The RIAA fiasco gets more entertaining all the time. The more they lose, the funnier it gets.
I disagree that the cases are "funny". The recklessness expressed by the RIAA lawyers and the utter lack of common sense and decency in both professional and private conduct are disturbing. Please remember that the "accused" are scarred for life. Even if all wrongfully sued people get fully compensated, they still lose out because they have been stressed, bashed and abused.
From the Chewbacca to the stupidity defence: Judge: Why did you kill him? Defendant: Well, your honor, I'm stupid Judge: Oh, well, I see, your good to go then
Sorry, but I get tired of these messages. Terrorists could potentially use paper and pencils to communicate too. Lets outlaw that too. The hammer and the screwdriver are terrible weapons. Let us outlaw anything that has a potential. And please start with my hands because they are the most lethal of all.
Common sense; it is so rare, it is a god damn superpower.
Agreed, you: 1 - pick a topic 2 - get acquainted 3 - make mistakes 4 - ask for help 5 - learn from mistakes 6 - get better 7 - rinse and repeat After 10 years or so you can look back and discover that you a) actually became a sysop/bofh or b) have given up on the way and are now an annoying guy in the IT department. Anyhow, it is hard work to learn your ways and your mileage may vary.
With the importance of the infrastructure, maybe the "money" component should be taken out of the equation and the infrastructure to be commonly owned. Who remembers the privatization of utilities where the performance goes down and the price goes up. Maybe it is time to see the internet infrastructure as the modern common good instead of a private playground for big corporations.
Hm, but why does it take a storm of negative publicity to make them change their attitude? Why can't they just build stuff that works? Or would that be too much to ask...
Free communication (read: the internet) is a direct threat to scarceness of immaterial goods. Our economy is based on resources being scarce and that is being undermined by the internet. So, basically, they want us to be unable to communicate freely to get back to the times were flow is controlled top-down. However immaterial goods never can be contained in the long run. This fact has apparently not arrived at our treasured politicians (not even after 500 years). Corporations will always try to keep the status quo because they have a hard time to reinvent themselves.
Sure we pretend to be busy so that it looks like we are genius. A network admin that needs to run has done a bad job at establishing redundancy. So, not on my shift.
Everything that is The Right Thing(TM) is tech talk and is normally not understood by management. Techs and management speak different languages which often cause them to work against each other. This is sad but true and this story is another example. Management sees the cost in monetary terms (often short term), whereas the tech sees the cost in a much broader sense (often long term). The inherent conflict can be solved, or at least minimized, if you can find an intermediate who can translate between the layers.
It didn't accept my test-comment a la "(asdf )+" due to lameness. I thought that tests always were to accept lame comments for the purpose of testing. Oh well, I'm off to install Lingua::ManagementSpeak for some real tests then.
Another point of argument they are going to make is that they aren't messing with your copyrighted web pages because they aren't distributing it without permission. When a user makes a request for your page, and your server fulfills that request, you have distributed the materials yourself. They are merely making a "derivative work" from that material.
But this is exactly their downfall. The "They are merely making a "derivative work" from that material." is something that is explicitly not allowed unless written consent is provided from the copyright owner. The thing is that they are redistributing a derivative without permission. The stream of data is consented from originator (me) to the recipient (the enduser). Even though the ISP could be interpreted as "agent", they are not allowed to make derivative works. The ISP provides a transit service which is not considered a derivative (proxies are transit performance implementations or transformations on the transit channel; proxies are generally not supposed to be transformations on the data).
Worse, if an ISP would be allowed to do this kind of rape to my data, what could possibly stop them from using the data in any other way and taking things out of context? Imagine that I have an article written in one way, where the ISP-side modifications would pull the article in another way? Subtle changes, even an advertisement, can change the meaning of an entire page.
Apart from the copyright issues, there are numerous other problems with such a system. Next time you visit http://www.gnu.org/ you will get a nice frame of Microsoft ads about "Get The Facts"?... Or what about the abusive tracking possibility of such a system? Imagine that ads are inserted based on content. That basically means that any mean bastard can track you. The government then indirectly can attach an ad on any content containing the word "xyz"... Nice to know that you are seeking that carbomb info and other details.
This might actually fly. If some content owner starts a case, they could very well make a case for an "unauthorized derivative" under the copyright rules. Then ISPs or transits must take a license for all material they modify. I for one would not allow third parties to modify my HTML.
Both religious and non religious people are allowed to voice their own thoughts and ideas. Yes, let the religious have their believes, but could you then extend the courtesy to me too when I say that my believe is no believe? I am very comforted by the fact that I will be wormfood when I die. Call it my personal heaven to know that I'll be recycled by nature. I don't need religion to accomplish any comfort for either creation or death.
But it didn't say it required liquid nitrogen cooling when crammed into a closed space. So, in good tradition, sue the manufacturer for failing to state the obvious.
Well, the update policy is lacking at those companies. Your idea works much better if you use a different processor architecture (like ppc or arm). Most threats are geared at wintel architecture. Going away from that makes it much harder (and windows luckily won't run on it, which is an implicit benefit).
Slashdot Mirror
And because MIT students are geeks and nerds, the tribe's size is one. So, they do not know anybody. Therefore, they have a very private life.
I disagree that the cases are "funny". The recklessness expressed by the RIAA lawyers and the utter lack of common sense and decency in both professional and private conduct are disturbing. Please remember that the "accused" are scarred for life. Even if all wrongfully sued people get fully compensated, they still lose out because they have been stressed, bashed and abused.
Clone away, clone away. Might be an interesting prospect...
From the Chewbacca to the stupidity defence:
Judge: Why did you kill him?
Defendant: Well, your honor, I'm stupid
Judge: Oh, well, I see, your good to go then
Sounds reasonable to me...
Sorry, but I get tired of these messages. Terrorists could potentially use paper and pencils to communicate too. Lets outlaw that too. The hammer and the screwdriver are terrible weapons. Let us outlaw anything that has a potential. And please start with my hands because they are the most lethal of all.
Common sense; it is so rare, it is a god damn superpower.
Agreed, you:
1 - pick a topic
2 - get acquainted
3 - make mistakes
4 - ask for help
5 - learn from mistakes
6 - get better
7 - rinse and repeat
After 10 years or so you can look back and discover that you a) actually became a sysop/bofh or b) have given up on the way and are now an annoying guy in the IT department. Anyhow, it is hard work to learn your ways and your mileage may vary.
With the importance of the infrastructure, maybe the "money" component should be taken out of the equation and the infrastructure to be commonly owned. Who remembers the privatization of utilities where the performance goes down and the price goes up. Maybe it is time to see the internet infrastructure as the modern common good instead of a private playground for big corporations.
Wasn't privacy declared dead some time ago? So, no punishment, I guess...
Hm, but why does it take a storm of negative publicity to make them change their attitude? Why can't they just build stuff that works? Or would that be too much to ask...
How do you get this to work with a corporate split DNS infrastructure. This is not a fix but a hack which does not work in many scenarios...
Free communication (read: the internet) is a direct threat to scarceness of immaterial goods. Our economy is based on resources being scarce and that is being undermined by the internet. So, basically, they want us to be unable to communicate freely to get back to the times were flow is controlled top-down. However immaterial goods never can be contained in the long run. This fact has apparently not arrived at our treasured politicians (not even after 500 years). Corporations will always try to keep the status quo because they have a hard time to reinvent themselves.
Sure we pretend to be busy so that it looks like we are genius. A network admin that needs to run has done a bad job at establishing redundancy. So, not on my shift.
And I read BPI as British Pornographic Industry. Well, looks like it is more on topic after all; Virgin, 007, pornography, all the same.
No, then they will leave a message "So long and thanks for all the fish".
Everything that is The Right Thing(TM) is tech talk and is normally not understood by management. Techs and management speak different languages which often cause them to work against each other. This is sad but true and this story is another example. Management sees the cost in monetary terms (often short term), whereas the tech sees the cost in a much broader sense (often long term). The inherent conflict can be solved, or at least minimized, if you can find an intermediate who can translate between the layers.
It didn't accept my test-comment a la "(asdf )+" due to lameness. I thought that tests always were to accept lame comments for the purpose of testing. Oh well, I'm off to install Lingua::ManagementSpeak for some real tests then.
But this is exactly their downfall. The "They are merely making a "derivative work" from that material." is something that is explicitly not allowed unless written consent is provided from the copyright owner. The thing is that they are redistributing a derivative without permission. The stream of data is consented from originator (me) to the recipient (the enduser). Even though the ISP could be interpreted as "agent", they are not allowed to make derivative works. The ISP provides a transit service which is not considered a derivative (proxies are transit performance implementations or transformations on the transit channel; proxies are generally not supposed to be transformations on the data).
Worse, if an ISP would be allowed to do this kind of rape to my data, what could possibly stop them from using the data in any other way and taking things out of context? Imagine that I have an article written in one way, where the ISP-side modifications would pull the article in another way? Subtle changes, even an advertisement, can change the meaning of an entire page.
Apart from the copyright issues, there are numerous other problems with such a system. Next time you visit http://www.gnu.org/ you will get a nice frame of Microsoft ads about "Get The Facts"?... Or what about the abusive tracking possibility of such a system? Imagine that ads are inserted based on content. That basically means that any mean bastard can track you. The government then indirectly can attach an ad on any content containing the word "xyz"... Nice to know that you are seeking that carbomb info and other details.
This might actually fly. If some content owner starts a case, they could very well make a case for an "unauthorized derivative" under the copyright rules. Then ISPs or transits must take a license for all material they modify. I for one would not allow third parties to modify my HTML.
No, this is only an issue if the *other* guy is making bootleg copies.
Well, they do not live in US jurisdiction. Big difference.
Both religious and non religious people are allowed to voice their own thoughts and ideas. Yes, let the religious have their believes, but could you then extend the courtesy to me too when I say that my believe is no believe? I am very comforted by the fact that I will be wormfood when I die. Call it my personal heaven to know that I'll be recycled by nature. I don't need religion to accomplish any comfort for either creation or death.
Or fat people are hired to hide guns in the skinfolds...
But it didn't say it required liquid nitrogen cooling when crammed into a closed space. So, in good tradition, sue the manufacturer for failing to state the obvious.
So he is made to clean the dishes for the lawyers for the next 150 years to pay off the debt. That is also a way to create a new job for him...
Well, the update policy is lacking at those companies. Your idea works much better if you use a different processor architecture (like ppc or arm). Most threats are geared at wintel architecture. Going away from that makes it much harder (and windows luckily won't run on it, which is an implicit benefit).