A car accident is, well, an accident. And if you do something seriously stupid, such as drive drunk and cause a wreck, it most certainly can have lifelong consequences.
Cheating or lying, conversely, is a very deliberate act. It takes conscious effort to make up a cheat sheet or come up with a lie. Now, I'm not talking about telling your wife "No, honey, you look great" in terms of what I mean by "lying". I am talking about fucking up and then covering up.
I could see giving someone a "second chance" if the mistake were relatively innocuous and it were done relatively young. But if you were old enough you should know better, or caused a massive issue with your lying or cheating, that should be it. Failing to teach and enforce that such things will not be tolerated will lead to them being repeated.
I'm sick of the widespread mentality that cheating is not only desirable but necessary, and that if done for the purpose of "getting ahead", it's alright. I sure wouldn't want a doctor or a lawyer who cheated their way through. I want one who took every test honestly and demonstrated they actually learned the material.
Maybe if we put back the concept of "Cheat or lie (as an adult) once, career suicide for good", we could eliminate this crap. It's infected everything from police to politicians, and programmers to paramedics. If we can find better ways to ensure people actually know what the hell they're doing, instead of demonstrating they can read letters from a cheat sheet, good.
Though, part of the blame also lies with those who design the tests. Multiple choice and fill in the blank tests are obsolete. The best tests would give the taker a project to do, and should be made difficult enough that collaboration is allowed and encouraged. After all, in real world scenarios, collaboration and the ability to research are important skills at nearly everything. As an alternative, one could at the very least give essay questions that would require careful thought and don't have a single "right answer" that can be copied in.
Of course, that takes more effort to grade than running a bunch of sheets through a reader. Imagine that, giving something actual thought.
Or perhaps, I expect the government, when arresting and prosecuting suspected criminals, to itself follow the law. To create even one crime, for which the government can say "Oh, THIS crime doesn't count. If you're suspected of this, we can do whatever we want with you" is an extremely dangerous proposition.
The whole purpose of due process is to prevent that very situation. Regardless of what you're accused of.
I'm going to take exception with #4 in your post, "Obama is trying to close Gitmo in any event". There's an easy way to do that. If someone there has committed a crime, charge them, try them, and sentence them to any prison we've got. If that cannot be proven, let them go. Voila, one closed Guantanamo.
I think there's a name for this idea, actually. "Habeas" something? Something like that? The idea that pretrial imprisonment is limited only to the amount of time necessary to get to the trial, and that if cause to try the defendant cannot be established, you can't just indefinitely detain them anyway?
Not really. You ever heard of, "Pick your battles?" When people bemoan everything, they are quickly ignored as whiners and effectively become a useless, blunt, instrument; if they're still an instrument at all.
Or are deliberately deluged with things and then told they're "whiners" when they dare to take a position on too many of them. I'm not saying you must fight to death or revolution on every issue you disagree on. I am saying, if you disagree, just bother to say so.
And there are issues on which further action is warranted. That's where picking your battles comes in, not in just choosing to be apathetic about the majority of things. You don't get a certain number of opinions that you may express per year.
Finally and strangely, those currently who just want to raise hell about and shout down everything don't seem to get classified as "whiners". In fact, they seem to be winning. Maybe it's time for a little more engagement from the other side, instead of a little less.
Within limits. That's the problem. Generally, every time you find someone who makes that unqualified statement, you've found an idiot.
Than idiot I am. I'll accept a few reasons for secrecy (the date/location of D-Day before the fact, the Manhattan Project, things like that), but it should be a rare exception, not an expected norm.
As or more importantly, it should not be used to cover up wrong, illegal, and embarrassing actions. If I do something illegal, the government will hold me responsible. I expect to be able to do the same back. That's what "rule of law" means—no one, anywhere, is above the law.
The reality is, unlike your pixie dust world, is that the world is full of - HUMANS! Humans are not perfect. Humans are greedy and selfish and contrary to popular myth and bullshit, are not inherently good. The old cliche that power corrupts is true.
While I entirely agree with this statement, it sounds like an argument for more transparency and oversight, not less. The fact that power corrupts is exactly why I want the dealings of those in power to be open and transparent. That's the best antidote to that type of corruption that there is.
All too often people are conflating dozens of issues, especially here on slashdot, and seemingly have absolutely no idea they are. When you add in a bag if ignorance (the general population), lying editorial shows (FOX News), reality that most people can not even begin to relate, understand, or comprehend (war), plus idiots who believe everything should be completely transparent, you have a ripe recipe for tons of conflated stupidity which constantly feeds back in on itself.
Again, I agree wholeheartedly, but you're arguing against yourself again. If spin is a problem, raw facts and transparency are the answer. What's the alternative? More talking points and spin about less hard facts?
What the masses of incredibly stupid wikileaks supports seem completely unable to comprehend, wikileaks have done surprisingly very little good. And what little good has been done, could have been leaks in of itself. Hell, most wikileak supporters are so stupid, they don't even know anything about the person or organization they're willing to throw themselves in front of the bus for.
Oh, I well know Assange is no saint, and that goes well beyond the rape charges (whether they're trumped up or not). He's an attention whore in a lot of ways. But that doesn't keep me from thinking a particular action of his was right. Who was it, that just reminded me the world is made up of imperfect humans?
Now then, should there be a high level of transparency? Absolutely.
Can't argue with that part.
Should there be secrets? Absolutely!
Then, surely you're for having very few secrets. Secrets and transp
Not at all. If you got your code legally under the GPL, there's no way someone can revoke that for existing code. The moment you download GPL code, you have a perpetual license to use and distribute that code.
If every contributor agrees to relicensing, they could put future code under a different license, but they couldn't revoke the license you already have to the code already under the GPL. From section 2 of GPL v3.0:
All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met.
There would be that, but there's also the question whether anyone else's code is in there. If anyone else has code in the project, they'd be violating that person's copyright by distributing that code under terms that person did not agree to, and that person could subsequently go after them for copyright infringement. Following the GPL is the only way they have license to distribute any code but their own at all.
Nope, no buts. If you know of something, and you let it pass silently and without protest, you are agreeing to it. If you think it's wrong, speak up. Now if you're truly at risk from doing so, by all means, speak up quietly and don't put yourself at unneeded risk. But don't be afraid to put yourself at needed risk.
I'll say it right here, and I've said it by writing to the President and Congress under my own name. What Wikileaks did was correct and necessary. We have every right to know what our government is doing. If it would be ashamed of what it's doing under my name, and a lot of other people's, well, the solution isn't to do those things anyway and cover them up a little better next time, the solution is to refrain from doing them. There are certain things that, if you want to claim to be the Good Guy, and claim you're governed according to ethical and moral principles, you never get to do regardless of provocation.
So speak up or shut up. And if you shut up, you're no better than anyone else watching TV and eating Cheetos or whatever the hell it is they're up to. You're rationalizing your inaction just like they are.
We still have at least the semblance of freedom and the right to protest. Don't waste them.
Unless everyone who originally submitted code to the GPL project has explicitly agreed to the relicensing, they're breaking the law. You don't "implicitly" agree to relicensing of code you've submitted just by not contributing any more for a while. The only time that a time frame comes into it is when the copyright actually expires and the project falls into the public domain, which in our era of life-plus and Mickey Mouse Copyright Perpetuation Acts, is basically never. This is the exact type of scenario the GPL was designed to prevent.
Hrm. They made one of those things, called a "law", that's the initial subject of this article. I wonder if the Australian government could make another one of these "law" things to prohibit exactly that type of abuse and specify that no one is permitted to request that someone get genetic test results or favor those who provide them? Seems it'd be a good use for such a thing.
You never tell another person "good to see you", when you really don't care?
Then you just say "Hi, how are you doing?" Still a perfectly polite greeting, and you've told no lies.
You never say "I don't care" when someone asks if you have a preference for lunch, even though you do care?
If they're asking me, they apparently want my opinion. Why would I not then give it? If they want something different, I'll usually go along with it, but you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer for.
You never give a person a false compliment just to brighten their day a little?
No. If they need picked up a little, I'll give them a real one. I've never known a person with no good qualities at all. And really, people do tend to know when you're shitting them around like that. If you want to give them a compliment, pick a genuinely good quality they possess, or something they've recently done well, and compliment them for that.
I would tend to expect the same of our diplomats. They need to be candid, sure. But they can do that by, say, dispassionately reporting the facts and leaving the high school type jabs out oft it entirely. And if what you really are doing would embarrass you if it came to light, there's an easy solution to that—don't do those things. The government could well learn from that. If the actions they're undertaking in our name wouldn't be supported by us if we knew about them, and would be embarrassing because they're unacceptable, why are they doing those things in the first place?
The problem here is not that certain inappropriate actions of the government came to light. The problem is that they ever took place at all.
Please do keep in mind, my comment here is my off-the-cuff thought, not an extensively developed and tested secure protocol.
It's almost certain that flaws would be found in the initial implementation of any setup designed to be secure. That's why there really is no substitute for extensive testing. And I'm not planning to code this thing tomorrow.
Still, I do think it would be possible to do. Though from the replies here, it looks like someone may already have done it.
You could set up a login mechanism using GPG. Wouldn't even be that hard. All you'd have to do is automate the following:
My system connects to the host. The host requests my public key, my system sends it (in cleartext, since it is, well, the public key after all).
The host encrypts a randomly generated string of characters (the "challenge string") using my public key and sends over the encrypted data, as well as its public key in cleartext.
If I have the appropriate private key, my system decrypts the challenge data, re-encrypts it to the host's public key, and resends it. Since the challenge data would be randomly generated every time, there would be no use in saving or intercepting it—the next login would be a different challenge string anyway.
The host decrypts the data. If I've returned the right challenge string, it logs me on.
Do dolphins try to escape captivity? It's something humans do if they're where they don't want to be, so if it happens we might be able to conclude something about what the dolphins want.
"Accidentally" leave a gate open to the ocean, and see if the dolphin escapes or not. Then I guess you'll have your answer. Wanting to escape and being able to do so are two very different things.
I certainly see where you're coming from, but I think one could argue YouTube has "substantial non-infringing uses". Aside from copyright holders putting major stuff up themselves to promote it, there are also an awful lot of self-made videos on YouTube. There are people holding entire conversations and debates in a video format, with points and counterpoints stretching over several responses, from people who are relatively well-known to the guy down the street. I'd say that's a pretty substantial legitimate use.
Same for Rapidshare. I've used it to transfer large files plenty of times, especially when the person I'm transferring it to is across the world and may download it when I'm fast asleep.
"Policing" such a service would be impossible. Even YouTube, with Google behind it, can't cut anything out but the dead-obvious stuff. Anyone with any skill can circumvent it, and the methods are widely known. Having humans check manually would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention they'd have to be aware of every work currently under copyright, and each time contact the copyright holder to see if they're the uploader (after all, if I make a video of my dog, it's technically still copyrighted!)
And without the immunity provisions, we'd probably never have had a YouTube. Or a Rapidshare, or a Pastebin, or web forums, or freemail providers, or.... Hell, for that matter, we probably wouldn't have a Slashdot. The risk would just be too high, when a site has to take responsibility for policing everything its users post. It would be like asking a restaurant owner to monitor the conversations of every patron to ensure they're not discussing something illegal, and holding them responsible if anything slips through.
If that means there's a choice between innovation and copyright, I'll gladly take innovation. That might mean some dinosaurs will die. That does happen sometimes. They'll be replaced with something better suited to the new environment, as is the way of these things.
The DMCA put the "policing" responsibility on the copyright holders, who are, after all, the ultimate beneficiaries of the copyright anyway. So no, they shouldn't be forcing unrelated third parties to do it for them.
Most casinos have a rule that blackjack dealers cannot hit above 17. But if the dealer does hit on a hand totalling 18 anyway, and loses, they owe me the amount of money I won, not just my bet back. They can subsequently fire the dealer, if they want, but their screwup is not my problem, nor should I be denied a win based upon "Oops, we didn't mean for it to work that way...".
The scenario doesn't change because the "dealer" making the error is a machine. They can take the machine right out of service, and I imagine they would, but I was still shown a win and am owed winnings, not my bet back.
One would think they would pay a sufficient amount of money for code auditing to ensure that these things cannot happen. If they fail to do so, fallout from that is their problem, not mine.
I've found Connectbot on Android to work quite well. Far as the typing goes, screen and keyboard size are always going to be an issue for commandline on a smartphone. If you need to do serious work, you need to bring your laptop along (and if you're often away from wifi when the need arises, consider a cell broadband card or tethering of your smartphone). But if you just need to check on something or run a script real quick, Connectbot will do the job just fine.
The physical keyboard on the phone is nice, I'm quite agreed that I wouldn't want to use up half my already limited screen with a virtual keyboard.
So, the old police practice was to plant something that wasn't yours on you before arresting you.
Will the new police practice be to plant things that are yours on you prior to an arrest? "Why yes, Your Honor, the defendant was carrying his laptop, dresser, closet, and kitchen sink in his pocket. Impressed the hell out of me, it did. I'd like to know where he got those pants."
They can put a note saying the user is prohibited from breathing, too. But since there's no legal basis for such a restriction, it's unenforceable.
Otherwise, why stop at prohibiting you from data grabbing? "By visiting this site, you have agreed to never fly on another airline so long as you live."
Raw data is fair game, period. If it's simple factual information, it isn't protected by copyright or any other law.
And you do a pretty good job of positing that there's a problem to be solved, I'll give you that. (And it impresses the hell out of me that you'd acknowledge an opposing argument, for what it's worth.)
And when it comes down to it, not everyone's so evil. My phone is rooted, but I still tend to pay for apps on it if I find them useful. A buck or two isn't a big deal to me, and I've no trouble supporting independent developers. But bear in mind that's basically a donation scheme—I'm paying because I feel I should, not because I've no other choice. And I absolutely insist on a full featured trial version. If you're going to ask for money, you need to let me kick the tires before I put it down.
That doesn't just hold true to mobile apps. I paid for Braid, because it's a brilliant and innovative game. And I discovered Braid in and of itself through Magnatune [magnatune.com], to which I also subscribe. Quite a nice model—for a flat rate (this is critical), I can download and listen to all the music from it I want. Given the number of artists, most of them quite good, that have set up through it, I'd say that model is a workable one.
As to YouTube, they really do follow DMCA requests. If your friend is upset about his audiobook being there, all (s)he has to do is send them a DMCA notice, and they'll take it down. (S)he could even try to sue the uploader (and yes, the DMCA does allow that, it just doesn't allow suing the provider provided they comply with OCILLA). I don't condone such behavior, but "remuneration" is available in such a way. Regardless, though, your friend could quite easily get the material taken down. And if they don't care enough to do it, why should you?
This issue is a complex one. It won't be solved with yesterday's laws, just as we would not regulate cars with laws intended for horses and carriages. The new technology requires a new approach. If I knew what the truly good approach was, I'd probably make a lot more money than I do. I'd start with abolishing automatic copyright (you refer to someone choosing to copyright something, but technically, this post is copyrighted the moment I make it, even though in reality I care not a bit if anyone copies it), shortening copyright terms drastically (if you've not made your profit after 10 years or so, you're probably not going to, copyright longer than a normal lifespan is ridiculous), and focus mainly on commercial/for profit copies rather than individual ones (people copied tapes for years, and to my knowledge never went to jail unless they started selling them). I'm a developer too, and it means we have to find different things to do.
For me, it means I write custom code for people. I don't really care if people copy it—it's so highly specialized that it'd be nearly worthless to anyone but my client, so they can put it up on a torrent if they really want to. They pay me for my time and effort, not endless royalties to my kids and grandkids. That's really how it works for most everyone. I know of past employers who still benefit from what I did for them, and yet don't pay me a nickel. That's alright, they paid me at the time.
I don't pay AMD a royalty every time I use my processor, or Nvidia every time I render graphics. They got their money, and now I get to use what I bought as often as and in any way I'd like. If that means I use the hell out of it without ever paying them another nickel, that's what I do. If it works well, their reward is I'll consider them first when I build my next system. But I guarantee you that if there were a chip that tried to restrict how you use it, and a "pirate" version that allowed you to use it however you like, I'd get the "pirate" version without a second thought. Even if I can easily circumvent the restrictions, they're an irritant. I've no problem whatsoever going with someone who's offering me something better and cheaper.
Posting to undo an erroneous downmod, meant to upmod. Sorry about that. I wish it hadn't gone to that "instantaneous" setup with no confirmation or submit button...
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A car accident is, well, an accident. And if you do something seriously stupid, such as drive drunk and cause a wreck, it most certainly can have lifelong consequences.
Cheating or lying, conversely, is a very deliberate act. It takes conscious effort to make up a cheat sheet or come up with a lie. Now, I'm not talking about telling your wife "No, honey, you look great" in terms of what I mean by "lying". I am talking about fucking up and then covering up.
I could see giving someone a "second chance" if the mistake were relatively innocuous and it were done relatively young. But if you were old enough you should know better, or caused a massive issue with your lying or cheating, that should be it. Failing to teach and enforce that such things will not be tolerated will lead to them being repeated.
Catch more of them!
I'm sick of the widespread mentality that cheating is not only desirable but necessary, and that if done for the purpose of "getting ahead", it's alright. I sure wouldn't want a doctor or a lawyer who cheated their way through. I want one who took every test honestly and demonstrated they actually learned the material.
Maybe if we put back the concept of "Cheat or lie (as an adult) once, career suicide for good", we could eliminate this crap. It's infected everything from police to politicians, and programmers to paramedics. If we can find better ways to ensure people actually know what the hell they're doing, instead of demonstrating they can read letters from a cheat sheet, good.
Though, part of the blame also lies with those who design the tests. Multiple choice and fill in the blank tests are obsolete. The best tests would give the taker a project to do, and should be made difficult enough that collaboration is allowed and encouraged. After all, in real world scenarios, collaboration and the ability to research are important skills at nearly everything. As an alternative, one could at the very least give essay questions that would require careful thought and don't have a single "right answer" that can be copied in.
Of course, that takes more effort to grade than running a bunch of sheets through a reader. Imagine that, giving something actual thought.
Or perhaps, I expect the government, when arresting and prosecuting suspected criminals, to itself follow the law. To create even one crime, for which the government can say "Oh, THIS crime doesn't count. If you're suspected of this, we can do whatever we want with you" is an extremely dangerous proposition.
The whole purpose of due process is to prevent that very situation. Regardless of what you're accused of.
I'm going to take exception with #4 in your post, "Obama is trying to close Gitmo in any event". There's an easy way to do that. If someone there has committed a crime, charge them, try them, and sentence them to any prison we've got. If that cannot be proven, let them go. Voila, one closed Guantanamo.
I think there's a name for this idea, actually. "Habeas" something? Something like that? The idea that pretrial imprisonment is limited only to the amount of time necessary to get to the trial, and that if cause to try the defendant cannot be established, you can't just indefinitely detain them anyway?
Or are deliberately deluged with things and then told they're "whiners" when they dare to take a position on too many of them. I'm not saying you must fight to death or revolution on every issue you disagree on. I am saying, if you disagree, just bother to say so.
And there are issues on which further action is warranted. That's where picking your battles comes in, not in just choosing to be apathetic about the majority of things. You don't get a certain number of opinions that you may express per year.
Finally and strangely, those currently who just want to raise hell about and shout down everything don't seem to get classified as "whiners". In fact, they seem to be winning. Maybe it's time for a little more engagement from the other side, instead of a little less.
Than idiot I am. I'll accept a few reasons for secrecy (the date/location of D-Day before the fact, the Manhattan Project, things like that), but it should be a rare exception, not an expected norm.
As or more importantly, it should not be used to cover up wrong, illegal, and embarrassing actions. If I do something illegal, the government will hold me responsible. I expect to be able to do the same back. That's what "rule of law" means—no one, anywhere, is above the law.
While I entirely agree with this statement, it sounds like an argument for more transparency and oversight, not less. The fact that power corrupts is exactly why I want the dealings of those in power to be open and transparent. That's the best antidote to that type of corruption that there is.
Again, I agree wholeheartedly, but you're arguing against yourself again. If spin is a problem, raw facts and transparency are the answer. What's the alternative? More talking points and spin about less hard facts?
Oh, I well know Assange is no saint, and that goes well beyond the rape charges (whether they're trumped up or not). He's an attention whore in a lot of ways. But that doesn't keep me from thinking a particular action of his was right. Who was it, that just reminded me the world is made up of imperfect humans?
Can't argue with that part.
Then, surely you're for having very few secrets. Secrets and transp
Not at all. If you got your code legally under the GPL, there's no way someone can revoke that for existing code. The moment you download GPL code, you have a perpetual license to use and distribute that code.
If every contributor agrees to relicensing, they could put future code under a different license, but they couldn't revoke the license you already have to the code already under the GPL. From section 2 of GPL v3.0:
There would be that, but there's also the question whether anyone else's code is in there. If anyone else has code in the project, they'd be violating that person's copyright by distributing that code under terms that person did not agree to, and that person could subsequently go after them for copyright infringement. Following the GPL is the only way they have license to distribute any code but their own at all.
Then, you are part of the problem.
Nope, no buts. If you know of something, and you let it pass silently and without protest, you are agreeing to it. If you think it's wrong, speak up. Now if you're truly at risk from doing so, by all means, speak up quietly and don't put yourself at unneeded risk. But don't be afraid to put yourself at needed risk.
I'll say it right here, and I've said it by writing to the President and Congress under my own name. What Wikileaks did was correct and necessary. We have every right to know what our government is doing. If it would be ashamed of what it's doing under my name, and a lot of other people's, well, the solution isn't to do those things anyway and cover them up a little better next time, the solution is to refrain from doing them. There are certain things that, if you want to claim to be the Good Guy, and claim you're governed according to ethical and moral principles, you never get to do regardless of provocation.
So speak up or shut up. And if you shut up, you're no better than anyone else watching TV and eating Cheetos or whatever the hell it is they're up to. You're rationalizing your inaction just like they are.
We still have at least the semblance of freedom and the right to protest. Don't waste them.
Unless everyone who originally submitted code to the GPL project has explicitly agreed to the relicensing, they're breaking the law. You don't "implicitly" agree to relicensing of code you've submitted just by not contributing any more for a while. The only time that a time frame comes into it is when the copyright actually expires and the project falls into the public domain, which in our era of life-plus and Mickey Mouse Copyright Perpetuation Acts, is basically never. This is the exact type of scenario the GPL was designed to prevent.
Hrm. They made one of those things, called a "law", that's the initial subject of this article. I wonder if the Australian government could make another one of these "law" things to prohibit exactly that type of abuse and specify that no one is permitted to request that someone get genetic test results or favor those who provide them? Seems it'd be a good use for such a thing.
Seems it would be this.
You don't have to lie in those scenarios.
Then you just say "Hi, how are you doing?" Still a perfectly polite greeting, and you've told no lies.
If they're asking me, they apparently want my opinion. Why would I not then give it? If they want something different, I'll usually go along with it, but you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer for.
No. If they need picked up a little, I'll give them a real one. I've never known a person with no good qualities at all. And really, people do tend to know when you're shitting them around like that. If you want to give them a compliment, pick a genuinely good quality they possess, or something they've recently done well, and compliment them for that.
I would tend to expect the same of our diplomats. They need to be candid, sure. But they can do that by, say, dispassionately reporting the facts and leaving the high school type jabs out oft it entirely. And if what you really are doing would embarrass you if it came to light, there's an easy solution to that—don't do those things. The government could well learn from that. If the actions they're undertaking in our name wouldn't be supported by us if we knew about them, and would be embarrassing because they're unacceptable, why are they doing those things in the first place?
The problem here is not that certain inappropriate actions of the government came to light. The problem is that they ever took place at all.
Please do keep in mind, my comment here is my off-the-cuff thought, not an extensively developed and tested secure protocol.
It's almost certain that flaws would be found in the initial implementation of any setup designed to be secure. That's why there really is no substitute for extensive testing. And I'm not planning to code this thing tomorrow.
Still, I do think it would be possible to do. Though from the replies here, it looks like someone may already have done it.
You could set up a login mechanism using GPG. Wouldn't even be that hard. All you'd have to do is automate the following:
"Accidentally" leave a gate open to the ocean, and see if the dolphin escapes or not. Then I guess you'll have your answer. Wanting to escape and being able to do so are two very different things.
I certainly see where you're coming from, but I think one could argue YouTube has "substantial non-infringing uses". Aside from copyright holders putting major stuff up themselves to promote it, there are also an awful lot of self-made videos on YouTube. There are people holding entire conversations and debates in a video format, with points and counterpoints stretching over several responses, from people who are relatively well-known to the guy down the street. I'd say that's a pretty substantial legitimate use.
Same for Rapidshare. I've used it to transfer large files plenty of times, especially when the person I'm transferring it to is across the world and may download it when I'm fast asleep.
"Policing" such a service would be impossible. Even YouTube, with Google behind it, can't cut anything out but the dead-obvious stuff. Anyone with any skill can circumvent it, and the methods are widely known. Having humans check manually would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention they'd have to be aware of every work currently under copyright, and each time contact the copyright holder to see if they're the uploader (after all, if I make a video of my dog, it's technically still copyrighted!)
And without the immunity provisions, we'd probably never have had a YouTube. Or a Rapidshare, or a Pastebin, or web forums, or freemail providers, or.... Hell, for that matter, we probably wouldn't have a Slashdot. The risk would just be too high, when a site has to take responsibility for policing everything its users post. It would be like asking a restaurant owner to monitor the conversations of every patron to ensure they're not discussing something illegal, and holding them responsible if anything slips through.
If that means there's a choice between innovation and copyright, I'll gladly take innovation. That might mean some dinosaurs will die. That does happen sometimes. They'll be replaced with something better suited to the new environment, as is the way of these things.
The DMCA put the "policing" responsibility on the copyright holders, who are, after all, the ultimate beneficiaries of the copyright anyway. So no, they shouldn't be forcing unrelated third parties to do it for them.
Most casinos have a rule that blackjack dealers cannot hit above 17. But if the dealer does hit on a hand totalling 18 anyway, and loses, they owe me the amount of money I won, not just my bet back. They can subsequently fire the dealer, if they want, but their screwup is not my problem, nor should I be denied a win based upon "Oops, we didn't mean for it to work that way...".
The scenario doesn't change because the "dealer" making the error is a machine. They can take the machine right out of service, and I imagine they would, but I was still shown a win and am owed winnings, not my bet back.
One would think they would pay a sufficient amount of money for code auditing to ensure that these things cannot happen. If they fail to do so, fallout from that is their problem, not mine.
We are not at war with Eastasia. We have never been at war with Eastasia.
I've found Connectbot on Android to work quite well. Far as the typing goes, screen and keyboard size are always going to be an issue for commandline on a smartphone. If you need to do serious work, you need to bring your laptop along (and if you're often away from wifi when the need arises, consider a cell broadband card or tethering of your smartphone). But if you just need to check on something or run a script real quick, Connectbot will do the job just fine.
The physical keyboard on the phone is nice, I'm quite agreed that I wouldn't want to use up half my already limited screen with a virtual keyboard.
So, the old police practice was to plant something that wasn't yours on you before arresting you.
Will the new police practice be to plant things that are yours on you prior to an arrest? "Why yes, Your Honor, the defendant was carrying his laptop, dresser, closet, and kitchen sink in his pocket. Impressed the hell out of me, it did. I'd like to know where he got those pants."
Now that would make me quite pissed off.
What, I can't say pissed off?
OWWWWWWWWWWW!
They can put a note saying the user is prohibited from breathing, too. But since there's no legal basis for such a restriction, it's unenforceable.
Otherwise, why stop at prohibiting you from data grabbing? "By visiting this site, you have agreed to never fly on another airline so long as you live."
Raw data is fair game, period. If it's simple factual information, it isn't protected by copyright or any other law.
And you do a pretty good job of positing that there's a problem to be solved, I'll give you that. (And it impresses the hell out of me that you'd acknowledge an opposing argument, for what it's worth.)
And when it comes down to it, not everyone's so evil. My phone is rooted, but I still tend to pay for apps on it if I find them useful. A buck or two isn't a big deal to me, and I've no trouble supporting independent developers. But bear in mind that's basically a donation scheme—I'm paying because I feel I should, not because I've no other choice. And I absolutely insist on a full featured trial version. If you're going to ask for money, you need to let me kick the tires before I put it down.
That doesn't just hold true to mobile apps. I paid for Braid, because it's a brilliant and innovative game. And I discovered Braid in and of itself through Magnatune [magnatune.com], to which I also subscribe. Quite a nice model—for a flat rate (this is critical), I can download and listen to all the music from it I want. Given the number of artists, most of them quite good, that have set up through it, I'd say that model is a workable one.
As to YouTube, they really do follow DMCA requests. If your friend is upset about his audiobook being there, all (s)he has to do is send them a DMCA notice, and they'll take it down. (S)he could even try to sue the uploader (and yes, the DMCA does allow that, it just doesn't allow suing the provider provided they comply with OCILLA). I don't condone such behavior, but "remuneration" is available in such a way. Regardless, though, your friend could quite easily get the material taken down. And if they don't care enough to do it, why should you?
This issue is a complex one. It won't be solved with yesterday's laws, just as we would not regulate cars with laws intended for horses and carriages. The new technology requires a new approach. If I knew what the truly good approach was, I'd probably make a lot more money than I do. I'd start with abolishing automatic copyright (you refer to someone choosing to copyright something, but technically, this post is copyrighted the moment I make it, even though in reality I care not a bit if anyone copies it), shortening copyright terms drastically (if you've not made your profit after 10 years or so, you're probably not going to, copyright longer than a normal lifespan is ridiculous), and focus mainly on commercial/for profit copies rather than individual ones (people copied tapes for years, and to my knowledge never went to jail unless they started selling them). I'm a developer too, and it means we have to find different things to do.
For me, it means I write custom code for people. I don't really care if people copy it—it's so highly specialized that it'd be nearly worthless to anyone but my client, so they can put it up on a torrent if they really want to. They pay me for my time and effort, not endless royalties to my kids and grandkids. That's really how it works for most everyone. I know of past employers who still benefit from what I did for them, and yet don't pay me a nickel. That's alright, they paid me at the time.
I don't pay AMD a royalty every time I use my processor, or Nvidia every time I render graphics. They got their money, and now I get to use what I bought as often as and in any way I'd like. If that means I use the hell out of it without ever paying them another nickel, that's what I do. If it works well, their reward is I'll consider them first when I build my next system. But I guarantee you that if there were a chip that tried to restrict how you use it, and a "pirate" version that allowed you to use it however you like, I'd get the "pirate" version without a second thought. Even if I can easily circumvent the restrictions, they're an irritant. I've no problem whatsoever going with someone who's offering me something better and cheaper.
Posting to undo an erroneous downmod, meant to upmod. Sorry about that. I wish it hadn't gone to that "instantaneous" setup with no confirmation or submit button...