What, you mean, like calling people "mister/missus" or "sir/ma'am"?
Uh, no. The languages has a special sentential case reserved for speaking to elders/persons of higher status. There is also a case for speaking to someone of Lower status. The content of the sentence is identical each form, however, it is impossible to have a conversation in Korean without carefully delineating each speakers social status relative to the others. This is a considerable stretch from sir/ma'am and is indicative of the extremely high value Koreans put not only on social structure, but on one's awareness of that structure.
In truth, corporations exist to serve everyone involved with them: workers, shareholders, and customers. If a corporation fails to serve any of these groups, the people will leave (not participate) and the corporation will fail.
This "service" exists only to the point that it facilitates the acquisition of profit.
The RIAA would not be able to make war against one of these groups (customers) like it has if there was no government intervention This government intervention (the courts) is simply a tool of the corporate game. They want a legal stick to beat each other up with and they don't particularly care what the rules are, so long as there are rules by which they can compete with one another. All corporations are equal in this regard, and the rules make it so that those who have the most capital (i.e. are most successful) have the most access to the rule-making process. They like this and they know how it works.
French is the only language that utilizes a continuous stream of sound. All other languages utilize pauses between words.
Say What? Perhaps you mean indo-european languages. Dakotan languages (and other polysynthetic languages) have no pauses between words (it can be argued that they don't have words in the sense that we think of words) because every grammatically correct utterance is a complete sentence. Which is why they all have names like "(she)Dances-with-Bikers" and such forth
... Not the solution. Of course companies based on digital music distribution have gotten crushed; they were playing with the big boys. They had no chance, and really, we probably didn't want them to succeed. What we do want is a method of file sharing which is immune to corporate control, whether the corporation is Napster OR Sony. Corporations have one and only one purpose; to make profits for their shareholders. The Only purpose of MP3.com, Napster, et al. was to make profits for their shareholders, not to lead some "revolution". The real revolution is when corporations cease to be involved at all in distribution; after all, control of distribution has been the preferred method of making profits since the Knights Templar. When distribution becomes uncontrollable by corporate interests is when things become different than they ever have been. In other words, it can't be ANYTHING like Napster, it HAS to be something like Gnutella. And I think it will succeed. Not by the corporatist standard of profit for the shareholders, but by the control of a distribution channel.
-- Rich
Re:C/C++ gurus need help here
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 1
I think you mean LGPL'ed code:-) The LGPL contains a specific exclusion for this, allowing you to include the LGPL'ed headers into non--GPL code. If you really do mean GPL, then no way, no how can you include it in ANYTHING other than GPL'ed code, not even LGPL'ed code.
Derek Freeman does raise some interesting points about Mead's work. IMHO, they are not applicable (at least in the sense of this discussion) in that Freeman's work involved 1960's Samoans, not 1920's Samoans. COAIS was written for a broad audience, and many of Freeman's criticisms are of this, and of her conclusions re education. Freeman found a lot of adolescent angst amongst his 1960's Samoans that Mead found noticeably lacking. There are a lot of explanations for this.
Does Murray's book suggest any of this in a definitive way?
Its Margaret Mead (sorry about that). Quite the opposite, Mead's research showed that early sexualization among Samoans was beneficial, in particular, Samoans did not have the adolescent difficulties that Western Europeans/Americans have. While her book covers many aspects of Samoan society, she points to early sexualization as a contributing factor to Samoans' psychological well being.
A good review of it is here http://instruction.ferris.edu/taylorj/papers/mead/ coa.html
Hold on there Kemo Sabe,
I happen to be one of those boomers you're so quick to blame. I'm with you 100%, BUT:
1. I have never voted for a Republican.
2. I still believe in Free Love (!)
3. So does every one I know.
4. The High School down the street from me is CHOCK FULL of teenagers sporting Jesus T-Shirts and preaching Morality.
My Point: there is no age limit on thinking you know what's best for others.
Sorry folks, I had the wrong Margaret:
Margaret Mead wrote "Coming of Age in Samoa". This book caused a MAJOR uproar when it was published because of its dealing with the effects of early sexualization in Samoans
Is their a body of work supporting the statement that graphic pornography is "harmful" to children
This all depends on your definition of "harmful". If the definition of harmful means "violating your religious beliefs", then definitely, for some religions yes, it is implied by the statement itself. Viewing pornography can definitely entail psychological changes, as can early sexualization in other ways. Read Margaret Murray's "Coming of Age in Samoa" for an anthropological treatment of this whole subject.
... to this issue. The biggest problem is that EVERYONE has different standards for what is appropriate or not appropriate for their children. I have 5 (!) children myself and I am quite concerned about what they might encounter on the net. After all, there are almost as many religious sites as pr0n sites, and I haven't found a filter that will block access to any of the plethora of bizarre religious right sites that I REALLY don't want my children exposed to. I understand that we live (here in the US) in a society that accepts every religious freak as equal; I just want them to learn about these things from ME, not from some online preacher. Other parents have concerns about other things, perhaps even then children going to MY web site. That's for them to be concerned about, not me. My point is, that what is acceptable or not is HIGHLY individual, there is no legal or technological solution to it. So do what I do, supervise your children's online time; it's a great way to spend some quality time with your children, as well as protecting them from what YOU don't want them to see. Nobody else can, and nobody else will.
Probably not very good, however, she might do it if she heard about it from one of her friends. BTW, she owns a GM car, so she has probably THOUGHT it at least by now:-)
Using your example lets say there is already a website that says you torture puppies. is there anyhting wrong with me going out and registering a domain name and making it point to that web site?
Well, the guy with the problem here would be the guy with the puppy torture website is being impersonated. Is there anything wrong with this? I say yes. I believe you have the right to say anything you want about anyone you want either anonymously or as yourself. You do NOT, however, have the right to say something AS someone else, or with the appearance of being someone else. If we want to keep (get back ?) right of anonymity on the 'net, we ought to take a hard line against those who pose as someone else.
I don't think the problem here is the word "fuck", but rather that many people (like say, my mom) would believe that Ford was the owner of the domain name. While I can't imagine my mother bringing herself to type fuckgeneralmotors, the principle remains the same. Those of us who realize anybody can point a domain name at anybody else are "in on the joke", but a whole lot of people have no idea that such a thing is possible.
In Other words, I don't think that this is a free speech issue, it is an issue of impersonating a company. It is reasonable for anybody to be concerned about others impersonating them. If someone pointed the domain name "goatfucker.com" at my personal web page, I'd be pissed off too, and not because of the funny, but because people WOULD believe that I pointed that domain name at my web page. Something like that happens to you and the next thing you know, ignorant social workers are taking you kids away from you.
What I don't quite get is the number of people who insist that the GPL is compatible with building software for a profit. It is incompatible - you must sell services or hardware or something other than the GPL'd software to make money.
Quite true, the GPL is incompatible with selling software for a profit. However, this is not the only buisiness use of software. Most buisiness use of software isn't the selling of licenses, but rather the actual utilization of software for some for the purpose of producing some OTHER product or providing some OTHER service. The GPL is completely compatible with this sort of usage. The GPL is only incompatible with buisiness that sells software, like, say Micro$oft. Most buisinesses don't sell software, they sell something else.
Here's a very small (that's the art part) of code I saw many years ago. I thought it was art then. I still do.
#define SWAP(a, b) ((a)^=(b)^=(a)^=(b))
Why is this art you say ? It is very like Haiku, expressing its subject in its most minimal form. While you must understand the symbols of the medium to "get it" this is also true of Noh, opera, and many other art forms. In this instance, the art is in the minimalism... the tiniest expression of a thought, perhaps, its essence. Code provides a medium for this sort of art that does not exist elsewhere. And it is not just minimalism... Check out Knuth's sources to TeX... that would have to be the other extreme.
What *ARE* you Talking about ?
I'm not going to risk my income by setting up a *BSD server with a fortune 500 company only to find out later that the system has back doors in it which allow the foreign BSD developers to access their critical data
Of course, you would rather have American Corporations put the back doors in. They have much more interest in critical data than foreign hackers do anyways; and, as an added bonus, they could give the back doors to the Feds, so that when the SEC is investigating them for insider trading, they don't even have to LOOK for the evidence.
I want to know if any outside and independant people have auditied the code
I want to know if any outside and independant people have audited Windows, Solaris, or AIX and why you think that M$ Sun and IBM have motives any more pure that of "foreign BSD Developers"; Oh Yeah, corporate closed-source OS'es can't be audited, so we'll never know. Open Source OS'es have source code; if anyone ever found an intentional back-door in an Open source OS that system would be DOOMED.
One More thing, out of which orifice did you pull these uninformed opinions ?
No one's trying to pass OpenSSH off as the "official" SSH implementation, you'll note. Besides, trademarks in the US are a "use or lose" commodity - if you don't enforce them, you don't get to keep them.
Absolutely, however, Tatu has stated (complained ?) in the past that some users of OpenSSH were confusing that product with his.
According to Tatu & co., he'd had this trademark for some time. Yet only recently has he decided to enforce that trademark.
His bad for sure. I'm not ranting about the relative merits of his claim, I'm ranting about the immediate condemnation by the/. community. His position is certainly less than optimal for a trademark claim.
He really should've considered this a long time ago.
Absolutely. But we must remember, that this guy GAVE us something good (that I and a lot of other people use). We shouldn't vilify him because he's trying to make a couple of bucks off of it. (And I'm pretty sure its just a couple).
I know that we here as/. are against all things related to intellectual property, but perhaps its time to look at the other side. Trademarks (in the US) are *NOT* designed to protect companies... they are designed to protect consumers. What you say ? They exist (primarily) so that consumers know where a product actually came from. Tatu has been *VERY* liberal in his offer to allow usage of ssh (if he had been granted a trademark) and all he (seems) to have been concerned about is persons NOT his customers believing that they were. This is NOT a Bad Thing (tm). Trademarks and Trademark law DO serve a useful purpose in our society, and its sad that this community has its typical knee jerk reaction.
As soon as I saw that the DMA was involved I knew this was worthless. Remember that this is an institution whose sole existence involves acquiring information about people, so they can sell stuff nobody wants. Unfortunately, here in the USA, if people are making money, it must be OK. The DMA is an institution which produces nothing, is annoying as Hell, and has taken advantage of a lot of people. And now they're trying tell me that its just too expensive for them to NOT know all about me ? Please.
(Donning asbestos long johns...)
This is another example of technological measures to enforce copy right, which will inevitably lead to somebody cracking the technological means, lawsuits, destitute geeks, and wealthy lawyers.
We need to know (in the US at least) What is fair use.
OK, this thing is definitely going to keep me from extracting small portions of a cd for purposes of review, etc. which has always been upheld as fair use. The RIAA is almost cetainly not afraid of me doing this, they're afraid of me Napstering albums. But they feel they have to do something.
OK, its time for Orrin Hatch to carry out his threat and ask the Congress to define "Fair Use".
What would this do for Us ?
1. Buisiness owners who depend on production of copyrighted material would KNOW what can and can't be done. Technological measures which prevent legal fair use would *NOT* be protected.
2. Buisinesses would LIKE this. All buisinessmen LOVE determinism, all they really want is to know what they can and can't do... and then beat up competitors for the can't.
3. We would love this. We would know what we CAN do, and would have a legal leg to stand on, as opposed to having some ignorant judge use an undefined concept like fair use is now to uphold what he sees as "pirates" against a "legitimate" buisiness.
Technological means of copy control are going to be upheld by the courts until such time as the courts have SOMETHING codified to look at (that's what they like). An incontrovertible definition of fair use would provide this.
This type of argument sounds good, but it will never convince a lawyer. Pantyhose is an artifact, a thing which, once sold, full ownership transfers to the buyer. Copyright does *NOT* mean ownership, copyright covers content. In the pantyhose analogy, this would be the color, weave, etc. If I want I could go buy some L'eggs, carefully examine the weave, color, etc., setup a manufacturing facility, and, so long as my manufacturing process doesn't violate any patents, make as many million pairs of hose as I want, and sell them to bank robbers, or whoever; I exert NO control over your use of the hose I make, and thus, because I give you ownership for quid, I have *NO* responsibility for what you do with it. HOWEVER, If my pantyhose was designed specifically for use in obscuring the identity of bank robbers, I *might* get sued. Maybe. But probably not.
Several reasons,
1. The encoding algorithm for MP3's is patented. If an MP3 encoder is free ITS infringing.
2. An MP3 encoder is simply a recording device (Like a Betamax). There are considerable non-infringing uses for encoders and the Betamax Defense would almost certainly apply here.
3. Using an MP3 encoder doesn't require assistance from anyone once you have acquired the encoder (see #2). Thus noone is facilitating infringement.
4. A copyright only covers distribution. I can encode all my cd's to mp3 on my own computer (I have) and so long as I don't give them to anyone else (I don't) there's no direct infringement.
Say What ? The Betamax case was all about "substantial copyright infringement". The difference between the tow is that Sony provided a device, which means the buyer has ownership of the device (not a license, not a service) and Napster provides a service, (and a client which you have a license to use as opposed to ownership). This is the BIG difference, and while it may not seem much to us, it makes a big difference to lawyers, some of whom are judges.
This isn't about copy protection though, its about cracking as civil disobedience, or even as insurgence. Insurgents are always viewed as terrorists... they are, in fact, from the viewpoint of the establishment being fought. Right and wrong are essentially defined by which side you're on (i.e. its an inherent conflict). The difficulty in inherent conflicts is that one side MUST win, as neither side can be converted to the other point of view. The REAL question here, is what is being fought over; what are the points of view, and which side does this put me on.
Slashdot Mirror
What, you mean, like calling people "mister/missus" or "sir/ma'am"?
Uh, no. The languages has a special sentential case reserved for speaking to elders/persons of higher status. There is also a case for speaking to someone of Lower status. The content of the sentence is identical each form, however, it is impossible to have a conversation in Korean without carefully delineating each speakers social status relative to the others. This is a considerable stretch from sir/ma'am and is indicative of the extremely high value Koreans put not only on social structure, but on one's awareness of that structure.
-- Rich
In truth, corporations exist to serve everyone involved with them: workers, shareholders, and customers. If a corporation fails to serve any of these groups, the people will leave (not participate) and the corporation will fail.
This "service" exists only to the point that it facilitates the acquisition of profit.
The RIAA would not be able to make war against one of these groups (customers) like it has if there was no government intervention
This government intervention (the courts) is simply a tool of the corporate game. They want a legal stick to beat each other up with and they don't particularly care what the rules are, so long as there are rules by which they can compete with one another. All corporations are equal in this regard, and the rules make it so that those who have the most capital (i.e. are most successful) have the most access to the rule-making process. They like this and they know how it works.
-- Rich
French is the only language that utilizes a continuous stream of sound. All other languages utilize pauses between words.
Say What? Perhaps you mean indo-european languages. Dakotan languages (and other polysynthetic languages) have no pauses between words (it can be argued that they don't have words in the sense that we think of words) because every grammatically correct utterance is a complete sentence. Which is why they all have names like "(she)Dances-with-Bikers" and such forth
-- Rich
... Not the solution. Of course companies based on digital music distribution have gotten crushed; they were playing with the big boys. They had no chance, and really, we probably didn't want them to succeed. What we do want is a method of file sharing which is immune to corporate control, whether the corporation is Napster OR Sony. Corporations have one and only one purpose; to make profits for their shareholders. The Only purpose of MP3.com, Napster, et al. was to make profits for their shareholders, not to lead some "revolution". The real revolution is when corporations cease to be involved at all in distribution; after all, control of distribution has been the preferred method of making profits since the Knights Templar. When distribution becomes uncontrollable by corporate interests is when things become different than they ever have been. In other words, it can't be ANYTHING like Napster, it HAS to be something like Gnutella. And I think it will succeed. Not by the corporatist standard of profit for the shareholders, but by the control of a distribution channel.
-- Rich
I think you mean LGPL'ed code :-) The LGPL contains a specific exclusion for this, allowing you to include the LGPL'ed headers into non--GPL code. If you really do mean GPL, then no way, no how can you include it in ANYTHING other than GPL'ed code, not even LGPL'ed code.
-- Rich
Derek Freeman does raise some interesting points about Mead's work. IMHO, they are not applicable (at least in the sense of this discussion) in that Freeman's work involved 1960's Samoans, not 1920's Samoans. COAIS was written for a broad audience, and many of Freeman's criticisms are of this, and of her conclusions re education. Freeman found a lot of adolescent angst amongst his 1960's Samoans that Mead found noticeably lacking. There are a lot of explanations for this.
-- Rich
Does Murray's book suggest any of this in a definitive way?
/ coa.html
Its Margaret Mead (sorry about that). Quite the opposite, Mead's research showed that early sexualization among Samoans was beneficial, in particular, Samoans did not have the adolescent difficulties that Western Europeans/Americans have. While her book covers many aspects of Samoan society, she points to early sexualization as a contributing factor to Samoans' psychological well being.
A good review of it is here http://instruction.ferris.edu/taylorj/papers/mead
Hold on there Kemo Sabe,
I happen to be one of those boomers you're so quick to blame. I'm with you 100%, BUT:
1. I have never voted for a Republican.
2. I still believe in Free Love (!)
3. So does every one I know.
4. The High School down the street from me is CHOCK FULL of teenagers sporting Jesus T-Shirts and preaching Morality.
My Point: there is no age limit on thinking you know what's best for others.
-- Rich
Sorry folks, I had the wrong Margaret:
Margaret Mead wrote "Coming of Age in Samoa". This book caused a MAJOR uproar when it was published because of its dealing with the effects of early sexualization in Samoans
Is their a body of work supporting the statement that graphic pornography is "harmful" to children
This all depends on your definition of "harmful". If the definition of harmful means "violating your religious beliefs", then definitely, for some religions yes, it is implied by the statement itself. Viewing pornography can definitely entail psychological changes, as can early sexualization in other ways. Read Margaret Murray's "Coming of Age in Samoa" for an anthropological treatment of this whole subject.
-- Rich
... to this issue. The biggest problem is that EVERYONE has different standards for what is appropriate or not appropriate for their children. I have 5 (!) children myself and I am quite concerned about what they might encounter on the net. After all, there are almost as many religious sites as pr0n sites, and I haven't found a filter that will block access to any of the plethora of bizarre religious right sites that I REALLY don't want my children exposed to. I understand that we live (here in the US) in a society that accepts every religious freak as equal; I just want them to learn about these things from ME, not from some online preacher. Other parents have concerns about other things, perhaps even then children going to MY web site. That's for them to be concerned about, not me. My point is, that what is acceptable or not is HIGHLY individual, there is no legal or technological solution to it. So do what I do, supervise your children's online time; it's a great way to spend some quality time with your children, as well as protecting them from what YOU don't want them to see. Nobody else can, and nobody else will.
-- Rich
Probably not very good, however, she might do it if she heard about it from one of her friends. BTW, she owns a GM car, so she has probably THOUGHT it at least by now :-)
-- Rich
Using your example lets say there is already a website that says you torture puppies. is there anyhting wrong with me going out and registering a domain name and making it point to that web site?
Well, the guy with the problem here would be the guy with the puppy torture website is being impersonated. Is there anything wrong with this? I say yes. I believe you have the right to say anything you want about anyone you want either anonymously or as yourself. You do NOT, however, have the right to say something AS someone else, or with the appearance of being someone else. If we want to keep (get back ?) right of anonymity on the 'net, we ought to take a hard line against those who pose as someone else.
-- Rich
I don't think the problem here is the word "fuck", but rather that many people (like say, my mom) would believe that Ford was the owner of the domain name. While I can't imagine my mother bringing herself to type fuckgeneralmotors, the principle remains the same. Those of us who realize anybody can point a domain name at anybody else are "in on the joke", but a whole lot of people have no idea that such a thing is possible.
In Other words, I don't think that this is a free speech issue, it is an issue of impersonating a company. It is reasonable for anybody to be concerned about others impersonating them. If someone pointed the domain name "goatfucker.com" at my personal web page, I'd be pissed off too, and not because of the funny, but because people WOULD believe that I pointed that domain name at my web page. Something like that happens to you and the next thing you know, ignorant social workers are taking you kids away from you.
-- Rich
What I don't quite get is the number of people who insist that the GPL is compatible with building software for a profit. It is incompatible - you must sell services or hardware or something other than the GPL'd software to make money.
Quite true, the GPL is incompatible with selling software for a profit. However, this is not the only buisiness use of software. Most buisiness use of software isn't the selling of licenses, but rather the actual utilization of software for some for the purpose of producing some OTHER product or providing some OTHER service. The GPL is completely compatible with this sort of usage. The GPL is only incompatible with buisiness that sells software, like, say Micro$oft. Most buisinesses don't sell software, they sell something else.
-- Rich
Here's a very small (that's the art part) of code I saw many years ago. I thought it was art then. I still do.
... the tiniest expression of a thought, perhaps, its essence. Code provides a medium for this sort of art that does not exist elsewhere. And it is not just minimalism... Check out Knuth's sources to TeX ... that would have to be the other extreme.
#define SWAP(a, b) ((a)^=(b)^=(a)^=(b))
Why is this art you say ? It is very like Haiku, expressing its subject in its most minimal form. While you must understand the symbols of the medium to "get it" this is also true of Noh, opera, and many other art forms. In this instance, the art is in the minimalism
-- Rich
What *ARE* you Talking about ?
I'm not going to risk my income by setting up a *BSD server with a fortune 500 company only to find out later that the system has back doors in it which allow the foreign BSD developers to access their critical data
Of course, you would rather have American Corporations put the back doors in. They have much more interest in critical data than foreign hackers do anyways; and, as an added bonus, they could give the back doors to the Feds, so that when the SEC is investigating them for insider trading, they don't even have to LOOK for the evidence.
I want to know if any outside and independant people have auditied the code
I want to know if any outside and independant people have audited Windows, Solaris, or AIX and why you think that M$ Sun and IBM have motives any more pure that of "foreign BSD Developers"; Oh Yeah, corporate closed-source OS'es can't be audited, so we'll never know. Open Source OS'es have source code; if anyone ever found an intentional back-door in an Open source OS that system would be DOOMED.
One More thing, out of which orifice did you pull these uninformed opinions ?
-- Rich
No one's trying to pass OpenSSH off as the "official" SSH implementation, you'll note. Besides, trademarks in the US are a "use or lose" commodity - if you don't enforce them, you don't get to keep them.
/. community. His position is certainly less than optimal for a trademark claim.
Absolutely, however, Tatu has stated (complained ?) in the past that some users of OpenSSH were confusing that product with his.
According to Tatu & co., he'd had this trademark for some time. Yet only recently has he decided to enforce that trademark.
His bad for sure. I'm not ranting about the relative merits of his claim, I'm ranting about the immediate condemnation by the
He really should've considered this a long time ago.
Absolutely. But we must remember, that this guy GAVE us something good (that I and a lot of other people use). We shouldn't vilify him because he's trying to make a couple of bucks off of it. (And I'm pretty sure its just a couple).
-- Rich
I know that we here as /. are against all things related to intellectual property, but perhaps its time to look at the other side. Trademarks (in the US) are *NOT* designed to protect companies... they are designed to protect consumers. What you say ? They exist (primarily) so that consumers know where a product actually came from. Tatu has been *VERY* liberal in his offer to allow usage of ssh (if he had been granted a trademark) and all he (seems) to have been concerned about is persons NOT his customers believing that they were. This is NOT a Bad Thing (tm). Trademarks and Trademark law DO serve a useful purpose in our society, and its sad that this community has its typical knee jerk reaction.
-- Rich
As soon as I saw that the DMA was involved I knew this was worthless. Remember that this is an institution whose sole existence involves acquiring information about people, so they can sell stuff nobody wants. Unfortunately, here in the USA, if people are making money, it must be OK. The DMA is an institution which produces nothing, is annoying as Hell, and has taken advantage of a lot of people. And now they're trying tell me that its just too expensive for them to NOT know all about me ? Please.
-- Rich
(Donning asbestos long johns...)
This is another example of technological measures to enforce copy right, which will inevitably lead to somebody cracking the technological means, lawsuits, destitute geeks, and wealthy lawyers.
We need to know (in the US at least) What is fair use.
OK, this thing is definitely going to keep me from extracting small portions of a cd for purposes of review, etc. which has always been upheld as fair use. The RIAA is almost cetainly not afraid of me doing this, they're afraid of me Napstering albums. But they feel they have to do something.
OK, its time for Orrin Hatch to carry out his threat and ask the Congress to define "Fair Use".
What would this do for Us ?
1. Buisiness owners who depend on production of copyrighted material would KNOW what can and can't be done. Technological measures which prevent legal fair use would *NOT* be protected.
2. Buisinesses would LIKE this. All buisinessmen LOVE determinism, all they really want is to know what they can and can't do... and then beat up competitors for the can't.
3. We would love this. We would know what we CAN do, and would have a legal leg to stand on, as opposed to having some ignorant judge use an undefined concept like fair use is now to uphold what he sees as "pirates" against a "legitimate" buisiness.
Technological means of copy control are going to be upheld by the courts until such time as the courts have SOMETHING codified to look at (that's what they like). An incontrovertible definition of fair use would provide this.
-- Rich
This type of argument sounds good, but it will never convince a lawyer. Pantyhose is an artifact, a thing which, once sold, full ownership transfers to the buyer. Copyright does *NOT* mean ownership, copyright covers content. In the pantyhose analogy, this would be the color, weave, etc. If I want I could go buy some L'eggs, carefully examine the weave, color, etc., setup a manufacturing facility, and, so long as my manufacturing process doesn't violate any patents, make as many million pairs of hose as I want, and sell them to bank robbers, or whoever; I exert NO control over your use of the hose I make, and thus, because I give you ownership for quid, I have *NO* responsibility for what you do with it. HOWEVER, If my pantyhose was designed specifically for use in obscuring the identity of bank robbers, I *might* get sued. Maybe. But probably not.
-- Rich
Several reasons,
1. The encoding algorithm for MP3's is patented. If an MP3 encoder is free ITS infringing.
2. An MP3 encoder is simply a recording device (Like a Betamax). There are considerable non-infringing uses for encoders and the Betamax Defense would almost certainly apply here.
3. Using an MP3 encoder doesn't require assistance from anyone once you have acquired the encoder (see #2). Thus noone is facilitating infringement.
4. A copyright only covers distribution. I can encode all my cd's to mp3 on my own computer (I have) and so long as I don't give them to anyone else (I don't) there's no direct infringement.
-- Rich
Say What ? The Betamax case was all about "substantial copyright infringement". The difference between the tow is that Sony provided a device, which means the buyer has ownership of the device (not a license, not a service) and Napster provides a service, (and a client which you have a license to use as opposed to ownership). This is the BIG difference, and while it may not seem much to us, it makes a big difference to lawyers, some of whom are judges.
-- Rich
This isn't about copy protection though, its about cracking as civil disobedience, or even as insurgence. Insurgents are always viewed as terrorists... they are, in fact, from the viewpoint of the establishment being fought. Right and wrong are essentially defined by which side you're on (i.e. its an inherent conflict). The difficulty in inherent conflicts is that one side MUST win, as neither side can be converted to the other point of view. The REAL question here, is what is being fought over; what are the points of view, and which side does this put me on.
-- Rich