"I have never seen a copyright infringing downloader re-sell the latest Britney album as his own creation."
And they wouldn't want to. Likewise, you wouldn't want to take a photograph of s computer program, or listen to it. Different media are just that -- different -- and thus have different rules. When you release music, the big risk is that people will copy it without your consent. With GPL software, the big risk is that somebody will appropriate it into their own code and sell it without releasing the source. Of course the Slashdot crowd can empathize more with the latter person than the former -- that's a given. But I sense that you think it's an absolute that copying code and selling it as your own is a worse violation of rights than an equivalent violation of the rights of somebody who works in another medium.
"IP rights are not black or white."
I believe they are, in that we should respect all IP creators' rights. This is not a "some artists are more equal than others" situation. That musician is a human being just like you are, even though his axe is his voice or a musical instrument, and not a compiler. It is terribly unfair to tell these people that their rights mean less than ours because they have chosen a medium which has a different set of rules. If the software developer wants you to respect their rights, and the musician wants you to respect theirs, why not have some empathy and respect them both?
Treating all people fairly and following the golden rule (in short... treat others how you'd like to be treated) also prevents others from using your rationalizations against you. If you can convince yourself that violating a programmer's rights is worse than violating the rights of a musician, then there might be a musician out there who quite simply doesn't see the big deal of compiling GPL code into a commercial closed source app, while simultaneously taking the pirating of their music very seriously. So that we don't need to revert to defenses that take the form of "violating the GPL is just worse than pirating music, and that should be self evident" (which is tautological at best, and self-serving at worst), a liberal application of the golden rule should be in order. That way, you don't need to understand why the musician is upset when you violate his rights, and he doesn't need to understand why the GPL is such a big deal -- you'll just have mutual respect for each others' rights.
"after receiving verbal OKs that the code would remain mine"
My comment won't be very helpful to the situation, but here goes:
If I understand it correctly, he signed a contract with an inventions clause when he started work at the company, but after he was hired, he was told verbally that the inventions clause would not apply to a particular project.
If I were in this position, I would put the onus on the person who made the verbal promise. Their response might be one of a few things:
If they state "yes, I did make that promise to you" then I would reply with "Great! Would you mind following me like a baby duck to the office of our head counsel, and repeating what you just said?"
If they claim never to have said that -- in other words, if they're lying -- then I would sneak in to the office late at night, install porn on their computer, and then tip off MIS. No, just kidding. But if I had a supervisor or co-worker who saw fit to lie to my face, I would have bigger issues with my job than the ownership of some code.
"You're making an entirely unwarranted assumption: That GPL developers routinely infringe others' copyrights. Most developers I know are very respectful of any copyrights on a work."
You are most likely right. I would imagine that serious developers who've put their heart and soul into brilliantly crafted code will often understand that musicians (and anybody else who chooses an art form other than software development) also tend to work hard and don't want their rights violated, either.
I think the bulk of the issue is Slashdotters who are aware of the rules regarding the GPL and other art forms, use the GPL as a convenient rationalization for music piracy, or piracy of non-GPL software. If not that, then they compare the GPL license with a typical license for, say, music or films, and believe one to be more equal than the other, while ignoring the fact that different media tend to have different uses, and thus different rules.
"This is the most sensible thing I've seen written on this subject thus far. It's a good point: WHY does FOSS not have representation in the BSA?"
The BSA relies on fees from its members to cover their costs. Looking at the membership roster of the BSA, it's my guess that the membership fees are quite dear. FOSS may simply not have the money; or if they do, they may find that it's much better served elsewhere.
"From my (albeit limited) understanding of the GPL, it just wants you to give credit to the original authors of the code. When someone downloads a song, they are not in any way claiming that they wrote the song. There's the difference betwen the two."
The forms of art are inherently different. The average pirate doesn't incorporate a downloaded song into their own work without credit, and the average GPL violator doesn't listen to the code. The implicit rationale here is "I follow this certain set of rules for one piece of media, and if another medium has different rules, then they're wrong and can be ignored." Different media have different uses, and thus, sets of rules.
In situations like this, the golden rule still applies: treat others as you would like to be treated. If a software developer -- big or small -- wants you to honor their wishes and respect their rights, do so. Likewise, if a musician -- or even a record company -- wants you to respect their wishes and respect their rights, you should as well. Because some day -- whether you're a musician or a programmer or a painter or an author -- it may be your own rights that somebody has taken the libery of ignoring.
" It's called a joke. Poking fun at a clearly dated name."
Correct. It's clear that the GP was trying to be funny. I should have been more careful in my point: I don't know why so many Slashdotters find that old company names are funny. I stand by my theory that it's because many Slashdotters are teenagers, and thus haven't run into a whole lot of old company names yet.
You can add KFC your list as well. They still fry 'em and they're purportedly still chicken, but frying isn't so friendly of a concept nowadays.
Wow, and if you think that's wacky, the NAACP stands for the National Association of Colored People, when "colored" has been politically incorrect for half a century now!
And guess what the 2nd "T" in AT&T stands for -- "telegraph!"
Seriously, it's interesting that people start tripping on the "P" in "BPI" whenever it's posted. I'm guessing that it's because many Slashdotters are teenagers, and organizations that have been for around for longer than they have are still an intriguing concept.
"On other points, I think the story was very badly written and researched, and I'm not surprised by any of the problems. In fact, it may have come across by way of sheer stupidity, so instead of them being one day ahead, the writer might have thought they were one day behind, and compensated in the wrong direction, ending up with the date completely incorrect."
The report is one in a series of many, filed by a journalist who's been sitting in the courtroom day after day, following the case. It might be hard to follow out of context; it's a "reporter's notebook" style piece rather than a compleat guide to the Kazaa trial. Anybody who thinks he's being harsh on Kazaa should read some of the earlier reports -- the plaintiffs have taken their lumps, too. Sure, it's written in a colloquial style, but I imagine you have some local columnists of your own whose writing style takes a bit of getting used to. Hunter S. Thompson changed journalism a lot.
Either way, the journalist's potential misunderstanding of time zones is not germaine here. The GP poster incorrectly thought that Kazaa had earmarked funds for tsunami relief (impossible, as the tsunami had not yet occurred), when the reality is that Kazaa simply claimed to have set up the Red Cross as their sole beneficiary. It was a matter of dispute in the courts well before the disaster struck. It was simply a sad coincidence that the tsunami hit later that month. I don't think the GP poster has any serious tinfoil hat issues; it's more one of reading comprehension.
"And Porsche opened stores in California because they wanted to sell some cars to law-abiding individuals who never exceed 65Mph?"
If you're not sure of the difference, you can think of a car like a browser. There are many browser vendors out there, just as there are car makers. Browsers can be used for illegal purposes, and sometimes, people break the law using their car. Browsers might even have special features that might seem to make them better equipped for copyright infringement, such as improved download management; likewise, many car makers advertise the performance capabilities of their product, even though any car can be used to break the law.
The crucial difference is that browser vendors and car makers have not set up business specifically to provide an outlet for illegal activity. Ye olde "substantial non-infringing uses" applies here; most of the time, both browsers and cars (even Porsches) are used in a legal way.
Compare this to Kazaa, the business model of which is dependent on the high demand for pirated materials. The founders of Kazaa correctly understood that there's big money in piracy, which is why they stay in business when they (as well as everybody else) know that 90% of their users use it to make unauthorized copies. This is no "well, Kazaa could be used for piracy" situation or "a small number of Kazaa's users are being naughty" or even "Kazaa is used primarily for piracy but Sharman isn't aware of this, and it wasn't their intent." Sharman knows exactly what they're doing; their livelihoods depend on it.
As somebody has pointed out, Kazaa != P2P. Rushing to Kazaa's defense or playing dumb on their behalf will ultimately hurt our goal of widespread P2P acceptance on both sides of the fence. Instead, we should be embracing those who are running Torrent sites that contain only permission-based content, and those who are developing the next generation of P2P apps in which content is opt-in only.
"Does anyone find it a bit disconcerting that answers.com gets ad revenue for wikipedia's content. Exactly how much is google funding wikipedia?"
I don't. If wikipedia.org wants to start making a little money, then God bless 'em. Wanting to cover costs, or even to make some profit, != being evil.
Ah, I think I see the source of your confusion. Kazaa claimed to have made the Red Cross their sole beneficiary, but it was not set up as a tsunami relief fund per se (and it couldn't have been -- this all happened before the tsunami). Check the dates on the PDFs to and from the Red Cross in TFA... they're from before Christmas.
The article pointed out that the news of the Red Cross hijinks broke at around the time the tsunami had hit and the Red Cross sprang into action, but nobody claimed that Kazaa had purportedly made the Red Cross their benficiary with tsunami relief in mind. You used the phrase "relief fund" in your post but that phrase is not used in TFA.
If you still believe that something's fishy, and that this isn't just a sad coincidence, let me know.
Garth Montgomery's Dispatch pieces on Kazaagate have been posted to Slashdot regularly since the trial began.
They have been quite interesting, and since they cover Kazaa, they're of direct relevance to Slashdot readers. I know of no other regular coverage of Kazaagate, but if you do, why not submit it?
"great wailing and gnashing of teeth" is a common phrase. Timothy was making a joke and using a light-hearted writing style, similar to the approach used by Garth at the Dispatch. I wouldn't take it too seriously.
"Most downloaded program in the world? Rebuild Asia singe-handedly? This isn't hyperbole, this pure Improbability-Drive-A-Bole! The editor only needed to read three short paragraphs in to reach this rubbish! So either no-one read the article, or else they didn't understand what they were reading."
Many journalists and correspondents write in a colloquial style; it's part of their appeal. Google on "Hunter S. Thompson" or "Ann Coulter" or "Dominick Dunne" to see some more examples.
To your credit (and to the credit of others who are boggled by the correspondent's writing style), I understand that many Slashdotters are of the New Media generation, and simply did not grow up in the day when print medium was king and many correspondents had a trademark style.
Perhaps an appreciation of Dispatch's style is better suited toward non-Slashdot types. Many Slashdotters are coders; a 0 is a 0 and a 1 is a 1 and there's just no room for flexibility. The rest of us know that Dispatch isn't being literal when he says that the Red Cross could have "rebuilt Asia" with Sharman's riches, and we don't mind at all. But I can certainly understand that those who live in the land of ones and zeros would be upset by his rhetorical style.
The timing is sadly coincidental, but not wrong. Kazaa was pulling their hijinks with the Red Cross before Christmas; you can read the dispatch from Christmas eve which covered it at the time.
Yeah, the tsunami happened a few days later. Yes, it was sad, and yes, the Red Cross stepped in to help. But that was a coincidence -- Kazaa could not have known that this would happen. The portion you quoted uses the word "coincided" which is another form of "coincidence." And, sometimes coincidences happen.
"Get the FBI involved. Copyright infringment is a federal crime."
Careful, this is Slashdot -- where copyright infringement is typically regarded as a form of social protest that's right up there with the Montgomery Freedom March.
Kazaa went into business because they correctly saw the huge opportunity in the high demand for pirated material. Their very business model is based on this. Anybody who claims that Kazaa thought that it would be used primarily for trading Linux distros is either naive, or deliberately being Kazaa's stooge.
They took the risk, and now they're in hot water. Naturally, they're using feeble excuses to avoid liability. There's nothing to be gained by our ignoring the obvious and pretending that Kazaa isn't complicit.
"Okay, this is getting off-topic (and I kind of expect to be modded down as such), but how exactly are they supposed to know exactly _why_ you did it? How could they even begin to prove it, even if it _were_ true?"
There is a term you may have heard on TV shows or movies: "circumstantial evidence." It's a fact that can be inferred from other facts. It's generally admissible in courts.
For example, if an executive of a company whose business model was based on piracy, and whose said company was headquartered in Vanaatu, and whose headquarters were raided, suddenly sold his multi-million dollar mansion to his brother for $10, the courts would not need to see a signed note stating "I am selling you my house for $10 so the courts don't get it if I lose this case" in order to figure out what's going on. Courts are usually pretty good about identifying ducks if they walk, act and quack like such, and less tolerant of "bad actors" than many people might think.
"We know that none of these sleazy biz tactics have anything to do with their liability for abuse of their software by some users."
What, as opposed to the majority of Kazaa users who use it to trade Linux distros? Kazaa's entire business model is based on the popularity of pirated material.
"The rest of the corporate media, in the "news" business, will be able to report that the Supremes dealt the "sleazy" P2P corps the justice they deserve, because they run tsunami scams. It will all make sense in the "news", though it won't have any legal merit."
Why do you put "sleazy" in quotes? Do you think Kazaa is some sort of righteous company?
"To take an extreme example: In China, distributing pornography is a crime, which can be punished with death penalty. Should one maintain a pornographic page, one certainly could affect the Chinese populace. Does that mean one should be extradited to China?"
I am not aware if the US and China have a mutual extradition treaty, so for purposes of discussion let's assume they do.
If you were running a porn site in the US and it happened to be viewed by Chinese residents, then no -- you're in the clear.
If it appears that you're actively making business deals to distribute pornography in China (hosting it on a Chinese server, specifically and deliberately advertising within China, or what have you), then, yes, China would have reasonable cause to ask the US for your extradition.
It's a fine line, but the law is full of endless, endless examples of fine lines such as this.
"You have to love how they demonize everyone by using labels like "gang of internet pirates". Let's use a little less hyperbole and say "copyright infringement groups" - which is far more accurate and descriptive."
You'd be correct to say that "copyright infringement group" would be less inflamatory to pirates and those who sympathize with them, and less ambiguous, than "gang of pirates," but neither is more accurate.
I think it's a common perception of Slashdotters that the use of the words "pirate" and "piracy" in this context is a relatively new concept, perhaps even invented by the RIAA or the MPAA. The truth is that it's been used in the relevant context since before the Revolutionary war. I thought it only went back a 100 years or so, until somebody showed me the OED entry.
Many Slashdotters are of the opinion that piracy can't POSSIBLY refer to copyright infringement, since the relevant words have other definitions as well. I wouldn't go so far to say that these folks aren't familiar with the English language, but the concept here is one of the "homonym" (or "homophone" according to some). Slashdotters don't confuse trees and dogs when they hear the word "bark," or the concepts of running away vs. lots of sand when they see the word "desert," or mass transit and hardware connectors when they hear "bus." We're smart people; we understand the concept of words having multiple definitions.
In short -- say "I don't like the use of the word 'pirate' because it has a negative connotation," but don't say that its usage is inaccurate. We will win this battle by changing laws, not by exhibiting wilfull ignorance of our language.
"The music industry is dominated by a handful of retailers, the RIAA has effective control over the product supplied to those retailers, they can pressure the (say it with me) handful of major resellers into not selling other products. This kind of behavior is not hypothetical The RIAA has been tried and convicted of such price fixing schemes."
It's ironic that the record companies were busted for price fixing when they tried to get away from the industry being dominated by just a few large retailers. Many Slashdotters talk about the famous record company price fixing case a few years ago, but most don't know the details:
Best Buy and Wal-Mart (who, as you pointed out, utterly dominate the retail music business nowadays) started selling CDs at or below cost, as a "loss leader" to get people into the stores.
This was very upsetting to some specialty realtors (Tower Records, TWE, and one which I can't recall). Unlike Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the specialty stores didn't have an acre of high-margin electronics or children's clothes to make up the difference.
Tower and TWE complained that they were being put out of business, and went to the record companies for help. The record companies set up a MAP ("minimum advertised price") co-op advertising program in which the labels would help pay for newspaper ads if if Tower, et al. didn't advertise below a certain price. (In case this sounds familiar... lots of industries have MAP programs. Ever hear words like "price too low to mention" on radio spots? That's likely a MAP in effect.)
Wal-Mart and Best Buy complained to the goverment.
The government spanked the record companies and prevented them from doing MAPs.
Tower Records subsequently filed for bankrupcty.
The price fixing judgement is a good thing if one subscribes to the "What's good for Wal-Mart is good for America" theory (lots of people do; I don't and I'm guessing you don't, either). It was bad news for the indie and specialty retailers, and bad news for consumers who appreciate having a choice beyond Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Ironically enough it didn't affect the record companies much, as they sold their CDs into disti for the same price regardless of who was buying it.
In short: the price fixing was basically Wal-Mart bitch slapping the record industry and making them play by Wal-Mart's rules. You stated that the price fixing judgement was because the record labels were trying to control the major retailers, when the reality is that it was exactly the opposite.
"You're going to have to come up with some more information regarding Magnatune's 'failure' before I buy your argument."
I would not say that Magnatune is failing -- just flailing. They haven't really grown much in the past few years compared to the competition, and their customer service is pretty horrible because they're just not making enough to hire enough people. For the time being, customers as a whole still want the commercial stuff. iTunes' major competition still seems to be etailers like Amazon and, of course, P2P. I would not yet classify "virtual labels" as serious competition.
You asked for more info about Universal's online venture. Here's what I found on Google:
"Captain Obvious, if it was that easy, there wouldn't be a problem now would there? As long as the RIAA enjoys a distribution monopoly your scheme can't and won't work."
That is precisely why I asked. The fact that there are thousands of indie labels all selling their goods for about the same price is contractictory of a couple of facts that every Slashdotter knows: the RIAA is a monopoly, and CDs are sold at a very high margin. In a market with thousands of suppliers, price fixing can't realistically be maintained.
Just so that we're talking about the same thing, would you agree that the auto industry has a monopoly on cars?
"The RIAA is terrified of the Internet because it contains the possibility of breaking their distribution model. They will lobby legislators, get laws passed, do anything to take down any net distribution model that looks like a threat. You can thank iTunes for giving artists the ability to distribute work independently. It will eventually snowball into something more significant...as long as Apple doesn't sell out to keep the RIAA on it's good side."
I see this claim on Slashdot a lot, but I'm just not seeing the evidence. Apple and the record labels have sold tens of millions of tracks on the iTMS and are laughing all the way to the bank. Universal has recently launched their own online-only label. Meanwhile, online ventures like Magnatune, which would fit many Slashdotter's ideal of the future of online music, are flailing. I seems to me that the record labels get this Internet thing just fine.
"You need to be more clear on what exactly you mean by 'unprofitable'."
As you know, the record industry is a hugely speculative one; just one hit a year can keep the lights on and pay for all the other failures. Record companies have an obligation to their employees to stay in business, so they take the path of least resistance and make safe choices. However, I think that's their prerogative and it's certainly not "evil" at all -- in fact, it's how most businesses operate. God bless the indie labels that take chances on the fringe acts, but running a small label with no capital is an even riskier business.
This is the dynamic of any consumer good industry (make a bland, "safe" product and you'll have wider appeal) -- so it's not a point for which the record companies should be singled out as being evil.
Slashdot Mirror
"I have never seen a copyright infringing downloader re-sell the latest Britney album as his own creation."
And they wouldn't want to. Likewise, you wouldn't want to take a photograph of s computer program, or listen to it. Different media are just that -- different -- and thus have different rules. When you release music, the big risk is that people will copy it without your consent. With GPL software, the big risk is that somebody will appropriate it into their own code and sell it without releasing the source. Of course the Slashdot crowd can empathize more with the latter person than the former -- that's a given. But I sense that you think it's an absolute that copying code and selling it as your own is a worse violation of rights than an equivalent violation of the rights of somebody who works in another medium.
"IP rights are not black or white."
I believe they are, in that we should respect all IP creators' rights. This is not a "some artists are more equal than others" situation. That musician is a human being just like you are, even though his axe is his voice or a musical instrument, and not a compiler. It is terribly unfair to tell these people that their rights mean less than ours because they have chosen a medium which has a different set of rules. If the software developer wants you to respect their rights, and the musician wants you to respect theirs, why not have some empathy and respect them both?
Treating all people fairly and following the golden rule (in short... treat others how you'd like to be treated) also prevents others from using your rationalizations against you. If you can convince yourself that violating a programmer's rights is worse than violating the rights of a musician, then there might be a musician out there who quite simply doesn't see the big deal of compiling GPL code into a commercial closed source app, while simultaneously taking the pirating of their music very seriously. So that we don't need to revert to defenses that take the form of "violating the GPL is just worse than pirating music, and that should be self evident" (which is tautological at best, and self-serving at worst), a liberal application of the golden rule should be in order. That way, you don't need to understand why the musician is upset when you violate his rights, and he doesn't need to understand why the GPL is such a big deal -- you'll just have mutual respect for each others' rights.
"after receiving verbal OKs that the code would remain mine"
My comment won't be very helpful to the situation, but here goes:
If I understand it correctly, he signed a contract with an inventions clause when he started work at the company, but after he was hired, he was told verbally that the inventions clause would not apply to a particular project.
If I were in this position, I would put the onus on the person who made the verbal promise. Their response might be one of a few things:
"You're making an entirely unwarranted assumption: That GPL developers routinely infringe others' copyrights. Most developers I know are very respectful of any copyrights on a work."
You are most likely right. I would imagine that serious developers who've put their heart and soul into brilliantly crafted code will often understand that musicians (and anybody else who chooses an art form other than software development) also tend to work hard and don't want their rights violated, either.
I think the bulk of the issue is Slashdotters who are aware of the rules regarding the GPL and other art forms, use the GPL as a convenient rationalization for music piracy, or piracy of non-GPL software. If not that, then they compare the GPL license with a typical license for, say, music or films, and believe one to be more equal than the other, while ignoring the fact that different media tend to have different uses, and thus different rules.
"This is the most sensible thing I've seen written on this subject thus far. It's a good point: WHY does FOSS not have representation in the BSA?"
The BSA relies on fees from its members to cover their costs. Looking at the membership roster of the BSA, it's my guess that the membership fees are quite dear. FOSS may simply not have the money; or if they do, they may find that it's much better served elsewhere.
Brilliant. I wish I had mod points to give.
I see that your point was a complete fly-by for some folks -- which, I think, served to prove your point even more strongly.
"From my (albeit limited) understanding of the GPL, it just wants you to give credit to the original authors of the code. When someone downloads a song, they are not in any way claiming that they wrote the song. There's the difference betwen the two."
The forms of art are inherently different. The average pirate doesn't incorporate a downloaded song into their own work without credit, and the average GPL violator doesn't listen to the code. The implicit rationale here is "I follow this certain set of rules for one piece of media, and if another medium has different rules, then they're wrong and can be ignored." Different media have different uses, and thus, sets of rules.
In situations like this, the golden rule still applies: treat others as you would like to be treated. If a software developer -- big or small -- wants you to honor their wishes and respect their rights, do so. Likewise, if a musician -- or even a record company -- wants you to respect their wishes and respect their rights, you should as well. Because some day -- whether you're a musician or a programmer or a painter or an author -- it may be your own rights that somebody has taken the libery of ignoring.
Narcissus is correct that Snopes' explanation is actually a joke, but for what it's worth, I was fooled as well when I first read it a few years back.
" It's called a joke. Poking fun at a clearly dated name."
Correct. It's clear that the GP was trying to be funny. I should have been more careful in my point: I don't know why so many Slashdotters find that old company names are funny. I stand by my theory that it's because many Slashdotters are teenagers, and thus haven't run into a whole lot of old company names yet.
You can add KFC your list as well. They still fry 'em and they're purportedly still chicken, but frying isn't so friendly of a concept nowadays.
"Crazy kids! Downloading Phonographs!"
Wow, and if you think that's wacky, the NAACP stands for the National Association of Colored People, when "colored" has been politically incorrect for half a century now!
And guess what the 2nd "T" in AT&T stands for -- "telegraph!"
Seriously, it's interesting that people start tripping on the "P" in "BPI" whenever it's posted. I'm guessing that it's because many Slashdotters are teenagers, and organizations that have been for around for longer than they have are still an intriguing concept.
"On other points, I think the story was very badly written and researched, and I'm not surprised by any of the problems. In fact, it may have come across by way of sheer stupidity, so instead of them being one day ahead, the writer might have thought they were one day behind, and compensated in the wrong direction, ending up with the date completely incorrect."
The report is one in a series of many, filed by a journalist who's been sitting in the courtroom day after day, following the case. It might be hard to follow out of context; it's a "reporter's notebook" style piece rather than a compleat guide to the Kazaa trial. Anybody who thinks he's being harsh on Kazaa should read some of the earlier reports -- the plaintiffs have taken their lumps, too. Sure, it's written in a colloquial style, but I imagine you have some local columnists of your own whose writing style takes a bit of getting used to. Hunter S. Thompson changed journalism a lot.
Either way, the journalist's potential misunderstanding of time zones is not germaine here. The GP poster incorrectly thought that Kazaa had earmarked funds for tsunami relief (impossible, as the tsunami had not yet occurred), when the reality is that Kazaa simply claimed to have set up the Red Cross as their sole beneficiary. It was a matter of dispute in the courts well before the disaster struck. It was simply a sad coincidence that the tsunami hit later that month. I don't think the GP poster has any serious tinfoil hat issues; it's more one of reading comprehension.
"And Porsche opened stores in California because they wanted to sell some cars to law-abiding individuals who never exceed 65Mph?"
If you're not sure of the difference, you can think of a car like a browser. There are many browser vendors out there, just as there are car makers. Browsers can be used for illegal purposes, and sometimes, people break the law using their car. Browsers might even have special features that might seem to make them better equipped for copyright infringement, such as improved download management; likewise, many car makers advertise the performance capabilities of their product, even though any car can be used to break the law.
The crucial difference is that browser vendors and car makers have not set up business specifically to provide an outlet for illegal activity. Ye olde "substantial non-infringing uses" applies here; most of the time, both browsers and cars (even Porsches) are used in a legal way.
Compare this to Kazaa, the business model of which is dependent on the high demand for pirated materials. The founders of Kazaa correctly understood that there's big money in piracy, which is why they stay in business when they (as well as everybody else) know that 90% of their users use it to make unauthorized copies. This is no "well, Kazaa could be used for piracy" situation or "a small number of Kazaa's users are being naughty" or even "Kazaa is used primarily for piracy but Sharman isn't aware of this, and it wasn't their intent." Sharman knows exactly what they're doing; their livelihoods depend on it.
As somebody has pointed out, Kazaa != P2P. Rushing to Kazaa's defense or playing dumb on their behalf will ultimately hurt our goal of widespread P2P acceptance on both sides of the fence. Instead, we should be embracing those who are running Torrent sites that contain only permission-based content, and those who are developing the next generation of P2P apps in which content is opt-in only.
"Does anyone find it a bit disconcerting that answers.com gets ad revenue for wikipedia's content. Exactly how much is google funding wikipedia?"
I don't. If wikipedia.org wants to start making a little money, then God bless 'em. Wanting to cover costs, or even to make some profit, != being evil.
Ah, I think I see the source of your confusion. Kazaa claimed to have made the Red Cross their sole beneficiary, but it was not set up as a tsunami relief fund per se (and it couldn't have been -- this all happened before the tsunami). Check the dates on the PDFs to and from the Red Cross in TFA... they're from before Christmas.
The article pointed out that the news of the Red Cross hijinks broke at around the time the tsunami had hit and the Red Cross sprang into action, but nobody claimed that Kazaa had purportedly made the Red Cross their benficiary with tsunami relief in mind. You used the phrase "relief fund" in your post but that phrase is not used in TFA.
If you still believe that something's fishy, and that this isn't just a sad coincidence, let me know.
Garth Montgomery's Dispatch pieces on Kazaagate have been posted to Slashdot regularly since the trial began.
They have been quite interesting, and since they cover Kazaa, they're of direct relevance to Slashdot readers. I know of no other regular coverage of Kazaagate, but if you do, why not submit it?
"great wailing and gnashing of teeth" is a common phrase. Timothy was making a joke and using a light-hearted writing style, similar to the approach used by Garth at the Dispatch. I wouldn't take it too seriously.
"You know, it's not that painful if you really bend over as much as you can, and spread your knees apart... Oh, and be sure to use lots of lube too !"
Fitting, as that's what Kazas's essentially been saying to the copyright holders for years.
"Most downloaded program in the world? Rebuild Asia singe-handedly? This isn't hyperbole, this pure Improbability-Drive-A-Bole! The editor only needed to read three short paragraphs in to reach this rubbish! So either no-one read the article, or else they didn't understand what they were reading."
Many journalists and correspondents write in a colloquial style; it's part of their appeal. Google on "Hunter S. Thompson" or "Ann Coulter" or "Dominick Dunne" to see some more examples.
To your credit (and to the credit of others who are boggled by the correspondent's writing style), I understand that many Slashdotters are of the New Media generation, and simply did not grow up in the day when print medium was king and many correspondents had a trademark style.
Perhaps an appreciation of Dispatch's style is better suited toward non-Slashdot types. Many Slashdotters are coders; a 0 is a 0 and a 1 is a 1 and there's just no room for flexibility. The rest of us know that Dispatch isn't being literal when he says that the Red Cross could have "rebuilt Asia" with Sharman's riches, and we don't mind at all. But I can certainly understand that those who live in the land of ones and zeros would be upset by his rhetorical style.
The timing is sadly coincidental, but not wrong. Kazaa was pulling their hijinks with the Red Cross before Christmas; you can read the dispatch from Christmas eve which covered it at the time.
Yeah, the tsunami happened a few days later. Yes, it was sad, and yes, the Red Cross stepped in to help. But that was a coincidence -- Kazaa could not have known that this would happen. The portion you quoted uses the word "coincided" which is another form of "coincidence." And, sometimes coincidences happen.
"Get the FBI involved. Copyright infringment is a federal crime."
Careful, this is Slashdot -- where copyright infringement is typically regarded as a form of social protest that's right up there with the Montgomery Freedom March.
Kazaa went into business because they correctly saw the huge opportunity in the high demand for pirated material. Their very business model is based on this. Anybody who claims that Kazaa thought that it would be used primarily for trading Linux distros is either naive, or deliberately being Kazaa's stooge.
They took the risk, and now they're in hot water. Naturally, they're using feeble excuses to avoid liability. There's nothing to be gained by our ignoring the obvious and pretending that Kazaa isn't complicit.
"Okay, this is getting off-topic (and I kind of expect to be modded down as such), but how exactly are they supposed to know exactly _why_ you did it? How could they even begin to prove it, even if it _were_ true?"
There is a term you may have heard on TV shows or movies: "circumstantial evidence." It's a fact that can be inferred from other facts. It's generally admissible in courts.
For example, if an executive of a company whose business model was based on piracy, and whose said company was headquartered in Vanaatu, and whose headquarters were raided, suddenly sold his multi-million dollar mansion to his brother for $10, the courts would not need to see a signed note stating "I am selling you my house for $10 so the courts don't get it if I lose this case" in order to figure out what's going on. Courts are usually pretty good about identifying ducks if they walk, act and quack like such, and less tolerant of "bad actors" than many people might think.
"We know that none of these sleazy biz tactics have anything to do with their liability for abuse of their software by some users."
What, as opposed to the majority of Kazaa users who use it to trade Linux distros? Kazaa's entire business model is based on the popularity of pirated material.
"The rest of the corporate media, in the "news" business, will be able to report that the Supremes dealt the "sleazy" P2P corps the justice they deserve, because they run tsunami scams. It will all make sense in the "news", though it won't have any legal merit."
Why do you put "sleazy" in quotes? Do you think Kazaa is some sort of righteous company?
"To take an extreme example: In China, distributing pornography is a crime, which can be punished with death penalty. Should one maintain a pornographic page, one certainly could affect the Chinese populace. Does that mean one should be extradited to China?"
I am not aware if the US and China have a mutual extradition treaty, so for purposes of discussion let's assume they do.
If you were running a porn site in the US and it happened to be viewed by Chinese residents, then no -- you're in the clear.
If it appears that you're actively making business deals to distribute pornography in China (hosting it on a Chinese server, specifically and deliberately advertising within China, or what have you), then, yes, China would have reasonable cause to ask the US for your extradition.
It's a fine line, but the law is full of endless, endless examples of fine lines such as this.
"You have to love how they demonize everyone by using labels like "gang of internet pirates". Let's use a little less hyperbole and say "copyright infringement groups" - which is far more accurate and descriptive."
You'd be correct to say that "copyright infringement group" would be less inflamatory to pirates and those who sympathize with them, and less ambiguous, than "gang of pirates," but neither is more accurate.
I think it's a common perception of Slashdotters that the use of the words "pirate" and "piracy" in this context is a relatively new concept, perhaps even invented by the RIAA or the MPAA. The truth is that it's been used in the relevant context since before the Revolutionary war. I thought it only went back a 100 years or so, until somebody showed me the OED entry.
Many Slashdotters are of the opinion that piracy can't POSSIBLY refer to copyright infringement, since the relevant words have other definitions as well. I wouldn't go so far to say that these folks aren't familiar with the English language, but the concept here is one of the "homonym" (or "homophone" according to some). Slashdotters don't confuse trees and dogs when they hear the word "bark," or the concepts of running away vs. lots of sand when they see the word "desert," or mass transit and hardware connectors when they hear "bus." We're smart people; we understand the concept of words having multiple definitions.
In short -- say "I don't like the use of the word 'pirate' because it has a negative connotation," but don't say that its usage is inaccurate. We will win this battle by changing laws, not by exhibiting wilfull ignorance of our language.
Thanks for the reply! Just a few comments:
"The music industry is dominated by a handful of retailers, the RIAA has effective control over the product supplied to those retailers, they can pressure the (say it with me) handful of major resellers into not selling other products. This kind of behavior is not hypothetical The RIAA has been tried and convicted of such price fixing schemes."
It's ironic that the record companies were busted for price fixing when they tried to get away from the industry being dominated by just a few large retailers. Many Slashdotters talk about the famous record company price fixing case a few years ago, but most don't know the details:
The price fixing judgement is a good thing if one subscribes to the "What's good for Wal-Mart is good for America" theory (lots of people do; I don't and I'm guessing you don't, either). It was bad news for the indie and specialty retailers, and bad news for consumers who appreciate having a choice beyond Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Ironically enough it didn't affect the record companies much, as they sold their CDs into disti for the same price regardless of who was buying it.
In short: the price fixing was basically Wal-Mart bitch slapping the record industry and making them play by Wal-Mart's rules. You stated that the price fixing judgement was because the record labels were trying to control the major retailers, when the reality is that it was exactly the opposite.
"You're going to have to come up with some more information regarding Magnatune's 'failure' before I buy your argument."
I would not say that Magnatune is failing -- just flailing. They haven't really grown much in the past few years compared to the competition, and their customer service is pretty horrible because they're just not making enough to hire enough people. For the time being, customers as a whole still want the commercial stuff. iTunes' major competition still seems to be etailers like Amazon and, of course, P2P. I would not yet classify "virtual labels" as serious competition.
You asked for more info about Universal's online venture. Here's what I found on Google:
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?sInteresting stuff. The Internet is here whether anybody likes it or not; Universal seems to be relatively cluefull about leveraging it.
"Captain Obvious, if it was that easy, there wouldn't be a problem now would there? As long as the RIAA enjoys a distribution monopoly your scheme can't and won't work."
That is precisely why I asked. The fact that there are thousands of indie labels all selling their goods for about the same price is contractictory of a couple of facts that every Slashdotter knows: the RIAA is a monopoly, and CDs are sold at a very high margin. In a market with thousands of suppliers, price fixing can't realistically be maintained.
Just so that we're talking about the same thing, would you agree that the auto industry has a monopoly on cars?
"The RIAA is terrified of the Internet because it contains the possibility of breaking their distribution model. They will lobby legislators, get laws passed, do anything to take down any net distribution model that looks like a threat. You can thank iTunes for giving artists the ability to distribute work independently. It will eventually snowball into something more significant...as long as Apple doesn't sell out to keep the RIAA on it's good side."
I see this claim on Slashdot a lot, but I'm just not seeing the evidence. Apple and the record labels have sold tens of millions of tracks on the iTMS and are laughing all the way to the bank. Universal has recently launched their own online-only label. Meanwhile, online ventures like Magnatune, which would fit many Slashdotter's ideal of the future of online music, are flailing. I seems to me that the record labels get this Internet thing just fine.
"You need to be more clear on what exactly you mean by 'unprofitable'."
As you know, the record industry is a hugely speculative one; just one hit a year can keep the lights on and pay for all the other failures. Record companies have an obligation to their employees to stay in business, so they take the path of least resistance and make safe choices. However, I think that's their prerogative and it's certainly not "evil" at all -- in fact, it's how most businesses operate. God bless the indie labels that take chances on the fringe acts, but running a small label with no capital is an even riskier business.
This is the dynamic of any consumer good industry (make a bland, "safe" product and you'll have wider appeal) -- so it's not a point for which the record companies should be singled out as being evil.