So what, exactly is Novell licensing from MS? If Novel declares that they only have the right to distribute certain GPL'ed code because of a license that they've bought, then, under the terms of the GPL, they cannot distribute that code at all.
MS and Novel know this, and that's why they don't call what they've done "licensing." Instead, as they've said, they have carefully taken the GPL into account when they made this deal (in order to work around it), and called their deal a "promise not to sue" or some such.
If MS DOES successfully sue another distributor or coder over GPL'ed code, then Novell's deal with MS would not give them any EXTRA ability to continue to distribute that code.
So what have MS and Novell done? They have created the illusion that Novell has licensed MS patents and that other Linux distributions do not have this license. The truth is:
* No court has ruled that MS holds patents on any GPL'ed code
* MS has not claimed that any specific GPL'ed code violates MS's patents
* If MS DID bring a patent suit against a prominent Free software project or it's proxy, it would be resolved:
- Many big projects would fight in court (Red Hat, FSF, IBM), and MS would lose
- MS would come under attack by other companies that have interest in GPL'ed software and that have large patent portfolios -- MS would back down
- If MS did win a suit (or if the legal battle was too much), the code would be replaced quickly
Question: how does the BSD'ed code (or Apache licensed, etc) fare in the above context?
Do (or would) any MS IE people help hack on the Firefox codebase? If not, why not? If so, what do you think of the quality of their code/ease of jumping in?
It looks like a subtle push against IE: many mantions of the HTML 5 spec (which is being written by WHAT a workgroup that includes many browser companies but not MS); use of SVG; written by a major FF developer.
>>Distribution costs are only effectively zero for the end user.
I think you mean that there might be costs for the production of original expression -- costs like reording equiptment, dolly grip sallary, even time off from work... But the potential profits once can make off of original (or even not-original) expression aren't dependant on these costs. Every artist needs to struggle and gamble. If making money is an important goal, they might need to also be crafy and original in doing that. Whether there is copyright law or not that's true.
>> There is now, and ever will be, a massive demand for recorded works, but if it becomes impossible to make a living off of them, it is certain that fewer and fewer creators will actually create them.
I argue that copyright doesn't make it "possible" for artists to make a living off of their work. At best, it offers a particular PATH. I think that this path isn't as rewarding (financially or creatively) as other paths that don't need copyright, especially paths that need there to NOT be copyrights.
>>You need to consider that when the value of a product becomes effectively zero, then such works will tend to only be created by those with sufficient leisure (temporal or financial) to create, or solely as loss leader advertising.
I think you're wrong though. Many people on this very page have brainstormed several ideas on how artists could make money without resorting to copyright. I think if there was NO copyright, the possibilites of making money off of original (or not so original) expression INCREASE... See if you can't think of some ways to make money artistically in a copyright-less world. I bet any creative person could come up with a list of 10.
Didn't mean to be too esoteric (or such a bad writer!). When they created the idea of copyright -- give people an incentive to create original expression by giving them a monopoly on it's reproduction -- the enforcent was to monitor, fine, and maybe close down printing presses, stores, and performances. Now, they need to stop people from using the computers... But more than that, they have to make it so that it makes SENSE for people to pay for something that, in the unregulated world, wouldn't cost anything. They could have made the financial incentive be that the government would just pay artists, but they reasoned that giving the artist a leg up in the market place would be a better compromise: the artists (and others) could use the marketplace to make money. Now, not only have the means taken against infringers become more and more draconian (now that everyone owns a super-speed printing press, more distribution power than a million trucks, and a wider audience than a thousand bookstores), but themarketplace itself is no longer only tweaked, but created from the whole cloth.
More though: I think the same technology that makes it so easy and desireable to break copyrights, also gives artists and other creators of original expression the potential to make MORE money in truely free marketplace than what copyright currently gives them. But this potential for them is hampered by the very copyright laws that are supposed to encourage them. These potential benefits for them would come from the same place that a whole world of other benefits -- artistc, scientific, cultural -- for everyone would come from: from the massive immediate availability of all creative expression. There is money to be made, and so much more...
I think that it's clear that the benfits (artistic, scientific, political, cultural) that arise from the massive free and unencumbered sharing of all ideas and expression, now massively outweighs any financial incentive to create new works that current copyright law might provide. This might not have been the case before, when it was burdensome to share art and ideas on a massive scale (when there were high "publishing" and "distribution costs"). When that was the case, a marketplace where distributors competed with each other to make money selling published works could be "tweaked" so that copyright holders could be given a special leg up. But now, there is no longer the potential to make money from disseminating recordings, movies, books, etc. unless you somehow offer MORE than the copyrighted work itself. In a competing marketplace, the value of all copyrighted works would be ZERO; that's because the distribution of any such work costs nothing, and getting these works is more than easy.
That means that now, if you want copyright laws to give a financial incentive for people to create works, you also need to CREATE a potential profit -- you need to stretch the idea of "copying" a work to include letting someone listen to your music collection, watch your TV with you, read your book. That means not allowing people to really use computers and the Internet in innovative or even in obvious simple ways.
I think though, that the new situation of free distibution and easy access *by itself* gives a strong financial incentive to artists, scientists, etc. that wasn't there before -- the potential to make up new ways to make money indirectly from their works, through, for example, massive free distribution, global word of mouth, niche-locating, and a much larger pool of source materials with which to work. These incentives offer potentially much more money, and do not require special exceptions to freedom of expression and governmental power.
"Intellectual property" can really mean two things -- a limit on other people's right of free expression (which is copyright law), or what I see as a more natural-law or human value of deserving credit for one's original ideas and expression. I whole-heartedly believe that people should get credit and be held responsible for the intellectual works they create; I would support government funding of an "attribution repository" of some sort. But I find the arguments for "Intellectual Restriction Management," which is current copyright law, to be weaker and weaker with each passing year.
Copyright can work, and has served well for the past 200-odd years of the history of our nation. The problem we currently face for copyright is that the barrier to infringement of the copyright privilege has been dramatically lowered by the availablility of low-cost digital reproduction. People who would otherwise remain honest have, in the face of the pollution of the original intent of the copyright and dilution of moral priniciples in our society, begun to infringe upon the privileged grant of authorship because they can do so easily in a relatively anonymous fashion.
You are talking about people who share music and videos and text that they have on their computer with others (as opposed to say, a Chinese factory that sells DVD copies). I don't think these people for the most part want to do this anonymously. They only do it anonymously to avoid trouble. Copyright has not just become "easier" to violate, that ease has made it infinitely more desireable, and more pregnant with possibilites. In the past, a violator would run their own lp pressing factory and try to sell an album. Now, people want to show their friends which music is good; more, they want to MAKE friends by showing which music is good. Stifling this is stifling the arts and sciences. In order to promote the arts and sciences, and political and cultural discourse, the law of copyright should today refer to "the right of anyone to copy" not "the power to LIMIT the right to copy."
I think the idea is NOT that when you run my PHP code on your web server over the Internet it counts as "propigating" or "distributing" that app. Clearly it doesn't -- all the people who go to your web page see is the OUTPUT of my code. My code is NOT copied into their ram or anything like that.
The idea is that I could have in my PHP code a link to the source of my code, allowing all users of your website to get my PHP code. Under the GPL, you could modify my code and remove the link to the source. But I could add a restiction to my code's GPL license that says "If you want to modify my copyrighted code, you CANNOT modify the part that provides a link to the source code; or IF YOU DO modify that part, then you have to provide a link somewhere to the source code of my app."
This new license ("GPL + link" let's call it) is allowed right now. I can license my code in whatever reasonable way I want. BUT prior to the GPL v3, this code would not be COMPATABLE with GPL'ed code. Now, with version 3, my code would be compatable, you'd be able to mix my GPL + link code with other pure GPL'ed code.
I don't see how the principal of "you must make the source code for derived works available via a link" would be a EULA. I create a web-based program and my code contains a link to download the source code. I copyright it. Under copyright laws, you have no right to modify my code unless I grant you permission. I do grant you permission, but my LICENSE states that you must either leave the downloading part of my code intact or else replace it with simmilar functionality. Remember, by default you have no right to modify my copyrighted code, so if you do no follow the terms of my lisence, you have no right to remove my link to download the source code. GPL purists might object that that puts a strong restiction on the freedom of the users of the code -- they are forced to have a certain funtionality in their program.
I think that the article from itarchitect.com that you linked to is clearly wrong: the new GPL draft doesn't contain this "must allow downloads" language; it only says that if there is some code with a license that DOES contain language like this then that code can still be GPL COMPATABLE. There is no issue of "loading something into RAM is making a copy" involved. The "end user" in the cases covered by the GPL and other similar licenses is the distributor or modifier of the code, not the person viewing the code's output (a user of a web-app).
Usually the GPL doesn't allow you to mix in code that is MORE restrictive than the GPL. You can mix in code that is LESS restrictive (e.g., code in the public domain, or code under a BSD license). BUT this draft of the GPL version 3 says that there are a few exceptions where you CAN mix in code that has certain enumerated restrictions beyond the GPL. One of these ALLOWED RESTRICTIONS is if a license requires that code has a way for users of that code to "immediately obtain copies of its Complete Corresponding Source Code" (section 7d).
I imagine that this could apply to web services -- I could release my big PHP app under the GPL license with the added restriction that "if you want to distribute or modify my web app, you have to have some sort of link to the source code, or else you can't modify the part of the program that provides that link." This is allowed now, I can have any reasonable terms in my license that I want (my license is the only thing that lets you distribute or modify my code), but under versions of the GPL prior to 3, my code wouldn't be COMPATABLE with GPL code; you couldn't COMBINE my code with your GPL code.
If you do release your code under v3 of the GPL, then people can mix your code with my "GPL plus link to source"-licensed code. If you release your code under version 2 only, my code can't be mixed with yours.
I think this is a good solution to the "problem" of web services. Remember, the problem was that people can take my GPL'ed code, change it, and run it over the Internet and not release their changes back to the community. In some ways this goes against the spirit that the codes' authors may have felt -- they wanted changes to be "fed back" into the community. On the other hand it could be argued that, by adding a new restriction to my code that goes beyond the GPL's core "share back" -- I'm now in effect saying "this program MUST have this functionality" -- I'm limiting a freedom that the GPL wants to protect -- the freedom to modify the code.
I think section 7d is a brilliant compromise: allow such code to be mixed with GPL'ed code. This keeps the GPL pure, but opens the door to code that isn't philosophically objectionable.
> For 0, infinity (which is why if no one wants it, it won't get made).)
You're saying that if no one wants a song, it won't get made in the first place? But that's clearly not the case. Artists create works that no one likes at all. Some people mock the artist. The artists is torn, but keeps making their crap, devoting a lot of time, energy, and even money to it. They die. Then one day, years later, people start to like their stuff. Or not. Either way, they "invested" a lot -- some would say "threw away" a lot. And market forces did not dictate their actions.
On the other hand, you rarely see such a thing happen with, say, a kitchen appliance, or a construction project, or a crop. Once it's been determined that people don't want these things, they're not made.
So supply is infinite for music distribution models in two ways: 1) there is zero price for reproduction and distribution, and 2) there will always be an infinite amount of art available.
Now I can (almost) do what I've been doing for a few years -- watch (almost) any TV show by downloading it from the Internet and then watching it (almost) any time I want, (almost) as many times as I want, and then I can (almost) share it with (almost) any one else that I (sort of) want to!
I already pay for my ISP connection; I pay an electric bill; phone bills; taxes; I already am forced to watch millions of advertisments every day, almost evey waking moment.... You know what? I don't want to pay anymore. If the TV shows and Movies and Music were created by and sold as independent works of art, I'd throw a couple thousand annually into a few pots -- even now I have paid memberships to art movie houses, I subscribe to cool magazines, I buy Indie band's Internet label CDs -- but I dont't want to give any more to the culture machine!
TiVo, good luck to you, but at this point, when you're groveling to fit into the media -corporate-art bullshit system, I gotta tell you: I don't care if you flop right out of business. Once, you seemed cutting edge, subversive, and novel; now you seem like a load of horse shit. And I won't eat!
I am outraged at the idea that my tax dollars might be going to fund technologies that would subvert that very economy and lead to the downfall of our technological dominance.
On the contrary, our tax dollars are going towards subsidies for industries whose business models depend on a market that no longer exists. When distribution and reproduction were expensive, you could make a lot of money in the IP racket. Now that distribution and reproduction are pretty much free, our taxes go towards:
New laws and law enforcement whose goal is to increase the costs of distribution and reproduction
Direct taxes on blank media
Public airways/Public space polluted with spreading pro-dying industry FUD
As for technological dominance, gigantic potential economies are now suppressed in the name of protecting IP. And the curious, innovative, bravest, and smartest among us are systematically repressed to feed a petty, bullshit propaganda machine.
You, sir, are only a small bead of the slimey, glistening discharge of the cancer that has inflicted the youngest, most promising child of our culture. But you respond well to simple salves.
How many of the following have YOU bought in the past 18 months?
p2pod (iPod with the ability to play any audio ever made by wirelessly finding it and sharing it on the p2p networks)
p2TV (Television set capable of playing any video ever made by finding it and sharing it on the p2p networks)
Do those not sound like miulti-billion dollar markets to you (hardware, peripherals, connectivity, service, suppport, and competition)? Those products would generate several other innovative industries, non-profit projects, and social movements that we can't even begin to imagine.
Many many companies (and individual artists) have faced SERIOUS economic damage by attempts to thrawt P2P from being absolutely ubiquitous and maximally effective. Estimates are in the BILLIONS of dollars (US only) of lost sales in broadband connections, blank media disks, large hard disk drives, software support, consulting fees, home audio/video equiptment, and the like. And Western countries are fast falling behind as the majority of educated citizens from developing nations take advantage of the black market for these goods and services while Western citizens are blocked in droves by propaganda, political corruption, inferior substitutes, and FUD from fully participating in the open exchange of science, the arts, poltical discorse, and culture in general.
Credence will hopefully bring us a bit closer to reaching our current potential.
I agree with you that the USA is no China -- we really do have a huge measure of freedom that the average Chinese citizen does not.
That said, I think it is disingenuous to ask for examples of abridging "Constitutionally protected free speech" -- the Supreme Court decides what is constitutionally protected and their definitions change over time. Right now, for example, expression defined as "obscenity" by the courts is not constitutionally protected, but I and many others think that this is a wrong interpretation of the constitution. Ditto laws surrounding gov't secrecy. Ditto various IP laws.
But there is also a chilling effect on free expression by companies, lawyers, communities, peers, local governments -- that often make people not express themselves because of fear of retaliation, ostracization, lawsuits, etc.
A few possible examples:
* A group of parents from a very religious community who oppose efforts to block the teaching of evolution in their local school districts, but who fear their church
* An artist who lives in very conservative state who works for a very conservative company, who wants to show his homo-erotic nudes artwork
* A mid-level Democratic politico who wants to expose the hypocrisy of his powerful boss
* A parent who wants to argue for the lowering of the consensual age of sex but who fears that their child-custody may be threatened
All of these can be seen as political dissidents, and not too far-fetched, and the anonymity of Freenet can be a powerful work-around for them.
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Before it was in IE7, before it was in Safari, before it was in Opera, the 2 in 1 Cancel/Refresh button was in Netscape Navigator beta 4 and taken out of 4.0 final since you'd often click reload when you were trying to stop. It didn't work then, it doesn't work now.
>>this guy no more deserves our sympathy or support than some guy selling bootlegged CDs on a street corner
From my experience in NYC, most street vendors selling pirated music, movies, bags, t-shirts, whatever, have been very hard working immigrants..
They would sell fruit (as the Jews, Italians, and Irish of old did), they would sell rags, they would sell pottery, paint, poems, dishes or used magazines, except for one thing: bootleg music and movies and games make more money, have a bigger demand. Selling drugs or sex might make them more money, but would involve considerably more personal risk.
I don't feel sympathy for the bootleggers: I feel admiration for their hard work and gratitude for how they keep the authentic culture machine well-oiled.
I disagree. You can maximize profits by working hard, being creative, keeping alert, re-investing. You can also maximize proifts by hiring lawyers to intimidate competitors with unjust laws.
I'm in the technology industry. I feel strongly about the freedoms that technologies can give us, but that are under attack by short-sidghted businesses, among others. I don't support Orbitz, for example, since they support adware. This is simmilar, I belive.
I'm not a plant, though I may be an idiot (but a subtle, not blantant one).;)
I am against DLO's tactics 100%, though I admit that I didn't realize that the guy who runs DVForge seems pretty lame.
DLO patented an iPod dock that gets power and charges in your car and broadcasts over FM. I find that highly questionable at best. It refects badly not only on the patent system to approve such as thing, but on DLO as well, to try to block competitors rather than out-doing them.
They didn't invent anything that's worthy of special legal protections. Neither did Apple with the iPod. Neither did the car radio inventor and manufacturer, or the car lighter inventor and manufacturer. These companies are not innovators. They are at best good businesses.
I think my letter was justified, except perhaps for the implications that DVForge is a good company.
I must say, I don't particularly care for Grokster, Kaazaa, or any of the other businesses that try to make money through spyware, adware, trojans and the like.
That said, I am truely impressed by the human spirit shown by P2P filetraders, Motivated by their love of art, by their love of disseminating their love, by their satisfaction with hooking people up, they are on the forefront of the Internet revolution -- bringing the ideal of making all human intellectual and creative expression available to all to fruition.
Keep on sharing, all you friendly, kind organizers and catalogers out there! Keep on sharing, you fanboys, critics, and experts! Keep on sharing, you compilers, re-editors, mash-uppers... artists! Keep on sharing even as authority insults, threatens, and lies about you... even as lawmakers, school principals, and propagandists try to stop you... even as some experts, some of your friends, and even the Supreme Court suprememly misunderstand you... above all... Keep Sharing!!:)
In the past I have purchased a Belkin and a Griffith product, both claiming to allow me to use my iPod in my rental cars via the car's FM stereo. Both products have been a huge disappointment due to poor signal, poor interface and limited options for changing the station, and low batter life. I have two different family members in the Boston area who have returned their iTrips due to the above problems.
I have been eagerly following the development of dvforge's PodBuddy, and have been looking forward to purchasing their product.
I am sadly discouraged at the legal tactics of your company to block this product. I find such business behavior in the technology world very upsetting. Instead of trying to build a competitive product, your company has decided to block a clearly superior competitor with strong-arm, cowardly, and quite frankly sleazy legal tactics.
My anger at your company has motivated me enough to publicize this story as much as I can, via my blogs, my work clients, and my press contacts.
I will also refrain from making any purchases from DLO unless you change your tactics to reflect honest, hard-working business ethics.
I share. That cool guy over there shares. That hot chick, she shares too! Doctors share. Artists share. Judges share. Priests, milkmaids, garbagemen, executives, teachers, uncles, mailmen -- they all share. Old and young, smart and dumb (dumb, but nice!), people with good taste and people with conventional likes and dislikes; Chinese and Amsterdamish, Black, Brown, Yelllow and Red, Whites too; young girls (giggling), pippled-faced boys, pregnant women, bearded professors -- they ALL share!
You could buy the DVD. They could sell the DVD weekly. You could subscribe to the show and have it mailed to you every Wed. But why do I have to figure this out for them? Answer: the TV people have a cash cow -- a LAW giving them money, giving them our public spectrum, for them to sell ads. If this is threatened (by say p2p), it is much easier, cheaper, and more certain to get money if they just try to get more law passed that guarantee their monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
http://lwn.net/Articles/211216/
Much much easier to read.
So what, exactly is Novell licensing from MS? If Novel declares that they only have the right to distribute certain GPL'ed code because of a license that they've bought, then, under the terms of the GPL, they cannot distribute that code at all.
MS and Novel know this, and that's why they don't call what they've done "licensing." Instead, as they've said, they have carefully taken the GPL into account when they made this deal (in order to work around it), and called their deal a "promise not to sue" or some such.
If MS DOES successfully sue another distributor or coder over GPL'ed code, then Novell's deal with MS would not give them any EXTRA ability to continue to distribute that code.
So what have MS and Novell done? They have created the illusion that Novell has licensed MS patents and that other Linux distributions do not have this license. The truth is:
* No court has ruled that MS holds patents on any GPL'ed code
* MS has not claimed that any specific GPL'ed code violates MS's patents
* If MS DID bring a patent suit against a prominent Free software project or it's proxy, it would be resolved:
- Many big projects would fight in court (Red Hat, FSF, IBM), and MS would lose
- MS would come under attack by other companies that have interest in GPL'ed software and that have large patent portfolios -- MS would back down
- If MS did win a suit (or if the legal battle was too much), the code would be replaced quickly
Question: how does the BSD'ed code (or Apache licensed, etc) fare in the above context?
Do (or would) any MS IE people help hack on the Firefox codebase? If not, why not? If so, what do you think of the quality of their code/ease of jumping in?
It looks like a subtle push against IE: many mantions of the HTML 5 spec (which is being written by WHAT a workgroup that includes many browser companies but not MS); use of SVG; written by a major FF developer.
Way to go Google! Pour on the pressure!
As to the specifics of your post:
>>Distribution costs are only effectively zero for the end user.
I think you mean that there might be costs for the production of original expression -- costs like reording equiptment, dolly grip sallary, even time off from work... But the potential profits once can make off of original (or even not-original) expression aren't dependant on these costs. Every artist needs to struggle and gamble. If making money is an important goal, they might need to also be crafy and original in doing that. Whether there is copyright law or not that's true.
>> There is now, and ever will be, a massive demand for recorded works, but if it becomes impossible to make a living off of them, it is certain that fewer and fewer creators will actually create them.
I argue that copyright doesn't make it "possible" for artists to make a living off of their work. At best, it offers a particular PATH. I think that this path isn't as rewarding (financially or creatively) as other paths that don't need copyright, especially paths that need there to NOT be copyrights.
>>You need to consider that when the value of a product becomes effectively zero, then such works will tend to only be created by those with sufficient leisure (temporal or financial) to create, or solely as loss leader advertising.
I think you're wrong though. Many people on this very page have brainstormed several ideas on how artists could make money without resorting to copyright. I think if there was NO copyright, the possibilites of making money off of original (or not so original) expression INCREASE... See if you can't think of some ways to make money artistically in a copyright-less world. I bet any creative person could come up with a list of 10.
Didn't mean to be too esoteric (or such a bad writer!). When they created the idea of copyright -- give people an incentive to create original expression by giving them a monopoly on it's reproduction -- the enforcent was to monitor, fine, and maybe close down printing presses, stores, and performances. Now, they need to stop people from using the computers... But more than that, they have to make it so that it makes SENSE for people to pay for something that, in the unregulated world, wouldn't cost anything. They could have made the financial incentive be that the government would just pay artists, but they reasoned that giving the artist a leg up in the market place would be a better compromise: the artists (and others) could use the marketplace to make money. Now, not only have the means taken against infringers become more and more draconian (now that everyone owns a super-speed printing press, more distribution power than a million trucks, and a wider audience than a thousand bookstores), but themarketplace itself is no longer only tweaked, but created from the whole cloth.
More though: I think the same technology that makes it so easy and desireable to break copyrights, also gives artists and other creators of original expression the potential to make MORE money in truely free marketplace than what copyright currently gives them. But this potential for them is hampered by the very copyright laws that are supposed to encourage them. These potential benefits for them would come from the same place that a whole world of other benefits -- artistc, scientific, cultural -- for everyone would come from: from the massive immediate availability of all creative expression. There is money to be made, and so much more...
But the entrenched interests fight on...
I think that it's clear that the benfits (artistic, scientific, political, cultural) that arise from the massive free and unencumbered sharing of all ideas and expression, now massively outweighs any financial incentive to create new works that current copyright law might provide. This might not have been the case before, when it was burdensome to share art and ideas on a massive scale (when there were high "publishing" and "distribution costs"). When that was the case, a marketplace where distributors competed with each other to make money selling published works could be "tweaked" so that copyright holders could be given a special leg up. But now, there is no longer the potential to make money from disseminating recordings, movies, books, etc. unless you somehow offer MORE than the copyrighted work itself. In a competing marketplace, the value of all copyrighted works would be ZERO; that's because the distribution of any such work costs nothing, and getting these works is more than easy.
That means that now, if you want copyright laws to give a financial incentive for people to create works, you also need to CREATE a potential profit -- you need to stretch the idea of "copying" a work to include letting someone listen to your music collection, watch your TV with you, read your book. That means not allowing people to really use computers and the Internet in innovative or even in obvious simple ways.
I think though, that the new situation of free distibution and easy access *by itself* gives a strong financial incentive to artists, scientists, etc. that wasn't there before -- the potential to make up new ways to make money indirectly from their works, through, for example, massive free distribution, global word of mouth, niche-locating, and a much larger pool of source materials with which to work. These incentives offer potentially much more money, and do not require special exceptions to freedom of expression and governmental power.
"Intellectual property" can really mean two things -- a limit on other people's right of free expression (which is copyright law), or what I see as a more natural-law or human value of deserving credit for one's original ideas and expression. I whole-heartedly believe that people should get credit and be held responsible for the intellectual works they create; I would support government funding of an "attribution repository" of some sort. But I find the arguments for "Intellectual Restriction Management," which is current copyright law, to be weaker and weaker with each passing year.
Copyright can work, and has served well for the past 200-odd years of the history of our nation. The problem we currently face for copyright is that the barrier to infringement of the copyright privilege has been dramatically lowered by the availablility of low-cost digital reproduction. People who would otherwise remain honest have, in the face of the pollution of the original intent of the copyright and dilution of moral priniciples in our society, begun to infringe upon the privileged grant of authorship because they can do so easily in a relatively anonymous fashion.
You are talking about people who share music and videos and text that they have on their computer with others (as opposed to say, a Chinese factory that sells DVD copies). I don't think these people for the most part want to do this anonymously. They only do it anonymously to avoid trouble. Copyright has not just become "easier" to violate, that ease has made it infinitely more desireable, and more pregnant with possibilites. In the past, a violator would run their own lp pressing factory and try to sell an album. Now, people want to show their friends which music is good; more, they want to MAKE friends by showing which music is good. Stifling this is stifling the arts and sciences. In order to promote the arts and sciences, and political and cultural discourse, the law of copyright should today refer to "the right of anyone to copy" not "the power to LIMIT the right to copy."
I think the idea is NOT that when you run my PHP code on your web server over the Internet it counts as "propigating" or "distributing" that app. Clearly it doesn't -- all the people who go to your web page see is the OUTPUT of my code. My code is NOT copied into their ram or anything like that.
The idea is that I could have in my PHP code a link to the source of my code, allowing all users of your website to get my PHP code. Under the GPL, you could modify my code and remove the link to the source. But I could add a restiction to my code's GPL license that says "If you want to modify my copyrighted code, you CANNOT modify the part that provides a link to the source code; or IF YOU DO modify that part, then you have to provide a link somewhere to the source code of my app."
This new license ("GPL + link" let's call it) is allowed right now. I can license my code in whatever reasonable way I want. BUT prior to the GPL v3, this code would not be COMPATABLE with GPL'ed code. Now, with version 3, my code would be compatable, you'd be able to mix my GPL + link code with other pure GPL'ed code.
I don't see how the principal of "you must make the source code for derived works available via a link" would be a EULA. I create a web-based program and my code contains a link to download the source code. I copyright it. Under copyright laws, you have no right to modify my code unless I grant you permission. I do grant you permission, but my LICENSE states that you must either leave the downloading part of my code intact or else replace it with simmilar functionality. Remember, by default you have no right to modify my copyrighted code, so if you do no follow the terms of my lisence, you have no right to remove my link to download the source code. GPL purists might object that that puts a strong restiction on the freedom of the users of the code -- they are forced to have a certain funtionality in their program.
http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ for mopre info on what it means to be a LICENSE.
I think that the article from itarchitect.com that you linked to is clearly wrong: the new GPL draft doesn't contain this "must allow downloads" language; it only says that if there is some code with a license that DOES contain language like this then that code can still be GPL COMPATABLE. There is no issue of "loading something into RAM is making a copy" involved. The "end user" in the cases covered by the GPL and other similar licenses is the distributor or modifier of the code, not the person viewing the code's output (a user of a web-app).
Usually the GPL doesn't allow you to mix in code that is MORE restrictive than the GPL. You can mix in code that is LESS restrictive (e.g., code in the public domain, or code under a BSD license). BUT this draft of the GPL version 3 says that there are a few exceptions where you CAN mix in code that has certain enumerated restrictions beyond the GPL. One of these ALLOWED RESTRICTIONS is if a license requires that code has a way for users of that code to "immediately obtain copies of its Complete Corresponding Source Code" (section 7d).
I imagine that this could apply to web services -- I could release my big PHP app under the GPL license with the added restriction that "if you want to distribute or modify my web app, you have to have some sort of link to the source code, or else you can't modify the part of the program that provides that link." This is allowed now, I can have any reasonable terms in my license that I want (my license is the only thing that lets you distribute or modify my code), but under versions of the GPL prior to 3, my code wouldn't be COMPATABLE with GPL code; you couldn't COMBINE my code with your GPL code.
If you do release your code under v3 of the GPL, then people can mix your code with my "GPL plus link to source"-licensed code. If you release your code under version 2 only, my code can't be mixed with yours.
I think this is a good solution to the "problem" of web services. Remember, the problem was that people can take my GPL'ed code, change it, and run it over the Internet and not release their changes back to the community. In some ways this goes against the spirit that the codes' authors may have felt -- they wanted changes to be "fed back" into the community. On the other hand it could be argued that, by adding a new restriction to my code that goes beyond the GPL's core "share back" -- I'm now in effect saying "this program MUST have this functionality" -- I'm limiting a freedom that the GPL wants to protect -- the freedom to modify the code.
I think section 7d is a brilliant compromise: allow such code to be mixed with GPL'ed code. This keeps the GPL pure, but opens the door to code that isn't philosophically objectionable.
> For 0, infinity (which is why if no one wants it, it won't get made).)
You're saying that if no one wants a song, it won't get made in the first place? But that's clearly not the case. Artists create works that no one likes at all. Some people mock the artist. The artists is torn, but keeps making their crap, devoting a lot of time, energy, and even money to it. They die. Then one day, years later, people start to like their stuff. Or not. Either way, they "invested" a lot -- some would say "threw away" a lot. And market forces did not dictate their actions.
On the other hand, you rarely see such a thing happen with, say, a kitchen appliance, or a construction project, or a crop. Once it's been determined that people don't want these things, they're not made.
So supply is infinite for music distribution models in two ways: 1) there is zero price for reproduction and distribution, and 2) there will always be an infinite amount of art available.
Now I can (almost) do what I've been doing for a few years -- watch (almost) any TV show by downloading it from the Internet and then watching it (almost) any time I want, (almost) as many times as I want, and then I can (almost) share it with (almost) any one else that I (sort of) want to!
I already pay for my ISP connection; I pay an electric bill; phone bills; taxes; I already am forced to watch millions of advertisments every day, almost evey waking moment.... You know what? I don't want to pay anymore. If the TV shows and Movies and Music were created by and sold as independent works of art, I'd throw a couple thousand annually into a few pots -- even now I have paid memberships to art movie houses, I subscribe to cool magazines, I buy Indie band's Internet label CDs -- but I dont't want to give any more to the culture machine!
TiVo, good luck to you, but at this point, when you're groveling to fit into the media -corporate-art bullshit system, I gotta tell you: I don't care if you flop right out of business. Once, you seemed cutting edge, subversive, and novel; now you seem like a load of horse shit. And I won't eat!
On the contrary, our tax dollars are going towards subsidies for industries whose business models depend on a market that no longer exists. When distribution and reproduction were expensive, you could make a lot of money in the IP racket. Now that distribution and reproduction are pretty much free, our taxes go towards:
As for technological dominance, gigantic potential economies are now suppressed in the name of protecting IP. And the curious, innovative, bravest, and smartest among us are systematically repressed to feed a petty, bullshit propaganda machine.
You, sir, are only a small bead of the slimey, glistening discharge of the cancer that has inflicted the youngest, most promising child of our culture. But you respond well to simple salves.
- p2pod (iPod with the ability to play any audio ever made by wirelessly finding it and sharing it on the p2p networks)
- p2TV (Television set capable of playing any video ever made by finding it and sharing it on the p2p networks)
Do those not sound like miulti-billion dollar markets to you (hardware, peripherals, connectivity, service, suppport, and competition)? Those products would generate several other innovative industries, non-profit projects, and social movements that we can't even begin to imagine.Many many companies (and individual artists) have faced SERIOUS economic damage by attempts to thrawt P2P from being absolutely ubiquitous and maximally effective. Estimates are in the BILLIONS of dollars (US only) of lost sales in broadband connections, blank media disks, large hard disk drives, software support, consulting fees, home audio/video equiptment, and the like. And Western countries are fast falling behind as the majority of educated citizens from developing nations take advantage of the black market for these goods and services while Western citizens are blocked in droves by propaganda, political corruption, inferior substitutes, and FUD from fully participating in the open exchange of science, the arts, poltical discorse, and culture in general.
Credence will hopefully bring us a bit closer to reaching our current potential.
I agree with you that the USA is no China -- we really do have a huge measure of freedom that the average Chinese citizen does not.
That said, I think it is disingenuous to ask for examples of abridging "Constitutionally protected free speech" -- the Supreme Court decides what is constitutionally protected and their definitions change over time. Right now, for example, expression defined as "obscenity" by the courts is not constitutionally protected, but I and many others think that this is a wrong interpretation of the constitution. Ditto laws surrounding gov't secrecy. Ditto various IP laws.
But there is also a chilling effect on free expression by companies, lawyers, communities, peers, local governments -- that often make people not express themselves because of fear of retaliation, ostracization, lawsuits, etc.
A few possible examples:
* A group of parents from a very religious community who oppose efforts to block the teaching of evolution in their local school districts, but who fear their church
* An artist who lives in very conservative state who works for a very conservative company, who wants to show his homo-erotic nudes artwork
* A mid-level Democratic politico who wants to expose the hypocrisy of his powerful boss
* A parent who wants to argue for the lowering of the consensual age of sex but who fears that their child-custody may be threatened
All of these can be seen as political dissidents, and not too far-fetched, and the anonymity of Freenet can be a powerful work-around for them.
Before it was in IE7, before it was in Safari, before it was in Opera, the 2 in 1 Cancel/Refresh button was in Netscape Navigator beta 4 and taken out of 4.0 final since you'd often click reload when you were trying to stop. It didn't work then, it doesn't work now.
>>this guy no more deserves our sympathy or support than some guy selling bootlegged CDs on a street corner
From my experience in NYC, most street vendors selling pirated music, movies, bags, t-shirts, whatever, have been very hard working immigrants..
They would sell fruit (as the Jews, Italians, and Irish of old did), they would sell rags, they would sell pottery, paint, poems, dishes or used magazines, except for one thing: bootleg music and movies and games make more money, have a bigger demand. Selling drugs or sex might make them more money, but would involve considerably more personal risk.
I don't feel sympathy for the bootleggers: I feel admiration for their hard work and gratitude for how they keep the authentic culture machine well-oiled.
I disagree. You can maximize profits by working hard, being creative, keeping alert, re-investing. You can also maximize proifts by hiring lawyers to intimidate competitors with unjust laws.
I'm in the technology industry. I feel strongly about the freedoms that technologies can give us, but that are under attack by short-sidghted businesses, among others. I don't support Orbitz, for example, since they support adware. This is simmilar, I belive.
I'm not a plant, though I may be an idiot (but a subtle, not blantant one). ;)
I am against DLO's tactics 100%, though I admit that I didn't realize that the guy who runs DVForge seems pretty lame.
DLO patented an iPod dock that gets power and charges in your car and broadcasts over FM. I find that highly questionable at best. It refects badly not only on the patent system to approve such as thing, but on DLO as well, to try to block competitors rather than out-doing them.
They didn't invent anything that's worthy of special legal protections. Neither did Apple with the iPod. Neither did the car radio inventor and manufacturer, or the car lighter inventor and manufacturer. These companies are not innovators. They are at best good businesses.
I think my letter was justified, except perhaps for the implications that DVForge is a good company.
I must say, I don't particularly care for Grokster, Kaazaa, or any of the other businesses that try to make money through spyware, adware, trojans and the like.
... artists! Keep on sharing even as authority insults, threatens, and lies about you... even as lawmakers, school principals, and propagandists try to stop you ... even as some experts, some of your friends, and even the Supreme Court suprememly misunderstand you ... above all ... Keep Sharing!! :)
That said, I am truely impressed by the human spirit shown by P2P filetraders, Motivated by their love of art, by their love of disseminating their love, by their satisfaction with hooking people up, they are on the forefront of the Internet revolution -- bringing the ideal of making all human intellectual and creative expression available to all to fruition.
Keep on sharing, all you friendly, kind organizers and catalogers out there! Keep on sharing, you fanboys, critics, and experts! Keep on sharing, you compilers, re-editors, mash-uppers
Hello,
In the past I have purchased a Belkin and a Griffith product, both claiming to allow me to use my iPod in my rental cars via the car's FM stereo. Both products have been a huge disappointment due to poor signal, poor interface and limited options for changing the station, and low batter life. I have two different family members in the Boston area who have returned their iTrips due to the above problems.
I have been eagerly following the development of dvforge's PodBuddy, and have been looking forward to purchasing their product.
I am sadly discouraged at the legal tactics of your company to block this product. I find such business behavior in the technology world very upsetting. Instead of trying to build a competitive product, your company has decided to block a clearly superior competitor with strong-arm, cowardly, and quite frankly sleazy legal tactics.
My anger at your company has motivated me enough to publicize this story as much as I can, via my blogs, my work clients, and my press contacts.
I will also refrain from making any purchases from DLO unless you change your tactics to reflect honest, hard-working business ethics.
Thank you for reading my feedback,
I share. That cool guy over there shares. That hot chick, she shares too! Doctors share. Artists share. Judges share. Priests, milkmaids, garbagemen, executives, teachers, uncles, mailmen -- they all share. Old and young, smart and dumb (dumb, but nice!), people with good taste and people with conventional likes and dislikes; Chinese and Amsterdamish, Black, Brown, Yelllow and Red, Whites too; young girls (giggling), pippled-faced boys, pregnant women, bearded professors -- they ALL share!
:)
Isn't it about time you shared too?
Have a nice day -- AND SHARE!!!
You could buy the DVD. They could sell the DVD weekly. You could subscribe to the show and have it mailed to you every Wed. But why do I have to figure this out for them? Answer: the TV people have a cash cow -- a LAW giving them money, giving them our public spectrum, for them to sell ads. If this is threatened (by say p2p), it is much easier, cheaper, and more certain to get money if they just try to get more law passed that guarantee their monopoly.