No, the third world needs a source of clean drinking water, democratic governments instead of tinpot dictators and warlords, education on how to grow crops instead of remaining nomadic herders, better housing, and public schools to name a few things.
A low cost, low power computer, can help with all of those. Given a suitable stack of CD's, or even better, an internet connection the computer becomes a library, language tool, political instrument and weather forcaster.
With one or two shared amongst a village with suitable software, people can use them to: - learn to read and write (assuming low literacy is a problem in that area) - learn how to find clean water, why it's important, and build pumps - better ideas on how to grow crops in their area - how to build better houses - to provide educational material for their teachers - for medical advice, especially information on how AIDS spreads and can be prevented
with a 'net connection they can - participate in politics more easily, by sharing ideas and organisation in their region, and get ideas from other organisations in the world - publicise their plight to the world at large, assuming they can't defeat their own warlords - see weather forcasts, which will help with farming - and overall, become generally more educated and knowledgable. Books are all well and good, but third world villages tend to get odd boxes of very out of date and disparate text books. With an internet connection they have access to massive amounts of up to date information on any subject they could want. Especially as real libraries are starting to open up their content online.
Assistance programs can help keep a group of people alive. Education and co-operation means they can help themselves climb further. (Though massive changes to the way international finance and aid works wouldn't hurt, neither would removing trade barriers - but that's another discussion.)
Current shows will likely not end up in the archive yet, just older material, so you'll still need a TV licence if you own a TV.
Still, since the BBC alone owns a truly big archive, this should become a really useful tool for education. Just imagine the benefit for history departments for example - free and open use of news and documentaries for student projects. Art will be another massive beneficiary, as they can reshoot or study BFI films freely and easily.
Hell, online downloading and sharing of the Open University teaching materials would be great, instead of taping shows broadcast in the early hours of the morning.
Alternatively, you ring up the ISP, they explain why you were dropped.
You promise you'll clean up your box, and they re-enable you. You then have a short period of time to clean and update your machine using the 'net, or you get blocked again as your usage pegs the alarm meters again
How would you people feel if I would take Open Office (for example) and rewrite a part of it, so it could read/write.doc files with 100% relliability and then distribute that binary to all of my employees (say, 2000 workers). But I wouldn't provide the source.
I'd think a) you're complying with the licence terms, as the GPL doesn't require you to publish the source as you're not distributing outside your company b) good on you for using open source to improve the lot of your employees c) it's a bad example, anyway - because:
copying music is not stealing, it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Different laws, different penalties, different circumstances. Calling it theft won't make it so.
The goal of Free software is to spread knowledge rather than restricting it, using copyright to increase the public good rather than diminish it. Sharing music is much the same principle - new music comes from a vast pool of existing melodies, riffs and lyrics, and I'd rather it was shared into the public domain than locked up with DRM for at least 100 years. Imagine if those who profited so much from selling other people's work had to give 49% to the artist, another 49% into the public domain (charity, maybe) and only got to keep 2%. Would they consider that fair? So why should we consider them constantly changing the copyright bargain to suit themselves fair?
Sharing music is arguably unethical, but so is charging students $15,000 a track (a penalty designed for commercial infringement) with no chance of them being able to afford to fight.
The RIAA are a private police force using the court system to extort money from people for the benefit of corporations. In addition, they've sued a 12 year old girl, a grandmother who couldn't have infringed, and someone who was dead. Personally, I hope someone accused by error goes to court, wins, and countersues the RIAA's members for a massive amount.
Better yet, since Larry is since against reverse engineering of his work, I hope he only uses IBM PC's, as all others stem from the original reverse engineering of the IBM BIOS.
First, I agree that part was badly worded, upon review. My apologies.
My point was not that all people would buy music if they couldn't get it free - thats demonstratably untrue.
My point is that some people would.
Some people buy from download services, even though it's no cheaper than CDs (in the UK, at least), is lower quality, and is more restricted. This is even more in contrast when they still get the same tracks from P2P services for free.
We can surmise there are three groups of people who use paid download services, as opposed to CD's or P2P for music.
1) those who think it's wrong to break copyright law. They'd never use P2P, so we can ignore them for the case in point.
2) people who only want a handful of tracks, not a full album. For them, it's cheaper to buy a la carte than physical albums. However, it's one of the oft-quoted advantages of P2P prior to the launch of say, itunes, that you don't have to pay for the entire album to get one track. It's not much of a stretch to think that some people prefer to go cheaper still, and still use P2P for individual tracks, even though they could afford to pay for them.
3) the third type of user is the largest - those who like the convenience of downloading what they want, when they want, without having to hit the shops or cdbaby. It's even less of a stretch to think that some people migrated from P2P to paid download services, rather than they're all internet virgins. Assuming that some have migrated, then they're paying for music they previously got for free.
I cannot prove that some people download music etc from p2p services that could, and would pay for if P2P did not exist. Certainly, it doesn't apply to *all* users as the demand for a zero price track is greater than that of a cheap track, and that's greater than for an expensive one.
I can understand the numbers being very small for a $500 office suite, i find it a little more unlikely for a $0.99 track.
The question is of course, whether that number is overwhelmed by people who buy in future, or buy through familiarity that otherwise would not have. It would appear that it is for music, based on the more neutral studies taken of the area, making P2P actually a net advantage for the artists. The fact that microsoft still has an office monopoly also indicates they're not exactly hurting from internet infringement of their office suite.
Well, there are likely some sale of lower costs items (such as CDs) that people would have paid for, but didn't because it was also available free. The existance of paid-download music sites demonstrates that.
On the other hand, this is offset by people that wouldn't have bought it because of the price, buying it at a later date. For example, most people won't buy a retail copy of office, or photoshop, or music they haven't tried - it's too expensive to risk the money on.
However, when they work for a business, or have more disposable income they'll go back and buy what they're familar with. This is one thing that keeps photoshop going - people pirate it at home, so are familiar with it and buy it at work. Trying an artist for free, and liking them, can boost sales later - this is the whole principle of music radio, of course.
What the RIAA members dislike most is not the loss of sales, various studies have shown that P2P if anything increases sales. What it does do is take control of promotion out of their hands, and that really is their business killer.
Well, I was aware that people had attempted claiming copyright over generated works in the past with non-GPL software, but I wasn't aware anybody had succeeded! (Though I was referring only to the output of GPL software, as below)
I'd be interested if you had any legal judgement or specific examples not relating to compilers (which I can see you could argue copy parts of themselves into the binary, if it was an proprietry vendor), as according to the GPL faq -
Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?
In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert his own data, the copyright on the output belongs to him, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from. So the only way you have a say in the use of the output is if substantial parts of the output are copied (more or less) from text in your program. For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this specific case. You could artificially make a program copy certain text into its output even if there is no technical reason to do so. But if that copied text serves no practical purpose, the user could simply delete that text from the output and use only the rest. Then he would not have to obey the conditions on redistribution of the copied text.
In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too? Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.
and the bison bit: Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code. Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input. As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
For the moment, I'm standing by my statement, as GPL output is yours, and it's covered by the copyright licence you choose - assuming of course, you owned the copyright to the inputs.
If they're only annoying because of quantity, but otherwise legitimate services, then I'd agree that jail does seem a dangerous path to be going down. I don't subscribe to jail being a good deterrent for minor offences.
OTOH, if the mails he were sending were badly fraudulent or dangerous, i.e. dodgy mortages, fake viagra (who knows what's in it?), credit card fraud, 419 scams etc then I think jailtime is deserved.
If someone defrauds a lot of people of a lot of real money (as opposed to the theoretical loss that RIAA et al use - $15,000 a track is rediculous) then jailtime is just. The bigger the fraud, the longer the sentence should be.
As always, it comes down to what you're trying to install it on.
For example, if I install vanilla Windows XP on a couple of boxes at work (rather than ghost em), I first install windows. Then I have to run it at 640x480 with 16 colours while I track down the video driver... and then the sound driver... and the modem driver... etc etc. Then I patch the registry to pull the updates off our SUS server (or visit windows update repeatedly). Before it's actually useful, I also need to install a firewall, antivirus, DVD playback software, extra codecs, flash, java, Office, etc etc. Oh, and don't forget how much fun it is to install windows on a dual boot system if it doesn't have the first drive all to itself, wiping the existing boot manager is only part of it.
If I install a good binary distro, like SuSE or ubuntu, the installer lets me partition the drive how I choose, asks a few basic questions (like windows), but with more control if I want it, and off it goes. When it's finished, usually without the multiple reboots I need to do with windows, it's done. All the drivers are already there, I have all the software I need, it asked me for the network options as part of the setup; it's ready to use with a lot less work.
OTOH, if you compare a manufacturers windows restore disk to say, gentoo, the windows install will be much faster. If the hardware isn't well supported in linux (a wireless adapter that the manufacturer hasn't even released specs for, for example) then pre-tweaked windows would come out simpler and easier.
Basically, it depends on your circumstances and hardware as to which is simpler.
The HTML that google serves up would not be affected, as data created, or used by GPL programs is not covered by the GPL (or any automatic licence).
However, say google takes an GPL proxy/webcache program, and makes some significant extra performance modifications to it.
If they sell 'google in a box' with those modifications on it, those customers have a right under the GPL to ask for a copy of the source. As a side effect, that will also allow those modifications to be merged into the version that the primary maintainers run, thus allowing those modifications to spread to the benefit of all the users, not just google. (This is the 'viral' nature people complain about; why should google have to give up their modifications? The answer is of course, they got a massive leg up by having the GPL code in the first place, so it's only fair they contribute their own piece back. Plus, it's also fair that the purchasers of said box should have a complete copy of the source that went into their box, so they can tweak it or support it themselves if they wish)
However, if google only uses that modified proxy on google.com itself, to serve up html pages, you never get a copy of the binary. Since it's never distributed (only the results as a service), google can fully comply with the GPL and keep the modifications to themselves.
So the possible change is, if that proxy app was under GPL3 when google changed it (and not GPL2), anyone using google would have the right to ask for the modifications to the proxy server code they made, which you can't do under GPL2.
The inputs (or outputs) of the GPL'd software would still be private, as they're not counted as a derivative work. What would be required would be modified source code of GPL apps that google used to provide the service of google.com, even if they never sold or gave away binaries of their code to anyone directly.
"In a hypothetical situation, Olson said, a company that needs to scale up its high-performance Web-based application could look at the GPL and make changes to improve performance but only show the source code that it changed under the new provision."
The thing is, if businesses were making more money off the adverts in DVD's vs the ones that didn't have them, the price should have dropped, right?
But they didn't, they cost the same - or more. (In the UK, at least)
This is problem with a government granted monopoly, there's no competition. If I want to get say, a copy of Master and Commander for my dad, then I have to buy the version with 10 minutes of unskippable ads, or not at all. There's no alternatively supplier selling a more expensive version with no ads, or a cheaper one with ads.
With magazines, the content is largely the same, but I can differentiate on price, or amount of adverts. Besides, I can skip the adverts in a magazine, but I can't on a DVD.
Corporations do not have a right to make a profit at any cost to the customer. They get protections granted by copyright. I'm prepared to abide by those.
Once the sale is completed though, they don't get the right to add unannounced additional terms and restrictions on what I can do with MY DVD. They can try and add restrictions, but I also have the right to remove those (morally at least), and tell them I disagree with what they did.
The problem is, you're effectively telling apple you like their DRM. They don't know you're removing it - they just add you to the big list of customers they can present to the record companies and say 'See? people are accepting our DRM, and if any nasty people manage to buy your music without DRM, or listen to the music they paid for on too many computers, we can lock it down harder and people will still accept it!'
DRM won't get lighter, or less restrictive, only more so. And you buying it under those conditions just lets them get away with tightening it for the vast majority of people who don't know who to remove it.
Give it 20 years, and people won't remember they used to be able to play records or CDs how and where they liked. They'll have forgotten they used to be able to resell old CD's once they were tired of them. They'll have forgotten that they could make backup copies of what they owned.
Some of those things are already going, like the ability to play it on your OS/device of choice without jumping through hoops. Some have gone already, like being able to resell your copies.
Buy iTMS music if you like their DRM, but don't remove it and then kid yourself you're beating them. You're just paving the road to greater restrictions later. And by the time we can't crack the DRM (or it becomes so legally dangerous to do so) it'll be too late to complain, lobby and change it, because most people will think that's how it's always been.
Use firefox with either the flashblock plugin and/or the adblock plugin.
Firefox by default disables all except on-click javascript popups.
Flashblock automatically replaces all flash with a button you click in order to enable it (handy for blocking distracting animated flash ads, popups etc) while allowing you to start wanted flash and toolbars easily.
Adblock just adds a little marker to banners and flash, that allows you to right click and filter that ad location permanently, using wildcards. Sort of a directed hosts blocker.
Between the three, it's a rare day I have to put up with an intrusive ad these days. I tend to leave static banners alone though, as I'm not trying to kill off ad-supported sites totally, just those that try to hijack my browsing.
Games (written solely for windows, I don't blame that on linux, and don't expect it to change) Paintshop pro (runs like crap in wine, and I find gimp difficult to use for photo repair) and webcam chats with the girlfriend. Talking her through netmeeting on windows so I can use gnomemeeting is a pain, so we usually switch to msn video chat as it's far simpler, especially once you involve firewalls.
This breakthrough, which will allow me to carry on using my main linux desktop for video chat with the most common (alas) chat client solves one of the two problems where windows is superior to linux, for me.
So yes, I'd consider it a breakthrough on one of the more noticable gaps for desktop use.
As I understand it, the statutory instrument only means that it has passed the EU council/parliament stages, and now needs to be implemented at the national level.
I don't think it actually becomes enforceable law in the UK until a version is passed by the local (UK) government. I stand to be corrected though.
First, the EU has a higher GDP now than the US. Yes, it's a BIGGER market than the US.
Secondly, microsoft is only able to sell their product in the EU because the governments enforce their government granted copyright.
Let's say Microsoft does decide to shut down Microsoft's European division, and stop all sales there. There's nothing (theoretically) to stop the EU parliament, or individual EU governments declaring all Microsoft software public domain. People could then upload and download microsoft software for free in the EU, totally legally. Given that governments use MS software the most in the EU, it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.
However, that would only apply if those terms were available at time of purchase, and signed by the purchaser prior to handing over money to the retailer.
Adding additional restrictions after a sale is effectively prevented in the UK by the concept of 'doctrine of first sale' - specifically, the copyright holder cannot add additional restrictions than those granted by copyright, such as preventing resale, after the first sale is completed.
However, this isn't necessary in this case. Making a complete copy of a work you own is not allowed under fair dealing rights under UK copyright law, except for such transient copies or backups you need for installation or operation, or for reverse engineering. Ripping a DVD (or CD) you own to your hardrive does not technically fall under the stated exemptions, though it would likely be judged legal from precedent if it ever came before a court.
Actually, that's not an explicit defence against infringement under UK copyright law. Our version of Fair Use is called Fair Dealing, and has very limited exceptions - basically, you can only use a limited portion of a copyrighted work for education or news reporting etc. A wholesale copy, even if it's for your own use, is technically illegal. Ergo, ripping a CD to MP3's, or a DVD to your hard drive are not legal - but not enforced.
However, the courts have generally ruled that a non-distributive, non-profit copying is legal, such as timeshifting by taping radio shows, or making transient copies in order to run a program.
It's likely that ripping a CD or DVD, for your own personal use (and not say, your mate) would equally be judged non-infringing if it ever came up in court.
That is until the EUCD comes into force. The UK has already signed up to this european legislation, we're just waiting on the patent office to write a version of the law for parliament to pass. The EUCD is more restrictive than the DMCA, and the UK version will almost certainly prevent the bypassing of copy-control mechanisms by any means. Therefore when it passes, bypassing CSS to rip your own copy will likely be explicitly illegal, rather than technically as at the moment.
The problem with 'the customer is always right' is that culture is always a factor. You just don't see it in your own culture. Say in a US store, you let your dog crap on the floor. Would the shop keeper get upset? After all, the customer is always right, and if the customer wants it, they should get it. Somehow, I think you'd get yelled at and thrown out.
Now let's assume the customer is from a (hypothetical) foreign culture where dogs are revered and allowed to do what they want, where they want, so to him, he's done nothing wrong. He'd go home and tell tales about how US shopkeepers are so unfriendly and insensitive.
Just because something is not offensive in your country, you shouldn't assume that when you've pissed someone off it's because they're unfriendly and crap at customer service. They just may expect different rules of behaviour than you.
Just for future reference, Tony Blair has to defend himself on the floor of the House of Commons, the elected house of MP's. He has a half hour every week where he answers pre-submitted questions from all parties. (The commons is equivalent to the US house of representatives, the Lords is an appointed 2nd house that can delay legislation but not stop it)
Generally, a questioner can ask a supplementary question. The leader of the opposition (largest party not in power) gets 3 or 4 supplementary questions after his first, which are not scripted.
The whole thing is televised, or available online as video and transcript here
I have to admit, it's one of the best bits of British democracy, and the US would benefit from introducing it. Some of the questions are just evil, and the PM has to work hard at it. PM questions can make or break a politicians career.
There is a contradiction in your message. People create under a legal framework upon which they base their expectations of interaction with other people.
Which is why copyright extensions are evil. They're retroactively altering the agreement between the public and the creator that he will have exclusive rights to copy that work for a period. That period just gets longer and longer, presumably with the goal that disney's copyrighted works will never enter the public domain; despite that not being the agreement in place at the time the work was created.
DRM is a similar evil, because it uses technological measures to extend the creators rights beyond the original agreement, backed up by the DMCA and EUCD against circumvention.
Your cultural stack of pebbles wouldn't exist without the daily work of creative people who continually add to it and also need to pay the rent.
This is not universally true, there are many people who create when profit is not their motive. There was plenty of creation of pebbles prior to copyright.
Still, we the public benefit from an increasing pile of pebbles, and many people are prepared to pay creators a fair price to add more pebbles. What's frustrating is some creators think that the mountain is all their property, and we should all have to pay forever to climb it and admire the view, conveniently ignoring the massive amount of existing work and culture they used in order to create their small contribution.
Copyright as a mechanism for rewarding creativity and increasing the quality of the public domain (all non-secret works natural place) is broken, and gets more broken every year. We need a new method. Here's hoping we find one before content oligarchies lock away so much material into decaying unrecoverable formats that we enter a new cultural dark age.
Slashdot Mirror
try btefnet. Obviously, only use if downloading is legal in your jurisdiction.
No, the third world needs a source of clean drinking water, democratic governments instead of tinpot dictators and warlords, education on how to grow crops instead of remaining nomadic herders, better housing, and public schools to name a few things.
A low cost, low power computer, can help with all of those. Given a suitable stack of CD's, or even better, an internet connection the computer becomes a library, language tool, political instrument and weather forcaster.
With one or two shared amongst a village with suitable software, people can use them to:
- learn to read and write (assuming low literacy is a problem in that area)
- learn how to find clean water, why it's important, and build pumps
- better ideas on how to grow crops in their area
- how to build better houses
- to provide educational material for their teachers
- for medical advice, especially information on how AIDS spreads and can be prevented
with a 'net connection they can
- participate in politics more easily, by sharing ideas and organisation in their region, and get ideas from other organisations in the world
- publicise their plight to the world at large, assuming they can't defeat their own warlords
- see weather forcasts, which will help with farming
- and overall, become generally more educated and knowledgable. Books are all well and good, but third world villages tend to get odd boxes of very out of date and disparate text books. With an internet connection they have access to massive amounts of up to date information on any subject they could want. Especially as real libraries are starting to open up their content online.
Assistance programs can help keep a group of people alive. Education and co-operation means they can help themselves climb further. (Though massive changes to the way international finance and aid works wouldn't hurt, neither would removing trade barriers - but that's another discussion.)
Current shows will likely not end up in the archive yet, just older material, so you'll still need a TV licence if you own a TV.
Still, since the BBC alone owns a truly big archive, this should become a really useful tool for education.
Just imagine the benefit for history departments for example - free and open use of news and documentaries for student projects. Art will be another massive beneficiary, as they can reshoot or study BFI films freely and easily.
Hell, online downloading and sharing of the Open University teaching materials would be great, instead of taping shows broadcast in the early hours of the morning.
Alternatively, you ring up the ISP, they explain why you were dropped. You promise you'll clean up your box, and they re-enable you. You then have a short period of time to clean and update your machine using the 'net, or you get blocked again as your usage pegs the alarm meters again
How would you people feel if I would take Open Office (for example) and rewrite a part of it, so it could read/write .doc files with 100% relliability and then distribute that binary to all of my employees (say, 2000 workers). But I wouldn't provide the source.
I'd think
a) you're complying with the licence terms, as the
GPL doesn't require you to publish the source as you're not distributing outside your company
b) good on you for using open source to improve the lot of your employees
c) it's a bad example, anyway - because:
copying music is not stealing, it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Different laws, different penalties, different circumstances. Calling it theft won't make it so.
The goal of Free software is to spread knowledge rather than restricting it, using copyright to increase the public good rather than diminish it.
Sharing music is much the same principle - new music comes from a vast pool of existing melodies, riffs and lyrics, and I'd rather it was shared into the public domain than locked up with DRM for at least 100 years. Imagine if those who profited so much from selling other people's work had to give 49% to the artist, another 49% into the public domain (charity, maybe) and only got to keep 2%. Would they consider that fair? So why should we consider them constantly changing the copyright bargain to suit themselves fair?
Sharing music is arguably unethical, but so is charging students $15,000 a track (a penalty designed for commercial infringement) with no chance of them being able to afford to fight.
The RIAA are a private police force using the court system to extort money from people for the benefit of corporations. In addition, they've sued a 12 year old girl, a grandmother who couldn't have infringed, and someone who was dead. Personally, I hope someone accused by error goes to court, wins, and countersues the RIAA's members for a massive amount.
Better yet, since Larry is since against reverse engineering of his work, I hope he only uses IBM PC's, as all others stem from the original reverse engineering of the IBM BIOS.
First, I agree that part was badly worded, upon review. My apologies.
My point was not that all people would buy music if they couldn't get it free - thats demonstratably untrue.
My point is that some people would.
Some people buy from download services, even though it's no cheaper than CDs (in the UK, at least), is lower quality, and is more restricted. This is even more in contrast when they still get the same tracks from P2P services for free.
We can surmise there are three groups of people who use paid download services, as opposed to CD's or P2P for music.
1) those who think it's wrong to break copyright law. They'd never use P2P, so we can ignore them for the case in point.
2) people who only want a handful of tracks, not a full album. For them, it's cheaper to buy a la carte than physical albums. However, it's one of the oft-quoted advantages of P2P prior to the launch of say, itunes, that you don't have to pay for the entire album to get one track. It's not much of a stretch to think that some people prefer to go cheaper still, and still use P2P for individual tracks, even though they could afford to pay for them.
3) the third type of user is the largest - those who like the convenience of downloading what they want, when they want, without having to hit the shops or cdbaby. It's even less of a stretch to think that some people migrated from P2P to paid download services, rather than they're all internet virgins. Assuming that some have migrated, then they're paying for music they previously got for free.
I cannot prove that some people download music etc from p2p services that could, and would pay for if P2P did not exist. Certainly, it doesn't apply to *all* users as the demand for a zero price track is greater than that of a cheap track, and that's greater than for an expensive one.
I can understand the numbers being very small for a $500 office suite, i find it a little more unlikely for a $0.99 track.
The question is of course, whether that number is overwhelmed by people who buy in future, or buy through familiarity that otherwise would not have. It would appear that it is for music, based on the more neutral studies taken of the area, making P2P actually a net advantage for the artists. The fact that microsoft still has an office monopoly also indicates they're not exactly hurting from internet infringement of their office suite.
Well, there are likely some sale of lower costs items (such as CDs) that people would have paid for, but didn't because it was also available free. The existance of paid-download music sites demonstrates that.
On the other hand, this is offset by people that wouldn't have bought it because of the price, buying it at a later date. For example, most people won't buy a retail copy of office, or photoshop, or music they haven't tried - it's too expensive to risk the money on.
However, when they work for a business, or have more disposable income they'll go back and buy what they're familar with. This is one thing that keeps photoshop going - people pirate it at home, so are familiar with it and buy it at work. Trying an artist for free, and liking them, can boost sales later - this is the whole principle of music radio, of course.
What the RIAA members dislike most is not the loss of sales, various studies have shown that P2P if anything increases sales. What it does do is take control of promotion out of their hands, and that really is their business killer.
Well, I was aware that people had attempted claiming copyright over generated works in the past with non-GPL software, but I wasn't aware anybody had succeeded! (Though I was referring only to the output of GPL software, as below)
I'd be interested if you had any legal judgement or specific examples not relating to compilers (which I can see you could argue copy parts of themselves into the binary, if it was an proprietry vendor), as according to the GPL faq -
Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?
In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert his own data, the copyright on the output belongs to him, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from.
So the only way you have a say in the use of the output is if substantial parts of the output are copied (more or less) from text in your program. For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this specific case.
You could artificially make a program copy certain text into its output even if there is no technical reason to do so. But if that copied text serves no practical purpose, the user could simply delete that text from the output and use only the rest. Then he would not have to obey the conditions on redistribution of the copied text.
In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?
Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.
and the bison bit:
Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.
Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.
As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
For the moment, I'm standing by my statement, as GPL output is yours, and it's covered by the copyright licence you choose - assuming of course, you owned the copyright to the inputs.
Depends upon the nature of his emails, I'd say.
If they're only annoying because of quantity, but otherwise legitimate services, then I'd agree that jail does seem a dangerous path to be going down. I don't subscribe to jail being a good deterrent for minor offences.
OTOH, if the mails he were sending were badly fraudulent or dangerous, i.e. dodgy mortages, fake viagra (who knows what's in it?), credit card fraud, 419 scams etc then I think jailtime is deserved.
If someone defrauds a lot of people of a lot of real money (as opposed to the theoretical loss that RIAA et al use - $15,000 a track is rediculous) then jailtime is just. The bigger the fraud, the longer the sentence should be.
As always, it comes down to what you're trying to install it on.
For example, if I install vanilla Windows XP on a couple of boxes at work (rather than ghost em), I first install windows. Then I have to run it at 640x480 with 16 colours while I track down the video driver... and then the sound driver... and the modem driver... etc etc. Then I patch the registry to pull the updates off our SUS server (or visit windows update repeatedly). Before it's actually useful, I also need to install a firewall, antivirus, DVD playback software, extra codecs, flash, java, Office, etc etc. Oh, and don't forget how much fun it is to install windows on a dual boot system if it doesn't have the first drive all to itself, wiping the existing boot manager is only part of it.
If I install a good binary distro, like SuSE or ubuntu, the installer lets me partition the drive how I choose, asks a few basic questions (like windows), but with more control if I want it, and off it goes. When it's finished, usually without the multiple reboots I need to do with windows, it's done. All the drivers are already there, I have all the software I need, it asked me for the network options as part of the setup; it's ready to use with a lot less work.
OTOH, if you compare a manufacturers windows restore disk to say, gentoo, the windows install will be much faster. If the hardware isn't well supported in linux (a wireless adapter that the manufacturer hasn't even released specs for, for example) then pre-tweaked windows would come out simpler and easier.
Basically, it depends on your circumstances and hardware as to which is simpler.
The HTML that google serves up would not be affected, as data created, or used by GPL programs is not covered by the GPL (or any automatic licence).
However, say google takes an GPL proxy/webcache program, and makes some significant extra performance modifications to it.
If they sell 'google in a box' with those modifications on it, those customers have a right under the GPL to ask for a copy of the source. As a side effect, that will also allow those modifications to be merged into the version that the primary maintainers run, thus allowing those modifications to spread to the benefit of all the users, not just google. (This is the 'viral' nature people complain about; why should google have to give up their modifications? The answer is of course, they got a massive leg up by having the GPL code in the first place, so it's only fair they contribute their own piece back. Plus, it's also fair that the purchasers of said box should have a complete copy of the source that went into their box, so they can tweak it or support it themselves if they wish)
However, if google only uses that modified proxy on google.com itself, to serve up html pages, you never get a copy of the binary. Since it's never distributed (only the results as a service), google can fully comply with the GPL and keep the modifications to themselves.
So the possible change is, if that proxy app was under GPL3 when google changed it (and not GPL2), anyone using google would have the right to ask for the modifications to the proxy server code they made, which you can't do under GPL2.
The inputs (or outputs) of the GPL'd software would still be private, as they're not counted as a derivative work. What would be required would be modified source code of GPL apps that google used to provide the service of google.com, even if they never sold or gave away binaries of their code to anyone directly.
"In a hypothetical situation, Olson said, a company that needs to scale up its high-performance Web-based application could look at the GPL and make changes to improve performance but only show the source code that it changed under the new provision."
The thing is, if businesses were making more money off the adverts in DVD's vs the ones that didn't have them, the price should have dropped, right?
But they didn't, they cost the same - or more. (In the UK, at least)
This is problem with a government granted monopoly, there's no competition. If I want to get say, a copy of Master and Commander for my dad, then I have to buy the version with 10 minutes of unskippable ads, or not at all. There's no alternatively supplier selling a more expensive version with no ads, or a cheaper one with ads.
With magazines, the content is largely the same, but I can differentiate on price, or amount of adverts. Besides, I can skip the adverts in a magazine, but I can't on a DVD.
Corporations do not have a right to make a profit at any cost to the customer. They get protections granted by copyright. I'm prepared to abide by those.
Once the sale is completed though, they don't get the right to add unannounced additional terms and restrictions on what I can do with MY DVD. They can try and add restrictions, but I also have the right to remove those (morally at least), and tell them I disagree with what they did.
The problem is, you're effectively telling apple you like their DRM. They don't know you're removing it - they just add you to the big list of customers they can present to the record companies and say
'See? people are accepting our DRM, and if any nasty people manage to buy your music without DRM, or listen to the music they paid for on too many computers, we can lock it down harder and people will still accept it!'
DRM won't get lighter, or less restrictive, only more so. And you buying it under those conditions just lets them get away with tightening it for the vast majority of people who don't know who to remove it.
Give it 20 years, and people won't remember they used to be able to play records or CDs how and where they liked. They'll have forgotten they used to be able to resell old CD's once they were tired of them. They'll have forgotten that they could make backup copies of what they owned.
Some of those things are already going, like the ability to play it on your OS/device of choice without jumping through hoops. Some have gone already, like being able to resell your copies.
Buy iTMS music if you like their DRM, but don't remove it and then kid yourself you're beating them. You're just paving the road to greater restrictions later. And by the time we can't crack the DRM (or it becomes so legally dangerous to do so) it'll be too late to complain, lobby and change it, because most people will think that's how it's always been.
Use firefox with either the flashblock plugin and/or the adblock plugin.
Firefox by default disables all except on-click javascript popups.
Flashblock automatically replaces all flash with a button you click in order to enable it (handy for blocking distracting animated flash ads, popups etc) while allowing you to start wanted flash and toolbars easily.
Adblock just adds a little marker to banners and flash, that allows you to right click and filter that ad location permanently, using wildcards. Sort of a directed hosts blocker.
Between the three, it's a rare day I have to put up with an intrusive ad these days. I tend to leave static banners alone though, as I'm not trying to kill off ad-supported sites totally, just those that try to hijack my browsing.
I had to click on the 'hidden' flash shown by flashblocker before I could get your popup. Thanks for the test!
There are three things I boot my windows box for.
Games (written solely for windows, I don't blame that on linux, and don't expect it to change)
Paintshop pro (runs like crap in wine, and I find gimp difficult to use for photo repair)
and webcam chats with the girlfriend. Talking her through netmeeting on windows so I can use gnomemeeting is a pain, so we usually switch to msn video chat as it's far simpler, especially once you involve firewalls.
This breakthrough, which will allow me to carry on using my main linux desktop for video chat with the most common (alas) chat client solves one of the two problems where windows is superior to linux, for me.
So yes, I'd consider it a breakthrough on one of the more noticable gaps for desktop use.
As I understand it, the statutory instrument only means that it has passed the EU council/parliament stages, and now needs to be implemented at the national level. I don't think it actually becomes enforceable law in the UK until a version is passed by the local (UK) government. I stand to be corrected though.
You're forgetting two things.
First, the EU has a higher GDP now than the US. Yes, it's a BIGGER market than the US.
Secondly, microsoft is only able to sell their product in the EU because the governments enforce their government granted copyright.
Let's say Microsoft does decide to shut down Microsoft's European division, and stop all sales there.
There's nothing (theoretically) to stop the EU parliament, or individual EU governments declaring all Microsoft software public domain.
People could then upload and download microsoft software for free in the EU, totally legally.
Given that governments use MS software the most in the EU, it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.
Microsoft would be insane to try it.
However, that would only apply if those terms were available at time of purchase, and signed by the purchaser prior to handing over money to the retailer.
Adding additional restrictions after a sale is effectively prevented in the UK by the concept of 'doctrine of first sale' - specifically, the copyright holder cannot add additional restrictions than those granted by copyright, such as preventing resale, after the first sale is completed.
However, this isn't necessary in this case. Making a complete copy of a work you own is not allowed under fair dealing rights under UK copyright law, except for such transient copies or backups you need for installation or operation, or for reverse engineering. Ripping a DVD (or CD) you own to your hardrive does not technically fall under the stated exemptions, though it would likely be judged legal from precedent if it ever came before a court.
Actually, that's not an explicit defence against infringement under UK copyright law. Our version of Fair Use is called Fair Dealing, and has very limited exceptions -
basically, you can only use a limited portion of a copyrighted work for education or news reporting etc. A wholesale copy, even if it's for your own use, is technically illegal. Ergo, ripping a CD to MP3's, or a DVD to your hard drive are not legal - but not enforced.
However, the courts have generally ruled that a non-distributive, non-profit copying is legal, such as timeshifting by taping radio shows, or making transient copies in order to run a program.
It's likely that ripping a CD or DVD, for your own personal use (and not say, your mate) would equally be judged non-infringing if it ever came up in court.
That is until the EUCD comes into force. The UK has already signed up to this european legislation, we're just waiting on the patent office to write a version of the law for parliament to pass. The EUCD is more restrictive than the DMCA, and the UK version will almost certainly prevent the bypassing of copy-control mechanisms by any means. Therefore when it passes, bypassing CSS to rip your own copy will likely be explicitly illegal, rather than technically as at the moment.
The problem with 'the customer is always right' is that culture is always a factor. You just don't see it in your own culture. Say in a US store, you let your dog crap on the floor. Would the shop keeper get upset? After all, the customer is always right, and if the customer wants it, they should get it. Somehow, I think you'd get yelled at and thrown out.
Now let's assume the customer is from a (hypothetical) foreign culture where dogs are revered and allowed to do what they want, where they want, so to him, he's done nothing wrong. He'd go home and tell tales about how US shopkeepers are so unfriendly and insensitive.
Just because something is not offensive in your country, you shouldn't assume that when you've pissed someone off it's because they're unfriendly and crap at customer service. They just may expect different rules of behaviour than you.
Just for future reference, Tony Blair has to defend himself on the floor of the House of Commons, the elected house of MP's. He has a half hour every week where he answers pre-submitted questions from all parties. (The commons is equivalent to the US house of representatives, the Lords is an appointed 2nd house that can delay legislation but not stop it)
Generally, a questioner can ask a supplementary question. The leader of the opposition (largest party not in power) gets 3 or 4 supplementary questions after his first, which are not scripted.
The whole thing is televised, or available online as video and transcript here
I have to admit, it's one of the best bits of British democracy, and the US would benefit from introducing it. Some of the questions are just evil, and the PM has to work hard at it. PM questions can make or break a politicians career.
There is a contradiction in your message. People create under a legal framework upon which they base their expectations of interaction with other people.
Which is why copyright extensions are evil. They're retroactively altering the agreement between the public and the creator that he will have exclusive rights to copy that work for a period. That period just gets longer and longer, presumably with the goal that disney's copyrighted works will never enter the public domain; despite that not being the agreement in place at the time the work was created.
DRM is a similar evil, because it uses technological measures to extend the creators rights beyond the original agreement, backed up by the DMCA and EUCD against circumvention.
Your cultural stack of pebbles wouldn't exist without the daily work of creative people who continually add to it and also need to pay the rent.
This is not universally true, there are many people who create when profit is not their motive. There was plenty of creation of pebbles prior to copyright.
Still, we the public benefit from an increasing pile of pebbles, and many people are prepared to pay creators a fair price to add more pebbles. What's frustrating is some creators think that the mountain is all their property, and we should all have to pay forever to climb it and admire the view, conveniently ignoring the massive amount of existing work and culture they used in order to create their small contribution.
Copyright as a mechanism for rewarding creativity and increasing the quality of the public domain (all non-secret works natural place) is broken, and gets more broken every year. We need a new method. Here's hoping we find one before content oligarchies lock away so much material into decaying unrecoverable formats that we enter a new cultural dark age.
Dumbledore was played by Richard Harris, who was born in 1930, and died in 2002, making him 72 when he died of hodgkins disease.
Ian McKellen is 66 in May this year, which is quite a bit older than I thought. Still, here's hoping he's got plenty of time to make more films!