DRM is just a technology. You are talking about a particular implementation. Yes, like any technology it will be used for good and evil, but that doesn't mean we should ban it.
DRM makes it a pain in the ass to archive your CDs to MP3 and to play them on other boxes, and to reinstall your OS, and oh yeah...it also makes it a pain in the ass to run what you want to.
DRM does none of these things. If the artists wants to allow you to archive your CDs to MP3, then they set the bit which allows you to archive your CDs to MP3.
Why would I purchase an MP3 or MPEG4 when I could just buy a DVD or CD and then make it myself, making it less suceptible to loss?
Because you don't want to walk to the store? Because the artist doesn't have enough money to stock a store near you?
Should DRM become so bad that users can't do some of the most basic actions that would fall under fair use, I really think Apple would be missing a major opportunity if they did not start advertising their lack of DRM. As long as Joe Average knows that not every platform restricts you in such a way, there will be a strong temptation to switch.
Whether or not Apple supports DRM is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not the artists support it, and more importantly, whether or not the artists support alternatives to it.
And I think your insight that people will switch to media which allows fair use is an important part of that equation. If musicians switch to media which takes away the ability to do things they want to do, people will switch to other musicians.
Remember, DRM is just a technology. To abuse the gun slogan: DRM doesn't take away fair use. People take away fair use.
What we need is a serious revamp of copyright laws to expand fair use and decrease the time of copyrights.
And the easiest way to get that is to provide technical barriers to replace the legal ones. Technical barriers like... DRM.
Joe Musician creates music in his computer these days or his garage and can make his own music to distribute easily.
But he can't make money off that music because distribution over the internet is not profitable. So instead the big names with the big marketing budgets and the ability to cut CDs and more importantly to distribute those CDs make it and the little guy loses. DRM has the ability to change this. Instead of needing to beg the RIAA to get you on a radio station you can release time-limited copies of your music over the internet. With DRM there will be many more artists willing to allow streaming digital audio transmissions. Just take a look at Rhapsody. That's DRM, and if it had enough people willing to use it I think it'd be a positive thing.
On the other hand, I don't want DRM on my main PC. I should be allowed to archive all my CD's to mp3 (and later, DVD to mpeg-4) on the biggest hard drive I can find and share it all with every other computer in the house. This is perfectly legal under the "personal use" clause of the license agreements, but if DRM had its way even this wouldn't be allowed.
DRM is not a person. DRM does not stop you from archiving your CDs to mp3. DRM is not a law. DRM merely allows companies to protect technologically that which they can already protect legally. That's a good thing, because it encourages people to release content in formats they otherwise would be forced to avoid.
Of course they're supporting piracy. And not only are they supporting it, they're profiting off it. Like I said, this is no different from an ISP which ignores reports that its users are spamming. If they just allowed random traffic on any port without restriction it would be one thing, but here they're specifically allocating traffic to P2P.
Yes, P2P could be used for legitimate purposes, but you know what, it isn't. If students really want to trade legitimate files, then the school should set up an FTP server for that purpose. It'd be a much more efficient use of bandwidth, too.
Maybe they just accept the fact that there's no way to completely block P2p without wasting a lot of time and resources that could be better spent on real academic uses of the network.
It's not about completely blocking P2P. They've shown that they have the technology to block those ports. They're not using that technology. That's condoning the use of those ports.
I hope it brings attention to the issue. This is a really important case, regardless of who wins, because the Supreme Court is going to be setting a huge precedent as to how much power the Congress has in passing copyright laws. Even if they don't strike down the law they're almost certainly going to condemn the Appeals Court for saying that the First Amendment does not apply, and they are going to decide whether or not Congress is allowed to pass Copyright law which does not promote the progress of science and useful arts.
I think we're going to have a split decision, or else we're going to see the law struck down, and I highly doubt public opinion is going to be a factor at all. But people need to be educated on the issues. Even many if not most Slashdotters don't realize that copyright is not a moral right, but is one which granted solely for the purpose of encouraging progress. This Supreme Court ruling should help to show that fact.
But the creation always belongs partly to the artist and partly to the people, no matter what our broken laws say. So no theft takes place.
But the artist does enter into a fraudulent contract with the RIAA, then. Is it moral to conspire to enter into a fraudulent contract?
Personally I don't believe the creation belongs to anyone, no matter what our broken laws say. So yes, I agree no theft takes place, but I say no theft takes place regardless of what the artist says.
I guess I did just misread it then if that's what you meant for it. And yeah, I realize you were answering the original question, my response was off-topic.
One way to make things unambiguous is to allow public performance (including by digital audio transmission) without restriction.
And by the way, I most certainly wasn't interested in pleasing RMS, I was considering what I'd personally want to be allowed to do.
So when you see a resume that has an error in it, or is three pages long, or doesn't speak specifically to the job you're hiring for, you can it immediately, with out [sic] even bothering to read it.
Guess I should immediately add you to my foe list, because obviously you have nothing of worth to provide;).
I can't tell you how many resume's [sic] we see that have *gross* spelling errors or serious grammar issues.
Plus, we get a ton of resume's [sic] without cover letters.
People aren't handing jobs out anymore and there's alot [sic] of competition for them now, even for really qualified and experienced people, so that means you have to compete for the job, which also means you have to actually put effort in to [sic] getting it.
Is this supposed to be humorous, or are you just a manager?
Why is it relevant to the morality? It's moral to "steal" from the RIAA but not moral to "steal" from the artist? I don't buy that argument (and no, I don't think it's ever immoral, or "stealing").
Copies of digital information that can be shared are, for our purposes, economically infinite.
So? How does that help the RIAA make money? They should give away their music for free and make it up on volume? I think we've already seen how well that works. Stopping piracy is the only way the RIAA can have a viable business model.
How was yours a good analogy?
Stopping ticket copying is the only way a stadium is going to have a viable business model. Well, that or eliminate tickets altogether, which in the RIAA analogy would be streaming pay-per-use audio, I guess.
Anyway, I admit it wasn't a perfect analogy, but I think it was a hell of a lot better than the one I was responding to.
Yeah, I should have phrased it as "Next thing you know the bastard RIAA who is the evil scum of the world will try to sue them." It's not like I'd have to be inaccurate:).
Not having to provide source is the main point of the license. This license gives people the freedom to do anything except sue other people - including concealing the source code.
I think it should be up to the taxpayers funding the University if they want to pay for the 5mb pipe dedicated almost entirely to P2P.
Fine, but then those taxpayers are making a moral decision to support piracy.
Apparently no one seems to get my point about the spam hoster. By turning their back on the obvious piracy, they are making a moral decision to support pirates. Now personally I don't find piracy to be immoral, so I support what they're doing, but they are making a moral judgement.
Further, you can argue that they don't have proof of the piracy, but likewise spam-friendly ISPs don't have proof of the spam. You can't prove that the receiver didn't opt-in.
Slashdot Mirror
DRM is just a technology. You are talking about a particular implementation. Yes, like any technology it will be used for good and evil, but that doesn't mean we should ban it.
FUD if i ever saw it.
Do you know what "FUD" means?
DRM makes it a pain in the ass to archive your CDs to MP3 and to play them on other boxes, and to reinstall your OS, and oh yeah...it also makes it a pain in the ass to run what you want to.
DRM does none of these things. If the artists wants to allow you to archive your CDs to MP3, then they set the bit which allows you to archive your CDs to MP3.
Why would I purchase an MP3 or MPEG4 when I could just buy a DVD or CD and then make it myself, making it less suceptible to loss?
Because you don't want to walk to the store? Because the artist doesn't have enough money to stock a store near you?
Should DRM become so bad that users can't do some of the most basic actions that would fall under fair use, I really think Apple would be missing a major opportunity if they did not start advertising their lack of DRM. As long as Joe Average knows that not every platform restricts you in such a way, there will be a strong temptation to switch.
Whether or not Apple supports DRM is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not the artists support it, and more importantly, whether or not the artists support alternatives to it.
And I think your insight that people will switch to media which allows fair use is an important part of that equation. If musicians switch to media which takes away the ability to do things they want to do, people will switch to other musicians.
Remember, DRM is just a technology. To abuse the gun slogan: DRM doesn't take away fair use. People take away fair use.
What we need is a serious revamp of copyright laws to expand fair use and decrease the time of copyrights.
And the easiest way to get that is to provide technical barriers to replace the legal ones. Technical barriers like... DRM.
Joe Musician creates music in his computer these days or his garage and can make his own music to distribute easily.
But he can't make money off that music because distribution over the internet is not profitable. So instead the big names with the big marketing budgets and the ability to cut CDs and more importantly to distribute those CDs make it and the little guy loses. DRM has the ability to change this. Instead of needing to beg the RIAA to get you on a radio station you can release time-limited copies of your music over the internet. With DRM there will be many more artists willing to allow streaming digital audio transmissions. Just take a look at Rhapsody. That's DRM, and if it had enough people willing to use it I think it'd be a positive thing.
On the other hand, I don't want DRM on my main PC. I should be allowed to archive all my CD's to mp3 (and later, DVD to mpeg-4) on the biggest hard drive I can find and share it all with every other computer in the house. This is perfectly legal under the "personal use" clause of the license agreements, but if DRM had its way even this wouldn't be allowed.
DRM is not a person. DRM does not stop you from archiving your CDs to mp3. DRM is not a law. DRM merely allows companies to protect technologically that which they can already protect legally. That's a good thing, because it encourages people to release content in formats they otherwise would be forced to avoid.
Anyone who supplies my house with information owes me $1000/byte.
Of course they're supporting piracy. And not only are they supporting it, they're profiting off it. Like I said, this is no different from an ISP which ignores reports that its users are spamming. If they just allowed random traffic on any port without restriction it would be one thing, but here they're specifically allocating traffic to P2P.
Yes, P2P could be used for legitimate purposes, but you know what, it isn't. If students really want to trade legitimate files, then the school should set up an FTP server for that purpose. It'd be a much more efficient use of bandwidth, too.
Maybe they just accept the fact that there's no way to completely block P2p without wasting a lot of time and resources that could be better spent on real academic uses of the network.
It's not about completely blocking P2P. They've shown that they have the technology to block those ports. They're not using that technology. That's condoning the use of those ports.
I hope it brings attention to the issue. This is a really important case, regardless of who wins, because the Supreme Court is going to be setting a huge precedent as to how much power the Congress has in passing copyright laws. Even if they don't strike down the law they're almost certainly going to condemn the Appeals Court for saying that the First Amendment does not apply, and they are going to decide whether or not Congress is allowed to pass Copyright law which does not promote the progress of science and useful arts.
I think we're going to have a split decision, or else we're going to see the law struck down, and I highly doubt public opinion is going to be a factor at all. But people need to be educated on the issues. Even many if not most Slashdotters don't realize that copyright is not a moral right, but is one which granted solely for the purpose of encouraging progress. This Supreme Court ruling should help to show that fact.
But the creation always belongs partly to the artist and partly to the people, no matter what our broken laws say. So no theft takes place.
But the artist does enter into a fraudulent contract with the RIAA, then. Is it moral to conspire to enter into a fraudulent contract?
Personally I don't believe the creation belongs to anyone, no matter what our broken laws say. So yes, I agree no theft takes place, but I say no theft takes place regardless of what the artist says.
I guess I did just misread it then if that's what you meant for it. And yeah, I realize you were answering the original question, my response was off-topic.
One way to make things unambiguous is to allow public performance (including by digital audio transmission) without restriction.
And by the way, I most certainly wasn't interested in pleasing RMS, I was considering what I'd personally want to be allowed to do.
So when you see a resume that has an error in it, or is three pages long, or doesn't speak specifically to the job you're hiring for, you can it immediately, with out [sic] even bothering to read it.
Guess I should immediately add you to my foe list, because obviously you have nothing of worth to provide ;).
I can't tell you how many resume's [sic] we see that have *gross* spelling errors or serious grammar issues.
Plus, we get a ton of resume's [sic] without cover letters.
People aren't handing jobs out anymore and there's alot [sic] of competition for them now, even for really qualified and experienced people, so that means you have to compete for the job, which also means you have to actually put effort in to [sic] getting it.
Is this supposed to be humorous, or are you just a manager?
Why is it relevant to the morality? It's moral to "steal" from the RIAA but not moral to "steal" from the artist? I don't buy that argument (and no, I don't think it's ever immoral, or "stealing").
I can't even use this music in an internet radio station if the station has ads (and I don't pay the digital audio transmission fee).
It's quite irrelevant what most popular artists think, since they don't own the copyright on their recordings.
Why shouldn't AOL team up with a linux distribution to make some kind of "AOL-Linux"?
Because in the real world it's much easier to:
Notice the lack of "???".
Seats in a sports arena are finite.
Yeah, but tickets aren't.
Copies of digital information that can be shared are, for our purposes, economically infinite.
So? How does that help the RIAA make money? They should give away their music for free and make it up on volume? I think we've already seen how well that works. Stopping piracy is the only way the RIAA can have a viable business model.
How was yours a good analogy?
Stopping ticket copying is the only way a stadium is going to have a viable business model. Well, that or eliminate tickets altogether, which in the RIAA analogy would be streaming pay-per-use audio, I guess.
Anyway, I admit it wasn't a perfect analogy, but I think it was a hell of a lot better than the one I was responding to.
Yeah, I should have phrased it as "Next thing you know the bastard RIAA who is the evil scum of the world will try to sue them." It's not like I'd have to be inaccurate :).
Not having to provide source is the main point of the license. This license gives people the freedom to do anything except sue other people - including concealing the source code.
I should point out that I don't necessarily consider infringing copyright to be an intrinsic "wrong" -- more of a "technical wrong".
I don't think it's "wrong" at all, but still, supporting those who commit copyright infringement is making a moral judgement.
I think it should be up to the taxpayers funding the University if they want to pay for the 5mb pipe dedicated almost entirely to P2P.
Fine, but then those taxpayers are making a moral decision to support piracy.
Apparently no one seems to get my point about the spam hoster. By turning their back on the obvious piracy, they are making a moral decision to support pirates. Now personally I don't find piracy to be immoral, so I support what they're doing, but they are making a moral judgement.
Further, you can argue that they don't have proof of the piracy, but likewise spam-friendly ISPs don't have proof of the spam. You can't prove that the receiver didn't opt-in.
Er. Sued? UC Irvine is just enforcing the terms and conditions of their student internet use policy.
Sued by the RIAA, not by the users.
Not *everything* on P2P is copyrighted materials.
That didn't save napster.
So do you consider hosting providers which allow spammers to use their networks to not be making a moral judgement, as well?
Bravo for UC Irvine if they can avoid getting sued for what they're doing, but they are most certainly making a moral judgement.
Therefore, of the 60 mbs total bandwidth, 5 - 10 mbs is set aside for P2P.
Sounds perilously close to contributory copyright infringement to me.