The whole purpose of a corporation, extending back in history to the very first corporations, is to allow a group of investors to pool their money for the purpose of pursuing some joint venture while at the same time limiting their liability to the amount they invested by purchasing stock.
The very fact that shareholders cannot be sued for investing in a company is one of the cornerstones of the entire world's economy.
The worst you can do to the shareholders is to sue the corporation so that it has to dissolve in bankrupcy, so that the shareholders lose their investment.
There are only a few ways to "pierce the corporate veil". One of those is for the corporation to not pay its taxes. If the corporation does that, the tax authorities can levy the money from the personal assets of anyone with a fiduciary interest in the corporation.
There are other ways the corporate veil can be pierced, which all more or less involve the attempt to use the corporation as an attempt to protect yourself from being prosecuted for illegal activity.
IANAL, but I own a corporation, and I'm pretty sure no form of civil tort provides for piercing the corporate veil.
You can avoid getting sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of violating copyright with p2p apps. Many independent and unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music as a way to promote themselves, for example my friends the
Divine Maggees.
There are peer to peer networks for the sharing of legal music. In some cases they use digital signatures to ensure the files are legit. Here's the ones I've found so far:
I silvered my very first telescope mirror, a six inch from an Edmund kit, when I was twelve years old.
I was also reading those old telescope making books, which were written from the 1920s through the 50s, and while they discussed vacuum aluminization, I had no idea that you could send a mirror away to a commercial lab to have it coated inexpensively. I thought I'd have to build my own vacuum chamber if I wanted an aluminized mirror. So I figured I'd have to coat it myself.
I ground my first mirror in complete isolation. I never even discovered Sky and Telescope magazine until I ground my second, a 10 inch, a couple years later. One of the great things about the Internet is that young geeks don't have to be isolated from each other the way I was back in 1976 when I was 12.
The way I got my first kit is that it was among the effects of a chemistry graduate student named David Denny, who was drafted and killed in the Vietnam War. His parents were friends of my grandparents. Years later, when they heard I was into science, they gave me all of his old chemicals and glassware. Included was the mirror kit that hadn't been touched before he had to go to war.
Anyway, I got all my chemicals from the University of Idaho chemistry stockroom, where my dad was a E.E. graduate student. My dad came with me when I bought the chemicals, which was helpful because one of them was the fuming nitric acid required to clean the glass before silvering. Fuming nitric acid might be harder to get this days because it's needed to make such explosives as nitroglycerine and TNT.
Silvering a mirror is very difficult to get right. The slightest impurity or incorrect chemical proportions will ruin the coat. The temperature has to be just right, and you have to let the mirror soak for just the right amount of time. I think I tried a half dozen times before I had a coat I was willing to accept, and I was never really happy with it.
Here's a fun factoid for you: the spent chemical solution that's left after silvering a mirror is hazardous waste. Potently hazardous waste. Not simply because it is toxic, but if left to sit it will spontaneously explode. It can form fulminating silver, which is similar to the fulminating mercury that's used to detonate bullets, except that fulminating silver will explode spontaneously, without any heat or agitation.
One of the amateur telescope making books has a picture of someone's grinding shop that blew up after the owner left some silvering solution lying around.
There are people these days who still silver mirrors. There are certain advantages to silver if you don't mind having to recoat it after it tarnishes ever six months or so. It is very expensive to vacuum coat large mirrors, and there aren't many labs that have big enough vacuum chambers, so some of the people who make big scopes silver their mirrors.
In modern times, their has been quite a bit of success with applying the solutions from two different spray bottles, so that the silver starts to form when the two solutions mix. With some practice, you can get a better coat this way than by soaking the mirror in a basin like I did.
They talk about silvering quite a bit on the ATM list.
It is a common experience that the wives and girlfriends of amateur telescope makers don't understand our fascination with the hobby.
(While there are women who make telescopes, some of them very skilled telescope makers, the ATM hobby is likely even more predominantly male than programming is.)
When I was grinding a mirror during high school, my mom came out to the garage to find me up to my armpits in grit slurry, and said "I don't understand how you can live like this".
These days my wife has a great deal of difficulty in understanding how I can find any pleasure in making telescopes, and refuses to ever set foot at a star party again. However, she realizes that it gets me away from the computer and I do seem to find real joy in it, so she encourages it.
She just says I can't boil pitch (used in polishing) on the kitchen stove. I had to buy a hot plate so I can cook it in the garage.
Want to try out astronomy for yourself, but don't have the cash for an expensive telescope?
I've been an avid avid amateur telescope maker since I was twelve years old. It led to me studying astronomy for a time at
Caltech. While I'm a programmer now, it's still a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating hobby.
While a basic newtonian is a straightforward instrument that can be built by anyone who's good with their hands, telescope making can get as complicated as you want if you're really looking for a challenge. Optical design is still a wide open area of research in mathematics, software engineering, and physics, and some of the more interesting designs take quite a bit of skill to fabricate. That means anyone can make a satisfying telescope, but the hobby will yield a lifetime of interest because there's always new things to learn.
You can construct your own telescope with a primary mirror of 8 inches in diameter for less than $200. It will take quite a bit of work, but it is enjoyable and meditative work. Grinding mirrors is one of the things I do to relax and relieve the strain of coding all day.
A good place to start looking for information is the
ATM FAQ. The procedures for grinding, polishing and figuring are pretty involved - you should buy one of the books from astronomy publisher
Willman-Bell.
There are a number of people and business who sell inexpensive mirror grinding kits. They will come with a glass mirror blank and an assortment of different sizes of abrasive grits. I would recommend asking on the ATM mailing list (that you can find in the FAQ) when you're ready to order your first kit.
The 8" plate glass kit I bought from Dan Cassaro for my current project set me back $64. When I get done working on the mirror, it will cost me about $35 to have a vacuum coating laboratory aluminize it. Good quality eyepieces cost about $50 - just one will do to start with but it helps to have more.
While fancy equatorial mountings can be expensive to make, it's possible to make a quite servicable altazimuth mount out of common materials like plywood and a few hand tools.
I'd wager that most people know exactly what they're doing with Kazaa, rendering this meager info page utterly useless.
The reason I wrote
this article was that a friend quite seriously told me that the money she paid to purchase Kazaa went to compensate the musicians whose music she was downloading. She had no idea she was violating anyone's copyright. I suspect people like her are not uncommon among p2p users.
Other slashdot users have repeatedly mentioned that their less computer literate siblings and friends who use p2p were quite unaware that any of the songs they downloaded were immediately made available for sharing. While you can usually disable this, most of the p2p apps are configured to automatically share by default, and I don't think they always make an effort to inform the user of that fact, or of its legal implications.
You can avoid getting sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of violating copyright with p2p apps. Many independent and unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music as a way to promote themselves, for example my friends the
Divine Maggees.
There are peer to peer networks for the sharing of legal music. In some cases they use digital signatures to ensure the files are legit. Here's the ones I've found so far:
I've been meaning to check out negativland, actually. I visited their website years ago, but for some reason never came back. I expect I'll link them from the article in one way or another.
Also, thanks for the link. You'll see that I have given you
a reciprocal link.
The problem with most p2p networks is that you don't know the legality of what you're getting. If you download a song from an artist you've never heard of, how do you know they gave their permission for their file to be on the network?
But there are p2p networks for downloading legal music. Some of them use digital signatures to authenticate the legality of the files. Here's the ones I've found so far:
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks. You also don't need to deal with Digital Rights Management.
Many unsigned and independent musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend
Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here
And yes I have been posting this to Slashdot repeatedly for several days, because I think it's important for people to understand there's a way to get quality, free music without breaking any laws, while at the same time benefiting the many talented, hardworking musicians who aren't signed with a major label.
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks. You also don't need to deal with Digital Rights Management.
Many unsigned and independent musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend
Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks. You also don't need to deal with Digital Rights Management.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend
Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here
Sixty million Americans share files via peer to peer networks. That's more Americans than voted for George Bush. Why don't you just change the law?
Copyright is not a Constitutional right - the Constitution gives Congress the power to create copyright but does not require it to do so. Copyright could be ended tomorrow if Congress just passed a bill that repealed it.
The following are links to sections of my new article that explains the steps you can take to make file sharing legal:
If you agree with what I have to say and feel as I do that it's important for others to hear it, please consider linking my article from your weblog or emailing the link to other people who might benefit from it.
You won't get the RIAA or MPAA to admit this, but you should understand that none of the forms of intellectual property are Constitutional rights. Neither copyright, patent, trade secrets nor trademarks are guaranteed to anyone by the Constitution.
The Constitution grants Congress the power to create intellectual property, but does not require it to do so. Congress could do away with copyright in a single day, simply by passing a bill that eliminated it. They wouldn't even need the President's signature, if they had enough votes to override a veto.
The Congress shall have power to... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
it's important to understand that the purpose copyright and patents were allowed for in the Constitution at all is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" - that is, to benefit society by stimulating the economy, rather than benefitting the creators of the works. That's not what Jack Valenti would have you believe.
If you don't think it's within your power to change the law, consider that there are more Americans sharing files on peer-to-peer networks than there were Americans who voted for George Bush.
My article explains some steps you can take to change the law. The following are links to the explanation of each one, just to pique your interest:
If you agree with what I have to say, please link to my article from your own weblogs or websites. I feel what I have to say in it is important, which is why I've been whoring it all over the internet for days.
Finally, if you're an American slashdot reader, you need to carefully read and thoroughly understand
your Constitution. It is the highest law of the land, and the finest expression there is of the principles upon which our country was founded. If everyone did so, it would raise the level of the discussion here considerably.
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's
mine for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here
I have studied both Zen and Shambhala somewhat, and from time to time I meditate. My wife is much more devoted to Shambhala, and has taught me a great deal.
But I'm the last person to claim I'm free from striving or attachment. I can't ever throw anything away, even things I don't use anymore, because I can't bear to be without them - even old ripped up clothes that don't fit anymore. I've been striving particularly hard since I started my consulting business in '98.
But I've learned my lesson the hard way because I also lead what in many ways is a miserable life. To the extent I can free myself from attachment, I am much happier.
I find it appalling that meditation is being sold to business as a way to make employees more productive. While I think meditation in the workplace is a great idea, I think that doing so because of its payoff for the business' bottom line is simply the wrong attitude to have.
Buddha taught us that the source of human misery is attachment. In order to be free from sorrow, we must be free from attachment - and from striving.
Many people who meditate - and I suspect most Americans who meditate - do so because they hope to get something out of it, anything from relaxation, to relief from stress, enlightment or spiritual growth. But if you are striving to better yourself through meditation, you are missing the whole point. What you must free yourself from is that very striving.
The Shambhala monk
Chyogyam Trungpa was instrumental in bringing Tibetan buddhism to the US and Canada in a form that could be appreciated by westerners. May I recommend a couple of his books:
Spiritual materialism was particularly rampant in the United States in the late 60's and early 70's. Trungpa worked hard to teach all the navel-gazers that that was a mistake.
I can teach anyone to meditate in about two minutes:
Sit comfortably but with your back straight. Focus just part of your attention on your breath. Clear your mind of thoughts. Don't beat yourself up if a though crosses your mind, just let it go. Then sit for a while. Try ten minutes to start with, then a little longer each day as you get used to it.
The most important thing is to just sit. How many Slashdotters ever allow themselves to just sit? To just clear your mind without thinking of anything?
Trungpa said there was no way out but to apply your bottom to the meditation cushion. I can promise you'll enjoy his books - he was quite a colorful character.
I think that the day that release from attachment can be sold to American business will come when Bill Gates gives his money to the poor, shaves his head, dons saffron robes, and takes
The Vows of Refuge.
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friend
Rick Walker. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downlds
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friend
Rick Walker. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given
here.
(I just posted a new draft if you read it before.)
You can avoid being sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of getting your tunes from the p2p networks.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friends the
Divine Maggees. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.
If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article. Please follow the instructions given
here.
Many unsigned musicians offer free downloads of their music as a way to attract more fans.
I'm working on an article I hope to publish at
Kuro5hin soon. You may find it helpful. In return, I would like your comments on how to improve it. I want to do the very best job I can so that it will be sure to get voted to the front page by the K5 moderators:
If you're a musician who offers free music downloads, I will link to your website if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please read the instructions
here.
Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications
Free Hosting Service HTML Validation Test Page
Pointers to C++ Member Functions
The Open Source Development Lab has kindly translated the two kernel articles to Japanese. I am actively seeking further translations.
The articles are all under the GNU Free Documentation License. However, Debian has decided the GFDL is non-free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. I plan to change the license to one that satisfies Debian's requirements, but haven't settled on one yet.
Any non-freeness of the GFDL shouldn't prevent you including it in your distribution, the issue is that invariant sections forbid some kinds of modifications. I discuss this further in
Which License for Free Documentation?
I am as far from an attorney as one could be, but one thing I know is that the self-help legal advice books from Nolo Press are incredibly helpful. I've used a couple of them in the past.
Even if you don't get an attorney to represent you in court, do talk to an attorney, so that the documents you have to file are written correctly. You may be unaware that they have to be formatted a certain way. There are certain keywords that mean magic things to a judge but may appear ridiculous to the non-specialist.
If you go to most any attorney and tell them you're a struggling college student and the RIAA just sued you, they will almost certainly help you at least write your response correctly.
The last time I consulted an attorney, the only payment he required was a promise that the next time the subject came up, I tell whoever I'm talking to that attorneys aren't the bad people that many make them out to be. This gentleman got my ass out of a sling, and all he wanted was for me to say he wasn't a bad person.
Slashdot Mirror
The very fact that shareholders cannot be sued for investing in a company is one of the cornerstones of the entire world's economy.
The worst you can do to the shareholders is to sue the corporation so that it has to dissolve in bankrupcy, so that the shareholders lose their investment.
There are only a few ways to "pierce the corporate veil". One of those is for the corporation to not pay its taxes. If the corporation does that, the tax authorities can levy the money from the personal assets of anyone with a fiduciary interest in the corporation.
There are other ways the corporate veil can be pierced, which all more or less involve the attempt to use the corporation as an attempt to protect yourself from being prosecuted for illegal activity.
IANAL, but I own a corporation, and I'm pretty sure no form of civil tort provides for piercing the corporate veil.
There are peer to peer networks for the sharing of legal music. In some cases they use digital signatures to ensure the files are legit. Here's the ones I've found so far:
- Furthur Network
-
konspire[2b]
-
Monotonik's BitTorrents - zip files with ~300 MB of MP3s
If you know of any others please let me know.I was also reading those old telescope making books, which were written from the 1920s through the 50s, and while they discussed vacuum aluminization, I had no idea that you could send a mirror away to a commercial lab to have it coated inexpensively. I thought I'd have to build my own vacuum chamber if I wanted an aluminized mirror. So I figured I'd have to coat it myself.
I ground my first mirror in complete isolation. I never even discovered Sky and Telescope magazine until I ground my second, a 10 inch, a couple years later. One of the great things about the Internet is that young geeks don't have to be isolated from each other the way I was back in 1976 when I was 12.
The way I got my first kit is that it was among the effects of a chemistry graduate student named David Denny, who was drafted and killed in the Vietnam War. His parents were friends of my grandparents. Years later, when they heard I was into science, they gave me all of his old chemicals and glassware. Included was the mirror kit that hadn't been touched before he had to go to war.
Anyway, I got all my chemicals from the University of Idaho chemistry stockroom, where my dad was a E.E. graduate student. My dad came with me when I bought the chemicals, which was helpful because one of them was the fuming nitric acid required to clean the glass before silvering. Fuming nitric acid might be harder to get this days because it's needed to make such explosives as nitroglycerine and TNT.
Silvering a mirror is very difficult to get right. The slightest impurity or incorrect chemical proportions will ruin the coat. The temperature has to be just right, and you have to let the mirror soak for just the right amount of time. I think I tried a half dozen times before I had a coat I was willing to accept, and I was never really happy with it.
Here's a fun factoid for you: the spent chemical solution that's left after silvering a mirror is hazardous waste. Potently hazardous waste. Not simply because it is toxic, but if left to sit it will spontaneously explode. It can form fulminating silver, which is similar to the fulminating mercury that's used to detonate bullets, except that fulminating silver will explode spontaneously, without any heat or agitation.
One of the amateur telescope making books has a picture of someone's grinding shop that blew up after the owner left some silvering solution lying around.
There are people these days who still silver mirrors. There are certain advantages to silver if you don't mind having to recoat it after it tarnishes ever six months or so. It is very expensive to vacuum coat large mirrors, and there aren't many labs that have big enough vacuum chambers, so some of the people who make big scopes silver their mirrors.
In modern times, their has been quite a bit of success with applying the solutions from two different spray bottles, so that the silver starts to form when the two solutions mix. With some practice, you can get a better coat this way than by soaking the mirror in a basin like I did.
They talk about silvering quite a bit on the ATM list.
(While there are women who make telescopes, some of them very skilled telescope makers, the ATM hobby is likely even more predominantly male than programming is.)
When I was grinding a mirror during high school, my mom came out to the garage to find me up to my armpits in grit slurry, and said "I don't understand how you can live like this".
These days my wife has a great deal of difficulty in understanding how I can find any pleasure in making telescopes, and refuses to ever set foot at a star party again. However, she realizes that it gets me away from the computer and I do seem to find real joy in it, so she encourages it.
She just says I can't boil pitch (used in polishing) on the kitchen stove. I had to buy a hot plate so I can cook it in the garage.
I've been an avid avid amateur telescope maker since I was twelve years old. It led to me studying astronomy for a time at Caltech. While I'm a programmer now, it's still a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating hobby.
While a basic newtonian is a straightforward instrument that can be built by anyone who's good with their hands, telescope making can get as complicated as you want if you're really looking for a challenge. Optical design is still a wide open area of research in mathematics, software engineering, and physics, and some of the more interesting designs take quite a bit of skill to fabricate. That means anyone can make a satisfying telescope, but the hobby will yield a lifetime of interest because there's always new things to learn.
You can construct your own telescope with a primary mirror of 8 inches in diameter for less than $200. It will take quite a bit of work, but it is enjoyable and meditative work. Grinding mirrors is one of the things I do to relax and relieve the strain of coding all day.
A good place to start looking for information is the ATM FAQ. The procedures for grinding, polishing and figuring are pretty involved - you should buy one of the books from astronomy publisher Willman-Bell.
There are a number of people and business who sell inexpensive mirror grinding kits. They will come with a glass mirror blank and an assortment of different sizes of abrasive grits. I would recommend asking on the ATM mailing list (that you can find in the FAQ) when you're ready to order your first kit.
The 8" plate glass kit I bought from Dan Cassaro for my current project set me back $64. When I get done working on the mirror, it will cost me about $35 to have a vacuum coating laboratory aluminize it. Good quality eyepieces cost about $50 - just one will do to start with but it helps to have more.
While fancy equatorial mountings can be expensive to make, it's possible to make a quite servicable altazimuth mount out of common materials like plywood and a few hand tools.
The reason I wrote this article was that a friend quite seriously told me that the money she paid to purchase Kazaa went to compensate the musicians whose music she was downloading. She had no idea she was violating anyone's copyright. I suspect people like her are not uncommon among p2p users.
Other slashdot users have repeatedly mentioned that their less computer literate siblings and friends who use p2p were quite unaware that any of the songs they downloaded were immediately made available for sharing. While you can usually disable this, most of the p2p apps are configured to automatically share by default, and I don't think they always make an effort to inform the user of that fact, or of its legal implications.
There are peer to peer networks for the sharing of legal music. In some cases they use digital signatures to ensure the files are legit. Here's the ones I've found so far:
- Furthur Network
-
konspire[2b]
-
Monotonik's BitTorrents - zip files with ~300 MB of MP3s
If you know of any others please let me know.Also, thanks for the link. You'll see that I have given you a reciprocal link.
But there are p2p networks for downloading legal music. Some of them use digital signatures to authenticate the legality of the files. Here's the ones I've found so far:
- Furthur Network
-
konspire[2b]
-
Monotonik's BitTorrents - zip files with ~300 MB of MP3s
I talk about all of these in my article.Many unsigned and independent musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here
And yes I have been posting this to Slashdot repeatedly for several days, because I think it's important for people to understand there's a way to get quality, free music without breaking any laws, while at the same time benefiting the many talented, hardworking musicians who aren't signed with a major label.
Many unsigned and independent musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's some from my friend Oliver Brown for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here
Copyright is not a Constitutional right - the Constitution gives Congress the power to create copyright but does not require it to do so. Copyright could be ended tomorrow if Congress just passed a bill that repealed it.
The following are links to sections of my new article that explains the steps you can take to make file sharing legal:
- Change the Law
- Speak Out
- Vote
- Write to Your Elected Representatives
- Donate Money to Political Campaigns
- Support Campaign Finance Reform
- Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Practice Civil Disobedience
If you agree with what I have to say and feel as I do that it's important for others to hear it, please consider linking my article from your weblog or emailing the link to other people who might benefit from it.The Constitution grants Congress the power to create intellectual property, but does not require it to do so. Congress could do away with copyright in a single day, simply by passing a bill that eliminated it. They wouldn't even need the President's signature, if they had enough votes to override a veto.
From Article 1, Section 8 of The Constitution of the USA:
it's important to understand that the purpose copyright and patents were allowed for in the Constitution at all is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" - that is, to benefit society by stimulating the economy, rather than benefitting the creators of the works. That's not what Jack Valenti would have you believe.I discuss this at some length in the section called Change the Law which is part of Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads.
If you don't think it's within your power to change the law, consider that there are more Americans sharing files on peer-to-peer networks than there were Americans who voted for George Bush.
My article explains some steps you can take to change the law. The following are links to the explanation of each one, just to pique your interest:
- Speak Out
- Vote
- Write to Your Elected Representatives
- Donate Money to Political Campaigns
- Support Campaign Finance Reform
- Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Practice Civil Disobedience
If you agree with what I have to say, please link to my article from your own weblogs or websites. I feel what I have to say in it is important, which is why I've been whoring it all over the internet for days.Finally, if you're an American slashdot reader, you need to carefully read and thoroughly understand your Constitution. It is the highest law of the land, and the finest expression there is of the principles upon which our country was founded. If everyone did so, it would raise the level of the discussion here considerably.
I'll get off my soapbox now.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans. Here's mine for example. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here
But I'm the last person to claim I'm free from striving or attachment. I can't ever throw anything away, even things I don't use anymore, because I can't bear to be without them - even old ripped up clothes that don't fit anymore. I've been striving particularly hard since I started my consulting business in '98.
But I've learned my lesson the hard way because I also lead what in many ways is a miserable life. To the extent I can free myself from attachment, I am much happier.
Buddha taught us that the source of human misery is attachment. In order to be free from sorrow, we must be free from attachment - and from striving.
Many people who meditate - and I suspect most Americans who meditate - do so because they hope to get something out of it, anything from relaxation, to relief from stress, enlightment or spiritual growth. But if you are striving to better yourself through meditation, you are missing the whole point. What you must free yourself from is that very striving.
The Shambhala monk Chyogyam Trungpa was instrumental in bringing Tibetan buddhism to the US and Canada in a form that could be appreciated by westerners. May I recommend a couple of his books:
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Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
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The Heart of the Buddha
Spiritual materialism was particularly rampant in the United States in the late 60's and early 70's. Trungpa worked hard to teach all the navel-gazers that that was a mistake.I can teach anyone to meditate in about two minutes:
Sit comfortably but with your back straight. Focus just part of your attention on your breath. Clear your mind of thoughts. Don't beat yourself up if a though crosses your mind, just let it go. Then sit for a while. Try ten minutes to start with, then a little longer each day as you get used to it.
The most important thing is to just sit. How many Slashdotters ever allow themselves to just sit? To just clear your mind without thinking of anything?
Trungpa said there was no way out but to apply your bottom to the meditation cushion. I can promise you'll enjoy his books - he was quite a colorful character.
I think that the day that release from attachment can be sold to American business will come when Bill Gates gives his money to the poor, shaves his head, dons saffron robes, and takes The Vows of Refuge.
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friend Rick Walker. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
- Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friend Rick Walker. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
-
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please follow the instructions given here.
(I just posted a new draft if you read it before.)
Many unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music on their websites as a way to attract more fans, for example my friends the Divine Maggees. Many such musicians, while relatively unknown, are as good as any major label band and certainly an improvement over the pablum they serve up on ClearChannel.
You can find many more examples in my new article:
-
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
The article also explores some of the historical and legal issues behind copyright, and suggests steps the file traders can take to make file sharing legal.If you're a musician who offers downloads of your music, I can link to your band's website from the article. Please follow the instructions given here.
I'm working on an article I hope to publish at Kuro5hin soon. You may find it helpful. In return, I would like your comments on how to improve it. I want to do the very best job I can so that it will be sure to get voted to the front page by the K5 moderators:
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Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
If you're a musician who offers free music downloads, I will link to your website if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please read the instructions here.Send your comments to crawford@goingware.com
Thanks for your help.
So far the articles are:
- Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
- Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
- Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications
- Free Hosting Service HTML Validation Test Page
- Pointers to C++ Member Functions
The Open Source Development Lab has kindly translated the two kernel articles to Japanese. I am actively seeking further translations.The articles are all under the GNU Free Documentation License. However, Debian has decided the GFDL is non-free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. I plan to change the license to one that satisfies Debian's requirements, but haven't settled on one yet.
Any non-freeness of the GFDL shouldn't prevent you including it in your distribution, the issue is that invariant sections forbid some kinds of modifications. I discuss this further in Which License for Free Documentation?
Even if you don't get an attorney to represent you in court, do talk to an attorney, so that the documents you have to file are written correctly. You may be unaware that they have to be formatted a certain way. There are certain keywords that mean magic things to a judge but may appear ridiculous to the non-specialist.
If you go to most any attorney and tell them you're a struggling college student and the RIAA just sued you, they will almost certainly help you at least write your response correctly.
The last time I consulted an attorney, the only payment he required was a promise that the next time the subject came up, I tell whoever I'm talking to that attorneys aren't the bad people that many make them out to be. This gentleman got my ass out of a sling, and all he wanted was for me to say he wasn't a bad person.