IFPI, the more legal squeeze you put on the people with your ridiculous propaganda and bribed-for legislation, the more will slip through your loopholes...
until the day when everyone realises that "intellectual property" thing is itself an excuse that allows you to profit where you should not.
I don't see anyone getting robbed here. The film or music is still part of human culture.
When the copyright of an art work is pushed into perpetuality (i.e. made into "intellectual property"), no one can freely use the part of the culture that is created by the art work. This is not a natural state of the affairs, as copying was the norm (and a rather beneficial norm) during the human history.
When the copyright contract between the society and the artist was established, the rationale was: a _limited_ monopoly (granted by the society) that allows profit, in exchange for the right of the society to use the work for free when the monopoly expires. This contract is now being subverted by governments bribed or pressured by the MAFIAA and related organizations.
As laws become more complex, the risks associated with doing artistic work _outside_ the MAFIAA umbrella are growing. Thus, effort going into such work diminishes, and the MAFIAA (and the governments it bribes) are given an undue influence over the culture.
Such attempts to violate the said contract, perpetuate copyright and promote the nefairous concept of "intellectual property" are therefore acts of highway robbery with respect to human culture. This act is even more ridiculous, because the current Hollywood riches were made on what is now referred to as "copyright theft" -- which happened a lot in the US before Hollyword became a proponent of "intellectual property".
I am not an american either, but i would find it very surprising if one movie is what matters in the US elections. There were number of factors that weighted on the outcome in 2004 that come to mind that would seem more relevant than Michael Moore -- like the weak democratic party candidate, the war in Iraq (and all the propaganda associated with it), the terrorism scaremongering, the huge profits for the military industrial complex (and the support from them), the oil business (and the support from them) etc etc. There was event the plain human vanity -- I doubt many people in 2004 wanted to come out and say "I was wrong about W". So, (as they say in one Eastern European country), don't go look for a calf under the ox. It wasn't Michael Moore, it was the American electorate.
here are two takes on it, one interesting, and the other bordering on the ridiculous. first, apparently michael moore himself approves of people sharing. he was quoted to have said that:
"I make these books and movies and TV shows because I want things to change, so the more people that get to see them the better, so I'm happy when that happens. I think information and art, ideas should be shared."
So far so good, hats off to the guy for the message.
Now, onto part two. The funny thing is that there are some people in the so-called "blogosphere" (who seem to disagree with Moore), who have posted the movie for download, pasted a ton of ads on their website, and then gone to write something like so:
"Now I fully expect [...] Moore's people asking me to take this down. Which I will, because unlike Moore and most liberals I actually do respect things like copyright laws and property rights. "
Ain't that sweet, and ain't people on the internet nice -- you rip someone off while saying you "respect" copyright, you're making money off ads on it, and you have the audacity to say the movie is all bulshit. Cheers for the copyright 'lovers' on teh internet, really.
afaik, at this point, there is no theory that explains gravitation the way the rest of the fundamental forces are explained.
soooo.... shall we therefore ignore it and try to make pigs fly, or shall we instead accept the _fact_ that it is present and keep on studying it while taking it into consideration when we plan our future?
the only difference is that there is no (yet) human-made gravity.
Contrary to your belief, other engineering pursuits do follow that process, but often a "public beta" type of arrangement is simply too expensive.
Well, sir, I must point it out to you that is compleat bullshit. I have never heard of or seen a beta car available for testing, nor am I aware of one being offered to the general public. On the contrary, beta cars are tested by specially trained test drivers, whose job is to find them bugs. In fact, I haven't heard of any other item offered for beta testing, neither video, nor stereo, nor washing machine. The software companies use users as beta testers, and have the audacity to _advertise_ that on all media.
Also, when a car has a bug that has caused real trouble (which happens rarely enough), the car manufacturer can, and usually is sued, found liable, and pays hefty sums to the affected people.
The software companies, on the other hand, have cut themselves a sweet deal by having monkeys beta-test their junk, and blaming any problems on the users.
And, before you all tell me "there were no bugs", how come they "fixed" them
like it says here?
No, it isn't. It is more like telling a corporation currently engaged in a fraud "give us all the data of what you're doing that are relevant to the case from now on, and keep everything else in case it is requested by the judge".
The outcome of the case that MAFIAA is going for is to prove that TorrentSpy vicariously infringes on MAFIAA rights by hosting tracker data. To convince the judge and make TorrentSpy disappear, MAFIAA wants to show that TS exists mostly because they help people infringe on copyrights, and for that they need some filenames, or so the judge has instructed.
I.e. this case is not only about the _past_, this is about the _future_. If TS loses, they will have to pay some damages for their past behaviour, and stop providing services in the future.
The bigger problem of whether vicarious liability exists when you host torrent data isn't decided by the case, it is written in the laws that are passed by the US congress, _under the influence_ of thick wads of MAFIAA cash.
If you want to change that, you need to talk to the Congress, and not to the judge though.
an organization that rackets its suppliers and customers and bribes governments internationally to pass laws that subvert the social contract that gave it money in the first place it is just as mafiotic as the mafia that the likes (or the unlikes) of Don Corleone run. the fact that it is 'legal' only makes it more dangerous. the presence of corrupt politicians who fall for the money doesn't reflect to the "rightness" of the cause.
to godwin the thread, mass-murdering certain kinds of people was legal, lawful and encouraged in certain nazi and communist regimes.that don't make it right. similarly, the way MAFIAA is using money and extortion laws to extend the limited monopoly that society gives to authors forever and rob the human culture isn't right.
btw, what exactly am I making up and what exactly am I misrepresenting?
in my humble opinion MAFIAA _is_ evil, actually pretty close to the epitome of evil. being informed and seeing the issues clearly is a very important first step in confronting and (hopefully) eradicating that evil, where available.
yours is a post with a lot of stuff, but in reality the matter is simple and almost non-technical. it goeth a bit like the following synopsis:
0. MAFIAA sez in court they needz teh logs to show TS helps copyright infringement (they want to show stuff like urls and filenames, not l33t hex dumps) 1. the judge agrees that's reasonable, asks TS logfiles. 2. TS replies: OMGLOLZ we don't keep log files and teh data isn't there anywayz 3. the MAFIAA calls expert who sez STFU, while data is in teh RAM you can copy it to a logfile 4. judge says: correctamundo, make the flow of data from RAM to log files happen, and hand in the log files 5. TS goes like: OMG our users business model privacy european lawz LOLZ again!!!!111 6. judge says: take it easy, scratch out IP addresses and deliver the logs only from your US servers
end of story, MAFIAA wins this step, TS sounds not l33t, and that is regardless of what I think of that 'intellectual proprety' stuff, of which I don't think much.
Yeah, but the judge isn't talking about the volatility of RAM per se, but the ability to read from it while the data is in there, the point seemingly being that log data can be read from RAM while it is operational and that RAM volatility isn't an excuse to not create logs once ordered.
If you read the ruling, you'll see is is all about logging user data, that TorrentSpy puts up many other reasons for not logging access, and they are all thrown out. To me it reads as it isn't about RAM, but about TorrentSpy excuses for not logging.
i am kinda late to the fray, but the actual ruling doesn't seem to concern itself with the technical aspects of RAM, instead, it addressess the argument "does TorrentSpy have electronic recordings of their server logs", and, as far as read, it seems to say "yes, because data is in RAM for a while, and RAM is an electronic media built for the purpose of storage and retrieval of information, albeit short-term one, and TorrentSpy can read the data during that time".
The whole argument is there in the first place because TorrentSpy seem to allege they don't have logs because the logs are not on disk, but in RAM, which is transient and not an electronic medium.
So, to my IANAL eyes the ruling says "if you are in the US, and you have been issued a court order to store all your electronic communications, you better do so and don't come up with excuses which are lame technically."
I respectfully decline to comment on whether this ruling is good, bad or ugly.
well, i judge the companies as a user, not an employeee, and contracts like that one are the main reason why I think software companies need no slack. tell me which other engineering field lets you distribute a potentially harmful product AND get away with it? in the contract?
sheesh, if people can find several exploits on day one, that means they are pretty obvious exploits. pretty obvious exploits mean lack of quality control, whether it is Apple, Microsoft, your favourite gaming company or your favourite linux distro.
but go on denying the responsibility of software makers.
no, really, it is the other way around and we should, of course, let companies that release software with risky bugs off the hook, and tramp onto people who report those bugs.
both sides are at fault here, but the fault of the company that releases vulnerable software to the media fanfare is way bigger than the problem of the nobody who alerts the general public to the fault.
releasing software with remotely exploitable bugs to the general public to the fanfare of the press (release of safari is in all major news) by a large company is surely a more irresponsible act than a bug report about the said software.
correctamundo. so then it is better that people don't know what's in for them when installing it, right? or you sincerely believe most folks that install stuff know what they are doing?
Wow, a company releases a product that puts their customers in danger, and boo-hoo, the fanbois go after the whistleblowers. How about the professionalism of Apple developers/testers/managers?
you're having it all mixed up. this is not about _you_, it is about _them_. the problem with companies like google is you don't know when you're using them. they own a lot of sites and services and probably have stake in even more, and all this data is collected, analyzed and processed by a single entity, without you knowing it, agreeing to it, or having an option to do anything at all about it.
you say you like this, and you call people "retarded" because they worry about privacy, but actually you say because you haven't thought much about it, and obviously don't have enough experience outside of the US. stop for a moment and consider -- what can happen to you personally when a powerful entity can go after you with a large profile that basically follows what you're thinking? i come from a country where everybody had a file, and the file was used to make people do things they otherwise wouldn't. i have seen what this does to people. google and the likes take it to a new level.
unless there is a general understanding that you control some parts of your life and can dispose of them as you wish, including legally limiting other people's ability to own this data, i can easily see this happening with profiles kept by information clearing houses like google. done by an agency or company near you.
the problem is not with the users. any user who buys a plan marketed as 20mbps has the right to assume that is the speed they are entitled to. the "up to" clause, at least in most contracts I have seen, is there to allow for the rare case where due to technical problems or other temporary circumstances the company can't guarantee the speed, not as a device to systematically oversell the service.
also, where i live the providers have more or less kept up with capacity increase partly because the government invested in infrastructure and technology on the last mile -- so that now even in the resort village that i reside I can choose between several ISPs that provide 100mbps for roughly $30-40 a month.
in other words, with the correct priorities and enough pressure, the companies can be made to go at least partly in the direction that is "right" for users.
Slashdot Mirror
.... and half seriously ...
...
IFPI, the more legal squeeze you put on the people with your ridiculous propaganda and bribed-for legislation, the more will slip through your loopholes
until the day when everyone realises that "intellectual property" thing is itself an excuse that allows you to profit where you should not.
When the copyright of an art work is pushed into perpetuality (i.e. made into "intellectual property"), no one can freely use the part of the culture that is created by the art work. This is not a natural state of the affairs, as copying was the norm (and a rather beneficial norm) during the human history.I don't see anyone getting robbed here. The film or music is still part of human culture.
When the copyright contract between the society and the artist was established, the rationale was: a _limited_ monopoly (granted by the society) that allows profit, in exchange for the right of the society to use the work for free when the monopoly expires. This contract is now being subverted by governments bribed or pressured by the MAFIAA and related organizations.
As laws become more complex, the risks associated with doing artistic work _outside_ the MAFIAA umbrella are growing. Thus, effort going into such work diminishes, and the MAFIAA (and the governments it bribes) are given an undue influence over the culture.
Such attempts to violate the said contract, perpetuate copyright and promote the nefairous concept of "intellectual property" are therefore acts of highway robbery with respect to human culture. This act is even more ridiculous, because the current Hollywood riches were made on what is now referred to as "copyright theft" -- which happened a lot in the US before Hollyword became a proponent of "intellectual property".
I am not an american either, but i would find it very surprising if one movie is what matters in the US elections. There were number of factors that weighted on the outcome in 2004 that come to mind that would seem more relevant than Michael Moore -- like the weak democratic party candidate, the war in Iraq (and all the propaganda associated with it), the terrorism scaremongering, the huge profits for the military industrial complex (and the support from them), the oil business (and the support from them) etc etc. There was event the plain human vanity -- I doubt many people in 2004 wanted to come out and say "I was wrong about W". So, (as they say in one Eastern European country), don't go look for a calf under the ox. It wasn't Michael Moore, it was the American electorate.
here are two takes on it, one interesting, and the other bordering on the ridiculous. first, apparently michael moore himself approves of people sharing. he was quoted to have said that:
"I make these books and movies and TV shows because I want things to change, so the more people that get to see them the better, so I'm happy when that happens. I think information and art, ideas should be shared."
So far so good, hats off to the guy for the message.
Now, onto part two. The funny thing is that there are some people in the so-called "blogosphere" (who seem to disagree with Moore), who have posted the movie for download, pasted a ton of ads on their website, and then gone to write something like so:
"Now I fully expect [...] Moore's people asking me to take this down. Which I will, because unlike Moore and most liberals I actually do respect things like copyright laws and property rights. "
Ain't that sweet, and ain't people on the internet nice -- you rip someone off while saying you "respect" copyright, you're making money off ads on it, and you have the audacity to say the movie is all bulshit. Cheers for the copyright 'lovers' on teh internet, really.
afaik, at this point, there is no theory that explains gravitation the way the rest of the fundamental forces are explained.
.... shall we therefore ignore it and try to make pigs fly, or shall we instead accept the _fact_ that it is present and keep on studying it while taking it into consideration when we plan our future?
soooo
the only difference is that there is no (yet) human-made gravity.
Well, sir, I must point it out to you that is compleat bullshit. I have never heard of or seen a beta car available for testing, nor am I aware of one being offered to the general public. On the contrary, beta cars are tested by specially trained test drivers, whose job is to find them bugs. In fact, I haven't heard of any other item offered for beta testing, neither video, nor stereo, nor washing machine. The software companies use users as beta testers, and have the audacity to _advertise_ that on all media.
Also, when a car has a bug that has caused real trouble (which happens rarely enough), the car manufacturer can, and usually is sued, found liable, and pays hefty sums to the affected people.
The software companies, on the other hand, have cut themselves a sweet deal by having monkeys beta-test their junk, and blaming any problems on the users.
And, before you all tell me "there were no bugs", how come they "fixed" them like it says here?
No, it isn't. It is more like telling a corporation currently engaged in a fraud "give us all the data of what you're doing that are relevant to the case from now on, and keep everything else in case it is requested by the judge".
The outcome of the case that MAFIAA is going for is to prove that TorrentSpy vicariously infringes on MAFIAA rights by hosting tracker data. To convince the judge and make TorrentSpy disappear, MAFIAA wants to show that TS exists mostly because they help people infringe on copyrights, and for that they need some filenames, or so the judge has instructed.
I.e. this case is not only about the _past_, this is about the _future_. If TS loses, they will have to pay some damages for their past behaviour, and stop providing services in the future.
The bigger problem of whether vicarious liability exists when you host torrent data isn't decided by the case, it is written in the laws that are passed by the US congress, _under the influence_ of thick wads of MAFIAA cash.
If you want to change that, you need to talk to the Congress, and not to the judge though.
true, and the luscious bouncing spheres aren't always what they seem to be. :)
an organization that rackets its suppliers and customers and bribes governments internationally to pass laws that subvert the social contract that gave it money in the first place it is just as mafiotic as the mafia that the likes (or the unlikes) of Don Corleone run. the fact that it is 'legal' only makes it more dangerous. the presence of corrupt politicians who fall for the money doesn't reflect to the "rightness" of the cause.
to godwin the thread, mass-murdering certain kinds of people was legal, lawful and encouraged in certain nazi and communist regimes.that don't make it right. similarly, the way MAFIAA is using money and extortion laws to extend the limited monopoly that society gives to authors forever and rob the human culture isn't right.
btw, what exactly am I making up and what exactly am I misrepresenting?
silicon spheres will define the standard ... will they be coming in pairs by any chance?
in my humble opinion MAFIAA _is_ evil, actually pretty close to the epitome of evil. being informed and seeing the issues clearly is a very important first step in confronting and (hopefully) eradicating that evil, where available.
yours is a post with a lot of stuff, but in reality the matter is simple and almost non-technical.
it goeth a bit like the following synopsis:
0. MAFIAA sez in court they needz teh logs to show TS helps copyright infringement
(they want to show stuff like urls and filenames, not l33t hex dumps)
1. the judge agrees that's reasonable, asks TS logfiles.
2. TS replies: OMGLOLZ we don't keep log files and teh data isn't there anywayz
3. the MAFIAA calls expert who sez STFU, while data is in teh RAM you can copy it to a logfile
4. judge says: correctamundo, make the flow of data from RAM to log files happen, and hand in the log files
5. TS goes like: OMG our users business model privacy european lawz LOLZ again!!!!111
6. judge says: take it easy, scratch out IP addresses and deliver the logs only from your US servers
end of story, MAFIAA wins this step, TS sounds not l33t, and that is regardless of what I think of that 'intellectual proprety' stuff, of which I don't think much.
Yeah, but the judge isn't talking about the volatility of RAM per se, but the ability to read from it while the data is in there, the point seemingly being that log data can be read from RAM while it is operational and that RAM volatility isn't an excuse to not create logs once ordered.
If you read the ruling, you'll see is is all about logging user data, that TorrentSpy puts up many other reasons for not logging access, and they are all thrown out. To me it reads as it isn't about RAM, but about TorrentSpy excuses for not logging.
... considering all pain and suffering.
Then, if the disk is illegally copied, they send the soul to Microsoft Hell. And if the disk is genuine, the soul goes to Microsoft Heaven.
i am kinda late to the fray, but the actual ruling doesn't seem to concern itself with the technical aspects of RAM, instead, it addressess the argument "does TorrentSpy have electronic recordings of their server logs", and, as far as read, it seems to say "yes, because data is in RAM for a while, and RAM is an electronic media built for the purpose of storage and retrieval of information, albeit short-term one, and TorrentSpy can read the data during that time".
The whole argument is there in the first place because TorrentSpy seem to allege they don't have logs because the logs are not on disk, but in RAM, which is transient and not an electronic medium.
So, to my IANAL eyes the ruling says "if you are in the US, and you have been issued a court order to store all your electronic communications, you better do so and don't come up with excuses which are lame technically."
I respectfully decline to comment on whether this ruling is good, bad or ugly.
well, i judge the companies as a user, not an employeee, and contracts like that one are the main reason why I think software companies need no slack. tell me which other engineering field lets you distribute a potentially harmful product AND get away with it? in the contract?
sheesh, if people can find several exploits on day one, that means they are pretty obvious exploits. pretty obvious exploits mean lack of quality control, whether it is Apple, Microsoft, your favourite gaming company or your favourite linux distro.
but go on denying the responsibility of software makers.
yes, definitely. wouldn't you agree?
no, really, it is the other way around and we should, of course, let companies that release software with risky bugs off the hook, and tramp onto people who report those bugs.
both sides are at fault here, but the fault of the company that releases vulnerable software to the media fanfare is way bigger than the problem of the nobody who alerts the general public to the fault.
releasing software with remotely exploitable bugs to the general public to the fanfare of the press (release of safari is in all major news) by a large company is surely a more irresponsible act than a bug report about the said software.
so now the responsibility for a product distributed by a company is with the "opensource community" as well?
correctamundo.
so then it is better that people don't know what's in for them when installing it, right?
or you sincerely believe most folks that install stuff know what they are doing?
Wow, a company releases a product that puts their customers in danger, and boo-hoo, the fanbois go after the whistleblowers. How about the professionalism of Apple developers/testers/managers?
you're having it all mixed up. this is not about _you_, it is about _them_. the problem with companies like google is you don't know when you're using them. they own a lot of sites and services and probably have stake in even more, and all this data is collected, analyzed and processed by a single entity, without you knowing it, agreeing to it, or having an option to do anything at all about it.
you say you like this, and you call people "retarded" because they worry about privacy, but actually you say because you haven't thought much about it, and obviously don't have enough experience outside of the US. stop for a moment and consider -- what can happen to you personally when a powerful entity can go after you with a large profile that basically follows what you're thinking? i come from a country where everybody had a file, and the file was used to make people do things they otherwise wouldn't. i have seen what this does to people. google and the likes take it to a new level.
unless there is a general understanding that you control some parts of your life and can dispose of them as you wish, including legally limiting other people's ability to own this data, i can easily see this happening with profiles kept by information clearing houses like google. done by an agency or company near you.
the problem is not with the users. any user who buys a plan marketed as 20mbps has the right to assume that is the speed they are entitled to. the "up to" clause, at least in most contracts I have seen, is there to allow for the rare case where due to technical problems or other temporary circumstances the company can't guarantee the speed, not as a device to systematically oversell the service.
also, where i live the providers have more or less kept up with capacity increase partly because the government invested in infrastructure and technology on the last mile -- so that now even in the resort village that i reside I can choose between several ISPs that provide 100mbps for roughly $30-40 a month.
in other words, with the correct priorities and enough pressure, the companies can be made to go at least partly in the direction that is "right" for users.