They might not have a monopoly on operating systems, period, but they certainly have a monopoly on desktop OSs that will run the latest and greatest games and other junk like that. Just try to get me a copy of Jedi Knight II for Linux. I'd really love to have it.
I agree. If we had an open-source IE, I imagine the first thing that would be done to it would be to build in some ad protection, options to block popups, that sort of thing. I'd be more willing to use IE if I could filter out popups the way I do in Mozilla.
Now that I think about it, though, Mozilla has developed to the point where it's really just about as fast as IE. I can't think of very many reasons why I *would* want to use IE --- just maybe for the occasional site that's boneheaded enough to use IE-specific code.
The states certainly have constitutional authority to bring suit against Microsoft for wrongs that affect their state.
Since Microsoft's actions do, indeed, affect consumers in every single one of the 50 states, I'd say the non-settling states have a very valid case. One could argue that any potential remedies would have to be limited to the states in question, but we all know that isn't very feasible. ("You mean I have to go to another state to get a computer without Windows preinstalled?!")
And don't forget, the judge hasn't approved the Justice Department's settlement yet. She can still overrule it as being insufficient to remedy Microsoft's conduct, and I hope she does exactly that.
If only Judge Jackson had been a bit more polite with his ruling, we might have a couple Baby Bills instead of having to go through all this...
The way I understand it, they didn't select an embryo at all... only an unfertilized egg, which was then fertilized and implanted.
To me, that doesn't seem to have many implications (if any) for the abortion debate, since not even the most conservative pro-life advocates argue that unfertilized eggs should be counted as human beings. On the other hand, if they fertilized a number of eggs, selected from the resulting embryos, and destroyed the rest, then there would be a legitimate concern.
This does raise questions of "playing God", though, along with all the classic arguments about using this to select for or against desired features.
Oh, I agree with you. My political philosophy is highly libertarian in nature. My statement about the Democrats was rhetorical, i.e. "See, they say they're for liberty and the common man, but they don't practice it."
For starters, I think the producers need to be more lenient and accept that there's going to be some copying. It's not the end of the world. There will always be people who are willing to pay reasonable prices for a product if they feel they're getting something for their money. It's nice to have a physical copy of a book or DC or movie as opposed to either a cheap burned copy or a file on the computer. Plus, having some underground distribution is good for advertising. A lot of people buy CDs after hearing MP3s they downloaded.
The producers would win a lot more friends if they were more generous with the way their works could be used, and they're probably wind up making more money in the end. I personally think it's good business sense to make a good impression on your customers, even if that means tolerating some piracy.
So I don't really think a lot of restrictions are a good idea even for business. I don't think small-scale "piracy" really damages copyright owners as much as they like to claim it does. To answer your question, I think producers should CHOOSE to allow copying rather than trying to protect their work from it.
The last thing we need is more government interference, and especially more government interference in favor of copy protection. I almost wish I lived in that idiot's district so I could vote against him.
I find it interesting, though, that Intel is on our side in this issue: "We don't think government-mandated technology solutions are in the best interests of consumers or anyone else," according to their spokesperson. It's not too often that big business comes down on our side, although I can certainly understand why Intel would on this issue. Being forced to implement copy-protection in their hardware would NOT be compatible with their business interests.
I also find it interesting that the senator promoting this heinous piece of legislation is a Democrat. Aren't the Democrats supposed be the party that sticks up for the common people as opposed to big media interests like Disney and the MPAA?
The reason Napster could be shut down --- and the big flaw in Napster's system --- was because it depended on central servers to function. It had a single point of failure. Thus, by taking out those servers, the law could take out the entire Napster service.
Many of the newer programs don't rely on any one central point of failure. Thus, it would be a lot harder to legally enforce a shutdown. They might be able to order the developers to stop distributing the software, but they can't do very much about existing copies of it.
They'll probably be able to get Microsoft to include copy-protection in Windows. MS is already doing their best to do that, anyway. Of course, that strategy could cut both ways. If Microsoft keeps adding heinous misfeatures like copy protection and product activation to their OS, it will drive more and more people to install alternative OS software.
Anyway, Valenti seems to be saying that copy-protection needs to be built into the hardware. I think it's fairly safe to say that if such a thing were to happen, we'd all need umbrellas to protect ourselves from falling pig droppings. Number one, you'd have to have legislation to do it, and such legislation wouldn't be very popular. Number two, can you imagine the outcry from the public? And number three, the technical details for implementing such a scheme are not trivial. I may be a hopeless optimist, but I really don't see this happening any time soon.
Wait... power the computer using just the heat generated by the processor? Aha! So THAT'S how those guys who claimed to have invented perpetual-motion free-energy generators do it!
I think somebody must have found that jacket Marty McFly brought back from the future. They just need to install a blow-dryer in this baby and we'll be all set.
"Unless I'm much mistaken, an antiparticle is completely neutral; one anti-proton of negative charge, one positron of positive charge, and one anti-neutron of neutral charge."
Can there be any such thing as an anti-neutron, since neutrons have no charge to begin with?
There's nothing inherently wrong with making a profit. It only becomes wrong when you start infringing the other guy's rights and limiting his choices in the process.
In this case, you've got people who are publishing public-domain material for profit. Why is that wrong when the information itself is still free? If somebody would like a dead-tree copy of a classic work, and they're willing to pay for it, should they not be able to do so as long as the information itself is still freely available? I can still go and download the full text to that work from the Internet. Why should it bother me that somebody is also selling that same text on dead trees? The thing that makes our free society great is that we have these choices.
So, I don't think this is really a case of the ends being justified by the wrong means. I think it's a case of a legimitate end being served by a legitimate means to that end. I would consider the means to be wrong if they limited my choices --- if I were somehow no longer able to freely acquire public-domain information. But, I don't see that happening here.
Your statement is a non sequitur. Being a conservative does not necessarily imply that one will side with the MPAA. I consider myself a strong conservative, but I strongly oppose severe copyright restrictions. I prefer the system the framers of the Constitution intended: allow the creators a short, reasonable period of monopoly, and then move the work into the public domain. No ifs, ands, buts, or EULAs.
Copyright was meant as an incentive to encourage creativity. It was not considered to be one of the "inalienable rights" that the Constitution was created to defend. The mistake that's being made today is to treat intellectual property as a natural right, which I do not believe it is.
I think it's a good idea. Of course, that's exactly the sort of thing copyright was meant to do in the first place: give people the chance to profit exclusively from their "intellectual property" for a short time period before allowing the information to be used freely. Of course, that principle has been badly abused and skewed toward the producer in recent years, and that's one reason why completely free licenses have become so popular. It's the free market's natural response to an imbalance. Personally, I think if copyright law were to be revised to function the way it was intended to in the first place, we could have the best of both worlds: a strong corporate presence and good commercial software, but also code that's released to the public after a reasonable time period.
I've already done exactly that, actually.:) I'm not thinking about myself as much as the big picture --- I'd like to see the market develop this way so the average customer will have more choices at his fingertips.
You know, while the Linux option is a very good thing, I'd be just as happy buying a box with a blank hard drive. What makes the Linux option good is simply that it doesn't come with a Microsoft OS that I don't intend to use in the first place. I really don't want to pay for something I have no plans to use, and I'm quite capable of installing Linux on my own from CDs I downloaded and burned.
So what I'd really like to see is the ability to buy an absolutely clean system from a major vendor at a significant discount (i.e. no MS tax).
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They might not have a monopoly on operating systems, period, but they certainly have a monopoly on desktop OSs that will run the latest and greatest games and other junk like that. Just try to get me a copy of Jedi Knight II for Linux. I'd really love to have it.
The only problem with that is that the Tenth Amendment went out the door right about the time of the Civil War.
Now that I think about it, though, Mozilla has developed to the point where it's really just about as fast as IE. I can't think of very many reasons why I *would* want to use IE --- just maybe for the occasional site that's boneheaded enough to use IE-specific code.
Since Microsoft's actions do, indeed, affect consumers in every single one of the 50 states, I'd say the non-settling states have a very valid case. One could argue that any potential remedies would have to be limited to the states in question, but we all know that isn't very feasible. ("You mean I have to go to another state to get a computer without Windows preinstalled?!")
And don't forget, the judge hasn't approved the Justice Department's settlement yet. She can still overrule it as being insufficient to remedy Microsoft's conduct, and I hope she does exactly that.
If only Judge Jackson had been a bit more polite with his ruling, we might have a couple Baby Bills instead of having to go through all this...
"Can you really expect a woman to adopt a rejected (implied inferiority) child" Yes. My mother did exactly that, for which I am profoundly thankful.
To me, that doesn't seem to have many implications (if any) for the abortion debate, since not even the most conservative pro-life advocates argue that unfertilized eggs should be counted as human beings. On the other hand, if they fertilized a number of eggs, selected from the resulting embryos, and destroyed the rest, then there would be a legitimate concern.
This does raise questions of "playing God", though, along with all the classic arguments about using this to select for or against desired features.
"Hi, Mr. Kettle. I'm Mr. Pot. Did you know that you're black?"
Oh, I agree with you. My political philosophy is highly libertarian in nature. My statement about the Democrats was rhetorical, i.e. "See, they say they're for liberty and the common man, but they don't practice it."
The producers would win a lot more friends if they were more generous with the way their works could be used, and they're probably wind up making more money in the end. I personally think it's good business sense to make a good impression on your customers, even if that means tolerating some piracy.
So I don't really think a lot of restrictions are a good idea even for business. I don't think small-scale "piracy" really damages copyright owners as much as they like to claim it does. To answer your question, I think producers should CHOOSE to allow copying rather than trying to protect their work from it.
I find it interesting, though, that Intel is on our side in this issue: "We don't think government-mandated technology solutions are in the best interests of consumers or anyone else," according to their spokesperson. It's not too often that big business comes down on our side, although I can certainly understand why Intel would on this issue. Being forced to implement copy-protection in their hardware would NOT be compatible with their business interests.
I also find it interesting that the senator promoting this heinous piece of legislation is a Democrat. Aren't the Democrats supposed be the party that sticks up for the common people as opposed to big media interests like Disney and the MPAA?
Many of the newer programs don't rely on any one central point of failure. Thus, it would be a lot harder to legally enforce a shutdown. They might be able to order the developers to stop distributing the software, but they can't do very much about existing copies of it.
Anyway, Valenti seems to be saying that copy-protection needs to be built into the hardware. I think it's fairly safe to say that if such a thing were to happen, we'd all need umbrellas to protect ourselves from falling pig droppings. Number one, you'd have to have legislation to do it, and such legislation wouldn't be very popular. Number two, can you imagine the outcry from the public? And number three, the technical details for implementing such a scheme are not trivial. I may be a hopeless optimist, but I really don't see this happening any time soon.
Wait... power the computer using just the heat generated by the processor? Aha! So THAT'S how those guys who claimed to have invented perpetual-motion free-energy generators do it!
First Star Wars, now the Space Station. Is nothing sacred? Is nothing safe from these guys? Next thing you'll know they'll be running for President.
I think somebody must have found that jacket Marty McFly brought back from the future. They just need to install a blow-dryer in this baby and we'll be all set.
Can there be any such thing as an anti-neutron, since neutrons have no charge to begin with?
At least they didn't base it on Windows ME and call it "Mini-ME".
In this case, you've got people who are publishing public-domain material for profit. Why is that wrong when the information itself is still free? If somebody would like a dead-tree copy of a classic work, and they're willing to pay for it, should they not be able to do so as long as the information itself is still freely available? I can still go and download the full text to that work from the Internet. Why should it bother me that somebody is also selling that same text on dead trees? The thing that makes our free society great is that we have these choices.
So, I don't think this is really a case of the ends being justified by the wrong means. I think it's a case of a legimitate end being served by a legitimate means to that end. I would consider the means to be wrong if they limited my choices --- if I were somehow no longer able to freely acquire public-domain information. But, I don't see that happening here.
Copyright was meant as an incentive to encourage creativity. It was not considered to be one of the "inalienable rights" that the Constitution was created to defend. The mistake that's being made today is to treat intellectual property as a natural right, which I do not believe it is.
I think it's a good idea. Of course, that's exactly the sort of thing copyright was meant to do in the first place: give people the chance to profit exclusively from their "intellectual property" for a short time period before allowing the information to be used freely. Of course, that principle has been badly abused and skewed toward the producer in recent years, and that's one reason why completely free licenses have become so popular. It's the free market's natural response to an imbalance. Personally, I think if copyright law were to be revised to function the way it was intended to in the first place, we could have the best of both worlds: a strong corporate presence and good commercial software, but also code that's released to the public after a reasonable time period.
I've already done exactly that, actually. :) I'm not thinking about myself as much as the big picture --- I'd like to see the market develop this way so the average customer will have more choices at his fingertips.
So what I'd really like to see is the ability to buy an absolutely clean system from a major vendor at a significant discount (i.e. no MS tax).