However, since most of the infringement taking place over P2P is of relatively new material that certainly would fall within a reasonable period of copyright rather than older works that would have become public domain by now without the extensions, there's not much practical connection between them.
I refer you to this case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone and http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16230 , in which the estate of the late Margaret Mitchell successfully extorted, excuse me, settled with Alice Randal and her publisher, Houghton Mifflin over publication of a reinterpretation (parody) of "Gone With the Wind". Margaret Mitchell wrote her work in 1936, yet in 2001, 65 years later, the estate was able to pursue legal action against an entirely new work.
If you think old music doesn't count, try doing a few large public performances of old Beatles tunes from the 60s (40 years ago). The Girl Scouts threatened with a lawsuit for singing songs without paying performance fees (ASCAP backed down after public outcry). Other charities apparently have been threatened more recently as has a group of auto mechanics who had the audacity to play music too loudly (perhaps so it could be heard over the sound of impact wrenches?). Turns out that customers in the waiting area could hear the music, so the music industry thinks it's entitled to a performance fee. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071210/010636.shtml
Your argument also fails to note that every time the copyright for Mickey Mouse and other Disney creations is about to expire, noises are made about how longer copyright terms are needed. See this article for some details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that copyright was never intended to provide perpetual income streams for Disney, Sony, or any other entity, nor was copyright intended to squelch all public uses (singing around a campfire? Please). The fact that these companies and others have successfully bought, excuse me, lobbied for, ever more extensive copyright terms is an abrogation of the social contract originally contemplated by the founders. It is a theft of goods and property from the public domain. As such, I see it as precisely the same thing as a "taking" of real property, and I would hope that someone schooled in the law would run with that argument to see where it leads.
This is an attack on taxpayers, an attack on education, and an attack on Constitutional civil law.
Speaking of Constitutional law (and IANAL), it would seem to me that someone might want to have a look at the Constitution's "takings" clause. It would seem to me that the diminution of the purchaser's rights of fair use, first sale doctrine and so forth caused by ever-more draconian laws (DMCA, flagrantly abusive copyright term extension) would constitute a Governmental "taking" that is just as real as the taking (or diluted value) of real property. At the least, I would think that such a "taking" is as real as the "intellectual property" argument being advanced by the various **AA organizations.
On another note (and this idea is not original to me, but I cannot remember now where I read it), the idea has been advanced that since in many ways we are now treating "intellectual property" in the same manner as real property, we should treat it as real property in another aspect as well -- taxation. I am taxed on the value of my house and the land on which it is built. Well and good. If this so-called "intellectual property" is indeed so very, very valuable, then it should be taxed at a rate commensurate with the value assigned. Anything else would be, to my mind, grossly unfair to the the rest of the citizenry. How much would you care to bet that, subject to taxation, the copyrights to, say, "Gone with the Wind", "Bambi", "Mickey Mouse", etc. would suddenly be allowed to expire?
wtansill, I realized your alligator joke was an unoriginal attempt at humor.
I bet you know some Chink, Polack and Blonde jokes, too.
IANAL, but I've paid attention enough that I've learned that here in the US, lawyers are at least as important as police and firemen.
Next time I'll be sure to tag my submissions so that they will be recognized as tongue-in-cheek. I surely don't wish to see the humor-impaired strain their necks as the jokes whiz by overhead. I could be sued for that!
Could a satellite potentially deflect the asteroid? Yes, if one even hits it. Will it even hit a satellite much and will it cause it to hit the earth, I don't know.
I think it's too big a risk to take. We'll just have to blow up all the satellites before the asteroid has a chance to hit one. There! Problem solved!
I'm not saying that creating one would be a good idea, but if, on the off-chance, one were created by the LHC it will probably be innocuous. I wish I could make those sound less like famous last words.
What would be really scary is if the chief scientist says "Hold my beer and watch this" just before pushing the master ignition switch...
So women, if you don't want to send a message that your interested, quit flirting. If you are interested, go ahead and be forward.
Well said sir! "Get lost!" and "Let's go back to my place and fuck like rabbits" are completely unambiguous to even the most clueless. Ladies, be clear!
Not all foreigners are fools and newbies you know.
No, they are not. But at some point after you've eaten all your seed corn, you go bust for your shortsightedness. You want to automate out the 90% (or whatever the true number is)? Great. Let's see you allocate the money up front to pay for the additional analysis, coding, and infrastructure that it takes to make that happen. But you know what? In most cases, I don't see that happening because hey, we have a deadline -- we have to get this application up and running now!!!.
So you wind up with crappy systems that take a ton of people to maintain, and then you moan about the back-end costs when you were too cheap to pay for "frills" during the analysis/design/development phase of the lifecycle. So now, you've cheaped out on the front end, you're blaming IT for the fact that you need more people than you think necessary to run your apps, you cheap out on the back end by trying to offshore your labor costs, and then wonder why you can't get qualified local staff when you need them. Sorry, I'm not buying it.
Clearly "IT" has little value in and of itself. What does have value is a subset of their critical applications infrastructure. But the other 90% falls squarely in the laps of people like me who send the work to India, South America, China to do it for 1/10th the cost. If that work had any inherent strategic value they wouldn't outsource.
And that is the crux of the issue. Clearly, you are too shortsighted to see that you are slitting your own throat. Where the hell will your experienced staff come from (you know, the ones who maintain the systems you consider "critical") if they do not first gain some experience on lesser, or "non-critical" systems? They have to learn somewhere.
It would probably be more effective to just set up a victims fund and pay for counseling for anyone who gets bullied.
Let's not set up that fund just yet, shall we? How about we pass legislation demanding that the citizenry grow some balls such that we don't let trivial shit like MySpace bullying reduce us, collectively, to simpering idiots.
Oh wait -- government likes us that way. Carry on.
The key there is SKILLED. Most of the skilled IT people are already at work for a company or for themselves. What you have left in the pool is a bunch of low level first year grads who haven't seen the environments that these companies offer.
Which is why I walk around with my shorts in a knot most days.
Where do you get these "skilled" people? It takes years of experience. When companies say that they are "only outsourcing low-level jobs", I call bullshit -- they are, as the farmers say, eating their seed corn. If you don't take in new people and allow them to mature on the "low level" stuff, where the hell does management think that the highly skilled people will come from? You don't normally step out of school with 20 years seniority and experience already under your belt...
I mean, they're certain about this, right? In that case, I think they should waive their ethics in this case and try sleeping with some of their supposedly "non-sexually-infectious" patients, and then report our on their success or failure. Go ahead doc -- I'll wait... <sound of crickets chirping>...
Personally, I think we should sue the various "creative" industries for theft -- the constant lobbying for copyright extension is, in my mind, nothing more than legalized theft from the public at large. With appropriate bribes... errrrr.... "contributions" to the congresscritters as "incentive" to change the law to the copyright holder's tastes...
An additional benefit is that it has a rather sobering effect on local know-it-all's when they see that their work is in fact inferior to what we can get from a third world sourcing partner. After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices.
By golly, I've been waiting for someone to step up to the plate and be honest with the American worker -- fat, overpaid, lazy, too cozy in their narrow view that their work can't be done by anyone else! I say we show them all! And, of course, the best way to lead, is by example. I propose that we start at the top! Outsource the CEO, President, hell, even the Chairman of the Board! After all, we've had far too many examples recently of massive incompetence
Mitchell Caplan cost E*Trade billions, and they had to get a 2.5 billion dollar cash infusion (for 17% of the company). Can't find an exact severance, but he was paid over 14 million in total compensation in 2003 alone (source: http://swz.salary.com/execcomp/layouthtmls/excl_execreport_103364.html/, so I don't feel too badly for him.
I say, enough is enough! It's high time we bring in some CEO's from India, China, hell, even Mexico or some other third world country. If we're going to run our corporations into the ground, at least we can it with cheaper senior management!
I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!!
Is it now? Odd, how MS only came up with its new proposed standard after they were told they no longer qualified in MA due to that state's adoption of the Enterprise Technical Resource Model (ETRM). This may have been overturned by now, but was the root cause of OOXML's hasty introduction in the first place.
ODF is a standard that can be freely implemented by any vendor. Please describe the nature of any patent encumbrance you believe exists.
Didn't know about Apple, but Novel is a rather special case, don't you think, given that they caved to the MS bogeyman that claims all manner of patent infringement by FOSS. Despite which they won't actually tell anyone what patents are supposedly infringed. Smells like FUD spreading to me.
While my wife might agree with the "pompous" accusation, I'm fairly certain she'd disagree with the cunt part. I did not, BTW, label you with any sort of tawdry moniker ("pompous cunt" being one such). I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from that sort of thing as well, or your "karma" might just fade away on its own...
Please point out my obvious troll! I made a serious point. A lot of people on Slashdot only hate the idea of OOXML because Microsoft wrote it.
Now, are you going to discuss it or hide behind the moderation system?
No, we hate it because:
It is not meant as a specification to be implemented openly by others -- it was only introduced to quash a competing, already ratified standard so as to maintain Microsoft's Office Monopoly.
It is not an open standard -- it does not promise to be patent unencumbered.
As provided, it cannot be implemented by anyone other than MicroSoft, since it relies on other specifications that are not open, and that are unavailable to other implementers.
That MicroSoft has made some things "deprecated" is a smokescreen. Many things in, say, Java, or C are "deprecated". That does not relieve a developer of the need to implement those features anyway in order to maintain backward compatibility with older documents/programs.
Aside form the above and a few other things, it's a great standard... </sarcasm> Now -- would you care to tell us who you are and who you actually work for "Anonymous"?
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If you think old music doesn't count, try doing a few large public performances of old Beatles tunes from the 60s (40 years ago). The Girl Scouts threatened with a lawsuit for singing songs without paying performance fees (ASCAP backed down after public outcry). Other charities apparently have been threatened more recently as has a group of auto mechanics who had the audacity to play music too loudly (perhaps so it could be heard over the sound of impact wrenches?). Turns out that customers in the waiting area could hear the music, so the music industry thinks it's entitled to a performance fee. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071210/010636.shtml
Your argument also fails to note that every time the copyright for Mickey Mouse and other Disney creations is about to expire, noises are made about how longer copyright terms are needed. See this article for some details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that copyright was never intended to provide perpetual income streams for Disney, Sony, or any other entity, nor was copyright intended to squelch all public uses (singing around a campfire? Please). The fact that these companies and others have successfully bought, excuse me, lobbied for, ever more extensive copyright terms is an abrogation of the social contract originally contemplated by the founders. It is a theft of goods and property from the public domain. As such, I see it as precisely the same thing as a "taking" of real property, and I would hope that someone schooled in the law would run with that argument to see where it leads.
On another note (and this idea is not original to me, but I cannot remember now where I read it), the idea has been advanced that since in many ways we are now treating "intellectual property" in the same manner as real property, we should treat it as real property in another aspect as well -- taxation. I am taxed on the value of my house and the land on which it is built. Well and good. If this so-called "intellectual property" is indeed so very, very valuable, then it should be taxed at a rate commensurate with the value assigned. Anything else would be, to my mind, grossly unfair to the the rest of the citizenry. How much would you care to bet that, subject to taxation, the copyrights to, say, "Gone with the Wind", "Bambi", "Mickey Mouse", etc. would suddenly be allowed to expire?
Next time I'll be sure to tag my submissions so that they will be recognized as tongue-in-cheek. I surely don't wish to see the humor-impaired strain their necks as the jokes whiz by overhead. I could be sued for that!
Wi-fi interferes with the crystals and prevents one from being able to channel the spirits. That's the real issue that no one wants to talk about.
So you wind up with crappy systems that take a ton of people to maintain, and then you moan about the back-end costs when you were too cheap to pay for "frills" during the analysis/design/development phase of the lifecycle. So now, you've cheaped out on the front end, you're blaming IT for the fact that you need more people than you think necessary to run your apps, you cheap out on the back end by trying to offshore your labor costs, and then wonder why you can't get qualified local staff when you need them. Sorry, I'm not buying it.
Oh wait -- government likes us that way. Carry on.
Where do you get these "skilled" people? It takes years of experience. When companies say that they are "only outsourcing low-level jobs", I call bullshit -- they are, as the farmers say, eating their seed corn. If you don't take in new people and allow them to mature on the "low level" stuff, where the hell does management think that the highly skilled people will come from? You don't normally step out of school with 20 years seniority and experience already under your belt...
ADM is going to be so pissed...
I mean, they're certain about this, right? In that case, I think they should waive their ethics in this case and try sleeping with some of their supposedly "non-sexually-infectious" patients, and then report our on their success or failure. Go ahead doc -- I'll wait... <sound of crickets chirping>...
There -- fixed it for you...
Personally, I think we should sue the various "creative" industries for theft -- the constant lobbying for copyright extension is, in my mind, nothing more than legalized theft from the public at large. With appropriate bribes ... errrrr.... "contributions" to the congresscritters as "incentive" to change the law to the copyright holder's tastes...
- Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch walked away with no explicit severance, but with salary, stock, and retirement benefits, left with 160+ million after steering the company to at least a 4-5 billion dollar loss (source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aPxzn5U8zNBo/).
- Mitchell Caplan cost E*Trade billions, and they had to get a 2.5 billion dollar cash infusion (for 17% of the company). Can't find an exact severance, but he was paid over 14 million in total compensation in 2003 alone (source: http://swz.salary.com/execcomp/layouthtmls/excl_execreport_103364.html/, so I don't feel too badly for him.
- Citigroup is writing down billions in assets. Chuck Price left, but according to the WSJ (Link here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119403363814780742.html/ will walk away with about $31 million or so.
I say, enough is enough! It's high time we bring in some CEO's from India, China, hell, even Mexico or some other third world country. If we're going to run our corporations into the ground, at least we can it with cheaper senior management! I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!!- Is it now? Odd, how MS only came up with its new proposed standard after they were told they no longer qualified in MA due to that state's adoption of the Enterprise Technical Resource Model (ETRM). This may have been overturned by now, but was the root cause of OOXML's hasty introduction in the first place.
- ODF is a standard that can be freely implemented by any vendor. Please describe the nature of any patent encumbrance you believe exists.
- Didn't know about Apple, but Novel is a rather special case, don't you think, given that they caved to the MS bogeyman that claims all manner of patent infringement by FOSS. Despite which they won't actually tell anyone what patents are supposedly infringed. Smells like FUD spreading to me.
- I refer you to an excellent article on the MS deprecation smokescreen:
http://fanaticattack.com/2007/the-deprecated-smoke-screen-of-ms-office-open-xml-ooxml.html/ It seems the Office 2007 can't even save its own documents in the format described by the OOXML document. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to just what that says about the "standard".
While my wife might agree with the "pompous" accusation, I'm fairly certain she'd disagree with the cunt part. I did not, BTW, label you with any sort of tawdry moniker ("pompous cunt" being one such). I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from that sort of thing as well, or your "karma" might just fade away on its own...Aside form the above and a few other things, it's a great standard... </sarcasm>
Now -- would you care to tell us who you are and who you actually work for "Anonymous"?