I'm not a programmer, to start with, and secondly, I'm not sure if you're attempting to be sarcastic or not-
There's always a problem with catching a moving target, especially if the target is attempting to evade you and has tons more speed (resources) than you do.
Hence Microsoft Office/OpenOffice (although I think that's also very much a mentality issue on the part of Openoffice- they don't want to replicate Microsoft Office, because in replicating a moving target you necessarily can't do it as well as the original.)
More importantly, however, you are ignoring the thrust of my argument- Microsoft Developers do have access that third party developers don't. Compatibility programmers are in exactly the same boat as Joe Blow who's designing his own paint clone- they have exactly the same function calls and so on to work with.
And if you had read the rest of the thread, you would realize that the US bill of rights places no more restrictions on the US government than the European declaration of rights places on its government- that is to say, it places no restrictions on that government other than those restrictions the judiciary are willing to impose.
Actually, I think the first amendment SHOULD apply to all these things.
Filing false tax returns? The tax laws are so complicated, that anyone could accidentally and innocently file a false tax return. It shouldn't be a crime. Inciting riots? There were many people who tried to ban Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, and crazily enough even Martin Luther King from speaking arguing they would incite a riot. Yet all these people had important things to say, and America is better off that they said it. Passing classified data to the enemy? If you don't sign a security agreement with the government beforehand explicitly stating you will keep the information secret, then you SHOULD be allowed to pass classified data to anyone you want! If the U.S. government accidentaly mailed me its secret plans to invade Canada next week, I sure as hell would tell the media (and, by extension, the "enemy"). I am not a government employee, so I have no obligation to respect the government's secrets.
Extortion is a vauge one, since extortion can involve real physical violence (If someone walks into your house, and demands money at gunpoint, they should be punished... not for what they say, but for the fact that they pointed a firearm at you, which is a physical act beyond speech). But if the police can't find evidence of some PHYSICAL ACT, such as planting bombs, pointing weapons, attacking people, etc., I don't think extortion is a crime.
I think the U.S. government IS violating the First Amendment by banning all such things.
And it is violating the text First Amendment by banning them- we have no difference of opinion there.
The only difference is that courts have consistently held that the First Amendment cannot be that vague. In practice, it would essentially lead to significant civil breakdown.
For example, there are many religions which advocate stoning adulterers. And, of course, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Presumably, therefore, it is a violation of the first amendment to prevent religious individuals from stoning adulterers...
I *DO* think that free speech is something that we want all the time and under every condition.
A difference of opinion, I suppose. I see no particular benefit to allowing every tom dick or harry to run his mouth off in the public forum.
If a leader feels that there is some situation that is so dire, so aweful, so dangerous that free speech must be curtailed in THAT specific instance, then that leader should restrict that speech, and then step down from office and turn themselves into the authorities for a criminal act. The same way I would steal a car, something I consider to be an immoral and criminal act, if I had to take a critically injured friend to the hospital in an emergency and it was the only way to do so. But I would expect to suffer some punishment for making that decision, I would only steal the car if the consequences for not doing so (having a friend die) where worse than going to jail for auto theft. Under no circumstances should I casually be allowed to steal a car.
Except that realistically speaking, that wouldn't happen; if you had a civil service so inclined, the rest of the civil service would refuse to follow an illegal order and nothing would happen...
n the UK, you can go to jail for insulting a religion, for example. As an athiest, this is a very chilling law, because I believe that all religions are fair game for ridicule. Especially when people bring their religious beliefs into politics. I believe it was John Cleese who said it (but it was one of the Monty Python guys), that many of the Monty Python works would be considered 'hate speech' today because of their attacks on religion. It is kind of 'grandfathered' in, because it is already such a part of popular culture, but something like Monty Python would
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
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I see your point. Why do you claim it is fundamentally flawed?
If your goal is merely to keep the flies off you, and not to keep them coming through the open window, you are succeeding at your goal.
the MPAA/RIAA's goal is not to prevent file-sharing/duplication, it's to make money.
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Well, I don't see why they need to run the program at an profit- so long as they believe the value of deterrence is greater than the value spent.
Since they're running the program, I suppose they do.
First of all, the First Amendment is not "enforced" per say. The First Amendment is supposed to be "respected", in that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting speech. The First Amendments is perfectly functional: If the government simply refuses to regulate speech and expression, it is simple as that. It isn't something like "stopping crime" that might not be possible, even if the government chooses to pursue that goal. Any violation of the First Amendment by the U.S. government is both willfull and deliberate.
I think enforced is a reasonable term to use. After all, it is the highest law in the land, presumably. Ensuring it is followed is indeed enforcement.
However, while you might believe the government could simply refuse to restrict and regulate speech, in practice this simply isn't true. Filing false tax returns? Freedom of speech! Inciting riots? Freedom of speech! Passing classified data to the enemy? Freedom of speech! Extortion? Freedom of speech!
It is not now, and never has been, reasonable for all speech to be free. A free and democratic society relies on the fact that every freedom has its limits, and that as a matter of course we give up some of our freedoms in exchange for protection from the exercise of those freedoms by others.
The First Amendment, even when it is being violated by the U.S. government, is better than the EU "garantee", because it established a legal principle by which we can fight any and all censorship. We might lose the fight some times, we might win the fight other times... there are some very powerful people who want to restrict freedom of speech... But we have an extremely powerful weapon to use in the fight. Virtually any regulation of speech by the U.S. government can be attacked as being unconstitutional. And if the First Amendment fails to protect freedom of speech, if people are dedicated enough they can fall back on the Second Amendment.
And yet the second Amendment has exactly the same problems as the first- it is unreasonably vague and will never be enforced as written, because to do so is not only stupid, but dangerous.
Further, the difference between the EU guarantee and the First Amendment guarantee is that the government can, in the EU, only fall back on certain defenses in its restriction of freedom of speech. Remember that such restrictions are not automatically valid- they must be proven in a court of law. The alternative, American approach is that the government can come up with whatever excuse it damn well feels like and throw it before court, which is totally at its leisure as to whether to accept or deny said excuse as valid, depending on the prevailing political winds.
In practice, of course, there is likely no real difference between the two decrees. More important is the judges who interpret and define what falls under and what is acceptable under them.
In general, the United States has far more freedom of speech than Europe... and when the U.S. government does restrict speech, European censorship is the model and inspiration for U.S. censorship. We would do poorly to imitate the EU on freedom of speech, when the enemies of freedom of speech in America hold up European style censorship as the goal of what they are trying to accomplish. When politicians in the U.S. want to restrict freedom of speech, they usually argue how the UK, or Sweden, or Germany have similiar laws so "they can't be all that bad".
Europe is comprised of many different countries, in general that follow many different political models- all of which are different from the US in one way or another. All Western states (theoretically) attempt to find a balance between granting maximum freedom to their citizens and yet protecting those citizens in the most effective way. It is disingenuous and somewhat offensive to call these people 'enemies of free speech'. For one thing, it assumes that Free Speech is something
While Hanlon's razor may be more likely to be true, using it as a rule is entirely lacking in common sense.
Do you generally assume everyone who does something harmful to you is a bumbling fool? That's a way to get yourself into enormous amounts of deep water, very very quickly by not taking adequate precautions and severely underestimating your opponents.
The most intelligent (although perhaps not as, statistically speaking true) method is to assume malice until you have demonstrated, systemic evidence of incompetence.
So you're saying a guarantee of rights that sounds perfect but is never, and can never, be enforced is any better? At least the Europeans are honest with themselves.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
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How does relevance and credibility matter for them? Their objective is to make money- period. They are doing that.
This action, and the multi-pronged approach the MPAA/RIAA is taking to maintain that economic monopoly, regardless of their whining to the contrary, seems remarkably effective.
Even according to the MPAA/RIAA's own statistics, and after substantial claimed losses in both units sold and profits of CD sales (to take a primary example from the RIAA), there is no substantial loss in value sold across the entire market spectrum the RIAA deals with, and while there are fluctuations, the market seems remarkably stable in total value, if not in specific value- CD sales are decreasing, DVD sales are massively increasing, and so are online (legal) downloads.
Whether that is a result of the RIAA's offensive action or simply because the RIAA essentially has a stranglehold on the market is not clear.
However, they are most certainly relevant in the industry, and to their clients, the recording industry, they are very much a credible force in the marketplace.
It's only a geek fantasy that the RIAA/MPAA is 'losing' anything. Their tactics may be of debatable efficacy, that's certainly true. They may not be forging much new ground and massively increasing sales, that may also be true. But they are certainly not, their own marketing PR aside, falling behind by any substantial margin, or even any statistically significant amount.
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But the number of people who settle far exceed the number of people who go to court. This is essentially a victory, as their purpose with the legal actions is not to win, but to scare individuals in compliance. By scaring more individuals into compliance than they lose against in court, they have achieved a strategic victory on the balance of probability.
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So? That's not the point. The MPAA/RIAA have settled far more cases than they've lost, and on a strategic level, that means their assault is a success. Their strategy does not depend on winning in court in totalis, just like DRM is not perfect.
All it needs to do is be 'good enough'.
Now, is it? Well, that's up for debate.
My personal opinion is that the RIAA/MPAA has a much greater threat coming from organized crime, but I think it ridiculous to claim the RIAA/MPAA is not also operating on that front as well.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
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This response does not appear to have gone through, so I'll give it to you again- look at my cousin posts. The point is not that downloadable media is not available. The point is that decentralized personal copying is untraceable and essentially untargetable. They way they deal with that is via lawsuit. DRM is just to make personal copying difficult and unpalatable.
As I said there:
I realize that. That was not the point.
The point was that the RIAA/MPAA is taking a dual-pronged approach, as is visibly obvious- they are targeting torrent sites with an offensive barrage of lawsuits to prevent downloading and they are targeting the media with an offensive barrage of DRM to prevent casual copying which is decentralized and untraceable.
Is this approach effective? To some degree, yes, it is. Will it ever be 100% effective? No, it will not.
It's a rational, well-thought out tactical plan. Is it going to work? I personally think it's about even money as to whether they will eventually slap down media copying or whether they'll be overrun and give up.
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Oh, certainly, I don't doubt that. I never argued that DRM is now or ever would be 100% effective. But it is doing what it is designed to do- making casual duplication and copying of new media unpalatable and generally difficult for the masses of people.
Organized crime is a whole other ball game- they tend not to be dissuaded by the MPAA/RIAA's habit of suing people, for example.
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Which is being dealt with via other methods- the mass deployment of lawsuits against torrent users in an attempt to make it generally unpalatable to illegally download content.
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I realize that. That was not the point.
The point was that the RIAA/MPAA is taking a dual-pronged approach, as is visibly obvious- they are targeting torrent sites with an offensive barrage of lawsuits to prevent downloading and they are targeting the media with an offensive barrage of DRM to prevent casual copying which is decentralized and untraceable.
Is this approach effective? To some degree, yes, it is. Will it ever be 100% effective? No, it will not.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
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That's a naive view. Even if they believed that the first time, (which anyone with a little common sense would not have), it's even less likely they believed it the second, or the third, or the fourth time.
Given that assuming everyone in the entire media industry has the combined intelligence of a bowl of fruit is irrational and unreasonable, malice (although not exactly the "Buwahahaha evil" type of malice) is the most reasonable explanation.
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You're talking about CSS, which was introduced in 1996. While, yes, CSS is compromised and there are tons of pieces of software out there that take advantage of this, this is not really true in general. It happens to be true for DVDs, as they are so widespread, but the software for cracking other DRM generally has nowhere near the same popularity.
Even so, I think you're vastly overrating the prevelance of this software. My mother in law also browses torrent sites and has tons of DVD rips on her PC- but she's a software deployment manager.
Generally, people do not know how to use it, and generally they don't.
DRM is hardly 'strong', but it was never meant to be; it is, after all, essentially impossible, and all the designers have long realized this.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
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Never assume stupidity for what can be explained as malice.
To do otherwise is naive at best.
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Just because the ability exists to crack it, doesn't mean that the average Joe on the street can do so.
It discourages casual copying, nothing more, but I can't imagine it was intended to do any more. Nobody's that stupid.
Except the opposite is entirely true. At least the guarantee of freedom of speech presented is true and valid insofar as it is written; namely, it is legally plausible for the judiciary of the EU to follow that law, every time, without fail.
Contrast this to the First Amendment, which has never been enforced as written and which will never be enforced as written, as it provides no room for compromise of any kind, as with most of the Bill of Rights.
While you are correct in that it is a catch-all, it is not as wide a catch-all as you are suggesting it to be. Only a few of those exemptions can be widely applied, and even then, they must undergo judicial scrutiny to be applied.
With the First Amendment, the judiciary can come up with whatever exemptions it feels like- and does.
Interestingly, I thought exactly the opposite- I couldn't get through the Baroque Cycle (which was some many thousands of pages long) and I had to force myself to read Cryptonomicon, and even then, I didn't get half of it on the first go-around and had to read it again. Snowcrash, I could just pick up and read.
My understanding of the issue, although I do not specialize in this kind of law, is that your cash must be accepted for everything for which the good or service has already been provided; they are not required to accept it when you are making a payment for something you are to receive in the future.
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The exact quote you presented supports the opposite view- it was a failure of administration, not a failure of technology.
I'm not a programmer, to start with, and secondly, I'm not sure if you're attempting to be sarcastic or not-
There's always a problem with catching a moving target, especially if the target is attempting to evade you and has tons more speed (resources) than you do.
Hence Microsoft Office/OpenOffice (although I think that's also very much a mentality issue on the part of Openoffice- they don't want to replicate Microsoft Office, because in replicating a moving target you necessarily can't do it as well as the original.)
More importantly, however, you are ignoring the thrust of my argument- Microsoft Developers do have access that third party developers don't. Compatibility programmers are in exactly the same boat as Joe Blow who's designing his own paint clone- they have exactly the same function calls and so on to work with.
So you are claiming the software developers know more about the OS functions than those who are attempting to create the compatibility layer?
The software developers know that if you call function X, it does Y. So does whoever is creating the compatibility layer.
This may be a valid concern for Microsoft software- presumably, Microsoft software developers DO know more about the OS than anyone else.
But for third-party apps, it shouldn't be a concern.
And if you had read the rest of the thread, you would realize that the US bill of rights places no more restrictions on the US government than the European declaration of rights places on its government- that is to say, it places no restrictions on that government other than those restrictions the judiciary are willing to impose.
And it is violating the text First Amendment by banning them- we have no difference of opinion there.
The only difference is that courts have consistently held that the First Amendment cannot be that vague. In practice, it would essentially lead to significant civil breakdown.
For example, there are many religions which advocate stoning adulterers. And, of course, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Presumably, therefore, it is a violation of the first amendment to prevent religious individuals from stoning adulterers...
A difference of opinion, I suppose. I see no particular benefit to allowing every tom dick or harry to run his mouth off in the public forum.
Except that realistically speaking, that wouldn't happen; if you had a civil service so inclined, the rest of the civil service would refuse to follow an illegal order and nothing would happen...
I see your point. Why do you claim it is fundamentally flawed?
If your goal is merely to keep the flies off you, and not to keep them coming through the open window, you are succeeding at your goal.
the MPAA/RIAA's goal is not to prevent file-sharing/duplication, it's to make money.
Well, I don't see why they need to run the program at an profit- so long as they believe the value of deterrence is greater than the value spent.
Since they're running the program, I suppose they do.
I think enforced is a reasonable term to use. After all, it is the highest law in the land, presumably. Ensuring it is followed is indeed enforcement.
However, while you might believe the government could simply refuse to restrict and regulate speech, in practice this simply isn't true. Filing false tax returns? Freedom of speech! Inciting riots? Freedom of speech! Passing classified data to the enemy? Freedom of speech! Extortion? Freedom of speech!
It is not now, and never has been, reasonable for all speech to be free. A free and democratic society relies on the fact that every freedom has its limits, and that as a matter of course we give up some of our freedoms in exchange for protection from the exercise of those freedoms by others.
And yet the second Amendment has exactly the same problems as the first- it is unreasonably vague and will never be enforced as written, because to do so is not only stupid, but dangerous.
Further, the difference between the EU guarantee and the First Amendment guarantee is that the government can, in the EU, only fall back on certain defenses in its restriction of freedom of speech. Remember that such restrictions are not automatically valid- they must be proven in a court of law. The alternative, American approach is that the government can come up with whatever excuse it damn well feels like and throw it before court, which is totally at its leisure as to whether to accept or deny said excuse as valid, depending on the prevailing political winds.
In practice, of course, there is likely no real difference between the two decrees. More important is the judges who interpret and define what falls under and what is acceptable under them.
Europe is comprised of many different countries, in general that follow many different political models- all of which are different from the US in one way or another. All Western states (theoretically) attempt to find a balance between granting maximum freedom to their citizens and yet protecting those citizens in the most effective way. It is disingenuous and somewhat offensive to call these people 'enemies of free speech'. For one thing, it assumes that Free Speech is something
While Hanlon's razor may be more likely to be true, using it as a rule is entirely lacking in common sense.
Do you generally assume everyone who does something harmful to you is a bumbling fool? That's a way to get yourself into enormous amounts of deep water, very very quickly by not taking adequate precautions and severely underestimating your opponents.
The most intelligent (although perhaps not as, statistically speaking true) method is to assume malice until you have demonstrated, systemic evidence of incompetence.
So you're saying a guarantee of rights that sounds perfect but is never, and can never, be enforced is any better? At least the Europeans are honest with themselves.
How does relevance and credibility matter for them? Their objective is to make money- period. They are doing that.
This action, and the multi-pronged approach the MPAA/RIAA is taking to maintain that economic monopoly, regardless of their whining to the contrary, seems remarkably effective.
Even according to the MPAA/RIAA's own statistics, and after substantial claimed losses in both units sold and profits of CD sales (to take a primary example from the RIAA), there is no substantial loss in value sold across the entire market spectrum the RIAA deals with, and while there are fluctuations, the market seems remarkably stable in total value, if not in specific value- CD sales are decreasing, DVD sales are massively increasing, and so are online (legal) downloads.
Whether that is a result of the RIAA's offensive action or simply because the RIAA essentially has a stranglehold on the market is not clear.
However, they are most certainly relevant in the industry, and to their clients, the recording industry, they are very much a credible force in the marketplace.
It's only a geek fantasy that the RIAA/MPAA is 'losing' anything. Their tactics may be of debatable efficacy, that's certainly true. They may not be forging much new ground and massively increasing sales, that may also be true. But they are certainly not, their own marketing PR aside, falling behind by any substantial margin, or even any statistically significant amount.
But the number of people who settle far exceed the number of people who go to court. This is essentially a victory, as their purpose with the legal actions is not to win, but to scare individuals in compliance. By scaring more individuals into compliance than they lose against in court, they have achieved a strategic victory on the balance of probability.
So? That's not the point. The MPAA/RIAA have settled far more cases than they've lost, and on a strategic level, that means their assault is a success. Their strategy does not depend on winning in court in totalis, just like DRM is not perfect.
All it needs to do is be 'good enough'.
Now, is it? Well, that's up for debate.
My personal opinion is that the RIAA/MPAA has a much greater threat coming from organized crime, but I think it ridiculous to claim the RIAA/MPAA is not also operating on that front as well.
As I said there:
It's a rational, well-thought out tactical plan. Is it going to work? I personally think it's about even money as to whether they will eventually slap down media copying or whether they'll be overrun and give up.
Oh, certainly, I don't doubt that. I never argued that DRM is now or ever would be 100% effective. But it is doing what it is designed to do- making casual duplication and copying of new media unpalatable and generally difficult for the masses of people.
Organized crime is a whole other ball game- they tend not to be dissuaded by the MPAA/RIAA's habit of suing people, for example.
Which is being dealt with via other methods- the mass deployment of lawsuits against torrent users in an attempt to make it generally unpalatable to illegally download content.
I realize that. That was not the point.
The point was that the RIAA/MPAA is taking a dual-pronged approach, as is visibly obvious- they are targeting torrent sites with an offensive barrage of lawsuits to prevent downloading and they are targeting the media with an offensive barrage of DRM to prevent casual copying which is decentralized and untraceable.
Is this approach effective? To some degree, yes, it is. Will it ever be 100% effective? No, it will not.
That's a naive view. Even if they believed that the first time, (which anyone with a little common sense would not have), it's even less likely they believed it the second, or the third, or the fourth time.
Given that assuming everyone in the entire media industry has the combined intelligence of a bowl of fruit is irrational and unreasonable, malice (although not exactly the "Buwahahaha evil" type of malice) is the most reasonable explanation.
You're talking about CSS, which was introduced in 1996. While, yes, CSS is compromised and there are tons of pieces of software out there that take advantage of this, this is not really true in general. It happens to be true for DVDs, as they are so widespread, but the software for cracking other DRM generally has nowhere near the same popularity.
Even so, I think you're vastly overrating the prevelance of this software. My mother in law also browses torrent sites and has tons of DVD rips on her PC- but she's a software deployment manager.
Generally, people do not know how to use it, and generally they don't.
DRM is hardly 'strong', but it was never meant to be; it is, after all, essentially impossible, and all the designers have long realized this.
Never assume stupidity for what can be explained as malice.
To do otherwise is naive at best.
Just because the ability exists to crack it, doesn't mean that the average Joe on the street can do so.
It discourages casual copying, nothing more, but I can't imagine it was intended to do any more. Nobody's that stupid.
Except the opposite is entirely true. At least the guarantee of freedom of speech presented is true and valid insofar as it is written; namely, it is legally plausible for the judiciary of the EU to follow that law, every time, without fail.
Contrast this to the First Amendment, which has never been enforced as written and which will never be enforced as written, as it provides no room for compromise of any kind, as with most of the Bill of Rights.
While you are correct in that it is a catch-all, it is not as wide a catch-all as you are suggesting it to be. Only a few of those exemptions can be widely applied, and even then, they must undergo judicial scrutiny to be applied.
With the First Amendment, the judiciary can come up with whatever exemptions it feels like- and does.
While you cannot verify what the software is actually DOING, you can monitor/verify what the software is saying.
In many cases, not only is the latter more effective, from a cost/time/benefit perspective, it's also easier and provides far more useful information.
Interestingly, I thought exactly the opposite- I couldn't get through the Baroque Cycle (which was some many thousands of pages long) and I had to force myself to read Cryptonomicon, and even then, I didn't get half of it on the first go-around and had to read it again. Snowcrash, I could just pick up and read.
I did really like the Diamond Age, too.
My understanding of the issue, although I do not specialize in this kind of law, is that your cash must be accepted for everything for which the good or service has already been provided; they are not required to accept it when you are making a payment for something you are to receive in the future.