I love how it seems to be OK for legislators to just completely ignore the Constitution these days, just in order to make a point.
I used to think the judiciary was out of line but apparently they're now the only people willing to stand between us and total madness.
Can't wait for this to go to court. Shame they can't fine the representatives who waste the people's time and money passing crap legislation like this.
Nice that you ignore this, a legitimate counter-argument: "I have never seen a copyright infringing downloader re-sell the latest Britney album as his own creation."
But cite this: "there is a huge difference between for-profit, commercial violations of copyright and personal filesharing."
Which leads me to one inescapable conclusion, based on this post and many others I've seen from you...you're a troll. A well spoken one, but a troll nonetheless.
1. You don't get the point of the Creative Commons licenses...they're about giving users AND content creators new freedoms. And I'm looking at this in a much different light as a creator than you are as a user. There are freedoms as a user that you may like to have, but as a creator I choose not to give them to you.
2. You haven't read the terms of the Creative Commons licenses. If you had, you would know that they're not necessarily about removing restrictions, but about giving content creators options in how they choose to wield their copyrights. Creative Commons is about removing some restrictions, not all. It gives me the option to give my stuff away (not charge money for it) while still having rights and control over how it gets used and and how it's attributed.
3. Creative Commons can be very restrictive regarding user rights, and that's why I like it. For example, I banned derivative works as well as commercial ones. I opted for the most restrictive form of the license as I don't want anyone chopping my music up into unlistenable shit, anyone else making money off of it, or claiming it to be theirs. The only difference between what I have and full-bore copyright is that I have no problem with people disseminating my works, for free, in their unaltered form, without me getting paid. And that's the terms of the license I chose to use.
4. I think if you're looking for no restrictions at all, that's called "public domain"...and I have zero interest in ever making any of my works Public Domain works. If somebody's making money off my work, I want a cut. Actually, I want a lot more than "a cut", see #5 below.
5. "When you make an explicit restriction that says Non-Commercial Only you're cutting off a huge part of our culture from benefiting from this process." Now this is utter bullshit. Sorry, but it is. The only "benefit", and it's a dubious one at best, that I'm denying the culture is that I'm removing the ability of other people to exploit my effort and labor. And I may not want them to be able to do that, because I don't like being exploited. If I'm going to make money from my creations, I'm going to make all of it. I don't share. In the meantime, however, the culture still gets my music, for free...because I'm just a hell of a nice guy and don't feel like charging for it at the moment. No one suffers or is "cut off" from the potential to enjoy my work. They just can't use it (or me) for their own benefit.
Geez, dude, this is not that hard to understand. My music is released under a Creative Commons "No Commercial" use clause because I don't want anyone making money from it. If someone really has a boner to release it and make money off of it, they can talk to me about it.
I'll probably tell them no, but who knows?
And if there's something I want to release commercially, I'll simply leave the "Non-Commerical" part out of it. See? Not that hard.
Now if you've got a problem with me not wanting to allow any commercial use of my product, that's another story entirely. I hope that's not the case.
The whole system is designed to allow people to do exactly what he did, and if he'd even bothered to take the slightest care in his written communications, he'd be sitting pretty on a gigantic pile of your parents' money and no one would be the wiser.
Only when we stop allowing CEOs to loot the companies they're employed by will this kind of crap stop. Sadly, that day is not even on the horizon.
Ewoks Glowing dead Jedis Stupid hack job writing Hamfisted cinematography
Oh, I could go on for days. The series should have stopped right at "Empire", which was probably the best of all of them. But the cash cow must be fed.
Friends, family and acquaintences have all been told they'll have to go elsewhere for the help unless they buy a Mac. I won't even let them pay me...they've got to get the phone book out and start digging around for someone else if they want to stay on the Windows platform.
I'm on strike, unless Microsoft wants to start sending me checks every time the user allows spyware installs or clicks on that magical email attachment. Not necessarily Microsoft's fault as such, but the OS should be designed to prevent users from doing stupid things to it, and it's not.
They resent it, of course, but I do this for a living (sysadmin). I'd like to do other things in my off time. And two family members now own Macs. Oddly enough I still don't have to do any support. Those damn Macs pretty much run themselves.
"beware of folks who's version of what they call 'facts' develop over time, especially when they take a self serving direction."
Oh...you mean like the reasons the Bush administration gave as to why we're fighting a war in Iraq! I get it!
1. WMDs! -then- 2. Fighting the terrorists! -then- 3. Bringing democracy to the poor Iraqi people!
I'll be most careful to beware of both Mr. Clarke (a registered Republican) and Mr. Bush (also a registered Republican) in the future.
Thanks for helping me out. I've been having a really hard time being able to tell who was telling me the truth since Reagan was president. You've cleared it all up for me.
I don't disagree with you at all. Two of my three machines at home run WinXP. It works VERY well. 90% of my life is spent in the Windows shell, so I'm grateful that they try to make it a tolerable experience. And ever since the release of Win2K, the OS has proven to be reasonably stable and secure. That's not my issue with the grandparent post.
All I'm saying is this: The line "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS" is not something any user or programmer would write. That's straight out of the Microsoft marketing department.
I'm not missing the point; I just don't like being spammed/astroturfed when I'm reading Slashdot. If I wanted to read Microsoft's marketing bilge, I'd just go straight to their website.
While I won't use the language that the first replier did, I've got to agree with his fundamental point; if you've really used OSX or Fedora, you wouldn't be saying what you're saying. They're different from Windows, but just as versatile and easy to use.
I'm also not going to accuse you of being a Microsoft shill, but busting out with a marketdroid line like "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS", well, it's hard for me to believe that you could be anything else.
I suppose it's equally possible that you just work in marketing and describe all things that you like in that manner. But I'm doubtful.
I'll take on your argument against Roe vs. Wade, and gay marriage.
You make a really good argument in favor of states rights, and it's one that I'd be inclined to agree with, save for one problem.
In general, states have used their rights wisely and well. However, some decisions made by a certain group of states following the Civil War were so idiotic and, to borrow a term from the younger folks, uncool, that the federal government felt it necessary to step in and remove states' ability to make those decisions. I refer, of course, to the various flavors of legalized discrimination and segregation that were the status quo of the Southern states of this nation.
Had we left those decisions to the state legislatures in question, we'd still have segregation in the South. I suppose you could make the argument that economic forces would have led to the demise of those laws anyway, but you'd be wrong. The South's insistence on maintaining their chosen way of life was so strong that they endured more than 100 years of utter poverty and humiliation following the Civil War simply in order to keep things the way they were, rather than change.
It wasn't Roe vs. Wade that marked a substantial expansion of federal power vs. states rights; that battle started back with the launching of the Civil War, where, for the first time, the judiciary was forced to acknowledge that the federal government was the supreme authority over the states. Now, you may be one of the people who disagrees with that idea, and you're entitled to your opinion. However, over 100 years of legal opinion and precedent disagrees with you.
You make some good arguments. But the way the law works is not on your side.
I'd like to address one more issue:
"You're either a troll or an idiot. Most likely both."
This kind of language is absolutely unacceptable coming from anybody. As a Democrat I'm appalled. However, the left doesn't have a monopoly on that kind of name calling, unfortunately.
I'm just as offended by the constant barrage of abuse coming towards me and my liberal compatriots from such folks as Bob Jones, Ann Coulter, Limbaugh, etc. It's been completely uncalled for, savagely divisive, and not helpful to the national discourse. Furthermore, just as it has with the left of today, it's going to come back and bite the right savagely in the ass a few years from now.
And you're doing it too, Mr. Tsotha. It's not just the Democrats. Sitting on the other side of the aisle here, I can tell you that the Republicans look just as petty, ill-informed and out-of-touch as Democrats look to you. Please give us the benefit of the doubt, and accept that some of us are not stupid, name-calling idiots. I'm willing to give you that level of respect and not resort to childish name calling. I'll ask that you do the same for me, and stop slandering my party because a few loudmouths can't hold it together.
God, where to start with your post..."stuck his neck out"? More like stabbed everyone within reach in the back. It goes beyond simple fraud to tell everyone that you plan to "fight this thing all the way no matter what it takes", solicit donations to do exactly that, and then turn around, take the cash, and run. If I were Mr. Webber I'd move to an undisclosed location. There are going to be some very angry donors out there today.
The MPAA confirmed in late January that they were in negotiations with Edward Webber for at least a month prior to the "shutdown". That's why he put the site up for sale...he wanted to see how much financial leverage he was going to have with the MPAA.
So he ended up with a nice chunk of change from the MPAA to turn over his server logs and membership list, he got to keep the donation fund, and he fucked over a lot of people in the process.
I'd have a completely different view on this if he'd taken the route Bram did with Suprnova...just shut it down and be done with it. That's the honest and the right thing to do. (Frankly the honest/right thing to do would have been to never get into this in the first place, but that's another discussion) But he didn't. He saw an opportunity to commit a massive fraud on a lot of people who thought that he was going to stand up and defend their interests, and he did it.
(I think anyone who donated was a complete idiot, by the way, but commiting fraud on people who are stupid enough to be conned is still morally indefensible)
I look forward to the day Ed Webber ends up in prison for fraud. He may have cut a deal with the MPAA, but the RIAA and BSA can still go after him, as can any individual copyright holder. And if I were a donor to his "legal fund" I'd be on the phone with a lawyer this morning instead of posting this on Slashdot.
He's a criminal of the very worst sort, not a hero. Don't make him out to be one.
There was no "shutdown". Webber planned this for months. He sold his serverlogs, site and members list to the MPAA and walked away a much wealthier man.
A decent, sexy OS that will be killed by corporate infighting, shitty marketing, suicidal management, and expensive and impractical hardware requirements.
I hate to be like this, but you are so wrong. It's not high-end at all.
The difference is in resolution, much like a digital camera. A one-megapixel image is OK for a 3x5 picture. A five-megapixel image is OK for an 8x10 print. But if you really want a big picture (24x36 or larger), full of detail with no visible pixels, you still gotta go with real film.
And tape is exactly the same way. Digital recording is wonderful (I wouldn't go back to analog for a million bucks) but if you want the detail, analog is still where it's at.
Seriously, Quantegy was the last munufacturer of the 2" analog reel-to-reel tape that is used in high-end recording studios. And of the 1/2" tape used for analog mastering.
A dark day for those of us who loved the old analog sound.
Those who filed "Amici" on behalf of Charter...in other words, those who were willing to go on record supporting this lawsuit.
Lotta folks on this here fishin' trip:
MPAA Association of American Publishers Association for Independent Music AFM (U.S. and Canada) AFMA American Federation of Television and Radio Artists American Society of Media Photographers The Author's Guild, Inc. Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) Business Software Alliance (BSA) - (Is there anything these assholes won't stick their noses in?) The Church Music Publishers Association Director's Guild of America Entertainment Artists Graphic Artists Guild, Inc. Office of the Commisioner of Baseball (wtf?) Professional Photographers of America Recording Artists Coalition Screen Actors Guild, Inc. (SAG) SESAC, Inc. Songwriters Guild of America Software and Information Industry Association Writer's Guild of America West, Inc.
Slashdot Mirror
I love how it seems to be OK for legislators to just completely ignore the Constitution these days, just in order to make a point.
I used to think the judiciary was out of line but apparently they're now the only people willing to stand between us and total madness.
Can't wait for this to go to court. Shame they can't fine the representatives who waste the people's time and money passing crap legislation like this.
You do now. I've been using it as my main browser for 2+ years now. It's fantastic, except for those few sites that have chosen to use IE-only code.
A good product. Renders quickly.
What got some money out of me for them, though, was the mail client. It's SO easy to use and just does mail.
Nice that you ignore this, a legitimate counter-argument: "I have never seen a copyright infringing downloader re-sell the latest Britney album as his own creation."
But cite this: "there is a huge difference between for-profit, commercial violations of copyright and personal filesharing."
Which leads me to one inescapable conclusion, based on this post and many others I've seen from you...you're a troll. A well spoken one, but a troll nonetheless.
1. You don't get the point of the Creative Commons licenses...they're about giving users AND content creators new freedoms. And I'm looking at this in a much different light as a creator than you are as a user. There are freedoms as a user that you may like to have, but as a creator I choose not to give them to you.
2. You haven't read the terms of the Creative Commons licenses. If you had, you would know that they're not necessarily about removing restrictions, but about giving content creators options in how they choose to wield their copyrights. Creative Commons is about removing some restrictions, not all. It gives me the option to give my stuff away (not charge money for it) while still having rights and control over how it gets used and and how it's attributed.
3. Creative Commons can be very restrictive regarding user rights, and that's why I like it. For example, I banned derivative works as well as commercial ones. I opted for the most restrictive form of the license as I don't want anyone chopping my music up into unlistenable shit, anyone else making money off of it, or claiming it to be theirs. The only difference between what I have and full-bore copyright is that I have no problem with people disseminating my works, for free, in their unaltered form, without me getting paid. And that's the terms of the license I chose to use.
4. I think if you're looking for no restrictions at all, that's called "public domain"...and I have zero interest in ever making any of my works Public Domain works. If somebody's making money off my work, I want a cut. Actually, I want a lot more than "a cut", see #5 below.
5. "When you make an explicit restriction that says Non-Commercial Only you're cutting off a huge part of our culture from benefiting from this process." Now this is utter bullshit. Sorry, but it is. The only "benefit", and it's a dubious one at best, that I'm denying the culture is that I'm removing the ability of other people to exploit my effort and labor. And I may not want them to be able to do that, because I don't like being exploited. If I'm going to make money from my creations, I'm going to make all of it. I don't share. In the meantime, however, the culture still gets my music, for free...because I'm just a hell of a nice guy and don't feel like charging for it at the moment. No one suffers or is "cut off" from the potential to enjoy my work. They just can't use it (or me) for their own benefit.
Geez, dude, this is not that hard to understand. My music is released under a Creative Commons "No Commercial" use clause because I don't want anyone making money from it. If someone really has a boner to release it and make money off of it, they can talk to me about it.
I'll probably tell them no, but who knows?
And if there's something I want to release commercially, I'll simply leave the "Non-Commerical" part out of it. See? Not that hard.
Now if you've got a problem with me not wanting to allow any commercial use of my product, that's another story entirely. I hope that's not the case.
Slipped through the cracks, my ass.
The whole system is designed to allow people to do exactly what he did, and if he'd even bothered to take the slightest care in his written communications, he'd be sitting pretty on a gigantic pile of your parents' money and no one would be the wiser.
Only when we stop allowing CEOs to loot the companies they're employed by will this kind of crap stop. Sadly, that day is not even on the horizon.
He should have stopped BEFORE episode 3.
Ewoks
Glowing dead Jedis
Stupid hack job writing
Hamfisted cinematography
Oh, I could go on for days. The series should have stopped right at "Empire", which was probably the best of all of them. But the cash cow must be fed.
You hit it right on the head.
Friends, family and acquaintences have all been told they'll have to go elsewhere for the help unless they buy a Mac. I won't even let them pay me...they've got to get the phone book out and start digging around for someone else if they want to stay on the Windows platform.
I'm on strike, unless Microsoft wants to start sending me checks every time the user allows spyware installs or clicks on that magical email attachment. Not necessarily Microsoft's fault as such, but the OS should be designed to prevent users from doing stupid things to it, and it's not.
They resent it, of course, but I do this for a living (sysadmin). I'd like to do other things in my off time. And two family members now own Macs.
Oddly enough I still don't have to do any support. Those damn Macs pretty much run themselves.
"beware of folks who's version of what they call 'facts' develop over time, especially when they take a self serving direction."
Oh...you mean like the reasons the Bush administration gave as to why we're fighting a war in Iraq! I get it!
1. WMDs!
-then-
2. Fighting the terrorists!
-then-
3. Bringing democracy to the poor Iraqi people!
I'll be most careful to beware of both Mr. Clarke (a registered Republican) and Mr. Bush (also a registered Republican) in the future.
Thanks for helping me out. I've been having a really hard time being able to tell who was telling me the truth since Reagan was president. You've cleared it all up for me.
I don't disagree with you at all. Two of my three machines at home run WinXP. It works VERY well. 90% of my life is spent in the Windows shell, so I'm grateful that they try to make it a tolerable experience. And ever since the release of Win2K, the OS has proven to be reasonably stable and secure. That's not my issue with the grandparent post.
All I'm saying is this: The line "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS" is not something any user or programmer would write. That's straight out of the Microsoft marketing department.
I'm not missing the point; I just don't like being spammed/astroturfed when I'm reading Slashdot. If I wanted to read Microsoft's marketing bilge, I'd just go straight to their website.
While I won't use the language that the first replier did, I've got to agree with his fundamental point; if you've really used OSX or Fedora, you wouldn't be saying what you're saying. They're different from Windows, but just as versatile and easy to use.
I'm also not going to accuse you of being a Microsoft shill, but busting out with a marketdroid line like "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS", well, it's hard for me to believe that you could be anything else.
I suppose it's equally possible that you just work in marketing and describe all things that you like in that manner. But I'm doubtful.
Best Post of 2005. Seriously.
I'll take on your argument against Roe vs. Wade, and gay marriage.
You make a really good argument in favor of states rights, and it's one that I'd be inclined to agree with, save for one problem.
In general, states have used their rights wisely and well. However, some decisions made by a certain group of states following the Civil War were so idiotic and, to borrow a term from the younger folks, uncool, that the federal government felt it necessary to step in and remove states' ability to make those decisions. I refer, of course, to the various flavors of legalized discrimination and segregation that were the status quo of the Southern states of this nation.
Had we left those decisions to the state legislatures in question, we'd still have segregation in the South. I suppose you could make the argument that economic forces would have led to the demise of those laws anyway, but you'd be wrong. The South's insistence on maintaining their chosen way of life was so strong that they endured more than 100 years of utter poverty and humiliation following the Civil War simply in order to keep things the way they were, rather than change.
It wasn't Roe vs. Wade that marked a substantial expansion of federal power vs. states rights; that battle started back with the launching of the Civil War, where, for the first time, the judiciary was forced to acknowledge that the federal government was the supreme authority over the states. Now, you may be one of the people who disagrees with that idea, and you're entitled to your opinion. However, over 100 years of legal opinion and precedent disagrees with you.
You make some good arguments. But the way the law works is not on your side.
I'd like to address one more issue:
"You're either a troll or an idiot. Most likely both."
This kind of language is absolutely unacceptable coming from anybody. As a Democrat I'm appalled. However, the left doesn't have a monopoly on that kind of name calling, unfortunately.
I'm just as offended by the constant barrage of abuse coming towards me and my liberal compatriots from such folks as Bob Jones, Ann Coulter, Limbaugh, etc. It's been completely uncalled for, savagely divisive, and not helpful to the national discourse. Furthermore, just as it has with the left of today, it's going to come back and bite the right savagely in the ass a few years from now.
And you're doing it too, Mr. Tsotha. It's not just the Democrats. Sitting on the other side of the aisle here, I can tell you that the Republicans look just as petty, ill-informed and out-of-touch as Democrats look to you. Please give us the benefit of the doubt, and accept that some of us are not stupid, name-calling idiots. I'm willing to give you that level of respect and not resort to childish name calling. I'll ask that you do the same for me, and stop slandering my party because a few loudmouths can't hold it together.
God, where to start with your post..."stuck his neck out"? More like stabbed everyone within reach in the back. It goes beyond simple fraud to tell everyone that you plan to "fight this thing all the way no matter what it takes", solicit donations to do exactly that, and then turn around, take the cash, and run. If I were Mr. Webber I'd move to an undisclosed location. There are going to be some very angry donors out there today.
The MPAA confirmed in late January that they were in negotiations with Edward Webber for at least a month prior to the "shutdown". That's why he put the site up for sale...he wanted to see how much financial leverage he was going to have with the MPAA.
So he ended up with a nice chunk of change from the MPAA to turn over his server logs and membership list, he got to keep the donation fund, and he fucked over a lot of people in the process.
I'd have a completely different view on this if he'd taken the route Bram did with Suprnova...just shut it down and be done with it. That's the honest and the right thing to do. (Frankly the honest/right thing to do would have been to never get into this in the first place, but that's another discussion) But he didn't. He saw an opportunity to commit a massive fraud on a lot of people who thought that he was going to stand up and defend their interests, and he did it.
(I think anyone who donated was a complete idiot, by the way, but commiting fraud on people who are stupid enough to be conned is still morally indefensible)
I look forward to the day Ed Webber ends up in prison for fraud. He may have cut a deal with the MPAA, but the RIAA and BSA can still go after him, as can any individual copyright holder. And if I were a donor to his "legal fund" I'd be on the phone with a lawyer this morning instead of posting this on Slashdot.
He's a criminal of the very worst sort, not a hero. Don't make him out to be one.
There was no "shutdown". Webber planned this for months. He sold his serverlogs, site and members list to the MPAA and walked away a much wealthier man.
There was no court order.
I will now have to stab myself in the head, since you've so cruelly imposed Roseanne's horrible visage in the place of the lovely Jewel Staite.
:)
You're a mean motherfucker
Let us pray the horror you've outlined here never comes to pass.
Seriously, that show sucked balls. Time to put it out of its misery and move on.
Damn, it's BeOS all over again.
A decent, sexy OS that will be killed by corporate infighting, shitty marketing, suicidal management, and expensive and impractical hardware requirements.
Christ, when will people learn?
Please, please bring back goatse instead.
Seriously, that's just disgusting.
That is fucking brillant. Wish I had the mod points.
Fuckin' a right. Preach on, brother. Wish I had mod points.
I hate to be like this, but you are so wrong. It's not high-end at all.
The difference is in resolution, much like a digital camera. A one-megapixel image is OK for a 3x5 picture. A five-megapixel image is OK for an 8x10 print. But if you really want a big picture (24x36 or larger), full of detail with no visible pixels, you still gotta go with real film.
And tape is exactly the same way. Digital recording is wonderful (I wouldn't go back to analog for a million bucks) but if you want the detail, analog is still where it's at.
Or was at.
Seriously, Quantegy was the last munufacturer of the 2" analog reel-to-reel tape that is used in high-end recording studios. And of the 1/2" tape used for analog mastering.
A dark day for those of us who loved the old analog sound.
Oh man. Thanks for catching that. I now go to wallow in my own shame.
Those who filed "Amici" on behalf of Charter...in other words, those who were willing to go on record supporting this lawsuit.
Lotta folks on this here fishin' trip:
MPAA
Association of American Publishers
Association for Independent Music
AFM (U.S. and Canada)
AFMA
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Society of Media Photographers
The Author's Guild, Inc.
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
Business Software Alliance (BSA) - (Is there anything these assholes won't stick their noses in?)
The Church Music Publishers Association
Director's Guild of America
Entertainment Artists
Graphic Artists Guild, Inc.
Office of the Commisioner of Baseball (wtf?)
Professional Photographers of America
Recording Artists Coalition
Screen Actors Guild, Inc. (SAG)
SESAC, Inc.
Songwriters Guild of America
Software and Information Industry Association
Writer's Guild of America
West, Inc.