"The problem with Wikipedia is that information is not a democracy."
There is a
WikiProject called "Fact and Reference Check" that was created to reference
the article's facts with a variety of sources (books, articles, magazines,
academic journals, websites etc.).
If we can get 'smart' foot/end notes designed into Wikipedia's Software (MediaWiki)
then I am sure Wikipedia could become the most authoritative source of
information every created: Each article's facts being referenced with dozens of
sources, and each of these references being confirmed by dozens of individuals.
"The only reason I can see the topic creator having an issue, is because someone didn't notify Blizzard in the first place that a CD-Key exchange was going to happen."
My account was suspended because I was trying to 'transfer' my account to someone else. I was selling my complete gamebox on ebay and said i'd give the account name and password.
First if your account was suspended, immediately call up your credit card company and do a 'chargeback' on your subscription. If they want to not give you full service then you do not give them payment. Tell the people at the credit card company that you did not get full service and other information.
Second, call blizzard's account and billing problem department at 1-800-59-blizzard. If they say this is only for 'billing' tell them it clearly states in the manual it is for ACCOUNT problems as well. Feel good in the idea that you are costing them money since its toll free, call as often as you'd like;).
Third, try contacting the EFF at information@eff.org. When I contacted them they said they were getting a lot of complaints on this issue. Make it a good letter with as much facts and dates as possible.
I'll reply to myself when i get more contact information and other tips here.
"Google's value to the customer is its ability to get good information to that customer. Anything that improves the general quality of information on the internet improves Google's value to the customer."
Exactly, and just as IBM is using Linux to sell their hardware, Google can use Wikipedia in their business models to possibly make advertising revenue.
One possible scenerio: You see all those mirrors of Wikipedia all over the place with ads, Google could do something along that line after this experiment - and why not? The information is free, and if Google improves it then it can be put back into Wikipedia.
I just wished that Wikipedia would offically duel license with a Creative Commons license of some sort the GNU FDL is good, but has some onerous restrictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentati on_License):
Overly broad DRM clause Invariant sections GPL incompatible in both directions
"Go up to one of those kids he's vaccinating and tell them, "It's nice you're being vaccinated, but the money used to vaccinate you was leveraged from the pockets of consumers by the monopoly power of Windows market share. He's not a nice man." They'll just blink at you."
Maybe my previous post was a little complicated so I'll make it simple for you: Without Bill being a monpolist 'stealing*' money from us, we would have had that money in our pockets and would have donated a portion of the billions stolen* so these children would still be getting their shots.
The benefit would be we would not have a monopoly in software operating systems, we would not have to rely on the charity of billionaire monopolists either.
-Complicated stuff-
*Stealing as in a monopoly takes extra resources from society by reducing output produced thus raising the price. This action results in a perminant loss so society called dead weight loss (or 'the excess burden of monopoly').
"You will see that Bill has given $27 Billion of his $50 Billion fortune"
Since he is a monopolist, a large portion of that $50 billion was leveraged from the pockets of consumers via using monopoly power to maximize profits.
There is a perminant loss to society when monopoly power is exercised (called dead weight loss, and is the same loss to society from taxiation). One would also expect that the consumers who would not have had to pay billions extra for this product would have also donated it to charities.
Its nice that hes doing it, but he is far far away from being St. Bill for the reasons above.
From the wired article (http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,66 324,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3):
"The Ciphire Mail application, free for individual users, nonprofit organizations and the press, works in conjunction with all standard e-mail programs."
I dont like this 'free for' bullshit, its either free for everyone or it isn't. If it isn't then I'm not interested.
"I've read several times that TiVo has a "boat anchor" plan in place in case the company goes out of business. The plan is to release all the specs so that users may reconfigure the system to use another guide service."
That is an extremely good idea, and they should say it up front. I wish 321 studios would have had a similiar plan to relase their source code under a FOSS license for their DVD copier before going out of business.
They are going out of business anyway, might as well release their product under a FOSS license and maybe still survive in some aspect (like Netscape).
What is holding the project back are a lack of smart foot/end note tags. How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.
Lets so to the smallest possible: 1 person, me. And look, i already had an example with people stealing my 5 billion dollar software, let your hearts bleed for my losses from those dirty pirates!
In any event, I dont really think i lost 5 billion bucks since as i've said, for the second time now, people would not have bought it. The only way I would have *LOST* money if someone was willing to pay me 5 billion but instead downloaded it for free.
"When they are in college they are usually 17 youngest and most likely 18-19 so they are no longer kids and they should know right from wrong by now"
Excuse me, right from wrong? I have little doubt that sharing certain kinds of information is *illegal* but immoral? I don't think so.
Feel free to give me your arguement though as how an artificial state created barrier (called copyright) against information flow is a moral imperative to be followed.
" The wholesale looting of others intellectual property is a very destructive thing."
Not any more destructive than turning our society into a police state with mandated DRM on everything i'd guess.
Since I dislike short replies but do like free stories I'll share one with you all:). This maybe one of the few free things we can read in our nice DRM future:
-- The Right to Read
by Richard Stallman
[image of a Philosophical Gnu] Table of Contents
* Author's Note
* References
* Other Texts to Read
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
(from "The Road To Tycho", a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096)
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
"it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe"
Stringing sentences together without using capitals does not make a statement true.
I got an idea, I'll make some software and slap a price tag on it for $5,000,000,000 and wait for someone to copy it: OH MY FUCKING GOD NOOOOOO billions lost to the economy!
Billions lost to the economy, or how about nothing lost since people did not and will not buy it. The same with adobe, they only potentially lose if someone who *WOULD* have bought the software decides instead to download it.
"In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business. "
Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?
[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny...Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. - Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
"Aren't some of these companies small or midsized businesses that will go
OUT of business if they can't get paid for what they're producing?"
I guess they'll have to go out of business then. What is the alternative, a
police state with mandated DRM on everything, along with cameras making sure
you're not copying what your not suppose to? Don't forget the cameras to
make sure you are not
reading anything without paying the authors for their hard work, including
this sentence: That'll be $20 please.
We live in a digital age. Copyright should be reformed along the
lines that free distribution is allowed for personal or non-commerical use.
If the parties do not or will not reform they will quick see that people will do
so anyway, it is difficult to keep information unfree in a free society.
If noncommerical use is allowed then these 'pirates' will quickly see their cash
flow evaporate, or better yet - the media companies should realize they are
competing against free of charge distribution models (P2P) since the monopoly pricing that worked in the
past does not work today.
[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information
flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually
constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he
dreams himself your master.
" If I made a product that I put effort and thought into, and I could charge $100 for each"
That is the point. You are formally on notice that, in case you missed it, we live in a digital world and if you think to make money off of creating a false scarcity of information then you need to think twice about that particular business model.
"Other nations should not be havens for those who engage in the theft of other people's property"
It isn't theft, it is copyright infrindgement, and other countries will do as they please. Is the United States going to bomb Canada now because its copyright length is 50 years intead of 90? Lots of American works before 1944 are able to be copied in Canada, I guess they are doomed eh.
"That an advertisement...is now A Good Thing(TM) on/."
You have to think from first principles and ask what is wrong with advertising to the extent that people do not like it. The problem is that advertising is in general an unwanted intrusion into peoples' consciousness. However, there can exist advertisment that is interestin or amusing that people welcome. This Firefox ad is simply an example of that.
If that doesn't make any sense, then this angle might: when I have a choice to view something then it is good, when it is crammed into my psyche that is bad. I choose to look at this Firefox ad: good. Banner ads wasting my attention: bad.
"Your point would have merit, if it weren't completely one-sided and
conveniently ignoring vast amounts of the big picture that happen to disagree
with your argument."
And you are ignoring the *vast* amounts of people who file share, about
60 million people or
more. If you have better numbers, cite them.
"Ignoring the underlying principle of copyright, or just removing the law
entirely without thought for the consequences, will damage these people a lot
more than it will damage the RIAA/MPAA."
The damage being done is the place is turning into a police state, with laws
being pushed for so the government can sue individuals to make sure they pay for
information or remain ignorant. The damage of a fully DRM society is more
damage than copyright holders could ever hope to do, (if you call the free flow
of information damage that is).
"Basically, you are one of those people who think everything should be
free, because."
It nice that you seem to know me, however you are incorrect. I'm the
type of person who doesn't want a DRM police state only to protect idea
monopolists' profit models. In this digital age copying can take place
quite quickly, and any aspiring musician or author who is thinking of going into
this business only to make money may not succeed.
"You give...You buy...You presumably...You place no value..."
As nice as it is to have the focus on me, but I'd much rather talk about
copyright. I'll save the speech about addressing the person, instead of
the arguement, as being a logical fallacy.
"his seen his (small, privately owned, good-to-its-staff) employer hurt as a
result of gratuitous copyright infringement"
That is unfortunate for you, however what is your solution, to take away
everyone's computer away and impose government mandated DRM to protect copyright
holders' right to profit? That is not a bargan i'm willing to do, and it
is best if you and others learn that in the digital age, information will flow
and a tune your profit models accordingly or go out of business.
I got an idea then, change the law so that personal noncommerical use of copyrighted material is allowed to be coppied and the 'il' will drop out of illegal. It is the peoples' law, and it will be changed if the majority of people are 'criminals' under it.
"they will simply push for still more draconian legislation"
What is your arguement, that we give in to the harm done by the idea monopolists because they might do something worse in the future? Well, Neville, I have no doubt they are heading there anyway since their goal is nothing but the total control of information and ideas, so I suggest we not roll over but fight them instead.
"Copyright law is there for a reason..."
Yes, the reason was to promote the creation of new ideas. Now copyright has been perverted to stifile new ideas, and it appears to be getting more draconian every day....you are not allowed to copy music, films, etc"
The law tells you we are 'not allowed' to copy and share information, and then the law must be changed to reflect our new digital age.
"The more arrogant you become the harder you will get slapped in the end"
You try the being meek and subserviant method while idea monopolists create a world in which information is despensed like gasoline, and you pay by the letter. I think i'll try fighting for the right to information;).
The reason I use outlook express is because there is a nonfree utililty (Express archiver) that archives all my messages, including attachments, in text/html format.
I have no way to get my messages out of Thunderbird without having to manually save each one. If thunderbird came with the ability of outlook express + exress archiver (to archive emails in a text/html format) I'd switch over in an instant:).
"Do you have any suggestions of alternative profit models for web sites?"
The issue was if it was 'unethical' to block ads. My statement is that it is not *unethical*. Another seperate but interesting arguement is over whether it is not generally a good idea to block ads since your website will close from a lack of revenue.
That is why I do not block ads, as of yet, on my own browser - since I support websites I visit. However I reject totally the idea that it is 'unethical' for me to use my computer to block people's profit models that waste *my* bandwidth and try to penetrate *my* conscisousness with their ads if i choose to do so.
"Penny-arcade seems to get by well enough on its merchandise, advertising, freelance art work etc revenue, for example. I'm not sure how well that scales to smaller sites, though."
Yes, finding a way to fund content is a useful discussion. Micropayments maybe an answer I'd like. If I could give 1/100th of a penny I would, esp. to some of the more amusing and insightful comments on here:).
There needs to be a standard since I do not want to learn different ways of doing things. If I learn KDE at home but my work has GNOME or the library has brandX desktop, that is annoying.
Why is there so many desktops anyway, couldn't someone merge the best out of each? Usually a fork is created because there was a lack, what was the lack in KDE / GNOME that the other was designed to overcome?
To get the KDe/GNOME ppl together, merge the products so we can have something of a standard. People are free to use their own custom nonstandardized desktops, but the rest of us will only have one desktop to learn ontop of all the other things to learn with Linux.
"Extensions and programs like AdBlock are tantamount to theft; you are acquiring the content but not "paying" for it by loading the advertisements."
Um, it is clearly *your* problem if your website's cash flow relies on wasting my bandwidth with advertisements.
Your supposed 'right' to profit does not extend to the point where I have to bend my life around your profit model. Thanks.
Re:Interesting...Copyright? Media Databases
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
I'd be interested in seeing a sample of your MySQL database. So far I've been using MS-Excel to do my database. I've been meaning to learn mySQL though.
How do you deal with songs belonging to multiple categories? In Excel I have Music Cata1 Music Cata2 , but it seems like a hack.
The ID3 stripping is a good idea, esp. if you do hashes for it, it really is necessary. What language did you program it in?
Slashdot Mirror
"The problem with Wikipedia is that information is not a democracy."
There is a WikiProject called "Fact and Reference Check" that was created to reference the article's facts with a variety of sources (books, articles, magazines, academic journals, websites etc.).
If we can get 'smart' foot/end notes designed into Wikipedia's Software (MediaWiki) then I am sure Wikipedia could become the most authoritative source of information every created: Each article's facts being referenced with dozens of sources, and each of these references being confirmed by dozens of individuals.
"The only reason I can see the topic creator having an issue, is because someone didn't notify Blizzard in the first place that a CD-Key exchange was going to happen."
;).
My account was suspended because I was trying to 'transfer' my account to someone else. I was selling my complete gamebox on ebay and said i'd give the account name and password.
First if your account was suspended, immediately call up your credit card company and do a 'chargeback' on your subscription. If they want to not give you full service then you do not give them payment. Tell the people at the credit card company that you did not get full service and other information.
Second, call blizzard's account and billing problem department at 1-800-59-blizzard. If they say this is only for 'billing' tell them it clearly states in the manual it is for ACCOUNT problems as well. Feel good in the idea that you are costing them money since its toll free, call as often as you'd like
Third, try contacting the EFF at information@eff.org. When I contacted them they said they were getting a lot of complaints on this issue. Make it a good letter with as much facts and dates as possible.
I'll reply to myself when i get more contact information and other tips here.
You are right, that bean thing is going to be front and center on my homepage(s) ;), and emailed to all the people on my mailing list.
"Google's value to the customer is its ability to get good information to that customer. Anything that improves the general quality of information on the internet improves Google's value to the customer."
i on_License):
Exactly, and just as IBM is using Linux to sell their hardware, Google can use Wikipedia in their business models to possibly make advertising revenue.
One possible scenerio: You see all those mirrors of Wikipedia all over the place with ads, Google could do something along that line after this experiment - and why not? The information is free, and if Google improves it then it can be put back into Wikipedia.
I just wished that Wikipedia would offically duel license with a Creative Commons license of some sort the GNU FDL is good, but has some onerous restrictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentat
Overly broad DRM clause
Invariant sections
GPL incompatible in both directions
"Go up to one of those kids he's vaccinating and tell them, "It's nice you're being vaccinated, but the money used to vaccinate you was leveraged from the pockets of consumers by the monopoly power of Windows market share. He's not a nice man." They'll just blink at you."
Maybe my previous post was a little complicated so I'll make it simple for you: Without Bill being a monpolist 'stealing*' money from us, we would have had that money in our pockets and would have donated a portion of the billions stolen* so these children would still be getting their shots.
The benefit would be we would not have a monopoly in software operating systems, we would not have to rely on the charity of billionaire monopolists either.
-Complicated stuff-
*Stealing as in a monopoly takes extra resources from society by reducing output produced thus raising the price. This action results in a perminant loss so society called dead weight loss (or 'the excess burden of monopoly').
"You will see that Bill has given $27 Billion of his $50 Billion fortune"
Since he is a monopolist, a large portion of that $50 billion was leveraged from the pockets of consumers via using monopoly power to maximize profits.
There is a perminant loss to society when monopoly power is exercised (called dead weight loss, and is the same loss to society from taxiation). One would also expect that the consumers who would not have had to pay billions extra for this product would have also donated it to charities.
Its nice that hes doing it, but he is far far away from being St. Bill for the reasons above.
From the wired article (http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,66 324,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3):
"The Ciphire Mail application, free for individual users, nonprofit organizations and the press, works in conjunction with all standard e-mail programs."
I dont like this 'free for' bullshit, its either free for everyone or it isn't. If it isn't then I'm not interested.
"I do not want money farmers in game."
But does your preference extend to the point where you deny two other people the right to enchange goods/services for money?
Personally I can't stand pokemon cards, I guess I'll lobby to make them illegal since what if I dont like/want it then no one else whould either, eh?
"I've read several times that TiVo has a "boat anchor" plan in place in case the company goes out of business. The plan is to release all the specs so that users may reconfigure the system to use another guide service."
That is an extremely good idea, and they should say it up front. I wish 321 studios would have had a similiar plan to relase their source code under a FOSS license for their DVD copier before going out of business.
They are going out of business anyway, might as well release their product under a FOSS license and maybe still survive in some aspect (like Netscape).
You don't really need experts, at least not yet. You simply need a way to verify the facts.
What is holding the project back are a lack of smart foot/end note tags. How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.
"so lets get even smaller yet"
Lets so to the smallest possible: 1 person, me. And look, i already had an example with people stealing my 5 billion dollar software, let your hearts bleed for my losses from those dirty pirates!
In any event, I dont really think i lost 5 billion bucks since as i've said, for the second time now, people would not have bought it. The only way I would have *LOST* money if someone was willing to pay me 5 billion but instead downloaded it for free.
"When they are in college they are usually 17 youngest and most likely 18-19 so they are no longer kids and they should know right from wrong by now"
Excuse me, right from wrong? I have little doubt that sharing certain kinds of information is *illegal* but immoral? I don't think so.
Feel free to give me your arguement though as how an artificial state created barrier (called copyright) against information flow is a moral imperative to be followed.
" The wholesale looting of others intellectual property is a very destructive thing."
:). This maybe one of the few free things we can read in our nice DRM future:
Not any more destructive than turning our society into a police state with mandated DRM on everything i'd guess.
Since I dislike short replies but do like free stories I'll share one with you all
--
The Right to Read
by Richard Stallman
[image of a Philosophical Gnu]
Table of Contents
* Author's Note
* References
* Other Texts to Read
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
(from "The Road To Tycho", a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096)
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of co
"it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe"
Stringing sentences together without using capitals does not make a statement true.
I got an idea, I'll make some software and slap a price tag on it for $5,000,000,000 and wait for someone to copy it: OH MY FUCKING GOD NOOOOOO billions lost to the economy!
Billions lost to the economy, or how about nothing lost since people did not and will not buy it. The same with adobe, they only potentially lose if someone who *WOULD* have bought the software decides instead to download it.
"In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business. "
Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?
[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny...Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
- Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
"Aren't some of these companies small or midsized businesses that will go OUT of business if they can't get paid for what they're producing?"
I guess they'll have to go out of business then. What is the alternative, a police state with mandated DRM on everything, along with cameras making sure you're not copying what your not suppose to? Don't forget the cameras to make sure you are not reading anything without paying the authors for their hard work, including this sentence: That'll be $20 please.
We live in a digital age. Copyright should be reformed along the lines that free distribution is allowed for personal or non-commerical use. If the parties do not or will not reform they will quick see that people will do so anyway, it is difficult to keep information unfree in a free society. If noncommerical use is allowed then these 'pirates' will quickly see their cash flow evaporate, or better yet - the media companies should realize they are competing against free of charge distribution models (P2P) since the monopoly pricing that worked in the past does not work today.
-Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" If I made a product that I put effort and thought into, and I could charge $100 for each"
That is the point. You are formally on notice that, in case you missed it, we live in a digital world and if you think to make money off of creating a false scarcity of information then you need to think twice about that particular business model.
"Other nations should not be havens for those who engage in the theft of other people's property"
It isn't theft, it is copyright infrindgement, and other countries will do as they please. Is the United States going to bomb Canada now because its copyright length is 50 years intead of 90? Lots of American works before 1944 are able to be copied in Canada, I guess they are doomed eh.
"That an advertisement...is now A Good Thing(TM) on /."
You have to think from first principles and ask what is wrong with advertising to the extent that people do not like it. The problem is that advertising is in general an unwanted intrusion into peoples' consciousness. However, there can exist advertisment that is interestin or amusing that people welcome. This Firefox ad is simply an example of that.
If that doesn't make any sense, then this angle might: when I have a choice to view something then it is good, when it is crammed into my psyche that is bad. I choose to look at this Firefox ad: good. Banner ads wasting my attention: bad.
"Your point would have merit, if it weren't completely one-sided and conveniently ignoring vast amounts of the big picture that happen to disagree with your argument."
And you are ignoring the *vast* amounts of people who file share, about 60 million people or more. If you have better numbers, cite them.
"Ignoring the underlying principle of copyright, or just removing the law entirely without thought for the consequences, will damage these people a lot more than it will damage the RIAA/MPAA."
The damage being done is the place is turning into a police state, with laws being pushed for so the government can sue individuals to make sure they pay for information or remain ignorant. The damage of a fully DRM society is more damage than copyright holders could ever hope to do, (if you call the free flow of information damage that is).
"Basically, you are one of those people who think everything should be free, because."
It nice that you seem to know me, however you are incorrect. I'm the type of person who doesn't want a DRM police state only to protect idea monopolists' profit models. In this digital age copying can take place quite quickly, and any aspiring musician or author who is thinking of going into this business only to make money may not succeed.
"You give...You buy...You presumably...You place no value..."
As nice as it is to have the focus on me, but I'd much rather talk about copyright. I'll save the speech about addressing the person, instead of the arguement, as being a logical fallacy.
"his seen his (small, privately owned, good-to-its-staff) employer hurt as a result of gratuitous copyright infringement"
That is unfortunate for you, however what is your solution, to take away everyone's computer away and impose government mandated DRM to protect copyright holders' right to profit? That is not a bargan i'm willing to do, and it is best if you and others learn that in the digital age, information will flow and a tune your profit models accordingly or go out of business.
"No, not the MPAA, the illegal file-swappers."
...you are not allowed to copy music, films, etc"
;).
I got an idea then, change the law so that personal noncommerical use of copyrighted material is allowed to be coppied and the 'il' will drop out of illegal. It is the peoples' law, and it will be changed if the majority of people are 'criminals' under it.
"they will simply push for still more draconian legislation"
What is your arguement, that we give in to the harm done by the idea monopolists because they might do something worse in the future? Well, Neville, I have no doubt they are heading there anyway since their goal is nothing but the total control of information and ideas, so I suggest we not roll over but fight them instead.
"Copyright law is there for a reason..."
Yes, the reason was to promote the creation of new ideas. Now copyright has been perverted to stifile new ideas, and it appears to be getting more draconian every day.
The law tells you we are 'not allowed' to copy and share information, and then the law must be changed to reflect our new digital age.
"The more arrogant you become the harder you will get slapped in the end"
You try the being meek and subserviant method while idea monopolists create a world in which information is despensed like gasoline, and you pay by the letter. I think i'll try fighting for the right to information
The reason I use outlook express is because there is a nonfree utililty (Express archiver) that archives all my messages, including attachments, in text/html format.
:).
I have no way to get my messages out of Thunderbird without having to manually save each one. If thunderbird came with the ability of outlook express + exress archiver (to archive emails in a text/html format) I'd switch over in an instant
"Do you have any suggestions of alternative profit models for web sites?"
:).
The issue was if it was 'unethical' to block ads. My statement is that it is not *unethical*. Another seperate but interesting arguement is over whether it is not generally a good idea to block ads since your website will close from a lack of revenue.
That is why I do not block ads, as of yet, on my own browser - since I support websites I visit. However I reject totally the idea that it is 'unethical' for me to use my computer to block people's profit models that waste *my* bandwidth and try to penetrate *my* conscisousness with their ads if i choose to do so.
"Penny-arcade seems to get by well enough on its merchandise, advertising, freelance art work etc revenue, for example. I'm not sure how well that scales to smaller sites, though."
Yes, finding a way to fund content is a useful discussion. Micropayments maybe an answer I'd like. If I could give 1/100th of a penny I would, esp. to some of the more amusing and insightful comments on here
There needs to be a standard since I do not want to learn different ways of doing things. If I learn KDE at home but my work has GNOME or the library has brandX desktop, that is annoying.
Why is there so many desktops anyway, couldn't someone merge the best out of each? Usually a fork is created because there was a lack, what was the lack in KDE / GNOME that the other was designed to overcome?
To get the KDe/GNOME ppl together, merge the products so we can have something of a standard. People are free to use their own custom nonstandardized desktops, but the rest of us will only have one desktop to learn ontop of all the other things to learn with Linux.
"Extensions and programs like AdBlock are tantamount to theft; you are acquiring the content but not "paying" for it by loading the advertisements."
Um, it is clearly *your* problem if your website's cash flow relies on wasting my bandwidth with advertisements.
Your supposed 'right' to profit does not extend to the point where I have to bend my life around your profit model. Thanks.
I'd be interested in seeing a sample of your MySQL database. So far I've been using MS-Excel to do my database. I've been meaning to learn mySQL though.
How do you deal with songs belonging to multiple categories? In Excel I have Music Cata1 Music Cata2 , but it seems like a hack.
The ID3 stripping is a good idea, esp. if you do hashes for it, it really is necessary. What language did you program it in?