The slippery slope is a perfectly valid argument. What it states is that the absence of the government's ability to dictate freedom is an essential freedom in and of itself. It doesn't apply when the government already has the right to regulate certain freedoms, such as the examples you already stated, but when it comes to freedom of speech, the argument applies perfectly because that freedom should be absolute and unlimited.
Who here believes that any general software concepts should be patentable? How about having a "window"-based interface? How about icons? How about virtual memory? The fact of the matter is that the patent system as we know it is incompatible with a wired world.
The very nature of technology is to abstract and combine. Any new piece of technology or innovation invented this year will be a piece of another innovation next year. It's not like you are patenting your way of making software...you're patenting a building block that all later pieces of software must incorporate. The current patent system allows certain companies to OWN necessary steps on the path to better software. Imagine trying to build a computer today if someone owned the concept of a file. Just as the early concepts, like that of a processor, file, memory, hard drive, and so on, combined to make the modern computer, all of the things that are so innovative today will be necessary components of the next generation of hardware. Allowing the earliest software companies to patent necessary steps to advance the general state of sofware can only cripple the production of computer code in the US.
Doesn't PHP have features for image generation on the fly? I bet with a combination of javascript, preloading, and PHP you could give the illusion of interactivity without resorting to dumb hacks.
No, you're wrong. Free speech entitles you to certain freedoms over your own speech. IT DOES NOT ENTITLE OTHERS TO FORCE YOU TO SAY CERTAIN THINGS, IT DOES NOT GRANT THE FREEDOM TO BE HEARD.
When I say what I want on my blog, that's freedom of speech. When company X says what it wants on my blog, that's a hijacking of my resources.
Yeah, we really are being racist by chooising to pick on Nigeria for their email scams, instead of talking about all of the other ways they have impacted people living outside their hole of a country, like... well...um....hmm...
When it's too hard to have both action and adventure in the same game, some companies make action (e.g. contra) and others make adventure (e.g. grim fandango). Now that computers are advanced engough (and the gaming industry is mature enough) to produce both simultaneously (something like Baldur's Gate 2, which combines action AND puzzle-solving) there's really no need for Adventure games. It's not like they've gone away...more like evolved into something else.
It was not a music-sharing service. It simply indexed the contents of all of the public shares campus. If I typed in RedHat 7 it would return a list of places where I could get the ISO. There was nothing about it that was specifically directed towards infringing.
like http://www.proxomitron.org/ . You can customize all of the filters to deal with new ads. Because of the nature of the web, so long as we are using HTTP it will always be possible to choose what content you see.
Besides, web sites aren't going to run 300k ads unless it's worth the bandwith. If ads cost 10k, who cares if you have a 1% click-through rate...but if you're spending 30 times that amount, the math just doesn't work as well.
...when the right of corporations to profit exceeds the right of individuals to privacy. The whole point of due process and search restrictions is that it's more important to protect the privacy of everyone, even if that means letting many criminals go free. Sure, no one's going to argue that MP3 trading of copyrighted works is legal, but neither is going 35 in a 25 zone, or drinking underage, or photocopying sections of books, or what have you. Where the hell are the anti-trust laws and campaign finance reforms when you need them?
I really don't see any way to destroy the RIAA without attacking their profits. The RIAA wants to turn our government into a police state just to ensure it's bottom line is well padded. The scary part of distopias like 1984 is not what is considered illegal, but how strictly it is enforced. When a private organization passes laws to protect its business model, and acts as a law enforcement agency without the consent of the people, I can't see how any attack on them, in any form could be considered immoral. We are confronted with a total hijacking of our government for the sake of profits. Artists be damned, copyrights be damned, I'm sick of this shit. That's why everyone should do everything they can to hurt the RIAA bottom line as much as possible. Buy no cds. Support live performances. Supply your (trustworthy) friends with free mp3's. The US government, especially when covered in republican parasites, will never choose the people over a lucrative corporation. Our only recourse is to not give them a DOLLAR.
There's a reason why these security-types choose to disclose this stuff. Let's use an analogy here. Let's say the turnstiles in the subway (you know, the little things where you put the token in, and then it makes the little bar let you through) will just let you through without a token if you give them a fairly solid nudge with your thigh. This is because the turnstile company is making shitty equipment and charging a bundle for it. As a society, we can let the turnstile company slap lawsuits on anyone who is talking about the crappy turnstiles, or we can force them to fix the damn turnstiles. Clever people will figure it out for themselves, regardless of whether it's disclosed to society. Would you rather people stealthily stealing trolley rides forever? Or would you rather have the company who made the shitty turnstiles take the beating? Sure, most companies want to be able to make crappy security and get away with it. They want to be able to threaten people who will make it difficult to sell crappy security, just like the rapist might like to be able to intimidate his victims into silence. Sure, when it hits the news that you can just get into the subway by pushing on the bar, no one's going to pay until they're fixed. Sure, if they hold this press conference, people are going to be stealing cokes (and worse) left and right. However, that's not my problem. It's the problem of the universities who didn't buy a secure product, and the manufacturer that didn't make a secure product. None of that is any reason for me to give up my right to freedom to peacably assemble, and freedom of speech. You can either preserve the ability of corporations to hush up flawed products, or you can preserve our constiutional rights. It's as simple as that.
"I believe in science. He believes in magic," Ko said. "He believes that he can breathe on his blade and impart his spirit."
Daniel Watson's web site can be found at http://www.angelsword.com/ . After looking through the site carefully, I found no mention of "magic." Although the man may have some unusual beliefs about his work, it is clear from looking at his photo gallery that he is an amazing swordsmith.
I do not doubt the fact that the spreading of lies to damage another's reputation is libel, and blackmailing a fine craftsman like Mr. Watson is downright slimy. Take a look at his stuff, and if you're as impressed as I am, tell the guy in the cube next to ya. You don't have to wait for some court to award damages to get this problem solved....in a time when government seems unstoppable remember that all of the machinery of justice and corruption merely utilize a tiny fragment of the collective will of the apathy of our civilization.
What does this do to the cellular phone networks? If I ran the verizon network, I'd be really glad to have a bunch of pissed off chinese commie gestapo guys/.'ing me 24/7.
Many games that wouldn't cut it according to today's standards are a blast to play because you remember them by yesterday's standards...although a few are truly timeless.
Technology will always be either an arms race or government-backed stagnation. I'd rather place the burden of enforcement of corporate agendas on the R&D department of product vendors than in the holsters of a corporation-funded government
Why don't we all switch our phone numbers over to hexidecimal? 11 digit dialing -> *poof* -> 9 digit dialing!
DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!?
on
David Brin On LOTR
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Go read the article. Read the last page.
*sigh* OK, for those of you who still didn't read it, the point was to get you to examine the story from a different perspective, to get you to consider for a moment the possibility that the "good guys" were really the "bad guys." It's an exercise in not being such a MTV-loving couch-potato consumer who just takes everything at face value... "oooh shiny objects and hot women, must deactivate brain while watching movie." The article did NOT knock LOTR. Save your canned responses for whenever Micro$oft does anything.:)
monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Yeah, but brand X doesn't have to predict anything so long as they keep anyone else from starting brand Y.
Whatever crap they stuff down our throats on the radio and MTV is automagically successful because there is no competing method of distribution. What's to predict?
Predictability, hogwash. The point here is that the RIAA is using their current monopoly on music distribution to stifle competing methods of music distribution. They don't care whether or not their income is predictable so long as it is copious. Are they afraid of people getting music for free? Yeah, a bit. Are they afraid of new infrastructure developing which will make them obsolete? You bet your AC-trolling ass they are. The point is that the internet totally removes the need for some ultra-huge corporation to physically distribute the cd's, because Joe Geek can run apache on his cable modem and send his music to people all over the world.
The internet is here. MP3 is everywhere. The cat is out of the bag. No amount of legislation will ever put the cat back in the bag. We as a society must find a way to make digital music, which has an infinite supply, financially profitable. That is the challenge that technology has presented us with. We must not allow the self-preservation instincts of an outdated business model to prevent us from dealing with the problems we are presented with. This is the challenge of our times...we must make music profitable or face the loss of a key element of our culture.
Now, there are probably a number of answers to this problem that involve watermarking, buying music over the internet and so on, but IMHO all of that is destined to failure.
The essential problem is that the internet is really a form of collective consciousness. Once a piece of music is put in someone's P2P share folder, it essentially becomes part of this enormous network of information storage. Once a song hits the net it is no longer physical goods, but rather information. The cornerstone of the information anarchist philosophy is that information wants to be free. It's difficult to reason yourself out of watching a pirated movie. Download a divx you haven't seen and burn it onto a cd. Place it in front of yourself. Whether or not you can get past the inhibitions society has placed on you, the indoctrination that information must not be free, somewhere in the back of your mind you feel there is no wrong in that information moving from that disc into your mind. The emerging interconnectedness of our society means that music is no longer a good, but rather information. Trying to fight this only divides us.
Clearly the relationship between artist and consumer is no longer the traditional capitalist one of producer and consumer. Music is not consumed, it is spread, as information.
However, the capitalist mode of thinking does apply when we look to the relationship between artist and society as a whole. Society consumes the performances of the artists and returns a fee based on the success of said music. This is the essential characteristic of the music industry, not the business model that the RIAA has crafted to complete this relationship. We only need to find a new way of expressing this relationship in a society where music is not scarce. The solution is this: all Americans must pay a yearly tax. The infrastructure to generate income via taxes is already in place and quite efficient. Then, the music of any artist would be accessible to anyone via the internet. All we then need is some mechanism to track which artists are listened to the most, or perhaps each tax form would require a list of artists who should be compensated. Perhaps some democratic process could elect representatives who oversee and influence the process. In the end, though, artists would be judged on their contribution to society and recieve appropriate compensation. However, there would be a maximum as well. Once an artist reaches a certain contribution to society they recieve a fixed fee for the rest of their lives, whether they produce music or not. Instead of making millions because of artificial scarcity, they will be given a more modest life, but one that has absolute security, freeing them to continue with their music, unhindered by financial worries.
Think of it this way. If someone said to you "We're going to take care of your living expenses for the rest of your life. You're not going to drive a porche, but all you have to do is make music. You will never have to want for housing, food, medical, anything. No worries. If you are famous and loved, even if only for a few years, you are set for life." and you didn't take it, you're in it for profit anyways, and you're as bad as Brittney Spears. The true artist seeks glory, recognition, and success. If you want to be rich, well, then you need to contribute to society in some other way. There is still a motivation to reach the cutoff point. Say you write one song, release it, get a few thousand downloads, you might get a check for a couple hundred bucks. If you make a song that is as popular as any mainstream single these days, you're going to be taken care of.
Sure, this idea is pretty damn communist. Sure, artists can't have huge mansions anymore. However, it does two important things: listeners aren't criminals anymore, and the RIAA's price-gouging won't lure idiots like a lot of the trash on MTV because of the massive amounts of money involved.
Look at musicians over the course of history. Our society is an aberration in that Musicians are respected and paid as if they were royalty. Muisicians previously lived for two things: recognition and security, and my proposal offers just that. The life of a musician should be one that sacrafices the greedy pursuit of financial wealth for the satisfaction of making a meaningful contribution to society. The truly great musicians write music to express what is in themselves, and to share that with others, and they look to our screwed up system to ensure that they get to eat the next day. The RIAA has commercialized music beyond belief, thus uprooting the true factors that should drive a musician.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh shut up. :)
for the cell phones to work, then there's no interference. If there's interference, your cell phone works. Hmm.
The slippery slope is a perfectly valid argument. What it states is that the absence of the government's ability to dictate freedom is an essential freedom in and of itself. It doesn't apply when the government already has the right to regulate certain freedoms, such as the examples you already stated, but when it comes to freedom of speech, the argument applies perfectly because that freedom should be absolute and unlimited.
Who here believes that any general software concepts should be patentable? How about having a "window"-based interface? How about icons? How about virtual memory? The fact of the matter is that the patent system as we know it is incompatible with a wired world.
The very nature of technology is to abstract and combine. Any new piece of technology or innovation invented this year will be a piece of another innovation next year. It's not like you are patenting your way of making software...you're patenting a building block that all later pieces of software must incorporate. The current patent system allows certain companies to OWN necessary steps on the path to better software. Imagine trying to build a computer today if someone owned the concept of a file. Just as the early concepts, like that of a processor, file, memory, hard drive, and so on, combined to make the modern computer, all of the things that are so innovative today will be necessary components of the next generation of hardware. Allowing the earliest software companies to patent necessary steps to advance the general state of sofware can only cripple the production of computer code in the US.
That is a dirty, ugly hack. No excuses.
Doesn't PHP have features for image generation on the fly? I bet with a combination of javascript, preloading, and PHP you could give the illusion of interactivity without resorting to dumb hacks.
No, you're wrong. Free speech entitles you to certain freedoms over your own speech. IT DOES NOT ENTITLE OTHERS TO FORCE YOU TO SAY CERTAIN THINGS, IT DOES NOT GRANT THE FREEDOM TO BE HEARD.
When I say what I want on my blog, that's freedom of speech. When company X says what it wants on my blog, that's a hijacking of my resources.
Yeah, we really are being racist by chooising to pick on Nigeria for their email scams, instead of talking about all of the other ways they have impacted people living outside their hole of a country, like... well...um....hmm...
When it's too hard to have both action and adventure in the same game, some companies make action (e.g. contra) and others make adventure (e.g. grim fandango). Now that computers are advanced engough (and the gaming industry is mature enough) to produce both simultaneously (something like Baldur's Gate 2, which combines action AND puzzle-solving) there's really no need for Adventure games. It's not like they've gone away...more like evolved into something else.
Why are you talking about puff daddy? I thought good producers were expensive?
*ducks*
It was not a music-sharing service. It simply indexed the contents of all of the public shares campus. If I typed in RedHat 7 it would return a list of places where I could get the ISO. There was nothing about it that was specifically directed towards infringing.
like http://www.proxomitron.org/ . You can customize all of the filters to deal with new ads. Because of the nature of the web, so long as we are using HTTP it will always be possible to choose what content you see.
Besides, web sites aren't going to run 300k ads unless it's worth the bandwith. If ads cost 10k, who cares if you have a 1% click-through rate...but if you're spending 30 times that amount, the math just doesn't work as well.
God knows computers are way too fast already. . . I'm sure no one would notice if real-time hardware was run in an interpreter.
...when the right of corporations to profit exceeds the right of individuals to privacy. The whole point of due process and search restrictions is that it's more important to protect the privacy of everyone, even if that means letting many criminals go free. Sure, no one's going to argue that MP3 trading of copyrighted works is legal, but neither is going 35 in a 25 zone, or drinking underage, or photocopying sections of books, or what have you. Where the hell are the anti-trust laws and campaign finance reforms when you need them?
I really don't see any way to destroy the RIAA without attacking their profits. The RIAA wants to turn our government into a police state just to ensure it's bottom line is well padded. The scary part of distopias like 1984 is not what is considered illegal, but how strictly it is enforced. When a private organization passes laws to protect its business model, and acts as a law enforcement agency without the consent of the people, I can't see how any attack on them, in any form could be considered immoral. We are confronted with a total hijacking of our government for the sake of profits. Artists be damned, copyrights be damned, I'm sick of this shit. That's why everyone should do everything they can to hurt the RIAA bottom line as much as possible. Buy no cds. Support live performances. Supply your (trustworthy) friends with free mp3's. The US government, especially when covered in republican parasites, will never choose the people over a lucrative corporation. Our only recourse is to not give them a DOLLAR.
There's a reason why these security-types choose to disclose this stuff. Let's use an analogy here. Let's say the turnstiles in the subway (you know, the little things where you put the token in, and then it makes the little bar let you through) will just let you through without a token if you give them a fairly solid nudge with your thigh. This is because the turnstile company is making shitty equipment and charging a bundle for it. As a society, we can let the turnstile company slap lawsuits on anyone who is talking about the crappy turnstiles, or we can force them to fix the damn turnstiles. Clever people will figure it out for themselves, regardless of whether it's disclosed to society. Would you rather people stealthily stealing trolley rides forever? Or would you rather have the company who made the shitty turnstiles take the beating? Sure, most companies want to be able to make crappy security and get away with it. They want to be able to threaten people who will make it difficult to sell crappy security, just like the rapist might like to be able to intimidate his victims into silence. Sure, when it hits the news that you can just get into the subway by pushing on the bar, no one's going to pay until they're fixed. Sure, if they hold this press conference, people are going to be stealing cokes (and worse) left and right. However, that's not my problem. It's the problem of the universities who didn't buy a secure product, and the manufacturer that didn't make a secure product. None of that is any reason for me to give up my right to freedom to peacably assemble, and freedom of speech. You can either preserve the ability of corporations to hush up flawed products, or you can preserve our constiutional rights. It's as simple as that.
Daniel Watson's web site can be found at http://www.angelsword.com/ . After looking through the site carefully, I found no mention of "magic." Although the man may have some unusual beliefs about his work, it is clear from looking at his photo gallery that he is an amazing swordsmith.
I do not doubt the fact that the spreading of lies to damage another's reputation is libel, and blackmailing a fine craftsman like Mr. Watson is downright slimy. Take a look at his stuff, and if you're as impressed as I am, tell the guy in the cube next to ya. You don't have to wait for some court to award damages to get this problem solved....in a time when government seems unstoppable remember that all of the machinery of justice and corruption merely utilize a tiny fragment of the collective will of the apathy of our civilization.
...if he knows the vulnerabilities before compromising the server, what's the point of compromising it?
What does this do to the cellular phone networks? If I ran the verizon network, I'd be really glad to have a bunch of pissed off chinese commie gestapo guys /.'ing me 24/7.
Many games that wouldn't cut it according to today's standards are a blast to play because you remember them by yesterday's standards...although a few are truly timeless.
If it's about bandwith, why don't they throttle the p2p ports like any self-respecting, upright university.
...we rot-13 encode everything. Big deal.
Technology will always be either an arms race or government-backed stagnation. I'd rather place the burden of enforcement of corporate agendas on the R&D department of product vendors than in the holsters of a corporation-funded government
Why don't we all switch our phone numbers over to hexidecimal? 11 digit dialing -> *poof* -> 9 digit dialing!
Go read the article. Read the last page.
:)
*sigh*
OK, for those of you who still didn't read it, the point was to get you to examine the story from a different perspective, to get you to consider for a moment the possibility that the "good guys" were really the "bad guys." It's an exercise in not being such a MTV-loving couch-potato consumer who just takes everything at face value... "oooh shiny objects and hot women, must deactivate brain while watching movie." The article did NOT knock LOTR. Save your canned responses for whenever Micro$oft does anything.
monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Yeah, but brand X doesn't have to predict anything so long as they keep anyone else from starting brand Y.
Whatever crap they stuff down our throats on the radio and MTV is automagically successful because there is no competing method of distribution. What's to predict?
That was kind of the point of my post....
Predictability, hogwash. The point here is that the RIAA is using their current monopoly on music distribution to stifle competing methods of music distribution. They don't care whether or not their income is predictable so long as it is copious. Are they afraid of people getting music for free? Yeah, a bit. Are they afraid of new infrastructure developing which will make them obsolete? You bet your AC-trolling ass they are. The point is that the internet totally removes the need for some ultra-huge corporation to physically distribute the cd's, because Joe Geek can run apache on his cable modem and send his music to people all over the world.
The internet is here. MP3 is everywhere. The cat is out of the bag. No amount of legislation will ever put the cat back in the bag. We as a society must find a way to make digital music, which has an infinite supply, financially profitable. That is the challenge that technology has presented us with. We must not allow the self-preservation instincts of an outdated business model to prevent us from dealing with the problems we are presented with. This is the challenge of our times...we must make music profitable or face the loss of a key element of our culture.
Now, there are probably a number of answers to this problem that involve watermarking, buying music over the internet and so on, but IMHO all of that is destined to failure.
The essential problem is that the internet is really a form of collective consciousness. Once a piece of music is put in someone's P2P share folder, it essentially becomes part of this enormous network of information storage. Once a song hits the net it is no longer physical goods, but rather information. The cornerstone of the information anarchist philosophy is that information wants to be free. It's difficult to reason yourself out of watching a pirated movie. Download a divx you haven't seen and burn it onto a cd. Place it in front of yourself. Whether or not you can get past the inhibitions society has placed on you, the indoctrination that information must not be free, somewhere in the back of your mind you feel there is no wrong in that information moving from that disc into your mind. The emerging interconnectedness of our society means that music is no longer a good, but rather information. Trying to fight this only divides us.
Clearly the relationship between artist and consumer is no longer the traditional capitalist one of producer and consumer. Music is not consumed, it is spread, as information.
However, the capitalist mode of thinking does apply when we look to the relationship between artist and society as a whole. Society consumes the performances of the artists and returns a fee based on the success of said music. This is the essential characteristic of the music industry, not the business model that the RIAA has crafted to complete this relationship. We only need to find a new way of expressing this relationship in a society where music is not scarce. The solution is this: all Americans must pay a yearly tax. The infrastructure to generate income via taxes is already in place and quite efficient. Then, the music of any artist would be accessible to anyone via the internet. All we then need is some mechanism to track which artists are listened to the most, or perhaps each tax form would require a list of artists who should be compensated. Perhaps some democratic process could elect representatives who oversee and influence the process. In the end, though, artists would be judged on their contribution to society and recieve appropriate compensation. However, there would be a maximum as well. Once an artist reaches a certain contribution to society they recieve a fixed fee for the rest of their lives, whether they produce music or not. Instead of making millions because of artificial scarcity, they will be given a more modest life, but one that has absolute security, freeing them to continue with their music, unhindered by financial worries.
Think of it this way. If someone said to you "We're going to take care of your living expenses for the rest of your life. You're not going to drive a porche, but all you have to do is make music. You will never have to want for housing, food, medical, anything. No worries. If you are famous and loved, even if only for a few years, you are set for life." and you didn't take it, you're in it for profit anyways, and you're as bad as Brittney Spears. The true artist seeks glory, recognition, and success. If you want to be rich, well, then you need to contribute to society in some other way. There is still a motivation to reach the cutoff point. Say you write one song, release it, get a few thousand downloads, you might get a check for a couple hundred bucks. If you make a song that is as popular as any mainstream single these days, you're going to be taken care of.
Sure, this idea is pretty damn communist. Sure, artists can't have huge mansions anymore. However, it does two important things: listeners aren't criminals anymore, and the RIAA's price-gouging won't lure idiots like a lot of the trash on MTV because of the massive amounts of money involved.
Look at musicians over the course of history. Our society is an aberration in that Musicians are respected and paid as if they were royalty. Muisicians previously lived for two things: recognition and security, and my proposal offers just that. The life of a musician should be one that sacrafices the greedy pursuit of financial wealth for the satisfaction of making a meaningful contribution to society. The truly great musicians write music to express what is in themselves, and to share that with others, and they look to our screwed up system to ensure that they get to eat the next day. The RIAA has commercialized music beyond belief, thus uprooting the true factors that should drive a musician.