Everything that's wrong with the world is because of managers.
Most of what's wrong with the world are twats on the internet whining anonymously about jobs they either don't understand, or know they can't do themselves.
The ridiculous idea that all kids are going to be computer programmers because they've grown up with computers around them and schools will do programming courses is a pure slashdot fantasy.
I grew up watching TV, that doesn't mean I know how to repair a TV set, or make a TV programme.
In my youth (pre internet) I bought the music I could afford to, listened to the radio, borrowed stuff from friends, and so on. I couldn't afford every record I wanted, but it didn't exactly kill me or turn me into a cultureless, deprived human being.
Copyright infringement is walking into a fancy department store, making a clone of anything you want and walking out with the cloned object leaving the original untouched.
And if everyone cloned the original rather than buying it, the creator would make no money from their work, which would be the same result as if someone had simply stolen all the originals.
This is why copyright infringement is similar to, but not identical with theft.
And seriously, who is so cheap that they would refuse to pay 69p for whatever game is popular at the moment?
If you went shopping and there were two shops next to each other, one selling bananas at 69p each and another one giving them away for free, I bet you'd decide to have the free banana and spend the 69p on a chocolate bar or something later. It doesn't matter how much money you have, other things being equal free is always going to be more popular than paid for.
It's how Microsoft wiped out Netscape, don't forget.
So where's the kid going to find the money for airfare to fly out of country to buy a copy of an app or a song that's marked as unavailable in one's country?
Oh, then where can I go to rent an iTunes song someone bought from iTunes, or a PC game?
You can rent movies and games either on physical media from an actual shop, or just by downloading from Netflix or something. That is because they have paid the copyright holders for the privelege of doing so.
If you buy a song off iTunes, it doesn't give you unlimited rights to do what you like with it, e.g. you can't sell copies of it to other people, but so what?
Apparently I didn't write that clear enough: I meant that you don't sign any contract before you start working on an app. As in, there is no guarantee anyone will buy it no matter how much work you put in it. It's the same with physical products, you don't get money for your work, you get money for the results.
Yes, but you don't get any money for the results if everyone pirates it do you?
I know copying isn't the same as physical theft, but it has the same result for the people who have worked to create something, whether it is a widget or a song: if no one buys the widget or song you don't have a business.
Why is that so hard for anti-copyright fanatics to understand?
If you have an employer your compensation comes from him. If you're independent you do your work and takes your chances - what if the world hates your work and no one buys it, nor pirates it? Still feel 'entitled' to compensation?
If the world hates your work, fine, no one will buy it. But if the world loves your work, with piracy still no one will buy it.
That doesn't seem like a sensible way to encourage good work.
In the absence of a government or state, you would still have physical property. If you have a loaf of bread, I would have to take it by force or coercion. Once I took it from you, you would no longer have that bread and I would. You would go hungry and I would be sated. You are free to protect your bread with whatever means you deem appropriate - seeking the protection of a warlord seems like a common choice.
You really are fucking stupid aren't you?
The whole point is that your "right" to that loaf of bread only exists because there are laws preventing people from helping themselves to it. In the absence of a legal system (government) you have no "rights" at all. Your warlord can do what he likes, including enslaving or murdering you with impunity.
The laws are patently unjust, and I can't condemn anyone for violating them.
Copyright law means you have to pay to have access to a particular work. Big fucking deal. What an appalling infringement of your human rights.
All the crap about giant corporations hiding away copyrighted material to the general impoverishment of our culture is the purest bullshit. A movie company wants you to see its movies, it's as simple as that.
And until we develop an anarcho-communist society with all assets shared equally and owned by nobody, the movie companies have to make money to finance future films that cost money to make.
Here I am rebelling against unjust and unreasonable laws, you're talking about rebelling against all laws
The GP's point was that all laws are artificial. The majority of people do not apparently consider copyright particularly unjust or unreasonable, and you as an individual do not have the right to disregard the particular laws you disagree with.
For musicians, they could simply choose to not record, and opt for earning income from live performances and merchandising (think SpaceBalls the Flamethrower (the kids love that one)). For actors they could choose to stop recording screen acting sessions and opt for live performances as well.
This is a familiar, and breathtakingly stupid argument on slashdot. All the people who claim that copyright limits our cultural freedom and that therefore we should be free to download anything we want, don't seem to mind that the majority of people who are not interested in live music or theatre or author readings will end up culturally impoverished by having no movies, music or books to consume at home.
No, I wasn't suggesting it was morally ok. I was challenging the argument that not paying for the app constituted a theft of his time. It doesn't.
That is akin to the nit-picking argument that since copyright infringement is not a theft of anything physical, but merely copying, that it is therefore not stealing, thereby (somehow) implying that anything that isn't actual theft is OK, without explicitly saying so..
That may be true but it in no way makes physical theft (where an actual object is taken and the owner is deprived of that object) the same as copying (where no object is taken). The corporations want to make the analogy in order to make the plebs see copying as theft but it is a slight of hand. They are not the same thing and only the terminally stupid would fall for the trick.
*golfclap*
And so, because copyright infringement isn't theft, it's OK? (Except that no one ever actually says the last bit, they just leave it as an exercise for the reader to complete).
The thing is, yes you're right, copyright infringement isn't theft. Neither is it arson, fraud, rape, jaywalking, assault with a deadly weapon, false accounting or driving with a broken taillight. So what?
It is insane. Coincidentally, I was just chafing at the restriction at Google Books looking at a novel published in Russia in 1915. A century-old book very few have ever heard of. Not even available as an e-book. If this were a censorship scheme, it could hardly work any better than it does. Maybe there's some danger in reading really, really old books. Maybe it would lead to, oh I dunno, different ways to think about the world or something. Or maybe so many people would read the old literature that it would compete too successfully with whatever you call the garp that's being published these days.
And, of course, you couldn't just go out and buy a copy of the fucking book could you?
GPL does make a point about charging for the software. It very specifically says that you MAY NOT charge for the software. It also specifically states that you may not charge to distribute, but that you MAY collect a small fee for the time and materials that might be consumed in reproducing that software (burning a CD or whatever).
No, it really doesn't. It says exactly the opposite of that, in fact - and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing immoral or incompatible with charging for your software.
But say you decide to charge for your free (as in freedom) software, and someone then copies it and makes it available for free (as in beer) on their site. Would you sue them for copyright infringement even if they followed the other GPL conditions?
Oh wow, the first attempt to justify a piracy / physical theft analogy not directly defending it but by making a pointless accusation of attempting to justify a piracy site. With a "that's semantic" whinge thrown in for good measure.
But people who think copyright should be abolished do justify "piracy sites" through their very beliefs. Whether you agree with it or not, it would be illogical to say that copyright infringement merely involves the harmless copying of information with no loss to the producer, but that there's something wrong with piracy sites that actually facilitate this copying.
Oh, and there is also no logic behind supporting copyright infringement for personal use but somehow disappproving of copyright infringement when someone makes money out of it. It's still the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
What's Skype?
There are levels of "illegality". Parking infringements differ vastly to mass murder.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that parking infringements are perfectly acceptable.
I guess we should stop paying managers
Everything that's wrong with the world is because of managers.
Most of what's wrong with the world are twats on the internet whining anonymously about jobs they either don't understand, or know they can't do themselves.
I grew up watching TV, that doesn't mean I know how to repair a TV set, or make a TV programme.
Unless of course you've bought into the propaganda that "intellectual property" is real property.
It's no different to the propaganda that property can be privately "owned". It's just a question of society's laws and customs.
In my youth (pre internet) I bought the music I could afford to, listened to the radio, borrowed stuff from friends, and so on. I couldn't afford every record I wanted, but it didn't exactly kill me or turn me into a cultureless, deprived human being.
Copyright infringement is walking into a fancy department store, making a clone of anything you want and walking out with the cloned object leaving the original untouched.
And if everyone cloned the original rather than buying it, the creator would make no money from their work, which would be the same result as if someone had simply stolen all the originals.
This is why copyright infringement is similar to, but not identical with theft.
Actually, I am fairly successful in the business world, relatively speaking.
Then it must be despite your strange behaviour, not because of it.
And seriously, who is so cheap that they would refuse to pay 69p for whatever game is popular at the moment?
If you went shopping and there were two shops next to each other, one selling bananas at 69p each and another one giving them away for free, I bet you'd decide to have the free banana and spend the 69p on a chocolate bar or something later. It doesn't matter how much money you have, other things being equal free is always going to be more popular than paid for.
It's how Microsoft wiped out Netscape, don't forget.
So where's the kid going to find the money for airfare to fly out of country to buy a copy of an app or a song that's marked as unavailable in one's country?
How about doing without the fucking app or song?
Yes you can indeed do all of those things.
Oh, then where can I go to rent an iTunes song someone bought from iTunes, or a PC game?
You can rent movies and games either on physical media from an actual shop, or just by downloading from Netflix or something. That is because they have paid the copyright holders for the privelege of doing so.
If you buy a song off iTunes, it doesn't give you unlimited rights to do what you like with it, e.g. you can't sell copies of it to other people, but so what?
Apparently I didn't write that clear enough: I meant that you don't sign any contract before you start working on an app. As in, there is no guarantee anyone will buy it no matter how much work you put in it. It's the same with physical products, you don't get money for your work, you get money for the results.
Yes, but you don't get any money for the results if everyone pirates it do you?
I know copying isn't the same as physical theft, but it has the same result for the people who have worked to create something, whether it is a widget or a song: if no one buys the widget or song you don't have a business.
Why is that so hard for anti-copyright fanatics to understand?
If you have an employer your compensation comes from him. If you're independent you do your work and takes your chances - what if the world hates your work and no one buys it, nor pirates it? Still feel 'entitled' to compensation?
If the world hates your work, fine, no one will buy it. But if the world loves your work, with piracy still no one will buy it.
That doesn't seem like a sensible way to encourage good work.
seeking the protection of a warlord seems like a common choice.
You probably want to ease up on the WoW and LoTR.
All social systems ultimately derive from warlords, bandits, and other tyrants.
Rather, all civilised social systems ultimately evolve away from warlords, bandits, and other tyrants.
In the absence of a government or state, you would still have physical property. If you have a loaf of bread, I would have to take it by force or coercion. Once I took it from you, you would no longer have that bread and I would. You would go hungry and I would be sated. You are free to protect your bread with whatever means you deem appropriate - seeking the protection of a warlord seems like a common choice.
You really are fucking stupid aren't you?
The whole point is that your "right" to that loaf of bread only exists because there are laws preventing people from helping themselves to it. In the absence of a legal system (government) you have no "rights" at all. Your warlord can do what he likes, including enslaving or murdering you with impunity.
The laws are patently unjust, and I can't condemn anyone for violating them.
Copyright law means you have to pay to have access to a particular work. Big fucking deal. What an appalling infringement of your human rights.
All the crap about giant corporations hiding away copyrighted material to the general impoverishment of our culture is the purest bullshit. A movie company wants you to see its movies, it's as simple as that.
And until we develop an anarcho-communist society with all assets shared equally and owned by nobody, the movie companies have to make money to finance future films that cost money to make.
Here I am rebelling against unjust and unreasonable laws, you're talking about rebelling against all laws
The GP's point was that all laws are artificial. The majority of people do not apparently consider copyright particularly unjust or unreasonable, and you as an individual do not have the right to disregard the particular laws you disagree with.
For musicians, they could simply choose to not record, and opt for earning income from live performances and merchandising (think SpaceBalls the Flamethrower (the kids love that one)). For actors they could choose to stop recording screen acting sessions and opt for live performances as well.
This is a familiar, and breathtakingly stupid argument on slashdot. All the people who claim that copyright limits our cultural freedom and that therefore we should be free to download anything we want, don't seem to mind that the majority of people who are not interested in live music or theatre or author readings will end up culturally impoverished by having no movies, music or books to consume at home.
I wonder how many of the people who used Installious had your moral exactitude?
No, I wasn't suggesting it was morally ok. I was challenging the argument that not paying for the app constituted a theft of his time. It doesn't.
That is akin to the nit-picking argument that since copyright infringement is not a theft of anything physical, but merely copying, that it is therefore not stealing, thereby (somehow) implying that anything that isn't actual theft is OK, without explicitly saying so..
By your argument, all the R&D money that has ever been spent is now a sunk cost too, therefore companies should give away all their stuff for free
That may be true but it in no way makes physical theft (where an actual object is taken and the owner is deprived of that object) the same as copying (where no object is taken). The corporations want to make the analogy in order to make the plebs see copying as theft but it is a slight of hand. They are not the same thing and only the terminally stupid would fall for the trick.
*golfclap*
And so, because copyright infringement isn't theft, it's OK? (Except that no one ever actually says the last bit, they just leave it as an exercise for the reader to complete).
The thing is, yes you're right, copyright infringement isn't theft. Neither is it arson, fraud, rape, jaywalking, assault with a deadly weapon, false accounting or driving with a broken taillight. So what?
It is insane. Coincidentally, I was just chafing at the restriction at Google Books looking at a novel published in Russia in 1915. A century-old book very few have ever heard of. Not even available as an e-book. If this were a censorship scheme, it could hardly work any better than it does. Maybe there's some danger in reading really, really old books. Maybe it would lead to, oh I dunno, different ways to think about the world or something. Or maybe so many people would read the old literature that it would compete too successfully with whatever you call the garp that's being published these days.
And, of course, you couldn't just go out and buy a copy of the fucking book could you?
GPL does make a point about charging for the software. It very specifically says that you MAY NOT charge for the software. It also specifically states that you may not charge to distribute, but that you MAY collect a small fee for the time and materials that might be consumed in reproducing that software (burning a CD or whatever).
No, it really doesn't. It says exactly the opposite of that, in fact - and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing immoral or incompatible with charging for your software.
But say you decide to charge for your free (as in freedom) software, and someone then copies it and makes it available for free (as in beer) on their site. Would you sue them for copyright infringement even if they followed the other GPL conditions?
Oh wow, the first attempt to justify a piracy / physical theft analogy not directly defending it but by making a pointless accusation of attempting to justify a piracy site. With a "that's semantic" whinge thrown in for good measure.
But people who think copyright should be abolished do justify "piracy sites" through their very beliefs. Whether you agree with it or not, it would be illogical to say that copyright infringement merely involves the harmless copying of information with no loss to the producer, but that there's something wrong with piracy sites that actually facilitate this copying.
Oh, and there is also no logic behind supporting copyright infringement for personal use but somehow disappproving of copyright infringement when someone makes money out of it. It's still the same thing.