You say "People won't like the fact that the music they bought can't be played on other places than their ipod (they just don't realize it yet)."
Sigh. Over and Over this gets repeated - there were NO weapons of mass destruction and you CAN take a protected iTunes piece of music - burn it to CD then put it wherever you want it. By burning to a CD the copy protection is removed. An MP3 can be played everywhere.......or converted to Ogg Vorbis if that tickles your fancy.
The iPod plays different formats so you can take music from anywhere and load it up : MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV.
Why was it so hard for Tony Blair to accept that no weapons would ever be found, and why is it so difficult for half of Slashdot to understand how an iPod and iTunes actually works......
"you couldn't make a decent living out of doing it 'cos some bozo could always make it cheaper than you can, so fewer people would try."
Theory and reality - today WITH copyright most musicians make little or no money because they WAIT fot the organization to take over their copyright and exploit them, and they HOPE and HOPE that the record company will invest as much in him as they did for U2. But it never happens.
There is a stat about how during a period when 800 million CD's were sold - 2.5 billion downloads occured. Thus if you premise were true - CD sales should have dropped to zero. They did not. ( the figures above are not true they are as I remember but I am sure they are off a bit - but in essence this is true).
You ignore that copyright/monopoly is a recent phenomonem yet before people made money and made art and music and books.
The idea of Theft of Ideas is seductive but it is wrong once you realize that IP is not the same as other property. Read the US constitution - it treats property and the arts differently. because they are different.
"How about if I deprive you of something that is rightfully yours?"
You see if you sell widgets and I sell widgets I deprive you of some or all your income depending how succesful I am at widget selling.
You see, copyright is a monopoly. Pure and simple. I am NOT stealing I am breaking your monopoly.
In this world no one has a right to any income...... the market decides who gets income. You might retort - I work therefore I deserve income. Well if your work is not accepted by the market - tough.
Artists would be better off ignoring copyright and worrying about a world where with MP3s and zero cost of reproduction, the price of a MP3 falls to zero. This is a reality that no amount of copyright will alter. Their whinging about Theft is just an evolutionary dead end.
What we all fail to consider is that copyright allows intellectual monopolies. Are any monopolies anomolous in a free market world?
The reality is that people talk about theft.......but copying a song IS NOT theft. If I truly steal a thing from you, you no longer have that thing. When I copy a song I am breaking your monopoly.
We all seem to just reflexively accept that copying is theft without really considering it very carefully.
We seem to ignore that most of the excellent manifestations of art existing today were done without copyright.
With the cost of disseminating music and books moving to zero, careful thought needs to be given by artists. Sadly they buy into the system because they hope they will be the next U2 and they see copyright as an essential tool to ensure that they become wealthy if they are popular. However the number of U2s is defined and limited by the record companies, not by the public or the talent of the band. The public has been trained to be told what they like.
As we have been trained to believe that some monopolies are good. Classic bait and switch - see the starving artist - send your cash to help him - zing cash goes to record company - artist is still starving. Public feels better cause they paid for music. Music business has you where it wants you.
In my opinion, we are like junkies and copyright is a integral part of the system keeping us junkies -> junkies to the "winner take it all" system.
Take musicians - I know loads of then ( I am a drummer myself but not professional). They all make peanuts ( what do you calll a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless) but they all buy into the system that dangles the chance that a large company might wave some large bucket of moeny under their noses. Copyright makes them continue to believe that IF they make it big, it ( it being the wads of cash) will be protected via copyright.....but then have essentially zero chance of making it big. Not because they are bad musicians - I know several guys who are really really excellent - world class....but they are terrible business people. The fantasy of making it big keeps them from the here and now of actually composing and performing in an efficient way, of doing a reasonable amount of marketing - i.e. of doing the things that small business people to survive.
If there was no copyright, there would be no "nirvana" or Yellow Brick road and they would perhaps be forced to stop worrying about stealing of millions of albums they are never going to sell because EVERYONE cannot make 100 Million a year as a musician.
Me, I could be very happy making 80K a year as a musician. By working and performing and selling my performance direct to the public. anything after that is cream - gravy.
Copyright has turned 99.9 % of working musicians into Las Vegas gamblers, all worried and desperate to get a RECORDING CONTRACT and GET RICH.
Sad. I have an aquaintance who get paid about 70 Euros a night to play. He of course never emails a list of people to say where he is playing, thus the venue does not get a boost from the musicians, and in getting the boost increased the pay. Marketing. Why worry about today when someone is going to save you real soon now.
You say....."On the contrary, the lifes of the Palestinians, Iraqis, AND the Israelis mean little to me."
Bing. Yes back to our regularly scheduled program. Your humanity is....touching. I can actually discern that any human life HERE is worth exactly one human life THERE. That is perhaps preprogramming.......it is called caring for your fellow man.
The ultimate point I think is that until you and a lot of other humans stamp their feet at killing ( any killing ) you will never be really safe. Tit for tat lasts until there is exactly one person left.
On another note I always saw the space shuttle as a big mungy government waste of money. It has NOTHING to do with the advancement of science. Any scientific value is a side effect. It is JUST ANOTHER waste of taxpayers money in terms of the return on investment.
We all want fusion power. We all want to save a million lives ( well as you care little for certain people perhaps not) but we have to say how is the best way to do that.
Again, a lot of media cheerleading keeps the masses from having the time to think about the real problems and hence the solutions.
Like this article. It tells me nothing that was not reported over and over again.
If the shuttle represented dream of.....space etc.....cheap travel.....progress.....well your dreams are my nightmares.... sorry. We all dream.... our dreams are just different. I dream about a world with cheap travel to space and no dead babies......what is wrong with that?
The Challenger was... was it was. It was some time ago. I am not deprecating at the time what the challanger was, it was a small accident with a large visual impact. We are bleatng on about two separate things. In terms of bravery, the usual excuse for covering such deaths is the "bravery issue"....we relate to you in great detail ( over and over ) the details. Any fool can see they are brave.
If the press foccused the same aser intensity on other greater problems, perhaps the world would be a better place.
In the meantime calm down. You can still love the Challenger incident as representing the might and power of the US. Or whatever it means to you. Actually I do not care about the Challenger - it was visually impressive etc etc but meanwhile the world moves on and we should remember that there are bigger problems. Well some of us can. The rest of us are waiting for the press and media to give them a hint about what "story" and what emotion they should feel today.
You are the fool if you believe that all people are out for themselves. If so I would hate to be your neighbor.
I went to Afghanistan for 6 months....why? I could have made as much money or more elsewhere.
I did it because I was asked to help ( of course I was paid ) and there is the issue of greater good.
You love in a dark world. But hey....... if you ever need help let me know. I might be able to help. I might not. But ask in any case, because the world is a better place when we act for the greater good and help when we can.
I mean why am I posting to you? My brain tells me you are a lost cause but my heart says take some time and enter a dialogue. make the world a better place.
Your momma I am sure taught you not to shit on the floor of the house.......this is just an extention of thus principle - do not shit on the people around you in the world. You do so and eventually someone is gonna get pissed and fly a plane into your poolhouse.
"Did you cry when anybody in my family die? Probably not."
I suspect however we are different. if I knew that someone in your family died unjustly I would concern myself and possibly be willing to help you seek justice.
I actually mourn all children who get killed. However at present dead Jewish children do not need attention in the press - they get all the attention they need. What we need is a world where you can see that all dead children killed by our actions as a nation is worth acting over.
I never said I did not mourn Israeli children. The point here is not to get into a pissing match that dead Jewish children are better or worse than dead Iraqi children. The point is to see that the real roots of why this is happening because the media clogs the bandwidth of emotional capcity of readers with "stuff" that has nothing to do with the greater good.
You say "when people mourn the Challenger, they are mourning much much more."......perhaps you could explain what the much much more actualy is.....
As a baseline I get pissed off about all unjust killing. Having said that I find it interesting that history assigns values to dead people: what is a long dead Irish child dead from the famine worth compared to a recently killed Israeli settlers child? How many column inches is a dead Iraqi child worth vs a dead Israeli child. You of course know the answer to that or if you do not you ignore the real world.
The media tells us who to mourn, the media tells us whose death is important. Thank god they do, otherwise we might have to spend some time wondering why people get killed unjustly.
My father died of cancer in 2 weeks. It was not notable. he was just another man and he died. No injustice, nothing could have been done. he just joined a long line of people who die every day and nothing can be done about it.
At the same time he was dying ( and every day before and since) other people die and their death is CAUSED by an external agent. A agent in many cases that can be controlled.
Perhaps we are different. Could it be that you thinks shit happens and so what whereas I think shit happens and I want to know why? When you understand things then you can usually fix things. No comprehension of a problem means no solution.
Since the media tells you to get emotionial about the causes of the Challenger disaster, you have no emotional circuits left for dead babies in the West Bank or Iraq. You would have been "instructed" to feel for the Israeli children, so you feel emotional response to their death.
You also seem to be nicely programmed to react that if a person mentions Subject A then he is against Subject B.
Bluntly I am against all dead babies and children from controllable causative factors and against long meandering articles that rehash emotions and information that was well covered years ago and clog the need for urgent information today.
".....or faceless victims of disease and war"......in the same sentence as dead drunk idiots......are you equating the victims of diesease and war with alchoholics?
Sadly, we as individual humans and our media, should concern ourselves with the greater good. Headlines and human attention and human emotions are finite. All deaths are notable but in terms of the media, on our behalf they seems to make arbitrary decisions about coverage of this death or that death. Thus our media turns most of the world into faceless victims.
As flawed as the media is however, the great unwashed of the world have access to enough information to know that they are faceless AND voiceless. Repetitive clogging of the emotional pathways with stories about some brave astronauts long dead ensures that the facesless stay voiceless.
When it is all said and done, who is braver at the moment of death? A well trained astronaut crashing into the sea or a poor junkie crack whore having been raped and beaten and then her throat is cut. I would imagine they both die in fear.
Thanks to the media we remember and honor one person and the other?...... we cannot even say we forget the other, as we never even thought of them when they were alive.
The real point is the media tells us what to feel and think and we let them. And we do as we are instructed for the most part. We see the flag waving and we "feel" the right emotions. Because the media links brave men doing brave things to the image of the flag, but does not link dead crack whores to that image.
Our nation is both images. We can ignore what we are and what we do only for so long. The "real" reality is out there waiting to bite us.
You are correct. This is bit a simple example of how we are becoming emotionally distant from our actions. As such nations are becoming sociopathic.....part of the symptoms being "....a lack of anxiety or guilt about their behavior".
Thus when we abuse words like this, it's true meaning is devalued, and as a direct result of the misuse, our emotional response seems to become incapable of discerning the correct actions to take when a real disasters comes along ( hint: response = pay attention, take interest, express and feel empathy, take action to mitigate the effects of the disaster)
Eventually it leads to Nazi like mental contructs - the "others" who kill us (innocents) with a bomb are terrorists, ours who drop a bomb on innocents is a hero flyer and brave. The reality is both actions are the actions of terror. But we have constructed a web of deceit that allows us to keep some strange form of sanity where accidents are disasters and their dead babies are meaningless and ours are heart rendingly tragic.
Words. Powerful stuff. Where they go our emotions follow.
Football games are fine as such, you like this I like that but rarely do people get angry enough to kill you in revenge for a football game.
As Americans we certainly do not care about stuff "over there" , I mean......really stuff over there does not affect us........or wait.....does it?
Let me see........We support corrupt governments that repress people, we sell guns missiles and bombs to people who then kill other people, we are the richest nation that has the most influence in the world today, we have armed forces stationed EVERYWHERE, we proclaim out of one side of our mouth "We are the GOOD guys" while out of the other side we mumble words about pragmatism and discounts on weapons and balances of power, and our eyes.......our eyes are blinded to the effects of our causes and actions.......our eyes are blinded because the press believes we want to hear only the good news.
But then suddenly busting through the fog and haze of "Feel Good" white gauzy little puppy crap is a picture of a plane flying into a tower.
But....... it's OK......whew.......for a moment there WE nearly woke up and really asked why? Just in time THEY told us why. People hate us. OK, back to our regularly scheduled sad puppy show.
But hang on.....why do they hate us? We are the good guys? I mean really! Just because their whole family was wiped out by a 500 pound bomb, why should the survivors care it was us? I mean......shit happens?
OK, then the position is.....they hate us and we do not know/care why. We are the good guys no matter what we do or say. And that is final. So they better accept it and be happy. When "We" die it is IMPORTANT. When "THEY" die is is NOT inportant. And they better accept it.
Oh shit.....was that an explosion.....?
Well then I guess it is true......shit happens.
Yes, that that there is other nations with distorted press there is no doubt. But we are the good guys,we are the economic giant, we have the most influence, we have the power.
You see, there are actually very few deaths of Americans due to terrorism, we are complicit in more deaths than they ( other nations ) are complicit in the deaths of our citizens.
You know when I was a kid, the world was supposed to join us in enlightenment and wealth, but it turns out we were never enlightened, just more prosperous, and now that distinction is fast dissapearing, as it seems that we are to be all equaly poor as opposed to equally wealthy.
And then we will be all equally ignorant as we are forced to read our stories of the day - designed to stir our emotions and goose step behind the leader of the day.
But yes, that other nations press distorts there is no doubt.......but.......who was suposed to be the good guys, and ride the white horse and save little children from death fear and distruction.
Ywo wrongs do not make a right.........I think......or is it OK that they have a fucked up press so we have to join them........oh.......yes.......of course, as we are going for global poverty we may as well sign up to global ignorance as well.
Sorry I am in a bad mood today.......hence the carping and moaning.
It is of course sad that these people lost their lives, but this article highlights a big problem with the American Media. All over the world people die everyday. People die from natural disaster and others die from wars. The problem is this: the US Media NEVER delves into any foreign deaths to any degree like this. Imagine this articles depth and emotion aimed at:
A Dead Palestinian Child ( Killed by an American funded missile - what went wrong to cause this death, why was this death wrong) A Dead Iraqi Child ( Killed by an American funded missile - what went wrong to cause this death, why was this death wrong) etc etc
Coming soon the never written article about dead Iranian Children.
So we navel gaze about this death or that death and was it preventable. If we perhaps demanded from our media to delve with such detail and emotion into the thousands and thousands of deaths that we either cause directly or indirectly every day by our misadventurous policies around the globe.
Every page we write and view about past events ( well past and well covered by now ) is one page less for the voice of those innocent dead that have no voice.
In the end with people resorting to "terrorist" violence as a reaction to attacks or injustice on them and their children, our lack of attention the root causes of these LARGE tradegies has and will continue to come back and bite us.
Sadly the Challenger explosion attracks the lazy voyeur in us all, easy to see and watch, compelling.......but in the overal scheme of things essentially meaningless except as a symbol of corporate greed and cost cutting which leads to short cuts. But we all know this and still do nothing.
So perhaps in the end, even if the American people were subjected to detailed heart wrenching stories of dead foreign babies, they would just yawn and turn the channel.
But who knows?
we do know that when there is a disease, failure to treat the root causes often leads to deaths. In simple terms we kill them they kill us and the cycle of ignorance revolves round and round.
Meanwhile, apologies for spoiling the feel good sadness over 7 deaths.......7 deaths that have had enough column inches by now.
But has war been declared? We declare wars in the press: War on Terror, War on Drugs.....etc. But these are just labels. The reality is a REAL war the ENTIRE nation is at immediate risk of their live and nation being dissassembled by a foreign threat.
Today in the US over 50,000 people are killed in Auto accidents. We have Nuclear Plants that are an intrinsic threat of mistakes ( not terrorist attacks ) melting down a plant and the surrounding population.
Yet we live with these threats.
This war is endless? Crime is endless......drug taking is endless......car accidents are endless. This is NOT a war. Terrrorists are criminals and we have plenty of resources to track, arrest and convict criminals. You will NEVER defeat terrorism via military means. repeat: NEVER. Anyone who buys into using the military to defeat Ossama et al is a fool.
The reality is that people in power usually get there because they are addicted to power, and like all addict will perform and act, tell any lie, do any action to ensure they can indulge their addiction. The US political system ensures that only crack junkie power crazed junkies get elected.
Once they get enough power they tell more lies to get more crack power. Altruism? Bah!
They believe that they can cement their hold on power via information - they want to know what you are saying they want to know what you are thinking. This attack on Google is motivated on knowing what you are thinking. What better way to find out? You think a thought.....bang you refine information related to that thought via google. Thinking of a wank? Search = favorite porn phrase. Thinking of criticism of your elected leaders = search for validation of your thoughts with other people or organizations. Once Google is defeated, then they can quietly continue to expand until Google is just an appendage of the power crack junkies search for negative thoughts that MUST BE STAMPED OUT.
This is just a power grab by a load of crack junkies that in other times with a real press with spine would be sent for the therapy they need.
I live in France and have a gas guzzzzzzzling V8. Vroom Vrooom. I hate those little Peugeot 205's......
Sadly it costs me 95 euros to fill the tank. But I emit less particulate matter than a Peugeot 205 diesel.
Where I live there are 2 buses a day.
But yes - I should be taxed to death on the cost......but V8 Discovery is more fun to drive than a Peugeot 205.......especially driving on French roads with French kamakazees
This is off topic but I registred a domain name for an Afghan government department at the Ministry of Communications. The worst technical part was climbing to the top floor of the building with no elevator, and then taking 45 minutes and 7 staff to accept the 20 dollar payment at the Central Bank. ( 7 stamps and 7 sheets of carbon and typewriter)
They had no budget so I paid for it myself.
However you exagerate a bit about the Taliban control. But there is a real issue about redelegation of cc TLD's. I was in the UAE when IANA redlegated the.ae domain to a private corporation merely on a request with no request from the government. The ruler at the time had no idea of the implications.
ICANN continues to make arbitrary decisions that are opaque and worrisome.
China today with the help of companies like Cisco firewalls access and runs web access though filters. They care not about names or IP numbers, They filter what they want, as does many nations today.
They have NO NEED to use DNS to block free speech. They block free speech today. And we with American routers and hardware help them.
Get control of the internet? Get a grip! This a simple issue about the TLD ( IANA function ) governance being held by an opaque unilateral organization that is neither responsve to Americans nor to the rest of the world.
How your fevered brain can jump from this legitimate dispute into the UN taxing the internet is quite amazing!
The ITU manages issue and standards for the international phone system and is part of the UN. Phone systems for voice traffic throw off HUGE amounts of cash. Yet we see no issues regarding corruption in this area.
Could it possibly be that corruption is a human trait not a trait exclusive to the UN?
Was Enron corrupt? Can I infer Enron was American Enron was corrupt thus all America is corrupt?
The DNS system has nothing to do with the actual infrstructure that runs the internet.......routers, fiber lines etc etc.
Are you merely insane or just terminaly ill informed and limited in your reasoning powers that your prejudices overwhelm your sense of reason and logic?
ICANN SUCKED FROM THE START! You have no idea how ICANN works or how it came into being, nor do you seem to have a grasp of the UN function or human nature.......but you post and expect? What? Mod points? Fame? Profit?
This is not about Internet Governance. It is about how the DNS root file and TLD's are managed. ICANN is not free and open. CAn you elect a member to the role of director? No.
When ICANN has SOME elected directors why did one of those elected directors have to sue to see finacial information regarding ICANN.?
Why was the TLD.xxx refused? By what OPEN process?
Why would you or I have to pay ICANN 50K to only APPLY to run a Top Level Domain.
Why has ICANN released so few TLD's over the years since 1998 when before 1998 IANA was poised to allow hundreds of new TLD's.
Why do you think the UN is a monlitic organization, where in fact UN organization such as the ITU have functioned as PART of the UN and the international phone system and standards?
Has China via the ITU ever caused problems with phone numbers of political organization in the US?
Are you aware that it would be doubtful that CHina or any country would have veto over the ussuing of a TLD, even though today the US has de facto vetoed a new TLD (.xxx).
What has enforcement of human rights got to do with an open process to manage the TLD root file?
"....The problem is that China not only wants to block websites like falun-gong.cn, they also want to block falun-gong.org and falun-gong.co.uk and asian-pr0n.com...."
Duh! These statements are such vapor! CHINA BLOCKS THISE ANYWAY. Cisco and other companies are happy to sell firewall and web proxies. Anyone who wants to censor the net can do so today. They thow up a firewall, proxy all http requests and use filters.
You all wave China etc as such a red herring. As China is part of the ITU does China block porn telephone numbers?
I will not even bother to reply to the refusal of.xxx and the implications of that. Nothing to you, but it's implication are huge to all democratic and open societies.
Democracy and Freedom are at the root of this. ICANN has neither and China et al is a red herring......
You say "....seem to think they have a right to run the roots in the US"
This phrase makes no sense. What people want is a process that treats all nations/people as equal. A process that resembles a democratic process. A process where both YOU and I can see how decision are made.
ICANN has none of this. ICANN can refuse me a TLD with NO PROCESS as it did in the past and dumped the fair notion of first come first served and closed it's doors to how decision are made.
This is NOT really about the US vs the World. it is about ICANN vs You and I.
But You never voted for ICANN, YOU do not understand how ICANN works, YOU will sit with you head in the sand.
Recall please when ICANN has elected directors, oneof those elected directors had to SUE in a court of law to see pertinent finacial information that is normally allowed to be accessed by real directors. The reality was even then there were no real elected directors.
The reality is that DNS is run by ICANN and in running it it needs to change as an organization.
Imagine a world where the US had to ask the European Union for the TLD.US. No way you say? Well why does the EU have to ask ICANN for.EU? Why did the process take years? Examine the process........open your eyes.
Look at.travel. I want a Domain name there. But I cannot register until people with trademarks get first crack. However in getting first crcack they can take names that they have no trademark on. ICANN has allowed a complete debacle in terms of Trademarks and Domain Names. There is no mapping to how the real world works and how DNS works. This affects YOU. Perhaps not today.
But you do not care because you cannot see into the matter because it doesnot affect YOU today.
This issue affects all people INCLUDING Americans. ICANN is bad for ALL OF US!
About nothing? IANA as the long term manager of TLD's and DNS was going to allow essentially unlimited new TLD's. I applied for.lottery. Then....... ICANN came with no real input from either you or I and where are the new TLD's?
Is this important to a starving child in Pakistan? No.
But to the goverence and health of the net it is. Why should you or I have to pay ICANN 50K USD to apply to run a new TLD?
With IANA one professor and some little staff ran this function. Now ICANN sucks money into it's black hole and we have no way to see what happens or how decision are made.
Say ICANN refused to allow the new.EU TLD. What then? How did this get decided? Who decided? Why decided?
Say ICANN refused.XXX..........wait......hang on a minute......
You say- "Nice, we were looking for someone to share the costs with".
ICANN is seekingn money fron other nations NOW. Let me see - Taxation without representation......does that resonate?
The problem is that ICANN is looking for money from countries with no real input on governance. Why should the UK or France pay ICANN? Yet ICANN seems to want ccTLD's to pay it's operational costs. ICANN does not fund or pay for the root DNS servers. They have no oversight except a theoritical and not often role of redelegation of a ccTLD.
Why does the EU have to ASK ICANN for permission to add.EU to the root file? This is a genuine issue. This issue needs debate and a ptentially better solution.
Why do YOU have to pay ICANN 50,000 to apply for the right to manage a new TLD?
ICANN rips off Americans as well. We are just to dumb to see it because rather than think logically and inform ourselves about how we went from Ponytail management to facist management of DNS, we just pull out the flag, vomit up our brains and reason and start the Rah Rah football chant.
Slashdot Mirror
You say "People won't like the fact that the music they bought can't be played on other places than their ipod (they just don't realize it yet)."
Sigh. Over and Over this gets repeated - there were NO weapons of mass destruction and you CAN take a protected iTunes piece of music - burn it to CD then put it wherever you want it. By burning to a CD the copy protection is removed. An MP3 can be played everywhere.......or converted to Ogg Vorbis if that tickles your fancy.
The iPod plays different formats so you can take music from anywhere and load it up : MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV.
Why was it so hard for Tony Blair to accept that no weapons would ever be found, and why is it so difficult for half of Slashdot to understand how an iPod and iTunes actually works......
I think we have to agree to disagree.
"you couldn't make a decent living out of doing it 'cos some bozo could always make it cheaper than you can, so fewer people would try."
Theory and reality - today WITH copyright most musicians make little or no money because they WAIT fot the organization to take over their copyright and exploit them, and they HOPE and HOPE that the record company will invest as much in him as they did for U2. But it never happens.
There is a stat about how during a period when 800 million CD's were sold - 2.5 billion downloads occured. Thus if you premise were true - CD sales should have dropped to zero. They did not. ( the figures above are not true they are as I remember but I am sure they are off a bit - but in essence this is true).
You ignore that copyright/monopoly is a recent phenomonem yet before people made money and made art and music and books.
The idea of Theft of Ideas is seductive but it is wrong once you realize that IP is not the same as other property. Read the US constitution - it treats property and the arts differently. because they are different.
"How about if I deprive you of something that is rightfully yours?"
...... the market decides who gets income. You might retort - I work therefore I deserve income. Well if your work is not accepted by the market - tough.
You see if you sell widgets and I sell widgets I deprive you of some or all your income depending how succesful I am at widget selling.
You see, copyright is a monopoly. Pure and simple. I am NOT stealing I am breaking your monopoly.
In this world no one has a right to any income
Artists would be better off ignoring copyright and worrying about a world where with MP3s and zero cost of reproduction, the price of a MP3 falls to zero. This is a reality that no amount of copyright will alter. Their whinging about Theft is just an evolutionary dead end.
Have a close read of these documents : http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual /against.htm
.......but copying a song IS NOT theft. If I truly steal a thing from you, you no longer have that thing. When I copy a song I am breaking your monopoly.
/
What we all fail to consider is that copyright allows intellectual monopolies. Are any monopolies anomolous in a free market world?
The reality is that people talk about theft
We all seem to just reflexively accept that copying is theft without really considering it very carefully.
We seem to ignore that most of the excellent manifestations of art existing today were done without copyright.
This is slashdot......where monopolies are bad?
The other reality is that copyright in effect does nothing to enrich an artist. See: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love
With the cost of disseminating music and books moving to zero, careful thought needs to be given by artists. Sadly they buy into the system because they hope they will be the next U2 and they see copyright as an essential tool to ensure that they become wealthy if they are popular. However the number of U2s is defined and limited by the record companies, not by the public or the talent of the band. The public has been trained to be told what they like.
As we have been trained to believe that some monopolies are good. Classic bait and switch - see the starving artist - send your cash to help him - zing cash goes to record company - artist is still starving. Public feels better cause they paid for music. Music business has you where it wants you.
In my opinion, we are like junkies and copyright is a integral part of the system keeping us junkies -> junkies to the "winner take it all" system.
Take musicians - I know loads of then ( I am a drummer myself but not professional). They all make peanuts ( what do you calll a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless) but they all buy into the system that dangles the chance that a large company might wave some large bucket of moeny under their noses. Copyright makes them continue to believe that IF they make it big, it ( it being the wads of cash) will be protected via copyright.....but then have essentially zero chance of making it big. Not because they are bad musicians - I know several guys who are really really excellent - world class....but they are terrible business people. The fantasy of making it big keeps them from the here and now of actually composing and performing in an efficient way, of doing a reasonable amount of marketing - i.e. of doing the things that small business people to survive.
If there was no copyright, there would be no "nirvana" or Yellow Brick road and they would perhaps be forced to stop worrying about stealing of millions of albums they are never going to sell because EVERYONE cannot make 100 Million a year as a musician.
Me, I could be very happy making 80K a year as a musician. By working and performing and selling my performance direct to the public. anything after that is cream - gravy.
Copyright has turned 99.9 % of working musicians into Las Vegas gamblers, all worried and desperate to get a RECORDING CONTRACT and GET RICH.
Sad. I have an aquaintance who get paid about 70 Euros a night to play. He of course never emails a list of people to say where he is playing, thus the venue does not get a boost from the musicians, and in getting the boost increased the pay. Marketing. Why worry about today when someone is going to save you real soon now.
Copyright. Makes. Musicians. Poor. and. Record. Companies. Rich.
You say ....."On the contrary, the lifes of the Palestinians, Iraqis, AND the Israelis mean little to me."
....touching. I can actually discern that any human life HERE is worth exactly one human life THERE. That is perhaps preprogramming.......it is called caring for your fellow man.
.....space etc.....cheap travel .....progress.....well your dreams are my nightmares.... sorry. We all dream .... our dreams are just different. I dream about a world with cheap travel to space and no dead babies......what is wrong with that?
Bing. Yes back to our regularly scheduled program. Your humanity is
The ultimate point I think is that until you and a lot of other humans stamp their feet at killing ( any killing ) you will never be really safe. Tit for tat lasts until there is exactly one person left.
On another note I always saw the space shuttle as a big mungy government waste of money. It has NOTHING to do with the advancement of science. Any scientific value is a side effect. It is JUST ANOTHER waste of taxpayers money in terms of the return on investment.
We all want fusion power. We all want to save a million lives ( well as you care little for certain people perhaps not) but we have to say how is the best way to do that.
Again, a lot of media cheerleading keeps the masses from having the time to think about the real problems and hence the solutions.
Like this article. It tells me nothing that was not reported over and over again.
If the shuttle represented dream of
The Challenger was ... was it was. It was some time ago. I am not deprecating at the time what the challanger was, it was a small accident with a large visual impact. We are bleatng on about two separate things. In terms of bravery, the usual excuse for covering such deaths is the "bravery issue" ....we relate to you in great detail ( over and over ) the details. Any fool can see they are brave.
If the press foccused the same aser intensity on other greater problems, perhaps the world would be a better place.
In the meantime calm down. You can still love the Challenger incident as representing the might and power of the US. Or whatever it means to you. Actually I do not care about the Challenger - it was visually impressive etc etc but meanwhile the world moves on and we should remember that there are bigger problems. Well some of us can. The rest of us are waiting for the press and media to give them a hint about what "story" and what emotion they should feel today.
You are the fool if you believe that all people are out for themselves. If so I would hate to be your neighbor.
...... if you ever need help let me know. I might be able to help. I might not. But ask in any case, because the world is a better place when we act for the greater good and help when we can.
I went to Afghanistan for 6 months....why? I could have made as much money or more elsewhere.
I did it because I was asked to help ( of course I was paid ) and there is the issue of greater good.
You love in a dark world. But hey.
I mean why am I posting to you? My brain tells me you are a lost cause but my heart says take some time and enter a dialogue. make the world a better place.
Your momma I am sure taught you not to shit on the floor of the house.......this is just an extention of thus principle - do not shit on the people around you in the world. You do so and eventually someone is gonna get pissed and fly a plane into your poolhouse.
"Did you cry when anybody in my family die? Probably not."
......perhaps you could explain what the much much more actualy is.....
I suspect however we are different. if I knew that someone in your family died unjustly I would concern myself and possibly be willing to help you seek justice.
I actually mourn all children who get killed. However at present dead Jewish children do not need attention in the press - they get all the attention they need. What we need is a world where you can see that all dead children killed by our actions as a nation is worth acting over.
I never said I did not mourn Israeli children. The point here is not to get into a pissing match that dead Jewish children are better or worse than dead Iraqi children. The point is to see that the real roots of why this is happening because the media clogs the bandwidth of emotional capcity of readers with "stuff" that has nothing to do with the greater good.
You say "when people mourn the Challenger, they are mourning much much more."
As a baseline I get pissed off about all unjust killing. Having said that I find it interesting that history assigns values to dead people: what is a long dead Irish child dead from the famine worth compared to a recently killed Israeli settlers child? How many column inches is a dead Iraqi child worth vs a dead Israeli child. You of course know the answer to that or if you do not you ignore the real world.
The media tells us who to mourn, the media tells us whose death is important. Thank god they do, otherwise we might have to spend some time wondering why people get killed unjustly.
My father died of cancer in 2 weeks. It was not notable. he was just another man and he died. No injustice, nothing could have been done. he just joined a long line of people who die every day and nothing can be done about it.
At the same time he was dying ( and every day before and since) other people die and their death is CAUSED by an external agent. A agent in many cases that can be controlled.
Perhaps we are different. Could it be that you thinks shit happens and so what whereas I think shit happens and I want to know why? When you understand things then you can usually fix things. No comprehension of a problem means no solution.
Since the media tells you to get emotionial about the causes of the Challenger disaster, you have no emotional circuits left for dead babies in the West Bank or Iraq. You would have been "instructed" to feel for the Israeli children, so you feel emotional response to their death.
You also seem to be nicely programmed to react that if a person mentions Subject A then he is against Subject B.
Bluntly I am against all dead babies and children from controllable causative factors and against long meandering articles that rehash emotions and information that was well covered years ago and clog the need for urgent information today.
".....or faceless victims of disease and war"......in the same sentence as dead drunk idiots......are you equating the victims of diesease and war with alchoholics?
Sadly, we as individual humans and our media, should concern ourselves with the greater good. Headlines and human attention and human emotions are finite. All deaths are notable but in terms of the media, on our behalf they seems to make arbitrary decisions about coverage of this death or that death. Thus our media turns most of the world into faceless victims.
As flawed as the media is however, the great unwashed of the world have access to enough information to know that they are faceless AND voiceless. Repetitive clogging of the emotional pathways with stories about some brave astronauts long dead ensures that the facesless stay voiceless.
When it is all said and done, who is braver at the moment of death? A well trained astronaut crashing into the sea or a poor junkie crack whore having been raped and beaten and then her throat is cut. I would imagine they both die in fear.
Thanks to the media we remember and honor one person and the other?...... we cannot even say we forget the other, as we never even thought of them when they were alive.
The real point is the media tells us what to feel and think and we let them. And we do as we are instructed for the most part. We see the flag waving and we "feel" the right emotions. Because the media links brave men doing brave things to the image of the flag, but does not link dead crack whores to that image.
Our nation is both images. We can ignore what we are and what we do only for so long. The "real" reality is out there waiting to bite us.
You are correct. This is bit a simple example of how we are becoming emotionally distant from our actions. As such nations are becoming sociopathic.....part of the symptoms being "....a lack of anxiety or guilt about their behavior".
Thus when we abuse words like this, it's true meaning is devalued, and as a direct result of the misuse, our emotional response seems to become incapable of discerning the correct actions to take when a real disasters comes along ( hint: response = pay attention, take interest, express and feel empathy, take action to mitigate the effects of the disaster)
Eventually it leads to Nazi like mental contructs - the "others" who kill us (innocents) with a bomb are terrorists, ours who drop a bomb on innocents is a hero flyer and brave. The reality is both actions are the actions of terror. But we have constructed a web of deceit that allows us to keep some strange form of sanity where accidents are disasters and their dead babies are meaningless and ours are heart rendingly tragic.
Words. Powerful stuff. Where they go our emotions follow.
Football games are fine as such, you like this I like that but rarely do people get angry enough to kill you in revenge for a football game. As Americans we certainly do not care about stuff "over there" , I mean ......really stuff over there does not affect us........or wait.....does it?
Let me see........We support corrupt governments that repress people, we sell guns missiles and bombs to people who then kill other people, we are the richest nation that has the most influence in the world today, we have armed forces stationed EVERYWHERE, we proclaim out of one side of our mouth "We are the GOOD guys" while out of the other side we mumble words about pragmatism and discounts on weapons and balances of power, and our eyes.......our eyes are blinded to the effects of our causes and actions.......our eyes are blinded because the press believes we want to hear only the good news.
But then suddenly busting through the fog and haze of "Feel Good" white gauzy little puppy crap is a picture of a plane flying into a tower.
But ....... it's OK......whew.......for a moment there WE nearly woke up and really asked why? Just in time THEY told us why. People hate us. OK, back to our regularly scheduled sad puppy show.
But hang on.....why do they hate us? We are the good guys? I mean really! Just because their whole family was wiped out by a 500 pound bomb, why should the survivors care it was us? I mean ......shit happens?
OK, then the position is .....they hate us and we do not know/care why. We are the good guys no matter what we do or say. And that is final. So they better accept it and be happy. When "We" die it is IMPORTANT. When "THEY" die is is NOT inportant. And they better accept it.
Oh shit.....was that an explosion.....?
Well then I guess it is true......shit happens.
Yes, that that there is other nations with distorted press there is no doubt. But we are the good guys,we are the economic giant, we have the most influence, we have the power.
You see, there are actually very few deaths of Americans due to terrorism, we are complicit in more deaths than they ( other nations ) are complicit in the deaths of our citizens.
You know when I was a kid, the world was supposed to join us in enlightenment and wealth, but it turns out we were never enlightened, just more prosperous, and now that distinction is fast dissapearing, as it seems that we are to be all equaly poor as opposed to equally wealthy.
And then we will be all equally ignorant as we are forced to read our stories of the day - designed to stir our emotions and goose step behind the leader of the day.
But yes, that other nations press distorts there is no doubt.......but.......who was suposed to be the good guys, and ride the white horse and save little children from death fear and distruction.
Ywo wrongs do not make a right.........I think......or is it OK that they have a fucked up press so we have to join them........oh.......yes.......of course, as we are going for global poverty we may as well sign up to global ignorance as well.
Sorry I am in a bad mood today.......hence the carping and moaning.
It is of course sad that these people lost their lives, but this article highlights a big problem with the American Media. All over the world people die everyday. People die from natural disaster and others die from wars. The problem is this: the US Media NEVER delves into any foreign deaths to any degree like this. Imagine this articles depth and emotion aimed at:
A Dead Palestinian Child ( Killed by an American funded missile - what went wrong to cause this death, why was this death wrong)
A Dead Iraqi Child ( Killed by an American funded missile - what went wrong to cause this death, why was this death wrong)
etc etc
Coming soon the never written article about dead Iranian Children.
So we navel gaze about this death or that death and was it preventable. If we perhaps demanded from our media to delve with such detail and emotion into the thousands and thousands of deaths that we either cause directly or indirectly every day by our misadventurous policies around the globe.
Every page we write and view about past events ( well past and well covered by now ) is one page less for the voice of those innocent dead that have no voice.
In the end with people resorting to "terrorist" violence as a reaction to attacks or injustice on them and their children, our lack of attention the root causes of these LARGE tradegies has and will continue to come back and bite us.
Sadly the Challenger explosion attracks the lazy voyeur in us all, easy to see and watch, compelling.......but in the overal scheme of things essentially meaningless except as a symbol of corporate greed and cost cutting which leads to short cuts. But we all know this and still do nothing.
So perhaps in the end, even if the American people were subjected to detailed heart wrenching stories of dead foreign babies, they would just yawn and turn the channel.
But who knows?
we do know that when there is a disease, failure to treat the root causes often leads to deaths. In simple terms we kill them they kill us and the cycle of ignorance revolves round and round.
Meanwhile, apologies for spoiling the feel good sadness over 7 deaths.......7 deaths that have had enough column inches by now.
But has war been declared? We declare wars in the press: War on Terror, War on Drugs.....etc. But these are just labels. The reality is a REAL war the ENTIRE nation is at immediate risk of their live and nation being dissassembled by a foreign threat.
Today in the US over 50,000 people are killed in Auto accidents. We have Nuclear Plants that are an intrinsic threat of mistakes ( not terrorist attacks ) melting down a plant and the surrounding population.
Yet we live with these threats.
This war is endless? Crime is endless......drug taking is endless......car accidents are endless. This is NOT a war. Terrrorists are criminals and we have plenty of resources to track, arrest and convict criminals. You will NEVER defeat terrorism via military means. repeat: NEVER. Anyone who buys into using the military to defeat Ossama et al is a fool.
The reality is that people in power usually get there because they are addicted to power, and like all addict will perform and act, tell any lie, do any action to ensure they can indulge their addiction. The US political system ensures that only crack junkie power crazed junkies get elected.
Once they get enough power they tell more lies to get more crack power. Altruism? Bah!
They believe that they can cement their hold on power via information - they want to know what you are saying they want to know what you are thinking. This attack on Google is motivated on knowing what you are thinking. What better way to find out? You think a thought.....bang you refine information related to that thought via google. Thinking of a wank? Search = favorite porn phrase. Thinking of criticism of your elected leaders = search for validation of your thoughts with other people or organizations. Once Google is defeated, then they can quietly continue to expand until Google is just an appendage of the power crack junkies search for negative thoughts that MUST BE STAMPED OUT.
This is just a power grab by a load of crack junkies that in other times with a real press with spine would be sent for the therapy they need.
I live in France and have a gas guzzzzzzzling V8. Vroom Vrooom. I hate those little Peugeot 205's......
Sadly it costs me 95 euros to fill the tank. But I emit less particulate matter than a Peugeot 205 diesel.
Where I live there are 2 buses a day.
But yes - I should be taxed to death on the cost......but V8 Discovery is more fun to drive than a Peugeot 205.......especially driving on French roads with French kamakazees
This is off topic but I registred a domain name for an Afghan government department at the Ministry of Communications. The worst technical part was climbing to the top floor of the building with no elevator, and then taking 45 minutes and 7 staff to accept the 20 dollar payment at the Central Bank. ( 7 stamps and 7 sheets of carbon and typewriter)
.ae domain to a private corporation merely on a request with no request from the government. The ruler at the time had no idea of the implications.
They had no budget so I paid for it myself.
However you exagerate a bit about the Taliban control. But there is a real issue about redelegation of cc TLD's. I was in the UAE when IANA redlegated the
ICANN continues to make arbitrary decisions that are opaque and worrisome.
China today with the help of companies like Cisco firewalls access and runs web access though filters. They care not about names or IP numbers, They filter what they want, as does many nations today.
They have NO NEED to use DNS to block free speech. They block free speech today. And we with American routers and hardware help them.
DNS and free speech is a red herring.
Our minds? Is there two minds in this discussion or just an echo chamber or ignorant rants that echo endlessly in a hollow shell?
I doubt the UN could find your mind much less control it.
Get control of the internet? Get a grip! This a simple issue about the TLD ( IANA function ) governance being held by an opaque unilateral organization that is neither responsve to Americans nor to the rest of the world.
How your fevered brain can jump from this legitimate dispute into the UN taxing the internet is quite amazing!
The ITU manages issue and standards for the international phone system and is part of the UN. Phone systems for voice traffic throw off HUGE amounts of cash. Yet we see no issues regarding corruption in this area.
Could it possibly be that corruption is a human trait not a trait exclusive to the UN?
Was Enron corrupt? Can I infer Enron was American Enron was corrupt thus all America is corrupt?
The DNS system has nothing to do with the actual infrstructure that runs the internet.......routers, fiber lines etc etc.
Are you merely insane or just terminaly ill informed and limited in your reasoning powers that your prejudices overwhelm your sense of reason and logic?
ICANN SUCKED FROM THE START! You have no idea how ICANN works or how it came into being, nor do you seem to have a grasp of the UN function or human nature.......but you post and expect? What? Mod points? Fame? Profit?
This is not about Internet Governance. It is about how the DNS root file and TLD's are managed. ICANN is not free and open. CAn you elect a member to the role of director? No.
.xxx refused? By what OPEN process?
When ICANN has SOME elected directors why did one of those elected directors have to sue to see finacial information regarding ICANN.?
Why was the TLD
Why would you or I have to pay ICANN 50K to only APPLY to run a Top Level Domain.
Why has ICANN released so few TLD's over the years since 1998 when before 1998 IANA was poised to allow hundreds of new TLD's.
Why do you think the UN is a monlitic organization, where in fact UN organization such as the ITU have functioned as PART of the UN and the international phone system and standards?
Has China via the ITU ever caused problems with phone numbers of political organization in the US?
Are you aware that it would be doubtful that CHina or any country would have veto over the ussuing of a TLD, even though today the US has de facto vetoed a new TLD (.xxx).
What has enforcement of human rights got to do with an open process to manage the TLD root file?
Have you any clue how ICANN actually works?
"....The problem is that China not only wants to block websites like falun-gong.cn, they also want to block falun-gong.org and falun-gong.co.uk and asian-pr0n.com...."
.xxx and the implications of that. Nothing to you, but it's implication are huge to all democratic and open societies.
Duh! These statements are such vapor! CHINA BLOCKS THISE ANYWAY. Cisco and other companies are happy to sell firewall and web proxies. Anyone who wants to censor the net can do so today. They thow up a firewall, proxy all http requests and use filters.
You all wave China etc as such a red herring. As China is part of the ITU does China block porn telephone numbers?
I will not even bother to reply to the refusal of
Democracy and Freedom are at the root of this. ICANN has neither and China et al is a red herring......
You say "....seem to think they have a right to run the roots in the US"
.US. No way you say? Well why does the EU have to ask ICANN for .EU? Why did the process take years? Examine the process ........open your eyes.
.travel. I want a Domain name there. But I cannot register until people with trademarks get first crack. However in getting first crcack they can take names that they have no trademark on. ICANN has allowed a complete debacle in terms of Trademarks and Domain Names. There is no mapping to how the real world works and how DNS works. This affects YOU. Perhaps not today.
This phrase makes no sense. What people want is a process that treats all nations/people as equal. A process that resembles a democratic process. A process where both YOU and I can see how decision are made.
ICANN has none of this. ICANN can refuse me a TLD with NO PROCESS as it did in the past and dumped the fair notion of first come first served and closed it's doors to how decision are made.
This is NOT really about the US vs the World. it is about ICANN vs You and I.
But You never voted for ICANN, YOU do not understand how ICANN works, YOU will sit with you head in the sand.
Recall please when ICANN has elected directors, oneof those elected directors had to SUE in a court of law to see pertinent finacial information that is normally allowed to be accessed by real directors. The reality was even then there were no real elected directors.
The reality is that DNS is run by ICANN and in running it it needs to change as an organization.
Imagine a world where the US had to ask the European Union for the TLD
Look at
But you do not care because you cannot see into the matter because it doesnot affect YOU today.
This issue affects all people INCLUDING Americans. ICANN is bad for ALL OF US!
About nothing? IANA as the long term manager of TLD's and DNS was going to allow essentially unlimited new TLD's. I applied for .lottery. Then....... ICANN came with no real input from either you or I and where are the new TLD's?
/ 00990.html
.EU TLD. What then? How did this get decided? Who decided? Why decided?
.XXX..........wait......hang on a minute......
http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-discuss/mail-archive
Is this important to a starving child in Pakistan? No.
But to the goverence and health of the net it is. Why should you or I have to pay ICANN 50K USD to apply to run a new TLD?
With IANA one professor and some little staff ran this function. Now ICANN sucks money into it's black hole and we have no way to see what happens or how decision are made.
Say ICANN refused to allow the new
Say ICANN refused
Duh. Fight about nothing?
You say- "Nice, we were looking for someone to share the costs with".
.EU to the root file? This is a genuine issue. This issue needs debate and a ptentially better solution.
ICANN is seekingn money fron other nations NOW. Let me see - Taxation without representation......does that resonate?
The problem is that ICANN is looking for money from countries with no real input on governance. Why should the UK or France pay ICANN? Yet ICANN seems to want ccTLD's to pay it's operational costs. ICANN does not fund or pay for the root DNS servers. They have no oversight except a theoritical and not often role of redelegation of a ccTLD.
Why does the EU have to ASK ICANN for permission to add
Why do YOU have to pay ICANN 50,000 to apply for the right to manage a new TLD?
ICANN rips off Americans as well. We are just to dumb to see it because rather than think logically and inform ourselves about how we went from Ponytail management to facist management of DNS, we just pull out the flag, vomit up our brains and reason and start the Rah Rah football chant.
Sad.