Wait a minute. Who are you talking about here? Khrushchev, Breshnev(sp), Mao, Nixon, Reagan, Bush? How about the people we supported like Saddam, the Shah, Sharon, Noriega, Somoza, Pinoche(he's pretty famous), Marcos, Aparthied in S. Africa? Seems to me that we all have our enemies for the same reasons.
If everybody stood back, then the belligerents would run out of ammo and the war would end. After that? nobody knows. We, quite literally, have always been at war. We don't seem to know anything else.
My driver's license isn't legal until I sign it. The same should apply here. I will not be bound by any contract that I did not sign. If they want these things to be binding, make the customer sign an agreement before money changes hands.
This way you don't put any uploaders at risk. If nobody downloads from the warzes sites, they can stay "legal". May I assume that this is one of those DMCA issues where you're not allowed to modify the things that you own? EULA notwithstanding?
World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.
Buckminster Fuller and other have successfully pointed out that as we progress, we can always do more with less. So consumption doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to population growth. More and more evidence is surfacing that all our problems with "limited" resources is political, not natural in any way. Consumption by itself is not a problem. The real problem come from those who want those resources exclusively for themselves. The problems of developing countries has nothing to do with nature. It has everything to do with powerful, selfish humans...many of them from "1st world" countries.
Ok. Fine and dandy, but it sure sounds a lot like the stage 2 in my previous post.
We're still in stage one.
Where's the technology? Where are the plans?
In stage 2. What's the rush? We'll get there...if we do it right and develope sustainable lifestyles.
Quite frankly, as a physicist I don't know what you mean by "working beyond nature". You can't break the laws of nature.
Not trying to. But I am thinking beyond the planet. And beyond my lifetime. By working beyond nature, I mean stop acting like animals. None of our motivations are exclusively human by any means. Our ability to choose not to kill or harm others is the only thing that seperates us from the animals. Our willingness...well...that's other story.
My point is that there are more enough resourses right here on this planet to sustain everybody quite nicely. The problem is a political one where there are those who want everything exculsively for themselves. I'll repeat myself to say to you that all shortages and scarcities are no more than an agruement over the price. Once we get over that, we can all live like kings. And I would wager that the planet could easily support more than 20 billion of us. The only thing stopping us is the will.
What is God's name are "hoarders and speculators" of IP?
The people like Microsoft and IBM buying up as many patents as possible to fatten up their portfolio. It's a very good demonstration of hoarding and speculatiing. A very common practice in real estate and mining(or drilling).
When I make something, I own it and every benefit that may be derived from it...
You're just repeating yourself and not convincing me of anything on that subject.
Yes, as one AC already pointed out in this thread, there is cancer, but I am not sure you want to use that as a model of a sustained unlimited system as it kills the host in the end.
Yes, we are a "cancer" or "virus". If we're good at it, we try to keep the host alive as long as possible. And yes, the host will eventually die. We just move on to the next host. I'm not concerned about economics. That's an animal thing. I'm talking about life. We don't need economics to live. We just need life. By the time we cover the entire planet, we will have outsourced most of our (mineral at least)needs to other planets. Or do you think we'll never get off the planet. You might be living with a closed mind, but we are not living in a closed system. It appears that we are due to our ignorance of what's "out there" and our failure to exploit it up to now, but we aren't.
The fundamental problem is that sustainable unlimited growth is physically impossible in the nature.
Well, as human beings, I like to think that we can work "beyond" nature. Besides, how do you know it's impossible in nature? How do you know that the universe isn't doing just that? You're limiting yourself to planet earth. You might want to think a bit more "macro" and a bit farther into the future. It's ours to make or break.
Oh, and it's not "obtain appropriate technology". It's - use technology appropriately. In fact, that's how I stated it before, so I'm uncertain as to where you came up with "obtain appropriate technology".
You're equating illegal with wrong. That's a mistake. "Not everybody agrees" is a more than adequate defense, especially when it reaches the magical 51%.
There's no similarity between sitting on a domain name and copyright violation.
IP in this case=intellectual property. I wasn't talking about domain name squatters. The IP squatters I speak of are hoarders and speculators. I consider them to be theives. Some kinds of speculation are illegal. This should be the case here. It is most definitely wrong and bad. Two very good criteria for making it illegal. But it's not a hot button issue, so nothing will be done about it.
You're assertion that banning illegal activity is just another "prohibition" doesn't make sense.
When it involves consensual activity it most certainly does. Note: Murder is not consensual. Dealing in contraband is. IP law is turning information into contraband that only certain people should be allowed to possess and share with others. It is costing respect for all law. It can only bring chaos and mayhem in the end.
The law protects my exclusive ownership of what I make, but it does not establish it.
And I will maintain until the end of time that you have it backwards. Exclusive ownership can only apply to your instance of what you make. You will get nowhere with this arguement...Not now, not ever.
After all, unlimited growth is the fundamental doctrine of the libertarian faith.
With appropriate use of technogoloy and a more selfless economy, unlimited growth is feasable and not all that difficult. From what we know so far, the universe is pretty big. I see no reason why we can't infest the galaxy at least. It might take a while, but we have up to 4 or 5 billion years to work out the details. Note: IANAL (I am not a libertarian...well... social yes, economic no)
Not everybody considers them to be theives. The same can be said about IP squatters. There are many reasons to protect "unauthorized" distributors. It's just another "prohibition", like drugs and alcohol. We can call this one "info prohibition". And to get those sitting on the fence with this issue, we now relate it to national security. I guess it would relate since it puts the whole Hollywood/CNN/FOX propaganda machine at risk of losing control of what we see. Hell, bootleg satellite recievers did more to bring down the Soviet Union than SDI. Can't have the same thing happening here.
This is like an airline switching from the beautiful, elegant Lockheed L-1011 to the "cheap", dangerous DC-10. Or switching from Rolls Royce to GE. This is horrible. Why does cheap, kluncky, inferior always win? We shouldn't tolerate this. Apple just lost one of their big advantages over the PC. So now there will be no real choice for the consumer or reason to switch. I used to buy from Apple because their hardware was better. Now why should I bother? Sure the sowtware is still better, but even that might change when it all moves over to the Intel. I suppose we'll start seeing blue screens on the mac now. Now I'm pining for the macsbug white screen. Everything is going Intel. UGH! Talk about monopoly!
That's like asking 100 Chinese what they think of blue tablecloth. I think I'll go watch the downloads now. Which brings up another point. How come the site hasn't been/.ed? I thought "nerds" were into science. Or is that "geeks"?
-- Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
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You're right we really are same. Kinda like that song...
...Still, they're cousins, Identical cousins and you'll find, They laugh alike, they walk alike, At times they even talk alike -- You can lose your mind, When cousins are two of a kind
On another note, the Americans were also profiting from Saddam, but when those profits started to dry up(switching to euros...how dare he!), they saw greater profit in "removing" him from the spotlight.
Nor really sure who that is in the picture. When driving through the mountains of Oaxaca, I'll take the Charger. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who prefer reliability(and availability of parts) over refinement. In this case I understand that OS X is refined AND reliable. So for the average guy, the Mac would be the better option. But Linux is the better option for those of us who like to tweak and learn what makes the machine go...and of course the price is a bit better.
Re:who owns copyright in a open source project
on
GPL Hard to Enforce?
·
· Score: 1
...IP law simply codifies basic natural right and behavior:
Now we're back to that old arguement. All rights are derived from force or strength. A lion has a "right" to eat zebras because they are stronger and faster. That is a natural right. A person(or group) has a right to property if he(they) is strong enough to hold on to it. Codifiying it doesn't make it any more right. That's just the powerful making rules for the weak. We say we have rights, but that only works if we are strong enough to keep them. Actually your rights are useless if you have to keep watching over your shoulder. This is why I don't mind not having any money or property. I don't want to have to fight off people that are constantly trying to take it from me. When somebody wants to take a copy of something I made, that's perfectly ok. I still have mine. If I didn't, I would just produce another. If we don't get over this hysteria over property, we will never evolve out of our present animal(natural) behavior of might makes right.
That would be your average voter. That's where the oversight should come from, but they're so disinterested that most won't vote anymore...much less nominate and vote for qualified candidates.
Re:who owns copyright in a open source project
on
GPL Hard to Enforce?
·
· Score: 1
It isn't copyright itself that was the impetus for free software and the GPL. Rather, it was the unique nature of software code and the intent of commercial software vendors to maintain control of their products.
Copyright is what gave them their control. I'm just going all the way up(down?) the food chain. No copyright, no control, no need for GPL.
Unlike software, however, the transformation cannot create a duplicate of the product released by the music company.
What would you call the resulting record or CD? Isn't that the duplicate?
(Note: copying is not sharing.)
But sharing can involve copying.
And a good case could be made that more innovation would happen if developers had to solve problems on their own rather than copying the work of others.
That's what is commonly called "re-invention of the wheel". Hardly a good way to run a circus. Most people don't simply copy a work without adding something to it. All works are built upon others. IP law is a big impediment to that concept and to progress. We have so much junk(think Intel, AMD, Cyrix) on the market today because somebody had to make a kludge to get around a patent or copyright. And some products never could reach the market until the IP privileges expired, and somebody could make the necessary improvements to make it work in the real world(diesel engine).
Re:who owns copyright in a open source project
on
GPL Hard to Enforce?
·
· Score: 1
Ironic, isn't it. that the so many people rant about copyright yet the GPL depends on it.
Exactly! GPL isn't necessary without copyright. It was created to counter of the nature of copyright. It helps to put the copyright ax into the hands of the little guy. It uses the law to encourage sharing instead of the other way around, like standard copright. Sharing promotes innovation much, much better than any IP law ever could. Without copyright, all works could be shared and traded, making GPL completely irrelevent, and we could spend our time writing code instead of licenses.
Instead, shows would compete directly on how attractive they are to the market.
And that's exactly what the producers don't want. They don't want any kind of competition. They want a complete monopoly. The internet took that away, so now they're using the law to keep their business model afloat. The one thing the internet has shown in glaring light is the tragedy and atrocity of IP law. It has shown that that IP law has existed to protect entrenched interests all along, and has nothing to do with "promoting innovation".
And personally, if you can create something of value that people want I happen to think you ARE more valuable to society...
And just how many people have to want it before it becomes significant to you? I don't care how creative you are. You should live by the same rules as everybody else. If they don't apply to you, then you can't apply them to me.
Slashdot Mirror
...a lot of people are power-hungry aggressors...
Wait a minute. Who are you talking about here? Khrushchev, Breshnev(sp), Mao, Nixon, Reagan, Bush? How about the people we supported like Saddam, the Shah, Sharon, Noriega, Somoza, Pinoche(he's pretty famous), Marcos, Aparthied in S. Africa? Seems to me that we all have our enemies for the same reasons.
...the US is a force for human rights, economic progress, and democratization.
Oh, Really?
If everybody stood back, then the belligerents would run out of ammo and the war would end. After that? nobody knows. We, quite literally, have always been at war. We don't seem to know anything else.
My driver's license isn't legal until I sign it. The same should apply here. I will not be bound by any contract that I did not sign. If they want these things to be binding, make the customer sign an agreement before money changes hands.
This way you don't put any uploaders at risk. If nobody downloads from the warzes sites, they can stay "legal". May I assume that this is one of those DMCA issues where you're not allowed to modify the things that you own? EULA notwithstanding?
World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.
Buckminster Fuller and other have successfully pointed out that as we progress, we can always do more with less. So consumption doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to population growth. More and more evidence is surfacing that all our problems with "limited" resources is political, not natural in any way. Consumption by itself is not a problem. The real problem come from those who want those resources exclusively for themselves. The problems of developing countries has nothing to do with nature. It has everything to do with powerful, selfish humans...many of them from "1st world" countries.
Ok. Fine and dandy, but it sure sounds a lot like the stage 2 in my previous post.
We're still in stage one.
Where's the technology? Where are the plans?
In stage 2. What's the rush? We'll get there...if we do it right and develope sustainable lifestyles.
Quite frankly, as a physicist I don't know what you mean by "working beyond nature". You can't break the laws of nature.
Not trying to. But I am thinking beyond the planet. And beyond my lifetime. By working beyond nature, I mean stop acting like animals. None of our motivations are exclusively human by any means. Our ability to choose not to kill or harm others is the only thing that seperates us from the animals. Our willingness...well...that's other story.
My point is that there are more enough resourses right here on this planet to sustain everybody quite nicely. The problem is a political one where there are those who want everything exculsively for themselves. I'll repeat myself to say to you that all shortages and scarcities are no more than an agruement over the price. Once we get over that, we can all live like kings. And I would wager that the planet could easily support more than 20 billion of us. The only thing stopping us is the will.
What is God's name are "hoarders and speculators" of IP?
The people like Microsoft and IBM buying up as many patents as possible to fatten up their portfolio. It's a very good demonstration of hoarding and speculatiing. A very common practice in real estate and mining(or drilling).
When I make something, I own it and every benefit that may be derived from it...
You're just repeating yourself and not convincing me of anything on that subject.
Yes, as one AC already pointed out in this thread, there is cancer, but I am not sure you want to use that as a model of a sustained unlimited system as it kills the host in the end.
Yes, we are a "cancer" or "virus". If we're good at it, we try to keep the host alive as long as possible. And yes, the host will eventually die. We just move on to the next host. I'm not concerned about economics. That's an animal thing. I'm talking about life. We don't need economics to live. We just need life. By the time we cover the entire planet, we will have outsourced most of our (mineral at least)needs to other planets. Or do you think we'll never get off the planet. You might be living with a closed mind, but we are not living in a closed system. It appears that we are due to our ignorance of what's "out there" and our failure to exploit it up to now, but we aren't.
The fundamental problem is that sustainable unlimited growth is physically impossible in the nature.
Well, as human beings, I like to think that we can work "beyond" nature. Besides, how do you know it's impossible in nature? How do you know that the universe isn't doing just that? You're limiting yourself to planet earth. You might want to think a bit more "macro" and a bit farther into the future. It's ours to make or break.
Oh, and it's not "obtain appropriate technology". It's - use technology appropriately. In fact, that's how I stated it before, so I'm uncertain as to where you came up with "obtain appropriate technology".
You're equating illegal with wrong. That's a mistake. "Not everybody agrees" is a more than adequate defense, especially when it reaches the magical 51%.
There's no similarity between sitting on a domain name and copyright violation.
IP in this case=intellectual property. I wasn't talking about domain name squatters. The IP squatters I speak of are hoarders and speculators. I consider them to be theives. Some kinds of speculation are illegal. This should be the case here. It is most definitely wrong and bad. Two very good criteria for making it illegal. But it's not a hot button issue, so nothing will be done about it.
You're assertion that banning illegal activity is just another "prohibition" doesn't make sense.
When it involves consensual activity it most certainly does. Note: Murder is not consensual. Dealing in contraband is. IP law is turning information into contraband that only certain people should be allowed to possess and share with others. It is costing respect for all law. It can only bring chaos and mayhem in the end.
The law protects my exclusive ownership of what I make, but it does not establish it.
And I will maintain until the end of time that you have it backwards. Exclusive ownership can only apply to your instance of what you make. You will get nowhere with this arguement...Not now, not ever.
After all, unlimited growth is the fundamental doctrine of the libertarian faith.
With appropriate use of technogoloy and a more selfless economy, unlimited growth is feasable and not all that difficult. From what we know so far, the universe is pretty big. I see no reason why we can't infest the galaxy at least. It might take a while, but we have up to 4 or 5 billion years to work out the details. Note: IANAL (I am not a libertarian...well... social yes, economic no)
Why bother with all that just to help thieves?
Not everybody considers them to be theives. The same can be said about IP squatters. There are many reasons to protect "unauthorized" distributors. It's just another "prohibition", like drugs and alcohol. We can call this one "info prohibition". And to get those sitting on the fence with this issue, we now relate it to national security. I guess it would relate since it puts the whole Hollywood/CNN/FOX propaganda machine at risk of losing control of what we see. Hell, bootleg satellite recievers did more to bring down the Soviet Union than SDI. Can't have the same thing happening here.
This is like an airline switching from the beautiful, elegant Lockheed L-1011 to the "cheap", dangerous DC-10. Or switching from Rolls Royce to GE. This is horrible. Why does cheap, kluncky, inferior always win? We shouldn't tolerate this. Apple just lost one of their big advantages over the PC. So now there will be no real choice for the consumer or reason to switch. I used to buy from Apple because their hardware was better. Now why should I bother? Sure the sowtware is still better, but even that might change when it all moves over to the Intel. I suppose we'll start seeing blue screens on the mac now. Now I'm pining for the macsbug white screen. Everything is going Intel. UGH! Talk about monopoly!
That's like asking 100 Chinese what they think of blue tablecloth. I think I'll go watch the downloads now. Which brings up another point. How come the site hasn't been /.ed? I thought "nerds" were into science. Or is that "geeks"?
--
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 7 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Q? Is that you?
Would you be impressed if it was put on a bunch of USB sticks?
You're right we really are same. Kinda like that song...
...Still, they're cousins,
Identical cousins and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike --
You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind
On another note, the Americans were also profiting from Saddam, but when those profits started to dry up(switching to euros...how dare he!), they saw greater profit in "removing" him from the spotlight.
Nor really sure who that is in the picture. When driving through the mountains of Oaxaca, I'll take the Charger. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who prefer reliability(and availability of parts) over refinement. In this case I understand that OS X is refined AND reliable. So for the average guy, the Mac would be the better option. But Linux is the better option for those of us who like to tweak and learn what makes the machine go...and of course the price is a bit better.
...IP law simply codifies basic natural right and behavior:
Now we're back to that old arguement. All rights are derived from force or strength. A lion has a "right" to eat zebras because they are stronger and faster. That is a natural right. A person(or group) has a right to property if he(they) is strong enough to hold on to it. Codifiying it doesn't make it any more right. That's just the powerful making rules for the weak. We say we have rights, but that only works if we are strong enough to keep them. Actually your rights are useless if you have to keep watching over your shoulder. This is why I don't mind not having any money or property. I don't want to have to fight off people that are constantly trying to take it from me. When somebody wants to take a copy of something I made, that's perfectly ok. I still have mine. If I didn't, I would just produce another. If we don't get over this hysteria over property, we will never evolve out of our present animal(natural) behavior of might makes right.
I don't believe we have to worry about Macromedia anymore.
...oversight from a disinterested third party...
That would be your average voter. That's where the oversight should come from, but they're so disinterested that most won't vote anymore...much less nominate and vote for qualified candidates.
It isn't copyright itself that was the impetus for free software and the GPL. Rather, it was the unique nature of software code and the intent of commercial software vendors to maintain control of their products.
Copyright is what gave them their control. I'm just going all the way up(down?) the food chain. No copyright, no control, no need for GPL.
Unlike software, however, the transformation cannot create a duplicate of the product released by the music company.
What would you call the resulting record or CD? Isn't that the duplicate?
(Note: copying is not sharing.)
But sharing can involve copying.
And a good case could be made that more innovation would happen if developers had to solve problems on their own rather than copying the work of others.
That's what is commonly called "re-invention of the wheel". Hardly a good way to run a circus. Most people don't simply copy a work without adding something to it. All works are built upon others. IP law is a big impediment to that concept and to progress. We have so much junk(think Intel, AMD, Cyrix) on the market today because somebody had to make a kludge to get around a patent or copyright. And some products never could reach the market until the IP privileges expired, and somebody could make the necessary improvements to make it work in the real world(diesel engine).
Ironic, isn't it. that the so many people rant about copyright yet the GPL depends on it.
Exactly! GPL isn't necessary without copyright. It was created to counter of the nature of copyright. It helps to put the copyright ax into the hands of the little guy. It uses the law to encourage sharing instead of the other way around, like standard copright. Sharing promotes innovation much, much better than any IP law ever could. Without copyright, all works could be shared and traded, making GPL completely irrelevent, and we could spend our time writing code instead of licenses.
Instead, shows would compete directly on how attractive they are to the market.
And that's exactly what the producers don't want. They don't want any kind of competition. They want a complete monopoly. The internet took that away, so now they're using the law to keep their business model afloat. The one thing the internet has shown in glaring light is the tragedy and atrocity of IP law. It has shown that that IP law has existed to protect entrenched interests all along, and has nothing to do with "promoting innovation".
"There is no baby. She wasn't even pregnant."
And personally, if you can create something of value that people want I happen to think you ARE more valuable to society...
And just how many people have to want it before it becomes significant to you? I don't care how creative you are. You should live by the same rules as everybody else. If they don't apply to you, then you can't apply them to me.