Perhaps I also need to clear up confusion about selling vs. distributing but simply withholding the source, which are both violations, as well as confusion over the problem with selling/withholding the modified GPL code in the router's OS, versus the router itself, which is not (IMO) governed by the GPL, even if part of its software is.
I quote the GPL: "...the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users."
Maybe there is confusion on the matter of a distribution fee versus a sale.
"Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it..."
See also sections 2b, 3b.
You may charge for distribution. This is intended to cover the costs of media or other means of transmission. However, you cannot conceal the source code once you engage in distribution or modification. Incidentally, where these fees are concerned, this creates a market where anyone can compete against your "distribution fees"... Given the internet, etc. etc. this competition almost always reaches the "zero fee" mark.
At no time can you restrict the freedom (as in speech) of the code itself - including by "selling it" - that is, by withholding it until you collect a ransom.
I did not say that the GPL prohibits people from making money. Merely from selling the free work. (And I hope is clear, derivatives that use that work.)
I trust you are not confusing sale with redistribution fees.
I am in that sentence neglecting to repeat the other duties also inherent in the GPL social contract (i.e. distributing the source) - I hoped it was clear. We are certainly in agreement about your final point.
I am surprised and saddened to see what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding about the GPL in Forbes.
I am a technology expert with development and management experience, who has used and overseen the use of GPL software in a variety of very large, very recognizable organizations.
If you choose to use GPL software, the rule is simple and straightforward. You are choosing to take some work for free. The authors gave it away. All they ask is that you, too, give it away.
The GPL is the legal manifestation of the idea that it is wrong to take free work and sell it.
If you read some GPL'd work, and then threw it away and wrote something of your own, having taken nothing, you would owe nothing. But if you take this particular work, you must respect the wishes of those who gave it, and add to their collective efforts in the same way.
The popularity of the GPL is such now that many organizations begin to feel threatend by it. In some few cases, a response to this perceived threat has been a remarkably crafted item of disinformation: that the GPL is "viral."
This is a beautiful piece of propaganda, because it conveys, with gorgeous sleight of hand, that, like a virus, the GPL infects without your permission, or perhaps even without your knowledge.
This is a stunning act of deception. From the front lines, with the benefit of over a decade of experience, I can tell that it is unlikely anyone "accidentally" or "unknowingly" takes from this particular pool of free work. One _chooses_ to take it because it's there, it's free, it's been crafted by a community of people without regard for deadlines or profit margins, and because you can fix it yourself if there are problems. You do this only if you find the compromise of giving away any of your changes or improvements on it to be acceptable. Many places do not take this bargain - as well they should not! And many more places find this kind of cooperation is exactly what the doctor ordered.
If, as a manager, you discovered that GPL code has "appeared" in your program against your wishes, you will never find, in the history of the "Free Software Foundation" any situation where, like SCO, all redress is deemed impossible, and blackmail is demanded. (Indeed, metaphorically speaking, SCO demands it not just from you, but all your customers!) Rather, you will find a patient, polite group of academics and engineers, who are eager to avoid conflict, and happy to let you simply correct your mistake, if that's what it is, by removing the free work from your own.
And you will find that this is so even when, though the obstinacy, momentum and ignorance of a large organization, some people dabble with the idea of stealing this free work from and then not giving their changes back - breaking the rule.
There are, as the author points out, many "open source" organizations and licensees that are less restrictive than the GPL, from which an individual or company may choose from in the event that they still wish to get software for free, yet find the GPL rules unsuitable.
But there is nothing more normal and harmless than the GPL, or the people who enforce it. And I must say, none of their actions do damage to the GPL or its continuing, widespread adoption - in fact, they enhance it, since by making people follow the rules, everyone feels more comfortable in sharing their work. Everyone knows that their contribution won't be simply appropriated by SCO or another unscrupulous party and charged for. Only articles like this, which through what I'm sure are a series of honest misunderstandings, can convey a mistaken impression of how the process works, that might give pause to the concept of sharing labor.
Oh, surprise. I have discredited myself? I guess we have your word on that. With no explanation as to why. (laugh)
I am concerned about your ideas of common sense, but I must ask, what is it when someone refuses to justify their statements with anything other than incongruous misstatements, obvious mistakes regarding important facts, and obnoxious and blatantly hypocritical insults?
I've wondered if I should even react to such a hilarious and sad discounting of arguments. This seems more of a troll than anything else. I will answer nonetheless, because some people may not be able to see through your smoke screen.
This is what I call "fluff." It is obnoxious - generally, it consists solely of name-calling, and is devoid of value. Generally, I see fluff when someone has run out of anything substantial so say. Often, fluff is accompanied by a lot of repeating onesself, and sometimes folks throw in some unrelated and irrelevant ideas to try to distract as well.
You follow the pattern in such an orthodox way, I started to wonder if you actually are a troll - in the professional sense, that is - and from reading a bit of your work it appears you do at least dabble.
Honestly, though, I'm curious: how old are you?
What you have to understand about me is that I don't mind trolls at all. In fact, I find you tremendously entertaining. Sometimes, when I'm bored or maybe when I'm eating lunch, I recall some of your more humorous quotes I and laugh for several minutes.
It would make me very sad, "geschild (43455)", if you ever stopped reacting.
First of all, I never said that patrons should not be allowed to ask for ID. I do oppose a system where that ID, including photograph is kept on record and shared with other establishments.
You seem to have some trouble with abstraction, among other things, so let's narrow the field. Let's substitute "your home" for "a bar."
Are you allowed to take a picture of someone who comes into your home? To put it in a computer? To share it with others?
Can we really forbid you from sending an image of someone who just caused a violent conflict in your home and sending it to your friends: hey, don't let this guy in, he broke a bottle over my girlfriend's head!
That is what you propose to forbid. Because the moment it happens it will be too late.
Laugh all you want, this has been proven adequatly by history.
I'm assuming you mean that, somewhere in history, such a system has already led to the establishement of a law requiring it in all bars, and that people could not oppose it, because it was already too late.
What is missing here, of course, is a sign that you are not just making it up. As a rule, your arguments about history are much less laughable when you augment them with references (i.e. URLs) to the work of actual historians.
Secondly, you start to make no sense at all. What are you saying here?
Thirdly, your guess is wrong.
You see what I mean? This little two-sentence gem is so funny I'm going to forward it to some other people, and possibly also put it in a database of particularly amusing things people have tried to pass off as arguments on the internet.
OH NO... BIG BROTHER HAS SWALLOWED YOUR POST! IS IT TOO LATE?
Fourthly(sp?)
Don't worry about your spelling. We have a saying in this country, popular around Christmastime: it's the thought that counts.
As the article says (read the fine article), this isn't about individual bars or the freedom of their owners to do as they like, this is about a system among all bars.
I have to say, though, that as much fun as Secondly and Thirdly were, Fourthly is so funny that I think I might print it out and hang it on my wall.
Actually, I did read the fine article. Scandalously, it does not in any place say what you claim. And here lies the crux of what you so aggressively misunderstand: the system is voluntary. Very few bars and clubs are adopting it. ("Within the next six months, about 35 bars and clubs in Vancouver are expected to be hooked into the Barwatch system." - that's expected to be as in "35 is a big exaggeration for the press") And while its endorsers and makers, much like the endo
One is bad, and one isn't. You oppose the things that are bad. Not the things that aren't.
You want to deny bars the right to photo and ID their patrons if they want, because your worried that it will somehow lead to the process being required by law. (laugh) And it won't be possible to stop that from becoming a law once the movement starts, because it will already be too late. (laugh!)
What won't you preempt, because it might cause trouble later that it will be too late to stop? Freedoms are dangerous - people like you, along with many communists, terrorists, and anti-social types have been arguing for years that we should cut off freedoms because they might be dangerous - and if we don't it will be too late.
Oppose freedom of speech, then, because it might lead to dangerous things like Fox News and late night infomercials before we can stop it.
Oppose the right to vote. People might make stupid decisions AND IT WILL BE TOO LATE.
My guess about you is that right now you can't imagine ever owning a business like this, and when the roles are reversed, you'll be outraged that anyone would dare question your freedom to do what you like "in your own place."
If you're really concerned about issues of privacy and security, I commend you. You are part of an elite educated minority that the world desperately needs to protect it from totatlitarian-minded preadators (of which there are many, and many are very powerful). I suggest you start with the things that are actually wrong - such as the PATRIOT act's revitalization of a modern "Library Awareness Program", and the widespread impending use of RFID tags, both of which make complaining about whether bars should be allowed to install cameras and institute stricter door-policies look like bringing a band-aid to open heart surgery.
Via is not making performance competitive chips, and they are giving up most of what they do make. That's why their marketshare is what it is.
Transmeta, on the other hand, is rapidly proving my point. Even with talent, celebrities, and billions in funding, it's not clear you can enter that 2-player market.
And even if it were a 3 or a 4 player market (although you would not get a Transmeta or VIA chip in your desktop PC - indeed, the option to do so does not exist AFAIK), it would not be substantially healthier.
My point about it was not that the casinos do less (certainly, they do more), but that they are not as ostentatious about it as these bars plan to be.
I also felt that it was important to bring up Vegas to remind people (probably should have been more clear) that if they were against this scheme in Vancouver bars, they had a much bigger problem much closer to home.
There are plenty of places Big Brother is urgently applicable today. Just not here.
Central to George Orwell's image is the notion of coercion. You are certainly coerced if the government requires you to participate in an invasive information system by law. And there are many ways you can experience more subtle coercion "by policy" as well... because you ostensibly have the freedom not to participate, but only in theory.
This seems like one case when this kind of technology is OK - because participating in it is something people can choose to do - or not - by exercising their options in a healthy, competitive marketplace.
For the sake of comparison, POTS telephone companies (regional monopolies; barrier to entry: illegal), or CPU companies (only two x86 players; barrier to entry: inconceivable) are not "healthy, competitive" marketplaces.
Monopolies like Microsoft requiring the installation and maintenance of DRM systems? Coercion, possible because of an (extremely) unhealthy marketplace.
Verizon saying "I'm going to sell your phone records to marketers?" Coercion. Where are your alternatives if you want to opt out?
But bars aren't like that at all.
I couldn't see myself going to any place that did this, but I don't think I could say they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Let them track and photograph their patrons in ways even the Vegas casinos won't do. No one forces you to go a bar. Opening a bar is within the grasp of many, many entrepeneurs. This means (within reason) you will be able to opt out. This kind of security measure should succeed, or fail (and who can guess which, in the end?), in that marketplace based on its merits.
What I worry about? If that's what it takes to keep bars running well, what does it say about our society?
CONTRADICTORY NEWS: Cancelled or Not?
on
TIA Project to End
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· Score: 4, Informative
If it's cancelled then why did I read this article two days ago?
Oops. Unless an entity with monopoly power forces people through the "minor" inconveniences of DRM (with centralized "registration" - read monitoring) in order to use products that we have no choice but to both use, and keep current on upgrades.
Unless you are saying we can just optionally all switch away from Windows, Office, etc. right now. LOL. Not quite yet, anyway. Not unless you want to pay for the world-wide migration and personally assume the risks.
And then every other company jumps on the DRM bandwagon, because it's already there.
Then not installing your optional DRM makes not optionally giving your social security number quite easy by comparison.
This may not be the particular piece that does it, but this is coming.
This is the company that bugged Windows Media Player, so that it reports back what you watch, along with your GUID. Oh yeah, it's not personally identifiable. Until you register your product, and it can be cross-referenced, that is. "Oh yeah, uh, we need to check your DVD 'title and chapter information'. And your GUID. Huhuhuh." MS is bad news on privacy.
Yes, absolutely. Literally no consumer product DRM regime (with or without hardware) has been successful. None. And once such a system has been "unsuccessful," the cost and simplicity to receive its "stolen" content is identical to anything else in the P2P system.
One thing I find fun is to poke holes in proposed DRM systems; I've had the pleasure of doing it a lot over the years with some very smart people, but I have never had to think for more than 60 seconds about how any proposed system could be violated.
DRM must overcome impossible obstacles. It must hide its restrictive nature as much as possible. The more work and complications for the user, the worse off the system is. It must be cost-competitive, and that's very difficult with "tamper-resistant" hardware or extravagant client-server software systems. It has to stand up to, not just "casual" attack from millions of bright young folks around the world, but the work of "best in the business" professional pirates in Asia, who have multi-million dollar budgets for equipment and engineering expertise.
I once discussed this phenomenon with someone who was convinced that without a "grass roots" piracy effort (i.e. everyone ripping their CDs) P2P piracy would wither. But there is big, readily available evidence to the contrary. Protected content need only escape from the DRM "jail" once, and it can never be put back in. Even in cases (like some console games) where media is in a custom proprietary format, with the only publicly available "readers" inside consoles, which are closed-standard products made by single manufacturers under security tighter than what the former U.S.S.R. often employs to protect chemical weapons, protected by elaborate hardware-software security systems using silicon-up chains of trust, fault tolarant security failsafes based on strong encryption, and the most extensive software-hardware QA in the CE world, you will find disc images of these "unbreakable" games on Kazaa (for use in emulators, CD/DVD writers, or in the case of Gamecube games, the "pirate burners" in Hong Kong shops), and often (as on Dreamcast and XBox) hardware modification is not even necessary to play the pirated product.
XP product activation is an excellent example of centralized DRM systems that are probably untenable without coercion. The comparable thing in music is having to a) uniquely identify yourself to the record label with some difficult-to-forge system, like a smart card, TCPA hardware module, or the low-tech version, a constellation of hardware serial numbers on things like CD writers, motherboards, Pentium III's, and ethernet cards, b) communicate that identification, along with your name, address, phone number, etc etc along with a unique "license number" which you purchased along with a song, back to a centralized licensing server, so, you must be connected to a network, a complication for stereo components and portable devices c) have to re-establish that licensing relationship if you ever have even a relatively minor change in your hardware, a problem when music moves between portable devices like cars, stereo components, discmen, loaning to friends, etc. and let's not even get into making a mix tape, d) elaborate software (and eventually hardware) work to try to protect the data with encryption in any case where it's not actually being used - i.e. born to fail engineering.
All of this violates your privacy egregiously - having to divulge your information to Microsoft to use their product is bad enough, but with music the regime "requires" someone to also coincidentally learn your listening habits is... well, transparent to me, anyway, as quite opportunistic.
Microsoft achieved its phenomenal wealth _before_ XP product activation. These rather agressive licensing enforcement techniques probably do hurt their marketshare, quite subtly at first, but in increasing degrees as alternatives become more viable (Apple, Linux).
In my mind I do draw a distinction between DRM as the RIAA and Microsoft have envisioned it and what I think would be acceptable in the marketplace (sans police-state regulations on consumer products). Corporate DRM systems have typically picked up detritus like a bill rolling through congress, developing centralized architectures and unnecessary restrictions for the sole purpose of violating the privacy of users, locking out competitors (who would have to licen$$$e your technology, or illegally "circumvent" it, to be compatible... and as DeCSS eloquently showed, no one can be sure what's for interoperability and what's not), and gratuitously violating fair use rights (i.e. backups).
I actually thought of the very first step in the process purely as a donation system, for a number of reasons. It's much simpler technical problem, much more likely to be widely installed (who installs something that "breaks" Kazaa?), and it raises social awareness of the issues behind copyright in the first place. I actually believe that donation alone will be shockingly successful. I also believe that, unless you _do_ find some way to completely eradicate P2P, donation is technically all you've got anyway, since no DRM system can be secure, and content only needs to escape once to arrive in the P2P networks and be "free" forevermore.
Which is not to say that there isn't a need (and market) for a "soft lock" P2P system that does more to enforce the social contract. I think many organizations (and I really mean companies, schools, families, etc.) will be thrilled to have a more "legitimate" medium and will embrace it. I think it will inevitably follow. But I think it's important to be realistic about our prospects of creating a secure system (exactly zero), to respect the privacy and fair use rights of users, and to engineer P2P "security" with open systems that are as decentralized, modularized, commoditized, and market-driven as possible, so as to insure that it will be difficult for any single entity or small group to influence distribution prices again. In a perfect world, all the money goes straight to the artist, just like it does when you put it in the hat. I think in the end successful "DRM" measures to secure content online are quite modest.
I see this as a very gradual evolutionary process where the pressure of the law (criminal and civil) push from one side, and the prospect of superior quality, easier to use legitimate alternatives pull from the other... where the moves happen in small steps, each one choking off the content trust a little more, morally, legally, and ultimately, financially, as real electronic distribution ultimately replaces antique systems.
Radio is another good point. It's relatively easier to regulate, since it's quite closely monitored. I would like to hope artists could strike a better deal with radio when they find themselves less encumbered by the record labels. But in the end it might even look like the artists paying to get on the radio rather than vice versa. It all depends on who is of more value to whom.
It segues nicely into your other point about marketing/promotion's evolution. No doubt there will still be many artists who pay to promote themselves, there will still be MTV, there will still be wild parties and PR "chat room teams," there will still, in fact, be all kinds of traditional marketing activities. Just in a much healthier market. Recommenders will rise with their skill; some will succumb to the financial rewards of selling recommendations, and others will resist... all in all I think it has the potential to be a wonderfully vibrant new marketplace.
We certainly agree that, between the bribe-paying corporate body, and the crooked politician (inhabiting his lavishly broken system), the latter is deserving of more blame. But I don't think I'm comfortable with the kind of rhetorical implication of relative innocence that comes from saying, "Wrong with the RIAA? Nope, they're just responding to pols who are willing to be bought." The crooked cop may be the first guy you go after, but I don't feel much less outrage at the pimps and dealers who pay him protection - "just because he can be bought." Plenty of people compete in our society through honest means, troubling as our times are. I feel comfortable vilifying both parties in corruption almost equally.
I didn't mean to imply that patronage has disappeared, or that it needs to, and I think you raise a good point by bringing that up. There are many models for keeping art alive and healthy that work, and, not to be discounted too easily, patronage produced some of our more fantastic works of art, if we look back on our history. One thing I would say is that the corporation, "a way of organizing people economically for their mutual benefit," will produce art as well, but as you indicate, it will only produce art (or anything else) that is economically beneficial for its participants. If it fails to do so, it will cease to exist. Further, it will rarely resist capital's gravitational pull to produce what (in art, or in anything) will be the most beneficial. That's what corporations are for, by many people's book, and it is in this that they execute one of the most important parts of capitalism's design. But some things, and I would venture to suggest they include not only art but things like education, police, and "public" utilities, tend not to work very well from within the framework of the corporation. Which is not to disparage the basic idea of it at all. But I think it' necessary to recognize past failures and sense limitations. Fundamentally, doing the "right" thing, making the "best" art, is not necessarily to anyone's mutual economic benefit - or is not recognizable as such, which to the corporate decision-maker is the same thing.
I must stridently continue to insist that it very much does matter if violating a copyright is better or worse than stealing. But I feel I can add little to what I've already said on that point. You rightly bring up that some protected works are much more valuable than others, and we can of course draw examples; the unlawful copying of a multi-million dollar piece of "micromarket" software versus the theft of a pack of gum, but we are, after all, under the header of the RIAA's suit against a child over copying music, and in the end, nothing changes the fact that unlawful copying is still not theft, even though both crimes can take place in many mangitudes, and both can be quite serious.
I think when you say that people should replace [the RIAA] rather than just complaining about how inefficient it is, there, my friend, you have the most resounding "yes!" I often finding myself making the same comment. I have a modest idea myself, that could be retrofitted into most mediums where this data can be exchanged. Using some simple public key cryptography and hopefully with some refinements to the current "minipayment" or even "micropayment" architecture available, I propose a Kazaa, or Winamp, or (etc) add on I call the "pay the person who made this file button." Maybe even the "pay the person who made this file $1 button," although Amazon might sue us. All too simple, of course, but it's important to take a first step, and the sooner the better.
Simple. Talking in terms of violating copyright is accurate. Talking in terms of stealing is inaccurate.
But I know you want me to elaborate, right? Let's take your clothes. I can't borrow them without asking, even if I promise to give them back. After all, without your clothes, you'd be naked. But what if I could steal your clothes, and yet you could still have them on?
Is it as bad to be naked, as not? I mean, you might be a nudist, but I think in general people would have to agree that still having your clothes isn't quite as bad off as being naked. Both are bad - you had something stolen from you, right? But perhaps you can start to see that one is not quite as bad as the other. In fact, calling them the same is what I like to call exaggerating.
The role - even the basic idea - of copyright in this country is changing. Not because file sharers are changing it, but because large media concerns are. It is not changing to be more "pro-consumer" or "liberal." It has changed to become vastly, astoundlingly more pro-media-concern. Media companies now have more recourse to go after file sharers than a young woman has to go after a person who raped her, or the police have to go after a child pornographer (i.e. DMCA, which grants them the power of arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional judgeless subpoenas). Copyright terms can last well over a hundred years. "Taxes" are paid on all kinds of recording media, with the money going directly to the media companies (who dole it our fairly, of course). Please, stop before I get past the tip of the iceberg. Media companies these days have phenomal political influence, because they're, well, the media. They get what they want.
They want copytight infringement to be the same as stealing, even though it never was before. This subtle change in language... changes everything. It influences public opinion, news coverage, and the tone of legislation now and in the future. The idea is to fool people into believing there's no difference. It's like the "repeat" in "lather-rinse-repeat." With just one new word, they can make a bit more money.
Copyright is very little like property rights. It has a sole purpose: to replace the old world system of "patronage," where artists had to find wealthy people to feed and house them while they make art, with a new system that creates an artificial means of income for them. If the market likes their work, then they can profit.
These days the music "market" has become, as they say, "highly consolidated." Artists can't really profit from their works directly anymore because performers have a terrible time competing economically with recordings, and (until the internet) only large organizations can afford to undertake the whole process of "mass media" - 8 tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, etc. etc. - actually producing and distributing records. These guys have historically been tight with the mafia, and it shows; they formed a trust, fixed prices, rigged retail and radio distribution channels, and used their bargaining power as the new arbiters of music to cut outrageously bad deals for the artists they "represent." They also (very successfully) lobby the government for extravagant legislative "gifts," just like other big money interests - see above.
Just looking at music for the moment, the whole mess looks less and less like the apparent intent of the "copyright language" in the constitution. This isn't even getting into the "subtler" issues, like whether or not libraries are "mass thieves," or by quoting someone you are "stealing their sentence," or when a rap artists samples someone they "stole their soundbite."
Interestingly, unlike my steailng your clothes, there are lots of in-betweens when it comes to "intellectual property" (a term which is, itself, another language attack in the whole "sharin is stealin" war). Did Shakespeare "steal" the ideas for his plays when he adapted some dry historical and political writing, or some pulpy popular theater, into the greatest
If what you say is true, that "Society's laws grow from its mores", then can't we expect the same results as the Romans?
Fortunately I did remember to say mores, as opposed to "impulses" or "instincts." We do generally have a shared sense of ethics, even when we all flout it. Whether or not our better qualities will triumph over the prisoner's dilemma is another discussion, although invoking the ancient Romans (or the Greeks) is never a bad idea these days.
I think that people actually still (for this and perhaps one more generation...) have respect for the value of "a work", even if it is easily distributable.
We have always had this kind of respect, and I hope I didn't foul up badly enough to suggest otherwise. I don't think it's going away, either. Rather, I think it's growing. It just has nothing to do with "property" or even "sharing."
People love their artists as they love life itself. They support them extravagantly - hence the Arbitrage-fest! With the king dead, copyright was just the first stab at replacing patronage, and I think you've got the next one nailed down.
The nightmare that keeps RIAA board members awake at night is a "pay the person who made this file" button. Of course, making a workable micropayment system is far from easy. I'd say we have our work cut out for us. But take a minute and really imagine the results.
And while there has been a remarkable "revolution" in the arts which has created some "in the gut" recognition for something called "intellectual property," the human animal simply has a terrible time recognizing that music, or performance, or writing, or any idea made slightly tangible, is not just something you share.
They're like the air on a hot summer day. We swim in an ocean of ideas - our own indistinguishable from those around us. We inhale and osmose and exclaim and excrete all as natural instinctive intellectual processes. We are not built to recognize such artificial distinctions as "the owner of a song" (or a sentence, or an idea) because they are simply unnatural. This ownership must be violated at every instant - as you sing in the shower, as you share a rumor, as a teacher teaches or a librarian lends you our richest treasures. Calling it "intellectual property" is itself propaganda - it is the most shocking of bad metaphors in recent times.
Copyright is the barest of fictions, intended to allow artists to live, not Michael Eisner to summer in Tenerife. It does make for some interesting, even good, results, in the way they were originally practiced (as intended by the folks who founded our nation, for instance) - where for a few (like seven!) years there were some artifical means for an artist to thrive from her work, that didn't involve the help of wealthy patrons (which was how the old world used to do it).
But I think if you asked Washington he would be very surprised at the idea of copyright taken precedence over sharing - though of course he and his colleagues would have shaken their heads at the complexity of "mass-scale distributed sharing."
They would certainly rage at and mock the outrageous "extend every time mickey mouse is in danger" new time limits (one of the more transpareant examples of the subversion of democracy by a wealthy cartel). And if informed of the new punishments for violators, or pre-punishment of potential violators, or direct trust "taxes" on things which might be used to violate... they would pick up their arms and fight.
You think it's melodramatic to say so, but America is a nation of ideas, of rational supremacy, and the economic achievement that can only come from intellectual liberty. The new rules that Disney and Microsoft have mutated intellectual property with over the last decade choke off that liberty in the most violent way, by destroying the commons of ideas, erasing the essential quality of trust in our democracy, and violating the supremacy of free speech and free expression that made our country wealthy, successful in affairs of state, and also a fun place to live.
And all this, not for some grave end - to fight terrorism or feed the hungry - but only so a publisher can increase their profit margins.
Not even the politicians would countenance it, ordinarily. It's bad for almost everyone but a select few, and it is even bad for them - content creators need the commons more than anyone. But politicians have a unique respect for those who control the media...
Remember what copyright was originally intended to do. Consider the new tools we have - there are better ways now than what we did in the past, and anything is better than what the cartel wants.
I imagine the key difference is the one you pointed out. Given that IP addresses are just too unreliable as unique ID's, sites can't identify someone between visits if they don't identify themselves. Assuming they evaluated it in a meaningful way at all, that's probably what makes one OK and the other not.
This is contrasted against what we have in the states now, where there are companies (like doubleclick) included as 3rd parties on practically every webpage (even ones without ads) "capturing" traffic, and they build a detailed model of your every activity on most of the web. They're integrated with partners providing line-of-business data as well, so that they can tie this data to real people if they buy something or enter their name, email, etc. at the right time (and they only need to get this once). Then they cross-reference it with other marketing databases (such as their Abacus database), so we get to that magic place where someone can just type your name etc into a terminal and find out all kinds of very personal things about you - at the very least practically everything you've ever looked at.
Of course, all of this is still slightly controvertial, hence the investigation by 12 states and the FTC, and the subsequent many promises of doubleclick not to actually do what they spent all those hundreds of millions setting up to do. So now they have all this data which in theory they do nothing with. Sort of like a thief who "just wants to hold" your money but promises to give it all back.
You can delete cookies, you know. Individually or in bulk.
I repeat: (have you ever tried not giving up your SOC# to the dozens of different orgs that demand it - actually illegally?) and more specifically If you have a state mandate for cookies like this, then rather than having a veneer of "choice" - i.e., I can "choose" to disable cookies but then (feigned surprise) OH! Most websites don't work! Now people actually have the option to exercise this kind of privacy, rather than just the illusion that they do, and websites will use them judiciously, if at all.
NATs for instance. If you can't track by IP, assign an ID to a cookie.
We did quite a bit of work before cookies were invented.
Your alternative is to juggle state with GET or POST form data. And I presume login-related security issues would be handled via basic auth. BTW for non-100%-accurracy needs (like UV counting) IP+User Agent is the current industry standard.
Of course it's a PITA. Perhaps I should repeat my other important point: Not saying that this kind of policy is ultimately a good idea, but I do have an immense amount of respect (and surprise) at such an apparent concern for privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
I will just post a link to my answer to this... I hope you can help me clear this up:
I don't believe that's correct.
Perhaps I also need to clear up confusion about selling vs. distributing but simply withholding the source, which are both violations, as well as confusion over the problem with selling/withholding the modified GPL code in the router's OS, versus the router itself, which is not (IMO) governed by the GPL, even if part of its software is.
Very well put! :)
Really? Let's see if I understand this correctly:
I quote the GPL: "...the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users."
Maybe there is confusion on the matter of a distribution fee versus a sale.
"Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it..."
See also sections 2b, 3b.
You may charge for distribution. This is intended to cover the costs of media or other means of transmission. However, you cannot conceal the source code once you engage in distribution or modification. Incidentally, where these fees are concerned, this creates a market where anyone can compete against your "distribution fees"... Given the internet, etc. etc. this competition almost always reaches the "zero fee" mark.
At no time can you restrict the freedom (as in speech) of the code itself - including by "selling it" - that is, by withholding it until you collect a ransom.
I did not say that the GPL prohibits people from making money. Merely from selling the free work. (And I hope is clear, derivatives that use that work.)
I trust you are not confusing sale with redistribution fees.
I am in that sentence neglecting to repeat the other duties also inherent in the GPL social contract (i.e. distributing the source) - I hoped it was clear. We are certainly in agreement about your final point.
I am surprised and saddened to see what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding about the GPL in Forbes.
I am a technology expert with development and management experience, who has used and overseen the use of GPL software in a variety of very large, very recognizable organizations.
If you choose to use GPL software, the rule is simple and straightforward. You are choosing to take some work for free. The authors gave it away. All they ask is that you, too, give it away.
The GPL is the legal manifestation of the idea that it is wrong to take free work and sell it.
If you read some GPL'd work, and then threw it away and wrote something of your own, having taken nothing, you would owe nothing. But if you take this particular work, you must respect the wishes of those who gave it, and add to their collective efforts in the same way.
The popularity of the GPL is such now that many organizations begin to feel threatend by it. In some few cases, a response to this perceived threat has been a remarkably crafted item of disinformation: that the GPL is "viral."
This is a beautiful piece of propaganda, because it conveys, with gorgeous sleight of hand, that, like a virus, the GPL infects without your permission, or perhaps even without your knowledge.
This is a stunning act of deception. From the front lines, with the benefit of over a decade of experience, I can tell that it is unlikely anyone "accidentally" or "unknowingly" takes from this particular pool of free work. One _chooses_ to take it because it's there, it's free, it's been crafted by a community of people without regard for deadlines or profit margins, and because you can fix it yourself if there are problems. You do this only if you find the compromise of giving away any of your changes or improvements on it to be acceptable. Many places do not take this bargain - as well they should not! And many more places find this kind of cooperation is exactly what the doctor ordered.
If, as a manager, you discovered that GPL code has "appeared" in your program against your wishes, you will never find, in the history of the "Free Software Foundation" any situation where, like SCO, all redress is deemed impossible, and blackmail is demanded. (Indeed, metaphorically speaking, SCO demands it not just from you, but all your customers!) Rather, you will find a patient, polite group of academics and engineers, who are eager to avoid conflict, and happy to let you simply correct your mistake, if that's what it is, by removing the free work from your own.
And you will find that this is so even when, though the obstinacy, momentum and ignorance of a large organization, some people dabble with the idea of stealing this free work from and then not giving their changes back - breaking the rule.
There are, as the author points out, many "open source" organizations and licensees that are less restrictive than the GPL, from which an individual or company may choose from in the event that they still wish to get software for free, yet find the GPL rules unsuitable.
But there is nothing more normal and harmless than the GPL, or the people who enforce it. And I must say, none of their actions do damage to the GPL or its continuing, widespread adoption - in fact, they enhance it, since by making people follow the rules, everyone feels more comfortable in sharing their work. Everyone knows that their contribution won't be simply appropriated by SCO or another unscrupulous party and charged for. Only articles like this, which through what I'm sure are a series of honest misunderstandings, can convey a mistaken impression of how the process works, that might give pause to the concept of sharing labor.
Thank you for your time.
Oh, surprise. I have discredited myself? I guess we have your word on that. With no explanation as to why. (laugh)
I am concerned about your ideas of common sense, but I must ask, what is it when someone refuses to justify their statements with anything other than incongruous misstatements, obvious mistakes regarding important facts, and obnoxious and blatantly hypocritical insults?
You are a child.
Good day to you too, sir.
I think they missed the rest of his quote.
"I'd really rather be the guy who created a big chilling effect but then pretended I didn't."
So you have entirely given up defending your points. Not a great loss, I assure you.
:)
Here is a name for you: hypocrite.
You both act obnoxious, and then have the ill grace to be offended when others react less than politely.
Most people are wrong, and any fool can be impolite, but it takes a special kind of idiot to be a hypocrite about it.
So be happy: you're special!
I've wondered if I should even react to such a hilarious and sad discounting of arguments. This seems more of a troll than anything else. I will answer nonetheless, because some people may not be able to see through your smoke screen.
This is what I call "fluff." It is obnoxious - generally, it consists solely of name-calling, and is devoid of value. Generally, I see fluff when someone has run out of anything substantial so say. Often, fluff is accompanied by a lot of repeating onesself, and sometimes folks throw in some unrelated and irrelevant ideas to try to distract as well.
You follow the pattern in such an orthodox way, I started to wonder if you actually are a troll - in the professional sense, that is - and from reading a bit of your work it appears you do at least dabble.
Honestly, though, I'm curious: how old are you?
What you have to understand about me is that I don't mind trolls at all. In fact, I find you tremendously entertaining. Sometimes, when I'm bored or maybe when I'm eating lunch, I recall some of your more humorous quotes I and laugh for several minutes.
It would make me very sad, "geschild (43455)", if you ever stopped reacting.
First of all, I never said that patrons should not be allowed to ask for ID. I do oppose a system where that ID, including photograph is kept on record and shared with other establishments.
You seem to have some trouble with abstraction, among other things, so let's narrow the field. Let's substitute "your home" for "a bar."
Are you allowed to take a picture of someone who comes into your home? To put it in a computer? To share it with others?
Can we really forbid you from sending an image of someone who just caused a violent conflict in your home and sending it to your friends: hey, don't let this guy in, he broke a bottle over my girlfriend's head!
That is what you propose to forbid. Because the moment it happens it will be too late.
Laugh all you want, this has been proven adequatly by history.
I'm assuming you mean that, somewhere in history, such a system has already led to the establishement of a law requiring it in all bars, and that people could not oppose it, because it was already too late.
What is missing here, of course, is a sign that you are not just making it up. As a rule, your arguments about history are much less laughable when you augment them with references (i.e. URLs) to the work of actual historians.
Secondly, you start to make no sense at all. What are you saying here?
Thirdly, your guess is wrong.
You see what I mean? This little two-sentence gem is so funny I'm going to forward it to some other people, and possibly also put it in a database of particularly amusing things people have tried to pass off as arguments on the internet.
OH NO... BIG BROTHER HAS SWALLOWED YOUR POST! IS IT TOO LATE?
Fourthly(sp?)
Don't worry about your spelling. We have a saying in this country, popular around Christmastime: it's the thought that counts.
As the article says (read the fine article), this isn't about individual bars or the freedom of their owners to do as they like, this is about a system among all bars.
I have to say, though, that as much fun as Secondly and Thirdly were, Fourthly is so funny that I think I might print it out and hang it on my wall.
Actually, I did read the fine article. Scandalously, it does not in any place say what you claim. And here lies the crux of what you so aggressively misunderstand: the system is voluntary. Very few bars and clubs are adopting it. ("Within the next six months, about 35 bars and clubs in Vancouver are expected to be hooked into the Barwatch system." - that's expected to be as in "35 is a big exaggeration for the press") And while its endorsers and makers, much like the endo
One is bad, and one isn't. You oppose the things that are bad. Not the things that aren't.
You want to deny bars the right to photo and ID their patrons if they want, because your worried that it will somehow lead to the process being required by law. (laugh) And it won't be possible to stop that from becoming a law once the movement starts, because it will already be too late. (laugh!)
What won't you preempt, because it might cause trouble later that it will be too late to stop? Freedoms are dangerous - people like you, along with many communists, terrorists, and anti-social types have been arguing for years that we should cut off freedoms because they might be dangerous - and if we don't it will be too late.
Oppose freedom of speech, then, because it might lead to dangerous things like Fox News and late night infomercials before we can stop it.
Oppose the right to vote. People might make stupid decisions AND IT WILL BE TOO LATE.
My guess about you is that right now you can't imagine ever owning a business like this, and when the roles are reversed, you'll be outraged that anyone would dare question your freedom to do what you like "in your own place."
If you're really concerned about issues of privacy and security, I commend you. You are part of an elite educated minority that the world desperately needs to protect it from totatlitarian-minded preadators (of which there are many, and many are very powerful). I suggest you start with the things that are actually wrong - such as the PATRIOT act's revitalization of a modern "Library Awareness Program", and the widespread impending use of RFID tags, both of which make complaining about whether bars should be allowed to install cameras and institute stricter door-policies look like bringing a band-aid to open heart surgery.
Then oppose the law - because that's what's wrong.
Via is not making performance competitive chips, and they are giving up most of what they do make. That's why their marketshare is what it is.
Transmeta, on the other hand, is rapidly proving my point. Even with talent, celebrities, and billions in funding, it's not clear you can enter that 2-player market.
And even if it were a 3 or a 4 player market (although you would not get a Transmeta or VIA chip in your desktop PC - indeed, the option to do so does not exist AFAIK), it would not be substantially healthier.
My point about it was not that the casinos do less (certainly, they do more), but that they are not as ostentatious about it as these bars plan to be.
I also felt that it was important to bring up Vegas to remind people (probably should have been more clear) that if they were against this scheme in Vancouver bars, they had a much bigger problem much closer to home.
Oppose it when it's mandatory, and not when it's not.
There are plenty of places Big Brother is urgently applicable today. Just not here.
Central to George Orwell's image is the notion of coercion. You are certainly coerced if the government requires you to participate in an invasive information system by law. And there are many ways you can experience more subtle coercion "by policy" as well... because you ostensibly have the freedom not to participate, but only in theory.
This seems like one case when this kind of technology is OK - because participating in it is something people can choose to do - or not - by exercising their options in a healthy, competitive marketplace.
For the sake of comparison, POTS telephone companies (regional monopolies; barrier to entry: illegal), or CPU companies (only two x86 players; barrier to entry: inconceivable) are not "healthy, competitive" marketplaces.
Monopolies like Microsoft requiring the installation and maintenance of DRM systems? Coercion, possible because of an (extremely) unhealthy marketplace.
Verizon saying "I'm going to sell your phone records to marketers?" Coercion. Where are your alternatives if you want to opt out?
But bars aren't like that at all.
I couldn't see myself going to any place that did this, but I don't think I could say they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Let them track and photograph their patrons in ways even the Vegas casinos won't do. No one forces you to go a bar. Opening a bar is within the grasp of many, many entrepeneurs. This means (within reason) you will be able to opt out. This kind of security measure should succeed, or fail (and who can guess which, in the end?), in that marketplace based on its merits.
What I worry about? If that's what it takes to keep bars running well, what does it say about our society?
If it's cancelled then why did I read this article two days ago?
Oops. Unless an entity with monopoly power forces people through the "minor" inconveniences of DRM (with centralized "registration" - read monitoring) in order to use products that we have no choice but to both use, and keep current on upgrades.
Unless you are saying we can just optionally all switch away from Windows, Office, etc. right now. LOL. Not quite yet, anyway. Not unless you want to pay for the world-wide migration and personally assume the risks.
And then every other company jumps on the DRM bandwagon, because it's already there.
Then not installing your optional DRM makes not optionally giving your social security number quite easy by comparison.
This may not be the particular piece that does it, but this is coming.
This is the company that bugged Windows Media Player, so that it reports back what you watch, along with your GUID. Oh yeah, it's not personally identifiable. Until you register your product, and it can be cross-referenced, that is. "Oh yeah, uh, we need to check your DVD 'title and chapter information'. And your GUID. Huhuhuh." MS is bad news on privacy.
Yes, absolutely. Literally no consumer product DRM regime (with or without hardware) has been successful. None. And once such a system has been "unsuccessful," the cost and simplicity to receive its "stolen" content is identical to anything else in the P2P system.
One thing I find fun is to poke holes in proposed DRM systems; I've had the pleasure of doing it a lot over the years with some very smart people, but I have never had to think for more than 60 seconds about how any proposed system could be violated.
DRM must overcome impossible obstacles. It must hide its restrictive nature as much as possible. The more work and complications for the user, the worse off the system is. It must be cost-competitive, and that's very difficult with "tamper-resistant" hardware or extravagant client-server software systems. It has to stand up to, not just "casual" attack from millions of bright young folks around the world, but the work of "best in the business" professional pirates in Asia, who have multi-million dollar budgets for equipment and engineering expertise.
I once discussed this phenomenon with someone who was convinced that without a "grass roots" piracy effort (i.e. everyone ripping their CDs) P2P piracy would wither. But there is big, readily available evidence to the contrary. Protected content need only escape from the DRM "jail" once, and it can never be put back in. Even in cases (like some console games) where media is in a custom proprietary format, with the only publicly available "readers" inside consoles, which are closed-standard products made by single manufacturers under security tighter than what the former U.S.S.R. often employs to protect chemical weapons, protected by elaborate hardware-software security systems using silicon-up chains of trust, fault tolarant security failsafes based on strong encryption, and the most extensive software-hardware QA in the CE world, you will find disc images of these "unbreakable" games on Kazaa (for use in emulators, CD/DVD writers, or in the case of Gamecube games, the "pirate burners" in Hong Kong shops), and often (as on Dreamcast and XBox) hardware modification is not even necessary to play the pirated product.
XP product activation is an excellent example of centralized DRM systems that are probably untenable without coercion. The comparable thing in music is having to a) uniquely identify yourself to the record label with some difficult-to-forge system, like a smart card, TCPA hardware module, or the low-tech version, a constellation of hardware serial numbers on things like CD writers, motherboards, Pentium III's, and ethernet cards, b) communicate that identification, along with your name, address, phone number, etc etc along with a unique "license number" which you purchased along with a song, back to a centralized licensing server, so, you must be connected to a network, a complication for stereo components and portable devices c) have to re-establish that licensing relationship if you ever have even a relatively minor change in your hardware, a problem when music moves between portable devices like cars, stereo components, discmen, loaning to friends, etc. and let's not even get into making a mix tape, d) elaborate software (and eventually hardware) work to try to protect the data with encryption in any case where it's not actually being used - i.e. born to fail engineering.
All of this violates your privacy egregiously - having to divulge your information to Microsoft to use their product is bad enough, but with music the regime "requires" someone to also coincidentally learn your listening habits is... well, transparent to me, anyway, as quite opportunistic.
Microsoft achieved its phenomenal wealth _before_ XP product activation. These rather agressive licensing enforcement techniques probably do hurt their marketshare, quite subtly at first, but in increasing degrees as alternatives become more viable (Apple, Linux).
I quite agree. :)
In my mind I do draw a distinction between DRM as the RIAA and Microsoft have envisioned it and what I think would be acceptable in the marketplace (sans police-state regulations on consumer products). Corporate DRM systems have typically picked up detritus like a bill rolling through congress, developing centralized architectures and unnecessary restrictions for the sole purpose of violating the privacy of users, locking out competitors (who would have to licen$$$e your technology, or illegally "circumvent" it, to be compatible... and as DeCSS eloquently showed, no one can be sure what's for interoperability and what's not), and gratuitously violating fair use rights (i.e. backups).
I actually thought of the very first step in the process purely as a donation system, for a number of reasons. It's much simpler technical problem, much more likely to be widely installed (who installs something that "breaks" Kazaa?), and it raises social awareness of the issues behind copyright in the first place. I actually believe that donation alone will be shockingly successful. I also believe that, unless you _do_ find some way to completely eradicate P2P, donation is technically all you've got anyway, since no DRM system can be secure, and content only needs to escape once to arrive in the P2P networks and be "free" forevermore.
Which is not to say that there isn't a need (and market) for a "soft lock" P2P system that does more to enforce the social contract. I think many organizations (and I really mean companies, schools, families, etc.) will be thrilled to have a more "legitimate" medium and will embrace it. I think it will inevitably follow. But I think it's important to be realistic about our prospects of creating a secure system (exactly zero), to respect the privacy and fair use rights of users, and to engineer P2P "security" with open systems that are as decentralized, modularized, commoditized, and market-driven as possible, so as to insure that it will be difficult for any single entity or small group to influence distribution prices again. In a perfect world, all the money goes straight to the artist, just like it does when you put it in the hat. I think in the end successful "DRM" measures to secure content online are quite modest.
I see this as a very gradual evolutionary process where the pressure of the law (criminal and civil) push from one side, and the prospect of superior quality, easier to use legitimate alternatives pull from the other... where the moves happen in small steps, each one choking off the content trust a little more, morally, legally, and ultimately, financially, as real electronic distribution ultimately replaces antique systems.
Radio is another good point. It's relatively easier to regulate, since it's quite closely monitored. I would like to hope artists could strike a better deal with radio when they find themselves less encumbered by the record labels. But in the end it might even look like the artists paying to get on the radio rather than vice versa. It all depends on who is of more value to whom.
It segues nicely into your other point about marketing/promotion's evolution. No doubt there will still be many artists who pay to promote themselves, there will still be MTV, there will still be wild parties and PR "chat room teams," there will still, in fact, be all kinds of traditional marketing activities. Just in a much healthier market. Recommenders will rise with their skill; some will succumb to the financial rewards of selling recommendations, and others will resist... all in all I think it has the potential to be a wonderfully vibrant new marketplace.
We certainly agree that, between the bribe-paying corporate body, and the crooked politician (inhabiting his lavishly broken system), the latter is deserving of more blame. But I don't think I'm comfortable with the kind of rhetorical implication of relative innocence that comes from saying, "Wrong with the RIAA? Nope, they're just responding to pols who are willing to be bought." The crooked cop may be the first guy you go after, but I don't feel much less outrage at the pimps and dealers who pay him protection - "just because he can be bought." Plenty of people compete in our society through honest means, troubling as our times are. I feel comfortable vilifying both parties in corruption almost equally.
I didn't mean to imply that patronage has disappeared, or that it needs to, and I think you raise a good point by bringing that up. There are many models for keeping art alive and healthy that work, and, not to be discounted too easily, patronage produced some of our more fantastic works of art, if we look back on our history. One thing I would say is that the corporation, "a way of organizing people economically for their mutual benefit," will produce art as well, but as you indicate, it will only produce art (or anything else) that is economically beneficial for its participants. If it fails to do so, it will cease to exist. Further, it will rarely resist capital's gravitational pull to produce what (in art, or in anything) will be the most beneficial. That's what corporations are for, by many people's book, and it is in this that they execute one of the most important parts of capitalism's design. But some things, and I would venture to suggest they include not only art but things like education, police, and "public" utilities, tend not to work very well from within the framework of the corporation. Which is not to disparage the basic idea of it at all. But I think it' necessary to recognize past failures and sense limitations. Fundamentally, doing the "right" thing, making the "best" art, is not necessarily to anyone's mutual economic benefit - or is not recognizable as such, which to the corporate decision-maker is the same thing.
I must stridently continue to insist that it very much does matter if violating a copyright is better or worse than stealing. But I feel I can add little to what I've already said on that point. You rightly bring up that some protected works are much more valuable than others, and we can of course draw examples; the unlawful copying of a multi-million dollar piece of "micromarket" software versus the theft of a pack of gum, but we are, after all, under the header of the RIAA's suit against a child over copying music, and in the end, nothing changes the fact that unlawful copying is still not theft, even though both crimes can take place in many mangitudes, and both can be quite serious.
I think when you say that people should replace [the RIAA] rather than just complaining about how inefficient it is, there, my friend, you have the most resounding "yes!" I often finding myself making the same comment. I have a modest idea myself, that could be retrofitted into most mediums where this data can be exchanged. Using some simple public key cryptography and hopefully with some refinements to the current "minipayment" or even "micropayment" architecture available, I propose a Kazaa, or Winamp, or (etc) add on I call the "pay the person who made this file button." Maybe even the "pay the person who made this file $1 button," although Amazon might sue us. All too simple, of course, but it's important to take a first step, and the sooner the better.
Simple. Talking in terms of violating copyright is accurate. Talking in terms of stealing is inaccurate.
But I know you want me to elaborate, right? Let's take your clothes. I can't borrow them without asking, even if I promise to give them back. After all, without your clothes, you'd be naked. But what if I could steal your clothes, and yet you could still have them on?
Is it as bad to be naked, as not? I mean, you might be a nudist, but I think in general people would have to agree that still having your clothes isn't quite as bad off as being naked. Both are bad - you had something stolen from you, right? But perhaps you can start to see that one is not quite as bad as the other. In fact, calling them the same is what I like to call exaggerating.
The role - even the basic idea - of copyright in this country is changing. Not because file sharers are changing it, but because large media concerns are. It is not changing to be more "pro-consumer" or "liberal." It has changed to become vastly, astoundlingly more pro-media-concern. Media companies now have more recourse to go after file sharers than a young woman has to go after a person who raped her, or the police have to go after a child pornographer (i.e. DMCA, which grants them the power of arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional judgeless subpoenas). Copyright terms can last well over a hundred years. "Taxes" are paid on all kinds of recording media, with the money going directly to the media companies (who dole it our fairly, of course). Please, stop before I get past the tip of the iceberg. Media companies these days have phenomal political influence, because they're, well, the media. They get what they want.
They want copytight infringement to be the same as stealing, even though it never was before. This subtle change in language... changes everything. It influences public opinion, news coverage, and the tone of legislation now and in the future. The idea is to fool people into believing there's no difference. It's like the "repeat" in "lather-rinse-repeat." With just one new word, they can make a bit more money.
Copyright is very little like property rights. It has a sole purpose: to replace the old world system of "patronage," where artists had to find wealthy people to feed and house them while they make art, with a new system that creates an artificial means of income for them. If the market likes their work, then they can profit.
These days the music "market" has become, as they say, "highly consolidated." Artists can't really profit from their works directly anymore because performers have a terrible time competing economically with recordings, and (until the internet) only large organizations can afford to undertake the whole process of "mass media" - 8 tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, etc. etc. - actually producing and distributing records. These guys have historically been tight with the mafia, and it shows; they formed a trust, fixed prices, rigged retail and radio distribution channels, and used their bargaining power as the new arbiters of music to cut outrageously bad deals for the artists they "represent." They also (very successfully) lobby the government for extravagant legislative "gifts," just like other big money interests - see above.
Just looking at music for the moment, the whole mess looks less and less like the apparent intent of the "copyright language" in the constitution. This isn't even getting into the "subtler" issues, like whether or not libraries are "mass thieves," or by quoting someone you are "stealing their sentence," or when a rap artists samples someone they "stole their soundbite."
Interestingly, unlike my steailng your clothes, there are lots of in-betweens when it comes to "intellectual property" (a term which is, itself, another language attack in the whole "sharin is stealin" war). Did Shakespeare "steal" the ideas for his plays when he adapted some dry historical and political writing, or some pulpy popular theater, into the greatest
If what you say is true, that "Society's laws grow from its mores", then can't we expect the same results as the Romans?
Fortunately I did remember to say mores, as opposed to "impulses" or "instincts." We do generally have a shared sense of ethics, even when we all flout it. Whether or not our better qualities will triumph over the prisoner's dilemma is another discussion, although invoking the ancient Romans (or the Greeks) is never a bad idea these days.
I think that people actually still (for this and perhaps one more generation...) have respect for the value of "a work", even if it is easily distributable.
We have always had this kind of respect, and I hope I didn't foul up badly enough to suggest otherwise. I don't think it's going away, either. Rather, I think it's growing. It just has nothing to do with "property" or even "sharing."
People love their artists as they love life itself. They support them extravagantly - hence the Arbitrage-fest! With the king dead, copyright was just the first stab at replacing patronage, and I think you've got the next one nailed down.
The nightmare that keeps RIAA board members awake at night is a "pay the person who made this file" button. Of course, making a workable micropayment system is far from easy. I'd say we have our work cut out for us. But take a minute and really imagine the results.
And while there has been a remarkable "revolution" in the arts which has created some "in the gut" recognition for something called "intellectual property," the human animal simply has a terrible time recognizing that music, or performance, or writing, or any idea made slightly tangible, is not just something you share.
They're like the air on a hot summer day. We swim in an ocean of ideas - our own indistinguishable from those around us. We inhale and osmose and exclaim and excrete all as natural instinctive intellectual processes. We are not built to recognize such artificial distinctions as "the owner of a song" (or a sentence, or an idea) because they are simply unnatural. This ownership must be violated at every instant - as you sing in the shower, as you share a rumor, as a teacher teaches or a librarian lends you our richest treasures. Calling it "intellectual property" is itself propaganda - it is the most shocking of bad metaphors in recent times.
Copyright is the barest of fictions, intended to allow artists to live, not Michael Eisner to summer in Tenerife. It does make for some interesting, even good, results, in the way they were originally practiced (as intended by the folks who founded our nation, for instance) - where for a few (like seven!) years there were some artifical means for an artist to thrive from her work, that didn't involve the help of wealthy patrons (which was how the old world used to do it).
But I think if you asked Washington he would be very surprised at the idea of copyright taken precedence over sharing - though of course he and his colleagues would have shaken their heads at the complexity of "mass-scale distributed sharing."
They would certainly rage at and mock the outrageous "extend every time mickey mouse is in danger" new time limits (one of the more transpareant examples of the subversion of democracy by a wealthy cartel). And if informed of the new punishments for violators, or pre-punishment of potential violators, or direct trust "taxes" on things which might be used to violate... they would pick up their arms and fight.
You think it's melodramatic to say so, but America is a nation of ideas, of rational supremacy, and the economic achievement that can only come from intellectual liberty. The new rules that Disney and Microsoft have mutated intellectual property with over the last decade choke off that liberty in the most violent way, by destroying the commons of ideas, erasing the essential quality of trust in our democracy, and violating the supremacy of free speech and free expression that made our country wealthy, successful in affairs of state, and also a fun place to live.
And all this, not for some grave end - to fight terrorism or feed the hungry - but only so a publisher can increase their profit margins.
Not even the politicians would countenance it, ordinarily. It's bad for almost everyone but a select few, and it is even bad for them - content creators need the commons more than anyone. But politicians have a unique respect for those who control the media...
Remember what copyright was originally intended to do. Consider the new tools we have - there are better ways now than what we did in the past, and anything is better than what the cartel wants.
I imagine the key difference is the one you pointed out. Given that IP addresses are just too unreliable as unique ID's, sites can't identify someone between visits if they don't identify themselves. Assuming they evaluated it in a meaningful way at all, that's probably what makes one OK and the other not.
This is contrasted against what we have in the states now, where there are companies (like doubleclick) included as 3rd parties on practically every webpage (even ones without ads) "capturing" traffic, and they build a detailed model of your every activity on most of the web. They're integrated with partners providing line-of-business data as well, so that they can tie this data to real people if they buy something or enter their name, email, etc. at the right time (and they only need to get this once). Then they cross-reference it with other marketing databases (such as their Abacus database), so we get to that magic place where someone can just type your name etc into a terminal and find out all kinds of very personal things about you - at the very least practically everything you've ever looked at.
Of course, all of this is still slightly controvertial, hence the investigation by 12 states and the FTC, and the subsequent many promises of doubleclick not to actually do what they spent all those hundreds of millions setting up to do. So now they have all this data which in theory they do nothing with. Sort of like a thief who "just wants to hold" your money but promises to give it all back.
You can delete cookies, you know. Individually or in bulk.
I repeat: (have you ever tried not giving up your SOC# to the dozens of different orgs that demand it - actually illegally?) and more specifically If you have a state mandate for cookies like this, then rather than having a veneer of "choice" - i.e., I can "choose" to disable cookies but then (feigned surprise) OH! Most websites don't work! Now people actually have the option to exercise this kind of privacy, rather than just the illusion that they do, and websites will use them judiciously, if at all.
NATs for instance. If you can't track by IP, assign an ID to a cookie.
We did quite a bit of work before cookies were invented.
Your alternative is to juggle state with GET or POST form data. And I presume login-related security issues would be handled via basic auth. BTW for non-100%-accurracy needs (like UV counting) IP+User Agent is the current industry standard.
Of course it's a PITA. Perhaps I should repeat my other important point: Not saying that this kind of policy is ultimately a good idea, but I do have an immense amount of respect (and surprise) at such an apparent concern for privacy.