Erm, but isn't the fact that Wikipedia actually is a pretty good source for very many things people are searching for on Google important? That's the difference between it and other linkfarms - I (as I'm sure is the case with many others) am very frequently happy to follow a link to Wikipedia, where I find the information I'm looking for. The same isn't true for other, lazier sites.
And isn't Google's aim to get you to the information you're looking for?
Um, now that's just bordering on pathetic. With 2 billion dollars you could save millions of lives, and yet you wouldn't kill innocent people to allow this, just because it would mean blood on your hand?;-)
You're right, you don't. In which case, given that the GPL program is copyright, you have no right to copy it or distribute it. What's the problem with that?
Obligatory reference to FaxYourMP.com. I wonder why nobody in the US has managed to replicate this incredibly useful service. Web form -> paper fax. I've got three replies from two faxes sent! A 150% success rate aint bad...
Er, no. He lost the selection, decided to stand anyway (just not as the Labour candidate), which he was perfectly entitled to do. And was kicked out, which they were perfectly entitled to do.
Okay. I'm not sure where we're disagreeing. Specifically, I'm not sure what of your reply is controversial, or new that these researchers have come up with - I take it that most of what you say has been accepted for years.
I'm going to have to disagree strongly with one thing you say, however: "The brain then is actually banking on the replicability of natural phenomena: light striking objects and reflecting a particular set of wavelengths consistently. Photon scatter, absorption, and transmittance properties are conserved by the same materials. Only in such a world is it useful for the brain to assign percepts called color and shapes to these sensations."
The reason I'd deny this is that the brain isn't banking on anything. This would be a weird sort of functional explanation that just doesn't hold up. It isn't that at some time your brain / genes / evolution thought 'Hey, maybe I'll have past experiences again / similar experiences in the future'. What actually happens is that experiences happened to it, and some animals had a freak mutation which meant that they were better at reacting to this experience, for example because they were especially good at seeing red berries amongst green leave, and so this gene survived.
To characterise this as being in a state now where the brain 'thinks' 'things will occur that are similar to those that have occurred in the past' gets it totally the wrong way round - it's simply that those things that have been up for testing in the past we have developed tests for. It would be taking a hideously bad test population to look at those things which we perceive in some interesting way and think 'Wow, it's odd,/just/ the things that we have special ways of perceiving are things we've perceived before' - that's the/reason/ we have special ways of perceiving them - BECAUSE we've perceived them before....
But we have known for years and years and years that illusions occur at the level of perception and reaction rather than higher order analysis. We can pinpoint, for example, the way that nerves on the retina are arranged so as to emphasis edges, by have a large positive stimulus surrounded by a negative surround. Imagine a doughnut - when a line where the amount of light changes crosses one side of the hole in the doughtnut there is more of a positive response than when it covers the whole doughnut, because the area of the doughnut rather than the hole inhibits the stimulation that the centre produces, so two-thirds covered doughnut-shaped nerves produce a greater reaction, and thus look like it is brighter, than a completely covered bit, in the middle of the light.
That is to say, we know that there are basic, anatomical reasons for visual illusions.
And of course how we make sense of stimuli has to do with past experience, again, I can't see how this is anything more than banal. They can't seriously think it's a new idea that how we see is the product of past visual experiences. Only a creationist could think that it wasn't...
Sure. You're absolutely right. A computer can tell us that the wavelengths of light hitting two sensors are the same. If what these researchers are saying is 'Isn't it bizarre that that doesn't happen... that we can have illusions?' then the simple answer is that if that was what eyes were trying to do (as much as they're trying to do anything) that would be a problem, but they're not.
Frequently we don't see two instances of the same wavelengths of light as the same colour, but that's because there are obvious evolutionary advantages of not seeing the same 'colour' as the same colour quale (the 'mental image of the colour'). Such as when there are red berries amongst green leaves, where it is advantageous for the red to look more red and the green to look more green, or such as edge detection, where if you have alternating strips of light and dark the light seems lighter and the dark seems darker where they meet, emphasising the edge.
I assumed that everyone had accepted that these were the products of evolution, and didn't think that illusions were illusions in a pejorative sense (i.e. not defects) - but it seems like these guys are presenting this as something new and exciting, and I just can't see how...
Whilst this article is interesting, and raises some interesting points, they seem to come to some very radical conclusions, based on what can only be called a mistaken belief that vision is 'about' something. They claim that rather than perceiving what is out there, we perceive what we've been trained to see, by past experience individually and of the species.
Well, we can take this two ways. We could say that we've grown eyes and a complete visual system purely based on previous stimuli, in which case it's obvious that new stimuli will only be interpreted in terms of past stimuli. Or we can say that we currently have an apparatus, and despite the fact that something we're immediately seeing might be ambiguous and look like something we've previously seen we could have further sense data that tell us that it isn't what we'd seen before - so what looks like a famous statue could be revealed to just be a photograph of a famous statue when you move around and see that it doesn't change corresponding to how it should.
But either of these interpretations - the past-centric and future-centric ones - are just that, interpretations. They still aren't 'about' anything.
What this article seems to be claiming is that anything you're currently seeing is actually 'about' things in the past, but clearly this isn't true. Vision isn't 'about' anything. When you have a robot with sensors you don't say that when they 'see' an object in their way what they're seeing is 'about' their programming, so they're not actually seeing anything in the present.
Sorry, I'm not putting this very well. Basically I'm trying to say that either their claim is banal - the obvious fact that our eyes are only capable of creating objects in our 'minds' based on things that have been saliant in the past (such as emphasising red objects - i.e. berries - in a green field - i.e. leaves - more that they actually contrast), since obviously our visual system has evolved based on what has been saliant in the past. Or they are making an incorrect claim that current vision is just 'seeing the past' because we don't actually get new ideas from our visual fields, we just try to fit it into previous sets of sense data. The reason that this must be incorrect is that past sense data is no more 'real' no more 'seeing actual objects' than current sense data. So if I see an apple now, it isn't fair to say I only know it's an apple because I've seen apples before because the only sense in which I've seen apples before is the sense in which I'm currently seeing apples. There isn't a 'good old days' when we really saw things, and which we're just reminding ourselves of every time we try to see again...
Slightly off-topic, but bear with me: they mention using Ximian Setup Tools, but all mention of this project appears to have dissappeared from Ximian's website. Does anyone know what's happened to it? Are the tools orphaned, abandoned, or just moved (and hidden somewhere)? They were looking very promising, and in terms of achieving what this Debian desktop project is trying to, they seem to fit the bill very well...
I'm surprised nobody has pondered the fact that this could be a Very Good Thing(TM). If they continue to do this, surely they'll be blowing big holes in any future court cases. They say "Napster [replace with future contentious system] can't feature songs which are copyright". Napster says "How do we tell?". Judge says "Fine, you have to filter by filename". Napster says "But wait a minute, half the stuff with filenames of copyright songs isn't those songs at all". The fact is, by engaging with these networks, even to undermine them, the record industry damages their own court defence. Basically they will single-handedly prove that these networks aren't just for exchanging copyright material which you might not have the right to do, but for just about anything. When a court realises that, their case is blown to hell......I guess it's wishful thinking to imagine they would notice, though...
As a Brit, and a TV owner, what I want to know is why the BBC is spending licence-payers money on this sort of thing? What does trying to force people to watch programmes they don't want to to do with quality broadcasting?
And yes, I know they weren't forced to actually watch it - but surely it isn't appropriate for them to be spending this money telling people they were wrong when they looked in the Radio Times and went 'nah, I don't want to watch this'...
I've never understood why these sorts of publications should not care about anti-Linux issues. Any *good* business publication will realise that their readers *do* want to know about things that save them money. If you had to pay for air, do you really imagine a savvy business paper wouldn't discuss a new possibility of getting air for free. Why should they believe in commoditisation of everything, rather than acknowledge that businesses with lower overheads get higher profits...?
Well if that's the case, the person I was replying to is still wrong. IE isn't the best as substituting fonts or whatever, any browser can do that. It's the serious html errors that IE 'excels' at - it will display pretty much any page, however little the code resembles an instruction to display what it in fact produces...
That's a silly argument. That's like saying the best compiler is the one that manages to do *something* with completely incorrect code. Never mind that what you wrote won't compile in any other compiler, or that the program doesn't actually do anything like what you meant it to... The point of standards is that you *don't* have ambiguity. It shouldn't be that browsers have any decision in how to render the important things (sure, some things like UI elements can be browser specific). But people *should* write flawless HTML - otherwise there's no reason why different browsers should render what they write the same...
And you know the really funny thing? There *is* a way to get people to watch ads - make good ads. People didn't watch the WASSSSUP ads because they had to, but because they enjoyed them. Same with Gap adverts. Same with movie trailers. How strange an idea is it that people will watch adverts if they're good?
Actually, sorry, but you're completely wrong. *Sure*, if people decide copyright is no longer relevant, and start copying movies so that studios can't afford to make the number they do we'll have fewer movies. But who says that we have to have as many movies as are made now? Why *should* we have computer games that people spent 2 years making? That's the point I'm making.
There's no reason why people have to support these sorts of things in perpetuity. There will always be bands who can make enough off live gigs, and films that don't waste so much money on special effects that they can survive on box office profits of the first printing of reels. So perhaps these things will become more expensive. So what? If society as a whole decides that copyright is no longer relevant, these are the sort of things that they decide along with it. But you can't just say 'Wah, they won't make 300 million dollar movies anymore' - perhaps society as a whole is willing to accept this.
My point, simply, is that if society does decide that, there is *no way* that the 'content industry' can protest about it. They can try to point out to consumers what they'd be losing, but there's no moral argument above social agreement to back it up.
Your property rights argument is a very good parallel. Clearly there is no reason why I can't walk off with your chair, except that we've all agreed that we don't like that, and want people to keep things where they are. We also have the power to make people who don't agree with us toe the line, but if everyone decides that property rights aren't relevant anymore, nobody can claim we have essential property rights (except maybe Ayn Rand). If society choose communism, that's as valid a choice as capitalism, and you can't argue with it if the society is agreed.
And yes, I think there's quite a bit of evidence that people don't terribly respect copyright anymore. The idea that Britney would be penniless if we didn't have copyright is ridiculous - official merchandising would always make her millions, even if the exact same thing was available but could have the 'official' label because of Trademarks.... Not, of course, that that's a good thing!
Okay, to address your points in the opposite order: no, I wouldn't abolish the welfare or health systems because these are to protect *moral rights* / complete society's obligations. I believe that it is wrong to let someone starve or die of a disease that could be prevented.
Copyright, however, is completely the other way round. We don't have copyright because we feel that it is a moral obligation to make sure that anyone who has a book in them can write it down. We have copyright because we agreed that we want to promote the *luxury* items that books are. Sure, an argument could be made that scientific discovery is what is being promoted by copyright, but if that were so, I think it would be wrong - governments should be ensuring that, say, medical advances are made, not the 'whim' of the consumers. Also, largely scientific advances are 'given to the public domain' - people build on one another's advances, so people don't restrict how widely this knowledge is disseminated.
But to get to the central point of your complaint about my paragraph above, yes, I am serious when I say it, and no, it isn't inconsistent. By and large these days, books have a single print-run. Yes, there are a very small fraction (of very visible books) that have multiple print-runs - namely bestsellers. In these cases, it's never the question between the author starving or not, but between them getting very rich or only moderately rich. And even then, this is limited to the first book they write - the first run of, say, the *second* Harry Potter book was very large, and enough to make JK Rowling the enormous amount she did without a second run.
But essentially, if you buy a book, the likelihood is that it will be a first-run. What does this say? Well it says that the person who printed it had a great advantage in having a head-start. Even if someone else was allowed to print books, they couldn't do it fast enough. The simple fact is that it's the first *month*, not the first year, let alone 70 years, after a book has been published that determines how much the author gets - once you have or haven't got reviews, that's about it. Even if people had the opportunity to print other people's books, they largely wouldn't - since you don't get people telling each other to go out and buy this amazing book which was newly released for the second time!!!
Fact is, it's not a matter of people spending time printing stuff anymore - books appear from the publisher, and once that happens nobody else has an opportunity to steal the contents and print their own version.
I've said this before, but it's important and needs saying. The most important part of what Gilmore is saying is the bit about 'A mandate from all concerned parties' without consultation of consumers. You just know that the 'content industry' would argue that consumers are/never/ going to ask for their rights to be curtailled, but that's exactly the point.
The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'. They did this to promote the public domain - to get more stuff written by allowing authors a temporary monopoly on their works.
But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right. This isn't like saying that we shouldn't kill people. The point is that it's a mutual agreement on the part of a population, for their own gain. And the moment society decides it doesn't get anything from copyright any more copyright is defunct. You can't argue 'But copying is *wrong*'. It's not. All that is wrong, and all that would make copying wrong, is if everyone in society has decided to take on this copyright burden, and a few people decided they would be freeloaders.
As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...
Erm no - no need - they already have. If you type a word into (spit) IE6 it redirects you to msn search for the terms. *Really* annoying when you just misspelt something, and it doesn't give you a chance to correct it, destroying the URL. And worse, on many machines it seems to freeze up for AGES before deciding this is what it's going to do.
So yeah, they just need to see the MSN search space - nothing more complex than that.
Slashdot Mirror
Erm, but isn't the fact that Wikipedia actually is a pretty good source for very many things people are searching for on Google important? That's the difference between it and other linkfarms - I (as I'm sure is the case with many others) am very frequently happy to follow a link to Wikipedia, where I find the information I'm looking for. The same isn't true for other, lazier sites.
And isn't Google's aim to get you to the information you're looking for?
Um, now that's just bordering on pathetic. With 2 billion dollars you could save millions of lives, and yet you wouldn't kill innocent people to allow this, just because it would mean blood on your hand? ;-)
You're right, you don't. In which case, given that the GPL program is copyright, you have no right to copy it or distribute it. What's the problem with that?
Obligatory reference to FaxYourMP.com. I wonder why nobody in the US has managed to replicate this incredibly useful service. Web form -> paper fax. I've got three replies from two faxes sent! A 150% success rate aint bad...
Er, no. He lost the selection, decided to stand anyway (just not as the Labour candidate), which he was perfectly entitled to do. And was kicked out, which they were perfectly entitled to do.
Okay. I'm not sure where we're disagreeing. Specifically, I'm not sure what of your reply is controversial, or new that these researchers have come up with - I take it that most of what you say has been accepted for years.
/just/ the things that we have special ways of perceiving are things we've perceived before' - that's the /reason/ we have special ways of perceiving them - BECAUSE we've perceived them before....
I'm going to have to disagree strongly with one thing you say, however:
"The brain then is actually banking on the replicability of natural phenomena: light striking objects and reflecting a particular set of wavelengths consistently. Photon scatter, absorption, and transmittance properties are conserved by the same materials. Only in such a world is it useful for the brain to assign percepts called color and shapes to these sensations."
The reason I'd deny this is that the brain isn't banking on anything. This would be a weird sort of functional explanation that just doesn't hold up. It isn't that at some time your brain / genes / evolution thought 'Hey, maybe I'll have past experiences again / similar experiences in the future'. What actually happens is that experiences happened to it, and some animals had a freak mutation which meant that they were better at reacting to this experience, for example because they were especially good at seeing red berries amongst green leave, and so this gene survived.
To characterise this as being in a state now where the brain 'thinks' 'things will occur that are similar to those that have occurred in the past' gets it totally the wrong way round - it's simply that those things that have been up for testing in the past we have developed tests for. It would be taking a hideously bad test population to look at those things which we perceive in some interesting way and think 'Wow, it's odd,
But we have known for years and years and years that illusions occur at the level of perception and reaction rather than higher order analysis. We can pinpoint, for example, the way that nerves on the retina are arranged so as to emphasis edges, by have a large positive stimulus surrounded by a negative surround. Imagine a doughnut - when a line where the amount of light changes crosses one side of the hole in the doughtnut there is more of a positive response than when it covers the whole doughnut, because the area of the doughnut rather than the hole inhibits the stimulation that the centre produces, so two-thirds covered doughnut-shaped nerves produce a greater reaction, and thus look like it is brighter, than a completely covered bit, in the middle of the light.
That is to say, we know that there are basic, anatomical reasons for visual illusions.
And of course how we make sense of stimuli has to do with past experience, again, I can't see how this is anything more than banal. They can't seriously think it's a new idea that how we see is the product of past visual experiences. Only a creationist could think that it wasn't...
Sure. You're absolutely right. A computer can tell us that the wavelengths of light hitting two sensors are the same. If what these researchers are saying is 'Isn't it bizarre that that doesn't happen... that we can have illusions?' then the simple answer is that if that was what eyes were trying to do (as much as they're trying to do anything) that would be a problem, but they're not.
Frequently we don't see two instances of the same wavelengths of light as the same colour, but that's because there are obvious evolutionary advantages of not seeing the same 'colour' as the same colour quale (the 'mental image of the colour'). Such as when there are red berries amongst green leaves, where it is advantageous for the red to look more red and the green to look more green, or such as edge detection, where if you have alternating strips of light and dark the light seems lighter and the dark seems darker where they meet, emphasising the edge.
I assumed that everyone had accepted that these were the products of evolution, and didn't think that illusions were illusions in a pejorative sense (i.e. not defects) - but it seems like these guys are presenting this as something new and exciting, and I just can't see how...
Whilst this article is interesting, and raises some interesting points, they seem to come to some very radical conclusions, based on what can only be called a mistaken belief that vision is 'about' something. They claim that rather than perceiving what is out there, we perceive what we've been trained to see, by past experience individually and of the species.
Well, we can take this two ways. We could say that we've grown eyes and a complete visual system purely based on previous stimuli, in which case it's obvious that new stimuli will only be interpreted in terms of past stimuli. Or we can say that we currently have an apparatus, and despite the fact that something we're immediately seeing might be ambiguous and look like something we've previously seen we could have further sense data that tell us that it isn't what we'd seen before - so what looks like a famous statue could be revealed to just be a photograph of a famous statue when you move around and see that it doesn't change corresponding to how it should.
But either of these interpretations - the past-centric and future-centric ones - are just that, interpretations. They still aren't 'about' anything.
What this article seems to be claiming is that anything you're currently seeing is actually 'about' things in the past, but clearly this isn't true. Vision isn't 'about' anything. When you have a robot with sensors you don't say that when they 'see' an object in their way what they're seeing is 'about' their programming, so they're not actually seeing anything in the present.
Sorry, I'm not putting this very well. Basically I'm trying to say that either their claim is banal - the obvious fact that our eyes are only capable of creating objects in our 'minds' based on things that have been saliant in the past (such as emphasising red objects - i.e. berries - in a green field - i.e. leaves - more that they actually contrast), since obviously our visual system has evolved based on what has been saliant in the past. Or they are making an incorrect claim that current vision is just 'seeing the past' because we don't actually get new ideas from our visual fields, we just try to fit it into previous sets of sense data. The reason that this must be incorrect is that past sense data is no more 'real' no more 'seeing actual objects' than current sense data. So if I see an apple now, it isn't fair to say I only know it's an apple because I've seen apples before because the only sense in which I've seen apples before is the sense in which I'm currently seeing apples. There isn't a 'good old days' when we really saw things, and which we're just reminding ourselves of every time we try to see again...
Slightly off-topic, but bear with me: they mention using Ximian Setup Tools, but all mention of this project appears to have dissappeared from Ximian's website. Does anyone know what's happened to it? Are the tools orphaned, abandoned, or just moved (and hidden somewhere)? They were looking very promising, and in terms of achieving what this Debian desktop project is trying to, they seem to fit the bill very well...
Anyone...?
...the scariest part has to be that they let a Windows operating system anywhere near brain surgery....
...the irony being that this appears to be only in Windows Media format!
So long as you're happy to use tabs to hold your news sites (which most people love after about three days usage):
1) Open each site in a tab.
2) Click Bookmarks | Bookmark this group of tabs.
3) Place resulting bookmark on your personal toolbar.
...says 'micromoog'...
I'm surprised nobody has pondered the fact that this could be a Very Good Thing(TM). If they continue to do this, surely they'll be blowing big holes in any future court cases. They say "Napster [replace with future contentious system] can't feature songs which are copyright". Napster says "How do we tell?". Judge says "Fine, you have to filter by filename". Napster says "But wait a minute, half the stuff with filenames of copyright songs isn't those songs at all". The fact is, by engaging with these networks, even to undermine them, the record industry damages their own court defence. Basically they will single-handedly prove that these networks aren't just for exchanging copyright material which you might not have the right to do, but for just about anything. When a court realises that, their case is blown to hell... ...I guess it's wishful thinking to imagine they would notice, though...
As a Brit, and a TV owner, what I want to know is why the BBC is spending licence-payers money on this sort of thing? What does trying to force people to watch programmes they don't want to to do with quality broadcasting?
And yes, I know they weren't forced to actually watch it - but surely it isn't appropriate for them to be spending this money telling people they were wrong when they looked in the Radio Times and went 'nah, I don't want to watch this'...
I've never understood why these sorts of publications should not care about anti-Linux issues. Any *good* business publication will realise that their readers *do* want to know about things that save them money. If you had to pay for air, do you really imagine a savvy business paper wouldn't discuss a new possibility of getting air for free. Why should they believe in commoditisation of everything, rather than acknowledge that businesses with lower overheads get higher profits...?
Well if that's the case, the person I was replying to is still wrong. IE isn't the best as substituting fonts or whatever, any browser can do that. It's the serious html errors that IE 'excels' at - it will display pretty much any page, however little the code resembles an instruction to display what it in fact produces...
That's a silly argument. That's like saying the best compiler is the one that manages to do *something* with completely incorrect code. Never mind that what you wrote won't compile in any other compiler, or that the program doesn't actually do anything like what you meant it to... The point of standards is that you *don't* have ambiguity. It shouldn't be that browsers have any decision in how to render the important things (sure, some things like UI elements can be browser specific). But people *should* write flawless HTML - otherwise there's no reason why different browsers should render what they write the same...
And you know the really funny thing? There *is* a way to get people to watch ads - make good ads. People didn't watch the WASSSSUP ads because they had to, but because they enjoyed them. Same with Gap adverts. Same with movie trailers. How strange an idea is it that people will watch adverts if they're good?
Actually, sorry, but you're completely wrong. *Sure*, if people decide copyright is no longer relevant, and start copying movies so that studios can't afford to make the number they do we'll have fewer movies. But who says that we have to have as many movies as are made now? Why *should* we have computer games that people spent 2 years making? That's the point I'm making.
There's no reason why people have to support these sorts of things in perpetuity. There will always be bands who can make enough off live gigs, and films that don't waste so much money on special effects that they can survive on box office profits of the first printing of reels. So perhaps these things will become more expensive. So what? If society as a whole decides that copyright is no longer relevant, these are the sort of things that they decide along with it. But you can't just say 'Wah, they won't make 300 million dollar movies anymore' - perhaps society as a whole is willing to accept this.
My point, simply, is that if society does decide that, there is *no way* that the 'content industry' can protest about it. They can try to point out to consumers what they'd be losing, but there's no moral argument above social agreement to back it up.
Your property rights argument is a very good parallel. Clearly there is no reason why I can't walk off with your chair, except that we've all agreed that we don't like that, and want people to keep things where they are. We also have the power to make people who don't agree with us toe the line, but if everyone decides that property rights aren't relevant anymore, nobody can claim we have essential property rights (except maybe Ayn Rand). If society choose communism, that's as valid a choice as capitalism, and you can't argue with it if the society is agreed.
And yes, I think there's quite a bit of evidence that people don't terribly respect copyright anymore. The idea that Britney would be penniless if we didn't have copyright is ridiculous - official merchandising would always make her millions, even if the exact same thing was available but could have the 'official' label because of Trademarks.... Not, of course, that that's a good thing!
Okay, to address your points in the opposite order: no, I wouldn't abolish the welfare or health systems because these are to protect *moral rights* / complete society's obligations. I believe that it is wrong to let someone starve or die of a disease that could be prevented.
Copyright, however, is completely the other way round. We don't have copyright because we feel that it is a moral obligation to make sure that anyone who has a book in them can write it down. We have copyright because we agreed that we want to promote the *luxury* items that books are. Sure, an argument could be made that scientific discovery is what is being promoted by copyright, but if that were so, I think it would be wrong - governments should be ensuring that, say, medical advances are made, not the 'whim' of the consumers. Also, largely scientific advances are 'given to the public domain' - people build on one another's advances, so people don't restrict how widely this knowledge is disseminated.
But to get to the central point of your complaint about my paragraph above, yes, I am serious when I say it, and no, it isn't inconsistent. By and large these days, books have a single print-run. Yes, there are a very small fraction (of very visible books) that have multiple print-runs - namely bestsellers. In these cases, it's never the question between the author starving or not, but between them getting very rich or only moderately rich. And even then, this is limited to the first book they write - the first run of, say, the *second* Harry Potter book was very large, and enough to make JK Rowling the enormous amount she did without a second run.
But essentially, if you buy a book, the likelihood is that it will be a first-run. What does this say? Well it says that the person who printed it had a great advantage in having a head-start. Even if someone else was allowed to print books, they couldn't do it fast enough. The simple fact is that it's the first *month*, not the first year, let alone 70 years, after a book has been published that determines how much the author gets - once you have or haven't got reviews, that's about it. Even if people had the opportunity to print other people's books, they largely wouldn't - since you don't get people telling each other to go out and buy this amazing book which was newly released for the second time!!!
Fact is, it's not a matter of people spending time printing stuff anymore - books appear from the publisher, and once that happens nobody else has an opportunity to steal the contents and print their own version.
I've said this before, but it's important and needs saying. The most important part of what Gilmore is saying is the bit about 'A mandate from all concerned parties' without consultation of consumers. You just know that the 'content industry' would argue that consumers are /never/ going to ask for their rights to be curtailled, but that's exactly the point.
The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'. They did this to promote the public domain - to get more stuff written by allowing authors a temporary monopoly on their works.
But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right. This isn't like saying that we shouldn't kill people. The point is that it's a mutual agreement on the part of a population, for their own gain. And the moment society decides it doesn't get anything from copyright any more copyright is defunct. You can't argue 'But copying is *wrong*'. It's not. All that is wrong, and all that would make copying wrong, is if everyone in society has decided to take on this copyright burden, and a few people decided they would be freeloaders.
As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...
I don't use Windows either. But no, I don't think it does.
Erm no - no need - they already have. If you type a word into (spit) IE6 it redirects you to msn search for the terms. *Really* annoying when you just misspelt something, and it doesn't give you a chance to correct it, destroying the URL. And worse, on many machines it seems to freeze up for AGES before deciding this is what it's going to do.
So yeah, they just need to see the MSN search space - nothing more complex than that.