My question is how the authorities separate the virus writer from the one/ones who distribute it. Is simply writing a virus a crime? I mean, anyone can do it. Or do you have to actually send out the virus?
I didn't say to not listen to music, but you should either abide by the rules, or find artists that feel the same way you do (Radiohead?)
So you should never question the law, never disobey it. If your kind of mentality prevailed, we would still have segregation. Don't like sitting at the back of the bus? Just leave the country, darky!
How does the copyright term stifle innovation? Easy, it allows a company and individuals to sit and make money on a copyright forever, without creating something new and it breaks the oldest artistic convention, which is derivative work. Are you seriously unaware of these old, standard tenants? Me thinks you have no idea what you're talking about. You should really go get an idea of the basic, basic parts of the argument.
If you don't like the present course then call/email/write/visit your congressman/senator/governor/president and tell them how you feel, then vote accordingly. If enough people make enough noise, then stuff will get changed.
Now I think you're deliberately trying for ignorance.
"...in the RIAA's case, they say you only have the right to listen to your CDs in private. Deal with it."
They have a monopoly, and they abuse it. Sure, you don't like it, don't listen to music - how absurd. You're supporting a status quo that plainly sucks and an industry that (and this is a fact) is guilty of price goughing its customers for years, as well as stamping out all competition. Why?
And you are wrong. The PURPOSE of Title 17 is to encourage innovation. A death-plus-75-year stretch of protection doesn't encourage innovation and indeed has nothing even to do with innovation. The term is that long because industries like the music industry have made it that way, just so they can keep making loads of money on work that should be in the public domain.
Copyright has a useful purpose when used responsibly and in favor of the public good, which is a long way from our current system. Regarding intellectual property, please for the love of God stop appealing to people that we should stay on our present course.
"Edison's story teaches me that in emerging technology, one must establish a monopoly if there is to be any stability in future markets. If one standard is not a clear winner, the consumer is the clear loser. Consumers will sacrifice quality for market saturation every time."
No! You have it all wrong. Having a monopoly wasn't Edison's key, it was controlling the standard. The STANDARD is what makes new technology successful, but we can have standards without monopolies.
"Who's holding onto these staples of the desktop environment? There are competing versions of all of the above for sale or download. I don't have a problem with any company vigorously defending their rights w.r.t. their particular implementation of a wordprocessor or a text editor."
Using anything other than Word IMO is somewhat pointless because of Word's dominance. A standard format would be nice, or even the ability for competitors to write to Word format. Seems easy enough. But we don't have a standard, because corporations are greedy. People defend industry for some damned reason, sighting that thing they see in the corner of their eyes that they think is freedom of choice. You have NO CHOICE! You're being swindled. But...
"I take your point, especially with respect to the onset of perpetual copright for songs and music of the 20th/21st century, but I don't necessarily see a correspondence between popular entertainment and software. Songs don't require support, bug-fixes, documentation, etc. There is never going to be any pressing need for "Hit Me Baby One More time v2.0a-rc"."
That's a good point.
But I would argue that the pressing need for the next version of most software packages is more sales, not more functionality. Not many people use Office 98, because they've had to upgrade. There's really no choice in the matter. And it is not cheap.
"What are you suggesting? MS has no IP or commercial rights invested in any of its products, hence copyright infringment of their wares is acceptable? Palladium ahoy!"
We Americans are being sold out by the government and ourselves. What happened to the Microsoft case? Why is intellectual property law up for sale by our representatives? Why does noone seem to represent us? For whatever reason, they aren't. I am to a degree suggesting that people should ignore the law. If one can't afford a popular and necessary software title, but it's a matter of survival, then he should do it illegally. Productivity, creativity, and use are good, and they're the sides on which we should err.
I assumed, wrongly, that you might actually have something to say, Mr. Kunt. Guess not. Hope your vomit-inducing rage goes away.
What's tangled into this whole debate is the question of how long intellectual property rights should last. Original, and for the sake of innovation and competition, they should be very limited. Otherwise, we get into a situation in which, I don't know....oh let's say...a company owns and charges royalties on a song for fifty years. The extended terms we're living with have no link to the original intent of the law. It's just a simulacra of the intent, bought into and defended by ignorant robots.
And how long should software companies hold onto everyday items, such as the Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Calendar? According to them, forever. How convenient, for them. They get to keep making money at our expense. Luckily, though, the corporate crooks of the world have ignorant robots to defend them.
The company in question here in Microsoft. Let's examine the situation. They have a ubiquitous line of products, a monopoly. They abuse their monopoly and price gouge. They eliminate competition illegally (this is a matter of public record, is it not?). So what does that mean for their softare licenses? How much respect should we extend to the bogus "Agreement" offered by an illegal operation?
Where is an American flag I can wave behind myself?
Microsoft and the other huge software companies have a real problem on their hands - they sell nothing. They sell air. Apple has an interesting twist - they sell user experience. We can't pick these things up with our hands and feel like we have something. And really, though a spreadsheet or word processor enables us to potentially work faster and easier, there's nothing special under the hood. Mmmaybe compatability from program to program is a plus with one package, but let's face it. The program is being marketed like it does the work all by itself, when it's just a tool, a very expensive tool that has no material value.
Everything common should be open source and free. The OS first, then programming languages, then communication tools, then office tools, etc. A strict licensing program for any of these is laughable and backward, unless it's truly innovative and unique. MS Word? Excel? Please.
People love to blame piracy for lost sales. I call it comeuppance. It's like living in a world in which we have to buy air, being charged too much, and stealing air so as to not die. Company X didn't invent the stuff; they just exploit it. Common computer programs should be treating as air, owned by all. But, of course, one day someone will own the air too, and we'll be here arguing whether the air thieves are pirates.
There's a problem with creativity in every single area of art and entertainment, including games. The problem is source. Most music, movies, books, and everything else is now influenced by other music, movies, books, and video games. Pop culture is eating itself now and has spawned some sort of cultura Mad Cow's Disease. The low point in entertainment is the Scary Movie Series - a movie parodying recent movies. Next we'll have Creepy Movie, a parody of Scary Movie.
Musicians are already patron-sponsored, the patrons being the record companies. Corporations, not the President, are the new aristochracy, the new high priests, and uniquely they pay artists to produce new work. Like popes and monarchs, these American patrons force certain types of work from the artists they employ, and they do it not for the glory of God, but for the glory of another religion - capitalism.
It's an interesting idea, but we - and I'm talking humans here - will never change until the final hour, when the last drop of oil is squozen from its source and a concrete slab covers the last patch of grass. It is our legacy, and there's nothing to suggest we will change. For cryin' out, I live in L.A., and the number of SUV's here boggles the mind, this the most liberal state I've ever inhabited. If change requires individuals to make uncomfortable decisions, then the plan to change is doomed.
I see the Radeon 9800 on the shelf. I see the GeForce 5900 on the shelf. They're comparable in speed. Each supports next generation games. But I think the biggest feature, the thing that makes the choice for me, is the size of the box. That's what determines which one I steal.
"So, I really wonder what the RIAA's vision of the future is - obviously they are paying a lot of people (i.e. lawyers) very high consulting fees to come up with something to preserver their 'interest' (pun intended) - and this is the BEST they can come up with? LOL "
Keep in mind that the RIAA is used to working as a monopoly. When you have a monopoly, you have guaranteed revenue. It doesn't exactly breed creativity.
Their vision of the future? The large media cartels' visions for the future is a world in which they own and control every idea, every word, every song, every movie, and you have to pay to use any of them. In the future, if we follow our present course, we will have to pay to talk.
"If people don't like the terms the record companies are offering them - and that includes the price - then what they should do is REFUSE TO CONSUME THEIR PRODUCT."
This is the truth in most situations, but NOT WITH A MONOP0LY!
That the RIAA is a monolopy and illegal cartel is almost an accepted reality. It is exactly what antitrust laws are there to prevent. They, a handful of large corporations, own music as we know it, and they abuse their positon (which is a matter of record, not just a philosophy). They use the law to extend the terms of their ownerhip, they lock out competitors, they exploit the best artists, they price gouge, and they try to block new modes of distribution.
Most of the music you find through Kazaa is probably an illegal copy (or illegal download). But the law is not the end-all-be-all of right and wrong. The same mentality would have seen Ma Bell continue to fuck the American people, and today we'd be paying $10 a minute to call the next state. In other words, and to repeat myself, the RIAA's being a monopoly changes everything.
P2P is a technological model that offers a fantastic, robust means of distribution. If there were no music industry today and we had the new technologies of CDs and P2P, everyone would want P2P. Ways of making money would have to be worked out. That's what happened when we first got recorded music in the first place. Businesses evolved to exploit the opportunites; others died.
The RIAA is simply a dinosaur trying to prolong his reign. He's stomped on the mammals to keep them down, but a new order is coming, a smaller and better animal, and his days are numbered. It's not a matter of the current industry adapting. Most won't. But that's not our problem.
A secret fear of mine is that I'll meet Steve Jobs and accidentally, of reflex, refere to QuickTime as "CrapTime".
Anyhoo, the new trailer looks pretty cool.
Wow. You know, I think these guys are on to something with this movie, and I'm going out on a limb that this thing will at LEAST make its money back.
Downloaded the trailer. Watched it. You gotta love Quicktime for Windows. Wait, no you don't; it sucks. I just spent the last thirty minutes consoling and petting my computer after the trauma.
Anyway, the trailer definitely makes me want to see the movie. But the effects are not exactly seemless. It's the Jurassic Park pattern. First movie is photo realistic. On the second, they say "Screw it. Close enough". And the trailer seems packed with wall-to-wall cliche. I hope the movie isn't.
Warner could really get by with just teasers for this movie. Everyone and his brother and his brother's wife's sister will see this thing. Why spoil it by showing so much footage?
I appreciate the attempt at a sober argument. However, we can't operate under the false assumption that the law is, in fact, changeable. We no longer live in a representative democracy, at least as far as intellectual property is concerned. The politicians' votes are being bought by the RIAA and MPA. That's right - bought. The will of the people is being flat out ignored, and the recent copyright extension is quite an in-your-face example.
So, what do we do when the law is not for us and by us? We become outlaws, and we force bastards like the RIAA out of business.
Slashdot Mirror
My question is how the authorities separate the virus writer from the one/ones who distribute it. Is simply writing a virus a crime? I mean, anyone can do it. Or do you have to actually send out the virus?
Seriously, I think you're trolling. Your perspective on real world IP law can't be as naive as it seems.
I didn't say to not listen to music, but you should either abide by the rules, or find artists that feel the same way you do (Radiohead?)
So you should never question the law, never disobey it. If your kind of mentality prevailed, we would still have segregation. Don't like sitting at the back of the bus? Just leave the country, darky!
How does the copyright term stifle innovation? Easy, it allows a company and individuals to sit and make money on a copyright forever, without creating something new and it breaks the oldest artistic convention, which is derivative work. Are you seriously unaware of these old, standard tenants? Me thinks you have no idea what you're talking about. You should really go get an idea of the basic, basic parts of the argument.
If you don't like the present course then call/email/write/visit your congressman/senator/governor/president and tell them how you feel, then vote accordingly. If enough people make enough noise, then stuff will get changed.
Now I think you're deliberately trying for ignorance.
"...in the RIAA's case, they say you only have the right to listen to your CDs in private. Deal with it."
They have a monopoly, and they abuse it. Sure, you don't like it, don't listen to music - how absurd. You're supporting a status quo that plainly sucks and an industry that (and this is a fact) is guilty of price goughing its customers for years, as well as stamping out all competition. Why?
And you are wrong. The PURPOSE of Title 17 is to encourage innovation. A death-plus-75-year stretch of protection doesn't encourage innovation and indeed has nothing even to do with innovation. The term is that long because industries like the music industry have made it that way, just so they can keep making loads of money on work that should be in the public domain.
Copyright has a useful purpose when used responsibly and in favor of the public good, which is a long way from our current system. Regarding intellectual property, please for the love of God stop appealing to people that we should stay on our present course.
All I want to know is how this relates to THE MATRIX RELOADED.
"Edison's story teaches me that in emerging technology, one must establish a monopoly if there is to be any stability in future markets. If one standard is not a clear winner, the consumer is the clear loser. Consumers will sacrifice quality for market saturation every time."
No! You have it all wrong. Having a monopoly wasn't Edison's key, it was controlling the standard. The STANDARD is what makes new technology successful, but we can have standards without monopolies.
...is such a waste of resources, when there's so much here on Earth to harpoon.
You think time can't move backward, huh.
Obviously you haven't been to the California DVM.
"Who's holding onto these staples of the desktop environment? There are competing versions of all of the above for sale or download. I don't have a problem with any company vigorously defending their rights w.r.t. their particular implementation of a wordprocessor or a text editor."
Using anything other than Word IMO is somewhat pointless because of Word's dominance. A standard format would be nice, or even the ability for competitors to write to Word format. Seems easy enough. But we don't have a standard, because corporations are greedy. People defend industry for some damned reason, sighting that thing they see in the corner of their eyes that they think is freedom of choice. You have NO CHOICE! You're being swindled. But...
"I take your point, especially with respect to the onset of perpetual copright for songs and music of the 20th/21st century, but I don't necessarily see a correspondence between popular entertainment and software. Songs don't require support, bug-fixes, documentation, etc. There is never going to be any pressing need for "Hit Me Baby One More time v2.0a-rc"."
That's a good point.
But I would argue that the pressing need for the next version of most software packages is more sales, not more functionality. Not many people use Office 98, because they've had to upgrade. There's really no choice in the matter. And it is not cheap.
"What are you suggesting? MS has no IP or commercial rights invested in any of its products, hence copyright infringment of their wares is acceptable? Palladium ahoy!"
We Americans are being sold out by the government and ourselves. What happened to the Microsoft case? Why is intellectual property law up for sale by our representatives? Why does noone seem to represent us? For whatever reason, they aren't. I am to a degree suggesting that people should ignore the law. If one can't afford a popular and necessary software title, but it's a matter of survival, then he should do it illegally. Productivity, creativity, and use are good, and they're the sides on which we should err.
I assumed, wrongly, that you might actually have something to say, Mr. Kunt. Guess not. Hope your vomit-inducing rage goes away.
What's tangled into this whole debate is the question of how long intellectual property rights should last. Original, and for the sake of innovation and competition, they should be very limited. Otherwise, we get into a situation in which, I don't know....oh let's say...a company owns and charges royalties on a song for fifty years. The extended terms we're living with have no link to the original intent of the law. It's just a simulacra of the intent, bought into and defended by ignorant robots.
And how long should software companies hold onto everyday items, such as the Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Calendar? According to them, forever. How convenient, for them. They get to keep making money at our expense. Luckily, though, the corporate crooks of the world have ignorant robots to defend them.
The company in question here in Microsoft. Let's examine the situation. They have a ubiquitous line of products, a monopoly. They abuse their monopoly and price gouge. They eliminate competition illegally (this is a matter of public record, is it not?). So what does that mean for their softare licenses? How much respect should we extend to the bogus "Agreement" offered by an illegal operation?
Where is an American flag I can wave behind myself?
...just to illustrate the point. Thanks.
Microsoft and the other huge software companies have a real problem on their hands - they sell nothing. They sell air. Apple has an interesting twist - they sell user experience. We can't pick these things up with our hands and feel like we have something. And really, though a spreadsheet or word processor enables us to potentially work faster and easier, there's nothing special under the hood. Mmmaybe compatability from program to program is a plus with one package, but let's face it. The program is being marketed like it does the work all by itself, when it's just a tool, a very expensive tool that has no material value.
Everything common should be open source and free. The OS first, then programming languages, then communication tools, then office tools, etc. A strict licensing program for any of these is laughable and backward, unless it's truly innovative and unique. MS Word? Excel? Please.
People love to blame piracy for lost sales. I call it comeuppance. It's like living in a world in which we have to buy air, being charged too much, and stealing air so as to not die. Company X didn't invent the stuff; they just exploit it. Common computer programs should be treating as air, owned by all. But, of course, one day someone will own the air too, and we'll be here arguing whether the air thieves are pirates.
There's a problem with creativity in every single area of art and entertainment, including games. The problem is source. Most music, movies, books, and everything else is now influenced by other music, movies, books, and video games. Pop culture is eating itself now and has spawned some sort of cultura Mad Cow's Disease. The low point in entertainment is the Scary Movie Series - a movie parodying recent movies. Next we'll have Creepy Movie, a parody of Scary Movie.
Video games suffer the same problem.
Musicians are already patron-sponsored, the patrons being the record companies. Corporations, not the President, are the new aristochracy, the new high priests, and uniquely they pay artists to produce new work. Like popes and monarchs, these American patrons force certain types of work from the artists they employ, and they do it not for the glory of God, but for the glory of another religion - capitalism.
It's an interesting idea, but we - and I'm talking humans here - will never change until the final hour, when the last drop of oil is squozen from its source and a concrete slab covers the last patch of grass. It is our legacy, and there's nothing to suggest we will change. For cryin' out, I live in L.A., and the number of SUV's here boggles the mind, this the most liberal state I've ever inhabited. If change requires individuals to make uncomfortable decisions, then the plan to change is doomed.
Spread a little sunshine!
Will do;)
I see the Radeon 9800 on the shelf. I see the GeForce 5900 on the shelf. They're comparable in speed. Each supports next generation games. But I think the biggest feature, the thing that makes the choice for me, is the size of the box. That's what determines which one I steal.
"So, I really wonder what the RIAA's vision of the future is - obviously they are paying a lot of people (i.e. lawyers) very high consulting fees to come up with something to preserver their 'interest' (pun intended) - and this is the BEST they can come up with? LOL "
Keep in mind that the RIAA is used to working as a monopoly. When you have a monopoly, you have guaranteed revenue. It doesn't exactly breed creativity.
Their vision of the future? The large media cartels' visions for the future is a world in which they own and control every idea, every word, every song, every movie, and you have to pay to use any of them. In the future, if we follow our present course, we will have to pay to talk.
"If people don't like the terms the record companies are offering them - and that includes the price - then what they should do is REFUSE TO CONSUME THEIR PRODUCT."
This is the truth in most situations, but NOT WITH A MONOP0LY!
That the RIAA is a monolopy and illegal cartel is almost an accepted reality. It is exactly what antitrust laws are there to prevent. They, a handful of large corporations, own music as we know it, and they abuse their positon (which is a matter of record, not just a philosophy). They use the law to extend the terms of their ownerhip, they lock out competitors, they exploit the best artists, they price gouge, and they try to block new modes of distribution.
Most of the music you find through Kazaa is probably an illegal copy (or illegal download). But the law is not the end-all-be-all of right and wrong. The same mentality would have seen Ma Bell continue to fuck the American people, and today we'd be paying $10 a minute to call the next state. In other words, and to repeat myself, the RIAA's being a monopoly changes everything.
P2P is a technological model that offers a fantastic, robust means of distribution. If there were no music industry today and we had the new technologies of CDs and P2P, everyone would want P2P. Ways of making money would have to be worked out. That's what happened when we first got recorded music in the first place. Businesses evolved to exploit the opportunites; others died.
The RIAA is simply a dinosaur trying to prolong his reign. He's stomped on the mammals to keep them down, but a new order is coming, a smaller and better animal, and his days are numbered. It's not a matter of the current industry adapting. Most won't. But that's not our problem.
A secret fear of mine is that I'll meet Steve Jobs and accidentally, of reflex, refere to QuickTime as "CrapTime". Anyhoo, the new trailer looks pretty cool.
Wow. You know, I think these guys are on to something with this movie, and I'm going out on a limb that this thing will at LEAST make its money back.
Downloaded the trailer. Watched it. You gotta love Quicktime for Windows. Wait, no you don't; it sucks. I just spent the last thirty minutes consoling and petting my computer after the trauma.
Anyway, the trailer definitely makes me want to see the movie. But the effects are not exactly seemless. It's the Jurassic Park pattern. First movie is photo realistic. On the second, they say "Screw it. Close enough". And the trailer seems packed with wall-to-wall cliche. I hope the movie isn't.
Warner could really get by with just teasers for this movie. Everyone and his brother and his brother's wife's sister will see this thing. Why spoil it by showing so much footage?
I appreciate the attempt at a sober argument. However, we can't operate under the false assumption that the law is, in fact, changeable. We no longer live in a representative democracy, at least as far as intellectual property is concerned. The politicians' votes are being bought by the RIAA and MPA. That's right - bought. The will of the people is being flat out ignored, and the recent copyright extension is quite an in-your-face example.
So, what do we do when the law is not for us and by us? We become outlaws, and we force bastards like the RIAA out of business.
Law my ass. The RIAA is an illegal cartell. The argument should be how to break it up.
Relax! I was joking. So thanks...YOU, for playing.
...and staring contests.