Basically, Linus can take the money, and go ahead and make new Linux features, and release them into public domain. But immediately following that PD release, he (or any member of the public) can release them under GPL as well, for inclusion in the pre-existing Linux tree.
His additions would be out there in PD for Bill Gates or any other software publisher to re-use, but they'd be in Linux too. I don't think Linus would want to do unpaid coding for Microsoft, so he probably wouldn't accept the voucher- but doing so wouldn't bar him from Linux contributions.
We do need more scientific analysis in this area to determine what really produces the most creativity, but that's inherently a nebulous goal (creative is in the eye of the beholder),
There's been a bit of scientific, economic, and even legal analysis in this area. The results firmly come down for copyright increasing creativity (at least the sorts of creativity that the public values). So the interesting question becomes "What length of copyright protection best encourages creativity?"
Of course it varies across the different fields of endeavor. But it seems clear that although SOME copyright greatly inspires an artist to work, the additional incentive falls off quickly after a few years (Corporations decide whether or not to go ahead with a project based on predicted returns in 2 years or in 5. Potential royalties 30 years down the road aren't on their radar).
And, every increase in copyright duration reduces the abliity of secondary artists to make creative additions in derivative works. Thus it very much appears that the WTO's 75+ year copyright period is at odds with the US Constitution's directive to "Promote the progress of science and the useful arts"
Interestingly, the US Supreme court has stated that long copyrights are counterproductive in official statements... almost daring someone to launch a lawsuit on those grounds.
I wouldn't say Penny Arcade sucks, but they're overrated. They've been propped up by a free link on the frontpage of Slashdot (one of the most legendary hit-referrers the web has ever known)
Are you telling me that Canada has bad medical coverage? Tell that to the millions of Americans that sneak over here and use it!
The Canadian healthcare system is bad in the long run. In fact, it matches a technical definition of "evil". I refer specifically to their drug-sales system, which is the part that US consumers are most eager to take advantage of (and am not talking about the surgical aspects really). Drug production is legally and economically similar to the music industry, as both are selling intellectual property that is expensive to create but cheaply replicatable.
The reason Canada's drug prices are vaguely evil is that if the US adopted a similar pharmacutical pricing scheme, medical improvements would slow down. A main driver of advances in drugs is the high price US customers pay for them. Other nations may piggyback off the inventions of a free-market in medicine. But if every country arbitrated pricing like that, there'd be nobody pushing SOTA forward.
so you'll invariably get great songwriters starving to death while Britney and Justin sing their songs
The effect might actually be the reverse (which would still be unfair). Many people listen to cheesy bubble-gum pop, but they don't feel proud of it. Artists who create something which seems important, insightful, or just high-class might be the ones who get the donations. Sometimes the public can be embarrassed to admit that lowbrow entertainment is their favorite.
Most extremely, when it comes time to send in his voucher, is a man going to feel more comfortable giving it to the National Review, or to Playboy? But which magazine does he really spent more time with?
Seems like a big commitment for a musician simply to get a few hundred dollars in vouchers from friends.
Not if he isn't seriously a musician at all. Maybe he's an unskilled hobbyist, or even a freeloader who picked an untuned guitar from the sidewalk. Whatever. He can declare himself "an artist willing to accept vouchers" and then setup a storefront, taking a voucher from anybody who walks in and redeeming it for cash value (minus his 20% "processing fee").
It's nothing more than a naked political grab, and the EFF is losing mainstream support because of their regressive stance.
Having just read the article, I must ask what the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) has to do with anything?
The paper is from CEPR, and the word "Freedom" in its title is a generic reference to principle, not an allusion to a separate political organization. Compulsory license is related to what CEPR just proposed, and it is something that EFF discusses (but does not directly endorse) on their website.
(they had their own load program and they couldn't think to bring tear gas, microwave weapons, or rubber bullets?).
Those things have no stopping or penetration power, especially against armored paramilitary guards. (Well, microwave weapons can, but they're lethal) The battle was difficult enough even if they only had to blast each guy once. Plus, any humans left alive for more than a few seconds would've been inhabited by Agents. The mere proximity of those adventurers meant that pod-dwelling humans near them were going to die if a fight starts.
It was only in later script revisions that Lucas killed off Obi Wan on the death star in A New Hope - after he realized that Kenobi didn't -do- anything to propel the movie once Leia was rescued.
What I heard is that Guiness hated the silliness of his not doing anything, and balked at continuing, so Lucas wrote him out. (which turned out to give the film a nice boost of emotional heft)
Obi Wan had been planned to be the Jedi teacher through the whole thing, but was replaced with Yoda.
We all know that would never work, and would never happen. Even the Green planners probably know it (but don't want to admit that for strategic reasons).
It's just an example of the negotiating technique: "Ask for more than you want, in expectation of a compromise".
By taking these overly-extreme positions, and then taking 3-5% of an election, they can nudge mainstream candidates and parties in the direction of their views, with no risk of actually implementing the way-out weird parts of the platform.
NOT originally marketed as franchise episode "A New Hope
The original StarWars movie was always called Episode 4, and was always intended to make sense as part of a series. Lucas was imitating the "serial" space-operas he'd watched as a youngster- stuff like Flash Gordon's 20-part quest to free the Princess from the Emperor of Ming.
Plans for sequels and prequels were always a part of StarWars. Of course the producers didn't want to see it listed as a confusing "Episode 4" on national advertising, so they squelched that part.
you can't play it in North American DVD players, so the only way to enjoy the movie at all is to resort to means that are sometimes considered illegal.
Purchasing a Japanese DVD player isn't illegal yet, and will probably never reach the same level of lawlessness as trading fansubs. Modchips are sometimes illegal, but less than copyright infringment (at the moment)
The only way you could partially defend the possession of a fansub like Whisper of the Heart is to reach for Fair Use doctrine. Fair Use allows that breaking a copyright is less illegal when the commercial value of the property isn't damaged. Since Disney is making no attempt to sell that movie in the US, you can claim that no commercial harm is done.
(That argument won't really succeed, but it's a start. It's the basis for all the "discontinue distribution when licensed" text on anime fansubs)
Sure, it's a pyramid scheme. It can be profitable if you join in the first few layers. Buy the stock early, before it rises. Then sell to someone who thinks she's buying the stock early, and that it'll rise some more, and you win. If you're smart, you can do this. Tactical market-timing.
The only way to actually make net profits is to either be an inside trader or invest in a good idea/product.
Or to be smarter than other people. If you have a good knowledge of the science behind that company's industry, and can predict what's possible or not better than others, you can effectively "inside trade" with only external information.
Of course, only a minority can be smarter than average. That's why I said it's dangerous. But being more intelligent is really the only way to get ahead in anything.
Truely good investments consider your own good and the good of society.
Like I said, I'm not talking about investing, but trading. There's a difference, although they can both be performed by purchasing stocks. One of them is a helpful boost in expectation of later return, and the other is a parasitic game. Nobody denies that traders are close to telemarketers on the scale of value to society. Doesn't mean they can't earn some dough.
Ah, I see now: the producers really understand the laws of thermodynamics perfectly, they just decided for some reason that none of Morpheus' crew should understand.
There might be reasons that crew couldn't figure it out. There's no reason the fallen dregs of humanity have to be well educated. They could've been selected for gulibility before getting released from VR.
and imagine something about human brains being used as coprocessors instead.
Co-processors isn't a bad idea. But there are other explanations about why all humanity is living in machine-tended pods plugged into VR hallucinations. The simplest, most logical one is also the grimmest: they're in there because they chose to be, and the machines tend them because that is exactly how they were programmed. In that case, it's understandable that the revolutionaries (the leader Morpheous in particular) would deny that explanation, and seize onto anything else that supports their personal feelings of heroism.
Of course, if Matrix 2 & 3 had followed up on the "humans are willingly enjoying a virtual paradise", then the trilogy would've become a social commentary on the modern world's increasing replacement of human interaction with mass electronic entertainment. (But then, how could Hollywood bear to release it?)
I wonder if a good "Phantom Editor" could merge together the parts 2 & 3, replace some speechifying, and transform it into a coherent, restrained remake.
See Gattaca for an excellent example of that genre.
Every movie, even if it's trying to be hard scifi (or completely real-world) will have its inaccuracies. Gattaca has it's share. It's an example of what's classified as "mono-developmental futurism": a story based on the assumption that there will be just one amazing discovery or field of improvement that'll redefine all life around it. (Commonly created by sci-fi writers who wish to present questions about the implications of some particular breakthrough)
The premise was that the nasty, control-freak government/megacorp was completely invading everyone's genetic privacy to keep tabs on the poplace. Sweeping up skin cells, blood-tests at roadblocks, etc. The logical inconsistency is that they don't employ any other methods of pervasive survelliance. Assume 25 years of Moore's Law and software engineering, and we can put a camera in every lightbulb to send vidcaps of anyone acting suspiciously to the proper authorities. If the military-industrial complex had been serious about maintaining control, they'd have caught onto the conspirators' little games long beforehand.
To employ a full explanation via standard techno-babble
A good techno-babble explanation, "Neo can zap the machines because he hasn't really left the Matrix yet", would've actually have turned the sequels into good films and preserved a little of the relevatory wonder of the original. Lead up to the "Rod Sterling moment", if you will.
Of course, if they were good films, they'd have been entirely different movies.
"The body cannot live without the mind."
That's a weakness, true. It was obviously a cinematic necessity to create a sense of menace during the Matrix-running adventure scenes. But it could be explained off in either of two ways:
A) That statement was a lie. In the first 2 films, we didn't actually see people die from virtual-reality deaths. One person was shot, but immediately physically killed anyhow. The other 2 people who got shot were absolutely fine.
B) The virtual-reality rigs were built by the evil machines to intentionally kill (electrocute, whatever) the operator when he experiences a "fatal" VR event. Or if the plug is loosened without a clean software shutdown. The human resistance has stolen some of these machines, but are too stupid to disable the kill-mechanisms. In this case, the survival of Neo and Trinity can be perfectly attributed to Neo's instinctive machine controlling power.
And yes, the Oracle *may* be lying.
Lying about what? The "he has the power" thing isn't a lie- it's just totally vague. And she never said anything to support the "humans are just batteries" premise- she only neglected to contest it.
But anyhow, the Oracle already said that she'd be willing to lie: "I'll tell you exactly what you need to hear", which had the implication that if a lie will elicit a positive reaction, she'll do it.
The One is powerful enough to connect to the Matrix
That's not an answer. "He's powerful enough to do that" is a response you can give to any question without providing actual information.
Something like "He's got a nano-sized radio transmitter in his brain", "His willpower left a residual image inside the matrix to carry out his desires", or "We're all still inside a meta-matrix, and he's the only one who knows" would qualify as an explanation. "He's powerful enough" doesn't.
She said it right on camera,
A character onscreen may be lying. A movie only tells you something if the movie shows you something. (That is why, for example, the first movie didn't say humans provided electricity for machines. That was a line used by a character with no supporting evidence given. And the speaker had a huge motivation to lie.)
hard sci-fi is not one of them.
The first installment was hard scifi, which makes it all the more disappointing when the rest aren't.
few ECO classes in college tells me to only invest in companies that have something marketable
Yes, but that's investing. Investing is only one of the things you can do trading stocks.
If you see an press release from a company that is ostensibly promising, but your own knowledge of the field tells you they have no real longterm hope, then you've got a valid trading opportunity. Grab some shares, wait for them to ride up on the excitement, and then sell before everyone else notices that collapse is inevitable.
It's a dangerous game, but if you're confident that your abilities to judge the company's prospects are better than the general public's, go for it.
But by "rewrite" I hope you mean a complete cleanroom implementation, because otherwise it really is illegal.
No. Non-cleanroom reimplementations may be legal.
It is trivially easy to prove that a cleanroom implementation is not copyright infringement, while a "tainted" one may be open to challenge. But that doesn't mean the challenge will succeed (although it does mean lawyers for both sides will be cashing more paychecks)
And it's a good thing that the rewrite doesn't have to be cleanroom, because that would be enormously difficult to accomplish, and absolutely impossible to prove. Anyone who's seen the existing Linux code for those features will be tainted. That covers virtually anybody who'd be interested in implementing those things for Linux. Even if someone is found who is willing and able to do that work and who's never glanced at the previous Linux code, there'd be no way to prove in court that he hadn't been tainted reading Linux in the past.
If a document is sitting on public FTP for more than a year, it'll be impossible to prove that any individual has never read it's contents. But that's what "cleanroom" requires.
I would say that Boba Fett was NOT a major character in the trilogy when the christmas special aired:
Yes, the poster mistated that. But he omitted that the animation featured every major character (Luke, Han, robots, Vader... everyone cept maybe that dead old guy). So it counts as having major characters.
in the original release of Empire he was known only as "The Bounty Hunter"
He can't have been "The Bounty Hunter", because he in first scene there were 3 other bounty hunters milling around.
There is no software on the downloader's end that has direct access to the sharer's hard drive.
Guess what? There is no software on the sharer's end that has direct access to the downloader's hard drive. They must work together to make the copy. (Unless the sharer sent it as unsolicited email or something- then the reciever could claim innocence)
The copy couldn't have been made without effort from both the sharer and the reciever. Either or both of them could be charged with this crime. Sharers are normally the one charged because evidence is easier to collect, not because they're the only guilty party.
The downloader requests a file, but the sharer's software makes a copy of the file and pushes it out over the network.
Yes, that's right. The sharer's software makes the copy. Software is not intelligent, and cannot be guilty of any crime. Whoever operated the software is. In the case of a download, the person operating the software is the person who made the request. That the server (software and hardware) is owned by someone else doesn't matter. He gave you permission to use his computer remotely (for a limited set of tasks), and if you use that permission to make the computer do illegal things, you are guilty of them.
(He may be guilty too, if his intent in providing you access was to help you break the law. But that doesn't absolve the downloader of responsibility.)
Killing a man with someone else's gun doesn't mean you're not guilty of murder.
This is really funny. You're sort of claiming that if I download a file from your public FTP server, my experience is no way to prove to others that you have files available for public download. To argue that before a jury would be a major insult to their intelligence.
To successfully sue someone, either they must have violated a specific civil law which allows you to sue them, or they must have damaged you in a way not specifically illegal.
"Making copies" is illegal. A "very strong possibility" is all that's needed to win in civil court. Put those two things together, and a "very strong possibility that you made copies" is enough to get convicted.
So, you content that their machine would have just randomly made a copy and handed it out to some passerbyer if the RIAA hadn't asked?
The RIAA's lawyers would contend that the machine would hand out copies to any random passerby who attempted to download it, without first checking if the passerby was the copyright owner, or otherwise authorized to possess the file. The fact that the RIAA's detective was able to make a copy without presenting any identifying information will be sufficient to prove this in court.
The RIAA has the perfect right to let people make copies. If a copyright owner walks up to someone on the street and asks for a copy of their work, there's an implication there that they have granted you permission to make said copy.
If I approach a stranger in a bar, and hire him to climb in the back window of my house and remove my TV, is he committing a crime?
Yes, if I didn't tell him it was my house. He willingly performed an act he thought was criminal, and he can be imprisoned for it. This happens all the time in current US law.
You can't sue someone for what might have happened,
Yes you can. You can sue for almost anything, and you can win by showing that it is highly probable that your claims are true.
and none of those programs keep logs.
The downloaders can keep logs if they want. Since the downloaders will be detectives hired by the RIAA, I think they'll keep fairly accurate logs.
unless the RIAA went around downloading them themselves. If so, the judge is going to look at them funny and dismiss the case. Making illegal copies for someone who's in charge of enforcing the copyright
Judges are quite used to getting testimony from undercover cops that bought heroine from a suspect. They never seem to look at it funny- instead, they see that if someone willingly performed an illegal act with a detective, it's good evidence he's been doing it with other people too.
(And the standards of proof are lower in civil courts)
If they were cops it'd be entrapment.
Nope. Cops frequently ask people to commit crimes (mainly drug sales or prostitution). Then they arrest those people, and they usually get convictions. The standards for an entrapment defense are very high: you must prove that before interacting with the cops, you had no inclination to commit the crime. The entire idea must have been the cop's, and the burden is on the defendant to prove it.
And, entrapment is only a defense if police committed it. Get entrapped by a civilian, and you're 100% liable.
Slashdot Mirror
No. "Public Domain" is a GPL-compatible license.
Basically, Linus can take the money, and go ahead and make new Linux features, and release them into public domain. But immediately following that PD release, he (or any member of the public) can release them under GPL as well, for inclusion in the pre-existing Linux tree.
His additions would be out there in PD for Bill Gates or any other software publisher to re-use, but they'd be in Linux too. I don't think Linus would want to do unpaid coding for Microsoft, so he probably wouldn't accept the voucher- but doing so wouldn't bar him from Linux contributions.
We do need more scientific analysis in this area to determine what really produces the most creativity, but that's inherently a nebulous goal (creative is in the eye of the beholder),
There's been a bit of scientific, economic, and even legal analysis in this area. The results firmly come down for copyright increasing creativity (at least the sorts of creativity that the public values). So the interesting question becomes "What length of copyright protection best encourages creativity?"
Of course it varies across the different fields of endeavor. But it seems clear that although SOME copyright greatly inspires an artist to work, the additional incentive falls off quickly after a few years (Corporations decide whether or not to go ahead with a project based on predicted returns in 2 years or in 5. Potential royalties 30 years down the road aren't on their radar).
And, every increase in copyright duration reduces the abliity of secondary artists to make creative additions in derivative works. Thus it very much appears that the WTO's 75+ year copyright period is at odds with the US Constitution's directive to "Promote the progress of science and the useful arts"
Interestingly, the US Supreme court has stated that long copyrights are counterproductive in official statements... almost daring someone to launch a lawsuit on those grounds.
I wouldn't say Penny Arcade sucks, but they're overrated. They've been propped up by a free link on the frontpage of Slashdot (one of the most legendary hit-referrers the web has ever known)
Are you telling me that Canada has bad medical coverage? Tell that to the millions of Americans that sneak over here and use it!
The Canadian healthcare system is bad in the long run. In fact, it matches a technical definition of "evil". I refer specifically to their drug-sales system, which is the part that US consumers are most eager to take advantage of (and am not talking about the surgical aspects really). Drug production is legally and economically similar to the music industry, as both are selling intellectual property that is expensive to create but cheaply replicatable.
The reason Canada's drug prices are vaguely evil is that if the US adopted a similar pharmacutical pricing scheme, medical improvements would slow down. A main driver of advances in drugs is the high price US customers pay for them. Other nations may piggyback off the inventions of a free-market in medicine. But if every country arbitrated pricing like that, there'd be nobody pushing SOTA forward.
so you'll invariably get great songwriters starving to death while Britney and Justin sing their songs
The effect might actually be the reverse (which would still be unfair). Many people listen to cheesy bubble-gum pop, but they don't feel proud of it. Artists who create something which seems important, insightful, or just high-class might be the ones who get the donations. Sometimes the public can be embarrassed to admit that lowbrow entertainment is their favorite.
Most extremely, when it comes time to send in his voucher, is a man going to feel more comfortable giving it to the National Review, or to Playboy? But which magazine does he really spent more time with?
Seems like a big commitment for a musician simply to get a few hundred dollars in vouchers from friends.
Not if he isn't seriously a musician at all. Maybe he's an unskilled hobbyist, or even a freeloader who picked an untuned guitar from the sidewalk. Whatever. He can declare himself "an artist willing to accept vouchers" and then setup a storefront, taking a voucher from anybody who walks in and redeeming it for cash value (minus his 20% "processing fee").
It's nothing more than a naked political grab, and the EFF is losing mainstream support because of their regressive stance.
Having just read the article, I must ask what the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) has to do with anything?
The paper is from CEPR, and the word "Freedom" in its title is a generic reference to principle, not an allusion to a separate political organization. Compulsory license is related to what CEPR just proposed, and it is something that EFF discusses (but does not directly endorse) on their website.
(they had their own load program and they couldn't think to bring tear gas, microwave weapons, or rubber bullets?).
Those things have no stopping or penetration power, especially against armored paramilitary guards. (Well, microwave weapons can, but they're lethal) The battle was difficult enough even if they only had to blast each guy once. Plus, any humans left alive for more than a few seconds would've been inhabited by Agents. The mere proximity of those adventurers meant that pod-dwelling humans near them were going to die if a fight starts.
It was only in later script revisions that Lucas killed off Obi Wan on the death star in A New Hope - after he realized that Kenobi didn't -do- anything to propel the movie once Leia was rescued.
What I heard is that Guiness hated the silliness of his not doing anything, and balked at continuing, so Lucas wrote him out. (which turned out to give the film a nice boost of emotional heft)
Obi Wan had been planned to be the Jedi teacher through the whole thing, but was replaced with Yoda.
the green parties idea of a MAXIMUM Wage
We all know that would never work, and would never happen. Even the Green planners probably know it (but don't want to admit that for strategic reasons).
It's just an example of the negotiating technique: "Ask for more than you want, in expectation of a compromise".
By taking these overly-extreme positions, and then taking 3-5% of an election, they can nudge mainstream candidates and parties in the direction of their views, with no risk of actually implementing the way-out weird parts of the platform.
NOT originally marketed as franchise episode "A New Hope
The original StarWars movie was always called Episode 4, and was always intended to make sense as part of a series. Lucas was imitating the "serial" space-operas he'd watched as a youngster- stuff like Flash Gordon's 20-part quest to free the Princess from the Emperor of Ming.
Plans for sequels and prequels were always a part of StarWars. Of course the producers didn't want to see it listed as a confusing "Episode 4" on national advertising, so they squelched that part.
you can't play it in North American DVD players, so the only way to enjoy the movie at all is to resort to means that are sometimes considered illegal.
Purchasing a Japanese DVD player isn't illegal yet, and will probably never reach the same level of lawlessness as trading fansubs. Modchips are sometimes illegal, but less than copyright infringment (at the moment)
The only way you could partially defend the possession of a fansub like Whisper of the Heart is to reach for Fair Use doctrine. Fair Use allows that breaking a copyright is less illegal when the commercial value of the property isn't damaged. Since Disney is making no attempt to sell that movie in the US, you can claim that no commercial harm is done.
(That argument won't really succeed, but it's a start. It's the basis for all the "discontinue distribution when licensed" text on anime fansubs)
No real money is made since there is no growth.
Sure, it's a pyramid scheme. It can be profitable if you join in the first few layers. Buy the stock early, before it rises. Then sell to someone who thinks she's buying the stock early, and that it'll rise some more, and you win. If you're smart, you can do this. Tactical market-timing.
The only way to actually make net profits is to either be an inside trader or invest in a good idea/product.
Or to be smarter than other people. If you have a good knowledge of the science behind that company's industry, and can predict what's possible or not better than others, you can effectively "inside trade" with only external information.
Of course, only a minority can be smarter than average. That's why I said it's dangerous. But being more intelligent is really the only way to get ahead in anything.
Truely good investments consider your own good and the good of society.
Like I said, I'm not talking about investing, but trading. There's a difference, although they can both be performed by purchasing stocks. One of them is a helpful boost in expectation of later return, and the other is a parasitic game. Nobody denies that traders are close to telemarketers on the scale of value to society. Doesn't mean they can't earn some dough.
Ah, I see now: the producers really understand the laws of thermodynamics perfectly, they just decided for some reason that none of Morpheus' crew should understand.
There might be reasons that crew couldn't figure it out. There's no reason the fallen dregs of humanity have to be well educated. They could've been selected for gulibility before getting released from VR.
and imagine something about human brains being used as coprocessors instead.
Co-processors isn't a bad idea. But there are other explanations about why all humanity is living in machine-tended pods plugged into VR hallucinations. The simplest, most logical one is also the grimmest: they're in there because they chose to be, and the machines tend them because that is exactly how they were programmed. In that case, it's understandable that the revolutionaries (the leader Morpheous in particular) would deny that explanation, and seize onto anything else that supports their personal feelings of heroism.
Of course, if Matrix 2 & 3 had followed up on the "humans are willingly enjoying a virtual paradise", then the trilogy would've become a social commentary on the modern world's increasing replacement of human interaction with mass electronic entertainment. (But then, how could Hollywood bear to release it?)
I wonder if a good "Phantom Editor" could merge together the parts 2 & 3, replace some speechifying, and transform it into a coherent, restrained remake.
See Gattaca for an excellent example of that genre.
Every movie, even if it's trying to be hard scifi (or completely real-world) will have its inaccuracies. Gattaca has it's share. It's an example of what's classified as "mono-developmental futurism": a story based on the assumption that there will be just one amazing discovery or field of improvement that'll redefine all life around it. (Commonly created by sci-fi writers who wish to present questions about the implications of some particular breakthrough)
The premise was that the nasty, control-freak government/megacorp was completely invading everyone's genetic privacy to keep tabs on the poplace. Sweeping up skin cells, blood-tests at roadblocks, etc. The logical inconsistency is that they don't employ any other methods of pervasive survelliance. Assume 25 years of Moore's Law and software engineering, and we can put a camera in every lightbulb to send vidcaps of anyone acting suspiciously to the proper authorities. If the military-industrial complex had been serious about maintaining control, they'd have caught onto the conspirators' little games long beforehand.
To employ a full explanation via standard techno-babble
A good techno-babble explanation, "Neo can zap the machines because he hasn't really left the Matrix yet", would've actually have turned the sequels into good films and preserved a little of the relevatory wonder of the original. Lead up to the "Rod Sterling moment", if you will.
Of course, if they were good films, they'd have been entirely different movies.
"The body cannot live without the mind."
That's a weakness, true. It was obviously a cinematic necessity to create a sense of menace during the Matrix-running adventure scenes. But it could be explained off in either of two ways:
A) That statement was a lie. In the first 2 films, we didn't actually see people die from virtual-reality deaths. One person was shot, but immediately physically killed anyhow. The other 2 people who got shot were absolutely fine.
B) The virtual-reality rigs were built by the evil machines to intentionally kill (electrocute, whatever) the operator when he experiences a "fatal" VR event. Or if the plug is loosened without a clean software shutdown. The human resistance has stolen some of these machines, but are too stupid to disable the kill-mechanisms. In this case, the survival of Neo and Trinity can be perfectly attributed to Neo's instinctive machine controlling power.
And yes, the Oracle *may* be lying.
Lying about what? The "he has the power" thing isn't a lie- it's just totally vague. And she never said anything to support the "humans are just batteries" premise- she only neglected to contest it.
But anyhow, the Oracle already said that she'd be willing to lie: "I'll tell you exactly what you need to hear", which had the implication that if a lie will elicit a positive reaction, she'll do it.
for ALL the fictious characters in the "world", Goku remains by far the strongest.
Oh really?
Power Puff Girls
The PPG aren't even as strong as traditional Superman.
The future will be like Star Trek. Not all dusty like Star Wars
Well duh! Star Wars was a long, long time ago.
The One is powerful enough to connect to the Matrix
That's not an answer. "He's powerful enough to do that" is a response you can give to any question without providing actual information.
Something like "He's got a nano-sized radio transmitter in his brain", "His willpower left a residual image inside the matrix to carry out his desires", or "We're all still inside a meta-matrix, and he's the only one who knows" would qualify as an explanation. "He's powerful enough" doesn't.
She said it right on camera,
A character onscreen may be lying. A movie only tells you something if the movie shows you something. (That is why, for example, the first movie didn't say humans provided electricity for machines. That was a line used by a character with no supporting evidence given. And the speaker had a huge motivation to lie.)
hard sci-fi is not one of them.
The first installment was hard scifi, which makes it all the more disappointing when the rest aren't.
the typical "please don't pirate movies" ad,
I've never seen an ad like that. It doesn't sound like it'd be very effective... words like "Please" can hardly stop anyone.
Now, an ad promising $1000 to anyone who alerts the authorities to a camera-wielder in the theater... that might get results!
few ECO classes in college tells me to only invest in companies that have something marketable
Yes, but that's investing. Investing is only one of the things you can do trading stocks.
If you see an press release from a company that is ostensibly promising, but your own knowledge of the field tells you they have no real longterm hope, then you've got a valid trading opportunity. Grab some shares, wait for them to ride up on the excitement, and then sell before everyone else notices that collapse is inevitable.
It's a dangerous game, but if you're confident that your abilities to judge the company's prospects are better than the general public's, go for it.
But by "rewrite" I hope you mean a complete cleanroom implementation, because otherwise it really is illegal.
No. Non-cleanroom reimplementations may be legal.
It is trivially easy to prove that a cleanroom implementation is not copyright infringement, while a "tainted" one may be open to challenge. But that doesn't mean the challenge will succeed (although it does mean lawyers for both sides will be cashing more paychecks)
And it's a good thing that the rewrite doesn't have to be cleanroom, because that would be enormously difficult to accomplish, and absolutely impossible to prove. Anyone who's seen the existing Linux code for those features will be tainted. That covers virtually anybody who'd be interested in implementing those things for Linux. Even if someone is found who is willing and able to do that work and who's never glanced at the previous Linux code, there'd be no way to prove in court that he hadn't been tainted reading Linux in the past.
If a document is sitting on public FTP for more than a year, it'll be impossible to prove that any individual has never read it's contents. But that's what "cleanroom" requires.
with him hunting Han Solo.
No, he was hunting the magic amulet of invisibility. His employer was Vader, not Jabba.
I would say that Boba Fett was NOT a major character in the trilogy when the christmas special aired:
Yes, the poster mistated that. But he omitted that the animation featured every major character (Luke, Han, robots, Vader... everyone cept maybe that dead old guy). So it counts as having major characters.
in the original release of Empire he was known only as "The Bounty Hunter"
He can't have been "The Bounty Hunter", because he in first scene there were 3 other bounty hunters milling around.
There is no software on the downloader's end that has direct access to the sharer's hard drive.
Guess what? There is no software on the sharer's end that has direct access to the downloader's hard drive. They must work together to make the copy. (Unless the sharer sent it as unsolicited email or something- then the reciever could claim innocence)
The copy couldn't have been made without effort from both the sharer and the reciever. Either or both of them could be charged with this crime. Sharers are normally the one charged because evidence is easier to collect, not because they're the only guilty party.
The downloader requests a file, but the sharer's software makes a copy of the file and pushes it out over the network.
Yes, that's right. The sharer's software makes the copy. Software is not intelligent, and cannot be guilty of any crime. Whoever operated the software is. In the case of a download, the person operating the software is the person who made the request. That the server (software and hardware) is owned by someone else doesn't matter. He gave you permission to use his computer remotely (for a limited set of tasks), and if you use that permission to make the computer do illegal things, you are guilty of them.
(He may be guilty too, if his intent in providing you access was to help you break the law. But that doesn't absolve the downloader of responsibility.)
Killing a man with someone else's gun doesn't mean you're not guilty of murder.
This is really funny. You're sort of claiming that if I download a file from your public FTP server, my experience is no way to prove to others that you have files available for public download. To argue that before a jury would be a major insult to their intelligence.
To successfully sue someone, either they must have violated a specific civil law which allows you to sue them, or they must have damaged you in a way not specifically illegal.
"Making copies" is illegal.
A "very strong possibility" is all that's needed to win in civil court.
Put those two things together, and a "very strong possibility that you made copies" is enough to get convicted.
So, you content that their machine would have just randomly made a copy and handed it out to some passerbyer if the RIAA hadn't asked?
The RIAA's lawyers would contend that the machine would hand out copies to any random passerby who attempted to download it, without first checking if the passerby was the copyright owner, or otherwise authorized to possess the file. The fact that the RIAA's detective was able to make a copy without presenting any identifying information will be sufficient to prove this in court.
The RIAA has the perfect right to let people make copies. If a copyright owner walks up to someone on the street and asks for a copy of their work, there's an implication there that they have granted you permission to make said copy.
If I approach a stranger in a bar, and hire him to climb in the back window of my house and remove my TV, is he committing a crime?
Yes, if I didn't tell him it was my house. He willingly performed an act he thought was criminal, and he can be imprisoned for it. This happens all the time in current US law.
You can't sue someone for what might have happened,
Yes you can. You can sue for almost anything, and you can win by showing that it is highly probable that your claims are true.
and none of those programs keep logs.
The downloaders can keep logs if they want. Since the downloaders will be detectives hired by the RIAA, I think they'll keep fairly accurate logs.
unless the RIAA went around downloading them themselves. If so, the judge is going to look at them funny and dismiss the case. Making illegal copies for someone who's in charge of enforcing the copyright
Judges are quite used to getting testimony from undercover cops that bought heroine from a suspect. They never seem to look at it funny- instead, they see that if someone willingly performed an illegal act with a detective, it's good evidence he's been doing it with other people too.
(And the standards of proof are lower in civil courts)
If they were cops it'd be entrapment.
Nope. Cops frequently ask people to commit crimes (mainly drug sales or prostitution). Then they arrest those people, and they usually get convictions. The standards for an entrapment defense are very high: you must prove that before interacting with the cops, you had no inclination to commit the crime. The entire idea must have been the cop's, and the burden is on the defendant to prove it.
And, entrapment is only a defense if police committed it. Get entrapped by a civilian, and you're 100% liable.