copyright infringement not being treated as a CRIME? au contraire mon frer.
So you can speak French (or pretend to), but somehow you can't read English. I am not claiming that copyright infringement, as it is defined ( as somebody getting "commerical advantage" or "financial gain" from copyrighted materials which they do not have the right to) should be legal. I AM claiming that somebody who downloads music -- and in no way gaining any financial gain from it -- is not a criminial.
As far as I know, in every Felony copyright prosecution (at least relating to music), the people invovled were directly getting financial gain. I sampled 8 of the cases listed (and would have done more, but the site is horribly slow) as "Film/Music" and in every case the people invovled were making money from the sale of pirated goods. Thus, your very nice link, while being useful, does not help your argument. Sure, copyright infringement is a crime. People are often prosecuted for everything from selling pirated music to counterfeit handbags, but the important point you are seeming to miss (which is KEY) is that music downloaders by and large are NOT getting financial gain from downloading music. Thus, I would argue that they do not fall under criminal copyright infringment laws, and explains why there have not been CRIMINAL cases being brought against music downloaders, because they aren't criminals.
In a civil case, one needs to show that the actions of another person/entity has in some way caused damages that need to be compensated. The RIAA has often tried to prove this, but generally by using misinformation
to bolster its case against piracy, rather than looking at the many other factors which are responsible for hurting its sales/profit. Thus, one has to at least question the validlity of these civil cases until the RIAA can show defintive proof of how much each pirated song actually costs them (if anything).
I found an article that quotes more accurate figures for 2002. This Zdnet.com.com article quotes a 7% global loss in CD sales in 2002. However, not even this loss in sales (not even considering the fact that the US was in a serious recession at the time) can be attributed very directly to piracy, since DVD sales increased 61%, possibly showing that there is instead a shift in what people are spending their entertainment money on, as they view DVDs as a better value for the same money.
there has been a 20-30% decrease in CD sales over the same period of time that there has been an substantial increase in downloading activity.
What a wonderful quote! I'd love to see some facts. Most of the estimates I have seen have quoted MUCH smaller losses (2-5%), which could easily be attributed to say, the large unemployment percentage in our country over the last 2 years, and the overall decrease in retail sales. I will try and find some numbers if you will. Beside the fact that in the ARTICLE, the NZ record labels reported a large increase in local music sales, which seemed to be accompanied by a large increase in download of said CDS (strangely enough to them).
for commercial advantage or private financial gain, or by reproducing or distributing, in any 180-day period, works with a total retail value over $1,000 Punishment can be up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine.
I agree wholeheartly that somebody who is downloading music for finacial gain (downloading mp3s and then selling the cds at a cut cost) is certainly a criminal, as the only enties who are allowed to make money from the sale of music is the artist/artists representitives. However, 99.9 percent of those who are downloading music are not doing it for financial gain in any way and never receive one (unit of money) for the music they download. One COULD argue that the music files are a "financial gain", but that is a tenious argument at best.
a victimless crime Iceparr0t, like punching someone in the dark?
Be careful how you throw around the word CRIME. I was just pointing out that not even the DOJ was willing to try and define exactly what the crime was in these cases. Again, because of the wording of the Criminal Copyright laws, there haven't been any CRIMNAL cases being brought against people, only CIVIL cases, which means that copyright infringment is not being treated as a CRIME.
In some instances, piracy can actually be more damaging than traditional theft...To him, the theft is clear and the harm couldn t be more real.
This is exactly the point I am diputing. I agree that if piracy could be directly linked to a loss of sales for a developer, then that developer has legal recourse against said pirate (most likely in a civil court). However, it has NEVER been made clear in anyway how piracy has a direct link to profits/sales of a given product, and most likely never really could. This is quite opposite in the world of physical goods where these links are obvious and infalliable. This is EXACTLY where the grey area lies. The DOJ doesn't even go so far to claim that if copies are made that cause no harm that it is still theft. They do say "conduct that triggers the criminal statutes is analogous to theft", but don't even remotely try to claim that which acts fall under this statute. Instead, they try to make the case that there is a hidden theft that nobody can see but the artist.
This is a reason why there have been zero (or very few) CRIMINAL cases brought against music pirates. While the DOJ may be convinced that they could bring pirates to "justice", nobody has been willing to bring this into a criminal court, for fear that a Judge (whose opinion matters far more than anybody in the DOJ) may interpet the idea of theft as it pertains to copying differently. Thus, most (if not all) of the music piracy cases have been CIVIL, where the settlments vastly underearn what the RIAA would need to make them profitable.
Since these cases have been in CIVIL court, I would recommend that the RIAA at least consider the fact that piracy may in fact be helping them, and the artists they (teninously) represent. It is similar to speed limits and Oil companies. I don't see Oil companies saying "Keep people from speeding over 55 so they use less fuel efficient", because it HELPS their company, even though it is ILLEGAL. I would just like people to consider the idea that these public relations nightmares (like sueing people who don't own computers) may be cutting into profit more that piracy does.
Finally, while I appericate the suggestion of finding a conscience, I think my sizeable (fully paid for) CD collection can speak for itself. I have always supported those bands/artists that I enjoy listening to, as I would like them to continue producing music. If it was up to the RIAA, there would be no such thing as "fair use", nor would there be any copyable digital formats allowed. However, once people, like say, CONSUMERS, get invovled, and start waving dollar bills around, the picture becomes more tricky.
That's proably because most of the audiance has never produced something that the masses would pay for. Or tried to eek out an existance from, drawing, writing, painting, or the thousands of other stuff that a creative spirit brings. It's kind of hard to notice the tightness of someone elses shoes, from the comfort of our own.
Which one of these complaining artists/labels are "eeking out" an existance? The artists whose mp3s are most downloaded are not those who are eeking out anything. Sure it's hard to notice the tightness of somebody elses shoes, when their shoes cost more than my car. Indepedent artists (who one would think would have the most to lose from copying of music) have embraced mp3s and p2p sharing as a way to spread their music without the need for the RIAA labels. Go to http://artists.iuma.com some time.
"Actually it's not obvious, hence people's complaint with the article. Also most economic and social systems have a certain degree of slack to them that tolerates deviations. That's why a single murder doesn't bring the system down. A single pirate isn't going to change the world that much."
Yes, but when the system is tolerating millions and millions of "pirates" (as it currently is), one has to at least consider the idea that these pirates are not damaging the system and may be perhaps helping it. At the very least, one has to consider the idea that some, if not most/all of these pirates also happen to be the largest consumers of their product, and attacking them may hurt you more than allowing their "transgressions".
"Then I suggest you give all your efforts away, then tell us if there are any costs to you? I'm certain reality will do it's damdest to accomodate you."
I'm certainly not asking musicians to give their efforts away (although most of them do on some scale, which generally is how I decide to buy music). I AM asking the corporations who produce and distribute their music to at least consider the fact that piracy make not be hurting them, and in fact make be helping them make money.
Piracy has forced them to embrace portable digital formats and distributions rather than shunning and preventing the technology from existing as they attempted. These are the same corporations who wanted to prevent people from selling used cds.
"OK everyone. New economic model. Charge the millions that LOTR cost to one DVD. Now who will be the the exceptional soul that will buy it, and let "free" copies be made. Oh come now, it will have no "direct" cost to you, so give it up already."
If it worked, don't think that they wouldn't jump on it.
"Copyright is a social agreement, not the terms of slavery. We as a society struck an agreement with certain members of our society, that balances both our interest, and theirs."
Copyright IS a social agreement, and when a large portion of society has begun to take actions which indicate that they would like to change the terms of said agreement, should they be offered the chance?
"Next on Jeopardy. Download, or leave it be, and let market forces set the tone? The fate of an entire society hangs in the balance."
Haha, let's be a little melodramtic here. Next on Jeopardy, what should the RIAA claims it's losses were for the year due to piracy (even without any proof), 20 million, 100 million or 10 BILLION virtual dollars?
Thanks for the wonderful troll! Once again somebody brings up a CRIME to compare to the copying of digital music. I fail to see how Michael Jackson harming another person directly correlates in anyway to copying music which has no DIRECT harm to anybody. I'm not claiming I have zero guilt here about copying music. I've bought many a CD based on downloading mp3s, partially on guilt about not supporting an artist I love. However, I'm claiming that there is an inherent difference between physical and digital goods. Do you think for a moment, that if people could make copies of computer chips, in their own home with a "Physical copier", and then give them to friends, for free (or at no cost to anybody but themselves) that most people would feel guilty about that? Heck, people do just that all the time. Copying music is closest in relation to somebody making a copy of a designer dress for themselves. Sure they are "stealing" the "design genius" of a top level designer, but it didn't cost the designer one penny (because this person was never going to buy that designer dress, period).
We've all been trained that stealing is wrong because SOMEBODY had to pay for it, but music has entered a weird gray area where one can steal music and never find a direct correlation where somebody has to pay for it, and thus fail to ever see where what they did is wrong. Sure, there is the argument that digital music costs artists money and that they will stop making money, and thus music, if we don't stop copying. However, I dare anybody to find one artist who has been forced to stop making music because of a high download of their mp3s. In fact, the opposite is true! The most popular, money making artists, have by far the most downloads of mp3s. Again, this relationship may seem to be biased, but it is no less proveable than the reverse argument, which is also biased.
Yeah, if this was true, Walmart would certainly encourage shoplifting. Walmart is the one of the most succesful companies in the world, mostly because it understand what consumers want (cheap stuff) and is relentless at getting it for them. If shoplifting increased profits for them, they certainly wouldn't do anything to stop it, as Walmart is buisness savvy enough to understand that profit is profit, regardless of the "principle". However, shoplifting DOES NOT increase profits in any way, as it directly costs the store real money. Moral integrity be damned. Corporations are driven by profit. They only support moral integrity when it helps them out (and that's fine with me).
Beside the point, I think that most people (myself inculded) have a hard time correlating PHYSICAL goods, which cost money to produce each and every one, and DIGITAL goods, of which an infinte number of copies can be made with no direct cost. This is the inherent difference, and why many people have zero guilt about copying songs, software etc. Sure, it cost money to produce the good, but the copies are free, and that fact cannot be changed, regardless of what the RIAA would like to believe. If it was no longer profitable to produce music, then music would stop being produced, but this is obviously not the case. I'm sure this argument has been made many times, but somehow people like to think making a copy directly costs somebody money, when it in fact is completely free, and is in no way related to shoplifting anymore than spam legislation is related to my spam count going down.
The WAVELENGTH of the beam is indepedant of it's POWER. The wavelength just measures the period of the light wave, while the power measures the energy delievered per time unit. However, the wavelength of light is also directly proportional to the energy per photon. Shorter wavelength photons carry more energy per photon.
Being able to SEE a laser has nothing to do with it's power, directly. You could make a 100 Watt IR laser, and you'd never be able to see the beam -- but it could burn a hole in your hand -- because your eyes cannot SEE those wavelengths. However, a red laser pointer at 1mW is easily visible, because 632nm is a wavelength that our eyes could see.
The reason that there are many low power devices in the visible is because it happens to be harder to engineer lasing mediums (semiconductors, or doped crystals usually) which are able to lase in the visible regions. That said, it is certainly very possible to make high power green lasers, usually by "frequency doubling" a very high power (say 100W or so) IR laser. Thus two (lower energy) IR photons get converted to one (higher energy Green) photon, which (due to conservation of energy) must have twice the energy of the IR photons.
I would guess that this laser is a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser, that produces light at 1062nm (IR) and then uses a non-linear crystal to produce light at 532nm (Green), which is half the wavelength, but double the energy per photon. Thus, you'd be able to get both IR and Green from one laser just by pulling the crystal in and out.
Damnit, I wanted that link. I think I might have found it in an earlier post if the AC doesn't repost it.
If there was any service Slashdot would do a good job at, it would be to have a user database of DSL/Cable ISPS, and their upload, TOC, etc.
The real important thing for me, and probably for an increasing number of power users is the upload bandwidth, rather than the downsteam. I would much rather get 1mbit/1mbit than 3.0mbit/256kbit.
On that note, does anybody have an ISP (say in LA) that offers more upload that the typical 256kbit or 384kbit on cable connections? Between Bittorrent, and streaming mp3s from home to work, that amount of bandwidth just doesn't cut it anymore.
"whoever came up with this term (I betcha it was a white guy) probably thought it was cute."
This is exactly the problem that is happening in LA County. There is no reason that just because somebody decided to call something master and slave, to define the relationship between the drives, means that that person was in anyway refering directly to American Slavery. Those terms have been around for thousands of years, well predating our own country. Those two things are WORDS that have several MEANINGS. They chose those words to decribe a situation which seemed to follow that relationship. Every useage of these words does not in anyway refer to the enslavement of millions of Africans.
"Imagine if the "Trashcan" on your desktop were named "Auschwitz" by some clever computer scientist"
That is quite a stretch to go to that from Master/Slave. Auschwitz can only really bring up one meaning, the slaugtering of the Jews (who by, were oppressed horribly for thousands of years, compared to the relatively short time in which Slavery existed in the US, and no I'm not Jewish, I just know a little about history)
.
"and you are not at all bothered by the Cleveland Indians mascot".
Although I am not bothered by those teams, I understand that somebody who is a Native American Indian could take offense. Again however, those teams mascots are direct references to a certain set of people, where the terms Master and Slave are about as general as White and Black.
"whoever came up with this term (I betcha it was a white guy) probably thought it was cute."
This is exactly the problem. There is no reason that just because somebody decided to call something master and slave, to define the relationship between the drives, means that that person was in anyway refering directly to American Slavery. Those terms have been around for thousands of years, well predating our own country. Those two things are WORDS that have several MEANINGS. They chose those words to decribe a situation which seemed to follow that relationship. Every useage of these words does not in anyway refer to the enslavement of millions of Africans.
"Imagine if the "Trashcan" on your desktop were named "Auschwitz" by some clever computer scientist"
That is quite a stretch to go to that from Master/Slave. Auschwitz can only really bring up one meaning, the slaugtering of the Jews (who by, were oppressed horribly for thousands of years, compared to the relatively short time in which Slavery existed in the US, and no I'm not Jewish, I just know a little about history).
"and you are not at all bothered by the Cleveland Indians mascot".
Although I am not bothered by those teams, I understand that somebody who is a Native American Indian could take offense. Again however, those teams mascots are direct references to a certain set of people, where the terms Master and Slave are about as general as White and Black. I
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Except for the fact that Jelly Belly jelly beans actually use the natural flavors (whenever possible) to produce their jelly beans.
So you can speak French (or pretend to), but somehow you can't read English. I am not claiming that copyright infringement, as it is defined ( as somebody getting "commerical advantage" or "financial gain" from copyrighted materials which they do not have the right to) should be legal. I AM claiming that somebody who downloads music -- and in no way gaining any financial gain from it -- is not a criminial.
As far as I know, in every Felony copyright prosecution (at least relating to music), the people invovled were directly getting financial gain. I sampled 8 of the cases listed (and would have done more, but the site is horribly slow) as "Film/Music" and in every case the people invovled were making money from the sale of pirated goods. Thus, your very nice link, while being useful, does not help your argument. Sure, copyright infringement is a crime. People are often prosecuted for everything from selling pirated music to counterfeit handbags, but the important point you are seeming to miss (which is KEY) is that music downloaders by and large are NOT getting financial gain from downloading music. Thus, I would argue that they do not fall under criminal copyright infringment laws, and explains why there have not been CRIMINAL cases being brought against music downloaders, because they aren't criminals.
In a civil case, one needs to show that the actions of another person/entity has in some way caused damages that need to be compensated. The RIAA has often tried to prove this, but generally by using misinformation to bolster its case against piracy, rather than looking at the many other factors which are responsible for hurting its sales/profit. Thus, one has to at least question the validlity of these civil cases until the RIAA can show defintive proof of how much each pirated song actually costs them (if anything).
I found an article that quotes more accurate figures for 2002. This Zdnet.com.com article quotes a 7% global loss in CD sales in 2002. However, not even this loss in sales (not even considering the fact that the US was in a serious recession at the time) can be attributed very directly to piracy, since DVD sales increased 61%, possibly showing that there is instead a shift in what people are spending their entertainment money on, as they view DVDs as a better value for the same money.
What a wonderful quote! I'd love to see some facts. Most of the estimates I have seen have quoted MUCH smaller losses (2-5%), which could easily be attributed to say, the large unemployment percentage in our country over the last 2 years, and the overall decrease in retail sales. I will try and find some numbers if you will. Beside the fact that in the ARTICLE, the NZ record labels reported a large increase in local music sales, which seemed to be accompanied by a large increase in download of said CDS (strangely enough to them).
for commercial advantage or private financial gain, or by reproducing or distributing, in any 180-day period, works with a total retail value over $1,000 Punishment can be up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine.
I agree wholeheartly that somebody who is downloading music for finacial gain (downloading mp3s and then selling the cds at a cut cost) is certainly a criminal, as the only enties who are allowed to make money from the sale of music is the artist/artists representitives. However, 99.9 percent of those who are downloading music are not doing it for financial gain in any way and never receive one (unit of money) for the music they download. One COULD argue that the music files are a "financial gain", but that is a tenious argument at best.
a victimless crime Iceparr0t, like punching someone in the dark?
Be careful how you throw around the word CRIME. I was just pointing out that not even the DOJ was willing to try and define exactly what the crime was in these cases. Again, because of the wording of the Criminal Copyright laws, there haven't been any CRIMNAL cases being brought against people, only CIVIL cases, which means that copyright infringment is not being treated as a CRIME.
This is exactly the point I am diputing. I agree that if piracy could be directly linked to a loss of sales for a developer, then that developer has legal recourse against said pirate (most likely in a civil court). However, it has NEVER been made clear in anyway how piracy has a direct link to profits/sales of a given product, and most likely never really could. This is quite opposite in the world of physical goods where these links are obvious and infalliable. This is EXACTLY where the grey area lies. The DOJ doesn't even go so far to claim that if copies are made that cause no harm that it is still theft. They do say "conduct that triggers the criminal statutes is analogous to theft", but don't even remotely try to claim that which acts fall under this statute. Instead, they try to make the case that there is a hidden theft that nobody can see but the artist.
This is a reason why there have been zero (or very few) CRIMINAL cases brought against music pirates. While the DOJ may be convinced that they could bring pirates to "justice", nobody has been willing to bring this into a criminal court, for fear that a Judge (whose opinion matters far more than anybody in the DOJ) may interpet the idea of theft as it pertains to copying differently. Thus, most (if not all) of the music piracy cases have been CIVIL, where the settlments vastly underearn what the RIAA would need to make them profitable.
Since these cases have been in CIVIL court, I would recommend that the RIAA at least consider the fact that piracy may in fact be helping them, and the artists they (teninously) represent. It is similar to speed limits and Oil companies. I don't see Oil companies saying "Keep people from speeding over 55 so they use less fuel efficient", because it HELPS their company, even though it is ILLEGAL. I would just like people to consider the idea that these public relations nightmares (like sueing people who don't own computers) may be cutting into profit more that piracy does.
Finally, while I appericate the suggestion of finding a conscience, I think my sizeable (fully paid for) CD collection can speak for itself. I have always supported those bands/artists that I enjoy listening to, as I would like them to continue producing music. If it was up to the RIAA, there would be no such thing as "fair use", nor would there be any copyable digital formats allowed. However, once people, like say, CONSUMERS, get invovled, and start waving dollar bills around, the picture becomes more tricky.
Which one of these complaining artists/labels are "eeking out" an existance? The artists whose mp3s are most downloaded are not those who are eeking out anything. Sure it's hard to notice the tightness of somebody elses shoes, when their shoes cost more than my car. Indepedent artists (who one would think would have the most to lose from copying of music) have embraced mp3s and p2p sharing as a way to spread their music without the need for the RIAA labels. Go to http://artists.iuma.com some time.
"Actually it's not obvious, hence people's complaint with the article. Also most economic and social systems have a certain degree of slack to them that tolerates deviations. That's why a single murder doesn't bring the system down. A single pirate isn't going to change the world that much."
Yes, but when the system is tolerating millions and millions of "pirates" (as it currently is), one has to at least consider the idea that these pirates are not damaging the system and may be perhaps helping it. At the very least, one has to consider the idea that some, if not most/all of these pirates also happen to be the largest consumers of their product, and attacking them may hurt you more than allowing their "transgressions".
"Then I suggest you give all your efforts away, then tell us if there are any costs to you? I'm certain reality will do it's damdest to accomodate you."
I'm certainly not asking musicians to give their efforts away (although most of them do on some scale, which generally is how I decide to buy music). I AM asking the corporations who produce and distribute their music to at least consider the fact that piracy make not be hurting them, and in fact make be helping them make money. Piracy has forced them to embrace portable digital formats and distributions rather than shunning and preventing the technology from existing as they attempted. These are the same corporations who wanted to prevent people from selling used cds.
"OK everyone. New economic model. Charge the millions that LOTR cost to one DVD. Now who will be the the exceptional soul that will buy it, and let "free" copies be made. Oh come now, it will have no "direct" cost to you, so give it up already."
If it worked, don't think that they wouldn't jump on it.
"Copyright is a social agreement, not the terms of slavery. We as a society struck an agreement with certain members of our society, that balances both our interest, and theirs."
Copyright IS a social agreement, and when a large portion of society has begun to take actions which indicate that they would like to change the terms of said agreement, should they be offered the chance?
"Next on Jeopardy. Download, or leave it be, and let market forces set the tone? The fate of an entire society hangs in the balance."
Haha, let's be a little melodramtic here. Next on Jeopardy, what should the RIAA claims it's losses were for the year due to piracy (even without any proof), 20 million, 100 million or 10 BILLION virtual dollars?
We've all been trained that stealing is wrong because SOMEBODY had to pay for it, but music has entered a weird gray area where one can steal music and never find a direct correlation where somebody has to pay for it, and thus fail to ever see where what they did is wrong. Sure, there is the argument that digital music costs artists money and that they will stop making money, and thus music, if we don't stop copying. However, I dare anybody to find one artist who has been forced to stop making music because of a high download of their mp3s. In fact, the opposite is true! The most popular, money making artists, have by far the most downloads of mp3s. Again, this relationship may seem to be biased, but it is no less proveable than the reverse argument, which is also biased.
Beside the point, I think that most people (myself inculded) have a hard time correlating PHYSICAL goods, which cost money to produce each and every one, and DIGITAL goods, of which an infinte number of copies can be made with no direct cost. This is the inherent difference, and why many people have zero guilt about copying songs, software etc. Sure, it cost money to produce the good, but the copies are free, and that fact cannot be changed, regardless of what the RIAA would like to believe. If it was no longer profitable to produce music, then music would stop being produced, but this is obviously not the case. I'm sure this argument has been made many times, but somehow people like to think making a copy directly costs somebody money, when it in fact is completely free, and is in no way related to shoplifting anymore than spam legislation is related to my spam count going down.
Being able to SEE a laser has nothing to do with it's power, directly. You could make a 100 Watt IR laser, and you'd never be able to see the beam -- but it could burn a hole in your hand -- because your eyes cannot SEE those wavelengths. However, a red laser pointer at 1mW is easily visible, because 632nm is a wavelength that our eyes could see.
The reason that there are many low power devices in the visible is because it happens to be harder to engineer lasing mediums (semiconductors, or doped crystals usually) which are able to lase in the visible regions. That said, it is certainly very possible to make high power green lasers, usually by "frequency doubling" a very high power (say 100W or so) IR laser. Thus two (lower energy) IR photons get converted to one (higher energy Green) photon, which (due to conservation of energy) must have twice the energy of the IR photons.
I would guess that this laser is a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser, that produces light at 1062nm (IR) and then uses a non-linear crystal to produce light at 532nm (Green), which is half the wavelength, but double the energy per photon. Thus, you'd be able to get both IR and Green from one laser just by pulling the crystal in and out.
Damnit, I wanted that link. I think I might have found it in an earlier post if the AC doesn't repost it. If there was any service Slashdot would do a good job at, it would be to have a user database of DSL/Cable ISPS, and their upload, TOC, etc.
The real important thing for me, and probably for an increasing number of power users is the upload bandwidth, rather than the downsteam. I would much rather get 1mbit/1mbit than 3.0mbit/256kbit.
On that note, does anybody have an ISP (say in LA) that offers more upload that the typical 256kbit or 384kbit on cable connections? Between Bittorrent, and streaming mp3s from home to work, that amount of bandwidth just doesn't cut it anymore.
This is exactly the problem that is happening in LA County. There is no reason that just because somebody decided to call something master and slave, to define the relationship between the drives, means that that person was in anyway refering directly to American Slavery. Those terms have been around for thousands of years, well predating our own country. Those two things are WORDS that have several MEANINGS. They chose those words to decribe a situation which seemed to follow that relationship. Every useage of these words does not in anyway refer to the enslavement of millions of Africans.
"Imagine if the "Trashcan" on your desktop were named "Auschwitz" by some clever computer scientist"
That is quite a stretch to go to that from Master/Slave. Auschwitz can only really bring up one meaning, the slaugtering of the Jews (who by, were oppressed horribly for thousands of years, compared to the relatively short time in which Slavery existed in the US, and no I'm not Jewish, I just know a little about history)
. "and you are not at all bothered by the Cleveland Indians mascot".
Although I am not bothered by those teams, I understand that somebody who is a Native American Indian could take offense. Again however, those teams mascots are direct references to a certain set of people, where the terms Master and Slave are about as general as White and Black.
"whoever came up with this term (I betcha it was a white guy) probably thought it was cute." This is exactly the problem. There is no reason that just because somebody decided to call something master and slave, to define the relationship between the drives, means that that person was in anyway refering directly to American Slavery. Those terms have been around for thousands of years, well predating our own country. Those two things are WORDS that have several MEANINGS. They chose those words to decribe a situation which seemed to follow that relationship. Every useage of these words does not in anyway refer to the enslavement of millions of Africans. "Imagine if the "Trashcan" on your desktop were named "Auschwitz" by some clever computer scientist" That is quite a stretch to go to that from Master/Slave. Auschwitz can only really bring up one meaning, the slaugtering of the Jews (who by, were oppressed horribly for thousands of years, compared to the relatively short time in which Slavery existed in the US, and no I'm not Jewish, I just know a little about history). "and you are not at all bothered by the Cleveland Indians mascot". Although I am not bothered by those teams, I understand that somebody who is a Native American Indian could take offense. Again however, those teams mascots are direct references to a certain set of people, where the terms Master and Slave are about as general as White and Black. I