You're right, it's not. However, avoiding illegal acts is a great way to drastically reduce run-ins with the law or lawsuits.
In any event, it's important to remember that copyright is granted by the Constitution -- and if it's so immoral or unjust or what not, then where are the voters putting the fear of recall in their representatives if they don't amend the Constitution to kill it?
That analogy is fatally flawed. It might hold up if all your copies were destroyed after they were transmitted to your friend. When you "share" a file, you're creating a copy as it's transmitted over the wire. If you don't have a license to do that, you're infringing copyright.
The funny bit is, if there wasn't so much of this "sharing" going on, there wouldn't be anywhere near the incentive for copyright holders to impose draconian restrictions on their works when distributed electronically. I have people who reason like you do to blame when I cannot make fair use of copyrighted works that I have a legitimate copy of.
there will be no files on the p2p networks and the RIAA will win
Wrong. There will be no copyrighted files without license to copy on the networks. And if that means the "RIAA wins", then I guess I'm in their cheering section. Rather odd place to be for a guy who believes copyright terms should be 20 years for creative works, 5 for software.
Not passing around copyrighted material that you don't have a license to copy seems to me to be a rather foolproof way to avoid getting sued. I know I don't have that particular worry.
However, I do have quite the worry that the continued insistence of the freeloaders that they're not doing anything wrong serves only to inflame the whole issue, and then I do have to worry about things like DRM obstructing real fair use, attacks on my online anonymity, and the legal machine suffocating legitimate P2P uses in the cradle out of fear.
I suppose that's what really bothers me about this whole music "sharing" thing. If people really feel so strongly that the very idea of copyright is immoral, maybe it's time they got the Constitution amended to that effect.
You are thoroughly confused. Although some Congresscritters have indeed been hard at work on making up laws where the punishment doesn't fit the crime, copyright infringement has always been illegal.
First, I doubt the concentration of female users really is that high.
Second, it's been made clear that this wave of suits is not about someone who downloads a copy; this is about those who let others make copies of copyrighted works they have no license to.
I never said anyone could d/l what I have in my directories, but I also didn't say they couldn't. I leave it up to them and their conscience.
Bull. By "sharing", you have authorized your computer to make copies (keeping your copy and sending the other one over the wire) of (presumably) copyrighted works you have no license to copy and spread around.
"I never said anyone could d/l..."... please. It doesn't take a particularly smart person to see right through that one.
It never fails to amaze me how many CDs have been lost by file-"sharers" out of their cars. Someone should do a study and total this up, really. I think the results would be quite enlightening.
Look, I won't say that copyright as it stands today is in the slightest bit reasonable, nor will I contest anyone's moral right to seek out and obtain new copies of a work they rightfully purchased. And I certainly don't think copyright violation should be a felony.
But none of that takes away from the fact that we gave creators of works copyright, and because of that, permitting others to copy what you have, when you have no permission to do so, as is done in file-"sharing", is just plain wrong.
Holds up until you put in that pesky bit that we (via governmental action) have granted a monopoly on sales of duplicates of this Magically Self-Replicating Chocolate Bar to the people who created the first one, in order to encourage them to create Magically Self-Replicating Other Things.
I think it's pretty clear this chocolate bar analogy doesn't even come close to applying to copyright.
If it had been up to me in the past few elections, Conyers would never have been elected in the first place. Unfortunately, there's a disproportionately large number of people who seem to think the Democratic party is a good thing.
Most of my MP3s are replacements for CDs that were destroyed.
How many CDs have you destroyed? Are you that hard on them?
I don't think there's anything wrong (let's leave legality aside for now) with obtaining copies of works you've purchased, for any reason, but that's not really the point of a bill that goes after the "sharers". Those people are offering copyrighted material for unrestricted copying without a license to do so, or indeed even checking to see if the recipient of the copy is even morally entitled to the copy.
And that brings me to this -- you may be morally entitled to copies of the same work you've paid for, but that certainly does not mean anyone's entitled to let you copy their copies in the manner that is currently done on file-"sharing" networks -- without checking to see if the recipient is morally entitled to that copy.
FWIW, my MP3s are either from Emusic, or of CDs I own for convenience purposes (to play on the portable or in the office). I've never managed to destroy a CD; they're pretty hardy lil buggers considering the amount of computer equipment I have destroyed...:-)
Or, we could teach them the difference between actual sharing (where you give someone something or a piece of something you own to the exclusion of your continued ownership of what you've shared), and the copying that goes on in file "sharing".
Better design always requires less code, which requires less development effort.
Sorry, I've got to take issue with this. One of the worst hallmarks of bad code that I've seen is when it doesn't deal with error conditions; i.e. ignores them (C), satisfies the compiler by swallowing (Java), catches all possible errors when only one or two should cause the catch action to be taken (Python), etc. While it's possible that other optimizations are going to give you shorter code, it is not automatically a truism that better == shorter.
Oh, please. These same systems work perfectly well with Mozilla et al on Windows, or with Linux. I've witnessed this personally. MSIE is a load of crap with the capability to bring down the entire operating system, and Microsoft has next to zero incentive to make it otherwise.
The only thing I can possibly grant you is that in Windows, drivers are generally written by the hardware manufacturer, as opposed to maintained by people who care about how well they work after the sale has been made. But then again, that's really a point for Linux, isn't it?
Granted, but for me it'd make little difference as the sound system needs to compete with the car noise anyway. I've found that pretty much kills any (reasonably priced) sound quality.
In Mozilla (I think it was 1.2 that this got introduced), View -> Show/Hide -> Site Navigation Bar. Pages that have LINK tags for "next" and "previous" (which is an absolutely ancient invention, incidentally) will light up the corresponding buttons.
Honestly, man, if the way your bookmarks are stored and the ability to shuffle toolbars around (Mozilla Firebird does allow you to construct your own toolbar with whatever icons you want) makes IE -- with its horribly broken rendering engine, platform dependence to the point of bringing down the OS with page bugs, and countless other problems -- the superior browser in your mind, I hope you enjoy your little self-created delusional utopia. The rest of us will move on.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that you're transcoding and getting as a result a sucky-quality stream. But maybe that's worth it to some people...
EMusic does rock, incidentally. Though sometimes I wonder how they stay in business :-)
You're right, it's not. However, avoiding illegal acts is a great way to drastically reduce run-ins with the law or lawsuits.
In any event, it's important to remember that copyright is granted by the Constitution -- and if it's so immoral or unjust or what not, then where are the voters putting the fear of recall in their representatives if they don't amend the Constitution to kill it?
That analogy is fatally flawed. It might hold up if all your copies were destroyed after they were transmitted to your friend. When you "share" a file, you're creating a copy as it's transmitted over the wire. If you don't have a license to do that, you're infringing copyright.
The funny bit is, if there wasn't so much of this "sharing" going on, there wouldn't be anywhere near the incentive for copyright holders to impose draconian restrictions on their works when distributed electronically. I have people who reason like you do to blame when I cannot make fair use of copyrighted works that I have a legitimate copy of.
Right, that'll hold up in court.
Wrong. There will be no copyrighted files without license to copy on the networks. And if that means the "RIAA wins", then I guess I'm in their cheering section. Rather odd place to be for a guy who believes copyright terms should be 20 years for creative works, 5 for software.
Hear, hear.
Not passing around copyrighted material that you don't have a license to copy seems to me to be a rather foolproof way to avoid getting sued. I know I don't have that particular worry.
However, I do have quite the worry that the continued insistence of the freeloaders that they're not doing anything wrong serves only to inflame the whole issue, and then I do have to worry about things like DRM obstructing real fair use, attacks on my online anonymity, and the legal machine suffocating legitimate P2P uses in the cradle out of fear.
I suppose that's what really bothers me about this whole music "sharing" thing. If people really feel so strongly that the very idea of copyright is immoral, maybe it's time they got the Constitution amended to that effect.
"Working" was a somewhat strong term when the whole new setup debuted.
It works flawlessly now -- speaking, of course, from experience.
You are thoroughly confused. Although some Congresscritters have indeed been hard at work on making up laws where the punishment doesn't fit the crime, copyright infringement has always been illegal.
First, I doubt the concentration of female users really is that high.
Second, it's been made clear that this wave of suits is not about someone who downloads a copy; this is about those who let others make copies of copyrighted works they have no license to.
Bull. By "sharing", you have authorized your computer to make copies (keeping your copy and sending the other one over the wire) of (presumably) copyrighted works you have no license to copy and spread around.
"I never said anyone could d/l..."... please. It doesn't take a particularly smart person to see right through that one.
No, I reckon you need to go put your tinfoil hat on.
I thought the point of these lawsuits is that these people aren't their customers.
That said, it is certainly bad PR.
It never fails to amaze me how many CDs have been lost by file-"sharers" out of their cars. Someone should do a study and total this up, really. I think the results would be quite enlightening.
Look, I won't say that copyright as it stands today is in the slightest bit reasonable, nor will I contest anyone's moral right to seek out and obtain new copies of a work they rightfully purchased. And I certainly don't think copyright violation should be a felony.
But none of that takes away from the fact that we gave creators of works copyright, and because of that, permitting others to copy what you have, when you have no permission to do so, as is done in file-"sharing", is just plain wrong.
Holds up until you put in that pesky bit that we (via governmental action) have granted a monopoly on sales of duplicates of this Magically Self-Replicating Chocolate Bar to the people who created the first one, in order to encourage them to create Magically Self-Replicating Other Things.
I think it's pretty clear this chocolate bar analogy doesn't even come close to applying to copyright.
If it had been up to me in the past few elections, Conyers would never have been elected in the first place. Unfortunately, there's a disproportionately large number of people who seem to think the Democratic party is a good thing.
How many CDs have you destroyed? Are you that hard on them?
I don't think there's anything wrong (let's leave legality aside for now) with obtaining copies of works you've purchased, for any reason, but that's not really the point of a bill that goes after the "sharers". Those people are offering copyrighted material for unrestricted copying without a license to do so, or indeed even checking to see if the recipient of the copy is even morally entitled to the copy.
And that brings me to this -- you may be morally entitled to copies of the same work you've paid for, but that certainly does not mean anyone's entitled to let you copy their copies in the manner that is currently done on file-"sharing" networks -- without checking to see if the recipient is morally entitled to that copy.
FWIW, my MP3s are either from Emusic, or of CDs I own for convenience purposes (to play on the portable or in the office). I've never managed to destroy a CD; they're pretty hardy lil buggers considering the amount of computer equipment I have destroyed... :-)
Or, we could teach them the difference between actual sharing (where you give someone something or a piece of something you own to the exclusion of your continued ownership of what you've shared), and the copying that goes on in file "sharing".
No, sorry, I can't agree with that. Well, maybe interesting.
Sorry, I've got to take issue with this. One of the worst hallmarks of bad code that I've seen is when it doesn't deal with error conditions; i.e. ignores them (C), satisfies the compiler by swallowing (Java), catches all possible errors when only one or two should cause the catch action to be taken (Python), etc. While it's possible that other optimizations are going to give you shorter code, it is not automatically a truism that better == shorter.
Oh, please. These same systems work perfectly well with Mozilla et al on Windows, or with Linux. I've witnessed this personally. MSIE is a load of crap with the capability to bring down the entire operating system, and Microsoft has next to zero incentive to make it otherwise.
The only thing I can possibly grant you is that in Windows, drivers are generally written by the hardware manufacturer, as opposed to maintained by people who care about how well they work after the sale has been made. But then again, that's really a point for Linux, isn't it?
May I have $50, then? :-)
Granted, but for me it'd make little difference as the sound system needs to compete with the car noise anyway. I've found that pretty much kills any (reasonably priced) sound quality.
In Mozilla (I think it was 1.2 that this got introduced), View -> Show/Hide -> Site Navigation Bar. Pages that have LINK tags for "next" and "previous" (which is an absolutely ancient invention, incidentally) will light up the corresponding buttons.
You just have lazy friends. :-)
Honestly, man, if the way your bookmarks are stored and the ability to shuffle toolbars around (Mozilla Firebird does allow you to construct your own toolbar with whatever icons you want) makes IE -- with its horribly broken rendering engine, platform dependence to the point of bringing down the OS with page bugs, and countless other problems -- the superior browser in your mind, I hope you enjoy your little self-created delusional utopia. The rest of us will move on.