The problem with this author is that he misunderstands what his writing is. He thinks he is writing books that he then owns and wants to own forever.
If you want to own your work forever, don't copyright it, don't publish it, and don't sell it. Put it on a shelf and enjoy the fact that only you and those you permit will ever see it.
If you sell any rights to it, you no longer exclusively own it. You can't have it both ways.
My only guess is authors are so used to getting screwed by their publishers and don't get to interact with their fan base the way a musician might
You're right. We don't sell out stadiums for authors reading their works the way we do for rock concerts. But let an author put his e-mail on the Internet (I've done exactly that) and you do have a way for your fans to interact with you. Book signings too are far more common than CD cover signings, although authors are more reclusive than musical performers on the whole. If you want to see an SF author, you pretty much have to go to an SF convention that has them as a guest. There's just a difference here in how public the person wishes to be.
If there was ever a case made for stealing -- excuse me, infringement, since I don't support the removal of physical objects that don't belong to you from book or record stores -- this is it. This is the absolute very thing the Constitution prohibited, after experience with the exact same approach in pre-revolutionary Europe.
As for file sharing and infringement, I think this is more a lack of respect -- sometimes for the artist, and sometimes for the money grubbing record companies that claim they're only in it for the artists, and known liars for saying so.
If you respect an artist -- and I respect Paul McCartney, for example -- so if I like his new CD "Memory Almost Full", I'll buy it. From all reviews, it's likely worth it.
But try and sell me an entire CD for one or two good songs, or resell stuff from the middle of the last century yet again, long after copyright should have expired, or sue people for file sharing when they never stole a single CD from you, and claim bogusly that every download is a lost sale, and I have no respect for you at all.
And try to go back to the famously non-working system of two and a half centuries ago that stifled creativity since no one could build on anyone else's work without permissions, lots of money changing hands, and copyrights owned by publishing houses rather than authors, and I have less than no respect for you.
And what might be less than no respect? Active opposition!
I'd love to see a class action lawsuit against Microsoft over this one. They sell you the box with the promise that you can use it on XBox Live, then pull that out from under you. But ToS someone shouts, waving the ever changing web-page in your face. Will that stand up in court? Can Microsoft prove they've been damaged -- not speculate, prove damages -- in court? How is XBox Live harmed by a modded XBox? Is that a proper remedy? Going to court is never a certain thing, and this might be fraud on MS's part.
Also, aren't XBox 360's still being sold at a loss? What happens when everyone who has modded one buys a second one to play on XBox Live? Keep the original for playing your backups on. Bigger losses for MS?
Still another can 'o worms is when someone sells a modded box on eBay without mentioning that it's banned from XBox Live. Who gets sued now? Is MS doing all they should be doing to warn people that all XBoxes are not treated equally?
And because it's a known problem that some XBoxes scratch some expensive game discs, is that a defense for the need for backups? Protection against legally defective XBoxes.
It will be a great fight, if someone is willing to take it up.
Hard drive makers, stop the lies. Time to measure gigabytes like the rest of the industry counts them. If not now, how long before a 1GB DIMM is 1,000,000,000 bytes? Fire your marketing droids who insist that everyone buys their lies, and get honest with us. It ain't a TB until I can record an honest TB worth of data on it!
It's like the "peaceful co-existance" the Soviets were all in favor of. They want to then be able to say they support is even as they choke the life out of it.
Or how about Iran verses the rest of the world in peaceful co-existence? We're only enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. We only lie to infidels, as our religion [of peace] instructs us to.
There are many different ways to make students (and their parents) learn. This is just one of them.
Students will certainly learn that actions -- especially when these actions are lies by big corporations -- have consequences all the same. Some of them may even learn how and where to effectively fight back.
Perhaps the parents, who will certainly be called upon to pay this fee, will learn the most when it's time to start telling their adult kids "No!"
(Note to kids: If you must go to court, don't show up 17 minutes late.)
Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run.
I'm more angry about being locked out of any 64-bit version of OS-X, than Vista. Given that that it takes MS 5 years at least to to come out with the next OS, my current Mac will be long gone before that.
Or the Sun is putting out more energy, explaining why Mars and Uranus are also showing signs of recent warming. These planets are clearly guilty of heresy to the PC GW movement!
I've had more than enough with malware writers. They are absolutely useless to polite society. 10 years in jail and a life-time ban against ever touching another computer on the first conviction.
Wouldn't a patent law which does NOT promote science and arts be unconstitutional?
Sorry, nice try. But that would be saying like guns only belong in militias, because militias are mentioned in the context of the Second Amendment. And while some people try to make that idea fly, it's still a brick, no matter how pretty you wrap it. Like militias in the Second Amendment, promoting science and the arts is the reason we need a patent system, but not the only things that can be patented with it.
Should it be required to change your life in any way for you to care about it?
When I'm paying for it -- Yes!
What I'm saying is that this is far more money than I'll ever see in this lifetime, for something that doesn't appear likely to improve my life one iota in the process. I'm stating a common point of view for many people about projects like this, which is not egotistic at all.
The problem with something this expensive is that the average person, including myself, cannot see, even if it provides every answer they hope for it, how that will change my everyday life in the least. At least the Space Program gave us Tang.
if I make music, and I want it to be shared freely, it is legal, no generalizations you make can change that
Actually, that's not presently true. If you're been following events of the last couple of weeks in this area, Sound Exchange, a royalty collection body for public song play, including Internet streaming "radio stations", claims the right to collect and distribute royalties not only for RIAA affiliated artists, or artists that have signed on with (and paid a fee to) Sound Exchange, but for all artists whose music is played through these venues regardless of their wishes in the matter. Also, if you don't claim your money from them, they plan to keep it!
So you have a wonderful song, give it to your friend running a shoe-string Internet radio station to play for free. Sound Exchange swoops in, demands royalties on your song, and keeps them until you somehow pry it from their cold, greedy hands -- probably paying more to get it back than you'll actually receive from them in the process.
That's certainly not my definition of being shared freely.
The Plaintiff's claim that the data was gathered in a method just like any other KaZaA user would find it. That brings up 2 interesting points:
1. Most KaZaA users aren't attempting to locate the person they're sharing files with. This means that Media Sentry may be operating the program in ways unlike what a normal user would do.
2. KaZaA is an ad-ware, spyware, ridden piece of crap-ware. It loads all kinds of stuff on your computer no sane user would want, and refuses to run without it. Is Media Sentry really going to claim that they have larded up the computer they're using to gather critical data with all this junk? What does that do to the accuracy of their data collection?
Or did they run something illegal, like Kazaa Lite, and aren't admitting to it. AFAIK, no one even knows how they collected the logs of connections and packets, since they haven't been deposed yet.
And as for the claim that the Defense hasn't even tried to depose Media Sentry yet, that's like the son killing his parents, then falling on the court for mercy since he's now an orphan. The RIAA has fought every attempt to depose Media Sentry by claiming that the Media Sentry investigator is not an expert witness, hence can't be questioned. And that the contracts that spell out how all this investigation is to be done are confidential, since revealing them would expose how infringers would then be able to use that as a road map to avoid detection.
What they're really admitting is that there are huge, gaping holes in their investigation process. Any Defense lawyer should be demanding to know where there holes are, since they might be used to impeach the claims that Media Sentry could have gathered the data they claim to have.
This battle has become the combined weight and resources of the four major record companies funneled through the RIAA, against the might of an aroused Slashdot user community. Every insight, every chink, every technical shortcoming in the RIAA's boilerplate cases that's exposed, discussed, and dissed here helps the defense. The RIAA affiliated companies may believe they have bought the Congress, but the public at large are still the ones with the votes. I'm certain no corporation, or group of corporations, has ever fought a battle before against so many thousands of people able to organize and provide their own insights, each able to expose one more little lie in the Plaintiff's snake-tongued, slippery arguments.
Slashdot Mirror
What does Penryn need that's new and different in the way of support? Is it just a bump in FSB speed?
If you want to own your work forever, don't copyright it, don't publish it, and don't sell it. Put it on a shelf and enjoy the fact that only you and those you permit will ever see it.
If you sell any rights to it, you no longer exclusively own it. You can't have it both ways.
You're right. We don't sell out stadiums for authors reading their works the way we do for rock concerts. But let an author put his e-mail on the Internet (I've done exactly that) and you do have a way for your fans to interact with you. Book signings too are far more common than CD cover signings, although authors are more reclusive than musical performers on the whole. If you want to see an SF author, you pretty much have to go to an SF convention that has them as a guest. There's just a difference here in how public the person wishes to be.
As for file sharing and infringement, I think this is more a lack of respect -- sometimes for the artist, and sometimes for the money grubbing record companies that claim they're only in it for the artists, and known liars for saying so.
If you respect an artist -- and I respect Paul McCartney, for example -- so if I like his new CD "Memory Almost Full", I'll buy it. From all reviews, it's likely worth it.
But try and sell me an entire CD for one or two good songs, or resell stuff from the middle of the last century yet again, long after copyright should have expired, or sue people for file sharing when they never stole a single CD from you, and claim bogusly that every download is a lost sale, and I have no respect for you at all.
And try to go back to the famously non-working system of two and a half centuries ago that stifled creativity since no one could build on anyone else's work without permissions, lots of money changing hands, and copyrights owned by publishing houses rather than authors, and I have less than no respect for you.
And what might be less than no respect? Active opposition!
One word: MPAA
Also, aren't XBox 360's still being sold at a loss? What happens when everyone who has modded one buys a second one to play on XBox Live? Keep the original for playing your backups on. Bigger losses for MS?
Still another can 'o worms is when someone sells a modded box on eBay without mentioning that it's banned from XBox Live. Who gets sued now? Is MS doing all they should be doing to warn people that all XBoxes are not treated equally?
And because it's a known problem that some XBoxes scratch some expensive game discs, is that a defense for the need for backups? Protection against legally defective XBoxes.
It will be a great fight, if someone is willing to take it up.
I know. How about Outer Space?
Hard drive makers, stop the lies. Time to measure gigabytes like the rest of the industry counts them. If not now, how long before a 1GB DIMM is 1,000,000,000 bytes? Fire your marketing droids who insist that everyone buys their lies, and get honest with us. It ain't a TB until I can record an honest TB worth of data on it!
Or how about Iran verses the rest of the world in peaceful co-existence? We're only enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. We only lie to infidels, as our religion [of peace] instructs us to.
Seriously folks, how else could they have voted?
Students will certainly learn that actions -- especially when these actions are lies by big corporations -- have consequences all the same. Some of them may even learn how and where to effectively fight back.
Perhaps the parents, who will certainly be called upon to pay this fee, will learn the most when it's time to start telling their adult kids "No!"
(Note to kids: If you must go to court, don't show up 17 minutes late.)
I'm more angry about being locked out of any 64-bit version of OS-X, than Vista. Given that that it takes MS 5 years at least to to come out with the next OS, my current Mac will be long gone before that.
Just maybe we're already all in a metaverse, making these fully contained microverses.
This alone might make them suitable in digital cameras, who's current requirements presently don't match up well with inexpensive alkaline cells.
I'd settle for that carbon nano-tube batt-capacitor that would recharge a virtually infinite number of times in seconds, instead of hours.
With all these advancements in batteries of late, my next battery might be my last battery -- in 5 years!
Or the Sun is putting out more energy, explaining why Mars and Uranus are also showing signs of recent warming. These planets are clearly guilty of heresy to the PC GW movement!
I've had more than enough with malware writers. They are absolutely useless to polite society. 10 years in jail and a life-time ban against ever touching another computer on the first conviction.
Sorry, nice try. But that would be saying like guns only belong in militias, because militias are mentioned in the context of the Second Amendment. And while some people try to make that idea fly, it's still a brick, no matter how pretty you wrap it. Like militias in the Second Amendment, promoting science and the arts is the reason we need a patent system, but not the only things that can be patented with it.
When I'm paying for it -- Yes!
What I'm saying is that this is far more money than I'll ever see in this lifetime, for something that doesn't appear likely to improve my life one iota in the process. I'm stating a common point of view for many people about projects like this, which is not egotistic at all.
The problem with something this expensive is that the average person, including myself, cannot see, even if it provides every answer they hope for it, how that will change my everyday life in the least. At least the Space Program gave us Tang.
Actually, that's not presently true. If you're been following events of the last couple of weeks in this area, Sound Exchange, a royalty collection body for public song play, including Internet streaming "radio stations", claims the right to collect and distribute royalties not only for RIAA affiliated artists, or artists that have signed on with (and paid a fee to) Sound Exchange, but for all artists whose music is played through these venues regardless of their wishes in the matter. Also, if you don't claim your money from them, they plan to keep it!
So you have a wonderful song, give it to your friend running a shoe-string Internet radio station to play for free. Sound Exchange swoops in, demands royalties on your song, and keeps them until you somehow pry it from their cold, greedy hands -- probably paying more to get it back than you'll actually receive from them in the process.
That's certainly not my definition of being shared freely.
1. Most KaZaA users aren't attempting to locate the person they're sharing files with. This means that Media Sentry may be operating the program in ways unlike what a normal user would do.
2. KaZaA is an ad-ware, spyware, ridden piece of crap-ware. It loads all kinds of stuff on your computer no sane user would want, and refuses to run without it. Is Media Sentry really going to claim that they have larded up the computer they're using to gather critical data with all this junk? What does that do to the accuracy of their data collection?
Or did they run something illegal, like Kazaa Lite, and aren't admitting to it. AFAIK, no one even knows how they collected the logs of connections and packets, since they haven't been deposed yet.
And as for the claim that the Defense hasn't even tried to depose Media Sentry yet, that's like the son killing his parents, then falling on the court for mercy since he's now an orphan. The RIAA has fought every attempt to depose Media Sentry by claiming that the Media Sentry investigator is not an expert witness, hence can't be questioned. And that the contracts that spell out how all this investigation is to be done are confidential, since revealing them would expose how infringers would then be able to use that as a road map to avoid detection.
What they're really admitting is that there are huge, gaping holes in their investigation process. Any Defense lawyer should be demanding to know where there holes are, since they might be used to impeach the claims that Media Sentry could have gathered the data they claim to have.
This battle has become the combined weight and resources of the four major record companies funneled through the RIAA, against the might of an aroused Slashdot user community. Every insight, every chink, every technical shortcoming in the RIAA's boilerplate cases that's exposed, discussed, and dissed here helps the defense. The RIAA affiliated companies may believe they have bought the Congress, but the public at large are still the ones with the votes. I'm certain no corporation, or group of corporations, has ever fought a battle before against so many thousands of people able to organize and provide their own insights, each able to expose one more little lie in the Plaintiff's snake-tongued, slippery arguments.
Excuse me, but(!), how do I connect up my DSL/FiOS without a land-line? POTS is just a free extra after that.