You see there is a huge difference between the interent and a gun, and that is intended use.
Gun is intended to kill people. Yes you could say it's intended to "protect your home" what not. Fact is, it fires projectiles very fast and generaly those are aimed at people.
The interent is intended to transfer information from one place to another. This is vastley different. Parents ususualy buy net access in hopes that it will help kids with school(and it does). Parents know to guard against porn, they do not know to guard against mp3s.
It's absolutley ingorant to assume that people are to be held responsible for things that they cannot be reasonable aware of.
There is NO way a Joe Blow knows that his 12 year old might be donwloading mp3s on his peecee and that it's illegal. Oh sure he heard of it...but it's NOT HIS 12 year old, HIS 12 year old is NOT LIKE THAT. Thats how it always is. "My son smokes pot? Why NEVER!"
There is the whole thing with "being able to understand your actions"
Do you really expect a tweleve year old to understand that dowloading music is the same as stealing CDs from a store?
Sure you could try, but you'd probably fail as these appear like totaly different acts even to adults.
Should the parents be held responsible? Yes and no. The parents should have tried to educate the child but it's unreasonable to expect the child to do as told and be under 100% supervision.
Laws are never absolute. Thats why we have courts.
Umm they're illegal because they used illegal means to enter or stay in the country.
They're not "immigrants" they're "illegal immigrants". There is a huge, HUGE difference.
I myself being an immigrant pay taxes, work legaly, document my employemnt, drive a registered insured vehicle with a valid license. Meanwhile, these "illegal immigrants" do neither of the above. In other words they are a burden on the society as they use the services provided by the system but do not put anything into the system.
Thus they are illegal immigrants and need to be deported. I for one HATE how so many things in the US are in english and spanish. Being Russian I learned english, hell its' not tough, took me 3 months to get the basics down. So should any other immigrant/resident.
Unfortunatley the fact that phone taps are common place in Russia is ignored. Posted on that earlier...
Also the fact that about 1/3 of the snail mail I sent to Russia arrived OPENED, about half did NOT arrive. The rest came horribly delayed, some as late as 1 year after, and yes with signs of tampering. If I ever sent photos, more often than not they were removed or some were missing.
KGB, or whats left of it, LOVES international mail. I don't exactly know why, maybe they expect money, or credit card info or whatnot. I doubt that letter to my gf contained anything of great importance to the centralized corrupt inteligence of Russia...
Trust me on that one...my phone was tapped 24/7 in Russia, I still get taped when I call back there. It's the "click"...and at times you can hear them breathing...or music in the background. Sometimes they pick up before the phone connects, sometimes after. I suppose they enjoy the chats I have with my gf...
This whole article is worth shit though. I'd dare not call it a study. They quote laws that are not at all enforced. Russia has NO PRIVACY AT ALL. Yet it's nice and blue and supposedly has laws...BULLSHIT.
They're still hassling my grandparents there asking where I dissapeared to and why I'm not getting raped in the army.
Russia is totaly fucked, considering that the report has failed to show that, the report is WORTHLESS.
On August 15, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman formally scheduled Congressional hearings on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) campaign against the users of file-sharing technology. Senator Coleman has expressed concern over the RIAA's evidence collection tactics and whether thousands of lawsuits are an appropriate response to file-sharing. Tell Congress that you want the public's voice to be a part of these hearings and that you support a search for real plans to compensate artists, not the destructive legal thrashing of the RIAA. RIAA v. The People: Ask Your Senators to Stand Up to the RIAA!
Obviously this is a difference of expectation and "focus". I am certainly interested in what the future may be like but I'm far more interested in human realtionships and interaction than in tehnology.
Asimov had did this very well with his Foundation series and books like I Robot and his detective stories, Caves of Steel etc..
In Rama I refered to the entire series, while I admit that it was not the most exceiting book ever, the characters were well developed in my opinion. My dislike for the ending involved the fact that God came out of nowhere and suddnely became the whole point behind the existance of everything. As I am an atheist I found that rather unpleasant.
So let me rephrase what I'm saying. I expect SciFi books to create a belieavble science based setting, which may or maynot be possible or realistic but MUST be believable.
Next I expect them to create realistic characters who realisicaly behave in that world.
So if we manage to stick a computer in your brain case? Then by your logic it isn't anything special.
Well..yes and no. See the thing is that in that case they are simply using the case. If for example they used a fully functional ammo container, with the ammo still in it, and it did something useful. Then yes, it would be newsworthy.
If for example it was a gun with Linux on it that kept count of bullets fired, barrel wear, ammo left in clip, average recoil per shot etc. That'd be cool.
In the case of the article, the original functionality is lost and replaced by a PC.
So your argument does not apply as stated. It would apply if you said "if we managed to stick a computer in your skull after removing your useless brain". Even then I'd say it's nothing special, although somewhat cool in a gothy sort of way..
Well since apparantly even sharing a file that nobody downloads is a violation of the current copyright laws, my argument has no leg to stand on. Thus I'll just be happy that I don't use Kazaa and have not shared my mp3s since the days of Napster
Still I think it's absurd that the laws applied to the idividuals are waving about such monstrous fees. Certainly the laws apply to everyone just not at 100k a song. Make it ten times the cost of the song..$10, that'd make nasty fees but fees that "could" be paid. Threatening fees in the range of tens of millions is really absurd and seems to me like abuse.
Yes and no. Did me sharing mp3s aid piracy? Yes. Was that my intention? No. Am I responsible for making sure that every person who downloads the song owns a copy? No. The person who shares the songs is doing so legaly as long as every person who downloads the songs owns a copy. The person who downloads the songs and has a copy is doing so legaly. The ONLY person breaking the law is the one dowloading the song and not owning the orignal CD.
I don't see myself a guilty at all, I don't go about burning CDs and giving them out for people, I don't sell the music I download for money. This by the way is a HUGE business in Russia, any CD you want, $5, booklet and everything.
The copyright laws were to prevent the above, not Joe Blow downloading something he heard on the radio to listen to it for 1 day and forget about it. He's no loss to the revenue anyway, he'd have never bought the CD.
The laws are being abused in this case, don't tell me that it's reasonable to charge college kids 100k song. I KNOW people in Russia who make about 160k/year pirating CD/games, thats who the laws were meant for, not for the horribly broke college kids.
Ah but the catch is that they don't know that you didn't own the CD. 1000 songs is very little when you think about it. You have ~15 songs per CD, so thats about 67 CDs. That not that many.
More over, remember the people being sued are NOT being sued for dowloading but for sharing.
The point is, the people being sued may not have stolen anything at all and not intended to help anyone steal. I have a fairly large CD collection, yet I'd say that at least 20% of my disks have scratches on them. I have copies of those disk that I downloaded of the web. Perfectly legal. I am too lazy to rip my CDs, I have too many CDs and not enough time. I download entire discographies from eMule. Once again, perfectly legal.
Still in the eyes of the RIAA I'm a major pirate because I have a huge MP3 collection of which over 50% is downloaded despite owning the CD.
Thats why I donated to EFF and thats why I urge others to.
Science fiction doesn't have to be about science, in fact, IT CANNOT BE ALL SCIENCE. All too often the authors focus on just the scietific aspect and totaly forget about the characters.
I have read every single Asimov book I could find because he never made that mistake. Science is the setting, the characters are the story.
I've been trying desperatly to find some good SciFi to read and I've failed. All too often I feel like the author is trying too hard to explain how all this scientific mumbo jumbo works and not why the character is doing act X and act Y.
So I ended up reading fantasy books, simply because the charcater development is generaly better. I couldn't care less if the fighting takes place with quantum molecular phasing fusion bombs or rusty swords as long as it's justified and I feel like I care about the characters involved.
I think time has nothing to do with it; I don't care if we'll be in space 40 or 40000 years from now or never. We'll certainly never be in the "Forgotten Realms" or in the world of "Richard Rhal". It doesn't have to be "realistic", or "well researched" it just has to make sense. Am I ok with Sci Fi which says 2+2=5? No, not unless it make sense, and if it can make sense and have good characters, I want it.
Maybe I've been spoiled by Asimov and Clarke (Rama was great, even though the ending made me want to puke). Certainly, the world of SciFi sucks right now. It's not because the books describe flying though space in the year 2003. George Orwell wrote 1984 knowing that the time was irrelevant, and its' still a great and fairly popular book because of the character development.
I thought that Linux not doing the one thing "normal OS" do, that being crash all the time, was a great reflection of the OS.
I always liked the penguin just because it was a totaly different logo, it didn't look as comersialized like some 'bought' logo or something that came out of marketing.
Anyway the penguin is what really made me interested in Linux in the first place. See I figured if the OS I ran on my laptop had a cute logo, then all the girls would like it...well kidding about the girls...they like me anyway...still kidding.
Slashdot Mirror
You see there is a huge difference between the interent and a gun, and that is intended use.
Gun is intended to kill people. Yes you could say it's intended to "protect your home" what not. Fact is, it fires projectiles very fast and generaly those are aimed at people.
The interent is intended to transfer information from one place to another. This is vastley different. Parents ususualy buy net access in hopes that it will help kids with school(and it does). Parents know to guard against porn, they do not know to guard against mp3s.
It's absolutley ingorant to assume that people are to be held responsible for things that they cannot be reasonable aware of.
There is NO way a Joe Blow knows that his 12 year old might be donwloading mp3s on his peecee and that it's illegal. Oh sure he heard of it...but it's NOT HIS 12 year old, HIS 12 year old is NOT LIKE THAT. Thats how it always is. "My son smokes pot? Why NEVER!"
God you're insane. How's a gun ANYTHING like net access?
I've been online since I was 12 and my parents NEVER cared what I did, admitedly then there was not much to do, but the point remains.
No 12 year old will go shooting people with a god damn interent connection.
Your argument is beyond absurd.
There is the whole thing with "being able to understand your actions"
Do you really expect a tweleve year old to understand that dowloading music is the same as stealing CDs from a store?
Sure you could try, but you'd probably fail as these appear like totaly different acts even to adults.
Should the parents be held responsible? Yes and no. The parents should have tried to educate the child but it's unreasonable to expect the child to do as told and be under 100% supervision.
Laws are never absolute. Thats why we have courts.
Umm they're illegal because they used illegal means to enter or stay in the country.
They're not "immigrants" they're "illegal immigrants". There is a huge, HUGE difference.
I myself being an immigrant pay taxes, work legaly, document my employemnt, drive a registered insured vehicle with a valid license. Meanwhile, these "illegal immigrants" do neither of the above. In other words they are a burden on the society as they use the services provided by the system but do not put anything into the system.
Thus they are illegal immigrants and need to be deported. I for one HATE how so many things in the US are in english and spanish. Being Russian I learned english, hell its' not tough, took me 3 months to get the basics down. So should any other immigrant/resident.
In Soviet Russia, geeks HAVE girlfriends.
Heh, you too can have Soviet girlfriend
Unfortunatley the fact that phone taps are common place in Russia is ignored. Posted on that earlier...
Also the fact that about 1/3 of the snail mail I sent to Russia arrived OPENED, about half did NOT arrive. The rest came horribly delayed, some as late as 1 year after, and yes with signs of tampering. If I ever sent photos, more often than not they were removed or some were missing.
KGB, or whats left of it, LOVES international mail. I don't exactly know why, maybe they expect money, or credit card info or whatnot. I doubt that letter to my gf contained anything of great importance to the centralized corrupt inteligence of Russia...
I will glady agree that privacy is not a right under the condition that EVERYONE agrees.
I'll tell the government all my secrets if the government tells me all their secertes. Guess who's got more to hide?
In Soviet Russia you kinda have no rights...
Trust me on that one...my phone was tapped 24/7 in Russia, I still get taped when I call back there. It's the "click"...and at times you can hear them breathing...or music in the background. Sometimes they pick up before the phone connects, sometimes after. I suppose they enjoy the chats I have with my gf...
This whole article is worth shit though. I'd dare not call it a study. They quote laws that are not at all enforced. Russia has NO PRIVACY AT ALL. Yet it's nice and blue and supposedly has laws...BULLSHIT.
They're still hassling my grandparents there asking where I dissapeared to and why I'm not getting raped in the army.
Russia is totaly fucked, considering that the report has failed to show that, the report is WORTHLESS.
God I hate RIAA, this is getting WAY out of hand...
EFF Action Center
Send a leter to your Senator:
On August 15, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman formally scheduled Congressional hearings on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) campaign against the users of file-sharing technology. Senator Coleman has expressed concern over the RIAA's evidence collection tactics and whether thousands of lawsuits are an appropriate response to file-sharing. Tell Congress that you want the public's voice to be a part of these hearings and that you support a search for real plans to compensate artists, not the destructive legal thrashing of the RIAA.
RIAA v. The People: Ask Your Senators to Stand Up to the RIAA!
Hmm good idea...
...."MMMMMMMMMONSTER KILL!"
How about "Killing Spree!"
Obviously this is a difference of expectation and "focus". I am certainly interested in what the future may be like but I'm far more interested in human realtionships and interaction than in tehnology.
Asimov had did this very well with his Foundation series and books like I Robot and his detective stories, Caves of Steel etc..
In Rama I refered to the entire series, while I admit that it was not the most exceiting book ever, the characters were well developed in my opinion. My dislike for the ending involved the fact that God came out of nowhere and suddnely became the whole point behind the existance of everything. As I am an atheist I found that rather unpleasant.
So let me rephrase what I'm saying. I expect SciFi books to create a belieavble science based setting, which may or maynot be possible or realistic but MUST be believable.
Next I expect them to create realistic characters who realisicaly behave in that world.
If for example they used a fully functional ammo container, with the ammo still in it, and it did something useful.
Like... aim?
No maybe like keep count of the numbers of bullets and play some fitting music...
Hell it could keep count of the bullets, the rate at which they are being used and predict the remaining firing time.
So if we manage to stick a computer in your brain case? Then by your logic it isn't anything special.
Well..yes and no. See the thing is that in that case they are simply using the case. If for example they used a fully functional ammo container, with the ammo still in it, and it did something useful. Then yes, it would be newsworthy.
If for example it was a gun with Linux on it that kept count of bullets fired, barrel wear, ammo left in clip, average recoil per shot etc. That'd be cool.
In the case of the article, the original functionality is lost and replaced by a PC.
So your argument does not apply as stated. It would apply if you said "if we managed to stick a computer in your skull after removing your useless brain". Even then I'd say it's nothing special, although somewhat cool in a gothy sort of way..
..that this wouldn't be news at all if it ran say WindowsCE.
Come on, there is nothing special about a case mod.
This is almost as bad as that Apple Ie project..whoopdie doo..
Well since apparantly even sharing a file that nobody downloads is a violation of the current copyright laws, my argument has no leg to stand on. Thus I'll just be happy that I don't use Kazaa and have not shared my mp3s since the days of Napster
Still I think it's absurd that the laws applied to the idividuals are waving about such monstrous fees. Certainly the laws apply to everyone just not at 100k a song. Make it ten times the cost of the song..$10, that'd make nasty fees but fees that "could" be paid. Threatening fees in the range of tens of millions is really absurd and seems to me like abuse.
...which is why I download entire discographies at 300mb - 1.2 gigs a pop from eMule.
And yes I do own the CDs. Half.com has them at "reasonable" prices.
Yes and no. Did me sharing mp3s aid piracy? Yes.
Was that my intention? No.
Am I responsible for making sure that every person who downloads the song owns a copy? No.
The person who shares the songs is doing so legaly as long as every person who downloads the songs owns a copy.
The person who downloads the songs and has a copy is doing so legaly.
The ONLY person breaking the law is the one dowloading the song and not owning the orignal CD.
I don't see myself a guilty at all, I don't go about burning CDs and giving them out for people, I don't sell the music I download for money. This by the way is a HUGE business in Russia, any CD you want, $5, booklet and everything.
The copyright laws were to prevent the above, not Joe Blow downloading something he heard on the radio to listen to it for 1 day and forget about it. He's no loss to the revenue anyway, he'd have never bought the CD.
The laws are being abused in this case, don't tell me that it's reasonable to charge college kids 100k song. I KNOW people in Russia who make about 160k/year pirating CD/games, thats who the laws were meant for, not for the horribly broke college kids.
Ah but the catch is that they don't know that you didn't own the CD. 1000 songs is very little when you think about it. You have ~15 songs per CD, so thats about 67 CDs. That not that many.
More over, remember the people being sued are NOT being sued for dowloading but for sharing.
The point is, the people being sued may not have stolen anything at all and not intended to help anyone steal. I have a fairly large CD collection, yet I'd say that at least 20% of my disks have scratches on them. I have copies of those disk that I downloaded of the web. Perfectly legal. I am too lazy to rip my CDs, I have too many CDs and not enough time. I download entire discographies from eMule. Once again, perfectly legal.
Still in the eyes of the RIAA I'm a major pirate because I have a huge MP3 collection of which over 50% is downloaded despite owning the CD.
Thats why I donated to EFF and thats why I urge others to.
Even if you won't donate, at least go to the action center and send some angry letters to your senator.
EFF Action Center
Science fiction doesn't have to be about science, in fact, IT CANNOT BE ALL SCIENCE. All too often the authors focus on just the scietific aspect and totaly forget about the characters.
I have read every single Asimov book I could find because he never made that mistake. Science is the setting, the characters are the story.
I've been trying desperatly to find some good SciFi to read and I've failed. All too often I feel like the author is trying too hard to explain how all this scientific mumbo jumbo works and not why the character is doing act X and act Y.
So I ended up reading fantasy books, simply because the charcater development is generaly better. I couldn't care less if the fighting takes place with quantum molecular phasing fusion bombs or rusty swords as long as it's justified and I feel like I care about the characters involved.
I think time has nothing to do with it; I don't care if we'll be in space 40 or 40000 years from now or never. We'll certainly never be in the "Forgotten Realms" or in the world of "Richard Rhal". It doesn't have to be "realistic", or "well researched" it just has to make sense. Am I ok with Sci Fi which says 2+2=5? No, not unless it make sense, and if it can make sense and have good characters, I want it.
Maybe I've been spoiled by Asimov and Clarke (Rama was great, even though the ending made me want to puke). Certainly, the world of SciFi sucks right now. It's not because the books describe flying though space in the year 2003. George Orwell wrote 1984 knowing that the time was irrelevant, and its' still a great and fairly popular book because of the character development.
I thought that Linux not doing the one thing "normal OS" do, that being crash all the time, was a great reflection of the OS.
I always liked the penguin just because it was a totaly different logo, it didn't look as comersialized like some 'bought' logo or something that came out of marketing.
Anyway the penguin is what really made me interested in Linux in the first place. See I figured if the OS I ran on my laptop had a cute logo, then all the girls would like it...well kidding about the girls...they like me anyway...still kidding.
Where's Tux?! Bah! It's not Linux without the penguin...
My guess is that it's a typo and he meant 'woman'
Quite frankly I had no idea that Tivo was so cheap.
Which makes me wonder why the sony is so much more..
In Soviet Russia, the television records YOU!