Sharing something that you don't own in the first place is stealing (and don't give me that bullshit arguement about copying not being stealing). RMS neever understood that either.
"What people need to realize is that Google doesn't really have a choice in the matter. I don't believe this violates the "Don't be evil" motto, as Google is simply trying to follow Chinese law. I don't think Google should be scrutinized for this, considering every other company (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has been forced to do the same thing. What people should be scrutinizing is Chinese law, not companies that follow said laws. Of course, the entire political situation in China is horrible and always has been."
This clearly violates their Don't Be Evil motto. Saying just because everyone else is doing it... is a copout. If Google took a stand and said we're not doing business with China on these terms, it would make a huge statement. Instead, they're more concerned with making money, just like every other company. Don't Be Evil, Unless It's Profitable should be their new motto.
For $60 a year, you can get music on any computer supporting WMA, plus load it onto any mp3 player supporting WMA. Of course no iPod support (thanks Apple). So for a little more you get free music, instead of just a place to store it.
"UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said the university planned to send Jones a letter warning him that faculty hold copyrights to all their course materials and that his campaign encouraged students to violate school policy."
I like how you just make stuff up and get modded up for it. Name one fact to support your claim that he plans to have any sort of legislation put before any govt. body.
"Not quite what I mean - I mean, you can agree to disagree with someone, right? And you can express that opinion if you wish - but what good does it do to get that person fired over a disagreement? If you've made your point known, then you're done, right? Is there a need to be that vindicative?"
Yeah, I'd love to see the grade on your paper when you disagree with your professor's tenets. That's the problem, the professor is in a position of power, and paid for by the state, which shouldn't be pushing any political ideology.
Eerybody will have an mp3 player built into their cell phone in a dfew years and nobody will need an iPod. So unless Apple starts getting into the cell phone business they will lose to Motorola, Nokia, etc.
"Art has zero value -- marketing and working to sell the art is where the value is. I'm investing nearly 6 figure of my own money into No Copyright Studios in Chicago this year. We'll see if we can prove my theory right. Copyright decreases your value as an artist, but it increases the distribution cartel's profit."
Anything that someone wants has value to that person, art included. All products need marketing, even the most obviously useful ones, so I don't know why you're trying to say art has no value, when under your conditions, nothing has value. A loaf of bread has no value to anyone but you if you don't tell anyone you have it for sale. I'm not sure what you mean by decreasing the value of an artist. Copyright does give artists more freedom to provide a living through their artistic work. If a work becomes popular in a non-copyright system, competitors need only make their own copies and sell them for less than the artist's distributor. This makes it difficult to compete since you need to compensate the artist and pay for promotion, while your competitors leech off your promotion and don't pay your artists.
"Moglen and Stallman have voiced concern specifically with TiVo, which uses Linux, because the company collects information on consumers' actions. Moglen said TiVo complied with version 2 of the GPL "by the skin of its teeth" and said the company will find more difficulty complying with GPL version three's anti-DRM provisions.
"Having a personal video recorder which reports every button you push to headquarters when you use the remote control -- and which won't run software if you modify the box so it snoops on you a little less -- is not user-respecting conduct," he said."
Explain this then. This is RMS using the GPL for his own personal agenda. It has nothing to do with the original aims of the GPL.
"As a content creator, your works are already protected: its called "copyright". DRM is not the answer. All DRM guarantees is less use of your product to your customers, all the while those that would commit copyright infringment are often obtaining versions of copyrighted works that are bereft of DRM.
In the end, the only people that are affected are legitimate customers AND content creators that waste money on DRM."
Yeah, copyright is doing a great job of protecting all that content being exchanged on p2p networks. Why don't you remove all the locks on your house/apt. and car. After all, there are laws against breaking and entering, as well as laws against stealing cars.
"I shun any DRM as a simple example of Greed by the person wanting the DRM."
Greed can be good as well as bad, like anger. It depends on the context. If you steal something because you're greedy, that's bad. However, if you invent something with the intent of making a lot of money because you are greedy, and people pay you a lot of money for your invention because they believe it is worth paying for, then greed has served a good purpose.
I'm glad we have such a benevolent leader to hand down a list of freedoms that software developers should and shouldn't have. After all, consumers are sheep who can't be asked to make their own choices as to what types of software they will use or avoid. We need RMS to tell us. All hail to our leader for defining what freedoms we are allowed to have.
"I have the strong opinion that the word "rights" is being abused significantly by pretty much everyone inside and outside of industry. Rights to education, rights to health care, rights to fair use."
You can't have a right that infringes on someone else's rights. Therefore free health care and a free education are not rights. This is because someone is required to administer health care and teach. These people must be paid. So to obtain your "right" to a free education, someone is forced to pay for it. This is an infringement of a more basic right, the right to own your own property.
Most countries compromise your rights "for the good of society". Get used to it.
As for copyright, an artist's work is his property. You don't have the right to distribute it any more than you have the right to take something out of a store without paying for it. When you do redistribute it without his permission, you lower the monetary value of the work, which is taking something from him.
"Gee, who would think? This statement gives the impression that Unix is especially vulnerable to this issue and that there is some solution to this problem. The fact that Unix's user segregation is one of the cleanest and most secure out there obviously doesn't factor into his security assessment and what I really wonder is what his suggestion for changing this "vulnerability" is. If he's looking for a technical one, I think he'll be looking for a while, since there is none. The human is always a security risk on the system. The question is only to what degree. Technology can help minimize the damage but in the end, it's always the same problem."
Ahh, Isn't that what the whole point of the article? That Mac users think they're secure so they don't worry about such thing? You can't see the problem because you're the person he's describing.
I would argue that Macs are mcuh easier to exploit, since most people don't bother to patch the OS. Becuase of the small market share there's really no point in wasting your time attacking Macs, though.
Assuming a Chinese player is more likely to be a gold farmer isn't much different than assuming a Middle Eastern looking person is more likely to be a terrorist. This is prejudice, and if your prejudice translates into denying goods or services solely because of the ethnicity of the person, it's racism. So even people who consider themselves rational become racist when convenient because it's easier to assume a Chinese person is a gold farmer and deny him access than to actually find a better way to screen.
"A platform which doesn't have Active-X, doesn't have services running out of the box, doesnt' have autorun for CDs with Sony Malware, and doesn't have an unfortunate legacy meaning almost all apps require continual admin access, is more secure in my book."
Saying one OS is more secure than another is like saying a DRMed file is more secure than one with no protection. It only takes one person to find one exploit.
"With that in mind, I absolutely agree that Mac users are too smug and that a dedicated malware author could bring many of us to our knees. (Hell, I run as administrator just to save time, despite knowing the risks. It's a gamble, although I keep good backups.) But an OS X (or Linux) malware author would have to be much more skilled than most Windows-targeting skript kiddies to do a lot of damage."
All you do is wait for Apple to release a patch to fix a security issue, reverse engineer the patch, and attack macs. How often do Mac users patch their software?
"The iTunes store offers so far the best online music store and player combination (software and portable). So far none of the other companies have succeded in offering a better combo. The winner takes it all..."
They don't even offer a subscription service. My boss was complaining his son downloads $100 worth of music every month. I told him to get a subscription service and then only pay $20/month or whatever, but he said his son had an iPod. So I told him he was SOL. Not only does Apple not support a subscription service. But they make it impossible for anyone else to sell DRMed music for iPod.
They surveyed people who bought music online, not a random sample of mp3 player owners. This doesn't take into account people who only copy music illegally.
"personally, I'd prefer they be seperate -- but that's me. It's kind of difficult to use your phone while using your iPod, isn't it?
The iPod was successful because the design and interface was clean and "sexy". Do you think that by adding phone, camera, and whatever other capabilities to the device that they will be able to keep it "clean and sexy"? I don't."
Why build a device with a screen, hard drive, and processor of some sort, and then make it only useful for playing mp3s. I'm sure you'll change your mind though when Steve Jobs says it's ok to have an integrated cell phone/mp3 player.
"Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft. Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone (they silently ignore Unices), judges/govt monkeys will be more likely to see that DRM as something wrong. Also, the unwashed masses are more likely to trip into it as well, thus increasing the public awareness.
Ahh, good. Anything bad for WM* and friends is great news for us."
Anyone, including Apple can license WMV and provide a codec for their player. In addition, MS plans to support quicktime players via a plugin. Apple is far more evil in that they don't license their fairplay DRM to protect their iPod, iTMS monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
and you can't touch me unless you can prove someone actually downloaded them. Or you can side with the RIAA.
Polish people were fighting against communism. /.ers are fighting to support it.
Sharing something that you don't own in the first place is stealing (and don't give me that bullshit arguement about copying not being stealing). RMS neever understood that either.
So the /. consensus is it's good to be able to hear lectures from Stanford, but bad to have acess to them at UCLA? It's a joke. Lighten up.
"What people need to realize is that Google doesn't really have a choice in the matter. I don't believe this violates the "Don't be evil" motto, as Google is simply trying to follow Chinese law. I don't think Google should be scrutinized for this, considering every other company (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has been forced to do the same thing. What people should be scrutinizing is Chinese law, not companies that follow said laws. Of course, the entire political situation in China is horrible and always has been."
This clearly violates their Don't Be Evil motto. Saying just because everyone else is doing it... is a copout. If Google took a stand and said we're not doing business with China on these terms, it would make a huge statement. Instead, they're more concerned with making money, just like every other company. Don't Be Evil, Unless It's Profitable should be their new motto.
For $60 a year, you can get music on any computer supporting WMA, plus load it onto any mp3 player supporting WMA. Of course no iPod support (thanks Apple). So for a little more you get free music, instead of just a place to store it.
"UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said the university planned to send Jones a letter warning him that faculty hold copyrights to all their course materials and that his campaign encouraged students to violate school policy."
I like how you just make stuff up and get modded up for it. Name one fact to support your claim that he plans to have any sort of legislation put before any govt. body.
"Not quite what I mean - I mean, you can agree to disagree with someone, right? And you can express that opinion if you wish - but what good does it do to get that person fired over a disagreement? If you've made your point known, then you're done, right? Is there a need to be that vindicative?"
Yeah, I'd love to see the grade on your paper when you disagree with your professor's tenets. That's the problem, the professor is in a position of power, and paid for by the state, which shouldn't be pushing any political ideology.
Eerybody will have an mp3 player built into their cell phone in a dfew years and nobody will need an iPod. So unless Apple starts getting into the cell phone business they will lose to Motorola, Nokia, etc.
"Art has zero value -- marketing and working to sell the art is where the value is. I'm investing nearly 6 figure of my own money into No Copyright Studios in Chicago this year. We'll see if we can prove my theory right. Copyright decreases your value as an artist, but it increases the distribution cartel's profit."
Anything that someone wants has value to that person, art included. All products need marketing, even the most obviously useful ones, so I don't know why you're trying to say art has no value, when under your conditions, nothing has value. A loaf of bread has no value to anyone but you if you don't tell anyone you have it for sale. I'm not sure what you mean by decreasing the value of an artist. Copyright does give artists more freedom to provide a living through their artistic work. If a work becomes popular in a non-copyright system, competitors need only make their own copies and sell them for less than the artist's distributor. This makes it difficult to compete since you need to compensate the artist and pay for promotion, while your competitors leech off your promotion and don't pay your artists.
"Moglen and Stallman have voiced concern specifically with TiVo, which uses Linux, because the company collects information on consumers' actions. Moglen said TiVo complied with version 2 of the GPL "by the skin of its teeth" and said the company will find more difficulty complying with GPL version three's anti-DRM provisions.
"Having a personal video recorder which reports every button you push to headquarters when you use the remote control -- and which won't run software if you modify the box so it snoops on you a little less -- is not user-respecting conduct," he said."
Explain this then. This is RMS using the GPL for his own personal agenda. It has nothing to do with the original aims of the GPL.
"As a content creator, your works are already protected: its called "copyright". DRM is not the answer. All DRM guarantees is less use of your product to your customers, all the while those that would commit copyright infringment are often obtaining versions of copyrighted works that are bereft of DRM.
In the end, the only people that are affected are legitimate customers AND content creators that waste money on DRM."
Yeah, copyright is doing a great job of protecting all that content being exchanged on p2p networks. Why don't you remove all the locks on your house/apt. and car. After all, there are laws against breaking and entering, as well as laws against stealing cars.
"I shun any DRM as a simple example of Greed by the person wanting the DRM."
Greed can be good as well as bad, like anger. It depends on the context. If you steal something because you're greedy, that's bad. However, if you invent something with the intent of making a lot of money because you are greedy, and people pay you a lot of money for your invention because they believe it is worth paying for, then greed has served a good purpose.
I'm glad we have such a benevolent leader to hand down a list of freedoms that software developers should and shouldn't have. After all, consumers are sheep who can't be asked to make their own choices as to what types of software they will use or avoid. We need RMS to tell us. All hail to our leader for defining what freedoms we are allowed to have.
"I have the strong opinion that the word "rights" is being abused significantly by pretty much everyone inside and outside of industry. Rights to education, rights to health care, rights to fair use."
You can't have a right that infringes on someone else's rights. Therefore free health care and a free education are not rights. This is because someone is required to administer health care and teach. These people must be paid. So to obtain your "right" to a free education, someone is forced to pay for it. This is an infringement of a more basic right, the right to own your own property.
Most countries compromise your rights "for the good of society". Get used to it.
As for copyright, an artist's work is his property. You don't have the right to distribute it any more than you have the right to take something out of a store without paying for it. When you do redistribute it without his permission, you lower the monetary value of the work, which is taking something from him.
"Have you started drinking or taking drugs since seeing the questions sent to you by Slashdot? Are you emotionally scarred and bitter now?"
/.ers who a scarred and bitter.
Based on the commnets posted, I think it's the
"Gee, who would think? This statement gives the impression that Unix is especially vulnerable to this issue and that there is some solution to this problem. The fact that Unix's user segregation is one of the cleanest and most secure out there obviously doesn't factor into his security assessment and what I really wonder is what his suggestion for changing this "vulnerability" is. If he's looking for a technical one, I think he'll be looking for a while, since there is none. The human is always a security risk on the system. The question is only to what degree. Technology can help minimize the damage but in the end, it's always the same problem."
Ahh, Isn't that what the whole point of the article? That Mac users think they're secure so they don't worry about such thing? You can't see the problem because you're the person he's describing.
I would argue that Macs are mcuh easier to exploit, since most people don't bother to patch the OS. Becuase of the small market share there's really no point in wasting your time attacking Macs, though.
Assuming a Chinese player is more likely to be a gold farmer isn't much different than assuming a Middle Eastern looking person is more likely to be a terrorist. This is prejudice, and if your prejudice translates into denying goods or services solely because of the ethnicity of the person, it's racism. So even people who consider themselves rational become racist when convenient because it's easier to assume a Chinese person is a gold farmer and deny him access than to actually find a better way to screen.
"A platform which doesn't have Active-X, doesn't have services running out of the box, doesnt' have autorun for CDs with Sony Malware, and doesn't have an unfortunate legacy meaning almost all apps require continual admin access, is more secure in my book."
Saying one OS is more secure than another is like saying a DRMed file is more secure than one with no protection. It only takes one person to find one exploit.
"With that in mind, I absolutely agree that Mac users are too smug and that a dedicated malware author could bring many of us to our knees. (Hell, I run as administrator just to save time, despite knowing the risks. It's a gamble, although I keep good backups.) But an OS X (or Linux) malware author would have to be much more skilled than most Windows-targeting skript kiddies to do a lot of damage."
All you do is wait for Apple to release a patch to fix a security issue, reverse engineer the patch, and attack macs. How often do Mac users patch their software?
"The iTunes store offers so far the best online music store and player combination (software and portable). So far none of the other companies have succeded in offering a better combo. The winner takes it all ..."
They don't even offer a subscription service. My boss was complaining his son downloads $100 worth of music every month. I told him to get a subscription service and then only pay $20/month or whatever, but he said his son had an iPod. So I told him he was SOL. Not only does Apple not support a subscription service. But they make it impossible for anyone else to sell DRMed music for iPod.
They surveyed people who bought music online, not a random sample of mp3 player owners. This doesn't take into account people who only copy music illegally.
"personally, I'd prefer they be seperate -- but that's me. It's kind of difficult to use your phone while using your iPod, isn't it?
The iPod was successful because the design and interface was clean and "sexy". Do you think that by adding phone, camera, and whatever other capabilities to the device that they will be able to keep it "clean and sexy"? I don't."
Why build a device with a screen, hard drive, and processor of some sort, and then make it only useful for playing mp3s. I'm sure you'll change your mind though when Steve Jobs says it's ok to have an integrated cell phone/mp3 player.
"Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft. Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone (they silently ignore Unices), judges/govt monkeys will be more likely to see that DRM as something wrong. Also, the unwashed masses are more likely to trip into it as well, thus increasing the public awareness.
Ahh, good. Anything bad for WM* and friends is great news for us."
Anyone, including Apple can license WMV and provide a codec for their player. In addition, MS plans to support quicktime players via a plugin. Apple is far more evil in that they don't license their fairplay DRM to protect their iPod, iTMS monopoly.