Well, I didn' t mod you a troll, but I would have if I was modding.
Here's why:
1. You don't actually own, use, or appear to even like iPods, but you feel compelled to post on your second-hand experience of buying one for your girlfriend. Based on what sounds like about 20 minutes of using one, you think you're some sort of expert commentator.
2. You follow that up with some weird observation about not seeing iPods in use in major cities. Now, I'm in the bay area, but I do travel a lot. I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I personally see iPods everywhere, to the point where you'll see several people posting here about iPods being too popular or too trendy. I was at the gym last week and was amused to see that every single person on the row of elliptical trainers that I was on had an iPod of some sort.
3. You finish with a rambling observation that you don't see why people find the iPod (which you don't own) special or useful.
In summary: you're posting uninteresting, vague and uninformed observations about a product you don't even own or use, and that you appear to have a bias against. You also post vague statements about other products being better without offering any specific examples. I'm not even sure you like to listen to music. So, overall that would move you to troll in my estimation.
Well, before any/.'er compares the price and specs with the Apple display and rushes out to order one from Dell, I should point out the obvious and mention that Macworld is coming up next week. It's probably worth a few days of waiting to see if Apple has a price or feature response to Dell.
Unless you REALLY have over two grand burning a hole in your pocket...
Oops, I meant GameRankings not GameFAQs. GameFAQs is good too for walkthroughs, and there's a new site called Stuck Gamer that is posting video walkthroughs. Appears to be down at the moment, but there are some good gameplay videos there.
Personally, I get most of my game info from GameFaqs, which has user reviews and nice overall scoreboards for magazine reviews. The user reviews are sometimes dumb, but you can get a general flavor for a game by looking at the magazine reviews and user reviews. I've still been burned once or twice but at least looking there first can help you avoid the real stinkers.
Also, I love the game info posted at Penny Arcade. Gabe and Tycho have similar tastes in games as I do, so when they love a game it's a pretty safe bet that I'll like it too.
If this guys links Amazon Wish Lists, Google Maps, the yellow pages, and personality typing using Ruby on Rails, he can call it a Web 2.0 Mashup and make millions when Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft buys him out.
I guess the flagpole metaphor would make sense if a flagpole was a security device.
I think what he is trying to say is that there is no use putting a gate on your driveway unless you put walls around it as well. Otherwise people will simply drive around the gate.
Certainly works better than the flagpole story anyway, unless there's a secret security use for flagpoles than I am missing.:)
1 - Vanilla Ice - To The Extreme 2 - M.C. Hammer Please Hammer Don t Hurt Em 3 - Madonna - The Immaculate Collection 4 - Whitney Houston - I m Your Baby Tonight 5 - Mariah Carey - Mariah Carey 6 - Paul Simon - Rhythm Of The Saints 7 - Bette Midler - Some People s Lives 8 - Wilson Phillips - Wilson Phillips 9 - AC/DC - The Razors Edge 10 - George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Safari 2.0.2 shipped with OS X 10.4.3, and it includes the ACID2-compliant version of WebKit. That made Safari the first shipping browser to pass ACID2. Firefox 1.5 RC3 does not pass it, and I seem to remember they will not until FF 2 for some architectural reasons. Not sure about Konqueror.
Safari is really getting solid these days. Dave Hyatt and his team have been working on memory leaks, javascript compatibility, and other issues. Now that the latest version of Safari works properly with Gmail, I'm using FF less and less on my macs.
You can read lots more stories here. I'm pretty surprised the freedom-loving editors at slashdot didn't pick this up as a separate story, it's much more important than Stallman's RFID-tinfoil stunt.
Actually, the 4G full-size iPod and iPod photo came with no case whatsoever. Same with the mini and the nano. I have a 3G 20GB, and it and everything before that came with a free basic case, I believe. But the most recent iPods did not. Now with the new iPods Apple is back to including a (very) basic case.
I got a ridiculous amount of hits to my blog posting from a couple of weeks ago where I cleaned the scratches off my nano with Brasso. Actually, I got the idea from the original slashdot thread on the nano scratching issues.
My take: the nano doesn't scratch more than a normal iPod, but it's so small that you're tempted to pocket it, causing more scratches than you would get in the un-pocketable full-size iPods. I see that with the new iPods w/video Apple is now including a *really* basic (fabric?) case. Maybe that was a response to all the talk about the nano. I do think that the nano needs some sort of screen protector or case in order to stay scratch free. I made mine from some old PDA screen protectors.
I completely removed all scratches from my black nano using Brasso. (Which I got the idea for from the previous Slashdot thread on this.)
Full story here. Check out the before and after pictures, I was really surprised by the great results.
And yes, my nano is now sitting in a baggie, waiting for my case to arrive.:) I think that's the main issue with the nano, you (mostly) can't get cases right now either through Apple or third-parties. I imagine by the end of the month this won't be the case and this issue will blow over just in time for the Christmas buying season.
When I lived in Ohio back in Ameritech days, they called me to tell me about their new anti-telemarketer service. (One of those ones where you could whitelist numbers and block unidentified caller id from getting through.) It went much like that.
Ameritech: Hi, we're calling to tell you about our new anti-telemarketer service that will prevent unsolicited calls. Me: You mean like this one. Ameritch: Ummmmmmm....
I was surprised the guy didn't have an answer for that in his script.
I don't see a basis for what you're saying in the law at all. In every category I can think of, the right to own and control personal property is limited in some way. For example, there are many limitation on a home that you might own. You must obey zoning laws. You might lose your home to eminent domain. You might not be able to operate a business there. And so on.
The fact is that there are many, many people who purchase DRM'd music and enjoy it. I'm one of those people. The EFF and others like to pretend that consumers wouldn't choose DRM'd music if they knew what came with it, but that simply isn't true. I find the instant gratification of iTunes purchases worth the small inconvienience of the DRM. You want to take away something that is convenient and useful to me, when there are plenty of non-DRM alternatives for you.
I don't understand how you can feel that the RIAA, MPAA, etc. are any sort of monopoly. The artist, in this case, is the purchaser of the service, and in the original EFF article it appears that they have several options for how to distribute their works of art.
You as the consumer clearly have several options for consuming the content, including not using the DRM services and instead, for example, buying the CD and ripping it to whatever non-DRM format you want.
The idea that any of the DRM players have any sort of monopoly, or that the record companies have any sort of monopoly, appears on the surface to be completely false.
I'm open minded though, could you explain where you see the monopoly here?
I agree with you, I was just bored and didn't like the crazy histrionics in the original EFF article. Like all advocacy groups, they tend to advocate the extreme: "The (MPAA|Apple|Gays|Rich People|Poor People|Chinese) will eat your babies!!!" In many cases I think the EFF, just like the NRA, makes intentional, blatant overstatements simply to increase their membership.
The EFF just annoys me more because they, theoretically, are run by people who should know better. It's sad that the EFF can't even get a simple description of licensing and DRM right. (i.e. The talk about "only five backups" in iTunes.)
I think the Insightful moderation is pretty funny too.:)
wrong. the point of copyright is to secure the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
You moved "secure" from the section talking about artists to the section talking about arts.
Congress shall have Power: To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing, for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors, the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Note the word "exclusive", which is important.
They are monopolies which control their markets through anticompetitive practice. If mcdonalds is the only food seller in town you can't honestly say I "voluntarily" buy from them.
The source EFF article clearly lists alternative services. Just because the author of a work decided to only work with that agent does not make them a monopoly. I can paint a picture and hide it under my bed, and there is no law forcing me to share that picture with a particular potential consumer in a particular way.
The EFF, for example, makes their content available under a single Creative Commons license. I might prefer that their content was licensed by ASCAP, or that their content was public domain, or that their content was wrapped in DRM. They are the creator, however, and have the exclusive right, protected by law, to their creation.
This is a gross misunderstanding of copyright law. The point of copyright is to secure for the artist exclusive access to their works. Indeed, the EFF itself, as I showed clearly in the parent, uses copyright law to restrict access to their work. For example, I cannot use that EFF article in any way I please, including putting in into a published book and profiting from it; using it without attribution; or using it without preservation of the license and copyright notice.
You can love the artist, love freedom, and hate manipulative bribing international conglomerates.
Those international conglomerates are the authorized agents of the artist, with which the artist voluntarily signed a contract. If you don't like DRM, you should choose artists that choose to release their creations without DRM. Or, if you are an artist, you should choose to stipulate in your contract that your creations must be released without DRM.
Indeed, supporting the release of both DRM-encumbered creations *and* non DRM-encumbered creations is the most "free". The EFF and others appear to want to create a restrictive environment in which the only content controls are the ones that they support, such as civil court enforcement of copyright law for their Creative Commons licensed articles.
In the article, the EFF clearly makes the point, for example, that iTunes "restricts back-up copies", something which the DRM actually does NOT restrict. So, if the EFF can criticize the licensing for content that isn't actually controlled by the DRM engine, then it's perfectly within my bounds to critize the EFF for non-DRM enabled restrictions to their own content.
You can hide your head in the sand if you wish, but the EFF uses the same protection of the law for their own content that they criticize other companies for using.
The EFF advocates for their own particular preference for Restriction, not for Freedom.
Commercial entities, in this case the RIAA, MPAA, and other organizations, are merely the enforcement agents for the artist, who voluntarily contracted with them to provide such enforcement.
Let us say you really enjoy listening to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They have an upcoming show. You show up with a rack of recording equipment, saying that you truly enjoy listening to them and want to record it for your own enjoyment. The symphony members themselves say no, and kick you out to the sidewalk. Were they within their rights as the artists? Of course! Could they add a soundproof wall to the outside of the venue, preventing free listening? Of course! But yet, we don't accept the digital equivalent when it comes to DRM.
Sadly, your message just shows that consumers of art feel they have a right to use the artist's creations in any way they please. But yet, the EFF uses these same laws to protect their own content. You can't have it both ways. Either you love freedom and hate the artist, or you love the artist and hate freedom. DRM itself can be art, an expression of the desires and wishes and creative programming of the creator of the DRM engine. Indeed, who watches the watchmen?
Whether the license circumvention tool is a copy/paste in a browser or the latest iTunes DRM breaking software, the results are the same: you are using software to break a license against the wishes of the owner of the work.
What the EFF wants is the freedom to restrict their own content in a way which is palatable to them, but to not have those same desires able to be carried out by the owners of other content. The EFF claims that it stands for Freedom, but that Freedom is merely the ability to restrict in the way they want, not the way others may want.
The fact that the EFF embraces restrictive copyright and licensing just goes to show how anti-Freedom they truly are. How fitting that one of the tenets in George Orwell's 1984 is "Freedom = Slavery", for in this case an organization which claims to stand for freedom merely advocates a slightly different form of slavery, that being Creative Commons licensing under existing copyright law.
Only when all copyright and licensing for all works of art are revoked will information truly be free. Know your rights!
The fact that you can break the EFF's embedded "license" with common tools doesn't excuse you from the enforcement of civil or criminal law. You may think that just because you can copy the EFF article with a copy machine, or paste it into a text edtior, that you're immune from the law. That's not the case. The EFF's restricive licensing still applies and you could face stiff fines, civil lawsuits, or even jail time, for violating their license.
The embedded RDF tags, not mentioned anywhere on the EFF site, are troubling. Could you envision a future version of Firefox that respects the Creative Commons RDF tags and refuses to copy the article text to your clipboard? I can. Creative Commons licensing is the proverbial camel's nose under the tent.
Once licensing and copyright law is respected and enforced, it paves the way for more restrictive DRM. If copyright law and licensing did not exist, DRM would have no reason to exist as well. Let's get at the real root cause. It's clear to me that the EFF actually hates freedom.
Many public foundations employ "copyright" and "licenses" -- also known as "legal restrictions" -- that prevent you from doing things like reproducing or distributing their works. Forget about breaking the license with a copy machine. Breaking the license is a violation of the law and could expose you to prosecution.
The EFF says: "EFF is a nonprofit group of passionate people -- lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries -- working to protect your digital rights."
But buried in the source to this very article is the following secret code: License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/1.0/" requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attributi on" permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduct ion" permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribut ion" permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Derivativ eWorks" prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Commercia lUse" requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"
This "code" restricts your rights to use the article. Even worse, each article might have a different license! Future articles might change their license at any time!
The facts: you read it, they still own it. Sounds like 1984? Read on.
Additional EFF article restrictions: - Prohibits commercial re-use or re-mixing into a new article. - Requires that the license and copyright be reproduced with the article. - Requires that you credit the copyright holder and/or author.
Other articles using this same "licensing" could be even more restrictive!
Looking for alternatives? Here are some sites that don't use restrictive "copyright" and "licensing". - Project Gutenberg http://promo.net/pg/ - Public Domain Music http://www.pdinfo.com/
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I didn' t mod you a troll, but I would have if I was modding.
:)
Here's why:
1. You don't actually own, use, or appear to even like iPods, but you feel compelled to post on your second-hand experience of buying one for your girlfriend. Based on what sounds like about 20 minutes of using one, you think you're some sort of expert commentator.
2. You follow that up with some weird observation about not seeing iPods in use in major cities. Now, I'm in the bay area, but I do travel a lot. I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I personally see iPods everywhere, to the point where you'll see several people posting here about iPods being too popular or too trendy. I was at the gym last week and was amused to see that every single person on the row of elliptical trainers that I was on had an iPod of some sort.
3. You finish with a rambling observation that you don't see why people find the iPod (which you don't own) special or useful.
In summary: you're posting uninteresting, vague and uninformed observations about a product you don't even own or use, and that you appear to have a bias against. You also post vague statements about other products being better without offering any specific examples. I'm not even sure you like to listen to music. So, overall that would move you to troll in my estimation.
There you go.
Well, before any /.'er compares the price and specs with the Apple display and rushes out to order one from Dell, I should point out the obvious and mention that Macworld is coming up next week. It's probably worth a few days of waiting to see if Apple has a price or feature response to Dell.
Unless you REALLY have over two grand burning a hole in your pocket...
Oops, I meant GameRankings not GameFAQs. GameFAQs is good too for walkthroughs, and there's a new site called Stuck Gamer that is posting video walkthroughs. Appears to be down at the moment, but there are some good gameplay videos there.
Personally, I get most of my game info from GameFaqs, which has user reviews and nice overall scoreboards for magazine reviews. The user reviews are sometimes dumb, but you can get a general flavor for a game by looking at the magazine reviews and user reviews. I've still been burned once or twice but at least looking there first can help you avoid the real stinkers.
Also, I love the game info posted at Penny Arcade. Gabe and Tycho have similar tastes in games as I do, so when they love a game it's a pretty safe bet that I'll like it too.
If this guys links Amazon Wish Lists, Google Maps, the yellow pages, and personality typing using Ruby on Rails, he can call it a Web 2.0 Mashup and make millions when Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft buys him out.
I smell a fully monetized eyeball!
I guess the flagpole metaphor would make sense if a flagpole was a security device.
:)
I think what he is trying to say is that there is no use putting a gate on your driveway unless you put walls around it as well. Otherwise people will simply drive around the gate.
Certainly works better than the flagpole story anyway, unless there's a secret security use for flagpoles than I am missing.
and it was better 15 years ago?
:)
1 - Vanilla Ice - To The Extreme
2 - M.C. Hammer Please Hammer Don t Hurt Em
3 - Madonna - The Immaculate Collection
4 - Whitney Houston - I m Your Baby Tonight
5 - Mariah Carey - Mariah Carey
6 - Paul Simon - Rhythm Of The Saints
7 - Bette Midler - Some People s Lives
8 - Wilson Phillips - Wilson Phillips
9 - AC/DC - The Razors Edge
10 - George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Ice Ice, baby!!!
Yes.
Safari 2.0.2 shipped with OS X 10.4.3, and it includes the ACID2-compliant version of WebKit. That made Safari the first shipping browser to pass ACID2. Firefox 1.5 RC3 does not pass it, and I seem to remember they will not until FF 2 for some architectural reasons. Not sure about Konqueror.
Safari is really getting solid these days. Dave Hyatt and his team have been working on memory leaks, javascript compatibility, and other issues. Now that the latest version of Safari works properly with Gmail, I'm using FF less and less on my macs.
The real story for this conference is the sad irony of having an information summit in Tunis, which violently suppresses freedom of expression.
You can read lots more stories here. I'm pretty surprised the freedom-loving editors at slashdot didn't pick this up as a separate story, it's much more important than Stallman's RFID-tinfoil stunt.
Actually, the 4G full-size iPod and iPod photo came with no case whatsoever. Same with the mini and the nano. I have a 3G 20GB, and it and everything before that came with a free basic case, I believe. But the most recent iPods did not. Now with the new iPods Apple is back to including a (very) basic case.
Agreed. I said much the same in a followup post. I think Brasso is a great for a 2nd chance with the nano, but not for, say, an 100th chance.
I got a ridiculous amount of hits to my blog posting from a couple of weeks ago where I cleaned the scratches off my nano with Brasso. Actually, I got the idea from the original slashdot thread on the nano scratching issues.
My take: the nano doesn't scratch more than a normal iPod, but it's so small that you're tempted to pocket it, causing more scratches than you would get in the un-pocketable full-size iPods. I see that with the new iPods w/video Apple is now including a *really* basic (fabric?) case. Maybe that was a response to all the talk about the nano. I do think that the nano needs some sort of screen protector or case in order to stay scratch free. I made mine from some old PDA screen protectors.
I completely removed all scratches from my black nano using Brasso. (Which I got the idea for from the previous Slashdot thread on this.)
:) I think that's the main issue with the nano, you (mostly) can't get cases right now either through Apple or third-parties. I imagine by the end of the month this won't be the case and this issue will blow over just in time for the Christmas buying season.
Full story here. Check out the before and after pictures, I was really surprised by the great results.
And yes, my nano is now sitting in a baggie, waiting for my case to arrive.
When I lived in Ohio back in Ameritech days, they called me to tell me about their new anti-telemarketer service. (One of those ones where you could whitelist numbers and block unidentified caller id from getting through.) It went much like that.
Ameritech: Hi, we're calling to tell you about our new anti-telemarketer service that will prevent unsolicited calls.
Me: You mean like this one.
Ameritch: Ummmmmmm....
I was surprised the guy didn't have an answer for that in his script.
I don't see a basis for what you're saying in the law at all. In every category I can think of, the right to own and control personal property is limited in some way. For example, there are many limitation on a home that you might own. You must obey zoning laws. You might lose your home to eminent domain. You might not be able to operate a business there. And so on.
The fact is that there are many, many people who purchase DRM'd music and enjoy it. I'm one of those people. The EFF and others like to pretend that consumers wouldn't choose DRM'd music if they knew what came with it, but that simply isn't true. I find the instant gratification of iTunes purchases worth the small inconvienience of the DRM. You want to take away something that is convenient and useful to me, when there are plenty of non-DRM alternatives for you.
Who loves freedom again? I'm a bit confused.
I don't understand how you can feel that the RIAA, MPAA, etc. are any sort of monopoly. The artist, in this case, is the purchaser of the service, and in the original EFF article it appears that they have several options for how to distribute their works of art.
You as the consumer clearly have several options for consuming the content, including not using the DRM services and instead, for example, buying the CD and ripping it to whatever non-DRM format you want.
The idea that any of the DRM players have any sort of monopoly, or that the record companies have any sort of monopoly, appears on the surface to be completely false.
I'm open minded though, could you explain where you see the monopoly here?
I agree with you, I was just bored and didn't like the crazy histrionics in the original EFF article. Like all advocacy groups, they tend to advocate the extreme: "The (MPAA|Apple|Gays|Rich People|Poor People|Chinese) will eat your babies!!!" In many cases I think the EFF, just like the NRA, makes intentional, blatant overstatements simply to increase their membership.
:)
The EFF just annoys me more because they, theoretically, are run by people who should know better. It's sad that the EFF can't even get a simple description of licensing and DRM right. (i.e. The talk about "only five backups" in iTunes.)
I think the Insightful moderation is pretty funny too.
You moved "secure" from the section talking about artists to the section talking about arts.
Note the word "exclusive", which is important.
They are monopolies which control their markets through anticompetitive practice. If mcdonalds is the only food seller in town you can't honestly say I "voluntarily" buy from them.
The source EFF article clearly lists alternative services. Just because the author of a work decided to only work with that agent does not make them a monopoly. I can paint a picture and hide it under my bed, and there is no law forcing me to share that picture with a particular potential consumer in a particular way.
The EFF, for example, makes their content available under a single Creative Commons license. I might prefer that their content was licensed by ASCAP, or that their content was public domain, or that their content was wrapped in DRM. They are the creator, however, and have the exclusive right, protected by law, to their creation.
And according to copyright law we DO.
This is a gross misunderstanding of copyright law. The point of copyright is to secure for the artist exclusive access to their works. Indeed, the EFF itself, as I showed clearly in the parent, uses copyright law to restrict access to their work. For example, I cannot use that EFF article in any way I please, including putting in into a published book and profiting from it; using it without attribution; or using it without preservation of the license and copyright notice.
You can love the artist, love freedom, and hate manipulative bribing international conglomerates.
Those international conglomerates are the authorized agents of the artist, with which the artist voluntarily signed a contract. If you don't like DRM, you should choose artists that choose to release their creations without DRM. Or, if you are an artist, you should choose to stipulate in your contract that your creations must be released without DRM.
Indeed, supporting the release of both DRM-encumbered creations *and* non DRM-encumbered creations is the most "free". The EFF and others appear to want to create a restrictive environment in which the only content controls are the ones that they support, such as civil court enforcement of copyright law for their Creative Commons licensed articles.
In the article, the EFF clearly makes the point, for example, that iTunes "restricts back-up copies", something which the DRM actually does NOT restrict. So, if the EFF can criticize the licensing for content that isn't actually controlled by the DRM engine, then it's perfectly within my bounds to critize the EFF for non-DRM enabled restrictions to their own content.
You can hide your head in the sand if you wish, but the EFF uses the same protection of the law for their own content that they criticize other companies for using.
The EFF advocates for their own particular preference for Restriction, not for Freedom.
Commercial entities, in this case the RIAA, MPAA, and other organizations, are merely the enforcement agents for the artist, who voluntarily contracted with them to provide such enforcement.
Let us say you really enjoy listening to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They have an upcoming show. You show up with a rack of recording equipment, saying that you truly enjoy listening to them and want to record it for your own enjoyment. The symphony members themselves say no, and kick you out to the sidewalk. Were they within their rights as the artists? Of course! Could they add a soundproof wall to the outside of the venue, preventing free listening? Of course! But yet, we don't accept the digital equivalent when it comes to DRM.
Sadly, your message just shows that consumers of art feel they have a right to use the artist's creations in any way they please. But yet, the EFF uses these same laws to protect their own content. You can't have it both ways. Either you love freedom and hate the artist, or you love the artist and hate freedom. DRM itself can be art, an expression of the desires and wishes and creative programming of the creator of the DRM engine. Indeed, who watches the watchmen?
Whether the license circumvention tool is a copy/paste in a browser or the latest iTunes DRM breaking software, the results are the same: you are using software to break a license against the wishes of the owner of the work.
What the EFF wants is the freedom to restrict their own content in a way which is palatable to them, but to not have those same desires able to be carried out by the owners of other content. The EFF claims that it stands for Freedom, but that Freedom is merely the ability to restrict in the way they want, not the way others may want.
The fact that the EFF embraces restrictive copyright and licensing just goes to show how anti-Freedom they truly are. How fitting that one of the tenets in George Orwell's 1984 is "Freedom = Slavery", for in this case an organization which claims to stand for freedom merely advocates a slightly different form of slavery, that being Creative Commons licensing under existing copyright law.
Only when all copyright and licensing for all works of art are revoked will information truly be free. Know your rights!
The fact that you can break the EFF's embedded "license" with common tools doesn't excuse you from the enforcement of civil or criminal law. You may think that just because you can copy the EFF article with a copy machine, or paste it into a text edtior, that you're immune from the law. That's not the case. The EFF's restricive licensing still applies and you could face stiff fines, civil lawsuits, or even jail time, for violating their license.
The embedded RDF tags, not mentioned anywhere on the EFF site, are troubling. Could you envision a future version of Firefox that respects the Creative Commons RDF tags and refuses to copy the article text to your clipboard? I can. Creative Commons licensing is the proverbial camel's nose under the tent.
Once licensing and copyright law is respected and enforced, it paves the way for more restrictive DRM. If copyright law and licensing did not exist, DRM would have no reason to exist as well. Let's get at the real root cause. It's clear to me that the EFF actually hates freedom.
Many public foundations employ "copyright" and "licenses" -- also known as "legal restrictions" -- that prevent you from doing things like reproducing or distributing their works. Forget about breaking the license with a copy machine. Breaking the license is a violation of the law and could expose you to prosecution.
- nc/1.0/"i on"t ion"t ion"v eWorks"a lUse"
The EFF says:
"EFF is a nonprofit group of passionate people -- lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries -- working to protect your digital rights."
But buried in the source to this very article is the following secret code:
License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by
requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribut
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduc
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribu
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Derivati
prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Commerci
requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"
This "code" restricts your rights to use the article. Even worse, each article might have a different license! Future articles might change their license at any time!
The facts: you read it, they still own it. Sounds like 1984? Read on.
Additional EFF article restrictions:
- Prohibits commercial re-use or re-mixing into a new article.
- Requires that the license and copyright be reproduced with the article.
- Requires that you credit the copyright holder and/or author.
Other articles using this same "licensing" could be even more restrictive!
Looking for alternatives? Here are some sites that don't use restrictive "copyright" and "licensing".
- Project Gutenberg http://promo.net/pg/
- Public Domain Music http://www.pdinfo.com/