Why don't you just say shame on the early speakers of the English language for not having the the foresight to divide the different things that free can be applied to?
Why don't you complain that it is sad that we have no separate words for things like "free of worries" or "free of charge" or "free of noise" or any other things that come under the umbrella of the concept of free?
The fact is: The FSF came up with the ONLY English word for what they are talking about. That word is free. The consequence that "free of charge" is the aspect that most English speakers necessarily associate with the word free is no fault of those who believe in freedom. The members of the FSF have chosen the correct word.
A bunch of narrow minded, money-worshipping businessmen have twisted its meaning to their normally asinine point of view. Money may be important, but it does not govern everything. And freedom, certainly, is not wholly restricted to freedom from this or that expense.
Otherwise, you'd end up with freeloaders who take the work of others, add something to it, close it, and profit off of that work that was given freely.
In this case, I would add that the person "taking" would be doing the work either way. All that is required of that person is that they distribute everything they change instead of deliberately hiding parts of it. This is different than systems where a person freeloads by not doing work. In this case, the person is making a deliberate effort to close off the work he has done.
I put the word take in quotes because one cannot really "take" information. Information is copied which is not the same as taking. If I "take" and idea from a person, that person still has the idea. After that, we both have the same idea. (Yes, I got this idea from Jefferson).
In fact, it was published as soon as he hit submit or preview. As soon as a version existed in "fixed and tangible form" in the memory of his computer, it was copyrighted. Hitting submit or preview copied it to several servers which is technically publishing. Further, if you read the statement at the bottom of the page:
Let us spew as much anti-DRM propaganda as we can to protect freeloading P2P piracy. We'll never let those bastard copyright holders who own their content win. We OWN their content! Viva la revolution.
No one "owns" information. What copyright holders "own" are a specificially defined set of "rights" to a specific set of information. Those "rights" (which are not actual rights since they are granted and not inherited) are pretty much restricted to reproduction of the covered work and distribution of the covered work. For example, you can buy a book from an author and piss on it, and the author has no "right" to tell you not to. Once you have bought it, the author no longer owns that book, either.
This aspect of DRM has been predicted by many including Lessig and Litman. The fact is: Corporations are known for their inability to stop asking for more and more. DRM makes it possible for them to ask for whatever they want and change the rules any time.
However, since this guy actually likesT2, I am going to assume he is a part of the ignorant public that are spoon fed by the press into believing that locking up all information is a good thing. If this is so, then perhaps ordinary people are beginning to realize just how broken copyright law is and how far the law is from the ideal (which most people do not understand either).
Since this member of the public is also a member of the press (well, the gaming press), I will answer some of his questions:
I used to think that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as although I'm convinced that the whole idea of p2p-ing music and movies has hurt sales tremendously is simply a misrepresentation of the truth, I do think that copyrights should be protected, if needed by DRM.
The truth is that there is a difference between the law and DRM. DRM is a set of laws without the responsibility normally imposed upon government. It is a system whose integrity is enforced by government without regard to how fair the rules of that system are. Therefore, a corporation using DRM is somewhat of a government unto itself with arbitrary dictatorial powers that can be changed at a whim. I find it interesting that a free society would allow this sort of thing to exist.
As long as it doesn't restrict me too much in how I can use the content I bought I have no problems with using DRM, much like I find that registering a piece of software online with a product key is perfectly acceptable.
Acceptable? How? You have bought something, and then you are willing to have someone check again whether or not you have the right to use it? If licences are to be sold, they should be in the package or given to you at the counter when you pay. No one should ever be able to further scrutinize your purchase unless they have probable cause and a search warrant.
I was surprised to find that it failed to give me a license as it had determined that my physical location was not in the US or Canada, as apparently the content was only to be played back in either one of these countries and nowhere else. After routing my IP address through an anonymous proxy server in the US I however managed to unlock the content just as well and was presented with a license agreement I had to agree to prior to being able to play the content back.
You do, of course, realize that by routing your "IP address through an anonymous proxy server in the US" you committed a federal offense that could carry jail time. That is a circumvention of access controls added to copyright law by the infamous DMCA specifically to protect the DRM that you think should be used to protect copyright.
That agreement, amongst other things, stated that I could only play back the content for a period of five days, on the computer I installed the InterActual Player application onto, after which I had to re-acquire a license.
So why are you surprised? Would you also be surprised if they demanded money for the next license? But why should they not? Authors should be compensated, right?
...where's my rights as a consumer?
Welcome to DRM: You have no rights. Period.
If a license is given and the content decrypted isn't it clear that I'm the rightful owner?
In fact, that is the point of licensing: You are not the owner; they are the owners and you are just borrowing the "content". Because you are not an owner, you have no rights except to refuse to "borrow" from them. If you agree
It is about time a judge said this. I have been waiting for this since 2001. Now if he could just wake up some of his colleagues, maybe we might be able to reverse some of the damage Dubuya has done to the Constitution.
Oops. I guess I did not read carefully enough:( I did not realize that the story was talking about a protocol and not a client. My comment is therefore only semi-appropriate as it would make sense for them not to licence someone else's protocol.
It sounds promising, though. If they put as much thought into an IM protocol as they put into other things, it might be really useful. Also, it would be nice to check my Gmail account with Gaim (yes, I am assuming that Google with be more Gaim-friendly than MSN or Yahoo!).
If Google is ever thinking of releasing Gmail to the general public, they would be stupid not to include instant messaging. Think about it. Gmail competes with Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Both are coupled with IM clients. People are increasingly moving toward email accounts that are connected with IM. I am also sure most people would like to have a single address they could give other people.
Wahoo! [The RIAA's erroneous interpretation] of [the] DMCA shot down!
Why? Because the RIAA was claiming that the "safe harbor clause" not only applied to files hosted at the ISP itself (as the DMCA states), but also all information hosted by any computers of the ISP's subscribers. One judge even bought it. The RIAA frequently misinterprets the law in this way.
Then again, these are the same people who call sharing "theft" and who called Jesse Jordan's search engine a tool for "willful infringement" of copyright (why did they not sue Google? -- Oh, I know... It is because Google can defend themselves...). Go figure.
While I understand his point, is that not the reason people go to Google for news (eg: to avoid or distribute human bias)? This just sounds to me like he is angry that people are not reading the news the way he wants them to.
This is what Salkever's statements sound like to me.
Quote:
It's clear to a journalist that this system was designed by someone who has no idea what's important in the news.
Translation:
It's clear to a journalist that this system was designed by someone who has no idea how to properly slant the news.
Quote:
There is no consideration of comprehensiveness of a story at one site over another.
Translation:
There is no consistent consideration of comprehensiveness of what we in the industry have decided to include.
Quote:
This ultimately hurts news outlets who work very hard to put together the best stories and draw traffic to their pages.
Translation:
They are not playing by our rules... Boohoo!
I do not use Google News, but at least on the surface, it is a system that appears to be unfriendly to the obvious and harmful bias of US news sources. It also seems to me that reading a bunch of news from totally random websites might actually contribute to more open mindedness (something I, for one, would like to see more of in the US and in the rest of the world).
I think the simple point is: Readers are responsible for picking and choosing what they believe out of the news. While this has always been true, Google News is making it more obvious by sprinkling, sometimes very liberally, the news with opinions that are not standard within the news industry (and some opinions that are just downright absurd). This is probably a good thing.
...with a lot of new data, that the entertainment industry is shifting from an era of hit-driven economics to one of niche-driven economics.
I love this idea, but the *AAs certainly will not. This directly conflicts with their business model. If they had to package entertainment for every 10 individuals, they would cry bloody murder even more than they are now (and it would be similarly suspicious).
I really hope such a thing comes to pass. I want to live in a world where I can get access to any information that I might want whenever I might want it.
Things like this really need a bootable CD. I would love to try this out, but creating a harddrive partition for it is not an option. Can it be made small enough to fit on a CD? That would be a good way to see if it can use all of your hardware.
David Cobb talked about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) as the best choice in electoral methods in his interview here
I thought it was Badnarik that said that. Here is what Badnarik said:
There are various alternative voting systems that address this problem. [Question/Problem: How can we change the system so people have the choice between multiple candidates and not just two? (#1)]
Instant Runoff Voting allows the voter to assign a rank to each candidate; if no candidate gets a majority of "first place" votes, then "second place" votes are counted, and so on, until someone gets a majority. This allows people to choose a "third party" candidate as their first preference, but still get a vote between frontrunners if their candidate loses.
Personally, I prefer Approval Voting. In this method, each voter can select as many candidates as he likes -- he can vote for all the candidates whom he can live with. All of the votes are counted, and the candidate with the most votes wins. The result is that the winner is not necessarily "the most popular," but "the one that the most voters are okay with."
Badnarik's "Approval Voting" sounds a whole lot like Condorcet voting to me. Maybe Badnarik's is a mathematically simpler version of the Condorcet method using an absolute count of Yes votes rather than comparing pairs of candidates with ranked votes.
Either way, I do not think it was Cobb. Has he even replied to his Slashdot questions yet?
One more thing:
With all of this political stuff that is going on at Slashdot lately, maybe it would be a good idea to test one or more of these voting methods with a Slashdot election. Maybe there could be one required voting method for Slashdotters who choose to vote and a couple of optional ones. It would be interesting to see who would be elected on Slashdot as opposed to who is elected in the Diebold Virtual Election.
although they're not wrong that the system will likely facilitate privacy abuses, I wish the author had been a bit more hopeful about possible system designs that would still help alleviate traffic problems without enabling snooping, because obviously such a system could be built if the political will was present to do so.
That if is just massive. Except for the period of authorship of the Constitution, when has the political will ever been present for the prevention of privacy abuses? What government in history ever did not want to know where its subjects were going if it could?
Let's face it. If privacy abuses are possible, they will happen.
Why are these people thinking about solutions to this "problem" when it has only happened to ONE pilot? Maybe it would be a good idea to wait until this happend to more than one pilot. I know it would be too much to ask for people choose a statistically significant threshold for legal or administrative action, but at least wait until it is not a freak occurrence.
It is good to see that RMS made the rankings this year. But one odd thing is this:
No. 44 Richard Stallman, free software advocate
Last year's position: Not placed
I think it is important to remember that if it were not for RMS, Linus could not be on the list. RMS's influence cannot be understated, and most (if not all) of the freedoms currently associated with Linux were his ideas. He should have been on the list since its creation.
In any case, more exposure for him means more freedom for me and everyone, so I am happy he has finally been recognized by this ranking.
Where can one buy one of these $65 receivers? I figure the signal probably reaches about half of the globe, so mostly anybody in Asia should be able to get the signal, right?
I like the part where Mark Hamill discusses the theoretical logistics of employing janitorial staff for the entire Death Star.
I thought that was the discussion from Clerks. IIRC, they had a long discussion about whether the contractors were innocent bystanders murdered by the rebels or were risk takers lured by high paychecks. I wonder if they would have counted the maids and garbage men as responsible risk takers. Then again, maybe all of those jobs were done by droids. That seems the most likely scenario.
Perhaps if we reduce crime and instill values that encourage dedication to learning and good nutrition we'd find children more receptive.
Let me get this straight. You are saying: In order to make education available to poorer communities, we have to educate them to accept education. Is it not the job of schools to "instill values"? If learning new values are a prerequisite to education, how can one learn those new values in order to access one's education? Or are you planning on "instill[ing these] values" with halftime advertisements during the Super Bowl?
I know there is next to no likelyhood that this question will get answered or even seen, but I will ask it anyway because I think it is important:
Mr. Badnarik, in your response to geoff313's question "Intellectual Property", you said:
...ultimately, the marketplace will decide how intellectual property is handled.
I do not understand how a system of government granted monopolies can be decided in the marketplace, unless you are referring to our current government where such legislation is bought by a few wealthy lobbying groups (the *AAs come to mind). Being that you are a Libertarian, and Libertarians are generally anti-monopoly, how do you reconcile
your ideas with government granted monopolies such as copyright and patent? Do you consider yourself to be more of a Constitutionalist (e.g. the Founding Father's version of freedom is the best possible implementation) or more of a Libertarian (e.g. freedom is more important than any particular implementation). Where do you stand on government monopolies that are allowed by the Constitution (especially monopolies on information which may directly impact the First Amendment)?
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose in the former case it would refer to MS. Maybe that is just a "technical" distinction, though.
Why don't you just say shame on the early speakers of the English language for not having the the foresight to divide the different things that free can be applied to?
Why don't you complain that it is sad that we have no separate words for things like "free of worries" or "free of charge" or "free of noise" or any other things that come under the umbrella of the concept of free?
The fact is: The FSF came up with the ONLY English word for what they are talking about. That word is free. The consequence that "free of charge" is the aspect that most English speakers necessarily associate with the word free is no fault of those who believe in freedom. The members of the FSF have chosen the correct word.
A bunch of narrow minded, money-worshipping businessmen have twisted its meaning to their normally asinine point of view. Money may be important, but it does not govern everything. And freedom, certainly, is not wholly restricted to freedom from this or that expense.
I put the word take in quotes because one cannot really "take" information. Information is copied which is not the same as taking. If I "take" and idea from a person, that person still has the idea. After that, we both have the same idea. (Yes, I got this idea from Jefferson).
Really well said.
Somebody please mod the parent up. That was just awesome.
Name me ONE free software project that does not include access to the source. Please. I have never heard of such a thing.
Maybe this will help: Free Software is free, not free of charge.
In fact, it was published as soon as he hit submit or preview. As soon as a version existed in "fixed and tangible form" in the memory of his computer, it was copyrighted. Hitting submit or preview copied it to several servers which is technically publishing. Further, if you read the statement at the bottom of the page:
You will realize that Slashdot has already attributed the copyright to the poster by default.This aspect of DRM has been predicted by many including Lessig and Litman. The fact is: Corporations are known for their inability to stop asking for more and more. DRM makes it possible for them to ask for whatever they want and change the rules any time.
However, since this guy actually likes T2, I am going to assume he is a part of the ignorant public that are spoon fed by the press into believing that locking up all information is a good thing. If this is so, then perhaps ordinary people are beginning to realize just how broken copyright law is and how far the law is from the ideal (which most people do not understand either).
Since this member of the public is also a member of the press (well, the gaming press), I will answer some of his questions:
The truth is that there is a difference between the law and DRM. DRM is a set of laws without the responsibility normally imposed upon government. It is a system whose integrity is enforced by government without regard to how fair the rules of that system are. Therefore, a corporation using DRM is somewhat of a government unto itself with arbitrary dictatorial powers that can be changed at a whim. I find it interesting that a free society would allow this sort of thing to exist.
Acceptable? How? You have bought something, and then you are willing to have someone check again whether or not you have the right to use it? If licences are to be sold, they should be in the package or given to you at the counter when you pay. No one should ever be able to further scrutinize your purchase unless they have probable cause and a search warrant.
You do, of course, realize that by routing your "IP address through an anonymous proxy server in the US" you committed a federal offense that could carry jail time. That is a circumvention of access controls added to copyright law by the infamous DMCA specifically to protect the DRM that you think should be used to protect copyright.
So why are you surprised? Would you also be surprised if they demanded money for the next license? But why should they not? Authors should be compensated, right?
Welcome to DRM: You have no rights. Period.
In fact, that is the point of licensing: You are not the owner; they are the owners and you are just borrowing the "content". Because you are not an owner, you have no rights except to refuse to "borrow" from them. If you agree
Did TomTom base their software on Ghost In The Shell? TomTom's maps totally look like the maps in that movie... except they are not green.
It is about time a judge said this. I have been waiting for this since 2001. Now if he could just wake up some of his colleagues, maybe we might be able to reverse some of the damage Dubuya has done to the Constitution.
Okay, okay... I know... I am dreaming again...
Oops. I guess I did not read carefully enough :( I did not realize that the story was talking about a protocol and not a client. My comment is therefore only semi-appropriate as it would make sense for them not to licence someone else's protocol.
It sounds promising, though. If they put as much thought into an IM protocol as they put into other things, it might be really useful. Also, it would be nice to check my Gmail account with Gaim (yes, I am assuming that Google with be more Gaim-friendly than MSN or Yahoo!).
If Google is ever thinking of releasing Gmail to the general public, they would be stupid not to include instant messaging. Think about it. Gmail competes with Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Both are coupled with IM clients. People are increasingly moving toward email accounts that are connected with IM. I am also sure most people would like to have a single address they could give other people.
Then again, these are the same people who call sharing "theft" and who called Jesse Jordan's search engine a tool for "willful infringement" of copyright (why did they not sue Google? -- Oh, I know... It is because Google can defend themselves...). Go figure.
While I understand his point, is that not the reason people go to Google for news (eg: to avoid or distribute human bias)? This just sounds to me like he is angry that people are not reading the news the way he wants them to.
This is what Salkever's statements sound like to me.
Quote:
Translation:Quote:
Translation:Quote:
Translation:I do not use Google News, but at least on the surface, it is a system that appears to be unfriendly to the obvious and harmful bias of US news sources. It also seems to me that reading a bunch of news from totally random websites might actually contribute to more open mindedness (something I, for one, would like to see more of in the US and in the rest of the world).
I think the simple point is: Readers are responsible for picking and choosing what they believe out of the news. While this has always been true, Google News is making it more obvious by sprinkling, sometimes very liberally, the news with opinions that are not standard within the news industry (and some opinions that are just downright absurd). This is probably a good thing.
I really hope such a thing comes to pass. I want to live in a world where I can get access to any information that I might want whenever I might want it.
Things like this really need a bootable CD. I would love to try this out, but creating a harddrive partition for it is not an option. Can it be made small enough to fit on a CD? That would be a good way to see if it can use all of your hardware.
Sorry, I guess I am just lazy.
Either way, I do not think it was Cobb. Has he even replied to his Slashdot questions yet?
One more thing:
With all of this political stuff that is going on at Slashdot lately, maybe it would be a good idea to test one or more of these voting methods with a Slashdot election. Maybe there could be one required voting method for Slashdotters who choose to vote and a couple of optional ones. It would be interesting to see who would be elected on Slashdot as opposed to who is elected in the Diebold Virtual Election.
Let's face it. If privacy abuses are possible, they will happen.
Why are these people thinking about solutions to this "problem" when it has only happened to ONE pilot? Maybe it would be a good idea to wait until this happend to more than one pilot. I know it would be too much to ask for people choose a statistically significant threshold for legal or administrative action, but at least wait until it is not a freak occurrence.
It is good to see that RMS made the rankings this year. But one odd thing is this:
I think it is important to remember that if it were not for RMS, Linus could not be on the list. RMS's influence cannot be understated, and most (if not all) of the freedoms currently associated with Linux were his ideas. He should have been on the list since its creation.In any case, more exposure for him means more freedom for me and everyone, so I am happy he has finally been recognized by this ranking.
Where can one buy one of these $65 receivers? I figure the signal probably reaches about half of the globe, so mostly anybody in Asia should be able to get the signal, right?
I know there is next to no likelyhood that this question will get answered or even seen, but I will ask it anyway because I think it is important:
Mr. Badnarik, in your response to geoff313's question "Intellectual Property", you said:
I do not understand how a system of government granted monopolies can be decided in the marketplace, unless you are referring to our current government where such legislation is bought by a few wealthy lobbying groups (the *AAs come to mind). Being that you are a Libertarian, and Libertarians are generally anti-monopoly, how do you reconcile your ideas with government granted monopolies such as copyright and patent? Do you consider yourself to be more of a Constitutionalist (e.g. the Founding Father's version of freedom is the best possible implementation) or more of a Libertarian (e.g. freedom is more important than any particular implementation). Where do you stand on government monopolies that are allowed by the Constitution (especially monopolies on information which may directly impact the First Amendment)?