Because the whole industry is in its infancy? Maybe time passes more slowly for others, but for me, the microcomputer days when Microsoft wasn't "dominant", seems like it was practically *yesterday*.
We may wish marketplace dynamics and industry trends could play out during the course of our own careers or even in our lifetimes, but from where I sit, it *has*.
I think you overestimate the effectiveness of lawyers. Once you get past the intimidation game, they really don't accomplish that much. All the cynical beliefs in the world won't persuade me to give up any right to any process. I can't believe how often people waive their right to a hearing, or waive the right to have a jury at the hearing.
On the other hand, I do suspect that many of these situations involve a defendant who is not as clearly in the right as they would like us to believe.
Legal issues are a whole lot easier to deal with, when you are fully in the right. Whenever it's a gray area, well, that's a different ballpark.
"How long until a bill passes saying you only get copyright on your work if you're a member of the appropriate conglomerate (MPAA, RIAA etc.)?"
Make an argument for it that passes muster under Equal Protection arguments, and you're on. You'd need to make a persuasive case for there being a "compelling state interest" to restrict copyright only to a specific class.
Judicial review would tear it a couple of new assholes, though. Even ultraconservative judges don't like to swim in equal protection waters.
The "Play/Stop/Pause/FF/RW" idiom goes WAY back, maybe further back than the AEG Magnetophon, probably originating with shuttle controls for editing talkie film.
Let it die. It might lead to people creating their own entertainment media. Which, of course, turns the equation on its head, as individuals who are content creators acquire whatever magic rights the entertainment industry chiefs presume are their exclusive domain.
Not quite sure how you think this relates exactly, but okay.
If I hired a photographer to shoot an event, say, a wedding, the contract would have terms specifying the format (4x5), specifying who keeps the negatives (my agent), (I know all about digital RAW), and specifying not only that no model release will be granted to the photographer, but also, that the photographer is expressly providing a work for hire for my agent.
Any photographer who doesn't like these terms can get his next meal from someone else's wallet, not mine.
There are plenty of people who are, for whatever reason, not even contracturally permitted to waive photo rights to anyone, since they are already owned. Pro athletes, actors, models, all kinds of people, and you don't have to be Br*d P*tt or Anna K**nik*v* to have this problem.
Make your own music, then enjoy the magic "extra rights" that you get. Attack the controlling laws from the other direction, with the argument that they abridge your right to produce, copy, distribute, etc., your works.
Leverage the unprecedented ability offered in the 21st century to eliminate both the middleman and the broker. Create something that has appeal, sell a million copies without getting Sony to do it for you, and watch the status quo change overnight.
The last thing I want to hear is how "that's hard." The quality you can get with consumer tools today, and the size of the audience you can reach, is SO MUCH MORE than an artist could ever hope for in 1956. And now, thanks to all these laws that are meant to protect the entertainment biz, you get the kind of copyright protection (with TEETH!) that nobody before you has ever had.
But, so many artists are hell bent on following the 1956 model. They still think "The Contract" is the only answer. For certain kinds of promotion, it might be, but there are more alternatives today than ever before.
"My point is that part of being an employee in someone else's business is subjecting oneself to the uncertainties surrounding surrendering that control to someone else, who is not bound by anything to keep the well-being of anyone but themself in mind when they consider potential actions. "
The relationship of labor to the means of production is at the core of all economic theory.
Common enough misconception - one that undoubtedly scares a lot of people into giving up rights.
Court fees are not as expensive as you've been led to believe. If I'm ever sued, there's no way I'll give up one single item of process. Have a hearing on EVERYTHING, and don't waive your right to have a jury at EVERY hearing.
Doesn't cost that much. I've done it. Won, too.
"Loser pays all legal expenses?" The obvious abuse there is for someone to file suit on some trivial matter, where the defendant is clearly wrong, but have millions of dollars in legal expenses paid to some lawyer who is a partner of the plaintiff.
Here's what getting a good digital camera has done for me: I've been making the 11x14 and 20x30 prints that I never could get from my 35mm images, framing them, and displaying them as the works of art that they are.
"Yep! More specifically, because you seem to think that having a job entitles you to keep said job until you're ready to leave it."
I don't know where you get that from.
I know that having your company bought by another company will put you and/or a lot of your co workers out of work. It's something I'd prefer not to happen.
I'm not blaming anyone for anything. You're reading way too much about my ethos from way too little information.
"Once the US housing bubble collapses there will be a total economic collapse."
I'd settle for a levelling off. $60,000 houses in parts of Arizona where there are NO jobs at all, going for more than asking price of >$250,000, the day they hit the market? I don't get it.
I'm not convinced a total collapse would be a bad thing, altogether.
"Ahhh. Exactly what makes adopting Linux such a hassle. The multiple distros."
Why don't the same people have a problem with all the different car manufacturers?
I fail to see the problem. It's not as if the different distributions are all *that* different, and it's certainly not like they all keep their implementation details hidden. It's not the vendor's fault the potential consumer chooses not to educate himself. And nothing stops him from trying out 2 or 3 or more different ones to find the right one for him.
In my experience Debian, especially in the form of Knoppix, turns out to be the easiset to deal with, from installation to operation to maintenance.
The worst thing about that would be, moving into a senior position that the people below you didn't get promoted to.
Getting the job will be a lot easier than getting their respect.
Management has a whole different dynamic. People won't resent you for getting hired as a manager, but they sure will, if you fill some "senior" developer opening that the company didn't fill from the current pool.
You really don't want to be in a workplace where your whole team resents you because you got hired on your credentials where they did not get promoted on their experience.
"If they don't want you there, tell them you can work for free for a while."
Ugh. Bad advice for a bunch of reasons. One, it's probably not going to fly with the company's policy to underpay a given position, if it's even legal.
But more importantly, it sounds desperate, and people who make hiring decisions don't respond well to that.
Slashdot Mirror
> Have you never heard the saying "Your freedom ends
> where my nose begins"?
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The actual quote implies that a spirit of self-restraint is necessary in order for the concept of "rights" to be applicable to all.
The common misquoting as reflected in your post turns the individual responsibility around.
"Can something still be considered slander if it's true?"
No, that is an effective defense.
>Why not?
Because the whole industry is in its infancy?
Maybe time passes more slowly for others, but for me, the microcomputer days when Microsoft wasn't "dominant", seems like it was practically *yesterday*.
We may wish marketplace dynamics and industry trends could play out during the course of our own careers or even in our lifetimes, but from where I sit, it *has*.
I think you overestimate the effectiveness of lawyers. Once you get past the intimidation game, they really don't accomplish that much. All the cynical beliefs in the world won't persuade me to give up any right to any process. I can't believe how often people waive their right to a hearing, or waive the right to have a jury at the hearing.
On the other hand, I do suspect that many of these situations involve a defendant who is not as clearly in the right as they would like us to believe.
Legal issues are a whole lot easier to deal with, when you are fully in the right. Whenever it's a gray area, well, that's a different ballpark.
"How long until a bill passes saying you only get copyright on your work if you're a member of the appropriate conglomerate (MPAA, RIAA etc.)?"
Make an argument for it that passes muster under Equal Protection arguments, and you're on. You'd need to make a persuasive case for there being a "compelling state interest" to restrict copyright only to a specific class.
Judicial review would tear it a couple of new assholes, though. Even ultraconservative judges don't like to swim in equal protection waters.
The "Play/Stop/Pause/FF/RW" idiom goes WAY back, maybe further back than the AEG Magnetophon, probably originating with shuttle controls for editing talkie film.
>The final nail in the coffin.
Let it die. It might lead to people creating their own entertainment media. Which, of course, turns the equation on its head, as individuals who are content creators acquire whatever magic rights the entertainment industry chiefs presume are their exclusive domain.
Not quite sure how you think this relates exactly, but okay.
If I hired a photographer to shoot an event, say, a wedding, the contract would have terms specifying the format (4x5), specifying who keeps the negatives (my agent), (I know all about digital RAW), and specifying not only that no model release will be granted to the photographer, but also, that the photographer is expressly providing a work for hire for my agent.
Any photographer who doesn't like these terms can get his next meal from someone else's wallet, not mine.
There are plenty of people who are, for whatever reason, not even contracturally permitted to waive photo rights to anyone, since they are already owned. Pro athletes, actors, models, all kinds of people, and you don't have to be Br*d P*tt or Anna K**nik*v* to have this problem.
Make your own music, then enjoy the magic "extra rights" that you get. Attack the controlling laws from the other direction, with the argument that they abridge your right to produce, copy, distribute, etc., your works.
Leverage the unprecedented ability offered in the 21st century to eliminate both the middleman and the broker. Create something that has appeal, sell a million copies without getting Sony to do it for you, and watch the status quo change overnight.
The last thing I want to hear is how "that's hard." The quality you can get with consumer tools today, and the size of the audience you can reach, is SO MUCH MORE than an artist could ever hope for in 1956. And now, thanks to all these laws that are meant to protect the entertainment biz, you get the kind of copyright protection (with TEETH!) that nobody before you has ever had.
But, so many artists are hell bent on following the 1956 model. They still think "The Contract" is the only answer. For certain kinds of promotion, it might be, but there are more alternatives today than ever before.
"My point is that part of being an employee in someone else's business is subjecting oneself to the uncertainties surrounding surrendering that control to someone else, who is not bound by anything to keep the well-being of anyone but themself in mind when they consider potential actions.
"
The relationship of labor to the means of production is at the core of all economic theory.
There are no easy answers.
> In the US he'd be broke already.
Common enough misconception - one that undoubtedly scares a lot of people into giving up rights.
Court fees are not as expensive as you've been led to believe. If I'm ever sued, there's no way I'll give up one single item of process. Have a hearing on EVERYTHING, and don't waive your right to have a jury at EVERY hearing.
Doesn't cost that much. I've done it. Won, too.
"Loser pays all legal expenses?" The obvious abuse there is for someone to file suit on some trivial matter, where the defendant is clearly wrong, but have millions of dollars in legal expenses paid to some lawyer who is a partner of the plaintiff.
>The "elected" government is currently representing
>the will of a monied elite
Name the US Senator who is in office by any means other than an at-large election.
The governed support the status quo.
I don't like it, personally, but I don't have any delusions that the liberal counterculture has a majority voice.
>When will "the users" realize that they elect the
>politicians?
When will they realize that the elected government actually does represent the general consensus of the people?
To me, that's much scarier than any conspiracy theory.
Here's what getting a good digital camera has done for me: I've been making the 11x14 and 20x30 prints that I never could get from my 35mm images, framing them, and displaying them as the works of art that they are.
"Yep! More specifically, because you seem to think that having a job entitles you to keep said job until you're ready to leave it."
I don't know where you get that from.
I know that having your company bought by another company will put you and/or a lot of your co workers out of work. It's something I'd prefer not to happen.
I'm not blaming anyone for anything. You're reading way too much about my ethos from way too little information.
I'm whiney and entitle-ist because I think it's better for people to have a job than lose it?
>Be open and perhaps a larger company will buy you.
Good for the investors and execs, bad for everyone else who would rather have a job than a severence package.
"* People expect that taking night school courses at a community college entitle them to high-five-figure salaries out of the box."
Minimum wage is almost five-figures.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you OWN a house or property."
I own a couple of houses and a small farm in East Texas. All together, not worth the down payment on a 2 bedroom anywhere I'd actually like to live.
"Once the US housing bubble collapses there will be a total economic collapse."
I'd settle for a levelling off. $60,000 houses in parts of Arizona where there are NO jobs at all, going for more than asking price of >$250,000, the day they hit the market? I don't get it.
I'm not convinced a total collapse would be a bad thing, altogether.
I know where you're coming from, but then, I don't think that anyone who can't figure that out, needs to be running Apache in the first place.
I can't think of a distribution that features Apache, that does not start it with "/etc/init.d/apache start"
I'm sure if that's a problem it's the least of your problems configuring the server.
"Ahhh. Exactly what makes adopting Linux such a hassle. The multiple distros."
Why don't the same people have a problem with all the different car manufacturers?
I fail to see the problem. It's not as if the different distributions are all *that* different, and it's certainly not like they all keep their implementation details hidden. It's not the vendor's fault the potential consumer chooses not to educate himself. And nothing stops him from trying out 2 or 3 or more different ones to find the right one for him.
In my experience Debian, especially in the form of Knoppix, turns out to be the easiset to deal with, from installation to operation to maintenance.
"Amazon puts up a free concert, and Slashdot idiots go nuclear."
Amazon treats its employees to a picnic but tries to frame it as some kind of service to the customers.
"We're taking your sister to Six Flags -- don't worry, we'll show some pictures of some of the rides, aren't you excited?"
>I hope you don't get a "senior" level position.
The worst thing about that would be, moving into a senior position that the people below you didn't get promoted to.
Getting the job will be a lot easier than getting their respect.
Management has a whole different dynamic. People won't resent you for getting hired as a manager, but they sure will, if you fill some "senior" developer opening that the company didn't fill from the current pool.
You really don't want to be in a workplace where your whole team resents you because you got hired on your credentials where they did not get promoted on their experience.
"If they don't want you there, tell them you can work for free for a while."
Ugh. Bad advice for a bunch of reasons. One, it's probably not going to fly with the company's policy to underpay a given position, if it's even legal.
But more importantly, it sounds desperate, and people who make hiring decisions don't respond well to that.