Yeah. Slashdot. The place where arguments are repeated over and over. And sometimes one of the copies gets modded up, but sometimes none of them make it up there, even if they're pretty good. Slashdot. Where most people either speak the party line and a few go just the opposite. And sometimes there will be one voice that's somewhere in the middle, but that's really rare.
You'd need someone who would be willing to do the following:
Read ALL the posts, even the ones that seem like crap at first.
Reread all the posts.
Read all the copies of the same argument, take lots of time figure out why one alternative is slightly different from the other, see if the small differences can be consolidated into one well written and succinct point.
Combine all the points into a cohesive document that goes somewhere... tries to make a unified point
Pick through the document and make sure all points are backed up.
Pick through the document and try to find all the assumptions made that the judges wouldn't necessarily agree with unless they're explained more.
Apologies. It was listed as "library and public interest" in the story summary, but I didn't think that did it justicse, considering that the ACLU, ALA, and EPIC were included in that, and only the ALA was obvious. --
46 law professors, all of them from US Law Schools, wrote the first Law Professor brief... I didn't know there were that many in the US. Does that convince you that it's not just script kiddies who are concerned about the future implications of this bill?
Also, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" doesn't have any mention of "Linux" or "open source" or anything like that. In fact, even if it did, I would think the subject matter would be influenced by what its readers want to read, not by what some random guy named Rob (or CmdrT4c0) wants to see. --
It wouldn't really matter if it wasn't constitutional anyways since the constitution is more or less a recommendation for laws rather than hard limits.
Wrong. The constitution exists to prevent the tyranny of the majority -- in this area, it has absolutely firm limits on what is allowed. It's largely a list of restrictions on what the government is allowed to do. --
Not to mention that the DMCA is just the implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty that the US signed, along with many other countries. So there's a lot of political motivation to not overturn DMCA. --
A large motivation for the DMCA was the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which is implemented by the DMCA. Many countries signed the treaty, though not all have ratified it yet.
But suffice it to say that even if DMCA is struck down, there will be a lot more fighting to do. --
Well, DMCA says... a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work.
So depending on how "effectively" is measured, it could very anywhere from "it's theoretically proven to be impossible to brute-force" to "someone would have to think for a few milliseconds to be able to figure out how to get around it".
eg. If the data is in a format that no current software can read, then that format could conceivably be an effect access control, even if the difference between it and some other standard format is a trivial change.
Again, it's all in how they interpret "effectively". I doubt that any sane judge would accept the latter definition, but it's possible. --
The ACLU/ALA/ARL/MLA/NAIS/EPIC/CCIA brief explains very nicely the levels of indirect liability involved in this case, and the extreme extent that this case is going beyond traditional law.
Traditionally, US law has considered the first two levels of direct/indirect action to be unlawful:
1. Direct copyright infringement -- you copy CD's and sell them in Hong Kong
2. First level of indirect infringement - contributory and vicarious liability -- you sell someone a box whose only conceivable purpose is copying CD's, and you know what the buyer is intending to do with it.
That seems pretty kosher. But then DMCA added two more levels of indirection:
3. Creating a device that can be used for circumvention of a technical measures for protecting copyright -- you figure out how to make a key.
4. Marketing/selling the circumvention devices -- you promote and sell the key.
But then this specific case tries to allege that one further level of indirection should also be illegal:
5. URL linking to circumvention devices -- you tell someone where a key is.
when only #1 and #2 are widely considered constitutional. --
The Intellectual Property Clause... permits grants of exclusive protection only for those "discoveries" in the "useful arts" that would not have been obvious to one reasonably skilled in the art, Graham, 383 U.S. at 6, and only for those "writings" that constitute original expression, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349-50 (1991). Congress may not extend protection to unoriginal subject matter, nor to ideas, processes, methods of operation, and the like unless the threshold for patentability is met. Feist, 499 U.S. at 349-50; Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99, 103-04 (1879). Nor may it grant protection for proper subject matter in perpetuity. A law that protects informational goods without regard for these limitations cannot claim the Intellectual Property Clause as its authority. The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. at 93-94 (holding that Intellectual Property Clause could not authorize law protecting trademarks regardless of "novelty, invention, discovery, or any work of the brain" or of "fancy or imagination").
The anti-device provisions do not meet this exacting standard. They operate regardless of whether the device is used to access information that is a constitutionally protectable writing, regardless of whether the work so accessed has passed into the public domain, and regardless of whether the desired use of the work would infringe copyright.
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The system was much more expensive than the PS, and with all the hype about the PS2 - and the fact it was backwards compatible, why buy a dreamcast
For me, my main reason for getting the DC was to take it to friends' houses and play party games. 4 players is more than double the fun, and since the DC ships with 4 ports (rather than an add-on that fewer people will purchase), there's more party games for it.
As for the price, DC is less the the PS2 and the games look just as good (so far). --
1) Customers in some small canadian village aren't necessarily representative of the world population of console users.
2) Controllers are readily available for the PS2. Unfortunately, that's a slightly less important device than the console itself. I've personally had no problems getting all the accessories I wanted.
3) Most consoles have minor problems, especially when first produced. Some PS1's had to be turned over to operate correctly, as well as having some overheating problems (I don't know about the PS2, I'm sure others know more about its minor quirks). The first batch of Dreamcast games had a few problems, but the problems were quickly solved. --
Additionally, I would imagine that there would be some political pressure from BMG to make Napster keep out at least the indies, if not some of the other major labels. To do anything like this, they'd need a lot more control over the system than they have now. So that'd mean either changing their P2P setup a lot, or removing it altogether. --
Bzzt. If that were true, you could simply put the commercially released DC games into your CD-ROM drive and read them. You can't. (you CAN read burnt games, but that's because they're in a different format than the original commerical game)
The executible CD is a hack. Games that run on 80min CD's usually have sound or video ripped out.
Putting games on GD-ROMs DID stop pirates-- for a few weeks. Somebody figured out how to use special hardware to access the data, and since then, the games have been available. --
Additionally, you're assuming that greater rewards are going to lead to better music. While greater rewards might leave a composer more time to spend on each piece, beyond that I doubt that it makes any difference. Great composers aren't generally motivated by money, any more than great software designers.
It's not an assumption I made, but rather an assumption the founding fathers made:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
But I'll take a crack at defending it anyway.
While great composers may produce a few truly great and eternal works, on the whole, it's probably the only reasonably skilled workers who produce the greater amount of works. And probably, when you sum it up, the mid-level people probably produce the greatest benefit to society, by using and abusing and fully exploring the inovations of the great ones. --
but Sega was truly too arrogant, not only did they fail to understand the industry that they were involved it, but they failed to understand the gamer
Hrm, let's see...
PS2: DVD capabilities. Terrific polygon counts. Hard to program for. Few games have been able to use the PS2's full potential. Few games that are really good.
DC: No DVD capabilities. Less polygon count. Tons of games (which is what pays the bills), even if you only count their first couple months. Games look just as good as what's been released for PS2. Costs half as much.
How again did they fail to understand the gamer?
From what I can tell, the problem was more business related rather than anything to do with the quality of the product produced. --
You're looking at it from the wrong end. Look at it from the author's standpoint. If her/her descendants will possibly benefit from the work, that person will likely work harder to produce better works, thus benefitting you and me. --
both the Berne Convention and the EU directive have accepted the standard that copyright should protect the author and two succeeding generations. Based on the numerous viewpoints presented to the Committee as it has considered these issues, the Committee concludes that the majority of American creators anticipate that their copyrights will serve as important sources of income for their children and through them into the succeeding generation. The Committee believes that this general anticipation of familial benefit is consistent with both the role of copyrights in promoting creativity and the constitutionally based constraint that such rights be conferred for "limited times."
Among the primary justifications asserted for the adoption of the life-plus-70 term under the EU Directive was the conclusion that the life-plus-50 term is no longer sufficient to protect two generations of an author's heirs.
The Register of Copyrights informed the Committee that even for post-1978 works, which are afforded the basic life-plus-50 term of protection, the current term has proven insufficient in many cases to protect a single generation of heirs. For example, Walter Donaldson, who will forever be linked via his songs to the extraordinary success of the 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," composed many of his most famous works when he was in his twenties and died in 1947 while in his fifties. Were the current life-plus-50 term applied at that time, all of his works would fall into the public domain at the end of 1997. Nevertheless, Ellen Donaldson, the composer's daughter, remains extremely active in publishing and exploiting her father's music and in protecting his copyrights. Like the children of composers such as Richard Rogers, Irving Berlin, Richard Whiting, Hoagy Carmichael, and many others, her legitimate interest in her father's copyrights can be expected to continue for decades, and most certainly for the next 20 years.
In order to reflect more accurately Congress' intent and the expectation of America's creators that the copyright term will provide protection for the lifetime of the author and at least one generation of heirs, the bill extends copyright protection for an additional 20 years for both existing and future works.
The Committee is aware of the criticism of the proposed extension by those who suggest that it marks a step down the road of perpetual copyright protection. The Committee is unswayed by this argument for three reasons. First, the greatest obstacle to a perpetual term of copyright protection is the U.S. Constitution, which clearly precludes Congress from granting unlimited protection for copyrighted works. Second, the emerging international standard, to which the bill purports to adhere, and the movement of international copyright law in general are not toward perpetual protection, but to a fixed term of protection based on the death of the author. Third, the principle behind the U.S. copyright term--that it protect the author and at least one generation of heirs--remains unchanged by the bill. The 20-year extension proposed by the bill merely modifies the length of protection in nominal terms to reflect the scientific and demographic changes that have rendered the life-plus-50 term insufficient to meet this aim. --
A source inside Sega has categorically confirmed the continuing manufacture of Dreamcast-enabled products, although it is unlikely that they will take the form of the current white Dreamcast box. This ties in neatly with rumors that Dreamcast-enabled set-top boxes, DVD players and even a PC add-in card are in the works. So it seems that for the moment, the fate of the Dreamcast format is far from sealed.
Bizarre. It's hard for me to imagine that a low-volume PC-Dreamcast card could be more profitable than the dreamcast console. Especially because the console is already designed and has ramped up its production. --
Blah, blah, blah, more of the same thing. Our official stance is not to comment on rumors, but I will point out that these same rumors (we're getting bought by Nintendo, we're getting out of the hardware business, we're going multiplatform) have been floating around for AGES. I think it's all a cover-up to hide our real plans- it's all about NUON. I look forward to talking to you again next time the sky is falling =)
Slashdot Mirror
The good of the many (MegaCorp, Inc.) outweighs the good of the few (the lone individual who's hard to control).
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You'd need someone who would be willing to do the following:
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Oh bah, so they make one political decision once in a while. That doesn't mean they should instantly be regarded as corrupt.
--
Apologies. It was listed as "library and public interest" in the story summary, but I didn't think that did it justicse, considering that the ACLU, ALA, and EPIC were included in that, and only the ALA was obvious.
--
Also, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" doesn't have any mention of "Linux" or "open source" or anything like that. In fact, even if it did, I would think the subject matter would be influenced by what its readers want to read, not by what some random guy named Rob (or CmdrT4c0) wants to see.
--
It wouldn't really matter if it wasn't constitutional anyways since the constitution is more or less a recommendation for laws rather than hard limits.
Wrong. The constitution exists to prevent the tyranny of the majority -- in this area, it has absolutely firm limits on what is allowed. It's largely a list of restrictions on what the government is allowed to do.
--
Not to mention that the DMCA is just the implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty that the US signed, along with many other countries. So there's a lot of political motivation to not overturn DMCA.
--
But suffice it to say that even if DMCA is struck down, there will be a lot more fighting to do.
--
Or people could just voluntarily ignore it... it's everyone's choice.
--
So depending on how "effectively" is measured, it could very anywhere from "it's theoretically proven to be impossible to brute-force" to "someone would have to think for a few milliseconds to be able to figure out how to get around it".
eg. If the data is in a format that no current software can read, then that format could conceivably be an effect access control, even if the difference between it and some other standard format is a trivial change.
Again, it's all in how they interpret "effectively". I doubt that any sane judge would accept the latter definition, but it's possible.
--
--
Traditionally, US law has considered the first two levels of direct/indirect action to be unlawful:
- 1. Direct copyright infringement -- you copy CD's and sell them in Hong Kong
That seems pretty kosher. But then DMCA added two more levels of indirection:2. First level of indirect infringement - contributory and vicarious liability -- you sell someone a box whose only conceivable purpose is copying CD's, and you know what the buyer is intending to do with it.
- 3. Creating a device that can be used for circumvention of a technical measures for protecting copyright -- you figure out how to make a key.
But then this specific case tries to allege that one further level of indirection should also be illegal:4. Marketing/selling the circumvention devices -- you promote and sell the key.
- 5. URL linking to circumvention devices -- you tell someone where a key is.
when only #1 and #2 are widely considered constitutional.--
The Intellectual Property Clause ... permits grants of exclusive protection only for those "discoveries" in the "useful arts" that would not have been obvious to one reasonably skilled in the art, Graham, 383 U.S. at 6, and only for those "writings" that constitute original expression, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349-50 (1991). Congress may not extend protection to unoriginal subject matter, nor to ideas, processes, methods of operation, and the like unless the threshold for patentability is met. Feist, 499 U.S. at 349-50; Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99, 103-04 (1879). Nor may it grant protection for proper subject matter in perpetuity. A law that protects informational goods without regard for these limitations cannot claim the Intellectual Property Clause as its authority. The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. at 93-94 (holding that Intellectual Property Clause could not authorize law protecting trademarks regardless of "novelty, invention, discovery, or any work of the brain" or of "fancy or imagination").
The anti-device provisions do not meet this exacting standard. They operate regardless of whether the device is used to access information that is a constitutionally protectable writing, regardless of whether the work so accessed has passed into the public domain, and regardless of whether the desired use of the work would infringe copyright.
--
For me, my main reason for getting the DC was to take it to friends' houses and play party games. 4 players is more than double the fun, and since the DC ships with 4 ports (rather than an add-on that fewer people will purchase), there's more party games for it.
As for the price, DC is less the the PS2 and the games look just as good (so far).
--
2) Controllers are readily available for the PS2. Unfortunately, that's a slightly less important device than the console itself. I've personally had no problems getting all the accessories I wanted.
3) Most consoles have minor problems, especially when first produced. Some PS1's had to be turned over to operate correctly, as well as having some overheating problems (I don't know about the PS2, I'm sure others know more about its minor quirks). The first batch of Dreamcast games had a few problems, but the problems were quickly solved.
--
Additionally, I would imagine that there would be some political pressure from BMG to make Napster keep out at least the indies, if not some of the other major labels. To do anything like this, they'd need a lot more control over the system than they have now. So that'd mean either changing their P2P setup a lot, or removing it altogether.
--
The executible CD is a hack. Games that run on 80min CD's usually have sound or video ripped out.
Putting games on GD-ROMs DID stop pirates-- for a few weeks. Somebody figured out how to use special hardware to access the data, and since then, the games have been available.
--
But instead, they chose to play the game on the hacker's terms, and they won.
And in the process, they showed themselves to be a giant with finesse.
--
It's not an assumption I made, but rather an assumption the founding fathers made:
But I'll take a crack at defending it anyway.
While great composers may produce a few truly great and eternal works, on the whole, it's probably the only reasonably skilled workers who produce the greater amount of works. And probably, when you sum it up, the mid-level people probably produce the greatest benefit to society, by using and abusing and fully exploring the inovations of the great ones.
--
Hrm, let's see...
PS2: DVD capabilities. Terrific polygon counts. Hard to program for. Few games have been able to use the PS2's full potential. Few games that are really good.
DC: No DVD capabilities. Less polygon count. Tons of games (which is what pays the bills), even if you only count their first couple months. Games look just as good as what's been released for PS2. Costs half as much.
How again did they fail to understand the gamer?
From what I can tell, the problem was more business related rather than anything to do with the quality of the product produced.
--
You're looking at it from the wrong end. Look at it from the author's standpoint. If her/her descendants will possibly benefit from the work, that person will likely work harder to produce better works, thus benefitting you and me.
--
both the Berne Convention and the EU directive have accepted the standard that copyright should protect the author and two succeeding generations. Based on the numerous viewpoints presented to the Committee as it has considered these issues, the Committee concludes that the majority of American creators anticipate that their copyrights will serve as important sources of income for their children and through them into the succeeding generation. The Committee believes that this general anticipation of familial benefit is consistent with both the role of copyrights in promoting creativity and the constitutionally based constraint that such rights be conferred for "limited times."
Among the primary justifications asserted for the adoption of the life-plus-70 term under the EU Directive was the conclusion that the life-plus-50 term is no longer sufficient to protect two generations of an author's heirs.
The Register of Copyrights informed the Committee that even for post-1978 works, which are afforded the basic life-plus-50 term of protection, the current term has proven insufficient in many cases to protect a single generation of heirs. For example, Walter Donaldson, who will forever be linked via his songs to the extraordinary success of the 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," composed many of his most famous works when he was in his twenties and died in 1947 while in his fifties. Were the current life-plus-50 term applied at that time, all of his works would fall into the public domain at the end of 1997. Nevertheless, Ellen Donaldson, the composer's daughter, remains extremely active in publishing and exploiting her father's music and in protecting his copyrights. Like the children of composers such as Richard Rogers, Irving Berlin, Richard Whiting, Hoagy Carmichael, and many others, her legitimate interest in her father's copyrights can be expected to continue for decades, and most certainly for the next 20 years.
In order to reflect more accurately Congress' intent and the expectation of America's creators that the copyright term will provide protection for the lifetime of the author and at least one generation of heirs, the bill extends copyright protection for an additional 20 years for both existing and future works.
The Committee is aware of the criticism of the proposed extension by those who suggest that it marks a step down the road of perpetual copyright protection. The Committee is unswayed by this argument for three reasons. First, the greatest obstacle to a perpetual term of copyright protection is the U.S. Constitution, which clearly precludes Congress from granting unlimited protection for copyrighted works. Second, the emerging international standard, to which the bill purports to adhere, and the movement of international copyright law in general are not toward perpetual protection, but to a fixed term of protection based on the death of the author. Third, the principle behind the U.S. copyright term--that it protect the author and at least one generation of heirs--remains unchanged by the bill. The 20-year extension proposed by the bill merely modifies the length of protection in nominal terms to reflect the scientific and demographic changes that have rendered the life-plus-50 term insufficient to meet this aim.
--
*grin* Anyone who has the balls to use examples from Star Trek or Perl code in a document to The Court is pretty cool in my book.
--
- A source inside Sega has categorically confirmed the continuing manufacture of Dreamcast-enabled products, although it is unlikely that they will take the form of the current white Dreamcast box. This ties in neatly with rumors that Dreamcast-enabled set-top boxes, DVD players and even a PC add-in card are in the works. So it seems that for the moment, the fate of the Dreamcast format is far from sealed.
Bizarre. It's hard for me to imagine that a low-volume PC-Dreamcast card could be more profitable than the dreamcast console. Especially because the console is already designed and has ramped up its production.--
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