In some sense it isn't that Sony, etc. are 'denying' Zune users the ability to squirt songs. Microsoft is denying it; they could release a firmware patch for the Zune tomorrow that would re-enable this functionality. It would probably be copyright infringement though, so perhaps Microsoft is doing its users a favour by not allowing them to infringe copyright in this way. The restriction on sending these files isn't evil, IMHO, because it's not trying to infringe on the user's rights; you don't ordinarily have the right to make copies of a song and send them to others, even if it is a song you've bought and paid for.
The root cause is a lack of competition: if there were competing suppliers of Zunes, or an open standard for sending music wirelessly, then different manufacturers would offer different capabilities and consumers could choose which they prefer. Some model might allow unrestricted squirting, and the marketplace could decide. Instead we have a single supplier and an unhealthily cosy relationship with the record companies.
The verb 'squirt' is horrible but I propose we use it when talking about the Zune, in honour of Steve Ballmer:
I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation.
Being squirted by the monkey man may be unpleasant but it's probably better than having chairs thrown at you.
That "intellectual property" is the same as physical property.
I think we're not going to agree on this.
but the purpose of copyright is to give the creator of a work the same control over that work they would have if it was a physical good.
Again I disagree and would quote article 1, section 8 of the constitution of the United States. If nothing else, the 'limited time' intention differs from physical property.
A work doesn't enter the public domain just because its copyright has expired. All that happens is the restrictions around the things you can do with a piece of copyrighted work disappear once its copyright has expired.
I think this is a misunderstanding; that's exactly what I meant by 'in the public domain' (and I think that is the legal meaning too). It doesn't mean that you can force people to make copies for you; only that the work is no longer under copyright, and so the restrictions of copyright law no longer apply to that work. Once a work is in the public domain it no longer has a copyright holder.
DRM restrictions are chosen by, and only included at the discretion of, the copyright holder.
Not so. Take the example of Microsoft's Zune, which applies DRM to works regardless of the copyright holder's wishes - and indeed in cases where the copyright holder has explicitly forbidden it (some Creative Commons licences). Or again, a work which is not under copyright because it has passed into the public domain - most DRM software will still apply restrictions regardless of the copyright status of the work.
We are probably going round in circles about whether DRM is a 'property' of the software or of the content. Let me give one more example. You can create PDF files with a 'no print' bit set, which says that you don't want to allow the reader to make printed copies, even though printing out a single copy of something to read it more easily has until now been generally recognized as fair use (by custom, if not by statute). If you view such a PDF in Acroread, sure enough it won't let you print. But there is nothing inherent in the PDF that makes printing impossible; technically, it's still just as easy, and (I believe) legally it is still allowed. If you use a different PDF-viewing program that doesn't have Adobe's restrictions, you can print the document. So I think it is Adobe's software that has the DRM restriction.
Fair use - to the best of my knowledge - does not say you have the "right" to do X with a piece of copyrighted work. It says that if you do X with a piece of copyrighted work in your possession, you won't be considered in violation of the author's copyright.
This is true. And it's a better way to do things: rather than explicitly having to grant rights to do X, it is better to say what rights are reserved under copyright law, and anything not reserved is allowed. So fair use precedent in some country might say that, for example, quoting short passages from a book for review or comment is not one of the rights reserved for the copyright holder; anyone can do it.
I agree that the copyright holder can choose to restrict his work, but I don't agree that individuals should be forced to accept that choice.
Secondly, "fair use" is nothing more than a legal recognition that in the past certain uses of copyrighted material have been impractical - if not impossible - to restrict as much as the principle of copyright would allow.
But what is 'the principle of copyright'? Is it to reserve as many rights as possible in order to maximize the profit of the copyright holder? Or is it, as I believe, to allow a monopoly on certain (but not all) actions, for a limited time, in order to benefit society as a whole.
It seems odd to say that a customary freedom exists only because the technology to restrict it wasn't previously available, and that now the technology can be made, that freedom no longer exists.
Whatever your views on fair use, you must agree that copyright law grants only a temporary monopoly, for 50 years or life plus 90 years or whatever it is in your jurisdiction. Now supposing a publisher doesn't like that, and would prefer something more permanent, so releases a work with DRM that prevents copies and does not expire. Is the DRM still a property of the content? After all we know that under the law the content will become public domain at some point (perhaps next year, if the work is a 1950s music recording released in some countries). To me it seems like the DRM is a restriction imposed by unfriendly software, which people are forced to use, removing legal rights which are clearly theirs.
Actually it is your content. There are certain legal restrictions on making copies, but if you buy a CD it's yours and you do what you like as long as it's not explicitly forbidden by copyright law (the same way that if you buy a car it's yours, but you must obey the highway code). And the choice of whether to allow fair use is not the copyright holder's choice. It is decided by copyright law, which in most jurisdictions recognizes a right to fair use (quotations, for example) whether the copyright holder agrees or not.
DRM is not a property of the content because all content, by statute and by fair-use precedent, is allowed to be quoted or time-shifted or used in various other ways which the copyright holder may not like, but are nonetheless recognized as fair use.
If the software didn't have the artificial restrictions of DRM built in, then there would be no DRM. In many cases it's possible (and legal) to use different software with the same content, and avoid having your rights infringed. This is why I say that DRM is something that comes from the software running on your computer.
DRM isn't a property of the file, it is a property of the software. There's nothing inherent in a music file that stops you transferring it to your portable music player, for example. But there are cases where the software on the computer is crippled to stop you doing that; and in most of these cases you can't change the software to do what you want, even though it is your computer.
The program doesn't pop up a box saying 'do you wish to use DRM yes/no?'. It makes that choice for you, and you have no way to turn it off. For me, that counts as being forced to use DRM. You may have a different definition.
he also thinks that if people wish to use it then thats up to them too
I agree and I'm sure even RMS agrees. If people want to use DRM, let them use it. The trouble is that many people don't want to use DRM but are forced to, because it's part of the software on their computer and they cannot change that software.
Even if the software is GPL'd and so meant to be free, you might be unable to change it (whether to remove DRM or anything else) because of 'trusted' keys and signing. That's what GPLv3 aims to fix.
IIRC, back in the days when every Linux 2.1.x point release got a headline on Slashdot, most of the comments consisted of whining about whether Slashdot should carry such stories, they should go on Freshmeat instead, and so on.
Can someone explain why it's called 'PCI' Express when it doesn't have much to do with PCI, and the slots aren't backwards compatible? Is it a variant of the marketing rule that any successful network transport must be called Ethernet?
'Innovation' is just a code word you have to use because if you say what you really mean then people will be upset. See Microsoft. The senator couldn't say that people should have 'freedom' to record what they like in their own homes - although the 'free market' is still an acceptable phrase.
I've heard RMS speak and while he's not terrible, he's not the world's greatest orator either; his speeches tend to ramble a little, as you can see from the 1986 transcript. I won't mention the picking-skin-off-feet-and-eating-it video - you can search for it if you must.
I meant to say 'pointer arithmetic', but I agree with ZorbaTHut that by using value types, standard library containers, references and the occasional shared_ptr or smart_ptr, you don't need to use raw pointers (or new and delete) very much.
For ever string function, there's an equivalent that will only perform the operation on the first n bytes.
However they're not always particularly intuitive and idiot-proof (which they need to be). It's regrettable that OpenBSD's strlcpy() is not included in glibc.
I don't think that is particularly evil. Unless it's removing some of your digital rights, I don't think you can justify calling it DRM. There is enough real DRM out there without muddying the water. As far as I can tell, you can still exercise your rights to fair dealing, time-shifting and so on even if there is an invisible watermark in the video.
A common tactic to defeat spam filters is to misspell words. The filters should look at the output of the Slashdot editors over the past decade to see what the common mistakes are.
You introduce buffer overflows when you deal with buffers directly. In conventional C with its standard library you're encouraged to do this rather a lot, for example many of the string functions expect you to allocate a char buffer of big enough size and pass it in. The language's arrays are just syntactic sugar for accessing raw memory, with no bounds checks.
However you don't have to do it like this, especially not in C++ which has a safe string class (for example) as part of its standard library. Unfortunately C++'s vector type still doesn't do bounds checking with the usual [] dereferencing - you have to call the at() method if you want to be safe. But the general principle is: don't do memory management yourself, use some higher-level library (which exist for C too) and let someone else do the memory management for you.
You can write a C++ program and be pretty confident it doesn't have buffer overruns simply because it doesn't use pointers or fixed-size buffers, but relies on the resizable standard library containers.
spews.org is missing from DNS for me for some reason, but thanks for the correction. If this is indeed the case, then I wonder what all the fuss is about.
Or perhaps they installed an automatic illness diagnosis program on the mainframe for when employees get sick from looking at all that data, but the letter C was missing on the keyboard, so medical tasks came out wrong. Or maybe a medial task is like a remedial task, but whereas remedial action is to clear up a mess that already exists, medial action is to stop it happening in the first place. Perhaps it was a capitalization error and they meant MeDial (tm) software which automatically phones every number in their phone book of car dealerships and plays a recorded message.
It's not the RBL's job to fight spam, only to give an honest estimation of how likely a particular IP address is to be a spammer. People can then use this to configure their mail system to filter out most spam and let through most legitimate mail.
If SPEWS feel the need to punish ISPs for their behaviour, they need two classes of blacklist: one that says 'this address sends spam', and one that says 'this address probably isn't a spammer, but it belongs to a Bad Network'. Then let users choose for themselves whether to take part in the crusade.
For example a GPLv3-only-licensed patch would force MySQL to the new license.
This is irrelevant since MySQL require copyright assignment for any code they add (this is implied by the article which says that the MySQL company owns the whole copyright for MySQL).
Slashdot Mirror
Dilbert on banning camera phones
The root cause is a lack of competition: if there were competing suppliers of Zunes, or an open standard for sending music wirelessly, then different manufacturers would offer different capabilities and consumers could choose which they prefer. Some model might allow unrestricted squirting, and the marketplace could decide. Instead we have a single supplier and an unhealthily cosy relationship with the record companies.
The verb 'squirt' is horrible but I propose we use it when talking about the Zune, in honour of Steve Ballmer:
Being squirted by the monkey man may be unpleasant but it's probably better than having chairs thrown at you.
Again I disagree and would quote article 1, section 8 of the constitution of the United States. If nothing else, the 'limited time' intention differs from physical property.
I think this is a misunderstanding; that's exactly what I meant by 'in the public domain' (and I think that is the legal meaning too). It doesn't mean that you can force people to make copies for you; only that the work is no longer under copyright, and so the restrictions of copyright law no longer apply to that work. Once a work is in the public domain it no longer has a copyright holder.
Not so. Take the example of Microsoft's Zune, which applies DRM to works regardless of the copyright holder's wishes - and indeed in cases where the copyright holder has explicitly forbidden it (some Creative Commons licences). Or again, a work which is not under copyright because it has passed into the public domain - most DRM software will still apply restrictions regardless of the copyright status of the work.
We are probably going round in circles about whether DRM is a 'property' of the software or of the content. Let me give one more example. You can create PDF files with a 'no print' bit set, which says that you don't want to allow the reader to make printed copies, even though printing out a single copy of something to read it more easily has until now been generally recognized as fair use (by custom, if not by statute). If you view such a PDF in Acroread, sure enough it won't let you print. But there is nothing inherent in the PDF that makes printing impossible; technically, it's still just as easy, and (I believe) legally it is still allowed. If you use a different PDF-viewing program that doesn't have Adobe's restrictions, you can print the document. So I think it is Adobe's software that has the DRM restriction.
This is true. And it's a better way to do things: rather than explicitly having to grant rights to do X, it is better to say what rights are reserved under copyright law, and anything not reserved is allowed. So fair use precedent in some country might say that, for example, quoting short passages from a book for review or comment is not one of the rights reserved for the copyright holder; anyone can do it.
But what is 'the principle of copyright'? Is it to reserve as many rights as possible in order to maximize the profit of the copyright holder? Or is it, as I believe, to allow a monopoly on certain (but not all) actions, for a limited time, in order to benefit society as a whole.
It seems odd to say that a customary freedom exists only because the technology to restrict it wasn't previously available, and that now the technology can be made, that freedom no longer exists.
Whatever your views on fair use, you must agree that copyright law grants only a temporary monopoly, for 50 years or life plus 90 years or whatever it is in your jurisdiction. Now supposing a publisher doesn't like that, and would prefer something more permanent, so releases a work with DRM that prevents copies and does not expire. Is the DRM still a property of the content? After all we know that under the law the content will become public domain at some point (perhaps next year, if the work is a 1950s music recording released in some countries). To me it seems like the DRM is a restriction imposed by unfriendly software, which people are forced to use, removing legal rights which are clearly theirs.
Actually it is your content. There are certain legal restrictions on making copies, but if you buy a CD it's yours and you do what you like as long as it's not explicitly forbidden by copyright law (the same way that if you buy a car it's yours, but you must obey the highway code). And the choice of whether to allow fair use is not the copyright holder's choice. It is decided by copyright law, which in most jurisdictions recognizes a right to fair use (quotations, for example) whether the copyright holder agrees or not.
DRM is not a property of the content because all content, by statute and by fair-use precedent, is allowed to be quoted or time-shifted or used in various other ways which the copyright holder may not like, but are nonetheless recognized as fair use.
If the software didn't have the artificial restrictions of DRM built in, then there would be no DRM. In many cases it's possible (and legal) to use different software with the same content, and avoid having your rights infringed. This is why I say that DRM is something that comes from the software running on your computer.
DRM isn't a property of the file, it is a property of the software. There's nothing inherent in a music file that stops you transferring it to your portable music player, for example. But there are cases where the software on the computer is crippled to stop you doing that; and in most of these cases you can't change the software to do what you want, even though it is your computer.
The program doesn't pop up a box saying 'do you wish to use DRM yes/no?'. It makes that choice for you, and you have no way to turn it off. For me, that counts as being forced to use DRM. You may have a different definition.
Even if the software is GPL'd and so meant to be free, you might be unable to change it (whether to remove DRM or anything else) because of 'trusted' keys and signing. That's what GPLv3 aims to fix.
IIRC, back in the days when every Linux 2.1.x point release got a headline on Slashdot, most of the comments consisted of whining about whether Slashdot should carry such stories, they should go on Freshmeat instead, and so on.
Can someone explain why it's called 'PCI' Express when it doesn't have much to do with PCI, and the slots aren't backwards compatible? Is it a variant of the marketing rule that any successful network transport must be called Ethernet?
Hmm, argument by number of PhDs...
'Innovation' is just a code word you have to use because if you say what you really mean then people will be upset. See Microsoft. The senator couldn't say that people should have 'freedom' to record what they like in their own homes - although the 'free market' is still an acceptable phrase.
I've heard RMS speak and while he's not terrible, he's not the world's greatest orator either; his speeches tend to ramble a little, as you can see from the 1986 transcript. I won't mention the picking-skin-off-feet-and-eating-it video - you can search for it if you must.
If it doesn't allow you to reroute the tachyon matrix through the warp coil, it can't possibly offer realistic gameplay.
I meant to say 'pointer arithmetic', but I agree with ZorbaTHut that by using value types, standard library containers, references and the occasional shared_ptr or smart_ptr, you don't need to use raw pointers (or new and delete) very much.
I don't think that is particularly evil. Unless it's removing some of your digital rights, I don't think you can justify calling it DRM. There is enough real DRM out there without muddying the water. As far as I can tell, you can still exercise your rights to fair dealing, time-shifting and so on even if there is an invisible watermark in the video.
A common tactic to defeat spam filters is to misspell words. The filters should look at the output of the Slashdot editors over the past decade to see what the common mistakes are.
You introduce buffer overflows when you deal with buffers directly. In conventional C with its standard library you're encouraged to do this rather a lot, for example many of the string functions expect you to allocate a char buffer of big enough size and pass it in. The language's arrays are just syntactic sugar for accessing raw memory, with no bounds checks.
However you don't have to do it like this, especially not in C++ which has a safe string class (for example) as part of its standard library. Unfortunately C++'s vector type still doesn't do bounds checking with the usual [] dereferencing - you have to call the at() method if you want to be safe. But the general principle is: don't do memory management yourself, use some higher-level library (which exist for C too) and let someone else do the memory management for you.
You can write a C++ program and be pretty confident it doesn't have buffer overruns simply because it doesn't use pointers or fixed-size buffers, but relies on the resizable standard library containers.
spews.org is missing from DNS for me for some reason, but thanks for the correction. If this is indeed the case, then I wonder what all the fuss is about.
Or perhaps they installed an automatic illness diagnosis program on the mainframe for when employees get sick from looking at all that data, but the letter C was missing on the keyboard, so medical tasks came out wrong. Or maybe a medial task is like a remedial task, but whereas remedial action is to clear up a mess that already exists, medial action is to stop it happening in the first place. Perhaps it was a capitalization error and they meant MeDial (tm) software which automatically phones every number in their phone book of car dealerships and plays a recorded message.
It's not the RBL's job to fight spam, only to give an honest estimation of how likely a particular IP address is to be a spammer. People can then use this to configure their mail system to filter out most spam and let through most legitimate mail.
If SPEWS feel the need to punish ISPs for their behaviour, they need two classes of blacklist: one that says 'this address sends spam', and one that says 'this address probably isn't a spammer, but it belongs to a Bad Network'. Then let users choose for themselves whether to take part in the crusade.
Yes, but does it run on the Atari Falcon?