I agree with almost everything you wrote there, but particularly the last part: copyright needs to adapt to changing times, so that it continues to serve its purpose with the right balance between the copyright holder and the consumer of the material.
The one thing I do disagree with is your argument (as I understand it) that everyone should have the freedom to distribute copyrighted material as long as it's not for their own commercial benefit. This ignores the fact that doing so is still commercially damaging to the copyright holder, and thus depriving them of the compensation that copyright is supposed to guarantee in exchange for offering their work to the world.
For copyright to be an effective tool in today's environment, and by that I mean for it to protect the reasonable wishes of the copyright holder for a reasonable time after their material is published whatever those wishes may be, it needs to be a near exclusive monopoly: no exceptions that either prejudice the effects for the copyright holder or benefit someone else instead. In fact, IMHO, real "fair use" should be defined in this way, thus allowing things like back-ups, transfer to different media for personal use and fair criticism, but not allowing anyone other than the holder to spread the material without consent.
Without this sort of framework, the meaning behind the concept of copyright is lost, and it doesn't protect anything, commercial (songs, movies), philosophical (GPL) or otherwise.
I'd love to see a citation for that "basic common law", because as I see it, the legal position based on legislation is rather clear, and doesn't support your argument at all.
Everything you say about the erosion of copyright's purpose by commercial interests may be true, but it doesn't answer my original question, nor justify breaking the law.
Shoplifting is a crime precisely because if everyone did it, there would be no stores. There are stores because only a few people shoplift. Everyone else either finds it morally unacceptable, or is too afraid of the punishment to do it.
The exact same reasoning applies to copyright infringement, with the exception of the fact that many more people do it, because it has become morally acceptable to much of the population, and because the laws in this area are not resepcted. This is precisely the culture I am talking about, and the same culture that means companies like Linksys will attempt to take advantage of the situation.
I repeat: the moral crime is the same whether one person commits a crime or one thousand do. The action is deemed criminal when one person performs it precisely because of the effect it would have if everyone else acted similarly.
One (an individual slashdotter) causes, at most, the total "damage" of the cost of one CD to that company.
But if everyone did that, then the company would sell no CDs at all and would fail. If only some people do that, then the company will attempt to make its profit from the remaining honest ones, and thus the copiers are penalising the law-abiding. Either way, the moral crime is the same whether one person does it or one thousand, and whether it's 1,000 individuals separately or a corporation with 1,000 people behind it.
I'm afraid your whole argument against Linksys can be challenged on exactly the same grounds that people use to justify copyright infringement on songs and music. You say Linksys does wholesale damage; they can argue that there's no evidence someone would have bought a competitor's product if they hadn't infringed the GPL. This is pretty much the analogue of the music industry claiming that someone owes them the cost of a CD they've ripped, but the ripper claiming that since they wouldn't have bought it anyway for money, the music industry has lost nothing.
This is my whole point here: you can use fairly direct analogies between the excuses song-swappers and movie pirates have been giving for years to defend Linksys. Personally, I think it's breaking the law and should be penalised in both cases, but it's hypocritical for hordes of slashbots to come here and make these arguments against Linksys when many of them have refuted directly analogous arguments to justify their own copyright infringement in other threads.
Incidentally, yes, I do know that song swapping isn't illegal under some countries' copyright law. AFAIK they are a relatively small minority, however; certainly it's not just the US where it's against the law. Personally, I don't see why song-swapping should be legal unless it's suitably controlled; even if everyone is only allowed to make half a dozen copies for close friends and family, it only takes a few generations and everyone's got it without any compensation given to the creators of the material beyond the initial payment. That's not a deal that makes $10 a CD a workable price; $100,000+ is more likely to match the overall costs incurred. Thus I personally think song-swapping should be illegal under copyright law to prevent abuses of the loophole. It's the difference between letting your mates listen to your CDs while they're at a party at your house, and making each of them a copy to take home, that is significant...
The people not agreeing with copyrights may not be the same people thinking copyright is important.
That's a possibility, which you could look into. Hint for you: Not a few people post against the RIAA/MPAA in the anti-media threads, but then jump up in support of the GPL in threads like this. These are the Joe Slashdots to whom I was referring. I don't claim everyone here is like that, nor that everyone here is like anything else, but there is certainly a large subset of the Slashdot posting world who think along similar lines, and their groupthink defies belief.
Don't forget the FSF line - in the absence of copyright, the GPL would be unenforceable, but it would also be unnecessary...
Except that, of course, that isn't true. In the absence of copyright, none of the so-called viral aspects of the GPL would apply either. That's why the GPL isn't really supporting "free" software by the usual English language meaning of the word. But that's another debate for another day, which I think was several weeks ago...
What I think is odd is how some people attribute the comments of some Slashdot posters to the whole community of Slashdot readers.
I don't attribute it to the whole community. It is, however, unquestionably a common attitude amongst Slashdot posters. The hypocrisy of threads like this, where people fall in line to champion the justness of copyright and the Great God GPL, following hot on the heels of numerous anti-RIAA threads where many of those same people claimed copyright was being abused, information wants to be free and so on, is incredible.
I'm sorry, which part of copyright law says that individuals aren't bound by it and businesses aren't?
There are certain exemptions to copyright law, known as "fair use", which may include making personal copies for things like back-ups in some jurisdictions, but that's far from the same thing as what you've written here.
But, given the high moderation on the parent comment, I'm guessing that many/. readers want to grant corporate copyright infringers anything they say they need to make money.
Isn't it odd how, according to Joe Slashdot, copyright is so important when it relates to the GPL, but so irrelevant when it relates to music or movies?
Cases like this are exactly the reason why copyright law should have teeth and be respected: copyright is, in general, a good thing and an important defence of the rights of people who create work and allow others to use it.
However, when it's wholesale abused by large subsets of the population -- many, many of whom arrogantly proclaim their support for that abuse right here on this forum -- it's no surprise that other big companies turn around and slam it back in society's collective face. Did no-one see this coming?
I won't be at all surprised if Linksys wriggles free of all charges on a legal technicality, just as numerous blatant copyright infringers have done when prosecuted by the big media groups. It's just a shame that we have evolved a culture where copyright lacks respect to such a degree, and now the hard workers who create good things like the Linux kernel suffer because of the prevailing greed of song-swappers and the pirate movie business.
I'm sorry you think I need to get over having a sensible attitude at work.
I'm all for having a laugh -- my team-mates and I frequently do -- but the things described just weren't funny. Abusing privilege and/or ripping someone for a cheap laugh that they won't share isn't being friendly or having a bit of fun, it's just nasty and unprofessional.
I've read this whole subthread, and there's an interesting divergence between the opinions you two have.
While I completely understand both your wish to be self-reliant and your reluctance to add yet another law without clear benefits, I don't quite see why you rank your First Amendment rights so highly. If one person has a right to free speech, surely another has a right not to listen, just as one person's right to freedom of association does not prevent another's right to be free from harrassment. It's the old balance: with freedom comes responsibility.
Now, to you, spam and telesales may not be a problem. To others, clearly they are. As a 6'2" fit male in his 20s who's played combat sports since childhood, I have little to fear walking home alone across a dark park in my home town. The same does not apply to my girlfriend, my disabled friend, my mate's 90-year-old grandfather or my 5-year-old niece. Should we do away with mugging laws, because if someone was stupid enough to try it on me I could deal with the problem myself? Of course not; many others in society aren't in a position to do so, and the law is there to protect the vulnerable in such situations.
Obviously the consequences of telesales calls and spam aren't likely to be as severe, but the issue is the same. To an elderly person who finds it hard to move around their home, or a shift worker who sleeps during normal office hours, constant distractions when the phone rings are a real, serious, unreasonable imposition. To an impressionable 14-year-old boy, some of the spam that routinely gets sent around would probably be far more interesting than it is to you or me, though it would no doubt be just as damaging if that boy acted as the spammers wished.
I just don't see what's wrong with having a register that allows people to say that they don't wish to be disturbed by this stuff. It does no harm to anyone. Clearly someone who registers for this wasn't going to act on the calls/spam anyway, so it's actually in everyone's best interests for the register to be observed. (I can see the objection to having exemptions to that for certain parties, and if that's why the judge has thrown out the new rule, fair enough.)
Unfortunately, there are always some people who would put profit above politeness, and continue to harrass any potential customers even if those people made their wishes known without legal weight behind them. Thus in this case, I completely understand the widespread calls for a law to enforce those opinions. Spammers and telemarketers are generally bottom-feeding scum who live only to harrass and disturb the rest of society, and since voluntary approaches to this problem clearly haven't worked, I reckon it's a fair argument that society's right to go about its business in peace now trumps the scumbags' "rights" to "free speech".
You seem to be concerned that this is a step onto a slippery slope. I don't see why: society is not preventing those people from expressing an opinion, it's simply choosing not to listen.
The Borg may have drones and state-of-the-art technology, but we have lawyers, millions of lawyers.
[Dramatic speech voice] We don't need lawyers. The Borg are a foul hybrid, an affront to nature! We can defeat them with just our heart and soul, our compassionate perspective, our art, our very humanity! All we need is... an android that can survive without organic parts!
That, or seeing as how he had the power to fire the guy, he was likely the guy's manager.
That's even worse. If that's the case, then now he's created a fear culture within his whole group, since everyone's going to know how Joe Slacker got caught, and assume that they're being spied on too. Productivity is about to drop, as everyone looks over their shoulder all the time rather than getting on with the job.
This is not effective management, it's very bad management. It's well documented that companies who treat their employees with respect generally get good results out of those employees in return, while companies that try to take advantage usually get back exactly the opposite. Here's a crash course in good management: the important word in "human resources" is "human".
If anyone tried any of the things you describe in a sane office, it would be a serious disciplinary matter. There's having a laugh -- a good thing -- and then there's abuse of privilege, harrassment and bullying -- all bad things.
So companies can violate your freedom of speech on YOUR OWN TIME?
No, but it's not unreasonable for a company to choose not to employ someone whose opinion is on the record as conflicting with its own, particularly if they would be employed as a senior executive who will often be speaking for the company. There is a clear conflict of interest, and one could argue that the ethical thing to do would be to resign your position with the company before making such a statement, rather than forcing the company's hand.
For you, we recommend punching with the index and middle finger knuckles, with a straight wrist and good hip action. It's much more therapeutic anyhow.
My contract has the usual sort of clause assigning rights to my employer for things I create. It also has a specific exemption (that they put in, not me) for anything created outside my normal working hours and unconnected with my employment.
I asked to see a copy of the full contract before accepting the job, precisely to check whether such a clause was there. If it hadn't been, and they hadn't been prepared to insert one, they wouldn't have got me.
No, the employment market is not so bad that I will sign away potentially life-changing rights before I even know I have them. If I'm going to work for a company that wants that sort of control over my soul, I'll do it flipping burgers or stacking store shelves, not for someone who's bottom-feeding off my hard-earned expertise.
Since personal data held in the UK must in general be held for specified purposes and not used otherwise, under the data protection legislation, you can look up what information they are actually allowed to keep.
Now, please do your homework and read what they really store and why, as officially notified to the Office of the Information Commissioner (who oversees UK data protection issues).
And then come back, and be scared.
Why, exactly, do they need to record information about:
the sexual life of their customers
the family, lifestyle and social circumstances of relatives of their employees
the academic records of students and pupils
the political opinions of complainants...
Yes, those are all real examples, lifted straight out of the entries for several purposes for which they are registered with the Information Commissioner.
Hell, their entry basically says they may keep pretty much any really personal information about anyone. Oh, and they can transfer most of it worldwide, too (i.e., they can take it to places with much less strict data protction legislation than we've got -- if they can find anywhere like that, anyway.
In many topics (though not all) a law HAS to be passed by the European Parliament to make it -- this is regulated in the treaties.
However, in this case, after numerous readings and intermediate votes including some in the European Parliament, it's basically going to come down to the European Council of Ministers, IIRC. That's how the codecision process works, and means that if the Ministers prefer the Commission's view to Parliament's, then that's how it's going to go.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with almost everything you wrote there, but particularly the last part: copyright needs to adapt to changing times, so that it continues to serve its purpose with the right balance between the copyright holder and the consumer of the material.
The one thing I do disagree with is your argument (as I understand it) that everyone should have the freedom to distribute copyrighted material as long as it's not for their own commercial benefit. This ignores the fact that doing so is still commercially damaging to the copyright holder, and thus depriving them of the compensation that copyright is supposed to guarantee in exchange for offering their work to the world.
For copyright to be an effective tool in today's environment, and by that I mean for it to protect the reasonable wishes of the copyright holder for a reasonable time after their material is published whatever those wishes may be, it needs to be a near exclusive monopoly: no exceptions that either prejudice the effects for the copyright holder or benefit someone else instead. In fact, IMHO, real "fair use" should be defined in this way, thus allowing things like back-ups, transfer to different media for personal use and fair criticism, but not allowing anyone other than the holder to spread the material without consent.
Without this sort of framework, the meaning behind the concept of copyright is lost, and it doesn't protect anything, commercial (songs, movies), philosophical (GPL) or otherwise.
I'd love to see a citation for that "basic common law", because as I see it, the legal position based on legislation is rather clear, and doesn't support your argument at all.
Everything you say about the erosion of copyright's purpose by commercial interests may be true, but it doesn't answer my original question, nor justify breaking the law.
I'm afraid you miss my point.
Shoplifting is a crime precisely because if everyone did it, there would be no stores. There are stores because only a few people shoplift. Everyone else either finds it morally unacceptable, or is too afraid of the punishment to do it.
The exact same reasoning applies to copyright infringement, with the exception of the fact that many more people do it, because it has become morally acceptable to much of the population, and because the laws in this area are not resepcted. This is precisely the culture I am talking about, and the same culture that means companies like Linksys will attempt to take advantage of the situation.
I repeat: the moral crime is the same whether one person commits a crime or one thousand do. The action is deemed criminal when one person performs it precisely because of the effect it would have if everyone else acted similarly.
But if everyone did that, then the company would sell no CDs at all and would fail. If only some people do that, then the company will attempt to make its profit from the remaining honest ones, and thus the copiers are penalising the law-abiding. Either way, the moral crime is the same whether one person does it or one thousand, and whether it's 1,000 individuals separately or a corporation with 1,000 people behind it.
I'm afraid your whole argument against Linksys can be challenged on exactly the same grounds that people use to justify copyright infringement on songs and music. You say Linksys does wholesale damage; they can argue that there's no evidence someone would have bought a competitor's product if they hadn't infringed the GPL. This is pretty much the analogue of the music industry claiming that someone owes them the cost of a CD they've ripped, but the ripper claiming that since they wouldn't have bought it anyway for money, the music industry has lost nothing.
This is my whole point here: you can use fairly direct analogies between the excuses song-swappers and movie pirates have been giving for years to defend Linksys. Personally, I think it's breaking the law and should be penalised in both cases, but it's hypocritical for hordes of slashbots to come here and make these arguments against Linksys when many of them have refuted directly analogous arguments to justify their own copyright infringement in other threads.
Incidentally, yes, I do know that song swapping isn't illegal under some countries' copyright law. AFAIK they are a relatively small minority, however; certainly it's not just the US where it's against the law. Personally, I don't see why song-swapping should be legal unless it's suitably controlled; even if everyone is only allowed to make half a dozen copies for close friends and family, it only takes a few generations and everyone's got it without any compensation given to the creators of the material beyond the initial payment. That's not a deal that makes $10 a CD a workable price; $100,000+ is more likely to match the overall costs incurred. Thus I personally think song-swapping should be illegal under copyright law to prevent abuses of the loophole. It's the difference between letting your mates listen to your CDs while they're at a party at your house, and making each of them a copy to take home, that is significant...
That's a possibility, which you could look into. Hint for you: Not a few people post against the RIAA/MPAA in the anti-media threads, but then jump up in support of the GPL in threads like this. These are the Joe Slashdots to whom I was referring. I don't claim everyone here is like that, nor that everyone here is like anything else, but there is certainly a large subset of the Slashdot posting world who think along similar lines, and their groupthink defies belief.
Except that, of course, that isn't true. In the absence of copyright, none of the so-called viral aspects of the GPL would apply either. That's why the GPL isn't really supporting "free" software by the usual English language meaning of the word. But that's another debate for another day, which I think was several weeks ago...
I don't attribute it to the whole community. It is, however, unquestionably a common attitude amongst Slashdot posters. The hypocrisy of threads like this, where people fall in line to champion the justness of copyright and the Great God GPL, following hot on the heels of numerous anti-RIAA threads where many of those same people claimed copyright was being abused, information wants to be free and so on, is incredible.
I'm sorry, which part of copyright law says that individuals aren't bound by it and businesses aren't?
There are certain exemptions to copyright law, known as "fair use", which may include making personal copies for things like back-ups in some jurisdictions, but that's far from the same thing as what you've written here.
Isn't it odd how, according to Joe Slashdot, copyright is so important when it relates to the GPL, but so irrelevant when it relates to music or movies?
Cases like this are exactly the reason why copyright law should have teeth and be respected: copyright is, in general, a good thing and an important defence of the rights of people who create work and allow others to use it.
However, when it's wholesale abused by large subsets of the population -- many, many of whom arrogantly proclaim their support for that abuse right here on this forum -- it's no surprise that other big companies turn around and slam it back in society's collective face. Did no-one see this coming?
I won't be at all surprised if Linksys wriggles free of all charges on a legal technicality, just as numerous blatant copyright infringers have done when prosecuted by the big media groups. It's just a shame that we have evolved a culture where copyright lacks respect to such a degree, and now the hard workers who create good things like the Linux kernel suffer because of the prevailing greed of song-swappers and the pirate movie business.
I'm sorry you think I need to get over having a sensible attitude at work.
I'm all for having a laugh -- my team-mates and I frequently do -- but the things described just weren't funny. Abusing privilege and/or ripping someone for a cheap laugh that they won't share isn't being friendly or having a bit of fun, it's just nasty and unprofessional.
I've read this whole subthread, and there's an interesting divergence between the opinions you two have.
While I completely understand both your wish to be self-reliant and your reluctance to add yet another law without clear benefits, I don't quite see why you rank your First Amendment rights so highly. If one person has a right to free speech, surely another has a right not to listen, just as one person's right to freedom of association does not prevent another's right to be free from harrassment. It's the old balance: with freedom comes responsibility.
Now, to you, spam and telesales may not be a problem. To others, clearly they are. As a 6'2" fit male in his 20s who's played combat sports since childhood, I have little to fear walking home alone across a dark park in my home town. The same does not apply to my girlfriend, my disabled friend, my mate's 90-year-old grandfather or my 5-year-old niece. Should we do away with mugging laws, because if someone was stupid enough to try it on me I could deal with the problem myself? Of course not; many others in society aren't in a position to do so, and the law is there to protect the vulnerable in such situations.
Obviously the consequences of telesales calls and spam aren't likely to be as severe, but the issue is the same. To an elderly person who finds it hard to move around their home, or a shift worker who sleeps during normal office hours, constant distractions when the phone rings are a real, serious, unreasonable imposition. To an impressionable 14-year-old boy, some of the spam that routinely gets sent around would probably be far more interesting than it is to you or me, though it would no doubt be just as damaging if that boy acted as the spammers wished.
I just don't see what's wrong with having a register that allows people to say that they don't wish to be disturbed by this stuff. It does no harm to anyone. Clearly someone who registers for this wasn't going to act on the calls/spam anyway, so it's actually in everyone's best interests for the register to be observed. (I can see the objection to having exemptions to that for certain parties, and if that's why the judge has thrown out the new rule, fair enough.)
Unfortunately, there are always some people who would put profit above politeness, and continue to harrass any potential customers even if those people made their wishes known without legal weight behind them. Thus in this case, I completely understand the widespread calls for a law to enforce those opinions. Spammers and telemarketers are generally bottom-feeding scum who live only to harrass and disturb the rest of society, and since voluntary approaches to this problem clearly haven't worked, I reckon it's a fair argument that society's right to go about its business in peace now trumps the scumbags' "rights" to "free speech".
You seem to be concerned that this is a step onto a slippery slope. I don't see why: society is not preventing those people from expressing an opinion, it's simply choosing not to listen.
If you're going to that level, I think I'd rather have Seven of Nine dressed as a hooker...
Humour is irrelevant. You will be moderated.
[Dramatic speech voice] We don't need lawyers. The Borg are a foul hybrid, an affront to nature! We can defeat them with just our heart and soul, our compassionate perspective, our art, our very humanity! All we need is... an android that can survive without organic parts!
Sure, but for a 1,000-copies-only piece of official Trek gear like this, "so much" will be plenty for the ruthlessly profiteering out there...
Nope, I'm the crappy boss's boss. }:-)
That's even worse. If that's the case, then now he's created a fear culture within his whole group, since everyone's going to know how Joe Slacker got caught, and assume that they're being spied on too. Productivity is about to drop, as everyone looks over their shoulder all the time rather than getting on with the job.
This is not effective management, it's very bad management. It's well documented that companies who treat their employees with respect generally get good results out of those employees in return, while companies that try to take advantage usually get back exactly the opposite. Here's a crash course in good management: the important word in "human resources" is "human".
And BTW, you should look up what a troll is.
Damn, where are my mod points today?
If anyone tried any of the things you describe in a sane office, it would be a serious disciplinary matter. There's having a laugh -- a good thing -- and then there's abuse of privilege, harrassment and bullying -- all bad things.
Yes, yes, you're very clever.
Now perhaps you should pack your things and follow him out the door, since either
- you're the sysadmin, in which case you're incompetent for not patching against a known security flaw, or
- you're not the sysadmin, in which case you're a cracker abusing his access to company hardware instead of doing his own job
and in both cases, you're the kind of idiot who shouldn't be employed by a serious business.There are appropriate ways to deal with people who don't do their job properly. What you describe is not one of them.
No, but it's not unreasonable for a company to choose not to employ someone whose opinion is on the record as conflicting with its own, particularly if they would be employed as a senior executive who will often be speaking for the company. There is a clear conflict of interest, and one could argue that the ethical thing to do would be to resign your position with the company before making such a statement, rather than forcing the company's hand.
For you, we recommend punching with the index and middle finger knuckles, with a straight wrist and good hip action. It's much more therapeutic anyhow.
No it should not, because that is not a sentence.
Please join the queue behind him.
My contract has the usual sort of clause assigning rights to my employer for things I create. It also has a specific exemption (that they put in, not me) for anything created outside my normal working hours and unconnected with my employment.
I asked to see a copy of the full contract before accepting the job, precisely to check whether such a clause was there. If it hadn't been, and they hadn't been prepared to insert one, they wouldn't have got me.
No, the employment market is not so bad that I will sign away potentially life-changing rights before I even know I have them. If I'm going to work for a company that wants that sort of control over my soul, I'll do it flipping burgers or stacking store shelves, not for someone who's bottom-feeding off my hard-earned expertise.
Since personal data held in the UK must in general be held for specified purposes and not used otherwise, under the data protection legislation, you can look up what information they are actually allowed to keep.
Now, please do your homework and read what they really store and why, as officially notified to the Office of the Information Commissioner (who oversees UK data protection issues).
And then come back, and be scared.
Why, exactly, do they need to record information about:
Yes, those are all real examples, lifted straight out of the entries for several purposes for which they are registered with the Information Commissioner.
Hell, their entry basically says they may keep pretty much any really personal information about anyone. Oh, and they can transfer most of it worldwide, too (i.e., they can take it to places with much less strict data protction legislation than we've got -- if they can find anywhere like that, anyway.
I believe the traditional target for false identity scams in the UK is David Blunkett.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow...
However, in this case, after numerous readings and intermediate votes including some in the European Parliament, it's basically going to come down to the European Council of Ministers, IIRC. That's how the codecision process works, and means that if the Ministers prefer the Commission's view to Parliament's, then that's how it's going to go.