Simply disobeying a law and hiding the fact does nothing to change the system. Just because everyone downloads music doesn't make it any less of a crime, it just makes it common. If no one takes a stand about it, then it stays a crime, and the people who are caught doing it are punished, which you agree is wrong. The only way to change this is to actually take a stand against the law and try and get it changed. As for the companies not losing anything, it seems instead of buying the actual CDs, you should be buying the compilation CDs, which will only contain the songs you like (ie the ones that everyone likes and hears all the time). You claim you don't want a CD full of crap, but even that is addressed in the comp CDs with only the popular songs.
BTW - even classical music is copyrighted, unless you are downloading a performance of the piece from 1870 or whenever. The tune itself may not be copyrighted, but the recording of the performance that you are listening to is. Just because someone records themselves playing an old piece of music doesn't mean they don't have a copyright on that recording.
While you make many good points about patents, you also ignore the other side, which is many things would never be invented if there were no patents. You complain about people in poor countries not being able to afford medicine, which is a legitimate point. But without patents, these medicines would not be available to anyone, because they never would have been invented. Patents encourage people to spend the money it takes to design something new, because they know they will have the opportunity to make that money back by having a monopoly on it. If there were no patents, medical companies would not put millions of dollars into R&D for a new drug, because after they were finished, another company could market the exact same drug at a much cheaper price because the second company didn't pay anything for R&D.
Patents are not the problem. Patents are a good thing that encourages innovation. Unlimited patents are what is the bad thing. People need a reason to spend their money on developing new things, and patents provide them that reason. But after a reasonable amount of time, their inventions should go back into the public domain to encourage further work.
Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.
I never said the people using P2P were wrong, just that it wasn't civil disobedience. Civil disobedience wasn't why people drank during prohibition. They drank because they wanted alcohol. There is a world of difference between doing something for a "noble cause" like getting an unfair law changed, and doing something because you're cheap and want something for free. People using P2P aren't noble, their cheap. Wrapping yourself in the holy cloth of civil disobedience is an insult to those people who are actually working to change to change the law.
Is a way to protest against laws that you don't agree, usually associated with passive resistence.
This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.
Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.
The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!
That's how it should work, passive resistence.
While civil disobedience is fine, that is far from what this is. Kazaa (and most other P2P systems) are built on the concept of being anonymous. That means the current P2P technology is built around not being caught and not being punished, which is anything but civil disobedience. If you want to use P2P as civil disobedience, you have to make sure the law knows who you are and what you are doing. Try using your real name as your user name. Share not only MP3s, but a file with your name and address that says you know what you are doing is illegal, and if the RIAA wants to come after you, here is where they can find you. Unfortunately, 99.999% of the people using P2P have no interest in civil disobedience, they are only interested in getting stuff for free. P2P isn't about anything but getting free shit for most people.
>Providing something that can be used illicitly is different from providing something that can only be used illicitly.
Exactly. An excellent argument to that effect was inadvertently made by Mr. Valenti himself when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar". Note to Jack: crowbars are legal, and with good reason.
While a good point, this doesn't up that only things that can ONLY be used illicitly would be illegal under the DMCA. The key would be whether or not the company knew it could be used illegally. I think the main key to ElcomSoft getting off is that they were a Russian company. They didn't know the DMCA, and didn;t realize that this would be illegal under it, since they were Russian (at least this is what the jury believed). If the jury determined they knew the software would have been illegal under the DMCA, or if they believed it would be used illegally (even if the majority of use would have been legally), then they would have been found guilty.
> If software is created by the government, it is > paid for by taxes....But it belongs to the voters. The revised BSD lisence would do very nicely, but I don't see what is wrong with the GPL for publicly funded code.
The government doesn't need to write programs for businesses to distribute under proprietary lisences. It should be enough for the government to write (free) software that can be used together with proprietary software. I don't see why businesses should be allowed to charge for the software, or how free (as in beer) software based on government developed code would be better for the voters than FOSS.
You are assuming the only people on earth who want to release closed-code programs are businesses looking to make a buck. There are many small programs written by individuals that are not open source (some charge, but others are freeware). Why should these people be forced to release their code if they don't want to? The key is true freedom allows anyone to do what they want with the code. That means you are free to release it OSS, and I am free to keep it closed.
Also, don't forget that businesses pay taxes, just like individuals. Shouldn't they have the same benefits from the software?
I have to ask, why is the GPL the only option other than proprietary? Releasing it as public domain, or a BSD style license (which is the license closest to PD) seems a lot more fair than releasing it under the GPL. The GPL is a great license, but it's main purpose is keeping the GPL around. It is great for people who want their stuff never to be closed source, but that isn't what the government is about. If software is created by the government, it is paid for by taxes. That should mean that anyone can use the software (and source) any way they want. If you want to use it in a GPL program, that's great, go for it. But if I want to use it in a closed source program (or even a BSD licensed program), that should be great too. From this perspective, the GPL is less a "free" license, and more of a "political" license. It forces people to do something specific with the code if they choose to reuse it.
Your objection doesn't apply at all. Dmitry didn't go to the US to sell his company's software, he went there to give a talk. So not only did Adobe attack a Russian student for completely legal work he did in his home country, but they also purposefully accused the wrong person. If they had been serious, they would have gone after the *servers* in whatever US colo they happened to reside.
But this case isn't about Dmitry, it's about Elcomsoft. When they arrested Dmitry, I was completely against it, because he was just a programmer working for a company. He didn't do anything but create the program, which was legal where he was. But Elcomsoft is who is on trial now, and they are responsible for marketing/selling the software in the US, which means they are responsible for following American laws.
The point is not that Elcomsoft and Sklyarov developed anti DMCA software, because they did; The point that should concern people (especially those from outside the US) is that they are being tried in the US, under US law for legal actions they committed in another country. This just shows the hypocrisy of the US government. They want others to follow their rules, but they never stop to consider others' rules.
While it is true that the software was developed in another country, it was marketed and sol din the US. Thus, it falls under US law. If the software hadn't been marketed to Americans, and sold to Americans, through a US website, using US dollars, I would wholeheartedly agree that US law shouldn't apply in any way shape or form. But just because it was developed by a company in another country has no effect on the matter if the software is sold within the US to US citizens. Anything sold to US citizens in the US, falls under US laws.
But if none of the pay-for methods work, what else can I do but steal the music?
What about the option of either listening to music that does fit into your requirements (such as indie bands) or not listening to music that doesn't fit into your requirements. Once again, just because something is not available in the way you like doesn't justify you taking it without paying. I cannot say that I will only use code that is licensed under a BSD license, so since Linux is not offered under my requirements, I will take it and distribute it as if it was a BSD style license and use it in my closed source systems. Not liking the way something is distributed gives you the right to not pay for it and not use it, not to take it and do what you want and ignore everything else.
How many "kids sites" are anything but an advertisement? Nickelodeon.com is nothing but an ad for their shows. Same with cartoonnetwork.com. Most kids sites are there to promote some TV show, or book series, or whatnot. Saying you can have those, but not advertisements for other toys, etc seems a big hypocritical.
And why exactly do these reasons entitle you to take something for free? Reason A entitles you to not make a decision not to partake of their music. Just because you don't like the price certainly doesn't entitle you to take it for free. Reason B can be easily remedied by going to any of the places that let you sample music before you buy it. Hell, Amazon has samples of usually half the songs on a CD. Some CD stores allow you to listen to a CD before you buy it. This is no different from any other industry that allows you a limited sample before you buy (say video games and books for example). Reason C has nothing to do with the RIAA at all. The stores you are going to set policy on these things. They have made the decision to not allow returns without a good reason (which is a good policy considering how easy it would be to buy a CD, copy it, and then return it and still have a perfect copy). This once again is no different than many other industries (such as books and video games).
Your arguements are very valid problems with the industry. But having valid arguements in no way entitles you to do whatever you want and violate their copyright (and steal music, which you admit you are doing by saying you are downloading it in place of buying it).
I'm fascinated by the P2P technology for its possibilities as a distributed sharing technology. I'm curious though, how sharing files out of homes and businesses (I assume all these T3 lines I see don't go to people's houses!) is legally different from putting the same files on commercially hosted filespace? (In case I said that wrong, I mean the server space we rent or get gratis with an ISP account.) I don't think there is a difference, aside from it being harder to get caught.
Well, that depends. Do you just put it in your directory, where no one has access to it? Then it is very different. If you put it in your web directory, and allow everyone access to it, then there really isn't a difference. It's all about who has access to the files. It has been ruled legal for you to make MP3s from cds you own, but it is not legal for you to share those MP3s with the entire world.
The other Q is what % of the current file sharing is legal, and I mean under current standards of fair use for the copyrighted material. This was a factor in the VCR litigation, that the machines have significant legitimate uses outside of pirating movies or TV shows -- your nephew bar mitzvah, weddings, fair use, etc. Is a significant fraction of your sharing legal, or minor violations as where you try-before-you-buy?
While I don't have hard numbers, I have yet to see anyone even guess that the percentage of legal use is over 5%. Usually, the percentage is much lower, like under 1% (which is a lot closer to the truth I believe. The fraction of legal file sharing is incredibly small. The main attraction of file sharing (as Napster touted at their beginning) is the ability to get all the new songs by all your favorite artists. Unfortunately, that means the attraction is getting copyrighted material you are not legally allowed to obtain.
The problem lies in that Microsoft supplied a "broken" JVM. Because of this Sun wanted MS to fix it to standard or to stop using it. MS stopped using Java completely. Now Sun wants MS to put a not broken JVM into Windows. Sun didn't change their mind, MS is just f*ing with the public and making it seem that way.
I could be remembering it wrong, but I believe that the MS JVM wasn't broken, it just had "added features". It would properly display any proper Java, but there were commands and shortcuts that could be used in Java code that would only work on the MS JVM. Sun sued saying that the "extensions" were violating their license agreement. Sun won, got some money, and MS got the right to still ship their JVM. MS got sick of shipping their outdated JVM (and was looking forward to the future when they would be replacing it) and stopped shipping it. Nowhere does anything say that MS has a requirement to ship a JVM, in fact the one they have been shipping is still "broken" in Sun's eyes. Sun wanted MS to stop shipping a JVM they claimed was "broken", which they did. Case solved.
I don't find anything deceptive in the ads though. The text in the ads in generally true. You're computer is broadcasting an IP that can be used to attack you (whether you have a firewall in place to stop attack sis another matter). I would assume the InternetBoost really does increase download speeds. I've never used it, but I have used similar programs that work along the same lines. They look like a windows pop-up box, but does that mean anything that uses an actual pop-up box besides Windows in deceptive? When Kazaa pops up a box saying that there is an upgrade (or whatever) is that deceptive?
Sure, they are slimy, and I hate ads, but these really don't appear to be deceptive any more than any other advertisement.
CRN already was a pro windows site before they even made the review or article. Proof you may ask for? Well, their web pages are in ASP [crn.com] and not to mention that the pages are servered on an IIS box. This proves they used M$ technology before hands and are not open minded to other solutions. Two little problems with your "proof". First, using ASP in no way implies they are pro-MS. I am sure the person writing the article had nothing to do with their choice of web servers. Second, actual study was not done by CRN. It was done by a company called IDC (who may or may not be pro-MS, I don't know).
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version
Anyone who has something running well on a platform they like. We still have a few WinNT servers running here, because they are running well, and there is no need to upgrade them currently. If Win2K wasn't such an improvement over WinNT there would probably be a lot more. In a server environment, if there isn't a pressing reason to upgrade a machine, you don't do it. We are dedicated to using Win2K servers for the next 3 or 4 years at least. Unless there is a pressing need to upgrade, we won't.
While I hate to say it, MS may have a small chancew of winning these. I don't like the idea of "Windows" being a trademark, but these programs weren't using windows in any generic sense. They were obviously using the term to refer to MS Windows. Windows Commander gave you better control of your MS Windows. Windows Spy let you spy on MS Windows. If the programs also worked under say XWindows they could claim they were using it as a generic term, but as it stands, they were obviously referencing MS Windows, which may put them on shaky ground.
FUD: You have to open up all your code if you use GPL code in your software. Fact: You have to open up all your code if you use GPL code in your software and then distribute it! I don't think the DoD distributes very much of the software it writes, so why should it care if it uses GPL code? It shouldn't care! But let the FUD fly!
This bring up a question I've asked before and no one seems to have a conclusive answer for. Technically, by the GPL rules, anyone who gets the binary has to be able to get the source. Now the DoD employees are certainly getting the binary, so they should have access to the source as well, correct? And if they have access to the source, the GPL gives them full legal rights to redistribute it as they want, correct? So the problem seems to be that any DoD employee can legally distribute the code if they want (there may be other rules that apply, such as NDAs and things like that, but based just on the GPL). This seems to be a big hole to worry about, since it would put the DoD on possible shaky ground if an employee did release the software (it would be the rights the GPL gives you versus the NDA or other constricting contract).
but anything that removes foreigners (read: people not born here or who don't speak the language, which is English) from the US is okay with me.
Actually, the language of the US is not english. That is a common myth. The US has no official language. That is why people can go and demand things in other languages, because spanish or french or whatever is every bit as legitimate as english in the US. English is by far the most popular language, but it is not our official language by any means. So before we start deporting people who don't speak "our language" we should probably get a language.
No, the answer is to fix what is broken. This might be a new concept to some people, but things don't break on there own. If you're doing network upgrades and something stops working, REVERT THE CHANGES AND FIGURE IT OUT. This is reckless and irresponsible behavior.
While in the short term the anser is to fix what is broken, they should have had an alternative network set up long ago. When you are dealing with something as important as a hospital, you should have redunancy for everything. that means true redundancy. there should be 2 T1 lines coming in from 2 different vendors from opposite direction if that is something will endanger lives if it breaks. If something is truely mission critical, it should be redundant. If it is life-threatening critical, every single piece should be redundant.
See, this is exactly why false accusations work. They always instill this kind of doubt which the accused can never shake off, not through denial, not through a verdict in court, not at all. People do go on crusades like this for seemingly miniscule reasons. They may have an issue with their opponent, but some people just blow it completely out of proportion. Unless you have some insight into what created the disagreement, you should not assume that the defendant has caused the situation.
By the same token, you should not assume the defendant is innocent. This person is taking the right position, although a bit too far. He doesn't trust the person being attacked anymore than he trusts the attacker. We don't know the specifics of the situation, so either side could be right/wrong, lying/telling the truth. It's not right to assume the attacks are true, but it's also not right to assume the attacks are false.
No, that says he types their names, not their email addresses. You can put any name you want in the from line as long as the email address is legit. If I change the name in my email program to say I'm "BoB Dobbs", that doesn't mean I'm forging headers.
Well, this will be the most unpopular message in the thread, but this woman is not a spammer. People have signed up to receive email, she sends them email. They request to be taken off the list, she takes them off. She doesn't forge headers, use open relays, or advertise for fake products. Where exactly is she wrong here? If you sign up to receive email, you should expect to receive email. These people requested to be put on the list (if they aren't smart enough to uncheck the "send me additional email" box it's their own fault), and they can get taken off her list by faollowing the instructions in the email. Sorry, nothing she is doing is wrong.
think this might be an "urban legend", or perhaps your choice of sample for your researched was biased in some unintentional way. For example, Oracle is available on Linux, and it's very much a pay-for product. Oracle, as far as I know, haven't come under any serious pressure to make the Linux version free (speech or beer) - at least not any freer than it is on any other platform. I don't think anyone seriously expects MATLAB or Houdini or any other serious application to be free on Linux either.
While I agree that this guy stands little or no chance because every other IM around is free, says people pay for software like Oracle so they will pay for other software on Linux is a bit misleading. Super high-end business apps like Oracle have always been pay, and businesses will pay for them because they know how good they are. That doesn't translate down to the desktop at all. If you look at the software available for the desktop for Linux, the expectation is very much that it must be free. This is (I believe) one of the things that hinders gaming on Linux, most people who use Linux expect everything that runs on Linux to be free.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply disobeying a law and hiding the fact does nothing to change the system. Just because everyone downloads music doesn't make it any less of a crime, it just makes it common. If no one takes a stand about it, then it stays a crime, and the people who are caught doing it are punished, which you agree is wrong. The only way to change this is to actually take a stand against the law and try and get it changed. As for the companies not losing anything, it seems instead of buying the actual CDs, you should be buying the compilation CDs, which will only contain the songs you like (ie the ones that everyone likes and hears all the time). You claim you don't want a CD full of crap, but even that is addressed in the comp CDs with only the popular songs.
BTW - even classical music is copyrighted, unless you are downloading a performance of the piece from 1870 or whenever. The tune itself may not be copyrighted, but the recording of the performance that you are listening to is. Just because someone records themselves playing an old piece of music doesn't mean they don't have a copyright on that recording.
While you make many good points about patents, you also ignore the other side, which is many things would never be invented if there were no patents. You complain about people in poor countries not being able to afford medicine, which is a legitimate point. But without patents, these medicines would not be available to anyone, because they never would have been invented. Patents encourage people to spend the money it takes to design something new, because they know they will have the opportunity to make that money back by having a monopoly on it. If there were no patents, medical companies would not put millions of dollars into R&D for a new drug, because after they were finished, another company could market the exact same drug at a much cheaper price because the second company didn't pay anything for R&D.
Patents are not the problem. Patents are a good thing that encourages innovation. Unlimited patents are what is the bad thing. People need a reason to spend their money on developing new things, and patents provide them that reason. But after a reasonable amount of time, their inventions should go back into the public domain to encourage further work.
Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.
I never said the people using P2P were wrong, just that it wasn't civil disobedience. Civil disobedience wasn't why people drank during prohibition. They drank because they wanted alcohol. There is a world of difference between doing something for a "noble cause" like getting an unfair law changed, and doing something because you're cheap and want something for free. People using P2P aren't noble, their cheap. Wrapping yourself in the holy cloth of civil disobedience is an insult to those people who are actually working to change to change the law.
Is a way to protest against laws that you don't agree, usually associated with passive resistence.
This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.
Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.
The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!
That's how it should work, passive resistence.
While civil disobedience is fine, that is far from what this is. Kazaa (and most other P2P systems) are built on the concept of being anonymous. That means the current P2P technology is built around not being caught and not being punished, which is anything but civil disobedience. If you want to use P2P as civil disobedience, you have to make sure the law knows who you are and what you are doing. Try using your real name as your user name. Share not only MP3s, but a file with your name and address that says you know what you are doing is illegal, and if the RIAA wants to come after you, here is where they can find you. Unfortunately, 99.999% of the people using P2P have no interest in civil disobedience, they are only interested in getting stuff for free. P2P isn't about anything but getting free shit for most people.
>Providing something that can be used illicitly is different from providing something that can only be used illicitly.
Exactly. An excellent argument to that effect was inadvertently made by Mr. Valenti himself when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar". Note to Jack: crowbars are legal, and with good reason.
While a good point, this doesn't up that only things that can ONLY be used illicitly would be illegal under the DMCA. The key would be whether or not the company knew it could be used illegally. I think the main key to ElcomSoft getting off is that they were a Russian company. They didn't know the DMCA, and didn;t realize that this would be illegal under it, since they were Russian (at least this is what the jury believed). If the jury determined they knew the software would have been illegal under the DMCA, or if they believed it would be used illegally (even if the majority of use would have been legally), then they would have been found guilty.
> If software is created by the government, it is ...But it belongs to the voters. The revised BSD lisence would do very nicely, but I don't see what is wrong with the GPL for publicly funded code.
> paid for by taxes.
The government doesn't need to write programs for businesses to distribute under proprietary lisences. It should be enough for the government to write (free) software that can be used together with proprietary software. I don't see why businesses should be allowed to charge for the software, or how free (as in beer) software based on government developed code would be better for the voters than FOSS.
You are assuming the only people on earth who want to release closed-code programs are businesses looking to make a buck. There are many small programs written by individuals that are not open source (some charge, but others are freeware). Why should these people be forced to release their code if they don't want to? The key is true freedom allows anyone to do what they want with the code. That means you are free to release it OSS, and I am free to keep it closed.
Also, don't forget that businesses pay taxes, just like individuals. Shouldn't they have the same benefits from the software?
I have to ask, why is the GPL the only option other than proprietary? Releasing it as public domain, or a BSD style license (which is the license closest to PD) seems a lot more fair than releasing it under the GPL. The GPL is a great license, but it's main purpose is keeping the GPL around. It is great for people who want their stuff never to be closed source, but that isn't what the government is about. If software is created by the government, it is paid for by taxes. That should mean that anyone can use the software (and source) any way they want. If you want to use it in a GPL program, that's great, go for it. But if I want to use it in a closed source program (or even a BSD licensed program), that should be great too. From this perspective, the GPL is less a "free" license, and more of a "political" license. It forces people to do something specific with the code if they choose to reuse it.
Your objection doesn't apply at all. Dmitry didn't go to the US to sell his company's software, he went there to give a talk. So not only did Adobe attack a Russian student for completely legal work he did in his home country, but they also purposefully accused the wrong person. If they had been serious, they would have gone after the *servers* in whatever US colo they happened to reside.
But this case isn't about Dmitry, it's about Elcomsoft. When they arrested Dmitry, I was completely against it, because he was just a programmer working for a company. He didn't do anything but create the program, which was legal where he was. But Elcomsoft is who is on trial now, and they are responsible for marketing/selling the software in the US, which means they are responsible for following American laws.
The point is not that Elcomsoft and Sklyarov developed anti DMCA software, because they did; The point that should concern people (especially those from outside the US) is that they are being tried in the US, under US law for legal actions they committed in another country. This just shows the hypocrisy of the US government. They want others to follow their rules, but they never stop to consider others' rules.
While it is true that the software was developed in another country, it was marketed and sol din the US. Thus, it falls under US law. If the software hadn't been marketed to Americans, and sold to Americans, through a US website, using US dollars, I would wholeheartedly agree that US law shouldn't apply in any way shape or form. But just because it was developed by a company in another country has no effect on the matter if the software is sold within the US to US citizens. Anything sold to US citizens in the US, falls under US laws.
But if none of the pay-for methods work, what else can I do but steal the music?
What about the option of either listening to music that does fit into your requirements (such as indie bands) or not listening to music that doesn't fit into your requirements. Once again, just because something is not available in the way you like doesn't justify you taking it without paying. I cannot say that I will only use code that is licensed under a BSD license, so since Linux is not offered under my requirements, I will take it and distribute it as if it was a BSD style license and use it in my closed source systems. Not liking the way something is distributed gives you the right to not pay for it and not use it, not to take it and do what you want and ignore everything else.
How many "kids sites" are anything but an advertisement? Nickelodeon.com is nothing but an ad for their shows. Same with cartoonnetwork.com. Most kids sites are there to promote some TV show, or book series, or whatnot. Saying you can have those, but not advertisements for other toys, etc seems a big hypocritical.
And why exactly do these reasons entitle you to take something for free? Reason A entitles you to not make a decision not to partake of their music. Just because you don't like the price certainly doesn't entitle you to take it for free. Reason B can be easily remedied by going to any of the places that let you sample music before you buy it. Hell, Amazon has samples of usually half the songs on a CD. Some CD stores allow you to listen to a CD before you buy it. This is no different from any other industry that allows you a limited sample before you buy (say video games and books for example). Reason C has nothing to do with the RIAA at all. The stores you are going to set policy on these things. They have made the decision to not allow returns without a good reason (which is a good policy considering how easy it would be to buy a CD, copy it, and then return it and still have a perfect copy). This once again is no different than many other industries (such as books and video games).
Your arguements are very valid problems with the industry. But having valid arguements in no way entitles you to do whatever you want and violate their copyright (and steal music, which you admit you are doing by saying you are downloading it in place of buying it).
I'm fascinated by the P2P technology for its possibilities as a distributed sharing technology. I'm curious though, how sharing files out of homes and businesses (I assume all these T3 lines I see don't go to people's houses!) is legally different from putting the same files on commercially hosted filespace? (In case I said that wrong, I mean the server space we rent or get gratis with an ISP account.) I don't think there is a difference, aside from it being harder to get caught.
Well, that depends. Do you just put it in your directory, where no one has access to it? Then it is very different. If you put it in your web directory, and allow everyone access to it, then there really isn't a difference. It's all about who has access to the files. It has been ruled legal for you to make MP3s from cds you own, but it is not legal for you to share those MP3s with the entire world.
The other Q is what % of the current file sharing is legal, and I mean under current standards of fair use for the copyrighted material. This was a factor in the VCR litigation, that the machines have significant legitimate uses outside of pirating movies or TV shows -- your nephew bar mitzvah, weddings, fair use, etc. Is a significant fraction of your sharing legal, or minor violations as where you try-before-you-buy?
While I don't have hard numbers, I have yet to see anyone even guess that the percentage of legal use is over 5%. Usually, the percentage is much lower, like under 1% (which is a lot closer to the truth I believe. The fraction of legal file sharing is incredibly small. The main attraction of file sharing (as Napster touted at their beginning) is the ability to get all the new songs by all your favorite artists. Unfortunately, that means the attraction is getting copyrighted material you are not legally allowed to obtain.
The problem lies in that Microsoft supplied a "broken" JVM. Because of this Sun wanted MS to fix it to standard or to stop using it. MS stopped using Java completely. Now Sun wants MS to put a not broken JVM into Windows. Sun didn't change their mind, MS is just f*ing with the public and making it seem that way.
I could be remembering it wrong, but I believe that the MS JVM wasn't broken, it just had "added features". It would properly display any proper Java, but there were commands and shortcuts that could be used in Java code that would only work on the MS JVM. Sun sued saying that the "extensions" were violating their license agreement. Sun won, got some money, and MS got the right to still ship their JVM. MS got sick of shipping their outdated JVM (and was looking forward to the future when they would be replacing it) and stopped shipping it. Nowhere does anything say that MS has a requirement to ship a JVM, in fact the one they have been shipping is still "broken" in Sun's eyes. Sun wanted MS to stop shipping a JVM they claimed was "broken", which they did. Case solved.
I don't find anything deceptive in the ads though. The text in the ads in generally true. You're computer is broadcasting an IP that can be used to attack you (whether you have a firewall in place to stop attack sis another matter). I would assume the InternetBoost really does increase download speeds. I've never used it, but I have used similar programs that work along the same lines. They look like a windows pop-up box, but does that mean anything that uses an actual pop-up box besides Windows in deceptive? When Kazaa pops up a box saying that there is an upgrade (or whatever) is that deceptive?
Sure, they are slimy, and I hate ads, but these really don't appear to be deceptive any more than any other advertisement.
CRN already was a pro windows site before they even made the review or article. Proof you may ask for? Well, their web pages are in ASP [crn.com] and not to mention that the pages are servered on an IIS box. This proves they used M$ technology before hands and are not open minded to other solutions.
Two little problems with your "proof". First, using ASP in no way implies they are pro-MS. I am sure the person writing the article had nothing to do with their choice of web servers. Second, actual study was not done by CRN. It was done by a company called IDC (who may or may not be pro-MS, I don't know).
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version
Anyone who has something running well on a platform they like. We still have a few WinNT servers running here, because they are running well, and there is no need to upgrade them currently. If Win2K wasn't such an improvement over WinNT there would probably be a lot more. In a server environment, if there isn't a pressing reason to upgrade a machine, you don't do it. We are dedicated to using Win2K servers for the next 3 or 4 years at least. Unless there is a pressing need to upgrade, we won't.
While I hate to say it, MS may have a small chancew of winning these. I don't like the idea of "Windows" being a trademark, but these programs weren't using windows in any generic sense. They were obviously using the term to refer to MS Windows. Windows Commander gave you better control of your MS Windows. Windows Spy let you spy on MS Windows. If the programs also worked under say XWindows they could claim they were using it as a generic term, but as it stands, they were obviously referencing MS Windows, which may put them on shaky ground.
FUD: You have to open up all your code if you use GPL code in your software.
Fact: You have to open up all your code if you use GPL code in your software and then distribute it!
I don't think the DoD distributes very much of the software it writes, so why should it care if it uses GPL code? It shouldn't care! But let the FUD fly!
This bring up a question I've asked before and no one seems to have a conclusive answer for. Technically, by the GPL rules, anyone who gets the binary has to be able to get the source. Now the DoD employees are certainly getting the binary, so they should have access to the source as well, correct? And if they have access to the source, the GPL gives them full legal rights to redistribute it as they want, correct? So the problem seems to be that any DoD employee can legally distribute the code if they want (there may be other rules that apply, such as NDAs and things like that, but based just on the GPL). This seems to be a big hole to worry about, since it would put the DoD on possible shaky ground if an employee did release the software (it would be the rights the GPL gives you versus the NDA or other constricting contract).
but anything that removes foreigners (read: people not born here or who don't speak the language, which is English) from the US is okay with me.
Actually, the language of the US is not english. That is a common myth. The US has no official language. That is why people can go and demand things in other languages, because spanish or french or whatever is every bit as legitimate as english in the US. English is by far the most popular language, but it is not our official language by any means. So before we start deporting people who don't speak "our language" we should probably get a language.
No, the answer is to fix what is broken. This might be a new concept to some people, but things don't break on there own. If you're doing network upgrades and something stops working, REVERT THE CHANGES AND FIGURE IT OUT. This is reckless and irresponsible behavior.
While in the short term the anser is to fix what is broken, they should have had an alternative network set up long ago. When you are dealing with something as important as a hospital, you should have redunancy for everything. that means true redundancy. there should be 2 T1 lines coming in from 2 different vendors from opposite direction if that is something will endanger lives if it breaks. If something is truely mission critical, it should be redundant. If it is life-threatening critical, every single piece should be redundant.
See, this is exactly why false accusations work. They always instill this kind of doubt which the accused can never shake off, not through denial, not through a verdict in court, not at all.
People do go on crusades like this for seemingly miniscule reasons. They may have an issue with their opponent, but some people just blow it completely out of proportion. Unless you have some insight into what created the disagreement, you should not assume that the defendant has caused the situation.
By the same token, you should not assume the defendant is innocent. This person is taking the right position, although a bit too far. He doesn't trust the person being attacked anymore than he trusts the attacker. We don't know the specifics of the situation, so either side could be right/wrong, lying/telling the truth. It's not right to assume the attacks are true, but it's also not right to assume the attacks are false.
No, that says he types their names, not their email addresses. You can put any name you want in the from line as long as the email address is legit. If I change the name in my email program to say I'm "BoB Dobbs", that doesn't mean I'm forging headers.
Well, this will be the most unpopular message in the thread, but this woman is not a spammer. People have signed up to receive email, she sends them email. They request to be taken off the list, she takes them off. She doesn't forge headers, use open relays, or advertise for fake products. Where exactly is she wrong here? If you sign up to receive email, you should expect to receive email. These people requested to be put on the list (if they aren't smart enough to uncheck the "send me additional email" box it's their own fault), and they can get taken off her list by faollowing the instructions in the email. Sorry, nothing she is doing is wrong.
think this might be an "urban legend", or perhaps your choice of sample for your researched was biased in some unintentional way. For example, Oracle is available on Linux, and it's very much a pay-for product. Oracle, as far as I know, haven't come under any serious pressure to make the Linux version free (speech or beer) - at least not any freer than it is on any other platform. I don't think anyone seriously expects MATLAB or Houdini or any other serious application to be free on Linux either.
While I agree that this guy stands little or no chance because every other IM around is free, says people pay for software like Oracle so they will pay for other software on Linux is a bit misleading. Super high-end business apps like Oracle have always been pay, and businesses will pay for them because they know how good they are. That doesn't translate down to the desktop at all. If you look at the software available for the desktop for Linux, the expectation is very much that it must be free. This is (I believe) one of the things that hinders gaming on Linux, most people who use Linux expect everything that runs on Linux to be free.