What is the ethical problem with using embryonic stem cells from fertalized eggs that are being thrown away from a fertility clinic?
As long as you're absolutely sure that the stem cells would have otherwise been thrown away, I guess the ethical question is similar to that of organ donation. But if you're not absolutely sure about this, it's more like the ethical question of eating veal.
What I get confused with is how people are against that particular use, yet aren't against the fertility clinic itself, which outside the scope of this argument is throwing away fertalized eggs...aka "murder" to the extremists.
Most likely "the extremists" are against the fertility clinic itself. I'm not sure how extremist you'd have to be, though. If I really thought about the issue I'd probably come to the conclusion that I'm against fertility clinics. I wouldn't call it murder, but I would say that it's unethical to intentionally create and throw away embryos just so that someone who isn't able to have a child naturally can have a child without adopting. If on the other hand you're using the embryos to save lives, I think it's a much more difficult question.
I once heard that even if your driver's license has an organ donor stamp unless you let your family know they can block your organs from being donated, I seem to recall this is true even if you have a living will.
I think this is only true for practical purposes, though. The decision about whether or not to make the donation has to be made quickly, and the hospitals don't want to wind up getting sued for making the wrong decision. If you could somehow litigate the issue extensively before making the final decision this would probably be resolved. The issue is that the living will only gives you rights while you're living, and a regular will is only going to give rights if the recipient asserts them (or the trustee decides to enforce them). There are also a lot of situations where living wills and wills aren't enforcible at all, and it would be a huge risk on the part of a hospital to assume it's going to be.
That statement also shows the inextricably parallel issue of defining when human life begins.
This is a pet peeve of mine, but human life began millions of years ago. The issue is when does a particular human lifeform get independent rights as a human being.
The whole 'shame on you for scamming people =(' thing is bull shit.
I wasn't referring to scamming people, I was referring to knowingly and intentionally bothering them.
Qwest is a pretty shady company on the whole, but when it comes to their telemarketing practices, they're completely legit.
Legit as in legal, perhaps. But is your sense of morality really so twisted that you think there's nothing wrong with bothering people just to make a buck?
Whether or not you're an employee is determined by your relationship, not by contract.
If the issue of IP/copyrights has not been resolved as between the parties, then the court will apply default rules (e.g. if made by an employee, the employer owns it; if made by an independent contractor, then the contractor owns it unless it is a "work for hire"). If the parties choose to contract out of the default position, they are entitled to do so.
No, they're not. You can't change the author of a work. That is determined by by the facts, not by contractual agreement. "In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright." You can transfer the rights by contractual agreemnt, but you can't change the author.
Hi-Res Palm Pilots are 300x300 whereas this first-gen dev kit is 800x600.
This seems to be a lot bigger than a palm pilot. Better to compare it to a tablet pc.
In theory, eInk has all the contrast of paper. In practice it often has a slightly grey background, but still plenty of contrast in comparison to computer screens.
My iPaq doesn't need a backlight, and it can do color.
This effectively means that the processor can be put in a wait state or possibly turned off when the screen isn't being updated.
That's always possible in theory. I don't see how a non-backlit screen takes up that much power. You could probably power it off a couple solar panels if you needed to.
I think this is neat technology, and might lead to something useful, but at $3000 I don't see many advantages over a tablet PC. Actually, with a few lightweight, low power tablet PCs (with just enough processing power to run VNC and a wireless connection), you'd have an adequate solution for the home and the office, to go paperless. The problem right now would be price, though it's getting closer. An office with 10 employees could get away with 30 tablet PCs, let's say $60,000. At an interest rate of 5% that's $3000/year, which will pay for about 36 toner cartriges, or one toner cartrige every 10 days. That's a bit excessive, even if you factor in the cost of paper, maintenance, and a high quality printer, but it's getting there.
By the way, you should be aware of Title 17, Section 203. After 35 years, the original author (in this case, your employer), can terminate the transfer of copyright. I suppose in 35 years it doesn't matter much for code, unless you are contributing it to a major open source project or something, but this is one reason why copyright transfers tend to be a bad solution.
No need, so far. They have run their course and eventually been terminated by mutual consent (and with a hefty amount of money paid to me).
I find it doubtful that they would hold up in court.
That why it needs to be spelled out. "The parties agree that any software created by the employee as part of his work for the employer is not to be considered a work for hire, but that the employee has and retains full rights over it. The employee in return grants empoyer a perpetual, free license to use, modify and distribute such code."...or similar.
But if you're an employee, and it's within the scope of your employment, it *is* a work made for hire. You can't change that by signing a contract. Contracts do not override federal law. The employer should be granting the employee a license, because the employer is considered the author, and there's nothing a contract can do to change that. You can transfer the rights, but you can't transfer the authorship.
In contrast to what everybody else has written, I would not go to a lawyer for such a trivial thing
I wouldn't either, of course, I wouldn't expect to own the copyright on stuff I write at work as part of my job.
(and yes, I have negotiated contracts about my IP with both my employer and the company that bought a license for it)
Have those contracts ever held up in court? I'm not sure what your point is that you've negotiated them. I suppose you could be saying that it really doesn't matter if it's a legitimate contract, because as long as the employer thinks it's a legitimate contract that's enough. If that's the case, then I guess I agree with you.
Just state clearly that the software you write is yours, and that the company gets whatever license they need.
The thing is, if he's an employee, then the software isn't his. Copyright law makes an author go through a lot of hoops to legally transfer the ownership of copyright, and with a work made for hire, the author is the employer, not the employee. As someone else said, a manager is not in a position to make a binding transfer of copyright ownership.
If you are an outside contractor, you may be able to specify ownership beforehand. If you don't, it's work done for hire and belongs to your employer.
No, if you don't have an agreement *in writing*, and you're not an employee, then it's not a work for hire. This is true in California and all of the United States. Copyright is federal law, and work made for hire is defined in Title 17, Section 101.
It's my understanding that if you're an employee then the work you create within your scope of employment is a work for hire regardless of any agreement or lack of an agreement. They'd have to give you a written transfer of copyright ownership, and I'm not sure they can do that until after the work is created. Really it sounds like you want to be an independent contractor, not an employee.
If you want to remain an employee, then the best you can probably hope for is a "royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display all works (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed." Something like that. When you're an employee, you're acting as an agent of the corporation. You're not the author of those software programs, your employer is.
So you think the government is going to store the entire genome of every single person? No way. They're going to store select portions, a fingerprint, which would be useless for other purposes.
There were expenses incurred, now if the feds had had a database of my blood it may of been cheaper for insurance to get the blood from there than having to pay someone to get it from me.
I doubt the government is going to take blood in the first place. And surely the insurance company is going to have to do some testing themselves. To add drawing blood while you're already there for your physical anyway is not a very big cost. And the government most likely isn't going to give up that information anyway.
I want neither univesal coverage run by the feds or a highly regulated private healthcare system.
Fine, then expect insurance companies to run tests, including genetic tests. The only way you're going to stop them is by making it illegal for them to do it.
Universal coverage raises the cost of healthcare and leads to rationing.
So when the companies drop people with genetic problems it lowers the cost of healthcare and eliminates rationing.
A 100Mbps line is enough to feed four clients of this service
It can transfer to the next hop for four clients of the service simultaneously at the full bandwidth. But unless your service requires continuous streaming of data at 25Mbps, this isn't going to be reached. Of course, unless you're serving UDP data or really huge files which allow TCP to ramp up to full speed, it's not going to make much difference anyway.
I agree this is going to cause a need for server-side traffic shaping but not to be able to feed more clients. After all, TCP already handles that (and handles it just as well with server-side bottlenecks as client-side ones). The problem is that the vast majority of clients with a 100Mbps line have to pay for the bandwidth they use, either per gig transferred or based on the highest bandwidth served (knocking off some percentage of the top for peaks). One person on a 25 meg connection decides to download a bunch of huge files, and suddenly you're out a whole bunch of money.
It's also going to probably raise the need for a TCP connection with faster ramp up. It might even be smart to start raising end-to-end MTU. The latter is probably going to be hard. I don't think ethernet can handle more than 1500 bytes in a packet. But the former might already be part of IPv6. If so, that might just be the killer app that finally gets everyone to switch.
You don't see what happening in the US any time soon? 25Mbps? 30Mbps is happening in the US today. It's a bit pricey, but 15Mbps is less than $50/month, and you get a faster upstream bandwidth than the Be service (2Mbps vs. 1.3Mbps).
That wouldn't be the case if the U.S. government saw fit to fund such a program. If the internet is a good thing, as I hope we can all agree, then getting it into the homes of every citizen ought to be a goal that we can all rally around.
The internet is a good thing, but the average citizen doesn't need 25Mbps. I use the internet a whole lot, and I get along fine with 768K. I also pay nothing in income taxes in part due to the recent tax cuts. How many Brits can say that?
I'll happily keep my 768K connection at $15/month rather than have to pay taxes to government to give everyone 25Mbps.
Is it a little bit Socialist? Yeah, sure. But legislated and managed effectively, it can be economically implemented with very little raise in costs (taxes) to the average citizen.
Yeah, but you want it to be run by the government, so it's not going to be legislated and managed effectively. The U.S. government runs one of the most inefficient monopolies in the world.
If it really can be economically implemented with very little raise in costs to the average citizen, why don't you start a non-profit organization to provide it to the average citizen? Even cheapos like me would pay $20-25 a month for 25Mbps, probably a little bit more if it was to help out a non-profit. There's no need for the government to get involved beyond how it already does. If enough people want it, the private industry (including non-profits) will provide it. Right now, enough people don't want it. I don't even want it.
Which is more inefficient, "reusing" data or duplicating efforts?
Do you think the data obtained by the government is going to be directly useful to the insurance companies? I seriously doubt it.
But even if it is cheaper for the insurance companies to do it this way, isn't that a good thing, because it means lower rates for everyone?
No it's only good for those who have a "perfect" makeup.
No, you're missing the point which is that the insurance companies that are going to use this information are going to use it whether it's obtained by the government or whether it's obtained by them themselves.
I don't mind if the person will need to pay more but only if they can afford to pay. Uninsured people raise the prices for everyone.
Then it sounds like what you want is either universal health care, run by the government, or highly regulated private health care, where no one is allowed to get turned down. Because as long as you have a private system, it's not going to ignore any genetic information it can get. Either way, I don't see how it makes the difference if the government has the information, because it's just as easy for the insurance company to drop anyone who doesn't provide their DNA as it is for them to buy the DNA results from the government.
The more power government gets the more power it wants.
Again, I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying I don't really see the potential harm. I thought a bit about this before giving my fingerprints to the IRS. And I think I'd come to the same conclusion if they required me to give them my DNA. It's just not that big of a deal.
I wasn't arguing that copyright on itself was created to make sure it came into the public domain (obviously, if copyright didn't exist, everything would be in the public domain), I was arguing that the fact they made it for *a limited time* was meant to make sure it came into the public domain.
That's a rather vacuous argument. Of course they made copyrighted works eventually go into the public domain to make sure that copyrighted works came into the public domain.
But looking back at the thread, I think I see where you're coming from. I can't agree to a statement that the *purpose* of copyright was to enlarge the public domain, as was the first statement you made. But I can agree that copyright was intended to enlarge the public domain in the long run. I guess in that sense it was one purpose, but I'd want to add that it wasn't the primary purpose.
So why have copyright at all?
Well, indeed, why?
Personally, I don't think we should. But the argument is that with copyright laws, more works will be created. Note that more works is not necessarily better, because copyrighted works are no longer free for everyone to use.
Nervermind that [Disney] wouldn't have gotten where they are today, if they had had unlimited copyrights when the brothers Grimm lived.
Actually, they probably would have, they just would have had to have bought the copyright on those stories. The stories were worth a lot less before Disney than after them, so Disney still would have made a hefty profit, plus they'd have the rights to the stories so no one else could make them. Disney wins, the rest of the world loses.
So, yes, my argument is, if *all* IP-rights would remain valid *indefinately* (and they are rigorously pursued in the legal arena), then, ultimately, scientific progress would stop.
I think you're ignoring the fact that licenses can always be negotiated. I don't think scientific progress would stop, it just wouldn't be useful to as many people. But this is somewhat of a tangential point, so while we might not agree at least I know where you're coming from.
Whatever it was, in comparison with the current lifespan it wouldn't amount to 'death of the author +50 years', now, would it?;-)
No, I guess not:). Most copyrights are owned by corporations nowadays, though, and don't get the "life of the author" treatment.
the constitutional right to privacy only applies to abortion
Considering that it also applies to sodomy, you're clearly wrong.
if you want to grow a plant in your basement then burn that plant without ever leaving your property you have not only engaged in commercial activity, you have engaged in interstate commercial activity.
That's probably not true, but no case has yet been brought over such a thing. Wickard v. Filburn is close, but if there's no legal market for the plant you're talking about the argument that growing it for personal consumption affects interstate commerce by replacing a product you would have consumed in interstate commerce doesn't apply.
because of this the Federal government will put you in jail.
Assuming you're talking about pot, no they won't. Cultivation without intent to distribute is not illegal under federal law.
I'm not sure how that squares with, e.g. seeing someone being raped/assaulted, and using deadly force to prevent the confrontation, to be honest. If someone is raping my girlfriend (just by way of random example;), I'm damn well going to stop them, even if I can reasonably avoid the situation by retreating.
Well, yes, but I assume the duty to retreat applies only to self-defense. You're also allowed to use deadly force to stop an imminent violent felony (I think the modifier is "violent", anyway).
That shows you have never taken such a course, even without the lead-in.;)
Well, I'll take your word for it, because I've probably been far too influenced by "stuff I've seen on TV".
Even at the time I got my first FL CCW permit (well over a decade ago) it was a Class III misdemeaner (sp?) to 'flash' ones weapon (accidently OR on purpose).
But, then why is that what the police do?
There is a difference between having a tactical plan and premeditation. There is ZERO purpose in being an armed citizen if you have not made the decision in your own mind that you will use deadly force when the situation requires it.
One of the reasons I haven't gone ahead with getting a license. I'd definitely want to be well trained before I went ahead with arming myself, way beyond any required training to get a license.
Anyway, this has been an interesting discussion. Something kind of rare on Slashdot...
And why would that be, if it was not intended to go into the public domain, after that limited time?
You're acting like the public domain is some artificial creation of copyright law. It's actually the opposite, the public domain is where works are in the absense of copyright law. Copyright doesn't put things into the public domain, it takes things out of it.
If your reasoning is that copyright promotes scientific (etc.) progress, then unlimited copyright would promote science unlimited, thus there would be no drawbacks.
First of all, it's not my argument. I don't agree that we should have copyright law in the first place. But I do agree that copyright law does occassionally cause incentive for some works to be created. At the same time, it causes drawbacks for those works which would have been created even without copyright law.
Now your statement above causes two big errors. You translated "causes incentive for the creation of new works" into "promotes scientific progress". Creation of new works alone is not necessarily progress, if those works aren't distributed. You're also using the word "unlimited" in completely different ways. In the first, you're using it to modify the length of time of the copyright. In the second, you're using it to modify the amount of "scientific progress". If you translate the statement back to causing incentive for the creation of new works, you'll see why the relationship is not direct. The relationship between the length of copyright protection offered and the amount of new works created is closer to logarithmic than to linear. There are very few works that are going to be created if copyright lasts 1000 years that wouldn't be created if copyright lasts 100 years.
The drawback lies herein, that the fullest potential of 'scientific progress' is done when it is in the public domain, because then everyone can use the idea/story/program etc. and build upon it unrestricted.
So why have copyright at all?
Thus 'to promote the arts and scientific progress' already implies that it should become public domain.
So, by your argument, if copyright were indefinite, all scientific progress would cease?
Nobody doubted, when the founding fathers set their mind to it, that after 14 years (+ a possible extension for another 14 years) those copyrighted works would become public domain. Acting as if this isn't true is a bit silly.
I'm not acting as if this isn't true. Not at all. But then again, what was the average lifespan 200 years ago?
Slashdot Mirror
What is the ethical problem with using embryonic stem cells from fertalized eggs that are being thrown away from a fertility clinic?
As long as you're absolutely sure that the stem cells would have otherwise been thrown away, I guess the ethical question is similar to that of organ donation. But if you're not absolutely sure about this, it's more like the ethical question of eating veal.
What I get confused with is how people are against that particular use, yet aren't against the fertility clinic itself, which outside the scope of this argument is throwing away fertalized eggs...aka "murder" to the extremists.
Most likely "the extremists" are against the fertility clinic itself. I'm not sure how extremist you'd have to be, though. If I really thought about the issue I'd probably come to the conclusion that I'm against fertility clinics. I wouldn't call it murder, but I would say that it's unethical to intentionally create and throw away embryos just so that someone who isn't able to have a child naturally can have a child without adopting. If on the other hand you're using the embryos to save lives, I think it's a much more difficult question.
I once heard that even if your driver's license has an organ donor stamp unless you let your family know they can block your organs from being donated, I seem to recall this is true even if you have a living will.
I think this is only true for practical purposes, though. The decision about whether or not to make the donation has to be made quickly, and the hospitals don't want to wind up getting sued for making the wrong decision. If you could somehow litigate the issue extensively before making the final decision this would probably be resolved. The issue is that the living will only gives you rights while you're living, and a regular will is only going to give rights if the recipient asserts them (or the trustee decides to enforce them). There are also a lot of situations where living wills and wills aren't enforcible at all, and it would be a huge risk on the part of a hospital to assume it's going to be.
That statement also shows the inextricably parallel issue of defining when human life begins.
This is a pet peeve of mine, but human life began millions of years ago. The issue is when does a particular human lifeform get independent rights as a human being.
The whole 'shame on you for scamming people =(' thing is bull shit.
I wasn't referring to scamming people, I was referring to knowingly and intentionally bothering them.
Qwest is a pretty shady company on the whole, but when it comes to their telemarketing practices, they're completely legit.
Legit as in legal, perhaps. But is your sense of morality really so twisted that you think there's nothing wrong with bothering people just to make a buck?
So they can't ask for a copy of your stored email - but they CAN ask to tap all the traffic to and from your PC.
I connect to gmail using https. There goes the usefulness of that.
I realise we were bothering them, but that doesn't change the law or how incredibly simple it is to get us to stop calling back.
I just wonder, is there anything you wouldn't do if there wasn't a law against it?
The "employee" doctrine is a default position.
Whether or not you're an employee is determined by your relationship, not by contract.
If the issue of IP/copyrights has not been resolved as between the parties, then the court will apply default rules (e.g. if made by an employee, the employer owns it; if made by an independent contractor, then the contractor owns it unless it is a "work for hire"). If the parties choose to contract out of the default position, they are entitled to do so.
No, they're not. You can't change the author of a work. That is determined by by the facts, not by contractual agreement. "In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright." You can transfer the rights by contractual agreemnt, but you can't change the author.
Hi-Res Palm Pilots are 300x300 whereas this first-gen dev kit is 800x600.
This seems to be a lot bigger than a palm pilot. Better to compare it to a tablet pc.
In theory, eInk has all the contrast of paper. In practice it often has a slightly grey background, but still plenty of contrast in comparison to computer screens.
My iPaq doesn't need a backlight, and it can do color.
This effectively means that the processor can be put in a wait state or possibly turned off when the screen isn't being updated.
That's always possible in theory. I don't see how a non-backlit screen takes up that much power. You could probably power it off a couple solar panels if you needed to.
I think this is neat technology, and might lead to something useful, but at $3000 I don't see many advantages over a tablet PC. Actually, with a few lightweight, low power tablet PCs (with just enough processing power to run VNC and a wireless connection), you'd have an adequate solution for the home and the office, to go paperless. The problem right now would be price, though it's getting closer. An office with 10 employees could get away with 30 tablet PCs, let's say $60,000. At an interest rate of 5% that's $3000/year, which will pay for about 36 toner cartriges, or one toner cartrige every 10 days. That's a bit excessive, even if you factor in the cost of paper, maintenance, and a high quality printer, but it's getting there.
By the way, you should be aware of Title 17, Section 203. After 35 years, the original author (in this case, your employer), can terminate the transfer of copyright. I suppose in 35 years it doesn't matter much for code, unless you are contributing it to a major open source project or something, but this is one reason why copyright transfers tend to be a bad solution.
No need, so far. They have run their course and eventually been terminated by mutual consent (and with a hefty amount of money paid to me).
I find it doubtful that they would hold up in court.
That why it needs to be spelled out. "The parties agree that any software created by the employee as part of his work for the employer is not to be considered a work for hire, but that the employee has and retains full rights over it. The employee in return grants empoyer a perpetual, free license to use, modify and distribute such code." ...or similar.
But if you're an employee, and it's within the scope of your employment, it *is* a work made for hire. You can't change that by signing a contract. Contracts do not override federal law. The employer should be granting the employee a license, because the employer is considered the author, and there's nothing a contract can do to change that. You can transfer the rights, but you can't transfer the authorship.
In contrast to what everybody else has written, I would not go to a lawyer for such a trivial thing
I wouldn't either, of course, I wouldn't expect to own the copyright on stuff I write at work as part of my job.
(and yes, I have negotiated contracts about my IP with both my employer and the company that bought a license for it)
Have those contracts ever held up in court? I'm not sure what your point is that you've negotiated them. I suppose you could be saying that it really doesn't matter if it's a legitimate contract, because as long as the employer thinks it's a legitimate contract that's enough. If that's the case, then I guess I agree with you.
Just state clearly that the software you write is yours, and that the company gets whatever license they need.
The thing is, if he's an employee, then the software isn't his. Copyright law makes an author go through a lot of hoops to legally transfer the ownership of copyright, and with a work made for hire, the author is the employer, not the employee. As someone else said, a manager is not in a position to make a binding transfer of copyright ownership.
If you are an outside contractor, you may be able to specify ownership beforehand. If you don't, it's work done for hire and belongs to your employer.
No, if you don't have an agreement *in writing*, and you're not an employee, then it's not a work for hire. This is true in California and all of the United States. Copyright is federal law, and work made for hire is defined in Title 17, Section 101.
It's my understanding that if you're an employee then the work you create within your scope of employment is a work for hire regardless of any agreement or lack of an agreement. They'd have to give you a written transfer of copyright ownership, and I'm not sure they can do that until after the work is created. Really it sounds like you want to be an independent contractor, not an employee.
If you want to remain an employee, then the best you can probably hope for is a "royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display all works (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed." Something like that. When you're an employee, you're acting as an agent of the corporation. You're not the author of those software programs, your employer is.
It's the same data, DNA.
So you think the government is going to store the entire genome of every single person? No way. They're going to store select portions, a fingerprint, which would be useless for other purposes.
There were expenses incurred, now if the feds had had a database of my blood it may of been cheaper for insurance to get the blood from there than having to pay someone to get it from me.
I doubt the government is going to take blood in the first place. And surely the insurance company is going to have to do some testing themselves. To add drawing blood while you're already there for your physical anyway is not a very big cost. And the government most likely isn't going to give up that information anyway.
I want neither univesal coverage run by the feds or a highly regulated private healthcare system.
Fine, then expect insurance companies to run tests, including genetic tests. The only way you're going to stop them is by making it illegal for them to do it.
Universal coverage raises the cost of healthcare and leads to rationing.
So when the companies drop people with genetic problems it lowers the cost of healthcare and eliminates rationing.
A 100Mbps line is enough to feed four clients of this service
It can transfer to the next hop for four clients of the service simultaneously at the full bandwidth. But unless your service requires continuous streaming of data at 25Mbps, this isn't going to be reached. Of course, unless you're serving UDP data or really huge files which allow TCP to ramp up to full speed, it's not going to make much difference anyway.
I agree this is going to cause a need for server-side traffic shaping but not to be able to feed more clients. After all, TCP already handles that (and handles it just as well with server-side bottlenecks as client-side ones). The problem is that the vast majority of clients with a 100Mbps line have to pay for the bandwidth they use, either per gig transferred or based on the highest bandwidth served (knocking off some percentage of the top for peaks). One person on a 25 meg connection decides to download a bunch of huge files, and suddenly you're out a whole bunch of money.
It's also going to probably raise the need for a TCP connection with faster ramp up. It might even be smart to start raising end-to-end MTU. The latter is probably going to be hard. I don't think ethernet can handle more than 1500 bytes in a packet. But the former might already be part of IPv6. If so, that might just be the killer app that finally gets everyone to switch.
You don't see what happening in the US any time soon? 25Mbps? 30Mbps is happening in the US today. It's a bit pricey, but 15Mbps is less than $50/month, and you get a faster upstream bandwidth than the Be service (2Mbps vs. 1.3Mbps).
I would certainly hope that US providers would be willing to give me 24 Mb for only $42!
How 'bout 15 Mbps for $49.95/month? OK, maybe it's not available where you are, but how widespread is the Be service?
That wouldn't be the case if the U.S. government saw fit to fund such a program. If the internet is a good thing, as I hope we can all agree, then getting it into the homes of every citizen ought to be a goal that we can all rally around.
The internet is a good thing, but the average citizen doesn't need 25Mbps. I use the internet a whole lot, and I get along fine with 768K. I also pay nothing in income taxes in part due to the recent tax cuts. How many Brits can say that?
I'll happily keep my 768K connection at $15/month rather than have to pay taxes to government to give everyone 25Mbps.
Is it a little bit Socialist? Yeah, sure. But legislated and managed effectively, it can be economically implemented with very little raise in costs (taxes) to the average citizen.
Yeah, but you want it to be run by the government, so it's not going to be legislated and managed effectively. The U.S. government runs one of the most inefficient monopolies in the world.
If it really can be economically implemented with very little raise in costs to the average citizen, why don't you start a non-profit organization to provide it to the average citizen? Even cheapos like me would pay $20-25 a month for 25Mbps, probably a little bit more if it was to help out a non-profit. There's no need for the government to get involved beyond how it already does. If enough people want it, the private industry (including non-profits) will provide it. Right now, enough people don't want it. I don't even want it.
Which is more inefficient, "reusing" data or duplicating efforts?
Do you think the data obtained by the government is going to be directly useful to the insurance companies? I seriously doubt it.
But even if it is cheaper for the insurance companies to do it this way, isn't that a good thing, because it means lower rates for everyone?
No it's only good for those who have a "perfect" makeup.
No, you're missing the point which is that the insurance companies that are going to use this information are going to use it whether it's obtained by the government or whether it's obtained by them themselves.
I don't mind if the person will need to pay more but only if they can afford to pay. Uninsured people raise the prices for everyone.
Then it sounds like what you want is either universal health care, run by the government, or highly regulated private health care, where no one is allowed to get turned down. Because as long as you have a private system, it's not going to ignore any genetic information it can get. Either way, I don't see how it makes the difference if the government has the information, because it's just as easy for the insurance company to drop anyone who doesn't provide their DNA as it is for them to buy the DNA results from the government.
The more power government gets the more power it wants.
Again, I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying I don't really see the potential harm. I thought a bit about this before giving my fingerprints to the IRS. And I think I'd come to the same conclusion if they required me to give them my DNA. It's just not that big of a deal.
I wasn't arguing that copyright on itself was created to make sure it came into the public domain (obviously, if copyright didn't exist, everything would be in the public domain), I was arguing that the fact they made it for *a limited time* was meant to make sure it came into the public domain.
That's a rather vacuous argument. Of course they made copyrighted works eventually go into the public domain to make sure that copyrighted works came into the public domain.
But looking back at the thread, I think I see where you're coming from. I can't agree to a statement that the *purpose* of copyright was to enlarge the public domain, as was the first statement you made. But I can agree that copyright was intended to enlarge the public domain in the long run. I guess in that sense it was one purpose, but I'd want to add that it wasn't the primary purpose.
So why have copyright at all?
Well, indeed, why?
Personally, I don't think we should. But the argument is that with copyright laws, more works will be created. Note that more works is not necessarily better, because copyrighted works are no longer free for everyone to use.
Nervermind that [Disney] wouldn't have gotten where they are today, if they had had unlimited copyrights when the brothers Grimm lived.
Actually, they probably would have, they just would have had to have bought the copyright on those stories. The stories were worth a lot less before Disney than after them, so Disney still would have made a hefty profit, plus they'd have the rights to the stories so no one else could make them. Disney wins, the rest of the world loses.
So, yes, my argument is, if *all* IP-rights would remain valid *indefinately* (and they are rigorously pursued in the legal arena), then, ultimately, scientific progress would stop.
I think you're ignoring the fact that licenses can always be negotiated. I don't think scientific progress would stop, it just wouldn't be useful to as many people. But this is somewhat of a tangential point, so while we might not agree at least I know where you're coming from.
Whatever it was, in comparison with the current lifespan it wouldn't amount to 'death of the author +50 years', now, would it? ;-)
No, I guess not :). Most copyrights are owned by corporations nowadays, though, and don't get the "life of the author" treatment.
I guess there are two ways the right to privacy applies i was not aware that was the basis for the ruling against sodomy laws.
No, there are many more than two. Read about it some time, you don't seem to be aware what the right to privacy is.
Possessing almost any significant quantity of pot (btw i do not use pot) counts as intent to distribute.
Not under federal law it doesn't. It might create a rebuttable presumption of intent to distribute, but that's not the same thing.
If the information is already in a database it can save them money from collecting dna from those seeking medical coverage.
I don't see how. The government is not exactly known for being the most efficient at these things.
But even if it is cheaper for the insurance companies to do it this way, isn't that a good thing, because it means lower rates for everyone?
Also if they did try to get people's dna there could very well be an outcry.
But no outcry if the government gets everyone's DNA, sells it to the insurance companies, and the insurance companies start dropping people?
the constitutional right to privacy only applies to abortion
Considering that it also applies to sodomy, you're clearly wrong.
if you want to grow a plant in your basement then burn that plant without ever leaving your property you have not only engaged in commercial activity, you have engaged in interstate commercial activity.
That's probably not true, but no case has yet been brought over such a thing. Wickard v. Filburn is close, but if there's no legal market for the plant you're talking about the argument that growing it for personal consumption affects interstate commerce by replacing a product you would have consumed in interstate commerce doesn't apply.
because of this the Federal government will put you in jail.
Assuming you're talking about pot, no they won't. Cultivation without intent to distribute is not illegal under federal law.
I'm not sure how that squares with, e.g. seeing someone being raped/assaulted, and using deadly force to prevent the confrontation, to be honest. If someone is raping my girlfriend (just by way of random example ;), I'm damn well going to stop them, even if I can reasonably avoid the situation by retreating.
Well, yes, but I assume the duty to retreat applies only to self-defense. You're also allowed to use deadly force to stop an imminent violent felony (I think the modifier is "violent", anyway).
That shows you have never taken such a course, even without the lead-in. ;)
Well, I'll take your word for it, because I've probably been far too influenced by "stuff I've seen on TV".
Even at the time I got my first FL CCW permit (well over a decade ago) it was a Class III misdemeaner (sp?) to 'flash' ones weapon (accidently OR on purpose).
But, then why is that what the police do?
There is a difference between having a tactical plan and premeditation. There is ZERO purpose in being an armed citizen if you have not made the decision in your own mind that you will use deadly force when the situation requires it.
One of the reasons I haven't gone ahead with getting a license. I'd definitely want to be well trained before I went ahead with arming myself, way beyond any required training to get a license.
Anyway, this has been an interesting discussion. Something kind of rare on Slashdot...
And why would that be, if it was not intended to go into the public domain, after that limited time?
You're acting like the public domain is some artificial creation of copyright law. It's actually the opposite, the public domain is where works are in the absense of copyright law. Copyright doesn't put things into the public domain, it takes things out of it.
If your reasoning is that copyright promotes scientific (etc.) progress, then unlimited copyright would promote science unlimited, thus there would be no drawbacks.
First of all, it's not my argument. I don't agree that we should have copyright law in the first place. But I do agree that copyright law does occassionally cause incentive for some works to be created. At the same time, it causes drawbacks for those works which would have been created even without copyright law.
Now your statement above causes two big errors. You translated "causes incentive for the creation of new works" into "promotes scientific progress". Creation of new works alone is not necessarily progress, if those works aren't distributed. You're also using the word "unlimited" in completely different ways. In the first, you're using it to modify the length of time of the copyright. In the second, you're using it to modify the amount of "scientific progress". If you translate the statement back to causing incentive for the creation of new works, you'll see why the relationship is not direct. The relationship between the length of copyright protection offered and the amount of new works created is closer to logarithmic than to linear. There are very few works that are going to be created if copyright lasts 1000 years that wouldn't be created if copyright lasts 100 years.
The drawback lies herein, that the fullest potential of 'scientific progress' is done when it is in the public domain, because then everyone can use the idea/story/program etc. and build upon it unrestricted.
So why have copyright at all?
Thus 'to promote the arts and scientific progress' already implies that it should become public domain.
So, by your argument, if copyright were indefinite, all scientific progress would cease?
Nobody doubted, when the founding fathers set their mind to it, that after 14 years (+ a possible extension for another 14 years) those copyrighted works would become public domain. Acting as if this isn't true is a bit silly.
I'm not acting as if this isn't true. Not at all. But then again, what was the average lifespan 200 years ago?