i dabble in music myself. if i take one of my own songs, rip it to mp3 and place it in the public domain (or give it some other non-restrictive license), and give it out to anyone who wants to listen to it, how is that illegal?
i'm pretty sure others have already released lots of music under non-restrictive licenses that wouldn't be illegal to pass around.
mp3s don't have to be music either. i could record myself talking about how evil the government and the RIAA are, rip it to mp3 and make it available to whoever wants to listen to it. is that illegal too?
the spammers make their money by convincing naive (usually new to the net) companies otherwise.
spammer: for only a small one-time fee, we can market your product to millions of potential customers.
company A: gee whiz! millions of potential customers? that sounds almost too good to be true! here's your money.
spammer: hehe. sucker.
the spammers really don't expect the spam to do anything more than alienate the potential customers. but as long as they can keep finding gullible businesses, they keep raking in the cash.
and unfortunately, there are a lot of gullible people out there.
the article keeps saying "the professors" this and "the professors" that but never actually cites or quotes any specific professor.
so my question is: is it really the professors who are upset about this or is it just the administrators?
most of the profs i've ever dealt with wouldn't have really had any problem with notes for their classes being available online (although they may take offense to the sites that charge money). many even make class notes available freely themselves. having the notes online in no way damages a professor's professional reputation or hireability.
as i see it, this sort of thing doesn't really infringe on the professors' rights as much as it interferes with the colleges' revenue stream.
Slashdot Mirror
i dabble in music myself. if i take one of my own songs, rip it to mp3 and place it in the public domain (or give it some other non-restrictive license), and give it out to anyone who wants to listen to it, how is that illegal?
i'm pretty sure others have already released lots of music under non-restrictive licenses that wouldn't be illegal to pass around.
mp3s don't have to be music either. i could record myself talking about how evil the government and the RIAA are, rip it to mp3 and make it available to whoever wants to listen to it. is that illegal too?
hmmm.... the /images/ directory is already a 403 forbidden.... suppose the transmeta folks are keeping an eye on slashdot?
absolutely true.
the spammers make their money by convincing naive (usually new to the net) companies otherwise.
spammer: for only a small one-time fee, we can market your product to millions of potential customers.
company A: gee whiz! millions of potential customers? that sounds almost too good to be true! here's your money.
spammer: hehe. sucker.
the spammers really don't expect the spam to do anything more than alienate the potential customers. but as long as they can keep finding gullible businesses, they keep raking in the cash.
and unfortunately, there are a lot of gullible people out there.
the article keeps saying "the professors" this and "the professors" that but never actually cites or quotes any specific professor.
so my question is: is it really the professors who are upset about this or is it just the administrators?
most of the profs i've ever dealt with wouldn't have really had any problem with notes for their classes being available online (although they may take offense to the sites that charge money). many even make class notes available freely themselves. having the notes online in no way damages a professor's professional reputation or hireability.
as i see it, this sort of thing doesn't really infringe on the professors' rights as much as it interferes with the colleges' revenue stream.
/anders
you're probably thinking of steve champeon. he has an interesting little project tracking the internet namespace.
lights mean high tech...