Ha, just watch the userbase for Limewire suddenly plummet, and you'll see just how much of P2P is really for "legitimate purposes."
It's like this big huge issue for most people, particularly on Slashdot, to admit that the vast majority of P2P activity is just illegal piracy of copyrighted stuff. You either get the "P2P is great for legitimate uses, and here is my long anecdotal story, blah blah," or you get "The RIAA is evil because the websites tell me so, so I'm going to ensure that System of a Down doesn't get paid today, which somehow is good for System of a Down!"
But then when someone violates the copyright of the GPL, watch out! Calls for legal action from the EFF abound.
The response to this is interesting. People here are saying users will just flock to other networks, and you're even encouraging someone use the source to build a version without this "feature", the quotes yours.
So does that mean everyone here just uses P2P to trade copyrighted works? Is Slashdot a pro-piracy site now? One would think this wouldn't matter, since we get so many comments from people proclaiming the benefits of P2P as a way to distribute, say, Linux distros and other legal works. But when it comes time to put up or shut up, most people reveal themselves as freeloaders after all, and all that talk of the legit uses of P2P a simple front to defend the networks and keep them running. Bah.
Inventing a bunch of arbitrary rules as to what can and can't be copied, under certain circumstances, using certain methods for certain goals, is the attempt to circumvent the inherent nature of "intellectual property".
Calling everything you disagree with "arbitrary" doesn't validate your position. It's not arbitrary, and it's not circumvention.
"Intellectual property" is not the same as physical property. The two are fundamentally different.
Precisely.
Yet the whole point of copyright is to try and make "intellectual property" the same as physical property, so the same economics principles can be applied to it.
That is correct.
This worked back in the day when the conceptual schism between the two was practically invisible (since, typically, "intellectual property" was tied to physical property of some sort - books, tapes, records, etc). Now that it's trivial for *anyone* to quickly, easily and transparently capture and reproduce information, the fundamental difference between physical property and "intellectual property" - and the futility of trying to apply ideas and laws governing the former to the latter - is obvious.
Your fundamental argument is that because the ability exists to do something, it should be legal to do it. This insane position doesn't even merit a response.
Nowhere is this plainer to see than the music industry, where the business model built on the assumption the producing, reproducing and distributing music is expensive and difficult has been obseleted by technology that makes music production (relatively) cheap and easy, and global distribution trivial and fast.
Which is why we have massive legal alternatives like iTunes which are currently competing with and surpassing piracy. So it seems your arguments about the "obsolete business model" (Slashdot's favorite phrase) are already invalid, having been addressed years ago.
The product of artists' endeavours are more like a service than a physical good.
Funny, your own argument supports the idea of licenses. You're wrong, of course--CDs are physical goods--but nonetheless, it's amusing you don't even realize it.
Copyright is broken because it ignores this and tries to make out artists' products *are* physical goods. Copyright is unfair because it doesn't carry the emulation of physical goods through to conclusion, instead stacking the deck grossly in favour of "intellectual property" producers by only enforcing the "physical property" aspect of the equation on consumers.
You don't really think copyright is unfair. You just don't like it because it makes you pay for stuff, and you would prefer getting stuff without paying for it. Nothing more.
The problem with copyright is that it's not about "wanting to get paid for something", it's about "wanting to get paid for the same thing over and over and over and over again, but only put the effort to produce it in once".
No, it's about wanting to get paid for something. Nobody is forcing you to pay over and over for something, and frankly, I don't even know what you're referring to. But, hey, pirates love the "victim" mentality to justify everything.
I have no problem with paying artists for their work. I have big problems with arbitrary laws that try to control the inherent attributes of information, just so broken business models can be sustained and "intellectual property producers" can make money without working.
Ah, let's call it "arbitrary" again because we disagree with it. Hey, your position is arbitrary!
Artists wouldn't like it if copyright went away ? Of course they fucking wouldn't - it would mean they'd have to go out and work every day like real people do, rather than riding the "make it once, sell it until my great-great-granchildren are dead" gravy train.
Ah, and so the anti-artist mentality arises. At least you admit you're against the artists. Artists wouldn't want copyright to
The real reason is that after decades of Mac users being told Apple is dying, Apple is now a darling among consumers and in the press. Whenever an article is written about some Apple flaw, it's written in a way that implies Apple is facing impending disaster, just like this article which claims there will be vast lines of returns of the nano and that "so much is riding" on its success.
Just like how every single freakin' MP3 player is touted with a headline, "Is this the iPod killer?" It's like the press is obsessed with everying "killing" off something of Apple's. I guess that happens when the industry relies on Microsoft everything.
They don't (well, not yet). They have legal _privileges_ bestowed in an effort to circumvent the inherent nature of "intellectual property", making it conform to the only system we have for giving things value - scarcity.
How is wanting to get paid for something you put out on sale "circumventing the inherent nature of intellectual property?"
An artists "right" to control their work ends at my 5 senses. After that, it's just legal semantics.
I love that you put right in quotation marks. Apparently, a creator has no rights whatsoever over their works. You're 100% wrong that an artists' rights end after you hear something.
Copyright - despite it's name - is not a "right", it's a legal construct. One that was invented back in the days when the creation, reproduction and distribution of even trivial works of "intellectual property" was a tedious, time-consuming and expensive task.
Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to violate the copyright of the GPL the next chance I get.
Copyright exists to impose scarcity on something that otherwise has none, thus giving it value - not to better society as a whole or engender "human rights".
No, copyright exists to protect the ability for people to sell something and get paid for it and prevent getting ripped off by people who go out of their way to freeload and justify it, making illegal copies with the SOLE purpose of making sure the artist doesn't get paid for it.
Hey, at least you're honest about it--you're out to screw the artist and make sure they have no incentive to release their music whatsoever.
Boy, you're a whackjob. Well, either that or seriously misinformed.
Ah, the Slashdot mindset. Attack the person personally because you have a weak counterargument.
Your bizarre rantings about "respect" don't mean squat. Just because you think they don't respect customers doesn't suddenly mean artists don't have rights to their music. You don't like things like the DMCA and use that as an excuse, which is just the same as me accusing the GPL of being a viral hindrance to progress and ripping off GPL code. Copyright law is portrayed as a bad thing in piracy articles and a good thing in GPL articles. It's hypocritical. Accept it and move on, please.
Of course. Copyright is only bad when it comes to getting free stuff on P2P without paying for it. The freedom of copyright holders only gets trampled on when it's GPL software getting ripped off, not anything else. Legal action is absolutely called for only when it's GPL code getting "stolen," but protecting anything else is evil and "greedy."
Wow, I'm breathless and speechless! Just read the litany of comments posted on the BBC article, collectively of which these posts represent the general sentiment of the posting community.
People play the game in different ways. For instance, I like fucking up people's lives and watching the entertainment that ensues afterward. Every neighborhood I create has several lesbian grandmas who sleep around, seducing the wives and girlfriends of all the unsuspecting working males. Naturally, I throw in a few tense moments where the male just happens to walk into the bedroom at the wrong time. My old, prominent politician has a lesbian grandma wife, HA-HA!
I also always have the trailer in the corner of the map where the hideous rednecks neglect their kids, leave spoiled diapers lying around for years at a time, don't own a shower, and leave the babies sleeping around on the carpet, just so I can have babbling feral psychos when the kids grow up. And of course, I have the household of five lesbians all sleeping around with each other and swapping beds, slapping each other around, and generally being bitchy to everyone.
I usually have one normal family somewhere in the mix to play with when I get bored with the rampant chaos...
Not specifically directed at your comment, but it sure is surprising how much Microsoft defending has grown in Slashdot comments each year. Five years ago, everyone saw Microsoft's transparent practices clear as day. Today, in any Microsoft article, you get a bunch of +5 upmodded apologists claiming "Gee, whiz, Microsoft is swell...they will overcome...Windows is just great and works like a well-oiled machine (once you've installed vast layers of anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, and registry cleaner software)."
Just because this threat to Microsoft was recognized in 1995 and overcome doesn't mean the News.com article is a fluff piece. Google is a very, very real threat to Microsoft, is draining their employees, and killing their morale as Microsoft works overtime to update old cashcows while Google explores new territories. All Google has to do is release an online office suite that never needs to be installed and is always up to date, and Office will start to die off (see Salesforce.com versus Microsoft CRM).
Google is threatening their platform, and Apple is threatening their control over the digital media platform (and therefore Microsoft's bid to control the living room via media devices). Along with the creaking management structure, this is the beginning of a decline in their power.
Worst of all, they still have 7 distinct profit and loss (PNL) centers; those PNLs are now just organized under three business units, which actually makes Microsoft's organization more complex than before.
Except that Intel-based Macs are confirmed for June next year, and AMD's line of low-power chips sucks compared to Intel's Pentium M line, so you're wrong on both counts.
GNUStep is hardly "compatible with Cocoa." There are a few OpenStep basics that still cross over, but GNUStep is so far behind in catching up to the latest Cocoa APIs that to call it compatible is misleading.
So you're saying that Opera's ads are positioned just like Slashdot's, at the top of a 10,000 line page so that they're completely invisible once I start reading any comments?
Yes, that's correct.
Maybe if slashdot starts to put banners between/alongside comments you can fairly compare it to Opera
How would that be a fair comparison? Slashdot jams big-ass Flash ads right in the middle of stories, compared to how Opera did it--tiny Google text-ads in the toolbar that you barely notice.
Meanwhile, we Opera users just keep chuggin' along. I got sick of this crap months ago and went to Opera which is faster, takes half the memory, and offers more features in a 5MB download.
Sorry to shill, but hey, Opera got dumped on for so long on Slashdot just for having banner ads (you know, just like Slashdot's banner ads...), and now that it's free, there's no reason not to use it full-time. Your tabbed browsing came from Opera, after all...
The shuffle is a me-too product that Apple introduced long after the market was saturated with flash products that had superior features.
And within six months, the shuffle single-handedly dominated that market of "superior features" (what, an unusable tiny LCD screen and an FM radio? Please).
Only Apple lovers accept that the screen is unneccesary.
The thing is, most people love Apple and their iPods! So most people feel the screen is unnecessary.
The Dell product is late and just like all the others but still better than the shuffle.
Sorry, the interface sucks, it doesn't integrate with iTunes, won't play AAC, etc. etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha, just watch the userbase for Limewire suddenly plummet, and you'll see just how much of P2P is really for "legitimate purposes."
It's like this big huge issue for most people, particularly on Slashdot, to admit that the vast majority of P2P activity is just illegal piracy of copyrighted stuff. You either get the "P2P is great for legitimate uses, and here is my long anecdotal story, blah blah," or you get "The RIAA is evil because the websites tell me so, so I'm going to ensure that System of a Down doesn't get paid today, which somehow is good for System of a Down!"
But then when someone violates the copyright of the GPL, watch out! Calls for legal action from the EFF abound.
The response to this is interesting. People here are saying users will just flock to other networks, and you're even encouraging someone use the source to build a version without this "feature", the quotes yours.
So does that mean everyone here just uses P2P to trade copyrighted works? Is Slashdot a pro-piracy site now? One would think this wouldn't matter, since we get so many comments from people proclaiming the benefits of P2P as a way to distribute, say, Linux distros and other legal works. But when it comes time to put up or shut up, most people reveal themselves as freeloaders after all, and all that talk of the legit uses of P2P a simple front to defend the networks and keep them running. Bah.
Inventing a bunch of arbitrary rules as to what can and can't be copied, under certain circumstances, using certain methods for certain goals, is the attempt to circumvent the inherent nature of "intellectual property".
Calling everything you disagree with "arbitrary" doesn't validate your position. It's not arbitrary, and it's not circumvention.
"Intellectual property" is not the same as physical property. The two are fundamentally different.
Precisely.
Yet the whole point of copyright is to try and make "intellectual property" the same as physical property, so the same economics principles can be applied to it.
That is correct.
This worked back in the day when the conceptual schism between the two was practically invisible (since, typically, "intellectual property" was tied to physical property of some sort - books, tapes, records, etc). Now that it's trivial for *anyone* to quickly, easily and transparently capture and reproduce information, the fundamental difference between physical property and "intellectual property" - and the futility of trying to apply ideas and laws governing the former to the latter - is obvious.
Your fundamental argument is that because the ability exists to do something, it should be legal to do it. This insane position doesn't even merit a response.
Nowhere is this plainer to see than the music industry, where the business model built on the assumption the producing, reproducing and distributing music is expensive and difficult has been obseleted by technology that makes music production (relatively) cheap and easy, and global distribution trivial and fast.
Which is why we have massive legal alternatives like iTunes which are currently competing with and surpassing piracy. So it seems your arguments about the "obsolete business model" (Slashdot's favorite phrase) are already invalid, having been addressed years ago.
The product of artists' endeavours are more like a service than a physical good.
Funny, your own argument supports the idea of licenses. You're wrong, of course--CDs are physical goods--but nonetheless, it's amusing you don't even realize it.
Copyright is broken because it ignores this and tries to make out artists' products *are* physical goods. Copyright is unfair because it doesn't carry the emulation of physical goods through to conclusion, instead stacking the deck grossly in favour of "intellectual property" producers by only enforcing the "physical property" aspect of the equation on consumers.
You don't really think copyright is unfair. You just don't like it because it makes you pay for stuff, and you would prefer getting stuff without paying for it. Nothing more.
The problem with copyright is that it's not about "wanting to get paid for something", it's about "wanting to get paid for the same thing over and over and over and over again, but only put the effort to produce it in once".
No, it's about wanting to get paid for something. Nobody is forcing you to pay over and over for something, and frankly, I don't even know what you're referring to. But, hey, pirates love the "victim" mentality to justify everything.
I have no problem with paying artists for their work. I have big problems with arbitrary laws that try to control the inherent attributes of information, just so broken business models can be sustained and "intellectual property producers" can make money without working.
Ah, let's call it "arbitrary" again because we disagree with it. Hey, your position is arbitrary!
Artists wouldn't like it if copyright went away ? Of course they fucking wouldn't - it would mean they'd have to go out and work every day like real people do, rather than riding the "make it once, sell it until my great-great-granchildren are dead" gravy train.
Ah, and so the anti-artist mentality arises. At least you admit you're against the artists. Artists wouldn't want copyright to
The eyeglass lens industry solved this problem years ago.
Since when do you keep eyeglasses in your pocket with your car keys?
Why should a consumer have to buy additional products to ensure that an item operates like it should in the first place?
Nobody "has" to do anything. But yes, if you jam your iPod in with keys and a cell phone, surprise, it will scratch and scuff while you move.
For instance, keyboard navigation is incomplete and inconsistent across applications (e.g. Cocoa vs Carbon).
Examples? Besides, that's the app designer's problem, and Mac users are notoriously bitchy toward them when an app isn't integrated well within OS X.
The real reason is that after decades of Mac users being told Apple is dying, Apple is now a darling among consumers and in the press. Whenever an article is written about some Apple flaw, it's written in a way that implies Apple is facing impending disaster, just like this article which claims there will be vast lines of returns of the nano and that "so much is riding" on its success.
Just like how every single freakin' MP3 player is touted with a headline, "Is this the iPod killer?" It's like the press is obsessed with everying "killing" off something of Apple's. I guess that happens when the industry relies on Microsoft everything.
They don't (well, not yet). They have legal _privileges_ bestowed in an effort to circumvent the inherent nature of "intellectual property", making it conform to the only system we have for giving things value - scarcity.
How is wanting to get paid for something you put out on sale "circumventing the inherent nature of intellectual property?"
An artists "right" to control their work ends at my 5 senses. After that, it's just legal semantics.
I love that you put right in quotation marks. Apparently, a creator has no rights whatsoever over their works. You're 100% wrong that an artists' rights end after you hear something.
Copyright - despite it's name - is not a "right", it's a legal construct. One that was invented back in the days when the creation, reproduction and distribution of even trivial works of "intellectual property" was a tedious, time-consuming and expensive task.
Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to violate the copyright of the GPL the next chance I get.
Copyright exists to impose scarcity on something that otherwise has none, thus giving it value - not to better society as a whole or engender "human rights".
No, copyright exists to protect the ability for people to sell something and get paid for it and prevent getting ripped off by people who go out of their way to freeload and justify it, making illegal copies with the SOLE purpose of making sure the artist doesn't get paid for it.
Hey, at least you're honest about it--you're out to screw the artist and make sure they have no incentive to release their music whatsoever.
Cheers.
Boy, you're a whackjob. Well, either that or seriously misinformed.
Ah, the Slashdot mindset. Attack the person personally because you have a weak counterargument.
Your bizarre rantings about "respect" don't mean squat. Just because you think they don't respect customers doesn't suddenly mean artists don't have rights to their music. You don't like things like the DMCA and use that as an excuse, which is just the same as me accusing the GPL of being a viral hindrance to progress and ripping off GPL code. Copyright law is portrayed as a bad thing in piracy articles and a good thing in GPL articles. It's hypocritical. Accept it and move on, please.
Next.
Of course. Copyright is only bad when it comes to getting free stuff on P2P without paying for it. The freedom of copyright holders only gets trampled on when it's GPL software getting ripped off, not anything else. Legal action is absolutely called for only when it's GPL code getting "stolen," but protecting anything else is evil and "greedy."
Didn't you know?
What's an "internet worm?"
Signed,
Every OS X user
I don't see what exactly is supposed to be hurting the guys at Redmond.
The Web as a platform removes the reliance on Win32 as a platform.
Wow, I'm breathless and speechless! Just read the litany of comments posted on the BBC article, collectively of which these posts represent the general sentiment of the posting community.
Just wait until Slashdot gets ahold of it.
People play the game in different ways. For instance, I like fucking up people's lives and watching the entertainment that ensues afterward. Every neighborhood I create has several lesbian grandmas who sleep around, seducing the wives and girlfriends of all the unsuspecting working males. Naturally, I throw in a few tense moments where the male just happens to walk into the bedroom at the wrong time. My old, prominent politician has a lesbian grandma wife, HA-HA!
I also always have the trailer in the corner of the map where the hideous rednecks neglect their kids, leave spoiled diapers lying around for years at a time, don't own a shower, and leave the babies sleeping around on the carpet, just so I can have babbling feral psychos when the kids grow up. And of course, I have the household of five lesbians all sleeping around with each other and swapping beds, slapping each other around, and generally being bitchy to everyone.
I usually have one normal family somewhere in the mix to play with when I get bored with the rampant chaos...
Not specifically directed at your comment, but it sure is surprising how much Microsoft defending has grown in Slashdot comments each year. Five years ago, everyone saw Microsoft's transparent practices clear as day. Today, in any Microsoft article, you get a bunch of +5 upmodded apologists claiming "Gee, whiz, Microsoft is swell...they will overcome...Windows is just great and works like a well-oiled machine (once you've installed vast layers of anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, and registry cleaner software)."
Just because this threat to Microsoft was recognized in 1995 and overcome doesn't mean the News.com article is a fluff piece. Google is a very, very real threat to Microsoft, is draining their employees, and killing their morale as Microsoft works overtime to update old cashcows while Google explores new territories. All Google has to do is release an online office suite that never needs to be installed and is always up to date, and Office will start to die off (see Salesforce.com versus Microsoft CRM).
Google is threatening their platform, and Apple is threatening their control over the digital media platform (and therefore Microsoft's bid to control the living room via media devices). Along with the creaking management structure, this is the beginning of a decline in their power.
Worst of all, they still have 7 distinct profit and loss (PNL) centers; those PNLs are now just organized under three business units, which actually makes Microsoft's organization more complex than before.
Digg is what I remember Slashdot being five years ago, and best of all, YOU choose the stories.
/. Kevin Rose posted it on Digg.com.
Digg readers knew about the iPod nano days before its official announcement and article on
It's like Kuro5hin without the suck.
Except that Intel-based Macs are confirmed for June next year, and AMD's line of low-power chips sucks compared to Intel's Pentium M line, so you're wrong on both counts.
As opposed to the horrible interface inconsistencies of the Linux desktop? As if iTunes' smoothed look is ruining your desktop.
GNUStep is hardly "compatible with Cocoa." There are a few OpenStep basics that still cross over, but GNUStep is so far behind in catching up to the latest Cocoa APIs that to call it compatible is misleading.
Windows XP's equivalent is the start.exe command.
So you're saying that Opera's ads are positioned just like Slashdot's, at the top of a 10,000 line page so that they're completely invisible once I start reading any comments?
Yes, that's correct.
Maybe if slashdot starts to put banners between/alongside comments you can fairly compare it to Opera
How would that be a fair comparison? Slashdot jams big-ass Flash ads right in the middle of stories, compared to how Opera did it--tiny Google text-ads in the toolbar that you barely notice.
Next.
Meanwhile, we Opera users just keep chuggin' along. I got sick of this crap months ago and went to Opera which is faster, takes half the memory, and offers more features in a 5MB download.
Sorry to shill, but hey, Opera got dumped on for so long on Slashdot just for having banner ads (you know, just like Slashdot's banner ads...), and now that it's free, there's no reason not to use it full-time. Your tabbed browsing came from Opera, after all...
OS X: zero viruses and trojans in five years despite a 15% install base.
The shuffle is a me-too product that Apple introduced long after the market was saturated with flash products that had superior features.
And within six months, the shuffle single-handedly dominated that market of "superior features" (what, an unusable tiny LCD screen and an FM radio? Please).
Only Apple lovers accept that the screen is unneccesary.
The thing is, most people love Apple and their iPods! So most people feel the screen is unnecessary.
The Dell product is late and just like all the others but still better than the shuffle.
Sorry, the interface sucks, it doesn't integrate with iTunes, won't play AAC, etc. etc.