I've actually been working on a project to make a legitimate use of peer-to-peer technology on behalf of aspiring artists. It's an idea still in development, but I've put together a website for the effort (called Distributed Development) at http://www.distributed-development.com. I just "launched" it last week and am looking for aspiring artists across the country and around the globe to collaborate on projects and make reputations for themselves. It uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute bandwidth costs among the user network, so large independently developed files can be shared without costing an individual server excessive bandwidth.
Another application I've seen is an article I received the other day, about the BBC using BitTorrent to distribute programming to viewers (http://www.hyperreal.org/~mpesce/fbm.html).
The RIAA/MPAA was trying to push through legislation (including the INDUCE Act sponsored by Senators Hatch and Frist among others), but those bills never made it out of committee thanks in part to the tireless efforts of the consumer electronics lobby. When the legislative route failed (all the Senators are going home now), they resort to the courts again. Can anyone imagine how much money they've "invested" in lobbying and suing over this issue? Does that give you any idea how pivotal this moment is in the evolution of intellectual property rights?
Okay everybody...it's time we all pitched in to help get the CO2 levels down. I think the easiest solution is to just not breath so much, and especially no heavy breathing. And because heavy breathing is exacerbated by exercise, we all need to stop exercising and start breathing slowly. Also, we may want to implement some kind of plan, where a certain segment of society holds its breath in turns. We aren't going to solve this problem unless we work together and start with the obvious solution.
As a show of solidarity, I'll start holding my breath first. Anyone else who feels so inclined, go right ahead.
I have a question for Neal:
In your essay, In the Beginning Was the Command Line, you addressed the issue of metaphor shear in OS GUIs (i.e. the symbolic elements in a GUI interface don't behave like their real world counterparts, though they initially lead you to think they will - documents disappear, etc.)
The question: Children today interface more directly with technology by bypassing some of the metaphor elements of a GUI (i.e. kids learn how to use a computer without ever touching a typewriter and know that the "desktop" is really just a folder in a file directory). Where do you see this phenomenon leading, as younger generations learn to work with technology and associated concepts with less "intermediation"? Is this something "new", or is this the classic "older people are less willing to adopt innovative technologies"?
The idea that kids listen to radio is RIDICULOUS. According to the government, they're all out DOWNLOADING MUSIC!!! If that's the case, the FCC is really only in the business of protecting the ears of old fogies, who can't figure out how to download the latest Snoop song and are forced to wait for it to play on the air. Duh!
The "SDMCA" (retitled by the MPAA and Cable Cos. as the "Cable Theft Prevention Act" or somesuch) is making the rounds in several states. Until recently, my home state of Tennessee was a battleground state, but the lobbyists finally got their way and pushed a version through the state legislature. Right now, it's sitting on Gov. Bredesen's desk, waiting for his signature.
I encourage everyone to monitor your own state legislatures and make sure this kind of thing isn't happening behind your back. If it is, several groups have formed in opposition to this type of legislation [TNDF]. While your cable company may not be able to force their particular brand of device down your throat, they can ban devices that don't use their "let me snoop" technology and criminally prosecute you if you use a device to filter their snoops. Check out the TNDF site and see what the Tennessee version will do to violators.
I think you missed the point: performance is not necessarily the issue. The issue is whether we should allow manufacturers to collude to determine which products survive in the market, instead of allowing the merits of the innovation to determine its success (I always think of Preston Tucker when I talk about stuff like this).
If the memory manufacturers made the patented chips, they'd have to send a check to Rambus (which royalty checks presumably reduced the profit margin percentage on the Rambus chips to a level lower than the open technology profit margin). The only reason they'd make the Rambus chips is because Intel chose to go in that direction (because if they had to choose between the two, assuming they're rational businesses, they'd choose the technology with the higher profit margin).
Since we can take for granted that the manufacturers were not going to (en masse) turn their backs on Intel, they had to find a way to move Intel away from the Rambus technology. So they all raised prices on the Rambus technology so that the Rambus chips not only had a much higher profit margin, but that the (check your supply, demand, and price points notes) demand for the chips at the price they collusively set was sufficiently low to convince Intel to move away from incorporating RDRAM.
When everyone gets hung up on the "performance" debate, they totally miss the point: collusive price-fixing by manufacturers is not only a threat to inferior products, but to superior products as well. Naturally, there will be patent-anarchists out there who want to do away with the whole patent system and are pissed at Rambus for making its patent claims and charging royalties in the first place (note: Rambus' only monopoly was one granted by the government through the patent system, so if you're going to piss on their monopoly, piss on the entire system of government granting of exclusive rights in intellectual property). But those few aside, I'd prefer to see a market free of price-fixing and collusion to manipulate the market. If a product will succeed in the market, it should do so based upon its own merits (or lack thereof).
The e-mails traded between the manufacturers pretty clearly establish collusion to remove Rambus from the market. I can't respect anyone who thinks these back-room business practices are in any way ethical or admirable (regardless of whether you approve of the final outcome). If the manufacturers engaged in these unfair trade practices, I think it's only fair that Rambus be allowed to sue over them (though their damages will be difficult to divide between sales lost to collusion and sales lost to lack-of-performance, but that's a completely separate issue).
This argument makes sense. Without getting into the whole debate on the merits/drawbacks of the Rambus memory design (which I don't REALLY understand and haven't researched), the case seems to come out like this:
1. Intel decides to adopt the Rambus memory design for its chipsets.
2. Memory manufacturers, knowing how big the Intel market is, realize that unless they start developing the new memory chips, they'd be left out in the cold.
3. The memory manufacturers realize that the only way to get out from under the influence of Intel's adoption of rambus is to move Intel away from the adopted technology, through collusion, overpricing and killing market demand for the new technology.
4. The collusion works - high prices kill demand for the rambus chips, Intel moves away from rambus to cheaper memory with higher demand and lower prices, and Rambus and its licenses are left out in the cold.
Let me just say, that if I was in Rambus' shoes and the memory manufacturers had colluded against me like that, I'd sue them too. That's the whole reason we have laws protecting against unfair trade practices!!!
The danger in posting after lunch is that not all posts are well thought out. Case-in-point, the statute of limitations defense doesn't make any sense if they're accusing Dymler of using SCO Unix without a license over the last seven years (only if they were saying "even if we did use it without permission, that was more than X years ago" where X is the statute of limitations). But the readings suggest that Dymler had a license seven years ago, so it's just a "we file an affidavit that we didn't use it; beat that SCO" (which they can do by filing for additional discovery before the dispositive motion is heard).....AHHHHH....I'm post-lunch rambling again....somebody stop me!!!
I'd need to read their pleadings, but I'm guessing that their "we haven't used it in seven years" is a statute of limitations defense (i.e. after a certain period of time, you can't file certain lawsuits). I'm not sure what the statute of limitations on copyright infringement is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a four year statute of limitations, in which case not using the OS for over seven years is a complete and total defense, not "some obscure precedent."
Actually, it's a good topic to bring up because it really is important. Think about it a minute: you buy auto insurance in case you commit automobile torts (hit somebody else), you buy premises insurance in case your business is negligent and somebody gets hurt, you buy homeowner's insurance (in part) in case somebody walks across your yard and injures themselves. It only makes sense that somebody offers insurance to another kind of tort you can commit: violation of intellectual property rights. Anybody in the intellectual property business should really give it some thought and weigh what their potential risk is (just as you weigh the risk when buying auto, premises, or homeowner's insurance). I'm actually a little surprised it hasn't come up before now.
The part that I'm really curious about is the actuarial research behind insuring code. Other insurance companies study statistics on auto accidents, risks in home, types of businesses, etc. What factors determine a rate for insured code? The amount of information known about contributors? The previous projects contributors have assisted in or companies they've been employed by? Will the insurers actually analyze the code themselves for potential problems (unlikely)? From an implementation perspective, IP insurance will be a really interesting and timely development.
First of all: if you're in a public place (read: movie theater), it's reasonable to expect that somebody could be looking at you. It could be the guy sitting in front of you, it could be the girl sitting behind you, or it could be the usher with night-vision goggles. Worried that people might see what illegal acts you commit in public? Stay home and break the law in privacy. Courts understand certain things, such as bathrooms and public telephones, as places and objects where people have an expectation of privacy. But just because you're in a dark room, I doubt that a court will be sympathetic to your argument that you expected privacy "because the lights were off."
Now I'm no friend of the MPAA (the real Great Satan), but I don't have a problem with them keeping camcorders out of movie theaters. It's not unreasonable on their part. Do what I do: stop seeing movies in the theaters. I personally don't care to sit with a hundred total strangers, listening to them cough, sneeze and talk on their cell phones for two hours at a personal cost of $12.00+ per film.
Will this cut down on bootlegs? Just of new releases, and then maybe not that, depending on the enforcement of rules in other parts of the world (yay SE Asian pirates). If Jack Valenti wants to arrest moviegoers for piracy: be my guest. I think it's fair to say that person won't be filling a theater seat for some time to come.
I think this hits the nail on the head. When I buy a DVD (which is about the same price as a music CD), I get a ton of "value added" features (trailers, music videos, commentary, etc. etc). The problem with music CD sales is that there is NO value added. You just get a handful of tracks, most of which suck, which costs as much as a feature film?
The RIAA needs to learn that their product IS in competition with movies and video games, needs to make their product competitive, and needs to realize that unless they change their model, they will continue to lose sales.
And that monopoly is not afraid of legislation. I wouldn't be suprised if the cable industry (with a little MPAA backing) attempt their own counter-offensive in Congress, arguing that forcing them to unbundle channels will run them out of business.
We already know how willing they are to lie and fabricate numbers to get the legislation they want. In Tennessee, they've fabricated ridiculous statistics they claim are "losses from theft of service" in order to push through the MPAA's SDMCA bill. It's in the legislative committees right now and Tennessee Digital Freedom is working hard to stop them.
There's an e-mail campaign going on right now at Tennessee Digital Freedom to try to let legislators know that the SDMCA is wrong for Tennessee and that monopolies like the cable companies do not need additional protection from government. If anything, CONSUMERS need protection from the monopolists (and their lobbyists).
I encourage everyone to visit the TNDF website, check out the e-mail campaign and let politicians know what you think!!!
See...this is exactly why we have to prevent nuclear proliferation. We'll always need some countries out there without nukes so we still have people we can push around without fear of reprissal.
I think somebody needs to write an open letter to Microsoft, thanking them for including metadata in Word docs. This simple feature has revealed more inept backroom deals than a hundred crack investigative reporters. My hat's off to the Bill "The Great Satan" Gates and his minions!!! Keep up the mediocre work, guys!!!
Considering the MPAA's activity in Tennessee this year. The MPAA is a super-powered lobbying machine, fueled by your movie theater ticket and DVD sales. We initially gave them the power to protect their products, which has been increasingly leveraged by turning consumer dollars into political "donations", which in turn allows them to increase the duration of their copyrights, ad infinitum.
Think of all the folks out there who hate SCO and have reasoned that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Bingo: all my auto-part purchases now go to Autozone and their battle against Darl Vader.
Wonder how long it will be before companies are asking SCO to sue them, just for the marketing boost.....
Basically, the cafes are venues to public discourse, which is something that the First Amendment seeks to encourage and is necessary for a free society.
But imagine if anonymity were taken away elsewhere, like at the ballot box. I bet there's a really good argument for taking your picture and fingerprint at the ballot box, then attaching that to a receipt which shows how you voted, so that those records could later be compared to ensure that no convicted felons illegally cast ballots. In that case, the only ones who would need the anonymity would be the criminals, right?
They got caught spying in Watergate. Now they got caught in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It makes me wonder: are the Democrats not spying at all, or are they just more sophisticated about it? The fact that the Republicans are able to gleen so much intel for such a long period of time makes me discount the second theory (i.e., Democrats are better spies). And I don't believe for a second that they have any moral highground on the Republicans. Maybe somebody should teach the Democrats a thing or two about network security, just to balance out the two-party system?
Everybody's so quick to judge poor Mr. Caridi. But have we heard his side of the story? Maybe he's a victim too, like poor Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Maybe the screener was just for his personal home viewing, but some unethical person stole it from poor Mr. Caridi's house and began distributing it in illicit ways. Perhaps poor Mr. Caridi had no knowledge of this unethical conduct by this home-invader/movie-pirate because he has devoted all of his time and energy into making high-quality productions, for the viewing enjoyment of all. Or even better, maybe he's been so busy helping the MPAA fight movie piracy by auditioning for those anti-piracy movie trailers that he didn't know the screener was missing.
If you're going to make such a gross misstatement of the law, will you please preface it with the customary disclaimer that you are NOT a lawyer. Thanks!
Your "property rights" are actually several rights, granted by your government, which you are ALLOWED to exercise. One such "right" is the right to exclude others from your real property. In the case above, where someone has broken into your house, they have crossed your property without your permission to do so. They may also attempt to deprive you of physical possession of property, which is another "right" your government has given you. Both of these rights are premised on a theory of ownership, that the government recognizes that you are allowed to personally "own" things and exclude others from their use.
Now, copy"right" is another right granted by the government, which recognizes that you can be granted specific rights in something intangible, so long as it has been reduced to a tangible media. Under copy"right", you can exclude others from reproducing the intangible property, exclude others from publicly displaying the intangible property, exclude others from creating works derivative of the intangible property, etc. When someone violates your copyright by making a copy without your permission (which the government has given you sole permission to do), it is no different than if they opened the door to your house, walked into your living room and made themselves comfortable. In both circumstances, your "ownership" (in the form of your ability to exclude others or to have the sole right to do something) has been usurped by another.
And just FYI: copyright, trademark, patent, and various other regulations govern the subject of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Both trespassing on the real property of another and infringement of copyrights are crimes against PROPERTY (as opposed to persons). This is not my opinion; this is the law. Please educate yourself before you troll again!!!
I can't read this discussion without thinking of Stan's uncle in South Park screaming (after spotting an endangered animal, which cannot be killed unless it threatens human life):
Slashdot Mirror
Another application I've seen is an article I received the other day, about the BBC using BitTorrent to distribute programming to viewers (http://www.hyperreal.org/~mpesce/fbm.html).
The RIAA/MPAA was trying to push through legislation (including the INDUCE Act sponsored by Senators Hatch and Frist among others), but those bills never made it out of committee thanks in part to the tireless efforts of the consumer electronics lobby. When the legislative route failed (all the Senators are going home now), they resort to the courts again. Can anyone imagine how much money they've "invested" in lobbying and suing over this issue? Does that give you any idea how pivotal this moment is in the evolution of intellectual property rights?
As a show of solidarity, I'll start holding my breath first. Anyone else who feels so inclined, go right ahead.
The question: Children today interface more directly with technology by bypassing some of the metaphor elements of a GUI (i.e. kids learn how to use a computer without ever touching a typewriter and know that the "desktop" is really just a folder in a file directory). Where do you see this phenomenon leading, as younger generations learn to work with technology and associated concepts with less "intermediation"? Is this something "new", or is this the classic "older people are less willing to adopt innovative technologies"?
The idea that kids listen to radio is RIDICULOUS. According to the government, they're all out DOWNLOADING MUSIC!!! If that's the case, the FCC is really only in the business of protecting the ears of old fogies, who can't figure out how to download the latest Snoop song and are forced to wait for it to play on the air. Duh!
I encourage everyone to monitor your own state legislatures and make sure this kind of thing isn't happening behind your back. If it is, several groups have formed in opposition to this type of legislation [TNDF]. While your cable company may not be able to force their particular brand of device down your throat, they can ban devices that don't use their "let me snoop" technology and criminally prosecute you if you use a device to filter their snoops. Check out the TNDF site and see what the Tennessee version will do to violators.
If the memory manufacturers made the patented chips, they'd have to send a check to Rambus (which royalty checks presumably reduced the profit margin percentage on the Rambus chips to a level lower than the open technology profit margin). The only reason they'd make the Rambus chips is because Intel chose to go in that direction (because if they had to choose between the two, assuming they're rational businesses, they'd choose the technology with the higher profit margin).
Since we can take for granted that the manufacturers were not going to (en masse) turn their backs on Intel, they had to find a way to move Intel away from the Rambus technology. So they all raised prices on the Rambus technology so that the Rambus chips not only had a much higher profit margin, but that the (check your supply, demand, and price points notes) demand for the chips at the price they collusively set was sufficiently low to convince Intel to move away from incorporating RDRAM.
When everyone gets hung up on the "performance" debate, they totally miss the point: collusive price-fixing by manufacturers is not only a threat to inferior products, but to superior products as well. Naturally, there will be patent-anarchists out there who want to do away with the whole patent system and are pissed at Rambus for making its patent claims and charging royalties in the first place (note: Rambus' only monopoly was one granted by the government through the patent system, so if you're going to piss on their monopoly, piss on the entire system of government granting of exclusive rights in intellectual property). But those few aside, I'd prefer to see a market free of price-fixing and collusion to manipulate the market. If a product will succeed in the market, it should do so based upon its own merits (or lack thereof).
The e-mails traded between the manufacturers pretty clearly establish collusion to remove Rambus from the market. I can't respect anyone who thinks these back-room business practices are in any way ethical or admirable (regardless of whether you approve of the final outcome). If the manufacturers engaged in these unfair trade practices, I think it's only fair that Rambus be allowed to sue over them (though their damages will be difficult to divide between sales lost to collusion and sales lost to lack-of-performance, but that's a completely separate issue).
1. Intel decides to adopt the Rambus memory design for its chipsets.
2. Memory manufacturers, knowing how big the Intel market is, realize that unless they start developing the new memory chips, they'd be left out in the cold.
3. The memory manufacturers realize that the only way to get out from under the influence of Intel's adoption of rambus is to move Intel away from the adopted technology, through collusion, overpricing and killing market demand for the new technology.
4. The collusion works - high prices kill demand for the rambus chips, Intel moves away from rambus to cheaper memory with higher demand and lower prices, and Rambus and its licenses are left out in the cold.
Let me just say, that if I was in Rambus' shoes and the memory manufacturers had colluded against me like that, I'd sue them too. That's the whole reason we have laws protecting against unfair trade practices!!!
The danger in posting after lunch is that not all posts are well thought out. Case-in-point, the statute of limitations defense doesn't make any sense if they're accusing Dymler of using SCO Unix without a license over the last seven years (only if they were saying "even if we did use it without permission, that was more than X years ago" where X is the statute of limitations). But the readings suggest that Dymler had a license seven years ago, so it's just a "we file an affidavit that we didn't use it; beat that SCO" (which they can do by filing for additional discovery before the dispositive motion is heard).....AHHHHH....I'm post-lunch rambling again....somebody stop me!!!
I'd need to read their pleadings, but I'm guessing that their "we haven't used it in seven years" is a statute of limitations defense (i.e. after a certain period of time, you can't file certain lawsuits). I'm not sure what the statute of limitations on copyright infringement is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a four year statute of limitations, in which case not using the OS for over seven years is a complete and total defense, not "some obscure precedent."
The part that I'm really curious about is the actuarial research behind insuring code. Other insurance companies study statistics on auto accidents, risks in home, types of businesses, etc. What factors determine a rate for insured code? The amount of information known about contributors? The previous projects contributors have assisted in or companies they've been employed by? Will the insurers actually analyze the code themselves for potential problems (unlikely)? From an implementation perspective, IP insurance will be a really interesting and timely development.
Now I'm no friend of the MPAA (the real Great Satan), but I don't have a problem with them keeping camcorders out of movie theaters. It's not unreasonable on their part. Do what I do: stop seeing movies in the theaters. I personally don't care to sit with a hundred total strangers, listening to them cough, sneeze and talk on their cell phones for two hours at a personal cost of $12.00+ per film.
Will this cut down on bootlegs? Just of new releases, and then maybe not that, depending on the enforcement of rules in other parts of the world (yay SE Asian pirates). If Jack Valenti wants to arrest moviegoers for piracy: be my guest. I think it's fair to say that person won't be filling a theater seat for some time to come.
The RIAA needs to learn that their product IS in competition with movies and video games, needs to make their product competitive, and needs to realize that unless they change their model, they will continue to lose sales.
We already know how willing they are to lie and fabricate numbers to get the legislation they want. In Tennessee, they've fabricated ridiculous statistics they claim are "losses from theft of service" in order to push through the MPAA's SDMCA bill. It's in the legislative committees right now and Tennessee Digital Freedom is working hard to stop them.
There's an e-mail campaign going on right now at Tennessee Digital Freedom to try to let legislators know that the SDMCA is wrong for Tennessee and that monopolies like the cable companies do not need additional protection from government. If anything, CONSUMERS need protection from the monopolists (and their lobbyists).
I encourage everyone to visit the TNDF website, check out the e-mail campaign and let politicians know what you think!!!
See...this is exactly why we have to prevent nuclear proliferation. We'll always need some countries out there without nukes so we still have people we can push around without fear of reprissal.
I think somebody needs to write an open letter to Microsoft, thanking them for including metadata in Word docs. This simple feature has revealed more inept backroom deals than a hundred crack investigative reporters. My hat's off to the Bill "The Great Satan" Gates and his minions!!! Keep up the mediocre work, guys!!!
Considering the MPAA's activity in Tennessee this year. The MPAA is a super-powered lobbying machine, fueled by your movie theater ticket and DVD sales. We initially gave them the power to protect their products, which has been increasingly leveraged by turning consumer dollars into political "donations", which in turn allows them to increase the duration of their copyrights, ad infinitum.
Wonder how long it will be before companies are asking SCO to sue them, just for the marketing boost.....
But imagine if anonymity were taken away elsewhere, like at the ballot box. I bet there's a really good argument for taking your picture and fingerprint at the ballot box, then attaching that to a receipt which shows how you voted, so that those records could later be compared to ensure that no convicted felons illegally cast ballots. In that case, the only ones who would need the anonymity would be the criminals, right?
It makes me wonder: are the Democrats not spying at all, or are they just more sophisticated about it? The fact that the Republicans are able to gleen so much intel for such a long period of time makes me discount the second theory (i.e., Democrats are better spies). And I don't believe for a second that they have any moral highground on the Republicans. Maybe somebody should teach the Democrats a thing or two about network security, just to balance out the two-party system?
The weakling complains that the stupid gaming-jock gets all the girls, while the outdoor athlete just gets bullied.
Soon, they all turn nerd, thanks to PowerPad!!!
You never know, right?
If you're going to make such a gross misstatement of the law, will you please preface it with the customary disclaimer that you are NOT a lawyer. Thanks!
Your "property rights" are actually several rights, granted by your government, which you are ALLOWED to exercise. One such "right" is the right to exclude others from your real property. In the case above, where someone has broken into your house, they have crossed your property without your permission to do so. They may also attempt to deprive you of physical possession of property, which is another "right" your government has given you. Both of these rights are premised on a theory of ownership, that the government recognizes that you are allowed to personally "own" things and exclude others from their use.
Now, copy"right" is another right granted by the government, which recognizes that you can be granted specific rights in something intangible, so long as it has been reduced to a tangible media. Under copy"right", you can exclude others from reproducing the intangible property, exclude others from publicly displaying the intangible property, exclude others from creating works derivative of the intangible property, etc. When someone violates your copyright by making a copy without your permission (which the government has given you sole permission to do), it is no different than if they opened the door to your house, walked into your living room and made themselves comfortable. In both circumstances, your "ownership" (in the form of your ability to exclude others or to have the sole right to do something) has been usurped by another.
And just FYI: copyright, trademark, patent, and various other regulations govern the subject of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Both trespassing on the real property of another and infringement of copyrights are crimes against PROPERTY (as opposed to persons). This is not my opinion; this is the law. Please educate yourself before you troll again!!!
"Look out Ned, it's coming right for us!!!"
(cue excessive automatic weapon fire)