I agree with you, but U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson doesn't. He said the cases were similar, but different enough that the Pavlovich case doesn't apply to this one.
"So to recap the RIAA should...Cut back CD production,
Raise the price of live performances
Focus on promotion more than CD distribution."
I'm less involved than you are with the music scene, so I could be wrong; but I'm pretty sure that the RIAA members don't DO concerts. The labels do the records and get the music on the radio, and the bands do their concerts. The labels get pretty nearly all the money from the records and the bands get pretty much all their money from the concerts (tickets, shirts, etc.)
I also think you should question the assertion that P2P is killing the CD star. I've read that CD prices went up 7% last year, during a recession, and also that the labels have spent proportionately less on promotion. Just because The Labels, who have a vested interest in stamping out any alternative means of distribution (net radio, P2P) that threatens their monopoly, say piracy is the cause of falling sales, doesn't mean it is true.
Yes, not wanting to be slashdotted is a perfectly valid reason for wanting to control how people link to one's website. However wanting isn't having. If one has published something and made it freely available to the public, then they do not get to dictate how users look at it or how others point to it (with legal means, technological is fair game). Others cannot copy it, we are just talking about pointing to it.
I usually hate analogies, but here it goes: I think it is a bit like standing on the sidewalk in plain view and saying "No one is allowed to look at me from over there, you must come over here to look at me. And that guy on the other side of the street is not allowed to point at me." If you don't want to be seen from that angle, then cover up, or don't go out in public, but nobody gets to dictate what others do in public. If the other guy were threatening, or harrassing, or touching it would be different, but he is pointing, and that should be protected free speech.
"And with that sledgehammer argument (which is valid) you justify seeking 65 million in damages for stealing a domain? There's the problem displayed in glowing neon lights."
$65,000,000 is such a great deal of money that it boggles my mind. However, to put it in perspective and decide if it is irrational, we need to know how much money the fraudster made over the years he possessed sex.com. The suitability of the punishment changes rather a lot if he made $100,000 or $100,000,000. If he made $100 mil, then taking away $65 mil leaves him profiting $35 mil from the fraud neither punishes him sufficiently, nor deters people from doing the same thing when given the chance.
Your example may be the best data point that we have, but it is only one data point. If this project garners enough computing power to exhaust the keyspace in 7 years, the correct key is just as likely to be found in the first month as it is in the 50th month.
I guess you would have to "get lucky" to break it in the first month, but there is no way to predict it.
A new performance and recording of an old song would be protected by copyright. But a new digital remastering of a public domain recording isn't a new work any more than transforming a.wav to.mp3 makes it a new work.
Take a look at the taxes your city/county/state place on things like hotels and rental cars, travels DO shoulder a larger tax burden. I travel a lot with my job and I see those couple extra percent the cities/counties/states add on, trust me travelers/visitors pay."
I don't yet see any reason to trust you, but do agree that taxes on hotels and rental cars are a use-based tax, and I think those taxes cover users who would not pay a state income tax. Seems like a fine idea to me, but I think it could easily go too far since those paying the taxes in the end don't elect those applying the tax.
"As for use base systems being regressive taxes? You lost me there, why shouldn't everyone shoulder the burden equally? I am not saying the poor should pay an equal amount, but I think an equal percentage is more then fair."
That is a self-contradictory position. A use-based tax does not give you an equal percentage. If you and I use the same amount of gas, and I earn more money, we pay the same amount of gas tax, but it is a smaller percentage of my income. That is what regressive means when describing taxes. If you wanted everyone to pay the same percentage in taxes, then you shouldn't have use-based taxes at all.
Let me restate my position: I think a combination of some regressive use-based taxes and a progressive income tax is the most fair, and the best for the economy and the society.
"But that is like saying the government should start taxing everyone now that doesn't smoke because one day all the smokers will die off and the government will need a new source of tax revenue."
I'm not against use-based taxes, because it seems fair for direct users should pay more than people who don't directly use. But let me give you a couple reasons why we shouldn't ONLY have use-based taxes. Even people who don't drive and don't have any kids in school benefit from the road and school systems, and their contribution to the state economy, so non-direct users should bear some of the cost. Secondly, use-base systems are regressive taxes, which take a higher percentage of income from poorer people. Many people feel that burdening the poor with regressive taxes is socially unjust, and conversely, asking the rich who derive more benefit from the economy to pay a greater share of the cost is fair, because they wouldn't have their riches without the state and the publicly owned and operated systems that support the economy. From that philosophy we get progressive income taxes. The down side of income taxes is that those who reside out-of-state and don't work in Oregon don't pay for systems that they use when they visit Oregon. In my opinion, the best system would be a combination of use and income taxes.
I completely agree with you though on the sentiment that just adding new taxes to an existing system is a bad idea. Oregon's current system of high property-taxes, state income tax, and use taxes is broken and needs a complete overhaul. Just adding a sales tax, and/or some mileage tax is just more screwed up.
"Thankfully, this is a law 'being considered' by legislators...."
It isn't even a "law being considered" yet. It is just a Road User Fee Task Force going to ask the state legislature to approve a feasibility study. With any luck the legislature will take one look at the idea and tell the task force to think of something else, because that idea is untenable on its face, without further study. Even if they do approve a feasability study, I have some faith that they will find it is a bad idea.
A Texan, a Californian, and an Oregonian are out hiking in the wilderness and meet each other and decide to share a camp fire. After dinner, in a flash of showmanship, the Texan pulls a bottle of tequila out of his pack, and takes one long swig out of it. Then the Texan throws the bottle up into the air and whips out a large chromed, pearl-handled revolver and shoots the bottle out of the air. His camp-mates are a bit surprised and comment on the waste of good tequila. The Texan explains:"Oh, it's no loss. Where I'm from we've got more tequila than we can drink." Not to be out-done, the Californian fetches a bottle of Chardonnay from his pack,takes a sip, throws it into the air, whips out a Glock 9mm with laser sight and emptys the clip, breaking the bottle, and then boasts: "Where I come from we have more wine than we can drink." The Oregonian fetches a bottle of micro-brewed, bottle-conditioned Inda Pale ale from his pack, quietly drinks the entire bottle, tosses the empty into the air, pulls out a shotgun, shoots the Californian, and catches the bottle before it hits the ground. Then he explains to the stunned Texan: "Where I'm from, we have more Californians than we need, and this bottle is worth 5 cents."
But seriously, no laws have been passed. All they are doing is studying a problem: "If your roads are paid for by a gas tax, how do you pay for roads when electric and hybrid cars start eating into your gas tax revenues?" That is a good question, worthy of some study. I think there must be a better idean than a transponder to record mileage on Oregon roads. What if you drive on private roads a lot?
In defense of DiVX and Circuit City, I would like to point out that everyone who had purchased unlimited play was given a refund. Your point is valid and important though. All those DiVX discs are just drink coasters now (if you put tape over the hole.)
And even if there isn't a DRM server involved, it should still be legal for people to do format changes and backups. I shouldn't have to rely on working DVD players being available in 40 years and the media not getting scratched in order to play a Chinese version of Iron Monkey for my future grandchildren.
I hate to be negative, but I don't think this really belongs in the Science section. Do we have a Postulate Wildly section?
The mini-rant against the RIAA almost sounds like it was just added to ensure publication on Slashdot, since it has nothing to do with audio compression effects.
But Mr. Sklyarov is a progammer, he doesn't sell or ditribute anything. He didn't write the program on US soil. He is an employee, not an officer, of a company that arguably sells in the USA a software that is allegedly an illegal circumvention device.
I'm seriously disappointed that my tax dollars were spent seizing and holding Mr. Sklyarov with such a flimsy cause. Talk about your guilt by association.
That is an interesting idea. But if you wanted the Sega hardware engineers, why not just hire them after Sega stopped making hardware? I think most of those people would have been out of a job and available. If Sega has some hardware IP that Nintendo wanted, I expect it is available at fire sale prices, no need to buy the entire hardware division, or the entire company.
OTOH, buying Sega for their software writing ability sounds like a better reason, though I would be surprised if they did.
"6. We have to spend our tax dollars to compile a list of numbers that telemarketers can't call."
In the great State of Oregon, all telemarketers MUST purchase the No Call List 4 times a year, IIRC at $250 each, while I pay $3 per year to be on the list. So the cost of the program is mostly paid by the telemarketers rather than the taxpayers or the users. The State has to pony up for enforcement, but they get $25,000 per infraction from the guilty to cover those costs.
You are correct that the phone companies are like arms dealers selling to both sides of a war, but I think a national No Call List sidesteps this trap.
"For almost every person earth, the world is a better place today then it was 100 years ago."
But almost every person on earth wasn't here 100 years ago.
I do know what you really mean, but such sweepingly broad generlizations demand rebuttal. You could for example say that most people in the world are better off than their great-grandparents were. Based solely on the advances in medicine you would be correct.
I haven't missed the point at all. I think the ISS isn't teaching us much that we didn't already learn from Skylab and Mir. We have flown 106 shuttle missions, so I don't think we going to learn much from 107 or 108, etc. In your opinion, "It's only a matter of time before overcrowding puts us in a position where we really do need to consider living off-planet." and I don't think the ISS or the shuttles are the best way of making progress towards living off-planet.
Perhaps I understated the value of ISS, they have in fact conducted 111 scientific experiements. The same statistics page at NASA also says they have eaten 8000 lbs. of food, and there are over 100,000 ground support personnel, 500 contracting facilities in 37 states and 16 countries. As they say, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some serious money. I think that money could be better spent elsewhere to better achieve long term goals.
Well, no, I wouldn't use the window. If I were going on a long trip, I would leave through the garage. If the porch is LEO, going out on the porch and coming back in a bunch of times, same as we have been doing for quite some time, isn't going to get us closer to The Next Town/Mars.
Okay wait a minute, lets throw out the whole analogy thing because everyone can bend it around and ignore real discussion. Our shuttles and the ISS consume very large quantities of money, and don't give us much return.
You said: "the ISS is (or was intended to be) a great place to develop that technology" But it turns out that the ISS isn't a good place to develop anything. Since the re-entry vehicle program was cancelled, the emergency escape plan is still:"get in the Soyuz capsule (usually functioning as a garbage can) and fly it back down." Since it can only hold 3, the regular crew is limited to 3, and most of their time is consumed just keeping the station running. So they don't have any time for actual science.
There is a tendency for people to want to keep putting money into the ISS to get some kind of return on the giant amount of money that has been invested. if we mothball the ISS now, all that money we put into it goes to waste. This is also known as throwing good money after bad. The money that has been spent is gone. We should make all current decisions based on what gets us the most for our money going forwards. The ISS and the shuttles are not a good use of money. We could learn more with an unmanned heavy lifter rocket and more Hubbles and Chandras. We could learn more about Mars and what it takes to get there safely with more unmanned probes, but next time they should work. No future designs should be constrained by "what fits in the shuttle?"
It is better for Nasa to decide these things on their own terms, instead of having Congress show up with the axe.
Seriously, with so many people still on dial-up, where is the need for OC-148 to homes?
I need it to download The Two Towers from China!!!
So lets estimate it at 10 GigaBytes, how long does that take with 10 Gigabit Ethernet? Wouldn't a 100 Megabit or even a 10 Megabit line be fast enough? What does it take to stream HDTV? We need some mass adoption of some technology that needs lots and lots of bandwidth if we are going to need to light up that fiber.
The reporter makes the distinction between cloning cells and reproductive cloning, and even includes a quote from a Catholic spokesperson saying "there is no new pro-life issue here,".
So the current plans are for cell cloning, HOWEVER "... if that method fails, Weissman [Dr. Irving Weissman, the director of the new institute] said, he would not rule out trying a controversial technique that many people consider to be a form of human cloning." Which the article goes on to explain is reproductive cloning.
Therefore, the lead in is accurate. The reporter highlighted an area of concern for many people. It isn't their fault if some people jump to conclusions without reading the article carefully.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you, but U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson doesn't. He said the cases were similar, but different enough that the Pavlovich case doesn't apply to this one.
"So to recap the RIAA should...Cut back CD production, Raise the price of live performances Focus on promotion more than CD distribution."
I'm less involved than you are with the music scene, so I could be wrong; but I'm pretty sure that the RIAA members don't DO concerts. The labels do the records and get the music on the radio, and the bands do their concerts. The labels get pretty nearly all the money from the records and the bands get pretty much all their money from the concerts (tickets, shirts, etc.)
I also think you should question the assertion that P2P is killing the CD star. I've read that CD prices went up 7% last year, during a recession, and also that the labels have spent proportionately less on promotion. Just because The Labels, who have a vested interest in stamping out any alternative means of distribution (net radio, P2P) that threatens their monopoly, say piracy is the cause of falling sales, doesn't mean it is true.
"these chips will not be cheap for the forseable future"
You must not be able to foresee very far.
You were going to start from zero?
Yes, not wanting to be slashdotted is a perfectly valid reason for wanting to control how people link to one's website. However wanting isn't having. If one has published something and made it freely available to the public, then they do not get to dictate how users look at it or how others point to it (with legal means, technological is fair game). Others cannot copy it, we are just talking about pointing to it.
I usually hate analogies, but here it goes: I think it is a bit like standing on the sidewalk in plain view and saying "No one is allowed to look at me from over there, you must come over here to look at me. And that guy on the other side of the street is not allowed to point at me." If you don't want to be seen from that angle, then cover up, or don't go out in public, but nobody gets to dictate what others do in public. If the other guy were threatening, or harrassing, or touching it would be different, but he is pointing, and that should be protected free speech.
"And with that sledgehammer argument (which is valid) you justify seeking 65 million in damages for stealing a domain? There's the problem displayed in glowing neon lights."
$65,000,000 is such a great deal of money that it boggles my mind. However, to put it in perspective and decide if it is irrational, we need to know how much money the fraudster made over the years he possessed sex.com. The suitability of the punishment changes rather a lot if he made $100,000 or $100,000,000. If he made $100 mil, then taking away $65 mil leaves him profiting $35 mil from the fraud neither punishes him sufficiently, nor deters people from doing the same thing when given the chance.
Your example may be the best data point that we have, but it is only one data point. If this project garners enough computing power to exhaust the keyspace in 7 years, the correct key is just as likely to be found in the first month as it is in the 50th month.
I guess you would have to "get lucky" to break it in the first month, but there is no way to predict it.
A new performance and recording of an old song would be protected by copyright. But a new digital remastering of a public domain recording isn't a new work any more than transforming a .wav to .mp3 makes it a new work.
Take a look at the taxes your city/county/state place on things like hotels and rental cars, travels DO shoulder a larger tax burden. I travel a lot with my job and I see those couple extra percent the cities/counties/states add on, trust me travelers/visitors pay."
I don't yet see any reason to trust you, but do agree that taxes on hotels and rental cars are a use-based tax, and I think those taxes cover users who would not pay a state income tax. Seems like a fine idea to me, but I think it could easily go too far since those paying the taxes in the end don't elect those applying the tax.
"As for use base systems being regressive taxes? You lost me there, why shouldn't everyone shoulder the burden equally? I am not saying the poor should pay an equal amount, but I think an equal percentage is more then fair."
That is a self-contradictory position. A use-based tax does not give you an equal percentage. If you and I use the same amount of gas, and I earn more money, we pay the same amount of gas tax, but it is a smaller percentage of my income. That is what regressive means when describing taxes. If you wanted everyone to pay the same percentage in taxes, then you shouldn't have use-based taxes at all.
Let me restate my position: I think a combination of some regressive use-based taxes and a progressive income tax is the most fair, and the best for the economy and the society.
"But that is like saying the government should start taxing everyone now that doesn't smoke because one day all the smokers will die off and the government will need a new source of tax revenue."
No, its not really like that at all.
I'm not against use-based taxes, because it seems fair for direct users should pay more than people who don't directly use. But let me give you a couple reasons why we shouldn't ONLY have use-based taxes. Even people who don't drive and don't have any kids in school benefit from the road and school systems, and their contribution to the state economy, so non-direct users should bear some of the cost. Secondly, use-base systems are regressive taxes, which take a higher percentage of income from poorer people. Many people feel that burdening the poor with regressive taxes is socially unjust, and conversely, asking the rich who derive more benefit from the economy to pay a greater share of the cost is fair, because they wouldn't have their riches without the state and the publicly owned and operated systems that support the economy. From that philosophy we get progressive income taxes. The down side of income taxes is that those who reside out-of-state and don't work in Oregon don't pay for systems that they use when they visit Oregon. In my opinion, the best system would be a combination of use and income taxes.
I completely agree with you though on the sentiment that just adding new taxes to an existing system is a bad idea. Oregon's current system of high property-taxes, state income tax, and use taxes is broken and needs a complete overhaul. Just adding a sales tax, and/or some mileage tax is just more screwed up.
"Thankfully, this is a law 'being considered' by legislators...."
It isn't even a "law being considered" yet. It is just a Road User Fee Task Force going to ask the state legislature to approve a feasibility study. With any luck the legislature will take one look at the idea and tell the task force to think of something else, because that idea is untenable on its face, without further study. Even if they do approve a feasability study, I have some faith that they will find it is a bad idea.
A Texan, a Californian, and an Oregonian are out hiking in the wilderness and meet each other and decide to share a camp fire. After dinner, in a flash of showmanship, the Texan pulls a bottle of tequila out of his pack, and takes one long swig out of it. Then the Texan throws the bottle up into the air and whips out a large chromed, pearl-handled revolver and shoots the bottle out of the air. His camp-mates are a bit surprised and comment on the waste of good tequila. The Texan explains:"Oh, it's no loss. Where I'm from we've got more tequila than we can drink." Not to be out-done, the Californian fetches a bottle of Chardonnay from his pack,takes a sip, throws it into the air, whips out a Glock 9mm with laser sight and emptys the clip, breaking the bottle, and then boasts: "Where I come from we have more wine than we can drink." The Oregonian fetches a bottle of micro-brewed, bottle-conditioned Inda Pale ale from his pack, quietly drinks the entire bottle, tosses the empty into the air, pulls out a shotgun, shoots the Californian, and catches the bottle before it hits the ground. Then he explains to the stunned Texan: "Where I'm from, we have more Californians than we need, and this bottle is worth 5 cents."
But seriously, no laws have been passed. All they are doing is studying a problem: "If your roads are paid for by a gas tax, how do you pay for roads when electric and hybrid cars start eating into your gas tax revenues?" That is a good question, worthy of some study. I think there must be a better idean than a transponder to record mileage on Oregon roads. What if you drive on private roads a lot?
"Why do I need a voice line in order to get DSL service in the first place? I don't want a voice line and I can't be the only one."
Because SBC (or Verizon) said so, and they own the wire to your house. It will probably take a law change to get them to play fair.
In defense of DiVX and Circuit City, I would like to point out that everyone who had purchased unlimited play was given a refund. Your point is valid and important though. All those DiVX discs are just drink coasters now (if you put tape over the hole.)
And even if there isn't a DRM server involved, it should still be legal for people to do format changes and backups. I shouldn't have to rely on working DVD players being available in 40 years and the media not getting scratched in order to play a Chinese version of Iron Monkey for my future grandchildren.
I hate to be negative, but I don't think this really belongs in the Science section. Do we have a Postulate Wildly section?
The mini-rant against the RIAA almost sounds like it was just added to ensure publication on Slashdot, since it has nothing to do with audio compression effects.
But Mr. Sklyarov is a progammer, he doesn't sell or ditribute anything. He didn't write the program on US soil. He is an employee, not an officer, of a company that arguably sells in the USA a software that is allegedly an illegal circumvention device.
I'm seriously disappointed that my tax dollars were spent seizing and holding Mr. Sklyarov with such a flimsy cause. Talk about your guilt by association.
Do any of those places even have a Bill of Rights?
That is an interesting idea. But if you wanted the Sega hardware engineers, why not just hire them after Sega stopped making hardware? I think most of those people would have been out of a job and available. If Sega has some hardware IP that Nintendo wanted, I expect it is available at fire sale prices, no need to buy the entire hardware division, or the entire company.
OTOH, buying Sega for their software writing ability sounds like a better reason, though I would be surprised if they did.
"6. We have to spend our tax dollars to compile a list of numbers that telemarketers can't call."
In the great State of Oregon, all telemarketers MUST purchase the No Call List 4 times a year, IIRC at $250 each, while I pay $3 per year to be on the list. So the cost of the program is mostly paid by the telemarketers rather than the taxpayers or the users. The State has to pony up for enforcement, but they get $25,000 per infraction from the guilty to cover those costs.
You are correct that the phone companies are like arms dealers selling to both sides of a war, but I think a national No Call List sidesteps this trap.
"For almost every person earth, the world is a better place today then it was 100 years ago."
But almost every person on earth wasn't here 100 years ago.
I do know what you really mean, but such sweepingly broad generlizations demand rebuttal. You could for example say that most people in the world are better off than their great-grandparents were. Based solely on the advances in medicine you would be correct.
I haven't missed the point at all. I think the ISS isn't teaching us much that we didn't already learn from Skylab and Mir. We have flown 106 shuttle missions, so I don't think we going to learn much from 107 or 108, etc. In your opinion, "It's only a matter of time before overcrowding puts us in a position where we really do need to consider living off-planet." and I don't think the ISS or the shuttles are the best way of making progress towards living off-planet.
Perhaps I understated the value of ISS, they have in fact conducted 111 scientific experiements. The same statistics page at NASA also says they have eaten 8000 lbs. of food, and there are over 100,000 ground support personnel, 500 contracting facilities in 37 states and 16 countries. As they say, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some serious money. I think that money could be better spent elsewhere to better achieve long term goals.
"So what do you do, climb out the window?"
Well, no, I wouldn't use the window. If I were going on a long trip, I would leave through the garage. If the porch is LEO, going out on the porch and coming back in a bunch of times, same as we have been doing for quite some time, isn't going to get us closer to The Next Town/Mars.
Okay wait a minute, lets throw out the whole analogy thing because everyone can bend it around and ignore real discussion. Our shuttles and the ISS consume very large quantities of money, and don't give us much return.
You said: "the ISS is (or was intended to be) a great place to develop that technology" But it turns out that the ISS isn't a good place to develop anything. Since the re-entry vehicle program was cancelled, the emergency escape plan is still:"get in the Soyuz capsule (usually functioning as a garbage can) and fly it back down." Since it can only hold 3, the regular crew is limited to 3, and most of their time is consumed just keeping the station running. So they don't have any time for actual science.
There is a tendency for people to want to keep putting money into the ISS to get some kind of return on the giant amount of money that has been invested. if we mothball the ISS now, all that money we put into it goes to waste. This is also known as throwing good money after bad. The money that has been spent is gone. We should make all current decisions based on what gets us the most for our money going forwards. The ISS and the shuttles are not a good use of money. We could learn more with an unmanned heavy lifter rocket and more Hubbles and Chandras. We could learn more about Mars and what it takes to get there safely with more unmanned probes, but next time they should work. No future designs should be constrained by "what fits in the shuttle?"
It is better for Nasa to decide these things on their own terms, instead of having Congress show up with the axe.
Seriously, with so many people still on dial-up, where is the need for OC-148 to homes? I need it to download The Two Towers from China!!!
So lets estimate it at 10 GigaBytes, how long does that take with 10 Gigabit Ethernet? Wouldn't a 100 Megabit or even a 10 Megabit line be fast enough? What does it take to stream HDTV? We need some mass adoption of some technology that needs lots and lots of bandwidth if we are going to need to light up that fiber.
The reporter makes the distinction between cloning cells and reproductive cloning, and even includes a quote from a Catholic spokesperson saying "there is no new pro-life issue here,".
So the current plans are for cell cloning, HOWEVER "... if that method fails, Weissman [Dr. Irving Weissman, the director of the new institute] said, he would not rule out trying a controversial technique that many people consider to be a form of human cloning." Which the article goes on to explain is reproductive cloning.
Therefore, the lead in is accurate. The reporter highlighted an area of concern for many people. It isn't their fault if some people jump to conclusions without reading the article carefully.