here's a supreme court justice of the time on copyright and patent crap:
"It was never the object of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufacturers. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and unknown liabilities to lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made in good faith."
The problem is this - they sent you the cd and the scanner. End of control for them. By law it is a gift. They CANNOT tell you what to do with this. They CANNOT make you agree to an eula. The scanner and software are now yours to do with as you wish - AS REQUIRED BY LAW FOR UNSOLICITED MAILINGS. Of course DC doesn't give a fuck about that. They don't give a fuck about your rights. The package is required to have "attached to it a clear and conspicuous statement informing the recipient that he may treat the merchandise as a gift to him and has the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender." Instead it comes with an eula saying you can't reverse engineer it. That is illegal, and people need to stand up when companies try to take not just your moral rights, but your specifically enummerated legal rights.
Also the company is engaged in criminal behavior. As pointed out "This package was in violation of Title 39, Sec. 3009 of the United States Code and constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of title 15". So the primary sin of this company is that they are breaking the law. Not copyright infringement by an individual. Breaking actual laws. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and I knew of this law, if they didn't they were just lazy and deserve to get bit on the ass. I don't know if the postal service will do anything, but i think the ftc would be interested too.
There are clear postal regs on mailings. This is because in the past companies would just mail products to people, along with a bill. They can't do that now, it has been made illegal. They can't require you to do anything with their product, it is a gift to you. Meaning you own it. And they can put NO restirictions on that ownership, including forcible eula's. Otherwise the unscrupulous companies of the past would send you stuff with an eula saying 'i will send company xxx $30'. No go. This is the best thing yet to turn up on DC. If they mailed these with these restrictions that they are not allowed to place, then they have violated the law. Let me say that again. They are criminals.
And any agreement clicked on by someone who received this in the mail is completely null and void.
'Reasonable efforts' does NOT mean denying the general public the right to use a tool. This debate is similar to the old Betamax decision, when VCRs were being presented as doing nothing but copyright violation.
In the Supreme Court's opinion (who should certainly be qualified to judge copyright issues), "The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. INDEED, IT NEED MERELY BE CAPABLE of substantial noninfringing uses." Notice that it doesn't actually HAVE to be substantially used in a non-infringing way, just that such a use has to be POSSIBLE. Quoting the District Court with approval, the court went on to say, "WHATEVER the future percentage of legal versus illegal home-use recording might be, an injunction which seeks to deprive the public of the very tool or article of commerce capable of some noninfringing use would be an extremely harsh remedy, AS WELL AS ONE UNPPRECEDENTED IN COPYRIGHT LAW."
And for all those napster users who defend their right to use napster by saying they would never have bought the album, well the courts agree with you. Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for plaintiff's original work." Additionally the Court stated, "A use that has no demonstrable effect upon the potential market for, or the value of, the copyrighted work need not be prohibited in order to protect the author's incentive to create.""
from our friends at emeidapro.net on the seminal Betamax case (relevant quotes bolded below): "The Supreme Court heard the case in January 1983, but did not issue an opinion until its second term, after additional oral argument. In January 1984, the court overruled the decision of the Ninth Circuit by a single vote. In a memo of June 17, 1993, Justice Byron White said that he was "not at all convinced that Congress intended each home recorder of copyrighted works to be an infringer, whether he records sound or video."
In the court's opinion, "The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses." Quoting the District Court with approval, the court went on to say, "Whatever the future percentage of legal versus illegal home-use recording might be, an injunction which seeks to deprive the public of the very tool or article of commerce capable of some noninfringing use would be an extremely harsh remedy, as well as one unprecedented in copyright law." Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for plaintiff's original work." Additionally the Court stated, "A use that has no demonstrable effect upon the potential market for, or the value of, the copyrighted work need not be prohibited in order to protect the author's incentive to create.""
That would seem to suggest that Napster should not be banned, eh? The public should not be denied the tool, as long as it is possible to use it in a legal way, regardless of the actual uses of it. This is the Supreme Court of the United States speaking here, sounding just like the geeks who can never quite articulate this position as well.
But what value are you going to see from amazon on a given item? If they're giving a super deal to anyone with a certain cookie set, you're not going to be able to tell that from one of the comparison shopping engines. Those engines might tell you that amazon is charging 21.98 and you can get it elsewhere for 20.49. But if you yourself went to amazon the price they gave you might be 20.10. Which price is amazon going to give out to the comparison shopping engines? The best one that is for a very few of its customers? Or the one highest one that makes them the most profit?
And what if all the big e-tailers start doing this? Then the results from the comparison shopping engines will be so polluted that the only way you could tell what price YOU would find at these sites is to go there yourself.
And did anybody notice that THIS post which is COMPLETELY offtopic was modded up as interesting? When it clearly should have been modded as offtopic since the author took the time to clearly label the post offtopic? Now what would happen if i metamodded it down as offtopic? If more people had modded it up would i end up losing karma?
The lesser of two evils? Do you somehow buy the argument that you must vote either Republican or Democrat? Why not Libertarian? Or Green? Or for the UFO party, or for any of the hundreds of presidential candidates that don't get free publicity on the major media news?
You don't have a choice of two evils, you have probably a dozen or so evils and hundreds of goods. Vote third party if you're not happy with either of the two majors. As Bill Hicks put it, most people in America see politics as two puppets on a stage 'I like the puppet on the left.' 'Well I think the puppet on the right is more to my liking.' 'Hey, did anybody notice it was the same guy holding both puppets?'
i know. i got so excited when i saw this story, wrote a bunch of people 'can i come over to your place to watch robots fight tonight?' and then look again and it was for last night. 30 seconds warning simply isn't enough. this could only help someone who was reading slashdot at that second.
learn how to filter the stories so they don't show up on your page. until then don't complain. and if you don't want to read the story then dont. simple.
I've found http://www.cursor.org to be my favorite place to go. They just have links to ANY kind of news you might like, though I spend most of my time on sites like alternet.org - read the news on a site like that for a month and then watch the evening news - it becomes so obvious that there is no real investigative journalism, that the traditional media is totally unwilling to cause any kind of ruckus or tell people how they're being abused by their government or corporations. Contrasting stories on the police actions at the big national conventions on alternet versus the evening news is just scary - even when the cops were beating and arresting journalists the evening tv news at most gives it two words.
Cursor has links to everything from the Pew Research that Katz mentions to Reuters to big newspapers, magazines, online news sites, something for everyone.
but i've heard that sony plans on adding an add-on to the ps2 (optional) to support broadband gaming. They are quite serious about the money to be mad in broadband gaming with the ps2, i think they just want to get people to buy the box first.
Lain is ALL about software and circuitry. It is the best movie ever about future tech and the net. Want an image of the uber-geek? The guy with all the wearable computers going on and on about how cool he was, how he was so connected, freaking brilliant. If the anime was about computers I think it's relevant. Watch the movie. Look at the user interfaces. Powerful, sleek, look like they came out of a video game rather than a lame version of unix. If the os in lain were real, microsoft would be dead, as would linux. It's what everyone wants and nobody has any idea how to make.
It is one of the most interesting philosophical debates i've seen on what is the net, what effect does the net have on people, etc. It is not about ninjas or demons or typical anime action. Very thoughtful, and has examples of the best-looking user interfaces i've ever seen. Wouldn't you want her navi program on your box? I don't think anyone whose trashed this being on slashdot has actually watched it or paid attention to the tech. I mean, the scene where lain has completely rewired her room to be this tech fortress, it's the equivalent of porn for overclockers and hardware geeks.
>It's the one whose brand would occur the most damage if brand "dilution" were allowed to occur.
And which brand would suffer the most damage if brand 'dilution' were allowed to occur? Why it's the company with the most money isn't it? 1% damage to a billion dollar a year company is more than 2000% damage to a $40,000 a year company so of course the first suffers more damage right?
Now what if 'Ford Musical Instruments' had the ford.com domain 3 years before ford auto recognized that there was an internet? The registrars of ford.com didn't act in bad faith. ford was a registered trademark yes, but it was a trademark OF THE COMPANY that registered it. So what does dilution have to do with it if nobody acted in bad faith?
What do people want out of college today? A much larger percentage today than 30 years ago wants to use college as an opportunity to find a job making good money. Is this what college is supposed to be about?
Maybe each department could split into an applied job training section and a theoretical pure knowledge section. Do you want to be a physicist to figure out the universe or to have a desk job paying $80,000? Is the same kind of training relevant to both those people?
Some areas are clearly one or the other. If you want to be an anthropologist, it's not for the money. If you want to get an MBA, it's not because you really and truly care about tax law or economic theory. But so many are right in the middle and have tension between the two sides. Do you want to be a graphics designer or a starving artist? Where should the art department's resources be focused? Do you want a job at a dot com or do you want to do research work on AI? How do you cater to both those needs?
I think you see this tension in the huge rise of pure training corporations that aren't actually schools. I went the Computer Learning Corporation (which sucks balls if anyone is curious) - 2 years after i decided i didn't want to do anything with the college degree I had. Places that train and focus on one thing can get all the relevant info in your head much faster as well as prepare you for the environment you'll be working in, and they're great for that. But if you DO want to do research work on AI, going to CLC won't help.
So what do people think? I'd just hate for the two to stay mixed up together because I know that gradually it will all slide over to the corporate side and then we won't have anyone trained to look at the big picture and think outside the corporate box.
The question is why any of this is necessary. The football team at UVa is a HUGE money-MAKER. Why do they need corporate sponsorship?
The school charges a lot - i went there too. Out of state students pay for all their education, plus some of the education of the instate students. Just from tuition. Then of course the school makes money selling memorabilia, garbage, etc. Why do they need to make more money from selling magazines? They don't. The Lawn, by the way, is the original part of the school designed and built by Thomas Jefferson. It is one of the most beautiful parts of any campus in the country and is a recognized architectural masterpiece and part of our cultural heritage. Why is it for rent for selling women's magazines?
When I look around at the world i see that we put up with a LOT of crap our grandparents would have never tolerated. Some things simply should not be for sale.
Yeah I'm really surprised it works. I was hot the other day and brought my little fan over to put on my desk. turned it on, went to get a soda, came back and noticed that the display on the monitor was funny colors near where the fan was. That's a lot of interference.
If you are talking about libertarianism as a political party or force, which i thought we were, then it clearly cannot be opposed to the existence of a state. I don't know any libertarians who really want to completely remove the state, generally if you feel that way you label yourself an anarchist.
Libs, it's not the government that's fucking you, it's the corporations that own the government.
Well, duh. And by decreasing government power over individuals we will do what? Yes class, we will also reduce corporate power over individuals. If corporations use government to pass laws forcing people to do what they want - then reduce the effectiveness of their tool. Once the corporation cannot force me to support the RIAA when i buy blank tapes, the corporation will have to come to terms with the market reality. Libertarians don't want to hand the country over to corporations, they want to hand the country back to the people.
So strip the government of power and someone else (big corporations) will take it for themselves.
Are you serious? Corporations already own the two political parties, meaning they already own government. It's an ugly hybrid. An increase in gov't power nowadays is usually an increase in the power of gov't to intrude in people's personal lives, not an increase in the ability of gov't to regulate or control industry. Let's say the liquor industry is annoyed at all the people taking ecstasy instead of drinking. They lobby for tougher laws and more enforcement. New laws and initiatives are passed, at the request of corporations to regulate private citizens more. Gov't is becoming the favorite tool of industry - they are not separate. Strip the government of power and PEOPLE will take it for themselves. Are you telling me that if we banish neighborhood covenants people won't start expressing themselves by changing their houses? That corporations will somehow usurp the power freed up by removing those laws? Of course not, the power will go back to the people, where it came from. What they do with it is then in their hands.
Libertarianism certainly realizes the world is a messy place - that's why they want to give the maximum amount of choice to the individuals, where it can be used most flexibly, rather than to gov't committees and bodies which pass rules to try to program society. I don't think you actually know much about libertarianism.
musicians are performers. they should be paid when they perform. if they're not paid they can refuse to perform. if i tape record their performance - why should they be paid for that? they can't make the music stop coming out of the tape. musicians control their performance. they do not control copies of their music. why are they looking to something they CANNOT control to earn their livelihood? they should look to the one thing they can control.
for about 10,000 years musicians were not paid for recorded music. were there still musicians? yes. did they plan on getting rich? not many of them. did they make a living doing performances? yes. did adding the 'right' to make 10% off of album sales that must be sold to a company help music? no.
again you use the word steal. why? it is called copyright infringement. LOOK IN THE FUCKING LAW BOOKS AC. it is not called theft. you can only steal something that is physical. i can steal a cd. i cannot steal a 'song'. i cannot steal an idea. i cannot steal information by copying it.
1) there is no guarantee of making money.
2) i am an artist.
3) i don't do it for money.
4) i release music under the Free Art License, a twist on the gpl.
5) the RIAA is the one stealing, read one of their fucking contracts, it's out and out rape.
6) the focus on getting a record deal makes many unsigned bands ignore the opportunites they have to make smaller amounts of money on the club circuit or putting out their own material.
7) the artists that realize they can do it on their own demonstrate more integrity than studio owned performers.
8) i want to tear down the whole fucking system and burn it to the ground anyway. copyright does not promote creativity and innovation in music - the system encourages playing it safe and recycling tired formulas - not the goal. the system has failed, time to junk it.
pirating? where did you get this word? i don't sail a boat. i certainly dont accost other boats and force them to deliver their mp3s at gunpoint.
theft? what did i steal? the original owner still has their property right?
Oh! why you're talking about copyright infringement. boy, that's not the same thing at all!!! why you see the first two are MAJOR FELONIES! and copyright infringement is a rarely prosecuted minor misdemeanor. like jaywalking. does jaywalking get you upset? that's about the legal weight this 'crime' has.
the words you use define the thoughts you can have. if you're using the RIAAs words you won't be able see the situation clearly.
the only experience i had with napster was as follows: i use samples to make music. I wanted to do a remix of a metallica song. i have most of their albums but all on tape, and no way of getting the sound from the tape to my hard drive (lame sound card). these are albums i purchased. I have a right to 'fair use' to the songs on there, for parody or whatever. So i go on napster and download some songs that i have legal rights to use. And admittedly a few others because id heard the names but never heard the music. i make a remix. not for commercial use, just for personal pleasure. a few months later i hear napster's getting shut down. so i try to log in. i've been banned by metallica. i go to the complaint form. it won't let me send. i delete all napster files, reinstall, create a new username. says that person was banned by metallica. interesting since that user didn't exist. so i go to the complaint form. still, errors preventing me from sending it. at this point i'm considering legal action for slander against metallica. legitimate interests ARE hurt by shutting down napster, i was giving away my music on there for free, also on acidplanet.com. so to everyone who says 'well then why don't you give your work away for free' i do. better that a hundred criminals go free than that one innocent man suffer. Boy, does that sound like a defense of napster or what?
you know what? music is more fun than coding. why would you do coding for free? obviously no one will ever code without monetary rewards leading them on. there is open source coding. there is no open source music. There used to be. it was called folk music. it was a part of our culture. it wasn't property.
so when i go buy blank tapes or cds to put my music on i pay a 'tax' on the copyright infringement they ASSUME i'm going to use them for, when in fact they're for my songs. This 'tax' goes to the RIAA. my main competitors. who use it to get my main distribution channel shut down. hooray for justice. hooray for artist's rights.
Direct action by the people is a valid tool to use in trying to get the law changed. During Prohibition, a totally stupid decision that ignored the will of the people, millions and millions drank. When it became blindingly obvious that the law wasn't working, THEN AND ONLY THEN was it repealed.
There's also something called jury nullification. If people called to act as juries simply stop convicting people accused of breaking laws the jurors think are unfair, EVENTUALLY the prosecutors just won't bother. Working on abstract political terms is fine, but direct action has always been a valid tool. <br><br>
There's also something called <b>personal responsibility</b>. If someone comes up to you on the street and offers to sell you a digital camcorder for $100 bucks and you buy it, you're guilty of purchasing stolen property. Without a doubt. If he just gives it to you, you're still guilty. Now change the camcorder to an mp3 and the shady guy to napster. How is the end user not guilty in this case? Napster may look shady, but even less so than you'd think, because he's not even offering you an mp3, just telling you where to go to get one. So where does the guilt if any lie? On the end user. This should be an open and shut case.
Slashdot Mirror
here's a supreme court justice of the time on copyright and patent crap:
"It was never the object of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufacturers. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and unknown liabilities to lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made in good faith."
- 1882 by Justice Bradley
The problem is this - they sent you the cd and the scanner. End of control for them. By law it is a gift. They CANNOT tell you what to do with this. They CANNOT make you agree to an eula. The scanner and software are now yours to do with as you wish - AS REQUIRED BY LAW FOR UNSOLICITED MAILINGS. Of course DC doesn't give a fuck about that. They don't give a fuck about your rights. The package is required to have "attached to it a clear and conspicuous statement informing the recipient that he may treat the merchandise as a gift to him and has the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender." Instead it comes with an eula saying you can't reverse engineer it. That is illegal, and people need to stand up when companies try to take not just your moral rights, but your specifically enummerated legal rights.
Also the company is engaged in criminal behavior. As pointed out "This package was in violation of Title 39, Sec. 3009 of the United States Code and constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of title 15". So the primary sin of this company is that they are breaking the law. Not copyright infringement by an individual. Breaking actual laws. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and I knew of this law, if they didn't they were just lazy and deserve to get bit on the ass. I don't know if the postal service will do anything, but i think the ftc would be interested too.
There are clear postal regs on mailings. This is because in the past companies would just mail products to people, along with a bill. They can't do that now, it has been made illegal. They can't require you to do anything with their product, it is a gift to you. Meaning you own it. And they can put NO restirictions on that ownership, including forcible eula's. Otherwise the unscrupulous companies of the past would send you stuff with an eula saying 'i will send company xxx $30'. No go. This is the best thing yet to turn up on DC. If they mailed these with these restrictions that they are not allowed to place, then they have violated the law. Let me say that again. They are criminals.
And any agreement clicked on by someone who received this in the mail is completely null and void.
'Reasonable efforts' does NOT mean denying the general public the right to use a tool. This debate is similar to the old Betamax decision, when VCRs were being presented as doing nothing but copyright violation.
In the Supreme Court's opinion (who should certainly be qualified to judge copyright issues), "The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. INDEED, IT NEED MERELY BE CAPABLE of substantial noninfringing uses." Notice that it doesn't actually HAVE to be substantially used in a non-infringing way, just that such a use has to be POSSIBLE. Quoting the District Court with approval, the court went on to say, "WHATEVER the future percentage of legal versus illegal home-use recording might be, an injunction which seeks to deprive the public of the very tool or article of commerce capable of some noninfringing use would be an extremely harsh remedy, AS WELL AS ONE UNPPRECEDENTED IN COPYRIGHT LAW."
And for all those napster users who defend their right to use napster by saying they would never have bought the album, well the courts agree with you. Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for plaintiff's original work." Additionally the Court stated, "A use that has no demonstrable effect upon the potential market for, or the value of, the copyrighted work need not be prohibited in order to protect the author's incentive to create.""
from our friends at emeidapro.net on the seminal Betamax case (relevant quotes bolded below): "The Supreme Court heard the case in January 1983, but did not issue an opinion until its second term, after additional oral argument. In January 1984, the court overruled the decision of the Ninth Circuit by a single vote. In a memo of June 17, 1993, Justice Byron White said that he was "not at all convinced that Congress intended each home recorder of copyrighted works to be an infringer, whether he records sound or video." In the court's opinion, "The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses." Quoting the District Court with approval, the court went on to say, "Whatever the future percentage of legal versus illegal home-use recording might be, an injunction which seeks to deprive the public of the very tool or article of commerce capable of some noninfringing use would be an extremely harsh remedy, as well as one unprecedented in copyright law." Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for plaintiff's original work." Additionally the Court stated, "A use that has no demonstrable effect upon the potential market for, or the value of, the copyrighted work need not be prohibited in order to protect the author's incentive to create."" That would seem to suggest that Napster should not be banned, eh? The public should not be denied the tool, as long as it is possible to use it in a legal way, regardless of the actual uses of it. This is the Supreme Court of the United States speaking here, sounding just like the geeks who can never quite articulate this position as well.
It's to use when fabricating little tiny gears and components. For actual physical work at very small scales.
But what value are you going to see from amazon on a given item? If they're giving a super deal to anyone with a certain cookie set, you're not going to be able to tell that from one of the comparison shopping engines. Those engines might tell you that amazon is charging 21.98 and you can get it elsewhere for 20.49. But if you yourself went to amazon the price they gave you might be 20.10. Which price is amazon going to give out to the comparison shopping engines? The best one that is for a very few of its customers? Or the one highest one that makes them the most profit?
And what if all the big e-tailers start doing this? Then the results from the comparison shopping engines will be so polluted that the only way you could tell what price YOU would find at these sites is to go there yourself.
And did anybody notice that THIS post which is COMPLETELY offtopic was modded up as interesting? When it clearly should have been modded as offtopic since the author took the time to clearly label the post offtopic? Now what would happen if i metamodded it down as offtopic? If more people had modded it up would i end up losing karma?
The lesser of two evils? Do you somehow buy the argument that you must vote either Republican or Democrat? Why not Libertarian? Or Green? Or for the UFO party, or for any of the hundreds of presidential candidates that don't get free publicity on the major media news?
You don't have a choice of two evils, you have probably a dozen or so evils and hundreds of goods. Vote third party if you're not happy with either of the two majors. As Bill Hicks put it, most people in America see politics as two puppets on a stage 'I like the puppet on the left.' 'Well I think the puppet on the right is more to my liking.' 'Hey, did anybody notice it was the same guy holding both puppets?'
Now can we get back to the story?
i know. i got so excited when i saw this story, wrote a bunch of people 'can i come over to your place to watch robots fight tonight?' and then look again and it was for last night. 30 seconds warning simply isn't enough. this could only help someone who was reading slashdot at that second.
learn how to filter the stories so they don't show up on your page. until then don't complain. and if you don't want to read the story then dont. simple.
I've found http://www.cursor.org to be my favorite place to go. They just have links to ANY kind of news you might like, though I spend most of my time on sites like alternet.org - read the news on a site like that for a month and then watch the evening news - it becomes so obvious that there is no real investigative journalism, that the traditional media is totally unwilling to cause any kind of ruckus or tell people how they're being abused by their government or corporations. Contrasting stories on the police actions at the big national conventions on alternet versus the evening news is just scary - even when the cops were beating and arresting journalists the evening tv news at most gives it two words.
Cursor has links to everything from the Pew Research that Katz mentions to Reuters to big newspapers, magazines, online news sites, something for everyone.
but i've heard that sony plans on adding an add-on to the ps2 (optional) to support broadband gaming. They are quite serious about the money to be mad in broadband gaming with the ps2, i think they just want to get people to buy the box first.
Lain is ALL about software and circuitry. It is the best movie ever about future tech and the net. Want an image of the uber-geek? The guy with all the wearable computers going on and on about how cool he was, how he was so connected, freaking brilliant. If the anime was about computers I think it's relevant. Watch the movie. Look at the user interfaces. Powerful, sleek, look like they came out of a video game rather than a lame version of unix. If the os in lain were real, microsoft would be dead, as would linux. It's what everyone wants and nobody has any idea how to make.
It is one of the most interesting philosophical debates i've seen on what is the net, what effect does the net have on people, etc. It is not about ninjas or demons or typical anime action. Very thoughtful, and has examples of the best-looking user interfaces i've ever seen. Wouldn't you want her navi program on your box? I don't think anyone whose trashed this being on slashdot has actually watched it or paid attention to the tech. I mean, the scene where lain has completely rewired her room to be this tech fortress, it's the equivalent of porn for overclockers and hardware geeks.
>It's the one whose brand would occur the most damage if brand "dilution" were allowed to occur.
And which brand would suffer the most damage if brand 'dilution' were allowed to occur? Why it's the company with the most money isn't it? 1% damage to a billion dollar a year company is more than 2000% damage to a $40,000 a year company so of course the first suffers more damage right? Now what if 'Ford Musical Instruments' had the ford.com domain 3 years before ford auto recognized that there was an internet? The registrars of ford.com didn't act in bad faith. ford was a registered trademark yes, but it was a trademark OF THE COMPANY that registered it. So what does dilution have to do with it if nobody acted in bad faith?
What do people want out of college today? A much larger percentage today than 30 years ago wants to use college as an opportunity to find a job making good money. Is this what college is supposed to be about?
Maybe each department could split into an applied job training section and a theoretical pure knowledge section. Do you want to be a physicist to figure out the universe or to have a desk job paying $80,000? Is the same kind of training relevant to both those people?
Some areas are clearly one or the other. If you want to be an anthropologist, it's not for the money. If you want to get an MBA, it's not because you really and truly care about tax law or economic theory. But so many are right in the middle and have tension between the two sides. Do you want to be a graphics designer or a starving artist? Where should the art department's resources be focused? Do you want a job at a dot com or do you want to do research work on AI? How do you cater to both those needs?
I think you see this tension in the huge rise of pure training corporations that aren't actually schools. I went the Computer Learning Corporation (which sucks balls if anyone is curious) - 2 years after i decided i didn't want to do anything with the college degree I had. Places that train and focus on one thing can get all the relevant info in your head much faster as well as prepare you for the environment you'll be working in, and they're great for that. But if you DO want to do research work on AI, going to CLC won't help. So what do people think? I'd just hate for the two to stay mixed up together because I know that gradually it will all slide over to the corporate side and then we won't have anyone trained to look at the big picture and think outside the corporate box.
The question is why any of this is necessary. The football team at UVa is a HUGE money-MAKER. Why do they need corporate sponsorship?
The school charges a lot - i went there too. Out of state students pay for all their education, plus some of the education of the instate students. Just from tuition. Then of course the school makes money selling memorabilia, garbage, etc. Why do they need to make more money from selling magazines? They don't. The Lawn, by the way, is the original part of the school designed and built by Thomas Jefferson. It is one of the most beautiful parts of any campus in the country and is a recognized architectural masterpiece and part of our cultural heritage. Why is it for rent for selling women's magazines?
When I look around at the world i see that we put up with a LOT of crap our grandparents would have never tolerated. Some things simply should not be for sale.
Yeah I'm really surprised it works. I was hot the other day and brought my little fan over to put on my desk. turned it on, went to get a soda, came back and noticed that the display on the monitor was funny colors near where the fan was. That's a lot of interference.
If you are talking about libertarianism as a political party or force, which i thought we were, then it clearly cannot be opposed to the existence of a state. I don't know any libertarians who really want to completely remove the state, generally if you feel that way you label yourself an anarchist.
Libs, it's not the government that's fucking you, it's the corporations that own the government.
Well, duh. And by decreasing government power over individuals we will do what? Yes class, we will also reduce corporate power over individuals. If corporations use government to pass laws forcing people to do what they want - then reduce the effectiveness of their tool. Once the corporation cannot force me to support the RIAA when i buy blank tapes, the corporation will have to come to terms with the market reality. Libertarians don't want to hand the country over to corporations, they want to hand the country back to the people.
So strip the government of power and someone else (big corporations) will take it for themselves. Are you serious? Corporations already own the two political parties, meaning they already own government. It's an ugly hybrid. An increase in gov't power nowadays is usually an increase in the power of gov't to intrude in people's personal lives, not an increase in the ability of gov't to regulate or control industry. Let's say the liquor industry is annoyed at all the people taking ecstasy instead of drinking. They lobby for tougher laws and more enforcement. New laws and initiatives are passed, at the request of corporations to regulate private citizens more. Gov't is becoming the favorite tool of industry - they are not separate. Strip the government of power and PEOPLE will take it for themselves. Are you telling me that if we banish neighborhood covenants people won't start expressing themselves by changing their houses? That corporations will somehow usurp the power freed up by removing those laws? Of course not, the power will go back to the people, where it came from. What they do with it is then in their hands. Libertarianism certainly realizes the world is a messy place - that's why they want to give the maximum amount of choice to the individuals, where it can be used most flexibly, rather than to gov't committees and bodies which pass rules to try to program society. I don't think you actually know much about libertarianism.
musicians are performers. they should be paid when they perform. if they're not paid they can refuse to perform. if i tape record their performance - why should they be paid for that? they can't make the music stop coming out of the tape. musicians control their performance. they do not control copies of their music. why are they looking to something they CANNOT control to earn their livelihood? they should look to the one thing they can control.
for about 10,000 years musicians were not paid for recorded music. were there still musicians? yes. did they plan on getting rich? not many of them. did they make a living doing performances? yes. did adding the 'right' to make 10% off of album sales that must be sold to a company help music? no.
again you use the word steal. why? it is called copyright infringement. LOOK IN THE FUCKING LAW BOOKS AC. it is not called theft. you can only steal something that is physical. i can steal a cd. i cannot steal a 'song'. i cannot steal an idea. i cannot steal information by copying it.
1) there is no guarantee of making money.
2) i am an artist.
3) i don't do it for money.
4) i release music under the Free Art License, a twist on the gpl.
5) the RIAA is the one stealing, read one of their fucking contracts, it's out and out rape.
6) the focus on getting a record deal makes many unsigned bands ignore the opportunites they have to make smaller amounts of money on the club circuit or putting out their own material.
7) the artists that realize they can do it on their own demonstrate more integrity than studio owned performers.
8) i want to tear down the whole fucking system and burn it to the ground anyway. copyright does not promote creativity and innovation in music - the system encourages playing it safe and recycling tired formulas - not the goal. the system has failed, time to junk it.
pirating? where did you get this word? i don't sail a boat. i certainly dont accost other boats and force them to deliver their mp3s at gunpoint.
theft? what did i steal? the original owner still has their property right?
Oh! why you're talking about copyright infringement. boy, that's not the same thing at all!!! why you see the first two are MAJOR FELONIES! and copyright infringement is a rarely prosecuted minor misdemeanor. like jaywalking. does jaywalking get you upset? that's about the legal weight this 'crime' has.
the words you use define the thoughts you can have. if you're using the RIAAs words you won't be able see the situation clearly.
the only experience i had with napster was as follows: i use samples to make music. I wanted to do a remix of a metallica song. i have most of their albums but all on tape, and no way of getting the sound from the tape to my hard drive (lame sound card). these are albums i purchased. I have a right to 'fair use' to the songs on there, for parody or whatever. So i go on napster and download some songs that i have legal rights to use. And admittedly a few others because id heard the names but never heard the music. i make a remix. not for commercial use, just for personal pleasure. a few months later i hear napster's getting shut down. so i try to log in. i've been banned by metallica. i go to the complaint form. it won't let me send. i delete all napster files, reinstall, create a new username. says that person was banned by metallica. interesting since that user didn't exist. so i go to the complaint form. still, errors preventing me from sending it. at this point i'm considering legal action for slander against metallica. legitimate interests ARE hurt by shutting down napster, i was giving away my music on there for free, also on acidplanet.com. so to everyone who says 'well then why don't you give your work away for free' i do. better that a hundred criminals go free than that one innocent man suffer. Boy, does that sound like a defense of napster or what?
you know what? music is more fun than coding. why would you do coding for free? obviously no one will ever code without monetary rewards leading them on. there is open source coding. there is no open source music. There used to be. it was called folk music. it was a part of our culture. it wasn't property.
so when i go buy blank tapes or cds to put my music on i pay a 'tax' on the copyright infringement they ASSUME i'm going to use them for, when in fact they're for my songs. This 'tax' goes to the RIAA. my main competitors. who use it to get my main distribution channel shut down. hooray for justice. hooray for artist's rights.
Direct action by the people is a valid tool to use in trying to get the law changed. During Prohibition, a totally stupid decision that ignored the will of the people, millions and millions drank. When it became blindingly obvious that the law wasn't working, THEN AND ONLY THEN was it repealed.
There's also something called jury nullification. If people called to act as juries simply stop convicting people accused of breaking laws the jurors think are unfair, EVENTUALLY the prosecutors just won't bother. Working on abstract political terms is fine, but direct action has always been a valid tool. <br><br>
There's also something called <b>personal responsibility</b>. If someone comes up to you on the street and offers to sell you a digital camcorder for $100 bucks and you buy it, you're guilty of purchasing stolen property. Without a doubt. If he just gives it to you, you're still guilty. Now change the camcorder to an mp3 and the shady guy to napster. How is the end user not guilty in this case? Napster may look shady, but even less so than you'd think, because he's not even offering you an mp3, just telling you where to go to get one. So where does the guilt if any lie? On the end user. This should be an open and shut case.