Copyright protects you from copying.... but it does not grant you a monopoly like a patent does.
Copyright gives you a monopoly on the particular work you wrote, ie no one else may publish it. Might seem obvious nowadays, but before the concept of copyright (and more importantly before international copyrights) anyone could get a hold of your manuscript or (more likely) an already printed copy, set it to type and sell it, leaving you with zilch.
Sure patents are somewhat different in scope (someone else is more likely to independently come up with the same invention than to produce a written work identical to yours) but the principle was the same - for a period after you produce the work, you would be the only one able to make money off of it.
Of course that was only the original intention, I realize current law has diverged significantly from that principle.
I'd rather hear both sides and be free to make my own choices and decisions. If the idea of free speech worries you, then you worry me.
This has nothing to do with free speech (or even Free Speech) whatsoever. Free speech guarantees your right to hold and voice an opinion, unmolested by the powers that be. This concept is often warped into the notion that it obviates the need to defend such an opinion, or that merely holding it requires others to recognize it as valid.
Nobody is even remotely pondering curtailing the "Titorites"' rights to self expression. What I have a problem with is that the editors of the particular article, in their treatment of the subject matter are giving far too much credence to this particular crackpot theory. They do this in the laudible pursuit of neutrality, but in this case that leads to a product that reflects negatively on the project as a whole.
Free speech does not mean the abandonment of objective reasoning. Neutral point of view does not mean that wikipedia editors should parrot everything they read on the internet.
Oh and thank you for providing a link to the article on free speech - how deliciously patronizing.
I've read through their discussion and changelog, I think one more person coming along with "Shh! grownups are talking" will yet again be met with "if someone believes it for whatever reason, it's a valid opinion" line of thinking.
It's really more the attitude in general rather than this silly article that worries me.
I mean, if I claim that I have invisible aliens called Dvutels living in my attic, who only communicate with me, and only telepathically; I have presented exactly as much evidence for my story as the time traveler has, so would wikipedia be obliged to fairly represent my side in this matter?
I can even provide a picture of my attic to show that they are invisible. Oh, I can also provide a rich and evocative description of their homeworld and its history, to strengthen my case.
This has nothing to do with patents. Copyrights are not patents.
Copyrights have the exact same function and purpose as patents - to provide a temporary monopoly to the author/inventor as an incentive. They just cover different domains and function differently in practice.
Go back to Russia, you uneducated potato eater.
If it's all the same to you (even despite my awful patents vs. copyright faux pas), I would rather not - it is a fairly ghastly place.
Hm, first time that the wikipedia detractors make sense to me - I know they take their NOPV thing seriously, but shouldn't there be some sort of "stupid hoax considered a stupid hoax until proven otherwise" rule?
Striving to represent all sides of an issue is one thing, but those who believe a lame hoax and those who don't, do not two valid sides of an issue make.
I mean, come on: "there are discrepancies between Titor's claims of the future and actual events"? Oh really, cause it all looked pretty solid to me!
Somehow their reputation just got knocked down a notch for me.
I think that on these things, companies should be given limited access - perhaps for a few years, so that they can capitalize on their investment. After about 5 years or so, they'd better make it public domain.
Great idea, isn't it? It's called "patents", and they have thought of it a while ago. The problem is mostly with the current implementation.
I supposedly do this crap for a living, and I find out about this from slashdot.
Anyway, Celera seems to epitomize the way large projects like this become free: they sink billions upon billions of dollars into a project which is soon supplanted by a better free (though, of course, government funded) alternative, and after years of unsuccessfully trying to sell it, release it for free for a bit of good PR.
But then again, they've made a huge contribution to the field overall; Craig Venter may be an arrogant prick, but he gets shit done, while Francis Collins mostly waxes poetic about the bright future of genomics.
Well, that seems like enough venting about the sad state of research.
Any benefit from the "free advertising" is extremely hard to quantify, and I haven't seen anybody take even a stab at it.
Well, being hard to quantify doesn't really mean the effect doesn't exist.
You'd have to subtract out the fact that many people are seeking things they've already heard about from the RIAA's advertising. Nobody is "discovering" Britney Spears when they download it. So it's doing little good for the major artists.
One group that I definitely don't worry about are the "major artists"; the people that receive vast compensation as basically a byproduct of the money making machinery of these industries. I'm sure I am thoroughly in the wrong here, of course.
P2Ps aren't really recommendation services, so I think there's less "free advertising" going on than some think.
The positive (money-making wise) effect I've seen is a bit different: if one hears of something new, or something that one might like (and this applies more to movies/tv/games than music), one is more likely to download it immediately and buy it later if one does enjoy it. Obviously not a great situation overall, but everything I did buy from these industries in the last couple of years came via this route.
It seems to me that the difference between murder and manslaughter is precisely where copyright infringement meets theft: intent. Manslaughter is murder without intent; copyright infringement isn't theft, but the intent is the same: to possess a thing for which you did not pay. It's not theft in that the owner isn't deprived of the thing, but a thief is generally more interested in possessing himself than in depriving the owner. A true thief knows he is depriving the owner, and the copyright infringer knows he is not, but the intent to own something without paying the price is the reason why I don't much care what it's called.
That's all well and good, but by that logic intending to kill someone and failing to do so (what is that, 'conspiracy to commit murder', or something?) should carry the same penalties as murder-1? I realize there are inherent differences between murder and theft that make this analogy not entirely valid; but then I'm arguing that there are such differences between theft and copyright infringement as well.
Anyway, arguing these semantics is still rather pointless. The situation overall is very much "suboptimal", the only position I disagree with is that the way to fix it is to procesute file sharers and maintain the "status quo" otherwise.
Arguably, the damage done by sharing movies and CDs is very high. If 1% of the people who downloaded a movie would have bought it, that can easily be 10,000 people. If the studio nets ten bucks on each sale, that's $100,000 in damage. (I don't care if you wish to call the crime "infringement" or "theft" or "piracy"; I'm trying to figure out economic losses. And unless you have some hard numbers for your argument that the studios are benefitting from your free advertising, please start a different thread.)
Do they have to be as hard as your numbers for their losses?
And I don't really see how you can "not care" whether it's theft or not - comparing it with "Grand Theft" when in fact the process has little in common with theft doesn't seem very constructive. Suppose they do that much damage; manslaughter does exactly as much damage as murder, but those seem to carry different penalties.
But you are right, arguing about individual laws is just not that helpful when the entire system is so slanted to corporate interests.
Shit dude, it's like 20 words of "editorialization" - it seems like it's not that hard to live with.
And again for the record, there is no "reporting the news" here, this is not some sort of news agency, it's just a bunch of people posting links to shit on the net, that other people send them.
But if the opinion that three years in jail is too much for leaking a movie, by all means run, don't walk, to the network news, they'll be happy to have you.
WTF? Three years in prison for speeding sure would be a nice deterrent to stop people breaking the law - should we implement that? In fact, the more the punishment, the more deterrenty, right? So, death penalty for shoplifting? Why, we could eliminate crime altogether!
The words "overkill" and "draconian" are used to describe a punishment disproportinately severe, given the actual crime. For some reason, we seem to think that arbitrary punhishmen in the name of deterrence is a bad thing.
How, precisely, is it "promoting the progress of science and useful arts" to have copyright extended indefinitely?
It may or may not be, but the question is not germaine to the discussion.
Eh? The OP's entire point is that our laws don't correspond to the spirit of the constitution; whatever weight you may place on that.
I have a right to use those works once they've stopped "promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts", and that right is being slowly eroded.
No, you don't.
How so? Once copyright expires (and this was originally meant to happen at the point the OP specified) and the work enters the public domain, people have a right to use those works, no? The fact that most likely no copyright will ever expire again in this country (the limit has been increased by how many decades already to accomodate Mickey?), is what's "eroding" that principle.
It's not like "search history" is a complicated concept, on the order of "one click ordering" - you don't exactly have to be a genius to come up with that one.
I want to have several terminals running 'tail -f' on my log files, each turned so I can just see the shape of the output and maybe read it a litle. This gives me more information than just that some file changed - I can see a little bit of the info without having to know the details.
Sure, I do this all the time - code editor in left monitor, running app and trailing log files in right.
I want to have several processes running on a particular machine and leave that group in a little village while I go look at other things. Alternatively, several processes related to a particular task (e.g., editor, compiler, test files) all grouped in a village, independent of which machine they're on.
That's what logical/virtual desktops are for. I am not sure what you mean by "independent of machine" in this case.
Splitting a screen into two vertical halves, or using two monitors, allows for true 3D.
Depends on your definition of "true".
[snip] With the correct video driver and X server, you could have realistic 3D on commodity hardware.
And still no effective input devices. (there are other problems with that method, like the ridiculously narrow viewing angle, it's hard to imagine this working well on a monitor larger than 15" even if you are right in front of it)
My problem with this isn't the 3D display itself, though; but what that actually gives you. You mostly talk about logical grouping of applications, I don't see how a 3D interface would do this more effectively than a 2D one. Though it would be very nice if the existing 2D ones did a lot more with this sort of thing.
Like all of these 3D desktop ideas, this doesn't sound all that compelling.
Face it, monitors and input devices are two dimensional (well mice at any rate, keyboards are one dimensional), simulating a third dimension adds complexity - both in use and in implementation - and doesn't add anything to useablity or productivity. Sure, you get about 5 minutes of "Oooh, shiny!", but that's about it.
Navigating 3D space with any of the current input devices is a huge pain in the ass, trying to do useful work with a large amount of data on such a thing will get frustrating very quickly. They make it look cool in movies, but that's becuase it's scripted.
I would bet you're one of these people who think running PHP with register_globals on is a "molehill?"
For the purposes of this discussion, why don't take the author at his word? Simply because "just fix all of it" doesn't make for a very interesting discussion on the topic.
Slashdot Mirror
Copyright protects you from copying
Copyright gives you a monopoly on the particular work you wrote, ie no one else may publish it. Might seem obvious nowadays, but before the concept of copyright (and more importantly before international copyrights) anyone could get a hold of your manuscript or (more likely) an already printed copy, set it to type and sell it, leaving you with zilch.
Sure patents are somewhat different in scope (someone else is more likely to independently come up with the same invention than to produce a written work identical to yours) but the principle was the same - for a period after you produce the work, you would be the only one able to make money off of it.
Of course that was only the original intention, I realize current law has diverged significantly from that principle.
This has nothing to do with free speech (or even Free Speech) whatsoever. Free speech guarantees your right to hold and voice an opinion, unmolested by the powers that be. This concept is often warped into the notion that it obviates the need to defend such an opinion, or that merely holding it requires others to recognize it as valid.
Nobody is even remotely pondering curtailing the "Titorites"' rights to self expression. What I have a problem with is that the editors of the particular article, in their treatment of the subject matter are giving far too much credence to this particular crackpot theory. They do this in the laudible pursuit of neutrality, but in this case that leads to a product that reflects negatively on the project as a whole.
Free speech does not mean the abandonment of objective reasoning. Neutral point of view does not mean that wikipedia editors should parrot everything they read on the internet.
Oh and thank you for providing a link to the article on free speech - how deliciously patronizing.
It's really more the attitude in general rather than this silly article that worries me.
I mean, if I claim that I have invisible aliens called Dvutels living in my attic, who only communicate with me, and only telepathically; I have presented exactly as much evidence for my story as the time traveler has, so would wikipedia be obliged to fairly represent my side in this matter?
I can even provide a picture of my attic to show that they are invisible. Oh, I can also provide a rich and evocative description of their homeworld and its history, to strengthen my case.
Copyrights have the exact same function and purpose as patents - to provide a temporary monopoly to the author/inventor as an incentive. They just cover different domains and function differently in practice.
Go back to Russia, you uneducated potato eater.
If it's all the same to you (even despite my awful patents vs. copyright faux pas), I would rather not - it is a fairly ghastly place.
Striving to represent all sides of an issue is one thing, but those who believe a lame hoax and those who don't, do not two valid sides of an issue make.
I mean, come on: "there are discrepancies between Titor's claims of the future and actual events"? Oh really, cause it all looked pretty solid to me!
Somehow their reputation just got knocked down a notch for me.
I don't even have time to read my freakin' email, you think I'm gonna read yours?
Great idea, isn't it? It's called "patents", and they have thought of it a while ago. The problem is mostly with the current implementation.
I don't get it. Wouldn't it be in German, in Germany?
Anyway, Celera seems to epitomize the way large projects like this become free: they sink billions upon billions of dollars into a project which is soon supplanted by a better free (though, of course, government funded) alternative, and after years of unsuccessfully trying to sell it, release it for free for a bit of good PR.
But then again, they've made a huge contribution to the field overall; Craig Venter may be an arrogant prick, but he gets shit done, while Francis Collins mostly waxes poetic about the bright future of genomics.
Well, that seems like enough venting about the sad state of research.
I'm pretty sure that would be the case. Let's see, something about a gas bill?
Wouldn't that be 'PN'?
Well, being hard to quantify doesn't really mean the effect doesn't exist.
You'd have to subtract out the fact that many people are seeking things they've already heard about from the RIAA's advertising. Nobody is "discovering" Britney Spears when they download it. So it's doing little good for the major artists.
One group that I definitely don't worry about are the "major artists"; the people that receive vast compensation as basically a byproduct of the money making machinery of these industries. I'm sure I am thoroughly in the wrong here, of course.
P2Ps aren't really recommendation services, so I think there's less "free advertising" going on than some think.
The positive (money-making wise) effect I've seen is a bit different: if one hears of something new, or something that one might like (and this applies more to movies/tv/games than music), one is more likely to download it immediately and buy it later if one does enjoy it. Obviously not a great situation overall, but everything I did buy from these industries in the last couple of years came via this route.
It seems to me that the difference between murder and manslaughter is precisely where copyright infringement meets theft: intent. Manslaughter is murder without intent; copyright infringement isn't theft, but the intent is the same: to possess a thing for which you did not pay. It's not theft in that the owner isn't deprived of the thing, but a thief is generally more interested in possessing himself than in depriving the owner. A true thief knows he is depriving the owner, and the copyright infringer knows he is not, but the intent to own something without paying the price is the reason why I don't much care what it's called.
That's all well and good, but by that logic intending to kill someone and failing to do so (what is that, 'conspiracy to commit murder', or something?) should carry the same penalties as murder-1? I realize there are inherent differences between murder and theft that make this analogy not entirely valid; but then I'm arguing that there are such differences between theft and copyright infringement as well.
Anyway, arguing these semantics is still rather pointless. The situation overall is very much "suboptimal", the only position I disagree with is that the way to fix it is to procesute file sharers and maintain the "status quo" otherwise.
Like, 3 or 4, at least, I would think...
Did I miss a memo or something? We make fun of NFS now? What exactly are we using for shared file systems on UNIX then?
Do they have to be as hard as your numbers for their losses?
And I don't really see how you can "not care" whether it's theft or not - comparing it with "Grand Theft" when in fact the process has little in common with theft doesn't seem very constructive. Suppose they do that much damage; manslaughter does exactly as much damage as murder, but those seem to carry different penalties.
But you are right, arguing about individual laws is just not that helpful when the entire system is so slanted to corporate interests.
And again for the record, there is no "reporting the news" here, this is not some sort of news agency, it's just a bunch of people posting links to shit on the net, that other people send them.
But if the opinion that three years in jail is too much for leaking a movie, by all means run, don't walk, to the network news, they'll be happy to have you.
The words "overkill" and "draconian" are used to describe a punishment disproportinately severe, given the actual crime. For some reason, we seem to think that arbitrary punhishmen in the name of deterrence is a bad thing.
It may or may not be, but the question is not germaine to the discussion.
Eh? The OP's entire point is that our laws don't correspond to the spirit of the constitution; whatever weight you may place on that.
I have a right to use those works once they've stopped "promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts", and that right is being slowly eroded.
No, you don't.
How so? Once copyright expires (and this was originally meant to happen at the point the OP specified) and the work enters the public domain, people have a right to use those works, no? The fact that most likely no copyright will ever expire again in this country (the limit has been increased by how many decades already to accomodate Mickey?), is what's "eroding" that principle.
Despite all the apparent "insight", could you explain why?
It's not like "search history" is a complicated concept, on the order of "one click ordering" - you don't exactly have to be a genius to come up with that one.
Sure, I do this all the time - code editor in left monitor, running app and trailing log files in right.
I want to have several processes running on a particular machine and leave that group in a little village while I go look at other things. Alternatively, several processes related to a particular task (e.g., editor, compiler, test files) all grouped in a village, independent of which machine they're on.
That's what logical/virtual desktops are for. I am not sure what you mean by "independent of machine" in this case.
Splitting a screen into two vertical halves, or using two monitors, allows for true 3D.
Depends on your definition of "true".
[snip] With the correct video driver and X server, you could have realistic 3D on commodity hardware.
And still no effective input devices. (there are other problems with that method, like the ridiculously narrow viewing angle, it's hard to imagine this working well on a monitor larger than 15" even if you are right in front of it)
My problem with this isn't the 3D display itself, though; but what that actually gives you. You mostly talk about logical grouping of applications, I don't see how a 3D interface would do this more effectively than a 2D one. Though it would be very nice if the existing 2D ones did a lot more with this sort of thing.
Face it, monitors and input devices are two dimensional (well mice at any rate, keyboards are one dimensional), simulating a third dimension adds complexity - both in use and in implementation - and doesn't add anything to useablity or productivity. Sure, you get about 5 minutes of "Oooh, shiny!", but that's about it.
Navigating 3D space with any of the current input devices is a huge pain in the ass, trying to do useful work with a large amount of data on such a thing will get frustrating very quickly. They make it look cool in movies, but that's becuase it's scripted.
For the purposes of this discussion, why don't take the author at his word? Simply because "just fix all of it" doesn't make for a very interesting discussion on the topic.
Hm, I'm getting almost exactly 1 inch per second for that.
Yeah, refusing to accept currency and having people arrested are somewhat different things though.