I say let them teach math that contradicts mathematics Like that pi = 3, or that a group of hot objects can have a "total temperature"?
grammar that contradicts english I believe this is pretty common when they teach Spanish.
history revised to their personal taste "All history is written by the victor." Generally, this means that it gets altered to suit their propaganda and personal tastes.
or that heavier objects fall faster They really do. (This is because the other half of the equation is that the earth accelerates towards the falling object. For a heavier object, it accelerates proportionally faster. Of course, I'm pretty sure we'll never be able to measure effects this small.)
so at what point do we stop letting english and business majors decide what science teacher should be able to teach? It sounds like that's exactly what this bill is trying to do.
So the people we ask to give us an education can decide what we can learn, based on what they feel is the truth? WTF?!?!?! Yes, that's kind of what they're supposed to do. Or would it be better to legislate the facts, and teach that pi = 3 and other garbage?
but come on, facts are facts. They are not up for interpretation. Sure they are, collecting and interpreting facts is what science is all about. This only causes problems when those doing the interpreting don't understand what they're doing.
Suppose you copyright something and then it doesn't sell. Should you have to dig into your pocket just to keep the book you wrote from slipping into the public domain (like what would happen if you fail to pay to maintain the patent)? Yes. Copyright is based on the assumption that granting someone a monopoly will do more good (by diverting money to the creator) than harm (by restricting who has access to whatever was made). If they can't afford to pay anything then the copyright obviously isn't doing any good, so we should also stop it doing any more harm.
The whole problem with requiring an annual fee to maintain your copyright is that the little guy would get screwed. Many artists spend their whole life creating and virtually starving to death (because sales require promotion and promotion costs money), only to become successful at the end and their early work thereby becomes profitable. What kind of "many", and why is this kind of lottery system even desirable? Ideas are cheap.
They could not afford to maintain their copyrights if fees where involved and then Mickey and friends could step in a utilize their work for nothing. Really, "for nothing"? Why is the 1% inspiration worth so much more than the 99% to turn it into something that they can sell?
A better solution would be to only charge a copyright fee on copyrights held by corporations (i.e. created under a work for hire license or purchased from the artist). They only seem worse because they're the ones with the resources to cause trouble.
When the artist who created the work still holds the copyright (and has no contractual obligations to a company on the use of that work) the current system works fairly decently. Does it really?
Now, what would cause problems for Microsoft would be a Google distro marketed to the Dells and HPs and Lenovos of the world, and also on store shelves. But we already have a marketing department, and they seem to have been at least somewhat successful. Are you saying they're missing something important that only Google has?
Or hell, maybe the kernel devs could make it easier to have binary modules stay compatible from version to version... I expect that this will happen automagically once they find a set of interfaces that's actually good enough that it doesn't *need* to be changed to let other parts of the kernel improve...
It's actually quite nice when they tell us how to write our own drivers, so we're not dependent on them for needed maintenance (bug fixes, updates for newer kernels, etc). Companies can have all sorts of reasons to stop supporting a product, or to provide sub-par support, and being able to write our own drivers means that that isn't a problem.
But now that you already have it, you definitely won't pay for it. 90% of the time, that's true all the time.
Maybe you didn't cause economic damages. But you took something you have no right to and compensated no one.
This is where we have to decide whether we're talking about legal rights or moral rights. I don't have the legal right to do that, but it is very much a matter of debate whether I have the moral right (or rather, whether anyone else has the moral right to prevent me from making a copy without paying them).
In my example, however, there is no conflicting information that might suggest I'm doing anything wrong. Except for generally established common sense.
But it would still be a bad analogy, if for no other reason than because it adds a layer of abstraction that isn't necessary. The thing is understandable on its own terms. You can describe it on its own terms. You can measure the harm on its own terms. You can determine whether or not it's theft on its own terms. I have asked the electronic door lock for entry. It has granted me entry. This is completely understandable on it's own terms... and yet there is some very important external information that looking at things in this narrow technical way completely misses. Namely, that the electronic door lock isn't able to "grant" permission for me to do something I don't already have permission to do. Just like your router can't "grant" me permission that I don't already have to use your bandwidth. It can grant me access to that bandwidth, but that's all it can do.
That's a privacy issue. It's completely different.
How come some information wants to be free, and some private? That is a completely different discussion, and has more to do with people (and the legal system) being able/willing to use knowledge about you to harm you.
You're right - copyright violation in its current definition is not theft. And that's because both have clear definitions in whatever jurisdiction you happen to live in.
Now what happens if your jurisdiction changes its definition of theft? Say, to something broad like "the appropriation of property, tangible or otherwise, without explicit permission of the property owner". That encompasses copyright infringement right there. This is what a lot of IP-bound countries may well end up doing.
Does it really? You haven't "appropriated" anything, you've created a new copy.
When I "steal" you bandwith, what is literally happening is that my device is making a request to your device. Your device, configured by you, activated by you, either approves or denies my request. If it approves my request, there is literally no theft--I have your written permission, recorded in the configuration of your device, to use your bandwidth. This makes the rather large assumption that I am able to configure my device with that level of detail. But it may not support such configuration, or I might not be knowledgeable enough to configure it that fully. And you certainly do not have "written permission". What is written is instructions to the device. If I get fired but the company forgets to deactivate my entry card, does that mean that I still have "written permission" to go back to the employee-only parts of their building whenever I want?
And if it denies my request, there is literally no theft, because I cannot use your bandwidth. Except for the little bit you used to make the request...
If I shared the contents of your PC with the world, would that be OK? That's a privacy issue. It's completely different.
How about sharing the contents of your bank account? If you could make a copy of it without taking away my copy, sure. But bank accounts don't work like that, do they? So this is also completely different.
Let's face it folk. IP theft is theft. Why, just because you say so?
Just because it is easy to do or everyone does it does not make it right. It also doesn't make it wrong.
Seriously. The copies have value (otherwise, why would you spend the time to get them?). When you download something, the result is that more people have these valuble copies. For some kinds of things, this may even increase the value of copies that other people already have (anything that has network effects). So by downloading a copy of something, you create value. The only catch is, the copyright holder isn't able to take out their cut.
I'd assume it has something to do with the antitrust action the EU was taking. Didn't they order that Microsoft had to open all their protocols/formats?
Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification ("Covered Implementation"), subject to[...]
If your implementation is buggy, does that mean you're not covered?
To clarify, "Microsoft Necessary Claims" are those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement only the required portions of the Covered Specification that are described in detail and not merely referenced in such Specification.
This sounds like:
If there are any optional parts of the spec, those parts aren't covered.
If the spec refers to another spec to define some part of the format, that part isn't covered.
Re:Do you accept these terms? Only option is "Next
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UK Report Slams EULAs
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· Score: 1
If you start a new computer (w/ Vista) for the first time, you are presented with a screen to accept the EULA.
What's (NOT!) funny here is that the only option is to accept and click Next.
There is no option for Cancel. Just poweroff... ...So the button actually says "Next" and there's nothing to clike that says "Yes" or "I Agree" or something like that?
Funny, when I tried it Visual Studio 2005 inside a VMWare instance seemed to run a good bit faster than Eclipse on the host system (without the VMWare running).
And if I value getting free electricity forever at $3, and so does everyone else, then what? $3 isn't enough for me to hunt down everyone else who would benefit and convince everyone to pitch in to pay you, so even though the total value of the reactor would be $trillions, where does the $1,201 come from?
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But processes and recepies are software, they're just written for people and organizations instead of for computers.
It's actually quite nice when they tell us how to write our own drivers, so we're not dependent on them for needed maintenance (bug fixes, updates for newer kernels, etc). Companies can have all sorts of reasons to stop supporting a product, or to provide sub-par support, and being able to write our own drivers means that that isn't a problem.
maybe I never would have bought their CD anyway
But now that you already have it, you definitely won't pay for it. 90% of the time, that's true all the time.
Maybe you didn't cause economic damages. But you took something you have no right to and compensated no one.
This is where we have to decide whether we're talking about legal rights or moral rights. I don't have the legal right to do that, but it is very much a matter of debate whether I have the moral right (or rather, whether anyone else has the moral right to prevent me from making a copy without paying them).They also didn't have it before, and weren't necesarily prevented from getting it by my copying -- maybe I never would have bought their CD anyway.
How come some information wants to be free, and some private? That is a completely different discussion, and has more to do with people (and the legal system) being able/willing to use knowledge about you to harm you.
You're right - copyright violation in its current definition is not theft. And that's because both have clear definitions in whatever jurisdiction you happen to live in.
Now what happens if your jurisdiction changes its definition of theft? Say, to something broad like "the appropriation of property, tangible or otherwise, without explicit permission of the property owner". That encompasses copyright infringement right there. This is what a lot of IP-bound countries may well end up doing.
Does it really? You haven't "appropriated" anything, you've created a new copy.
No. Theft is Theft. Copyright infringement is Copyright infringement. Both illegal, but both very distinct and seperated. Why do people not get this?
Either way, you're getting something you haven't paid for, so the distinction is lost on most people.
"No, having a copy of this CD isn't stealing because it's intellectual property!" doesn't make sense to most people.
How about "No, having a copy of this CD isn't stealing because I didn't take it away from anyone!"?So please explain the difference from your "bandwidth theft" example.
Seriously. The copies have value (otherwise, why would you spend the time to get them?). When you download something, the result is that more people have these valuble copies. For some kinds of things, this may even increase the value of copies that other people already have (anything that has network effects). So by downloading a copy of something, you create value. The only catch is, the copyright holder isn't able to take out their cut.
I'd assume it has something to do with the antitrust action the EU was taking. Didn't they order that Microsoft had to open all their protocols/formats?
What's (NOT!) funny here is that the only option is to accept and click Next.
There is no option for Cancel. Just poweroff... ...So the button actually says "Next" and there's nothing to clike that says "Yes" or "I Agree" or something like that?
Funny, when I tried it Visual Studio 2005 inside a VMWare instance seemed to run a good bit faster than Eclipse on the host system (without the VMWare running).
And if I value getting free electricity forever at $3, and so does everyone else, then what? $3 isn't enough for me to hunt down everyone else who would benefit and convince everyone to pitch in to pay you, so even though the total value of the reactor would be $trillions, where does the $1,201 come from?
The more people could benefit from having the results of your work, the less well that model works.