Except that Apple is NOT a monopoly. They sell Macintosh computers (along with other assorted stuff), which, as you state, is their product. Being the only one to sell your product that you designed and built is not the same as being a monopoly.
Was MS convicted of having a monopoly of the Windows market? No, they were convicted of having a monopoly in the desktop OS market and using that monopoly, again as you state, to do nefarious things (nefarious being a better word then bad:).
Try to buy a Dell or HP without paying for Windows. That was what (at least part) of the monopoly case was about. MS using their dominant position to push keep Linux off of the Desktop PC through illegal contracts. Yeah, you could switch your Dell to Linux, but guess what - you still paid for Windows.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"?
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Your interpetation of a natural monopoly is basically correct. The only real difference being that the government doesn't forbid other companies from necessarily putting up their own phone lines - they just recognize that most won't, and regulate it on that basis.
As far as trying to achieve monopoly status - yeah, it's legal, as long as you don't do something illegal in your quest for market dominance.
Erecting artificial barriers to entry - this is not legal no matter what your marketshare is. Of course, you could argue whether or not it is even possible for a non-monopoly acting on its own to erect any such barriers. Working in collusion with others is an entirely different story - but then that would be an oligopoly (which would also be illegal).
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"?
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Unfortunately, where your argument fails is that you are considering the OS and the box to be two two separate products. While this is correct, it is also incorrect. What Apple's Mac business has almost always been based on (except for the brief flirtation with clones) selling the whole package, and in that sense, the OS is just another component of the computer, in the same way that the video card, processor, motherboard, etc. is. So yes, Apple is saying they will only sell you their software with their hardware, because in a sense, they are one an the same. A Mac isn't the OS and it isn't the box, it is both. The fact that you can replace the OS with Linux or something else and it will still work doesn't matter - you can also switch out the engine in your car and it will still run.
And this isn't necessarily predatory to hardware developers. Theya ren't saying that you can't go out and build your own computer - what they are saying is that you can't build a Mac - the same way that VW would probably be pissed if you built a beetle, or Boeing would be pissed if you built a 747; you can build your own airplane and you can build your own car, you just can't build Boeing's airplane or VW's car. You have to design your own.
Is this wrong? Well, that's subjective, so decide for yourself. Is it illegal? Clearly it is not.
"Further, the GPL does not require indiscriminate redstribution of copyrighted works.
Yes, it does. Go read it again. If you distribute derived works, you have to distribute the original source code from which they were generated. Not only that, but you have to do it at no cost for anybody who asks for it.
The GPL does not mean that I must make the software available at zero cost
The GPL says exactly that. It says that you have to give a machine-readable copy of the source code to anybody who asks for it for no cost. Read it again."
Let me add myself to the line of folks beating their heads against the wall -
NO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PROVIDE THE SOURCE CODE TO ANYBODY WHO ASKS FOR IT. NOR ARE YOU REQUIRED TO RE-DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE.
You are only required to distribute the source code to those that you distribute the executable to. So if you choose to sell the software, with every copy of the executable you deliver, you must also deliver the source code (either at the time or later if requested). Now, if you are distributing the software for sale, do I have a right to demand that you give me the source code? No, not unless I purchase the software from you.
And no, you are not distributing the source code at no cost. You are distributing essentially as a package along with the executable, therefore, you are distributing it for whatever cost you are chargin for the executable. If you are offering the executable for free download, then you must also offer the source for that same cost. If you charge me $100 for your software, then having paid that, I have paid for both source and executable.
What part of all this do you fail to understand?
You insist that a person who publishes under the GPL has waived their copyright--I assert that this is an incorrect interpretation.
Assert all you like. I'm afraid I'm right on this point, and you're wrong.
My we're feeling a bit pompous today, aren't we? Your entire contention is that because somebody has given permission in the GPL for distribution of their work, they have given up their copyright interest. As has been said by many others here, you are incorrect. The GPL is a license for distribution of a copyrighted work - it is not the copyright itself. Lots of works are licensed for distribution in one fashion or another. For example, many articles are licensed in such a fashion that they may not be generally reproduced and distributed, but may be for educational purposes (i.e., photcopied to hand out to a class). Now, by licensing the work in such a fashion, the copyright holder has not given up his/her copyright interest. They have explicitly allowed distribution under a specific set of circumstances. , but not under others. The GPL is no different, it is simply more permissive as to the circumstances under which it allows distribution.
Because it attempts to hold outside parties liable to the terms of the license. If you give me a copy of a work under the terms of the GPL, I am strictly restricted in what I can and can't do. This is fine and good. But if I then sell my license to someone else, a GPL advocate would say that that party is also bound by the terms of the GPL. That's not lawful.
Ergo, the GPL is unenforceable.
But it is lawful. You gained rights to the work under the terms of the license. By purchasing said work from you, the second purchaser agrees that they too will be bound by the license. You are in effect selling to them the same rights that were sold to you when you purchased/received your license. The license applies to all who use and distribute the work in question. You are not required to abide by the license if you do not want to distribute the software. So how is somebody being forced into an agreement against their will?
Indeed my company retained a firm in 1999 to do just that. Fortunately we got the necessary information up front: the GPL is completely unenforceable,
"I'd still sell my grandmother to see him direct the next Star Wars movie."
i see this more as an indictment of lucas, then an endorsement of spielberg. but i would still second it. my original comment was more to highlight that both men are past their prime. IMHO, of course.
but hell,if spielberg won't direct it, i would sell my grandmother to have your grandmother direct the next star wars movie...
i'm constantly entertained by the fact that microsoft wants their users to think of them as "trustworthy" while constantly treating those same cutsomers as being less than...
and i have no doubt that they will continue to lean in the direction of the "megapatches" as opposed to the smaller, more targeted patches. but really, how is that different from what they (or really what seems any non-linux commercial OS company) have been doing all along? they release smaller patches and hot-fixes, and then on occasion bundle them along with a few other fixes into the mega-patches/service packs.
this is also my biggest complaint with apple - the lack of a truly decent package management system. apple seems to have moved to the philosophy of bundles to solve the issue and returning more to their one application=one file roots along with the system/library hierarchy, where OS installed files go into the system folder and later modifications should be installed in the library folder, but from my experience this has been less then successful, primarily because apple does install a lot of stuff into the library folder that shouldn't be replaced as it has the potential of breaking things in the OS. i applaud apple for consolidating in a lot of ways (at least for visual appearance) the somewhat convoluted unix hierarchy, but i think they need to re-think it a bit. my biggest change would be that the system should not install anything critical to the functioning of the OS outside of the system folder, and leave the library for customization (updated perl, etc.). of course, they could also just change the way the system relies upon the underlying unix layers, so that replacing one's perl, apache, php, whatever install wouldn't break the system.
or maybe i should just get used to having to have yet another/opt,/sw, or whatever folder for installing new unix software. it just seems to me that this is moving away from the whole fewer folders is better approach.
did you see catch me if you can, AI or the lost world?
and yes i have seen SPR and minority report. didn't care for SPR (cheesy story among other things. great opening battle scene though), and i forgot that he directed minority report...enjoyed that one despite a general dislike for tom cruise.
while i will admit that he is doing much better these days than lucas (although i also think that he has always been a better director than lucas), the overall quality has been diminishing. IMHO.
correct me if i'm wrong, but the way i read the article, it doesn't sound to me that the new system will necessarily decrease the number of patches, but will decrease the number of systems used to deliver and install those patches, ie instead of using three different installer programs to install three programs, there will be one installer program used to install the three programs, but still do so one at a time.
again, the original documentation for itunes 4 noted that you could access a playlist on any computer running itunes by entering the ip address, and it did not state that it was resticted by subnet. sheesh...
while lucas isn't spielberg (although it's easy to see how some might get them confused, being two once great directors who can't seem to put out a decent movie anymore), spielberg does not necessarily (and most likely does not) own the copyright to the movie. lucas produced the movies and i do believe the copyright is owned by lucasfilm, which means that in the legal sense what spielberg thinks doesn't mean squat.
"Besides, copyrights are notoriously flexible when it comes to institutions for learning. Our library has millions of articles, books and such available in PDF format for download for any student."
The ability of the university to offer those articles for download is not sue to some special flexibility in the copyright laws, but rather in what circumstances the copyrighted works allow themselves to be distributed, as well as general fair use laws. Most likely, any complete books that university may offer for download by students the university will have to have licensed for such distribution by the copyright holders, or they may very well be distributing those works illegally. In terms of articles, a rather large number of articles, particularly from academic journals, will allow for reproduction for educational purposes. And finally, fair use laws allow for the reproduction of portions of a work, ie, a chapter or section. How much of a work may be reproduced before it violates copyright is unfortunately rather subjective.
In terms of a university being a public place, they are a publicly-owned building but again that does not make them public places. As was mentioned in another portion of this thread, that is why they are able to regulate access of those without legitimate reason for being there. a good example being university bookstores - most will have signs saying that you must be a student, faculty, or staff of the university to shop there, even thought this doesn't tend to be strictly enforced. I think the only time I've seen it enforced is when purchasing software (which tends to have academic discounts) or selling back textbooks.
again, the situation with humans is different because of two things:
1. the type of actions taken. 2. the scale of those actions.
i think there is a big difference between having an enzyme that produces penicilin and being able to build a bomb, or synthesize a chemical such as DDT in a laboratory. partly i think it has to do with the whole process of evolution. evolution generally occurs over a long period of time, so changes in one part of an ecosystem will tend to occur with responses in other parts of the system. because of the pace at which these changes occur, you tend not to see the types of mass extinctions that have occurred in the last 100 years or so as humans began applying more chemicals to the environment. yes extinctions happened, but they happened at such a pace that as one ecosystem changed into another, it tended to be one diverse system evolving out of another. contrast that with the type of changes humans generally induce in which you have a system that tends to lean much more in the monoculture direction.
i think it's instructive to observe that in the billions of years of evolution, we've only been able to discover a handful of mass extinctions, including the current one, which is attributed largely to human actions. the last one was 65 million years ago...
i think most of what i would consider a vital use of water would not be considered a waste (drinking, bathing (although you could debate how often you should bathe...), growing food (although this could become more debatable based on what types of food you are growing and their relative water consumption, but for growing food in general i think using water is not wasteful), etc).
to say it's "just different" is to imply a sort of moral relativism that is unwarranted. while i would allow that maybe given different circumstances, what is "bad" in one place is not in another (ie, , i think you could very easily come up with a somewhat value-neutral hierarchy of uses. most of the controversy arises when you start talking about reserving water for species other than humans. still, given that in some areas (like the U.S. southwest) water is a scarcer resource then it other places, i think this is fairly important. and it's also why, for example, when the city of flagstaff (arizona) instituted water restrictions last summer, they banned refilling of pools and regulated washing cars and watering lawns, but did not stop people from drinking water.
this is probably one of my biggest issues with capitalism and free-market economies. if the water system had been privatized and absent regulation, flagstaff of course would not have banned wasteful water uses, and you could have ended up with situations like the wealthier residents washing their cars while lower income residents wouldn't have had enough to drink because the "wisdom" of the free market would have pushed up the price of water.
and what is it with people who think that the "new" ecosystems are going to be an improvement on what was there before?
and while we're considering the impact of the land under lake mead, let's also consider all of the land downstream, up to and including the (dying) colorado river delta. as somebody who lives in the desert, i can tell you that the riparian areas are even more vital to the integrity of the bioregion than they are in wetter climates.
as much as i dislike the hoover, parker, and glen canyon dams, i'd have to say the thing that pisses me off the most is what they're doing with the water (and remember, the primary purpose of these dams is not generating electricity, but water storage). golf courses, lush green lawns, fountains, artificial ponds, etc. great, let's store lots of water so we can build the big cities in the desert and waste it all.
then perhaps we should expand the definition of the community who would benefit instead of taking a narrower anthropocentric view? i would think then the value would be easy to determine.
the point wasn't meant to be that humans are not a part of nature or are unnatural, but rather that the actions that humans take are not. One only need look at our ability to create chemicals and materials that do not exist in nature to see that we have developed a sort of power that transcends nature.
" However, something completely unforseen was that these rats would wreak havoc on this territory. There would really have been no reason to look for such a possiblity at the point the boats were created."
this is part of the problem i believe. granted it is not really practical, as well as morally questionable whether should, condemn those people who inadvertently brought rats over with them in their boats. the problem is that we continue to behave just like them in regards to technology today. our attitude seems to be 'well let's build it and worry about the problems later', rather then 'okay, here's this neat idea, let's try to think about the possible negative ramifications of it and then decide whether or not we should proceed'.
and of course, anybody who would dare to take the second position would be laughed at as either a lunatic or a luddite.
as somebody wrote earlier (and has been noted many another time) it is very difficult to reverse change (although i would disagree that it is not possible), to put the genie back into the bottle. this means that we need to have a little more foresight and vision before we unleash all of these new technological wonders upon the world, such as GE organisms, etc. because whenever a new technology is developed, we always focus on its positive qualities, and put it forward in its best possible light.
and then later we start asking ourselves "what the f**k did we do?'
so lets start asking those questions before instead of after.
p.s. - if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, i recommend two books by jerry mander - 'four arguments for the elimination of television' (written in the early 1970s) and 'in the absence of the sacred' (written in the mid-1990s). they're both fairly quick reads, and even if you don't agree with them (as one of my friends did not), you'll probably find them at least interesting (as he did).
yes, of course humans are "natural", although a lot of what humans do could be easily viewed as being unnatural. or perhaps more accurately, in opposition to.
much of what humans do is akin to the actions of various other animals, such as the beaver or the bird in your example. the problem is the scale of the changes. a beaver builds a small dam that backs up a stream that creates a bit of a lake where there was none before, thus altering the flow of the stream and changing the character of the river ecosystem. now how does that compare to a 700 foot concrete dam that floods several hundred miles of canyon thus completely eliminating the ecosystem that had developed there before? (see glen canyon and grand canyon, az, us).
through the development of our technology we have become something of a natural force in our own right. humans possess the ability to dramatically and suddenly change ecosystems that previously was possessed only by asteroids, hurricanes, volcanoes, and other extreme natural phenomenon. only we employ that capability much more frequently and efficiently.
and on top of that, we are still running around acting like a bunch of caveman. it's time we grew up.
obligatory cheesy quote - "with great power comes great responsibility..."
and once again prepare for the onslaught of ignorance and total misunderstanding of ecology from the technophiles in the/. crowd...
yes ecosystems change, and yes technology can be a great and wonderful thing, but what most of the people around here seem to forget is that:
1.) these are not natural changes, they are human induced.
2.) and while it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to restore the ecosystem to its former glory, to attempt some amount of rehabilitation of the ecosystem and its constituent species is a good thing. maybe no person will ever benefit from it, but ya know what - just because it is not for human benefit doesn't mean it doesn't have value.
3.) and in conclusion, while some will demand that these species either adapt or go extinct, here's a news flash - there are few species on this planet that are able to adapt to the mass changes that we have made to the environment. while the cockroaches, pigeons, and rats all seem to do fine co-existing with humans (and i think it's no surprise that these are all species that survive off of refuse, something we seem to produce an ample supply of), there are many more that have not been able to and that continue to go extinct every day.
until we as a species take a step back and develop a healthy skepticism of our actions and our technology (newsflash: all technology is not good, and don't give me the weak "it's just a tool" line - tools are designed for specific purposes, not some benign you can do whatever you want with it purpose), we will continue to kill off more species, we will continue to swallow up more of the world's resources until the only species left to go over...is us.
will the last one out please turn out the lights...
"they can't retroactively add restrictions to music you've already bought"
nope, try again.
they can do it in the same way that they removed the internet streaming. they simply release a new version of iTunes/QT that no longer allows CD burning of protected tracks, or tracks how many times the music is played and then disables it after a period of time or certain number of plays. or only allows playing back purchased music on one computer (or even easier for this, as they can probably just change it on the server side and not have to rely on people updating their software).
Oh, you won't update then? Fine, they'll change the server authentication so it will only authorize machines with the most recent version of iTunes.
the only way to circumvent the system is 1.) don't buy from it. or 2.) remove the encryption.
the original poster is right. the minute you accept DRM of any kind you blindly march (even further) down the path to further erosion of ownership rights, and you further accept the idea that the company selling you crap will decide what rights you have and reserves the right to change the deal anytime they feel like it (i haven't actually read the EULA for using the music store as i refuse to use it, but i'll bet that somewhere in there there is a clause allowing them to change the DRM system anytime they want to).
don't get me wrong, i love my mac, but more and more i feel like i'm at the bad end of an abusive relationship. forced obsolescence (why couldn't they make my DVD drive that worked fine in the oh-so-primitive OS 9 work in their super modern operating system?), crippled hardware, forced upgrades, etc. i dread the day i will purchase a new computer and it won't be a mac, but this kind of shit has to stop.
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Are you actually implying that MBA=smart?
Except that Apple is NOT a monopoly. They sell Macintosh computers (along with other assorted stuff), which, as you state, is their product. Being the only one to sell your product that you designed and built is not the same as being a monopoly.
:).
Was MS convicted of having a monopoly of the Windows market? No, they were convicted of having a monopoly in the desktop OS market and using that monopoly, again as you state, to do nefarious things (nefarious being a better word then bad
Try to buy a Dell or HP without paying for Windows. That was what (at least part) of the monopoly case was about. MS using their dominant position to push keep Linux off of the Desktop PC through illegal contracts. Yeah, you could switch your Dell to Linux, but guess what - you still paid for Windows.
Your interpetation of a natural monopoly is basically correct. The only real difference being that the government doesn't forbid other companies from necessarily putting up their own phone lines - they just recognize that most won't, and regulate it on that basis.
As far as trying to achieve monopoly status - yeah, it's legal, as long as you don't do something illegal in your quest for market dominance.
Erecting artificial barriers to entry - this is not legal no matter what your marketshare is. Of course, you could argue whether or not it is even possible for a non-monopoly acting on its own to erect any such barriers. Working in collusion with others is an entirely different story - but then that would be an oligopoly (which would also be illegal).
Unfortunately, where your argument fails is that you are considering the OS and the box to be two two separate products. While this is correct, it is also incorrect. What Apple's Mac business has almost always been based on (except for the brief flirtation with clones) selling the whole package, and in that sense, the OS is just another component of the computer, in the same way that the video card, processor, motherboard, etc. is. So yes, Apple is saying they will only sell you their software with their hardware, because in a sense, they are one an the same. A Mac isn't the OS and it isn't the box, it is both. The fact that you can replace the OS with Linux or something else and it will still work doesn't matter - you can also switch out the engine in your car and it will still run.
And this isn't necessarily predatory to hardware developers. Theya ren't saying that you can't go out and build your own computer - what they are saying is that you can't build a Mac - the same way that VW would probably be pissed if you built a beetle, or Boeing would be pissed if you built a 747; you can build your own airplane and you can build your own car, you just can't build Boeing's airplane or VW's car. You have to design your own.
Is this wrong? Well, that's subjective, so decide for yourself. Is it illegal? Clearly it is not.
So yes, he may well be a pompous prick -- but there's nothing in this list of demands that indicates that.
I would agree that most of his demands are fairly reasonable - but the tone of the whole thing is rather nasty.
"Further, the GPL does not require indiscriminate redstribution of copyrighted works.
Yes, it does. Go read it again. If you distribute derived works, you have to distribute the original source code from which they were generated. Not only that, but you have to do it at no cost for anybody who asks for it.
The GPL does not mean that I must make the software available at zero cost
The GPL says exactly that. It says that you have to give a machine-readable copy of the source code to anybody who asks for it for no cost. Read it again."
Let me add myself to the line of folks beating their heads against the wall -
NO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PROVIDE THE SOURCE CODE TO ANYBODY WHO ASKS FOR IT. NOR ARE YOU REQUIRED TO RE-DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE.
You are only required to distribute the source code to those that you distribute the executable to. So if you choose to sell the software, with every copy of the executable you deliver, you must also deliver the source code (either at the time or later if requested). Now, if you are distributing the software for sale, do I have a right to demand that you give me the source code? No, not unless I purchase the software from you.
And no, you are not distributing the source code at no cost. You are distributing essentially as a package along with the executable, therefore, you are distributing it for whatever cost you are chargin for the executable. If you are offering the executable for free download, then you must also offer the source for that same cost. If you charge me $100 for your software, then having paid that, I have paid for both source and executable.
What part of all this do you fail to understand?
You insist that a person who publishes under the GPL has waived their copyright--I assert that this is an incorrect interpretation.
Assert all you like. I'm afraid I'm right on this point, and you're wrong.
My we're feeling a bit pompous today, aren't we? Your entire contention is that because somebody has given permission in the GPL for distribution of their work, they have given up their copyright interest. As has been said by many others here, you are incorrect. The GPL is a license for distribution of a copyrighted work - it is not the copyright itself. Lots of works are licensed for distribution in one fashion or another. For example, many articles are licensed in such a fashion that they may not be generally reproduced and distributed, but may be for educational purposes (i.e., photcopied to hand out to a class). Now, by licensing the work in such a fashion, the copyright holder has not given up his/her copyright interest. They have explicitly allowed distribution under a specific set of circumstances. , but not under others. The GPL is no different, it is simply more permissive as to the circumstances under which it allows distribution.
Because it attempts to hold outside parties liable to the terms of the license. If you give me a copy of a work under the terms of the GPL, I am strictly restricted in what I can and can't do. This is fine and good. But if I then sell my license to someone else, a GPL advocate would say that that party is also bound by the terms of the GPL. That's not lawful.
Ergo, the GPL is unenforceable.
But it is lawful. You gained rights to the work under the terms of the license. By purchasing said work from you, the second purchaser agrees that they too will be bound by the license. You are in effect selling to them the same rights that were sold to you when you purchased/received your license. The license applies to all who use and distribute the work in question. You are not required to abide by the license if you do not want to distribute the software. So how is somebody being forced into an agreement against their will?
Indeed my company retained a firm in 1999 to do just that. Fortunately we got the necessary information up front: the GPL is completely unenforceable,
"Use ASF or WMV."
since when is WMV not a proprietary format?
"I'd still sell my grandmother to see him direct the next Star Wars movie."
i see this more as an indictment of lucas, then an endorsement of spielberg. but i would still second it. my original comment was more to highlight that both men are past their prime. IMHO, of course.
but hell,if spielberg won't direct it, i would sell my grandmother to have your grandmother direct the next star wars movie...
i'm constantly entertained by the fact that microsoft wants their users to think of them as "trustworthy" while constantly treating those same cutsomers as being less than...
/opt, /sw, or whatever folder for installing new unix software. it just seems to me that this is moving away from the whole fewer folders is better approach.
and i have no doubt that they will continue to lean in the direction of the "megapatches" as opposed to the smaller, more targeted patches. but really, how is that different from what they (or really what seems any non-linux commercial OS company) have been doing all along? they release smaller patches and hot-fixes, and then on occasion bundle them along with a few other fixes into the mega-patches/service packs.
this is also my biggest complaint with apple - the lack of a truly decent package management system. apple seems to have moved to the philosophy of bundles to solve the issue and returning more to their one application=one file roots along with the system/library hierarchy, where OS installed files go into the system folder and later modifications should be installed in the library folder, but from my experience this has been less then successful, primarily because apple does install a lot of stuff into the library folder that shouldn't be replaced as it has the potential of breaking things in the OS. i applaud apple for consolidating in a lot of ways (at least for visual appearance) the somewhat convoluted unix hierarchy, but i think they need to re-think it a bit. my biggest change would be that the system should not install anything critical to the functioning of the OS outside of the system folder, and leave the library for customization (updated perl, etc.). of course, they could also just change the way the system relies upon the underlying unix layers, so that replacing one's perl, apache, php, whatever install wouldn't break the system.
or maybe i should just get used to having to have yet another
did you see catch me if you can, AI or the lost world?
and yes i have seen SPR and minority report. didn't care for SPR (cheesy story among other things. great opening battle scene though), and i forgot that he directed minority report...enjoyed that one despite a general dislike for tom cruise.
while i will admit that he is doing much better these days than lucas (although i also think that he has always been a better director than lucas), the overall quality has been diminishing. IMHO.
correct me if i'm wrong, but the way i read the article, it doesn't sound to me that the new system will necessarily decrease the number of patches, but will decrease the number of systems used to deliver and install those patches, ie instead of using three different installer programs to install three programs, there will be one installer program used to install the three programs, but still do so one at a time.
again, the original documentation for itunes 4 noted that you could access a playlist on any computer running itunes by entering the ip address, and it did not state that it was resticted by subnet. sheesh...
while lucas isn't spielberg (although it's easy to see how some might get them confused, being two once great directors who can't seem to put out a decent movie anymore), spielberg does not necessarily (and most likely does not) own the copyright to the movie. lucas produced the movies and i do believe the copyright is owned by lucasfilm, which means that in the legal sense what spielberg thinks doesn't mean squat.
"Besides, copyrights are notoriously flexible when it comes to institutions for learning. Our library has millions of articles, books and such available in PDF format for download for any student."
The ability of the university to offer those articles for download is not sue to some special flexibility in the copyright laws, but rather in what circumstances the copyrighted works allow themselves to be distributed, as well as general fair use laws. Most likely, any complete books that university may offer for download by students the university will have to have licensed for such distribution by the copyright holders, or they may very well be distributing those works illegally. In terms of articles, a rather large number of articles, particularly from academic journals, will allow for reproduction for educational purposes. And finally, fair use laws allow for the reproduction of portions of a work, ie, a chapter or section. How much of a work may be reproduced before it violates copyright is unfortunately rather subjective.
In terms of a university being a public place, they are a publicly-owned building but again that does not make them public places. As was mentioned in another portion of this thread, that is why they are able to regulate access of those without legitimate reason for being there. a good example being university bookstores - most will have signs saying that you must be a student, faculty, or staff of the university to shop there, even thought this doesn't tend to be strictly enforced. I think the only time I've seen it enforced is when purchasing software (which tends to have academic discounts) or selling back textbooks.
again, the situation with humans is different because of two things:
1. the type of actions taken.
2. the scale of those actions.
i think there is a big difference between having an enzyme that produces penicilin and being able to build a bomb, or synthesize a chemical such as DDT in a laboratory. partly i think it has to do with the whole process of evolution. evolution generally occurs over a long period of time, so changes in one part of an ecosystem will tend to occur with responses in other parts of the system. because of the pace at which these changes occur, you tend not to see the types of mass extinctions that have occurred in the last 100 years or so as humans began applying more chemicals to the environment. yes extinctions happened, but they happened at such a pace that as one ecosystem changed into another, it tended to be one diverse system evolving out of another. contrast that with the type of changes humans generally induce in which you have a system that tends to lean much more in the monoculture direction.
i think it's instructive to observe that in the billions of years of evolution, we've only been able to discover a handful of mass extinctions, including the current one, which is attributed largely to human actions. the last one was 65 million years ago...
i think most of what i would consider a vital use of water would not be considered a waste (drinking, bathing (although you could debate how often you should bathe...), growing food (although this could become more debatable based on what types of food you are growing and their relative water consumption, but for growing food in general i think using water is not wasteful), etc).
to say it's "just different" is to imply a sort of moral relativism that is unwarranted. while i would allow that maybe given different circumstances, what is "bad" in one place is not in another (ie, , i think you could very easily come up with a somewhat value-neutral hierarchy of uses. most of the controversy arises when you start talking about reserving water for species other than humans. still, given that in some areas (like the U.S. southwest) water is a scarcer resource then it other places, i think this is fairly important. and it's also why, for example, when the city of flagstaff (arizona) instituted water restrictions last summer, they banned refilling of pools and regulated washing cars and watering lawns, but did not stop people from drinking water.
this is probably one of my biggest issues with capitalism and free-market economies. if the water system had been privatized and absent regulation, flagstaff of course would not have banned wasteful water uses, and you could have ended up with situations like the wealthier residents washing their cars while lower income residents wouldn't have had enough to drink because the "wisdom" of the free market would have pushed up the price of water.
and what is it with people who think that the "new" ecosystems are going to be an improvement on what was there before?
and while we're considering the impact of the land under lake mead, let's also consider all of the land downstream, up to and including the (dying) colorado river delta. as somebody who lives in the desert, i can tell you that the riparian areas are even more vital to the integrity of the bioregion than they are in wetter climates.
as much as i dislike the hoover, parker, and glen canyon dams, i'd have to say the thing that pisses me off the most is what they're doing with the water (and remember, the primary purpose of these dams is not generating electricity, but water storage). golf courses, lush green lawns, fountains, artificial ponds, etc. great, let's store lots of water so we can build the big cities in the desert and waste it all.
then perhaps we should expand the definition of the community who would benefit instead of taking a narrower anthropocentric view? i would think then the value would be easy to determine.
the point wasn't meant to be that humans are not a part of nature or are unnatural, but rather that the actions that humans take are not. One only need look at our ability to create chemicals and materials that do not exist in nature to see that we have developed a sort of power that transcends nature.
" However, something completely unforseen was that these rats would wreak havoc on this territory. There would really have been no reason to look for such a possiblity at the point the boats were created."
this is part of the problem i believe. granted it is not really practical, as well as morally questionable whether should, condemn those people who inadvertently brought rats over with them in their boats. the problem is that we continue to behave just like them in regards to technology today. our attitude seems to be 'well let's build it and worry about the problems later', rather then 'okay, here's this neat idea, let's try to think about the possible negative ramifications of it and then decide whether or not we should proceed'.
and of course, anybody who would dare to take the second position would be laughed at as either a lunatic or a luddite.
as somebody wrote earlier (and has been noted many another time) it is very difficult to reverse change (although i would disagree that it is not possible), to put the genie back into the bottle. this means that we need to have a little more foresight and vision before we unleash all of these new technological wonders upon the world, such as GE organisms, etc. because whenever a new technology is developed, we always focus on its positive qualities, and put it forward in its best possible light.
and then later we start asking ourselves "what the f**k did we do?'
so lets start asking those questions before instead of after.
p.s. - if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, i recommend two books by jerry mander - 'four arguments for the elimination of television' (written in the early 1970s) and 'in the absence of the sacred' (written in the mid-1990s). they're both fairly quick reads, and even if you don't agree with them (as one of my friends did not), you'll probably find them at least interesting (as he did).
but it has processes. some would say that we merely augment those natural processes., i would say we pervert or oppose.
yes, of course humans are "natural", although a lot of what humans do could be easily viewed as being unnatural. or perhaps more accurately, in opposition to.
much of what humans do is akin to the actions of various other animals, such as the beaver or the bird in your example. the problem is the scale of the changes. a beaver builds a small dam that backs up a stream that creates a bit of a lake where there was none before, thus altering the flow of the stream and changing the character of the river ecosystem. now how does that compare to a 700 foot concrete dam that floods several hundred miles of canyon thus completely eliminating the ecosystem that had developed there before? (see glen canyon and grand canyon, az, us).
through the development of our technology we have become something of a natural force in our own right. humans possess the ability to dramatically and suddenly change ecosystems that previously was possessed only by asteroids, hurricanes, volcanoes, and other extreme natural phenomenon. only we employ that capability much more frequently and efficiently.
and on top of that, we are still running around acting like a bunch of caveman. it's time we grew up.
obligatory cheesy quote - "with great power comes great responsibility..."
and once again prepare for the onslaught of ignorance and total misunderstanding of ecology from the technophiles in the /. crowd...
yes ecosystems change, and yes technology can be a great and wonderful thing, but what most of the people around here seem to forget is that:
1.) these are not natural changes, they are human induced.
2.) and while it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to restore the ecosystem to its former glory, to attempt some amount of rehabilitation of the ecosystem and its constituent species is a good thing. maybe no person will ever benefit from it, but ya know what - just because it is not for human benefit doesn't mean it doesn't have value.
3.) and in conclusion, while some will demand that these species either adapt or go extinct, here's a news flash - there are few species on this planet that are able to adapt to the mass changes that we have made to the environment. while the cockroaches, pigeons, and rats all seem to do fine co-existing with humans (and i think it's no surprise that these are all species that survive off of refuse, something we seem to produce an ample supply of), there are many more that have not been able to and that continue to go extinct every day.
until we as a species take a step back and develop a healthy skepticism of our actions and our technology (newsflash: all technology is not good, and don't give me the weak "it's just a tool" line - tools are designed for specific purposes, not some benign you can do whatever you want with it purpose), we will continue to kill off more species, we will continue to swallow up more of the world's resources until the only species left to go over...is us.
will the last one out please turn out the lights...
i'm assuming you're referring to 'write' and 'loose'...
yeah i noticed, but i didn't want to be too nitpicky...it's too early in the morning for that.
is this what i'm supposed to be looking for?
5. Physiology.
1. A body fluid, such as blood, lymph, or bile.
2. Aqueous humor.
3. Vitreous humor.
"they can't retroactively add restrictions to music you've already bought" nope, try again. they can do it in the same way that they removed the internet streaming. they simply release a new version of iTunes/QT that no longer allows CD burning of protected tracks, or tracks how many times the music is played and then disables it after a period of time or certain number of plays. or only allows playing back purchased music on one computer (or even easier for this, as they can probably just change it on the server side and not have to rely on people updating their software). Oh, you won't update then? Fine, they'll change the server authentication so it will only authorize machines with the most recent version of iTunes. the only way to circumvent the system is 1.) don't buy from it. or 2.) remove the encryption. the original poster is right. the minute you accept DRM of any kind you blindly march (even further) down the path to further erosion of ownership rights, and you further accept the idea that the company selling you crap will decide what rights you have and reserves the right to change the deal anytime they feel like it (i haven't actually read the EULA for using the music store as i refuse to use it, but i'll bet that somewhere in there there is a clause allowing them to change the DRM system anytime they want to). don't get me wrong, i love my mac, but more and more i feel like i'm at the bad end of an abusive relationship. forced obsolescence (why couldn't they make my DVD drive that worked fine in the oh-so-primitive OS 9 work in their super modern operating system?), crippled hardware, forced upgrades, etc. i dread the day i will purchase a new computer and it won't be a mac, but this kind of shit has to stop.