Excellent article with excellent points; On the other hand, if you don't have backups, the same thing could happen with CVS, although the damage footprint would be different. Disk corruption due to bad memory is not uncommon - many people who experience this in Windows simply chalk it up to 'a virus' (even experienced technicians do). If the problem exists for some length of time beyond your last backup, you lose everything modified anyway. In small code trees, it's not a problem, but can you imagine working back through the code tree of KDE or GNOME to discover exactly which files are corrupt?
If you back up your databases from SVN nightly, you're still never more than 24 hours out.
Good point, and you're right - subtle distinction, but important; The companies that the RIAA represent are 'talent' companies; the distribution companies are differently represented. I meant that, according to the RIAA, the bottom line cost of a CD in the store is largely packaging and distribution, not that the costs of the companies represented by the RIAA are largely distribution.
By 'investing' in the artists, they mean "marketing".
Simply because someone points out that assuming all laws are right leads to some unpalatable conclusions, it doesn't necessarily follow that he or she is suggesting that we should assume all laws are wrong. I think a good example was given where widely recognized human rights violations are legal but wrong. I think the point was simply think.
The current music industry is a buggywhip plant asking the federal courts to pass laws making it illegal for Ford to sell Mustangs without buggywhips.
The traditional cost of media is largely distribution costs (if you believe the RIAA). The cost of distribution in electronic format is largely and essentially nil (I know the cost of bandwidth; but I could distribute 4000 copies of a 3 MB song per month for $16.95, or 4 tenths of a cent per copy). The largest costs associated with doing business in the digital format is covering all of the agreements with the traditional distribution services so that they can keep making and selling buggywhips regardless of their objective usefulness and value. As you say, the company that will out is the one that adjusts to the market and provides 1) a simple, pain-free process of acquisition, and 2) a cost that is low enough that copyright infringement is more trouble than it's worth. Who is going to go through the trouble of ripping and distributing songs that can be downloaded for, say, 25 cents?
I understand what you're trying to get at; I simply disagree that copyright infringement necessarily does that. In the past, it was required that the copyright holder demonstrate real damages, ie, a real loss of income. There is a reason that this was required. If I copy your AutoCAD cd, or your Metallica CD, you *still have your cd*. No one has been deprived of anything.( It is this fact that will always and forever divide the reality of "real" property vs "Intellectual Property") And, in addition, the copyright holders have only experienced a loss *if I would have purchased the items had you not given them to me*. This philosophy informed nearly all copyright legislation up to the time that Disney began throwing their muscle ( well, cash ) around in Washington. I don't consider it unreasonable to say that if there were no damages, no damages should be paid. It's only corporate greed that says that one should pay damages where none occurred, or make criminal the dissemination of information. You see, it's 'copyright'; you can't own "intellect". It's not possible; those who believe it to be are ontologically challenged.
I'm not suggesting copyright should be abandoned, at all; I'm merely pointing out that in spite of the propaganda of Disney and friends, "Intellectual Property" is not 'obvious'; it's a compromise that was intended to support innovation, not stifle it.
Seems to me that most bands are stupid...
Hrm... I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I would note that most bands are kids, with little life experience to help them develop the bullshit detectors necessary to see through the slick shills that the "IP Corporations" send after them. It's institutionalized fraud, IMO.
Now that I can agree with you about...
I, too, think copyright is a fundamentally good concept; it's the current bastardization I have problems with.
Good point. I try and turn people on to the cool free music that's available on the net - legally, I might add - but people look at me blankly when they finally comprehend that I'm suggesting that they might enjoy music that's not played on MTV or the local airwaves.
'Dear christ, if I hear one more idiot fanboy yell "its not theft!"'... "I'll be completely unable to deny just what a whining corporate fanboy I am, just aquiver to take it up the Intellectual Property from Sony!"
The corporate shill part comes from the connection of 'honor' with a system created by companies who have subverted the entire intent of the copyright systems into some perverse "Intellectual Properties" concept that allows a company to essentially own thoughts that exist in your head, or your own memories.
Until Disney and the *AA began lobbying Washington, it was a purely civil matter, because everyone understood that physical property was something completely different. The propaganda campaign of the big IP corporations has been extremely successful; of course, big campaign contributions don't hurt.
So let me get this straight. You think there is a common legal stratum across "Asia", and that it's a "big" problem that the 'Asian' laws are significantly different from ours in regards to "Intellectual Property" (which would, of course, not be so if the laws in question do not support the concept). Even though, if the laws in question do not define it so, it cannot be 'piracy'?
Would it surprise you to discover that Asia encompasses many different countries, all with discrete legal structures and copyright? Would it surprise you to discover that those laws sometimes differ significantly from American laws?
By this rationale, the United States wouldn't exist. The Boston Tea Party was blatantly illegal. There is an obvious difference between "real properties" and so-called "Intellectual Properties" - so much so that our Founding fathers debated as to whether they should even be allowed, or must be required. Teach those kids the whole story - like the fact that most bands OWE MONEY to the company that distributes their first three cds, and that they only make MONEY on TOURS, and I think you'll see a completely different perspective from those kids.
I am really tired of the rampant 'corporatization' of the common perception of 'copyright'. It (copyright) is *not* ownership, and no one was confused about that until Disney and the *AA started spending big cash on lobbying Washington; and now we're exporting our brain-damaged brand of "Intellectual Properties" via economic blackmail.
Of course, that's only if you buy the propaganda of the corporate weasles that have turned "copyright infringement" into "theft"; not equivalent concepts at all. The reason it was called 'copyright' is because - get this weird concept - it granted you sole right to profit from copying of the work for a limited period of time, which is very clearly different from 'ownership'. Remedies were all civil until our 'copyright' and 'trademark' process got turned into "Intellectual Property" by the lobbyists of the "IP companies" - those who would found an empire on a single concept rather than develop new ones often enough to stay afloat.
Of course, it's difficult to prove 'shilling' provided the shill-er pays for items he 'wins'. The age-old dichotomy between intent and proof. Of course, if you accept money to perform this service, or arrange to do it for your own items, where you would incur no real liability of payment upon 'winning', many places consider it to be 'fraud' - criminally and civilly actionable.
Good Grief that's a lot of pipe! Saturating a PAIR of gig links? Certainly tends to make one stop and consider how many people are actually USING linux nowadays. Good to see!
that the developer will have to keep improving the product in order to keep making money? Woo. Color me sad; I have to work every day to make money. Most people do.
I don't want to sound like a Stallman clone; I certainly believe software authors (in fact, media creators of all types) deserve reasonable remuneration when their creations produce value in a commercial sense, but by the same token, I'm not feeling sorry for someone who has to work to maintain his or her income stream.
Good point. But when so many people are all the way to the right,/everything/ is left. heh. And in the end, from the perspective of the Right, libertarians are 'leftists' too.
You may not be familiar with this concept, but people of similar opinion often hang out together. I know it's a pretty strange concept, but it's true - no, really, it's not leftist communist linux propaganda, but something your father would understand.
Slashdot is a place where many people who use linux and lean left tend to hang out, but I assure you that there is no paucity of the kind of rants you posted here in lieu of factual information - oh, you didn't realize your post was as devoid of factual support as those it purports to lambast? Well, news flash, kiddo. Yes, I'm going to say it - you posted a significant amount of FUD up there... please give me a minute while I wipe the FUD off my shoes.
LOL... I suppose one can make arbitrary assignments of such probability. I'm not sure what relevance there would be to such numbers.
The concept that empirical knowledge is probabilistic is independent of any empirical assignment of 'probability'. One must build one's own perspective on the universe based on one's own interpretation of the available information.
1+1=2 is not an empirical claim, it's an axiomatic statement, an analytical truth, if you will (one that is 'true by definition') - something like "all bachelors are unmarried men" in that it contains the predicate within the subject.
Empirical claims are probabilistic. All empirical knowledge depends on the persistence of objects (and behaviors, really) in time; i.e., we acknowledge that gravity exists because it is repeatable over a sufficient number of tests for us to draw the conclusion that it will continue to be repeatable into the forseeable future. We really don't have any *reason* to believe that this is the case other than statistical analysis - "It's always been this way."
Simply because a given explanation is counter-intuitive doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong; Occam's razor, often cited in this context, is of no help, because the assignment of the 'simplest explanation' is not obvious.
In reading about this particular issue, I've encountered quite a bit of debate on the web; the most coherent explanation of this debate, I've found at www.hedweb.com, with an interesting 'appeal to authority' at this point. This page also explains why many scientists like the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum mechanics (it restores the deterministic nature of the Universe that dissappeared with Heisenberg and Schroedinger's work and eliminates the quantum waveform collapse along with many other paradoxical quantum behaviors) and explains why MWI is implicit in the concept of String Theory. Check it out, and do a little research before we start peeing on the theory...
All knowledge is probabilistic, that is, one can never achieve certainty, only degrees of surety, based on the preponderance of evidence.
That said, perhaps you would field the evidentiary findings that indicate this is not true? If we have 0 'reason to believe' something else is the case, an 1 'reason to believe' this is the case, where would the smart money bet?
"And yes, closed source software gets abandoned too, but I suspect not anywhere as frequently as open source by looking at Sourceforge et. al. I'd love to see some real statistics on relative abandonment of proprietary vs open source, but I expect they would be difficult to gather accurately."
Have you looked in the software bins of 'computer thrift stores' recently? There are DROVES of 'Print Shop' and 'Photoshop' and 'Paint Shop' clones hanging about waiting for someone to pick up the poor 'abandonware'. I wouldn't wager on the outcome of the relative frequency of abandonware in open source and commercial software.
Not to mention the fact that commercial abandonware is more than inconvenience - it's wasted money; Free Software from Sourceforge is probably going to work the way it appears to work for the forseeable future, given the source code can be recompiled as new libraries, kernels, etc are released. Try that with Windows abandonware.
The 5 year old that we might save is a consumer of the societies resources. So are the SPAMmers. If it takes 5 seconds to delete each of 100,000,000 pieces of SPAM that a typical spammer sends out, that is 102 person years of effort. I DO wonder what that time could have better been spent on. That is TWO ENTIRE PERSONS WORKING LIVES.
So 100,000,000 pieces of SPAM essentially killed two people from the work force. Repeat for the billions of pieces of spam being sent and you'll get a clue how much trouble SPAM has become.
Ah, another one that can't quite seem to grasp the problem. Your analysis here again creates the abhorrent perception that the consumption of resources (monetary or otherwise) is more important than the actual life of a human being.
The pieces of spam did NOT, I repeat, DID NOT "essentially kill" anyone. Let's presume that your calculations are correct, and that we've decided that spam cost as much as the lifetime earnings of two persons; Let's say, at $50k/year, or $2.55 million over the 51 years you've described, per person... That makes $6.1 million dollars, and you've now created a cash value for a human life of $6.1 million dollars.
I don't know about you, but I would certainly place a higher value than that on my own life; the lives of my family are incalculably more valuable to me.
I personally hope that some crazed person gets too much SPAM one day and goes on a hunting expedition to knock off the top 50 SPAMmers that are on your favorite list.AC as I profess violence on my fellow man.
Those "Spammers" may indeed be objectionable, just as door-to-door salesmen and the proselytes of Christianity are; Still and all, they have families, and someone loves them, and, no matter how much spam you get in the course of your life, you'll still be alive and relatively uninjured.
AC because you're either a sociopath or an idiot. You pick which.
Hey, let's not get too excited. The article clearly details some protections. Vitamin E and melatonin, the article claims, protect against such DNA chain breakage.
Also, let us note that when the article discusses 'apoptosis' (which, indeed, may be called natural cell death - where a cell simply stops living and breaks down its DNA in response to some trigger), it points out that the incidence of apoptosis and necrosis were increased by a statistically significant amount by the presence of magnetic fields.
All in all, kiddies, take yer vitamin E and melatonin regularly if you use a cell phone or blow drier. You should be all right then..:)
Not true. Only nations possessing "rogue weapons" as described above and whose leadership is not representative and/or controlled by its people, are generally considered "rogue nations".
While I will agree that the original generalization that "any nation with WMD is considered a rogue nation" is incorrect, I think that your response misses the boat, as well - a rogue nation is a nation that refuses to follow the dictates of international law and treaty to which they are signatory. Under that (quite reasonable, IMO) definition, the US is, indeed, a 'rogue nation'.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent article with excellent points; On the other hand, if you don't have backups, the same thing could happen with CVS, although the damage footprint would be different. Disk corruption due to bad memory is not uncommon - many people who experience this in Windows simply chalk it up to 'a virus' (even experienced technicians do). If the problem exists for some length of time beyond your last backup, you lose everything modified anyway. In small code trees, it's not a problem, but can you imagine working back through the code tree of KDE or GNOME to discover exactly which files are corrupt?
If you back up your databases from SVN nightly, you're still never more than 24 hours out.
Good point, and you're right - subtle distinction, but important; The companies that the RIAA represent are 'talent' companies; the distribution companies are differently represented. I meant that, according to the RIAA, the bottom line cost of a CD in the store is largely packaging and distribution, not that the costs of the companies represented by the RIAA are largely distribution.
By 'investing' in the artists, they mean "marketing".
Simply because someone points out that assuming all laws are right leads to some unpalatable conclusions, it doesn't necessarily follow that he or she is suggesting that we should assume all laws are wrong. I think a good example was given where widely recognized human rights violations are legal but wrong. I think the point was simply think.
Hear, Hear!
The current music industry is a buggywhip plant asking the federal courts to pass laws making it illegal for Ford to sell Mustangs without buggywhips.
The traditional cost of media is largely distribution costs (if you believe the RIAA). The cost of distribution in electronic format is largely and essentially nil (I know the cost of bandwidth; but I could distribute 4000 copies of a 3 MB song per month for $16.95, or 4 tenths of a cent per copy). The largest costs associated with doing business in the digital format is covering all of the agreements with the traditional distribution services so that they can keep making and selling buggywhips regardless of their objective usefulness and value. As you say, the company that will out is the one that adjusts to the market and provides 1) a simple, pain-free process of acquisition, and 2) a cost that is low enough that copyright infringement is more trouble than it's worth. Who is going to go through the trouble of ripping and distributing songs that can be downloaded for, say, 25 cents?
I understand what you're trying to get at; I simply disagree that copyright infringement necessarily does that. In the past, it was required that the copyright holder demonstrate real damages, ie, a real loss of income. There is a reason that this was required. If I copy your AutoCAD cd, or your Metallica CD, you *still have your cd*. No one has been deprived of anything.( It is this fact that will always and forever divide the reality of "real" property vs "Intellectual Property") And, in addition, the copyright holders have only experienced a loss *if I would have purchased the items had you not given them to me*. This philosophy informed nearly all copyright legislation up to the time that Disney began throwing their muscle ( well, cash ) around in Washington. I don't consider it unreasonable to say that if there were no damages, no damages should be paid. It's only corporate greed that says that one should pay damages where none occurred, or make criminal the dissemination of information. You see, it's 'copyright'; you can't own "intellect". It's not possible; those who believe it to be are ontologically challenged.
Good point. I try and turn people on to the cool free music that's available on the net - legally, I might add - but people look at me blankly when they finally comprehend that I'm suggesting that they might enjoy music that's not played on MTV or the local airwaves.
'Dear christ, if I hear one more idiot fanboy yell "its not theft!"'... "I'll be completely unable to deny just what a whining corporate fanboy I am, just aquiver to take it up the Intellectual Property from Sony!"
The corporate shill part comes from the connection of 'honor' with a system created by companies who have subverted the entire intent of the copyright systems into some perverse "Intellectual Properties" concept that allows a company to essentially own thoughts that exist in your head, or your own memories. Until Disney and the *AA began lobbying Washington, it was a purely civil matter, because everyone understood that physical property was something completely different. The propaganda campaign of the big IP corporations has been extremely successful; of course, big campaign contributions don't hurt.
So let me get this straight. You think there is a common legal stratum across "Asia", and that it's a "big" problem that the 'Asian' laws are significantly different from ours in regards to "Intellectual Property" (which would, of course, not be so if the laws in question do not support the concept). Even though, if the laws in question do not define it so, it cannot be 'piracy'?
Would it surprise you to discover that Asia encompasses many different countries, all with discrete legal structures and copyright? Would it surprise you to discover that those laws sometimes differ significantly from American laws?
By this rationale, the United States wouldn't exist. The Boston Tea Party was blatantly illegal. There is an obvious difference between "real properties" and so-called "Intellectual Properties" - so much so that our Founding fathers debated as to whether they should even be allowed, or must be required. Teach those kids the whole story - like the fact that most bands OWE MONEY to the company that distributes their first three cds, and that they only make MONEY on TOURS, and I think you'll see a completely different perspective from those kids.
I am really tired of the rampant 'corporatization' of the common perception of 'copyright'. It (copyright) is *not* ownership, and no one was confused about that until Disney and the *AA started spending big cash on lobbying Washington; and now we're exporting our brain-damaged brand of "Intellectual Properties" via economic blackmail.
Of course, that's only if you buy the propaganda of the corporate weasles that have turned "copyright infringement" into "theft"; not equivalent concepts at all. The reason it was called 'copyright' is because - get this weird concept - it granted you sole right to profit from copying of the work for a limited period of time, which is very clearly different from 'ownership'. Remedies were all civil until our 'copyright' and 'trademark' process got turned into "Intellectual Property" by the lobbyists of the "IP companies" - those who would found an empire on a single concept rather than develop new ones often enough to stay afloat.
Of course, it's difficult to prove 'shilling' provided the shill-er pays for items he 'wins'. The age-old dichotomy between intent and proof. Of course, if you accept money to perform this service, or arrange to do it for your own items, where you would incur no real liability of payment upon 'winning', many places consider it to be 'fraud' - criminally and civilly actionable.
Good Grief that's a lot of pipe! Saturating a PAIR of gig links? Certainly tends to make one stop and consider how many people are actually USING linux nowadays. Good to see!
that the developer will have to keep improving the product in order to keep making money? Woo. Color me sad; I have to work every day to make money. Most people do.
I don't want to sound like a Stallman clone; I certainly believe software authors (in fact, media creators of all types) deserve reasonable remuneration when their creations produce value in a commercial sense, but by the same token, I'm not feeling sorry for someone who has to work to maintain his or her income stream.
Good point. But when so many people are all the way to the right, /everything/ is left. heh. And in the end, from the perspective of the Right, libertarians are 'leftists' too.
You may not be familiar with this concept, but people of similar opinion often hang out together. I know it's a pretty strange concept, but it's true - no, really, it's not leftist communist linux propaganda, but something your father would understand.
Slashdot is a place where many people who use linux and lean left tend to hang out, but I assure you that there is no paucity of the kind of rants you posted here in lieu of factual information - oh, you didn't realize your post was as devoid of factual support as those it purports to lambast? Well, news flash, kiddo. Yes, I'm going to say it - you posted a significant amount of FUD up there... please give me a minute while I wipe the FUD off my shoes.
The concept that empirical knowledge is probabilistic is independent of any empirical assignment of 'probability'. One must build one's own perspective on the universe based on one's own interpretation of the available information.
Empirical claims are probabilistic. All empirical knowledge depends on the persistence of objects (and behaviors, really) in time; i.e., we acknowledge that gravity exists because it is repeatable over a sufficient number of tests for us to draw the conclusion that it will continue to be repeatable into the forseeable future. We really don't have any *reason* to believe that this is the case other than statistical analysis - "It's always been this way."
In reading about this particular issue, I've encountered quite a bit of debate on the web; the most coherent explanation of this debate, I've found at www.hedweb.com, with an interesting 'appeal to authority' at this point. This page also explains why many scientists like the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum mechanics (it restores the deterministic nature of the Universe that dissappeared with Heisenberg and Schroedinger's work and eliminates the quantum waveform collapse along with many other paradoxical quantum behaviors) and explains why MWI is implicit in the concept of String Theory. Check it out, and do a little research before we start peeing on the theory...
That said, perhaps you would field the evidentiary findings that indicate this is not true? If we have 0 'reason to believe' something else is the case, an 1 'reason to believe' this is the case, where would the smart money bet?
Have you looked in the software bins of 'computer thrift stores' recently? There are DROVES of 'Print Shop' and 'Photoshop' and 'Paint Shop' clones hanging about waiting for someone to pick up the poor 'abandonware'. I wouldn't wager on the outcome of the relative frequency of abandonware in open source and commercial software.
Not to mention the fact that commercial abandonware is more than inconvenience - it's wasted money; Free Software from Sourceforge is probably going to work the way it appears to work for the forseeable future, given the source code can be recompiled as new libraries, kernels, etc are released. Try that with Windows abandonware.
Ah, another one that can't quite seem to grasp the problem. Your analysis here again creates the abhorrent perception that the consumption of resources (monetary or otherwise) is more important than the actual life of a human being.
The pieces of spam did NOT, I repeat, DID NOT "essentially kill" anyone. Let's presume that your calculations are correct, and that we've decided that spam cost as much as the lifetime earnings of two persons; Let's say, at $50k/year, or $2.55 million over the 51 years you've described, per person... That makes $6.1 million dollars, and you've now created a cash value for a human life of $6.1 million dollars.
I don't know about you, but I would certainly place a higher value than that on my own life; the lives of my family are incalculably more valuable to me.
Those "Spammers" may indeed be objectionable, just as door-to-door salesmen and the proselytes of Christianity are; Still and all, they have families, and someone loves them, and, no matter how much spam you get in the course of your life, you'll still be alive and relatively uninjured.
AC because you're either a sociopath or an idiot. You pick which.
Also, let us note that when the article discusses 'apoptosis' (which, indeed, may be called natural cell death - where a cell simply stops living and breaks down its DNA in response to some trigger), it points out that the incidence of apoptosis and necrosis were increased by a statistically significant amount by the presence of magnetic fields.
All in all, kiddies, take yer vitamin E and melatonin regularly if you use a cell phone or blow drier. You should be all right then.. :)
While I will agree that the original generalization that "any nation with WMD is considered a rogue nation" is incorrect, I think that your response misses the boat, as well - a rogue nation is a nation that refuses to follow the dictates of international law and treaty to which they are signatory. Under that (quite reasonable, IMO) definition, the US is, indeed, a 'rogue nation'.