Also, I don't believe that the Constitution grants rights to minors. Sorry, you don't have the right to free speech until you are 18.
The Constitution doesn't grant rights. The Bill of Rights is only a listing of protections of rights that inherently exist. They're there in an attempt to prevent having another bloody revolution because the government because too powerful and ends up pushing its people to overthrow it.
Having stated that, there's clearly nothing to distinguish this protection based on age (though the statement of "all men are created equal" could be claimed as only applying to males). The point is more that adults (read, 18+ year olds) are the only ones with the power/ability to seriously overthrow the government, and most parents aren't interested in helping protect the rights of their children; ie, most parents are bad parents.
So, it's not at all a question of if children are granted rights. The only real question is at what point will the children be willing and able to rise up against their parents/the government to rage a war to stop such Draconian law. I can only guess what the new "age limit" will be. Maybe it'll be 6-7, when the kindergarteners first reach school and are exposed to curse words. By that point, though, curse words won't really exist (though racist words might do), so they'll have to progress to backing morally reprehensable positions to shock/awe their peers.
Yes, I am missing the point. What does being a teacher have to do with something not involving a teacher? We're not talking about having a teacher sit in front of a class and demonstrate how to best frag in Halo 2. We're talking about using school/public property to play a game, as authorized by the school children's parents. School policy to "not sanction or sponsor activities that are not designed for kids" rather ignores the point that somewhere along the line the "designed for kids" is a moral question, since the only thing that makes it *not* designed for kids is the ESRB rating, which clearly is a moral rating. But clearly the parents are okay with it, so they've designed that it is designed for their child. And *they* are the parents, not the administrator.
The teachers have nothing to do with this. Teachers don't set school policy. More than that, they aren't charged with controlling access to school property, except in cases where they specifically are by the administration.
As for the "no one is saying they can't go play the game off of school grounds", the point is there's no *valid* basis for the game to be unplayable on school grounds, except either to (a) follow a policy of moral code known as "designed for kids" or (b) to limit liability of being sued if any kid happens to shoot up the school, and somehow the tournament somehow is associated with the blame by a lawyer. Seeing as that the tournament is the the students of the school, it can be closed to only those with permission from parents, and it doesn't involve outside people, I'm very hard pressed to understand how it would fall into some other nebulous case by which the school has any valid basis of claiming that somehow it's a misuse of school equipment. Administration policy is obviously too anal retentive and a waste of school equipment.
Most tax payers don't have the profession of teacher, yes. I've no idea what that has to do with the conversation.:)
Tax payers pay for the teachers to teach and the school administrators to properly utilize finance money for the equipment/property for the school children. What's being talked about isn't, for example, a beer festival, which is likely illegal for the children involved (in my state, it's legal for a child to imbibe alcohol with their parents permission, though I forget if it's only on private property). Instead, it's an activity which involves school children *of the school* and approved by the parents (aka, tax payers). The only basis the school administrators have to not "sanction" the activity is if it were deemed too costly.
Schools are not there to teach morality to the school children, especially overriding the parents who are *right there* teaching morality. Halo 2 may not be "intended for kids", but certainly those who are not "kids" (ie, 17+, according to the ESRB content rating) and those for whom their parents have legally vouched for are not in a position where it's at all a question on whether it's the will of the people who are involved. I mean, *all* the parents signed wavers. It sounds like, more than anything, an attempt to reduce the "liability" of "another Columbine". It is nothing about following the will of the people/tax payers/parents, and so clearly the school district is not doing its job.
No, parents are responsable for kids. The school district is only liable if it did something stupid like not require waivers from all 16- year olds who wanted to join-in/spectate. The school grounds are public property. While not in use for the school, they should be available for any public activity. And yes, this probably means having at least a few school personnel as supervisors to make sure there isn't damaged public property. I mean, why are the parents/tax payers paying money for if not to use the equipment/property?
Clearly, when Jesus isn't busy helping rap artists and football stars he's busy fucking up software. Just further proof that Jesus is pro hos; bitches; guys with bling, bling; and large sweaty guys while he's against fat and thin geeks and the internet in general.
Most of the 20th Century was the switch from white Christian rule -> local inhabitant rule in Africa and those parts of Asia other than China. To an extent the sale of opium trade allowed the rule of China. South America is composed mostly of Europeans and European/Native American. Hispanic might not be seen as "white" (certainly, spectrally skin color tends to be browner than the peach of "white"), they're still considered caucasian by most, and they're certainly primarily Christian. So, it'd seem that South America is still ruled by "white" Christians, while "white" Christians still have much economic control in Africa. Asia has primarily liberated itself from "white" rule, though the lack of large deposits of lucrative diamond trade and the banning of the drug trade might have a large part to do with it.
How much of a reversion to local religion, devoid of Christianity do you think has occurred? What about reversion away from "white" influence? The US has certainly pushed its influence on others, through trade and movies.
Having said all this, I'm not trying to say that there aren't countries which influence others. But if you had to take one group that's been most oppressive in the last 100 years of other groups and who still possesses an undue amount of the wealth of the world, I'd have to point at white Christian males. However, thankfully in especially the last 10 years there's been a sharp reversal in other countries improving themselves greatly in their ability to compete in the global market. I only hope that most in other countries begin to realize that whole industries can exist without the US or Europe in the loop (but possible on the buying end), and that's when the real massive wealth building begins.
And white male Christian Americans tend to be the ones in power. Given that the world isn't optimal, their blanket statements do seem to be based at least partially in fact. Being a white male agnostic American, I really don't care. If someone were to call me a cracker or some other slur remark, it wouldn't really hurt me. Why? Because in general it's white male [Christian] Americans who are in power. Even the most derogatory term for a rich person still acknowledges they are rich.
Now, having said that, I don't think there's anything inherent to being white, male, Christian, or American that makes one "rich". It just happens that many were born that way and others have through ethical and unethical means propped the whole "group" in that position. I truly welcome the day when that group dissolves, not because I suffer some pain of insults, but because the construction of the "group" is only as strong as the mental perception of it; there's no actual value in being a part of the group, and the best value is for everyone to be a part of the group.
The majority of people will never be in "power" because all "power" groupings are shaped like pyramids (the pyramid scheme). So, the day that we're all judged by our actions is the day that the majority is in the best situation. And it's the day that the pyramid is made of the willing instead of the repressed. I'm not on top of the pyramid, so I very much welcome that day; I just wish I knew for certain that if I were at the top of one such pyramid I would feel the same and welcome the revolt of thought.
Having stated all that, it's best not to generalize. Why? Because while it is good in a life-or-death situation to be able to quickly find the strongest/fastest/whatever person to do a task, in any sane situation each person can be judged in ample time that it is not necessary to make such snap judgments. And once you get to know each person, you truly can know what each person is best at. Assuming needlessly is bad, for you and for others.
It seems like you're desperately trying to distort what I said. Even without copyright, there will still be publishers putting out CDs and DVDs because most people are willing to pay for the convenience of getting a disc instead of spending the time/effort to track down things themselves. So, concerts and plays will be "bootlegged" just like anything else, but people will still go to concerts and plays like they do now, and probably they'll do it more just because it feels better to watch a play in person than to watch it from someone's "cam" rip of the event.
Without many movies being in production (I'm certain low-budget films will continue to be made), play prices will likely go down which means a lot more local entertainment which I'm sure a lot of artists would love. Those who don't want to tour to make money are basically in a bind. But, then that's the way the free market works. The world doesn't owe such people a living. If they want to do the art as a career, they have to think of a way to make money.
None of this is a desire to squash creativity. I think it's funny that you have such a limited view of the subject. I would think the monoculture of a few distributors of movies and music would do much more to destroy creativity than anything. And I'm not trying to ignore the technology of 500 years. The ability to play back music flawlessly millions of times in every home without the need of a musician has certainly been a huge reduction in costs for people.
At the same time, people still go to concerts because music and plays are more than just about hearing/watching the static past actions of others. It's about getting to know/meet the people who make the art to further understand it. And it's to see the various ways in which the play/music evolves given that most artists alter their work as inspirating has them rewrite it.
I can't think of an artform that was invented in the last 500 years that cannot be done by small groups of individuals. Yes, movies as of current are very extravagant affairs, but their basic construction can be done with a good bit of time and lots of technology that's readily available.
The thing then that's missing to "preserve other art forms" is having massive amounts of money. The ideal life of the rock star with millions of dollars to blow and culture surrounding it might die. To me such culture can be preserved in history in plays. It doesn't need to be preserved in the making of the rich. It's just not much of a loss, in my eyes.
Finally, "the tragedy of the commons" is in various ways a bad analogy for the situation. The commons is a finite, grassy area which the industry of raising sheep was based. Without an owner or owners to divide up the commons and control it, each sheep owner was only as interested in, and had as much control in, keeping their own sheep fed. The tragedy of the commons doesn't decry how innovation doesn't occur. It decries how without ownership production of the norm disappears. But, clearly artworks already created do not disappear. You're crying out about the loss of *new* works of art, be them in the same genres that exist or new genres that do not exist yet.
Works already created are effectively infinite. To prevent pollution of a work, there could be the right of attribution without ever a need of ownership. No one needs to own works that already exist to continue their preservation. The only things that are needed are a means of gaining a copy (pay someone, if necessary) and a way to verify its integrity (attribution law + verification software conceivably).
There's a commons of information around you. It's the basis of the free market and democracy. Without it, one stumbles in the dark without any thoughts. People learning ideas does not diminish your knowledge, and them possing copies in books or other physical media does not diminish your ability to be creative in the alteration of existing works or in creating new works whose wonderment will cause them to lon
If you tell me that I can only be creative for my own enjoyment, and can't make money off it, then I'll tell you this: Nobody is going to create music, movies, etc anymore.
Actually, you can make money off of your creativity. But the free market will end up making it such that only live performances will get you any serious money, as publishers (be it online or offline) will make the bulk of the money from redistribution of the same song.
There will be nothing left for you to enjoy, because people will not have any incentive to produce works and distribute them.
Lets go back in time over 500 years to a time when there weren't books, CDs, or movies. Was there creative works? Hell yea. You can go back all the way to the Roman Coliseum or the Greek plays (a few obvious examples) to find entertainment. Shakespeare had to contend with pretty heavy piracy of his work as in England at the time actors were considered scum, so there was no legal protection offered to plays. Yet, amazingly Shakespeare and company routinely performed to sold-out houses. Why? Because that's all the entertainment there was.
Now, back to the present. Imagine if there wasn't a way to protect your copyrighted works from piracy. What then? Well, beyond the lock publishers would have on distributing really cheap versions of all the new plays, people would be forced to go out to plays more and music halls to meet people if they wanted to stay fashionable. With everything selling cheap, you'd get a glut of spam music/movies otherwise (publishers would be desperate for the attention for their massive plethora of goods).
So, I can only partially agree with your statement. Works would still be produced, there'd still be things to enjoy, but artists surely would not be the main force behind distribution of copies.
If you're ok with that, great. But don't expect the same quality of movies, music, etc to be released. These things take time and money to create.
You're probably right about there being a lot less extravagant movies and music. You'd likely see most publishers distributing concert bootlegs. Few (no?) publisher would be willing to have the exclusive rights to a "clean" version of a song/play because other publishers would near instantly redistribute it to others for the same or cheaper price. It'd only be stuff like brand loyalty that'd make people still go with a company. But how strong would that really be?
Where am I going to 'perform' my movie (which is some people's justification for music)?
It's called a play. Theater isn't completely dead, yet.
If you want everything for free, you can have it...but there'll be nothing created you want.
No, I think that if everything were near free, there'd be a lot less content, but even then we the people would be utterly spammed by the backlog of old content as well as current content, and people would be motivated to go to concerts and plays more because it'd be the only way they'd feel like they invested in something worthwhile.
Btw, my real concern of all the people you mention is the author. Even great authors, as storytellers, would likely have a much harder time competing against concerts and plays than books do against CDs and DVDs. At the same time, I think you'd find a lot more interesting storytellers out there who would live off of their performances. I'm pretty sure I'd much more enjoy the one-on-one interactions with the author than the situation that's of current.
And just to continue on this side-thread about books, you might be interested to know that Samuel Clemens was all for having infinite copyright length. Now, while I get the impression that this was at least somewhat his own selfishness, he makes a good point as well. That point is this: the removal of copyright in his time simply meant more profit for the publisher. There wasn't any incentive to decrease the price of the book because few, if any, other publishers were
ActiveX works like a Pinto works. Sure, you can drive around in a Pinto, but who in their right mind would be willing to continue using a Pinto in a company knowing the catastrophic damage possible (and the lawsuits from all the burned/dead employees' spouses)? ActiveX is as much a design flaw as the Pinto's gas tank was, and sure it requires misuse to activate the flaw, but the damage potential is so high that Ford was required to fix the problem. If MS can't fix the design flaw, and companies aren't willing to sue MS over it, then they should know the next move would have to be moving away from ActiveX because it obviously doesn't "already work" if part of working is not having such obvious massive potential for destroying a company*.
*Note: Obviously, we're not at that point where the law is setup such that many people would consider suing a company into oblivion for releasing personal information (which is almost certainly a violation of the contract by which said company got the information), but I wonder how long that'll be the case. I guess companies won't move until they face obvious risk.
Yes, it's a two-way street. That means that the FBI should be more clear if it wants more contractors to take the risk of working with them, and it means that contractors will have to assume there will be resistance and changes which means they'll have to overestimate their bid instead of making it lower to win the bid. The net result is that the resulting winning bid would be closer to the actual money spent and hopefully the project would have completed more successfully.
I'd say being paid is a reward. The world doesn't owe you a living, nor does the government. If you don't do the job, you shouldn't be paid. And if you demand software be made but do it so badly that you don't get what you want, you still have to pay. The shit hits the fan most often when both sides don't plan enough ahead. And you shouldn't be hired if you haven't a clue what you're going to be doing. It's not childish to expect that people do what they promise. It's not childish to expect that people to clearly state their demands for what they want. It's only childish to hold it against either side when both have worked hard early and often to guarantee such problems don't occur. It doesn't sound like that's what happened.
In giving the contractor money, the government signs a contract with said contractor. If the product doesn't pan out, then the contractor is in violation of contract and the government should get most its money back. There's no need for jail time. Obviously the contract will have some flexibility. But clearly companies should only bid if: they think their bid value is close to the actual cost, they think the project is doable, and they're willing to suffer the consequences if they're wrong. If the government makes undoable projects, less companies are likely to bid, and hopefully less waste will occur.
There just doesn't seem to be a good reason to accept massive waste and not hold such companies financially liable for promising something they should have known wasn't doable. It's the job of the contractor to know when a job is undoable and not even try to provide a solution. If they're unable to do that, then why are they being rewarded?
I never mentioned the catholic church, as most (all?) of my witnessing of the shear audacity in the spending of money in adornment of churches has been in the US where the catholic church isn't involved. It's not like religion started with the Catholic Church, anyways. I'd have spoken more about Judaism if I had more experience with it, but I've watched of the clear adornment of Jewish Tabernacles back around 100BC or 100AD (I forget which side it was, but 200 years hardly seems that big a deal in such a time scale). So, I totally agree that it's true for any religion. It's, of course, Christians and Jews which clearly don't follow their own 2nd Commandment, though (I'm quasi-Quaker, and such ritual/adornment is one of the reasons why the Society of Friends formed).
Your final line really sums up the relationship nicely, though. Churches are just like a business, out to buy the talent of people to sell their product. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it weren't for the fact that a lot of Christian groups in the US seems to have mostly joined in a religious xenophobic monopoly that encourages the squashing of competing ideas.
To me, it's the same ethical position as writing a catchy song lingo for Microsoft. At some point, there's something clearly unethical about supporting any group that is in the position to truly hurt others for having or expressing their own ideas. Of course this is a generalization, just like it's a generalization that all record execs are evil blood suckers; clearly there are record execs outside of the RIAA. But, I'm talking most specifically about those Churches who would so feveretly dictate religion to the masses while at the same time doing such unethical acts as trying to destroy/ban in some way all ideas they oppose. I'm all for them not buying things or boycotting stores or whatever. At some point, though, churches really need to stop going after all the ideas they don't like and focus more on the bad acts that people are blatantly commiting in front of them.
people forget that though science and society seems to have outgrown the need for dogma, the church through history propped up the infant institutions of art
<troll>It seems like you've got that backwards. It's art that's propped up the church through such great fiction as the Bible (okay, I don't doubt it's "based on a real story", but we all know how well that translates in just real story to tv movie; imagine thousands of years of oral tradition)</troll>. It's the artist that drew in the people. It was the rituals that drew in the crowds. It was this mighty God with his luxurious temple and the great riches it offered for the wealthy that motivated kings to support churches to a great extent.
The tradition of royalty/aristocrats sending one's first son into the army and his second into the church quite well places how the power structure worked. How many simple farmers sent their sons to the church where they became bishops? Anyways, this is getting way off-topic. The most amusing thing is this: Christianity fundamentally ignores its own rules about art (the 2nd commandment). Art very clearly has the means to move the soul (one's anxiety over one's existence), and clearly there was fear of it in the past. It's ironic to me that you'd turn so happily to church who so readily wishes to subvert solely for its own benefit. If art can truly move the soul, and if it truly is okay to be made and viewed for one purpose, then there should be no sane reason to smack down all art that one hates, unless the goal is to solely to control others through art and not allow people to look into themselves to find out what they truly wish to believe.
Stallman talks up his fight for freedom, but then pushes against the freedom of choice.
Yea, that bastard. I mean, I want to live in a country where I can do whatever I want. Why would I want to give everyone else the same freedoms I have? That's just crazy. I should be one of the few elite who can go off and kill people without consequences while anyone outside the elite who dares even touch one of us will be brutaly executed. And maybe from time to time, we'll actually follow up on peons killing peons to make the peons think we're the only thing between them and the mindless void of everyone having the same rights.
Yea, I'm being a good bit harsh, but Stallman is about giving everyone freedoms. To some extent, yes, that does limit some of the choices you get to make. The same is true in any system of law that tries to recognize rights beyond specific classes of people. Only in a tyranny does there exist a person who has absolute freedom. The step below them is the pecking order for the next tyrant. That's not the kind of world Stallman wants for software, and I'd suppose for the world in general. I don't really want it for both either.
As extreme as it might seem to draw parallels between software and human lives, it's the same principle underlying both, and so I don't see how you can dismiss the basis as counterproductive, anti-progressive, or being unchanging. It's ideology that's the foundation for most democracies of today. It was a Declaration of Independence in the USA that laid out the injustice of a lack of representation. I can truly say I have very little representation in the software industry, no matter how much those paper voting ballots claim I can elect someone who would end or severally change copyright for the benefit of all. Today may not be the day to rise up in indignation because of the tyranny of corporations (they're tyrants in part because they're the only one in the market, a crucial step in power corrupting absolutely), but it's also not the day to lay down the pitchforks and act like everything is all fine in the world. Just perhaps the ideology of the foundation of the country a company resides in might be applied upon one of the most basic elements that compose that country.
If you tell your boss that you want everyone to start migrating from Microsoft products to "free software", chances are they won't be too excited about the prospect.
How about wording it as, "Would you rather be forced into paying one company a lump sum of money and pray that everything works out, or would you rather manage where your money goes and have a lot more control over results?" Almost certainly they'll be happier with the latter if they're at all good capitalists. The only real issue then is whether they work on making BSD, GPL, or proprietary software. I think most companies would be most pleased starting off with BSD software and going from there. So, perhaps they're keen to "open source" more because of its apparent flexibility to their needs.
Re:exactly, license patent to GPL software only
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Revising the GPL
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Or simply distribution, given that if company A holds patent X, their distribution of a program which uses patent X under this proposed license would basically be equivalent to them having just put up a statement that all GPLed software may use patent X. It'd be best though that it include all IP rights except trademark, as trade secrets is the next stepping stone claim.
"There's no physical harm in [recording someone having sex]."
Really? So you wouldn't mind if I secretly put a videocamera in your bathroom?
Of course I mind. I would also mind someone I respect insulting me. That doesn't mean it's physical harm. Physical harm involves contact of some kind, be it directly skin to skin or through some indirect physical (ie, matter or large amounts of energy) contact. Again, the video camera wasn't radioactive nor is there any indication that she was even being remotely blinded by it. Hence, there's no basis to claim physical harm.
"The foundation of rape is about violence acted upon a person by another involving sex against their will."
In some cases, yes. However, not always. Drugging a girl such that she is unable to refuse consent and then sleeping with her is considered rape, even though no violence was used.
This is another strawman example. Not refusing consent is not equivalent to consenting. The only point at which it is equivalent is when you've given consent already for some act. Furthermore, violence in this context means to do physical harm upon another. Physical harm can be simply touching. So, all aspects of rape are present.
"But please don't call it rape. "
Ok, I have now defined the word "tantamount" so you can no longer claim ignorance. From now on any accusation that I called the act rape will be regarded at a rather pathetic attempt at a strawman argument and pointed out as such.
Fine, please don't call it tantamount to rape. The effects of rape are not equivalent to that of exploitation or voyeurism. The effects of rape are much more profound than any recording of a consensual act. It saddens me that you think any meaningful equivalency can be drawn on the effects of rape.
"Now, as for your example example, if a girl gives consent for sex, she's giving consent for sexual intercourse unless there's a reasonable context that she knows sex means S such a context would mean that they'd discussed in the past sex and S&M and agreed on it."
Would you mind rewording that? It doesn't make much sense. For the record, the S in S&M does not stand for sex. Furthermore, the girl in the example had not consented to S&M, that was the point of the example.
The '&M;' for S&M (where it just says S) was cut off; I should have looked more closely in the preview. To reword it, sex means sexual intercourse with no other context. If they'd done oral sex before, it might mean that. If they discussed S&M, it might mean that. Without giving a context, your example is really bad in that sex might mean S&M. But assuming it doesn't, then she never gave consent to it.
In the India example the video was by all acounts I've heard against her will. She couldn't vocally disagree because she was not aware what he was doing. For our analogy, imagine that in the S&M example one of the first things the guy does is gag her, thus preventing her from vocally disagreeing with anything.
That's not a valid analogy. Even while gaged she could resist. Resistance would be a strong indicator that she wasn't giving consent. Not trying to confirm consent would be tantamount to rape. On the other hand, recording a consensual act isn't an act performed on a person. There's no claim that the camera was emitting a light that was blinding the person or radiation that was harming them. Instead, the complaint is that reflected light from an outside source (probably a lamp) was being captured by one person of another person. There's no physical harm in that.
And while I'm at it, in reply to another post about your cut/pasting in the definition of tantamount:
The point is she was forced to do something sexual (participate in a pornographic videotape) against her will.
You're wrong. She participated in the sexual act willingly (the oral sex). There's nothing sexual about videotaping someone. Therefore, there's no reasonable basis to claim that the recording itself is somehow a forced sexual act. So, there's no equivalency in effect or value.
Could it have been worse? Yes, and I never said it couldn't. That doesn't change the fact that she was sexually exploited.
Was she sexually exploited? Possibly. But at least where I live there's only a punishment for child exploitation--blatant prostitution too, though I can't understand the rational behind that; I state blatant since it's perfectly legally to marry someone solely for money under the understanding that lineage must be created to continue the marriage. All pornography can be claimed to be exploitative. So can just about anything you do, as you're likely undervaluing yourself. It's accepted that adults are old enough that they should be liable for the consequences of this; it's not as well accepted that the same is true for sexually active teenagers.
Now, at 16 she's possibly still considered a child (even though she can legally have sex), so it's possible that the exhibition or distribution of the video is illegal. Of course, that really doesn't make sense since legally being allowed to have sex would imply that you're aware enough of all the possible consequences to be responsible for them.
Having stated all this, I would like to point out that self-exploitation is not at all like rape. The foundation of rape is about violence acted upon a person by another involving sex against their will. There was no violence and there was consent towards the sex act. It seems strange to me that you'd claim that a violent nonwillful act and a nonviolent willful act would have equivalent effect. Almost every single lawbook would disagree (eg. commiting violent homicide vs commiting non-violent suicide).
So, feel free to complain that she was exploited. There might even be a law to punish the boy, his classmates, and the guy on ebay who started the auction. But please don't call it rape. Doing so does a disservice to all those who were truly raped.
Would it be rape if a hidden captured a politician taking a bribe, be it in a string operation run by the police or by individuals? What if it was just a security camera? I've no idea how the law in India works, but in the US we have the standard of privacy protection from the *Government*. That means that places can't be forced to included security/hidden cameras in private spaces by the Government. But there's nothing to stop the Government from renting out a room, hiding cameras, then inviting you in to catch you commiting a crime. Nor is there anything to stop them using a camera out in public.
It's definitely nothing like a rape. It's possibly copyright infringement, depending on if one's likeness is copyrightable; that seems sort of crazy, going back to the above example of government corruption. It might be labelled child porn, though I've know idea if India law supports that. That's the only possible reasonable match for a crime. Whether there's a civil matter is another question.
Now, as for your example example, if a girl gives consent for sex, she's giving consent for sexual intercourse unless there's a reasonable context that she knows sex means S such a context would mean that they'd discussed in the past sex and S&M and agreed on it. There's also the point that if S&M was initiated against her will, she could/would disagree with it. So, in all probability she'd vocally disagree to the act which would remove any claim of consent.
On a more fundamental point, there's clearly a distinction between taking a photo of an act and committing an act itself; one is an independent act of recording energy, be it heat, light, or sound while the other is the physical contact of two individuals. If there was a verbal contract (ie, they agreed) that the act would not be recorded in some fashion, then she'd have a basis to sue him regardless of distribution. Just like a verbal contract could stop any distribution if she agreed to it being recorded. But without a verbal contract in place, there's no real basis to prevent the recording or distribution.
Now with all the legalize out of the way, what you're really talking about isn't rape but a loss of trust. While the girl almost certainly didn't make a verbal contract, she also almost certainly assumed that there was an implied agreement that the boy would not record then redistribute a recording of their private act. That's true for most people. But this loss of trust (and whatever embarrassment/humiliation comes out of it) happens in relationships that end all the time. To act like every single bit of heartbreak that occurs is a rape is to greatly diminish the perceived severity of rape. If India or US States wants to enact law to defined the legal qualifications for a relationship such that a list of things have to be explicitly allowed instead of explicitly disallowed, that's certainly a possibility. And at that time, I welcome the inclusion of a new collection of words or phrases to discribe such a situation in the criminal and civil context. But misusing a very serious word as rape to try to analogize the circumstance described does nothing but weaken the perceived inhumaneness of rape.
Technically, the US isn't censoring speech. Since the AM, FM, UHF, and VHF airwaves are owned by the US government (and leased back to stations), they have a right to determine how those airwaves are used - the rule is called 'public interest'.
The airwaves are fundamentally owned by everyone, which means everyone can use them. But, in the public interest, it was decided to regulate the air waves by selling them (who knows why voting wasn't suggested) in sections. Now, the FCC does limit what is said on said airwaves. The FCC is a part of the executive branch, which is funded by Congressional budgeting. The first amendment (which is only a reiteration of what is fundamentally true) states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". The Executive Branch can do near nothing without being directed by Congress, so it's very clear that Congress has made a law violating this amendment. The US government is of the people and by the people. And the people specifically stated in the Constitution that the government cannot abridge speech.
The fact is, the government doesn't really have a right to control who uses the airwaves because such is an abridgement of speech as well; can you imagine the US directing a group of people in a crowd to speak one at a time to avoid interference and actually jailing people for not going along with what they said? This is reality. If the people of the US wish to allow the government to regulate the airwaves in some constitutional fashion, they need to include an amendment. It's really that simple. Personally I'd go for voting for who gets what band every year. Finer grain splitting of frequencies would mean very quickly that everyone in the US could have their own channel if they want. And then you'd have something like the internet where it takes word of mouth to lead to gateways to other channels that interest you. Wouldn't that be a fine world?
If indeed the First Amendment provides an absolute, constitutional protection for the right to speech in order to preserve the power of the people to resist government tyranny, then it must allow individuals to possess porn, KKK hate mail, death threats against the President, and even child porn, for they, like political speech, gossip and political smear campaigns, are speech. Moreover, it is hard to imagine any serious resistance to the government without such speech. Yet few, if any, would argue that the First Amendment gives individuals the unlimited right to utter any speech they please. </witty alteration>
As much as I hate what I deem the morally horrible speech of others, I still support their right to say it. And as much as I hate the idea of my neighbors owning a nuclear device, I still support their right to own one. It is both speech and means which provide for the defense of men. It scares me more than anything when any means of defense is wholly entrusted to the government; that is scarier to me than entrusting defense in my neighbor, for I know who he is, and he can easily be retaliated against for his misdeeds.
ASF (aka WMV) container format is patented by MS, so MS is probably happy about this. I wonder why Nintendo didn't go with avi format. Far as I'm aware it's not patented. Though I guess they'd have to pay money to the MPEG consortium in any case, unless they went with theora which is currently out of the question. It just seems strange for Nintendo to willing pay money to a competitor in a market place where said competitor isn't doing great if they could avoid it. Anyone have a clue why they went with the ASF format?
If anything, this puts responsibility back onto the parents. You can't blame you're kid shooting someone on video games if the parents have to buy them for them.
If the parent isn't around to stop a kid from buying/renting an AO or Mature rated game/movie/whatever, then they're already responsible, just in a worse way than if they allowed the kid the game/movie/whatever knowingly. As a parent, it is your responsibility to know what your child is up to. Btw, this is one reason I really think the definition of child in most things should be reduced by a few years at least. Hell, 10 years should know not to murder people.
There's no good logic to inately banning drunk drivers from the road (or anyone needing to have a driver's license). If you're incapable of driving responsibly, you should be stopped regardless of intoxication. If a drunk driver is shown to be seriously negligent, they deserve time in a jail, not having a piece of plastic removed from them.
I'd much rather see fewer people in a prison environment for non-violent crimes and actually receiving proper punishment for the crime. (emphasis mine)
Proper punishment is not being let loose in the world. If more white collar hackers/spammers/etc who violate others freedom are deprived of their freedom in the *same* fashion as anyone else who deprives others of their freedom, how is that not proper punishment? There's no difference between stealing money physically or electronically, all other things being equal. Why should comparable means make the punishment lighter/heavier?
I mean did your parents lock you in the cellar every time you misbehaved as a kid or did they choose punishments that suited the crime [e.g. being deprive of a toy, grounded, etc]
No, but then we didn't have a cellar. Seriously, though, the government isn't a parent. It doesn't have rights over you nor can it be a constant parent to your activities. When you're a kid, your parents parent you. When you're an adult, you are punished by the government. The government isn't looking out for you and trying to help you learn. That's what parents are for. The government is there to punish you when you violate someone else. If you're so far gone that your family can't help you, what makes you think the government has any right to try to brainwash^Wrehabilitate you into not doing the crime again? If you want to start a private organization to help criminals rehabilitate during visiting hours, that's a whole other issue. But stop trying to push for the government to be our ever-present parent/big brother.
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Also, I don't believe that the Constitution grants rights to minors. Sorry, you don't have the right to free speech until you are 18.
The Constitution doesn't grant rights. The Bill of Rights is only a listing of protections of rights that inherently exist. They're there in an attempt to prevent having another bloody revolution because the government because too powerful and ends up pushing its people to overthrow it.
Having stated that, there's clearly nothing to distinguish this protection based on age (though the statement of "all men are created equal" could be claimed as only applying to males). The point is more that adults (read, 18+ year olds) are the only ones with the power/ability to seriously overthrow the government, and most parents aren't interested in helping protect the rights of their children; ie, most parents are bad parents.
So, it's not at all a question of if children are granted rights. The only real question is at what point will the children be willing and able to rise up against their parents/the government to rage a war to stop such Draconian law. I can only guess what the new "age limit" will be. Maybe it'll be 6-7, when the kindergarteners first reach school and are exposed to curse words. By that point, though, curse words won't really exist (though racist words might do), so they'll have to progress to backing morally reprehensable positions to shock/awe their peers.
Yes, I am missing the point. What does being a teacher have to do with something not involving a teacher? We're not talking about having a teacher sit in front of a class and demonstrate how to best frag in Halo 2. We're talking about using school/public property to play a game, as authorized by the school children's parents. School policy to "not sanction or sponsor activities that are not designed for kids" rather ignores the point that somewhere along the line the "designed for kids" is a moral question, since the only thing that makes it *not* designed for kids is the ESRB rating, which clearly is a moral rating. But clearly the parents are okay with it, so they've designed that it is designed for their child. And *they* are the parents, not the administrator.
The teachers have nothing to do with this. Teachers don't set school policy. More than that, they aren't charged with controlling access to school property, except in cases where they specifically are by the administration.
As for the "no one is saying they can't go play the game off of school grounds", the point is there's no *valid* basis for the game to be unplayable on school grounds, except either to (a) follow a policy of moral code known as "designed for kids" or (b) to limit liability of being sued if any kid happens to shoot up the school, and somehow the tournament somehow is associated with the blame by a lawyer. Seeing as that the tournament is the the students of the school, it can be closed to only those with permission from parents, and it doesn't involve outside people, I'm very hard pressed to understand how it would fall into some other nebulous case by which the school has any valid basis of claiming that somehow it's a misuse of school equipment. Administration policy is obviously too anal retentive and a waste of school equipment.
Most tax payers don't have the profession of teacher, yes. I've no idea what that has to do with the conversation. :)
Tax payers pay for the teachers to teach and the school administrators to properly utilize finance money for the equipment/property for the school children. What's being talked about isn't, for example, a beer festival, which is likely illegal for the children involved (in my state, it's legal for a child to imbibe alcohol with their parents permission, though I forget if it's only on private property). Instead, it's an activity which involves school children *of the school* and approved by the parents (aka, tax payers). The only basis the school administrators have to not "sanction" the activity is if it were deemed too costly.
Schools are not there to teach morality to the school children, especially overriding the parents who are *right there* teaching morality. Halo 2 may not be "intended for kids", but certainly those who are not "kids" (ie, 17+, according to the ESRB content rating) and those for whom their parents have legally vouched for are not in a position where it's at all a question on whether it's the will of the people who are involved. I mean, *all* the parents signed wavers. It sounds like, more than anything, an attempt to reduce the "liability" of "another Columbine". It is nothing about following the will of the people/tax payers/parents, and so clearly the school district is not doing its job.
No, parents are responsable for kids. The school district is only liable if it did something stupid like not require waivers from all 16- year olds who wanted to join-in/spectate. The school grounds are public property. While not in use for the school, they should be available for any public activity. And yes, this probably means having at least a few school personnel as supervisors to make sure there isn't damaged public property. I mean, why are the parents/tax payers paying money for if not to use the equipment/property?
Clearly, when Jesus isn't busy helping rap artists and football stars he's busy fucking up software. Just further proof that Jesus is pro hos; bitches; guys with bling, bling; and large sweaty guys while he's against fat and thin geeks and the internet in general.
Most of the 20th Century was the switch from white Christian rule -> local inhabitant rule in Africa and those parts of Asia other than China. To an extent the sale of opium trade allowed the rule of China. South America is composed mostly of Europeans and European/Native American. Hispanic might not be seen as "white" (certainly, spectrally skin color tends to be browner than the peach of "white"), they're still considered caucasian by most, and they're certainly primarily Christian. So, it'd seem that South America is still ruled by "white" Christians, while "white" Christians still have much economic control in Africa. Asia has primarily liberated itself from "white" rule, though the lack of large deposits of lucrative diamond trade and the banning of the drug trade might have a large part to do with it.
How much of a reversion to local religion, devoid of Christianity do you think has occurred? What about reversion away from "white" influence? The US has certainly pushed its influence on others, through trade and movies.
Having said all this, I'm not trying to say that there aren't countries which influence others. But if you had to take one group that's been most oppressive in the last 100 years of other groups and who still possesses an undue amount of the wealth of the world, I'd have to point at white Christian males. However, thankfully in especially the last 10 years there's been a sharp reversal in other countries improving themselves greatly in their ability to compete in the global market. I only hope that most in other countries begin to realize that whole industries can exist without the US or Europe in the loop (but possible on the buying end), and that's when the real massive wealth building begins.
And white male Christian Americans tend to be the ones in power. Given that the world isn't optimal, their blanket statements do seem to be based at least partially in fact. Being a white male agnostic American, I really don't care. If someone were to call me a cracker or some other slur remark, it wouldn't really hurt me. Why? Because in general it's white male [Christian] Americans who are in power. Even the most derogatory term for a rich person still acknowledges they are rich.
Now, having said that, I don't think there's anything inherent to being white, male, Christian, or American that makes one "rich". It just happens that many were born that way and others have through ethical and unethical means propped the whole "group" in that position. I truly welcome the day when that group dissolves, not because I suffer some pain of insults, but because the construction of the "group" is only as strong as the mental perception of it; there's no actual value in being a part of the group, and the best value is for everyone to be a part of the group.
The majority of people will never be in "power" because all "power" groupings are shaped like pyramids (the pyramid scheme). So, the day that we're all judged by our actions is the day that the majority is in the best situation. And it's the day that the pyramid is made of the willing instead of the repressed. I'm not on top of the pyramid, so I very much welcome that day; I just wish I knew for certain that if I were at the top of one such pyramid I would feel the same and welcome the revolt of thought.
Having stated all that, it's best not to generalize. Why? Because while it is good in a life-or-death situation to be able to quickly find the strongest/fastest/whatever person to do a task, in any sane situation each person can be judged in ample time that it is not necessary to make such snap judgments. And once you get to know each person, you truly can know what each person is best at. Assuming needlessly is bad, for you and for others.
It seems like you're desperately trying to distort what I said. Even without copyright, there will still be publishers putting out CDs and DVDs because most people are willing to pay for the convenience of getting a disc instead of spending the time/effort to track down things themselves. So, concerts and plays will be "bootlegged" just like anything else, but people will still go to concerts and plays like they do now, and probably they'll do it more just because it feels better to watch a play in person than to watch it from someone's "cam" rip of the event.
Without many movies being in production (I'm certain low-budget films will continue to be made), play prices will likely go down which means a lot more local entertainment which I'm sure a lot of artists would love. Those who don't want to tour to make money are basically in a bind. But, then that's the way the free market works. The world doesn't owe such people a living. If they want to do the art as a career, they have to think of a way to make money.
None of this is a desire to squash creativity. I think it's funny that you have such a limited view of the subject. I would think the monoculture of a few distributors of movies and music would do much more to destroy creativity than anything. And I'm not trying to ignore the technology of 500 years. The ability to play back music flawlessly millions of times in every home without the need of a musician has certainly been a huge reduction in costs for people.
At the same time, people still go to concerts because music and plays are more than just about hearing/watching the static past actions of others. It's about getting to know/meet the people who make the art to further understand it. And it's to see the various ways in which the play/music evolves given that most artists alter their work as inspirating has them rewrite it.
I can't think of an artform that was invented in the last 500 years that cannot be done by small groups of individuals. Yes, movies as of current are very extravagant affairs, but their basic construction can be done with a good bit of time and lots of technology that's readily available.
The thing then that's missing to "preserve other art forms" is having massive amounts of money. The ideal life of the rock star with millions of dollars to blow and culture surrounding it might die. To me such culture can be preserved in history in plays. It doesn't need to be preserved in the making of the rich. It's just not much of a loss, in my eyes.
Finally, "the tragedy of the commons" is in various ways a bad analogy for the situation. The commons is a finite, grassy area which the industry of raising sheep was based. Without an owner or owners to divide up the commons and control it, each sheep owner was only as interested in, and had as much control in, keeping their own sheep fed. The tragedy of the commons doesn't decry how innovation doesn't occur. It decries how without ownership production of the norm disappears. But, clearly artworks already created do not disappear. You're crying out about the loss of *new* works of art, be them in the same genres that exist or new genres that do not exist yet.
Works already created are effectively infinite. To prevent pollution of a work, there could be the right of attribution without ever a need of ownership. No one needs to own works that already exist to continue their preservation. The only things that are needed are a means of gaining a copy (pay someone, if necessary) and a way to verify its integrity (attribution law + verification software conceivably).
There's a commons of information around you. It's the basis of the free market and democracy. Without it, one stumbles in the dark without any thoughts. People learning ideas does not diminish your knowledge, and them possing copies in books or other physical media does not diminish your ability to be creative in the alteration of existing works or in creating new works whose wonderment will cause them to lon
If you tell me that I can only be creative for my own enjoyment, and can't make money off it, then I'll tell you this: Nobody is going to create music, movies, etc anymore.
Actually, you can make money off of your creativity. But the free market will end up making it such that only live performances will get you any serious money, as publishers (be it online or offline) will make the bulk of the money from redistribution of the same song.
There will be nothing left for you to enjoy, because people will not have any incentive to produce works and distribute them.
Lets go back in time over 500 years to a time when there weren't books, CDs, or movies. Was there creative works? Hell yea. You can go back all the way to the Roman Coliseum or the Greek plays (a few obvious examples) to find entertainment. Shakespeare had to contend with pretty heavy piracy of his work as in England at the time actors were considered scum, so there was no legal protection offered to plays. Yet, amazingly Shakespeare and company routinely performed to sold-out houses. Why? Because that's all the entertainment there was.
Now, back to the present. Imagine if there wasn't a way to protect your copyrighted works from piracy. What then? Well, beyond the lock publishers would have on distributing really cheap versions of all the new plays, people would be forced to go out to plays more and music halls to meet people if they wanted to stay fashionable. With everything selling cheap, you'd get a glut of spam music/movies otherwise (publishers would be desperate for the attention for their massive plethora of goods).
So, I can only partially agree with your statement. Works would still be produced, there'd still be things to enjoy, but artists surely would not be the main force behind distribution of copies.
If you're ok with that, great. But don't expect the same quality of movies, music, etc to be released. These things take time and money to create.
You're probably right about there being a lot less extravagant movies and music. You'd likely see most publishers distributing concert bootlegs. Few (no?) publisher would be willing to have the exclusive rights to a "clean" version of a song/play because other publishers would near instantly redistribute it to others for the same or cheaper price. It'd only be stuff like brand loyalty that'd make people still go with a company. But how strong would that really be?
Where am I going to 'perform' my movie (which is some people's justification for music)?
It's called a play. Theater isn't completely dead, yet.
If you want everything for free, you can have it...but there'll be nothing created you want.
No, I think that if everything were near free, there'd be a lot less content, but even then we the people would be utterly spammed by the backlog of old content as well as current content, and people would be motivated to go to concerts and plays more because it'd be the only way they'd feel like they invested in something worthwhile.
Btw, my real concern of all the people you mention is the author. Even great authors, as storytellers, would likely have a much harder time competing against concerts and plays than books do against CDs and DVDs. At the same time, I think you'd find a lot more interesting storytellers out there who would live off of their performances. I'm pretty sure I'd much more enjoy the one-on-one interactions with the author than the situation that's of current.
And just to continue on this side-thread about books, you might be interested to know that Samuel Clemens was all for having infinite copyright length. Now, while I get the impression that this was at least somewhat his own selfishness, he makes a good point as well. That point is this: the removal of copyright in his time simply meant more profit for the publisher. There wasn't any incentive to decrease the price of the book because few, if any, other publishers were
"to rebuild something that already works."
ActiveX works like a Pinto works. Sure, you can drive around in a Pinto, but who in their right mind would be willing to continue using a Pinto in a company knowing the catastrophic damage possible (and the lawsuits from all the burned/dead employees' spouses)? ActiveX is as much a design flaw as the Pinto's gas tank was, and sure it requires misuse to activate the flaw, but the damage potential is so high that Ford was required to fix the problem. If MS can't fix the design flaw, and companies aren't willing to sue MS over it, then they should know the next move would have to be moving away from ActiveX because it obviously doesn't "already work" if part of working is not having such obvious massive potential for destroying a company*.
*Note: Obviously, we're not at that point where the law is setup such that many people would consider suing a company into oblivion for releasing personal information (which is almost certainly a violation of the contract by which said company got the information), but I wonder how long that'll be the case. I guess companies won't move until they face obvious risk.
Yes, it's a two-way street. That means that the FBI should be more clear if it wants more contractors to take the risk of working with them, and it means that contractors will have to assume there will be resistance and changes which means they'll have to overestimate their bid instead of making it lower to win the bid. The net result is that the resulting winning bid would be closer to the actual money spent and hopefully the project would have completed more successfully.
I'd say being paid is a reward. The world doesn't owe you a living, nor does the government. If you don't do the job, you shouldn't be paid. And if you demand software be made but do it so badly that you don't get what you want, you still have to pay. The shit hits the fan most often when both sides don't plan enough ahead. And you shouldn't be hired if you haven't a clue what you're going to be doing. It's not childish to expect that people do what they promise. It's not childish to expect that people to clearly state their demands for what they want. It's only childish to hold it against either side when both have worked hard early and often to guarantee such problems don't occur. It doesn't sound like that's what happened.
In giving the contractor money, the government signs a contract with said contractor. If the product doesn't pan out, then the contractor is in violation of contract and the government should get most its money back. There's no need for jail time. Obviously the contract will have some flexibility. But clearly companies should only bid if: they think their bid value is close to the actual cost, they think the project is doable, and they're willing to suffer the consequences if they're wrong. If the government makes undoable projects, less companies are likely to bid, and hopefully less waste will occur.
There just doesn't seem to be a good reason to accept massive waste and not hold such companies financially liable for promising something they should have known wasn't doable. It's the job of the contractor to know when a job is undoable and not even try to provide a solution. If they're unable to do that, then why are they being rewarded?
I never mentioned the catholic church, as most (all?) of my witnessing of the shear audacity in the spending of money in adornment of churches has been in the US where the catholic church isn't involved. It's not like religion started with the Catholic Church, anyways. I'd have spoken more about Judaism if I had more experience with it, but I've watched of the clear adornment of Jewish Tabernacles back around 100BC or 100AD (I forget which side it was, but 200 years hardly seems that big a deal in such a time scale). So, I totally agree that it's true for any religion. It's, of course, Christians and Jews which clearly don't follow their own 2nd Commandment, though (I'm quasi-Quaker, and such ritual/adornment is one of the reasons why the Society of Friends formed).
Your final line really sums up the relationship nicely, though. Churches are just like a business, out to buy the talent of people to sell their product. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it weren't for the fact that a lot of Christian groups in the US seems to have mostly joined in a religious xenophobic monopoly that encourages the squashing of competing ideas.
To me, it's the same ethical position as writing a catchy song lingo for Microsoft. At some point, there's something clearly unethical about supporting any group that is in the position to truly hurt others for having or expressing their own ideas. Of course this is a generalization, just like it's a generalization that all record execs are evil blood suckers; clearly there are record execs outside of the RIAA. But, I'm talking most specifically about those Churches who would so feveretly dictate religion to the masses while at the same time doing such unethical acts as trying to destroy/ban in some way all ideas they oppose. I'm all for them not buying things or boycotting stores or whatever. At some point, though, churches really need to stop going after all the ideas they don't like and focus more on the bad acts that people are blatantly commiting in front of them.
Yada yada yada...talk about way off-topic.
people forget that though science and society seems to have outgrown the need for dogma, the church through history propped up the infant institutions of art
<troll>It seems like you've got that backwards. It's art that's propped up the church through such great fiction as the Bible (okay, I don't doubt it's "based on a real story", but we all know how well that translates in just real story to tv movie; imagine thousands of years of oral tradition)</troll>. It's the artist that drew in the people. It was the rituals that drew in the crowds. It was this mighty God with his luxurious temple and the great riches it offered for the wealthy that motivated kings to support churches to a great extent.
The tradition of royalty/aristocrats sending one's first son into the army and his second into the church quite well places how the power structure worked. How many simple farmers sent their sons to the church where they became bishops? Anyways, this is getting way off-topic. The most amusing thing is this: Christianity fundamentally ignores its own rules about art (the 2nd commandment). Art very clearly has the means to move the soul (one's anxiety over one's existence), and clearly there was fear of it in the past. It's ironic to me that you'd turn so happily to church who so readily wishes to subvert solely for its own benefit. If art can truly move the soul, and if it truly is okay to be made and viewed for one purpose, then there should be no sane reason to smack down all art that one hates, unless the goal is to solely to control others through art and not allow people to look into themselves to find out what they truly wish to believe.
Stallman talks up his fight for freedom, but then pushes against the freedom of choice.
Yea, that bastard. I mean, I want to live in a country where I can do whatever I want. Why would I want to give everyone else the same freedoms I have? That's just crazy. I should be one of the few elite who can go off and kill people without consequences while anyone outside the elite who dares even touch one of us will be brutaly executed. And maybe from time to time, we'll actually follow up on peons killing peons to make the peons think we're the only thing between them and the mindless void of everyone having the same rights.
Yea, I'm being a good bit harsh, but Stallman is about giving everyone freedoms. To some extent, yes, that does limit some of the choices you get to make. The same is true in any system of law that tries to recognize rights beyond specific classes of people. Only in a tyranny does there exist a person who has absolute freedom. The step below them is the pecking order for the next tyrant. That's not the kind of world Stallman wants for software, and I'd suppose for the world in general. I don't really want it for both either.
As extreme as it might seem to draw parallels between software and human lives, it's the same principle underlying both, and so I don't see how you can dismiss the basis as counterproductive, anti-progressive, or being unchanging. It's ideology that's the foundation for most democracies of today. It was a Declaration of Independence in the USA that laid out the injustice of a lack of representation. I can truly say I have very little representation in the software industry, no matter how much those paper voting ballots claim I can elect someone who would end or severally change copyright for the benefit of all. Today may not be the day to rise up in indignation because of the tyranny of corporations (they're tyrants in part because they're the only one in the market, a crucial step in power corrupting absolutely), but it's also not the day to lay down the pitchforks and act like everything is all fine in the world. Just perhaps the ideology of the foundation of the country a company resides in might be applied upon one of the most basic elements that compose that country.
"you get what you pay for"
That depends highly on who you pay and for what.
If you tell your boss that you want everyone to start migrating from Microsoft products to "free software", chances are they won't be too excited about the prospect.
How about wording it as, "Would you rather be forced into paying one company a lump sum of money and pray that everything works out, or would you rather manage where your money goes and have a lot more control over results?" Almost certainly they'll be happier with the latter if they're at all good capitalists. The only real issue then is whether they work on making BSD, GPL, or proprietary software. I think most companies would be most pleased starting off with BSD software and going from there. So, perhaps they're keen to "open source" more because of its apparent flexibility to their needs.
Or simply distribution, given that if company A holds patent X, their distribution of a program which uses patent X under this proposed license would basically be equivalent to them having just put up a statement that all GPLed software may use patent X. It'd be best though that it include all IP rights except trademark, as trade secrets is the next stepping stone claim.
"There's no physical harm in [recording someone having sex]."
Really? So you wouldn't mind if I secretly put a videocamera in your bathroom?
Of course I mind. I would also mind someone I respect insulting me. That doesn't mean it's physical harm. Physical harm involves contact of some kind, be it directly skin to skin or through some indirect physical (ie, matter or large amounts of energy) contact. Again, the video camera wasn't radioactive nor is there any indication that she was even being remotely blinded by it. Hence, there's no basis to claim physical harm.
"The foundation of rape is about violence acted upon a person by another involving sex against their will."
In some cases, yes. However, not always. Drugging a girl such that she is unable to refuse consent and then sleeping with her is considered rape, even though no violence was used.
This is another strawman example. Not refusing consent is not equivalent to consenting. The only point at which it is equivalent is when you've given consent already for some act. Furthermore, violence in this context means to do physical harm upon another. Physical harm can be simply touching. So, all aspects of rape are present.
"But please don't call it rape. "
Ok, I have now defined the word "tantamount" so you can no longer claim ignorance. From now on any accusation that I called the act rape will be regarded at a rather pathetic attempt at a strawman argument and pointed out as such.
Fine, please don't call it tantamount to rape. The effects of rape are not equivalent to that of exploitation or voyeurism. The effects of rape are much more profound than any recording of a consensual act. It saddens me that you think any meaningful equivalency can be drawn on the effects of rape.
"Now, as for your example example, if a girl gives consent for sex, she's giving consent for sexual intercourse unless there's a reasonable context that she knows sex means S such a context would mean that they'd discussed in the past sex and S&M and agreed on it."
Would you mind rewording that? It doesn't make much sense. For the record, the S in S&M does not stand for sex. Furthermore, the girl in the example had not consented to S&M, that was the point of the example.
The '&M;' for S&M (where it just says S) was cut off; I should have looked more closely in the preview. To reword it, sex means sexual intercourse with no other context. If they'd done oral sex before, it might mean that. If they discussed S&M, it might mean that. Without giving a context, your example is really bad in that sex might mean S&M. But assuming it doesn't, then she never gave consent to it.
In the India example the video was by all acounts I've heard against her will. She couldn't vocally disagree because she was not aware what he was doing. For our analogy, imagine that in the S&M example one of the first things the guy does is gag her, thus preventing her from vocally disagreeing with anything.
That's not a valid analogy. Even while gaged she could resist. Resistance would be a strong indicator that she wasn't giving consent. Not trying to confirm consent would be tantamount to rape. On the other hand, recording a consensual act isn't an act performed on a person. There's no claim that the camera was emitting a light that was blinding the person or radiation that was harming them. Instead, the complaint is that reflected light from an outside source (probably a lamp) was being captured by one person of another person. There's no physical harm in that.
And while I'm at it, in reply to another post about your cut/pasting in the definition of tantamount:
The point is she was forced to do something sexual (participate in a pornographic videotape) against her will.
You're wrong. She participated in the sexual act willingly (the oral sex). There's nothing sexual about videotaping someone. Therefore, there's no reasonable basis to claim that the recording itself is somehow a forced sexual act. So, there's no equivalency in effect or value.
Could it have been worse? Yes, and I never said it couldn't. That doesn't change the fact that she was sexually exploited.
Was she sexually exploited? Possibly. But at least where I live there's only a punishment for child exploitation--blatant prostitution too, though I can't understand the rational behind that; I state blatant since it's perfectly legally to marry someone solely for money under the understanding that lineage must be created to continue the marriage. All pornography can be claimed to be exploitative. So can just about anything you do, as you're likely undervaluing yourself. It's accepted that adults are old enough that they should be liable for the consequences of this; it's not as well accepted that the same is true for sexually active teenagers.
Now, at 16 she's possibly still considered a child (even though she can legally have sex), so it's possible that the exhibition or distribution of the video is illegal. Of course, that really doesn't make sense since legally being allowed to have sex would imply that you're aware enough of all the possible consequences to be responsible for them.
Having stated all this, I would like to point out that self-exploitation is not at all like rape. The foundation of rape is about violence acted upon a person by another involving sex against their will. There was no violence and there was consent towards the sex act. It seems strange to me that you'd claim that a violent nonwillful act and a nonviolent willful act would have equivalent effect. Almost every single lawbook would disagree (eg. commiting violent homicide vs commiting non-violent suicide).
So, feel free to complain that she was exploited. There might even be a law to punish the boy, his classmates, and the guy on ebay who started the auction. But please don't call it rape. Doing so does a disservice to all those who were truly raped.
Would it be rape if a hidden captured a politician taking a bribe, be it in a string operation run by the police or by individuals? What if it was just a security camera? I've no idea how the law in India works, but in the US we have the standard of privacy protection from the *Government*. That means that places can't be forced to included security/hidden cameras in private spaces by the Government. But there's nothing to stop the Government from renting out a room, hiding cameras, then inviting you in to catch you commiting a crime. Nor is there anything to stop them using a camera out in public.
It's definitely nothing like a rape. It's possibly copyright infringement, depending on if one's likeness is copyrightable; that seems sort of crazy, going back to the above example of government corruption. It might be labelled child porn, though I've know idea if India law supports that. That's the only possible reasonable match for a crime. Whether there's a civil matter is another question.
Now, as for your example example, if a girl gives consent for sex, she's giving consent for sexual intercourse unless there's a reasonable context that she knows sex means S such a context would mean that they'd discussed in the past sex and S&M and agreed on it. There's also the point that if S&M was initiated against her will, she could/would disagree with it. So, in all probability she'd vocally disagree to the act which would remove any claim of consent.
On a more fundamental point, there's clearly a distinction between taking a photo of an act and committing an act itself; one is an independent act of recording energy, be it heat, light, or sound while the other is the physical contact of two individuals. If there was a verbal contract (ie, they agreed) that the act would not be recorded in some fashion, then she'd have a basis to sue him regardless of distribution. Just like a verbal contract could stop any distribution if she agreed to it being recorded. But without a verbal contract in place, there's no real basis to prevent the recording or distribution.
Now with all the legalize out of the way, what you're really talking about isn't rape but a loss of trust. While the girl almost certainly didn't make a verbal contract, she also almost certainly assumed that there was an implied agreement that the boy would not record then redistribute a recording of their private act. That's true for most people. But this loss of trust (and whatever embarrassment/humiliation comes out of it) happens in relationships that end all the time. To act like every single bit of heartbreak that occurs is a rape is to greatly diminish the perceived severity of rape. If India or US States wants to enact law to defined the legal qualifications for a relationship such that a list of things have to be explicitly allowed instead of explicitly disallowed, that's certainly a possibility. And at that time, I welcome the inclusion of a new collection of words or phrases to discribe such a situation in the criminal and civil context. But misusing a very serious word as rape to try to analogize the circumstance described does nothing but weaken the perceived inhumaneness of rape.
Technically, the US isn't censoring speech. Since the AM, FM, UHF, and VHF airwaves are owned by the US government (and leased back to stations), they have a right to determine how those airwaves are used - the rule is called 'public interest'.
... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". The Executive Branch can do near nothing without being directed by Congress, so it's very clear that Congress has made a law violating this amendment. The US government is of the people and by the people. And the people specifically stated in the Constitution that the government cannot abridge speech.
The airwaves are fundamentally owned by everyone, which means everyone can use them. But, in the public interest, it was decided to regulate the air waves by selling them (who knows why voting wasn't suggested) in sections. Now, the FCC does limit what is said on said airwaves. The FCC is a part of the executive branch, which is funded by Congressional budgeting. The first amendment (which is only a reiteration of what is fundamentally true) states "Congress shall make no law
The fact is, the government doesn't really have a right to control who uses the airwaves because such is an abridgement of speech as well; can you imagine the US directing a group of people in a crowd to speak one at a time to avoid interference and actually jailing people for not going along with what they said? This is reality. If the people of the US wish to allow the government to regulate the airwaves in some constitutional fashion, they need to include an amendment. It's really that simple. Personally I'd go for voting for who gets what band every year. Finer grain splitting of frequencies would mean very quickly that everyone in the US could have their own channel if they want. And then you'd have something like the internet where it takes word of mouth to lead to gateways to other channels that interest you. Wouldn't that be a fine world?
If indeed the First Amendment provides an absolute, constitutional protection for the right to speech in order to preserve the power of the people to resist government tyranny, then it must allow individuals to possess porn, KKK hate mail, death threats against the President, and even child porn, for they, like political speech, gossip and political smear campaigns, are speech. Moreover, it is hard to imagine any serious resistance to the government without such speech. Yet few, if any, would argue that the First Amendment gives individuals the unlimited right to utter any speech they please.
</witty alteration>
As much as I hate what I deem the morally horrible speech of others, I still support their right to say it. And as much as I hate the idea of my neighbors owning a nuclear device, I still support their right to own one. It is both speech and means which provide for the defense of men. It scares me more than anything when any means of defense is wholly entrusted to the government; that is scarier to me than entrusting defense in my neighbor, for I know who he is, and he can easily be retaliated against for his misdeeds.
ASF (aka WMV) container format is patented by MS, so MS is probably happy about this. I wonder why Nintendo didn't go with avi format. Far as I'm aware it's not patented. Though I guess they'd have to pay money to the MPEG consortium in any case, unless they went with theora which is currently out of the question. It just seems strange for Nintendo to willing pay money to a competitor in a market place where said competitor isn't doing great if they could avoid it. Anyone have a clue why they went with the ASF format?
If anything, this puts responsibility back onto the parents. You can't blame you're kid shooting someone on video games if the parents have to buy them for them.
If the parent isn't around to stop a kid from buying/renting an AO or Mature rated game/movie/whatever, then they're already responsible, just in a worse way than if they allowed the kid the game/movie/whatever knowingly. As a parent, it is your responsibility to know what your child is up to. Btw, this is one reason I really think the definition of child in most things should be reduced by a few years at least. Hell, 10 years should know not to murder people.
There's no good logic to inately banning drunk drivers from the road (or anyone needing to have a driver's license). If you're incapable of driving responsibly, you should be stopped regardless of intoxication. If a drunk driver is shown to be seriously negligent, they deserve time in a jail, not having a piece of plastic removed from them.
I'd much rather see fewer people in a prison environment for non-violent crimes and actually receiving proper punishment for the crime. (emphasis mine)
Proper punishment is not being let loose in the world. If more white collar hackers/spammers/etc who violate others freedom are deprived of their freedom in the *same* fashion as anyone else who deprives others of their freedom, how is that not proper punishment? There's no difference between stealing money physically or electronically, all other things being equal. Why should comparable means make the punishment lighter/heavier?
I mean did your parents lock you in the cellar every time you misbehaved as a kid or did they choose punishments that suited the crime [e.g. being deprive of a toy, grounded, etc]
No, but then we didn't have a cellar. Seriously, though, the government isn't a parent. It doesn't have rights over you nor can it be a constant parent to your activities. When you're a kid, your parents parent you. When you're an adult, you are punished by the government. The government isn't looking out for you and trying to help you learn. That's what parents are for. The government is there to punish you when you violate someone else. If you're so far gone that your family can't help you, what makes you think the government has any right to try to brainwash^Wrehabilitate you into not doing the crime again? If you want to start a private organization to help criminals rehabilitate during visiting hours, that's a whole other issue. But stop trying to push for the government to be our ever-present parent/big brother.