And your post is another example of this idea that the Internet is unregulable; that "information wants to be free." Cut me a break. Government and corporate interests can and do regulate what goes on the Internet. Corporate interests, indeed, play a special role, since the portion of the Internet used by most people is almost entirely corporate.
Corporations would not benefit from doing things illicitly; they would be opening themselves to liability, and anyway, litigation is clearly the prefered means of excerting force. Well, litigation and PAC funds. You seem to be attempting an analogy to the US's hunt for Hussein, but it never really makes it off the ground. Where are the similarities?
There is a fair body of discussion of this idea and many people who are quite concerned that you are very wrong.
Though it does have all the right key phrases in it, I am not sure this ad makes clear enough the (presumably) true intention of the EFF; to allow legal, fair filesharing that compensates the artists, not to promote illegal piracy.
This is a misconception that plagues the EFF and those who fight to better copyright law, that they really just want to legalize theft. This mischarictarization is apparent in a polite post in Lawrence Lessig's blog, in which the poster refers to the EFF as the "music should be free" movement.
I think that one of the biggest obstacles to mainstream acceptance is this misconception; no politician can possibly back this viewpoint, while the EFF's true position is really quite right and tenable.
The installation may be terrible, but the great thing about Debian is you almost certainly will only have to do it once. That's the whole focus on stability, maturity, security thing.
Plenty of other otherwise excellent OSes have difficult or non-user-friendly installations. FreeBSD is a good example. But it gets the job done, it isn't really that hard if you RTFM, and once you are finished you have a far superior OS to Mandrake (in my opinion).
No, Debian isn't going to be on the desktop of Windows users anytime soon. That's a position most likely to be filled by RedHat or Mandrake. But not just because of the installation; desktop users want features and bleeding-edge more than code maturity or stability. Debian doesn't even have KDE3 in the stable tree yet. So while a nicer installation may be nice, the kind of users Debian targets don't really need it.
Show me the source, please. I've seen claims that all Unix derivatives are derived from Unix (duh), i.e., derived from SCO IP. I've seen no claims that they own Windows or Mac OS. I've seen no claims that they own every Unix, in fact. There's been no mention of Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, or most others.
If you are just referring to that interview with Darl MacBride in which he made a load of stupid comments, well, he was just talking out of his ass. More FUD. And you fell for it.
Presumably licensing their own code, not someone else's. As I said above, SCO simply does not have (and nearly certainly never will) any ownership over the majority of the Linux kernel, let alone the userland, utilities, and so forth. The fact that they may have been releasing "FUD" about license offers in no means confirms any paranoid fears about SCO somehow legally gaining ownership to GNU/Linux as a whole. I'm sorry, but that simply is not going to happen.
As a tool for parents, yes, ratings are great. In terms of preventing kids from viewing things, regardless of the stance of their parents, or in terms of even the consistency of the ratings, I think there is a lot left to be desired.
Bear in mind that my experience in the matter is much greater with movie ratings than those of video games, but I think many of the same social mores apply. Most noticable, something I personally would consider to be a very high level of violence may get only a "PG-13" rating, while equivalent profanity or sexuality gets an "R" rating.
Obviously, this is far too subjective to present any sort of evidence, but I think its fair to conjecture that sex and profanity, two things for which little evidence exists to say they are damaging if shown to younger children, are rather puritanically quashed, while violence, something which much more credibly (though by no means for certain) has negative effects on small children, is much more acceptible.
Regardless of the accuracy of my judgement on this, it raises then the question of how to possibly come up with any sort of remotely objective standards. The lack of objectivity--and the realization that relative social standards play a huge role here--means that hard-and-fast regulations (like not allowing children under 18 to see an "R" rated movie) are probably a poor idea; should the government (or in this case a standards-setting extension thereof) really be in the business of regulating based on subjective social standards as defined by an association of ministers and conservatives? Descriptive ratings I have no problem with; let the parents know what to expect so that they themselves can best judge. But when it comes to regulating parental actions, well, there are many more serious issues with poor parenting out there than those who allow their children to see a naked actor or hear a few swear words.
"The nightmare scenario seems to be this: A US Court grants SCO the right to all Linux IP, based on some bizarre reading of derivative work definitons."
I think we can all be fairly sure it won't come to that. No rational reading of derivative work would grant the entirety of GNU/Linux to SCO.
1) SCO would never have any argument for ownership of the "GNU" part of GNU/Linux.
2) Any current hardware support by the Linux kernel, to name just one important feature, would have no conceivable connection to SCO's code and thus would not be a derivative work.
3) Depending on which code is copied, SCO would have, tops, rights to a small amount of code that interacts with it, but not the entire kernel.
No offense intended, but this is just fearmongering. Popular misconceptions:
"SCO is after the GPL!" Wrong. SCO is bringing a suit based on alleged contract violations by IBM; IP ownership and the GPL don't come into it.
"SCO is after ownership of Linux!" SCO would not be able to gain ownership of Linux as a whole; but rather damages from IBM for disclosure of SCO code. Perfectly fair, in my opinion, if IBM really did disclose SCO code in violations of IBM's contract.
"SCO is just trying to be bought out by IBM." I don't know where this one comes from, but why would IBM buy SCO? Especially after such an antagonistic move like this?
"SCO wants to make all Linux users pay through the nose." How would SCO get back payments from home users of Linux for a contract violation by IBM? The culpability stops with IBM (or perhaps Linux distributors); the letters SCO sent out were a calculated ploy to make "true" Unix look more appealing for corporate users than Linux. SCO doesn't give a shit what we Slashdot users run on our own PCs; it's not like we'd all be buying SCO Unix instead.
Slashdot readers like to complain about SCO "FUD", but they are easily the biggest victims of it.
1) They won't ever be able to take control o fthe Linux kernel. That their code was used in it does not give them any legal right to the other code in it. And, no, they really aren't that stupid.
2) The GPL doesn't come into this case. It's a case about contract violations alleged against IBM. IBM allegedly broke their contractual limits on disclosing SCO code. The contract violations are much more damaging than any IP violations, so IP ownership just doesn't come into it in this case. It may in the future, but not right now.
This really has nothing to do with the particulars of the SCO v. IBM suit, since it is based purely on contract violations alleged against IBM and no intellectual property issues at all. The GPL simply doesn't come into it in this case.
It would apply, however, if they start suing Linux distributors or users. But that isn't really on the horizon.
There have been a bunch of debates in this general thread on whether receiving can be considered illegal. The general feeling I have is that it can be or is. I recently read a news story quoting a U. Mich. IT official to that effect, but he's not a lawyer, after all. I don't know if this has been tested at all, but I think semantics over who is doing the actual copying or infringement mask the fact that this certainly violates the spirit of the law and thus most judges, who already seem pretty harsh towards filesharing, would probably rule against a downloader.
What makes you so sure? If I have a book and a copymachine in order to make fair-use copies which I am going to use for high-lighting relevant passages, say, and you come along and make a copy which you take and read in place of buying the book (in other words, some obviously-not-fair-use copy), am I at fault or are you?
I don't see this as a very clear-cut issue. Everything I have done is legal, presumably, unless I knew you were likely to come along and copy it. Everything you have done is legal, if you didn't know I did not own and grant permission to make the copy (a big "if"). My personal feeling is that both parties legally can and probably should be held responsible, as both are contributing to knowing infringement. The rest is just semantics.
Thank you for illustrating my point. I rest my case. The author of the above post would rather get his music for free than compensate the artist and producer for it. I sympathize; the pricing of CDs is outrageous. But if you don't like it, don't buy it. This is not free license to pirate it.
Forgive any misunderstanding; I did not mean by use of the word "share" later on that I was not referring to downloading as well. That's what happens when you take quotes out of context.
Downloading an MP3 as I wait for the CD to come in the mail may be technically illegal, yes. I described that example and the one about finding TV shows no longer available, though technically still under copyright, in order to show that I am not perfect when it comes to the letter of the law and cannot fault anyone else. So you see, the point was actually to show that I was not on a high horse. Thanks, though. It's people like you who contribute to such a wonderfully open and free intellectual discussion on Slashdot.
This is one of those issues which is very unclear in our legislation. Technically speaking, if you want to get into the real nitty-gritty, both parties are making copies; however, the temporary copies that exist in the RAM of various computers and routers while in transit over the network does not count; the final copy that the downloader ends up with is the copied one. Obviously, as I cited in the US copyright law, the downloadee who broadcasts--in some manner--the material is in violation. But I think you could successfully argue that the downloader opted to make a copy that would not have been made; the machine that makes the copy may be the downloadee's, but it makes that copy on the directive of the downloader and thus the downloader is the one actually making the copy. The machine is not the criminal, after all; who's machine it is making the copy doesn't really matter. I highly doubt you could argue that copyright law does not apply. Napster, that kid at RPI, and many others have been nailed merely on contributory actions, after all.
You may be right, however, I did do some looking and it does appear that downloading, as well as sharing, would be quite likely infringement. See my post here, if you don't mind my not reiterating it all.
While one of the great fallacies of the argument by those such as the RIAA is that intellectual property is identical to physical property--I strongly disagree--intellectual property still does have value. The entire point of copyright and patent grants is supposed to be to encourage innovation in the arts and sciences by offering a financial incentive to create.
I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that there should be no intellectual property, that creators should not be recompensed at all, or that we should return to some sort of unregulated state of nature (I am aware that I am effectively attempting to bound the argument to alienate certain viewpoints, but such is the nature of discussion). The big debate is merely over whether the current system is ideal for fulfilling its original purpose.
I don't believe you are correct (and no, I did not base this on the MP3.com case). Technically speaking, if I download the file, I am the one making the copy, not the sharer, who is only providing a means to copy. Both of these are contributory to say the least; sharing has certainly been shown in court to be unacceptible.
See US Copyright Law in US Code Title 17, Section 501, Part a, available here, "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a) [which grant the author/owner sole right to reproduce, distribute, display publicly, etc]...is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be."
See also Section 107, regarding fair use, "...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." Just interesting to note, since another misconception someone posted here was that downloading pirated music is fair use. No, it is not.
No, there really are clear rulings. Fair use simply does not cover p2p piracy. To quote assistant secretary of commerce Bruce Mehlman, "All fair use is not piracy, but neither is all piracy fair use."
You can try to come up with a moral justification of your actions if you'd like. And I am no fan of the RIAA. But even Prof. Lessig and the EFF do not defend piracy of the nature you seem to be talking about; in fact, arguments like yours are responsible for a lot of misconceptions that end up hurting the valid arguments brought by Lessig and the EFF. Specifically, many seem to think that these people are advocating an anarchistic state of free piracy, which they emphatically are not.
You need to be clear on the difference between feeling that excessive copyright protections and the minimalization of fair use is hurting innovation and free speech and feeling that we should be allowed to download music without compensating the artist. Big difference there.
Wrong. Downloading a copyrighted file without permission of the copyright owner is illegal. This is one of those myths; I often hear variations on this theme, like, "Well, if you delete it after a week, it's legal," or "If you aren't doing it for profit, it's legal," and so forth. This is just factually incorrect. Whatever your moral or political opinion on this, it is unequivocally illegal, at least in the US, to share copyrighted material without the owner's permission, regardless of whether you are the downloader or the downloadee.
Many of us justifiably dislike the RIAA. But you will notice that the more principled in this dispute, such as Prof. Lessig or the EFF, don't defend piracy, either. The distribution or business models may be screwed up, but when you download music, you are not making a political statement; you are doing it for greed.
Do I download music illegally? No. Do I use p2p? Yes, but I always try to keep it within reason--a show that is no longer available on TV, a song on a CD I just ordered from Amazon, etc. Minor piracy may be a lot like speeding, and I'm not going to get all self-righteous towards those who do pirate. But I found that I wasn't downloading software or music, when I used to do so, because of some flaw in the distribution plans. It was because I was cheap and greedy. Knowing that is not a good feeling.
And the regulations which require the labeling of RFID-tagged goods would do what here? I can see it now, "Excuse me, sir, but it seems you're using RFID tags to illegaly import East-Asian slaves for your prostitution ring without using the proper RFID-tag warning labels. Will you come with me?"
Not to mention the fact that you are full of shit; most of these women come here willingly, up until they find out they aren't going to be working in the land of opportunity quite like they thought they would; this application would be useless. And expensive. And raise suspicion. Oh, and did I mention that you are full of shit?
My feeling in writing this was actually that the spirit of the law is broken by considering this a release; I hate to be a party pooper but if SCO did not intend to release their source code as GPL, it should not be GPL. That would be wrong, so to speak. Would it be illegal? I have faith that our courts would find it so, for a number of reasons. In order for a contract to apply (and thats all licenses are), both parties have to be knowing in the contract they have entered. If SCO did not know this contract was being applied to their source code, the whole thing gets iffy. This does not mean its cut-and-dry, for certain, but I find the argument less compelling than most on Slashdot seem to.
Er, I think they just mean that they won't sue people for using SCO Linux. Presumably, if you are using Caldera and RedHat, you could be liable for the RedHat. Anyway, this applies more towards large commercial users who have made support contracts with SCO; for them, its a means of reassurance. SCO isn't about to start suing home users of Linux. So don't worry about installing Caldera on your home computers. If you didn't get a letter from SCO before, you probably, just a guess, slipped under the radar on that one.
Which is a definite relief; I know when they were looking over the list of who to send those letters to, it was like, "RedHat, Boeing, Cisco, and John Smith of 42 Evergreen Lane, for his two desktops running Debian."
No, it isn't. This will not become a test of the GPL. The GPL is not relevant to this case. Now, if someone else is suing someone else in relation to the GPL that I don't know about, please, feel free to mention it.
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Corporations would not benefit from doing things illicitly; they would be opening themselves to liability, and anyway, litigation is clearly the prefered means of excerting force. Well, litigation and PAC funds. You seem to be attempting an analogy to the US's hunt for Hussein, but it never really makes it off the ground. Where are the similarities?
There is a fair body of discussion of this idea and many people who are quite concerned that you are very wrong.
This is a misconception that plagues the EFF and those who fight to better copyright law, that they really just want to legalize theft. This mischarictarization is apparent in a polite post in Lawrence Lessig's blog, in which the poster refers to the EFF as the "music should be free" movement.
I think that one of the biggest obstacles to mainstream acceptance is this misconception; no politician can possibly back this viewpoint, while the EFF's true position is really quite right and tenable.
Just my two cents.
Plenty of other otherwise excellent OSes have difficult or non-user-friendly installations. FreeBSD is a good example. But it gets the job done, it isn't really that hard if you RTFM, and once you are finished you have a far superior OS to Mandrake (in my opinion).
No, Debian isn't going to be on the desktop of Windows users anytime soon. That's a position most likely to be filled by RedHat or Mandrake. But not just because of the installation; desktop users want features and bleeding-edge more than code maturity or stability. Debian doesn't even have KDE3 in the stable tree yet. So while a nicer installation may be nice, the kind of users Debian targets don't really need it.
If you are just referring to that interview with Darl MacBride in which he made a load of stupid comments, well, he was just talking out of his ass. More FUD. And you fell for it.
Presumably licensing their own code, not someone else's. As I said above, SCO simply does not have (and nearly certainly never will) any ownership over the majority of the Linux kernel, let alone the userland, utilities, and so forth. The fact that they may have been releasing "FUD" about license offers in no means confirms any paranoid fears about SCO somehow legally gaining ownership to GNU/Linux as a whole. I'm sorry, but that simply is not going to happen.
Bear in mind that my experience in the matter is much greater with movie ratings than those of video games, but I think many of the same social mores apply. Most noticable, something I personally would consider to be a very high level of violence may get only a "PG-13" rating, while equivalent profanity or sexuality gets an "R" rating.
Obviously, this is far too subjective to present any sort of evidence, but I think its fair to conjecture that sex and profanity, two things for which little evidence exists to say they are damaging if shown to younger children, are rather puritanically quashed, while violence, something which much more credibly (though by no means for certain) has negative effects on small children, is much more acceptible.
Regardless of the accuracy of my judgement on this, it raises then the question of how to possibly come up with any sort of remotely objective standards. The lack of objectivity--and the realization that relative social standards play a huge role here--means that hard-and-fast regulations (like not allowing children under 18 to see an "R" rated movie) are probably a poor idea; should the government (or in this case a standards-setting extension thereof) really be in the business of regulating based on subjective social standards as defined by an association of ministers and conservatives? Descriptive ratings I have no problem with; let the parents know what to expect so that they themselves can best judge. But when it comes to regulating parental actions, well, there are many more serious issues with poor parenting out there than those who allow their children to see a naked actor or hear a few swear words.
I think we can all be fairly sure it won't come to that. No rational reading of derivative work would grant the entirety of GNU/Linux to SCO.
1) SCO would never have any argument for ownership of the "GNU" part of GNU/Linux.
2) Any current hardware support by the Linux kernel, to name just one important feature, would have no conceivable connection to SCO's code and thus would not be a derivative work.
3) Depending on which code is copied, SCO would have, tops, rights to a small amount of code that interacts with it, but not the entire kernel.
No offense intended, but this is just fearmongering. Popular misconceptions:
"SCO is after the GPL!" Wrong. SCO is bringing a suit based on alleged contract violations by IBM; IP ownership and the GPL don't come into it.
"SCO is after ownership of Linux!" SCO would not be able to gain ownership of Linux as a whole; but rather damages from IBM for disclosure of SCO code. Perfectly fair, in my opinion, if IBM really did disclose SCO code in violations of IBM's contract.
"SCO is just trying to be bought out by IBM." I don't know where this one comes from, but why would IBM buy SCO? Especially after such an antagonistic move like this?
"SCO wants to make all Linux users pay through the nose." How would SCO get back payments from home users of Linux for a contract violation by IBM? The culpability stops with IBM (or perhaps Linux distributors); the letters SCO sent out were a calculated ploy to make "true" Unix look more appealing for corporate users than Linux. SCO doesn't give a shit what we Slashdot users run on our own PCs; it's not like we'd all be buying SCO Unix instead.
Slashdot readers like to complain about SCO "FUD", but they are easily the biggest victims of it.
1) They won't ever be able to take control o fthe Linux kernel. That their code was used in it does not give them any legal right to the other code in it. And, no, they really aren't that stupid.
2) The GPL doesn't come into this case. It's a case about contract violations alleged against IBM. IBM allegedly broke their contractual limits on disclosing SCO code. The contract violations are much more damaging than any IP violations, so IP ownership just doesn't come into it in this case. It may in the future, but not right now.
It would apply, however, if they start suing Linux distributors or users. But that isn't really on the horizon.
There have been a bunch of debates in this general thread on whether receiving can be considered illegal. The general feeling I have is that it can be or is. I recently read a news story quoting a U. Mich. IT official to that effect, but he's not a lawyer, after all. I don't know if this has been tested at all, but I think semantics over who is doing the actual copying or infringement mask the fact that this certainly violates the spirit of the law and thus most judges, who already seem pretty harsh towards filesharing, would probably rule against a downloader.
I don't see this as a very clear-cut issue. Everything I have done is legal, presumably, unless I knew you were likely to come along and copy it. Everything you have done is legal, if you didn't know I did not own and grant permission to make the copy (a big "if"). My personal feeling is that both parties legally can and probably should be held responsible, as both are contributing to knowing infringement. The rest is just semantics.
Thank you for illustrating my point. I rest my case. The author of the above post would rather get his music for free than compensate the artist and producer for it. I sympathize; the pricing of CDs is outrageous. But if you don't like it, don't buy it. This is not free license to pirate it.
In regards to Title 17, please see my post here.
Downloading an MP3 as I wait for the CD to come in the mail may be technically illegal, yes. I described that example and the one about finding TV shows no longer available, though technically still under copyright, in order to show that I am not perfect when it comes to the letter of the law and cannot fault anyone else. So you see, the point was actually to show that I was not on a high horse. Thanks, though. It's people like you who contribute to such a wonderfully open and free intellectual discussion on Slashdot.
This is one of those issues which is very unclear in our legislation. Technically speaking, if you want to get into the real nitty-gritty, both parties are making copies; however, the temporary copies that exist in the RAM of various computers and routers while in transit over the network does not count; the final copy that the downloader ends up with is the copied one. Obviously, as I cited in the US copyright law, the downloadee who broadcasts--in some manner--the material is in violation. But I think you could successfully argue that the downloader opted to make a copy that would not have been made; the machine that makes the copy may be the downloadee's, but it makes that copy on the directive of the downloader and thus the downloader is the one actually making the copy. The machine is not the criminal, after all; who's machine it is making the copy doesn't really matter. I highly doubt you could argue that copyright law does not apply. Napster, that kid at RPI, and many others have been nailed merely on contributory actions, after all.
You may be right, however, I did do some looking and it does appear that downloading, as well as sharing, would be quite likely infringement. See my post here, if you don't mind my not reiterating it all.
I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that there should be no intellectual property, that creators should not be recompensed at all, or that we should return to some sort of unregulated state of nature (I am aware that I am effectively attempting to bound the argument to alienate certain viewpoints, but such is the nature of discussion). The big debate is merely over whether the current system is ideal for fulfilling its original purpose.
See US Copyright Law in US Code Title 17, Section 501, Part a, available here, "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a) [which grant the author/owner sole right to reproduce, distribute, display publicly, etc]...is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be."
See also Section 107, regarding fair use, "...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." Just interesting to note, since another misconception someone posted here was that downloading pirated music is fair use. No, it is not.
Wanting to listen to new music and save the cost that I would pay were I to buy it legally is greed.
You can try to come up with a moral justification of your actions if you'd like. And I am no fan of the RIAA. But even Prof. Lessig and the EFF do not defend piracy of the nature you seem to be talking about; in fact, arguments like yours are responsible for a lot of misconceptions that end up hurting the valid arguments brought by Lessig and the EFF. Specifically, many seem to think that these people are advocating an anarchistic state of free piracy, which they emphatically are not.
You need to be clear on the difference between feeling that excessive copyright protections and the minimalization of fair use is hurting innovation and free speech and feeling that we should be allowed to download music without compensating the artist. Big difference there.
Many of us justifiably dislike the RIAA. But you will notice that the more principled in this dispute, such as Prof. Lessig or the EFF, don't defend piracy, either. The distribution or business models may be screwed up, but when you download music, you are not making a political statement; you are doing it for greed.
Do I download music illegally? No. Do I use p2p? Yes, but I always try to keep it within reason--a show that is no longer available on TV, a song on a CD I just ordered from Amazon, etc. Minor piracy may be a lot like speeding, and I'm not going to get all self-righteous towards those who do pirate. But I found that I wasn't downloading software or music, when I used to do so, because of some flaw in the distribution plans. It was because I was cheap and greedy. Knowing that is not a good feeling.
Not to mention the fact that you are full of shit; most of these women come here willingly, up until they find out they aren't going to be working in the land of opportunity quite like they thought they would; this application would be useless. And expensive. And raise suspicion. Oh, and did I mention that you are full of shit?
My feeling in writing this was actually that the spirit of the law is broken by considering this a release; I hate to be a party pooper but if SCO did not intend to release their source code as GPL, it should not be GPL. That would be wrong, so to speak. Would it be illegal? I have faith that our courts would find it so, for a number of reasons. In order for a contract to apply (and thats all licenses are), both parties have to be knowing in the contract they have entered. If SCO did not know this contract was being applied to their source code, the whole thing gets iffy. This does not mean its cut-and-dry, for certain, but I find the argument less compelling than most on Slashdot seem to.
Which is a definite relief; I know when they were looking over the list of who to send those letters to, it was like, "RedHat, Boeing, Cisco, and John Smith of 42 Evergreen Lane, for his two desktops running Debian."
No, it isn't. This will not become a test of the GPL. The GPL is not relevant to this case. Now, if someone else is suing someone else in relation to the GPL that I don't know about, please, feel free to mention it.