I figured there was probably a catch, but also thought that maybe they were adopting a Netflix-type model, where a customer could keep a movie as long as he likes, but couldn't rent any more until the late one was returned.
I disagree. The fact that computers are used today for embedded controllers, games, email, web browsing, etc, does not changge what Computer Science is all about.
If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that I was mocking the parent poster's argument, by showing that an equivalent argument leads to a ridiculous conclusion (that car thieves ought not to be put in jail). Instead, you took my statement at face value, and the point went completely over your head.
If you define the "loss of potential (i.e. hypothetical, perhaps never-would-have-existed, and by no means certain) income" as theft, then you define all aspects of competition, upon which our capitalist system depends to function, as "theft."
Non sequitur. Loss of potential income can be the result of the other guy having a superior product, for example, or the result of corporate espionage by the other guy, for another example. I don't equate the two.
Steal a man's wallet and you've committed theft -- the guy you stole from is out one wallet, assorted credit and identity cards, and whatever cash/family pics/what-have-you he was carrying. Refuse to buy the man's product, either because someone gave made a knockoff copy and gave it to you for free, or because you simply don't want it, and you've stolen nothing. Nada. Nichts.
Sure, as long as the knockoff copy was made legally.
If the product was copyrighted and you obtained a copy, you violated his right to restrict copying and distribution (copyright), but you still haven't STOLEN anything, regardless of whether or not he lost potential income as a result.
I disagree. It's not capitalism if you have to resort to unfair competition. If you compete by breaking the law, it is, for all intents and purposes, theft.
No, you're missing the point. Perhaps because you philosophically wish to call copyright violation theft because it offends your notion of right or wrong (it does mine as well, in most cases), or perhaps because the people you're responding to haven't clarified the issue enough.
Perhaps, but I don't think I'm missing the point. Or, at least, we're concerning ourselves with different points. Original poster claimes, rightly so, that you can't claim that copyright violation isn't theft when it comes to music, but it is theft when it comes to software, even if you re-brand it and pass it off as your own. I'm not saying the two are equally bad, and I'm not suggesting that copyright infringement deserves the label "theft". I'm simply refuting the fallacious argument put forth by the person I originally responded to (who responded to original poster), in which he argued that the software case, in the case of CherryOS, was more similar to removing physical posession from someone else (which he wrongly describes as 'taking ownership') than it is to copyright infringement.
Copyright violation is not theft... the copyright holder remains the copyright holder.
This is a ridulous argument. It's like saying that hot-wiring a car and driving off with it is not theft because the Title documents are still in the original owner's name. The fact that the legal Title owner remains so, is the reason why it *is* theft. Similarly, the fact that the copyright holder remains the copyright holder is the reason why copyright violation *is* theft. But anyway, whether or not copyright violation constitutes theft is not the subject of my post. This is an issue upon which reasonable people can disagree. My point is that people who argue that "copyright infringement is not theft because it doesn't involve the removal of tangible property from someone else's possession" are hypocritical if they claim that the CherryOS situation is theft, despite the lack of any removal of tangible property from the possession of the PearOS folks.
Stealing credit is, well, theft.
Personally, I agree with you, but that's because I don't restrict my definition of "theft" to the removal of someone else's physical possession of a tangible object by illegal means. I consider it hypocritical to assert that stealing credit is theft, but stealing source code is not theft. Neither credit nor source code is a physical tangible object. I respect the opinion that both are theft. I respect the opinion that neither is theft. I object only to the inconsistent labeling of one as theft and the other not.
The one is not theft, the other is. It really is that simple... unless one has a specific, political ax to grind in obfuscating the terminology.
I disagree on all three counts: (1) that one form of misusing someone's intellectual property is 'theft' while the other is not, (2) that it really is 'that simple', and (3) the anyone who disagrees with your inconsistent labelling must fall on a particular side of the political "copyright infringement is theft" debate.
The original creator loses credit
How so? The original creator can still claim credit. Just because one person "claims" something doesn't mean the other person "loses" it.
and has their rightful acclaim usurped, along with whatever legal rights to their work they might have had
Really? I've never heard of a plagiarism victim or copyright violation victim losing their legal rights to the work.
Replicating something without the creator's permission is not theft or stealing in any non-doublespeak sense of the word
If you claim that "credit" is something tangible that you can "own" and have "property rights" over, but that your "music" or "source code" is not, then you are the one committing doublespeak.
The creator loses nothing... except theoretical income they might have made
And you consider this LESS deserving of the word theft than "taking credit" is? I consider the opposite to be true.
About what? (I'm assuming that you're stating I'm wrong about something other than what you mention below, otherwise there would be no need to break it down into "first" and "second".)
Second, the proper terminology is neither "property" nor "possession" -- it's "to exercise unlawful domain."
Ok, I'll bite. Please explain why stealing a toaster can not be accurately characterized as unlawfully taking possession of the toaster. (I'm assuming you and I agree that stealing a toaster does not make the toaster the property of the thief, which is the assertion that I was objecting to in that paragraph.)
I didn't say that both forms of copyright infringement you mention (copying a song, and doing what CherryOS did) are equally bad. Yes, your Britney example is a better analogy. I was simply saying that a lot of/.ers say it isn't theft unless you physically remove a bunch of atoms from someone else's posession. All I'm saying is that whether you agree with that definition of theft, or whether you believe that copyright infringement can be a form of theft, the same conclusion would have to be drawn about the Cherry/Pear incident. If only physical removal of posession constitutes theft, then this wasn't theft. If copyright infringement can be a form of theft, then this was theft. The original poster was correct in the qualitative description, though your point about the difference in degree is well taken.
Stealing is about wrongful changing of ownership. When one steals a toaster from a department store, that toaster in effect ceases to be the property of the store and wrongfully becomes property of the theif, and there are laws to return ownership back to the rightful party.
This is a contradiction in terms. A stolen toaster does not become the property of the theif. If it did, it wouldn't be stolen, nor would the store have a right to have it returned. It's still the store's property. It's just that the thief has taken unlawful posession of the toaster. If you're going to be commenting on the subtleties and nuances of property law, you should at least use basic terminology correctly.
they get the soul ability
Let's keep religion out of this, ok?
However when they modify it, rebrand it and repackage it they are claiming those rights that are in effect the intelectual property. They are claiming distribution rights and claiming authorship.
Yeah, but they didn't remove anything tangible from the posession of the "rightful owners", which is always the distinction that music piracy apologists use when they cry "copyright infringement is NOT theft!".
What would be equivilant is taking a good, but little known song, then putting it onto a CD and claiming that it is mine
No, that's plagiarism.
The grandparent is correct. What they did is copyright infringement, and is every bit as much a theft, nor more and no less, than music piracy.
You may not find it interesting, but it's closely related to Russell's Paradox, which was of serious concern to set-theoreticians. This, in turn, is closely related to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and also to the Halting Problem, which place fundamental limits on mathematics and computability.
A sure way to prove to another being that you are intelligent is to spew a bunch of numbers which all happen to be prime. The fact that they can be tranmitted using only '1' bits means the modulation is simple -- just send a series of pulses.
Wouldn't it be better to send the *number* of pulses that you would send, encoded in binary?
Slashdot Mirror
How do you close the door on the microwave oven with your hand still inside?
I wonder if my friends at the IT Help Desk in Bangalore have to file NY State tax returns.
I figured there was probably a catch, but also thought that maybe they were adopting a Netflix-type model, where a customer could keep a movie as long as he likes, but couldn't rent any more until the late one was returned.
I disagree. The fact that computers are used today for embedded controllers, games, email, web browsing, etc, does not changge what Computer Science is all about.
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes"
--Edsger Dijkstra
"It looks like you're trying to perform an AIDS test. Would you like me to contact all your sexual partners for the past 5 years?"
If the US was a totalitarian dictatorship that [yadda yadda yadda]
Your attempted use of the subjunctive mood was flawed both in its intent and its execution.
If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that I was mocking the parent poster's argument, by showing that an equivalent argument leads to a ridiculous conclusion (that car thieves ought not to be put in jail). Instead, you took my statement at face value, and the point went completely over your head.
A life is worth more than every car ever made; any punishment for grand theft auto that includes jail time is out of proportion.
I nominate: "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Tech Professional".
Done
Finally! George Hamilton can get that tan he's always dreamed of.
If you define the "loss of potential (i.e. hypothetical, perhaps never-would-have-existed, and by no means certain) income" as theft, then you define all aspects of competition, upon which our capitalist system depends to function, as "theft."
Non sequitur. Loss of potential income can be the result of the other guy having a superior product, for example, or the result of corporate espionage by the other guy, for another example. I don't equate the two.
Steal a man's wallet and you've committed theft -- the guy you stole from is out one wallet, assorted credit and identity cards, and whatever cash/family pics/what-have-you he was carrying. Refuse to buy the man's product, either because someone gave made a knockoff copy and gave it to you for free, or because you simply don't want it, and you've stolen nothing. Nada. Nichts.
Sure, as long as the knockoff copy was made legally.
If the product was copyrighted and you obtained a copy, you violated his right to restrict copying and distribution (copyright), but you still haven't STOLEN anything, regardless of whether or not he lost potential income as a result.
I disagree. It's not capitalism if you have to resort to unfair competition. If you compete by breaking the law, it is, for all intents and purposes, theft.
No, you're missing the point. Perhaps because you philosophically wish to call copyright violation theft because it offends your notion of right or wrong (it does mine as well, in most cases), or perhaps because the people you're responding to haven't clarified the issue enough.
... the copyright holder remains the copyright holder.
... unless one has a specific, political ax to grind in obfuscating the terminology.
... except theoretical income they might have made
Perhaps, but I don't think I'm missing the point. Or, at least, we're concerning ourselves with different points. Original poster claimes, rightly so, that you can't claim that copyright violation isn't theft when it comes to music, but it is theft when it comes to software, even if you re-brand it and pass it off as your own. I'm not saying the two are equally bad, and I'm not suggesting that copyright infringement deserves the label "theft". I'm simply refuting the fallacious argument put forth by the person I originally responded to (who responded to original poster), in which he argued that the software case, in the case of CherryOS, was more similar to removing physical posession from someone else (which he wrongly describes as 'taking ownership') than it is to copyright infringement.
Copyright violation is not theft
This is a ridulous argument. It's like saying that hot-wiring a car and driving off with it is not theft because the Title documents are still in the original owner's name. The fact that the legal Title owner remains so, is the reason why it *is* theft. Similarly, the fact that the copyright holder remains the copyright holder is the reason why copyright violation *is* theft. But anyway, whether or not copyright violation constitutes theft is not the subject of my post. This is an issue upon which reasonable people can disagree. My point is that people who argue that "copyright infringement is not theft because it doesn't involve the removal of tangible property from someone else's possession" are hypocritical if they claim that the CherryOS situation is theft, despite the lack of any removal of tangible property from the possession of the PearOS folks.
Stealing credit is, well, theft.
Personally, I agree with you, but that's because I don't restrict my definition of "theft" to the removal of someone else's physical possession of a tangible object by illegal means. I consider it hypocritical to assert that stealing credit is theft, but stealing source code is not theft. Neither credit nor source code is a physical tangible object. I respect the opinion that both are theft. I respect the opinion that neither is theft. I object only to the inconsistent labeling of one as theft and the other not.
The one is not theft, the other is. It really is that simple
I disagree on all three counts: (1) that one form of misusing someone's intellectual property is 'theft' while the other is not, (2) that it really is 'that simple', and (3) the anyone who disagrees with your inconsistent labelling must fall on a particular side of the political "copyright infringement is theft" debate.
The original creator loses credit
How so? The original creator can still claim credit. Just because one person "claims" something doesn't mean the other person "loses" it.
and has their rightful acclaim usurped, along with whatever legal rights to their work they might have had
Really? I've never heard of a plagiarism victim or copyright violation victim losing their legal rights to the work.
Replicating something without the creator's permission is not theft or stealing in any non-doublespeak sense of the word
If you claim that "credit" is something tangible that you can "own" and have "property rights" over, but that your "music" or "source code" is not, then you are the one committing doublespeak.
The creator loses nothing
And you consider this LESS deserving of the word theft than "taking credit" is? I consider the opposite to be true.
First, you're wrong.
About what? (I'm assuming that you're stating I'm wrong about something other than what you mention below, otherwise there would be no need to break it down into "first" and "second".)
Second, the proper terminology is neither "property" nor "possession" -- it's "to exercise unlawful domain."
Ok, I'll bite. Please explain why stealing a toaster can not be accurately characterized as unlawfully taking possession of the toaster. (I'm assuming you and I agree that stealing a toaster does not make the toaster the property of the thief, which is the assertion that I was objecting to in that paragraph.)
I didn't say that both forms of copyright infringement you mention (copying a song, and doing what CherryOS did) are equally bad. Yes, your Britney example is a better analogy. I was simply saying that a lot of /.ers say it isn't theft unless you physically remove a bunch of atoms from someone else's posession. All I'm saying is that whether you agree with that definition of theft, or whether you believe that copyright infringement can be a form of theft, the same conclusion would have to be drawn about the Cherry/Pear incident. If only physical removal of posession constitutes theft, then this wasn't theft. If copyright infringement can be a form of theft, then this was theft. The original poster was correct in the qualitative description, though your point about the difference in degree is well taken.
Stealing is about wrongful changing of ownership. When one steals a toaster from a department store, that toaster in effect ceases to be the property of the store and wrongfully becomes property of the theif, and there are laws to return ownership back to the rightful party.
This is a contradiction in terms. A stolen toaster does not become the property of the theif. If it did, it wouldn't be stolen, nor would the store have a right to have it returned. It's still the store's property. It's just that the thief has taken unlawful posession of the toaster. If you're going to be commenting on the subtleties and nuances of property law, you should at least use basic terminology correctly.
they get the soul ability
Let's keep religion out of this, ok?
However when they modify it, rebrand it and repackage it they are claiming those rights that are in effect the intelectual property. They are claiming distribution rights and claiming authorship.
Yeah, but they didn't remove anything tangible from the posession of the "rightful owners", which is always the distinction that music piracy apologists use when they cry "copyright infringement is NOT theft!".
What would be equivilant is taking a good, but little known song, then putting it onto a CD and claiming that it is mine
No, that's plagiarism.
The grandparent is correct. What they did is copyright infringement, and is every bit as much a theft, nor more and no less, than music piracy.
It's more like Bob Vila switching from a Sears Craftsman to a Black & Decker.
You may not find it interesting, but it's closely related to Russell's Paradox, which was of serious concern to set-theoreticians. This, in turn, is closely related to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and also to the Halting Problem, which place fundamental limits on mathematics and computability.
What if Google decided to cache only those sites that don't cache themselves. Would google cache itself then?
A sure way to prove to another being that you are intelligent is to spew a bunch of numbers which all happen to be prime. The fact that they can be tranmitted using only '1' bits means the modulation is simple -- just send a series of pulses.
Wouldn't it be better to send the *number* of pulses that you would send, encoded in binary?
macrohearing, dumbass
No, macrohearing would be the auditory analog of macroseeing. The word you're looking for is "macroaudition".
Well, double-dumbass on you!
you can take a look at the bbb report for vivendi
And get a load of the name of the senior contract administrator.
Furthermore, consider that many people routinely obtain Botox (Botulism Toxin) "treatment" for cosmetic purposes.
More importantly, were the infringing features added before the patent was applied for?