music is no longer a scarce good (like, for example, a car) but a potentially nonscarce good (like air).
Ummm... There's another difference between music and air that you're not considering. Music takes thought and effort to create, air doesn't. It is that thought and effort that should be rewarded. While I would consider it enough reward just to have someone listen to my music and tell me they like it, I also have another skill that is far more reliable for making money. By the way, if anyone does want to reward me for my effort in making music, listen to it at www.mp3.com/Anonymity and drop me an email at the address listed there. No money needed, just enjoy the song.
You mentioned that there's a large number of signatures needed for these citizens initiatives, but did you ever think of how that number is come up with? I'm not a law maker, but I believe that the number of signatures needed is based on the number of people a petition will reach. If you start getting the petition to more people, then you should need more signatures. There have also been good points made about this swinging the balance towards the technical people who are going to be able to find the petitions, and more towards the people rich enough to own computers and spend their time on line finding petitions.
...and no one freaked out on him. Could be that they're just taking their time to answer the questions (or that their lawyers are taking their time answering/editing the answers). And If I'm not mistaken, Douglass Adams hasn't answered yet either... The gathering of questions for him was two days BEFORE Metallica...
I guess if you like someone you give 'em a break, but if you're upset with them you give 'em as much hell as you can.
Yes, but being the consumer doesn't give you the right to steal. If you don't want to spend the money on the music, then don't own a copy of it. Look at it this way, cars are overpriced (as I'm sure you'll all agree), but does that mean we should go around stealing them just because we don't want to pay the huge prices? No. We should either buy a used car or a bike or go without.
Is it alright for corporations to dictate who will be a professional artist, not the people who listen to the music?
I never said that an artist had to be professional to be valid. I consider myself an artist, and the music I make art. Being a professional implies making money from what you do. Personally, I'd rather listen to most non-professional musicians because they tend to put more of themselves into their art, but those who decide to make it their profession SHOULD NOT be ripped off by everyone who wants a freebie.
I'm just waiting for all the slashdotters out there to proclaim the loss of all privacy. I agree that in a perfect world everything would be free, but you know what? Human nature isn't perfect and will not allow for everything to be free. How many of you would work for nothing but the sheer enjoyment of knowing you helped the world out? Can we expect musicians and movie and game makers to live up to those work-for-nothing standards? There are lots of musicians such as myself who will release our music for free (here's my example), but as I'm not making money off of it I can't afford to put lots of time into the writing and recording of the music, much less into the touring. If this NetPD is what it takes to keep professional musicians writing, recording, and touring so that people can enjoy their music, then I have no problem with it.
Let's hope the courts come to their senses and see that no laws were actually broken, otherwise my music (shameless plug for Anonymity) will have to find a new home.
I have to wonder if there were people who reacted the same way when people started writing instead of passing stories down generation to generation by word of mouth. His argument of community vs. isolation would have held a lot more water in that fight!
If you use Napster, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that you are a thief.
OK, assuming that's true (questionable, but I don't use Napster, so I wouldn't know), how does this make Napster responsible for the theft? It has a fully legitimate purpose in the distribution of "garage bands" as you call them, and therefor can't be considered illegal. Take, for instance, lock picking tools. It may very well be that most of the people who have them use them to break in to houses and such, but where would a lock-smith be without them?
While I'd like to telecommute because I could get a much higher paycheck doing so (Maine isn't known for high salaries), the one experience I've had with it was extremely bad. Unless the company you're working for has lots of experience with telecommuters, they probably won't be able to effectively farm the work out to you. You end up sitting around with no work to do, which is great at first, but then you start to wonder about your usefulness, and also stop enjoying the job.
Re:What's wrong with giving TM holders first dibs?
on
Master Of Your Domain
·
· Score: 1
1. Joe Blow like you and me can't get in on the game until those who already have trademarked domains can get in. Bad Cuz Blizzard games is suing blizzard.net for that domain. Bad cuz businesses get to pretend they were here first
OK... A good point about trademarking common words... That means there should be reforms in trademark laws. I still say that if you have a valid trademark, you should be able to enforce it.
2. Trademark bullies can say they own TM-sucks.com.
Now, what's wrong with that? You shouldn't be claiming a TM-sucks.com anyways unless you have evidence to proove that they actually do suck (ie... Hoover_vaccuums_suck.com would be fine, but microsoft_sucks.com is just mean-spirited and pointless even if it's true =)
3. It's just to protect the trademarks they already own when.com turns into.commerce or.health or whatever they added.
Yeah... Exactly... It's to protect the marks they own. That's my point.
What's wrong with giving TM holders first dibs?
on
Master Of Your Domain
·
· Score: 2
I just don't see what the complaint against that is. Afterall, we all were happy when Linus was given the Linux(TM) trademark, right? It's just a way for people and companies who are identified with a mark to keep their identification and for them to easily be found.
QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
Of course I'll strongly oppose regulations that mean higher prices, but what evidence is there that any regulations the DOJ is dreaming up will increase the cost? I mean, I hate to be anti-MS because I believe that they do have a product that is useful for some people (granted, it'd be more useful if they put more time into killing the bugs they have rather than introducing useless gadgets with more bugs), but with questions like this it's just too easy to hate them!
Keep in mind that more than 63% of the general population just wants a computer that will do basic tasks and play games. And since Microsoft has such huge market share, it's all they know. If you thought that breaking up this company would hurt your game playing and word processing, wouldn't you be against it? People are just being surveyed without all the information.
Also, take a look at the phrase "the defendants offered no evidence to back up this claim" again... Throughout reading this document I kept thinking to myself, "Gee, the burden of proof always used to be on the plaintiff, didn't it?" This is still the U.S. that this court action is taking place in, and I believe that always was a cornerstone of our legal system. The MPAA should have to prove that this software was written to pirate rather than the defendants having to prove that it was written to simply play movies that they bought!
why do people believe they have the right to decompile and start distributing someone else's hard work?
Who said anything about decompiling and distributing someone else's work? There's more than one type of reverse engineering, and probably the most common is the black box approach. This is when you look at how something works (ie. the input and output) and try to duplicate it in your own code. There's no theft involved, just puzzle solving. What's wrong and/or illegal about that?
I don't remember it from Ender's Game either, but in the movie, the slang has been changed from "bugger" to "woolly ants", "ants", or "woollies". I think this is for the reason that is given in Ender's Shadow for the push to call them Formics (the fact that bugger is unpleasant slang in some parts).
Intrusions like this cost people money. They have to shut down their network connectivity (to prevent access to other potentially compromised systems), rebuild the operating systems on the affected machines, restore the content, and then restore connectivity. This is not cheap.
It's not cheap to fix a network after a crack, but should this kid have to pay for the hole to be fixed? he didn't put the hole there, he jsut exploited it. Sooner or later someone else would have or the hole would have been caught. Either way, the work would have had to have been done. He didn't do any real damage to anyone. He just replaced a web page. There should be a penalty for that, but 15 months and $36,000? What's the penalty for breaking and entering? I'd say that's what he did. And you could argue for some restitution for the time lost on the web page. Unless his message was left up for a LONG time, that doesn't make $36,000... I understand that they're charging him for the man-hours of work to close the hole, but like I said, he just pointed out that the hole was there. Charge him for the man-hour or so to re-create the page from the backup, sure, but this is too much (and for the record, I'm all for penalizing crackers, just make the punishment fit the crime).
That's good... I actually like the idea of financial aid for genetic engineering. Hadn't thought of it before. There are still the moral issues with "playing god" that I haven't begun to think about how I feel about. As for higher education, as a college grad, I might be a little biased. I do feel that higher education should be free to those who are willing to work for it (ie: keep the grades up - or at least the effort).
If we can outlaw discrimination on the basis of skin color and go as far as we have towards eradicating it, we can almost certainly keep discrimination on the basis of genes from going very far.
Maybe not... If someone is, say, given a job based on race and not because they are better suited, that's discrimination. If a person has been genetically manipulated to be better for a job because their parents could afford it, the company hiring that person over a non-engineered person can't be blamed, but there has been discrimination based on the affluence of the parents.
So what are we achieving here with gene selection for our kids? I think that what we're buying is health and vigor, and happiness to the extent that healthy and vigorous people are happier than those who are not. How can this be a bad thing?
Because we're offering an unfair advantage to those whose parents had money. I think that if a person works for something, then they should be able to earn it, but should someone be held down because their parents couldn't give them that advantage?
I'd hate to see the entire population of the world cram into a few (relatively) safe areas like that. Besides, how could we sustain our population on the food that could be raised here in New England and maritime Canada? And let's not forget events like the Ice Storm we had a couple years back. We're not totally safe here!
Slashdot Mirror
music is no longer a scarce good (like, for example, a car) but a potentially nonscarce good (like air).
Ummm... There's another difference between music and air that you're not considering. Music takes thought and effort to create, air doesn't. It is that thought and effort that should be rewarded. While I would consider it enough reward just to have someone listen to my music and tell me they like it, I also have another skill that is far more reliable for making money.
By the way, if anyone does want to reward me for my effort in making music, listen to it at www.mp3.com/Anonymity and drop me an email at the address listed there. No money needed, just enjoy the song.
You mentioned that there's a large number of signatures needed for these citizens initiatives, but did you ever think of how that number is come up with? I'm not a law maker, but I believe that the number of signatures needed is based on the number of people a petition will reach. If you start getting the petition to more people, then you should need more signatures.
There have also been good points made about this swinging the balance towards the technical people who are going to be able to find the petitions, and more towards the people rich enough to own computers and spend their time on line finding petitions.
Well, you are right in that they aren't the same thing. However, the poster said that they are enharmonic equivalents , which they are.
...and no one freaked out on him. Could be that they're just taking their time to answer the questions (or that their lawyers are taking their time answering/editing the answers). And If I'm not mistaken, Douglass Adams hasn't answered yet either... The gathering of questions for him was two days BEFORE Metallica...
I guess if you like someone you give 'em a break, but if you're upset with them you give 'em as much hell as you can.
Yes, but being the consumer doesn't give you the right to steal. If you don't want to spend the money on the music, then don't own a copy of it. Look at it this way, cars are overpriced (as I'm sure you'll all agree), but does that mean we should go around stealing them just because we don't want to pay the huge prices? No. We should either buy a used car or a bike or go without.
Is it alright for corporations to dictate who will be a professional artist, not the people who listen to the music?
I never said that an artist had to be professional to be valid. I consider myself an artist, and the music I make art. Being a professional implies making money from what you do. Personally, I'd rather listen to most non-professional musicians because they tend to put more of themselves into their art, but those who decide to make it their profession SHOULD NOT be ripped off by everyone who wants a freebie.
I'm just waiting for all the slashdotters out there to proclaim the loss of all privacy. I agree that in a perfect world everything would be free, but you know what? Human nature isn't perfect and will not allow for everything to be free. How many of you would work for nothing but the sheer enjoyment of knowing you helped the world out? Can we expect musicians and movie and game makers to live up to those work-for-nothing standards? There are lots of musicians such as myself who will release our music for free (here's my example), but as I'm not making money off of it I can't afford to put lots of time into the writing and recording of the music, much less into the touring. If this NetPD is what it takes to keep professional musicians writing, recording, and touring so that people can enjoy their music, then I have no problem with it.
Let's hope the courts come to their senses and see that no laws were actually broken, otherwise my music (shameless plug for Anonymity) will have to find a new home.
I have to wonder if there were people who reacted the same way when people started writing instead of passing stories down generation to generation by word of mouth. His argument of community vs. isolation would have held a lot more water in that fight!
If you use Napster, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that you are a thief.
OK, assuming that's true (questionable, but I don't use Napster, so I wouldn't know), how does this make Napster responsible for the theft? It has a fully legitimate purpose in the distribution of "garage bands" as you call them, and therefor can't be considered illegal. Take, for instance, lock picking tools. It may very well be that most of the people who have them use them to break in to houses and such, but where would a lock-smith be without them?
While I'd like to telecommute because I could get a much higher paycheck doing so (Maine isn't known for high salaries), the one experience I've had with it was extremely bad. Unless the company you're working for has lots of experience with telecommuters, they probably won't be able to effectively farm the work out to you. You end up sitting around with no work to do, which is great at first, but then you start to wonder about your usefulness, and also stop enjoying the job.
1. Joe Blow like you and me can't get in on the game until those who already have trademarked domains can get in. Bad Cuz Blizzard games is suing blizzard.net for that domain. Bad cuz businesses get to pretend they were here first
.com turns into .commerce or .health or whatever they added.
OK... A good point about trademarking common words... That means there should be reforms in trademark laws. I still say that if you have a valid trademark, you should be able to enforce it.
2. Trademark bullies can say they own TM-sucks.com.
Now, what's wrong with that? You shouldn't be claiming a TM-sucks.com anyways unless you have evidence to proove that they actually do suck (ie... Hoover_vaccuums_suck.com would be fine, but microsoft_sucks.com is just mean-spirited and pointless even if it's true =)
3. It's just to protect the trademarks they already own when
Yeah... Exactly... It's to protect the marks they own. That's my point.
I just don't see what the complaint against that is. Afterall, we all were happy when Linus was given the Linux(TM) trademark, right? It's just a way for people and companies who are identified with a mark to keep their identification and for them to easily be found.
Heh... Upgrading would be a bitch!
QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to
pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was
proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to
consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly
(support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
Of course I'll strongly oppose regulations that mean higher prices, but what evidence is there that any regulations the DOJ is dreaming up will increase the cost? I mean, I hate to be anti-MS because I believe that they do have a product that is useful for some people (granted, it'd be more useful if they put more time into killing the bugs they have rather than introducing useless gadgets with more bugs), but with questions like this it's just too easy to hate them!
Keep in mind that more than 63% of the general population just wants a computer that will do basic tasks and play games. And since Microsoft has such huge market share, it's all they know. If you thought that breaking up this company would hurt your game playing and word processing, wouldn't you be against it?
People are just being surveyed without all the information.
Also, take a look at the phrase "the defendants offered no evidence to back up this claim" again... Throughout reading this document I kept thinking to myself, "Gee, the burden of proof always used to be on the plaintiff, didn't it?" This is still the U.S. that this court action is taking place in, and I believe that always was a cornerstone of our legal system. The MPAA should have to prove that this software was written to pirate rather than the defendants having to prove that it was written to simply play movies that they bought!
why do people believe they have the right to decompile and start distributing someone else's hard work?
Who said anything about decompiling and distributing someone else's work? There's more than one type of reverse engineering, and probably the most common is the black box approach. This is when you look at how something works (ie. the input and output) and try to duplicate it in your own code. There's no theft involved, just puzzle solving. What's wrong and/or illegal about that?
Slashdot lags seven days behind the initial announcement, duh.
Hehheh... I sent it in to them the day that mailing went out, but I guess they didn't like my wording or somethign because it was rejected =)
I don't remember it from Ender's Game either, but in the movie, the slang has been changed from "bugger" to "woolly ants", "ants", or "woollies". I think this is for the reason that is given in Ender's Shadow for the push to call them Formics (the fact that bugger is unpleasant slang in some parts).
Intrusions like this cost people money. They have to shut down their network connectivity (to prevent access to other potentially compromised systems), rebuild the operating systems on the affected machines, restore the content, and then restore connectivity. This is not cheap.
It's not cheap to fix a network after a crack, but should this kid have to pay for the hole to be fixed? he didn't put the hole there, he jsut exploited it. Sooner or later someone else would have or the hole would have been caught. Either way, the work would have had to have been done. He didn't do any real damage to anyone. He just replaced a web page. There should be a penalty for that, but 15 months and $36,000? What's the penalty for breaking and entering? I'd say that's what he did. And you could argue for some restitution for the time lost on the web page. Unless his message was left up for a LONG time, that doesn't make $36,000... I understand that they're charging him for the man-hours of work to close the hole, but like I said, he just pointed out that the hole was there. Charge him for the man-hour or so to re-create the page from the backup, sure, but this is too much (and for the record, I'm all for penalizing crackers, just make the punishment fit the crime).
That's good... I actually like the idea of financial aid for genetic engineering. Hadn't thought of it before. There are still the moral issues with "playing god" that I haven't begun to think about how I feel about.
As for higher education, as a college grad, I might be a little biased. I do feel that higher education should be free to those who are willing to work for it (ie: keep the grades up - or at least the effort).
If we can outlaw
discrimination on the basis of skin color and go as far as we have towards eradicating it, we can almost certainly
keep discrimination on the basis of genes from going very far.
Maybe not... If someone is, say, given a job based on race and not because they are better suited, that's discrimination. If a person has been genetically manipulated to be better for a job because their parents could afford it, the company hiring that person over a non-engineered person can't be blamed, but there has been discrimination based on the affluence of the parents.
So what are we achieving here with gene selection for our kids? I think that what we're buying is health and vigor,
and happiness to the extent that healthy and vigorous people are happier than those who are not. How can this be a
bad thing?
Because we're offering an unfair advantage to those whose parents had money. I think that if a person works for something, then they should be able to earn it, but should someone be held down because their parents couldn't give them that advantage?
I'd hate to see the entire population of the world cram into a few (relatively) safe areas like that. Besides, how could we sustain our population on the food that could be raised here in New England and maritime Canada? And let's not forget events like the Ice Storm we had a couple years back. We're not totally safe here!