If they police aren't enforcing the law, and you think "they do not have the right" to use the courts to enforce the law, how do you think the law should be enforced?
Well, this is just my opinion, and I may be in the minority in thinking so... But if the only way to enforce a particular law is for a commercial group to sue indiscriminately yet selectively, and that numerous law-abiding citizens become harassed, fearful, or otherwise disrupted through such activity, then the law is a bad law, and attempts at enforcement should cease.
Of course, my logic is predicated on a value judgment where personal freedoms and rights are very important (e.g. more important than corporate economic security). Others may have different values.
I'd just like to clarify some of the statements you made. Actually if you look carefully at the theory, it turns out that anything with mass cannot travel at the speed of light (but can come arbitrarily close, if given enough energy somehow), and that massless particles must travel at exactly the speed of light.
You mentioned tachyons, which are only theoretical. Tachyons actually have imaginary mass, hence they travel faster than light (and hence backwards in time), and cannot be slowed down to the speed of light. Tachyons are a solution to the equations, but since they have not been observed, they are evidently a "nonphysical" solution that doesn't manifest in our universe.
In any case photons are massless, so they cannot travel faster than light. They always travel at exactly the speed of light.
Considering how well-established this principle is (and how many times people have been mistaken in identifying violations), we must be a little skeptical of reports that claim to have disproved this fundamental result. Relativity is so well-established at this point that any conclusive violation would signal a radical (Nobel-prize caliber) change in our understanding of the universe.
Well the randomness that Quantum Mechanics predicts has been verified experimentally to a very high degree. That is, the theory predicts that a certain measurement will produce a randomly distributed set of answers, and that is indeed what we measure. The experimental correlations are exactly what the theory would predict. But, although we can perfectly predict the distribution of answers that we will get, we cannot predict any given single experimental run. Hence the result of that run is "random." The classic example is radioactive decay, where the emission follows a very predictable decay, but we cannot predict (even with perfect knowledge about the locations of each atom, etc.) which atom will decay at which moment.
It's subtle, but this is fundamentally different from the randomness of tossing a coin. In principle (according to non-Quantum theory, e.g. Newtonian mechanics or relativity), if we knew the exact location and velocity of every atom in the coin (as well as the atoms in the air, etc.) we could predict whether it falls 'heads' or 'tails.' But for quantum randomness, no such perfect knowledge is possible.
If you want to get more subtle still, it actually is not known whether Quantum Mechanics is fundamentally random or deterministic. It's possible that it's somehow deterministic at its core (e.g. the Many-Worlds Interpretation is a deterministic one). However, various experiments (coupled to Bell's theorem) have shown that there are no "local hidden variables." That is, particles do not carry hidden information that tells them which choice they should pick. So, "local observers" (i.e. people like us, who are *inside* the universe and doomed to forever be entangled with other particles in the universe) cannot, even in principle, obtain knowledge that allows us to be predictive beyond this randomness.
Whether or not the universe is "actually" random then becomes academic. It will always be random to us.
So, that's a long-winded way of saying that, to the extent that you accept that Quantum Mechanics is an established theory (and that scientific theories connect to reality), we have established that Quantum Randomness is unavoidable for local observers making local predictions.
Yes, I know it sounds contradictory. It's a subtle point. We humans would define the pulse envelope by it's shape: let's say it looks like a bell curve. So you send a normal pulse of photons and the peak of the bell curve travels from left to right at the speed of light. No contradiction.
Now, some researchers have figured out a way to send photons whose phases add up in such a way that the peak of the bell curve actually travels from left to right faster than the speed of light. So the peak arrives sooner than a light-speed photon could have traveled the same distance. So, at first glance, it appears obvious that the pulse was traveling faster than light! However if you look into the details, you'll see that the pulse is made up of photons with a variety of arrival times. All the photons are traveling at light-speed. At the beginning, the peak of the pulse envelope is, say, in the center of the distribution of photons... but at the end, the peak of the pulse envelope is closer to the front of the distribution of photons. The point is that the photons on the leading edge of the pulse contain "the information" necessary to encode the full pulse envelope, so when they arrive they can relay that information. But they traveled at light speed the whole time, and the "pulse envelope" (as described by us) was merely "catching up" to them.
The reason I keep emphasizing "you can't transmit information faster than c" is because this is what you see in experiment. Let's say you have a laser that is phase-matched so that it is sending these "superluminal" pulse envelopes through some special material. At some specific moment, you shut the laser off. Does this "disturbance" (a.k.a. signal) travel faster than light through the material? The answer (from experiment and theory, though it's not intuitive) is no. In fact, the barrier of "laser off" travels forward at light speed... so actually you will continue to observe "superluminal" envelopes appearing and traveling through the material in front of this "laser off" wall. The end result is that any disturbance/signal is limited to light speed. The fact that we identify an envelope traveling faster than c is a trick that arises from the interference among the wave nature of the individual photons.
The article offers this rebuttal analogy, from Aephraim Steinberg:
Steinberg explains Nimtz and Stahlhofen's observations by way of analogy with a 20-car bullet train departing Chicago for New York. The stopwatch starts when the centre of the train leaves the station, but the train leaves cars behind at each stop. So when the train arrives in New York, now comprising only two cars, its centre has moved ahead, although the train itself hasn't exceeded its reported speed.
"If you're standing at the two stations, looking at your watch, it seems to you these people have broken the speed limit," Steinberg says. "They've got there faster than they should have, but it just happens that the only ones you see arrive are in the front car. So they had that head start, but they were never travelling especially fast."
Again, the "superluminal" only comes in when we chose to define the entity in question as "pulse envelope" instead of "constituent photons." Since it's the photons actually carrying the energy (hence information), the fact that the envelope can travel faster than light (or slower than light, or even backwards) doesn't matter.
Unfortunately you do not know if or when it has collapsed.
Let's say you have a series of entangled particles. Alice takes one set of particle to Alpha Centauri, Bob keeps his set of particle on Earth. They plan to transmit information to each other based on the exact timing of collapsing. E.g. Bob says: "I'll collapse particle #2 on Friday if I'm in a good mood, but I won't collapse it otherwise."
So, can Alice determine Bob's mood on Friday, instantaneously? How would she determine that? She would need to look at her entangle particle #2 and determine whether or not it is "collapsed." How does she do that? The only way is for her to make a measurement on it, which immediately collapses it (if it wasn't already). After her measurement, she actually doesn't know if she was the one who collapsed it into its current state, or whether it was already in that state, because Bob collapsed (i.e. made a measurement on) his particle #2.
So, in addition to not knowing what state a particle will collapse into, you can't really know if it's collapsed at all. What entanglement means is that there will be a high degree of correlation between the measurements made by Alice and Bob... but to confirm that correlation they need to "compare notes" from their separate measurements.
As an aside, I find it interesting how different people interpret Einstein's famous stance on Quantum Mechanics. As indicated in that quote, Einstein felt that Quantum Mechanics was fundamentally incomplete, and was not an accurate representation of reality. Now, many people point to Einstein's disbelief to support their own arguments that Quantum Mechanics is wrong. Thus their argument is: "See! If a smart guy like Einstein says it's wrong, then it's probably wrong!"
However Einstein himself, over his entire life, was never able to disprove Quantum Mechanics, despite many attempts. All the thought experiments and physical experiments he proposed instead bolstered the case of Quantum Mechanics, since the predictions of the theory were verified time and again. In the years since Einstein's death, the case has only gotten stronger: Quantum Mechanics is now one of the most thoroughly and rigorously verified theories we have (along with relativity, of course).
So, the alternate interpretation of Einstein stance is: "See! Even a really smart guy like Einstein is wrong sometimes!" Just because Einstein "felt" that Quantum Mechanics was wrong does not make it so. In this case, his intuition seemingly failed him.
(Incidentally, one thing we do know is that there is a mismatch between our two best theories: quantum mechanics and relativity. It's not at all obvious how to reconcile them, and it is likely that they are both "wrong" in the sense that they both need to be modified to be united into a single coherent theory. However the aspects of Quantum Mechanics that Einstein didn't like (nonlocality, randomness, etc.) are firmly established and are probably not going to be "undone" by even a unified theory.)
Indeed. Now, I won't say with certainty that this present claim is wrong... but we've seen so many "speed of light broken!" reports over the years that I'm not going to get too excited. Typically, when people think they have seen a speed-of-light violation, they are actually reporting on one of two well-established phenomena:
1. Group velocity versus speed-of-light. Basically, relativity states that no individual photon can travel faster than c. However a collection of photons interfere to form a beam or a pulse with some kind of shape. You can arrange your experiment so that the envelope of the pulse travels at some velocity (faster than light, slower than light, etc.) but the individual photons are still always traveling at exactly c.
2. Quantum instantaneousness. Two particles can be put into a quantum entanglement, such that their states depend on one another, even though they have not 'picked' a particular state yet. You can separate the two particles (even by a huge distance), collapse one particle into a state and the other particle collapses instantaneously into the corresponding state. This instantaneous effect seems to violate the light-speed rule. However because the experimenter cannot control the state which is selected upon collapse, no "information" is actually transmitted from one location to the other.
Importantly, both 1. and 2. involve emergent effects that a human may characterize as "faster than light"--but no information, and no energy, was transmitted faster than light-speed. (And, to be clear, relativity states that energy and hence information cannot travel faster than light. Emergent phenomena can travel at arbitrary speed. In fact in relativity spacetime itself can, theoretically, expand faster than light, but you still can't send signals from one location of spacetime to another at greater than c.)
From the descriptions, it really does sound that these researchers are merely committing one of those two classic fallacies (or maybe a novel combination of the two?). Now, assuming that these researchers are not novices, I find it hard to believe that they would commit such classic mistakes. So in this case it might be a subtle point to prove that relativity is not disproved, but my assumption would be that they have made a mistake somewhere.
I don't mean to dismiss these results, and new science certainly comes from violations of established science. However relativity is so well-established at this point that making the extraordinary claim "we've violated relativity" is going to require exhaustive verification.
Email is not verifiable, sure. However the email in this case appears merely to have been a follow-up along the lines of "Remember when that judge ruled you needed to send us a cheque? We still have not got it!" It was a courtesy to send the email at all. Even without sending the email, Capitol is legally required to send the cheque for the amount owed. Failure to do so is breaking the law. It's not the defendant's job to run after them, continually requesting that they pay what they were legally mandated to pay.
But an email seems to be wide open to "we never got it" or "the guy that checks that account was out the last two weeks."
I'm sure either excuse would be laughed out of court. The court ruled against Capitol, at which point they were made aware of their legal obligations (in particular, to pay a certain sum). They are now breaking the law, regardless of whether they got the friendly reminder.
The only reason to mention the email at all is that the fact that they are ignoring communication attempts is itself somewhat amusing.
Exactly. The sooner the content industry gives up on this obsession with complete control, the sooner a viable business model will emerge (and by "viable" I mean "fits with the internet").
Yes, some users will edit-out the commercials. Others will skip past them. It doesn't matter. A very large number of users won't bother skipping the commercials (if they are sufficiently short and not too frequent). And, if you make the shows very easy to find and download, users won't bother looking on P2P sites for the equivalent commercial-free version.
The key here is to make the experience for the consumer sufficiently convenient that they no longer feel the need to overcome "the system." When commercials are annoying, people learn to circumvent them (e.g. adblock on webpages, record and fast-forward for video). When commercials are "good" (sufficiently short, infrequent, and maybe even entertaining), people will watch them.
True. However I doubt YouTube is going to be using their testimony as a means to show that no copyright was infringed. After all, explicit (usually written) permission is required for copyright to be truly licensed. However they can claim that the public opinions of these spokespersons makes it somewhat difficult for YouTube to know whether or not the posted clips were sanctioned.
They may also be using them as "expert witnesses" who can comment upon the economic impact of the infringements. If these witnesses explain how the short clips act as publicity and largely increase the value of the copyrights in question, then this goes a long way to supporting the notion that (most of) the infringements are not damaging Viacom. The fact that the expert witnesses are, in fact, essentially employees of Viacom will not be lost on the judge.
Further, these witnesses can attest to the large amount of user-generated (non-infringing) content on YouTube. Colbert makes reference to YouTube and his fans post many parodies and fair-use remixes of his shows.
Remember that YouTube isn't really denying that some YouTube clips are infringing. Rather, they are trying to show that YouTube has a preponderance of non-infringing (user-generated) content, that they are making every reasonable effort to discourage uploading of infringing material, and that what infringement does slip past their system is not greatly damaging Viacom.
Was that rhetorical? Seems like you can get Linux software support from IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Canonical and many others. This is in addition to the extensive free, community support, of course. The fact that you can actually "shop around" for your support when considering Linux is actually a huge advantage of FOSS over proprietary solutions (where typically you are stuck with a single vendor for support).
You guys keep waiting for MS to fuck up. Give me a reason to get rid of them first!
On that point I of course agree with you. FOSS should be striving to be better than anything else... not hoping that the competition stagnates. Yet it's important to see that the community is, in fact, doing just that... and has been the whole time. Yes, plenty of people hope for MS (or whoever) to "drop the ball" so that FOSS gains visibility. But the people actually doing the designing and coding are very much focused on making the best product possible. This is why, for many tasks, Linux is by far superior to the competition. This is why many of us actually prefer to use Linux on the desktop.
There are innumerable examples of FOSS and Linux being better than the equivalent proprietary solution. If you have not identified any examples where FOSS is beating proprietary, then you really have not investigated free software very deeply, and I recommend you give it further analysis.
Linux has already "won" in many different domains... the fact that it continues to strive to "win" in other domains (e.g. commodity desktop usage) just shows that the community isn't content to stagnate: they want to keep evolving the software into something better and better.
So this is what was keeping Linux market share from increasing? I thought it was that most people were too used to windows and not willing to learn a new operating system.
Well, such things are rarely due to a single issue. The fact that most people are comfortable with MS Windows (and generally dislike change or learning new things) is a huge roadblock to widespread acceptance of Linux, to be sure. However, in addition to this, the trepidation of many companies regarding the legal status of Linux kept them from considering Linux as a viable business option. (Like it or not, the FUD works on some companies.) Now that Linux has been shown to be: (a) non-infringing, and (b) backed by stable, powerful companies (Novell, IBM, etc.), this makes it a much more reasonable option for businesses. So while this court case may not quadruple Linux usage overnight, it is certainly a powerful step in that direction.
This suit was not hindering all that many people from installing Linux. I know here at work we were running it on our servers, with nothing but mild amusement every time one of these stories came down.
I'm glad that your company did not buy into the FUD. Not all companies are as knowledgeable about Linux, FOSS, and the associated legalities.
This suit changes nothing.
So you say. Yet, Forbes at least appears to be of the opinion that this does make a difference, so to the extent that Forbes is able to correctly analyze the business sector, or to the extent that businesses value Forbes' opinion, this will make a difference. Now, you or I may not care what Forbes has to say about technology: we already have well-formed opinions. However a vast number of companies (or managers, rather) do not care about such details. For some of them, an article in Forbes will make them take notice far more than the recommendation of their own IT department.
My point is: like it or not, public perceptions do alter the adoption of technology. This means that lawsuits (even if baseless) and media attention (even if belated) can and do affect adoption.
The presented technique does indeed have limitations--sample thickness being a major one. However the fact that it requires no sample prep (e.g. staining) seems like a big advantage. For many studies, having video of the 3D structure of a cell will be irrelevant compared to what more traditional techniques can tell you (e.g. labeling a protein and using fluorescent to monitor its localization). However for other studies, realtime 3D visualization may be very useful (e.g. cellular dynamics). I agree that it's not the cure-all that the article hypes it to be... but I can see it becoming useful for a number of research topics.
As to how difficult it is to get working... The papers indicate that it can be fitted onto a conventional confocal microscope. However because it is an interferometry technique, things like vibrations must be minimized. So it's probably a bit finnicky, but I any research lab with experience in optics could build one if they really wanted to. The technique uses off-the-shelf technology, so commercial instruments (probably sold as add-ons to existing microscopes) could easily be built. I'm not an expert in the field, so I can't predict whether there would be a strong demand for such an instrument.
(Note: I've used various microscopies in my research, but not on biological samples, so please correct any mistakes I've made in that regard.)
Some more details about the technique. The writeup on the MIT site has more information. The technique is using laser interferometry:
Feld and his colleagues have been able to image live, untreated cells by using an optical technique based on interferometry: a laser beam passed through a sample is compared with a reference beam of similar wavelength that is not passed through the cell. For example, it takes longer for light to travel through a cell than through, say, water. Researchers can measure that time delay, or phase shift, and then can map the cell and its motions on the scale of nanometers.
In the experimental section of that article they say:
Broadband light from a superluminescent diode (superluminescent diode (SLD) (EG&G, Gaithersburg,
MD), output power 3 mW, center wavelength 845 nm, full width half-maximal bandwidth 22 nm...
This appears to be one of their more recent publications:
"Quantitative phase imaging of live cells using fast Fourier phase microscopy", Niyom Lue, Wonshik Choi, Gabriel Popescu, Takahiro Ikeda, Ramachandra R. Dasari, Kamran Badizadegan, and Michael S. Feld. Applied Optics, Vol. 46, Issue 10, pp. 1836-1842.
In that paper they say:
The second harmonic of the cw Nd:YAG laser (CrytaLaser, special custom-built module; wavelength 532nm,
500 mW) is used as an illumination source for a typical inverted microscope (Axiovert 100, Carl Zeiss).
The illumination sources are not very intense, but are powerful enough to cause cell damage if they were highly focused. From looking over the papers it doesn't seem that this is the case. For what it's worth, the papers do not mention cell damage as being a concern.
Overall the technique seems to have serious promise. It essentially involves doing laser interferometry on the sample at multiple angles, and reconstructing the 3D image. As they mention in their papers, it has the advantage of interfacing with conventional confocal microscope designs. Thus it could be added as an option on existing setups. It appears to have some exacting requirements (like all holography/interferometry it will be sensitive to vibrations, etc.), but overall seems like the type of thing that could be rapidly built into existing labs and commercial instruments.
Photo-damage to cells is indeed a concern, but the described technique actually has the advantage that this can minimized as much as physically possible. Many visualization techniques involve either (1) having the cell absorb light, so that you can differentiate different regions based on absorption (may require staining with something sufficiently absorptive), or (2) having something fluoresce, which requires that species to absorb and then re-emit light (typically requires staining or genetic engineering so a target protein is fluorescent). Obviously both (1) and (2) require the sample to actively absorb photos, which means that some amount of photo-heating is unavoidable. Moreover fluorescent molecules often lead to undesired side-reactions and degrade over time (so-called "photo-bleaching"). With fluorescence imaging, you can select an excitation wavelength outside of the absorption bands of everything in solution (especially water!), and thereby minimize photo-heating and photo-damage.
The article says that they are actually imaging the refracted light. Since this technique doesn't require any amount of sample absorption at all, they can use a minimally absorbing wavelength, thereby keeping sample damage to an absolute minimum. In fact since they are measuring refracted light, the technique works best at wavelengths where absorption is as low as possible (but refractive index contrast is as high as possible).
From the description, it doesn't sound like the illumination would be much more intense than what a normal microscope generates. Most cells don't experience significant photo-damage under such illumination conditions.
Some current imaging systems use a raster-scanned focused-laser spot to generate the images. By using high-quality detectors the light-levels can be kept low enough that cell damage is prevented. Thus the technique from the article probably induces less cell damage than currently used techniques. Not to mention that the fact that you don't have to stain or modify the cells eliminates the toxicity (or perturbing effect) or those staining agents.
And once the producer/impresario/whatever gets the money, he has little incentive to actually make a good one.
Most likely the movies would get made before the advertising blitz. In the long run it wouldn't be possible to keep people's attention consistently if they were asked to fund movies two years ahead of time (except in special cases). Most movies would be produced before-hand, and released right after a short "money-drive" period.
Instead of tying the money to the MOVIE, you're tying the money to the PITCH.
The opinions of trusted reviewers who have actually watched the movie may count for something. Yes, I know reputation systems don't always work. Yes, a reviewer could build up a good reputation on a few movies and then sell-out for big bucks. (Just like today.) So be it. The system would stabilize eventually. If movies were consistently falling below expectation, then people would stop funding them. The studios would still have a strong incentive to produce something that the people are going to like. (Perhaps moreso than today.)
Among the donors, they'd all demand creative control.
You'd think so, but that's apparently not the case. The one project I know following such a model (A Swarm of Angels) has 1000+ of the target 50,000 donors. The project actively solicits the input of the donors. First of all, the producer in question has made it clear that he will exercise creative veto over the donors if necessary. This is clear when donating. Secondly it turns out that the vast majority of people (even among the people who care enough to donate to such a speculative project) don't really want to get into the details. It's only a small number of enthusiasts that end up trying to contribute. If anything, getting people involved is hard.
impossible for anybody to have a single vision for what a film is supposed to be.
Again, I think many movies would be entirely finished before the money-acquisition even begins. So the director would be able to have a specific vision, subject of course to what the investors are willing to invest. (Just like today.)
copyright law (a government-granted monopoly)
That's name calling. Monopolies are tolerable institutions if regulated
It's only name calling if you inherently assume monopolies are always bad (which you claim not to!)...:) Copyright is a government-granted monopoly. I agree that monopolies can sometimes be good, but history also shows that they frequently lead to unintended consolidation of power. We must be watchful of monopolies, and remove them if they do not serve the greater good.
Politics aside, entrenched media cartels have to make money
Most of what you say I do agree with to a large extent... However that statement I do not agree with. Media companies don't have to make money. They may want to make money, and they can do so within the bounds of law, but nothing requires society to erect (or maintain) specific laws to guarantee their continued profitability. If they go out of business, so be it. Many industries have withered as technology changed the landscape. New companies will grow to fill the void. That's life.
Any system that deprives an author of a right to control how a work is copied I would reject out of hand. In the age of the printing press, it's what defines authorship.
Actually copyright prevents copying and does little to define authorship. For instance plagiarism is not prevented by copyright. (You can plagiarize within the bounds of fair use, for example, and it's not illegal.) In any case, attribution can be entirely divorced from copy-protection legally, technically, and socially. So I don't think attribution alone makes a resounding case for keeping copyright around.
The "source material" definition gets more and more complicated with the medium, and it seems like it would be too elastic.
I agree it would get tricky in practice. Then again current copyright law has plenty of ambiguity and gray area. It would have to be carefully worded. (Then again, that's true of all laws.) I'm not going to go through the exercise of trying to refine this idealistic law, since it's not realistically ever going to be adopted.
Among those entrenched interests are the writers of the Constitution, not to argue from authority, but just to give an indication of how ingrained the idea of copyright is in western culture, and not just rich book publishers.
You're absolutely right. That's why, as a "copyright reformist" (or whatever) I would gladly accept reasonable middle-ground, such as "copyrights with reduced terms and explicit protection of fair use" and similar. I understand that my opinion in a democratic society must be balanced against the opinions of others. Having said that, I think that most people's automatic reaction of "You can't get rid of copyright! That wouldn't be fair to the artists!!!" is not based upon very much reflection. As you debate with people, and point out that they routinely violate copyright, many of them understand that change is needed. In short, I think this is a debate that needs to be brought to the public at large.
When you're talking about a film, almost no one's seriously "building" on a film, they're just copying it; there is no novel process, no art, no nothing.
Part of the reason for that is that it is currently illegal (and often impractical) to build upon another person's film. If you remix and re-edit the Star Wars movies into a "better" version, you will get sued. There is creative work that is not being done right now because of legal blockades.
If you can't own intellectual property, than you risk having a tragedy of the intellectual commons...
That is certainly the best argument in favor of keeping copyright. It's not an easy question to answer, however. We have many examples of countries with strong copyright laws that produce art. We also have many examples of countries without strong copyright enforcement that produce plenty of art. We also have examples of historic time-periods where copyright law didn't exist (or was ignored), and art and innovation flourished. In any case, this is something that should be studied rigorously. Rather than creating copyright extensions because some groups "feel" that artists would generate more useful works, serious studies should be undertaken to determine the optimal balance between copyright incentives and personal freedoms. (Of the few studies I've seen, the conclusion was typically that a copyright much reduced in scope from what we current have, but not completely abolished, is optimal... such a conclusion is perhaps not surprising.)
You raise many good questions. I don't have all the answers... but I'll provide a couple ideas:
How do you raise the money to publicize the donation scheme?
One possibility is investors. The investors put money and expect a return. So the final "release price" is set to include the cost of advertising and investor returns. (Which, of course, is already the case for movies.)
As well, it's almost impossible to get people to separate with their money without showing them a script, which would kinda ruin a lot of movies.
For music it's easy to imagine releasing a few tracks and saying "like this stuff? Donate so we can finish the album!" For movies they would probably use advertising, trailers, etc. All the usual stuff. Would people end up unwittingly funding crap movies? Of course. (We do nowadays, too...) Chains of trust would develop. In fact if a particular movie reviewer consistently promoted movies (after watching a special private screening) that turned out to be awful, people would turn to better reviewers. (And if not... well then that's their money to waste...)
And commissioned art is a really dirty business;
We already have commissioned art. It's commissioned, distributed, and controlled by the powers-that-be in the entrenched media cartel. They already decide what is "decent," what gets promoted, what gets made. To have a bunch of different wealthy people all commissioning their own art is fine. They can do that today anyways. The difference is that without conventional copyright to use as a crutch, businesses would (I hope) reach out to the people for commissioned works, also.
Like I said, I don't have all the answers. But I don't need to. Capitalism has done a great job at finding optimal solutions in a wide variety of markets: solutions that I could not have imagined... that indeed no single planner could have imagined. The only reason that entrepreneurs and innovators have not been able to apply their skills to the sector of art-creation is that copyright law (a government-granted monopoly) has a tendency to create aggregated cartels that control everything.
I don't know for sure that a copyright-free world would "work"... but I think it's an option that is dismissed outright far too easily. I think it bears further analysis. (As a final tidbit, in the documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy they show various countries that have thriving markets for creative works, despite the people have no regard for copyright law.)
Do you oppose copyright as a general principle? Without copyright, there could be no GPL.
In the "copyright debate," the "without copyright you can't have GPL" argument is indeed an interesting one.
Actually I think that FOSS would do just fine if copyright disappeared tomorrow. Sure, some companies would create closed-sourced forks, but the community has enough momentum that it would do just fine. That having been said, I actually quite like the principle of the GPL and Creative Commons licenses, when it comes to "share alike and allows others to modify/remix/etc."
One can easily imagine a "copyright law" that, instead of protecting all creative works, applies solely to those creative works that are distributed with source material (source code for software, all footage for movies, original tracks for music, etc.). This law would guarantee that if you go to the trouble of releasing source material, others are required to also keep the source open for any modification they make. This actually matches more closely the original intent of "intellectual property" laws: to encourage the creation, distribution, and extension of creative works. Actually I find it quite bothersome that our governments grant monopolies to creative works that, even when they finally pass into the public domain, cannot be reliably built upon because source material is unavailable.
Obviously the law I describe is so unrealistically idealistic that it is never going to exist. Entrenched interests would prevent such a law from ever being created. I am not actually suggesting that copyright law is going to be modified to that ideal within my lifetime. What I'm saying is that there is nothing ethically inconsistent about opposing status-quo copyright, yet supporting the "share-alike" aspects of GPL and Creative Commons licenses.
Quite simply, I can oppose the notion of "absolute control over creative works by the originators of said works" while still supporting the notion of "requiring those who build upon other's work to also allow any other party to do the same."
Now Napster was great for you, me, and all of other hepcats, but it kind of sucked for the artists and the recording companies.
But Cory's point was that Napster could have been transitioned into a wildly successful business, bringing cash to the recording companies. According to him:
Napster's plan was plausible. They had the fastest-adopted technology in the history of the world, garnering 52,000,000 users in 18 months -- more than had voted for either candidate in the preceding U.S. presidential election! -- and discovering, via surveys, that a sizable portion would happily pay between $10 and $15 a month for the service. What's more, Napster's architecture included a gatekeeper that could be used to lock out nonpaying users.
So if Napster had kept its tens-of-millions of users, and 50% of them were truly willing to pay $10/month, then that's billions of dollars a year that could have been pulled in. If that's not enough to support record companies and artists, then there is something seriously messed up with their businesses. The point is that users were willing to pay for the convenience of Napster: easy access to a massive catalog. The subscription model was also appealing to alot of people: you don't have to worry about how much you're downloading. There's a limit to how much music a person can listen to... so alot of people will actually end up spending more money on an $10/month subscription that they do on buying CDs. They will do so happily if the service suits their needs.
Cory believes there was a huge missed opportunity for the industry to re-invent itself, and make money in a new age.
The success of iTunes drives this point home: everyone knows you can get free copies of music from various websites. However people are willing to pay iTune prices for the convenience. The labels are still caught up in an old business model ("each copy a person listens to must be a trackable sale we have made") rather than accepting a new business model ("charge people a monthly fee for access to an exhaustive catalog").
Yes, the vast majority of people would give copies to a few friends... and enough people would give out copies to the world-at-large (and there are enough people who would download said copies) that these DRM-free files would spread far and wide.
Now, some would argue that this shows that people are mean or short-sighted, or somesuch. Perhaps. Another explanation is that the status-quo assumptions about ownership, distribution, and monetization of creative works are entirely out-of-sync with reality (where "reality" includes concepts like "computers", "the internet", and "sharing").
So then what's the solution? Well to me it seems obvious that domains of creativity that want to make money should just do what every other sector of the economy does: charge a price for whatever you distribute such that you actually make the profit you desire. (Rather than hoping for laws (e.g. DMCA) or technological measures (e.g. DRM) to come to the rescue.)
So, in practice this would mean that after you make a movie, you sell it, to whoever wants to buy it, at its actual cost (several million dollars or whatever). The person who buys it can do what they want with it: make copies and give them to everyone, or sell multiple copies to multiple people, or do nothing with it. Anyone who receives a copy can sell it if they want, or give it away. They bought the copy. The original creative-workers have already been compensated.
So how would this play out in an actual free market? You'd probably have commissioned works. You'd have companies setting up "donation-based content release" (e.g. "Did you like Spiderman 2? Well once we receive $X in donations, we'll release Spiderman 3 for the world to enjoy! Donate today!"). You'd have networks buying copies early on at high price, to put on TV along with ads... which is still a profitable business even if full ad-free copies end up on the Pirate Bay the following day. Then you'd have others buying copies later at lower prices. You'd have all kinds of websites set up (supported by ads or monthly fees) where you could download all the music and shows you wanted, nicely categorized. People are willing to pay for convenience and timeliness.
The point is that companies would do what they do best: figure out innovative ways to make money by giving customers what they want at prices they are willing to bear. Yes, it's really that simple. You don't need special laws for this kind of thing to take place. Copyright did a fine job encouraging the arts for many years... but that doesn't mean it's the optimal model in the modern world. It's entirely possible that special laws are no longer needed to encourage the arts. Conventional capitalism may be enough.
Now, I know I totally side-stepped the actual questions you asked... but I think I've responded to the subtext of your post. The fundamental question that people have in the anti-DRM debate is: "But without DRM, or something, then won't people just spread the copies far and wide?" The only reasonable answer is: "Yes, they will. Let them."
Yeah the w3schools stat of 34% firefox is higher than the global average. The Wikipedia page on browser share summarizes statistics from a wide variety of sources (and includes links, of course). As can be seen, the values vary depending the location and types of sites used in the stats. According to some reports, Firefox is nearing 28% usage across Europe. The global stats for generic sites seem to agree that Firefox usage is 12%-15%, versus Internet Explorer (all versions) being 75%-84%.
Still, this is a huge shift from the 96% share IE had a few years back. The fact that some sites get 30% Firefox usage (actually I run a small site that gets 46% Firefox) means that web developers can no longer ignore coding to standards. This is a good thing.
Of course, take my comments with a grain of salt: I come from a country where all medical needs are fully covered. In such a system, doctors and patients and employers (and maybe even insurance companies) all have their goals aligned: to keep everyone as healthy as possible.
That's Communism right there, son.
Yes. Actually "socialism" might be more accurate, but yeah it's basically communism....
Umm... were you trying to imply that having socialist/communist constructs inside an otherwise democratic capitalistic society is a bad thing? (Examples of socialist/communist constructs in the United States include: public libraries, public garbage collection, public utilities, state-funded highway infrastructure, police forces, fire departments, disaster relief funds, government-funded research, and so on...)
Want to save $50 / month? Get in shape, and that will help lower the expenses & burdens of the insurance system for everyone else.
Or, more likely, people will lie and cheat to get the reduced rate, thereby increasing the costs for everyone. People will learn how to game the system... which, in this case, will probably involve all kinds of unhealthy things (like only working out prior to the annual exam, or taking certain drugs to skew the results, or purposefully not going to the doctor even though you feel sick, etc.) and all kinds of stupid situations (patients pleading with doctors to fudge the number a bit, people tampering with files, people bribing medical clerks, etc.).
It seems like adding more rules and caveats to a medical system is a recipe for inefficiency, which results in more unhealthy people and higher premiums all around.
Of course, take my comments with a grain of salt: I come from a country where all medical needs are fully covered. In such a system, doctors and patients and employers (and maybe even insurance companies) all have their goals aligned: to keep everyone as healthy as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
If something as rigorously established as evolution is not a "scientific fact," then there is no such thing as a scientific fact.
If something as thoroughly disproved as creationism is a "scientific theory," then everything is a scientific theory.
Either assertion is a ridiculous over-broadening of terminology that intends only to devalue the terms in question.
Of course, my logic is predicated on a value judgment where personal freedoms and rights are very important (e.g. more important than corporate economic security). Others may have different values.
I'd just like to clarify some of the statements you made. Actually if you look carefully at the theory, it turns out that anything with mass cannot travel at the speed of light (but can come arbitrarily close, if given enough energy somehow), and that massless particles must travel at exactly the speed of light.
You mentioned tachyons, which are only theoretical. Tachyons actually have imaginary mass, hence they travel faster than light (and hence backwards in time), and cannot be slowed down to the speed of light. Tachyons are a solution to the equations, but since they have not been observed, they are evidently a "nonphysical" solution that doesn't manifest in our universe.
In any case photons are massless, so they cannot travel faster than light. They always travel at exactly the speed of light.
Considering how well-established this principle is (and how many times people have been mistaken in identifying violations), we must be a little skeptical of reports that claim to have disproved this fundamental result. Relativity is so well-established at this point that any conclusive violation would signal a radical (Nobel-prize caliber) change in our understanding of the universe.
Well the randomness that Quantum Mechanics predicts has been verified experimentally to a very high degree. That is, the theory predicts that a certain measurement will produce a randomly distributed set of answers, and that is indeed what we measure. The experimental correlations are exactly what the theory would predict. But, although we can perfectly predict the distribution of answers that we will get, we cannot predict any given single experimental run. Hence the result of that run is "random." The classic example is radioactive decay, where the emission follows a very predictable decay, but we cannot predict (even with perfect knowledge about the locations of each atom, etc.) which atom will decay at which moment.
It's subtle, but this is fundamentally different from the randomness of tossing a coin. In principle (according to non-Quantum theory, e.g. Newtonian mechanics or relativity), if we knew the exact location and velocity of every atom in the coin (as well as the atoms in the air, etc.) we could predict whether it falls 'heads' or 'tails.' But for quantum randomness, no such perfect knowledge is possible.
If you want to get more subtle still, it actually is not known whether Quantum Mechanics is fundamentally random or deterministic. It's possible that it's somehow deterministic at its core (e.g. the Many-Worlds Interpretation is a deterministic one). However, various experiments (coupled to Bell's theorem) have shown that there are no "local hidden variables." That is, particles do not carry hidden information that tells them which choice they should pick. So, "local observers" (i.e. people like us, who are *inside* the universe and doomed to forever be entangled with other particles in the universe) cannot, even in principle, obtain knowledge that allows us to be predictive beyond this randomness.
Whether or not the universe is "actually" random then becomes academic. It will always be random to us.
So, that's a long-winded way of saying that, to the extent that you accept that Quantum Mechanics is an established theory (and that scientific theories connect to reality), we have established that Quantum Randomness is unavoidable for local observers making local predictions.
Now, some researchers have figured out a way to send photons whose phases add up in such a way that the peak of the bell curve actually travels from left to right faster than the speed of light. So the peak arrives sooner than a light-speed photon could have traveled the same distance. So, at first glance, it appears obvious that the pulse was traveling faster than light! However if you look into the details, you'll see that the pulse is made up of photons with a variety of arrival times. All the photons are traveling at light-speed. At the beginning, the peak of the pulse envelope is, say, in the center of the distribution of photons... but at the end, the peak of the pulse envelope is closer to the front of the distribution of photons. The point is that the photons on the leading edge of the pulse contain "the information" necessary to encode the full pulse envelope, so when they arrive they can relay that information. But they traveled at light speed the whole time, and the "pulse envelope" (as described by us) was merely "catching up" to them.
The reason I keep emphasizing "you can't transmit information faster than c" is because this is what you see in experiment. Let's say you have a laser that is phase-matched so that it is sending these "superluminal" pulse envelopes through some special material. At some specific moment, you shut the laser off. Does this "disturbance" (a.k.a. signal) travel faster than light through the material? The answer (from experiment and theory, though it's not intuitive) is no. In fact, the barrier of "laser off" travels forward at light speed... so actually you will continue to observe "superluminal" envelopes appearing and traveling through the material in front of this "laser off" wall. The end result is that any disturbance/signal is limited to light speed. The fact that we identify an envelope traveling faster than c is a trick that arises from the interference among the wave nature of the individual photons.
The article offers this rebuttal analogy, from Aephraim Steinberg: Again, the "superluminal" only comes in when we chose to define the entity in question as "pulse envelope" instead of "constituent photons." Since it's the photons actually carrying the energy (hence information), the fact that the envelope can travel faster than light (or slower than light, or even backwards) doesn't matter.
Unfortunately you do not know if or when it has collapsed.
Let's say you have a series of entangled particles. Alice takes one set of particle to Alpha Centauri, Bob keeps his set of particle on Earth. They plan to transmit information to each other based on the exact timing of collapsing. E.g. Bob says: "I'll collapse particle #2 on Friday if I'm in a good mood, but I won't collapse it otherwise."
So, can Alice determine Bob's mood on Friday, instantaneously? How would she determine that? She would need to look at her entangle particle #2 and determine whether or not it is "collapsed." How does she do that? The only way is for her to make a measurement on it, which immediately collapses it (if it wasn't already). After her measurement, she actually doesn't know if she was the one who collapsed it into its current state, or whether it was already in that state, because Bob collapsed (i.e. made a measurement on) his particle #2.
So, in addition to not knowing what state a particle will collapse into, you can't really know if it's collapsed at all. What entanglement means is that there will be a high degree of correlation between the measurements made by Alice and Bob... but to confirm that correlation they need to "compare notes" from their separate measurements.
As an aside, I find it interesting how different people interpret Einstein's famous stance on Quantum Mechanics. As indicated in that quote, Einstein felt that Quantum Mechanics was fundamentally incomplete, and was not an accurate representation of reality. Now, many people point to Einstein's disbelief to support their own arguments that Quantum Mechanics is wrong. Thus their argument is: "See! If a smart guy like Einstein says it's wrong, then it's probably wrong!"
However Einstein himself, over his entire life, was never able to disprove Quantum Mechanics, despite many attempts. All the thought experiments and physical experiments he proposed instead bolstered the case of Quantum Mechanics, since the predictions of the theory were verified time and again. In the years since Einstein's death, the case has only gotten stronger: Quantum Mechanics is now one of the most thoroughly and rigorously verified theories we have (along with relativity, of course).
So, the alternate interpretation of Einstein stance is: "See! Even a really smart guy like Einstein is wrong sometimes!" Just because Einstein "felt" that Quantum Mechanics was wrong does not make it so. In this case, his intuition seemingly failed him.
(Incidentally, one thing we do know is that there is a mismatch between our two best theories: quantum mechanics and relativity. It's not at all obvious how to reconcile them, and it is likely that they are both "wrong" in the sense that they both need to be modified to be united into a single coherent theory. However the aspects of Quantum Mechanics that Einstein didn't like (nonlocality, randomness, etc.) are firmly established and are probably not going to be "undone" by even a unified theory.)
Indeed. Now, I won't say with certainty that this present claim is wrong... but we've seen so many "speed of light broken!" reports over the years that I'm not going to get too excited. Typically, when people think they have seen a speed-of-light violation, they are actually reporting on one of two well-established phenomena:
1. Group velocity versus speed-of-light. Basically, relativity states that no individual photon can travel faster than c. However a collection of photons interfere to form a beam or a pulse with some kind of shape. You can arrange your experiment so that the envelope of the pulse travels at some velocity (faster than light, slower than light, etc.) but the individual photons are still always traveling at exactly c.
2. Quantum instantaneousness. Two particles can be put into a quantum entanglement, such that their states depend on one another, even though they have not 'picked' a particular state yet. You can separate the two particles (even by a huge distance), collapse one particle into a state and the other particle collapses instantaneously into the corresponding state. This instantaneous effect seems to violate the light-speed rule. However because the experimenter cannot control the state which is selected upon collapse, no "information" is actually transmitted from one location to the other.
Importantly, both 1. and 2. involve emergent effects that a human may characterize as "faster than light"--but no information, and no energy, was transmitted faster than light-speed. (And, to be clear, relativity states that energy and hence information cannot travel faster than light. Emergent phenomena can travel at arbitrary speed. In fact in relativity spacetime itself can, theoretically, expand faster than light, but you still can't send signals from one location of spacetime to another at greater than c.)
From the descriptions, it really does sound that these researchers are merely committing one of those two classic fallacies (or maybe a novel combination of the two?). Now, assuming that these researchers are not novices, I find it hard to believe that they would commit such classic mistakes. So in this case it might be a subtle point to prove that relativity is not disproved, but my assumption would be that they have made a mistake somewhere.
I don't mean to dismiss these results, and new science certainly comes from violations of established science. However relativity is so well-established at this point that making the extraordinary claim "we've violated relativity" is going to require exhaustive verification.
The only reason to mention the email at all is that the fact that they are ignoring communication attempts is itself somewhat amusing.
Exactly. The sooner the content industry gives up on this obsession with complete control, the sooner a viable business model will emerge (and by "viable" I mean "fits with the internet").
Yes, some users will edit-out the commercials. Others will skip past them. It doesn't matter. A very large number of users won't bother skipping the commercials (if they are sufficiently short and not too frequent). And, if you make the shows very easy to find and download, users won't bother looking on P2P sites for the equivalent commercial-free version.
The key here is to make the experience for the consumer sufficiently convenient that they no longer feel the need to overcome "the system." When commercials are annoying, people learn to circumvent them (e.g. adblock on webpages, record and fast-forward for video). When commercials are "good" (sufficiently short, infrequent, and maybe even entertaining), people will watch them.
True. However I doubt YouTube is going to be using their testimony as a means to show that no copyright was infringed. After all, explicit (usually written) permission is required for copyright to be truly licensed. However they can claim that the public opinions of these spokespersons makes it somewhat difficult for YouTube to know whether or not the posted clips were sanctioned.
They may also be using them as "expert witnesses" who can comment upon the economic impact of the infringements. If these witnesses explain how the short clips act as publicity and largely increase the value of the copyrights in question, then this goes a long way to supporting the notion that (most of) the infringements are not damaging Viacom. The fact that the expert witnesses are, in fact, essentially employees of Viacom will not be lost on the judge.
Further, these witnesses can attest to the large amount of user-generated (non-infringing) content on YouTube. Colbert makes reference to YouTube and his fans post many parodies and fair-use remixes of his shows.
Remember that YouTube isn't really denying that some YouTube clips are infringing. Rather, they are trying to show that YouTube has a preponderance of non-infringing (user-generated) content, that they are making every reasonable effort to discourage uploading of infringing material, and that what infringement does slip past their system is not greatly damaging Viacom.
There are innumerable examples of FOSS and Linux being better than the equivalent proprietary solution. If you have not identified any examples where FOSS is beating proprietary, then you really have not investigated free software very deeply, and I recommend you give it further analysis.
Linux has already "won" in many different domains... the fact that it continues to strive to "win" in other domains (e.g. commodity desktop usage) just shows that the community isn't content to stagnate: they want to keep evolving the software into something better and better.
My point is: like it or not, public perceptions do alter the adoption of technology. This means that lawsuits (even if baseless) and media attention (even if belated) can and do affect adoption.
The presented technique does indeed have limitations--sample thickness being a major one. However the fact that it requires no sample prep (e.g. staining) seems like a big advantage. For many studies, having video of the 3D structure of a cell will be irrelevant compared to what more traditional techniques can tell you (e.g. labeling a protein and using fluorescent to monitor its localization). However for other studies, realtime 3D visualization may be very useful (e.g. cellular dynamics). I agree that it's not the cure-all that the article hypes it to be... but I can see it becoming useful for a number of research topics.
As to how difficult it is to get working... The papers indicate that it can be fitted onto a conventional confocal microscope. However because it is an interferometry technique, things like vibrations must be minimized. So it's probably a bit finnicky, but I any research lab with experience in optics could build one if they really wanted to. The technique uses off-the-shelf technology, so commercial instruments (probably sold as add-ons to existing microscopes) could easily be built. I'm not an expert in the field, so I can't predict whether there would be a strong demand for such an instrument.
(Note: I've used various microscopies in my research, but not on biological samples, so please correct any mistakes I've made in that regard.)
"Cellular Organization and Substructure Measured Using Angle-Resolved Low-Coherence Interferometry", Wax A, Yang C, Backman V, Badizadegan K, Boone C, Dasari RR, Feld MS. Biophysical Journal 82: 2256-2264 (2002).
In the experimental section of that article they say: This appears to be one of their more recent publications:
"Quantitative phase imaging of live cells using fast Fourier phase microscopy", Niyom Lue, Wonshik Choi, Gabriel Popescu, Takahiro Ikeda, Ramachandra R. Dasari, Kamran Badizadegan, and Michael S. Feld. Applied Optics, Vol. 46, Issue 10, pp. 1836-1842.
In that paper they say: The illumination sources are not very intense, but are powerful enough to cause cell damage if they were highly focused. From looking over the papers it doesn't seem that this is the case. For what it's worth, the papers do not mention cell damage as being a concern.
Overall the technique seems to have serious promise. It essentially involves doing laser interferometry on the sample at multiple angles, and reconstructing the 3D image. As they mention in their papers, it has the advantage of interfacing with conventional confocal microscope designs. Thus it could be added as an option on existing setups. It appears to have some exacting requirements (like all holography/interferometry it will be sensitive to vibrations, etc.), but overall seems like the type of thing that could be rapidly built into existing labs and commercial instruments.
Photo-damage to cells is indeed a concern, but the described technique actually has the advantage that this can minimized as much as physically possible. Many visualization techniques involve either (1) having the cell absorb light, so that you can differentiate different regions based on absorption (may require staining with something sufficiently absorptive), or (2) having something fluoresce, which requires that species to absorb and then re-emit light (typically requires staining or genetic engineering so a target protein is fluorescent). Obviously both (1) and (2) require the sample to actively absorb photos, which means that some amount of photo-heating is unavoidable. Moreover fluorescent molecules often lead to undesired side-reactions and degrade over time (so-called "photo-bleaching"). With fluorescence imaging, you can select an excitation wavelength outside of the absorption bands of everything in solution (especially water!), and thereby minimize photo-heating and photo-damage.
The article says that they are actually imaging the refracted light. Since this technique doesn't require any amount of sample absorption at all, they can use a minimally absorbing wavelength, thereby keeping sample damage to an absolute minimum. In fact since they are measuring refracted light, the technique works best at wavelengths where absorption is as low as possible (but refractive index contrast is as high as possible).
From the description, it doesn't sound like the illumination would be much more intense than what a normal microscope generates. Most cells don't experience significant photo-damage under such illumination conditions.
Some current imaging systems use a raster-scanned focused-laser spot to generate the images. By using high-quality detectors the light-levels can be kept low enough that cell damage is prevented. Thus the technique from the article probably induces less cell damage than currently used techniques. Not to mention that the fact that you don't have to stain or modify the cells eliminates the toxicity (or perturbing effect) or those staining agents.
Most likely the movies would get made before the advertising blitz. In the long run it wouldn't be possible to keep people's attention consistently if they were asked to fund movies two years ahead of time (except in special cases). Most movies would be produced before-hand, and released right after a short "money-drive" period.
The opinions of trusted reviewers who have actually watched the movie may count for something. Yes, I know reputation systems don't always work. Yes, a reviewer could build up a good reputation on a few movies and then sell-out for big bucks. (Just like today.) So be it. The system would stabilize eventually. If movies were consistently falling below expectation, then people would stop funding them. The studios would still have a strong incentive to produce something that the people are going to like. (Perhaps moreso than today.)
You'd think so, but that's apparently not the case. The one project I know following such a model (A Swarm of Angels) has 1000+ of the target 50,000 donors. The project actively solicits the input of the donors. First of all, the producer in question has made it clear that he will exercise creative veto over the donors if necessary. This is clear when donating. Secondly it turns out that the vast majority of people (even among the people who care enough to donate to such a speculative project) don't really want to get into the details. It's only a small number of enthusiasts that end up trying to contribute. If anything, getting people involved is hard.
Again, I think many movies would be entirely finished before the money-acquisition even begins. So the director would be able to have a specific vision, subject of course to what the investors are willing to invest. (Just like today.)
It's only name calling if you inherently assume monopolies are always bad (which you claim not to!)... :) Copyright is a government-granted monopoly. I agree that monopolies can sometimes be good, but history also shows that they frequently lead to unintended consolidation of power. We must be watchful of monopolies, and remove them if they do not serve the greater good.
Most of what you say I do agree with to a large extent... However that statement I do not agree with. Media companies don't have to make money. They may want to make money, and they can do so within the bounds of law, but nothing requires society to erect (or maintain) specific laws to guarantee their continued profitability. If they go out of business, so be it. Many industries have withered as technology changed the landscape. New companies will grow to fill the void. That's life.
Actually copyright prevents copying and does little to define authorship. For instance plagiarism is not prevented by copyright. (You can plagiarize within the bounds of fair use, for example, and it's not illegal.) In any case, attribution can be entirely divorced from copy-protection legally, technically, and socially. So I don't think attribution alone makes a resounding case for keeping copyright around.
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Like I said, I don't have all the answers. But I don't need to. Capitalism has done a great job at finding optimal solutions in a wide variety of markets: solutions that I could not have imagined... that indeed no single planner could have imagined. The only reason that entrepreneurs and innovators have not been able to apply their skills to the sector of art-creation is that copyright law (a government-granted monopoly) has a tendency to create aggregated cartels that control everything.
I don't know for sure that a copyright-free world would "work"... but I think it's an option that is dismissed outright far too easily. I think it bears further analysis. (As a final tidbit, in the documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy they show various countries that have thriving markets for creative works, despite the people have no regard for copyright law.)
Actually I think that FOSS would do just fine if copyright disappeared tomorrow. Sure, some companies would create closed-sourced forks, but the community has enough momentum that it would do just fine. That having been said, I actually quite like the principle of the GPL and Creative Commons licenses, when it comes to "share alike and allows others to modify/remix/etc."
One can easily imagine a "copyright law" that, instead of protecting all creative works, applies solely to those creative works that are distributed with source material (source code for software, all footage for movies, original tracks for music, etc.). This law would guarantee that if you go to the trouble of releasing source material, others are required to also keep the source open for any modification they make. This actually matches more closely the original intent of "intellectual property" laws: to encourage the creation, distribution, and extension of creative works. Actually I find it quite bothersome that our governments grant monopolies to creative works that, even when they finally pass into the public domain, cannot be reliably built upon because source material is unavailable.
Obviously the law I describe is so unrealistically idealistic that it is never going to exist. Entrenched interests would prevent such a law from ever being created. I am not actually suggesting that copyright law is going to be modified to that ideal within my lifetime. What I'm saying is that there is nothing ethically inconsistent about opposing status-quo copyright, yet supporting the "share-alike" aspects of GPL and Creative Commons licenses.
Quite simply, I can oppose the notion of "absolute control over creative works by the originators of said works" while still supporting the notion of "requiring those who build upon other's work to also allow any other party to do the same."
Cory believes there was a huge missed opportunity for the industry to re-invent itself, and make money in a new age.
The success of iTunes drives this point home: everyone knows you can get free copies of music from various websites. However people are willing to pay iTune prices for the convenience. The labels are still caught up in an old business model ("each copy a person listens to must be a trackable sale we have made") rather than accepting a new business model ("charge people a monthly fee for access to an exhaustive catalog").
Yes, the vast majority of people would give copies to a few friends... and enough people would give out copies to the world-at-large (and there are enough people who would download said copies) that these DRM-free files would spread far and wide.
Now, some would argue that this shows that people are mean or short-sighted, or somesuch. Perhaps. Another explanation is that the status-quo assumptions about ownership, distribution, and monetization of creative works are entirely out-of-sync with reality (where "reality" includes concepts like "computers", "the internet", and "sharing").
So then what's the solution? Well to me it seems obvious that domains of creativity that want to make money should just do what every other sector of the economy does: charge a price for whatever you distribute such that you actually make the profit you desire. (Rather than hoping for laws (e.g. DMCA) or technological measures (e.g. DRM) to come to the rescue.)
So, in practice this would mean that after you make a movie, you sell it, to whoever wants to buy it, at its actual cost (several million dollars or whatever). The person who buys it can do what they want with it: make copies and give them to everyone, or sell multiple copies to multiple people, or do nothing with it. Anyone who receives a copy can sell it if they want, or give it away. They bought the copy. The original creative-workers have already been compensated.
So how would this play out in an actual free market? You'd probably have commissioned works. You'd have companies setting up "donation-based content release" (e.g. "Did you like Spiderman 2? Well once we receive $X in donations, we'll release Spiderman 3 for the world to enjoy! Donate today!"). You'd have networks buying copies early on at high price, to put on TV along with ads... which is still a profitable business even if full ad-free copies end up on the Pirate Bay the following day. Then you'd have others buying copies later at lower prices. You'd have all kinds of websites set up (supported by ads or monthly fees) where you could download all the music and shows you wanted, nicely categorized. People are willing to pay for convenience and timeliness.
The point is that companies would do what they do best: figure out innovative ways to make money by giving customers what they want at prices they are willing to bear. Yes, it's really that simple. You don't need special laws for this kind of thing to take place. Copyright did a fine job encouraging the arts for many years... but that doesn't mean it's the optimal model in the modern world. It's entirely possible that special laws are no longer needed to encourage the arts. Conventional capitalism may be enough.
Now, I know I totally side-stepped the actual questions you asked... but I think I've responded to the subtext of your post. The fundamental question that people have in the anti-DRM debate is: "But without DRM, or something, then won't people just spread the copies far and wide?" The only reasonable answer is: "Yes, they will. Let them."
Yeah the w3schools stat of 34% firefox is higher than the global average. The Wikipedia page on browser share summarizes statistics from a wide variety of sources (and includes links, of course). As can be seen, the values vary depending the location and types of sites used in the stats. According to some reports, Firefox is nearing 28% usage across Europe. The global stats for generic sites seem to agree that Firefox usage is 12%-15%, versus Internet Explorer (all versions) being 75%-84%.
Still, this is a huge shift from the 96% share IE had a few years back. The fact that some sites get 30% Firefox usage (actually I run a small site that gets 46% Firefox) means that web developers can no longer ignore coding to standards. This is a good thing.
It seems like adding more rules and caveats to a medical system is a recipe for inefficiency, which results in more unhealthy people and higher premiums all around.
Of course, take my comments with a grain of salt: I come from a country where all medical needs are fully covered. In such a system, doctors and patients and employers (and maybe even insurance companies) all have their goals aligned: to keep everyone as healthy as possible.