I wouldn't be surprised if Australia requested my extradition.
Yeah, and I could "request" that Bill Gates give me his fortune and become my personal slave. That doesn't mean any sane person would agree that my request was justified, or that Bill would be obligated to grant it!
According to TFA, the average imprisonment term is less than that of copyright infringement.
No, the average rape sentence is less than the maximum copyright infringement sentence. To compare properly, you have to compare maximum to maximum or average to average. The maximum rape sentence is probably life in prison (or maybe death in some states); the average copyright infringement is probably considerably less than 10 (or even 6) years.
Oh, by the way, I'm sure you and just about every other American has done enough things that are illegal in some country that we'd be locked up for life, or worse, if we were extradited there. Have sex outside of marriage, or in some "deviant" (i.e., anything other than missionary) position? I'll bet that's a capital offense in some religion-infested place. Spit on the sidewalk? That'll land you in prison in Indonesia. Drive on the right side of the road? Ooh, that's a severe violation in England and Japan! Remember, it doesn't matter that you were driving down Route 66 at the time...
Now, think of the madness that would ensue if everyone were as stupid and shortsighted as you are. Aren't you glad you're not in charge?
And assuming you're American, would you want someone to be able to blatantly flaunt our laws and cause harm to Americans and American interests simply because they aren't on our soil?
Uh, yes, actually, it's called "sovereignty" and other countries get to have it too! Sucks for us, don't it?
If you want to stop "harm to American interests" then the appropriate method of doing it is to deal with the UN and international law, not to bully other countries into following our national ones.
What if there was an organized crime boss, living in the US, ordering the deaths of Australian citizens?
Wouldn't the only actual crime committed be done by the people in Australia that actually carried the orders out? It seems like a pretty bad example to me...
Assuming you're American, would you want to be extradited to Australia for breaking an Australian law in the US even though you'd never been to Australia?
Remember that, if you nullified copyright today, it would apply to every OSS project in existence. MS could take Linux with impunity...
And the community could take Windows with impunity too! That street runs both ways, you know. Sure, the source code would have to leak first, but that happens anyway despite copyright law and NDAs, and could only become more frequent without the threat of prosecution for criminal copyright infringement.
Besides, without copyright, Microsoft's business model collapses anyway. When it's impossible to sell software on a per-copy basis, what advantage is there in keeping it closed-source?
Hence the word "theoretically." If copyright had remained how it was originally intended, your argument would be moot because its duration would still be "only" 17 years or so. Granted, even that is too long for software, but still...
Ah, I'll bet you're talking about the area northwest of campus at Northside and 14th, with the McDonalds, BK, and Krystal? The area I'm talking about is southwest of campus, on the "wrong side of the tracks" (literally!). As bad as northwest of campus is, southwest is even worse. In fact, it's where this happened.
Very few Slashdotters, as far as I can tell, actually endorse piracy outright. Those are the more "community commodity" folks, (socialism and such).
There's also the group that endorses piracy outright who aren't socialist, but who instead believe that, fundamentally, it's just not possible to stop the free flow of information, so we shouldn't bother to try. The "war on piracy" will be just as successful as the "war on drugs" or Prohibition, and we all know just how well those turned out!
In fact, rather than call these people socialists, it's more appropriate to call them "libertarians" (notwithstanding the fact that most people who call themselves "Libertarians" don't seem to realize that IP protectionism is the opposite of a free market).
The hit the ReiserFS took from this is already quite noticable. Yes, it's OSS, so anyone could pick it up. Did you ever LOOK at that source? At the sheer amount of it? Who do you think can pick that up easily? Especially with ext3 getting more and more gadgets and support, and being for some already the superior system?
You know, I don't understand why there's a problem anyway. I mean, even if Reiser is guilty, why would that stop him from just working on ReiserFS from jail? Murder isn't a computer crime, so it's not as if restriction from computers would be part of his punishment.
But this isn't the first article about Hans Reiser (or ReiserFS). If you've been reading Slashdot for any reasonable length of time, then chances are you should have run across at least one of the previous ones and thus know about it.
By the way, you know the worst part about the area I mentioned? It's within walking distance of Georgia Tech; except for the crime, I'd really want to live there!
Slashdot Mirror
No, the average rape sentence is less than the maximum copyright infringement sentence. To compare properly, you have to compare maximum to maximum or average to average. The maximum rape sentence is probably life in prison (or maybe death in some states); the average copyright infringement is probably considerably less than 10 (or even 6) years.
Still sound as unreasonable as it did before?
Well actually they do, but call it "extraordinary rendition" instead.
Oh, by the way, I'm sure you and just about every other American has done enough things that are illegal in some country that we'd be locked up for life, or worse, if we were extradited there. Have sex outside of marriage, or in some "deviant" (i.e., anything other than missionary) position? I'll bet that's a capital offense in some religion-infested place. Spit on the sidewalk? That'll land you in prison in Indonesia. Drive on the right side of the road? Ooh, that's a severe violation in England and Japan! Remember, it doesn't matter that you were driving down Route 66 at the time...
Now, think of the madness that would ensue if everyone were as stupid and shortsighted as you are. Aren't you glad you're not in charge?
Uh, yes, actually, it's called "sovereignty" and other countries get to have it too! Sucks for us, don't it?
If you want to stop "harm to American interests" then the appropriate method of doing it is to deal with the UN and international law, not to bully other countries into following our national ones.
Except in Australia, apparently!
The technical term is "territory;" you'd be just like Puerto Rico. No representation in Congress, but you don't have to pay Federal taxes either.
Wouldn't the only actual crime committed be done by the people in Australia that actually carried the orders out? It seems like a pretty bad example to me...
Assuming you're American, would you want to be extradited to Australia for breaking an Australian law in the US even though you'd never been to Australia?
My Tablet PC would work great for that. And if you were a teacher at a "paperless campus," surely they'd issue you a Tablet PC... right?
I think the duration depends on the kind of media. Five years sounds about right for software, but books might still require something longer.
And the community could take Windows with impunity too! That street runs both ways, you know. Sure, the source code would have to leak first, but that happens anyway despite copyright law and NDAs, and could only become more frequent without the threat of prosecution for criminal copyright infringement.
Besides, without copyright, Microsoft's business model collapses anyway. When it's impossible to sell software on a per-copy basis, what advantage is there in keeping it closed-source?
Hence the word "theoretically." If copyright had remained how it was originally intended, your argument would be moot because its duration would still be "only" 17 years or so. Granted, even that is too long for software, but still...
Nah, Dvorak and the EFF can both be right; it just means the apocalypse must be imminent.
On that note, anybody know how good tinfoil hats are at repelling fire and brimstone?
Such a thing is not possible by definition. All restrictions are burdensome; DRM without restrictions isn't DRM.
Ah, I'll bet you're talking about the area northwest of campus at Northside and 14th, with the McDonalds, BK, and Krystal? The area I'm talking about is southwest of campus, on the "wrong side of the tracks" (literally!). As bad as northwest of campus is, southwest is even worse. In fact, it's where this happened.
There's also the group that endorses piracy outright who aren't socialist, but who instead believe that, fundamentally, it's just not possible to stop the free flow of information, so we shouldn't bother to try. The "war on piracy" will be just as successful as the "war on drugs" or Prohibition, and we all know just how well those turned out!
In fact, rather than call these people socialists, it's more appropriate to call them "libertarians" (notwithstanding the fact that most people who call themselves "Libertarians" don't seem to realize that IP protectionism is the opposite of a free market).
Without copyright law, there wouldn't be any need for the GPL anyway.
You know, I don't understand why there's a problem anyway. I mean, even if Reiser is guilty, why would that stop him from just working on ReiserFS from jail? Murder isn't a computer crime, so it's not as if restriction from computers would be part of his punishment.
But this isn't the first article about Hans Reiser (or ReiserFS). If you've been reading Slashdot for any reasonable length of time, then chances are you should have run across at least one of the previous ones and thus know about it.
...barely. I doubt it would have lasted to this point if he hadn't come back.
No, his estranged wife is missing and presumed killed. This changes things in two ways:
Don't work, don't pay taxes, get rid of your driver's license, cancel all your insurance...?
And so when they sit down to listen, the music stops? Brilliant!
Where in Atlanta were you at the time?
By the way, you know the worst part about the area I mentioned? It's within walking distance of Georgia Tech; except for the crime, I'd really want to live there!