The primary goal of copyright law is to incentivize artists to release their work for the public good.
Any extent to which this translates into making artists rich is purely a secondary effect of the law.
And nowhere does copyright law say its intent is to prevent illegal distribution - on the contrary, it's goal is to *encourage* distribution. The idea that copyright is primarily an inhibitor is something that has been pounded into the public conscious by our friends at the RIAA and MPAA.
No doubt many of you will find this surprising and inplausible. May I direct you to:
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution provides:
"The Congress shall have Power . . . To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
[p.429] The monopoly privileges that Congress may authorize are neither unlimited nor primarily
designed to provide a special private benefit. Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important
public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors
by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after
the limited period of exclusive control has expired.
"The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration. In
Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 127, Chief Justice Hughes spoke as follows respecting the
copyright monopoly granted by Congress, 'The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in
conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.' It is
said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his
creative genius." United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 158 (1948).
You're really confused. I can choose from (literally!) hundreds of hard drive based players. iPod monpoly? I think not. I've never owned an iPod, and I've owned perhaps 4 hard drive players. I listen to my music ONLY on hard drive based players. (Incidentally, I only use Ogg Vorbis as well, so that narrows down the players I can choose from.)
It is NOT a monopoly to make the only player that "sells". If it was the only one available, then I'd understand. Oh, and it's not the only one that sells. iRiver does quite well, I think Rio is doing OK, and I use a Neuros, which simply rocks.
As far as the iTMS, this is like suing Ford because they only make their parts available for Ford vehicles, not Honda or Toyota. I never expected to buy Toyota parts from Ford. Similarly, I never expected to buy Apple iTMS songs and use them on my Neuros. Never entered my mind. I just buy the CD, rip it to Ogg, and play it on my player. Or download from allofmp3. Or Magnatune. Or emusic. Or bleep. Or audio lunchbox. Or CD baby.
In short, Apple != Monopoly, either in music stores or in players. The fact that their music store is compatible only with their player is interesting, but nothing amazing or illegal. It's sort of like suing Microsoft becauses Windows Update only works on Windows, not MacOS X or Linux. Or suing RedHat because Up2Date only works with Red Hat or Fedora Core. They are online services provided for the owners of a product. That's it. Nothing they are doing is preventing Microsoft from releasing a better player, and starting a better music store for that player. *Nothing.*
Not quite. It is illegal, for example, to sell products below cost to drive competition out of business and then make up the losses by jacking up prices sky high. Or, in slashdot speak:
1) Undercut competition 2) Competition goes out of business 3) Raise prices when the consumer has no choice. 4) Profit!
At the time they were selling the product below cost, they weren't a monopoly, but this strategy is still illegal.
That's the great irony though...its not different to have an iPod, it's the same as everyone else.
iRiver should do it anyway to show it for the BS it is. Apple should shy away from the "Think Different" ads when referring to the iPod, since they are the market leader in that product.
Only any lossy conversion. Moving to and from lossless formats (CD,.wav, flac,.shn) cost you nothing. Moving from lossy formats (.mp3,.aac,.ogg) does cost you something.
Burning mp3's is fine, just don't try to re-rip them.
Media: My OGG collection: 10 gigs Linux ISOs: 7 gigs
Games Doom 3: 4.5 gigs UT 2004: 5 gigs NWN: 5 gigs
I haven't even gotten started. These are just big ticket items. No backups, glimpse databases, email, or other misc programs.
The idea of "winning" a game is a bit passe these days - most people that shell out for a game want it for multiplayer, so it tends to stay on the disk. I know this is the case for me with Doom 3( at least until the expansion comes out), NWN and UT 2004.
I can't know, but I suppose if I were the type to do video editting, the 35 gigs I outlined above would at least double.
And we're supposed to value your comments more than Wikipedia's? At least Wikipedia's were reviewed and editted by people on different sides of the issue. You may not be "anonymous" in the strict sense, but I don't know or trust you, either.
I'll go with Wikipedia on this one. Trusting what you say would be "faith", to use your phrase.
RIAA has exclusive rights with the distribution channels. All the major chain music stores deal exclusively with the big publishers, because the publishers require them to.
If you're an artist, this doesn't leave you much choice. Sure, you can go with Magnatune and you'll make a large amount of cash considering how many people are buying your stuff, but it still won't be enough to live on. But if you want real exposure, you've GOT to go with one of the big five.
If you want to know the rightd associated with being a copyright holder, I suggest you read copyright law. The law outlines it very clearly. Things like "Exclusive right to distribution" are in there. The term "exclusivity" is a bit vague in this context.
They may have to deal with a LOT of crap that we do not, but we have to deal with a LOT of crap that they do not. Finding a home, where the next meal comes from, how to pay for my school, how the hell I'm going to foot the $500,000 bill to send my kid to college in 18 years, etc. The original ideal of copyright is to incentivize artists to continue working...not make them so rich that they never have to work again. The current laws combined with the RIAA's policies tdo anything but: a few are stupendously rich, and the rest are paupers. See below.
Your argument is pure sophistry. Britany COULDN'T be as successful if she didn't go with the RIAA. Because they own ALL the major distribution channels. I don't know the nature of the RIAA's deal with iTunes, but I bet they'll be holding back indy music publishers from releasing their stuff on iTunes (hopefully not). In any case, no star out there now could be what they are without signing their soul away to the RIAA. And only a tiny, tiny fraction ever become rich and famous. The vast majority languish, not because of a lack of talent, but because the publishing deals require you sell a boatload of CDs before they'll start paying you anything resembling what you deserve. This forces artists that would often go out and do something different and innovative into making the same old mindless crap to make sure they sell enough CDs to pay the bills for the studio and the publisher, in hopes that they can make money to eat. The RIAA forces the mainstream music market to the lowest common denominator, and that is wrong and sad.
Oh, and it's "libel" and it only applies if it's directed at a single individual. If you are decrying an entire group of people, they would have a very hard time bringing a libel suit against you, though the scientologists dona pretty good job. I don't think they use libel though, I think they use copyright infringement. Oh look, we've come full circle.
One of the main problems with VB is that it locks you into a platform. The mere fact that an open-source work-alike exists suggests that a decent community could grow around it and make it cross-platform.
This alone would alleviate my main gripe with VB. I think it is more valuable to devote your time to learning languages that are flexible, extensible, open, cross-platform, etc. than those that are closed and single platform.
I would assert that there is more of a goal setting issue there than a morals issue. It's quite difficult for me to try to post something like this in isolation, without wandering far afield in an attempt to have it make more sense in the context of the rest of my philosophy.
But you bring up a good issue. Morals do limit behavior - such is their nature. But it usually a limitation that you believe is either good for you or good for society.
What I've found is that often, in an effort to "do the right thing", very principled people (and sometimes not so principled) engage in self defeating behavior because of a moral guideline or belief that they feel they *must* follow.
We can shed more light on this with an overly contrived axample. Let's say the only drug made that can save your wife's life (she is ill) is made by a company that uses slave/child labor. Some call this a moral dilemma, because, as you said, you do not want to give money to companies that support slave/child labor.
The problem there is that the belief is simply too stringent. The moral reality is much more gray, and goes something like:
"The evil of the company must be weighed with the good that its products can give society."
And this is the way of the world. Certain people choose to highlight certain issues in their own minds as "important" and then hold themselves very stringently to beliefs they have constructed, while often ignoring other issues that may be just as important.
I try to stand more in the middle, acknowledging the evil in the world (not closing my eyes to it), but at the same time balancing that recognition with my own endeavours.
So, with that backdrop, the answer to your question is: Depending on the situation, I change my goals AND my morals.
I draw a bit from Bentham's idea of utility in my own mind, and his analysis of morality as a balanced equation of net utility for society. There are flaws there, of course, as my example above would inidicate. Clearly, if the child/slave labor is making drugs that can save thousands or millions of people's lives, then the net utility is in favor of buying the drug. But to assume that it is therefore "OK" to buy the drug is a stretch...once the decision is made, remaining aware that you are giving money to company that engages in illegal and harmful business practices is essential.
If my goal is saving my wife's life, then my beliefs allow me to be more forgiving in my execution of morally questionable acts. If my goal is to come into possession of $1 billion, then my morals are quite stringent.
And this is in fact how the world works. We don't even classify it as "murder" if someone was trying to kill my wife and I killed them. It fails to even meet the criteria for a crime. But the act was no different than murder, it was merely a matter of circumstance. And yet, people will sometimes hold themselves to a belief that eating meat is wrong, supporting child labor is wrong, or taking military action is wrong, and would not allow themselves the flexibility in that belief that the laws of the US afford citizens when making the distinction between "self-defense", "manslaughter" and "murder". This is an important point: circumstances matter when it comes to morality.
Parenthetically, crime != morally wrong, but for purposes of this example, I treat them synonymously.
There is no formula, but hopefully this gives you a gist of what I was attempting to convey.
I guess its a good thing to have convictions, all other things being equal. And there is a place in the world for folks that simply *do not comprimise*.
But if an average person were to follow their beliefs through to the logical conclusion, they would often find that it simply wasn't worth it. I think the trick is finding a set of beliefs that you can take pretty far downstream without feeling like you're following them to the great expense of your own life.
This may sound shallow, but I think it is a good exercise. You're anti-war/anti-military? OK, but don't do it like the Quakers do it; they enjoy the protection of the military while disparaging it. If you believe that, move to Switzerland.
On the other hand, if you find that you really *want* the protection of the military, then you must ask yourself what you really believe. Perhaps the belief that "The military is bad!" should be tempered with the reality that the military is necessary, and you then modify your belief: "The military should be utilized responsibly, only with the consent of the nation's people."
Some people would say that the first belief is somehow more "pure" than the second, but I believe that you should align what you believe with what works, not just what *should* work.
Similarly with free software. RMS states that he would quit a job that required him to use Outlook for Word (or Windows!). Well, I hate to say it, but that is quite a luxury. If you're someone who is trained in computers and makes a living that way, you'll be hard pressed to find a job working with them that doesn't involve proprietary software in some way. Quitting a job means loss of money, and sometimes that means giving up things not just for yourself, but your family, and those you love. Do you believe in not using propritary software that much?
Perhaps the answer does not lie in never using commercial software. Perhaps the answer lies in retaining the kernel of your belief (pun intended), but realizing that the world is not there yet, and that you would do well to join organizations that use non-free software and make a living. As you work there, you may convince them over time to use fewer and fewer commercial programs.
The approach I would take (and do!)is to temper your beliefs in a way that makes it practical to live, while also furthering your goals. I don't feel like a sell out for working for the military in the past, and for a DoD contractor that uses Windows now. I don't support everything the miltary does and don't like commercial software. But by becoming part of what I sometimes don't like, I can be a force from the inside to change it. And in some ways that can be more effective that sitting on the outside and refusing to take part until they meet your demands.
You can perfectly well submit stories about topics that are technical (hey, this *is* news for *nerds*) but it's all in the language.
I submitted that Half-Life-2-on-Linux-with-Transgaming story a while back, and while I figured everyone probably knew about all those pieces, I still backed all the way up and explained that Cedega was a game-enhanced version of Wine, a windows porting layer, and that Transgaming was it's creator. They had just released a new version that supported a *major* game release in the first person shooter market called Half Life 2. I worked pretty hard to make sure it was a clear as possible, even if you weren't familiar with the subject matter.
The guy who submitted this piece of trash probably would've written something like:
"Codeweaver's Wine extention Cedega 4.1.1 by Transgaming is out with support for Valve's Half Life 2. Go get it!"
Even for people that know what's going on, that can be an odd (if not confusing) statement.
The moral? Feel free to post techno-topics, but work to make sure that even a uninitiated nerd/geek would be able to figure out what the heck you're talking about.
I hadn't heard about this before, so it's kind of interesting, but only after I read a few comments figuring out what it was about.
Anyone else getting the feeling that the folks at 3DR are chugging away at DNF, and then, one day, you'll load up/. and see a headline:
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER GOES GOLD - IN STORES NEXT MONDAY
and everyone will scratch their head:
"Holy shit, didn't see that one coming."
And, and as far as id releasing late, I don't think they ever give dates...so it makes it hard for them to break dates. Too bad other companies can't do the same, you have to have a lot of credibility to not call dates in advance (publishers beat up on you).
There is a vast gulf between disagreeing with how copyright is being used by big business, and disagreeing with the fundamental premise of copyright.
Whether they know it or not, the vast majority of folks here on Slashdot would not object to copyright if it embodied the original ideals under which it was created, rather than the bastard system we have now that big companies hide behind to line their pockets at the expense of the true innovators.
I must agree with you in spirit, but I must also tell you that you are, at least in some respects, quite wrong.
The purpose of copyright is in no way to create false scarcity. You are missing an extremely (and I mean that truly) important distinction. It is a distinction that most people don't understand, and like to scoff at because they think they know how things work. It's the difference between what copyright was designed to achieve versus the mechanisms people have devised to abuse that original goal to serve their own ends.
Money is in fact a good motivation for innovation. The U.S. is a good example of the power of "opportunity". People believe money can be made here, and it can, based on innovation. A huge percentage of the major innovations in the last century were made by innovators motivated by money in the U.S. (mainly immigrants from other countries). This is a good thing, though your post would make it seem like it is bad.
But you make a very good point: copyright as we know it has been twisted and bastardized into something that just makes the rich richer, and the money they make is often at the expense of the public and the true innovators. This was never the intention of copyright. Read what the U.S. congress had to say about copyright in 1907, or what the judge said about copyright in the 80's in the Sony/Betamax case. Folks that make a living understanding the law recognize that not all business is bad, and that not all law is bad.
Copyright is being abused. But the idea of copyright is a good one: incentivize those that innovate to *continue* innovating. Don't pay them so much that they don't have to work anymore; pay them enough to sustain them while they continue their work, which ultimatly will benefit the public as a whole, often for generations to come.
But some big business has abused this system, and the question is: what are we going to do about it? It's too bad that people are so fed up with the status quo that they believe that copyright is evil and the answer lies solely in a system based around have our biggest innovators work for no money. I believe it does not - I believe it lies in bringing honesty and refinement to a broken system built around a essentially important and *good* idea.
So while I agree with your sentiment, don't drag down copyright because some corporations (and corporate alliances) abuse it to hurt others and ruin lives for their own gain. We must recognize them for what they are, but also recognize that there was a certain measure of insight and wisdom in the original ideal that copyright represents, and seek to find ways to restore that ideal in practice.
Thanks for agreeing with me that Linux is not stable.
No one did.
Other playback programs, such as "play" or mpg123, don't crash my system as badly as KDE's programs do.
Hey, let's be clear...either it's taking down the system or it isn't. mpg123 not crashing "as badly" as noatun doesn't mean anything. If it crashes, it either crashes only itself (segfault, etc.) or is it crashing the OS. That's what we're talking about here - crashing the OS - not some program misbehaving and crashing.
I'll write Debian and KDE a note saying that their kernel is bad.
What? Debian's kernel? KDE's kernel? First, no one suggested that your kernel was malfunctioning. Second, Debian and KDE don't have kernels of their own...KDE is just a user level app like anything else. Kernel has no meaning in that context. And Debian is just a distro, and if I'm not mistaken, uses stock kernel.org kernels. If there were a bug in the kernel causing this, you shouldn't be talking to Debian's or KDE's teams.
What version of the KDE kernel are you using that does not demonstrate this error condition?
Once again, you have no clue. KDE doesn't have a kernel. You've already been told you have a buggy driver. Whining that your hardware is old doesn't change the fact that you probably have a buggy driver. Replace it and recompile the kernel with the new driver code if it's compiled in, or recompile the module if you're using dynamic loading.
Millions of people all over the world use Linux and play sound files just fine on Sound Blaster Live! cards. This may be a corrupted download, or it may be PEBKAC, based on your posts above. In any case, don't flame Linux because you don't know what you're doing.
Actually, courts are upholding EULAs (even those undisclosed at point of sale) as enforcable. I would love to back you and say "Screw EULAs!", but recent events like those on 30 Sept. are reminding us that courts are increasingly siding with the big companies on this one.
More disturbing, it is extremely important to understand what the EULAs say more than ever before, because companies like Blizzard are injecting clauses into the EULA that explicity say that by clicking "OK" and using the software, you are giving up specific rights like your right to reverse engineer for interoperability, and your rights protected under the first sale doctrine. This came out in the recent decision in the Bnetd case.
In fact, multiple provisions protected under copyright law and the DMCA that allowed certain actions are being specifically forbidden in EULAs because companies don't want you to reverse engineer their products, no matter what. Courts are allowing you to "sign" away these protections allowed for in federal law in EULAs, even if the EULA was not available at point of sale.
This isn't a great forum to discuss this type of thing because it is really quite intricate, but I did write twopieces on this in my blog over at Etherplex that treat it in more detail. If you're not in touch with what the courts have been doing recently, it may be of interest.
Absolutely. I try out and test lots of different distros, which I exclusively download from The Linux Mirror Project (www.tlm-project.org).
That is indeed a *substantial* non-infringing use.
In reality though, it obvious there are substantial non-infringing uses, once you get past the idea that there are large files that tons of people want. Case and point?
Filerush.com
The site distributes ONLY legal demos and trailers for upcoming and released games, and provides them at blistering speed (I've downloaded regularly from them at 250-300K/s). And we all know that there are lots of people that like to try out game demos the second they hit the street.
What's the point in CD DRM if there's no P2P? Preventing hard copies? It won't for the same reason it won't prevent it's spread over P2P...people can still get around it.
If they want to stop the spread over P2P, they have to kill P2P, which is (IMHO) absurd. If they want to protect CDs assuming P2P lives on, they have to use unbreakable DRM, which is (IMHO) impossible.
Really, the only solution is to put prices at a level that people feel is worth it, and provide them with a superior product than they can get for free.
At some point they have to admit that the industry is going to take a big loss if they continue this way, and it will probably be a bigger loss than if they just moved ahead with the times and lowered prices or provided a convenient distribution scheme (a la iTunes).
When they get in gear with a DRM-less, high-quality format (I use Ogg) that is supported everywhere (like Linux, or a vanilla-player), they'll be golden. It won't be about preventing people from copying the music, it'll be about giving the majority of them no incentive to copy it.
I never use P2P - I use Allofmp3.com, and I'd be willing to pay ten times the amount I pay there for a stateside service that offered the same service. Its just not available.
You (like many others in this thread, apparently) don't know how GPS works. There are a few points (not necessarily yours) that I'd like to touch on.
Our military will still be able to access the network, but civilian units will not. Others can't jam us, but we can remove their access. Even differential GPS won't help in that case.
The system was originally designed with this ability in place, as well as an accuracy restriction on civilian units, which was removed in the mid '90s. That restriction can be put back into effect at any time, however, just as the removal of service can be activated.
A few posts back, someone mentioned "black market" units that would offer military access during such a blackout. Those that exist do not work (to my knowledge): each military GPS is coded to the network, and each unit has a unique code to access the network. While I do not have sources at hand, I recall that attempts to spoof such codes were anticipated and protected (unlike, for example, MAC addresses).
As for private industry making GPS "10 times better at a 10th of the cost", it would never happen. The cost of designing, building and putting up 24-30 satellites orbitting at 22,000 miles and then maintaining them, as well as integrating all the security features would prohibit profit anywhere in the near term, even if users were charged a subscription fee. That is why its a great government project: people love it, but a decent profitable business model really isn't available for it.
And as for the "government taking away our rights" argument, well, GPS isn't your right, especially if the government wants to take it away to protect you from attack. Oh, and as far as tax money, it's not yours, it's the government's. That's why it's TAX money; they don't owe you access to every system they build with it, though you are entitled to know what they spend it on. Hopefully, in more cases than not, it will be projects that help the citizens of the country, directly or indirectly. Even if GPS were available to the military only, it would still be helping us indrectly as taxpayers. This in no way means that we are entitled to access to GPS, or that it is a"right" - it most certainly is not. Neither is driving a car or flying an airplane, incidently, as some would suggest.
Slashdot Mirror
The primary goal of copyright law is to incentivize artists to release their work for the public good.
Any extent to which this translates into making artists rich is purely a secondary effect of the law.
And nowhere does copyright law say its intent is to prevent illegal distribution - on the contrary, it's goal is to *encourage* distribution. The idea that copyright is primarily an inhibitor is something that has been pounded into the public conscious by our friends at the RIAA and MPAA.
No doubt many of you will find this surprising and inplausible. May I direct you to:
Sony vs. Universal:
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution provides:
"The Congress shall have Power . . . To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
[p.429] The monopoly privileges that Congress may authorize are neither unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit. Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired.
"The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration. In Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 127, Chief Justice Hughes spoke as follows respecting the copyright monopoly granted by Congress, 'The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.' It is said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius." United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 158 (1948).
You're really confused.
I can choose from (literally!) hundreds of hard drive based players. iPod monpoly? I think not. I've never owned an iPod, and I've owned perhaps 4 hard drive players. I listen to my music ONLY on hard drive based players. (Incidentally, I only use Ogg Vorbis as well, so that narrows down the players I can choose from.)
It is NOT a monopoly to make the only player that "sells". If it was the only one available, then I'd understand. Oh, and it's not the only one that sells. iRiver does quite well, I think Rio is doing OK, and I use a Neuros, which simply rocks.
As far as the iTMS, this is like suing Ford because they only make their parts available for Ford vehicles, not Honda or Toyota. I never expected to buy Toyota parts from Ford. Similarly, I never expected to buy Apple iTMS songs and use them on my Neuros. Never entered my mind. I just buy the CD, rip it to Ogg, and play it on my player. Or download from allofmp3. Or Magnatune. Or emusic. Or bleep. Or audio lunchbox. Or CD baby.
In short, Apple != Monopoly, either in music stores or in players. The fact that their music store is compatible only with their player is interesting, but nothing amazing or illegal. It's sort of like suing Microsoft becauses Windows Update only works on Windows, not MacOS X or Linux. Or suing RedHat because Up2Date only works with Red Hat or Fedora Core. They are online services provided for the owners of a product. That's it. Nothing they are doing is preventing Microsoft from releasing a better player, and starting a better music store for that player. *Nothing.*
QED.
allofmp3.com is legal, by the way.
Not quite. It is illegal, for example, to sell products below cost to drive competition out of business and then make up the losses by jacking up prices sky high. Or, in slashdot speak:
1) Undercut competition
2) Competition goes out of business
3) Raise prices when the consumer has no choice.
4) Profit!
At the time they were selling the product below cost, they weren't a monopoly, but this strategy is still illegal.
That's the great irony though...its not different to have an iPod, it's the same as everyone else.
iRiver should do it anyway to show it for the BS it is. Apple should shy away from the "Think Different" ads when referring to the iPod, since they are the market leader in that product.
Only any lossy conversion. Moving to and from lossless formats (CD, .wav, flac, .shn) cost you nothing. Moving from lossy formats (.mp3, .aac, .ogg) does cost you something.
Burning mp3's is fine, just don't try to re-rip them.
Wow.
OS:
My install gentoo linux: 3 gigs
Media:
My OGG collection: 10 gigs
Linux ISOs: 7 gigs
Games
Doom 3: 4.5 gigs
UT 2004: 5 gigs
NWN: 5 gigs
I haven't even gotten started. These are just big ticket items. No backups, glimpse databases, email, or other misc programs.
The idea of "winning" a game is a bit passe these days - most people that shell out for a game want it for multiplayer, so it tends to stay on the disk. I know this is the case for me with Doom 3( at least until the expansion comes out), NWN and UT 2004.
I can't know, but I suppose if I were the type to do video editting, the 35 gigs I outlined above would at least double.
And we're supposed to value your comments more than Wikipedia's? At least Wikipedia's were reviewed and editted by people on different sides of the issue. You may not be "anonymous" in the strict sense, but I don't know or trust you, either.
I'll go with Wikipedia on this one. Trusting what you say would be "faith", to use your phrase.
RIAA has exclusive rights with the distribution channels. All the major chain music stores deal exclusively with the big publishers, because the publishers require them to.
If you're an artist, this doesn't leave you much choice. Sure, you can go with Magnatune and you'll make a large amount of cash considering how many people are buying your stuff, but it still won't be enough to live on. But if you want real exposure, you've GOT to go with one of the big five.
If you want to know the rightd associated with being a copyright holder, I suggest you read copyright law. The law outlines it very clearly. Things like "Exclusive right to distribution" are in there. The term "exclusivity" is a bit vague in this context.
They may have to deal with a LOT of crap that we do not, but we have to deal with a LOT of crap that they do not. Finding a home, where the next meal comes from, how to pay for my school, how the hell I'm going to foot the $500,000 bill to send my kid to college in 18 years, etc. The original ideal of copyright is to incentivize artists to continue working...not make them so rich that they never have to work again. The current laws combined with the RIAA's policies tdo anything but: a few are stupendously rich, and the rest are paupers. See below.
Your argument is pure sophistry. Britany COULDN'T be as successful if she didn't go with the RIAA. Because they own ALL the major distribution channels. I don't know the nature of the RIAA's deal with iTunes, but I bet they'll be holding back indy music publishers from releasing their stuff on iTunes (hopefully not). In any case, no star out there now could be what they are without signing their soul away to the RIAA. And only a tiny, tiny fraction ever become rich and famous. The vast majority languish, not because of a lack of talent, but because the publishing deals require you sell a boatload of CDs before they'll start paying you anything resembling what you deserve. This forces artists that would often go out and do something different and innovative into making the same old mindless crap to make sure they sell enough CDs to pay the bills for the studio and the publisher, in hopes that they can make money to eat. The RIAA forces the mainstream music market to the lowest common denominator, and that is wrong and sad.
Oh, and it's "libel" and it only applies if it's directed at a single individual. If you are decrying an entire group of people, they would have a very hard time bringing a libel suit against you, though the scientologists dona pretty good job. I don't think they use libel though, I think they use copyright infringement. Oh look, we've come full circle.
My impression exactly. Well put.
One of the main problems with VB is that it locks you into a platform. The mere fact that an open-source work-alike exists suggests that a decent community could grow around it and make it cross-platform. This alone would alleviate my main gripe with VB. I think it is more valuable to devote your time to learning languages that are flexible, extensible, open, cross-platform, etc. than those that are closed and single platform.
I would assert that there is more of a goal setting issue there than a morals issue. It's quite difficult for me to try to post something like this in isolation, without wandering far afield in an attempt to have it make more sense in the context of the rest of my philosophy.
But you bring up a good issue. Morals do limit behavior - such is their nature. But it usually a limitation that you believe is either good for you or good for society.
What I've found is that often, in an effort to "do the right thing", very principled people (and sometimes not so principled) engage in self defeating behavior because of a moral guideline or belief that they feel they *must* follow.
We can shed more light on this with an overly contrived axample. Let's say the only drug made that can save your wife's life (she is ill) is made by a company that uses slave/child labor. Some call this a moral dilemma, because, as you said, you do not want to give money to companies that support slave/child labor.
The problem there is that the belief is simply too stringent. The moral reality is much more gray, and goes something like:
"The evil of the company must be weighed with the good that its products can give society."
And this is the way of the world. Certain people choose to highlight certain issues in their own minds as "important" and then hold themselves very stringently to beliefs they have constructed, while often ignoring other issues that may be just as important.
I try to stand more in the middle, acknowledging the evil in the world (not closing my eyes to it), but at the same time balancing that recognition with my own endeavours.
So, with that backdrop, the answer to your question is:
Depending on the situation, I change my goals AND my morals.
I draw a bit from Bentham's idea of utility in my own mind, and his analysis of morality as a balanced equation of net utility for society. There are flaws there, of course, as my example above would inidicate. Clearly, if the child/slave labor is making drugs that can save thousands or millions of people's lives, then the net utility is in favor of buying the drug. But to assume that it is therefore "OK" to buy the drug is a stretch...once the decision is made, remaining aware that you are giving money to company that engages in illegal and harmful business practices is essential.
If my goal is saving my wife's life, then my beliefs allow me to be more forgiving in my execution of morally questionable acts. If my goal is to come into possession of $1 billion, then my morals are quite stringent.
And this is in fact how the world works. We don't even classify it as "murder" if someone was trying to kill my wife and I killed them. It fails to even meet the criteria for a crime. But the act was no different than murder, it was merely a matter of circumstance. And yet, people will sometimes hold themselves to a belief that eating meat is wrong, supporting child labor is wrong, or taking military action is wrong, and would not allow themselves the flexibility in that belief that the laws of the US afford citizens when making the distinction between "self-defense", "manslaughter" and "murder". This is an important point: circumstances matter when it comes to morality.
Parenthetically, crime != morally wrong, but for purposes of this example, I treat them synonymously.
There is no formula, but hopefully this gives you a gist of what I was attempting to convey.
That 90kbps is not 90 KB, and in KiloBYTES, but kbps as in kilo bps, or bits per second.
Divide by 8, and you'll see it's using about 11 KB/s, which isn't too bad, though still more than the skype bandwidth you mention.
I guess its a good thing to have convictions, all other things being equal. And there is a place in the world for folks that simply *do not comprimise*.
But if an average person were to follow their beliefs through to the logical conclusion, they would often find that it simply wasn't worth it. I think the trick is finding a set of beliefs that you can take pretty far downstream without feeling like you're following them to the great expense of your own life.
This may sound shallow, but I think it is a good exercise. You're anti-war/anti-military? OK, but don't do it like the Quakers do it; they enjoy the protection of the military while disparaging it. If you believe that, move to Switzerland.
On the other hand, if you find that you really *want* the protection of the military, then you must ask yourself what you really believe. Perhaps the belief that
"The military is bad!"
should be tempered with the reality that the military is necessary, and you then modify your belief:
"The military should be utilized responsibly, only with the consent of the nation's people."
Some people would say that the first belief is somehow more "pure" than the second, but I believe that you should align what you believe with what works, not just what *should* work.
Similarly with free software. RMS states that he would quit a job that required him to use Outlook for Word (or Windows!). Well, I hate to say it, but that is quite a luxury. If you're someone who is trained in computers and makes a living that way, you'll be hard pressed to find a job working with them that doesn't involve proprietary software in some way. Quitting a job means loss of money, and sometimes that means giving up things not just for yourself, but your family, and those you love. Do you believe in not using propritary software that much?
Perhaps the answer does not lie in never using commercial software. Perhaps the answer lies in retaining the kernel of your belief (pun intended), but realizing that the world is not there yet, and that you would do well to join organizations that use non-free software and make a living. As you work there, you may convince them over time to use fewer and fewer commercial programs.
The approach I would take (and do!)is to temper your beliefs in a way that makes it practical to live, while also furthering your goals. I don't feel like a sell out for working for the military in the past, and for a DoD contractor that uses Windows now. I don't support everything the miltary does and don't like commercial software. But by becoming part of what I sometimes don't like, I can be a force from the inside to change it. And in some ways that can be more effective that sitting on the outside and refusing to take part until they meet your demands.
You can perfectly well submit stories about topics that are technical (hey, this *is* news for *nerds*) but it's all in the language.
I submitted that Half-Life-2-on-Linux-with-Transgaming story a while back, and while I figured everyone probably knew about all those pieces, I still backed all the way up and explained that Cedega was a game-enhanced version of Wine, a windows porting layer, and that Transgaming was it's creator. They had just released a new version that supported a *major* game release in the first person shooter market called Half Life 2. I worked pretty hard to make sure it was a clear as possible, even if you weren't familiar with the subject matter.
The guy who submitted this piece of trash probably would've written something like:
"Codeweaver's Wine extention Cedega 4.1.1 by Transgaming is out with support for Valve's Half Life 2. Go get it!"
Even for people that know what's going on, that can be an odd (if not confusing) statement.
The moral? Feel free to post techno-topics, but work to make sure that even a uninitiated nerd/geek would be able to figure out what the heck you're talking about.
I hadn't heard about this before, so it's kind of interesting, but only after I read a few comments figuring out what it was about.
Anyone else getting the feeling that the folks at 3DR are chugging away at DNF, and then, one day, you'll load up /. and see a headline:
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER GOES GOLD - IN STORES NEXT MONDAY
and everyone will scratch their head:
"Holy shit, didn't see that one coming."
And, and as far as id releasing late, I don't think they ever give dates...so it makes it hard for them to break dates. Too bad other companies can't do the same, you have to have a lot of credibility to not call dates in advance (publishers beat up on you).
There is a vast gulf between disagreeing with how copyright is being used by big business, and disagreeing with the fundamental premise of copyright.
Whether they know it or not, the vast majority of folks here on Slashdot would not object to copyright if it embodied the original ideals under which it was created, rather than the bastard system we have now that big companies hide behind to line their pockets at the expense of the true innovators.
I don't see that as being hypocritical.
The absence of a law against an act != the act being legal.
If I had to guess, it is because someone wanted to get the law passed sometime this decade, so they watered it down. Apparently a little too much. =)
I must agree with you in spirit, but I must also tell you that you are, at least in some respects, quite wrong.
The purpose of copyright is in no way to create false scarcity. You are missing an extremely (and I mean that truly) important distinction. It is a distinction that most people don't understand, and like to scoff at because they think they know how things work. It's the difference between what copyright was designed to achieve versus the mechanisms people have devised to abuse that original goal to serve their own ends.
Money is in fact a good motivation for innovation. The U.S. is a good example of the power of "opportunity". People believe money can be made here, and it can, based on innovation. A huge percentage of the major innovations in the last century were made by innovators motivated by money in the U.S. (mainly immigrants from other countries). This is a good thing, though your post would make it seem like it is bad.
But you make a very good point: copyright as we know it has been twisted and bastardized into something that just makes the rich richer, and the money they make is often at the expense of the public and the true innovators. This was never the intention of copyright. Read what the U.S. congress had to say about copyright in 1907, or what the judge said about copyright in the 80's in the Sony/Betamax case. Folks that make a living understanding the law recognize that not all business is bad, and that not all law is bad.
Copyright is being abused. But the idea of copyright is a good one: incentivize those that innovate to *continue* innovating. Don't pay them so much that they don't have to work anymore; pay them enough to sustain them while they continue their work, which ultimatly will benefit the public as a whole, often for generations to come.
But some big business has abused this system, and the question is: what are we going to do about it? It's too bad that people are so fed up with the status quo that they believe that copyright is evil and the answer lies solely in a system based around have our biggest innovators work for no money. I believe it does not - I believe it lies in bringing honesty and refinement to a broken system built around a essentially important and *good* idea.
So while I agree with your sentiment, don't drag down copyright because some corporations (and corporate alliances) abuse it to hurt others and ruin lives for their own gain. We must recognize them for what they are, but also recognize that there was a certain measure of insight and wisdom in the original ideal that copyright represents, and seek to find ways to restore that ideal in practice.
What the hell are you talking about?
Thanks for agreeing with me that Linux is not stable.
No one did.
Other playback programs, such as "play" or mpg123, don't crash my system as badly as KDE's programs do.
Hey, let's be clear...either it's taking down the system or it isn't. mpg123 not crashing "as badly" as noatun doesn't mean anything. If it crashes, it either crashes only itself (segfault, etc.) or is it crashing the OS. That's what we're talking about here - crashing the OS - not some program misbehaving and crashing.
I'll write Debian and KDE a note saying that their kernel is bad.
What? Debian's kernel? KDE's kernel? First, no one suggested that your kernel was malfunctioning. Second, Debian and KDE don't have kernels of their own...KDE is just a user level app like anything else. Kernel has no meaning in that context. And Debian is just a distro, and if I'm not mistaken, uses stock kernel.org kernels. If there were a bug in the kernel causing this, you shouldn't be talking to Debian's or KDE's teams.
What version of the KDE kernel are you using that does not demonstrate this error condition?
Once again, you have no clue. KDE doesn't have a kernel. You've already been told you have a buggy driver. Whining that your hardware is old doesn't change the fact that you probably have a buggy driver. Replace it and recompile the kernel with the new driver code if it's compiled in, or recompile the module if you're using dynamic loading.
Millions of people all over the world use Linux and play sound files just fine on Sound Blaster Live! cards. This may be a corrupted download, or it may be PEBKAC, based on your posts above. In any case, don't flame Linux because you don't know what you're doing.
Actually, courts are upholding EULAs (even those undisclosed at point of sale) as enforcable. I would love to back you and say "Screw EULAs!", but recent events like those on 30 Sept. are reminding us that courts are increasingly siding with the big companies on this one.
More disturbing, it is extremely important to understand what the EULAs say more than ever before, because companies like Blizzard are injecting clauses into the EULA that explicity say that by clicking "OK" and using the software, you are giving up specific rights like your right to reverse engineer for interoperability, and your rights protected under the first sale doctrine. This came out in the recent decision in the Bnetd case.
In fact, multiple provisions protected under copyright law and the DMCA that allowed certain actions are being specifically forbidden in EULAs because companies don't want you to reverse engineer their products, no matter what. Courts are allowing you to "sign" away these protections allowed for in federal law in EULAs, even if the EULA was not available at point of sale.
This isn't a great forum to discuss this type of thing because it is really quite intricate, but I did write two pieces on this in my blog over at Etherplex that treat it in more detail. If you're not in touch with what the courts have been doing recently, it may be of interest.
Absolutely. I try out and test lots of different distros, which I exclusively download from The Linux Mirror Project (www.tlm-project.org).
That is indeed a *substantial* non-infringing use.
In reality though, it obvious there are substantial non-infringing uses, once you get past the idea that there are large files that tons of people want. Case and point?
Filerush.com
The site distributes ONLY legal demos and trailers for upcoming and released games, and provides them at blistering speed (I've downloaded regularly from them at 250-300K/s). And we all know that there are lots of people that like to try out game demos the second they hit the street.
I use citibank virtual credit card numbers. One time use only. =)
What's the point in CD DRM if there's no P2P? Preventing hard copies? It won't for the same reason it won't prevent it's spread over P2P...people can still get around it.
If they want to stop the spread over P2P, they have to kill P2P, which is (IMHO) absurd. If they want to protect CDs assuming P2P lives on, they have to use unbreakable DRM, which is (IMHO) impossible.
Really, the only solution is to put prices at a level that people feel is worth it, and provide them with a superior product than they can get for free.
At some point they have to admit that the industry is going to take a big loss if they continue this way, and it will probably be a bigger loss than if they just moved ahead with the times and lowered prices or provided a convenient distribution scheme (a la iTunes).
When they get in gear with a DRM-less, high-quality format (I use Ogg) that is supported everywhere (like Linux, or a vanilla-player), they'll be golden. It won't be about preventing people from copying the music, it'll be about giving the majority of them no incentive to copy it.
I never use P2P - I use Allofmp3.com, and I'd be willing to pay ten times the amount I pay there for a stateside service that offered the same service. Its just not available.
You (like many others in this thread, apparently) don't know how GPS works. There are a few points (not necessarily yours) that I'd like to touch on.
Our military will still be able to access the network, but civilian units will not. Others can't jam us, but we can remove their access. Even differential GPS won't help in that case.
The system was originally designed with this ability in place, as well as an accuracy restriction on civilian units, which was removed in the mid '90s. That restriction can be put back into effect at any time, however, just as the removal of service can be activated.
A few posts back, someone mentioned "black market" units that would offer military access during such a blackout. Those that exist do not work (to my knowledge): each military GPS is coded to the network, and each unit has a unique code to access the network. While I do not have sources at hand, I recall that attempts to spoof such codes were anticipated and protected (unlike, for example, MAC addresses).
As for private industry making GPS "10 times better at a 10th of the cost", it would never happen. The cost of designing, building and putting up 24-30 satellites orbitting at 22,000 miles and then maintaining them, as well as integrating all the security features would prohibit profit anywhere in the near term, even if users were charged a subscription fee. That is why its a great government project: people love it, but a decent profitable business model really isn't available for it.
And as for the "government taking away our rights" argument, well, GPS isn't your right, especially if the government wants to take it away to protect you from attack. Oh, and as far as tax money, it's not yours, it's the government's. That's why it's TAX money; they don't owe you access to every system they build with it, though you are entitled to know what they spend it on. Hopefully, in more cases than not, it will be projects that help the citizens of the country, directly or indirectly. Even if GPS were available to the military only, it would still be helping us indrectly as taxpayers. This in no way means that we are entitled to access to GPS, or that it is a"right" - it most certainly is not. Neither is driving a car or flying an airplane, incidently, as some would suggest.