The movie industry could give movies away on DVD or give free movie tickets (and free concessions) and I still would pass most of the time.
Downloaded movies give me just the movie, without any trailer or advertisement baggage, and I can skip any part of the file I want. They're far more compact, with more than 2,000 (700MB or 6 per disc) fitting in an average sized schoolbag, so I can carry my entire TV/movie collection around on trips. I don't mind losing said collection, because at $.40 a disc, I can afford to keep 2 copies of everything. Being more compact, I also don't have to get off my lazy posterior as often to change discs as each disc holds ~10 hours of video vs. ~2 for store DVDs.
And lastly, downloaded DVDs are in perfect format for sharing with others. A simple disc copy will suffice, instead of the very time-consuming task of ripping DVDs.
On another note, I don't like the legal download services either, even if they were free. The files are not in a format I want, and are not readily convertible. Remove the ads, and send it in xvid, divx, OGG, MPG, or some other non-DRMed format that I can play with open-source software, and then I'd actually be willing to pay some money (perhaps $5 for a movie) to ensure that the download is fast and I get what I want on the first try.
I believe you (and even alluded to that in my post), but regardless of who caused 9/11, it's pretty obvious that there was political motivation behind it, and it would therefore be terrorism. Just because Bush (or one of his friends) did it doesn't make it any less a terrorist act.
I'm not sure about patents, but copyrights were set up to hand out business favors to the monarch's friends and for censorship (early forms controlled who was allowed to operate a printing press).
And they have never functioned to help out small artists, not that I would care anyway since copyrights cost me easily 10x the dollar cost of what they're paid, along with substantial freedoms.
Terrorism is not a valid reason. There wasn't a single instance of international terrorism in the US last year. Since 2000, less than 4,000 people have died in the US from terrorism, almost all in a single easily preventable event.
Giving a generous 4,000 deaths to terrorism over the last 6 years (generous because there are many plausible theories about 9/11, not all of which rely on Islamic terrorists), it works out to 667 per year.
According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths#Causes_of_dea th_in_the_US), terrorism doesn't even make it onto the list. The leading cause of death, heart disease, kills about 1,000 times as many people. Murder, itself a rare event, kills over 20 times as many people.
If one wanted to save lives, then there are many, many better ways to go about it. Saving one death due to terrorism has a price tag around $1,000,000,000 and comes with massive losses of civil liberties. Preventing a death due to heart disease or lung cancer costs maybe a few thousand in anti-smoking programs and has very tiny (and entirely voluntary) effects on civil liberties.
Government waste alone probably kills more than 1 person per $1,000,000,000, via a reduced standard of living.
I would also like to add that copyrights under the Statute of Anne were given out as political favors and worked a lot like trade guilds. The trade guilds have long been abolished because they retarded progress and kept prices artificially high. However, copyrights have remained, even though they infringe on people's rights on top of the negative monopoly effects of any trade cartel.
Carbon credits, as currently implemented, are a big scam.
Many of the credits come from plantation tree farms in tropical countries, often on freshly clear-cut land. This emits CO2 (tree farms hold far less CO2 than peat + hundred year old hardwood trees) along with causing massive ecological damage. Much of the balance comes from countries that otherwise wouldn't be using their credits for economic reasons, such as the former USSR.
One could even look at it from a market standpoint. $13 per ton is extremely cheap, so the market is telling us that credits are plentiful and noone is making any real efforts to reduce emissions.
Nice idea, but it will probably cause more harm than it prevents if the laws aren't rationalized too. Right now a false positive is similarly damaging to a false negative (good luck ever getting a job again if you're merely accused of child molestation). Child molestation [properly defined to exclude some of the dumber stuff, most related to photography] is just a subset of child abuse and also runs the gamut from having little effect to being highly traumatic, depending on what was done, how it was done, and in what context among other things. Removing the laws on child molestation, thus letting it fall under broader and more appropriate laws barring child abuse, would make sense.
Textbooks are not all that expensive to write. Often a single professor writes the book, generally in well under a year. All but the most obscure courses are taught to more than 5000 students per 10 years (about how long a book in an average-paced field remains up to date).
Price is irrespective of the run size. It's determined by the demand curve (but not the supply curve, as this is a monopoly). Since printing costs are minimal, this is where the elasticity of demand is 1. In practice, this is at a very high price, since books are chosen by professors and are bound to a much larger service (a college education).
The way to get prices down is quite simple: Force all accredited educational institutions to use only public domain material or abolish copyright (and related contract law). Universities will find a way to get them written (not hard, after all the professors who write textbooks are already employed by them), and it will cost the university (and thus students through tuition) a lot less than buying textbooks and paying for the very hefty wastage and middleman fees.
I don't think you get it. Uttering the words 'kiddie porn' grants an automatic victory to the prosecution. After all, pictures of naked kids is such a horrible crime that a few innocents and political activists (and a fat chunk of our Constitution) are a small price to pay.
In case no one got it, I was being sarcastic. Pictures in and of themselves are just pictures. Child abuse is what should be cracked down on, which will include some child pornographers but primarily otherwise upstanding parents, professors, and guardians with very painful and abusive child rearing habits.
I'm talking morality here, not law. Law is not related to morality. In my book, copyright is immoral (and thus asserting it is immoral and violating it is moral... kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario since the cops still will come for you), and encrypting the photos is immoral. Both acts are equally immoral.
Your analogy is like relating the Nazis using gas chambers (established law under the Third Reich) and setting up gas chambers in the US (not established law in the US). Last I checked both were quite immoral.
The Declaration of Independence doesn't mean shit legally. It's a good thing too, since an absolute right to private property would be horrible. Don't forget that slaves are a kind of private property (and in full force when the Declaration was written).
So go take your talk about a creator nonsense and go shove it up your ass. What are you going to tell me next, that fairy godparents exist and grant wishes?
Most amateur photographers are quite in favor of copyright (with the exception of copyrights on architecture... now I wonder why that might be). They also seem to get very indignant when their stuff is copied. Most ordinary people don't care much if they're work is copied, just as long as it's not plagiarized or used for profit.
Likewise, if you don't want to be bound by Nikon's terms, build your own camera... and stick to pre-1989 tech to avoid any patent infringement. It's just as fair for Nikon to dictate what you do with your bits as it is for a photographer to dictate what you do with your picture.
Property privileges are a creation of humans, and there is no reason for them to be absolute. I can see the logic in controlling what is said in a private house, because you have little control in shaping society to your ends through it. However, Blizzard has control over a great many people. It's strongly against the common interest to allow them to discriminate.
The constitution is sorely lacking on this point. In my view, the 1st amendment should be extended to de-facto public places, such as malls, most online forums, and the likes. How exactly is society benefiting by having an abridged 1st amendment vs. an extended 1st amendment?
The current set up is giving a few people who happen to have some strategically placed capital control a chunk of society. It's never been a good thing.
So fucking a dog is illegal because it's violating the rights of an animal, but manufacturing chickens under hellish conditions just to be slaughtered is perfectly okay. Abandoning a domestic pet is a crime, but shooting ducks and clubbing seals (with a proper permit, and only in certain areas) is perfectly legal.
Even with child molestation, the reason the law is so broad and so strict is because of the religious/cultural taboo. Beating children (about the same potential for psychological damage) is far more tolerated and most perpetrators get away with it.
PS: You assert that child molestation is universally condoned. I know of not a single person who condones it. In fact, most people condemn it. Check your vocabulary, it'll save you from some very embarrassing mistakes.
I have no sympathy for photographers. After all, they're the same people who are always harping for copyright laws right along with Viacom, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, and all the others. [sarcasm] Oh god forbid someone should make copies of their wedding photos. The world would stop spinning if that happened. [/sarcasm]
That they are getting bitten actually makes me feel good in a primitive sense.
Intent is not needed. Noone (or virtually noone) intends to be bound by your average EULA, yes EULAs are generally considered legal contracts.
However, intent definitely should be required. Additionally, custom written contracts should not be allowed under duress, where the monopoly granted by copyright and patent would count as duress (since the only way to meet the need is via a single seller). The seller already gets all the terms given to them by copyright. EULAs only add insult to what is already a very lousy situation.
What about the reviewers? To be accepting free samples (aka bribes) seems asking to get tricked like this. I doubt the review companies/reviewers care, as they kind of like their perks. A little like lobbyists and politicians.
The only magazine I know of that buys their test samples retail is Consumer Reports, and they do it for this reason (as well as to avoid any conflict of interest).
The people doing the tax evading are filthy rich. Salaried people have very little opportunity to cheat on taxes. I have extreme contempt for rich people who won't even pay their share of taxes under a system that already favors them.
The military should be cut too, but why can't we both cut the military and crack down on rich tax cheats? Then we'd have money left over to pay down the debt.
People claiming there isn't global warming going on are labeled (not libeled) industry stooges and hacks because they indeed are such. Global warming is about as solid a theory as the Earth going around the Sun. Carbon-emitting industry does throw plenty of money to trumpet what it wants. Put the two together and you'll find hacks willing to trade what's left of their integrity for some money. Politicians do it all the time. I'm actually surprised that so few scientists are willing to bite.
Then is there is nothing wrong with gas chambers as after all, they are just used to enforce the law (that it is illegal to be communist, Jewish, in a labor union, or gay, among other things)?
A tool used to enforce evil might not be evil, but getting rid of it sure makes evil's work a whole lot harder. DRM is the copyright cartel's weapon, and to freedom loving people such as myself, collusion to restrict what I can do solely for personal gain is evil.
There is no benefit to the public for free software to even entertain the evildoers. If they are allowed to dictate what free software can do (and treacherous computing will do that), then free software is already dead.
PS: Has anyone else noticed how the terms of the debate have shifted. It's like people don't have even an ounce of economic common sense or economic self preservation. Why does mentioning moderating copyright (no less abolishing it and related contracts) get you branded as a god-hating freedom-destroying terrorist while tax cuts (far less gain for much more pain) have plenty of support? Copyright abolition should be as easy a case to push on middle-class USians as taking back the oil and gas is with poor people in Bolivia and Venezuela. Immediate gratification, painless (for 99% of the population), and the long term effects are nuanced.
If they only win a single case out of 100, or if all they do is bring publicity to the issues, then it's worth it. At least they're trying. They are doing it on pretty tight budget after all.
Mod the parent up. This is exactly what patents are all about. Patents are just a legalized protection racket used to keep ordinary people and corporations who are not among the chosen few out of power and to transfer wealth to from the commoners to the priviledged.
This is mostly an issue about the wires and the oligopoly control that results from this. It's just as 'right' to allow the cable internet provider to charge what the market will bear as it is for the power company to charge what the market will bear.
I wonder how you would feel if electricity prices were 50 cents/kw*h or $1/kw*h (about what a quiet generator set up would cost). They are a private company providing a service after all.
Or what about roads. What if every road was owned by a private company, and you had to pay a toll for each one (generally very steep tolls, because that will maximize any one company's profits). Don't even think about taking mass transit, because the for-profit transit company charges 30% of your pre-tax wages for a round-trip ticket. After all, that's what the market will bear.
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The movie industry could give movies away on DVD or give free movie tickets (and free concessions) and I still would pass most of the time.
Downloaded movies give me just the movie, without any trailer or advertisement baggage, and I can skip any part of the file I want. They're far more compact, with more than 2,000 (700MB or 6 per disc) fitting in an average sized schoolbag, so I can carry my entire TV/movie collection around on trips. I don't mind losing said collection, because at $.40 a disc, I can afford to keep 2 copies of everything. Being more compact, I also don't have to get off my lazy posterior as often to change discs as each disc holds ~10 hours of video vs. ~2 for store DVDs.
And lastly, downloaded DVDs are in perfect format for sharing with others. A simple disc copy will suffice, instead of the very time-consuming task of ripping DVDs.
On another note, I don't like the legal download services either, even if they were free. The files are not in a format I want, and are not readily convertible. Remove the ads, and send it in xvid, divx, OGG, MPG, or some other non-DRMed format that I can play with open-source software, and then I'd actually be willing to pay some money (perhaps $5 for a movie) to ensure that the download is fast and I get what I want on the first try.
I believe you (and even alluded to that in my post), but regardless of who caused 9/11, it's pretty obvious that there was political motivation behind it, and it would therefore be terrorism. Just because Bush (or one of his friends) did it doesn't make it any less a terrorist act.
I'm not sure about patents, but copyrights were set up to hand out business favors to the monarch's friends and for censorship (early forms controlled who was allowed to operate a printing press).
And they have never functioned to help out small artists, not that I would care anyway since copyrights cost me easily 10x the dollar cost of what they're paid, along with substantial freedoms.
Terrorism is not a valid reason. There wasn't a single instance of international terrorism in the US last year. Since 2000, less than 4,000 people have died in the US from terrorism, almost all in a single easily preventable event.
a th_in_the_US), terrorism doesn't even make it onto the list. The leading cause of death, heart disease, kills about 1,000 times as many people. Murder, itself a rare event, kills over 20 times as many people.
Giving a generous 4,000 deaths to terrorism over the last 6 years (generous because there are many plausible theories about 9/11, not all of which rely on Islamic terrorists), it works out to 667 per year.
According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths#Causes_of_de
If one wanted to save lives, then there are many, many better ways to go about it. Saving one death due to terrorism has a price tag around $1,000,000,000 and comes with massive losses of civil liberties. Preventing a death due to heart disease or lung cancer costs maybe a few thousand in anti-smoking programs and has very tiny (and entirely voluntary) effects on civil liberties.
Government waste alone probably kills more than 1 person per $1,000,000,000, via a reduced standard of living.
Mod the parent up. Very insightful post.
I would also like to add that copyrights under the Statute of Anne were given out as political favors and worked a lot like trade guilds. The trade guilds have long been abolished because they retarded progress and kept prices artificially high. However, copyrights have remained, even though they infringe on people's rights on top of the negative monopoly effects of any trade cartel.
Carbon credits, as currently implemented, are a big scam.
Many of the credits come from plantation tree farms in tropical countries, often on freshly clear-cut land. This emits CO2 (tree farms hold far less CO2 than peat + hundred year old hardwood trees) along with causing massive ecological damage. Much of the balance comes from countries that otherwise wouldn't be using their credits for economic reasons, such as the former USSR.
One could even look at it from a market standpoint. $13 per ton is extremely cheap, so the market is telling us that credits are plentiful and noone is making any real efforts to reduce emissions.
Nice idea, but it will probably cause more harm than it prevents if the laws aren't rationalized too. Right now a false positive is similarly damaging to a false negative (good luck ever getting a job again if you're merely accused of child molestation). Child molestation [properly defined to exclude some of the dumber stuff, most related to photography] is just a subset of child abuse and also runs the gamut from having little effect to being highly traumatic, depending on what was done, how it was done, and in what context among other things. Removing the laws on child molestation, thus letting it fall under broader and more appropriate laws barring child abuse, would make sense.
Textbooks are not all that expensive to write. Often a single professor writes the book, generally in well under a year. All but the most obscure courses are taught to more than 5000 students per 10 years (about how long a book in an average-paced field remains up to date).
Price is irrespective of the run size. It's determined by the demand curve (but not the supply curve, as this is a monopoly). Since printing costs are minimal, this is where the elasticity of demand is 1. In practice, this is at a very high price, since books are chosen by professors and are bound to a much larger service (a college education).
The way to get prices down is quite simple: Force all accredited educational institutions to use only public domain material or abolish copyright (and related contract law). Universities will find a way to get them written (not hard, after all the professors who write textbooks are already employed by them), and it will cost the university (and thus students through tuition) a lot less than buying textbooks and paying for the very hefty wastage and middleman fees.
I don't think you get it. Uttering the words 'kiddie porn' grants an automatic victory to the prosecution. After all, pictures of naked kids is such a horrible crime that a few innocents and political activists (and a fat chunk of our Constitution) are a small price to pay.
In case no one got it, I was being sarcastic. Pictures in and of themselves are just pictures. Child abuse is what should be cracked down on, which will include some child pornographers but primarily otherwise upstanding parents, professors, and guardians with very painful and abusive child rearing habits.
I'm talking morality here, not law. Law is not related to morality. In my book, copyright is immoral (and thus asserting it is immoral and violating it is moral ... kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario since the cops still will come for you), and encrypting the photos is immoral. Both acts are equally immoral.
Your analogy is like relating the Nazis using gas chambers (established law under the Third Reich) and setting up gas chambers in the US (not established law in the US). Last I checked both were quite immoral.
The Declaration of Independence doesn't mean shit legally. It's a good thing too, since an absolute right to private property would be horrible. Don't forget that slaves are a kind of private property (and in full force when the Declaration was written).
So go take your talk about a creator nonsense and go shove it up your ass. What are you going to tell me next, that fairy godparents exist and grant wishes?
Most amateur photographers are quite in favor of copyright (with the exception of copyrights on architecture ... now I wonder why that might be). They also seem to get very indignant when their stuff is copied. Most ordinary people don't care much if they're work is copied, just as long as it's not plagiarized or used for profit.
Likewise, if you don't want to be bound by Nikon's terms, build your own camera ... and stick to pre-1989 tech to avoid any patent infringement. It's just as fair for Nikon to dictate what you do with your bits as it is for a photographer to dictate what you do with your picture.
Property privileges are a creation of humans, and there is no reason for them to be absolute. I can see the logic in controlling what is said in a private house, because you have little control in shaping society to your ends through it. However, Blizzard has control over a great many people. It's strongly against the common interest to allow them to discriminate.
The constitution is sorely lacking on this point. In my view, the 1st amendment should be extended to de-facto public places, such as malls, most online forums, and the likes. How exactly is society benefiting by having an abridged 1st amendment vs. an extended 1st amendment?
The current set up is giving a few people who happen to have some strategically placed capital control a chunk of society. It's never been a good thing.
So fucking a dog is illegal because it's violating the rights of an animal, but manufacturing chickens under hellish conditions just to be slaughtered is perfectly okay. Abandoning a domestic pet is a crime, but shooting ducks and clubbing seals (with a proper permit, and only in certain areas) is perfectly legal.
Even with child molestation, the reason the law is so broad and so strict is because of the religious/cultural taboo. Beating children (about the same potential for psychological damage) is far more tolerated and most perpetrators get away with it.
PS: You assert that child molestation is universally condoned. I know of not a single person who condones it. In fact, most people condemn it. Check your vocabulary, it'll save you from some very embarrassing mistakes.
I have no sympathy for photographers. After all, they're the same people who are always harping for copyright laws right along with Viacom, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, and all the others. [sarcasm] Oh god forbid someone should make copies of their wedding photos. The world would stop spinning if that happened. [/sarcasm]
That they are getting bitten actually makes me feel good in a primitive sense.
Intent is not needed. Noone (or virtually noone) intends to be bound by your average EULA, yes EULAs are generally considered legal contracts.
However, intent definitely should be required. Additionally, custom written contracts should not be allowed under duress, where the monopoly granted by copyright and patent would count as duress (since the only way to meet the need is via a single seller). The seller already gets all the terms given to them by copyright. EULAs only add insult to what is already a very lousy situation.
What about the reviewers? To be accepting free samples (aka bribes) seems asking to get tricked like this. I doubt the review companies/reviewers care, as they kind of like their perks. A little like lobbyists and politicians.
The only magazine I know of that buys their test samples retail is Consumer Reports, and they do it for this reason (as well as to avoid any conflict of interest).
The people doing the tax evading are filthy rich. Salaried people have very little opportunity to cheat on taxes. I have extreme contempt for rich people who won't even pay their share of taxes under a system that already favors them.
The military should be cut too, but why can't we both cut the military and crack down on rich tax cheats? Then we'd have money left over to pay down the debt.
People claiming there isn't global warming going on are labeled (not libeled) industry stooges and hacks because they indeed are such. Global warming is about as solid a theory as the Earth going around the Sun. Carbon-emitting industry does throw plenty of money to trumpet what it wants. Put the two together and you'll find hacks willing to trade what's left of their integrity for some money. Politicians do it all the time. I'm actually surprised that so few scientists are willing to bite.
Then is there is nothing wrong with gas chambers as after all, they are just used to enforce the law (that it is illegal to be communist, Jewish, in a labor union, or gay, among other things)?
A tool used to enforce evil might not be evil, but getting rid of it sure makes evil's work a whole lot harder. DRM is the copyright cartel's weapon, and to freedom loving people such as myself, collusion to restrict what I can do solely for personal gain is evil.
There is no benefit to the public for free software to even entertain the evildoers. If they are allowed to dictate what free software can do (and treacherous computing will do that), then free software is already dead.
PS: Has anyone else noticed how the terms of the debate have shifted. It's like people don't have even an ounce of economic common sense or economic self preservation. Why does mentioning moderating copyright (no less abolishing it and related contracts) get you branded as a god-hating freedom-destroying terrorist while tax cuts (far less gain for much more pain) have plenty of support? Copyright abolition should be as easy a case to push on middle-class USians as taking back the oil and gas is with poor people in Bolivia and Venezuela. Immediate gratification, painless (for 99% of the population), and the long term effects are nuanced.
If they only win a single case out of 100, or if all they do is bring publicity to the issues, then it's worth it. At least they're trying. They are doing it on pretty tight budget after all.
Mod the parent up. This is exactly what patents are all about. Patents are just a legalized protection racket used to keep ordinary people and corporations who are not among the chosen few out of power and to transfer wealth to from the commoners to the priviledged.
This is mostly an issue about the wires and the oligopoly control that results from this. It's just as 'right' to allow the cable internet provider to charge what the market will bear as it is for the power company to charge what the market will bear.
I wonder how you would feel if electricity prices were 50 cents/kw*h or $1/kw*h (about what a quiet generator set up would cost). They are a private company providing a service after all.
Or what about roads. What if every road was owned by a private company, and you had to pay a toll for each one (generally very steep tolls, because that will maximize any one company's profits). Don't even think about taking mass transit, because the for-profit transit company charges 30% of your pre-tax wages for a round-trip ticket. After all, that's what the market will bear.