If someone gets into the backend and gets your retinal hash (or whatever stored representation they used), that could the could conceivably use it as a "password-eqivalent" later to impersonate you.
Can't change that shared secret once it's compromised, no sir. (well, maybe you could switch eyes, once)
And then, even though more recent systems depend on the eye being alive to work, there are still the stupid uninformed goons who would go around gouging people's eyeballs out.
Not to mention you're SOL if you have an accident or something.
What if a family memeber wants to listen to my music and I'm not at home?
Then they should pay to hear it, the same as you.
The thing to understand here is that if you are making use of someone else's property, you should expect to abide by the conditions imposed on its use.
If you don't like the conditions, don't use it. It's not like this is food or anything: you don't need, say, Metallica's Black Album to keep breathing for another week.
The music is the property of its owner. If someone wants to, they may let you or your family members use it for free if they want, but they shouldn't be forced to do so.
It's only now that technologies like this are giving the owners an option in these matters. Forcing them to let people use their property for free is morally wrong and it's only now that we're beginning to see technology that can rectify the situation.
[ end devil's advocate mode ]
In my own opinion, while I believe that private property rights are a consequence of natural law (woo, look at the cute widdle 18th century philosophy), they are such only because of exclusivity. Two people physically can't posess or control a physical object.
I don't think the notion of "property" should be perverted to include things that aren't naturally, in enconomic parlance, excludable, and I don't think scarcity should be imposed where there is naturally none soley for the sake of making a profit.
If people get mad when someone creates artificial scarcity even in a naturally scarce good (e.g. OPEC with oil), why is making a naturally non-scare good scarce just for the sake of making money suddenly okay with everyone?
Now, making sure artists eat is a different matter, but the record companies aren't generally doing any better -- the majority of musicians would be living in cardboard boxes on the street (and not eating) if they relied on revenue from the record companies for their livelihood.
Personally, I think we need to start thinking more about artists as people who actually do WORK (they do, you know, composing ain't easy) for which they should be paid (they generally aren't now, except when they're paid for performing), rather than thinking of them as people who need to be subsidized by someone playing tollkeeper to their ideas.
The new technology is also enabling schemes like the Street Performer Protocol area which are I think a good start in the right direction. I only hope more people pursue them, instead of strangling ourselves like we are now.
We have real world scare resources that have economic value: scare creative talent (labor). There is no real need to make "pretend" scarcity in information-space to subsidize that labor, unless you expect <sarcasm>the lazy artists to do their thing for free (they're not really DOING anything, after all)</sarcasm>.
Actually, it's already a problem: engine noise from tankers and other assorted large watercraft and all.
It's kind of like the problem we have topside with light polution, although arguably light pollution is somewhat easier to deal with, since it's directional.
...have the sub release a buoy that transmits an (encrypted) data payload when it hits the surface? Then, the sub can wander off and wait for an (encrypted) reply to be broadcast.
Less risk of direct detection that way, aside from the noise of releasing the buoy (which would not be negligible, but still better than sitting there screaming at 2400 baud).
If I remember correctly, the Copyright on works published today will expire 96 years after publication, for corporate works and works published under a pseudonym. It's 120 years for works published by an individual.
Of course, I wouldn't rely on copyrights expiring so soon -- copyright terms have been consistently retroactively extended several times over the past 30 years, and there's no sign of the trend stopping.
The net effect of this has been that no copyrighted works have passed into the public domain since World War I (unless the copyright holder allowed the work into the public domain themselves). Compare this with the original copyright term of... uh, what was it... 14 years?
When the institution of Copyright was created, you could reasonably expect contemporary writing and art to pass into the public domain within your lifetime. This allowed artists to draw on more or less contemporary work unhindered (all art is necessarily derivative). No longer.
One could argue that this is one reason for the current stagnation of the arts...
Just put a synchronization timestamp/token in the VBI, and that's it. (not enough bits to do much else, especially if you have to make room for closed-captioning)
If you want to see a show, go to the show's website, and the magical little box on top of your TV will access the appropriate channel for your area. Then the magic box picks up timestamp/synchronization info from the VBI for the SMIL metadocument to synch to.
I wouldn't be suprised if this could be done today with entirely existing technologies, appropriate software and a TV tuner card.
I wonder if they aren't approaching this from the wrong direction.
We already have the interactive technologies in development -- the web stuff, SMIL, and so on, and we certainly have the TV infrastructure already in place.
Why not just develop close synchronization between conventionally-delivered web and conventially-delivered TV content in some fashion, instead of deciding to cram everything conceivable down the broadcast channel?
The main thing it'd require would be the maturation of SMIL and a common schema/domain for "TV" URNs, and a little bit of hardware to pick up on synchronization info in the vertical blanking interval[1], but that's about it.
That'd leave you three options[2]:
1. watch TV on your TV while interacting with the synchronized web site on your PC
2. have the TV broadcast embedded in the synchronized website itself (courtesy of your TV card)
3. a WebTV-like set-top box that handles the web side of things, either doing as for #2, or compositing the website with the TV image in some other fashion
The technology for this kind of approach is here today, and it doesn't require pie-in-the-sky home bandwidth capabilities, nor does it require significant changes to the existing broadcast infrastructure.
I wonder why everyone seems so anxious to push their own proprietary solution, instead? I mean, Open Standards allow users control over their experience of the content, and that's a good thing, right?
---
[1] Maybe even current TV tuner cards could be pressed into service, depending on exactly what they offer; I don't know enough about them to say.
[2] Maybe more than that; these are the three I can think of off the top of my head
This isn't terribly a useful case to use as an example when arguing against broad business method patents, at least on a pragmatic basis.
"So, what's wrong with business method patents?"
"Well, uh, take Doubleclick.net, for example. They were driven out of business last year by C|Net's exhorbitatnt licensing fees[1]. EVEN THOUGH Doubleclick predates C|Net's patent application. Even if it wasn't obvious, C|Net got a patent on something they didn't even invent. Does that sound fair to you?"
"Ohhh... so that's why all those banner ads dissapeared. Cool! Bastards had it coming!"
* sigh *
* something mumbled about all your favorite sites becoming paid-subscription-only[2] *
---
[1] in reality, C|Net is more likely to charge just as much as they can get away with; completely destroying your licencees financially is not a good way to keep up your revenue stream
[2] I think in the long run, relying on banner ads alone for revenue will eventually fail. I'd just not have the issue forced yet, as the immediate and obvious alternative right now is paid subscription stuff.
It's going to be a while yet before alternative models become feasible or popular.
"whose leaders were posing as officials of Sealand"
(emphasis mine)
First, are these people "officially" affiliated with Sealand?
Obviously not. If they were, they wouldn't have to pose as officials. They most likely bought false papers from the German businessman who once invaded sealand and kidnapped the Prince's son. (he, the businessman, is still selling false Sealand documents, including passports)
Secondly, if they are...
They aren't.
Third, is this Sealand's idea of Venture Capital (ala' Contragate)?
I really don't know. The HavenCo people are pretty well-respected in their fields, though. I'd hope not.
How, generally speaking, are you handling physical security at Sealand? Private guards and/or hired mercenaries, evil high-tech lazer defense systems, rabid dogs with bees in their mouths so that when they bark they shoot bees at you, what?
I mean, Sealand's already been taken by military force once, and back then it didn't even have anything more interesting on it than a self-proclaimed prince, his wife, and their heir apparent.
Now, you've got some very very valuable data to protect, and while the equipment may theoretically be tamper-proofed, I would hope that that is not your _only_ assurance of security.
I'm not talking about full-blown military incursions, either... I'm sure the UK will look after you in that regard. Specifically, are you prepared for a businessman bringing in a private mercenary force? It's happened before, after all.
The area for the CSS keys is already burned out on any DVD-R blanks you could buy on the open market, meaning the resulting discs would not play on most (all?) DVD players.
We don't have Free Software (in either sense of the word) because people decided to "liberate" copies of the commercial stuff.
We have Free Software because ordinary software users (who also happened to be coders) like Linus and Alan and RMS and ESR and the wonderful BSD folks (even Theo) and Larry and Tom and Rusty and many others put their code where their mouth was.
That's really the only way Free Media will succeed, too.
Media "by the audience, for the audience and of the audience" will only succeed if the audience makes its own art. Napster-style appropriation gets us nowhere.
The one thing that we _will_ have to overcome is the idea that artists must either be paid for their hour of work continuously for the rest of their natural lives[1] as the resulting work is used, or not paid for it at all.
Before I get shouted down, I will say that I speak as a visual artist, coder, musician, and writer.
There is a middle ground.
It is becoming increasingly feasible for us to be paid for the work we do itself, like any other profession, rather than having to stand as perpetual toll collectors to the fruits of our labor.
We're not there yet, but self-publication things like the (ill-named, IMO) "Street Performer's Protocol"[2], group comissions, certain types of subscription arrangements, and other systems that do not trample on the freedoms of the audience are becoming increasingly feasible.
The requisite payment/micropayment and audience-gathering systems are are beginning to fall into place.
We ought not to treat the audience like the enemy, and I think it is possible that we may not have to anymore.
I, for one, plan on putting my art where my mouth is.
---
[1] Copyrights on works published today run 96 years for publications by corporations or those published under a pseudonym, or 120 years for individuals otherwise. If the legislative decisions of the last four decades are any indicator, they will be retroactively extended even further.
[2] http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_6/kelsey/i ndex.html - I highly recommend reading at least the first part of this essay; it addresses the very real implications of the current "malicious until proven innocent" approach that we have been obligated to take with copyright protection.
On the other hand if the company is split to two different ones, then they could colaborate (which IS legal, btw) so that they retain control over the market...
Nope, sorry, actually it is illegal. The legal term for that behavior is "collusion".
Well, that sort of thing should actually work if you do it right:
Get an initial wad of cash that you can invest in scary lawyers [ this is not a problem for most corporations ]
Set the amount to something more reasonable, say... a one-time payment of $100 US. By reasonable, I mean it'd be cheaper for you to just give them the money than to take it to court.
Make sure you don't pick on any idealists who might not care that they'll be living out of a cardboard box for the next twenty years after they pay their legal bills. [ better watch those pro-bono firms, though ]
Be sure and lobby for legislation like UCITA and the DMCA to back you up.
Of course, thankfully reality is not quite that derranged.
There's such a thing as "common carrier status". Without it, phone companies could be held liable for the content of phone calls, for example. The moment Slashdot demonstrates the ability to selectively strike individual posts on the basis of content, they lose that status.
Keep in mind that this is the age of frivolous lawsuits, my friend. If Slashdot wanted to survive, they'd have to act proactively, and strike any content that could expose them to litigation (hint: this is precisely what moderated forums [e.g. ZDNet online] do).
Better hope they could manage the workload, too, then... a couple major lawsuits would probably wipe them out.
[ Oh, and if you can't think of anyone who might want to sue Slashdot, Natalie Portman and Microsoft come to mind... ]
[...possibly also Quaker Oats, as their brand has been mentioned by name in at least a couple of pretty nasty grits posts ]
Slashdot Mirror
If someone gets into the backend and gets your retinal hash (or whatever stored representation they used), that could the could conceivably use it as a "password-eqivalent" later to impersonate you.
Can't change that shared secret once it's compromised, no sir. (well, maybe you could switch eyes, once)
And then, even though more recent systems depend on the eye being alive to work, there are still the stupid uninformed goons who would go around gouging people's eyeballs out.
Not to mention you're SOL if you have an accident or something.
[ begin devil's advocate mode ]
Then they should pay to hear it, the same as you.
The thing to understand here is that if you are making use of someone else's property, you should expect to abide by the conditions imposed on its use.
If you don't like the conditions, don't use it. It's not like this is food or anything: you don't need, say, Metallica's Black Album to keep breathing for another week.
The music is the property of its owner. If someone wants to, they may let you or your family members use it for free if they want, but they shouldn't be forced to do so.
It's only now that technologies like this are giving the owners an option in these matters. Forcing them to let people use their property for free is morally wrong and it's only now that we're beginning to see technology that can rectify the situation.
[ end devil's advocate mode ]
In my own opinion, while I believe that private property rights are a consequence of natural law (woo, look at the cute widdle 18th century philosophy), they are such only because of exclusivity. Two people physically can't posess or control a physical object.
I don't think the notion of "property" should be perverted to include things that aren't naturally, in enconomic parlance, excludable, and I don't think scarcity should be imposed where there is naturally none soley for the sake of making a profit.
If people get mad when someone creates artificial scarcity even in a naturally scarce good (e.g. OPEC with oil), why is making a naturally non-scare good scarce just for the sake of making money suddenly okay with everyone?
Now, making sure artists eat is a different matter, but the record companies aren't generally doing any better -- the majority of musicians would be living in cardboard boxes on the street (and not eating) if they relied on revenue from the record companies for their livelihood.
Personally, I think we need to start thinking more about artists as people who actually do WORK (they do, you know, composing ain't easy) for which they should be paid (they generally aren't now, except when they're paid for performing), rather than thinking of them as people who need to be subsidized by someone playing tollkeeper to their ideas.
The new technology is also enabling schemes like the Street Performer Protocol area which are I think a good start in the right direction. I only hope more people pursue them, instead of strangling ourselves like we are now.
We have real world scare resources that have economic value: scare creative talent (labor). There is no real need to make "pretend" scarcity in information-space to subsidize that labor, unless you expect <sarcasm>the lazy artists to do their thing for free (they're not really DOING anything, after all)</sarcasm>.
Actually, it's already a problem: engine noise from tankers and other assorted large watercraft and all.
It's kind of like the problem we have topside with light polution, although arguably light pollution is somewhat easier to deal with, since it's directional.
...have the sub release a buoy that transmits an (encrypted) data payload when it hits the surface? Then, the sub can wander off and wait for an (encrypted) reply to be broadcast.
Less risk of direct detection that way, aside from the noise of releasing the buoy (which would not be negligible, but still better than sitting there screaming at 2400 baud).
He's talking about the same studies you were.
Ask any experimental scientist or statician about the difference between establishing a correlation and establishing causation. please.
Critical thinking 101, people.
If I remember correctly, the Copyright on works published today will expire 96 years after publication, for corporate works and works published under a pseudonym. It's 120 years for works published by an individual.
Of course, I wouldn't rely on copyrights expiring so soon -- copyright terms have been consistently retroactively extended several times over the past 30 years, and there's no sign of the trend stopping.
The net effect of this has been that no copyrighted works have passed into the public domain since World War I (unless the copyright holder allowed the work into the public domain themselves). Compare this with the original copyright term of ... uh, what was it ... 14 years?
When the institution of Copyright was created, you could reasonably expect contemporary writing and art to pass into the public domain within your lifetime. This allowed artists to draw on more or less contemporary work unhindered (all art is necessarily derivative). No longer.
One could argue that this is one reason for the current stagnation of the arts...
...
...but you're not getting my Bud Light.
Just put a synchronization timestamp/token in the VBI, and that's it. (not enough bits to do much else, especially if you have to make room for closed-captioning)
If you want to see a show, go to the show's website, and the magical little box on top of your TV will access the appropriate channel for your area. Then the magic box picks up timestamp/synchronization info from the VBI for the SMIL metadocument to synch to.
I wouldn't be suprised if this could be done today with entirely existing technologies, appropriate software and a TV tuner card.
I mean, I had no idea I was popular enough to be reviled... *sniffle* I mean... wow. I feel so ... justified now.
I wonder if they aren't approaching this from the wrong direction.
We already have the interactive technologies in development -- the web stuff, SMIL, and so on, and we certainly have the TV infrastructure already in place.
Why not just develop close synchronization between conventionally-delivered web and conventially-delivered TV content in some fashion, instead of deciding to cram everything conceivable down the broadcast channel?
The main thing it'd require would be the maturation of SMIL and a common schema/domain for "TV" URNs, and a little bit of hardware to pick up on synchronization info in the vertical blanking interval[1], but that's about it.
That'd leave you three options[2]:
1. watch TV on your TV while interacting with the synchronized web site on your PC
2. have the TV broadcast embedded in the synchronized website itself (courtesy of your TV card)
3. a WebTV-like set-top box that handles the web side of things, either doing as for #2, or compositing the website with the TV image in some other fashion
The technology for this kind of approach is here today, and it doesn't require pie-in-the-sky home bandwidth capabilities, nor does it require significant changes to the existing broadcast infrastructure.
I wonder why everyone seems so anxious to push their own proprietary solution, instead? I mean, Open Standards allow users control over their experience of the content, and that's a good thing, right?
---
[1] Maybe even current TV tuner cards could be pressed into service, depending on exactly what they offer; I don't know enough about them to say.
[2] Maybe more than that; these are the three I can think of off the top of my head
that gets the nature analogy reqirement, too.
...
But you're right; the following would have been correct, and I think scanned better, too:
... which reminds me... are there any rules for punctuating Haiku in English?
Bold slashdot haiku:
Overused, stale, and cliched.
Please try something else.
This isn't terribly a useful case to use as an example when arguing against broad business method patents, at least on a pragmatic basis.
"So, what's wrong with business method patents?"
"Well, uh, take Doubleclick.net, for example. They were driven out of business last year by C|Net's exhorbitatnt licensing fees[1]. EVEN THOUGH Doubleclick predates C|Net's patent application. Even if it wasn't obvious, C|Net got a patent on something they didn't even invent. Does that sound fair to you?"
"Ohhh... so that's why all those banner ads dissapeared. Cool! Bastards had it coming!"
* sigh *
* something mumbled about all your favorite sites becoming paid-subscription-only[2] *
---
[1] in reality, C|Net is more likely to charge just as much as they can get away with; completely destroying your licencees financially is not a good way to keep up your revenue stream
[2] I think in the long run, relying on banner ads alone for revenue will eventually fail. I'd just not have the issue forced yet, as the immediate and obvious alternative right now is paid subscription stuff.
It's going to be a while yet before alternative models become feasible or popular.
(emphasis mine)
Obviously not. If they were, they wouldn't have to pose as officials. They most likely bought false papers from the German businessman who once invaded sealand and kidnapped the Prince's son. (he, the businessman, is still selling false Sealand documents, including passports)
They aren't.
I really don't know. The HavenCo people are pretty well-respected in their fields, though. I'd hope not.
How, generally speaking, are you handling physical security at Sealand? Private guards and/or hired mercenaries, evil high-tech lazer defense systems, rabid dogs with bees in their mouths so that when they bark they shoot bees at you, what?
... I'm sure the UK will look after you in that regard. Specifically, are you prepared for a businessman bringing in a private mercenary force? It's happened before, after all.
I mean, Sealand's already been taken by military force once, and back then it didn't even have anything more interesting on it than a self-proclaimed prince, his wife, and their heir apparent.
Now, you've got some very very valuable data to protect, and while the equipment may theoretically be tamper-proofed, I would hope that that is not your _only_ assurance of security.
I'm not talking about full-blown military incursions, either
The area for the CSS keys is already burned out on any DVD-R blanks you could buy on the open market, meaning the resulting discs would not play on most (all?) DVD players.
We don't have Free Software (in either sense of the word) because people decided to "liberate" copies of the commercial stuff.
i ndex.html - I highly recommend reading at least the first part of this essay; it addresses the very real implications of the current "malicious until proven innocent" approach that we have been obligated to take with copyright protection.
We have Free Software because ordinary software users (who also happened to be coders) like Linus and Alan and RMS and ESR and the wonderful BSD folks (even Theo) and Larry and Tom and Rusty and many others put their code where their mouth was.
That's really the only way Free Media will succeed, too.
Media "by the audience, for the audience and of the audience" will only succeed if the audience makes its own art. Napster-style appropriation gets us nowhere.
The one thing that we _will_ have to overcome is the idea that artists must either be paid for their hour of work continuously for the rest of their natural lives[1] as the resulting work is used, or not paid for it at all.
Before I get shouted down, I will say that I speak as a visual artist, coder, musician, and writer.
There is a middle ground.
It is becoming increasingly feasible for us to be paid for the work we do itself, like any other profession, rather than having to stand as perpetual toll collectors to the fruits of our labor.
We're not there yet, but self-publication things like the (ill-named, IMO) "Street Performer's Protocol"[2], group comissions, certain types of subscription arrangements, and other systems that do not trample on the freedoms of the audience are becoming increasingly feasible.
The requisite payment/micropayment and audience-gathering systems are are beginning to fall into place.
We ought not to treat the audience like the enemy, and I think it is possible that we may not have to anymore.
I, for one, plan on putting my art where my mouth is.
---
[1] Copyrights on works published today run 96 years for publications by corporations or those published under a pseudonym, or 120 years for individuals otherwise. If the legislative decisions of the last four decades are any indicator, they will be retroactively extended even further.
[2] http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_6/kelsey/
Nope, sorry, actually it is illegal. The legal term for that behavior is "collusion".
Does anyone remember what happened to Standard Oil's overall value when it was broken up?
That's right: it went up.
More than likely, just like Rockefeller did, Gates is likely to make an extraordinary amount of money (even for him) if the company is broken up.
So, no, the power hypothesis makes more sense to me.
Yes there is: fewer billboards.
Well, that sort of thing should actually work if you do it right:
Of course, thankfully reality is not quite that derranged.
There's such a thing as "common carrier status". Without it, phone companies could be held liable for the content of phone calls, for example. The moment Slashdot demonstrates the ability to selectively strike individual posts on the basis of content, they lose that status.
...possibly also Quaker Oats, as their brand has been mentioned by name in at least a couple of pretty nasty grits posts ]
Keep in mind that this is the age of frivolous lawsuits, my friend. If Slashdot wanted to survive, they'd have to act proactively, and strike any content that could expose them to litigation (hint: this is precisely what moderated forums [e.g. ZDNet online] do).
Better hope they could manage the workload, too, then... a couple major lawsuits would probably wipe them out.
[ Oh, and if you can't think of anyone who might want to sue Slashdot, Natalie Portman and Microsoft come to mind... ]
[
Do you get the picture now?