Read that first part again. In fact, just read that first word. Congress shall make no law....
Don't know what "Congress" means? Congress is defined in Article I, Section I of the Constitution as consisting of "a Senate and House of Representatives." Note that the word is "Congress"; not "Government", "States", "Cities", or "Websites on the internet".
That means that the first admendment applies only to the United States Congress. It doesn't apply to Wikipedia or Slashdot, or any other website on the internet. It doesn't apply to clubs. It doesn't apply to any other country. Strictly interpreted, it doesn't even apply to the states, counties, or city governments (though there are other laws that do, such as Admendment 14).
That's why it's perfectly legal for a school in Hartford, Conn. to adopt policies that fine students for swearing. That's why it's legal for a website to filter out expletives.
The debate over "Can speech be abridged?" is not the true debate. Of course it can be. The true debate is "Who can abridge speech?".
Now how are we supposed to talk about all our registered.com,.org,.(etc) domains all at once?
I've always used.tld for that purpose. It's unlikely that they'll make a.tld TLD, and it's easy to infer that it represents a set of TLDs rather than a specific one.
And then postal mail will make a return, and people will still find a way to scam you with it, spam you with it, and use it to illegally distribute copyrighted materials. Meanwhile, the people who used the internet as a forum for dicussion will have to turn to older, less reliable, methods. The process would continue until we're all technologically reverted back to the prehistoric era. Even then, the Cavern Drawing Association of America will be suing people's leaves off.
The problem is people. In light of this, I propose to ban the entire human race from the United States to correct the problem of "piracy". Let's start with the MPAA and RIAA, and - if that doesn't solve the problem - the government.
My friend once thought the same thing. After explaining why Bit Torrent wasn't at fault for any of this, I decided to provide a visual demonstration. I asked him for a pencil, I took a pair of pliers, and I broke it in half. He then asked why I broke his pencil, and I told him that the pliers did it, and he should be accusing them. He said that he still didn't understand, so I produced a pair of scissors and asked for a $100 note. He got the message.
You are still blaming the TOOL for what the PEOPLE do.
Your claim that 99.9% of P2P traffic is totally, irrefutably, undeniably illegal is ignorant, foolish, and asinine. Much like guns can be used for hunting and to commit murder, Bit Torrent is used for taking the load off of people who wish to distribute free content, but have no way to finance it. (After all, distributing free content isn't a huge moneymaker)
Sure, there are a lot of people who use it to commit copyright infringement, much like there are a lot of people who use a gun to commit murder. That doesn't mean that they are in the majority, especially not the huge percentage that you listed.
By banning P2P software, all you are doing is hurting those who use it LEGITIMATELY. You are not doing anything to stop those who use it illegally.
Why? Because the people who are actually behind the crime are going to commit the crime using another tool. If guns were banned, people would just use knives to commit murder, but those who hunt with guns will no longer be able to do that. Ban knifes, and people will turn to something else, but chefs will definitely be hurt by it.
Similarly, if Bit Torrent is banned, people will turn to FTP and HTTP. It's not going to stop. It's not even going to be HINDERED.
Tools are crafted with a specific purpose in mind, but people find many ways to abuse them or use them in a way that their creator did not intend. I'm sure that whoever invented bricks did not give a thought to people who might clobber someone over the head with them. I'm sure he only thought of how many buildings could be made with them. Similarly, the author of Bit Torrent likely didn't think that his tool would be headline news after being used by people commiting copyright infringment, and it is not Bit Torrent's fault that such a thing happened. It is, ultimately, the people who use it wrongly that are to blame, and MPAA is only going after Bit Torrent because, however futile it is, it's far more easier to place the blame on Bit Torrent.
----
(Before you reply: Yes. I know this is a troll. No, I am not new here.)
Yes, but they, too, have to complete the offer before you get anything out of it. Besides, you are only 40% complete, not even halfway there, so don't start choosing out the mp3s you're going to put on it just yet.
Did you miss the part in the article where it said that 1 in 12 actually receive an item? Assuming those numbers are correct, that means that even if you complete the offer, you have a 8% chance of getting anything. That means that 92% get nothing. *Insert joke about free lunch and getting spam here*
What's keeping them from selling free(whatever).com to a less trustworthy business? Have you read the fine print? Specifically the part about how they can put your account on hold, how they don't have to notify you about it, how they can change their privacy at any point in time (like the point just after you get all the referals, for instance). I'm more trustworthy of that Nigerian that emailed me the other day. Sure, all the other Nigerians were scammers, but this one might actually be legit!
If everyone who wants to sign up is placed on the list, then there will be a point in time that there is no one else willing to sign up, therefore no one can be refered, and therefore no one at the bottom of the list gets anything (but spam). Why do you think your last 8-9 posts that have been praising their offers haven't inticed anyone? It's because if they were actually intrested in it, they would have clicked on one of the last 10 emails they got with the same offer. I've even seen people give an additional bonus, such as a gmail invite, to people who sign up. There's no one really willing to do just for the free(insertitem) anymore.
Besides, some people actually value their personal information over a free(insertitem).
By the way, the free(insertitem) offers are not pyramid schemes. They are matrix scheme varients. However, it doesn't make them any more reliable.
Simple. Let's say, hypothetically, you want to call a friend. Let's say they live in Japan. Now, it's 1800 world time, (which we will say is 6 PM local time).
So you go to when-the-heck-will-the-sun-be-up-at-this-point-in- the-world.com as you must do with every phone call you make, because there is no way of telling when sunrise or sunset is at any point of the world with this new time system, but you are lucky enough that 1800 World Time where you live just so happens to be right at nightfall. Not too early and not too late to make a phone call.
You find out from this website that your friend will not be awake at this time. It is 1800 World Time there as well, but they are asleep as it is 3 AM in their local time.
Even worse, let's say you forget to convert the time, call, and wake your friend up at 3 AM, thinking that they would be awake.
Now compare it with this scenario...
It's 6 PM your local time. You want to call your friend in Japan. You convert your time to the time in Osaka, Japan by going to a site that actually exists and has a shorter URL to see what time it is where your hypothetical friend lives. You find out that it is 3 AM there. You decide not to call after all.
Which is simpler? Sure, from a business perspective, it is somewhat easier to arrange meetings, as you can agree to meet at 1800 WT and you would both be on the same schedule. However, scheduling meetings requires the same amount of work, as you still have to consult some form of chart or converter to figure out when business hours are. Our current form actually FORCES you to consult a chart, which is a Good Thing, as it forces you to know when sunrise is. From this, you can guess what a person is currently doing and where they are.
Oh, and let's not forget that in most places, the date would actually change in the middle of the day. That is to say, at noon you might have to write a different date for papers then what you wrote at around 9 o'clock. With our current time system, the date changes when we are asleep (or fixing that last bug), and therefore goes by unnoticed either way.
Oh, and let's say that some countries actually adopt a world time while other countries continue to use local time. That would not only defeat the entire purpose of using world time in the first place; it would divide the world even further apart!
If your friend still needs proof, set all his clocks to Greenwich Mean Time. Oh; don't tell him about it.
In fact, if anyone thinks that having World Time is a brilliant idea, then feel free to experiment by changing your clocks around to match GMT. Have fun setting your alarm clocks to wake you up at 3 AM to go to work.
After a few days, you may start to feel a bit strange. You may even feel that you should set your clocks back to local time. This feeling is your sanity returning. I recommend embracing it, lest it flees from you again and you get the brilliant idea to replace the Gregorian calendar with something even less functional....
Slashdot Mirror
Don't know what "Congress" means? Congress is defined in Article I, Section I of the Constitution as consisting of "a Senate and House of Representatives." Note that the word is "Congress"; not "Government", "States", "Cities", or "Websites on the internet".
That means that the first admendment applies only to the United States Congress. It doesn't apply to Wikipedia or Slashdot, or any other website on the internet. It doesn't apply to clubs. It doesn't apply to any other country. Strictly interpreted, it doesn't even apply to the states, counties, or city governments (though there are other laws that do, such as Admendment 14).
That's why it's perfectly legal for a school in Hartford, Conn. to adopt policies that fine students for swearing. That's why it's legal for a website to filter out expletives.
The debate over "Can speech be abridged?" is not the true debate. Of course it can be. The true debate is "Who can abridge speech?".
I've always used .tld for that purpose. It's unlikely that they'll make a .tld TLD, and it's easy to infer that it represents a set of TLDs rather than a specific one.
The problem is people. In light of this, I propose to ban the entire human race from the United States to correct the problem of "piracy". Let's start with the MPAA and RIAA, and - if that doesn't solve the problem - the government.
My friend once thought the same thing. After explaining why Bit Torrent wasn't at fault for any of this, I decided to provide a visual demonstration. I asked him for a pencil, I took a pair of pliers, and I broke it in half. He then asked why I broke his pencil, and I told him that the pliers did it, and he should be accusing them. He said that he still didn't understand, so I produced a pair of scissors and asked for a $100 note. He got the message.
You are still blaming the TOOL for what the PEOPLE do.
Your claim that 99.9% of P2P traffic is totally, irrefutably, undeniably illegal is ignorant, foolish, and asinine. Much like guns can be used for hunting and to commit murder, Bit Torrent is used for taking the load off of people who wish to distribute free content, but have no way to finance it. (After all, distributing free content isn't a huge moneymaker)
Sure, there are a lot of people who use it to commit copyright infringement, much like there are a lot of people who use a gun to commit murder. That doesn't mean that they are in the majority, especially not the huge percentage that you listed.
By banning P2P software, all you are doing is hurting those who use it LEGITIMATELY. You are not doing anything to stop those who use it illegally.
Why? Because the people who are actually behind the crime are going to commit the crime using another tool. If guns were banned, people would just use knives to commit murder, but those who hunt with guns will no longer be able to do that. Ban knifes, and people will turn to something else, but chefs will definitely be hurt by it.
Similarly, if Bit Torrent is banned, people will turn to FTP and HTTP. It's not going to stop. It's not even going to be HINDERED.
Tools are crafted with a specific purpose in mind, but people find many ways to abuse them or use them in a way that their creator did not intend. I'm sure that whoever invented bricks did not give a thought to people who might clobber someone over the head with them. I'm sure he only thought of how many buildings could be made with them. Similarly, the author of Bit Torrent likely didn't think that his tool would be headline news after being used by people commiting copyright infringment, and it is not Bit Torrent's fault that such a thing happened. It is, ultimately, the people who use it wrongly that are to blame, and MPAA is only going after Bit Torrent because, however futile it is, it's far more easier to place the blame on Bit Torrent.
----
(Before you reply: Yes. I know this is a troll. No, I am not new here.)
Did you miss the part in the article where it said that 1 in 12 actually receive an item? Assuming those numbers are correct, that means that even if you complete the offer, you have a 8% chance of getting anything. That means that 92% get nothing.
*Insert joke about free lunch and getting spam here*
Besides, offers like these encourage people to spam. Anything that encourages spam is a Bad Thing.
What's keeping them from selling free(whatever).com to a less trustworthy business? Have you read the fine print? Specifically the part about how they can put your account on hold, how they don't have to notify you about it, how they can change their privacy at any point in time (like the point just after you get all the referals, for instance). I'm more trustworthy of that Nigerian that emailed me the other day. Sure, all the other Nigerians were scammers, but this one might actually be legit!
If everyone who wants to sign up is placed on the list, then there will be a point in time that there is no one else willing to sign up, therefore no one can be refered, and therefore no one at the bottom of the list gets anything (but spam). Why do you think your last 8-9 posts that have been praising their offers haven't inticed anyone? It's because if they were actually intrested in it, they would have clicked on one of the last 10 emails they got with the same offer. I've even seen people give an additional bonus, such as a gmail invite, to people who sign up. There's no one really willing to do just for the free(insertitem) anymore.
Besides, some people actually value their personal information over a free(insertitem).
By the way, the free(insertitem) offers are not pyramid schemes. They are matrix scheme varients. However, it doesn't make them any more reliable.
By the way, it is 36 letters long.
So you go to when-the-heck-will-the-sun-be-up-at-this-point-in- the-world.com as you must do with every phone call you make, because there is no way of telling when sunrise or sunset is at any point of the world with this new time system, but you are lucky enough that 1800 World Time where you live just so happens to be right at nightfall. Not too early and not too late to make a phone call.
You find out from this website that your friend will not be awake at this time. It is 1800 World Time there as well, but they are asleep as it is 3 AM in their local time.
Even worse, let's say you forget to convert the time, call, and wake your friend up at 3 AM, thinking that they would be awake.
Now compare it with this scenario...
It's 6 PM your local time. You want to call your friend in Japan. You convert your time to the time in Osaka, Japan by going to a site that actually exists and has a shorter URL to see what time it is where your hypothetical friend lives. You find out that it is 3 AM there. You decide not to call after all.
Which is simpler? Sure, from a business perspective, it is somewhat easier to arrange meetings, as you can agree to meet at 1800 WT and you would both be on the same schedule. However, scheduling meetings requires the same amount of work, as you still have to consult some form of chart or converter to figure out when business hours are. Our current form actually FORCES you to consult a chart, which is a Good Thing, as it forces you to know when sunrise is. From this, you can guess what a person is currently doing and where they are.
Oh, and let's not forget that in most places, the date would actually change in the middle of the day. That is to say, at noon you might have to write a different date for papers then what you wrote at around 9 o'clock. With our current time system, the date changes when we are asleep (or fixing that last bug), and therefore goes by unnoticed either way.
Oh, and let's say that some countries actually adopt a world time while other countries continue to use local time. That would not only defeat the entire purpose of using world time in the first place; it would divide the world even further apart!
If your friend still needs proof, set all his clocks to Greenwich Mean Time.
Oh; don't tell him about it.
In fact, if anyone thinks that having World Time is a brilliant idea, then feel free to experiment by changing your clocks around to match GMT. Have fun setting your alarm clocks to wake you up at 3 AM to go to work.
After a few days, you may start to feel a bit strange. You may even feel that you should set your clocks back to local time. This feeling is your sanity returning. I recommend embracing it, lest it flees from you again and you get the brilliant idea to replace the Gregorian calendar with something even less functional....