In your jewelry store example it is more like the rightful owner of a ring entrusts it to a disreputable seeming store in order to investigate their clientele. So you go in there, buy a ring that is too good to be true, and suspect that there are some shady dealings.
Now, if this were really a stolen ring you'd have to return it, but if it comes to light that the store were acting as an agent of the original owner, but was not explicitly authorized to sell the ring, you would maintain ownership.
Media Sentry is an agent of the studios, if they distribute copyright work without the studio's permission, they are liable, but that does not change the legality of any copies obtained through them.
Another example: A (signed) recording artist does a few shows and sells CDs out of the trunk of his car afterwards, not realizing (or not caring) about the exclusive distributer clause in his recording contract. If you buy a CD from him, even if you didn't recognize him as the artist, your copy is still a legal copy, because the artist is an agent of the copyright holder. The copyright holder can then only go after the unauthorized distributor, but not the holder of the unauthorized copies.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and this is all my understanding. I could be wrong, and if someone can refute me, preferable with authoritative links, I'd like to learn the error of my ways.
While everything you say is probably true (I'm not sure that I buy that people who download then buy is larger than people who download and don't), and while the **AA shouldn't be calling it theft, the fact remains that copyright infringement is still illegal.
The more interesting question is, is copyright infringement immoral, and if so under what situations. Conversely, under which situations is copyright law immoral? Some philosophers, including MLK Jr, Ghandi, Mandela, and probably most articulately Thoreau, would argue that we have not only the right, but the duty to disobey unjust laws (but probably also accept the punishment).
Now, I'm not trying to equate copyright reform with civil rights, nor am I saying copyright is ipso facto unjust. But, I do think there is an interesting spin here.
The real problem with the credit system in this country are the predatory loan practices. You know, query the credit bureaus for people in DC city limits earning less than $35000/year, and offer them a Nordrom's branded visa cards with only 24.99% APR. Or worse, target people in apartments that are being closed down with attractive looking ARMs- and don't bother to explain what the A stands for. Car dealerships (and their lending companies) drool over selling to poor neighborhoods.
Sure, it should be the purchaser's responsibility to find out what they're getting themselves into, but if capitalism had a soul it wouldn't make offers that only a desperate person would accept.
(aside: FF spell check tried to correct a typo of credit to cretin)
Here's what I don't get about/. All these smart people, but apparently no one can make the credit system work for them.
Look credit is an awesome thing, you just have to use it responsibly. I buy everything on credit, but haven't carried a balance for a couple of years. When I did carry a balance, most of that was accrued during college, or in the first six months in the real world. So, basically while in college I got to bank against my future earnings, an when I graduated, I got to get nice furniture for my apartment.
Oh, I also have a car loan. I like having a nice car. It is one that I can afford, but not one I could have fronted the cash for a year after graduating.
I'm better off with credit than without. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of reform to be done, and the credit reporting bureaus are sleazy bastards, but I watch them like a hawk. I shouldn't have to, and MasterCard, Visa, et al shouldn't try to sell me "identity theft protection," but I still wouldn't give up the ability to take out a mortgage to lessen my chances of getting my identity stolen. (or is that identity infringement?)
What the artist needs has nothing to do with production (or distribution for that matter.) What the artist needs is a business that knows how to promote an act nationally - without the binding contracts, points-per-production, excess marketing and and shady business practices.
The only surviving function of the major labels is to get clear channel and MTV airplay.
I guess the way I see it is that I can protect myself from unauthorized CC transactions by not losing my card, or at least be aware if my card gets stolen or goes missing. (sure that doesn't protect me from a clerk writing down or memorizing the info on the card, but hey it's pretty easy to dispute a fraudulent CC purchase.
What I can't protect against, or foresee is someone getting the information from my ID and my CC and using that to impersonate me.
Merchants will do whatever the hell they want with a credit card, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
The one that really has become a pet peeve as of late is asking to see my ID when I have a signed card. Now I don't have a reference link handy, but somewhere I've read that the merchant's agreement with the CC company actually forbids them from asking for ID if a signed card is presented. I consider this a good thing, because frankly, I don't trust that cute checkout girl at the grocery store, and I don't want to have to show her my ID. (lets not even get into the one with the three teeth and the short line three registers down)
Not that I've ever been outraged enough to raise a stink (I carry the CCs for convenience after all,) but I've been considering sending the CC company an email every time someone asks for my ID, maybe they'd have a word with the merchant for me.
You must not have been paying attention. Most people buy Toyotas*, a few shell out for the Ford and get hosed, while fewer still fork over the big bucks for the Mercedes and are generally happy.
*ok really most people (in the US) still buy GMs, but Toyota is second, Ford is third, but my way is funnier
It strikes me that if we actively try to avoid anthropomorphizing something we actually end up with some convoluted mess that a being unable to project his preconceptions could not come up with. Are the ideas of infinite and eternal really more "natural" than the alternatives? I think that ideas of eternal and infinite aren't really natural, they're extensions of the human ideas of really-big and really-long, which IMO make them even more anthropomorphic than finite concepts. I guess what I'm (eventually, in a very round-about fashion) getting at is without us to think about it there would be no such thing as eternal; unlike everything that shares a presence with us in reality, it's all form and no substance.
I think this is an issue at the heart of medieval philosophy, the issue that ultimately spawned mysticism. The way the mystics solved the problem was to throw up their hands and say that humans simply cannot understand the concept - which might be true, but is also a giant cop-out. I guess I think that concepts like eternity are really human arrogance, thickly veiled in humility.
I think the AC makes a valid point. I also think he draws a wrong conclusion. If you make a knock-off of something a merchant creates either the original isn't valuable in itself, or the original will retain its value (or it could do both). Take the situation of knock-off designer bags. The original bag still sells for as much (arguably more - due to increased visibility increasing desire) while the people both buying and selling the knock off are also benefiting.
No number of obnoxious people on E! claiming that knock-offs "dishonor the brand" is going to make it true, just as no number of people calling copyright infringement theft will make that true. The difference is that fashion designers, along with artists, have figured out a viable business model, whereas the RIAA has not. Designers and artists understand the value of having an original prestige item and charge for it, the secondary market doesn't harm them at all. OTOH the RIAA fails to understand that something easily copied cannot be a mass consumer good. They're trying to have it both ways. They'd be better off selling albums for $3 and concert tickets for $50 (sort of how the MPAA is slightly more relevant due to the value of a movie screening) or sell authentic original CDs for $200.
Companies have found ways to be successful in spite of (sometimes because of) knock-offs, generics, reproductions, or piracy basically forever, why the RIAA seems so intent to buck this trend is beyond me.
I remember very good, detailed, fact based discussions on (public) TV, political or otherwise. You could watch the discussion evolve, people even sometimes finding a consensus, or at the very least, you felt better informed in the end.
You may remember those shows, but did you actually watch them? Even if you did you're one of the few. There is a reason news magazines were moved to Sunday morning, the public would rather watch reality TV than intelligent debate.
If you still want intelligent debate, Meet the Press isn't too bad, and it's a hold over from the "good old days". If you thought that even the news magazines used to be better than Meet the Press is today, I'm afraid you're probably viewing the past with rose colored glasses.
Sorry, replying to myself because I realized that carbon fiber is a composite, not a ceramic, which resin/matrix bond strength and resin integrity really important issues. I suppose cracks could be detected in the resin prior to failure.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't cyclic fatigue problems be much less an issue in ceramic materials? It is my understanding that the reason micro-fissures in metal are obsessed over in things like bridges and airplane wings was that the fissure can slowly propagate until it reaches a critical length, and then the metal basically unzips along the crystal borders. In a ceramic material you have a different issue, if a fissure exists, and an appropriate force is applied it will rapidly fracture the material.
So in the metallic case you have the possibility of growing minuscule cracks into failure inducing cracks, in ceramics you either have a crack that will cause the material to fail under load, or you don't - there is very little crack growth.
But hey, I could be wrong, let me know if I am. IAAME, not not a MS.
Eh, no lift is no lift. A deformed wing that is in a stall condition will be only marginally more useful than a missing wing. The small benefit comes from increased drag, which will do more to slow your forward momentum than slow your decent. I suppose it is possible that in some fringe case that could turn a fatal crash into a near-fatal crash, but it isn't like airplanes are dropping out of the sky everyday.
Think of it this way, which hits the ground faster, a baseball thrown in the air, or a baseball with a stick tied to in thrown in the air? You're not really that likely to credit your survival to a flaming wing stub.
Ooh, I think I understand slashdot's discussions now. There must be a whole lot of articles posted about the latest research in spelling and punctuation, and the articles from the Journal of Redundancy, with occasional stories regarding the Nazi Germany.
I suppose I could have figured that out earlier, but I never read the article(s).
Ok, so the 44.1 kHz sampling can only really sample up to 22.049999999 kHz waves all the time. But nearly all the time it gets up to 22.05 kHz. Besides can you tell the difference between 22.05 kHz and silence?
The Israeli culture is vastly superior to that of their enemies because it's an advanced technological culture. A well trained soldier will always be able to defeat a horde of fanatics.
Really? Value judgments on a culture because of technology, and ultimately wealth?
Besides it isn't really the Israeli "technological culture" it is mostly the US and Europe exporting arms to the Israeli army, which, incidentally, aren't available to the Arab states. I'm not trying to downplay Israel's significant accomplishments, but I'm not about to gloss over their significant mistakes.
My take: a free Jewish state in the Arabian peninsula is a good thing, however, any state that ignores the property rights of its neighbors and ethnic undesirables is acting unjustly.
Well really it started when Turks blew the first colonization of the middle east (in modern times), followed by the French and British blowing the second colonization. The founding of Isreal, and allowing the zionists carte blanch in seizing whatever lands they wanted just dumped oil-wells worth of fuel on the fire.
Now the people in the middle east (understandably) see the US poised to blow the third colonization, and are not prepared to let it happen without a fight.
Slashdot Mirror
In your jewelry store example it is more like the rightful owner of a ring entrusts it to a disreputable seeming store in order to investigate their clientele. So you go in there, buy a ring that is too good to be true, and suspect that there are some shady dealings.
Now, if this were really a stolen ring you'd have to return it, but if it comes to light that the store were acting as an agent of the original owner, but was not explicitly authorized to sell the ring, you would maintain ownership.
Media Sentry is an agent of the studios, if they distribute copyright work without the studio's permission, they are liable, but that does not change the legality of any copies obtained through them.
Another example: A (signed) recording artist does a few shows and sells CDs out of the trunk of his car afterwards, not realizing (or not caring) about the exclusive distributer clause in his recording contract. If you buy a CD from him, even if you didn't recognize him as the artist, your copy is still a legal copy, because the artist is an agent of the copyright holder. The copyright holder can then only go after the unauthorized distributor, but not the holder of the unauthorized copies.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and this is all my understanding. I could be wrong, and if someone can refute me, preferable with authoritative links, I'd like to learn the error of my ways.
While everything you say is probably true (I'm not sure that I buy that people who download then buy is larger than people who download and don't), and while the **AA shouldn't be calling it theft, the fact remains that copyright infringement is still illegal.
The more interesting question is, is copyright infringement immoral, and if so under what situations. Conversely, under which situations is copyright law immoral? Some philosophers, including MLK Jr, Ghandi, Mandela, and probably most articulately Thoreau, would argue that we have not only the right, but the duty to disobey unjust laws (but probably also accept the punishment).
Now, I'm not trying to equate copyright reform with civil rights, nor am I saying copyright is ipso facto unjust. But, I do think there is an interesting spin here.
I think it started when Prometheus gave fire to the Greeks.
The real problem with the credit system in this country are the predatory loan practices. You know, query the credit bureaus for people in DC city limits earning less than $35000/year, and offer them a Nordrom's branded visa cards with only 24.99% APR. Or worse, target people in apartments that are being closed down with attractive looking ARMs- and don't bother to explain what the A stands for. Car dealerships (and their lending companies) drool over selling to poor neighborhoods.
Sure, it should be the purchaser's responsibility to find out what they're getting themselves into, but if capitalism had a soul it wouldn't make offers that only a desperate person would accept.
(aside: FF spell check tried to correct a typo of credit to cretin)
Here's what I don't get about /. All these smart people, but apparently no one can make the credit system work for them.
Look credit is an awesome thing, you just have to use it responsibly. I buy everything on credit, but haven't carried a balance for a couple of years. When I did carry a balance, most of that was accrued during college, or in the first six months in the real world. So, basically while in college I got to bank against my future earnings, an when I graduated, I got to get nice furniture for my apartment.
Oh, I also have a car loan. I like having a nice car. It is one that I can afford, but not one I could have fronted the cash for a year after graduating.
I'm better off with credit than without. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of reform to be done, and the credit reporting bureaus are sleazy bastards, but I watch them like a hawk. I shouldn't have to, and MasterCard, Visa, et al shouldn't try to sell me "identity theft protection," but I still wouldn't give up the ability to take out a mortgage to lessen my chances of getting my identity stolen. (or is that identity infringement?)
What the artist needs has nothing to do with production (or distribution for that matter.) What the artist needs is a business that knows how to promote an act nationally - without the binding contracts, points-per-production, excess marketing and and shady business practices.
The only surviving function of the major labels is to get clear channel and MTV airplay.
Except MediaSentry doesn't live in the allofmp3.com server. So really it goes to show that the Russian Mafia can out protection racket the RIAA.
I guess the way I see it is that I can protect myself from unauthorized CC transactions by not losing my card, or at least be aware if my card gets stolen or goes missing. (sure that doesn't protect me from a clerk writing down or memorizing the info on the card, but hey it's pretty easy to dispute a fraudulent CC purchase.
What I can't protect against, or foresee is someone getting the information from my ID and my CC and using that to impersonate me.
Merchants will do whatever the hell they want with a credit card, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
The one that really has become a pet peeve as of late is asking to see my ID when I have a signed card. Now I don't have a reference link handy, but somewhere I've read that the merchant's agreement with the CC company actually forbids them from asking for ID if a signed card is presented. I consider this a good thing, because frankly, I don't trust that cute checkout girl at the grocery store, and I don't want to have to show her my ID. (lets not even get into the one with the three teeth and the short line three registers down)
Not that I've ever been outraged enough to raise a stink (I carry the CCs for convenience after all,) but I've been considering sending the CC company an email every time someone asks for my ID, maybe they'd have a word with the merchant for me.
You must not have been paying attention. Most people buy Toyotas*, a few shell out for the Ford and get hosed, while fewer still fork over the big bucks for the Mercedes and are generally happy.
*ok really most people (in the US) still buy GMs, but Toyota is second, Ford is third, but my way is funnier
It strikes me that if we actively try to avoid anthropomorphizing something we actually end up with some convoluted mess that a being unable to project his preconceptions could not come up with. Are the ideas of infinite and eternal really more "natural" than the alternatives? I think that ideas of eternal and infinite aren't really natural, they're extensions of the human ideas of really-big and really-long, which IMO make them even more anthropomorphic than finite concepts. I guess what I'm (eventually, in a very round-about fashion) getting at is without us to think about it there would be no such thing as eternal; unlike everything that shares a presence with us in reality, it's all form and no substance.
I think this is an issue at the heart of medieval philosophy, the issue that ultimately spawned mysticism. The way the mystics solved the problem was to throw up their hands and say that humans simply cannot understand the concept - which might be true, but is also a giant cop-out. I guess I think that concepts like eternity are really human arrogance, thickly veiled in humility.
I think the AC makes a valid point. I also think he draws a wrong conclusion. If you make a knock-off of something a merchant creates either the original isn't valuable in itself, or the original will retain its value (or it could do both). Take the situation of knock-off designer bags. The original bag still sells for as much (arguably more - due to increased visibility increasing desire) while the people both buying and selling the knock off are also benefiting.
No number of obnoxious people on E! claiming that knock-offs "dishonor the brand" is going to make it true, just as no number of people calling copyright infringement theft will make that true. The difference is that fashion designers, along with artists, have figured out a viable business model, whereas the RIAA has not. Designers and artists understand the value of having an original prestige item and charge for it, the secondary market doesn't harm them at all. OTOH the RIAA fails to understand that something easily copied cannot be a mass consumer good. They're trying to have it both ways. They'd be better off selling albums for $3 and concert tickets for $50 (sort of how the MPAA is slightly more relevant due to the value of a movie screening) or sell authentic original CDs for $200.
Companies have found ways to be successful in spite of (sometimes because of) knock-offs, generics, reproductions, or piracy basically forever, why the RIAA seems so intent to buck this trend is beyond me.
The Chinese, who have a patent on taking twenty dollar bills, and stuffing them in a drawer for some not totally clear future purpose.
The way I see content-centric networking working.
Me: I'm looking for Tool: 10,000 days.
Some guy: Here you go.
RIAA: I'm looking for Tool: 10,000 days.
RIAA: Upload: Subpoena
I agree, clearly discourse was more civil, cooler heads prevailed, and logic triumphed back in the day when Brutus and Julius were buddy buddy.
Wait how did that one end again?
If you still want intelligent debate, Meet the Press isn't too bad, and it's a hold over from the "good old days". If you thought that even the news magazines used to be better than Meet the Press is today, I'm afraid you're probably viewing the past with rose colored glasses.
Sorry, replying to myself because I realized that carbon fiber is a composite, not a ceramic, which resin/matrix bond strength and resin integrity really important issues. I suppose cracks could be detected in the resin prior to failure.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't cyclic fatigue problems be much less an issue in ceramic materials? It is my understanding that the reason micro-fissures in metal are obsessed over in things like bridges and airplane wings was that the fissure can slowly propagate until it reaches a critical length, and then the metal basically unzips along the crystal borders. In a ceramic material you have a different issue, if a fissure exists, and an appropriate force is applied it will rapidly fracture the material.
So in the metallic case you have the possibility of growing minuscule cracks into failure inducing cracks, in ceramics you either have a crack that will cause the material to fail under load, or you don't - there is very little crack growth.
But hey, I could be wrong, let me know if I am. IAAME, not not a MS.
Eh, no lift is no lift. A deformed wing that is in a stall condition will be only marginally more useful than a missing wing. The small benefit comes from increased drag, which will do more to slow your forward momentum than slow your decent. I suppose it is possible that in some fringe case that could turn a fatal crash into a near-fatal crash, but it isn't like airplanes are dropping out of the sky everyday.
Think of it this way, which hits the ground faster, a baseball thrown in the air, or a baseball with a stick tied to in thrown in the air? You're not really that likely to credit your survival to a flaming wing stub.
Ooh, I think I understand slashdot's discussions now. There must be a whole lot of articles posted about the latest research in spelling and punctuation, and the articles from the Journal of Redundancy, with occasional stories regarding the Nazi Germany.
I suppose I could have figured that out earlier, but I never read the article(s).
Ok, so the 44.1 kHz sampling can only really sample up to 22.049999999 kHz waves all the time. But nearly all the time it gets up to 22.05 kHz. Besides can you tell the difference between 22.05 kHz and silence?
Yeah, except she patented, A method for extracting dollars from blood sucking trolls so now anyone who sues the RIAA will have to pay her royalties :\
Besides it isn't really the Israeli "technological culture" it is mostly the US and Europe exporting arms to the Israeli army, which, incidentally, aren't available to the Arab states. I'm not trying to downplay Israel's significant accomplishments, but I'm not about to gloss over their significant mistakes.
My take: a free Jewish state in the Arabian peninsula is a good thing, however, any state that ignores the property rights of its neighbors and ethnic undesirables is acting unjustly.
Well really it started when Turks blew the first colonization of the middle east (in modern times), followed by the French and British blowing the second colonization. The founding of Isreal, and allowing the zionists carte blanch in seizing whatever lands they wanted just dumped oil-wells worth of fuel on the fire.
Now the people in the middle east (understandably) see the US poised to blow the third colonization, and are not prepared to let it happen without a fight.
I've had dreams about work too, does that mean I'm addicted?