road to hell. It may be the hell *you personally* prefer and wish upon the rest of us, but for everyone else but your own tiny clique of ethically superior human beings it is most definitely hell.
Whenever a thinking person hears the word 'should', alarm bells will ring. 'Should' is often just another way of saying 'do things my way, and only my way, and don't dare to contradict my One True and Right View of the World'.
Bleh. I'll take Linus' stand over yours any day of the week. Linus may be apathetic, but at least he isn't dangerous.
Here it comes, the luddite hand-wringing and moaning over the 'ethical' issues of modifying the human genetic code. What this really boils down to is something quite simple: your neighbor, being the cowardly asshole that he is, is utterly unwilling to allow you any opportunity whatsoever to gain an advantage over him in any way shape or form, or allow your children such an advantage.
The argument against change is always one based on a malicious desire to fuck up your neighbor so that he doesn't gain a competitive edge, especially if you currently benefit in some fashion from the status quo.
Here's a thought on what to do about the whole issue: mind your own fucking business. Yep, that's right, shut the fuck up and tend to your own house. If I want to modify myself or my body that's my business and mine alone; you don't have any right at all to butt into my life and tell me that I can't do unto my body as I please. If this bothers you, well then, please just fuck off and die, eh?
It's amazing how quick people are to jump up and tell others that they can't do thing x or y, for trumped up reasons a and b. They'll spend endless hours justifying their arguments, but it really all comes down to screwing over the Jones so they can't 'one-up' you in the game of life.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what the luddites think. They're nothing more than chaff in the wind, and their pathetic whining and insane legal antics won't mean a thing in the end. Those of us who want modification will get it; those of us who want our children to be faster, stronger, and smarter will have them.
Nothing you say or do can stop that. The best you can hope for is to insulate yourself in a 21st century version of an Amish state, forever stuck in a status quo the rest of the world has no interest in emulating. If it isn't done here in America, or done in Europe, there are plenty of other nations who think the status quo just plain sucks and will be willing to try alternatives in order to destroy it. These states will be the leaders in the new century, not the whining majority of fat First World nations who wish for nothing more than to keep everything exactly as it is.
Those of us who have any brains at all will emigrate to these states, and leave the rest of you to wallow in your stagnation until you become nothing more than amusing backwaters, fit only as a tourist attraction for 'how things used to be'.
By *listening* to these records, no matter how you obtain them, you are a customer of the record industry.
By reading this comment, no matter how you came across it, you just became a customer of my company, Original Thoughts Inc.
Pay up, asshole. It's as simple as that.
In fact, in this situation these laws should be more rigourously enforced. The Legal process is the only way these companies have to protect their intellectual property.
There is no Constitutional guarrantee asserting ownership over 'intellectual property'. None whatsoever. The only Constitutional mention of anything remotely like this has to do with copyrights, and at no time is 'intellectual property' mentioned or even alluded to. Here's the actual text, from Article 1 Section 8:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
You will note that the current definition of 'intellectual property' is in no way mentioned. The sole purpose of copyright law is to 'promote the progress of science and the useful arts'; it is not to protect anyone's right to profit, or to harbor a failing business model that can't keep up with the times.
Of course, this has nothing to do with Australia, which is perhaps even more repressive than the United States. But it seems that whatever nonsense the U.S. government promotes the governments of other First World nations are quick to emulate.
In case you haven't noticed, you missed two relevant points:
(1) laws like these apply only to the powerless. This is why two college students were chosen, rather than some upper management PHB (many of whom are some of the worst offenders, from my anecdotal observations).
(2) In America whoever has the money makes the laws and decides how they're applied. Shitting all over the Constitution is perfectly acceptable if you're rich enough to push for such legislation.
In effect, we *are* their slaves. They get to decide what laws are passed and how they're enforced, and against whom. It's subtle, but it sure as hell ain't freedom or democracy any which way you slice it.
No, it'd increase the number of cowardly, ass-kissing, boot-licking sheep in that society, while completely destroying any ability for independent thought. A society that'd pass these sorts of laws deserves exactly that: a populace of mouth-breathers and sycophants.
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't write about things that would get you in trouble.
And this was called 'insightful'? Many of the "things that would get you into trouble", in this country and others, are simply those things that the powers that be don't want you telling the world. But I suppose if you're just another alpha-male-worshipping ass-kissing moron, then advice like this is just the thing to make the world a good and right place to live in.
Forget things like exposing political corruption or corporate wrongdoing - you shouldn't be even thinking about such things, much less discussing them with your fellow human beings! Why, if we all bowed down before our political and corporate masters and acted like the proper slaves we were meant to be then we'd all be much, much happier! And should ever a disloyal thought cross your mind, just ignore it and turn on the TV until it goes away....
No, no, you've got it all wrong. When responding to a MS fanboy who posts for no other reason than to dump on Linux it's 'Winblows'. Y'know, the sort of thing fanboys dream of doing to Bill should they ever meet him in person.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't a fault of the system, it's a strength - the strength called 'job security'.
Any idiot can become an MCSE. Hell, just about any generic power user would qualify, since the MCSE really can't do much more than the power user can no matter what his training. If you can't even see the code you're stuck with the same tools as the power user (plus perhaps a few you've crafted yourself, but then you're already beyond 99% of the MCSE's out there).
However, in Unix or Linux it takes some serious dedication to even find some of the fucking tools, much less understand how they're applied. Do you think that was done by accident? No way, Jack; some canny Unix dweebs said "hey, if I make the bloody thing as difficult to master as possible I'm set for life! Sweeeeet!"
And lo! We have commands which do not follow logically from their names, as well as the godawful man pages and info system. It's simply an extension of an old programming truism often used by the unscrupulous: make the code twisted and the documentation nonexistent and company x will be calling you back for support for the life of the program.
Note that I'm not blasting Linux, from when I write this post, but after all these years, and with the advance of age, I find that I've forgotten more about Linux than most of the noobs ever learn. The pain of that is that if I vaguely remember doing operation x several years back and want to do it again, I have to hunt for the bloody information all over again, and with some measure of frustration as now I *know* it's around, I just can't precisely remember *where*.
The thing I want most for Linux: comprehensive documentation. I mean freakin'-fucking-comprehensive, all in dead tree format. Screw job security, I don't have any in this economy anyway.
Max
Microsoft has researchers? Or is it just the one? If so, that would indeed explain the inability of such a huge company to come up with anything even remotely innovative that they haven't stolen from someone else.
Although 'respected' would something of a stretch by any measure....
Max
I've been doing the same thing. Unfortunately, most First World nations seem to be as repressive, or even more repressive, than the United States (e.g., in many European countries it's illegal to exercise free speech or freedom of expression concerning certain 'taboo' topics).
Where to go? What nation has a strong Constitution guarranteeing individual rights, as well as the idea that the best government is the smallest and least intrusive one that can be constructed?
Max
Contrary to what some of the other posters are saying, I think you should use the DMCA to rat the guy out and then sue him. Use whatever tools are available to you and forget the ethical implications.
Why? Everyone and their brother will use the law against *you*; why not turn their own tools against them? Perhaps if the DMCA is used to enforce individual rights, such as your own, others will find a way to use that same law to burn the corporate and government interests who sponsored it in the first place.
In any event, I see laws like the DMCA as just another volley in the war against individual rights. When in war you use whatever weapons are available to you, and to hell with what people think of it. Winners write the history books; losers are forgotten.
So go forth and bitch-slap this son of a bitch as he truly and richly deserves.
Max
Too bad they seem to be turning into nationalists. So much for emmigration.
Could you clarify? Are they not allowing immigration?
Max
Would I have to wear those stupid looking helmets and gay lycra pants that require you to show your 'package' off to everyone in the world? 'Cuz if that's so I'm keeping my car, thanks.
Max
Here here! The older I get the more in favor I am of a completely automated, computer-controlled driving system. Given the complete lack of ability most folks demonstrate when behind the wheel, a computer can't really do much worse - even if that computer is run by Windows.
Manual driving isn't guarranteed by the Constitution, after all. And seeing just how much worse those SUV Boomers and minivan mommas get each year, anything to take the control of driving out of their hands is a *good* thing.
Max
Yes, let's all fund a SOFTWARE company to build rockets. That would be A LOT more efficient than funding, say, NASA.
And we all know how efficient NASA has been over the last two decades. Why, the space shuttle is ever so much more efficient than a regular ol' rocket booster....
Max
It's up to you to protect your property, not the police and the courts.
You're absolutely right: it *is* up to me to protect my property and person. That's what the concept of 'responsibility' is all about.
The police will almost certainly not have the good fortune to happen upon my house while it's being robbed, or to know that it's being robbed even if they do. They'll come *after* the fact, take a report, and most likely never catch the criminal or recover my property. Same thing goes if I'm mugged.
That's why I own a firearm. If you try to rob my house or attack my person, I'll empty the clip into you - that will be the end of your little crime spree. Forever. And you'll deserve every bullet I pump into your body.
But as for the kid, I said that I don't believe in the concept of intellectual property, nor do I think that 'trade secrets' should be protected by the government. It's one thing to walk into the corporation and try to walk out with $50,000 of electronic equipment; hell, if security catches you in the act and kills you, more power to 'em.
It's quite another to steal this bullshit illusion called 'trade secrets'. If you want to keep it secret, take appropriate measures. Fact is, the company's security was so lax some idiot shithead managed to rip 'em off without taking any extraordinary measures whatsoever. Their secrets are no longer secret because they were too fucking lazy to guard them.
Like I said, too bad for them.
But I don't want *my* government wasting its money guarding intellectual property or 'trade secrets'. It's *my* government, or so the theory goes, and it's *my* taxes being perverted to this end. I don't agree with this, or what my taxes are being used to guard.
Still, no one gives a shit what I think about it. The government is a whore for anyone with the money; I'm certainly not going to change its behavior, and there are enough fools who worship the corporate altar to counteract anything I have to say.
Max
The next step is to use a system which is built to protect your identity, like Freent. And it appears that this will happen, given the current situation.
Of course, once this is done corporations will lobby to outlaw any form of online encryption or anonymity whatsoever. It's wholely unconstitutional but what the fuck does that matter anymore?
Max
DirectTV went to extraordinary lengths to protect it
Bullshit. Their measures were wholly inadequate. Just look at the evidence: some snot-nosed 19-year-old brat whose mama should've bitchslapped some manners into him managed to walk right out of the office with CDs full of privileged technical data.
Frankly, I don't see this as a crime, but then I don't believe in this crap about 'intellectual property' either. If a company has trade secrets it's up to that company - not the government - to protect them. If they get out, well, too fucking bad for that company. Shit happens.
And in this case the company in question treated its own security with reckless disregard.
Max
I see.
So all those millions of people who work hard than you ever will, and all those people who're smarter than you are (and in comparison to which you're nothing more than a drooling idiot), are flawed in some fundamental manner which dictates that they'll never be as successful as you are.
So what is your supposed superiority based on? The favor of God?
Calvinist trash-talk is always good for a laugh, as the Calvinists themselves are so pathetic in their arrogance.
I am both hard-working and smart, but I'm not so egotistical as to think that my success isn't based largely upon luck. Anyone with half a brain realizes that luck is a huge component of success; to assert anything else is just another way of insisting that you're innately superior to everyone else who doesn't 'make it'.
Let's pause while I laugh my ass off at your hubris.
Max
Intellectuals, the middle-class, and computer professionals are the last demographic republicans want to hear from.
These are the last demographic that *anyone* wants to hear from.
Look around you: most Americans could give a shit about the Constitution or personal rights. Most Americans rejoice when their elected representatives pass laws blatantly violating the Constitution, because it makes them feel like they have some measure of power over their neighbors. They'll trade liberty for the illusion of power and safety any day of the week, and when you mention the Founding Fathers their excuse is "well, they couldn't have foreseen our technological society, so what they thought is irrelevant in this day and age."
As if liberty could ever be made irrelevant by technology.
Yes, the average American is not only no longer interested in freedom or liberty, but actually arrogant enough to think that he or she is somehow wiser than the people who founded this country, and the Constitution on which it's based. Just watch: no doubt some egotistical yahoo will post something along these lines right here, defending the superiority of his view and the grand measure of his wisdom against the likes of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Our Founding Fathers would be crying in their beers right now, if they could see what's happened to their country and their people. They certainly wouldn't be leading a revolution, though; the American people would never support them.
Not in this day and age.
Max
Fed Ex.
I know there has been at least one recent study that was showing that prayer does have affect on health.
The placebo effect. Psych 101, boy. And it doesn't work if someone else prays for you, only if *you* pray for you. God has nothing to do with it.
Of course, if you can produce a empirical, scientific study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal supporting the idea that prayer affects the health of others, please do so.
Max
So boring that it made mega-bucks and has a huge fan base.
The movie wasn't boring, it just wasn't your cup of tea. Unless you suscribe to the idea that you're the sum total and center of the universe, these two things aren't at all related.
Max
Finaly fantasy was great. Very impressive. The story was weird enough to defy most stereotypes.
And Resident Evil rocked. No two ways about it.
Max
You mean like the U.S. of A.? All hail King George!
Besides, if Bush is losing in the polls come 2004, do you really think there's going to be an election? I figure there'll be some instance of 'terrorism', most likely nuclear in nature, that'll require our brave president to institute national martial law and suspend elections until 'the crisis has passed'.
Heinlein once said the American people, given the fools that most of them are, would gladly vote in a religious dictatorship in the year 2000. So far he looks to be pretty much on target.
As many folks who've been kidnapped by the government and held without recourse to the Constitution, a trial, a lawyer, or even a criminal charge can attest. But hey, so long as it isn't *you* what the fuck do you care?
Max
You talk about the evil of apathy, while at the same time ignoring the evil of group-think, embodied most eloquently by the concept of 'should'. 'Should' is defined by whoever happens to be speaking, and is invariably rooted in their own personal view of how things should work, regardless of the countervailing opinions of others.
General apathy may indeed be counterproductive to personal freedom; but the 'shoulds' of the self-righteous, often followed by mindless arguments about 'the greater good', are just another road to hell. It may be the hell *you personally* prefer and wish upon the rest of us, but for everyone else but your own tiny clique of ethically superior human beings it is most definitely hell.
Whenever a thinking person hears the word 'should', alarm bells will ring. 'Should' is often just another way of saying 'do things my way, and only my way, and don't dare to contradict my One True and Right View of the World'.
Bleh. I'll take Linus' stand over yours any day of the week. Linus may be apathetic, but at least he isn't dangerous.
Max
Here it comes, the luddite hand-wringing and moaning over the 'ethical' issues of modifying the human genetic code. What this really boils down to is something quite simple: your neighbor, being the cowardly asshole that he is, is utterly unwilling to allow you any opportunity whatsoever to gain an advantage over him in any way shape or form, or allow your children such an advantage.
The argument against change is always one based on a malicious desire to fuck up your neighbor so that he doesn't gain a competitive edge, especially if you currently benefit in some fashion from the status quo.
Here's a thought on what to do about the whole issue: mind your own fucking business. Yep, that's right, shut the fuck up and tend to your own house. If I want to modify myself or my body that's my business and mine alone; you don't have any right at all to butt into my life and tell me that I can't do unto my body as I please. If this bothers you, well then, please just fuck off and die, eh?
It's amazing how quick people are to jump up and tell others that they can't do thing x or y, for trumped up reasons a and b. They'll spend endless hours justifying their arguments, but it really all comes down to screwing over the Jones so they can't 'one-up' you in the game of life.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what the luddites think. They're nothing more than chaff in the wind, and their pathetic whining and insane legal antics won't mean a thing in the end. Those of us who want modification will get it; those of us who want our children to be faster, stronger, and smarter will have them.
Nothing you say or do can stop that. The best you can hope for is to insulate yourself in a 21st century version of an Amish state, forever stuck in a status quo the rest of the world has no interest in emulating. If it isn't done here in America, or done in Europe, there are plenty of other nations who think the status quo just plain sucks and will be willing to try alternatives in order to destroy it. These states will be the leaders in the new century, not the whining majority of fat First World nations who wish for nothing more than to keep everything exactly as it is.
Those of us who have any brains at all will emigrate to these states, and leave the rest of you to wallow in your stagnation until you become nothing more than amusing backwaters, fit only as a tourist attraction for 'how things used to be'.
Max
By *listening* to these records, no matter how you obtain them, you are a customer of the record industry.
By reading this comment, no matter how you came across it, you just became a customer of my company, Original Thoughts Inc.
Pay up, asshole. It's as simple as that.
In fact, in this situation these laws should be more rigourously enforced. The Legal process is the only way these companies have to protect their intellectual property.
There is no Constitutional guarrantee asserting ownership over 'intellectual property'. None whatsoever. The only Constitutional mention of anything remotely like this has to do with copyrights, and at no time is 'intellectual property' mentioned or even alluded to. Here's the actual text, from Article 1 Section 8:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
You will note that the current definition of 'intellectual property' is in no way mentioned. The sole purpose of copyright law is to 'promote the progress of science and the useful arts'; it is not to protect anyone's right to profit, or to harbor a failing business model that can't keep up with the times.
Of course, this has nothing to do with Australia, which is perhaps even more repressive than the United States. But it seems that whatever nonsense the U.S. government promotes the governments of other First World nations are quick to emulate.
Max
In case you haven't noticed, you missed two relevant points:
(1) laws like these apply only to the powerless. This is why two college students were chosen, rather than some upper management PHB (many of whom are some of the worst offenders, from my anecdotal observations).
(2) In America whoever has the money makes the laws and decides how they're applied. Shitting all over the Constitution is perfectly acceptable if you're rich enough to push for such legislation.
In effect, we *are* their slaves. They get to decide what laws are passed and how they're enforced, and against whom. It's subtle, but it sure as hell ain't freedom or democracy any which way you slice it.
Max
No, it'd increase the number of cowardly, ass-kissing, boot-licking sheep in that society, while completely destroying any ability for independent thought. A society that'd pass these sorts of laws deserves exactly that: a populace of mouth-breathers and sycophants.
Max
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't write about things that would get you in trouble.
And this was called 'insightful'? Many of the "things that would get you into trouble", in this country and others, are simply those things that the powers that be don't want you telling the world. But I suppose if you're just another alpha-male-worshipping ass-kissing moron, then advice like this is just the thing to make the world a good and right place to live in.
Forget things like exposing political corruption or corporate wrongdoing - you shouldn't be even thinking about such things, much less discussing them with your fellow human beings! Why, if we all bowed down before our political and corporate masters and acted like the proper slaves we were meant to be then we'd all be much, much happier! And should ever a disloyal thought cross your mind, just ignore it and turn on the TV until it goes away....
'Insightful', my ass.
Max
No, no, you've got it all wrong. When responding to a MS fanboy who posts for no other reason than to dump on Linux it's 'Winblows'. Y'know, the sort of thing fanboys dream of doing to Bill should they ever meet him in person.
Max