What's with this talk about efficiencies? The goal of the music industry is profit. Same goes for the pharmaceutical industry. The best way to profit is to balance customer buy-in against production and marketing costs. There are equilibirums at all economy scales. A small producer can make a good profit with smaller investment and smaller sales. A huge producer can make a good profit with a huge investment and huge sales. But the huge producer will make a bigger "good profit" than the small producer.
Any chaotic system is going to find the most efficient configuration that achieves the inherent goal of the system. The "goal" of the biological realm is life, pure and simple. This is the goal to which the mechanism of evolution works. The goal of the economic realm is profit, not the diversification of the product space, and definitely not the betterment of humankind. And so no matter how many rules you change, the agents in the system will reconfigure themselves to reach the highest profit. And this will always involve things that are not efficient for the diversification of the product space, or for the betterment of humankind.
So.... It sounds like what you really want is to change the goal of this chaotic system we call economy. If you figure out how to do that, I say you're well-deserving of at least a couple Nobel prizes.... But just an FYI, I don't think something like outlawing corporations, or even the production of pharmaceuticals for profit, will do the job.
I personally don't believe in Hell in the same way that the vast majority of Christians do. Precisely because if you take the Bible as a whole, that picture is not consistent among all the scriptures that appear to reference it. I know the places where "hell" refers to "grave", or "death", and I know the places where scripture refers to the "second death", the separation from God that happens to unsaved people when they die. I don't think there's really anyplace in there where it actually refers to a fire-and-brimstone picture like what most Christians have.
And I didn't need to read the Greek or Latin or Hebrew versions to figure that out either. All you have to do is study the scripture and see what makes sense in the context of the whole.
I think that, if you and I were to discuss other such "traditional Christian concepts", you'd be surprised to find out what other understandings of scripture I don't share with either "pop" or "traditional" Christianity, for exactly this reason.
"Demons" and "devils" are mental or physical infirmities, not evil supernatural creatures. An "angel" is any person or thing by which God's Word is communicated or His will is carried out, and that never does it refer to some supernatural, humanoid creature. And "the devil" does not refer to an individual, supernatural, evil entity, but rather it is a generalized noun used to refer to all sorts of people, actions, ideas, etc., which are "contrary to God". And I came to all of these conclusions by looking at the verses in question, and seeing what meaning would be consistent not only in the context of the immediately surrounding scripture, but also in the broader context of the Bible as a whole.
You probably think I've just helped you make your case, because so few people agree with me. But the point I was trying to get across is that just because most people might be wrong, doesn't mean someone can't find the truth if they are really willing to look for it, instead of just accept by rote what comes from the pulpit. Because I don't believe that's going to save anyone even if what's coming from the pulpit is right. I believe people have to want to find the truth for themselves for it to mean anything. Belief is about taking action, not about making claims. The source still contains the truth. But you're not going to find it if you're too lazy to look for it, or too hung up on what you want to be true.
There are not a lot of people that agree with me on these interpretations. But if I'm right about them, and they are wrong, that's no fault of God's. It's the people who decided they'd prefer to just take the easy way out and not dig deeper to find the truth. "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it."
After all, they voted the school board into office.
What about the people that didn't vote for anyone serving on the school board? What about people that didn't vote at all, and don't have kids in school and so they don't have any "personal stake" in the school system?
If the school district can be required to pay this, then they should be allowed to sue the people who made the decisions in question, for some sort of "malpractice", to recoup the expenses for this incident. If the school board members endorsed the punishments, then they should be free game for litigation as well.
The taxpayers made the decision on who to hire for the board. The board made the decision on how to hire for principles, the principles, I assume, had at least some say in who gets hired for other administrative positions in the school. There's a lot of levels of responsibility to go through before this should fall on the shoulders of the taxpayers. Otherwise, it's kind of like saying that the CEO of Best Buy should be held personally responsible for harassment perpetrated by an individual salesperson during work hours. I don't think that makes much sense.
All work produced by a person during the course of his/her employment is owned by the employer, not the employee.
If the employee in this example was an independent contractor or consultant, then he would have a right to claim ownership of the code. The article seems to imply this is not the case, however, because that's not really an employer/employee relationship, but rather a client/agent relationship.
Besides that, your statement could be taken to have a startling breadth, though I'm not sure you meant it that way... I have heard of companies who claim ownership of any code produced by an employee, regardless of when, where, or on what machinery that code was written. I.e., you could work a 9-to-5 day, then go home and write code for a personal project all night, on your own computer, bought with your own money, using development tools that you paid for with your own money, and your employer would still own your code, all because of the waiver you signed when you got hired. Even if the product could not be considered "competition" or "conflict of interest". But as far as I know, this is by far not "the norm". Personally, I think it's ridiculous.
All of the companies I have worked for required employees to sign waivers stating that the company would own any code we wrote during time for which we were being paid by the company, or that we wrote using their resources. I.e., if I'm clocked in from 9 to 5, anything I do therein belongs to the company. If I clock out at 5, but continue to use the workstation to develop code for my personal project until 10PM, it doesn't matter that they weren't paying me for those 5 hours, because I used their resources to do the work. I'm okay with this, because they didn't invest money in those resources so that other people could profit from them.
Saying that Homosexuality is wrong and focusing so much on it seems to be a recent trend
It's a recent trend because it has been pushed to the forefront by people who are no longer willing to be stigmatized. The effort has been successful recently because the percentage of the population who cares what the Bible has to say about it, or those who hold the Old World, not-necessarily-Christian-in-origin views on what is "natural" or "civilized" is smaller than ever before. It has always been wrong, as far as "the church" was concerned, several now-condemned popes aside. (Though let me make it clear that I don't ascribe any authority to "the church", as I don't belong to any organized religion.)
You're not in court for following your urges.
Not directly, no. But that's partially my point. You wouldn't be tried for your urges, because they don't matter. I know what you were getting at and I know this isn't it. I'll address that later, but allow me this digression for a moment... As with the court, it's not the physical inclination that I believe is wrong. It's the act. The analogy breaks down at the point of considering the will/desire of the individual, though. Because I also believe it's wrong to earnestly desire to do those things. But that's different from a physical urge, and it's different in that I wouldn't argue we criminalize wanting to assault someone, because how do you prove it? "Only God knows." On a side note, this is what scripture means when it says that people are not saved by the law (meaning physical laws, such as don't lie, don't steal, etc.), only condemned by it. Obeying God's physical laws doesn't make you a good person by default, but breaking them settles any question of whether you might be.
Really, why would you care if two guys are into each other?
I don't really care. That was the gist of my post. People can do whatever they want. But I do believe I understand the Bible, and I do believe it's the word of God. And if someone is going to claim that the Christian God "is cool with people being gay", as Scott Kurtz (author of PvP) put it, I'm going to have to disagree with how they are reading scripture. That does not imply in any way, however, that I'm going to tell my congressman to write up legislature criminalizing homosexuality. I don't think it's something that's necessary to keep civilization rolling.
Which naturally brings us to the next statement of yours that I'm going to address...
I disagree with Christianity for demanding that I restrict my actions with no clear reason given.
There is reason given in scripture: It's not natural. It's not why we have sexual organs. They're for procreation, not recreation. If you're not using them for procreation in the manner intended, then you're misusing them, and that's wrong. This isn't going to mean anything, however, to someone who doesn't believe in the authority of God to make that statement. Which is precisely why I don't push it on anyone who isn't already serious about understanding scripture so they can "get saved".
Personally, I think that homosexuals raising children has the potential to cause some psychological issue for kids who don't grow up to be gay. But I'm not a psychologist, so I can't say for sure, or even find out. And even if I were I doubt I'd get grant money to do the research, because I bet that line of research would be "taboo" in a way similar to researching whether males and females on average have differences in certain types of intellectual capacity. So I don't worry about it too much.
And personally, I think accepting homosexuality as a normal part of society will encourage others to engage in it who wouldn't otherwise consider it. Do I think this is this wrong? Yes. Do I think it's any more wrong than other things that these unsaved people are already doing? No. Do I think it would entice people who would otherwise "get saved"? N
In response to this whole paragraph, I have a question. If we assume that at some point in time God did actually give His Word to man, then why in the world would he not ensure that the stuff that matters would remain uncorrupted? To my mind, not doing so would be a bit like dropping off your 4-year-old son/daughter, to young to know their own address, alone somewhere in Maine with handwritten step-by-step instructions on how to get back home to San Diego, California (without using a plane, train, or other potentially one-shot transportation), and saying "now don't lose this, rip it, stain it, etc., because without it, you'll never see me again... oh, and don't ask anyone for directions either, because you can't trust strangers".
In other words, you'd basically be condemning the child right then and there. It seems to me that the questions you've asked only arise when you presuppose an apathetic or nonexistent god, which is arguably not the picture the Bible paints.
So if you read something, it cannot be trusted unless you believe it came directly from God
Not "something", as in just anything. But something that claims to be the Word of God, then well, yeah, that's kind of part of the package deal. If you don't think God wrote it, then it's not the Word of God, and what does it have to do with Him? I guess whether you care if it's written by God or not really depends on what you believe God cares about. I don't think he cares about economics, or quantum physics, or computer science, or pet psychology. So I'm not going to put books on those topics through the same examinations as I would something that claims to be holy scripture. I would however, use some of the same principles. In other words, if it isn't consistent with its context (i.e. other holy scripture, or other pet psychology research, etc.), then there's something funny going on, and either it's not to be trusted, or I'm understanding something wrong. And again, anyone who believes in God, I would think wouldn't have trouble believing that God would ensure that the faithful can identify what's His and what's not.
You totally misinterpreted the OP. By WMDs, he obviously meant "weapons of minor destruction".;)
But seriously, the post you quoted said nothing about WMDs. Just "missile guidance systems", which are obviously useful outside biological and/or nuclear warfare.
Even if homosexuality is born-in, or genetic, or however you want to say it, that doesn't mean that performing the acts or entertaining the desires can't be wrong. The Bible also says that any sex (or even entertaining the desire for sex) outside marriage is wrong. (And by that, it means God-ordained marriage between a man and a woman, not the legal-agreement marraige that is virtually arbitrary outside tax reasons, and has nothing to do with religion of any sort.) So, if you're going to argue that Christianity is wrong because it says homosexuality is wrong, despite the fact that the physical predisposition to homosexuality is "naturally-occurring", you may want to shoot for the even easier target... By your logic it has been even more blatantly wrong for claiming that any sex outside marriage is wrong, because in general people are naturally predisposed to lust after anyone they find sexually attractive.
Christianity just says these activities are wrong, don't engage in them, and don't entertain the desires to engage in them. It's the same with stealing, drunkenness, lying, etc. It doesn't condemn a physical predisposition. If it did, every human capable of sex would be unconditionally condemned.
So I say again, if you're going to make this argument, don't beat around the bush. Get to the heart of the matter: You think Christianity is wrong because it asks you do deny your physical inclinations.
But I don't think that argument holds water at that general level. When I get angry at someone, my physical inclination is to punch them in the face. But is that a valid defense in court against an assault and battery charge?
If you're going to pursue a secular morality in this line, it's going to have to be a relative morality. By which I mean, if society decides that something is not wrong, then fine, we won't prosecute it in court. But in the spirit of open-mindedness and "tolerance", one would think we could go without the animosity toward people who hold to a stricter set of morals (and vice versa)...
At least the ones who aren't going around talking about how Christians will one day rule the world, so everyone else better fall in line. I have to agree on that one, those people are dangerous.
But that's not me. And it's not a lot of other Christians either. I have my morals. I follow them myself. I'll teach my kids to follow them and let them make the choice for themselves when they're adults. If an issue happens to come to vote, I can't in good conscience vote against them. But I surely won't lobby for laws upholding my moral beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, people are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of the laws. I'm in the minority with my morals, so who am I to say everyone else needs to follow them. If someone is a true Christian, they should understand that if someone obeys Christian morals because of the punishment of law, rather than because they want to, then we really haven't done them any favors. It shouldn't be this life that they should be worried about anyway.
To get back to the point, I'm a Christian, and I don't subscribe to the authoritarian, world-domination agenda of the "Christian right". So I'd appreciate not being demonized along with them, as so often happens. "Live and let live" is a two-way street. So on behalf of those of us Christians who hold "traditional" morals, but aren't supporting the authoritative Christian right agenda... We're respecting your morals, please respect ours.
Which is why there have been patents galore on coffee grinders throughout the years. Every time someone comes up with a new way of doing it, they can apply for a patent. If coffee beans naturally formed grounds (or corn naturally formed flakes) there would be no need to create a machine to do it. (Though I think the point the OP was making was rather that the grinding or flake-ification processes would then be "obvious", and so not patent-worthy.)
So in that regard they are more like a used book store or even a coffee shop.
Except that at some point the authors did receive royalties for each copy of each work that the used book store sells. Google is making full copies for they're own private and profitable use, without the authors receiving any royalties for this new copy.
If, instead of storing the full work in their systems, they did the scanning and stored only the absolute minimum amount of information necessary for functional indexing (can they do that without storing the whole work?), they might have a better case for claiming they're safe under fair use, or by way of making use of a library for its intended purpose. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
All these problems would be solved if they'd simply made the whole program opt-in instead of opt-out. As far as I'm concerned the only entity that has the authority to declare a service to be opt-out is a government. And Google is not one of those. It's a corporation, a profit-machine existing firstly and foremost for the benefit of the shareholders, not for the benefit of humanity.
So if they made it opt-in, would the service be as useful to Google's customers? No. But it would be more respectful of copyright law. The argument can be made that copyright law needs to be overhauled, and I think that's a good debate to have. But I don't think its wise to let a corporation represent the cause. Not even one so beloved as Google. Because in the end, they're providing the service because it's profitable to them, not because it's good for humanity. And there's no reason to expect that Google will continue to be "not evil" forever. We should not be giving corporations any more legal standing than they already have. They're close enough as it is to usurping the position of the individual as first-class citizen.
It would be pertinent to consider where you live. If you live in urban Chicago, I'm less than impressed. If you live somewhere with lower costs of living, (such as, say La Crosse, WI) you'll have a hard time finding a position that pays that well. And, most places outside the US (there were participants from 48 other countries) have lower costs of living than most places within it.
Summer of Code paid more than 400 students of 49 countries... $4500 [each].
AFAIK, the deal was $4500 for accepted work, without condition on where the person was located. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
There are many nations where 4500 USD is lot of money. In fact, even for a college student in the US, $4500 is often a lot of money. Except maybe if you live somewhere with a high cost of living, like Chicago, New York, etc. Where I live (which is in the US), $4500 is a year's tuition at the local public university. It's also 9 months of rent for my comfortable, two-bedroom apartment.
the value of the product of an author's work is orthogonal to the amount of work that the author put into it
Yes, but my point was not that he should receive a wage, just that there should be some sort of compensation for a "job well done". If nobody cares about the product, then it was effectively an exercise in vanity. Like a two-legged stool, it takes work to create, but provides no benefit to anyone. I'm thinking in terms of "consideration" here, to use a legal term. Society saying "because you gave us this, we will give you something in return". Copyright is meant to ensure this. Yes, it's a compromise. Yes, it's imperfect. But I don't think abolishing it is any better.
What we have is fundamentally an issue of what kinds of things am I allowed to say.
I understand that, and it concerns me as well. But my point is that this is not the sole moral concern we should be worried about. There's a moral conflict in our current situation. Is it more important that we are not restricted in our use of somones published idea, or that the creator's sacrifice is recognized and recompensed? I don't personally think that one is more right than the other. I understand your point with the the scenario with the telepaths. And if that were indeed the case, then I don't think it would be right to restrict that because thoughts are too personal to restrict. It would be too invasive. But I do think that if that were the case, we should still be obligated to ensure, in some way, that the creator be fairly recompensed for a valuable contribution.
Copyright is at least intended to do that, if for no other reason than to ensure that rare, beneficent individuals aren't the only ones bothering to spend their time on creative works. I don't by any means think copyright is a perfect or completely fair system. My biggest point was that if we abolish copyright without replacing the compensation mechanism it provides, we are simply trading one unfair scenario for another.
....
I think I probably laid down some irrelevant arguments over the course of this debate, and more than likely implied I held certain opinions that I don't in actuality, because I thought you were coming from a different direction than you were. I've too often run across people who can't see past the value of the transcription/transmission of creative works. This value is rapidly becoming negligible as it becomes trivial to make copies through digital means. These people don't recognize that they derive a benefit from the actual assimilation of the information in the book, the image in the painting, the music on the disc, etc. that goes beyond just the attainment of it. And that someone, somewhere, paid a price to develop that in the first place.
In short, I want to be clear I'm not in favor of the idea that we need to "pay for the priveledge of copying information". I'm more concerned with an inequity regarding the worker. If 100 people value the carpenter's chairs enough to purchase them, and the same 100 people value the author's book enough to read it, then the author deserves compensation for his creation just as much as the carpenter does. I would love to see the rights of the consumers and the investment of the creator both respected fairly.
I suppose there may be an argument to be made (albeit possibly a cynical one) that if we can't, as a society, be trusted not to abuse the labor of our creative members wihout placing certain restrictions on the rights of those who consume their product, then at some point maybe we deserve to stagnate as a result...
And on a final, sidetrack note:
I'm also not convinced that all of rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution exist in a state of nature.
I think you're right. But IMHO "natural" behavior does not necessarily equate to "moral" behavior.
Ah Slashdot; where age-old concepts are interpreted literally and trashed because they don't work literally.
I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience it really is a problem that many managers in IT attempt to use this concept literally. In these scenarios people who report problems but can't solve them without the involvement of the manager are labelled as either incompetent, or as troublemakers. And it arises in scenarios where the manager should be involved in the solution in some manner in some way, such as communicating up the chain, assigning resources, estimating costs, changing deadlines, etc.
Most often the source of the problem is that the manager is presiding over a team that does work he has no experience with, and who is paranoid about openly relying too much on the expertise of his subordinates because he is afraid of appearing incompetent to his superiors. This type of manager can only survive with two types of employees: the type that are totally independent and don't really need any "managing", and the type that he can pin failures on.
This is why I am a big advocate of elevating managers from within the IT working ranks, rather than bringing in the guy with an MIS who has never worked on an actual system/project in that field.
It may be you don't like any movies by any of those companies. Just wanted to point out that it's a bigger population of movies than one might first think. Of that list of companies, I think Miramax probably has the best reputation. It's a good bet you like something by them.
Where, other than copyright law, does your right to control the speech of the other person come from?
Indirectly, it comes from the capitalistic ideal of the right to "pursuit of happiness". Creative work is still work. It still takes time and effort. It's product may have greater potential to propell society forward, but does that mean society should be able to co-opt the creator's labor and deny potentially life-sustaining personal benefit, for the purpose of incremental "public good"?
I understand the thrust of your argument. But I don't think it's fair or sustainable in a capitalistic world. Within the context of capitalism, an idea that is particularly beneficial to society should lead to greater personal reward for the formulator of that idea. Copyright allows that.
So, if you're advocating getting rid of capitalism altogether, then that makes a bit more sense. Although I still think it's far too idealistic. If you have nothing against capitalism in general, then by removing the benefits that copyright provides to the creator, then we'll regress to what happened in pre-copyright times. Those of "good will" would still publish their works, but others would not waste time they could be using to earn money for necessities or personal comforts. Furthermore, I'd question how long the patent system would last in the absence of copyright.
Arguably, it was the creation of the intertwined concepts of patents and copyrights that abolished the stalemate of trade and guild secrets, facilitating the mad race of creative and technological progress that has occurred in the past few centuries. Because the average rational, self-interested person finally had a reason to reveal the grand ideas he formulated on his own, and (after a short time) allow others to build on them.
I don't think the capitalistic/socialistic conflict is avoidable in the debate over the value of copyright. My position on this matter is primarily motivated by my belief that capitalism works better than socialism, because it is a "least common denominator" approach where not everyone has to be a saint in order for it to be stable. If this is where we differ, I understand very well where you're coming from. But while it's a noble moral ideal, I will continue to disagree with the pracical feasibility of the proposal, for reasons stated above, and in this one.
It is an artifical legal construct designed to increase the amount of public domain materials,
From the passage you quoted it sounds like the "right" is what existed before, and the legal construct was a reduction of the right to keep one's ideas private. And what you are saying is that they didn't go far enough. That there should be no right to protect one's ideas.
I can see why you would support this. The faster ideas are released into the public domain, the faster society can build on them and progress to the next level. But the fact that the rights were limited and not abolished illustrates that there was still an understanding that there was a right there to be respected.
I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're arguing they were mistaken not to abolish that right. But then what does the thinker, the creator, of the idea, get in exchange for all his time and effort? In your system, it's just a warm fuzzy feeling that they've helped the common good. Which doesn't exactly put food in his kids' mouths.
Like it or not, we currently live in a capitalistic world (yes, with some exceptions, apologies if you're Chinese, North Korean, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc.). If you're looking to change that, copyright law seems a rather backwards place to start. But if you're not looking to change that, then I say again that the calling intellectual property "a fiction", which the creator has no right to profit from, implies that the labor of the artist or inventor is of less value than "physical" labor, because it removes the product of that labor from the capitalistic system.
If we're going to require that the product of their labor be explictly for "the public good" then we need to rearrange the labor reward system, either to make everything socialistic, or by instating some sort of public payment program by which the creator can profit proportional to the societal value of his creation.
What, other than copyright law, gives an author this "moral right"?
Well firstly, I didn't say it was a "moral right". So I'm not sure who you're quoting there.
Second, it's the same thing that gives a person the right to speak or not speak an idea that they've had. If I come up with an idea in my head, am I bound by responsibility to the public good to express that idea openly to anyone and everyone? Am I a bad person if I shut my mouth and never tell anyone what I've thought of?
Maybe you'll say yes to that. And if so, I'm afraid we're at an impasse, because I can't agree with, or even understand, that point of view. I think you'd be in a tiny minority on the issue. If you said no, then what is so magical about the transcription process that suddenly releases the idea from being "mine", to being "everyone's"? What if I only wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget it, or to show it to a very close friend? Has it still entered the public domain?
I'm seeing hints of a very anti-individualist philosophy behind your statements.
It sounds like you've gone over the edge of "freedom of expression" right into "mandatory expression". Maybe we should call it "freedom of consumption" from now on, instead. That seems to suit your proposal better. It really is a small step (maybe no step at all?) from what you're expressing here, to the idea that no one's thoughts are their own. That we should all be required to reveal our thoughts to everyone who desires to see them. And before you know it, we've abolished any previous rights to privacy we might have had.
If you don't like the concept of "fair use" as an author, then as far as I am concerned you are as bad as the people who think that copyrights should be abolished.
If I came off that way, I am afraid I mispoke terribly. That is not at all what I meant. I have nothing against fair use. Nothing at all. Without it, the entire concept of Copyright would be worthless. But let's be clear that the allowed usage list is an allowed infringement on the rights of an individual for the purpose of the ever-nebulous "public good".
But what Google is doing is not fair use. This isn't even "librarying". This is not covered under copyright law. If for no other reason than that the writers of the Copyright Act couldn't have foreseen it. Regardless whether the act is well- or mal-intentioned, it's still not legal.
Even if Google decides not to capitalize on this with their context-sensitive ads (and I wouldn't touch those odds with a ten-foot pole), it's still a "public service" that is not explicitly protected by copyright law.
Now, the fact that it's not fair use, as legally defined, doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Though I think there is still an important discussion to have there. How important or useful is it to the public to be able to see which books contain a certain phrase? But if we want this scenario to be covered, we should be talking to our congressmen about getting things changed. We should not be saying this corporation (alarms should be ringing here, I don't care if it's the darling of the geek community) should just do what they want and let the laws get fixed later.
So what you're saying is that whenever an author refers to "my book", they're mistaken. You're saying that they really should be saying "the book I wrote", because they have no real claim to the ideas that they came up with and they transcribed. Which basically means that all the effort behind this work is worth... nothing. If they have no claim to this stuff, then what right do they have to charge anyone for any of it?
Well, I say, unless you can come up with the same ideas and transcribe them in exactly the same manner, without any interaction with the creator, the creator has an exclusive "product" to which he has every right to control access. There is ownership, of a type, here. I don't see how that can be disputed. Claiming that "intellectual property" is different from physical property is a little redundant. If it wasn't a bit different, we wouldn't have to specify it was "intellectual", now would we? But that doesn't make it any less property. Just a different type.
The only difference is that it takes little skill to make a copy of a creative work, whereas a certain amount of skill is necessary to copy a physical product. Copyright law is the codification of the concept that there is worth and value in the creative act. That is what is being protected here. If there were no benefit for the creator, there would be much less valuable work being created.
Not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend all their free time toiling in the interest of the public good. There is room in this world for both "closed" and "open" content.
I'd say you've been very lucky. Virtually every console I've owned has frozen up or crashed on me at some point.
It was by far most common with my NES, but I've had the problem with GB, SNES, PS, PS2, and GC as well. Never owned an XBox, so I can't comment on that one.
Actors, musical artists, pro athletes, etc... They make so much money because what they do attracts millions upon millions of consumers. And because people are willing to pay a certain amount for access to the product of their work. Simple economics. The market will settle on a price that people are willing to pay. No more, no less. So, the distributers could charge less, and pay less. But then they wouldn't make as much money. So there is no economic reason to do so. The amount of money that a star makes in a successful movie is peanuts compared to the overall amount of money that the movie itself brings in.
So, there is a certain amount of money to be made in these areas. Where do you suggest the money goes, if not to the people whose skills are central to the production? The suits? The production crew (camera, microphone operators, etc.)? The stuits are already getting paid very well. The production crew, unfortunate as it may be, are fairly replaceable. While the "star" is not. So while an individual star's cut of the profits is not particularly large, it's "deserved", because it's their name that brings in the consumers.
That's why they make so much money. In short, it's because most people, don't share your view of what the product is "worth". Or not worth, as the case may be.
do we sue the manufacturer or the guy who made the poor weld
First rule of litigation: You sue whoever's got the deepest pockets.
But seriously, your point about software houses being more similar to factories than to medical or law practices is very well taken. Management has much tigher reigns in the software industry. Far too few significant and unreviewable decisions are made by the indivudal worker in a software studio for him to be considered totally responsible for faults.
It is a well-known fact that a single person cannot produce a large, quality piece of software in the time periods required by the commercial and custom software industries. So why should we hold a single person responsible when a whole process fails? We shouldn't. So who should we sue? Why the entity in charge of the process, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Any chaotic system is going to find the most efficient configuration that achieves the inherent goal of the system. The "goal" of the biological realm is life, pure and simple. This is the goal to which the mechanism of evolution works. The goal of the economic realm is profit, not the diversification of the product space, and definitely not the betterment of humankind. And so no matter how many rules you change, the agents in the system will reconfigure themselves to reach the highest profit. And this will always involve things that are not efficient for the diversification of the product space, or for the betterment of humankind.
So.... It sounds like what you really want is to change the goal of this chaotic system we call economy. If you figure out how to do that, I say you're well-deserving of at least a couple Nobel prizes.... But just an FYI, I don't think something like outlawing corporations, or even the production of pharmaceuticals for profit, will do the job.
Is there anything that is not ridiculous to patent, in your opinion?
If so, what formal criteria could be used to separate the ridiculous ones from the non-ridiculous ones?
And I didn't need to read the Greek or Latin or Hebrew versions to figure that out either. All you have to do is study the scripture and see what makes sense in the context of the whole.
I think that, if you and I were to discuss other such "traditional Christian concepts", you'd be surprised to find out what other understandings of scripture I don't share with either "pop" or "traditional" Christianity, for exactly this reason.
"Demons" and "devils" are mental or physical infirmities, not evil supernatural creatures. An "angel" is any person or thing by which God's Word is communicated or His will is carried out, and that never does it refer to some supernatural, humanoid creature. And "the devil" does not refer to an individual, supernatural, evil entity, but rather it is a generalized noun used to refer to all sorts of people, actions, ideas, etc., which are "contrary to God". And I came to all of these conclusions by looking at the verses in question, and seeing what meaning would be consistent not only in the context of the immediately surrounding scripture, but also in the broader context of the Bible as a whole.
You probably think I've just helped you make your case, because so few people agree with me. But the point I was trying to get across is that just because most people might be wrong, doesn't mean someone can't find the truth if they are really willing to look for it, instead of just accept by rote what comes from the pulpit. Because I don't believe that's going to save anyone even if what's coming from the pulpit is right. I believe people have to want to find the truth for themselves for it to mean anything. Belief is about taking action, not about making claims. The source still contains the truth. But you're not going to find it if you're too lazy to look for it, or too hung up on what you want to be true.
There are not a lot of people that agree with me on these interpretations. But if I'm right about them, and they are wrong, that's no fault of God's. It's the people who decided they'd prefer to just take the easy way out and not dig deeper to find the truth. "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it."
What about the people that didn't vote for anyone serving on the school board? What about people that didn't vote at all, and don't have kids in school and so they don't have any "personal stake" in the school system?
If the school district can be required to pay this, then they should be allowed to sue the people who made the decisions in question, for some sort of "malpractice", to recoup the expenses for this incident. If the school board members endorsed the punishments, then they should be free game for litigation as well.
The taxpayers made the decision on who to hire for the board. The board made the decision on how to hire for principles, the principles, I assume, had at least some say in who gets hired for other administrative positions in the school. There's a lot of levels of responsibility to go through before this should fall on the shoulders of the taxpayers. Otherwise, it's kind of like saying that the CEO of Best Buy should be held personally responsible for harassment perpetrated by an individual salesperson during work hours. I don't think that makes much sense.
All work produced by a person during the course of his/her employment is owned by the employer, not the employee.
If the employee in this example was an independent contractor or consultant, then he would have a right to claim ownership of the code. The article seems to imply this is not the case, however, because that's not really an employer/employee relationship, but rather a client/agent relationship.
Besides that, your statement could be taken to have a startling breadth, though I'm not sure you meant it that way... I have heard of companies who claim ownership of any code produced by an employee, regardless of when, where, or on what machinery that code was written. I.e., you could work a 9-to-5 day, then go home and write code for a personal project all night, on your own computer, bought with your own money, using development tools that you paid for with your own money, and your employer would still own your code, all because of the waiver you signed when you got hired. Even if the product could not be considered "competition" or "conflict of interest". But as far as I know, this is by far not "the norm". Personally, I think it's ridiculous.
All of the companies I have worked for required employees to sign waivers stating that the company would own any code we wrote during time for which we were being paid by the company, or that we wrote using their resources. I.e., if I'm clocked in from 9 to 5, anything I do therein belongs to the company. If I clock out at 5, but continue to use the workstation to develop code for my personal project until 10PM, it doesn't matter that they weren't paying me for those 5 hours, because I used their resources to do the work. I'm okay with this, because they didn't invest money in those resources so that other people could profit from them.
It's a recent trend because it has been pushed to the forefront by people who are no longer willing to be stigmatized. The effort has been successful recently because the percentage of the population who cares what the Bible has to say about it, or those who hold the Old World, not-necessarily-Christian-in-origin views on what is "natural" or "civilized" is smaller than ever before. It has always been wrong, as far as "the church" was concerned, several now-condemned popes aside. (Though let me make it clear that I don't ascribe any authority to "the church", as I don't belong to any organized religion.)
You're not in court for following your urges.
Not directly, no. But that's partially my point. You wouldn't be tried for your urges, because they don't matter. I know what you were getting at and I know this isn't it. I'll address that later, but allow me this digression for a moment... As with the court, it's not the physical inclination that I believe is wrong. It's the act. The analogy breaks down at the point of considering the will/desire of the individual, though. Because I also believe it's wrong to earnestly desire to do those things. But that's different from a physical urge, and it's different in that I wouldn't argue we criminalize wanting to assault someone, because how do you prove it? "Only God knows." On a side note, this is what scripture means when it says that people are not saved by the law (meaning physical laws, such as don't lie, don't steal, etc.), only condemned by it. Obeying God's physical laws doesn't make you a good person by default, but breaking them settles any question of whether you might be.
Really, why would you care if two guys are into each other?
I don't really care. That was the gist of my post. People can do whatever they want. But I do believe I understand the Bible, and I do believe it's the word of God. And if someone is going to claim that the Christian God "is cool with people being gay", as Scott Kurtz (author of PvP) put it, I'm going to have to disagree with how they are reading scripture. That does not imply in any way, however, that I'm going to tell my congressman to write up legislature criminalizing homosexuality. I don't think it's something that's necessary to keep civilization rolling.
Which naturally brings us to the next statement of yours that I'm going to address...
I disagree with Christianity for demanding that I restrict my actions with no clear reason given.
There is reason given in scripture: It's not natural. It's not why we have sexual organs. They're for procreation, not recreation. If you're not using them for procreation in the manner intended, then you're misusing them, and that's wrong. This isn't going to mean anything, however, to someone who doesn't believe in the authority of God to make that statement. Which is precisely why I don't push it on anyone who isn't already serious about understanding scripture so they can "get saved".
Personally, I think that homosexuals raising children has the potential to cause some psychological issue for kids who don't grow up to be gay. But I'm not a psychologist, so I can't say for sure, or even find out. And even if I were I doubt I'd get grant money to do the research, because I bet that line of research would be "taboo" in a way similar to researching whether males and females on average have differences in certain types of intellectual capacity. So I don't worry about it too much.
And personally, I think accepting homosexuality as a normal part of society will encourage others to engage in it who wouldn't otherwise consider it. Do I think this is this wrong? Yes. Do I think it's any more wrong than other things that these unsaved people are already doing? No. Do I think it would entice people who would otherwise "get saved"? N
In response to this whole paragraph, I have a question. If we assume that at some point in time God did actually give His Word to man, then why in the world would he not ensure that the stuff that matters would remain uncorrupted? To my mind, not doing so would be a bit like dropping off your 4-year-old son/daughter, to young to know their own address, alone somewhere in Maine with handwritten step-by-step instructions on how to get back home to San Diego, California (without using a plane, train, or other potentially one-shot transportation), and saying "now don't lose this, rip it, stain it, etc., because without it, you'll never see me again... oh, and don't ask anyone for directions either, because you can't trust strangers".
In other words, you'd basically be condemning the child right then and there. It seems to me that the questions you've asked only arise when you presuppose an apathetic or nonexistent god, which is arguably not the picture the Bible paints.
So if you read something, it cannot be trusted unless you believe it came directly from God
Not "something", as in just anything. But something that claims to be the Word of God, then well, yeah, that's kind of part of the package deal. If you don't think God wrote it, then it's not the Word of God, and what does it have to do with Him? I guess whether you care if it's written by God or not really depends on what you believe God cares about. I don't think he cares about economics, or quantum physics, or computer science, or pet psychology. So I'm not going to put books on those topics through the same examinations as I would something that claims to be holy scripture. I would however, use some of the same principles. In other words, if it isn't consistent with its context (i.e. other holy scripture, or other pet psychology research, etc.), then there's something funny going on, and either it's not to be trusted, or I'm understanding something wrong. And again, anyone who believes in God, I would think wouldn't have trouble believing that God would ensure that the faithful can identify what's His and what's not.
... Just my two cents...
You totally misinterpreted the OP. By WMDs, he obviously meant "weapons of minor destruction". ;)
But seriously, the post you quoted said nothing about WMDs. Just "missile guidance systems", which are obviously useful outside biological and/or nuclear warfare.
People are born black (or gay)
Even if homosexuality is born-in, or genetic, or however you want to say it, that doesn't mean that performing the acts or entertaining the desires can't be wrong. The Bible also says that any sex (or even entertaining the desire for sex) outside marriage is wrong. (And by that, it means God-ordained marriage between a man and a woman, not the legal-agreement marraige that is virtually arbitrary outside tax reasons, and has nothing to do with religion of any sort.) So, if you're going to argue that Christianity is wrong because it says homosexuality is wrong, despite the fact that the physical predisposition to homosexuality is "naturally-occurring", you may want to shoot for the even easier target... By your logic it has been even more blatantly wrong for claiming that any sex outside marriage is wrong, because in general people are naturally predisposed to lust after anyone they find sexually attractive.
Christianity just says these activities are wrong, don't engage in them, and don't entertain the desires to engage in them. It's the same with stealing, drunkenness, lying, etc. It doesn't condemn a physical predisposition. If it did, every human capable of sex would be unconditionally condemned.
So I say again, if you're going to make this argument, don't beat around the bush. Get to the heart of the matter: You think Christianity is wrong because it asks you do deny your physical inclinations.
But I don't think that argument holds water at that general level. When I get angry at someone, my physical inclination is to punch them in the face. But is that a valid defense in court against an assault and battery charge?
If you're going to pursue a secular morality in this line, it's going to have to be a relative morality. By which I mean, if society decides that something is not wrong, then fine, we won't prosecute it in court. But in the spirit of open-mindedness and "tolerance", one would think we could go without the animosity toward people who hold to a stricter set of morals (and vice versa)...
At least the ones who aren't going around talking about how Christians will one day rule the world, so everyone else better fall in line. I have to agree on that one, those people are dangerous.
But that's not me. And it's not a lot of other Christians either. I have my morals. I follow them myself. I'll teach my kids to follow them and let them make the choice for themselves when they're adults. If an issue happens to come to vote, I can't in good conscience vote against them. But I surely won't lobby for laws upholding my moral beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, people are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of the laws. I'm in the minority with my morals, so who am I to say everyone else needs to follow them. If someone is a true Christian, they should understand that if someone obeys Christian morals because of the punishment of law, rather than because they want to, then we really haven't done them any favors. It shouldn't be this life that they should be worried about anyway.
To get back to the point, I'm a Christian, and I don't subscribe to the authoritarian, world-domination agenda of the "Christian right". So I'd appreciate not being demonized along with them, as so often happens. "Live and let live" is a two-way street. So on behalf of those of us Christians who hold "traditional" morals, but aren't supporting the authoritative Christian right agenda... We're respecting your morals, please respect ours.
Which is why there have been patents galore on coffee grinders throughout the years. Every time someone comes up with a new way of doing it, they can apply for a patent. If coffee beans naturally formed grounds (or corn naturally formed flakes) there would be no need to create a machine to do it. (Though I think the point the OP was making was rather that the grinding or flake-ification processes would then be "obvious", and so not patent-worthy.)
So in that regard they are more like a used book store or even a coffee shop.
Except that at some point the authors did receive royalties for each copy of each work that the used book store sells. Google is making full copies for they're own private and profitable use, without the authors receiving any royalties for this new copy.
If, instead of storing the full work in their systems, they did the scanning and stored only the absolute minimum amount of information necessary for functional indexing (can they do that without storing the whole work?), they might have a better case for claiming they're safe under fair use, or by way of making use of a library for its intended purpose. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
All these problems would be solved if they'd simply made the whole program opt-in instead of opt-out. As far as I'm concerned the only entity that has the authority to declare a service to be opt-out is a government. And Google is not one of those. It's a corporation, a profit-machine existing firstly and foremost for the benefit of the shareholders, not for the benefit of humanity.
So if they made it opt-in, would the service be as useful to Google's customers? No. But it would be more respectful of copyright law. The argument can be made that copyright law needs to be overhauled, and I think that's a good debate to have. But I don't think its wise to let a corporation represent the cause. Not even one so beloved as Google. Because in the end, they're providing the service because it's profitable to them, not because it's good for humanity. And there's no reason to expect that Google will continue to be "not evil" forever. We should not be giving corporations any more legal standing than they already have. They're close enough as it is to usurping the position of the individual as first-class citizen.
It would be pertinent to consider where you live. If you live in urban Chicago, I'm less than impressed. If you live somewhere with lower costs of living, (such as, say La Crosse, WI) you'll have a hard time finding a position that pays that well. And, most places outside the US (there were participants from 48 other countries) have lower costs of living than most places within it.
Why the heck would that matter?
Summer of Code paid more than 400 students of 49 countries... $4500 [each].
AFAIK, the deal was $4500 for accepted work, without condition on where the person was located. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
There are many nations where 4500 USD is lot of money. In fact, even for a college student in the US, $4500 is often a lot of money. Except maybe if you live somewhere with a high cost of living, like Chicago, New York, etc. Where I live (which is in the US), $4500 is a year's tuition at the local public university. It's also 9 months of rent for my comfortable, two-bedroom apartment.
Yes, but my point was not that he should receive a wage, just that there should be some sort of compensation for a "job well done". If nobody cares about the product, then it was effectively an exercise in vanity. Like a two-legged stool, it takes work to create, but provides no benefit to anyone. I'm thinking in terms of "consideration" here, to use a legal term. Society saying "because you gave us this, we will give you something in return". Copyright is meant to ensure this. Yes, it's a compromise. Yes, it's imperfect. But I don't think abolishing it is any better.
What we have is fundamentally an issue of what kinds of things am I allowed to say.
I understand that, and it concerns me as well. But my point is that this is not the sole moral concern we should be worried about. There's a moral conflict in our current situation. Is it more important that we are not restricted in our use of somones published idea, or that the creator's sacrifice is recognized and recompensed? I don't personally think that one is more right than the other. I understand your point with the the scenario with the telepaths. And if that were indeed the case, then I don't think it would be right to restrict that because thoughts are too personal to restrict. It would be too invasive. But I do think that if that were the case, we should still be obligated to ensure, in some way, that the creator be fairly recompensed for a valuable contribution.
Copyright is at least intended to do that, if for no other reason than to ensure that rare, beneficent individuals aren't the only ones bothering to spend their time on creative works. I don't by any means think copyright is a perfect or completely fair system. My biggest point was that if we abolish copyright without replacing the compensation mechanism it provides, we are simply trading one unfair scenario for another.
....
I think I probably laid down some irrelevant arguments over the course of this debate, and more than likely implied I held certain opinions that I don't in actuality, because I thought you were coming from a different direction than you were. I've too often run across people who can't see past the value of the transcription/transmission of creative works. This value is rapidly becoming negligible as it becomes trivial to make copies through digital means. These people don't recognize that they derive a benefit from the actual assimilation of the information in the book, the image in the painting, the music on the disc, etc. that goes beyond just the attainment of it. And that someone, somewhere, paid a price to develop that in the first place.
In short, I want to be clear I'm not in favor of the idea that we need to "pay for the priveledge of copying information". I'm more concerned with an inequity regarding the worker. If 100 people value the carpenter's chairs enough to purchase them, and the same 100 people value the author's book enough to read it, then the author deserves compensation for his creation just as much as the carpenter does. I would love to see the rights of the consumers and the investment of the creator both respected fairly.
I suppose there may be an argument to be made (albeit possibly a cynical one) that if we can't, as a society, be trusted not to abuse the labor of our creative members wihout placing certain restrictions on the rights of those who consume their product, then at some point maybe we deserve to stagnate as a result...
And on a final, sidetrack note:
I'm also not convinced that all of rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution exist in a state of nature.
I think you're right. But IMHO "natural" behavior does not necessarily equate to "moral" behavior.
I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience it really is a problem that many managers in IT attempt to use this concept literally. In these scenarios people who report problems but can't solve them without the involvement of the manager are labelled as either incompetent, or as troublemakers. And it arises in scenarios where the manager should be involved in the solution in some manner in some way, such as communicating up the chain, assigning resources, estimating costs, changing deadlines, etc.
Most often the source of the problem is that the manager is presiding over a team that does work he has no experience with, and who is paranoid about openly relying too much on the expertise of his subordinates because he is afraid of appearing incompetent to his superiors. This type of manager can only survive with two types of employees: the type that are totally independent and don't really need any "managing", and the type that he can pin failures on.
This is why I am a big advocate of elevating managers from within the IT working ranks, rather than bringing in the guy with an MIS who has never worked on an actual system/project in that field.
There's much more to Disney than the Disney name:
http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/disney.asp#movies
It may be you don't like any movies by any of those companies. Just wanted to point out that it's a bigger population of movies than one might first think. Of that list of companies, I think Miramax probably has the best reputation. It's a good bet you like something by them.
Indirectly, it comes from the capitalistic ideal of the right to "pursuit of happiness". Creative work is still work. It still takes time and effort. It's product may have greater potential to propell society forward, but does that mean society should be able to co-opt the creator's labor and deny potentially life-sustaining personal benefit, for the purpose of incremental "public good"?
I understand the thrust of your argument. But I don't think it's fair or sustainable in a capitalistic world. Within the context of capitalism, an idea that is particularly beneficial to society should lead to greater personal reward for the formulator of that idea. Copyright allows that.
So, if you're advocating getting rid of capitalism altogether, then that makes a bit more sense. Although I still think it's far too idealistic. If you have nothing against capitalism in general, then by removing the benefits that copyright provides to the creator, then we'll regress to what happened in pre-copyright times. Those of "good will" would still publish their works, but others would not waste time they could be using to earn money for necessities or personal comforts. Furthermore, I'd question how long the patent system would last in the absence of copyright.
Arguably, it was the creation of the intertwined concepts of patents and copyrights that abolished the stalemate of trade and guild secrets, facilitating the mad race of creative and technological progress that has occurred in the past few centuries. Because the average rational, self-interested person finally had a reason to reveal the grand ideas he formulated on his own, and (after a short time) allow others to build on them.
I don't think the capitalistic/socialistic conflict is avoidable in the debate over the value of copyright. My position on this matter is primarily motivated by my belief that capitalism works better than socialism, because it is a "least common denominator" approach where not everyone has to be a saint in order for it to be stable. If this is where we differ, I understand very well where you're coming from. But while it's a noble moral ideal, I will continue to disagree with the pracical feasibility of the proposal, for reasons stated above, and in this one.
From the passage you quoted it sounds like the "right" is what existed before, and the legal construct was a reduction of the right to keep one's ideas private. And what you are saying is that they didn't go far enough. That there should be no right to protect one's ideas.
I can see why you would support this. The faster ideas are released into the public domain, the faster society can build on them and progress to the next level. But the fact that the rights were limited and not abolished illustrates that there was still an understanding that there was a right there to be respected. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're arguing they were mistaken not to abolish that right. But then what does the thinker, the creator, of the idea, get in exchange for all his time and effort? In your system, it's just a warm fuzzy feeling that they've helped the common good. Which doesn't exactly put food in his kids' mouths.
Like it or not, we currently live in a capitalistic world (yes, with some exceptions, apologies if you're Chinese, North Korean, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc.). If you're looking to change that, copyright law seems a rather backwards place to start. But if you're not looking to change that, then I say again that the calling intellectual property "a fiction", which the creator has no right to profit from, implies that the labor of the artist or inventor is of less value than "physical" labor, because it removes the product of that labor from the capitalistic system.
If we're going to require that the product of their labor be explictly for "the public good" then we need to rearrange the labor reward system, either to make everything socialistic, or by instating some sort of public payment program by which the creator can profit proportional to the societal value of his creation.
Well firstly, I didn't say it was a "moral right". So I'm not sure who you're quoting there.
Second, it's the same thing that gives a person the right to speak or not speak an idea that they've had. If I come up with an idea in my head, am I bound by responsibility to the public good to express that idea openly to anyone and everyone? Am I a bad person if I shut my mouth and never tell anyone what I've thought of?
Maybe you'll say yes to that. And if so, I'm afraid we're at an impasse, because I can't agree with, or even understand, that point of view. I think you'd be in a tiny minority on the issue. If you said no, then what is so magical about the transcription process that suddenly releases the idea from being "mine", to being "everyone's"? What if I only wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget it, or to show it to a very close friend? Has it still entered the public domain?
I'm seeing hints of a very anti-individualist philosophy behind your statements.
It sounds like you've gone over the edge of "freedom of expression" right into "mandatory expression". Maybe we should call it "freedom of consumption" from now on, instead. That seems to suit your proposal better. It really is a small step (maybe no step at all?) from what you're expressing here, to the idea that no one's thoughts are their own. That we should all be required to reveal our thoughts to everyone who desires to see them. And before you know it, we've abolished any previous rights to privacy we might have had.
If I came off that way, I am afraid I mispoke terribly. That is not at all what I meant. I have nothing against fair use. Nothing at all. Without it, the entire concept of Copyright would be worthless. But let's be clear that the allowed usage list is an allowed infringement on the rights of an individual for the purpose of the ever-nebulous "public good".
But what Google is doing is not fair use. This isn't even "librarying". This is not covered under copyright law. If for no other reason than that the writers of the Copyright Act couldn't have foreseen it. Regardless whether the act is well- or mal-intentioned, it's still not legal.
Even if Google decides not to capitalize on this with their context-sensitive ads (and I wouldn't touch those odds with a ten-foot pole), it's still a "public service" that is not explicitly protected by copyright law.
Now, the fact that it's not fair use, as legally defined, doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Though I think there is still an important discussion to have there. How important or useful is it to the public to be able to see which books contain a certain phrase? But if we want this scenario to be covered, we should be talking to our congressmen about getting things changed. We should not be saying this corporation (alarms should be ringing here, I don't care if it's the darling of the geek community) should just do what they want and let the laws get fixed later.
From a fiscal conservative and social liberal!
;)
No need to repeat yourself. You already mentioned that you lived in Madison.
*ducks*
So what you're saying is that whenever an author refers to "my book", they're mistaken. You're saying that they really should be saying "the book I wrote", because they have no real claim to the ideas that they came up with and they transcribed. Which basically means that all the effort behind this work is worth... nothing. If they have no claim to this stuff, then what right do they have to charge anyone for any of it?
Well, I say, unless you can come up with the same ideas and transcribe them in exactly the same manner, without any interaction with the creator, the creator has an exclusive "product" to which he has every right to control access. There is ownership, of a type, here. I don't see how that can be disputed. Claiming that "intellectual property" is different from physical property is a little redundant. If it wasn't a bit different, we wouldn't have to specify it was "intellectual", now would we? But that doesn't make it any less property. Just a different type.
The only difference is that it takes little skill to make a copy of a creative work, whereas a certain amount of skill is necessary to copy a physical product. Copyright law is the codification of the concept that there is worth and value in the creative act. That is what is being protected here. If there were no benefit for the creator, there would be much less valuable work being created.
Not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend all their free time toiling in the interest of the public good. There is room in this world for both "closed" and "open" content.
I'd say you've been very lucky. Virtually every console I've owned has frozen up or crashed on me at some point. It was by far most common with my NES, but I've had the problem with GB, SNES, PS, PS2, and GC as well. Never owned an XBox, so I can't comment on that one.
It's amazing how many people don't get this.
Actors, musical artists, pro athletes, etc... They make so much money because what they do attracts millions upon millions of consumers. And because people are willing to pay a certain amount for access to the product of their work. Simple economics. The market will settle on a price that people are willing to pay. No more, no less. So, the distributers could charge less, and pay less. But then they wouldn't make as much money. So there is no economic reason to do so. The amount of money that a star makes in a successful movie is peanuts compared to the overall amount of money that the movie itself brings in.
So, there is a certain amount of money to be made in these areas. Where do you suggest the money goes, if not to the people whose skills are central to the production? The suits? The production crew (camera, microphone operators, etc.)? The stuits are already getting paid very well. The production crew, unfortunate as it may be, are fairly replaceable. While the "star" is not. So while an individual star's cut of the profits is not particularly large, it's "deserved", because it's their name that brings in the consumers.
That's why they make so much money. In short, it's because most people, don't share your view of what the product is "worth". Or not worth, as the case may be.
First rule of litigation: You sue whoever's got the deepest pockets.
But seriously, your point about software houses being more similar to factories than to medical or law practices is very well taken. Management has much tigher reigns in the software industry. Far too few significant and unreviewable decisions are made by the indivudal worker in a software studio for him to be considered totally responsible for faults.
It is a well-known fact that a single person cannot produce a large, quality piece of software in the time periods required by the commercial and custom software industries. So why should we hold a single person responsible when a whole process fails? We shouldn't. So who should we sue? Why the entity in charge of the process, of course.