Don't tell me "that's not going to happen!!", you live in a country where that's exactly the kind of things that happens (McCarthy anyone?)...
Speech law in the U.S. is quite different than it was 50 years ago, or even 30. That possibility isn't particularly high anymore. Besides, I'd rather deal with the possibility in the U.S. than the reality of speech control in, well, pretty much the whole rest of the world.
And is not like I don't want to convince you, is that I don't need to convince you of anything...
Is this that historical inevitability argument again? Fine, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Like I said, the people of the U.S. have been listening to the "this can't possibly work" argument since 1776, and it's only rarely been accurate.
I understand not trusting the U.S., but trusting an international body with China and Russia represented instead? Think about that one. Think real hard. Free people only get to make some mistakes once.
When I look something up in Wikipedia, I generally approach it with the assumption that I'm going to get a short, moderately informative, and probably at least somewhat mistaken article. Instead, I almost always find a well-researched and in-depth piece on whatever trivia I was looking up. It's not perfect, but I generally learn a great deal.
Yeah, I know I should stop assuming that I'm not going to get much, but I have that assumption with everything I look up online. It's just that Wikipedia gives me more pleasant surprises than most other sources.
We aren't talking about the last resolution, we're talking about 1441. As for getting our rear ends kicked, your definition of that term must be rather different than mine. Iraq is very close to having a functioning military and a functioning government only a couple of years after being invaded, and US deaths in the last few months are down significantly. Not bad for a country as relatively undeveloped as Iraq.
As for blaming some other nations, well when those nations (France, Russia) sell Iraq high-tech weaponry or when they (Syria, Iran) send fighters, weapons, and money over the board, then I think they do deserve a little blame for the current lack of peace in Iraq.
I'd bet that it'll be the country which has less dependance on foreign energy supplies, any of which could be disrupted with ease by a home-made explosive device little larger than a baseball, or a big storm that happens to blow through.
Er...which country is that? With the possible exception of Russia, there is no such First-World country, and Russia's a basket case for other reasons now.
{snipped a good description of problems in the U.S. economy}
Very good points. But have you looked at the rest of the world? Asia has to face a huge demographic bomb only Japan and maybe Taiwan can weather without a serious recession, Taiwan is about 10 minutes from getting flattened at any given time, Japanese middle-schoolers can't even remember economic growth, Russia's about a stone's throw from becoming a failed state, and Europe makes mediocre U.S. growth look enviable. India and Brazil are serious contenders, but they have a whole host of their own problems. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that an ebbing tide lowers all ships.
Even the US military has waned. For all the hundreds of thousands of troops and billions poured into private corporations' hands (or simply 'lost'), it still can't secure a 7 mile stretch of road from the green zone to the airport in baghdad. Parents of soldiers still have to buy ceramics for their kids vests, pay for 'hillbilly armour' for vehicles, and a myriad other expenses due to systematic shortages and lack of oversight necessary to resolve them. Additionally, no foreign militant in their right mind would ever, EVER surrender to the US now if they could help it. They "know" (rightly or wrongly) they stand an excellent chance of being beaten and tortured to death by their captors rather than suffer a nice, clean death obtained while going down fighting. Any moral superiority the US once had in this regard has been totally blown away... which isn't surprising, given how many couch commandos advocate adopting terrorist tactics to beat terrorists. Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you.
Oh, so controlling 23 million people halfway around the world with enemy powers on every border is simple? That's amazing. Shoot, why don't we have you running our military, Anonymous Coward? I'm not going to claim to agree with every military procurement decision ever made, but the simple fact that our military can do this puts it light years ahead of every other military in the world combined. Nobody is even close to our power projection capacity.
That said, I agree 100% about the torture. That's just stupid.
A country is very much like a business, and one of the basic truisms in business is "If you're not on your way up, you're on your way down". To anyone who isn't a proverbial frog-in-the-pot, it's pretty obvious which direction the US is headed.
Where should I go that has a comparable standard of living (PPP measure), economic growth, and political freedom?
It need not stay that way, of course. The road to hell isn't a bad place to be, so long as you're moving in the right direction... but fixing what's broken will likely require more political capital than any current politician possesses, and more sacrifice than the population can tolerate. The world wonders when someone who gives a flying fuck will ever finally wrest control from the acolytes of Mammon and neo-Jesus (the jesus who likes to kill and wants you to forget about that whole 'rich man eye of the needle' and 'what you do unto the least of you you do unto me' and any other 'commie' parts).
Speaking of the New Testament, the U.S. similarly wonders when the world will stop carping about the mite in our eye and deal with the beam in its own.
I encourage you to try to convince us, the rest of the world, that your control over our -read again, ***OUR*** "speech rights" is better than the proposed UN-based body. The point is not about whether north-americans like it or not, it doesn't matter at this point. It WILL be that way. Period.
Ok, I have an empirical proof for you. Write something nasty about every major religion, every ethnicity, and every world government. Post it on a web server in the U.S. and in Europe countries, then inform the relevant law enforcement part of the governments. Go ahead, and then tell us what happens.
Oh, and don't try to order me to convince you of anything. The game is already being played on my field. If you want us to voluntarily move it, you're going to need to be the one doing the convincing.
And while you're at it, I advise against playing the historical inevitability card. A large number of different groups have tried to explain to the U.S. people why they are on the wrong side of historical inevitability, and we remember how few of those predictions have been accurate. The only thing inevitable is change.
9. Have you EVER been a member of or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with:
a. The Communist Party? Yes No
b. Any other totalitarian party? Yes No
c. A terrorist organization?
Holy crap, is that the best you can do? That the U.S. (gasp) doesn't like people who support the governments that fueled the slaughter of tens of millions in the last century? Whoop tee do. Now, I like the U.S., but even I admit there're worse problems than that. Not to mention the other replier's point about the widespread acceptance of immigration restrictions by every nation. As a U.S. citizen, I can support the Commies till the cows come home.
Think in terms of not 20 years but 200, 500, or more. British Empire - couple of hundred years really. And China has proved throughout the last 3000 years it can play the long game. So it's worth making sure when power does shift, you are well thought of.
I think you missed my point, but let's play it on this field. Fine, power shifts, and we become a disliked ex-power. Do we want to be remembered like the Belgians, who left a legacy of bloodshed and failed states, or the British, whose former colonies make up a surprising fraction of the world's functioning governments?
The EU can barely administer Europe without choking it to death, and the UN...well, at least the high-level bureacrats are doing well. Turning the net over to those two bodies would be a lousy way to ensure a positive historical legacy, IMO.
Dear United States of America,
We invented the type of government where the people are represented by representatives in a legislative body, separate from an executive branch, commonly known as the Republic. Your use of the aforementioned type of government infringes on our Intellectual Property rights. Please cease to use the aforementioned type of government within 30 days.
Best regards,
The Old World
Not exactly. The American system of government as described in the Constitution has some fundamental differences with all forms of government practiced in Europe at the time. I suggest reading Max Edling's (a Swede, I might add) recent book on the subject if you don't believe me. That claim has no more merit than to say that Bon Jovi should pay royalties to Bill Haley, since the latter invented rock 'n roll.
The internet is, by definition, the sum of its constituing networks. The constituing networks are build and paid by their respective owners. Basic property rights. You don't own anything you can't show the receipt for.
In the case of the domain name system, that is payed for by the owners of domain names. Year after year they pay for it through their registrars.
If that's the case, then why should any organization control it?
You want more examples? Graham Bell invented the phone. Does that mean the US has the final say in deciding whether Moldavia gets country prefix 0418 or 0418? No, that is decided by the ITU, which is a special organization of the UN. (Which are known to be anti-American communists, having done such terrible things as providing North America with the obscenely long country code "1" just to make it harder for the rest of the world to call the US.)
And if the ITU were as heavy-handed on the phone system as most UN and EU are with their internet laws, the US would probably tell it to go bugger itself with just as much vigor.
You're missing the point. The US will not voluntarily surrender constitutional rights (the freedom of speech, in this case) to a foreign government or group thereof. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to come to the US and attempt to convince the residents that foreign control over their speech rights is superior to what they have now. You will find the experience enlightening, and, if history is any indication, also tarring and feathering.
The fact is that the Internet has moved beyond the national level. Whether you like it or not, the US' role WILL WANE. Taking a hard-line stance will, potentially, simply ensure that the rest of the world forms an international network to the exclusion of the USA.
Or it will ensure that the US sets the terms of its future as one power among many. You seem much more sure that it will fail than history warrants.
Your choice... share or be marginalised and excluded. Put another way, share your toys or perhaps in a few years you'll be the one asking to share ours.
Have you looked at comparative economic growth over the last 20 years and predictions for the next 20? If I had the choice about which economy to bet on, it wouldn't be that of the EU.
Now the struggle for control is between a state and an international organization. The lone state is at a disadvantage anytime that's the way a bureaucratic conflict is structured.
No, it's a lone state versus several states using an international organization. The lone state is at a disadvantage, but not as much as would otherwise be the case due to the widespread public acceptance in that state of telling international organizations to bugger off.
Let's see how long the US holds together without the monetary support of the rest of the world. If countries like China were to just stop buying your government debt (let alone trying to get rid of it) then you won't even be able to pay for your mighty military. You've already given up control of your country and destiny to foreign powers who could crush you and the global economy if they had to.
Er, why would it be in the best interests of the wealthy businessmen who run the PLA to crush the world economy? They could theoretically all shoot themselves, too, and that would only be moderately more self-destructive.
And people with your attitude wonder why there is so much rampant anti-Americanism around the world today. You're too arrogant and conceited to see it. Thank goodness 99% of the Americans I know are fantastic people and don't live up to this stereotype.
And I'm glad that most Europeans I know aren't as short-sighted as you, or the UN would have spun to pieces years ago. The UN needs the US as much as the US needs the UN, and it behooves both organizations to be polite to one another.
On a side note, hasn't the rest of the world figured out that the worst way to get Americans to do something is to "demand" it of them? Just tell us that you want to take over the internet to reduce our accountability to the world and save us money, and we'd probably hand the thing over. (I jest, but not as much as you might think.)
My apologies. I was only thinking about it from the civil side: Section 1203. I'd forgotten about the criminal side, but that doesn't render my point invalid re: the civil cause of action.
Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.
Of course, if the artists' contract required Sony to put DRM on there (maybe from an extremely anti-file-sharing artist like Madonna), then they would probably have a breach of contract action against Sony. I'm not sure it would succeed, but I'll bet it'd survive summary judgment.
Even if the GPL is slowing corporate adoption, an assertion proved by nothing more than the statement "I think" and a fun little example of the post hoc fallacy, that's no reason to ditch the concept. Sure, more corporations might adopt Linux if it were a closed-source program, but why they'd want a relatively unsophisticated OS by some Scandinavian kid instead of the more robust UNIX is beyond me.
Do you see what I mean? You can't separate the success of Linux from its community and core ideal. They rise and fall together. One of the things I respect about ESR is his realization that good code alone won't win adoption for a GPL'd program. This is about ideas as much as code--and philosophers and salesmen are as much combatants against Microsoft and chattel software* as any F/OSS programmer.
*I asked RMS about that phrase. He didn't think it was all that good, but I still kind of like it. What do you think?
I get the impression that the FBI looks at everyone as a criminal waiting to happen. They probably keep all the intercepts on file, just like they want to do with records of legal firearm purchases, DNA samples from acquitted persons, and the like.
I agree the U.N. is pitiful - but maybe it would function better if:
A. the U.S. stopped underhanded tactics such as witholding money owed to the U.N.
Ok, you get Kojo Annan and friends to cough some of that oil for food money back into the UN coffers, and the US'll make a matching contribution. Then the UN can get back to preventing genocides in places like Darfur and Rwanda and Bosnia and the other important things that it doesn't do.
B. the U.S. stopped vetoing resolutions against the proliferation of WMD re. Israel
But if we did that, what would the UN do with the 15% of its time that it devotes to Israel? The poor delegates would get bored stiff.
C. the U.S. stopped vetoing resolutions against genocide
Vetoing? Who's vetoing? The Arab League members are the ones vetoing the resolutions about Darfur.
Oh, you probably mean the ones trying to come up with a definition of genocide. Well, those tend to be so watered down as to exclude everything that any member nation is doing (Darfur, Tibet, the Kurds, etc.), with the exception of a specific section blasting Israel. Why endorse such a silly definition?
The current incarnation of the UN is utterly powerless to stop genocide, even if it showed any desire. Ask the inhabitants of Rwanda or Srebenica how well they liked UN "protection," if you don't believe me. On the plus side, it runs some good sexrings.
And that's just for starters! Please be in no doubt - WRT the U.N. America has a track record of putting its own interests way ahead of those of the rest of the world community, and until that changes there's not much hope of the U.N. getting any better.
Still, you can be sure that when American hegemony is undermined by the rise of China the U.S. will use every means at their disposal - including the U.N. - to try and cling on a little longer...
And China will use every means at its disposal, including trying to get a piece of the internet governance under UN auspices, to make itself more powerful. And this surprises you because...?
Here's an idea: hold the bureaucrats at the UN up to the same standards of good government that you expect from your own country, and maybe they'll be able to accomplish something.
We practically fetishize free speech in the US. You can say more about more in the US than in any other nation with a functioning central gov't and police force. If free speech is your concern, there is no better government to handle the internet than the US. I studied free speech law extensively at law school, and I discussed comparative law with a lot of the foreign students. This isn't to say that the US gov't administration of the internet is perfect, but it's as good as you're going to get.
As for the DMCA, blame your own lawmakers. I think it stinks, too, but if your lawmakers were short-sighted enough to take the candy our corporate shills offered them, well, that's not the fault of the US electorate.
It worked out well for both sides. The USAF got to go to Congress and say they weren't as far ahead as they thought, and the IAF got a big morale boost that also helped the sitting gov't. A number of defense industry analyst bloggers commented on this at the time.
That's like critiquing next year's pop bands today.
Well, that's not very hard, now, is it?
For instance, the boy band is going to be somewhat effeminate and very popular with young girls. It'll be a shame that none of them can play instruments, but their androgynous crooning will win them the hearts of many.
The edgy female punk/pop singer, OTOH, will be a big hit with the high school goth crowd despite her questionable singing voice and constant fights with her band members, most of whom are more talented than her.
The country music phenom of the year's hit song, "American to the bone" will be a gritty, patriotic anthem of the NASCAR dads in the country, but later albums will reveal that they only bought this one because of the picture of the singer and his supermodel wife on the cover.
See? I've got all my snarky pop culture commentary out of the way for the whole year. Sweet!
Heck, if I weren't married, I might take that trip. I don't know. Dying doesn't exactly appeal to me, but I could do a lot of really useful research, set up stuff so future expeditions don't have to be one-way...and see Mars. I'm no astronaut or scientist or millionaire, so I doubt I'll see it any other way in my lifetime.
I know it sounds crazy. But to walk just once under an alien sky...darnit, our children deserve the stars, and someone needs to claim that inheritance for them. IMO, if you've never looked up at the sky and wondered why we're stuck here, well, call God and see if you can get a refund or warranty repair job on your soul.
I agree entirely. He has committed no crime in the U.S. If we sent troops to get him, that would be an act of war against a sovereign nation. If he has committed no crime in Canada, then Canada should stand by its citizen.
A hypothetical problem for this approach is the person who stands in Canada and shoots someone in the U.S. In that case, the person has committed a crime in Canada, and the gov't would have legal grounds to grab him in the first place. Were Canada to refuse to prosecute, then I think a justifiable response would be a U.S. incursion into Canada to obtain the shooter, but only with the understanding that we would be committing an act of war. Of course, we could argue that Canada's condonation of the attack on the U.S. citizen was the initial act of war, but that obscure the main point, which is that such an incursion is not just an incitement to war, but an act thereof.
Note that I said it would be justifiable. Not necessarily the appropriate thing to do, just justifiable.
Slashdot Mirror
Speech law in the U.S. is quite different than it was 50 years ago, or even 30. That possibility isn't particularly high anymore. Besides, I'd rather deal with the possibility in the U.S. than the reality of speech control in, well, pretty much the whole rest of the world.
And is not like I don't want to convince you, is that I don't need to convince you of anything...
Is this that historical inevitability argument again? Fine, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Like I said, the people of the U.S. have been listening to the "this can't possibly work" argument since 1776, and it's only rarely been accurate.
I understand not trusting the U.S., but trusting an international body with China and Russia represented instead? Think about that one. Think real hard. Free people only get to make some mistakes once.
When I look something up in Wikipedia, I generally approach it with the assumption that I'm going to get a short, moderately informative, and probably at least somewhat mistaken article. Instead, I almost always find a well-researched and in-depth piece on whatever trivia I was looking up. It's not perfect, but I generally learn a great deal.
Yeah, I know I should stop assuming that I'm not going to get much, but I have that assumption with everything I look up online. It's just that Wikipedia gives me more pleasant surprises than most other sources.
We aren't talking about the last resolution, we're talking about 1441. As for getting our rear ends kicked, your definition of that term must be rather different than mine. Iraq is very close to having a functioning military and a functioning government only a couple of years after being invaded, and US deaths in the last few months are down significantly. Not bad for a country as relatively undeveloped as Iraq.
As for blaming some other nations, well when those nations (France, Russia) sell Iraq high-tech weaponry or when they (Syria, Iran) send fighters, weapons, and money over the board, then I think they do deserve a little blame for the current lack of peace in Iraq.
Er...which country is that? With the possible exception of Russia, there is no such First-World country, and Russia's a basket case for other reasons now.
{snipped a good description of problems in the U.S. economy}
Very good points. But have you looked at the rest of the world? Asia has to face a huge demographic bomb only Japan and maybe Taiwan can weather without a serious recession, Taiwan is about 10 minutes from getting flattened at any given time, Japanese middle-schoolers can't even remember economic growth, Russia's about a stone's throw from becoming a failed state, and Europe makes mediocre U.S. growth look enviable. India and Brazil are serious contenders, but they have a whole host of their own problems. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that an ebbing tide lowers all ships.
Even the US military has waned. For all the hundreds of thousands of troops and billions poured into private corporations' hands (or simply 'lost'), it still can't secure a 7 mile stretch of road from the green zone to the airport in baghdad. Parents of soldiers still have to buy ceramics for their kids vests, pay for 'hillbilly armour' for vehicles, and a myriad other expenses due to systematic shortages and lack of oversight necessary to resolve them. Additionally, no foreign militant in their right mind would ever, EVER surrender to the US now if they could help it. They "know" (rightly or wrongly) they stand an excellent chance of being beaten and tortured to death by their captors rather than suffer a nice, clean death obtained while going down fighting. Any moral superiority the US once had in this regard has been totally blown away... which isn't surprising, given how many couch commandos advocate adopting terrorist tactics to beat terrorists. Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you.
Oh, so controlling 23 million people halfway around the world with enemy powers on every border is simple? That's amazing. Shoot, why don't we have you running our military, Anonymous Coward? I'm not going to claim to agree with every military procurement decision ever made, but the simple fact that our military can do this puts it light years ahead of every other military in the world combined. Nobody is even close to our power projection capacity.
That said, I agree 100% about the torture. That's just stupid.
A country is very much like a business, and one of the basic truisms in business is "If you're not on your way up, you're on your way down". To anyone who isn't a proverbial frog-in-the-pot, it's pretty obvious which direction the US is headed.
Where should I go that has a comparable standard of living (PPP measure), economic growth, and political freedom?
It need not stay that way, of course. The road to hell isn't a bad place to be, so long as you're moving in the right direction... but fixing what's broken will likely require more political capital than any current politician possesses, and more sacrifice than the population can tolerate. The world wonders when someone who gives a flying fuck will ever finally wrest control from the acolytes of Mammon and neo-Jesus (the jesus who likes to kill and wants you to forget about that whole 'rich man eye of the needle' and 'what you do unto the least of you you do unto me' and any other 'commie' parts).
Speaking of the New Testament, the U.S. similarly wonders when the world will stop carping about the mite in our eye and deal with the beam in its own.
Ok, I have an empirical proof for you. Write something nasty about every major religion, every ethnicity, and every world government. Post it on a web server in the U.S. and in Europe countries, then inform the relevant law enforcement part of the governments. Go ahead, and then tell us what happens.
Oh, and don't try to order me to convince you of anything. The game is already being played on my field. If you want us to voluntarily move it, you're going to need to be the one doing the convincing.
And while you're at it, I advise against playing the historical inevitability card. A large number of different groups have tried to explain to the U.S. people why they are on the wrong side of historical inevitability, and we remember how few of those predictions have been accurate. The only thing inevitable is change.
a. The Communist Party? Yes No
b. Any other totalitarian party? Yes No
c. A terrorist organization?
Holy crap, is that the best you can do? That the U.S. (gasp) doesn't like people who support the governments that fueled the slaughter of tens of millions in the last century? Whoop tee do. Now, I like the U.S., but even I admit there're worse problems than that. Not to mention the other replier's point about the widespread acceptance of immigration restrictions by every nation. As a U.S. citizen, I can support the Commies till the cows come home.
I think you missed my point, but let's play it on this field. Fine, power shifts, and we become a disliked ex-power. Do we want to be remembered like the Belgians, who left a legacy of bloodshed and failed states, or the British, whose former colonies make up a surprising fraction of the world's functioning governments?
The EU can barely administer Europe without choking it to death, and the UN...well, at least the high-level bureacrats are doing well. Turning the net over to those two bodies would be a lousy way to ensure a positive historical legacy, IMO.
Not exactly. The American system of government as described in the Constitution has some fundamental differences with all forms of government practiced in Europe at the time. I suggest reading Max Edling's (a Swede, I might add) recent book on the subject if you don't believe me. That claim has no more merit than to say that Bon Jovi should pay royalties to Bill Haley, since the latter invented rock 'n roll.
The internet is, by definition, the sum of its constituing networks. The constituing networks are build and paid by their respective owners. Basic property rights. You don't own anything you can't show the receipt for. In the case of the domain name system, that is payed for by the owners of domain names. Year after year they pay for it through their registrars.
If that's the case, then why should any organization control it?
You want more examples? Graham Bell invented the phone. Does that mean the US has the final say in deciding whether Moldavia gets country prefix 0418 or 0418? No, that is decided by the ITU, which is a special organization of the UN. (Which are known to be anti-American communists, having done such terrible things as providing North America with the obscenely long country code "1" just to make it harder for the rest of the world to call the US.)
And if the ITU were as heavy-handed on the phone system as most UN and EU are with their internet laws, the US would probably tell it to go bugger itself with just as much vigor.
You're missing the point. The US will not voluntarily surrender constitutional rights (the freedom of speech, in this case) to a foreign government or group thereof. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to come to the US and attempt to convince the residents that foreign control over their speech rights is superior to what they have now. You will find the experience enlightening, and, if history is any indication, also tarring and feathering.
And the United States does not trust the world. I suggest studying comparative free speech laws around the world until the reason becomes apparent.
Or it will ensure that the US sets the terms of its future as one power among many. You seem much more sure that it will fail than history warrants.
Your choice... share or be marginalised and excluded. Put another way, share your toys or perhaps in a few years you'll be the one asking to share ours.
Have you looked at comparative economic growth over the last 20 years and predictions for the next 20? If I had the choice about which economy to bet on, it wouldn't be that of the EU.
No, it's a lone state versus several states using an international organization. The lone state is at a disadvantage, but not as much as would otherwise be the case due to the widespread public acceptance in that state of telling international organizations to bugger off.
Well said. It will be interesting to see where the various countries fall on this one.
Er, why would it be in the best interests of the wealthy businessmen who run the PLA to crush the world economy? They could theoretically all shoot themselves, too, and that would only be moderately more self-destructive.
And people with your attitude wonder why there is so much rampant anti-Americanism around the world today. You're too arrogant and conceited to see it. Thank goodness 99% of the Americans I know are fantastic people and don't live up to this stereotype.
And I'm glad that most Europeans I know aren't as short-sighted as you, or the UN would have spun to pieces years ago. The UN needs the US as much as the US needs the UN, and it behooves both organizations to be polite to one another.
On a side note, hasn't the rest of the world figured out that the worst way to get Americans to do something is to "demand" it of them? Just tell us that you want to take over the internet to reduce our accountability to the world and save us money, and we'd probably hand the thing over. (I jest, but not as much as you might think.)
My apologies. I was only thinking about it from the civil side: Section 1203. I'd forgotten about the criminal side, but that doesn't render my point invalid re: the civil cause of action.
Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.
Of course, if the artists' contract required Sony to put DRM on there (maybe from an extremely anti-file-sharing artist like Madonna), then they would probably have a breach of contract action against Sony. I'm not sure it would succeed, but I'll bet it'd survive summary judgment.
Even if the GPL is slowing corporate adoption, an assertion proved by nothing more than the statement "I think" and a fun little example of the post hoc fallacy, that's no reason to ditch the concept. Sure, more corporations might adopt Linux if it were a closed-source program, but why they'd want a relatively unsophisticated OS by some Scandinavian kid instead of the more robust UNIX is beyond me.
Do you see what I mean? You can't separate the success of Linux from its community and core ideal. They rise and fall together. One of the things I respect about ESR is his realization that good code alone won't win adoption for a GPL'd program. This is about ideas as much as code--and philosophers and salesmen are as much combatants against Microsoft and chattel software* as any F/OSS programmer.
*I asked RMS about that phrase. He didn't think it was all that good, but I still kind of like it. What do you think?
I get the impression that the FBI looks at everyone as a criminal waiting to happen. They probably keep all the intercepts on file, just like they want to do with records of legal firearm purchases, DNA samples from acquitted persons, and the like.
It seems to be ok. YMMV.
I agree the U.N. is pitiful - but maybe it would function better if: A. the U.S. stopped underhanded tactics such as witholding money owed to the U.N.
Ok, you get Kojo Annan and friends to cough some of that oil for food money back into the UN coffers, and the US'll make a matching contribution. Then the UN can get back to preventing genocides in places like Darfur and Rwanda and Bosnia and the other important things that it doesn't do.
B. the U.S. stopped vetoing resolutions against the proliferation of WMD re. Israel
But if we did that, what would the UN do with the 15% of its time that it devotes to Israel? The poor delegates would get bored stiff.
C. the U.S. stopped vetoing resolutions against genocide
Vetoing? Who's vetoing? The Arab League members are the ones vetoing the resolutions about Darfur.
Oh, you probably mean the ones trying to come up with a definition of genocide. Well, those tend to be so watered down as to exclude everything that any member nation is doing (Darfur, Tibet, the Kurds, etc.), with the exception of a specific section blasting Israel. Why endorse such a silly definition?
The current incarnation of the UN is utterly powerless to stop genocide, even if it showed any desire. Ask the inhabitants of Rwanda or Srebenica how well they liked UN "protection," if you don't believe me. On the plus side, it runs some good sex rings.
And that's just for starters! Please be in no doubt - WRT the U.N. America has a track record of putting its own interests way ahead of those of the rest of the world community, and until that changes there's not much hope of the U.N. getting any better.
Still, you can be sure that when American hegemony is undermined by the rise of China the U.S. will use every means at their disposal - including the U.N. - to try and cling on a little longer...
And China will use every means at its disposal, including trying to get a piece of the internet governance under UN auspices, to make itself more powerful. And this surprises you because...?
Here's an idea: hold the bureaucrats at the UN up to the same standards of good government that you expect from your own country, and maybe they'll be able to accomplish something.
We practically fetishize free speech in the US. You can say more about more in the US than in any other nation with a functioning central gov't and police force. If free speech is your concern, there is no better government to handle the internet than the US. I studied free speech law extensively at law school, and I discussed comparative law with a lot of the foreign students. This isn't to say that the US gov't administration of the internet is perfect, but it's as good as you're going to get.
As for the DMCA, blame your own lawmakers. I think it stinks, too, but if your lawmakers were short-sighted enough to take the candy our corporate shills offered them, well, that's not the fault of the US electorate.
It worked out well for both sides. The USAF got to go to Congress and say they weren't as far ahead as they thought, and the IAF got a big morale boost that also helped the sitting gov't. A number of defense industry analyst bloggers commented on this at the time.
...and not one penny for good movies!
Well, that's not very hard, now, is it?
For instance, the boy band is going to be somewhat effeminate and very popular with young girls. It'll be a shame that none of them can play instruments, but their androgynous crooning will win them the hearts of many.
The edgy female punk/pop singer, OTOH, will be a big hit with the high school goth crowd despite her questionable singing voice and constant fights with her band members, most of whom are more talented than her.
The country music phenom of the year's hit song, "American to the bone" will be a gritty, patriotic anthem of the NASCAR dads in the country, but later albums will reveal that they only bought this one because of the picture of the singer and his supermodel wife on the cover.
See? I've got all my snarky pop culture commentary out of the way for the whole year. Sweet!
I know it sounds crazy. But to walk just once under an alien sky...darnit, our children deserve the stars, and someone needs to claim that inheritance for them. IMO, if you've never looked up at the sky and wondered why we're stuck here, well, call God and see if you can get a refund or warranty repair job on your soul.
I agree entirely. He has committed no crime in the U.S. If we sent troops to get him, that would be an act of war against a sovereign nation. If he has committed no crime in Canada, then Canada should stand by its citizen. A hypothetical problem for this approach is the person who stands in Canada and shoots someone in the U.S. In that case, the person has committed a crime in Canada, and the gov't would have legal grounds to grab him in the first place. Were Canada to refuse to prosecute, then I think a justifiable response would be a U.S. incursion into Canada to obtain the shooter, but only with the understanding that we would be committing an act of war. Of course, we could argue that Canada's condonation of the attack on the U.S. citizen was the initial act of war, but that obscure the main point, which is that such an incursion is not just an incitement to war, but an act thereof. Note that I said it would be justifiable. Not necessarily the appropriate thing to do, just justifiable.