Their products (protected by copyright) weren't ripped off, though. Nobody is claiming that. They claim that their technology (protected by patent) was. I don't feel that software technology should be protected by patent. I could give you a whole host of reasons why not. But I'll limit myself to this reason: every software company in the US (not just Microsoft) and every independant coder is vulnerable to this exact same charge because of the huge number of over-broad software patents out there. And if Microsoft goes down, the rest will follow. The legal climate probably couldn't wreck the economy, but it could sure give us peons a bad decade. Patents exist to further research, not crush it.
Wow 7,000! Imagine how hard they must have worked to pack that many hit-points in. This game will rule. Unless, of course, another game comes out where the creatures have 70,000 hitpoints. Don't know what they'd do then.
That's possible, or it's possible that they couldn't figure out a better way to break Freeloader. They build region encoding into their systems for a reason. (It's an evil reason, IMO, but still a reason.)
This is extremely bad. This case basically means that being a software company that actually produces products is very risky in the current environment. A non-producing company can abuse the patent system and take away a good deal of your money.
This is not encouraging research -- the only legitimate reason for patents -- rather this sort of regulation may be enough to sink the entire software industry if left unchecked.
Yeah, just wait until one of the patients gets a hold of a wall-hack:
"Yes, we know that you killed 47 people on your axe-murdering rampage, but you are certifiably SANE. Your Counter-strike scores prove it. What's that you say? Redrum? Ahh, hmmm. Well, anyway, you're free to go."
In the case of child pornograhpy accountability should be pressed in as many directions as possible.
The article in question is discussing letting the police read your email and abolishing anonyminity. You're standing on the slippery slope, so yeah, you implied it.
They keep trying to write that into the Constitution over here. With the decline of religion and family, the rise of universal education through state schools, and the background election-time media barage of government propaganda, nationalism has a power that it has never had before. I find that dangerous.
Governments are unpredictable beasts. I am sure any number of them will outlaw freenet once it takes off. Others may prosecute you right now for it if they're out to get you and want something on you.
I don't know where you came across the poor, ill-informed, and stupid idea that most governments around the world operate by logic and reason. It just ain't so, Joe.
Now, if you really have the faith in all governments around the world that you seem to have, you've got bigger problems with idiocy than I have. I'm sure you'll grow out of it once you're a few years past puberty.
I've heard horror stories about the breast-feeding stuff, but I'd be interested in finding out more about that Salon article. I searched for it with Google for a little while, but I couldn't seem to find it.
And at least one other case which I can't recall exactly. There are just stuff I've run across in everyday web surfing. I imagine that there are further abuses that I simply haven't come across.
Writing from a country that has a long tradition of actually not throwing people in jail for their opinions, let me make a statement.
Having the government regulate which speech is or is not allowed can easily lead to tradgedy. The government shouldn't be in a business like that where there is so much temptation for abuse.
Now, what exactly is the form that your law takes? It surely can't be so general as outlawing "speaking against the principles of free speech and democracy." After all, I could say that German democracy sucks because it voted Hitler into power in the first place. And German free speech is terrible because it gave Hitler a platform. Would I be carted off to jail?
Yeah, too bad that has never worked in a child pornography case in the US yet. The US has been convicting on the theory of "if it's in your browser cache, you're guilty" for a few years now. This is all despite people protesting that they may have come across images accidently.
My statements weren't limited to the US, but since some people think it's the center of the world, I'll say this: If Congress wanted to outlaw Freenet, it could. They'd call it "The Anti-Child Porn distrubtion network Act of 2003" and almost certainly get away with it. The Supreme court might only vote 5-4 in their favor, but Congress would get away with it.
So you want a government that has the power to outlaw something like Freenet, all based on the "you can't yell fire in a theatre, can you now?" argument.
You know, they'd get more child pornographers if they monitored all of our computers constantly. Or if they set up video cameras in our houses. That would really make those child pornographers run scared.
Of course, and every normal person agrees with you that a perfect world shouldn't have child porn.
But does the threat of child porn mean that you should give your government regulatory powers over speech in order to stop it? I'd think very carefully about that. Government abuse of power over speech is far more dangerous than individual abuse of free speech.
Your line of reasoning can be logically extended. Murder is bad. Far worse than child porn. The government could theoretically end murder with current video surveillance technology. Should government have the power it needs to do that? Of course not, the abuse would be horrendous. It is one of the costs of liberty.
It's worse than the RIAA. There is a large quantity of child porn on Freenet. Now, because of the way Freenet works, you have no idea what's being served from your computer at any given time -- and no way to find out since it's encrypted. So if you run Freenet on your computer, you may be hosting child porn. Can the government go after you for that? If it wants to it can. Are there good reasons to take the risk? That's up to you to decide.
Is having truly free speech where some people inevitably abuse that speech better than having speech regulated by governments who inevitably abuse their regulatory powers themselves? Participatory democracies don't have a great track record when it comes to allowing unpopular opinions to be heard. In most of Europe today -- to pick one example -- you will serve jail time for questioning the holocaust. To pick another example, anti-hate speech statutes have been sucessfully used in Britain and Canada (and elsewhere, no doubt) to supress supporters of immigratation reform. Libel law is commonly used to supress opinions of those who don't have the money to defend themselves in court.
Is this a power you want to trust the government with? I don't trust mine with it. That's why I run Freenet. And hopefully, Freenet -- or the idea of Freenet -- will have enough popular support to make my government wary of cracking down on it. And as long as Freenet exists, there is at least one forum for truly free speech.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha ha ha. Nobody but me gets the joke, so here's the answer: Only if they're black.
I'm gonna get modded a troll for this, but it was so worth it. Good reference, bc90021.
I mean, look at all the services that the Internet can provide:
Chat, Shopping, Gaming, Education, Music, Movies AND TV (I mean, who hasn't downloaded a Simpsons episode or two off Kazaa?)
Cough. Porn. Ahem.
Nature Science Update has a critical take: http://www.nature.com/nsu/030721/030721-14.html
Their products (protected by copyright) weren't ripped off, though. Nobody is claiming that. They claim that their technology (protected by patent) was. I don't feel that software technology should be protected by patent. I could give you a whole host of reasons why not. But I'll limit myself to this reason: every software company in the US (not just Microsoft) and every independant coder is vulnerable to this exact same charge because of the huge number of over-broad software patents out there. And if Microsoft goes down, the rest will follow. The legal climate probably couldn't wreck the economy, but it could sure give us peons a bad decade. Patents exist to further research, not crush it.
Wow 7,000! Imagine how hard they must have worked to pack that many hit-points in. This game will rule. Unless, of course, another game comes out where the creatures have 70,000 hitpoints. Don't know what they'd do then.
That's possible, or it's possible that they couldn't figure out a better way to break Freeloader. They build region encoding into their systems for a reason. (It's an evil reason, IMO, but still a reason.)
This is extremely bad. This case basically means that being a software company that actually produces products is very risky in the current environment. A non-producing company can abuse the patent system and take away a good deal of your money.
This is not encouraging research -- the only legitimate reason for patents -- rather this sort of regulation may be enough to sink the entire software industry if left unchecked.
Millions of years from now, Blow' K-bibben-Gordo shakes his thought tentacles with rage: "Mozilla just shut down on me! Open source sucks."
Yeah, just wait until one of the patients gets a hold of a wall-hack:
"Yes, we know that you killed 47 people on your axe-murdering rampage, but you are certifiably SANE. Your Counter-strike scores prove it. What's that you say? Redrum? Ahh, hmmm. Well, anyway, you're free to go."
In the case of child pornograhpy accountability should be pressed in as many directions as possible.
The article in question is discussing letting the police read your email and abolishing anonyminity. You're standing on the slippery slope, so yeah, you implied it.
You have kids? We're installing a camera in your living room. You'll support whatever invasions of privacy it takes to combat pedophilla, right?
They keep trying to write that into the Constitution over here. With the decline of religion and family, the rise of universal education through state schools, and the background election-time media barage of government propaganda, nationalism has a power that it has never had before. I find that dangerous.
Hello, I'd like to place an order for 30,000 tons of your uranium ore. I'll also need some good centrifuges.
Wrap up everything with plastic. Switch out the plastic.
/low-budget
Yeah. I'm gonna grab HL2 when it comes out, but I'm definitely gonna wait on Doom III to find out whether it's all it's cracked up to be first.
Germany, France, and Spain for sure. I believe Sweden and Switzerland as well. Don't know about any others.
Whoa, boy. Lay off the Jasmine tea.
Governments are unpredictable beasts. I am sure any number of them will outlaw freenet once it takes off. Others may prosecute you right now for it if they're out to get you and want something on you.
I don't know where you came across the poor, ill-informed, and stupid idea that most governments around the world operate by logic and reason. It just ain't so, Joe.
Now, if you really have the faith in all governments around the world that you seem to have, you've got bigger problems with idiocy than I have. I'm sure you'll grow out of it once you're a few years past puberty.
Yes. Yes. And yes.
h tml
For further reference: http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.
I've heard horror stories about the breast-feeding stuff, but I'd be interested in finding out more about that Salon article. I searched for it with Google for a little while, but I couldn't seem to find it.
I was thinking about:
n ews/2002/11/20/npage20.xml
http://www.amconmag.com/02_24_03/taki.html
http://www.amconmag.com/02_10_03/taki.html
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
And at least one other case which I can't recall exactly. There are just stuff I've run across in everyday web surfing. I imagine that there are further abuses that I simply haven't come across.
Writing from a country that has a long tradition of actually not throwing people in jail for their opinions, let me make a statement.
Having the government regulate which speech is or is not allowed can easily lead to tradgedy. The government shouldn't be in a business like that where there is so much temptation for abuse.
Now, what exactly is the form that your law takes? It surely can't be so general as outlawing "speaking against the principles of free speech and democracy." After all, I could say that German democracy sucks because it voted Hitler into power in the first place. And German free speech is terrible because it gave Hitler a platform. Would I be carted off to jail?
Yeah, too bad that has never worked in a child pornography case in the US yet. The US has been convicting on the theory of "if it's in your browser cache, you're guilty" for a few years now. This is all despite people protesting that they may have come across images accidently.
My statements weren't limited to the US, but since some people think it's the center of the world, I'll say this: If Congress wanted to outlaw Freenet, it could. They'd call it "The Anti-Child Porn distrubtion network Act of 2003" and almost certainly get away with it. The Supreme court might only vote 5-4 in their favor, but Congress would get away with it.
So you want a government that has the power to outlaw something like Freenet, all based on the "you can't yell fire in a theatre, can you now?" argument.
You know, they'd get more child pornographers if they monitored all of our computers constantly. Or if they set up video cameras in our houses. That would really make those child pornographers run scared.
Of course, and every normal person agrees with you that a perfect world shouldn't have child porn.
But does the threat of child porn mean that you should give your government regulatory powers over speech in order to stop it? I'd think very carefully about that. Government abuse of power over speech is far more dangerous than individual abuse of free speech.
Your line of reasoning can be logically extended. Murder is bad. Far worse than child porn. The government could theoretically end murder with current video surveillance technology. Should government have the power it needs to do that? Of course not, the abuse would be horrendous. It is one of the costs of liberty.
It's worse than the RIAA. There is a large quantity of child porn on Freenet. Now, because of the way Freenet works, you have no idea what's being served from your computer at any given time -- and no way to find out since it's encrypted. So if you run Freenet on your computer, you may be hosting child porn. Can the government go after you for that? If it wants to it can. Are there good reasons to take the risk? That's up to you to decide.
Is having truly free speech where some people inevitably abuse that speech better than having speech regulated by governments who inevitably abuse their regulatory powers themselves? Participatory democracies don't have a great track record when it comes to allowing unpopular opinions to be heard. In most of Europe today -- to pick one example -- you will serve jail time for questioning the holocaust. To pick another example, anti-hate speech statutes have been sucessfully used in Britain and Canada (and elsewhere, no doubt) to supress supporters of immigratation reform. Libel law is commonly used to supress opinions of those who don't have the money to defend themselves in court.
Is this a power you want to trust the government with? I don't trust mine with it. That's why I run Freenet. And hopefully, Freenet -- or the idea of Freenet -- will have enough popular support to make my government wary of cracking down on it. And as long as Freenet exists, there is at least one forum for truly free speech.