I think the assumption is that war is intrinsically undesirable. Clearly, it serves an important purpose, or we would have set it aside long ago. I'd say the purpose of war is to destroy a state that has become a liability to the human race, and it's past time.
Actually, war is mostly about getting something your nation needs, like land or natural resources. This has been the same for centuries.
There was really no downside for Apple to sue with a legitimately granted patent.
Legitimately granted?
Nowadays patents are not really examined properly at the time they are filed for, the patent office just says yes then starts taking your money. The downside only comes when you try and sue (which costs you a small fortune) and the patent is chucked in the bin for being obvious.
This also now has the other downside for Apple that HTC are now in the clear over these patents in the UK whereas before they are in a grey area where they could be infringing so it was a risk for them to bring a device to market that might have been prevented from being sold. Sometimes patents can actually be useful just as a threat rather than actually used as a weapon, now these patents cannot be held over anyone else either.
Which is the final problem: if people want to cheat at Diablo III, why does Blizzard care?
Because a large number of cheaters playing any sort of online game pisses everyone off. People who game a lot actually evaluate future purchases of games based on possible cheater potential.
One of the main reasons people are reluctant to buy online shooters that do not support dedicated servers is that you lose the ability to have an admin on duty at all times who simply bans suspicious players from that server only rather than wait for the anticheat tool to do it. This is much quicker that waiting for valve or pb or whoever.
The simple fact is that if Blizzard got a reputation as being hacker (ie - bot users) friendly it would kill their main market. In light of this they have to be seen to act against cheaters occasionally.
And that is why I did not buy Diablo III or SC2, and will not be buying anything from Blizzard in the foreseeable future.
Ahh, I see now. You are an anti blizzard fanatic who just wanted to rant about how evil and greedy they are, Cool. It's a shame you didn't make that clear earlier in the post though as I would have skipped reading it.
Fair price. No a ebook for $10 is not fair when the paperback is $16 and includes postage. The 1mb costs nothing and I expect the price to reflect that. The writer does not get the $10.
The writer might not get the whole $10 but the difference in cost between a paperback and an ebook are not as clear as you seem to believe.There is simply no way that printing a book can make up the entire $6 difference in those two prices. Printing a book of 400ish pages probably only costs a few dollars if you have a print run of a few thousand. Paper is cheap and so is ink.
In fact, I just did a quick search on google and discovered that even with a run of 2000 the cost drops below £2.50 a book. Look at the table on the following page then think about the economies of scale that would kick in when you have a run of 10,000 or 50,000. In light of this it seems to be that the cost to buy an ebook should be more like $13-14 if the cost of the paperback is $16.
I remember investigating CD costs a few years ago and the cost of a CD was less than a dollar if you could get a pressing of 10,000.
The fact is that physical products cost so little now they are made in China that if they just passed the difference in media cost on to you their would still see an ebook probably cost the same compared to a book. The actual cost of producing a physical product is simply not that high compared to all the other costs of running a business.
If it is held not to be illegal, you can be damn sure the tories will rush through a law that makes it illegal again pretty quick.
The fact is that this guy encouraged others (the conspiracy part) to submit him links where you could download or watch stuff that you were not paying the copyright holder for. He then ran a web site that amalgamated the links into a nice easily searchable system and took money from advertisers based on the number of page hits he was getting. By the sounds of it he made around £140,000.
Sounds like he invented some sort of google....
Not really. The difference between him and google was automation. Google automate their entire process and the UK law actually recognises that as being a defence. He on the other hand manually checked every link to make sure it was copyright infringing, that was fucking stupid and it is the main reason he is being shafted. I don't agree with sending him to the US for punishment, but I think what he did was wrong too.
How is linking (to someone else who may be infringing copyright) a crime in the UK?
Someone else has posted an excerpt somewhere in this discussion, I believe it was under the designs and patents act 1977.
I think the crime only comes in though if you refuse to remove the link when the copyright holder asks. To be honest though I am not a lawyer so am not really sure though. I would be very surprised if it is legal to run a website thats entire reason for existence was to provide a place for people to exchange links to illegally download copyrighted content. Trying to pass the buck by saying the links all go somewhere else still does not really change that the purpose of the site was to circumvent copyright law.
Even if this was previously legal then I am fairly sure that the Digital Economy Act 2010 would have changed it since it was drafted with the express intention of clamping down on copyright infringement.
A quick scan of the wikipedia page on the DEA does show the following:
Other provisions in the Act include an amendment to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to increase the criminal liability for "making or dealing with infringing articles" and "making, dealing with or using illicit recordings" in the course of business to a maximum of £50,000.[13][14]
The fact that this includes the words "making or dealing with infringing articles" does lead me to believe it was always illegal as a laymen may very well think that posting a link to an infringing article was in fact "dealing" with it.
This is a pretty pointless debate though since neither of us is a lawyer.
because the "victims" claimed that it was equivalent of robbing 40 banks.
He did make about £140,000 over the years he was running the site.The fact that he pissed it all up the wall does not detract from this being quite a lot of money.
Second, extradition is for serious crimes only. Why wasn't the request squashed as it's only related to a civil matter of copyright infringement, not a criminal offense?
Where are you getting that from? Actually there is no such exemption in the UK, extradition applies to every crime, not matter how minor.
And, by my understanding, that question is actually still to be resolved, and will be resolved by the appeals court.
If it is held not to be illegal, you can be damn sure the tories will rush through a law that makes it illegal again pretty quick.
The fact is that this guy encouraged others (the conspiracy part) to submit him links where you could download or watch stuff that you were not paying the copyright holder for. He then ran a web site that amalgamated the links into a nice easily searchable system and took money from advertisers based on the number of page hits he was getting. By the sounds of it he made around £140,000.
So if you do something that is not a crime in your own country, but is in another, yet you never set foot in that country, you can now be extradited? Wouldn't that fall under persecution grounds for asylum? Maybe I should check with the Equadorian Embassy...
Nope. In this case we are extraditing him because the crime he is accused of is also a crime here as well just with such a low sentence (maximum 6 months instead of 5 years) their is no public interest in prosecuting him. If what he did was not a crime here though he would not have a problem.
It was the last lot that signed the extradition agreement in the first place. Why we are extraditing someone for "copyright" offences, which should really be a civil matter, is beyond me
Simple really, it is not a civil matter as far as UK law is concerned. You are right in that he shouldn't be getting extradited but that is because he committed all his crimes in the UK, he should be prosecuted in the UK really. The thing is though, what he is accused of is still a crime over here (not a civil wrong or tort), otherwise we would not be allowed to extradite him.
A better idea might be that we tried to get the law changed so this was not a crime over here. I am not 100% sure if the UK public would actually be in favour of us relaxing copyright law though and unfortunately some serious public support would be needed for this sort of change.
Some of you need to talk to some women about how they would feel if a guy did that to them. Your idea of what constitutes rape is outdated if you feel it must be a violent attack where a man forces himself inside a woman. The thing that makes it rape is the violation, not the thing used to violate.
Of course you are right, but try talking to prosecutor about a case like this and see how much he laughs his arse off at you. Any half decent defence lawyer in front of a 50/50 male / female jury would have a field day with this case. The realistic prospect of conviction is approximately zero. There must be some other reason for Sweden to be pushing for his arrest and extradition, I just cannot figure out what it is.
Any attempt to send him to the US would almost certainly fall foul of the European Court of Human rights. The only option I can see is that Sweden just throw his arse on a plane ilegally and be damned with the consequences if this really is about getting him to the US. Maybe Sweden's politician have been utterly bought by the US such that they would do this, I doubt it though.
Whoever told you that was trying to con you. Do you really think none of Enron's or Madoff's victims were honest? What's more truthful (in most cases) is you can't con a con; they know how the game is played, while an honest man doesn't.
It's a saying based on a true enough premise: that conning someone usually relies very heavily on taking advantage of their own greed.
Well, it depends. I recently managed to go see Cirque du Soleil live, but while there I also picked up a DVD of the same show (though a different performance) so I could show it to people who weren't able to come.
Let's just say that while the live performance was expensive and cramped (the airplane seats were more spacious than the theater), the experience was much better than watching the DVD in my much more comfortable seats at home. Way better.
It's going to depend on the experience I think. Now, this is of course only a delay - I expect once we have something getting close to a Holodeck, then, yes, you can have close as you couldn't tell the difference...
Sorry for the utterly off topic reply here but good example. I worked as a stage hand for them a few years ago just so I could see the gig for free after watching one of their videos. I would have quite happily worked for free just for the 2nd row tickets I got to the dress rehearsal of Quidam.
The thing is though that I would consider them an exception since they are so good at what they do. I would say that if only artists of their calibre could make a living it would discourage many from considering it as a career and putting in the vast amount of practice needed.
I also think things like circus skills are different to music due to their interactive nature and spectacle. Even mediocre people can make a living doing thing like that. I used to be balloon modeller, stilt walker, juggler and fire breather when I first left university but I was nowhere near the calibre of a true professional. I still made more than the professional musicians I knew though when we went out busking.
Free sells. Read the coment again -- look at the Doctorow quote. Had it not been for reading hundreds of Isaac Asimov's books for free, checked out from the public library, I wouldn't have bought the two dozen volumes of his work on my shelf right now. The same goes for the albums and tapes and CDs I have.
I repeat -- nobody ever lost money from piracy, but many have starved from obscurity. I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke; if you see a CD from someone you've never heard of, what on earth would get you to buy it?
I'm sorry, but this is far to simple for anyone to not be able to understand.
But if I can obtain anything I want for free why would I pay for it?
Are you suggesting that artists only release certain things for free or are you relying on me to donate to the artist voluntarily like shareware used to work. I am fairly sure I saw a statistic regarding shareware that only 10% of people who regularly used software actually felt the need to contribute to the creator.
Your idea to my mind seems to be reliant on people to want to support artists and unfortunately the world we live in encourages people to behave in a very selfish manner and not contribute unless they have to. The current system is pretty crap, but it at least forces people like me to pay or risk breaking the law, something that I do not want to risk even though I am unlikely to be caught.
I would love to live in a world where most people would do the right thing just because the knew it to be morally right, but I think most people in this world only do the right thing because the law tells them to with the threat of enforcement hanging over them as well. This is especially true when money is involved as nobody has as much as they would like to have.
I think the real solution to this is the abolition of money, especially as we get closer to the idea of star trek style replicators that can do for physical goods what we can already do with digital goods. Until then though, I think it important to try and keep digital goods restricted on the same terms in case it dissuades people from choosing certain careers just because they only produce new digital creations rather than physical ones.
The thing is though I have seen your contributions to this debate often enough and realise we are both fairly decided as to where we stand. I certainly appreciate your contributions far more than many as they at least more thoroughly thought out than most.
I have a reasonable expectation that people should respect my wishes when it comes to how the song should be copied, played, or otherwise consumed.
I disagree, your expectations are completely unreasonable. What is reasonable is for you to expect that I won't sell copies of it.
Your right to listen to my song ends where my right to protect my work begins.
No, your rights to control what I have in my possession are extremely limited, except by artificial constructs. Which is a good thing for you, if you have any talent. If I give your stuff to someone who has never heard it, they may become your customer. If they never hear it you'll never get their money.
Doctorow puts it succinctly: nobody ever lost money from piracy, but many artists have starved from obscurity. As long as it isn't pure crap, the more people that are exposed to your work, the more people will shovel money your way.
IMO any artist who doesn't embrace noncommercial piracy is a damned fool.
Good day, sir. Enjoy your obscurity.
Now, of course the realities are that the internet makes it so that many people can get their fill of listening to my song once it's been recorded and distributed without paying compensation.
If I "get my fill" of hearing your song, it sucks. I see why you're so anti-pirate, talentless hacks are always against piracy.
Who pays the artist then? You didn't as you were given the song for free, then you friend didn't as you give him the song for free. Do artists who record music have to do it just for the love of recording?
The system DOES NOT WORK for anybody but the leeches, PERIOD. As a final note, know what Metallica gets for all their MAFIAA ass kissing? 89c an album. That's it. they practically blew the record execs and the greedy fucks won't even give them a whole dollar. Fuck the MAFIAA and the quicker they DIAF the better, it'll be a better world without them
Yup, but if you rethink copyright law and abolish it the leeches will just move to a different field as they are just capitalist business people. What happens to the musicians though?
Both sides of this argument are a bunch of leeches in my opinion, both the people who want to endlessly download free music and not pay for it and the record execs who think they can sell us the same stuff in a slightly different digital format for more money. Neither side are in the right.
There were tons of traveling musicians in the middle ages. Shakespeare (not a band, but still a performer) had little trouble playing huge outdoor theaters, and that was long before any recording or broadcast technology was invented.
Of course, back then the only way to enjoy his work was to go and see it live. Nowadays you can get enjoyment out of someone's work without going to a live performance, that is a big difference that you do not seem to acknowledge.
None of us wants to pay for music when it is freely available. I know I don't. But all of us not paying for music has long term devastating impact on the production of music as it currently exists.
Bullshit. Every time one of my favorite bands comes to town, I plunk down well over $100 for tickets to go listen to them. Judging by all the people at the concerts I attend, plus all the T-shirts I see sold at them, there's a LOT of money being made by people "paying for music" (or really, a musical experience).
This whole idea of selling recorded music is very new, and really rather silly. We're just going back to the way it was before, where musicians had to tour and perform live if they wanted to make any money; it's been like that for millennia.
Cool. So someone like me who has no interest in going to gigs but likes listening to music every day on my ipod gets endless quantities of it free and never has to give any thing back. You might think that people like me are in the minority but in my age group (mid to late 30's) hardly any of my friends go to gigs anymore but we all listen to music loads.We also have more money to spend than you young-uns so designing an economic system that involves us not contributing anything financially is a bit of a silly idea.
In my student days I used to go out to gigs most weeks but that still did not compare to the amount of money I spent on buying CD's and records. This leads my to believe that the economics of supporting all musicians just using gigs is not going to work unless the cost of going to a gig is at least doubled.
Of course, then this will all be horrific to most people who support the idea of endless filesharing, as in my experience most of them are young people who have far less disposable income to spend on music than me and are desperately looking for a way to rationalise their own actions in downloading stuff.
I used to think file sharing was great when I was a student and had no money coming in as there was no other way for me to afford all the music and movies I wanted to listen to and watch. As I got older though and started to earn more of my own money I started to think more about how I would feel if I knew there were lots of people out there with piles of cash who were getting free enjoyment out of my work but not helping to keep in me in food money.
You're coming across as a Sun reader. Which means your post has no intellectual interest, and plenty of vulgarity. Frankly its not worth a response.
Guardian Reader actually, but that is not to say that every thing they print automatically appeals to me.
I was also involved in the environmental protest movement for years so have first hand experience of the lack of respect for the law and for democracy that often exists in fringe movements. I saw too much criminal damage and people being victimised just because they chose a career that involved some level of experimentation on animals for medical research. The final straw though was being at an arms trade demo in London and seeing people cheering when they found out about 9-11 on the news in a pub.
The fact is that there are plenty of extremists who believe that their cause trumps peoples democratic rights for some reason, the police often have a very hard time dealing with this. That is not to say we need more laws to help them but I see no reason for them not to use existing laws to make sure these nutters can not hurt people or prevent other perfectly lawful activity.
VNPR, CCTV, proposed internet monitoring, and just yesterday we find that the bill contains the power to routinely monitor postal and delivery services too.
Do you need a diagram? Do you really think this is only about road tax and insurance? It's not.
But what has numberplate recognition got to do with it?
They do not need any extra laws to fine motorists for not having road tax you fucking moron. The laws that let them do that have been on the books for years. The only difference is that now they can do it automatically. Or do you object to all new technologies that can help the police do their job even if it is a part of the job that desperately needs to be done in order for society to function?
There is a very big leap between passing a new draconian law that fundamentally changes peoples right to privacy in their own home and streamlining the enforcement of existing laws using new technology. Once you step into a public place you have no absolute right to move in secrecy since if the police really wanted to they could just follow you. This has never needed a warrant.
Who fucking cares anyway. I am tracked all the time by virtue of my oyster card and I could not care less. My journey are pretty fucking dull anyway: everyday I go to work, then at 6ish I come home. Then at the weekend I go out and go to the pub or the countryside occasionally. Believe it or not a great deal of us do not care if some file somewhere contains a record of our movements providing it is kept under lock and key and only the police have access to it. We don't care because we have nothing to hide.
Earlier on in this ridiculous debate you mentioned people who wanted to disrupt the jubilee being arrested before they had a chance (most protest involves causing maximum disruption possible, not just waving a pointless placard that nobody cares about as that went out with the 60s). The vast majority of the british public actually support the idea of the police preventing disruption to old queenie's party, they just want the right to get on with live a make a few quid to keep a roof over their head. By the way I am about as far from a royalist as possible, but I had no interest in trying to spoil it for anyone else who is.
Look... I apologize already for the insult, okay? But it isn't entirely undeserved.
Making extensive use of, well, let's say "borrowed" technology -- not to mention the outright theft of some of it -- is hardly equivalent to doing this stuff on your own.
If it's a success, I will be somewhat surprised, and not very inclined to credit them for it.
So I guess the credit for the the successful american space program in the 60's goes to the germans.;).
Especially given that the man instrumental in the US space program back then was actually a german the US recruited at the end of the war.
I have, many times. That does not help me understand your very tangential connection between legitimate law enforcement and an over the top crack down protest.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the assumption is that war is intrinsically undesirable. Clearly, it serves an important purpose, or we would have set it aside long ago. I'd say the purpose of war is to destroy a state that has become a liability to the human race, and it's past time.
Actually, war is mostly about getting something your nation needs, like land or natural resources. This has been the same for centuries.
There was really no downside for Apple to sue with a legitimately granted patent.
Legitimately granted?
Nowadays patents are not really examined properly at the time they are filed for, the patent office just says yes then starts taking your money. The downside only comes when you try and sue (which costs you a small fortune) and the patent is chucked in the bin for being obvious.
This also now has the other downside for Apple that HTC are now in the clear over these patents in the UK whereas before they are in a grey area where they could be infringing so it was a risk for them to bring a device to market that might have been prevented from being sold. Sometimes patents can actually be useful just as a threat rather than actually used as a weapon, now these patents cannot be held over anyone else either.
Which is the final problem: if people want to cheat at Diablo III, why does Blizzard care?
Because a large number of cheaters playing any sort of online game pisses everyone off. People who game a lot actually evaluate future purchases of games based on possible cheater potential.
One of the main reasons people are reluctant to buy online shooters that do not support dedicated servers is that you lose the ability to have an admin on duty at all times who simply bans suspicious players from that server only rather than wait for the anticheat tool to do it. This is much quicker that waiting for valve or pb or whoever.
The simple fact is that if Blizzard got a reputation as being hacker (ie - bot users) friendly it would kill their main market. In light of this they have to be seen to act against cheaters occasionally.
And that is why I did not buy Diablo III or SC2, and will not be buying anything from Blizzard in the foreseeable future.
Ahh, I see now. You are an anti blizzard fanatic who just wanted to rant about how evil and greedy they are, Cool. It's a shame you didn't make that clear earlier in the post though as I would have skipped reading it.
Fair price. No a ebook for $10 is not fair when the paperback is $16 and includes postage. The 1mb costs nothing and I expect the price to reflect that. The writer does not get the $10.
The writer might not get the whole $10 but the difference in cost between a paperback and an ebook are not as clear as you seem to believe.There is simply no way that printing a book can make up the entire $6 difference in those two prices. Printing a book of 400ish pages probably only costs a few dollars if you have a print run of a few thousand. Paper is cheap and so is ink.
In fact, I just did a quick search on google and discovered that even with a run of 2000 the cost drops below £2.50 a book. Look at the table on the following page then think about the economies of scale that would kick in when you have a run of 10,000 or 50,000. In light of this it seems to be that the cost to buy an ebook should be more like $13-14 if the cost of the paperback is $16.
http://www.grosvenorhousepublishing.co.uk/bookprintcost.php
I remember investigating CD costs a few years ago and the cost of a CD was less than a dollar if you could get a pressing of 10,000.
The fact is that physical products cost so little now they are made in China that if they just passed the difference in media cost on to you their would still see an ebook probably cost the same compared to a book. The actual cost of producing a physical product is simply not that high compared to all the other costs of running a business.
If it is held not to be illegal, you can be damn sure the tories will rush through a law that makes it illegal again pretty quick.
The fact is that this guy encouraged others (the conspiracy part) to submit him links where you could download or watch stuff that you were not paying the copyright holder for. He then ran a web site that amalgamated the links into a nice easily searchable system and took money from advertisers based on the number of page hits he was getting. By the sounds of it he made around £140,000.
Sounds like he invented some sort of google....
Not really. The difference between him and google was automation. Google automate their entire process and the UK law actually recognises that as being a defence. He on the other hand manually checked every link to make sure it was copyright infringing, that was fucking stupid and it is the main reason he is being shafted. I don't agree with sending him to the US for punishment, but I think what he did was wrong too.
How is linking (to someone else who may be infringing copyright) a crime in the UK?
Someone else has posted an excerpt somewhere in this discussion, I believe it was under the designs and patents act 1977.
I think the crime only comes in though if you refuse to remove the link when the copyright holder asks. To be honest though I am not a lawyer so am not really sure though. I would be very surprised if it is legal to run a website thats entire reason for existence was to provide a place for people to exchange links to illegally download copyrighted content. Trying to pass the buck by saying the links all go somewhere else still does not really change that the purpose of the site was to circumvent copyright law.
Even if this was previously legal then I am fairly sure that the Digital Economy Act 2010 would have changed it since it was drafted with the express intention of clamping down on copyright infringement.
A quick scan of the wikipedia page on the DEA does show the following:
Other provisions in the Act include an amendment to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to increase the criminal liability for "making or dealing with infringing articles" and "making, dealing with or using illicit recordings" in the course of business to a maximum of £50,000.[13][14]
The fact that this includes the words "making or dealing with infringing articles" does lead me to believe it was always illegal as a laymen may very well think that posting a link to an infringing article was in fact "dealing" with it.
This is a pretty pointless debate though since neither of us is a lawyer.
Be accused of copywrite infringement = UK extradite to USA
Be accused of rape = UK will NOT extradite to USA.
Umm excuse me but this just feels wrong.
Yup, but only the US will not get rid of the death penalty. We will not extradite someone to face a death sentence in the other country.
because the "victims" claimed that it was equivalent of robbing 40 banks.
He did make about £140,000 over the years he was running the site.The fact that he pissed it all up the wall does not detract from this being quite a lot of money.
Second, extradition is for serious crimes only. Why wasn't the request squashed as it's only related to a civil matter of copyright infringement, not a criminal offense?
Where are you getting that from? Actually there is no such exemption in the UK, extradition applies to every crime, not matter how minor.
And, by my understanding, that question is actually still to be resolved, and will be resolved by the appeals court.
If it is held not to be illegal, you can be damn sure the tories will rush through a law that makes it illegal again pretty quick.
The fact is that this guy encouraged others (the conspiracy part) to submit him links where you could download or watch stuff that you were not paying the copyright holder for. He then ran a web site that amalgamated the links into a nice easily searchable system and took money from advertisers based on the number of page hits he was getting. By the sounds of it he made around £140,000.
So if you do something that is not a crime in your own country, but is in another, yet you never set foot in that country, you can now be extradited? Wouldn't that fall under persecution grounds for asylum? Maybe I should check with the Equadorian Embassy...
Nope. In this case we are extraditing him because the crime he is accused of is also a crime here as well just with such a low sentence (maximum 6 months instead of 5 years) their is no public interest in prosecuting him. If what he did was not a crime here though he would not have a problem.
It was the last lot that signed the extradition agreement in the first place. Why we are extraditing someone for "copyright" offences, which should really be a civil matter, is beyond me
Simple really, it is not a civil matter as far as UK law is concerned. You are right in that he shouldn't be getting extradited but that is because he committed all his crimes in the UK, he should be prosecuted in the UK really. The thing is though, what he is accused of is still a crime over here (not a civil wrong or tort), otherwise we would not be allowed to extradite him.
A better idea might be that we tried to get the law changed so this was not a crime over here. I am not 100% sure if the UK public would actually be in favour of us relaxing copyright law though and unfortunately some serious public support would be needed for this sort of change.
Totally unrelated to Assange here, but:
Some of you need to talk to some women about how they would feel if a guy did that to them. Your idea of what constitutes rape is outdated if you feel it must be a violent attack where a man forces himself inside a woman. The thing that makes it rape is the violation, not the thing used to violate.
Of course you are right, but try talking to prosecutor about a case like this and see how much he laughs his arse off at you. Any half decent defence lawyer in front of a 50/50 male / female jury would have a field day with this case. The realistic prospect of conviction is approximately zero. There must be some other reason for Sweden to be pushing for his arrest and extradition, I just cannot figure out what it is.
Any attempt to send him to the US would almost certainly fall foul of the European Court of Human rights. The only option I can see is that Sweden just throw his arse on a plane ilegally and be damned with the consequences if this really is about getting him to the US. Maybe Sweden's politician have been utterly bought by the US such that they would do this, I doubt it though.
You cannot con an honest man!
Whoever told you that was trying to con you. Do you really think none of Enron's or Madoff's victims were honest? What's more truthful (in most cases) is you can't con a con; they know how the game is played, while an honest man doesn't.
It's a saying based on a true enough premise: that conning someone usually relies very heavily on taking advantage of their own greed.
Well, it depends. I recently managed to go see Cirque du Soleil live, but while there I also picked up a DVD of the same show (though a different performance) so I could show it to people who weren't able to come.
Let's just say that while the live performance was expensive and cramped (the airplane seats were more spacious than the theater), the experience was much better than watching the DVD in my much more comfortable seats at home. Way better.
It's going to depend on the experience I think. Now, this is of course only a delay - I expect once we have something getting close to a Holodeck, then, yes, you can have close as you couldn't tell the difference...
Sorry for the utterly off topic reply here but good example. I worked as a stage hand for them a few years ago just so I could see the gig for free after watching one of their videos. I would have quite happily worked for free just for the 2nd row tickets I got to the dress rehearsal of Quidam.
The thing is though that I would consider them an exception since they are so good at what they do. I would say that if only artists of their calibre could make a living it would discourage many from considering it as a career and putting in the vast amount of practice needed.
I also think things like circus skills are different to music due to their interactive nature and spectacle. Even mediocre people can make a living doing thing like that. I used to be balloon modeller, stilt walker, juggler and fire breather when I first left university but I was nowhere near the calibre of a true professional. I still made more than the professional musicians I knew though when we went out busking.
Who pays the artist then?
Free sells. Read the coment again -- look at the Doctorow quote. Had it not been for reading hundreds of Isaac Asimov's books for free, checked out from the public library, I wouldn't have bought the two dozen volumes of his work on my shelf right now. The same goes for the albums and tapes and CDs I have.
I repeat -- nobody ever lost money from piracy, but many have starved from obscurity. I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke; if you see a CD from someone you've never heard of, what on earth would get you to buy it?
I'm sorry, but this is far to simple for anyone to not be able to understand.
But if I can obtain anything I want for free why would I pay for it?
Are you suggesting that artists only release certain things for free or are you relying on me to donate to the artist voluntarily like shareware used to work. I am fairly sure I saw a statistic regarding shareware that only 10% of people who regularly used software actually felt the need to contribute to the creator.
Your idea to my mind seems to be reliant on people to want to support artists and unfortunately the world we live in encourages people to behave in a very selfish manner and not contribute unless they have to. The current system is pretty crap, but it at least forces people like me to pay or risk breaking the law, something that I do not want to risk even though I am unlikely to be caught.
I would love to live in a world where most people would do the right thing just because the knew it to be morally right, but I think most people in this world only do the right thing because the law tells them to with the threat of enforcement hanging over them as well. This is especially true when money is involved as nobody has as much as they would like to have.
I think the real solution to this is the abolition of money, especially as we get closer to the idea of star trek style replicators that can do for physical goods what we can already do with digital goods. Until then though, I think it important to try and keep digital goods restricted on the same terms in case it dissuades people from choosing certain careers just because they only produce new digital creations rather than physical ones.
The thing is though I have seen your contributions to this debate often enough and realise we are both fairly decided as to where we stand. I certainly appreciate your contributions far more than many as they at least more thoroughly thought out than most.
I have a reasonable expectation that people should respect my wishes when it comes to how the song should be copied, played, or otherwise consumed.
I disagree, your expectations are completely unreasonable. What is reasonable is for you to expect that I won't sell copies of it.
Your right to listen to my song ends where my right to protect my work begins.
No, your rights to control what I have in my possession are extremely limited, except by artificial constructs. Which is a good thing for you, if you have any talent. If I give your stuff to someone who has never heard it, they may become your customer. If they never hear it you'll never get their money.
Doctorow puts it succinctly: nobody ever lost money from piracy, but many artists have starved from obscurity. As long as it isn't pure crap, the more people that are exposed to your work, the more people will shovel money your way.
IMO any artist who doesn't embrace noncommercial piracy is a damned fool.
Good day, sir. Enjoy your obscurity.
Now, of course the realities are that the internet makes it so that many people can get their fill of listening to my song once it's been recorded and distributed without paying compensation.
If I "get my fill" of hearing your song, it sucks. I see why you're so anti-pirate, talentless hacks are always against piracy.
Who pays the artist then? You didn't as you were given the song for free, then you friend didn't as you give him the song for free. Do artists who record music have to do it just for the love of recording?
The system DOES NOT WORK for anybody but the leeches, PERIOD. As a final note, know what Metallica gets for all their MAFIAA ass kissing? 89c an album. That's it. they practically blew the record execs and the greedy fucks won't even give them a whole dollar. Fuck the MAFIAA and the quicker they DIAF the better, it'll be a better world without them
Yup, but if you rethink copyright law and abolish it the leeches will just move to a different field as they are just capitalist business people. What happens to the musicians though?
Both sides of this argument are a bunch of leeches in my opinion, both the people who want to endlessly download free music and not pay for it and the record execs who think they can sell us the same stuff in a slightly different digital format for more money. Neither side are in the right.
There were tons of traveling musicians in the middle ages. Shakespeare (not a band, but still a performer) had little trouble playing huge outdoor theaters, and that was long before any recording or broadcast technology was invented.
Of course, back then the only way to enjoy his work was to go and see it live. Nowadays you can get enjoyment out of someone's work without going to a live performance, that is a big difference that you do not seem to acknowledge.
None of us wants to pay for music when it is freely available. I know I don't. But all of us not paying for music has long term devastating impact on the production of music as it currently exists.
Bullshit. Every time one of my favorite bands comes to town, I plunk down well over $100 for tickets to go listen to them. Judging by all the people at the concerts I attend, plus all the T-shirts I see sold at them, there's a LOT of money being made by people "paying for music" (or really, a musical experience).
This whole idea of selling recorded music is very new, and really rather silly. We're just going back to the way it was before, where musicians had to tour and perform live if they wanted to make any money; it's been like that for millennia.
Cool. So someone like me who has no interest in going to gigs but likes listening to music every day on my ipod gets endless quantities of it free and never has to give any thing back. You might think that people like me are in the minority but in my age group (mid to late 30's) hardly any of my friends go to gigs anymore but we all listen to music loads.We also have more money to spend than you young-uns so designing an economic system that involves us not contributing anything financially is a bit of a silly idea.
In my student days I used to go out to gigs most weeks but that still did not compare to the amount of money I spent on buying CD's and records. This leads my to believe that the economics of supporting all musicians just using gigs is not going to work unless the cost of going to a gig is at least doubled.
Of course, then this will all be horrific to most people who support the idea of endless filesharing, as in my experience most of them are young people who have far less disposable income to spend on music than me and are desperately looking for a way to rationalise their own actions in downloading stuff.
I used to think file sharing was great when I was a student and had no money coming in as there was no other way for me to afford all the music and movies I wanted to listen to and watch. As I got older though and started to earn more of my own money I started to think more about how I would feel if I knew there were lots of people out there with piles of cash who were getting free enjoyment out of my work but not helping to keep in me in food money.
You're coming across as a Sun reader. Which means your post has no intellectual interest, and plenty of vulgarity. Frankly its not worth a response.
Guardian Reader actually, but that is not to say that every thing they print automatically appeals to me.
I was also involved in the environmental protest movement for years so have first hand experience of the lack of respect for the law and for democracy that often exists in fringe movements. I saw too much criminal damage and people being victimised just because they chose a career that involved some level of experimentation on animals for medical research. The final straw though was being at an arms trade demo in London and seeing people cheering when they found out about 9-11 on the news in a pub.
The fact is that there are plenty of extremists who believe that their cause trumps peoples democratic rights for some reason, the police often have a very hard time dealing with this. That is not to say we need more laws to help them but I see no reason for them not to use existing laws to make sure these nutters can not hurt people or prevent other perfectly lawful activity.
VNPR, CCTV, proposed internet monitoring, and just yesterday we find that the bill contains the power to routinely monitor postal and delivery services too.
Do you need a diagram? Do you really think this is only about road tax and insurance? It's not.
But what has numberplate recognition got to do with it?
They do not need any extra laws to fine motorists for not having road tax you fucking moron. The laws that let them do that have been on the books for years. The only difference is that now they can do it automatically. Or do you object to all new technologies that can help the police do their job even if it is a part of the job that desperately needs to be done in order for society to function?
There is a very big leap between passing a new draconian law that fundamentally changes peoples right to privacy in their own home and streamlining the enforcement of existing laws using new technology. Once you step into a public place you have no absolute right to move in secrecy since if the police really wanted to they could just follow you. This has never needed a warrant.
Who fucking cares anyway. I am tracked all the time by virtue of my oyster card and I could not care less. My journey are pretty fucking dull anyway: everyday I go to work, then at 6ish I come home. Then at the weekend I go out and go to the pub or the countryside occasionally. Believe it or not a great deal of us do not care if some file somewhere contains a record of our movements providing it is kept under lock and key and only the police have access to it. We don't care because we have nothing to hide.
Earlier on in this ridiculous debate you mentioned people who wanted to disrupt the jubilee being arrested before they had a chance (most protest involves causing maximum disruption possible, not just waving a pointless placard that nobody cares about as that went out with the 60s). The vast majority of the british public actually support the idea of the police preventing disruption to old queenie's party, they just want the right to get on with live a make a few quid to keep a roof over their head. By the way I am about as far from a royalist as possible, but I had no interest in trying to spoil it for anyone else who is.
nVidia is about the only viable solution for Linux graphics.
So what will you put in your next computer, now nVidia has stopped releasing drivers?
When did they stop releasing drivers since I just looked on their site and see a release dated 15th June?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-302.17-driver.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-302.17-driver.html
Or are you just a worthless troll making crap up?
Look... I apologize already for the insult, okay? But it isn't entirely undeserved.
Making extensive use of, well, let's say "borrowed" technology -- not to mention the outright theft of some of it -- is hardly equivalent to doing this stuff on your own.
If it's a success, I will be somewhat surprised, and not very inclined to credit them for it.
So I guess the credit for the the successful american space program in the 60's goes to the germans. ;).
Especially given that the man instrumental in the US space program back then was actually a german the US recruited at the end of the war.
Read Nineteen Eighty-Four.
I have, many times. That does not help me understand your very tangential connection between legitimate law enforcement and an over the top crack down protest.