When someone comes along and uses the connection without the users knowledge
The part of the article concerned with the ISP's views makes it clear that they consider the availability, not the [original] user's state of knowledge to be the relevant issue.
Giving them the password and a URL for the terms and conditions wouldn't satisfy them IMO. To them, I expect, additional users who might have otherwise have bought a connection would be considered 'thieves'.
No it's not. You can only share it with family/friends. Allowing anyone to watch the video too is not legal. This is where the FBI warning and the "for private home exhibitation only" clause come in.
The part about sharing a wireless connection is near the end of the article:
But, Cohen went on to ask, "Do you cheat the service provider?" Internet companies say yes.
"It's no different if I went out and bought a Microsoft program and started sharing it with everyone in my apartment. It's theft," said Kena Lewis, spokeswoman for Bright House Networks in Orlando. "Just because a crime may be undetectable doesn't make it right."
Maybe then, by this reckoning, giving your wireless password to those friends and family who happen to live nearby would in fact be okay. Deliberately leaving your connection unencrypted for everyone to use, and advertising the fact would then be illegal.
If I'm wrong about the legality in the intent of my initial post, the analogy might in fact be surprisingly good:o(
Agreed, but this is a 'fairness' argument, rather than a 'legal' one. You can reasonably argue back that the ISP's profit model relies upon the statistical use of a given connection. Your argument applies to anyone who uses above the mean bandwidth used, and such people will always exist, if there is any variance at all, by the definition of 'average'.
The main article, as so often happens, throws in an irrelevancy near the end: the general sharing of an internet connection, as opposed to the illicit hijacking of that connection, stating that ISPs view this as illegal.
I personally doubt that this is the case. If it is the case, it would certainly be contrary to what would be considered reasonable with wireless handsets for a telephone connection, as an example.
So it's not even the "TV through an open window"; it's more "inviting the neighbours around to watch a film"!
From the hijacked individual's perspective, that would probably be illegal. But if you route an extension of your telephone line into the upstairs flat, or you use a wireless phone, and hand them a receiver, you've probably got a close analogy, as seen from the telecom's perspective.
The ISP defense that it's like sharing one copy of MS Office is pretty poor, as the bandwidth is fixed; it's more like sharing a video, which seems to me to be entirely legal AFAICT.
I've decided that there is a simple solution to this: 'Funny' should cancel down mods, but not give positive Karma, or better still: the positive mod should be capped at one point, or require modding to +5 before a point of Karma is registered.
In any case: shoot for simple outcomes. 'Funny' mods should cancel down mods. -25 on a single post is so obviously unfair that it really shouldn't happen.
Universal miscomputation appears to be at the root of this.
Maybe we should first debug the universal Turing machine.
But how?
Re:Then how is the production funded?
on
P2P and TV
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· Score: 1
You mean pay in advance for the boxed set that doesn't exist yet? Yeah, the kind of people hell-bent on pirating shows will do that. Even the ones who claim they'd "pay" for good content (How much? Ten or twenty dollars? Beyond which they'll just go back to BitTorrent again?). And no one's going to finance a project like this, since you've got no proven paying viewership.
This is pretty ridiculous, since there's pretty good feedback that there's a lot of demand. Maybe not as many as there are downloaders, but pretty healthy demand all the same. Your position is as cynical as those that you attempt to characterise. Just because some file-sharers are freeloaders doesn't mean that all of them are, and "no proven paying viewership" is simply lack of imagination. Often even a small percentage of paying viewers will justify further investment, which you can deduce from good educated guesswork backed with statistics about comparable efforts, or less comparable efforts with a large margin of error. No new product could ever come to market, given your reasoning.
Myself, I don't download films nowadays. I lost interest; my interest in this issue is political.
Look, guys: we all realize that P2P has legitimate applications. But these desperate attempts to somehow "prove" that P2P is somehow the most desirable distribution mechanism are getting tiresome. And even in this case, Warner Brothers owns this content (though I'm not even going to touch on the legality of copyright infringement, since so many here already either believe copyright is inherently wrong, or that copyright is okay when its used by projects they approve of, but "wrong" when a corporation uses it).
The point being raised isn't directly about right and wrong: it's about how release of copyright material helps to create a market. Right and wrong is a separate issue, to be resolved according how you think that property rights are justified.
I meta-modded this post informative, which it is, but would not have meta-modded it insightful.
The reason why is this:
until you get this model into your head, no suggestions for an alternative system will make much sense.
Evidence of something else working is sufficient; knowledge of the status quo is not required for one to know whether something else works. As for a specific example, consider the old mp3.com.
I stand corrected. Where I live (in Britain), the unemployment system requires fortnightly sign-on, so I was ready to believe someone claiming the same thing for the States.
Getting people to sign in at least monthly would make a lot of sense to me... Fortnightly is better, since the signer's faces will be that bit more familiar. Weekly probably drains too much in the way of resources for the gain, and risks interrupting the flow of a genuine search for work.
Good luck in fixing at least your piece of the system, though!
They point out how almost everywhere, the claimant needs to claim in person... to have too many false faces is to share to wealth too widely, so why aren't they picked up by the staff working in the unemployment offices themselves?
Or is the fraud itself being exaggerated? Perhaps if there is a fraud, it's an internal one.
As long as we're still willing to view acceptable ads, there will be plenty of sites that will provide content for us.
In addition, this means that those advertisers who refrain from placing excessively annoying ads will get more business from myself, and fellow Adblockers.
Since those with quieter ads won't have to compete with the more aggressive for our business, there will be no loss for them, so long as we're sufficiently numerous.
Those who do use aggressive ads will compete more and more strongly for an ever-diminishing, and ever less savvy (and wealthy) part of the market.
I have taken to using Adblock, but I only use it to block advertisers who actively annoy me. Pop-ups always result in me blocking the advertising firm. Otherwise, I tolerate advertisers that do not cross my threshold since I do generally wish to support sites that I visit.
I'm taking a PC, rather than data-centred perspective.
Also the context makes it fairly clear: it goes though the (company|country) checkpoint in encrypted state. Or else, you can't check where it's really ultimately from, if they do get to read it.
It does after all end up unencrypted, on Slashdot, after all! So keeping the data safe the whole journey serves no purpose.
I'm all for internet anonymity and free speech, but there are very few reasons why someone would need to visit the Slashdot comments section with a proxy.
If traffic is being traced, the authorities might figure out who's posting critical commentary.
For example, China has sophisticated monitoring of the internet.
As another example, a company with aggressive surveillance might retain data being posted, to be analysed. If Slashdot had an SSL connection, that risk might be avoided, but they don't. One side-effect of TOR is that packets arrive and leave multiply encrypted.
What is more beneficial to society, as a whole? Is it better for John Doe to patent something and then license it for a small fortune, or is it better for a corporation employing tens of thousands of workers to patent that something and not have to pay licensing?
Probably the former. Larger companies will have corporate agendas that clash with the interests of the population at large. For smaller companies and individuals to be granted patents is an excellent way around this. A large company can patent an idea that they wish no-one to implement, and then do nothing with it. If it's held by a smaller company licensing to their competitors, then they may have to buy a license themselves, since they now have no choice but to compete.
In addition, small entities who invent one thing are quite likely to invent another; the licensing means that the money goes to the creative entity. This money will then return to the economy in the form of spending and in new capital though saving, replenishing the lost income to the workers of the larger companies, although perhaps not in the same sector.
John Doe probably employs few workers, if any. The money he makes through licensing mostly benefits himself. Now if the corporation is able to retain the money by having had an "edge" in the patent process, theoretically that money could benefit tens of thousands of employees, or an even greater number of stock holders through dividends.
Existing employees. Shareholders of existing companies.
The money doesn't go down a black hole, you know. And if fewer employees are needed, that is called growth, since although those employees have to find other work, the goods concerned become cheaper before long, and the displaced spending makes for jobs elsewhere.
If you really want to "play safe", and protect jobs, why not just go for state employement? The state isn't too different from a large company, you know...
While would be unfair, perhaps, to John Doe, isn't a bigger win for more people if corporations can leverage their size in the process?
Not at all. Rational growth- and future-oriented policy is to give bias to a plurality of smaller entities. Competition is a great thing!
Slashdot Mirror
Giving them the password and a URL for the terms and conditions wouldn't satisfy them IMO. To them, I expect, additional users who might have otherwise have bought a connection would be considered 'thieves'.
If I'm wrong about the legality in the intent of my initial post, the analogy might in fact be surprisingly good :o(
Agreed, but this is a 'fairness' argument, rather than a 'legal' one. You can reasonably argue back that the ISP's profit model relies upon the statistical use of a given connection. Your argument applies to anyone who uses above the mean bandwidth used, and such people will always exist, if there is any variance at all, by the definition of 'average'.
I personally doubt that this is the case. If it is the case, it would certainly be contrary to what would be considered reasonable with wireless handsets for a telephone connection, as an example.
So it's not even the "TV through an open window"; it's more "inviting the neighbours around to watch a film"!
From the hijacked individual's perspective, that would probably be illegal. But if you route an extension of your telephone line into the upstairs flat, or you use a wireless phone, and hand them a receiver, you've probably got a close analogy, as seen from the telecom's perspective.
The ISP defense that it's like sharing one copy of MS Office is pretty poor, as the bandwidth is fixed; it's more like sharing a video, which seems to me to be entirely legal AFAICT.
In any case: shoot for simple outcomes. 'Funny' mods should cancel down mods. -25 on a single post is so obviously unfair that it really shouldn't happen.
Maybe we should first debug the universal Turing machine.
But how?
Myself, I don't download films nowadays. I lost interest; my interest in this issue is political.
The point being raised isn't directly about right and wrong: it's about how release of copyright material helps to create a market. Right and wrong is a separate issue, to be resolved according how you think that property rights are justified.I have a couple of JEs that might interest you:
http://slashdot.org/~Morosoph/journal/108744
http://slashdot.org/~Morosoph/journal/100704
The reason why is this:
Evidence of something else working is sufficient; knowledge of the status quo is not required for one to know whether something else works. As for a specific example, consider the old mp3.com.I wonder if he still has this investment?
Hmm. Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age...
-- No Text --
Getting people to sign in at least monthly would make a lot of sense to me... Fortnightly is better, since the signer's faces will be that bit more familiar. Weekly probably drains too much in the way of resources for the gain, and risks interrupting the flow of a genuine search for work.
Good luck in fixing at least your piece of the system, though!
They point out how almost everywhere, the claimant needs to claim in person... to have too many false faces is to share to wealth too widely, so why aren't they picked up by the staff working in the unemployment offices themselves?
Or is the fraud itself being exaggerated? Perhaps if there is a fraud, it's an internal one.
"It can't be just compensation, your Honour. If the house were worth the market rate to me, I would already have sold it".
In addition, this means that those advertisers who refrain from placing excessively annoying ads will get more business from myself, and fellow Adblockers.
Since those with quieter ads won't have to compete with the more aggressive for our business, there will be no loss for them, so long as we're sufficiently numerous.
Those who do use aggressive ads will compete more and more strongly for an ever-diminishing, and ever less savvy (and wealthy) part of the market.
It seems to me that we hold all of the aces.
I have taken to using Adblock, but I only use it to block advertisers who actively annoy me. Pop-ups always result in me blocking the advertising firm. Otherwise, I tolerate advertisers that do not cross my threshold since I do generally wish to support sites that I visit.
My reckoning that it will generate a preponderance of flames, rather than flamebait.
I'm taking a PC, rather than data-centred perspective.
Also the context makes it fairly clear: it goes though the (company|country) checkpoint in encrypted state. Or else, you can't check where it's really ultimately from, if they do get to read it.
It does after all end up unencrypted, on Slashdot, after all! So keeping the data safe the whole journey serves no purpose.
I wasn't seriously suggesting that it should ban anonymous posting.
For example, China has sophisticated monitoring of the internet.
As another example, a company with aggressive surveillance might retain data being posted, to be analysed. If Slashdot had an SSL connection, that risk might be avoided, but they don't. One side-effect of TOR is that packets arrive and leave multiply encrypted.
Slashdot either eliminate "Anonymous Coward" posting, or else allow posting from TOR nodes?
And put up a JE about it: Email to my MP regarding copyright.
In addition, small entities who invent one thing are quite likely to invent another; the licensing means that the money goes to the creative entity. This money will then return to the economy in the form of spending and in new capital though saving, replenishing the lost income to the workers of the larger companies, although perhaps not in the same sector.
Existing employees. Shareholders of existing companies.The money doesn't go down a black hole, you know. And if fewer employees are needed, that is called growth, since although those employees have to find other work, the goods concerned become cheaper before long, and the displaced spending makes for jobs elsewhere.
If you really want to "play safe", and protect jobs, why not just go for state employement? The state isn't too different from a large company, you know...
Not at all. Rational growth- and future-oriented policy is to give bias to a plurality of smaller entities. Competition is a great thing!