They are pursuing a story, not a conviction; when someone brags of breaking the law, it's newsworthy, even if it's only talk, and even if the law is ridiculous.
If they're that interested in pursuing a story from someone who brags about breaking the law, perhaps they should hang out on/. for comments. I know lots of people admit to breaking CSS (DMCA violation, even if the law is ridiculous) or violating copyright (again, ridiculous parts about non-commercial distribution becoming a felony at some point). Oh, right; the reason the story would be newsworthy is that someone at DefCon being arrested would be newsworthy.
You're right: they're not after a conviction. They're after causing a stir/arrest to grab attention. Now, I recall somewhere something about journalists making the news and not being the news...
Many make the case that DRM is worthless, because only one person needs to break it and then the content can be freely distributed. Okay, I buy that.
Well, that's the same case here. The problem is that you can't target redistribution. What are we going to do, "shut down" BitTorrent? Impossible. You stop it at the source, which is recording in theaters, which is where the recordings made in theaters, well, come from.
I've got bad news for you. While there's certainly the small handful of people who actively seek out "cams", most people who are in the piracy scene are more interested in "screeners". And as a general rule, those are created by an inside person (ie, a projectionist, usher, etc). For those people who are willing to wait, and that's still a lot of people, DVDs become the source material. So, if your plan to stop movie piracy is to "stop it at the source", you're going to have get rid of theaters and DVDs.
Of course, I'm being facetious. The real *source* is the editors, camera operators, and everyone else who has physical access to the movie, in whole or sufficient parts to reconstruct the whole. Since there's so many people involved, even without theaters and DVDs (and God knows how multi-million productions would be produced in significant numbers without theaters and DVDs...), it's conceivable that one of those people could leak the movie as well; there's no real means to "recapture" the movie once it is on bittorent, as you point out. So, the only sure fire solution is to not make the movie in the first place. It's funny how your answer basically collapses into "copyright doesn't work de facto in a digital world, so we'll just never make copyrighted works". But if that's the case, there's no reason to have copyright; why have a law that's unenforceable?
You bring up some good points--claiming I disparage ITunes and railing against it wasn't one of them. The problem of how to inform people and to provide the actual sale of music in an easy enough manner is still the stumbling block. Once that point is reached, the RIAA will have to compete on a level playing field. And you're right, people won't buy non-RIAA music because it's discount music. They'll buy it because they like it. It just happens that the best way to attract people to buy non-RIAA music is to sell it for less, so people are given more opportunity to test various music. Such invariably causes a price war, leading closer to the actual costs involved.
Will this create mega-buck international stars? Probably not. They're more a product of an oligarchy than a free market. And perhaps the RIAA will be able to maintain a hold over the radio industry, preventing "internet stars" from marketing in the real world. But just perhaps, radio as we know it will fundamental change when the internet is available everywhere. There's a lot that's possible in the future, and I don't nearly know all the answers. But, I don't believe that the RIAA as it functions today will be able to survive.
All digital does is decrease the costs of distribution. So, profit margins can still be maintained, even if the price of the product drops.
Actually, no. There's many elements to the digital equation that sharply changes the RIAA's position. By having a ubiquitous digital format (mp3), one group of people can't be the gatekeeper of who can sell*. By having a method of automatically scaling throughput, any individual can provide music at the same level that another can (still not there yet, but bittorrent is a start)**. These elements together eradicate the RIAA's position as an oligarchy. Instead, digital music becomes a free market. And, as it happens, the distribution costs in a free market of copyrighted works is near zero. They're so low, in fact, that it's even further in the best interests of artists to avoid the RIAA. In short, the RIAA's days are numbered very potentially.
*CDs provide this in the physical world, but economy of scale still leaves two distinct classes of sellers of CDs, those in the RIAA and independent labels.
**This is what will counter economy of scale in the digital world. However, given how few songs are sold from an artist, it's not inconceivable that an artist would be capable of using a standard broadband connection or some collective hosting solution*** to sell directly without needing much in the way of economy of scale.
***ITunes and the like do not suffice. They give too much power to Apple controlling what content is available and at what price.
Disney films are all about adventure fantasies. Most people don't have adventure like the do in Disney cartoons. An impressionable children might come to believe that having an adventure like seen in a Disney film is the normal course of things.
I'm not against exploration or teaching kids about adventure, but it should be a balanced education about the facts and not just about some childish fantasies.
If they had used the slot machine, would it be okay? Would any winnings made be okay so long as they didn't merely use the coin slot to multiply their money?
Ignore the fact that its a slot machine. Lets pretend its some vending machine full of chips. You put $1, and it says "$10" up top.
If that happened, I'd probably assume something was up (as vendors tend to be pretty greedy/over-charging, anyways). But then, perhaps they're trying to get rid of old stock? In any case, I'd likely try to pull out "$10" worth of chips since most vending machines I've used have a low tendency to return your money, so it'd barely cross my mind to try to get the "$10" out. Now, if I *did* manage to do it and get out more money than I put in, I'd know something was up. But none of what I said ran under the assumption that the user didn't "use" the machine.
First, the whole point of a casino is that you can convert the credits back to money.
I thought the whole point of slot machines was to put money in to play the slot machine in hopes to get money out. The idea that you could directly convert money you've added back to money surprises me because I've always considered casinos at or lower to the scummy level of carnivals or theme parks with "theme park money".
They'd replace the $1 machine with a dime machine long before they started giving out $10 in credit for every $1 received.
No casino would ever do something like this on purpose.
Thanks for the information. I guess it's one of those "The More You Know" momements.
I would say that sliding in a dollar, realizing wow I can cash out for $10, and then repeating that same action umpteen times without actually using the slot machine would also qualify as intent.
So, if they used the slot machine, does it become okay? What if it was the stock market instead of a slot machine?
If you walk up to an ATM and withdraw $100, and it says on your receipt that your account has been reduced by $100, but the machine actually spit out $1,000, what do you do?
I think this is a false analogy. A better analogy would involve buying tickets at a carnival. It's a rather common occurance that you pay money upfront to buy a collection of tickets, even if you aren't going to use them all. Knowing this, carnivals will routinely sell very large books of tickets at ridiculous ratios (ie, while it might cost $1 to buy 1 tickets, $5 will buy 10 and $20 will buy 50). Given how badly the pay ratio with slot machines can be, I don't think it inconceivable that a casino wouldn't give you a 10:1 ratio on your money so you'll play longer on the "$1 slot" if it knew your odds of recouping that $1 were low and you couldn't convert the credit back to money.
But that brings me to consider this...
C. Insert your card again and take $1,000 at a time until either your account or the ATM is empty.
It sounds like your argument boils down to "you never win at a casino, so they should have realized something was wrong when they made lots of money". But, then, that's all a matter of what counts as "winning the jackpot". I guess it must be just as illegal to monitor the pay-out ratio of machines and choose the one with the highest ratio. After all, who expects to go to a casino and come out ahead?
it's probably shady and bad service but not fraud.
DISCLOSURE: I am not a lawyer
What does one call it then? The guy says he's using *paid for* Hotmail accounts. The only legal out I can think of is that their TOS defines Hotmail as not "real mail" but "Hotmail(TM)" and that somewhere along the lines they don't have to guarantee the deliver of any messages, even if their SMTP server accepts emails. I think people put up with too much fraud in daily life, with too unwilling of a police force to punish perpetrators, and are too willing to excuse fraud as "shady and bad service" without getting in an uproar over the practice. This sounds simply like deception for gain.
There are some things generally considered amoral by the population.... Hunting a species to extinction"
It's funny you mention the last because the last is rather interesting. Until rather recently, few of mankind had any real belief that man could radically change the biodiversity of the Earth. While murder and rape may have been immoral for thousands of years, the idea of extincting a species being amoral is only hundreds of years old.
The largest reason this is funny, then, is how while the [US] population at large feels hunting a species to extinction is wrong, the same [US} population seems unwilling to admit that humans are behind global warming; to say that burning gasoline is "immoral" even to the people who are against global warming would seem ludicrous. Meanwhile, I personally feel that it depends on *what* species is wiped out before hunting a species to extinction becomes amoral.
Richard Stallman is not the pope of PCs. His saying closed source is immoral doesn't mean anything.
I'm not a Catholic nor in a country/city ran by Catholics, so what any pope says is immoral doesn't mean anything.
I'm pro free software, but think Stallman is going about promoting it in the wrong way. He's literally giving talks to the programmers of tomorrow and saying, "Don't release closed source. It's immoral." Does he offer alternatives? Somewhat - he did say that one can program for open source on commission, but can one earn a good living at it? He's hardly a proof of principle himself.
So to promote a moral system, you have to not only prove that it works (Stallman is alive and, AFAIK, sticking to his system), but you have to prove it "can [earn one] a good living"? Well, I guess we should all becoming oil tycoons, then. With the way demand is outstripping supply, it's probably more important to own and sell oil than to worry about global warming.
You're assuming that average people, when faced with two options, will pick the difficult one with no benefit to themselves, magically listening to an inconvenient person telling them that the easy option is "amoral".
Happens all the time in church (most churches disclaim that doing the right thing will guarantee getting into heaven--ie, that there is a real benefit to it). Of course, people ignore morality and do the "easy option" all the time. The only real amoral things people tend to avoid is the infamous stuff. And how did it become infamous? Browbeating it into the people who "should know better" causing real social problems for those who would commit the amoral act. Really, Stallman's approach is really spot-on for pushing his dogma--while, I guess he could always include vivid imagery of hell.
You seem to be taking something one manufacturer doesn't mind much as a sign that it is some inherent right.
Um, as I keep saying, Nintendo *did* mind, so much to make the false argument that the GBA included a copy protection scheme and hence cartridge copiers are in violation of the DMCA. The inherent right was blocked by a law.
You can still get around Tivo's security and do whatever you want with their device. You might not be able to talk about it or tell others how you did it but you can do it.
<sarcasm>And that's certainly within the spirit of the GPL.</sarcast> Or can you seriously say that the GPL is all about individuals reinvent the wheel and not sharing knowledge?
And as for the majority of people who don't mod things, Well you reading too much of your own will into things. Most people buy a gameboy and use it as a game boy because that is what they wanted when tey bought it.
Most people are willing to accept this for most hardware because they perceive any possible advantage minute and the effort "not worth it".
I'm sure if there was enough demand, Nitendo would be happy to make something already hacked and sell it to you. Companies are good at seeing what the majority of people want and attempting to provide that, however horible it might turn out.
Further, that minority who is willing to invest the energy, realizing they're the minority, generally accept that there's nothing they can do about the problem.
I don't know of one company that would look at a product it has control over and say, nope, I don't want to make money from that. IT is more like I can't make enough money from that.
So, why again was it that the MPAA is obsessed with wrapping their HD content in DRM again? Oh, that's right. It has figured out it can potentially make more money by limiting access/having greater control. Nintendo(/Microsoft (vis-a-vis X-Box [360])/Sony) does the same thing, through controlling who can publish for their systems by being the sole maker of discs--look no further than Manhunter 2. Or, in short, companies in a monopolistic system* will aim for the *monopolistic price*. That may or may not be the one that involves selling the most units.
I don't think copyright gives you this much control. It might but what I see happening is that the license will be challenged in certain ways that will end up voiding parts of it in certain areas.
This is unlikely, given the history of the GPL. But, of course, time will tell.
This will be done when some people are violating the GPLv3 because they didn't hire a lawyer to tell them what they can and can't do.
Right. Like how when the GPLv2 is violated (which has happened many times), the GPLv2 will just collapse. And of course, magically copyright won't kick in.
And then this will start the confusion were doing something against the GPLv3 wording and specified intent is legal in some areas but illegal in others.
It's funny you say that because the GPLv3 was specifically written to better harmonize the language used in it with international copyright law (ie, the laws of many areas). If anything, the GPLv2 has more loopholes than the GPLv3.
More importantly, it will be legal in areas with large enough populations that the violated covered works will be distributed to areas where it is still valid. How do you treat a device or program that allows you to do something in one region and disallows it in another and carries the same license in both. Getting something from germany or the USA and using it in Canada or Australia that was legal to distribute in one area but against copright law in another.
so your sayig that Tivo represented thier device as something you could hack around with and change or alter to your liking?
Um, no. I'm saying Nintendo never went out of its way to sell the GBA as a user-hackable device. And I bought the GBA as a user-hackable device. Why? Because it's innately possible to hack hardware. Funny, eh?
Because you can do something doesn't mean it is supposed to do that.
Granted. But it's one thing to be unable to do something because you're going out of what's "safe" and "inherently reliable" and another when you are willing to invest the effort to make it "safe" and "reliable", and a manufacturer cripples hardware to prevent you from making those steps. Most people are willing to accept this for most hardware because they perceive any possible advantage minute and the effort "not worth it". Further, that minority who is willing to invest the energy, realizing they're the minority, generally accept that there's nothing they can do about the problem. But, if a manufacturer wants to take advantage of *my* effort, then they're forced to come into agreement with me.
So, even if you have some belief that there isn't something inherently wrong with trying to block the ability to hack what is inherently hackable, copyright gives me every right to have some control over what Tivo does if it uses my software. That's the oppressiveness of the GPL. The GPLv2 requires the release of source. The GPLv3 tries to prevent the DMCA from being enforceable, so you *can* legally hack the Tivo. That's what brings me to...
You could even bypass the security on a TIVO.
If Nintendo was able to block the import of cartridge copiers when the GBA doesn't even include a copy protection scheme, what makes you think Tivo couldn't make the same argument with their device? But so long as Tivo is required to hand out their signing keys, then there's nothing to "hack". At least, that's what the GPLv3's original design plan was. I'm not sure that the final revision keeps the logic in place.
It seems that you upset because the manufacturer took steps to stop you from getting more then you paid for.
"More than you paid for." Perhaps you should take some microeconomics. Then you might realize that most people get "more than [they] paid for". I don't think it's unreasonable to be upset when a supplier fucks with their supply of a good to jack up the price/decrease the value.
You do know that this is the generaly accpeted model for creating processors. They shoot for a certain level, test and the ones that don't meet expectations get underclocked and sold as the underdog.
Perhaps I'd be understanding if all the 2GHz CPUs were rejects, but Intel's history has shown that there have been times when CPUs were underclocked merely to meet demand even when they were tested and known to be able to perform at their originally designated rate. Artificially limiting hardware to meet some "business model" is BS that goes against the idea of the free market.
So, yes, I do understand how the "generally accepted model" works.
They don't make 2 gig cpus, they make on CPU and sell it at whatever the market decides it wants.
Golly, and here I was complaining about the "[generally accepted] business model" precisely because it involved selling 3GHz CPUs as 2GHz CPUs.
Doing things differently would result in three times as expensice processors.
Really? That's rather magical. That defies both the capitalistic and free market model. In both, increased supplies of 3GHz processors would decrease the price of 3GHz CPUs. And if people were that demanding of 2GHz CPUs over 3GHz CPUs, then Intel would "shoot" for making 2GHz CPUs over 3GHz CPUs. None of this would "resu
You puchased a Tivo as an appliance and an Xbox as an appliance.
No, I didn't. But, let me give you a better example. Let's use the example of something I did buy that is "sold as an appliance". I bought the GBA specifically to play NES games through pocketnes (one's I legal own, mind you). I recognize quite well that Nintendo has a long reputation of being very much against emulation of their own system (Sony too) when it's not under their own power. And people running "unauthorized code" is certainly something outside of their design plan to supporting in any way. All of that I accept.
And I even accept, to some extent*, Nintendo's efforts to thwart further versions of their GBA (or DS) to running "unauthorized code"--I don't accept their attempts to block copy devices for the GBA, however, as no copy protection scheme exists for the GBA, so it's unreasonable to try to use the DMCA or similar laws to act as if there were. But if Nintendo had used GPL code as the basis of their hardware, I wouldn't be so willing to accept such actions. This is because the GPL is specifically designed to allow users to modify code to their liking. Any attempt by a publisher of code to specifically block running said modified code on the very hardware that includes said code goes directly against the intention of the GPL. The GPL isn't there merely to let people read the code or port it to new hardware. The whole reason RMS started the FSF and wrote the GPL is because of difficulties he had with hardware because the creator of the hardware, Xerox, was willing to release a binary driver but not the source--at the time, it was customary to include the source. It's the very spirit of the GPL and Tivo's actions being so diametric that spurred the GPLv3.
As for those people thinking of suing. Tell them to go ahead. Tivo never represented the device to do anything outside what they claimed it to do.
As I already said, people don't generally sue for getting more of something than they asked for. In fact, I doubt the courts would side with a person who would make such a claim, unless it could be shown that getting more of something is itself a sizeable burden. Or, in short, people don't generally sue when a situation is tilted in their favor, and courts generally resolve disputes when a person can claim they were wronged--you can't very well sue your customers for wronging yourself.
Why? You didn't buy a plane engine. You bought a car engine. A lot of times the difference between what would be considered a car engine verses a plane engine is the metal that makes it up which isn't as much of an issue with everything attempting to be lighter and the plane engines have double and triple redindencies.
Um, because I said they're the *same*. Ie, that short of further testing that might have been performed on the plane engine, they're identical. Put another way, it's very much identical to Intel creating one processor line at 3GHz, then underclocking half to 2GHz to meet demand, then further artificially blocking the now 2GHz CPUs from running at 3GHz. Perhaps I'd be understanding if all the 2GHz CPUs were rejects, but Intel's history has shown that there have been times when CPUs were underclocked merely to meet demand even when they were tested and known to be able to perform at their originally designated rate. Artificially limiting hardware to meet some "business model" is BS that goes against the idea of the free market. If you have an oversupply of 3GHz CPUs, you don't butcher the 3GHz CPUs. You drop the price of 3GHz CPUs. And if there's an undersupply of 2GHz CPUS, you raise the price. Of course, that seems to go against capitalism.
In the case of a plane engine, the car makers wouldn't allow it to be used in a plane for liability reasons,
Which brings me back to my "just like I'd complain if someone sued because their family died from
The physical makeup of the hardware doesn't matter, what matters is the terms it was presented with and what you understood was represented when you purchased the device.
So if I understood it to be the case that Tivo ran off Linux and Linux meant the ability to modify the existing code and to run it on the same hardware, I'd be right to be upset up until that point at which I found out that Tivo specifically blocked the running of modified code, but not after? It sounds more than anything what you're describing is what defense Tivo would have to fraud charges.
When you buy a Tivo, it was represented as an appliance, you purchased an appliance, you own an appliance.
Again, no. I've already described quite well that Tivo is not an appliance. It's general hardware that's been intentionally crippled. Just like the XBox is general hardware that's been intentionally crippled. Whether Tivo itself might have, from a PR perspective, tried to sell the Tivo as an appliance doesn't matter. I can try to sell a chocolate candy bar as a vanilla candy bar. It doesn't change what the candy bar is. It just happens that few people are interested in suing Tivo for misrepresentation/fraud because general hardware that's crippled is considered a "better value" than an appliance.
And yes, you can find other hardware that will run the code, it might cost more because you are then buying something other then an appliance with a limited role but then again, you know what your buying before you buy it.
Show me hardware than can run said code, unmodified or with trivial modification.
You certainly wouldn't buy a car and complain that you couln't make it fly when they put thing in place to keep the car on the ground for traction and performance reasons. But then again, you know your not buying a plane when you buy a car.
I'd complain if the car engine was the same as used in a plane, except it was artificially limited to prevent people from taking it out and using it in planes (just like I'd complain if someone sued because their family died from using said engine in a plane, as the engine hadn't gone through sufficient testing for use in a plane (as it's used for a car)). Of coure, since there's nothing technically illegal about the action, I wouldn't sue over it either; I don't think anyone plans to sue over the GPLv2 vis-a-vis Tivo.
There is nothing inherently opresive about the GPL. And the GPL is a contract based on copyright in the form of a license.
Um, contracts are inherently oppressive. They force upon you obligations (admittedly, ones you agreed to) with the possibility of punative damages for ignoring those obligations. The GPL being based off copyright, a law (which is, again, oppressive), does nothing to remove that oppression. Just because you're morally okay with that oppression because you see it as lessening the oppression of copyright doesn't change the fact that the GPL is oppressive.
But more importantly. the spirit we are talking about is the effect the GPLv2 license had and what it attempted to do. It never attempted to control hardware or patent agreements outside the scope of the GPL.
So, the "spirit" you're talking about is the *letter* of the GPLv2. Um, do you not understand what "spirit" means?
I never wrote it in the context of BSD. I wrote it as a clause in the existing GPLv2 that would achive the same goals without all the headache.
I didn't say you wrote it in the context of BSD. Your license was prefaced with "for the generic license...". I didn't realize you meant it to be a clause for the GPLv2, so I took your comments to be in the context of copyright law, since that's where distribution licenses derive their power.
I gotta pay more attention to what going on. I keep seeing people that tell me what I decided but never do I see anyone asking me what I decided. Somehow, I think the idea or the term WE is overused and over valued.
Are you a GPLv3 software author? If not, then I'm not sure why you think I'm including you. If you are and you think I'm not adequately covering your beliefs then fine, you're right. Agreeing to the GPLv3 doesn't mean you have to want anything. Hell, you can license code under the GPLv3 and ignore people who abuse your copyright. So, feel free to replace "we" with "I". Or take we to mean me and RMS, as I'm pretty sure RMS's point was to try to insure that further tivo-ization doesn't occur.
You can actually use the code in question. You just cannot use it on the appliance you purchased from Tivo. And this is a real stumbling block for me.
See, that's contradictory. If it's true that Tivo is an appliance, then it's the case that either it is (a) a general purpose machine with limited hardware, (b) a general purpose machine with specialized hardware/features, or (c) some sort of FSA. But if it were the last (c), then it wouldn't be using GPLv3 software, as software is designed to run on a LBA. And if it were (a), then there's no reason to call the Tivo an appliance, since virtually any general purpose machine can be called "limited hardware" compared to another machine. So, the only reasonable definition of a Tivo being an appliance is that it is a general purpose machine with specialized hardware. This means that the code in question *can't* run on other hardware, because other hardware lacks the specialized hardware. So, Tivo crippling their hardware's ability to run the code is preventing the use of the code*.
The idea of free is a two way street. You have to be free in order for me to be free when we are acting in the same arena of thoughts. Otherwise your freedom is only a position of power over me, It isn't freedom at all, it is oppression.
The GPL is based on copyright and copyright is oppressive. There is no way to void this oppression within copyright law. The BSD tries to push on disclaimers. Public domain leaves those with access to the public domain work to copyright it to the exclusion of others, assuming they can maintain exclusive access. The GPL works to further its goals, even if they require oppression to be reached. That's how most social interactions work.
The GPLv3 jumped the spirit and I am surprised that I have received this many comments about it. I have mentioned it before and usually get ignored and modded down or something.
To think the GPLv3 jumped the spirit is to not have understood the GPLv2. Of course, I state this because the GPLv3 was written by RMS, author of the GPLv2 as well (co-authors not included). And nothing I've heard from RMS would imply that the intent/spirit of the GPL has changed. How it goes about to further its goals has.
As for the generic license, How about this, "All freedoms expressed or protected by this license are implicit in their intended design,...
What does "all freedoms expressed...are implicit in their intended design" even mean? You never even begin to lay down on what freedoms you speak of or what intents are made. Do you want your license to be something that has to be brought to court on a regular basis such that it is court decisions that determine what you "meant"?
...Any usage combined with specific hardware must allow the benefiters of these freedom to express that freedom with respect to the covered works and the hardware it is distributed with....
So, if Tivo use code under your license, they're a benefit of "these freedoms". And they must be allowed to express those freedoms. But, Tivo doesn't want to "express that freedom"
Imagine I own a vineyard. Also, imagine I wrote up a contract between me and my neighbor to exchange a bushel of grapes for $5. Now, imagine after signing the contract, my neighbor decides he'd really like white grapes. It happens that I don't grow white grapes on my land, so I'd have to buy them at a cost of $6 (where my own grapes have an effective cost of $4). Since the contract is so vaguely worded, one could say* that my neighbor has every right to demand the white grapes, even though the spirit of the contract was to exchange my grapes for his $5. Or, in short, sometimes the legalize that is used to cover an issue isn't accurately enough written to deal with issues that might arise.
Beyond this, one has to remember that 15 years ago, the DMCA didn't exist. Copyright law has changed in many other countries as well. A major part of the GPLv3 was to attempt to better harmonize the language to be more consistent with international copyright law. So, there's at least a few reasons to try to better describe in legal terms the intent of the GPL in a new license.
*IANAL, so I don't know how well this argument would actually stand in court. After all, intent is often used when the language of a contract is vague. The major problem with the GPL's vagueness is that the GPL's intent was to cover usage (specifically, there's an innate assumption that one can use the software (look into First-sale Doctrine)) while copyright doesn't provide a direct means for that. As such, the GPLv3 is left to attack the common means used to limit the use of GPL'd software.
The manufacturer doesn't have to open everything up so you can hack around with their products. And they shouldn't have to. You bought an appliance not a computer. Because it can do the other doesn't mean it has to.
The manufacturer doesn't have to open everything, and we (ie, GPLv3 authors) don't have to allow the manufacturer to distribute our code. In fact, we want it to be the case that anywhere are code is run*, we can hack "their" products to use it in applications that the manufacturer didn't necessarily intend.
It wasn't a loophole at all. It was there by design. The GPLv2 and earlier said explicitly that anything outside the act of modifying/distributing was outside the license. Of course Tivo gave the code back, you could modify it and run it on other devices, you could change it or add parts of it to other programs. You could even build a Tivo like device and run it on that. The only thing they stopped you from doing was turning their appliance into another appliance that they never intended it to be.
But the Tivo part is only the start. They went too far and it would appear that they didn't even do that very well. You see, the GPLv3 doesn't even stop Tivo from doing the same stuff. They can still disable the device if their special version of software isn't running.
It was only "by design" in respect to the fact that copyright doesn't cover usage, so there's no way to create a license to directly cover usage. And as you point out, the GPLv3 doesn't really resolve the issue of usage because there's still various tricks to void the intended effect (burning the GPLv3 code into ROM is a simple example). Truthfully, there's no way to insure usage abilities with some sort of generic distribution license** because any legalized wording would leave a manufacturer to follow the legal definition of the wording but not the intent (a great example comes to mind, of simply crippling any "invalid" software to run at one millionth the speed of official code, allowing some of the code to run if it's "invalid", or in some other way still allowing a use of "some kind" without actually allowing what the GPLv3 author intended). The spirit of the GPLv2 and GPLv3 includes the ability to actually use the code in question. Just because there might be no way to legally enforce that doesn't mean it wasn't an intent; it just means there's a lack of legal footing to cover all cases.
*Clearly copyright doesn't allow this, since using/running is outside the scope of copyright. But anyone who would manufacturer an item and sell it is distributing, so that's adequately sufficient for the wide-scale issue. The fact that a person might personally make a machine and do things alone with our code is fine. We'll never have access to the machine, anyways.
The reason is that you can't have a meaningful right to private communication when that communication is mediated by a third party like an ISP or a telephone company, not unless you have a fundamental right to informational privacy.
There's a more insidious problem that this ruling creates. One important aspect of the ECPA, that created the modern Pen Registry, is a requirement that private parties not access the Pen Registry unless it's a necessary part of business. This was almost certainly created as a means to punish common carriers who would otherwise snoop or conspire through a Pen Registry, as well as provide a means for a common carrier to prove their lack of involvement in a conspiracy. On the other hand, if every single IP is in fact a part of a Pen Registry, then it suddenly becomes necessary to make careful steps in regards to the proper handling of logging, displaying, or otherwise using an IP address.
Having said all that, clearly the ECPA is unconstitutional. If the ECPA and other similar common carrier protection laws didn't exist, common carriers would demand a warrant before handing over information. To do otherwise would open themselves up to nearly endless conspiracy and neglect suits, as they could be claimed to being intentionally ignorant of the crimes that used their network as part of a scheme to make money (look no further than napster); after all, if law enforcement is capable of using the Pen Registry as part of information on an indictment or as probable cause, then it stands to reason that the common carrier themselves should be capable of reaching the same sort of conclusion. Of course, the resolution to that (which would still allow phone companies to exist) would have to involve removing a lot of the negligent and conspiracy laws. Funny how quickly unequal application of the law and purely unconstitutional law creates such nasty constructs.
Ah, yes. So, when it's 40F (ie, winter), you pay less for more (as gas tends to cost less in the winter) and when it's 80F (ie, summer), you pay more for less (as gas tends to cost more in the summer). Since the price of gasoline fluxuates with the season, just as temperature does, it's not so simple as to say it "averages out".
Linux users, due to the free nature of the operating system, tend to look for other free applications. Paying money for an application would be seen as unusual, and is even frowned on by those who are into the whole "Open Source" movement. This implies that even if there were 10,000,000 Linux users out there(not installed machines worth), there might be only 10,000 of them who might BUY a game.
I think that this is more a chicken & egg problem (and not the one normally stated). From personal experience, the main reason I was so willing to switch to Linux is because I had so few paid-for Windows-only games (basically, I rarely bought anything but id or DOS games). I was used to playing shareware and freeware games on Windows, and a switch to Linux meant most of those sorts of games were included with the distribution.
Having said that, another main draw of Linux for me was that it was Free, not just free. While my initial reason to use Linux might have focused on all the free software, the fact that most of the paid-for games have had their source released as Free has driven me to mainly *want* only games that are Free. The fact that most game makers (and WINE compatibility layer writers) aren't willing to release their software as Free makes money spent on them seem less and less of an investment, as Windows support for currently games will eventually become obsolete; I say this from the perspective of someone who was a large DOS fan, and who now has as much luck running DOS games under the latest versions of Windows and a later distro, both under DOSBox.
The fact that so many people are willing to live with Windows XP in spite of this would seem to indicate most other people aren't so fixated on their games lasting indefinitely, or they merely never invested in enough DOS games to "matter". I'd say that long term Linux use actually makes one *more* inclined to having backward compatibility (ironically enough) because the risk of losing backward compatibility is invariably a technical challenge, not some inherent flaw in the system. Btw, this is one reason why flash being closed and a major new online platform for games, video, etc is so worrisome.
Just to add to this comment with a pretty concrete example: Jump Super Stars. Thanks to the fact that one can copyright characters, combined with the fact that the rights to most of the characters in Jump Super Star are owned in the US by different companies, there's basically no chance of there being a legal port created for the US (it's similar reasoning behind why Linux will never be relicensed under the GPL3). While it might not be exceedingly difficult for two entities to work out the artificial barriers of intellectual property, once you have several entities involved, at least one of the players will feel like their component is crucial and be unwilling to forfeit rights without getting in exchange most of the profits. With two players who are like that...well, the situation tends to degenerate. Of course, the same holds true with any naturally restricted resource; it just doesn't seem logical to have a government make such problems worse.
It's still illegal to make rules that exceed the authority you've been granted, or which go against the will of congress as expressed in the laws granting that authority.
Which is the main problem. Congress *doesn't* end up expressing clearly laws granting authority. Instead, the wording is so incredibly vague that the Executive branch ends up effectively defining their own laws. When you start having committees and boards formed to define what "infectious disease" and "drug with no medical value", you're making law. The fact that Congress wants to delegate this responsibility to the Executive branch because they don't see how they'd find the time to do it doesn't justify their actions. It only highlights why the Constitution might need changed to include such boards under the legislative branch, the place where laws are supposed to be made.
To maker another analogy, imagine if the Constitution hadn't included provisions for subordinate federal courts under the supreme court. Would you suggest that because subordinate courts are necessary--given the staggering work load that would otherwise saturate a single supreme court--that we shouldn't even *try* to change the Constitution but merely accept that these hypothetical unconstitutional federal courts exist? Even if they're put under the Executive branch's realm of influence? As much as I hate the idea of a flag burning Constitutional amendment, I at least respect that the people with such an idea realize that an Act of Congress just won't suffice. Perhaps there should be more thought into making things legal instead of merely trying to justify illegal activity under the banner of "but we'd never function without it".
Congress passes laws, and authorizes or establishes agencies of the executive branch to carry them out. These agencies are granted, by Congress, the authority to make rules and regulations which enforce the laws.
Again, "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." (emphasis mine) -- Article I, Section I, US Constitituion. In short, Congress doesn't have the power to deligate law-making to other bodies. If Congress wants that power, they'll have to do what anyone else would have to when what is wanted is currently unconstitutional: change the Constitution. Trying to shortcut the law by naming deligations "rules" and "with the force of law" are clear attempts to usurp the Constitution. Would it suddenly become reasonable for the Judiciary to form an army "with the force of law" to release Jose Padilla and arrest Congressmen for which the Executive branch has the legal power to do so because the executive branch "authorized" it? Of course not.
The simple fact is, by bluring the lines of power between the different branches, each branch is less inclined to police other branches, as they feel united instead of divided. Even worse, the blurred lines make it even more difficult to assign credit or blame for actions commited, making it even more difficult to select a representative in the right position to do the right job. Finally, such creates the situation that we have today, where wide latitudes and "trust" allow for wholesale distortion of existing law depending solely on who is in the White House. The point of the Presidency is to carry out existing law while trying to lobby for change, not to twist existing laws as one pleases while pushing to stagnate the legislative process. Why else do you think the Presidency is given the power to push the legislative agenda, if he/she can simply write "rules" to circumvent it?
DHS has extensive rule-making authority. These rules have the force of law.
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." -- Article I, Section I, US Constitituion
It seems pretty clear to me that the DHS, being not part of Congress, can't make rules having the force of law legally, anymore than the President can (executive orders being equally unconstitutional, unless they're merely orders to carry out the law). Of course, the modern judicial, legislative and executive branches seem to think otherwise. But, it's pretty clearly spelled out in the Constitution, regardless. But then, I guess that's more a point of nitpicking given the many ways in which the Constitution is regularly ignored and hence how many things are "legal".
Slashdot Mirror
If they're that interested in pursuing a story from someone who brags about breaking the law, perhaps they should hang out on /. for comments. I know lots of people admit to breaking CSS (DMCA violation, even if the law is ridiculous) or violating copyright (again, ridiculous parts about non-commercial distribution becoming a felony at some point). Oh, right; the reason the story would be newsworthy is that someone at DefCon being arrested would be newsworthy.
You're right: they're not after a conviction. They're after causing a stir/arrest to grab attention. Now, I recall somewhere something about journalists making the news and not being the news...
I've got bad news for you. While there's certainly the small handful of people who actively seek out "cams", most people who are in the piracy scene are more interested in "screeners". And as a general rule, those are created by an inside person (ie, a projectionist, usher, etc). For those people who are willing to wait, and that's still a lot of people, DVDs become the source material. So, if your plan to stop movie piracy is to "stop it at the source", you're going to have get rid of theaters and DVDs.
Of course, I'm being facetious. The real *source* is the editors, camera operators, and everyone else who has physical access to the movie, in whole or sufficient parts to reconstruct the whole. Since there's so many people involved, even without theaters and DVDs (and God knows how multi-million productions would be produced in significant numbers without theaters and DVDs...), it's conceivable that one of those people could leak the movie as well; there's no real means to "recapture" the movie once it is on bittorent, as you point out. So, the only sure fire solution is to not make the movie in the first place. It's funny how your answer basically collapses into "copyright doesn't work de facto in a digital world, so we'll just never make copyrighted works". But if that's the case, there's no reason to have copyright; why have a law that's unenforceable?
You bring up some good points--claiming I disparage ITunes and railing against it wasn't one of them. The problem of how to inform people and to provide the actual sale of music in an easy enough manner is still the stumbling block. Once that point is reached, the RIAA will have to compete on a level playing field. And you're right, people won't buy non-RIAA music because it's discount music. They'll buy it because they like it. It just happens that the best way to attract people to buy non-RIAA music is to sell it for less, so people are given more opportunity to test various music. Such invariably causes a price war, leading closer to the actual costs involved.
Will this create mega-buck international stars? Probably not. They're more a product of an oligarchy than a free market. And perhaps the RIAA will be able to maintain a hold over the radio industry, preventing "internet stars" from marketing in the real world. But just perhaps, radio as we know it will fundamental change when the internet is available everywhere. There's a lot that's possible in the future, and I don't nearly know all the answers. But, I don't believe that the RIAA as it functions today will be able to survive.
Actually, no. There's many elements to the digital equation that sharply changes the RIAA's position. By having a ubiquitous digital format (mp3), one group of people can't be the gatekeeper of who can sell*. By having a method of automatically scaling throughput, any individual can provide music at the same level that another can (still not there yet, but bittorrent is a start)**. These elements together eradicate the RIAA's position as an oligarchy. Instead, digital music becomes a free market. And, as it happens, the distribution costs in a free market of copyrighted works is near zero. They're so low, in fact, that it's even further in the best interests of artists to avoid the RIAA. In short, the RIAA's days are numbered very potentially.
*CDs provide this in the physical world, but economy of scale still leaves two distinct classes of sellers of CDs, those in the RIAA and independent labels.
**This is what will counter economy of scale in the digital world. However, given how few songs are sold from an artist, it's not inconceivable that an artist would be capable of using a standard broadband connection or some collective hosting solution*** to sell directly without needing much in the way of economy of scale.
***ITunes and the like do not suffice. They give too much power to Apple controlling what content is available and at what price.
Disney films are all about adventure fantasies. Most people don't have adventure like the do in Disney cartoons. An impressionable children might come to believe that having an adventure like seen in a Disney film is the normal course of things.
I'm not against exploration or teaching kids about adventure, but it should be a balanced education about the facts and not just about some childish fantasies.
If they had used the slot machine, would it be okay? Would any winnings made be okay so long as they didn't merely use the coin slot to multiply their money?
If that happened, I'd probably assume something was up (as vendors tend to be pretty greedy/over-charging, anyways). But then, perhaps they're trying to get rid of old stock? In any case, I'd likely try to pull out "$10" worth of chips since most vending machines I've used have a low tendency to return your money, so it'd barely cross my mind to try to get the "$10" out. Now, if I *did* manage to do it and get out more money than I put in, I'd know something was up. But none of what I said ran under the assumption that the user didn't "use" the machine.
I thought the whole point of slot machines was to put money in to play the slot machine in hopes to get money out. The idea that you could directly convert money you've added back to money surprises me because I've always considered casinos at or lower to the scummy level of carnivals or theme parks with "theme park money".
Thanks for the information. I guess it's one of those "The More You Know" momements.
So, if they used the slot machine, does it become okay? What if it was the stock market instead of a slot machine?
I think this is a false analogy. A better analogy would involve buying tickets at a carnival. It's a rather common occurance that you pay money upfront to buy a collection of tickets, even if you aren't going to use them all. Knowing this, carnivals will routinely sell very large books of tickets at ridiculous ratios (ie, while it might cost $1 to buy 1 tickets, $5 will buy 10 and $20 will buy 50). Given how badly the pay ratio with slot machines can be, I don't think it inconceivable that a casino wouldn't give you a 10:1 ratio on your money so you'll play longer on the "$1 slot" if it knew your odds of recouping that $1 were low and you couldn't convert the credit back to money.
But that brings me to consider this...
It sounds like your argument boils down to "you never win at a casino, so they should have realized something was wrong when they made lots of money". But, then, that's all a matter of what counts as "winning the jackpot". I guess it must be just as illegal to monitor the pay-out ratio of machines and choose the one with the highest ratio. After all, who expects to go to a casino and come out ahead?
What does one call it then? The guy says he's using *paid for* Hotmail accounts. The only legal out I can think of is that their TOS defines Hotmail as not "real mail" but "Hotmail(TM)" and that somewhere along the lines they don't have to guarantee the deliver of any messages, even if their SMTP server accepts emails. I think people put up with too much fraud in daily life, with too unwilling of a police force to punish perpetrators, and are too willing to excuse fraud as "shady and bad service" without getting in an uproar over the practice. This sounds simply like deception for gain.
PS - IANAL, either.
It's funny you mention the last because the last is rather interesting. Until rather recently, few of mankind had any real belief that man could radically change the biodiversity of the Earth. While murder and rape may have been immoral for thousands of years, the idea of extincting a species being amoral is only hundreds of years old.
The largest reason this is funny, then, is how while the [US] population at large feels hunting a species to extinction is wrong, the same [US} population seems unwilling to admit that humans are behind global warming; to say that burning gasoline is "immoral" even to the people who are against global warming would seem ludicrous. Meanwhile, I personally feel that it depends on *what* species is wiped out before hunting a species to extinction becomes amoral.
I'm not a Catholic nor in a country/city ran by Catholics, so what any pope says is immoral doesn't mean anything.
So to promote a moral system, you have to not only prove that it works (Stallman is alive and, AFAIK, sticking to his system), but you have to prove it "can [earn one] a good living"? Well, I guess we should all becoming oil tycoons, then. With the way demand is outstripping supply, it's probably more important to own and sell oil than to worry about global warming.
Happens all the time in church (most churches disclaim that doing the right thing will guarantee getting into heaven--ie, that there is a real benefit to it). Of course, people ignore morality and do the "easy option" all the time. The only real amoral things people tend to avoid is the infamous stuff. And how did it become infamous? Browbeating it into the people who "should know better" causing real social problems for those who would commit the amoral act. Really, Stallman's approach is really spot-on for pushing his dogma--while, I guess he could always include vivid imagery of hell.
Um, as I keep saying, Nintendo *did* mind, so much to make the false argument that the GBA included a copy protection scheme and hence cartridge copiers are in violation of the DMCA. The inherent right was blocked by a law.
<sarcasm>And that's certainly within the spirit of the GPL.</sarcast> Or can you seriously say that the GPL is all about individuals reinvent the wheel and not sharing knowledge?
So, why again was it that the MPAA is obsessed with wrapping their HD content in DRM again? Oh, that's right. It has figured out it can potentially make more money by limiting access/having greater control. Nintendo(/Microsoft (vis-a-vis X-Box [360])/Sony) does the same thing, through controlling who can publish for their systems by being the sole maker of discs--look no further than Manhunter 2. Or, in short, companies in a monopolistic system* will aim for the *monopolistic price*. That may or may not be the one that involves selling the most units.
This is unlikely, given the history of the GPL. But, of course, time will tell.
Right. Like how when the GPLv2 is violated (which has happened many times), the GPLv2 will just collapse. And of course, magically copyright won't kick in.
It's funny you say that because the GPLv3 was specifically written to better harmonize the language used in it with international copyright law (ie, the laws of many areas). If anything, the GPLv2 has more loopholes than the GPLv3.
Um, no. I'm saying Nintendo never went out of its way to sell the GBA as a user-hackable device. And I bought the GBA as a user-hackable device. Why? Because it's innately possible to hack hardware. Funny, eh?
Granted. But it's one thing to be unable to do something because you're going out of what's "safe" and "inherently reliable" and another when you are willing to invest the effort to make it "safe" and "reliable", and a manufacturer cripples hardware to prevent you from making those steps. Most people are willing to accept this for most hardware because they perceive any possible advantage minute and the effort "not worth it". Further, that minority who is willing to invest the energy, realizing they're the minority, generally accept that there's nothing they can do about the problem. But, if a manufacturer wants to take advantage of *my* effort, then they're forced to come into agreement with me.
So, even if you have some belief that there isn't something inherently wrong with trying to block the ability to hack what is inherently hackable, copyright gives me every right to have some control over what Tivo does if it uses my software. That's the oppressiveness of the GPL. The GPLv2 requires the release of source. The GPLv3 tries to prevent the DMCA from being enforceable, so you *can* legally hack the Tivo. That's what brings me to...
If Nintendo was able to block the import of cartridge copiers when the GBA doesn't even include a copy protection scheme, what makes you think Tivo couldn't make the same argument with their device? But so long as Tivo is required to hand out their signing keys, then there's nothing to "hack". At least, that's what the GPLv3's original design plan was. I'm not sure that the final revision keeps the logic in place.
"More than you paid for." Perhaps you should take some microeconomics. Then you might realize that most people get "more than [they] paid for". I don't think it's unreasonable to be upset when a supplier fucks with their supply of a good to jack up the price/decrease the value.
So, yes, I do understand how the "generally accepted model" works.
Golly, and here I was complaining about the "[generally accepted] business model" precisely because it involved selling 3GHz CPUs as 2GHz CPUs.
Really? That's rather magical. That defies both the capitalistic and free market model. In both, increased supplies of 3GHz processors would decrease the price of 3GHz CPUs. And if people were that demanding of 2GHz CPUs over 3GHz CPUs, then Intel would "shoot" for making 2GHz CPUs over 3GHz CPUs. None of this would "resu
No, I didn't. But, let me give you a better example. Let's use the example of something I did buy that is "sold as an appliance". I bought the GBA specifically to play NES games through pocketnes (one's I legal own, mind you). I recognize quite well that Nintendo has a long reputation of being very much against emulation of their own system (Sony too) when it's not under their own power. And people running "unauthorized code" is certainly something outside of their design plan to supporting in any way. All of that I accept.
And I even accept, to some extent*, Nintendo's efforts to thwart further versions of their GBA (or DS) to running "unauthorized code"--I don't accept their attempts to block copy devices for the GBA, however, as no copy protection scheme exists for the GBA, so it's unreasonable to try to use the DMCA or similar laws to act as if there were. But if Nintendo had used GPL code as the basis of their hardware, I wouldn't be so willing to accept such actions. This is because the GPL is specifically designed to allow users to modify code to their liking. Any attempt by a publisher of code to specifically block running said modified code on the very hardware that includes said code goes directly against the intention of the GPL. The GPL isn't there merely to let people read the code or port it to new hardware. The whole reason RMS started the FSF and wrote the GPL is because of difficulties he had with hardware because the creator of the hardware, Xerox, was willing to release a binary driver but not the source--at the time, it was customary to include the source. It's the very spirit of the GPL and Tivo's actions being so diametric that spurred the GPLv3.
As I already said, people don't generally sue for getting more of something than they asked for. In fact, I doubt the courts would side with a person who would make such a claim, unless it could be shown that getting more of something is itself a sizeable burden. Or, in short, people don't generally sue when a situation is tilted in their favor, and courts generally resolve disputes when a person can claim they were wronged--you can't very well sue your customers for wronging yourself.
Um, because I said they're the *same*. Ie, that short of further testing that might have been performed on the plane engine, they're identical. Put another way, it's very much identical to Intel creating one processor line at 3GHz, then underclocking half to 2GHz to meet demand, then further artificially blocking the now 2GHz CPUs from running at 3GHz. Perhaps I'd be understanding if all the 2GHz CPUs were rejects, but Intel's history has shown that there have been times when CPUs were underclocked merely to meet demand even when they were tested and known to be able to perform at their originally designated rate. Artificially limiting hardware to meet some "business model" is BS that goes against the idea of the free market. If you have an oversupply of 3GHz CPUs, you don't butcher the 3GHz CPUs. You drop the price of 3GHz CPUs. And if there's an undersupply of 2GHz CPUS, you raise the price. Of course, that seems to go against capitalism.
Which brings me back to my "just like I'd complain if someone sued because their family died from
So if I understood it to be the case that Tivo ran off Linux and Linux meant the ability to modify the existing code and to run it on the same hardware, I'd be right to be upset up until that point at which I found out that Tivo specifically blocked the running of modified code, but not after? It sounds more than anything what you're describing is what defense Tivo would have to fraud charges.
Again, no. I've already described quite well that Tivo is not an appliance. It's general hardware that's been intentionally crippled. Just like the XBox is general hardware that's been intentionally crippled. Whether Tivo itself might have, from a PR perspective, tried to sell the Tivo as an appliance doesn't matter. I can try to sell a chocolate candy bar as a vanilla candy bar. It doesn't change what the candy bar is. It just happens that few people are interested in suing Tivo for misrepresentation/fraud because general hardware that's crippled is considered a "better value" than an appliance.
Show me hardware than can run said code, unmodified or with trivial modification.
I'd complain if the car engine was the same as used in a plane, except it was artificially limited to prevent people from taking it out and using it in planes (just like I'd complain if someone sued because their family died from using said engine in a plane, as the engine hadn't gone through sufficient testing for use in a plane (as it's used for a car)). Of coure, since there's nothing technically illegal about the action, I wouldn't sue over it either; I don't think anyone plans to sue over the GPLv2 vis-a-vis Tivo.
Um, contracts are inherently oppressive. They force upon you obligations (admittedly, ones you agreed to) with the possibility of punative damages for ignoring those obligations. The GPL being based off copyright, a law (which is, again, oppressive), does nothing to remove that oppression. Just because you're morally okay with that oppression because you see it as lessening the oppression of copyright doesn't change the fact that the GPL is oppressive.
So, the "spirit" you're talking about is the *letter* of the GPLv2. Um, do you not understand what "spirit" means?
I didn't say you wrote it in the context of BSD. Your license was prefaced with "for the generic license...". I didn't realize you meant it to be a clause for the GPLv2, so I took your comments to be in the context of copyright law, since that's where distribution licenses derive their power.
Are you a GPLv3 software author? If not, then I'm not sure why you think I'm including you. If you are and you think I'm not adequately covering your beliefs then fine, you're right. Agreeing to the GPLv3 doesn't mean you have to want anything. Hell, you can license code under the GPLv3 and ignore people who abuse your copyright. So, feel free to replace "we" with "I". Or take we to mean me and RMS, as I'm pretty sure RMS's point was to try to insure that further tivo-ization doesn't occur.
See, that's contradictory. If it's true that Tivo is an appliance, then it's the case that either it is (a) a general purpose machine with limited hardware, (b) a general purpose machine with specialized hardware/features, or (c) some sort of FSA. But if it were the last (c), then it wouldn't be using GPLv3 software, as software is designed to run on a LBA. And if it were (a), then there's no reason to call the Tivo an appliance, since virtually any general purpose machine can be called "limited hardware" compared to another machine. So, the only reasonable definition of a Tivo being an appliance is that it is a general purpose machine with specialized hardware. This means that the code in question *can't* run on other hardware, because other hardware lacks the specialized hardware. So, Tivo crippling their hardware's ability to run the code is preventing the use of the code*.
The GPL is based on copyright and copyright is oppressive. There is no way to void this oppression within copyright law. The BSD tries to push on disclaimers. Public domain leaves those with access to the public domain work to copyright it to the exclusion of others, assuming they can maintain exclusive access. The GPL works to further its goals, even if they require oppression to be reached. That's how most social interactions work.
To think the GPLv3 jumped the spirit is to not have understood the GPLv2. Of course, I state this because the GPLv3 was written by RMS, author of the GPLv2 as well (co-authors not included). And nothing I've heard from RMS would imply that the intent/spirit of the GPL has changed. How it goes about to further its goals has.
What does "all freedoms expressed...are implicit in their intended design" even mean? You never even begin to lay down on what freedoms you speak of or what intents are made. Do you want your license to be something that has to be brought to court on a regular basis such that it is court decisions that determine what you "meant"?
So, if Tivo use code under your license, they're a benefit of "these freedoms". And they must be allowed to express those freedoms. But, Tivo doesn't want to "express that freedom"
Imagine I own a vineyard. Also, imagine I wrote up a contract between me and my neighbor to exchange a bushel of grapes for $5. Now, imagine after signing the contract, my neighbor decides he'd really like white grapes. It happens that I don't grow white grapes on my land, so I'd have to buy them at a cost of $6 (where my own grapes have an effective cost of $4). Since the contract is so vaguely worded, one could say* that my neighbor has every right to demand the white grapes, even though the spirit of the contract was to exchange my grapes for his $5. Or, in short, sometimes the legalize that is used to cover an issue isn't accurately enough written to deal with issues that might arise.
Beyond this, one has to remember that 15 years ago, the DMCA didn't exist. Copyright law has changed in many other countries as well. A major part of the GPLv3 was to attempt to better harmonize the language to be more consistent with international copyright law. So, there's at least a few reasons to try to better describe in legal terms the intent of the GPL in a new license.
*IANAL, so I don't know how well this argument would actually stand in court. After all, intent is often used when the language of a contract is vague. The major problem with the GPL's vagueness is that the GPL's intent was to cover usage (specifically, there's an innate assumption that one can use the software (look into First-sale Doctrine)) while copyright doesn't provide a direct means for that. As such, the GPLv3 is left to attack the common means used to limit the use of GPL'd software.
The manufacturer doesn't have to open everything, and we (ie, GPLv3 authors) don't have to allow the manufacturer to distribute our code. In fact, we want it to be the case that anywhere are code is run*, we can hack "their" products to use it in applications that the manufacturer didn't necessarily intend.
It was only "by design" in respect to the fact that copyright doesn't cover usage, so there's no way to create a license to directly cover usage. And as you point out, the GPLv3 doesn't really resolve the issue of usage because there's still various tricks to void the intended effect (burning the GPLv3 code into ROM is a simple example). Truthfully, there's no way to insure usage abilities with some sort of generic distribution license** because any legalized wording would leave a manufacturer to follow the legal definition of the wording but not the intent (a great example comes to mind, of simply crippling any "invalid" software to run at one millionth the speed of official code, allowing some of the code to run if it's "invalid", or in some other way still allowing a use of "some kind" without actually allowing what the GPLv3 author intended). The spirit of the GPLv2 and GPLv3 includes the ability to actually use the code in question. Just because there might be no way to legally enforce that doesn't mean it wasn't an intent; it just means there's a lack of legal footing to cover all cases.
*Clearly copyright doesn't allow this, since using/running is outside the scope of copyright. But anyone who would manufacturer an item and sell it is distributing, so that's adequately sufficient for the wide-scale issue. The fact that a person might personally make a machine and do things alone with our code is fine. We'll never have access to the machine, anyways.
**IANAL, but feel free to prove me wrong.
There's a more insidious problem that this ruling creates. One important aspect of the ECPA, that created the modern Pen Registry, is a requirement that private parties not access the Pen Registry unless it's a necessary part of business. This was almost certainly created as a means to punish common carriers who would otherwise snoop or conspire through a Pen Registry, as well as provide a means for a common carrier to prove their lack of involvement in a conspiracy. On the other hand, if every single IP is in fact a part of a Pen Registry, then it suddenly becomes necessary to make careful steps in regards to the proper handling of logging, displaying, or otherwise using an IP address.
Having said all that, clearly the ECPA is unconstitutional. If the ECPA and other similar common carrier protection laws didn't exist, common carriers would demand a warrant before handing over information. To do otherwise would open themselves up to nearly endless conspiracy and neglect suits, as they could be claimed to being intentionally ignorant of the crimes that used their network as part of a scheme to make money (look no further than napster); after all, if law enforcement is capable of using the Pen Registry as part of information on an indictment or as probable cause, then it stands to reason that the common carrier themselves should be capable of reaching the same sort of conclusion. Of course, the resolution to that (which would still allow phone companies to exist) would have to involve removing a lot of the negligent and conspiracy laws. Funny how quickly unequal application of the law and purely unconstitutional law creates such nasty constructs.
Ah, yes. So, when it's 40F (ie, winter), you pay less for more (as gas tends to cost less in the winter) and when it's 80F (ie, summer), you pay more for less (as gas tends to cost more in the summer). Since the price of gasoline fluxuates with the season, just as temperature does, it's not so simple as to say it "averages out".
I think that this is more a chicken & egg problem (and not the one normally stated). From personal experience, the main reason I was so willing to switch to Linux is because I had so few paid-for Windows-only games (basically, I rarely bought anything but id or DOS games). I was used to playing shareware and freeware games on Windows, and a switch to Linux meant most of those sorts of games were included with the distribution.
Having said that, another main draw of Linux for me was that it was Free, not just free. While my initial reason to use Linux might have focused on all the free software, the fact that most of the paid-for games have had their source released as Free has driven me to mainly *want* only games that are Free. The fact that most game makers (and WINE compatibility layer writers) aren't willing to release their software as Free makes money spent on them seem less and less of an investment, as Windows support for currently games will eventually become obsolete; I say this from the perspective of someone who was a large DOS fan, and who now has as much luck running DOS games under the latest versions of Windows and a later distro, both under DOSBox.
The fact that so many people are willing to live with Windows XP in spite of this would seem to indicate most other people aren't so fixated on their games lasting indefinitely, or they merely never invested in enough DOS games to "matter". I'd say that long term Linux use actually makes one *more* inclined to having backward compatibility (ironically enough) because the risk of losing backward compatibility is invariably a technical challenge, not some inherent flaw in the system. Btw, this is one reason why flash being closed and a major new online platform for games, video, etc is so worrisome.
Just to add to this comment with a pretty concrete example: Jump Super Stars. Thanks to the fact that one can copyright characters, combined with the fact that the rights to most of the characters in Jump Super Star are owned in the US by different companies, there's basically no chance of there being a legal port created for the US (it's similar reasoning behind why Linux will never be relicensed under the GPL3). While it might not be exceedingly difficult for two entities to work out the artificial barriers of intellectual property, once you have several entities involved, at least one of the players will feel like their component is crucial and be unwilling to forfeit rights without getting in exchange most of the profits. With two players who are like that...well, the situation tends to degenerate. Of course, the same holds true with any naturally restricted resource; it just doesn't seem logical to have a government make such problems worse.
Which is the main problem. Congress *doesn't* end up expressing clearly laws granting authority. Instead, the wording is so incredibly vague that the Executive branch ends up effectively defining their own laws. When you start having committees and boards formed to define what "infectious disease" and "drug with no medical value", you're making law. The fact that Congress wants to delegate this responsibility to the Executive branch because they don't see how they'd find the time to do it doesn't justify their actions. It only highlights why the Constitution might need changed to include such boards under the legislative branch, the place where laws are supposed to be made.
To maker another analogy, imagine if the Constitution hadn't included provisions for subordinate federal courts under the supreme court. Would you suggest that because subordinate courts are necessary--given the staggering work load that would otherwise saturate a single supreme court--that we shouldn't even *try* to change the Constitution but merely accept that these hypothetical unconstitutional federal courts exist? Even if they're put under the Executive branch's realm of influence? As much as I hate the idea of a flag burning Constitutional amendment, I at least respect that the people with such an idea realize that an Act of Congress just won't suffice. Perhaps there should be more thought into making things legal instead of merely trying to justify illegal activity under the banner of "but we'd never function without it".
Again, "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." (emphasis mine) -- Article I, Section I, US Constitituion. In short, Congress doesn't have the power to deligate law-making to other bodies. If Congress wants that power, they'll have to do what anyone else would have to when what is wanted is currently unconstitutional: change the Constitution. Trying to shortcut the law by naming deligations "rules" and "with the force of law" are clear attempts to usurp the Constitution. Would it suddenly become reasonable for the Judiciary to form an army "with the force of law" to release Jose Padilla and arrest Congressmen for which the Executive branch has the legal power to do so because the executive branch "authorized" it? Of course not.
The simple fact is, by bluring the lines of power between the different branches, each branch is less inclined to police other branches, as they feel united instead of divided. Even worse, the blurred lines make it even more difficult to assign credit or blame for actions commited, making it even more difficult to select a representative in the right position to do the right job. Finally, such creates the situation that we have today, where wide latitudes and "trust" allow for wholesale distortion of existing law depending solely on who is in the White House. The point of the Presidency is to carry out existing law while trying to lobby for change, not to twist existing laws as one pleases while pushing to stagnate the legislative process. Why else do you think the Presidency is given the power to push the legislative agenda, if he/she can simply write "rules" to circumvent it?
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." -- Article I, Section I, US Constitituion
It seems pretty clear to me that the DHS, being not part of Congress, can't make rules having the force of law legally, anymore than the President can (executive orders being equally unconstitutional, unless they're merely orders to carry out the law). Of course, the modern judicial, legislative and executive branches seem to think otherwise. But, it's pretty clearly spelled out in the Constitution, regardless. But then, I guess that's more a point of nitpicking given the many ways in which the Constitution is regularly ignored and hence how many things are "legal".