It may be news to you but non-commercial licenses are AFAIK universally considered non-free (where as you see to imply the two are mutually exclusive). And when has anyone ever had any problem with people going to lengths (whatever that means) to prove license violations?
I've certainly never heard anyone complaining about people coming up with evidence of violations. In fact, what I've come across a lot of is the opposite: asking people who are making vague libelous accusations about someone "stealing" their "IP" (e.g.: The SCO Group) to provide some proof.
(BTW, I know you are probably trolling but I'm bored.)
This is way off topic (I only mentioned the movie for context), but, anyway, FTR, the murder is the first thing that happens so I'm not spoiling anything. Not that I think one can really spoil Hollywood films (which I generally desist--though this one isn't too bad and is relatively accurate so it is one of the few I have on DVD).
I'm not in the US, but I assumed that the situation there was the same as it is here in the UK where we have an upper and a lower house of parliament but we only call members of the lower house "MPs" or "members of parliament" (even though lords are also technically members of parliament).
Of course, I can envisage a situation where an information leak indirectly related to a congressional debate might indirectly harm US agents. The reason I suggested he might be smoking something is that he sees it as so black and white, and he assumed that it was obvious, without any intervening explanation, that Congress debating changing spying laws would cause people to die. Surely, if anything, it is Congress looking into the operations of the security service to possibly help them in redrafting the laws, which might cause a leak, rather than Congress thinking about changing the law per se (hello...that is what they are elected to do).
See Wikipedia: Enemy of the State if you haven't seen it (good film). Although, the NSA murder a senator in that case (not a congressman) who refuses to vote for increased warrantless surveillance.
Last week, he also said that, if the US Congress debates spy laws, "some Americans are going to die".
Here's a quote from the interview with El Paso Times:
Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die? A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing.
What's this guy smoking? Or maybe it is a threat to the members of congress à la the film, Enemy of the State.
Right. I genuinely thought you generally used the term "stealing" for it yourself. Looking back, I see now you said that was what the "asshole" (I assume you're talking about a prosecution lawyer in the case) was "talking about...". Probably best to use quotes (at the very least around the word "stealing") so this is clear, or use "said that..." (which is kinda of like pseudo-quoting) not "talking about" if that is what you mean.
Unauthorized copying is certainly more accurate in its description, but we already have "copyright violation" to describe it and we need to stop inventing new terms I was under the impression that it had been called "unauthorised copying" for quite a long time. I don't think there is anything wrong with having synonyms, but I don't see these two terms as having exactly the same semantics, anyway. "Unauthorised copying" describes the act itself (and is easier for those who don't know about the law to understand). Whereas, "copyright violation" describes the offence they commit in some jurisdictions by doing that act.
I'm sure you are right. I was being a bit funny in the OP.
However, to address your point, the record companies have been known to threaten people with jail for just making a copy of their own CD for backup purposes or to personally use with another playback device. And in some jurisdictions it is possible (although unlikely) that you might go to jail for this, and in many more there is no statute specifically allowing backup copies although you might be able to argue a fair use defence. Therefore, some scared people (especially those who need to be seen to not be breaking the law because of their position) don't make copies, so, when their CD gets scratched, they buy a new one from the store, and they buy the same music multiple times on tape, CD, MP3, &c.
In case you need it spelled out for you, I, increasingly often mistakenly, assume when people (like you) talk about someone stealing their books/CDs, they are referring to the crime of theft not unauthorised copying.
I understand totally that you were arguing against the **AA. You were also destroying your own argument by implicitly going along with their economic theory and supporting the idea theft and unauthorised copying are exactly the same thing. At risk of stating the obvious, you can't adequately explain what is wrong with the **AA's perspective by following their warped view of reality which is why they try to brainwash people with their warped view of reality in the first place.
I am not supporting unauthorised copying BTW. I just campaign to get copyright law drastically relaxed (not removed) and don't listen to music from record companies...period...only stuff that is in the public domain, under a free license or sold to me by the artist in person.
This power, to selectively enforce the law, is used more often than you might think. I'm sure everyone here is aware that it is used a lot. That doesn't itself make it a good thing and you don't seem to have presented any valid arguments why it is a good thing.
Maybe the parent was suggesting that it might be good to move towards a concept called equality before the law. If laws had to be enforced equally, the legislators would have to get rid of the plethora silly minor offences on the statute books that criminalise stuff that everyone does (including those same legislators). Then the police might have to spend their time going after real criminals as opposed to selectively enforcing such statutes against people they don't like the look of. I can see how that would be a terrifying dystopia..uhhh...wait
Windows may be pricey, but it's not quite up to buying a new car levels yet. In Europe, the MSW Vista Ultimate RRP is 599 (US$808). I'm sure you could get a second hand car for that. FTR, the cheapest edition is 259 (US$349).
because music/movie stealing was SOOO much worse for the economy. Leaving aside the fact that the concept of anything being good or bad for the economy is a vague nonsense and what you really mean is "possibly worse for the bank balance of your local **AA corporate protection racket", I think you'll find that music/movie stealing is actually good for the **AA, because (since backing up your CDs and DVDs now makes you a criminal) you have to go out and buy new CDs and DVDs from them when they get stolen.
She still hates the fact that she didn't burn them
But that would be "pirating" the CDs...aaaarrhh...and she could go to jail. Whereas, what was done to her was only theft of CDs, a far less serious crime (as it falls into the class of crimes with human--not corporate--victims) that the police would doubtless not even bother to record.
Umm...actually I meant to write something funny...uhh...nevermind
The judge clearly figured that by not sending him to jail he was denying him the opportunity to consort with fellow criminals. What better way to encourage him to do this than by forcing him to buy an operating system from a convicted software "pirate" and monopolist.
I wasn't serious about lawyers striking. Anyway, In most jurisdictions they are effectively legally barred from doing so.
I think you missed something though. Judges are lawyers and they also so get paid by the hour so all that legal manoeuvring is in their interests too. In fact many courts encourage plaintiffs to venue shop over to them, and many states lobby (and change their laws to encourage) multinational companies to sue people in their jurisdiction to help make money for the treasury from court fees and support the local legal profession.
The thing I find really annoying is all those websites that get you to fill in loads of forms to buy something or sign up for something (e.g.: a bank account or online service) and only after doing all that will they let you see the contract, but if you spend more than a few minutes reading the ten-thousand word contract of complex legalese (with an insanely high word-to-sentence ratio and no punctuation), they make you start all over again (for "security reasons"). Especially annoying if they try to disable copying and pasting of the words of the contract (I know you can get round that) to stop you from reading it.
Exactly. I've thought this should be unlawful for ages. If they just change the terms and attempt to enforce the new one, doesn't that count as fraud (if they are gaining something from the new contract anyway) given that the terms saying that they may change it at any time are invalid.
Also, maybe asking someone to agree to a contract you know to be invalid (e.g.: because of lack of consideration) should be a crime, as such things are often used divisively.
As you say there are also issues with a lack of consideration in some of these contracts, although I think you'll find their lawyers are usually clever enough to put something in there, however small.
I'm sure the lawyers would strike—or more likely find a reason by why such an idea would be unlawful. Imagine the lost revenue?
Seriously someone should do this, a bit like the Creative Commons licenses (maybe they should do it). A problem I see is that most of the terms in these things are really unnecessary (even from the providers point of view) or adequately covered (or overridden) by legislation and full of waffling redundancy, so to do this you'd actually have to find out what they terms they contain that actually help either party (as opposed to the bank balance of the provider's lawyers).
Would this affect clause 4 of the ODP (DMoz) License (and similar copyright licenses)? Maybe that isn't considered a contract or only having to make "reasonable efforts" to check for changes is acceptable.
Thanks for that; I was looking for precise examples. I'm very open to the idea that there could be such things going on; I just haven't seen them myself so please forgive my cynicism.
There is a tendency in all Internet (and for that matter, RL) communities for some to exert power for kicks like this, especially if they are given some title that they think makes them more important like "admin". I really haven't come across it myself on Wikipedia, though, and I've been editing on and off for a few years (mainly when I come across things).
Common knowledge to who ? Well ideally every statement should be referenced that isn't common knowledge to everyone (e.g.: the sun rises every morning, objects fall towards the ground). In practice, especially since it currently takes so long to add a reference using slightly complicated templates (they're really needs to be a nice front end for referencing, but I digress), if there is a nearby link to another article (especially one covering a the more general topic of which the current article is part) which itself contains the appropriate reference (or even links to another article with it), this is deemed acceptable. Also, you don't have to reference to support exactly the same fact that you've already referenced earlier on in the same article, although it is quite easy to link to the same reference again once you've added it once to the article.
Just because it's not common knowledge J. Random User, doesn't mean it's not common knowledge to a smaller more specialized community. I guess that is my point above: obviously in an article about New York opening "New York City is a large city in New York state in the United States", I don't have to reference that NY state is in the US (which is covered in the NYC article and common knowledge to a hell of a lot of readers). I can also probably get away with not referencing that NYC is large and a city, because no one is really going to dispute that. Anyway, although you can, you don't normally have to reference article preambles as their contents should be a summary of the rest of the article which should itself be referenced (e.g.: "large" is supported by population and area figures and comparisons further down), although you see this done on some controversial articles so that nothing sneaks in without a reference.
I was reading some articles on Pokemon last night...and very few statements presented as facts had any references - maybe they are common knowledge to Pokemon fans, but not to me. I think you'll find that actually that is down to old problem Wikipedia has with articles of limited interest not getting copyedited (e.g.: references added) as only a handful of users (who may not be regular Wikipedians who know about referencing) edit them, which is, I guess, an argument for lack-of-notability deletions (though I'm moderately anti-deletionist). Also, in practice, it is unlikely that anyone is going to delete unreferenced content and demand a reference for a Pokemon article. I mean it isn't exactly the most controversial topic. Who is going to lie about Pokemon? Whereas adding a single word to Global Warming will likely result in someone reverting it and demanding mutiple peer-reviewed references, because it is a bit more controversial and important an article.
On the flip side, numerous edits I made to specialized articles that contained material that was common knowledge among folks active in that field were reverted because I couldn't provide a reference. Well, add one or point to somewhere else on Wikipedia where it is mentioned and revert back, or engage in a discussion with that editor and others who edit the article on the talk page.
Others were reverted because my reference was an extremely specialized $120 book - which contradicts the material available on the web. Well, include the exact quote from the book in the footnote and revert it back. Removing material without good reason, particularly when it is referenced, is pretty frowned upon and leads to suspicion that the editor just didn't like what was added. Get other interested editors involved or post a standard warning to that user's talk page about deletion if they are deleting stuff without explanation or with an explanation that is clearly bogus. If they continue doing that, they may be blocked.
So, to support the idea that I am indeed being naïve, can you give me an example of how these individuals manage to exert pressure on others over the Internet? I don't really think "bullying" works very well over the Internet and multiple personal attacks will get one banned, anyway. Also, winning through having better arguments and the other editors agreeing with them (a self-selecting argument-based democratic consensus) seems to me to be quite a good way of dealing with things; please suggest a better one.
I'm assuming this hierarchy must work via some kind of conspiracy. I don't doubt there is the odd, small-scale conspiracy between a few friends going on (like IMing them to support you in some discussion), but I see little evidence of a greater cabal. In fact as an editor without a great deal of experience, it just so happens that I recently admonished two editors who turned out to be admins (who I guess would be the ones most likely running any cabal) about what I thought was their not following policy (I was probably a little too severe in retrospect), and they discussed this with me very politely with reasoned argument and one conceded some ground on it, as opposed to exerting pressure on me somehow.
In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages. I'm confused. I thought your argument was that it does have an authority structure.
One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world It seems to have "survived" 6 years with the number articles, readers and editors continually growing exponentially. Do you have any reasons why it might not survive? It seemed obvious to me that it would work from when I first heard about the model (for a number of reasons, like lots of editors making it more balanced and less NPOV, the ease of fixing mistakes, &c).
Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle. Pray, tell me, what form this trouble will take, if you want me to believe you, lest I believe you are merely casting around weasel words as flamebait.
Exactly. It is pretty difficult to make up references, and if someone did think it was made up they could dispute it. If you have paraphrased in the body of the article, it is also quite common to include the exact quote from the referenced text in the footnote with the reference so that other users can check you've interpreted it right.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be news to you but non-commercial licenses are AFAIK universally considered non-free (where as you see to imply the two are mutually exclusive). And when has anyone ever had any problem with people going to lengths (whatever that means) to prove license violations?
I've certainly never heard anyone complaining about people coming up with evidence of violations. In fact, what I've come across a lot of is the opposite: asking people who are making vague libelous accusations about someone "stealing" their "IP" (e.g.: The SCO Group) to provide some proof.
(BTW, I know you are probably trolling but I'm bored.)
This is way off topic (I only mentioned the movie for context), but, anyway, FTR, the murder is the first thing that happens so I'm not spoiling anything. Not that I think one can really spoil Hollywood films (which I generally desist--though this one isn't too bad and is relatively accurate so it is one of the few I have on DVD).
I'm not in the US, but I assumed that the situation there was the same as it is here in the UK where we have an upper and a lower house of parliament but we only call members of the lower house "MPs" or "members of parliament" (even though lords are also technically members of parliament).
Of course, I can envisage a situation where an information leak indirectly related to a congressional debate might indirectly harm US agents. The reason I suggested he might be smoking something is that he sees it as so black and white, and he assumed that it was obvious, without any intervening explanation, that Congress debating changing spying laws would cause people to die. Surely, if anything, it is Congress looking into the operations of the security service to possibly help them in redrafting the laws, which might cause a leak, rather than Congress thinking about changing the law per se (hello...that is what they are elected to do).
See Wikipedia: Enemy of the State if you haven't seen it (good film). Although, the NSA murder a senator in that case (not a congressman) who refuses to vote for increased warrantless surveillance.
Last week, he also said that, if the US Congress debates spy laws, "some Americans are going to die".
Here's a quote from the interview with El Paso Times:
Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing.
What's this guy smoking? Or maybe it is a threat to the members of congress à la the film, Enemy of the State.
However, to address your point, the record companies have been known to threaten people with jail for just making a copy of their own CD for backup purposes or to personally use with another playback device. And in some jurisdictions it is possible (although unlikely) that you might go to jail for this, and in many more there is no statute specifically allowing backup copies although you might be able to argue a fair use defence. Therefore, some scared people (especially those who need to be seen to not be breaking the law because of their position) don't make copies, so, when their CD gets scratched, they buy a new one from the store, and they buy the same music multiple times on tape, CD, MP3, &c.
In case you need it spelled out for you, I, increasingly often mistakenly, assume when people (like you) talk about someone stealing their books/CDs, they are referring to the crime of theft not unauthorised copying.
I understand totally that you were arguing against the **AA. You were also destroying your own argument by implicitly going along with their economic theory and supporting the idea theft and unauthorised copying are exactly the same thing. At risk of stating the obvious, you can't adequately explain what is wrong with the **AA's perspective by following their warped view of reality which is why they try to brainwash people with their warped view of reality in the first place.
I am not supporting unauthorised copying BTW. I just campaign to get copyright law drastically relaxed (not removed) and don't listen to music from record companies...period...only stuff that is in the public domain, under a free license or sold to me by the artist in person.
Maybe the parent was suggesting that it might be good to move towards a concept called equality before the law. If laws had to be enforced equally, the legislators would have to get rid of the plethora silly minor offences on the statute books that criminalise stuff that everyone does (including those same legislators). Then the police might have to spend their time going after real criminals as opposed to selectively enforcing such statutes against people they don't like the look of. I can see how that would be a terrifying dystopia..uhhh...wait
But that would be "pirating" the CDs...aaaarrhh...and she could go to jail. Whereas, what was done to her was only theft of CDs, a far less serious crime (as it falls into the class of crimes with human--not corporate--victims) that the police would doubtless not even bother to record.
Umm...actually I meant to write something funny...uhh...nevermind
The judge clearly figured that by not sending him to jail he was denying him the opportunity to consort with fellow criminals. What better way to encourage him to do this than by forcing him to buy an operating system from a convicted software "pirate" and monopolist.
I wasn't serious about lawyers striking. Anyway, In most jurisdictions they are effectively legally barred from doing so.
I think you missed something though. Judges are lawyers and they also so get paid by the hour so all that legal manoeuvring is in their interests too. In fact many courts encourage plaintiffs to venue shop over to them, and many states lobby (and change their laws to encourage) multinational companies to sue people in their jurisdiction to help make money for the treasury from court fees and support the local legal profession.
Yes. If you bother to RTFS or RTFA, you'd realise that it does.
The thing I find really annoying is all those websites that get you to fill in loads of forms to buy something or sign up for something (e.g.: a bank account or online service) and only after doing all that will they let you see the contract, but if you spend more than a few minutes reading the ten-thousand word contract of complex legalese (with an insanely high word-to-sentence ratio and no punctuation), they make you start all over again (for "security reasons"). Especially annoying if they try to disable copying and pasting of the words of the contract (I know you can get round that) to stop you from reading it.
Exactly. I've thought this should be unlawful for ages. If they just change the terms and attempt to enforce the new one, doesn't that count as fraud (if they are gaining something from the new contract anyway) given that the terms saying that they may change it at any time are invalid.
Also, maybe asking someone to agree to a contract you know to be invalid (e.g.: because of lack of consideration) should be a crime, as such things are often used divisively.
As you say there are also issues with a lack of consideration in some of these contracts, although I think you'll find their lawyers are usually clever enough to put something in there, however small.
I'm sure the lawyers would strike—or more likely find a reason by why such an idea would be unlawful. Imagine the lost revenue?
Seriously someone should do this, a bit like the Creative Commons licenses (maybe they should do it). A problem I see is that most of the terms in these things are really unnecessary (even from the providers point of view) or adequately covered (or overridden) by legislation and full of waffling redundancy, so to do this you'd actually have to find out what they terms they contain that actually help either party (as opposed to the bank balance of the provider's lawyers).
Would this affect clause 4 of the ODP (DMoz) License (and similar copyright licenses)? Maybe that isn't considered a contract or only having to make "reasonable efforts" to check for changes is acceptable.
There is a tendency in all Internet (and for that matter, RL) communities for some to exert power for kicks like this, especially if they are given some title that they think makes them more important like "admin". I really haven't come across it myself on Wikipedia, though, and I've been editing on and off for a few years (mainly when I come across things).
So, to support the idea that I am indeed being naïve, can you give me an example of how these individuals manage to exert pressure on others over the Internet? I don't really think "bullying" works very well over the Internet and multiple personal attacks will get one banned, anyway. Also, winning through having better arguments and the other editors agreeing with them (a self-selecting argument-based democratic consensus) seems to me to be quite a good way of dealing with things; please suggest a better one.
I'm assuming this hierarchy must work via some kind of conspiracy. I don't doubt there is the odd, small-scale conspiracy between a few friends going on (like IMing them to support you in some discussion), but I see little evidence of a greater cabal. In fact as an editor without a great deal of experience, it just so happens that I recently admonished two editors who turned out to be admins (who I guess would be the ones most likely running any cabal) about what I thought was their not following policy (I was probably a little too severe in retrospect), and they discussed this with me very politely with reasoned argument and one conceded some ground on it, as opposed to exerting pressure on me somehow.
In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages. I'm confused. I thought your argument was that it does have an authority structure. One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world It seems to have "survived" 6 years with the number articles, readers and editors continually growing exponentially. Do you have any reasons why it might not survive? It seemed obvious to me that it would work from when I first heard about the model (for a number of reasons, like lots of editors making it more balanced and less NPOV, the ease of fixing mistakes, &c). Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle. Pray, tell me, what form this trouble will take, if you want me to believe you, lest I believe you are merely casting around weasel words as flamebait.Exactly. It is pretty difficult to make up references, and if someone did think it was made up they could dispute it. If you have paraphrased in the body of the article, it is also quite common to include the exact quote from the referenced text in the footnote with the reference so that other users can check you've interpreted it right.
You haven't seen the Porn article? There's even an Ogg Theora video on there...more geek porn than anything, but hey...