Here is a question.. What is the difference between me scanning a book I own and turning it into an ebook or instead, downloading a pirate copy of an ebook that I own in paper form?
The one you make from a scan is likely to be full of typos and crappy formatting, unless you spend quite a while cleaning it up. Noticed the unintelligible text you see in Google's Recaptchas? Half of those are from actual scans of books that they couldn't work out automatically.
Unfortunately, a lot of pirate e-books are made like that.... Hopefully more will be digital conversions rather than OCR as time goes by.
Though you probably weren't asking about the quality but the morality. The latter is a personal issue.
I personally would use a "FUCK YOU, YOU MORON" button a lot more often in Wikipedia than a "Have a kitten" button. Maybe it's the articles I edit attract more assholes (yes, I'm aware of the implication of that).
It all comes down to what makes your own moral Geiger counter start clicking. I think most of us know when we're straying into the darker areas, in general. So I don't really think it's necessary to draw this hard-line distinction between "theft" and "copyright infringement." Maybe it's more honest to talk about right and wrong, and then think about the best way to define laws around that.
Should you prosecute people for not following your moral code?
Or for just "being a dick"? Seems you want to use the force of the law to make everyone follow what your moral precepts. Which is a natural feeling, but not consistent with democratic rights.
"Kasey Moffat"s blog has one and only one entry, the one linked here. And he Slashdot story was submitted by "anonymous".
Who benefits from this? the "Groupon" spammers -- sorry, email marketers -- who are so unfairly not highlighted automatically by Google as "important". And Slashdot goes along with these SEO scumbags hyping a story.
And me. I don't complain they won't let me stream full shows, I have other ways to do that. I do get really pissed off when various TV and movie news sites have previews and interviews and all I can see is a big FUCK OFF FOREIGN LEECH message from Hulu, and I have to search to see if it's been copied by someone to YouTube. If Hulu becomes even more limited then news sites wouldn't use it by default.
ISBNs are also basically a scam. Bowker runs a database and charges people significant amounts of money
The "I" in ISBN is "International". You don't have to use an American ISBN, even if you live in America. Other places issue them for free, as in Hong Kong, where the government administers them, or cheaper.
I've made a few Kindle books for people to put Amazon, and I thought they required an ISBN to put them in their system.
I wouldn't change the ISBN for correcting errata, only a complete new edition. There really isn't any oversight, it's up to the publisher to keep it logical.
I wouldn't trust any Amazon reviews. (Well, the negative ones are probably real.) I just use them to fulfil an order. I don't need Bezos to recommend books to me, I have plenty of sources I trust.
Those people get to choose whether or not they put pictures on the internet. They do not get to choose whether google puts pictures of them on the internet.
Well, "bizarre ass-backwards broken logic" indeed. Many people are "choosing" to put pictures of OTHER PEOPLE on the Internet, and those that seek permission from the subjects would be a very small minority.Good luck trying to stop a bunch of teenagers from putting up their snaps, or videos, if they catch you doing something embarrassing in a street alley.
You're also getting awfully close to the whole "corporations are people" line of thinking.
Well, by default, they are. But if you want to have laws that people can do this, but corporations can't, you'd better get lobbying.
Google ignore the fact that there is a massive difference between a public place being public and a public place being available to everyone on the internet (including data gathering servers, and all kinds of face recognition technologies).
Your argument would apply not only to Google, but everyone who puts any picture on their blog/Facebook/Twitter/emails to his auntie.
Any photo on the Internet is available to EVERYONE in the world. If you stop Google doing it, you must stop everyone. If Google bends over, then the precedent is pretty awful for everyone else.
This manager would sound much more relaxed with a bit of punctuation:
The guy was talking, not writing. Any punctuation was imagined by the reporter or editor.
If you simply write down exactly what someone says in an unscripted interview, it's easy to make them look like a doofus by including every umm, err, false start. Most people don't speak in perfect prose.
Actually, the radiation would likely aid evolution greatly.
It will create wild environments, things constantly mutating.
No, that's comic book "science". Radiation isn't necessary to speed up evolution. There is plenty of variation already. Massive random mutations are usually simply lethal. Evolution proceeds via incremental changes. What speeds up evolution is an environment with unfilled niches -- see e.g. the Galapagos, where the relatively small number of animals (e.g. turtles) and birds (e.g.finches) that colonised it quickly evolved into numerous species to exploit different food sources, etc. Or how we mammals got our big chance when the dinosaurs were wiped out. All of that occurred without any "Incredible Hulk" style "mutated by gamma rays".
Don't think of it as a franchise. Think of it in the same way that Marvel does/wants us to think they do: It's a single enormous story, told in several parts from several perspectives.
With respect, bollocks. They think of it as a franchise.. That's why they never will actually resolve any story, never really kill off any costumed hero or villain -- because it has to go on forever.
Don't you think, since Thor is part of the AVENGERS, that maybe, just maybe, they would find a way to get him back to EARTH, where the Avengers are?
Understanding that these plot machinations are all in service of building some "franchise" doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
One thing though: Thor and the heroes of Asgard did fight their wars, occasionally got killed and then were reborn to fight (and drink) again So Marvel didn't invent the endless reboot style of storytelling.
In one case they got caught, having failed to edit out their own participation from the film presented as "evidence of abuse" in court.
... says a guy on the Internet, without bothering to cite any names, dates or facts that can be checked. This wanker is modded up to "5 informative". Idiots everywhere.
Clue: if this had really happened, there would be no problem prosecuting the fakers. They'd already be in jail. So name them. Or is this just something you saw on some blog and are passing on after embroidering it a little more?
How so? Blackmail is threatening to expose something unless the victim pays or does something for you. There's no suggestion that is happening. They're simply being published.No payment is being asked for.
And what about plain parental frustration that they can't turn their back on their kids because using Google or Bing can be like playing Minesweeper with porn, violence and/b/ under every bad tile?
So don't let the kid use Google or Bing or Yahoo or whatever. Restrict him to a whjitelist set of bookmarks you vet. You can do it technically with a blocklist, or just tell him those ore the rules.
, and the management for not putting their money where their mouth is and giving her a refund written notice that she's barred from attending again.
I'm guessing they may have started with a policy like that, but you can see that makes it that much less of a deterrent. The texter loses nothing if they get caught; they've seen half the movie, which apparently they weren't interested in anyway, and got their money back. A "written notice that she's barred from attending again" isn't much of a deterrent either; you don't have to show ID to buy a ticket. Unless she has a particularly memorable scar and met the same ushers, who'd know if she came back a few weeks later?
You would be saving a lot of money this way. In case, you manage to produce a shinier product with the same algorithm, you are going to make more money.
Tough for the inventor, good for the market.
It takes a lot of work to make a "shinier product". You can keep polishing your product and building market share and reputation and stay ahead. In any case, if a big company wants to copy your idea, they'll just do it and you have to try to prove they used your patented method. Can take a decade and cost millions.
prevent other companies from outright copying them without the need for the huge initial investment....ls. How would you propose to solve this problem, if patents are eliminated all together?
Because copyright still exists, so they can't "outright copy" your code. They have to reimplement it. And that's what uses the great amount of manhours needed to create working applications.
How is sunlight and wind not 'free' fuel? Or for that matter, hydro power?
You're just playing games, calling one input "free". The important cost is how much it costs per joule to deliver. Oil is "free" in pretty much the same way. It's just lying there in pools underground for the taking.
If it is, why the fuck do we have to pay through the nose to use "free" solar or wind or hydro power?
That the big assumption. The "risk groups" are always based on the LAST attack. And we can be sure that if there is another, they won't use 19 Saudi nationals. But those are the ones the TSA will be looking at hardest.
hat group A would only contain 1 in 100 terrorists, group B would only contain 10 in 100 terrorists and group C would contain 89 out of 100 terrorists
But it's nothing like that. It's more like one in a million. Making any statistical targeting a complete crapshoot, and simply justifying probing all the Abduls and Omars who are almost certainly (999,999 out of a million) completely innocent. Statistically, you're better to be completely random, even if that means occasionally searching Jewish grandmothers. They can't game that.
.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a question.. What is the difference between me scanning a book I own and turning it into an ebook or instead, downloading a pirate copy of an ebook that I own in paper form?
The one you make from a scan is likely to be full of typos and crappy formatting, unless you spend quite a while cleaning it up. Noticed the unintelligible text you see in Google's Recaptchas? Half of those are from actual scans of books that they couldn't work out automatically.
Unfortunately, a lot of pirate e-books are made like that.... Hopefully more will be digital conversions rather than OCR as time goes by.
Though you probably weren't asking about the quality but the morality. The latter is a personal issue.
Take a deep breath :
"WIPO Talks May Portend Sweeping Broacast-Based Copyright"
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/25/0416217/WIPO-Talks-May-Portend-Sweeping-Broacast-Based-Copyright
In this case, it's all down to the fucking useless moron editor (timothy), since the submission ( http://yro.slashdot.org/submission/1673470/New-Broadcast-treaty-againin-WIPO) didn't have that error in the headline.
I personally would use a "FUCK YOU, YOU MORON" button a lot more often in Wikipedia than a "Have a kitten" button. Maybe it's the articles I edit attract more assholes (yes, I'm aware of the implication of that).
It all comes down to what makes your own moral Geiger counter start clicking. I think most of us know when we're straying into the darker areas, in general. So I don't really think it's necessary to draw this hard-line distinction between "theft" and "copyright infringement." Maybe it's more honest to talk about right and wrong, and then think about the best way to define laws around that.
Should you prosecute people for not following your moral code? Or for just "being a dick"? Seems you want to use the force of the law to make everyone follow what your moral precepts. Which is a natural feeling, but not consistent with democratic rights.
Who benefits from this? the "Groupon" spammers -- sorry, email marketers -- who are so unfairly not highlighted automatically by Google as "important". And Slashdot goes along with these SEO scumbags hyping a story.
Least worst option? I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, and that you didn't see the news for a decade, e.g., Fukushima nuclear reactor, Google it.
"Ring of Fire" Google it.
And me. I don't complain they won't let me stream full shows, I have other ways to do that. I do get really pissed off when various TV and movie news sites have previews and interviews and all I can see is a big FUCK OFF FOREIGN LEECH message from Hulu, and I have to search to see if it's been copied by someone to YouTube. If Hulu becomes even more limited then news sites wouldn't use it by default.
ISBNs are also basically a scam. Bowker runs a database and charges people significant amounts of money
The "I" in ISBN is "International". You don't have to use an American ISBN, even if you live in America. Other places issue them for free, as in Hong Kong, where the government administers them, or cheaper.
I've made a few Kindle books for people to put Amazon, and I thought they required an ISBN to put them in their system.
I wouldn't change the ISBN for correcting errata, only a complete new edition. There really isn't any oversight, it's up to the publisher to keep it logical.
I wouldn't trust any Amazon reviews. (Well, the negative ones are probably real.) I just use them to fulfil an order. I don't need Bezos to recommend books to me, I have plenty of sources I trust.
Personally, I'm tired of being the "silent majority" in this country.
I'm tired of you being the very loud majority.
Those people get to choose whether or not they put pictures on the internet. They do not get to choose whether google puts pictures of them on the internet.
Well, "bizarre ass-backwards broken logic" indeed. Many people are "choosing" to put pictures of OTHER PEOPLE on the Internet, and those that seek permission from the subjects would be a very small minority.Good luck trying to stop a bunch of teenagers from putting up their snaps, or videos, if they catch you doing something embarrassing in a street alley.
You're also getting awfully close to the whole "corporations are people" line of thinking.
Well, by default, they are. But if you want to have laws that people can do this, but corporations can't, you'd better get lobbying.
Google ignore the fact that there is a massive difference between a public place being public and a public place being available to everyone on the internet (including data gathering servers, and all kinds of face recognition technologies).
Your argument would apply not only to Google, but everyone who puts any picture on their blog/Facebook/Twitter/emails to his auntie.
Any photo on the Internet is available to EVERYONE in the world. If you stop Google doing it, you must stop everyone. If Google bends over, then the precedent is pretty awful for everyone else.
The guy was talking, not writing. Any punctuation was imagined by the reporter or editor.
If you simply write down exactly what someone says in an unscripted interview, it's easy to make them look like a doofus by including every umm, err, false start. Most people don't speak in perfect prose.
Actually, the radiation would likely aid evolution greatly. It will create wild environments, things constantly mutating.
No, that's comic book "science". Radiation isn't necessary to speed up evolution. There is plenty of variation already. Massive random mutations are usually simply lethal. Evolution proceeds via incremental changes. What speeds up evolution is an environment with unfilled niches -- see e.g. the Galapagos, where the relatively small number of animals (e.g. turtles) and birds (e.g.finches) that colonised it quickly evolved into numerous species to exploit different food sources, etc. Or how we mammals got our big chance when the dinosaurs were wiped out. All of that occurred without any "Incredible Hulk" style "mutated by gamma rays".
Don't think of it as a franchise. Think of it in the same way that Marvel does/wants us to think they do: It's a single enormous story, told in several parts from several perspectives.
With respect, bollocks. They think of it as a franchise.. That's why they never will actually resolve any story, never really kill off any costumed hero or villain -- because it has to go on forever.
Don't you think, since Thor is part of the AVENGERS, that maybe, just maybe, they would find a way to get him back to EARTH, where the Avengers are?
Understanding that these plot machinations are all in service of building some "franchise" doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
One thing though: Thor and the heroes of Asgard did fight their wars, occasionally got killed and then were reborn to fight (and drink) again So Marvel didn't invent the endless reboot style of storytelling.
In one case they got caught, having failed to edit out their own participation from the film presented as "evidence of abuse" in court.
... says a guy on the Internet, without bothering to cite any names, dates or facts that can be checked. This wanker is modded up to "5 informative". Idiots everywhere.
Clue: if this had really happened, there would be no problem prosecuting the fakers. They'd already be in jail. So name them. Or is this just something you saw on some blog and are passing on after embroidering it a little more?
This is looking like a blackmail mechanism.
How so? Blackmail is threatening to expose something unless the victim pays or does something for you. There's no suggestion that is happening. They're simply being published.No payment is being asked for.
And what about plain parental frustration that they can't turn their back on their kids because using Google or Bing can be like playing Minesweeper with porn, violence and /b/ under every bad tile?
So don't let the kid use Google or Bing or Yahoo or whatever. Restrict him to a whjitelist set of bookmarks you vet. You can do it technically with a blocklist, or just tell him those ore the rules.
, and the management for not putting their money where their mouth is and giving her a refund written notice that she's barred from attending again.
I'm guessing they may have started with a policy like that, but you can see that makes it that much less of a deterrent. The texter loses nothing if they get caught; they've seen half the movie, which apparently they weren't interested in anyway, and got their money back. A "written notice that she's barred from attending again" isn't much of a deterrent either; you don't have to show ID to buy a ticket. Unless she has a particularly memorable scar and met the same ushers, who'd know if she came back a few weeks later?
You would be saving a lot of money this way. In case, you manage to produce a shinier product with the same algorithm, you are going to make more money.
Tough for the inventor, good for the market.
It takes a lot of work to make a "shinier product". You can keep polishing your product and building market share and reputation and stay ahead. In any case, if a big company wants to copy your idea, they'll just do it and you have to try to prove they used your patented method. Can take a decade and cost millions.
prevent other companies from outright copying them without the need for the huge initial investment....ls. How would you propose to solve this problem, if patents are eliminated all together?
Because copyright still exists, so they can't "outright copy" your code. They have to reimplement it. And that's what uses the great amount of manhours needed to create working applications.
Again, put a panel on your roof.
And these are free, need no maintenance, and last forever.
Last time I checked the pump it still cost money. Why is that?
Duh. That was my point.
Last time I checked I couldn't get free solar power, wind power or any other power. Why is that?
How is sunlight and wind not 'free' fuel? Or for that matter, hydro power?
You're just playing games, calling one input "free". The important cost is how much it costs per joule to deliver. Oil is "free" in pretty much the same way. It's just lying there in pools underground for the taking.
If it is, why the fuck do we have to pay through the nose to use "free" solar or wind or hydro power?
If you can score passengers by risk
That the big assumption. The "risk groups" are always based on the LAST attack. And we can be sure that if there is another, they won't use 19 Saudi nationals. But those are the ones the TSA will be looking at hardest.
hat group A would only contain 1 in 100 terrorists, group B would only contain 10 in 100 terrorists and group C would contain 89 out of 100 terrorists
But it's nothing like that. It's more like one in a million. Making any statistical targeting a complete crapshoot, and simply justifying probing all the Abduls and Omars who are almost certainly (999,999 out of a million) completely innocent. Statistically, you're better to be completely random, even if that means occasionally searching Jewish grandmothers. They can't game that. .