... exceptions I can think of that US has in its free speech laws are copyright violations...
Interesting but that's a rather large hole in the free speech laws.
Keep in mind that free speech can be compromised just as easily by too much noise (bad information or repetition) as by too little information. The USA suffers a lot from the former with commercial marketing in particular drowning out alternative points of view.
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DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
They also like to ignore the fact that copright-law-as-currently-implemented is only one of an infinite number of possibilities including variation in copyright conditions, applicability and alternatives like tax subsidies and patronage.
The simplistic artificial scarcity we have today with copyright and patents on things so important to the economy and so easily reproducible is sad.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
As for DRM, stick with third-party tools, you won't see any change...
Says you.
"Microsoft Update" allows them to change the rules any time they like. M$ are very good at boiling the frog. Just look at their history and where they are headed.
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Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
That's not downloading illegally because it's cool - it's downloading because it's free.
No, it's downloading because it's sensible.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
Follow the money. Whenever there's repetitive propaganda like this ignoring general knowledge it's likely to be an astroturfer, a lying marketer promoting their product.
In these cases it's probably M$'ers trying to marginalize a platform that is likely to see millions of Linux installations, reducing M$ mindshare. It's worth a lot of money to M$ to stop or reduce that.
As soon as you come to realise this, you'll stop getting modded down.
Nonsense. M$ astroturfers mod down/up anything that dilutes/promotes their content-free propaganda, factual or otherwise, all the time.
M$ appears to have been paying for even more astroturf recently with vista release soon. The fact that twitter balances out even a tiny amount of that propaganda is a plus, not a minus.
---
Vista: Billions of marketing words and no delivered product.
You were probably mod'ed down by M$ astroturfers. Judging by the posting order M$ pays for/. subscriptions for their astroturfers so they've got early access to stories and mod points.
M$ appears to have been paying for more marketing fraud recently with vista release iminent and they don't want you diluting their marketing propaganda with (gasp!) alternative points of view.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
The grandparent would seem to be a reasonably well masked troll,
It's probably an astroturfer, that's why such messages keep getting repeated.
This single decision could cost M$ hundreds of thousands of euros. You honestly think that a company that fine and upstanding isn't flooding every discussion they can with their propaganda?
I don't mind most of the ads, since I realize they finance the content I'm watching.
Ad's cost, they pay for nothing.
Ad's just mean you're paying twice over, once in time/attention to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Personally, if I had my way I'd make it illegal, or at least tax, any advertising "supported" service that didn't offer a realistic pay alternative, signalling the cost of the service to the market rather than hiding it.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
I have a different take on this; when a new technology emerges, it's not so horrible to have one monolithic model while the technology is being adopted.
Early on in technology development is precisely when you want different groups experimenting with a technology; when costs are low and standards are not entrenched. A free market in other words.
Your "monolithic" model is just a recipe for for an entrenched player to develop, what you argue against in your last paragraph, because they are the only player they are the best informed/positioned about how to leverage the system to their best advantage. You could postulate a regulator but since it is impossible for that regulator to be informed by anybody except the monolith then regulatory capture is inevitable.
Standards, what I think you really should be arguing for, are a good thing. There should be sufficient regulation so that it's in all players own best interest to create and conform to standards as/when needed, as is happening (to an extent!) on the web at the moment.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Yes, the way I'd put it is to say the market is unstable. In the short term random elements might allow open competition with a number of players but in the long term it's winner take all.
Not sure I completely agree with your comment about monopoly rights. After all, normal physical property is just a monopoly right. However, I agree that unlimited monopoly copy restrictions on things that can be copied at almost no cost is highly suspect. It's about time a lot more thought and actual scientific evidence went into the law in this area; the current level of public debate is appalling.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
If you're in a regulated environment, odds are that you're making enough money that spending a little money on some professional consulting time (or perhaps the software itself) for this problem is a far better solution than Asking Slashdot(tm).
Who said he's not doing both? The two options are not mutually exclusive as you imply.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Just because it's OSS doesn't mean you can't pay for on-site support, on-site hot backups, the works.
Whether it's OSS or closed source is irrelevant in that regard.
Except with OSS you are likely to have more flexibility and better value for money.
"Support" is often a boogeyman pushed by salesdroids when they don't have anything better to offer, trying to scare a customer into getting locked in to their expensive, proprietary solution while ignoring the flexibility, including support, that OSS can offer.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
They rarely bitch. Why? They make fun of themselves.
Depends on who you talk to. There are plenty of hyper-sensitive bigots (sorry, "patriots") who can't cope with even minor, reasoned criticism or jokes. Particularly if money is involved.
The whole point of copyright is temporary exclusivity.
There is a world of difference between temporary exclusivity on a single piece of music and ongoing long term exclusivity on a controlling percentage of the market.
If the law doesn't recognise that then the law is an ass.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
Not if you ever visit any of the 'intellectual property' threads here, where you're likely to see hordes of posters who haven't the slightest clue about the differences between patents, trademarks, and copyrights; nor the slightest desire to learn.
Nonsense, the vast majority of slashdotters are well aware of the differences.
Just because people object to the current implementation of those concepts, and want something new, doesn't mean they don't understand them. Your position is the typical conflation-of-argument of current IP law supporters, trying to move the discussion away from talking about justification and significant change of current IP law, uncomfortable as that is for them, to irrelevant minutiae instead.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
I'd use online and magazine reviews and comments if I could but they're so badly polluted by fraud and astroturfers that it's pointless.
That's why reviews have very little effect on sales; such a large percentage have no correlation with the actual quality of the game that people rightly ignore them.
Word of mouth from people I trust is it. I do not trust the vast majority of marketing parasites.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting but that's a rather large hole in the free speech laws.
Keep in mind that free speech can be compromised just as easily by too much noise (bad information or repetition) as by too little information. The USA suffers a lot from the former with commercial marketing in particular drowning out alternative points of view.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
They also like to ignore the fact that copright-law-as-currently-implemented is only one of an infinite number of possibilities including variation in copyright conditions, applicability and alternatives like tax subsidies and patronage.
The simplistic artificial scarcity we have today with copyright and patents on things so important to the economy and so easily reproducible is sad.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
As for DRM, stick with third-party tools, you won't see any change...
Says you.
"Microsoft Update" allows them to change the rules any time they like. M$ are very good at boiling the frog. Just look at their history and where they are headed.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
That's not downloading illegally because it's cool - it's downloading because it's free.
No, it's downloading because it's sensible.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
This striking difference is real, and not fabricated news.
Just because it's repeated doesn't mean it's not fabricated. Marketers love meaningless repetition.
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!
Follow the money. Whenever there's repetitive propaganda like this ignoring general knowledge it's likely to be an astroturfer, a lying marketer promoting their product.
In these cases it's probably M$'ers trying to marginalize a platform that is likely to see millions of Linux installations, reducing M$ mindshare. It's worth a lot of money to M$ to stop or reduce that.
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!
When DRM is mandatory, let me know.
Ever heard of the boiled frog? M$ is a master at it.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
As soon as you come to realise this, you'll stop getting modded down.
Nonsense. M$ astroturfers mod down/up anything that dilutes/promotes their content-free propaganda, factual or otherwise, all the time.
M$ appears to have been paying for even more astroturf recently with vista release soon. The fact that twitter balances out even a tiny amount of that propaganda is a plus, not a minus.
---
Vista: Billions of marketing words and no delivered product.
Every word in this, and other, posts screams M$ marketing parasite.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
If you want M$ propaganda head over to microsoft.com. Vista is about the most nerd unfriendly OS there is.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
You were probably mod'ed down by M$ astroturfers. Judging by the posting order M$ pays for /. subscriptions for their astroturfers so they've got early access to stories and mod points.
M$ appears to have been paying for more marketing fraud recently with vista release iminent and they don't want you diluting their marketing propaganda with (gasp!) alternative points of view.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
The only groupthink in this story is the lying M$ astroturfers.
M$ appears to be paying for more of them with vista release imiminent.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
The grandparent would seem to be a reasonably well masked troll,
It's probably an astroturfer, that's why such messages keep getting repeated.
This single decision could cost M$ hundreds of thousands of euros. You honestly think that a company that fine and upstanding isn't flooding every discussion they can with their propaganda?
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!
The network makes it difficult
Difficult, for high levels of difficulty, approximates impossible.
And just because something is difficult rather than impossible doesn't somehow make it okay.
Unbalanced, uncompetitive markets are bad and it's a pity the legal system hasn't really learned to deal with them yet.
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!
I don't mind most of the ads, since I realize they finance the content I'm watching.
Ad's cost, they pay for nothing.
Ad's just mean you're paying twice over, once in time/attention to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Personally, if I had my way I'd make it illegal, or at least tax, any advertising "supported" service that didn't offer a realistic pay alternative, signalling the cost of the service to the market rather than hiding it.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
I have a different take on this; when a new technology emerges, it's not so horrible to have one monolithic model while the technology is being adopted.
Early on in technology development is precisely when you want different groups experimenting with a technology; when costs are low and standards are not entrenched. A free market in other words.
Your "monolithic" model is just a recipe for for an entrenched player to develop, what you argue against in your last paragraph, because they are the only player they are the best informed/positioned about how to leverage the system to their best advantage. You could postulate a regulator but since it is impossible for that regulator to be informed by anybody except the monolith then regulatory capture is inevitable.
Standards, what I think you really should be arguing for, are a good thing. There should be sufficient regulation so that it's in all players own best interest to create and conform to standards as/when needed, as is happening (to an extent!) on the web at the moment.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Yes, the way I'd put it is to say the market is unstable. In the short term random elements might allow open competition with a number of players but in the long term it's winner take all.
Not sure I completely agree with your comment about monopoly rights. After all, normal physical property is just a monopoly right. However, I agree that unlimited monopoly copy restrictions on things that can be copied at almost no cost is highly suspect. It's about time a lot more thought and actual scientific evidence went into the law in this area; the current level of public debate is appalling.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
If you're in a regulated environment, odds are that you're making enough money that spending a little money on some professional consulting time (or perhaps the software itself) for this problem is a far better solution than Asking Slashdot(tm).
Who said he's not doing both? The two options are not mutually exclusive as you imply.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Just because it's OSS doesn't mean you can't pay for on-site support, on-site hot backups, the works.
Whether it's OSS or closed source is irrelevant in that regard.
Except with OSS you are likely to have more flexibility and better value for money.
"Support" is often a boogeyman pushed by salesdroids when they don't have anything better to offer, trying to scare a customer into getting locked in to their expensive, proprietary solution while ignoring the flexibility, including support, that OSS can offer.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
They rarely bitch. Why? They make fun of themselves.
Depends on who you talk to. There are plenty of hyper-sensitive bigots (sorry, "patriots") who can't cope with even minor, reasoned criticism or jokes. Particularly if money is involved.
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!
The whole point of copyright is temporary exclusivity.
There is a world of difference between temporary exclusivity on a single piece of music and ongoing long term exclusivity on a controlling percentage of the market.
If the law doesn't recognise that then the law is an ass.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
Not if you ever visit any of the 'intellectual property' threads here, where you're likely to see hordes of posters who haven't the slightest clue about the differences between patents, trademarks, and copyrights; nor the slightest desire to learn.
Nonsense, the vast majority of slashdotters are well aware of the differences.
Just because people object to the current implementation of those concepts, and want something new, doesn't mean they don't understand them. Your position is the typical conflation-of-argument of current IP law supporters, trying to move the discussion away from talking about justification and significant change of current IP law, uncomfortable as that is for them, to irrelevant minutiae instead.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
Then buy something else that does exactly what you're looking for.
Yep, the mere possibility of having another product available precludes any possible comment about the featureset in the original product.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
I'd use online and magazine reviews and comments if I could but they're so badly polluted by fraud and astroturfers that it's pointless.
That's why reviews have very little effect on sales; such a large percentage have no correlation with the actual quality of the game that people rightly ignore them.
Word of mouth from people I trust is it. I do not trust the vast majority of marketing parasites.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Closed source code is every bit as poor as OSS. And worse. At least with OSS you get to see it all and fix it if you want.
Your comments, complaining about OSS instead of software in general, make you a software bigot.
---
Vista: Billions of marketing words and no delivered product.