Sherman said that the RIAA will continue to investigate these types of services on college networks and that anyone with knowledge of such systems should report them to RIAA's music piracy hotline, 1-800-BAD-BEAT.
Once again, the RIAA demonstrates that it doesn't know who or what it's up against.
I can only imagine how many war-dialers will go into infinite-loop mode calling that number.
I'm beginning to think that RIAA really stands for Really Ignorant Arrogant Assholes.
Yeah, timezones and equators and stuff are a bitch so I understand why some people went off.
But I don't have much of an opportunity to read/. at work so when I read the link and found myself ROFL by the second paragraph, I was glad that it was posted.
So I think I understand and can empathi[sz]e with those of you tired of April Fool's Day posts. But after a long day on the east coast of the USA that was markedly devoid of any such tomfoolery, I enjoyed it. Nice piece of satire there, Robin.
The DMCA is just a symptom of trying to impose copyrights in the information age. If we don't get to the source of the problem, copyrights, we will forever be providing a revenue stream to those determined to impose controll over all information we use.
A very insightful statement. But don't stop there! Let's not forget idiotic software and business model patents while we're at it.
Like him or not, RMS has a very good approach when it comes to educating others about these issues: simply refuse to discuss "intellectual property" and explain why it is such a bad term to use. This allows you to explain in detail why copyright law, patent law, and trademark law are being abused today.
"Although one would like to have a simple solution to the problem of misuse of university bandwidth, the congressman's proposed solution does not go to the core elements of the issue," Steinbach said of Carter's push to prosecute college file traders. "There is no simple answer."
I disagree. There is a simple answer: fix the laws that protect a corrupt industry at the expense of their customers. I wonder why legislators aren't asking the very simple question: "Why are millions of Americans willfully ignoring copyright laws?"
It would certainly be helpful if the rhetoric of the entertainment cartels (aka "piracy" and "intellectual property") were removed from the debate.
If you still feel it's unethical, then I applaud your honesty, but you have to admit, it's obvious that some people will feel they have a right to steal.
I do not believe that anyone has a "right" to steal, period. There is no justification for the taking of someone's legally obtained property.
Before someone attempts to extend my arguments to the farce that is "intellectual property", I feel it necessary to post the definition of theft: "The act or instance of stealing : larceny". Which leads us to the definition of stealing: "To take (the property of another) without permission or right". Which leads us to the definition of property: "1. Something owned, esp. real estate. 2. A characteristic trait, quality, or attribute. 3. The exclusive right to own something : ownership. 4. A movable article other than costumes and scenery that is used in a play or movie."
Anyone that talks about "intellectual property" has already come to the conclusion that the Emperor is wearing a nice new suit. Their opinion should be scrutinized accordingly.
The real tradegy of our current environment is that large corporate interests have been able to make normally reasonable people question their common sense and morality.
I agree that we need to work through our representatives to achieve change, but physical property is vastly different from the ownership of ideas, both in theory and in law.
Why is it immoral to steal. You present this assumption as if it is fact, but is it?
No, it is not a fact. Rather it is what is known as a "more" (con accento) in sociological terms. Murder is also considered to be a more in most societies. Contrast this to what is known as a folkway in sociological terms. A folkway is something like: "You should be married before having children."
The difference between a more and a folkway is the scope of the impact to society. Mores have a greater impact to a given society than folkways.
IMO, stealing a car is violation of the more that society has agreed upon while copying a song is a violation of an artifical folkway that music publishers have pushed upon the public with no regard for the interests of society.
Its the human condition, to try to get stuff for free if its easy to steal it.
Take towels in hotels, cutlery or even glasses in bars. People take them knowing full well its illegal.
No. It is not the "human condition" to steal. I do not steal towels or cutlery or glasses because that is physical property that someone had to manufacture and someone else had to buy. It would be immoral and unethical for me to steal those things.
Songs are not physical property, as much as the RIAA would like you to think they are. Songs are creative entities that are sometimes captured on physical media. Given the chance, most people would welcome the opportunity to reward the authors of these entities. But because the publishers have taken an aggressive position to get in the way, people have routed around them.
I respect and reward people and companies that offer me their product and ask for my monetary support. I shun and despise those who treat me as a criminal first, customer second, and demand my monetary support.
Stallman wrote the GNU general puplic licence. That is a great legal invention.
I don't know if "invention" is the right word to use; I would tend to say "Stallman's most clever hack ever was a hack on legal code, not computer code" and I'm not even sure if that's accurate. But I do agree with the spirit of your post: the GPL has done wonders for the freedom of computer users.
I just got back home after attending the FSF Associate Membership meeting at MIT yesterday. Eben Moglen mentioned in his presentation that he has never once had to go to court to defend GPL'ed software. The thing that had most of us chuckling throughout his presentation was what he attributed this success to: TACT!;)
RMS is certainly eccentric, but history is full of eccentric leaders and I believe that history will be kind to this one.
In an educational environment, students should not only be able to learn from source code, but they should be encouraged to play with it, modify it, and be able to give the product of their endeavors away. That way, their modifications can played with, modified, and shared by others to the benefit of everyone. Everyone has the opportunity to scrutinize, modify, and (most importantly) share with everyone else. I find it hard to imagine an environment more conducive to the sharing of information...aka education.
sawanv said:
I havent heard of any uni in which the above is allowed.
That statement comes as a surprise to me if for no other reason than I find it hard to believe that campus sysadmins could restrict the ability to share code. Note my initial use of the word should though. Just because it's not done today doesn't mean that current policy is the Right Thing (tm).:)
I highly recommend this book if you'd like to learn about the kind of environment I have in mind. Sometimes, it's best to go "retro" and shrug off the restrictions that time (and bad laws) place upon us.
Thank you for taking the trouble to support your point of view with sensible arguments; it makes a refreshing change around here.:-)
You're quite welcome. Thank you for making an equally reasonable reply. I agree with most of your points and I think we share the same philosophical grounding. I don't quite agree with your (quite understandable) pragramtic approach, but I won't nitpick.
I'm at a complete loss as to how you were moderated Troll. You didn't deserve that. Perhaps one day more people will realize that it's possible to disagree in a civil manner, and even learn from those that they disagree with.
God damn, I hate "Use open source, just because" posts.
Well, I guess this will probably send you into an apoplectic fit but please understand that that is not my intent.
I would advise this student to recommend to his/her grandfather to actually go one step further and deploy free software for the university but I won't support my reasoning with a "just because" argument.
In an educational environment, students should not only be able to learn from source code, but they should be encouraged to play with it, modify it, and be able to give the product of their endeavors away. That way, their modifications can played with, modified, and shared by others to the benefit of everyone. Everyone has the opportunity to scrutinize, modify, and (most importantly) share with everyone else. I find it hard to imagine an environment more conducive to the sharing of information...aka education.
While I believe that promoting free software primarily on the campus is a worthy goal, I do not think that prohibiting the teaching or usage of alternatives should be prohibited (even if the maker of the software is Microsoft). As others have noted, there is some great software that is not free or even open-source. Much can be learned from this software so it should not be banned completely. But beware the effects of embrace-and-extend business practices.
The primary goal of any learning institution should be to teach its students. The instructors can not do that if their hands are tied by political or philosophical agendas. I recommend encouraging free software for its open nature and the ability to share (especially for the CS majors), but don't lock anything out unilaterally...especially for the faculty. As anathema as it might be to say here on/. there are things we can learn from Microsoft's software even if it's learning what not to do (security comes to mind).
"Cool, and do-no-call activists can write up a nifty perl script that will register every number from 000-000-0000 to 999-999-9999."
Might as well, the telemarketers do essentially the same thing.
My question: Is this legal?
I wouldn't worry or care so much as to whether it would be legal. I would ask the question: is it ethical?
I think this law is a good sign that the tide is changing, that at least some of our reps are beginning to understand that we're pretty fsck'in tired of being dominated by corporate interests for that very reason: they're allowed to operate within the legal space but are totally exempt from any and all social folkways that most of us accept .
Let's not make the same mistake (and I'm not suggesting you are, OECD) of assuming that our personal beliefs are or should be shared by everyone else.
I'm glad to see this development occur, because now the recording studios have to expose their true motive, the one we've all known about for some time now: they don't care about their copyrights, they just want to preserve their distribution channels so that they can continue to engage in the same anti-trust actions that have made them so much money in the past.
Here we have a company that is perfectly willing to pay them for their copyright claims. Yet, quoting from the article:
Plass said the record industry, which fought a legal battle to shutter Napster and has a lawsuit pending against Kazaa, had been "quite hostile" to his initiative.
Record-label executives believe the Netherlands ruling in favor of Kazaa will eventually be reversed and have said they will press ahead with an effort to enforce their rights world-wide.
This pretty much reveals it all. In fact, that second paragaph is particularly interesting; "...and have said they will press ahead with an effort to enforce their rights". Anti-trust legislators around the world should really begin asking them exactly what "rights" they're really trying to enforce, because it's quite obviously not copyrights that they're interested in. And when a cartel believe it has a right to control distribution, governments should have an interest in protecting the public from the corruption of that cartel. And if the recording industry is not a corrupt cartel, then Microsoft is not a monopoly.
This is offtopic and a simple aside, mod appropriately.
Ergo does have a point, but does not argue it in the best way (Sorry Ergo). IMHO, I think that most software/music/movie companies realize that they can't beat the real pirates (aka the best virus developers work for the best anti-virus compaines), but will try to stop the grass roots (Joe Public) copying. Of course, once the crackers develop a good crack, and it becomes distributed, then these companies will try to stop THAT method. And so the game develops - just like car crime and car security companies...
What keeps me up some nights is how similar the RIAA/MPAA's war on hackers is to my country's war on terror. I won't bring out all of the analogies...I'm sure they're fairly obvious even though the scope and stakes are very different.
Interesting. Are you defending IRC DCCs? (which are not fair use, btw) Do you personally vouch for their trustworthiness?
No, I don't vouch for the trustworthiness of any method of file-swapping. My philosophy is caveat emptor in that environment. As for whether or not IRC DCCs constitute an application of fair use, I reject your argument that they are categorically "not fair use" for the simple reason that I could have a LAN consisting of multiple nodes on which I might operate an IRC server that allows those nodes to share software that I have legally purchased. Practical? No. Possible? Sure.
You get extra creativity points for painting those who would like to exercise their right to fair use with software as "someone who'll jerk around in an IRC room all night".
Yes, it really was creative given that the post I was replying to explicitly commented on IRC rooms as disproving the merits of copy protection.
Actually, I was talking about your generalization of computer users in general; IRC is just one avenue that these computer "pirates" tend to travel.
I realize you got a knee-jerk desire to respond however inaccurately to defend your right to fair use (apparently to go on IRC and DCC apps), however next time try to get the context of the the discussion before engaing your fingers.
Thanks for offering me an easy out, but I can't accept it.:) I understand the context of the discussion. You assert that anyone utilizing the DCC function of IRC is, by some default, a software "pirate". My assertion is that there are potential fair uses for DCC.
Generally speaking, I reject the concept of "intellectual property", for which I know that I will be flamed and/or modded down. That's okay, but I wanted to be clear about where I'm coming from.
While it's been repeated a million times, it still needs to be said: Anti-piracy is about the average Joe, not dedicated pirates. These sorts of efforts are aimed at stopping Bob from spitting off a dupe of a game for Ted who is over to watch the game, not to thwart someone who'll jerk around in an IRC room all night trying to DCC a trojan packed distribution.
Wonderfully done, bravo. State the obvious (that anti-piracy targets non-hackers) and then mix in a little FUD (that IRC DCCs are "trojan packed distribution"s).
You get extra creativity points for painting those who would like to exercise their right to fair use with software as "someone who'll jerk around in an IRC room all night".
This lawsuit is a wake-up call (actually a RE-wake-up call since we've already been through this once before in the software arena) to software companies that have gotten too big for their britches: Don't piss off your customers...period.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a card-sized bootable GNU/Linux CD-ROM
--K.
Once again, the RIAA demonstrates that it doesn't know who or what it's up against.
I can only imagine how many war-dialers will go into infinite-loop mode calling that number.
I'm beginning to think that RIAA really stands for Really Ignorant Arrogant Assholes.
--K.
Yeah, timezones and equators and stuff are a bitch so I understand why some people went off.
/. at work so when I read the link and found myself ROFL by the second paragraph, I was glad that it was posted.
But I don't have much of an opportunity to read
So I think I understand and can empathi[sz]e with those of you tired of April Fool's Day posts. But after a long day on the east coast of the USA that was markedly devoid of any such tomfoolery, I enjoyed it. Nice piece of satire there, Robin.
--K.
A very insightful statement. But don't stop there! Let's not forget idiotic software and business model patents while we're at it.
Like him or not, RMS has a very good approach when it comes to educating others about these issues: simply refuse to discuss "intellectual property" and explain why it is such a bad term to use. This allows you to explain in detail why copyright law, patent law, and trademark law are being abused today.
--K.
Yep, that almost works.
From the article:
That's where it breaks down.
Critical thinking: it's not a talent; it's paranoia based upon extensive experience.
--K.
Hey, give us a break! We're still struggling with the word "free"!
--K.
I disagree. There is a simple answer: fix the laws that protect a corrupt industry at the expense of their customers. I wonder why legislators aren't asking the very simple question: "Why are millions of Americans willfully ignoring copyright laws?"
It would certainly be helpful if the rhetoric of the entertainment cartels (aka "piracy" and "intellectual property") were removed from the debate.
--K.
LOL!!
--K.
There's a "free as in beer" joke in here somewhere; I'm just not sure what it is. :)
--K.
I do not believe that anyone has a "right" to steal, period. There is no justification for the taking of someone's legally obtained property.
Before someone attempts to extend my arguments to the farce that is "intellectual property", I feel it necessary to post the definition of theft: "The act or instance of stealing : larceny". Which leads us to the definition of stealing: "To take (the property of another) without permission or right". Which leads us to the definition of property: "1. Something owned, esp. real estate. 2. A characteristic trait, quality, or attribute. 3. The exclusive right to own something : ownership. 4. A movable article other than costumes and scenery that is used in a play or movie."
Anyone that talks about "intellectual property" has already come to the conclusion that the Emperor is wearing a nice new suit. Their opinion should be scrutinized accordingly.
The real tradegy of our current environment is that large corporate interests have been able to make normally reasonable people question their common sense and morality.
--K.
Bravo, bluelan. Very well said.
--K.
Please define "intellectual property" and support your claim that it should be defended.
--K.
No, it is not a fact. Rather it is what is known as a "more" (con accento) in sociological terms. Murder is also considered to be a more in most societies. Contrast this to what is known as a folkway in sociological terms. A folkway is something like: "You should be married before having children."
The difference between a more and a folkway is the scope of the impact to society. Mores have a greater impact to a given society than folkways.
IMO, stealing a car is violation of the more that society has agreed upon while copying a song is a violation of an artifical folkway that music publishers have pushed upon the public with no regard for the interests of society.
--K.
No. It is not the "human condition" to steal. I do not steal towels or cutlery or glasses because that is physical property that someone had to manufacture and someone else had to buy. It would be immoral and unethical for me to steal those things.
Songs are not physical property, as much as the RIAA would like you to think they are. Songs are creative entities that are sometimes captured on physical media. Given the chance, most people would welcome the opportunity to reward the authors of these entities. But because the publishers have taken an aggressive position to get in the way, people have routed around them.
I respect and reward people and companies that offer me their product and ask for my monetary support. I shun and despise those who treat me as a criminal first, customer second, and demand my monetary support.
--K.
I don't know if "invention" is the right word to use; I would tend to say "Stallman's most clever hack ever was a hack on legal code, not computer code" and I'm not even sure if that's accurate. But I do agree with the spirit of your post: the GPL has done wonders for the freedom of computer users.
I just got back home after attending the FSF Associate Membership meeting at MIT yesterday. Eben Moglen mentioned in his presentation that he has never once had to go to court to defend GPL'ed software. The thing that had most of us chuckling throughout his presentation was what he attributed this success to: TACT!
RMS is certainly eccentric, but history is full of eccentric leaders and I believe that history will be kind to this one.
Happy Birthday, RMS!
--K.
sawanv said:
That statement comes as a surprise to me if for no other reason than I find it hard to believe that campus sysadmins could restrict the ability to share code. Note my initial use of the word should though. Just because it's not done today doesn't mean that current policy is the Right Thing (tm).
I highly recommend this book if you'd like to learn about the kind of environment I have in mind. Sometimes, it's best to go "retro" and shrug off the restrictions that time (and bad laws) place upon us.
--K.
You're quite welcome. Thank you for making an equally reasonable reply. I agree with most of your points and I think we share the same philosophical grounding. I don't quite agree with your (quite understandable) pragramtic approach, but I won't nitpick.
I'm at a complete loss as to how you were moderated Troll. You didn't deserve that. Perhaps one day more people will realize that it's possible to disagree in a civil manner, and even learn from those that they disagree with.
--K.
Well, I guess this will probably send you into an apoplectic fit but please understand that that is not my intent.
I would advise this student to recommend to his/her grandfather to actually go one step further and deploy free software for the university but I won't support my reasoning with a "just because" argument.
In an educational environment, students should not only be able to learn from source code, but they should be encouraged to play with it, modify it, and be able to give the product of their endeavors away. That way, their modifications can played with, modified, and shared by others to the benefit of everyone. Everyone has the opportunity to scrutinize, modify, and (most importantly) share with everyone else. I find it hard to imagine an environment more conducive to the sharing of information...aka education.
While I believe that promoting free software primarily on the campus is a worthy goal, I do not think that prohibiting the teaching or usage of alternatives should be prohibited (even if the maker of the software is Microsoft). As others have noted, there is some great software that is not free or even open-source. Much can be learned from this software so it should not be banned completely. But beware the effects of embrace-and-extend business practices.
The primary goal of any learning institution should be to teach its students. The instructors can not do that if their hands are tied by political or philosophical agendas. I recommend encouraging free software for its open nature and the ability to share (especially for the CS majors), but don't lock anything out unilaterally...especially for the faculty. As anathema as it might be to say here on
--K.
I wouldn't worry or care so much as to whether it would be legal. I would ask the question: is it ethical?
I think this law is a good sign that the tide is changing, that at least some of our reps are beginning to understand that we're pretty fsck'in tired of being dominated by corporate interests for that very reason: they're allowed to operate within the legal space but are totally exempt from any and all social folkways that most of us accept .
Let's not make the same mistake (and I'm not suggesting you are, OECD) of assuming that our personal beliefs are or should be shared by everyone else.
--K.
Sheesh, time for a new keyboard. ROFL
--K.
Here we have a company that is perfectly willing to pay them for their copyright claims. Yet, quoting from the article:
This pretty much reveals it all. In fact, that second paragaph is particularly interesting; "...and have said they will press ahead with an effort to enforce their rights". Anti-trust legislators around the world should really begin asking them exactly what "rights" they're really trying to enforce, because it's quite obviously not copyrights that they're interested in. And when a cartel believe it has a right to control distribution, governments should have an interest in protecting the public from the corruption of that cartel. And if the recording industry is not a corrupt cartel, then Microsoft is not a monopoly.
--K.
What keeps me up some nights is how similar the RIAA/MPAA's war on hackers is to my country's war on terror. I won't bring out all of the analogies...I'm sure they're fairly obvious even though the scope and stakes are very different.
Bruce Schneier for President???
--K.
Thank you for the millions of feedback emails.
:)
We have added "fix pr0n dewd" to our list of things to look into.
--K.
No, I don't vouch for the trustworthiness of any method of file-swapping. My philosophy is caveat emptor in that environment. As for whether or not IRC DCCs constitute an application of fair use, I reject your argument that they are categorically "not fair use" for the simple reason that I could have a LAN consisting of multiple nodes on which I might operate an IRC server that allows those nodes to share software that I have legally purchased. Practical? No. Possible? Sure.
Actually, I was talking about your generalization of computer users in general; IRC is just one avenue that these computer "pirates" tend to travel.
Thanks for offering me an easy out, but I can't accept it.
Generally speaking, I reject the concept of "intellectual property", for which I know that I will be flamed and/or modded down. That's okay, but I wanted to be clear about where I'm coming from.
--K.
Wonderfully done, bravo. State the obvious (that anti-piracy targets non-hackers) and then mix in a little FUD (that IRC DCCs are "trojan packed distribution"s).
You get extra creativity points for painting those who would like to exercise their right to fair use with software as "someone who'll jerk around in an IRC room all night".
This lawsuit is a wake-up call (actually a RE-wake-up call since we've already been through this once before in the software arena) to software companies that have gotten too big for their britches: Don't piss off your customers...period.
--K.