While I'll agree that IP is property (duh, it's in the name), I have to disagree that copyrights are the same as "owning" something. A copyright is not an object at all, and you can't really have a copyright on something... that's just something we say as a shortening of "has exclusive rights to copy xxxxxxxx."
So here's how it works... you're automatically assumed to have exclusive copy rights on your own IP if it's totally original. People can still use your IP as much as they want (i.e., I invent general algorithm, it's my IP, you're allowed to us the concepts as much as you want to create your own stuff, but not allowed to copy my stuff and call it your own). Music artists are contractually bound to give their exclusive copying rights to the record company (they grant the music company the right to copy their stuff, and at the same time waive their right to do the same). The record company grants, on a temporary basis, copying rights to the CD manufacturer who makes the actual distribution copies of the original work.
Just an aside here at the end,... I'm not criticizing you specifically, and I know that it was dictionary.com that said that copyrights are property. I'm merely trying to provide some depth and context for newbies who may not be informed. Please don't take it personally that I disagree, as I meant nothing by it.
And, just to reply to one of your specific comments, we can't apply tangible property principles to copyright because it's not so clear cut. The person who does the copying is the violator, and a person who buy that copy (with the belief that it's an officially sanctioned copy) is not at fault. With file sharing, how can you say exactly who did the copying? Is it the fault of the person posting the file? They've made no copy beyond their provided fair-use backup. It's the user who initiated the copying. So is it the user's fault? Again, they could shakily state that they copied in good faith with the belief that the poster either was posting non-copyrighted material, or that the poster was officially granted copy rights by the original owner (as is the case sometimes with freely redistributable promotional materials, like clips and promos). I'm not saying it's right in any way, or that you can defend your way out of any legal recourse, but I am saying that applying criminal theft law to copyright violation tends not to work because the circumstances aren't as clear cut as "A stole B's property." Copyrights have their own unique set of problems that need to be carefully considered before laws are written to enforce them.
But whose choice is that to make? Your choice (or the peoples)? What gives you the right to decide how much Brittney Spears and her organizations want to charge for their own creation?
Well, you're not going to like this answer, but it's the people's choice (or at least it is in theory). And don't start calling me a pinko, either. In a capitalist society, objects are worth what people are willing to pay for them. This is basically the supply/demand curve. If people are willing to pay a lot of money (high demand), then the product is expensive. If people aren't, the retailers/manufacturers are forced to reduce prices until they arrive at one where people are willing to buy the product. Supply, in this instance, is irrelevant, as CD production is ridiculously cheap for a big label, and the usual supply of CD's removes it completely away from the realm of "rare." This is why we find things like price fixing by the RIAA to be reprehensible (or at least counter to our capitalist concepts).
The wide spread file sharing is, in that respect, at least a little bit RIAA's own fault. With their refusal to lower prices (and trust me, they can... they actually make their real money from merchandising), and customers' refusal to buy music at the prices they set, a third option has gained popularity. If they reduced their prices to fall in to line with the real-world demand, I'll bet there'd be less file swapping going around.
The big media would love to take him down personally for creating bit torrent, and the only thing stopping them is that Bit Torrent is just legitimate enough to be a hard case to sell. Enough users use it legally, that they couldn't argue it's primarily for piracy. But what if that were to change?
Actually, the MPAA and RIAA should be happier with BitTorrent than other P2P systems. Where most file sharing systems just required you to have some file and the sharing program, BitTorrent requires you to actively place content online and then have a tracker distribute it. It also isolates networks from each other. The file sharing going on to download an iso from RedHat is completely seperated from the file sharing that goes into a recent movie release.
Basically, this means that filesharers are (in theory) accountable for their actions, and lawful users are protected from sweeping generalizations regarding unlawful users.
Also remember that BitTorrent is mainly a protocol, not an application (although there happens to be an official BT application). In that respect, you can hold it no more accountable for the actions of its users than you can TCP/IP.
I couldn't believe my ears when the talk show host asked him: "Does it bother you that people use your product for negative purposes, sort of like the scientists who developed the formulas used in the atomic bombs that killed hundreds of thousands?"
I love these questions. Path one: answer yes, you've implied that you've done something wrong. Answer no, and you still haven't denied that you've done something wrong and you sound callous.
Of course, there is no correct dodge to that question. Once the host has made the implication that your software is equivalent to the atom bomb, he's won. He doesn't actually care about your answer, he just wanted to shout out his "observation." So, yeah, I think he did the right thing by going into damage control mode. The only thing Cohen could do at that point was try to rebuke the atom bomb claim and show it for the sheer exaggeration it is.
Apple always seems to list prices for their machines "Starting at.... $ridiculously high" and then the cost goes up when you add options like "keyboard" "mouse" and "monitor". This happened when the G5's came out, and mac heads talked all sorts of crap about how it was "the first desktop 64 bit processor" (haha Itanium, UltraSparc, etc...) and it was really cheap too (as long as you already had an entire mac setup and just wanted to replace the monitor)! It's nothing new, it's nothing special.
The guy who broke the NDA is in deep--but the guy who posted what he said is clean as far as I know. This is ridiculous.
What Apple can do, which is not ridiculous, is file for an injunction. Basically, yes, posting a trade secret which you know to be a trade secret is a questionable act, but Apple can grant them the benefit of the doubt. Basically say "Hey, we know you thought you were being lawful, but that was a trade secret given to you under false pretenses. Please remove it." After being warned, if Thinksecret doesn't comply, Apple can file for an injunction asking that the trade secret be ordered taken down. But you're absolutely right, there's no need for filing suit.
Why would you give advanced information to a rumor-reporting site whose job is to get the Mac news first? What would you imagine they'd do with it. "Awesome! We can't report on it, but knowing this has filled me with my own sense of personal satisfaction!" They report secrets. It's in their name! If you don't want them reporting your secrets, stop sending them.
I personally would not divulge that level of detail about a product on a internet community and I hope the guilty party is happy with the result.
I'm sure they are happy with the result. Whichever Apple employee has leaked the "secret" info (which has been rumored for well over 10 years now) has garnered a lot of press for it, as well as frothing-at-the-mouth anticipation from Apple fanboys and fangirls. If Apple delivers anything remotely close to what was described, it's going to sell like gangbusters because it'll be trumped up beyond belief on every Mac forum from here until WWDC. I almost expect a leaked memo from Apple in a few weeks encouraging employees to divulge upcoming product info to rumor mills, since every time it happens, Apple winds up better for it.
Re:More money than brains I guess
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Re-Pet a Reality
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· Score: 1
The 1% is me stubbornly refusing to speak in absolutes on the/. forums. That'll get you killed here.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong but...
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More GOTY Awards
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· Score: 1
And, I'm fairly certain that Marathon 2 had taken that from the ever-infamous Rise of the Triad.
That's great! And guess what? It was a list of user names. AOL didn't come up with them, users did. They are one field of the contact information of their client list. That is most definitely NOT intellectual property. You can go on about the letter of the law all you want, none of it applies here.
but stealing critical info from the company you're working for and selling it to the highest bidder (or in this case, spammer) sure is
No, it isn't against the law at all. It's against your non-disclosure agreement. People sell confidential information to competetors all the time, and it's most definitely not illegal (and it's most definitely not stealing, either).
I actually am really starting to hate RIAA because it's gotten to the point where aritcle writers have started using "stealing" to describe any file copying without expressed consent. The guy copied a list of users, which is definitely not copyrighted, from a computer in his office building. Theft is when you take another's property. In this case, he has copied his company's information. What this is is a severe breach of company policy and appropriate use standards, but this aspect of the story is by no means illegal.
Genetic Savings & Clone have thought of that actually. They want you to keep your cat's DNA "on file" with them for $895. Then, when you need a clone, you take from the genes that you have on file. The idea is that you do this very early on in the cat's life, and they can probably keep enough genetic material for a lifetime of cats.
Anyway, this is still a clone -- it's a different "instance" of the original animal (even if it's made via a copy constructor.) It won't have "genetic memory" of its new owner, it will be a completely different pet.
"CopyCat Stevens Kicked Off Flight Because Of US No-Fly List"
Re:More money than brains I guess
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Re-Pet a Reality
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· Score: 1
I agree with you 99%. I really couldn't care less what the rich do with their $50k. Piss it all away on hookers and blow. Have a blast. I just don't see the sense in creating a new cat from your old one, when you can just get a free cat (even a kitten) from an animal shelter who otherwise would most certainly be put down! You'd be helping control the animal population and saving a life in the process! You'd be a hero! And... you could still go home and celebrate with $50k worth of hookers and blow.
We don't hate aol because we're slashdot trolls. We hate aol because their dumbed-down kiddie network for members only encourages some of the most ridiculously stupid behavior and poor netiquite which we all have to deal with when one of their troglodite members grows legs and crawls out of the primordial ooze and washes up on the beach of the larger web.
That's freaking hilarious. Back in the day when I was on AOL, I used to use another ISP to dial into and then connected to AOL through my already-active internet connection. It ended up being 2 - 3 times faster.
You know,... I'm surely an idiot. When I heard it couldn't exist, I just assumed that that must mean that it's a private address or something. I never actually looked to see what was wrong with it.
BTW, if this lawyer has figured out a way to encode 450 in 8 bits, please tell me so I can make a fortune with compression software:)
The role Sony and Microsoft have is basically to see if the game is essentially 'bug free', ie it won't cause their console to burst into flames. They usually don't care about the content or the quality of the game itself, just whether or not it'll destroy their hardware.
I also kinda take issue with Sony and Microsoft being sued, though they're doing a tiny bit more than you suggest. A license with either one comes with (at least): A development kit, development samples (so you have a place to start), technical support (in case you get stuck on a hardware bug and need a workaround); When your game is ready, Sony and Microsoft will test it to verify that it does run without crashing on their hardware; Once certified "compatible", licensees can use the PS2/XBox logos to promote their games. Also, Sony and Microsoft will fold your game into their publicity if they think it will encourage gamers to buy their hardware.
Back on topic, though, I think it's unreasonable to put Sony and Microsoft in the lawsuit. I'm sure they'll be found not liable, and if they have any sense they'll try to sever themselves from Take Two, et. al. I'm absolutely certain that when Take Two applied for a license for this game, Sony's and Microsoft's lawyers asked them to verify that the waivers and consent forms were all in good order.
Here here! I mirror your sentiments exactly! The article spends a lot of time bitching about how Firefox doesn't do enough to disuade you from running stuff from the internet. Apparently, though, the only real difference is that in Mozilla, the default button is "ok" meaning "yes, do what I told you." He also bitches that it doesn't become active for a second or two, but it was easily ready to go when he finished reading the dialog. The point was to make you read the dialog instead of blindly clicking yes or no like almost every IE user out there.
Other points:
Don't bitch about the "difficult" install process when I don't even have the option to remove your browser. I'm sure if your browser had any installation process at all, it would suck.
Don't bitch about it having bugs when running in VirtualPC. You're reporting stuff I've never ever seen, and I've installed on dozens of different computers.
Don't complain that users can mistakenly install spyware from Mozilla, when most of the spyware I get from IE arrives unnanounced through a security flaw with no option of blocking it. I don't like starting up IE for the first time in 3 months only to find that there's 7 or 8 spyware programs installed (even though I never use the thing).
Your money keeps the ICANN servers running, which ensure that people can find your website. If they can't pay their power/internet access bills, can't replace broken hardware, and can't pay their staff's salaries, then nobody can find your server's IP address.
Slashdot Mirror
While I'll agree that IP is property (duh, it's in the name), I have to disagree that copyrights are the same as "owning" something. A copyright is not an object at all, and you can't really have a copyright on something... that's just something we say as a shortening of "has exclusive rights to copy xxxxxxxx."
So here's how it works... you're automatically assumed to have exclusive copy rights on your own IP if it's totally original. People can still use your IP as much as they want (i.e., I invent general algorithm, it's my IP, you're allowed to us the concepts as much as you want to create your own stuff, but not allowed to copy my stuff and call it your own). Music artists are contractually bound to give their exclusive copying rights to the record company (they grant the music company the right to copy their stuff, and at the same time waive their right to do the same). The record company grants, on a temporary basis, copying rights to the CD manufacturer who makes the actual distribution copies of the original work.
Just an aside here at the end,... I'm not criticizing you specifically, and I know that it was dictionary.com that said that copyrights are property. I'm merely trying to provide some depth and context for newbies who may not be informed. Please don't take it personally that I disagree, as I meant nothing by it.
And, just to reply to one of your specific comments, we can't apply tangible property principles to copyright because it's not so clear cut. The person who does the copying is the violator, and a person who buy that copy (with the belief that it's an officially sanctioned copy) is not at fault. With file sharing, how can you say exactly who did the copying? Is it the fault of the person posting the file? They've made no copy beyond their provided fair-use backup. It's the user who initiated the copying. So is it the user's fault? Again, they could shakily state that they copied in good faith with the belief that the poster either was posting non-copyrighted material, or that the poster was officially granted copy rights by the original owner (as is the case sometimes with freely redistributable promotional materials, like clips and promos). I'm not saying it's right in any way, or that you can defend your way out of any legal recourse, but I am saying that applying criminal theft law to copyright violation tends not to work because the circumstances aren't as clear cut as "A stole B's property." Copyrights have their own unique set of problems that need to be carefully considered before laws are written to enforce them.
The wide spread file sharing is, in that respect, at least a little bit RIAA's own fault. With their refusal to lower prices (and trust me, they can... they actually make their real money from merchandising), and customers' refusal to buy music at the prices they set, a third option has gained popularity. If they reduced their prices to fall in to line with the real-world demand, I'll bet there'd be less file swapping going around.
Basically, this means that filesharers are (in theory) accountable for their actions, and lawful users are protected from sweeping generalizations regarding unlawful users.
Also remember that BitTorrent is mainly a protocol, not an application (although there happens to be an official BT application). In that respect, you can hold it no more accountable for the actions of its users than you can TCP/IP.
Of course, there is no correct dodge to that question. Once the host has made the implication that your software is equivalent to the atom bomb, he's won. He doesn't actually care about your answer, he just wanted to shout out his "observation." So, yeah, I think he did the right thing by going into damage control mode. The only thing Cohen could do at that point was try to rebuke the atom bomb claim and show it for the sheer exaggeration it is.
Apple always seems to list prices for their machines "Starting at .... $ridiculously high" and then the cost goes up when you add options like "keyboard" "mouse" and "monitor". This happened when the G5's came out, and mac heads talked all sorts of crap about how it was "the first desktop 64 bit processor" (haha Itanium, UltraSparc, etc ...) and it was really cheap too (as long as you already had an entire mac setup and just wanted to replace the monitor)! It's nothing new, it's nothing special.
Why would you give advanced information to a rumor-reporting site whose job is to get the Mac news first? What would you imagine they'd do with it. "Awesome! We can't report on it, but knowing this has filled me with my own sense of personal satisfaction!" They report secrets. It's in their name! If you don't want them reporting your secrets, stop sending them.
The 1% is me stubbornly refusing to speak in absolutes on the /. forums. That'll get you killed here.
And, I'm fairly certain that Marathon 2 had taken that from the ever-infamous Rise of the Triad.
I actually am really starting to hate RIAA because it's gotten to the point where aritcle writers have started using "stealing" to describe any file copying without expressed consent. The guy copied a list of users, which is definitely not copyrighted, from a computer in his office building. Theft is when you take another's property. In this case, he has copied his company's information. What this is is a severe breach of company policy and appropriate use standards, but this aspect of the story is by no means illegal.
Genetic Savings & Clone have thought of that actually. They want you to keep your cat's DNA "on file" with them for $895. Then, when you need a clone, you take from the genes that you have on file. The idea is that you do this very early on in the cat's life, and they can probably keep enough genetic material for a lifetime of cats.
oh wait... that would just make the new cat point to the old cat's memory.... I guess the analogy only goes so far.
And, as a side note, assuming PutToSleep delete's the old cat's memory, does that mean that the new cat is retarded?
Yeah, but the car doesn't get killed if you don't buy it in a week.
Article from the future:
"CopyCat Stevens Kicked Off Flight Because Of US No-Fly List"
I agree with you 99%. I really couldn't care less what the rich do with their $50k. Piss it all away on hookers and blow. Have a blast. I just don't see the sense in creating a new cat from your old one, when you can just get a free cat (even a kitten) from an animal shelter who otherwise would most certainly be put down! You'd be helping control the animal population and saving a life in the process! You'd be a hero! And... you could still go home and celebrate with $50k worth of hookers and blow.
/me shoots you. twice.
We don't hate aol because we're slashdot trolls. We hate aol because their dumbed-down kiddie network for members only encourages some of the most ridiculously stupid behavior and poor netiquite which we all have to deal with when one of their troglodite members grows legs and crawls out of the primordial ooze and washes up on the beach of the larger web.
AOL ....? High speed ....?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
That's freaking hilarious. Back in the day when I was on AOL, I used to use another ISP to dial into and then connected to AOL through my already-active internet connection. It ended up being 2 - 3 times faster.
You know,... I'm surely an idiot. When I heard it couldn't exist, I just assumed that that must mean that it's a private address or something. I never actually looked to see what was wrong with it.
:)
BTW, if this lawyer has figured out a way to encode 450 in 8 bits, please tell me so I can make a fortune with compression software
Back on topic, though, I think it's unreasonable to put Sony and Microsoft in the lawsuit. I'm sure they'll be found not liable, and if they have any sense they'll try to sever themselves from Take Two, et. al. I'm absolutely certain that when Take Two applied for a license for this game, Sony's and Microsoft's lawyers asked them to verify that the waivers and consent forms were all in good order.
Other points:
Your money keeps the ICANN servers running, which ensure that people can find your website. If they can't pay their power/internet access bills, can't replace broken hardware, and can't pay their staff's salaries, then nobody can find your server's IP address.