"All your property rights come from the generosity of the people you live with(society,gov't)"
Would that be the people whose voice you are choosing to ignore?
"Not when they know the truth they won't."
I don't know what truth you're talking about, but it's mighty arrogant of you to assume you know so much more than the rest of us.
"Looks like Monsanto and their ilk are your friends."
That's one way of looking at it. The innovations generated by companied like monsanto (they are a particularly big innovator) fuel my lifestyle. Not only that, but the products created by monsanto increase the availability of food, while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact of farming. That's something to think about. Monsanto is your friend too, you just don't realize it.
As far as your complaints about democracy, it is a fair criticism. It is impossible for government policy to reflect the views of all citizens. The only thing that could be considered more fair than democracy is no government at all.
"So then, you're just another drone that thinks that's how things would be without IP law"
Well, I do know that our economy is becoming more and more information related, which means that the future of our (capitalist) economy is intellectual property. I don't know why you think that an industry model that "promotes ancillary products and services" is the only acceptable one. What's wrong with actually selling the rights to intellectual property? I think I'd rather buy television episodes or songs or movies or what have you than sit through hours of commercials. I'd rather pay for access to websites than deal with pop-up ads (though banner ads don't bother me).
Oh, and what's with calling IP "imaginary" property. As you so eloquently put it earlier, all of out property rights exist only due to public acceptance. Societies have existed before where there was no concept of property. Any thought pattern that renders intellectual property imaginary must render physical property imaginary as well.
"f copyright was determined by the public as to how long it should last or how it is to be enforced, then I could probably, almost accept it. However, copyright law is determined by a few very powerful individuals and corporations, bought and paid for, and deserves nothing but contempt. Laws that protect a few people over others should be disregarded and spat upon."
Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean that most people don't, you need a reality check. In a democracy we must accept the will of the majority, because refusal to do so means lawlessness. I think most people you ask will agree that copyright and patents must be protected.
"We shouldn't care what present day industry thinks of any of this. If they lose their monopolies, and fold today, the whole world would be better off. There are tons of people ready to replace them."
I think it's safe to say that whoever replaces them will want copyright guarantee as well.
"we don't live under a capitalist system. We live under a series of gov't protected monopolies."
That's an interesting way to look at it. Are you referring to the way the government protects copyright, because that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It's appalling to me that short-sighted individuals such as yourself believe they have a god-given right the the works produced by others. Would you be happier of none of those works existed at all? Then don't buy them! Asshole.
Well, maybe it'd be a good start to emphasize the importance of local government to voters. I don't know why people are so obsessed with the presidential race, congress is in charge of legislation and spending, all the president really has the power to do is carry out actions with the approval of congress.
Not to mention that most of our services and laws are provided/applied on the state and local level. That means that who you elect for governor is more likely to impact your life than who you elect for president. Moreover, far fewer people are voting for your state and local government, so your vote has more impact.
People need to pay more attention to what happens on the local level. There's no way the federal government could set all local policy in a way people would be happy with. We really need to stop moving power to the federal level, and the only way to do that is for people to pay more attention to local politics.
I don't know why anyone would think this is a right wing thing. The opposition to violent television, music, and video games has always been bipartisan. As an example, note that Hillary Clinton has always been opposed to this sort of thing.
It's not really an unfair argument. Many of these games feature content that parents would be appalled by. GTA is probably one of the better examples, it is definitely not a game for children, and parents need a way to limit their children's exposure to this kind of material.
Let me see, he says that we need to regulate and control everything. How I could tell that this was an interview with a member of the Chinese government before I even read his name?
I can't believe those people actually run their country this way. What ever happened to that armed revolution thing that communists are so fond of. Oh, I guess they took away all their guns.
If you think the only good product apple makes is OSX, you probably just haven't given any of their computers/music players a try.
I don't know if you could say that a Mac is more expensive than a "comparable" PC, those pieces of shit Dell and HP crap out are hardly comparable to a mac. I think if you compared Sony and Apple computers, you'd see that their prices are in accord.
As for your vender lock in claim, songs you purchase on iTunes will play on any computer, and music you've purchased on a CD can be ripped and played on an iPod. That's hardly vender lock in.
Can't argue about the mouse, though, I have a Microsoft intellimouse (3.0). And a lot of those machines they made in the '90s were shitty, though their PowerMacs and PowerBooks were always really cool.
"Apple feeds off of this energy and their evangelical fanatics, and is now taking a stab at their very base."
You seem to imply that this kind of thing has never happened before. This is not true. Apple benefits from the speculation about what they might be doing, but they are hurt by people actually knowing.
Think of the the apple rumor community as a bunch of stalkers. Sure they're usually just annoying and creepy, but sometimes they go to far and break into your house. You have to let them know when they've crossed the line.
Or you could, you know, just not buy things with DRM. That's how you do things in a capitalist system.
I don't know what makes you think that you have to right to use copyrighted material however you please. Did you create it? No. So what gives you the right to say how it should be distributed.
DRM is stupid, but it's not because IP and copyright are stupid. DRM is stupid because it attempts the impossible. It doesn't accomplish anything, but it wastes the industry, and the users time and money.
In time outfits that sell non-DRM media may win out against those that use DRM. Blatant disregard for copyright, as is being shown by so many of the people and organizations you're referring to, is what causes people to think that DRM is needed. What these people are doing is actually ruining their cause by slowing industry acceptance digital technology and online distribution. The industry is busy trying to find ways to prevent copyright violations because these technological evangelists have shown such blatant disregard for copyright.
Do you feel that the characters in the prequels have anything behind the actor? No, there is nothing, even the parts of these movies which are "real" lack soul.
On the other hand, if you watch Finding Nemo, everything feels real, even though it's just CG fish in a CG ocean. What's the difference? Writing, story, acting, perhaps.
The idea that the problem is CG is just absurd. People said the same thing about color movies when they were first released. The problem isn't that you loose something when you use CG for effects, the problem is that you don't gain anything. You can't expect a movie to be good just because it has good special effects.
Go and watch the original movies, the special effects weren't anymore believable. The might have looked more real, but all that means is that Yoda looked like a real puppet, and Jabba the Hut looked like a real bunch of plastic with real people inside. They weren't any more convincing in the roles they were supposed to play. And don't even talk about space scenes, there's no way the space scenes look more realistic in the original movies. The only difference is that they couldn't do as much because of the limitations of using "real" models instead of CG models.
Not that I mind, but I think Slashdot has officially become a mac-rumor site. They've posted 2 rumors in as many days. Couldn't they at least put them on a mac-rumors page so they don't show up on the main page?
"I'm really sick of the editor inserting their own fucking opinions into the article lead-ins."
I don't know why, they're pretty entertaining.
"Less space than nomad. No wireless. Lame."
And have you seen the new multi core G5 rumor? Soon I won't need to look elsewhere for my mac-rumors. All the news and rumors I want will be in one place!
That's crap. Judges issue subpoenas for evidence to figure out whether or not a crime has been committed. That's like saying it's illegally to investigate someone who is not guilty. How would you ever find out whether or not a crime has been committed? I think this is just a case of you don't know what you're talking about.
The things that are really despicable are the taxes people don't see. When anything is taxed, people feel it, but they are only aware that it's a tax they're feeling when they can see that they're paying the tax.
One thing this country gets right is they show you the sales tax at the cash register. In Europe, many people seem unaware that they are paying the VAT, because it is already added into they prices they pay.
But sales tax in this country is paid in large part by property owners who rent out their property. So the taxes cause higher rent, but people renting don't realize that a good portion of their rent goes to pay for government programs.
Another really bad thing the government does is taxing corporate profits. Making companies less profitable costs us all money, but when it happens we can't see it. They definitely shouldn't tax corporations at all. They should just tax the dividends that cooperations pay to investors. They used to tax it in both places, I can't for the life of me figure out why the cut the dividend tax rather than the corporate profit tax. I guess that taxes on corporate profits are state taxes, so that'd require a constitutional amendment.
Anyway, sales taxes are also bad because they're so regressive (paid mainly by people with less money). I don't know why people are more willing to pay property taxes and sales taxes than income taxes. If any tax was truly fair, it would be an income tax.
Let me get this right, it costs NASA $4.2 million a year to receive and analyze a few kilobytes of data from these probes a day? It sounds like they have a team of engineers working on this project for god's sake. Maybe they could, you know, just scale back their mission and put the engineers somewhere else? I mean, do they even really need one engineer devoted to this full time? It's no wonder NASA has budget problems.
Uh, I never said anything about any law, except that that's not what we are talking about. See here:
"No, the difference is that "real" property is not just supported by law, but a strong consensus of public opinion."
I said very specifically, we are talking about public opinion, it has been my point all along. Laws are insufficient.
The post we're talking doesn't mention any law. . . so. . . no, we're definitely not talking about laws. Maybe you were responding to a different post?
And no, property is not a legal construct, it is a social construct. As long a people respect each other's property, there is no need for legal enforcement. We simply choose to enforce property rights legally, since it is more orderly than letting people enforce their own property rights.
"No, seriously, if we all have to pretend that something is property, then its not property."
This is a problem with human perception. We use abstraction to break down our perceived world into thoughts and ideas so that me may organize our world in a way that makes sense to us. But sometimes we make the assumption that the world exists to fit our abstraction. This is not true.
We use the term property to describe the way that we we determine who may do what, when, with what resource. That is to say, property, like any concept, is not real. It is merely the abstraction of a distribution model to which we all adhere.
Therefore, it is reasonable so state that it is only the mutual agreement that something, anything, is property that makes it property. If ideas are treated as property by all parties involved, they become property. You may want to call it something else because you're ashamed to admit you're thief, but it is, fundamentally, the same thing.
Another way of looking at it is that copyright is, itself, our nations common acknowledgment of intellectual property. After-all, it does give distribution rights to the author and to no one else. So saying, "Respect copyrights" means, respect for the right of the copyright holder to his/her intellectual property.
No, the difference is that "real" property is not just supported by law, but a strong consensus of public opinion. Very few people choose not to respect property rights. Many more people, but certainly not a majority of people in the US, do not respect intellectual property rights.
No, think about it. If we had no respect for each others property, the whole concept would be meaningless. This isn't anything like believing in santa claus (unless you mean believing in the spirit of christmas or some such silliness).
Sounds like some of the people on slashdot are developing respect for intellectual property. Be careful, our willingness to respect property is what makes it real. If too many people start to respect intellectual property, it will become as real as normal property.
Not at all. If someone wishes to profit merely from having an idea, they shouldn't be able to take out a patent and demand royalties from whoever actually does all the development work. So if you don't develop your patent, it shouldn't be valid, it's as simple as that. The costs money idea was merely an example, any significant amount of work, risk, or expenditure of resources for the purposes developing the patent should be valid.
Not at all, like you said, cost can be calculated in many ways. Obviously if someone files a patent, but then never develops that technology or idea, the patent should be invalid. Patents are supposed to let people recoup on an investment, not let other people profit from your work.
Without the ability to file a patent, that poor man will never be able to recoup on his investment of time. Other wealthier people would be able to simply take the idea, produce it, and make money off of it, even though he did all the development.
On the other hand, if the poor man has an idea for a brilliant product, patents it, then sits back and waits for someone else to do all the development work, he is the one trying to profit from someone else's labour. That is not right.
I don't know. There are cases where software patents are valid. For example, a new, intuitive interface that cost a great deal of money develop. But there definitely needs to be a better standard for patents in general. Perhaps, a company should be fined for bringing a patent infringement case with no merit? I think that could go a long way to prevent patent abuses. Just develop a standard for which cases have no merit (like patenting interfaces and internal workings that are already in common use), and you should be able to some up with something.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't, I've just been busy. I really spend too much time on slashdot.
"All your property rights come from the generosity of the people you live with(society,gov't)"
Would that be the people whose voice you are choosing to ignore?
"Not when they know the truth they won't."
I don't know what truth you're talking about, but it's mighty arrogant of you to assume you know so much more than the rest of us.
"Looks like Monsanto and their ilk are your friends."
That's one way of looking at it. The innovations generated by companied like monsanto (they are a particularly big innovator) fuel my lifestyle. Not only that, but the products created by monsanto increase the availability of food, while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact of farming. That's something to think about. Monsanto is your friend too, you just don't realize it.
As far as your complaints about democracy, it is a fair criticism. It is impossible for government policy to reflect the views of all citizens. The only thing that could be considered more fair than democracy is no government at all.
"So then, you're just another drone that thinks that's how things would be without IP law"
Well, I do know that our economy is becoming more and more information related, which means that the future of our (capitalist) economy is intellectual property. I don't know why you think that an industry model that "promotes ancillary products and services" is the only acceptable one. What's wrong with actually selling the rights to intellectual property? I think I'd rather buy television episodes or songs or movies or what have you than sit through hours of commercials. I'd rather pay for access to websites than deal with pop-up ads (though banner ads don't bother me).
Oh, and what's with calling IP "imaginary" property. As you so eloquently put it earlier, all of out property rights exist only due to public acceptance. Societies have existed before where there was no concept of property. Any thought pattern that renders intellectual property imaginary must render physical property imaginary as well.
"f copyright was determined by the public as to how long it should last or how it is to be enforced, then I could probably, almost accept it. However, copyright law is determined by a few very powerful individuals and corporations, bought and paid for, and deserves nothing but contempt. Laws that protect a few people over others should be disregarded and spat upon."
Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean that most people don't, you need a reality check. In a democracy we must accept the will of the majority, because refusal to do so means lawlessness. I think most people you ask will agree that copyright and patents must be protected.
"We shouldn't care what present day industry thinks of any of this. If they lose their monopolies, and fold today, the whole world would be better off. There are tons of people ready to replace them."
I think it's safe to say that whoever replaces them will want copyright guarantee as well.
"we don't live under a capitalist system. We live under a series of gov't protected monopolies."
That's an interesting way to look at it. Are you referring to the way the government protects copyright, because that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It's appalling to me that short-sighted individuals such as yourself believe they have a god-given right the the works produced by others. Would you be happier of none of those works existed at all? Then don't buy them! Asshole.
Well, maybe it'd be a good start to emphasize the importance of local government to voters. I don't know why people are so obsessed with the presidential race, congress is in charge of legislation and spending, all the president really has the power to do is carry out actions with the approval of congress.
Not to mention that most of our services and laws are provided/applied on the state and local level. That means that who you elect for governor is more likely to impact your life than who you elect for president. Moreover, far fewer people are voting for your state and local government, so your vote has more impact.
People need to pay more attention to what happens on the local level. There's no way the federal government could set all local policy in a way people would be happy with. We really need to stop moving power to the federal level, and the only way to do that is for people to pay more attention to local politics.
I don't know why anyone would think this is a right wing thing. The opposition to violent television, music, and video games has always been bipartisan. As an example, note that Hillary Clinton has always been opposed to this sort of thing. It's not really an unfair argument. Many of these games feature content that parents would be appalled by. GTA is probably one of the better examples, it is definitely not a game for children, and parents need a way to limit their children's exposure to this kind of material.
Let me see, he says that we need to regulate and control everything. How I could tell that this was an interview with a member of the Chinese government before I even read his name?
I can't believe those people actually run their country this way. What ever happened to that armed revolution thing that communists are so fond of. Oh, I guess they took away all their guns.
If you think the only good product apple makes is OSX, you probably just haven't given any of their computers/music players a try.
I don't know if you could say that a Mac is more expensive than a "comparable" PC, those pieces of shit Dell and HP crap out are hardly comparable to a mac. I think if you compared Sony and Apple computers, you'd see that their prices are in accord.
As for your vender lock in claim, songs you purchase on iTunes will play on any computer, and music you've purchased on a CD can be ripped and played on an iPod. That's hardly vender lock in.
Can't argue about the mouse, though, I have a Microsoft intellimouse (3.0). And a lot of those machines they made in the '90s were shitty, though their PowerMacs and PowerBooks were always really cool.
"Apple feeds off of this energy and their evangelical fanatics, and is now taking a stab at their very base."
You seem to imply that this kind of thing has never happened before. This is not true. Apple benefits from the speculation about what they might be doing, but they are hurt by people actually knowing.
Think of the the apple rumor community as a bunch of stalkers. Sure they're usually just annoying and creepy, but sometimes they go to far and break into your house. You have to let them know when they've crossed the line.
Or you could, you know, just not buy things with DRM. That's how you do things in a capitalist system.
I don't know what makes you think that you have to right to use copyrighted material however you please. Did you create it? No. So what gives you the right to say how it should be distributed.
DRM is stupid, but it's not because IP and copyright are stupid. DRM is stupid because it attempts the impossible. It doesn't accomplish anything, but it wastes the industry, and the users time and money.
In time outfits that sell non-DRM media may win out against those that use DRM. Blatant disregard for copyright, as is being shown by so many of the people and organizations you're referring to, is what causes people to think that DRM is needed. What these people are doing is actually ruining their cause by slowing industry acceptance digital technology and online distribution. The industry is busy trying to find ways to prevent copyright violations because these technological evangelists have shown such blatant disregard for copyright.
Do you feel that the characters in the prequels have anything behind the actor? No, there is nothing, even the parts of these movies which are "real" lack soul.
On the other hand, if you watch Finding Nemo, everything feels real, even though it's just CG fish in a CG ocean. What's the difference? Writing, story, acting, perhaps.
The idea that the problem is CG is just absurd. People said the same thing about color movies when they were first released. The problem isn't that you loose something when you use CG for effects, the problem is that you don't gain anything. You can't expect a movie to be good just because it has good special effects.
Go and watch the original movies, the special effects weren't anymore believable. The might have looked more real, but all that means is that Yoda looked like a real puppet, and Jabba the Hut looked like a real bunch of plastic with real people inside. They weren't any more convincing in the roles they were supposed to play. And don't even talk about space scenes, there's no way the space scenes look more realistic in the original movies. The only difference is that they couldn't do as much because of the limitations of using "real" models instead of CG models.
Not that I mind, but I think Slashdot has officially become a mac-rumor site. They've posted 2 rumors in as many days. Couldn't they at least put them on a mac-rumors page so they don't show up on the main page?
"I'm really sick of the editor inserting their own fucking opinions into the article lead-ins."
I don't know why, they're pretty entertaining.
"Less space than nomad. No wireless. Lame."
And have you seen the new multi core G5 rumor? Soon I won't need to look elsewhere for my mac-rumors. All the news and rumors I want will be in one place!
That's crap. Judges issue subpoenas for evidence to figure out whether or not a crime has been committed. That's like saying it's illegally to investigate someone who is not guilty. How would you ever find out whether or not a crime has been committed? I think this is just a case of you don't know what you're talking about.
The things that are really despicable are the taxes people don't see. When anything is taxed, people feel it, but they are only aware that it's a tax they're feeling when they can see that they're paying the tax.
One thing this country gets right is they show you the sales tax at the cash register. In Europe, many people seem unaware that they are paying the VAT, because it is already added into they prices they pay.
But sales tax in this country is paid in large part by property owners who rent out their property. So the taxes cause higher rent, but people renting don't realize that a good portion of their rent goes to pay for government programs.
Another really bad thing the government does is taxing corporate profits. Making companies less profitable costs us all money, but when it happens we can't see it. They definitely shouldn't tax corporations at all. They should just tax the dividends that cooperations pay to investors. They used to tax it in both places, I can't for the life of me figure out why the cut the dividend tax rather than the corporate profit tax. I guess that taxes on corporate profits are state taxes, so that'd require a constitutional amendment.
Anyway, sales taxes are also bad because they're so regressive (paid mainly by people with less money). I don't know why people are more willing to pay property taxes and sales taxes than income taxes. If any tax was truly fair, it would be an income tax.
Let me get this right, it costs NASA $4.2 million a year to receive and analyze a few kilobytes of data from these probes a day? It sounds like they have a team of engineers working on this project for god's sake. Maybe they could, you know, just scale back their mission and put the engineers somewhere else? I mean, do they even really need one engineer devoted to this full time? It's no wonder NASA has budget problems.
Uh, I never said anything about any law, except that that's not what we are talking about. See here:
"No, the difference is that "real" property is not just supported by law, but a strong consensus of public opinion."
I said very specifically, we are talking about public opinion, it has been my point all along. Laws are insufficient.
The post we're talking doesn't mention any law. . . so. . . no, we're definitely not talking about laws. Maybe you were responding to a different post?
And no, property is not a legal construct, it is a social construct. As long a people respect each other's property, there is no need for legal enforcement. We simply choose to enforce property rights legally, since it is more orderly than letting people enforce their own property rights.
Did I say something about court?
"No, seriously, if we all have to pretend that something is property, then its not property."
This is a problem with human perception. We use abstraction to break down our perceived world into thoughts and ideas so that me may organize our world in a way that makes sense to us. But sometimes we make the assumption that the world exists to fit our abstraction. This is not true.
We use the term property to describe the way that we we determine who may do what, when, with what resource. That is to say, property, like any concept, is not real. It is merely the abstraction of a distribution model to which we all adhere.
Therefore, it is reasonable so state that it is only the mutual agreement that something, anything, is property that makes it property. If ideas are treated as property by all parties involved, they become property. You may want to call it something else because you're ashamed to admit you're thief, but it is, fundamentally, the same thing.
Another way of looking at it is that copyright is, itself, our nations common acknowledgment of intellectual property. After-all, it does give distribution rights to the author and to no one else. So saying, "Respect copyrights" means, respect for the right of the copyright holder to his/her intellectual property.
No, the difference is that "real" property is not just supported by law, but a strong consensus of public opinion. Very few people choose not to respect property rights. Many more people, but certainly not a majority of people in the US, do not respect intellectual property rights.
You can already hear the gears slowly turning. . .
No, think about it. If we had no respect for each others property, the whole concept would be meaningless. This isn't anything like believing in santa claus (unless you mean believing in the spirit of christmas or some such silliness).
Sounds like some of the people on slashdot are developing respect for intellectual property. Be careful, our willingness to respect property is what makes it real. If too many people start to respect intellectual property, it will become as real as normal property.
Not at all. If someone wishes to profit merely from having an idea, they shouldn't be able to take out a patent and demand royalties from whoever actually does all the development work. So if you don't develop your patent, it shouldn't be valid, it's as simple as that. The costs money idea was merely an example, any significant amount of work, risk, or expenditure of resources for the purposes developing the patent should be valid.
Not at all, like you said, cost can be calculated in many ways. Obviously if someone files a patent, but then never develops that technology or idea, the patent should be invalid. Patents are supposed to let people recoup on an investment, not let other people profit from your work.
Without the ability to file a patent, that poor man will never be able to recoup on his investment of time. Other wealthier people would be able to simply take the idea, produce it, and make money off of it, even though he did all the development.
On the other hand, if the poor man has an idea for a brilliant product, patents it, then sits back and waits for someone else to do all the development work, he is the one trying to profit from someone else's labour. That is not right.
I don't know. There are cases where software patents are valid. For example, a new, intuitive interface that cost a great deal of money develop. But there definitely needs to be a better standard for patents in general. Perhaps, a company should be fined for bringing a patent infringement case with no merit? I think that could go a long way to prevent patent abuses. Just develop a standard for which cases have no merit (like patenting interfaces and internal workings that are already in common use), and you should be able to some up with something.