More appropriately, putting up a web page where one advocates the assasination of George W. Bush is a crime in the Land Of The Free.. I wonder who the first Australian to be extradited for that will be?
No, no additional sections exist. This is the sole criminal copyright infringement law in Australia and it has never been enforced (ever). It also happens to be completely irrelevant to this case.
Of course, your ignorance about international law provides you a good excuse to wave your arms in hysteria.
We know what the law is, we just think it is fucked. We don't want to be subject to US law, anymore than I expect citizens of the US want to be subject to Australian law (we should really start extraditing all you bastards who own firearms).
Hiring a hitman, and hell, murder, are criminal acts just about anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement isn't a criminal act in Australia. Now if we want to make stupid analogies, lets suppose that I was to send some beer to my American friends. I might do this because Australian beer is far superior to US beer in many ways. If the people drinking it in the US were 19 it would be rediculous for me to be extradited because the legal drinking age is 18 in Australia, not 21. Besides which, it's just such a trivial act that the US government would indeed be wasting everyone's time to pursue it. Just like this case.
Err, there would be all this software out there that would be free to redistribute. It would be impossible to keep selling that software as a "product". It would be free to reverse engineer also which would make it impossible to keep a monopoly on maintenance.
Don't forget that some people actually get paid to work on GNOME.. these people are happy to work on the feature requests of customers as it encourages those customers to buy the next release of the product. Of course, Eugenia isn't actually a paying customer of any of the companies that pay those developers, she wants people to work on her feature requests for free, even if they have no interest in them.
Australia. Most of Europe also doesn't have any criminal copyright laws. Don't you think it's a bit ironic to call us fucked up when you're the ones who have a government owned by corporations?
Ya know, we have these companies (Suse, Redhat, etc) which will happily take your money for a distribution of Linux. Anything you suggestion to them is likely to get implemented as it will make you buy the next version of their distribution.
She doesn't understand open source, she never has, and she doesn't try to learn. The most funny part of her article is where she notes that there are companies who she can pay to care about her opinions but she chooses not to (and expects volunteers to care for free).
Ask some random average person if they can make you a copy of a CD they have that you both were just talking about. I challenge you to find one person who would refuse on the grounds that they think copyright law is a good idea. Get off the crack.
Uhhh.. you're still thinking about software as a product? Even though we're talking about a world without copyright law? Are you really that short sighted? It really is pointless talking to people like you.
There would be no advantage to keeping your source code secret, so people wouldn't and therefore the only "advantage" of the GPL over the public domain (forcing people to supply source code as well as binaries) would be unnecessary. Why would there be no advantage? The same reason there's no advantage to welding the hood shut on a car. When people are accustomed to paying for maintainence (instead of paying for a "product" which they never maintain) they demand that third parties be available to supply that service (otherwise there is no incentive to create a decent product in the first place).
"Gee, looks like the government isn't selling any criminal copyright laws." "That's rediculous, we're the corporations of amercia, we have a right to buy any law we want." "Well sorry, they aint selling em." "Ok, we'll start our own police force! Can you get us laws which give our corporate goons the power of police?" "Oh, that's already available." "Excellent".
That's nuts. I found this document on lexisnexis which describes them and related "asset freezing" orders as "the law's two nuclear weapons and the greatest examples of judicial activism in our time. They strike without warning when, as is usual, they are obtained ex parte, secretly and without notice to the respondent."
That's crazy gestapo crap. I mean it's bad enough that official law enforcement agencies can do this crap but regular citizens!? Insanity.
The GPL is a defense against copyright, if there were no copyright we wouldn't need the GPL (which is a good thing, cause as you say, we couldn't have it). As for just wanting free music, join the club. The question is simple: should laws the majority of people don't want exist or not? If we, the people, don't want to be restricted by copyright law, why should we be? In many countries around the world there are laws which restrict people's freedom. These are countries in which the laws don't exist for the people, they exist to control the people. I don't want to live in one of those countries, and to a great extent I dont. But when it comes to the products produced by Hollywood and the music industry I am just as much oppressed as those people in those other countries.
Let's get rid of the copyright exception. It was a good idea when it restricted few and benefited the majority, but that is no longer the case. Hollywood and the music industry can find some other way to encourage people to fund their projects (like say, charging a reasonable amount and making their product available to everyone on the planet at the same time).
worse yet is the opt-out scheme inherient to copyright today, where even a doodle on a cocktail napkin is considered a work covered by copyright. You know what I find funny? To this day receipies are still not considered works worthy of copyright protection. It's amazing. There's simply no Chef's Guild to pony up the cash to buy the laws so the law doesn't cover their works.
Man, fuck them. Seriously. Just because someone relies on action X as a means of living doesn't mean that the government should restrict everyone's freedom so they can continue doing action X. It's like government enforcement of cartels and guilds. We don't allow that, why do we allow copyright law? It's stupid.
I believe he is upset for the same reason that a lot of people are upset: they don't like copyright law. When a large percentage of the population think a law is no good that law should be rescinded. Why don't people like copyright law? Because it's no longer a good deal. Copyright used to be a law that only affected publishers engaging in trade. They were the only ones who could copy, so they were the only ones who were affected. Now we all copy, all the time, and we don't like a law that was crafted hundreds of years ago to serve the specific purpose of restricting trade to encourage progress restricting each and every one of us.
Unfortunately, the will of the people no longer controls the state of laws in our countries. That's why we're upset, and frankly, I think it's a pretty good reason to be.
It's not criminal activity. It's a civil dispute between citizens. The fact that there are *any* criminal copyright laws in your country (if there are) is a result of out and out corruption. Get a grip.
Slashdot Mirror
More appropriately, putting up a web page where one advocates the assasination of George W. Bush is a crime in the Land Of The Free.. I wonder who the first Australian to be extradited for that will be?
No, no additional sections exist. This is the sole criminal copyright infringement law in Australia and it has never been enforced (ever). It also happens to be completely irrelevant to this case.
We know what the law is, we just think it is fucked. We don't want to be subject to US law, anymore than I expect citizens of the US want to be subject to Australian law (we should really start extraditing all you bastards who own firearms).
Hiring a hitman, and hell, murder, are criminal acts just about anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement isn't a criminal act in Australia. Now if we want to make stupid analogies, lets suppose that I was to send some beer to my American friends. I might do this because Australian beer is far superior to US beer in many ways. If the people drinking it in the US were 19 it would be rediculous for me to be extradited because the legal drinking age is 18 in Australia, not 21. Besides which, it's just such a trivial act that the US government would indeed be wasting everyone's time to pursue it. Just like this case.
Have you written up how you think copyright should be implemented? Got a link for us? Or could you summarise it here?
Err, there would be all this software out there that would be free to redistribute. It would be impossible to keep selling that software as a "product". It would be free to reverse engineer also which would make it impossible to keep a monopoly on maintenance.
For some reason your post reminds me of this.
Don't forget that some people actually get paid to work on GNOME.. these people are happy to work on the feature requests of customers as it encourages those customers to buy the next release of the product. Of course, Eugenia isn't actually a paying customer of any of the companies that pay those developers, she wants people to work on her feature requests for free, even if they have no interest in them.
Australia. Most of Europe also doesn't have any criminal copyright laws. Don't you think it's a bit ironic to call us fucked up when you're the ones who have a government owned by corporations?
I'm only going to say this one more time: We don't have criminal copyright laws in Australia!! And private investigators are normal people.
She also chooses not to pay anyone to care about her feature requests (like, say, a commercial Linux distribution would.)
Ya know, we have these companies (Suse, Redhat, etc) which will happily take your money for a distribution of Linux. Anything you suggestion to them is likely to get implemented as it will make you buy the next version of their distribution.
She doesn't understand open source, she never has, and she doesn't try to learn. The most funny part of her article is where she notes that there are companies who she can pay to care about her opinions but she chooses not to (and expects volunteers to care for free).
Ask some random average person if they can make you a copy of a CD they have that you both were just talking about. I challenge you to find one person who would refuse on the grounds that they think copyright law is a good idea. Get off the crack.
Uhhh.. you're still thinking about software as a product? Even though we're talking about a world without copyright law? Are you really that short sighted? It really is pointless talking to people like you.
There would be no advantage to keeping your source code secret, so people wouldn't and therefore the only "advantage" of the GPL over the public domain (forcing people to supply source code as well as binaries) would be unnecessary. Why would there be no advantage? The same reason there's no advantage to welding the hood shut on a car. When people are accustomed to paying for maintainence (instead of paying for a "product" which they never maintain) they demand that third parties be available to supply that service (otherwise there is no incentive to create a decent product in the first place).
i.e., the vast majority of us don't like copyright law whilst a small majority like it because they can lord it over us.
It's like the worse thing you can imagine.
"Gee, looks like the government isn't selling any criminal copyright laws."
"That's rediculous, we're the corporations of amercia, we have a right to buy any law we want."
"Well sorry, they aint selling em." "Ok, we'll start our own police force! Can you get us laws which give our corporate goons the power of police?"
"Oh, that's already available."
"Excellent".
That's crazy gestapo crap. I mean it's bad enough that official law enforcement agencies can do this crap but regular citizens!? Insanity.
Let's get rid of the copyright exception. It was a good idea when it restricted few and benefited the majority, but that is no longer the case. Hollywood and the music industry can find some other way to encourage people to fund their projects (like say, charging a reasonable amount and making their product available to everyone on the planet at the same time).
worse yet is the opt-out scheme inherient to copyright today, where even a doodle on a cocktail napkin is considered a work covered by copyright. You know what I find funny? To this day receipies are still not considered works worthy of copyright protection. It's amazing. There's simply no Chef's Guild to pony up the cash to buy the laws so the law doesn't cover their works.
Man, fuck them. Seriously. Just because someone relies on action X as a means of living doesn't mean that the government should restrict everyone's freedom so they can continue doing action X. It's like government enforcement of cartels and guilds. We don't allow that, why do we allow copyright law? It's stupid.
yes, that's your fucked up country dude, not mine.
Unfortunately, the will of the people no longer controls the state of laws in our countries. That's why we're upset, and frankly, I think it's a pretty good reason to be.
It's not criminal activity. It's a civil dispute between citizens. The fact that there are *any* criminal copyright laws in your country (if there are) is a result of out and out corruption. Get a grip.