"One of the problems with Usenet is that its use is declining... "
If you say so, but some of the groups I frequent are as strong as ever, and relatively abuse-free.
Re:great ....but there still a long road ahead
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1
"Depravation by choice is abstinence yes"
Depravation by being a fat chick or a geek, is more where I was coming from.
Re:great ....but there still a long road ahead
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1
"certain cultures don't believe abstinence is possible."
I can't disagree with them, having never observed "abstinence" except in boundary cases that would be better categorized as "deprivation", and the few individuals zealous enough to consider it -- and even they would fall in the "deprived" category if they had not framed it as being their own choice, I'm afraid.
The Press has a specific, enumerated right in the First Amendment, to ask for anything of this nature, and also, if framed in the context of petition for redress of greivances, the rights go much further.
It's a separate question of whether the Judge should choose to release the information, but the right to ask for it is one of the more fundamental rights of man.
"The point of copyright law isn't some abstract 'Whatever is best for society', it's 'To increase the public domain'. Period."
Actually, the point of US Copyright Law is to promote progress of science and useful arts. Yes, this is as opposed to "rewarding the labor of authors, etc.", and I understand the limited times argument and much more, BUT, if you want to slay this beast, what you MUST do, the ONLY thing you MUST do, is persuade either the Congress, or the Supreme Court, that progress of science and/or useful arts is being IMPEDED and/or DAMAGED by the current state of copyright law.
No other argument is going to be given the slighest ear, for the simple reason that no other argument addresses the fundamental point of copyright law in this country, which is certainly NOT strictly "to increase the public domain", although that is held to be a traditional ideal.
Argue to Congress that copyright law as it stands is counter to its mission. Prove to their satisfaction (not yours or mine!) that specific harm is being done to progress in the arts and sciences, and establish a specific remedy that would rectify the matter.
It's a long row to hoe, of course, because a substantial argument in favor of the status quo is being put forth rather vehemently by the very parties responsible for the dramatic, observable, progress in Sicence and useful Arts.
You have a sympathetic ear in the Supreme Court: Justice O'Connor. Nurture this.
"If you publicly distribute something, its natural status is in the public domain, and that's how civilization worked for millenia. Starting a few hundred years ago, certain parties persuaded the state to take those things out of the public domain by force."
Others would argue that a state of anarchy and barbarism persisted for millennia, and only in the past few centuries has civlization truly had order.
"That seems to be the way the playing field is being set, but that is not the way it should be. Development, invention, and creativity are all socially beneficial."
Yabbut, no matter how you believe "it should be", you are up against an overwhelming support for the status quo.
Remember the election of 2004, when (us) liberals thought we had a peaceful revolution in the bag, and SURPRISE, apathy and conservatism won the day? Same thing here. Practically everybody *I* know, and myself also, believe something along the lines of what you expressed. But that sort of idealism turns out to be a minority view, held mainly by a fringe element, who happen to be the sort of people who live in big cities near the urban cultural centers of the country.
And we don't make the rules.
I'm really not making strong value judgements here. I'm just saying, if you want to free intellectual property, there's an obvious way to do it. It's going to take a lot more money than any of the idealists can scrape up though.
"Social benefit" is considered an obscenity by a frighteningly, increasingly large number of people.
"What if you are an artist and you turn your house into a work of art?"
The laws governing "Real Property" are going to have more weight than any law governing intellectual property. Even buildings that are, by any reasonable person's standards, legitimate works of art (such as a Frank Lloyd Wright house, or some of the famous roadside attractions on Route 66), will not cause any waiver of rights or responsibilities governing real estate.
Now what is possible, and not even all that unusual, would be a covenant requiring the preservation of a piece of property to a certain standard.
You do raise an interesting question, but it really only underscores the fundamental difference between real property and other property, together with the flaws of any analogy involving "cars" (which are NOT "real property" in a legal sense), or "houses", compared to music, literature, or software.
"But there are many individuals who want to use, modify, develop, etc. those materials who are presently prevented from doing so by the law."
But, the big question is this.
Do they wnat to use, modify, develop, etc., BADLY ENOUGH to pay the price? That price might be high -- perhaps as high as the cost of buying a controlling interest in a multi-billion dollar corporation, or even worse, persuading the executor of an estate to agree to your terms when they are strongly motivated not to speak to you.
The answer, of course, is "no", the people demanding rights to abandonware are generally looking to place it into the hands of the public out of some idealistic motivation, and obviously do not have the means to make the copyright owner an offer they cannot refuse, or if the owner cannot be located, persuade the STATE to take the property by force.
But of course, that requires the sort of resources that people on the freedom side of the argument never see, and never consider to be neccessary or appropriate to begin with. But it's probably the only language that will be heard, money. Perhaps billions of dollars, in some cases.
"...[T]he original intent of copyright law is to encourage the creation of new intellectual works for the enrichment o[f] society."
So, you could argue by the same reasoning that abandonware ought to be left in its grave, and rather than bother with it, it should inspire you to create something of your own, instead of wasting your time with the abandoned work.
"I would have thought that in the Politics section of Slashdot, the resignation of a cabinet member would be newsworthy."
Cabinet transitions following an election may be newsworthy in some sense, but what would be exceptional, would be for the cabinet NOT to change hands.
Cabinet members resign every term. They usually aren't as visible in the public spotlight as they are under Bush. (Can you name or list the department of the single Reagan secretary to serve both full Reagan terms?)
When you get someone like Janet Reno, who served from 1993 until 2001, that is quite exceptional.
"Back at the dawn of time, my first exposure to D&D was the original pamphlet-style books, and boy were they sloppy."
The Chainmail rules and the first edition books did communicate one thing very well: This game is a work in progress, and YOU must continue its development.
It was aimed at people who had already grown bored with the rules for tabletop gaming with historical battles, and was supposed to help take people with an interest in a fantasy milieu to another level.
That means, Gygax provided us with a basic movement and combat system, a magic system that *intentionally* sucked ass, and the most general idea of a universe in which this particular gaming milieu might take place.
The rest was supposed to be picked up by your imagination. You were supposed to create combat tables, spell effects, character attributes, and adventure campaigns, and grow your own game from the seed of the ideas contained in the books.
Some people did so, and often had very good results. Those fortunate enough to live near Lake Geneva Wisconsin had the unique opportunity to witness how Gygax himself had interpreted these rules.
Others, particularly after the game became popular and the 2nd Ed. books came out, chose to stick to the rule books as if they were some kind of bible. Which is reasonable I suppose.
Re:Betamax gets the last laugh
on
The VHS is Dead
·
· Score: 1
"Nor do I pay for the ones that disable me to skip commercials."
By the time I discover this, I've already paid.
What do you do? Watch the movie, then complain when you return it and ask for a refund? I'm pretty sure I could parley that into a free rental, if I pressed the issue, but when I'm bringing DVD's back, I want to get it over with, drop it in the slot and leave.
When it comes preconfigured in a 1u rack form factor for $300, it will be. It doesn't actually have to be rack size, I'll settle for a consumer a/v device form factor. No fan please.
"recordings of the past simply disappear from the mainstream, memories become short, and we go back to painting on the walls of our collective dens."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Re:The article is total BS
on
The VHS is Dead
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
> They aren't directly comparable products.
You are missing the bigger picture.
This represents not only the death of the VHS recorder, but of broadcast television itself!
People *used to* record TV. Now they watch canned content.
The VHS-HiFi replaced the 1/4" reel to reel for me, and until DAT came along it was the only option for high bandwidth audio. (I'm a musician, could care less about recording TV programs). But all that is a long gone era, in this day of cheap 24-bit multitrack digital.
>Apparently, the author's microscopic mind >couldn't make the connection that DVD players >don't have that ability yet.
There are cheap-ish DVD+/-RW recorders, and also cameras. Where have you been?
>The CD player also didn't replace the cassette >deck.
The CD-R sure as hell did! Ok, so there are a couple of chumps who will still buy a Nakamichi Dragon for $1800. It took a disgustingly long time for CD-R to reach the market, but that's another matter.
I don't guess you remember how long it took them (Ampex) to give us *Cassette* in the first place, do you?
I've been using a Safeway card that I found in the parking lot, at a Safeway in another state, 4 or 5 years ago.
The thing that annoys me about Safeway is, the checker says your name out loud "Thank you mister fishbowl", and I really hate that. Of course they say "thank you mister " instad. I don't know if that's more or less annoying, but I sure as hell am not going to sign up for a card in my own name, knowing that they do this. I'm going to be buying condoms or feminine hygiene products or something for a rash, I kinda don't want the checker to say a goddamned thing to me, much less announce me by name to everybody else in line.
To really understand the problem, you might turn your argument on its head:
If there is a National ID card, then why should the States be permitted to have them as well? If the State government is simply redundant, why have it?
Of course, state governments have a say in this kind of decision. And they tend to guard their authority pretty jealously.
"I guess we Americans have been raised not to put all our trust in government for a very long time, eh?:)"
Only 30-50 years.
Time was, they instilled in us the notion that the American system of government was built on an acceptence of the reality that governments can and will become tyrranical if allowed to, and that we have a responsibility to be the largest part of the system of checks and balances.
I am pretty old, I guess, but it hasn't been that long ago that "Freedom", not "Security" was the both the national and cultural ideal in this country. That has changed dramatically and I have witnessed the change.
Slashdot Mirror
"One of the problems with Usenet is that its use is declining... "
If you say so, but some of the groups I frequent are as strong as ever, and relatively abuse-free.
"Depravation by choice is abstinence yes"
Depravation by being a fat chick or a geek, is more where I was coming from.
"certain cultures don't believe abstinence is possible."
I can't disagree with them, having never observed "abstinence" except in boundary cases that would be better categorized as "deprivation", and the few individuals zealous enough to consider it -- and even they would fall in the "deprived" category if they had not framed it as being their own choice, I'm afraid.
"Curing pandemic diseases like HIV is not only a slap in the face of Darwin, but it can only cause more problems with overpopulation down the road."
You aren't seeing the big picture -- by challenging nature we will ultimately cause her to develop stronger solutions.
I would object to a suppression of the *request*.
The Press has a specific, enumerated right in the First Amendment, to ask for anything of this nature, and also, if framed in the context of petition for redress of greivances, the rights go much further.
It's a separate question of whether the Judge should choose to release the information, but the right to ask for it is one of the more fundamental rights of man.
"The point of copyright law isn't some abstract 'Whatever is best for society', it's 'To increase the public domain'. Period."
Actually, the point of US Copyright Law is to promote progress of science and useful arts. Yes, this is as opposed to "rewarding the labor of authors, etc.", and I understand the limited times argument and much more, BUT,
if you want to slay this beast, what you MUST do, the ONLY thing you MUST do, is persuade either the Congress, or the Supreme Court, that progress of science and/or useful arts is being IMPEDED and/or DAMAGED by the current state of copyright law.
No other argument is going to be given the slighest ear, for the simple reason that no other argument addresses the fundamental point of copyright law in this country, which is certainly NOT strictly "to increase the public domain", although that is held to be a traditional ideal.
Argue to Congress that copyright law as it stands is counter to its mission. Prove to their satisfaction (not yours or mine!) that specific harm is being done to progress in the arts and sciences, and establish a specific remedy that would rectify the matter.
It's a long row to hoe, of course, because a substantial argument in favor of the status quo is being put forth rather vehemently by the very parties responsible for the dramatic, observable, progress in Sicence and useful Arts.
You have a sympathetic ear in the Supreme Court: Justice O'Connor. Nurture this.
"If you publicly distribute something, its natural status is in the public domain, and that's how civilization worked for millenia. Starting a few hundred years ago, certain parties persuaded the state to take those things out of the public domain by force."
Others would argue that a state of anarchy and barbarism persisted for millennia, and only in the past few centuries has civlization truly had order.
"That seems to be the way the playing field is being set, but that is not the way it should be. Development, invention, and creativity are all socially beneficial."
Yabbut, no matter how you believe "it should be", you are up against an overwhelming support for the status quo.
Remember the election of 2004, when (us) liberals thought we had a peaceful revolution in the bag, and SURPRISE, apathy and conservatism won the day?
Same thing here. Practically everybody *I* know, and myself also, believe something along the lines of what you expressed. But that sort of idealism turns out to be a minority view, held mainly by a fringe element, who happen to be the sort of people who live in big cities near the urban cultural centers of the country.
And we don't make the rules.
I'm really not making strong value judgements here. I'm just saying, if you want to free intellectual property, there's an obvious way to do it. It's going to take a lot more money than any of the idealists can scrape up though.
"Social benefit" is considered an obscenity by a frighteningly, increasingly large number of people.
"What if you are an artist and you turn your house into a work of art?"
The laws governing "Real Property" are going to have more weight than any law governing intellectual property. Even buildings that are, by any reasonable person's standards, legitimate works of art (such as a Frank Lloyd Wright house, or some of the famous roadside attractions on Route 66), will not cause any waiver of rights or responsibilities governing real estate.
Now what is possible, and not even all that unusual, would be a covenant requiring the preservation of a piece of property to a certain standard.
You do raise an interesting question, but it really only underscores the fundamental difference between real property and other property, together with the flaws of any analogy involving "cars" (which are NOT "real property" in a legal sense), or "houses", compared to music, literature, or software.
"Funny, you can't have members of the opposite sex in a BYU dormitory bedroom."
"Couldn't" have them at SMU or NTSU either; never stopped us.
To whom does Jeopardy matter? Do nerds sit around and watch TV game shows? Wow. I would not have guessed this.
"But there are many individuals who want to use, modify, develop, etc. those materials who are presently prevented from doing so by the law."
But, the big question is this.
Do they wnat to use, modify, develop, etc., BADLY ENOUGH to pay the price? That price might be high -- perhaps as high as the cost of buying a controlling interest in a multi-billion dollar corporation, or even worse, persuading the executor of an estate to agree to your terms when they are strongly motivated not to speak to you.
The answer, of course, is "no", the people demanding rights to abandonware are generally looking to place it into the hands of the public out of some idealistic motivation, and obviously do not have the means to make the copyright owner an offer they cannot refuse, or if the owner cannot be located, persuade the STATE to take the property by force.
But of course, that requires the sort of resources that people on the freedom side of the argument never see, and never consider to be neccessary or appropriate to begin with. But it's probably the only language that will be heard, money. Perhaps billions of dollars, in some cases.
"...[T]he original intent of copyright law is to encourage the creation of new intellectual works for the enrichment o[f] society."
So, you could argue by the same reasoning that abandonware ought to be left in its grave, and rather than bother with it, it should inspire you to create something of your own, instead of wasting your time with the abandoned work.
"I would have thought that in the Politics section of Slashdot, the resignation of a cabinet member would be newsworthy."
Cabinet transitions following an election may be newsworthy in some sense, but what would be exceptional, would be for the cabinet NOT to change hands.
Cabinet members resign every term. They usually aren't as visible in the public spotlight as they are under Bush. (Can you name or list the department of the single Reagan secretary to serve both full Reagan terms?)
When you get someone like Janet Reno, who served from 1993 until 2001, that is quite exceptional.
"1: design a zip that doesn't snag on the surrounding material."
There are good zippers, but they don't make it onto cheap gear.
"Back at the dawn of time, my first exposure to D&D was the original pamphlet-style books, and boy were they sloppy."
The Chainmail rules and the first edition books did communicate one thing very well: This game is a work in progress, and YOU must continue its development.
It was aimed at people who had already grown bored with the rules for tabletop gaming with historical battles, and was supposed to help take people with an interest in a fantasy milieu to another level.
That means, Gygax provided us with a basic movement and combat system, a magic system that *intentionally* sucked ass, and the most general idea of a universe in which this particular gaming milieu might take place.
The rest was supposed to be picked up by your imagination. You were supposed to create combat tables, spell effects, character attributes, and adventure campaigns, and grow your own game from the seed of the ideas contained in the books.
Some people did so, and often had very good results. Those fortunate enough to live near Lake Geneva Wisconsin had the unique opportunity to witness how Gygax himself had interpreted these rules.
Others, particularly after the game became popular and the 2nd Ed. books came out, chose to stick to the rule books as if they were some kind of bible.
Which is reasonable I suppose.
"Nor do I pay for the ones that disable me to skip commercials."
By the time I discover this, I've already paid.
What do you do? Watch the movie, then complain when you return it and ask for a refund? I'm pretty sure I could parley that into a free rental, if I pressed the issue, but when I'm bringing DVD's back, I want to get it over with, drop it in the slot and leave.
"Hmm, this is why I quit watching TV altogether, never could find any good content."
You are NOT alone, and THAT is the bigger picture behind the story about the death of VHS.
> is what you might be looking for.
When it comes preconfigured in a 1u rack form factor for $300, it will be. It doesn't actually have to be rack size, I'll settle for a consumer a/v device form factor. No fan please.
"recordings of the past simply disappear from the mainstream, memories become short, and we go back to painting on the walls of our collective dens."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
> They aren't directly comparable products.
You are missing the bigger picture.
This represents not only the death of the VHS recorder, but of broadcast television itself!
People *used to* record TV. Now they watch canned content.
The VHS-HiFi replaced the 1/4" reel to reel for me, and until DAT came along it was the only option for high bandwidth audio. (I'm a musician, could care less about recording TV programs).
But all that is a long gone era, in this day of cheap 24-bit multitrack digital.
>Apparently, the author's microscopic mind
>couldn't make the connection that DVD players
>don't have that ability yet.
There are cheap-ish DVD+/-RW recorders, and also cameras. Where have you been?
>The CD player also didn't replace the cassette
>deck.
The CD-R sure as hell did! Ok, so there are a couple of chumps who will still buy a Nakamichi Dragon for $1800. It took a disgustingly long time for CD-R to reach the market, but that's another matter.
I don't guess you remember how long it took them (Ampex) to give us *Cassette* in the first place, do you?
"There's a single player version of the game you just described. It's called Nethack."
Other games just come and go.
I've been using a Safeway card that I found in the parking lot, at a Safeway in another state, 4 or 5 years ago.
The thing that annoys me about Safeway is, the checker says your name out loud "Thank you mister fishbowl", and I really hate that. Of course they say "thank you mister "
instad. I don't know if that's more or less annoying, but I sure as hell am not going to sign up for a card in my own name, knowing that they do this. I'm going to be buying condoms or feminine hygiene products or something for a rash, I kinda don't want the checker to say a goddamned thing to me, much less announce me by name to everybody else in line.
To really understand the problem, you might turn your argument on its head:
If there is a National ID card, then why should the States be permitted to have them as well? If the State government is simply redundant, why have it?
Of course, state governments have a say in this kind of decision. And they tend to guard their authority pretty jealously.
"I guess we Americans have been raised not to put all our trust in government for a very long time, eh? :)"
Only 30-50 years.
Time was, they instilled in us the notion that the American system of government was built on an acceptence of the reality that governments can and will become tyrranical if allowed to, and that we have a responsibility to be the largest part of the system of checks and balances.
I am pretty old, I guess, but it hasn't been that long ago that "Freedom", not "Security" was the both the national and cultural ideal in this country. That has changed dramatically and I have witnessed the change.