When AVG did the same thing and installed "a component of itself into a browser" without warning ahead of time there was plenty of outrage here. It has nothing to do with microsoft, other than your selective memory.
You don't deserve that insightful rating. -1 ignorant is more like it.
As the question explained, a lot of current model televisions have full-blown computers in them that are already running full-blown operating systems, in some cases, they are already running linux in a locked-down tivoized format (GPLv3 is looking more and more prescient). Most of the top-of-the-line models have ethernet ports and embedded support for video serving from places like youtube, netflix, hulu and yahoo. It is absolutely reasonable to wonder just how well these systems will work with linux systems on the same lan - for example, will it stream video from a local mythtv server, or are you stuck with only the officially approved video sources? Can you remotely control it (power on, change channels, change volume, etc) via a socket connection or maybe an internal webserver? Can you use it to browse samba or nfs shares and display jpgs, play mp3s and mkvs?
IF a microwave, lamp or alarm clock had an ethernet port and functionality well beyond traditional models of such, then it would also be perfectly reasonable to ask just how well all that extra functionality interfaced with linux and open standards.
Assuming it's as good as the flash from that example, rewriting every hour results in 20 years. I don't know about you, but I don't have many hard drives from 20 years ago.
It isn't as good. Back then the only kind of flash was SLC which gets roughly 1 million writes before death. Most consumer-grade flash drives today use MLC which is generally only good for an order of magnitude less writes.
No, the difference between "student dictionaries" and regular dictionaries is not primarily one of cenorship. The difference is in expected educational level of the user - the definitions are simplified, the technical pronunciations are replaced with easy to follow examples, etc. Sure, most slang terms aren't included, but that's far from the primary difference as it was here with Apple.
That's stupid. Do you stop and check which files and registry entries that every program that YOU install/update places on your system? Oh, you don't? And you install them anyway? Oh, well then you ARE giving them permission to install all that stuff.
That's stupid. Do you expect that a program update for Photoshop will install/update CorelDraw? Oh, you don't? And you install them anyway? Oh, well then you ARE giving them permission to install that stuff!
Because they are not all equally wasteful - a large part of PBS funding goes to the externality of public education, businesses don't do so well with externalities, that's why they are externalities. Just look at the decline in quality from businesses like the history channel and the discovery channel.
Huh? Where -- anywhere -- was I trying to "prove the need for copyright"? You are delusional. You twist my words and try to make them mean things that I never stated.
Is that supposed to mean you think "soviet union during its heydey" is a good thing?
"a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money"
I hate to break this to you, guy, but that is an economic theory. And one that is demonstrably false. Just for a simple example, try to pass some money over the internet today without being charged a fee for the privilege.
What part of "nearly" do you fail to understand? What part of, "we could stand to lose even more friction on the money part" are you disputing?
You miss the key point - that the default presumption is invasion of privacy. I want the default to be protection of privacy. The reason I haven't made an anonymous donation is because it is exceptionally complicated to do so. I can't just mail them cash. They make it as easy or nearly as easy to give without all of blowback that you get now and I'll fork over the money.
You've been watching too many episodes of 24 - the number of times burglars have held families captive in order to force someone to fool the cops is essentially zero.
I'm glad the budget is cutting funding, because PBS has a lot in common with other obsolete things..... like horsewhips and hoop skirts. Let it stand on its own two feet without taxpayer assistance."
Public broadcasting receives roughly $500M/yr in public funding out of a US budget of $4T this year. There are literally hundreds of less useful projects that receive more money than public broadcasting. In the list of budget cutting priorities, public broadcasting should be way far down the list.
I'd give my NPR and PBS stations a similar amount of money if they would make donor privacy a primary concern. I have yet to see a PBS or NPR fundraiser that emphasized that they won't put me on a sucker list and sell it to a million other charities who will then bug me non-stop for their own donations as well as phone calls and junkmail from NPR/PBS themselves. The first time I hear them pledge to destory all donor information within 90 days or less will be the first time I donate.
I understand "nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of digital works".
So you admit that all your plavering about what is and is not rivalrous was completely bogus. You've pretty much completed a full back down from the bullshit you were flinging earlier. Good for you.
In fact I showed how a number of companies are using that medium, TODAY, just as it is, and given both the advantages and disadvantages that you claim, are making A PERFECTLY DECENT PROFIT using that medium.
You showed examples of companies making money without relying on copyright and that proves the need for copyright?
I have given you concrete examples of how your idealistic economic theories have not worked as you claim in the real world.
What theory would that be? Link the post where I promoted a single economic theory as working - all I've done is show how the old no longer apply.
And so you did say that. But that's all. You did NOT point out exactly HOW they are different, or offer any evidence to support that view, or really make a point at all. All you did was make statements.
What part of "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money" do you fail to understand? Actually, I think the fact that you are so busy arguing that piano rolls are neither rivalrous nor excludable indicates exactly what you fail to understand. Until you get your terms right you can't make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Write this 1000 times on the chalkboard until it sinks in -- all physical objects are excludable and rivalrous.
PS - Glad to see your implicit acceptance that your tangent of comparisons of legal arguments was a complete red herring. Good for you.
So basically your claim that this was a discussion of legal theories rather than economic theories is complete BS - your first post said nothing about legal theories, only economic (how the economics failed in the soviet union) and then when I disputed that point on an economic basis you went off the deep end by trying to cite legal arguments that aren't relevant.
I think it's really quite sad that Rupert Murdoch thinks this will work, given the number of quality, professional news sources online that are free.
The dunce bought MySpace for over half a billion thus winning runner-up for long-term stupid -ebay buying skype for 2.5 billion being the winner of that particular race. He may have been a business talent back in they days of paper dinosaurs and celluloid heroes, but when it comes to the net, he's just following all the other sheep.
But maybe it works better in countries that prosecute users anyway.
If there is any sanity left in the court system it will run up against constitutional issues right quick. Roadblocks on there own are highly dubious, but justification is made for perceived immediate danger. But testing for past illegal behaviour with no immediate danger. well, that is a lot further down the slippery slope. Might as well put cameras in people's homes to make sure they aren't lighting up.
You can't use the Massachusetts system as an argument against socialized medicine, because all its problems stem from the fact that it isn't socialized medicine,
However, it is a lot closer to what washington is likely to produce. The private insurance lobbies are far and away too powerful to let anything pass without them getting a big fat, lucrative, share of the pie.
Legalize, regulate, and tax it. Works perfectly well for alcohol and tobacco!!
I wouldn't use the word "perfect" to describe the situation with either of those drugs. "Good enough" or "better than anything else we've tried" might be more appropriate.
If I want the legal effect of the GPL, I'll use the GPL. Using "some other contract" (sic) would be ridiculous. But that doesn't mean I necessarily buy into things the FSF claim that aren't specifically in the text.
Again, whether you "buy into" them or not is irrelevant to the spirit of the contract. Just because you use a contract does not mean you "buy into" its intent, just its rules.
And, as I already said in a neighbor subthread, the post and my response to it aren't about what any user intends, it is about whether or not the GPLv3 is a departure or refinement of the spirit of the GPLv2 and it is incontrovertible that the FSF's interpretation of the spirit of the GPLv2 is the only measure of that.
When did I ever state that physical copies are the same as digital copies? All I stated was that the situations are comparable.
They are not comparable. Absolutely no useful comparison can be made between rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods. That's why your whole piano-roll analogy is so terribly poor and all of your citations of history books about societies without copyright but also without near-frictionless markets are also not useful.
And if you were using the term "rival" in the economic sense, i.e. "rival good", rather than the common usage, you should have stated as much. Both definitions are valid, just in different contexts.
(A) Except that there is no context where your particular usage of rival applies to the situation. To say that sheet music "rivals" recordings is nonsensical - as you pointed out yourself. You thought you were being clever by saying that when you were only pointing out the obvious and irrelevant. (B) Quit acting like you knew what rival meant, the context was clear, four words prior I used the related term "excludable" -- if you knew your terms the meaning would have been obvious. If you didn't know your terms you would have taken the sentences to be prosaic.
Part of my point was that it was trivial to copy piano rolls, which means that they are not "rival" to the degree that is commonly thought of when someone says "rival good".
You just looked up the term, probably on wikipedia, and you still don't grasp the meaning. A rival good is something that inherently can only be used by a limited number of people at a time. Cost is irrelevant, it can be free for all it matters. One piano roll can not be used by more than one piano player at a time, even if it is free. Therefore piano rolls are completely rival.
The nature of copyright changed completely once nearly all creative works no longer required fixing in excludable and rivalrous goods in order to be distributed. Which, again, is why rivalrous and excludable piano rolls are a useless analogy.
I did not bring it up, YOU did: "Therefore copyright is no longer a significant incentive so never granting copyright, as was done in socialist countries like the USSR. is no loss to a capitalist system that includes the internet."
The difference between pointing out that copyright is no longer a significant incentive and saying things like "if there were no incentive to create, it would be necessary to create one" is that the former eliminates one artificial incentive while the latter assumes that artificial incentives are necessary. You clearly believe that leaving the market to itself is not sufficient.
And your final sentence makes no sense whatsoever. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually wrote.
The fact that you don't even realize you have been talking about artificial scarcity versus natural scarcity shows just how uninformed you are, kind of like your complete misunderstanding of the economic term "rival."
Nonsense. If I release software under the GPL, the spirit is what I intended, not what the FSF says.
Well, if that is true then why even bother with the GPL? If the spirit is what YOU intend and not the contract's authors, then just use any contract you might stumble upon and assign to it whatever spirit you feel like.
Slashdot Mirror
When AVG did the same thing and installed "a component of itself into a browser" without warning ahead of time there was plenty of outrage here. It has nothing to do with microsoft, other than your selective memory.
You don't deserve that insightful rating. -1 ignorant is more like it.
As the question explained, a lot of current model televisions have full-blown computers in them that are already running full-blown operating systems, in some cases, they are already running linux in a locked-down tivoized format (GPLv3 is looking more and more prescient). Most of the top-of-the-line models have ethernet ports and embedded support for video serving from places like youtube, netflix, hulu and yahoo. It is absolutely reasonable to wonder just how well these systems will work with linux systems on the same lan - for example, will it stream video from a local mythtv server, or are you stuck with only the officially approved video sources? Can you remotely control it (power on, change channels, change volume, etc) via a socket connection or maybe an internal webserver? Can you use it to browse samba or nfs shares and display jpgs, play mp3s and mkvs?
IF a microwave, lamp or alarm clock had an ethernet port and functionality well beyond traditional models of such, then it would also be perfectly reasonable to ask just how well all that extra functionality interfaced with linux and open standards.
Are you disputing my numbers about SLC and MLC?
Assuming it's as good as the flash from that example, rewriting every hour results in 20 years. I don't know about you, but I don't have many hard drives from 20 years ago.
It isn't as good. Back then the only kind of flash was SLC which gets roughly 1 million writes before death. Most consumer-grade flash drives today use MLC which is generally only good for an order of magnitude less writes.
No, the difference between "student dictionaries" and regular dictionaries is not primarily one of cenorship. The difference is in expected educational level of the user - the definitions are simplified, the technical pronunciations are replaced with easy to follow examples, etc. Sure, most slang terms aren't included, but that's far from the primary difference as it was here with Apple.
That's stupid. Do you stop and check which files and registry entries that every program that YOU install/update places on your system? Oh, you don't? And you install them anyway? Oh, well then you ARE giving them permission to install all that stuff.
That's stupid. Do you expect that a program update for Photoshop will install/update CorelDraw? Oh, you don't? And you install them anyway? Oh, well then you ARE giving them permission to install that stuff!
Because they are not all equally wasteful - a large part of PBS funding goes to the externality of public education, businesses don't do so well with externalities, that's why they are externalities. Just look at the decline in quality from businesses like the history channel and the discovery channel.
Huh? Where -- anywhere -- was I trying to "prove the need for copyright"? You are delusional. You twist my words and try to make them mean things that I never stated.
I should also point out that letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)
Is that supposed to mean you think "soviet union during its heydey" is a good thing?
"a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money"
I hate to break this to you, guy, but that is an economic theory. And one that is demonstrably false. Just for a simple example, try to pass some money over the internet today without being charged a fee for the privilege.
What part of "nearly" do you fail to understand? What part of, "we could stand to lose even more friction on the money part" are you disputing?
You miss the key point - that the default presumption is invasion of privacy. I want the default to be protection of privacy. The reason I haven't made an anonymous donation is because it is exceptionally complicated to do so. I can't just mail them cash. They make it as easy or nearly as easy to give without all of blowback that you get now and I'll fork over the money.
You've been watching too many episodes of 24 - the number of times burglars have held families captive in order to force someone to fool the cops is essentially zero.
I'm glad the budget is cutting funding, because PBS has a lot in common with other obsolete things..... like horsewhips and hoop skirts. Let it stand on its own two feet without taxpayer assistance."
Public broadcasting receives roughly $500M/yr in public funding out of a US budget of $4T this year. There are literally hundreds of less useful projects that receive more money than public broadcasting. In the list of budget cutting priorities, public broadcasting should be way far down the list.
I'd give my NPR and PBS stations a similar amount of money if they would make donor privacy a primary concern. I have yet to see a PBS or NPR fundraiser that emphasized that they won't put me on a sucker list and sell it to a million other charities who will then bug me non-stop for their own donations as well as phone calls and junkmail from NPR/PBS themselves. The first time I hear them pledge to destory all donor information within 90 days or less will be the first time I donate.
I understand "nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of digital works".
So you admit that all your plavering about what is and is not rivalrous was completely bogus. You've pretty much completed a full back down from the bullshit you were flinging earlier. Good for you.
In fact I showed how a number of companies are using that medium, TODAY, just as it is, and given both the advantages and disadvantages that you claim, are making A PERFECTLY DECENT PROFIT using that medium.
You showed examples of companies making money without relying on copyright and that proves the need for copyright?
I have given you concrete examples of how your idealistic economic theories have not worked as you claim in the real world.
What theory would that be? Link the post where I promoted a single economic theory as working - all I've done is show how the old no longer apply.
And so you did say that. But that's all. You did NOT point out exactly HOW they are different, or offer any evidence to support that view, or really make a point at all. All you did was make statements.
What part of "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money" do you fail to understand? Actually, I think the fact that you are so busy arguing that piano rolls are neither rivalrous nor excludable indicates exactly what you fail to understand. Until you get your terms right you can't make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Write this 1000 times on the chalkboard until it sinks in -- all physical objects are excludable and rivalrous.
PS - Glad to see your implicit acceptance that your tangent of comparisons of legal arguments was a complete red herring. Good for you.
Don't take him so seriously, he's just living up to his nick.
You made an all-encompassing statement that, "letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)" I quoted and disputed that statement by pointing out that the economic circumstances of those cases were exceptionally different from today. You responded with an irrelevant tangent about legalistic arguments in the 1900s - completely missing my point about how ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED when I spelled out the fact you missed my point you just restated your irrelevant history lesson of legalistic arguments. When I pointed out that your history lesson had nothing to do with why I disputed your original premise you first went a little schizo and referred to yourself in the 3rd person, then you went further afield because you didn't understand the terms. After which you continued to misunderstand the terms unable to admit you've painted yourself into a corner with your terms in direct contradiction of their standard meaning.
So basically your claim that this was a discussion of legal theories rather than economic theories is complete BS - your first post said nothing about legal theories, only economic (how the economics failed in the soviet union) and then when I disputed that point on an economic basis you went off the deep end by trying to cite legal arguments that aren't relevant.
I think it's really quite sad that Rupert Murdoch thinks this will work, given the number of quality, professional news sources online that are free.
The dunce bought MySpace for over half a billion thus winning runner-up for long-term stupid -ebay buying skype for 2.5 billion being the winner of that particular race. He may have been a business talent back in they days of paper dinosaurs and celluloid heroes, but when it comes to the net, he's just following all the other sheep.
But maybe it works better in countries that prosecute users anyway.
If there is any sanity left in the court system it will run up against constitutional issues right quick. Roadblocks on there own are highly dubious, but justification is made for perceived immediate danger. But testing for past illegal behaviour with no immediate danger. well, that is a lot further down the slippery slope. Might as well put cameras in people's homes to make sure they aren't lighting up.
Ketosis. You might be on atkins, you might be diabetic.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/low-carbers-beware-the-breathalyzer/
http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/diabetes-and-the-counterfeit-dui
You can't use the Massachusetts system as an argument against socialized medicine, because all its problems stem from the fact that it isn't socialized medicine,
However, it is a lot closer to what washington is likely to produce. The private insurance lobbies are far and away too powerful to let anything pass without them getting a big fat, lucrative, share of the pie.
Legalize, regulate, and tax it. Works perfectly well for alcohol and tobacco!!
I wouldn't use the word "perfect" to describe the situation with either of those drugs.
"Good enough" or "better than anything else we've tried" might be more appropriate.
If I want the legal effect of the GPL, I'll use the GPL. Using "some other contract" (sic) would be ridiculous. But that doesn't mean I necessarily buy into things the FSF claim that aren't specifically in the text.
Again, whether you "buy into" them or not is irrelevant to the spirit of the contract. Just because you use a contract does not mean you "buy into" its intent, just its rules.
And, as I already said in a neighbor subthread, the post and my response to it aren't about what any user intends, it is about whether or not the GPLv3 is a departure or refinement of the spirit of the GPLv2 and it is incontrovertible that the FSF's interpretation of the spirit of the GPLv2 is the only measure of that.
When did I ever state that physical copies are the same as digital copies? All I stated was that the situations are comparable.
They are not comparable. Absolutely no useful comparison can be made between rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods. That's why your whole piano-roll analogy is so terribly poor and all of your citations of history books about societies without copyright but also without near-frictionless markets are also not useful.
And if you were using the term "rival" in the economic sense, i.e. "rival good", rather than the common usage, you should have stated as much. Both definitions are valid, just in different contexts.
(A) Except that there is no context where your particular usage of rival applies to the situation. To say that sheet music "rivals" recordings is nonsensical - as you pointed out yourself. You thought you were being clever by saying that when you were only pointing out the obvious and irrelevant.
(B) Quit acting like you knew what rival meant, the context was clear, four words prior I used the related term "excludable" -- if you knew your terms the meaning would have been obvious. If you didn't know your terms you would have taken the sentences to be prosaic.
Part of my point was that it was trivial to copy piano rolls, which means that they are not "rival" to the degree that is commonly thought of when someone says "rival good".
You just looked up the term, probably on wikipedia, and you still don't grasp the meaning. A rival good is something that inherently can only be used by a limited number of people at a time. Cost is irrelevant, it can be free for all it matters. One piano roll can not be used by more than one piano player at a time, even if it is free. Therefore piano rolls are completely rival.
The nature of copyright changed completely once nearly all creative works no longer required fixing in excludable and rivalrous goods in order to be distributed. Which, again, is why rivalrous and excludable piano rolls are a useless analogy.
I did not bring it up, YOU did: "Therefore copyright is no longer a significant incentive so never granting copyright, as was done in socialist countries like the USSR. is no loss to a capitalist system that includes the internet."
The difference between pointing out that copyright is no longer a significant incentive and saying things like "if there were no incentive to create, it would be necessary to create one" is that the former eliminates one artificial incentive while the latter assumes that artificial incentives are necessary. You clearly believe that leaving the market to itself is not sufficient.
And your final sentence makes no sense whatsoever. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually wrote.
The fact that you don't even realize you have been talking about artificial scarcity versus natural scarcity shows just how uninformed you are, kind of like your complete misunderstanding of the economic term "rival."
Nonsense. If I release software under the GPL, the spirit is what I intended, not what the FSF says.
Well, if that is true then why even bother with the GPL? If the spirit is what YOU intend and not the contract's authors, then just use any contract you might stumble upon and assign to it whatever spirit you feel like.