As long as you are in your workplace when requested and do the job for which you are hired, your company has no business whatsoever in any legal activities you decide to pursuit.
That's simply not how the real world works.
You are selling yourself cheap if you allow your company to fuck with your personal life. If they ever attempt to intrude a rude "I dare you, and I am talking to my lawyer" should be more than enough in most cases.
More than enough to get you fired. I think you're confusing how you wish the world would be with how it actually works.
Pointless example in two levels: a bank would screen employees for situations like this, most likely no work relationship would be ever established, also what is the point of doing your time if you are considered guilty forever? If anything a convicted fraudster could be a great asset on identifying fraud.
People get through the screening. You'd be surprised. I took a seminar on internal fraud prevention a year or so back. The stories were incredible. The idea that a convict is the best to catch other convicts is a fantasy that conveniently ignores the fact that often the convict's still looking for ways to commit fraud.
In the UK such intrusion could be used to build a case of unjustified dismissal.
Depends entirely on what the employee did and whether it violated any company code of conduct.
Why not? I would have no problem with that. A good teacher is a good teacher, if after that he does something else, it is their time. If anything this statement says more about your moral hangovers than about the issue at hand.
Firstly you don't comprise the entirity of society and as such you don't get to make up all the rules. Secondly it's hard to do your job as a teacher when the kids are busy making lewd comments and pinning up naked pictures of you on the wall. I happen not to care a great deal about porn - I certainly don't have a moral stance that it makes the teacher low. I do however think others will come to this conclusion and that the teacher's position is therefore undermined. I'd like to hope that some time down the track attitudes will change. But I won't bury my head in the sand like you do, because right now and today a teacher can't publicly be a porn star. It's not accepted by society.
Why not? What about having served your time? Who could be a better "mole"? Do you ever get out of that box in which you are thinking?
I made the same comment to another poster. Part of the punishment may be prison time for a crime. Other parts may include not being permitted to engage in certain kinds of business. Eg. there are rules about a bankrupt being a CFO for a company etc. A common misconception is "you've done your time, you've paid for your crime". That's not how the legal system works and in practice it can't work like that because it would allow for repeat offenders to abuse the system. The extremist view that they should be locked up until they can be trusted is another childish fantasy which would only lead to further overcrowding of prisons.
You are embarrassing yourself by failing to understand what the issue is (you reading comprehension powers are sorely lacking).
You're embarrassing yourself by failing to understand the difference between arguing a point and making a personal attack.
Firstly, you are mixing free time while in a current job with criminal activity previous to joining a job. 2 of your lame examples commit this stupid mistake
Okay first of all if you're going to engage in a serious argument don't call the other person's argument "lame". It makes you sound like an acne ridden 16 year old that thinks they know how to solve the world's problems but barely knows how to tie his own shoelaces let alone spell the word shoelace. There are better more adult words than "lame"
There was no "stupid mistake" in my examples. They were extreme and obvious examples of spare time activities affecting a p
This argument isn't valid because you came up with three professions that have higher than usual ethical standards and then presented situations where people in those positions would clearly be in opposition to those ethics
I used these extremes to make a point. However the argument is still valid for most professions in that an employer may be publicly embaraseed or their business damaged if the employee's ethics and morality come into question. Take for example the lawyer that got fired the other year for forwarding an email to her fling regarding a blow job, which then became public knowledge. If that's still too lofty a profession, imagine if this were an advertising firm or something similar.
We're not talking about criminal behavior here, or other behavior that would legally or ethically preclude you from holding a specific job. We're talking about behavior that is truly outside the scope of anything related to the business that could still end up costing a person their job under the right circumstances.
You can argue that anything your staff does affects the reputation and image of any organisation. Rightly or wrongly public image is important.
The whole idea behind law and prison sentences being finite is that there is a finite price to pay for any crime
Lovely idea. Bears no resemblance to the reality of law, but nice sentiment.
PART of your punishment can be finite while other parts can be indefinite. Part of your punishment can be jail time. The other part may be something else. For example there are crimes that you can commit that make you ineligible to hold office, practice as a lawyer, or run a company. Hell there doesn't have to be any jail time involved. Take a look at the rules for bankruptcy.
Your failure to actually have a grasp of the law kinda invalidates your entire argument. If you're going to comment on law spend a little less time with the philosophy books and a little more time learning about law.
"Our clients complain that her clothes are boring" would probably pass muster
Perhaps if the employee is an entertainer. That'd be a reasonable complaint if the employee were a stripper or a clown. Probably not so for a lawyer or construction worker.
You're right though in that it's easy to make an excuse for hiring or firing someone that doesn't mesh with the actual reason for that action. That's where evidence of behaviour comes into it. Using your example if HR came up with the boring clothing example a good lawyer would help find witnesses that saw the client in less than boring clothng to counter.
The real problem is that if an employee's employer no longer wants them around, even if they win the legal case, they're better off to move on to a different job and employer. Bosses and HR departments don't easily forget and can hold grudges for decades. The employee finds themself having to forever defend their actions (which would never have been questioned if the employee hadn't won a legal case). Minor indisgressions or deviations from rules or procedures that would normally be overlooked suddenly become a new reason to terminate the employee.
My point is that new Internet specific laws will not protect the rights or wishes of either employee or employer. We already have laws.
You seem really fond of the word moron and its variants which you use thrice in your post
Thanks for keeping count, but seriously who the fuck uses the word thrice in everyday language?
I'm not using the word moron to indicate "diminished intelligence" of the kind we attribute to physical disabilities. I'm talking about people who are too lazy and who choose to remain to ignorant to realize that their actions on the Internet are public. The anecdotal evidence in plentiful and it's not difficult to understand. You can discuss it until you turn blue, these people are more interested in their playstations and reality TV. I suggest you stop making excuses for people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.
I have no idea if you're trolling on purpose or not but I have no intention of getting into a protracted argument with someone who's got an attitude like yours.
Actually, if you want to extrapolate trends, I have a few for you to consider. Unlike your sensationalistic and inflamatory extrapolations, mine are based on actual, statitisically verifiable trends...because we all know that trends continue indefinitely, that nothing unforeseen halts, or reverses them, and that none of these are self-limiting.
None of these points is really arguable.
True, but only if you refuse to have a rational argument.
No, but you should find an employer that's willing to let you chase your dream without having to hide it from them. Next time you change jobs, I'd be up front about being a comedian, and about some of your work being offensive, and let them know that it won't come into your work life. If they don't hire you, keep trying till you find someone that will. You may lose some good opportunities, but at least you won't live in fear of losing your job.
If you do something in public in your own time, it can and will affect your employment and is of concern to your employer. No bank wants an employee that's a convicted fraudster. No school wants teachers who are porn stars. No police force wants an ex-con as an officer. The issue isn't whether you conduct these activities in your own time or not, or if the Internet was used. The issue is that you're in a trusted position, and that your employer may have the right to terminate your employment if they perceive a conflict of interest, or if something you've done or are doing in your spare time means you can't effectively do your job.
Now if employers terminate people unreasonably for being part of a political organization, due to their ethnicity or religion or for some other discriminatory reason the existing legal protection needs to come into play (as is the case of Stacy Snyder mentioned in TFA - terminating someone for being seen with a large glass of alcohol is moronic - that said she's better off with a different employer if that's how her current one acts). We don't need new special laws for the Internet. We may need minor adjustments to existing laws to take the Internet into account. We certainly don't need special protection for morons be they employer or employee.
Are we really suppose to have sympathy for morons who don't know what they put on the net is public?
Then you have to decide what constitutes a murder vs a different kind of killing. Regardless putting it on the same list of 10 rules along with "Honour thy mother and father" is ridiculous. Being a rebelious teenager is not as harmful to society as being a murderous son of a bitch.
Interpretations aside, "Thou shalt not kill" is unambiguous. It is only made ambiguous by people who need to justify killing. As a commandment, in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, it is present in all 3 religions.
I can't believe this tripe is moderated insightful.
Of course it's ambiguous. It has to be ambiguous for the religion to work.
I'm most familiar with Christian and Jewish traditions so I'll focus on those.
Who or what don't you kill? If you say it's not open to interpretation you're just being intentionally obtuse. Does it apply to animals? Plants? Am I allowed to eat if I can't kill anything? Thou shalt not kill anything taken literally means thou shalt starve to death. Does this apply to human beings only then? Was it intended as "Thou shalt not murder" (as many claim)? No? What about self defence? Defending your family? If that's okay what about defending your country? Accidental killing? What about acts of omission? If I don't try to save someone I could easily save? What happens when it's a choice of lives? Should I risk my life and my family's income source to save a stranger?
Also it's one of 10 golden rules laid down. The other include adultery (arguably very serious) dishonouring your parents (committed by just about every human being as they learn to be independent of their parents - it's called being a rebelious teenager. Religion is bunk. Some of the rules make sense and are required for a harmonious society but they're mixed in with noise in the form of rules that may or may not have worked for nomadic tribes and do more harm than good. For a good easy to read discussion see "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. I love his argument that "turn the other cheek" is actually a harmful rule.
The fact that the "modern" religions require that you only believe in one diety and that everyone else is wrong leaves plenty of room for people to do things like blow themselves up like the morons they are even without actually considering real (vs imagined) problems. What's worse we indoctrinate our kids into these little sects that we ourselves have been brainwashed into believing and wonder why we have a world full of violent nonsense. Listen to what Richard Dawkins has to say:
My wife and I went to New Zealand for our honeymoon. We took 2 SLRs, a point and shoot camera, and a laptop (would have been with a spare battery, but I forgot to put it in the bag and we were pushing cabin baggage weight limits as it was). We took 20,000 pictures in 3 weeks. The emphasis wasn't even photography and we aren't pros - it was our honeymoon and we still had plenty of time to drive 6000km and do all the things honeymooners do. We just take a shitload of pictures and then sort the good from the bad when we get home.
Now she's a nervous flyer and it was her first time overseas. I've been wanting to get her to do a longer trip - the grand canyon followed by the Canadian mountains would be great. However if we go to the US, we have to worry about being finger printed, having our equipment tossed away, she has allergies that can stop her breathing so carries epi pens (adrenaline needles) which literally stand between her and death if she has a reaction. Oh and she's just changed her last name to Yousef. Never mind that she's blonde and blue eyed and that although I look Arabic I think all religion and politics is poison. We're about as low risk in terms of terrorism as a couple could be.
What it boils down to is this. American's have been running around since headless chooks since 9/11. I simply don't trust those in charge to get it right and see us as no threat. I think a holiday to the US for us is high risk and would be about as much fun as major dental work. I can't justify it. It's a real pity.
Wouldn't do that. I'm not a troll. You'll have to take my word for it.
Even supposing this were a case of one man vs a legal team from hell, that would hardly be the DMCA covering public domain works, that would be abuses of the legal system covering public domain works. Not that I approve of such legal system abuses, but the DMCA is hardly necessary for that to happen.
You're right it's not necessary but it's a lovely tool for conducting such abuse.
And my crystal ball is more like a history book. Nothing written since 1923 has fallen into public domain unless the copyright owner specifically released it. Every time Disney's copyright comes up for expiration, the legislature has extended copyright for them. No copyrights are set to expire for another 12 years, and history leads me to believe that there will be another extension before that comes up. The public doesn't really seem to care, which is the only way a change will ever come about. I figure my predictions are win-win. If I'm right, and no copyrights expire in my lifetime, I can say "I told you so!" and if not, some great works fall into public domain.
Past trends do not necessarily support future forecast, particularly in a world that's moved so quickly technologically enabling huge social changes no one could have predicted. For example how would a world war, or a country other than the US becoming more dominant as a superpower affect this? (e.g. piracy and corruption rampant in other parts of the world and accepted by those cultures). Frankly I see a culture in decline. Very few examples of excellence. Health and education on the decline. I'm not willing to predict anything beyond the next 3 years and even then I accept I could be very wrong.
There are definitely diverse groups that is pushing hard to maintain control and never allow things to fall into the public domain, so one definite possibility is that they remain dominant or increase their stranglehold.
I think you and I have very different ideas but want basically the same things. Fairness of dealing for those that produce their work, but for it to eventually fall into the public domain.
That was always the way with John Howard, slippery bastard. He said one thing and then did the other. Thoroughly untrustworthy. How he stayed in power so long, heavens only knows
Sadly the reason is that Australians were more interested in low interest rates on their home loans than in any kind of social justice. The real reason he's out is simply that interest rates started going up despite his assurances. Once people realized they weren't going to get their low interest rates (and that the new industrial relations laws were really going to hurt them) they threw him out.
He didn't just suddenly become a "slippery bastard". He always was one. He continually did backflips. He continually failed to support Australian interests in the international arena. He continually sided with big business and against unions which given the working class population is ridiculous.
I do hope Rudd's a better PM. He's a politician, so he's only going to go so far when his own neck is on the line, but it got so bad with Howard that almost any change is welcome.
part A could be satisfied by the claim that the product is designed primarily for circumventing technological measures for public domain works
Yes. I can just see it now. 1 man with his lawyer claiming to be innocent of wrongdoing, vs a legal team from hell alleging that the tool's primary use is piracy.
The other point to consider is, who could bring a suit against a company circumventing copyright on public domain works?
It's a criminal law. Not just a civil law. Just as theft is a criminal law. Usually if something is stolen authorities don't proceed unless the person who's suffered the theft is willing to assist, but that doesn't mean they can't. Therefore any law enforcement official with sufficient alterior motive could bring action against you.
Also that's only for individuals. Why would any company produce these tools when they can't control their ultimate use and therefore would find it difficult to counter any argument that their primary use is copyright circumvention.
You're looking for fine details and loopholes that just won't work to negate the argument the grandparent was making.
All this said, I expect copyright terms to keep being extended (effectively making them indefinite) until the public has had enough and demands an overhaul of the copyright system, at which point the DMCA will be made irrelevant. Ultimately, I don't really expect to see any copyrights expire in my life time, and I figure I've got another 65-70 years ahead of me.
Can I borrow your crystal ball? Seriously making predictions beyond your own lifetime is just silly. There's so much you can't take into account, and so many changes ahead you won't forsee, that if you're right about such an outcome in such a timeframe it'll be by sheer chance. All I am willing to say is that for the moment things are getting worse and I don't see them getting better anytime soon. Actually I'd love to be proved wrong.
Nice try to you too, but since possessing the tools to infringe copyright is criminal, presumably as long as the same copy protection is used (or still could be used) on products that still are within their copyright period, the DMCA still has you nailed. The OP therefore has a point - the DMCA effectively makes you a criminal for breaking the protection ven after the copyright has expired. There is no further need to legislate a longer term.
Isn't copyrighting a geometrical figure about the same as copyrighting a number? How exactly do they plan to go about doing this?
When human DNA is being copyrighted, what do you expect.
Copyright has gotten out of hand. It simply isn't being used in the way it was intended to be used. It was invented for a different time and place, and its use now is unreasonable. It's time we stopped giving people control over what they "copyright" and simply allowed them to recoup lost revenue first by the copier voluntarily compensating them and if this doesn't happen then by suing.
If it's a decorative piece of jewelry or similar the properties won't matter too much at least in the short term. The jewelry wont magically change into something unwearable. The decorations won't suddenly turn to dust etc. If you're buying the metal for it's value in a piece of art, you're an idiot and have been ripped off whether or not it's titanium.
If it actually matters whether you're using titanium, you'll know about it. Not titanium in the skin of that shiny new SR-71. Well your plane will melt won't it.
Now what are people being taught in science class exactly? Yes testing the hardness of a metal is one (destructive) way to test if it's the real deal. Corrosion and reactivity are another way. But has no one ever heard of measuring the density and electrical conductivity of a metal? Honestly what do you people learn in science classes?
Well I want my incandescent lights back AND I want people to be permitted to do this. While we're at it I'd like plastic shopping bags that don't break under the weight of a single bottle back instead of supposedly environmentally friendly (but actually shopping store friendly) "green" "enviro" bags. People just have no fucking idea what a tiny drop in the bucket these things are compared to commercial waste. I'm fucking tired of every underpaid checkout chick trying to guilt me out about wasting energy or not using "enviro" shopping bags when she's just regurgitating the same asinine shite she's been lead to believe by big business without ever having taken the time to understand the trade offs and just how big an environmental saving is being made and what proportion of the greenhouse gas problem is solved etc.
Want a better environment? Make it more sensible to go with the "green" option - subsidize the green bulbs instead of legislating away the incandescents. Provide boxes at supermarkets instead of plastic bags. Make "enviro" bags out of material that will actually be recycled and make them as cheap as the plastic. I'm all for environmental responsibility but not when every other fucking jackass wants to waste a shiteload of energy for what they want while I am forced to switch to inferior overpriced products.
In other words if you want your fucking Christmas lights from hell, find a way to do it environmentally friendly (say using solar power and a battery that isn't going to do as much damage to the environment as using coal), or let me have my plastic bags and incandescent bulbs. Why the fuck should others subsidize what your fun?
Slashdot Mirror
As long as you are in your workplace when requested and do the job for which you are hired, your company has no business whatsoever in any legal activities you decide to pursuit.
That's simply not how the real world works.
You are selling yourself cheap if you allow your company to fuck with your personal life. If they ever attempt to intrude a rude "I dare you, and I am talking to my lawyer" should be more than enough in most cases.
More than enough to get you fired. I think you're confusing how you wish the world would be with how it actually works.
Pointless example in two levels: a bank would screen employees for situations like this, most likely no work relationship would be ever established, also what is the point of doing your time if you are considered guilty forever? If anything a convicted fraudster could be a great asset on identifying fraud.
People get through the screening. You'd be surprised. I took a seminar on internal fraud prevention a year or so back. The stories were incredible. The idea that a convict is the best to catch other convicts is a fantasy that conveniently ignores the fact that often the convict's still looking for ways to commit fraud.
In the UK such intrusion could be used to build a case of unjustified dismissal.
Depends entirely on what the employee did and whether it violated any company code of conduct.
Why not? I would have no problem with that. A good teacher is a good teacher, if after that he does something else, it is their time. If anything this statement says more about your moral hangovers than about the issue at hand.
Firstly you don't comprise the entirity of society and as such you don't get to make up all the rules. Secondly it's hard to do your job as a teacher when the kids are busy making lewd comments and pinning up naked pictures of you on the wall. I happen not to care a great deal about porn - I certainly don't have a moral stance that it makes the teacher low. I do however think others will come to this conclusion and that the teacher's position is therefore undermined. I'd like to hope that some time down the track attitudes will change. But I won't bury my head in the sand like you do, because right now and today a teacher can't publicly be a porn star. It's not accepted by society.
Why not? What about having served your time? Who could be a better "mole"? Do you ever get out of that box in which you are thinking?
I made the same comment to another poster. Part of the punishment may be prison time for a crime. Other parts may include not being permitted to engage in certain kinds of business. Eg. there are rules about a bankrupt being a CFO for a company etc. A common misconception is "you've done your time, you've paid for your crime". That's not how the legal system works and in practice it can't work like that because it would allow for repeat offenders to abuse the system. The extremist view that they should be locked up until they can be trusted is another childish fantasy which would only lead to further overcrowding of prisons.
You are embarrassing yourself by failing to understand what the issue is (you reading comprehension powers are sorely lacking).
You're embarrassing yourself by failing to understand the difference between arguing a point and making a personal attack.
Firstly, you are mixing free time while in a current job with criminal activity previous to joining a job. 2 of your lame examples commit this stupid mistake
Okay first of all if you're going to engage in a serious argument don't call the other person's argument "lame". It makes you sound like an acne ridden 16 year old that thinks they know how to solve the world's problems but barely knows how to tie his own shoelaces let alone spell the word shoelace. There are better more adult words than "lame"
There was no "stupid mistake" in my examples. They were extreme and obvious examples of spare time activities affecting a p
This argument isn't valid because you came up with three professions that have higher than usual ethical standards and then presented situations where people in those positions would clearly be in opposition to those ethics
I used these extremes to make a point. However the argument is still valid for most professions in that an employer may be publicly embaraseed or their business damaged if the employee's ethics and morality come into question. Take for example the lawyer that got fired the other year for forwarding an email to her fling regarding a blow job, which then became public knowledge. If that's still too lofty a profession, imagine if this were an advertising firm or something similar.
We're not talking about criminal behavior here, or other behavior that would legally or ethically preclude you from holding a specific job. We're talking about behavior that is truly outside the scope of anything related to the business that could still end up costing a person their job under the right circumstances.
You can argue that anything your staff does affects the reputation and image of any organisation. Rightly or wrongly public image is important.
The whole idea behind law and prison sentences being finite is that there is a finite price to pay for any crime
Lovely idea. Bears no resemblance to the reality of law, but nice sentiment.
PART of your punishment can be finite while other parts can be indefinite. Part of your punishment can be jail time. The other part may be something else. For example there are crimes that you can commit that make you ineligible to hold office, practice as a lawyer, or run a company. Hell there doesn't have to be any jail time involved. Take a look at the rules for bankruptcy.
Your failure to actually have a grasp of the law kinda invalidates your entire argument. If you're going to comment on law spend a little less time with the philosophy books and a little more time learning about law.
Way to misinterpret.
/.
Your comment condensed: Look at me I'm an inflamatory troll and stupid to boot. Oh and I have nothing better to do on NYE than to troll on
"Our clients complain that her clothes are boring" would probably pass muster
Perhaps if the employee is an entertainer. That'd be a reasonable complaint if the employee were a stripper or a clown. Probably not so for a lawyer or construction worker.
You're right though in that it's easy to make an excuse for hiring or firing someone that doesn't mesh with the actual reason for that action. That's where evidence of behaviour comes into it. Using your example if HR came up with the boring clothing example a good lawyer would help find witnesses that saw the client in less than boring clothng to counter.
The real problem is that if an employee's employer no longer wants them around, even if they win the legal case, they're better off to move on to a different job and employer. Bosses and HR departments don't easily forget and can hold grudges for decades. The employee finds themself having to forever defend their actions (which would never have been questioned if the employee hadn't won a legal case). Minor indisgressions or deviations from rules or procedures that would normally be overlooked suddenly become a new reason to terminate the employee.
My point is that new Internet specific laws will not protect the rights or wishes of either employee or employer. We already have laws.
You seem really fond of the word moron and its variants which you use thrice in your post
Thanks for keeping count, but seriously who the fuck uses the word thrice in everyday language?
I'm not using the word moron to indicate "diminished intelligence" of the kind we attribute to physical disabilities. I'm talking about people who are too lazy and who choose to remain to ignorant to realize that their actions on the Internet are public. The anecdotal evidence in plentiful and it's not difficult to understand. You can discuss it until you turn blue, these people are more interested in their playstations and reality TV. I suggest you stop making excuses for people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.
If you fail to understand my argument (on purpose or otherwise) and how it's relevant to the article, it's not my place or my wish to correct you.
I have no idea if you're trolling on purpose or not but I have no intention of getting into a protracted argument with someone who's got an attitude like yours.
Actually, if you want to extrapolate trends, I have a few for you to consider. Unlike your sensationalistic and inflamatory extrapolations, mine are based on actual, statitisically verifiable trends ...because we all know that trends continue indefinitely, that nothing unforeseen halts, or reverses them, and that none of these are self-limiting.
None of these points is really arguable.
True, but only if you refuse to have a rational argument.
Should I pay for chasing my dreams?
No, but you should find an employer that's willing to let you chase your dream without having to hide it from them. Next time you change jobs, I'd be up front about being a comedian, and about some of your work being offensive, and let them know that it won't come into your work life. If they don't hire you, keep trying till you find someone that will. You may lose some good opportunities, but at least you won't live in fear of losing your job.
If you do something in public in your own time, it can and will affect your employment and is of concern to your employer. No bank wants an employee that's a convicted fraudster. No school wants teachers who are porn stars. No police force wants an ex-con as an officer. The issue isn't whether you conduct these activities in your own time or not, or if the Internet was used. The issue is that you're in a trusted position, and that your employer may have the right to terminate your employment if they perceive a conflict of interest, or if something you've done or are doing in your spare time means you can't effectively do your job.
Now if employers terminate people unreasonably for being part of a political organization, due to their ethnicity or religion or for some other discriminatory reason the existing legal protection needs to come into play (as is the case of Stacy Snyder mentioned in TFA - terminating someone for being seen with a large glass of alcohol is moronic - that said she's better off with a different employer if that's how her current one acts). We don't need new special laws for the Internet. We may need minor adjustments to existing laws to take the Internet into account. We certainly don't need special protection for morons be they employer or employee.
Are we really suppose to have sympathy for morons who don't know what they put on the net is public?
Are we required to ask for authorization from someone to do everything now?
Yes we are! How else do you explain Vista UAC?!
Cancel or Allow?
I always thought it was an acronym - Virus Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware
Yeah, that'd be right. Typical MS marketing. Mention as many "new features" as you can to distract from the new DRM.
Cancel or Allow?
Then you have to decide what constitutes a murder vs a different kind of killing. Regardless putting it on the same list of 10 rules along with "Honour thy mother and father" is ridiculous. Being a rebelious teenager is not as harmful to society as being a murderous son of a bitch.
Interpretations aside, "Thou shalt not kill" is unambiguous. It is only made ambiguous by people who need to justify killing. As a commandment, in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, it is present in all 3 religions.
I can't believe this tripe is moderated insightful.
Of course it's ambiguous. It has to be ambiguous for the religion to work.
I'm most familiar with Christian and Jewish traditions so I'll focus on those.
Who or what don't you kill? If you say it's not open to interpretation you're just being intentionally obtuse. Does it apply to animals? Plants? Am I allowed to eat if I can't kill anything? Thou shalt not kill anything taken literally means thou shalt starve to death. Does this apply to human beings only then? Was it intended as "Thou shalt not murder" (as many claim)? No? What about self defence? Defending your family? If that's okay what about defending your country? Accidental killing? What about acts of omission? If I don't try to save someone I could easily save? What happens when it's a choice of lives? Should I risk my life and my family's income source to save a stranger?
Also it's one of 10 golden rules laid down. The other include adultery (arguably very serious) dishonouring your parents (committed by just about every human being as they learn to be independent of their parents - it's called being a rebelious teenager. Religion is bunk. Some of the rules make sense and are required for a harmonious society but they're mixed in with noise in the form of rules that may or may not have worked for nomadic tribes and do more harm than good. For a good easy to read discussion see "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. I love his argument that "turn the other cheek" is actually a harmful rule.
The fact that the "modern" religions require that you only believe in one diety and that everyone else is wrong leaves plenty of room for people to do things like blow themselves up like the morons they are even without actually considering real (vs imagined) problems. What's worse we indoctrinate our kids into these little sects that we ourselves have been brainwashed into believing and wonder why we have a world full of violent nonsense. Listen to what Richard Dawkins has to say:
http://richarddawkins.net/
I guess the Wars Against Drugs, Terror, Iraq etc are not enough, have to start a War Against Sex Offenders too.
Actually War against sanity should cover it.
My wife and I went to New Zealand for our honeymoon. We took 2 SLRs, a point and shoot camera, and a laptop (would have been with a spare battery, but I forgot to put it in the bag and we were pushing cabin baggage weight limits as it was). We took 20,000 pictures in 3 weeks. The emphasis wasn't even photography and we aren't pros - it was our honeymoon and we still had plenty of time to drive 6000km and do all the things honeymooners do. We just take a shitload of pictures and then sort the good from the bad when we get home.
Now she's a nervous flyer and it was her first time overseas. I've been wanting to get her to do a longer trip - the grand canyon followed by the Canadian mountains would be great. However if we go to the US, we have to worry about being finger printed, having our equipment tossed away, she has allergies that can stop her breathing so carries epi pens (adrenaline needles) which literally stand between her and death if she has a reaction. Oh and she's just changed her last name to Yousef. Never mind that she's blonde and blue eyed and that although I look Arabic I think all religion and politics is poison. We're about as low risk in terms of terrorism as a couple could be.
What it boils down to is this. American's have been running around since headless chooks since 9/11. I simply don't trust those in charge to get it right and see us as no threat. I think a holiday to the US for us is high risk and would be about as much fun as major dental work. I can't justify it. It's a real pity.
You're (deliberately?) misquoting me.
Wouldn't do that. I'm not a troll. You'll have to take my word for it.
Even supposing this were a case of one man vs a legal team from hell, that would hardly be the DMCA covering public domain works, that would be abuses of the legal system covering public domain works. Not that I approve of such legal system abuses, but the DMCA is hardly necessary for that to happen.
You're right it's not necessary but it's a lovely tool for conducting such abuse.
And my crystal ball is more like a history book. Nothing written since 1923 has fallen into public domain unless the copyright owner specifically released it. Every time Disney's copyright comes up for expiration, the legislature has extended copyright for them. No copyrights are set to expire for another 12 years, and history leads me to believe that there will be another extension before that comes up. The public doesn't really seem to care, which is the only way a change will ever come about. I figure my predictions are win-win. If I'm right, and no copyrights expire in my lifetime, I can say "I told you so!" and if not, some great works fall into public domain.
Past trends do not necessarily support future forecast, particularly in a world that's moved so quickly technologically enabling huge social changes no one could have predicted. For example how would a world war, or a country other than the US becoming more dominant as a superpower affect this? (e.g. piracy and corruption rampant in other parts of the world and accepted by those cultures). Frankly I see a culture in decline. Very few examples of excellence. Health and education on the decline. I'm not willing to predict anything beyond the next 3 years and even then I accept I could be very wrong.
There are definitely diverse groups that is pushing hard to maintain control and never allow things to fall into the public domain, so one definite possibility is that they remain dominant or increase their stranglehold.
I think you and I have very different ideas but want basically the same things. Fairness of dealing for those that produce their work, but for it to eventually fall into the public domain.
Milton? Is that you?
That was always the way with John Howard, slippery bastard. He said one thing and then did the other. Thoroughly untrustworthy. How he stayed in power so long, heavens only knows
Sadly the reason is that Australians were more interested in low interest rates on their home loans than in any kind of social justice. The real reason he's out is simply that interest rates started going up despite his assurances. Once people realized they weren't going to get their low interest rates (and that the new industrial relations laws were really going to hurt them) they threw him out.
He didn't just suddenly become a "slippery bastard". He always was one. He continually did backflips. He continually failed to support Australian interests in the international arena. He continually sided with big business and against unions which given the working class population is ridiculous.
I do hope Rudd's a better PM. He's a politician, so he's only going to go so far when his own neck is on the line, but it got so bad with Howard that almost any change is welcome.
part A could be satisfied by the claim that the product is designed primarily for circumventing technological measures for public domain works
Yes. I can just see it now. 1 man with his lawyer claiming to be innocent of wrongdoing, vs a legal team from hell alleging that the tool's primary use is piracy.
The other point to consider is, who could bring a suit against a company circumventing copyright on public domain works?
It's a criminal law. Not just a civil law. Just as theft is a criminal law. Usually if something is stolen authorities don't proceed unless the person who's suffered the theft is willing to assist, but that doesn't mean they can't. Therefore any law enforcement official with sufficient alterior motive could bring action against you.
Also that's only for individuals. Why would any company produce these tools when they can't control their ultimate use and therefore would find it difficult to counter any argument that their primary use is copyright circumvention.
You're looking for fine details and loopholes that just won't work to negate the argument the grandparent was making.
All this said, I expect copyright terms to keep being extended (effectively making them indefinite) until the public has had enough and demands an overhaul of the copyright system, at which point the DMCA will be made irrelevant. Ultimately, I don't really expect to see any copyrights expire in my life time, and I figure I've got another 65-70 years ahead of me.
Can I borrow your crystal ball? Seriously making predictions beyond your own lifetime is just silly. There's so much you can't take into account, and so many changes ahead you won't forsee, that if you're right about such an outcome in such a timeframe it'll be by sheer chance. All I am willing to say is that for the moment things are getting worse and I don't see them getting better anytime soon. Actually I'd love to be proved wrong.
Nice try to you too, but since possessing the tools to infringe copyright is criminal, presumably as long as the same copy protection is used (or still could be used) on products that still are within their copyright period, the DMCA still has you nailed. The OP therefore has a point - the DMCA effectively makes you a criminal for breaking the protection ven after the copyright has expired. There is no further need to legislate a longer term.
Isn't copyrighting a geometrical figure about the same as copyrighting a number? How exactly do they plan to go about doing this?
When human DNA is being copyrighted, what do you expect.
Copyright has gotten out of hand. It simply isn't being used in the way it was intended to be used. It was invented for a different time and place, and its use now is unreasonable. It's time we stopped giving people control over what they "copyright" and simply allowed them to recoup lost revenue first by the copier voluntarily compensating them and if this doesn't happen then by suing.
If it's a decorative piece of jewelry or similar the properties won't matter too much at least in the short term. The jewelry wont magically change into something unwearable. The decorations won't suddenly turn to dust etc. If you're buying the metal for it's value in a piece of art, you're an idiot and have been ripped off whether or not it's titanium.
If it actually matters whether you're using titanium, you'll know about it. Not titanium in the skin of that shiny new SR-71. Well your plane will melt won't it.
Now what are people being taught in science class exactly? Yes testing the hardness of a metal is one (destructive) way to test if it's the real deal. Corrosion and reactivity are another way. But has no one ever heard of measuring the density and electrical conductivity of a metal? Honestly what do you people learn in science classes?
Well I want my incandescent lights back AND I want people to be permitted to do this. While we're at it I'd like plastic shopping bags that don't break under the weight of a single bottle back instead of supposedly environmentally friendly (but actually shopping store friendly) "green" "enviro" bags. People just have no fucking idea what a tiny drop in the bucket these things are compared to commercial waste. I'm fucking tired of every underpaid checkout chick trying to guilt me out about wasting energy or not using "enviro" shopping bags when she's just regurgitating the same asinine shite she's been lead to believe by big business without ever having taken the time to understand the trade offs and just how big an environmental saving is being made and what proportion of the greenhouse gas problem is solved etc.
Want a better environment? Make it more sensible to go with the "green" option - subsidize the green bulbs instead of legislating away the incandescents. Provide boxes at supermarkets instead of plastic bags. Make "enviro" bags out of material that will actually be recycled and make them as cheap as the plastic. I'm all for environmental responsibility but not when every other fucking jackass wants to waste a shiteload of energy for what they want while I am forced to switch to inferior overpriced products.
In other words if you want your fucking Christmas lights from hell, find a way to do it environmentally friendly (say using solar power and a battery that isn't going to do as much damage to the environment as using coal), or let me have my plastic bags and incandescent bulbs. Why the fuck should others subsidize what your fun?