The EFF's argument to some extent is probably correct, but then it goes on and on into utter nonsense.
The contention that only "physical distribution" of "material objects" is addressed by copyright and that digital dissemination does not constitute distribution is not going to fly. That pretty much means that I can download anything and no matter what I do, no matter how blatent, as long as it is only in the "digital domain" that no copyright violation can be asserted.
That means that software has no copyright protection if it is downloaded.
That means there is no copyright protection for movies or music when distributed electronically.
While some might wish for this, it isn't going to happen. That pretty much means that any electronic distribution of GPL licensed software has no copyright protection. Really?
This assertion is interesting in the depths that it goes into, but it is senseless.
If you don't like it, let people know. Right now it is about the same as starting a campaign to eat small children. There are people that believe in the US that we are going to run the world out of resources and it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that the US does not do this. This is one example of that thinking.
Yes, resources on this planet my be finite. There may be disparities between what some countries have and what others have - mostly determined by actions of their own people. For every African country that says "colonial powers did this to them", remember that the US was indeed such a colony of a European country at one time.
The point is that if people believe there is a finite pie to be divided up and that such divisions should be made equally, we are all going to be living like Bangledeshi farmers soon. There are unlimited resources "out there" if we have the courage and determination to go get them. We have to, or humanity is going to die here after living with smaller and smaller populations.
Wait until the environmentists start on the population problem. Do you know there are too many people in your city? If you are going to support the environmental movement you should take matters into your own hands. If all the believers helped it wouldn't take that long to reduce the population significantly. Get a club, knife or gun and start help fixing the planet today!
I'm going to try really hard not to use a lot of adjectives to describe your thinking on this.
Are you nuts? Nuclear warheads? That is probably the absolute very last thing you would want to try to deflect a large body with. It might fracture, which would make problems much much worse.
You see, the problem with lots of little rocks entering the atmosphere is a little detail called "atmospheric heating". Rocks get warm, transfer their heat to the air. A few rocks, no problem. Lots and lots of little rocks, big problem. Which is why the ending of the movie Deep Impact would have resulted in the end of all life on the planet, not a nice speech by the President.
All it takes is a little push, or as previously alluded to, some paint to absorb solar radiation differently. No nuclear warheads. Maybe an Orion-type or NERVA propulsion system to get out that far.
Thank the scammers and the idiots that sign up for stuff with no intention of paying. They would just cancel the card and figured that would relieve them of any further responsibilities.
The scammers benefited from this as well, because you have these "impossible to cancel" things.
The solution is pretty simple, and it worked for 50-60 years before: don't sign up for stuff you don't want. And assume everyone is going to steal your money if you give them half a chance.
Small problem - you walk into any airport or large hotel today and you will find a computer-to-computer wireless network called "Free WiFi" or something similar. This is a program designed to steal stuff from YOU. You connect to it and virtually everything you do will be captured.
If you can't tell the difference between infrastructure and ad-hoc WiFi connections you are just asking for trouble looking for free WiFi.
This is all part of the "It takes a village" thinking. We're all responsible for everyone else. Of course it is nonsense, but it appeals to a certain mindset.
The problem is that this mindset is taking hold in courts and legislatures.
Why? Simple - filter or shut down. The simple answer is going to be that if copyright material is being transferred that the ISP is an agent acting on behalf of the infringer. They are enabling the infringement and by not doing everything in their power to stop it they are in fact encouraging it and allowing it to happen.
How far do you think we are from this? Not far, I'd say. The problem is that it really can't be stopped no matter what. Music and movies are no longer sources of revenue in any way. Books aren't far behind. Software? Ask your friends what they are paying for and what they are really using.
Copyright was partly enforced by physical limitations, which now do not exist. The rest of the enforcement was "respect" - nice people just didn't do it. Today there are no more nice people. Copyright is pointless - people are going to steal and they are going to take whatever they can when it is free. It is all free today and there is nothing whatsoever that ISPs, bands, record companies or movie studios can do about it. Their world is crashing down, and with it a significant number of jobs.
What will emerge from this? Well, you can bet there will still be plenty of music and movies available. It may not be the finest quality, but there are people that believe they are the best entertainer in the world and the world needs to see them. This will likely be the source of most music and movies in the near future.
Of course, it will all be free. Downloaders rejoice for you have reformed the world in a new image. There will be plenty of stuff to download and share.
The problem is that copyright infringement was limited by physical and financial limitations. You could probably decide to "share" copies of some music with 1,000 of your closest friends by mailing them each a tape but it would be unlikely that you would actually spend that much money doing it.
Today by placing a file in a directory and running a program you are sharing with the rest of the internet-using planet. Potentially millions of people. And there is no loss of quality.
As many people have figured out, when the sky opens up and free stuff falls out there is no need to spend money on the same stuff any longer. Not only that, but there is no need to spend money on similar but-not-quite-the-same stuff. One person can by a copy of a song and post it for the rest of the planet to "share". One person can borrow a movie and share it with the rest of the planet.
End result is I hope there are lots of people that feel the need to make movies, because there sure isn't going to me any revenue from it soon.
Problem in the US is that if we do not have results before midnight Eastern time a winner will be announced anyway, as was done in 2000. Do you really think the country can handle announcing Hillary as the winner at midnight and then at 2:00 AM saying "just kidding, John McCain is really the winner?"
Do you believe the government is in such good control of the news media so see to it that this doesn't happen?
In some countries it takes two weeks to announce the results. How come we can't be patient in the US?
There are a couple of problems that need to be solved with paper ballots today. Some of the solutions that have been proposed solve some of them, but most people don't seem to understand that if we can't solve all of them there isn't much point - just let the TV news announce the winner without any voting at all.
The first problem that e-voting is supposed to solve is to get the votes counted quicker. Remmber that in 2000 Gore was announced as the winner first. Do you really think that can be allowed to happen again?
The second problem is elimination of inconsistent recounts. The news folks are going to grab onto any variations as some kind of "proof" of something or another. Exactly reproducible counts are a requirement. A 1% variation will alternately select candidates and that is unacceptable.
The third problem is identity - there is a substantial faction in the US that believes no proof of identity should be necessary whatsoever. No photo ID, no "identity card", nothing. These folks generally are Democrats but not always. Anything less than identification-less voting is thought to discriminate against some group or another, such as absent-minded people that can't seem to remember to bring their driver's license.
The fourth problem is probably ADA-compliant voting. This means that handicapped people of all sorts have to be accomodated on request without requiring assistance. If they can talk to a lawyer, they better be able to vote without needing help.
I don't see any requirement for verified voting, or for accuracy. What I do see is making sure a candidate is selected once and finally and that it isn't done by checking exit polls or what the TV news people think.
A lease is better tax-wise than purchase because the purchase will often have to be declared as a depreciated capital expense whereas the lease is a write-off as an operating expense. The depreciation is going to be over five years. This can make a huge difference the minute you cross the threshold for capital expenses, which I think is $25,000 these days.
Ha. The US Air Force has had a depressingly effective policy of not standing behind pilots that do things wrong. The effect this has on the service overall is "by the book" and getting verification of everything.
Imagine if you will that you are at the controls of a fighter plane lined up behind a passenger aircraft that has been hijacked. One report of such a hijacking crashing into a building when for the last 40 years no hijack has resulted in loss of all of the passengers. OK, someone comes on the radio ordering you to shoot the plane down. Are you going to do it?
Remember, if do you it and it turns out badly the Air Force has spent the last 20-30 years proving they will not stand behind you. You will be in court with people saying that you were never given that order, that you misinterpreted the order and that you fired on the wrong plane.
Still think any fighter pilot would shoot down a passenger plane? Without a written order signed by the president? I don't believe for a second that any Air Force pilot would today stick his neck out that far. Would they have in 1960? Yes. How about 1970? Almost certainly. 1980? Maybe, but there is some question. 1990? Almost certainly not. 2001? Are you kidding?
You misunderstand. The whole point is to get nothing done. If they got things done, we would have a 90% tax rate and the government would be in charge of everything. There is no natual limit on the power of the US government other than their inability to do anything.
You are laboring under a delusion, one that is shared by many in the US.
The point of the system in use in the US is to ensure that as little as possible is actually accomplished. The problem identified by the "founding fathers" is that if you allow a government to accomplish things then things get done. Most of what a government can do is of no real utility to the people living there. It therefore makes sense to limit what the government can actually accomplish.
In the US this limitation is enforced by having two differently composed bodies (the House of Representatives and the Senate) being required to agree in order to implement anything. Everything has to be compromised on, limited and restricted to be acceptable to a supermajority in both houses. Having different election cycles for the two houses also ensures that someone is always running for office. This also limits the amount of "real work" that can be accomplished, but it is difficult to credit the foresight of the founding fathers with this.
Imagine if things changed in the US and there was a greal deal more cooperation between the two houses. The natural tendency for these elected people is to "do" things that they can show their constituents how much they have accomplished. Everything they "do" is going to cost tax dollars or otherwise make living and doing business in the US more expensive. The only real limit on this, barring other limitations, is how much you can take from the people before they revolt. As shown in Europe, you can take a lot more from people than is currently done in the US. Lots and lots more.
It is in everyone's interest in the US to have a limited form of government which is constantly battling with itself unable to do much than the basic requirements of keeping the government operating. Think what things would be like if the government could pass a new Patriot act every session. Or a new group of Congresscritters decide to revise the government-run health care system because they thought they could do a better job than the people that reworked in two years before.
Be very thankful that the system in the US is far, far from true democracy and is extremely unresponsive and accomplishes little.
Nonsense. The HTCIA is the organization that you are referring to and in no way does membership qualify you to testify in court. Most forensic examiners are not members of HTCIA in any way - it is a very heavy law enforcement membership that does require its members not to work for the defense.
There are a number of certifications, such as CCE, EnCE and CFCE that are pretty much required for practicing as a forensic examiner. You just aren't going to get anywhere without these. While the certifications seem like BS, what they are useful for is establishing to a non-technical court that you have been both educated and tested in the field. Part of being qualified as an expert witness in court is having your credentials questioned, so if you do not have certifications you will need lots and lots of other information that will need to be as convincing. I've see one person defend their qualifications without much in the way of certifications but it wasn't pretty.
Membership in HTCIA is restricted to law enforcement and law enforcement sponsored people. It does not qualify anyone as a forensic examiner because you do not have to be a forensic examiner to belong - anyone in law enforcement or associated with law enforcement can be a member. They just can't work for the defense. A court that used HTCIA membership as a qualification would be equivalent to a court requiring someone to have contributed to Bill Clinton's legal defense fund to be accepted as a legal expert.
Part of the problem is greed. I can get money for recordings of YOUR interactions with the government. Especially if because of camera angles, etc. it looks like something funny is going on. You can't get anywhere near as much money, so it is clearly worth more to me. You won't mind, will you?
Secondarily, we can get back to the "accused == guilty" mode in the media. If I can get a recording of someone being arrested for a high profile crime, it is clear that this can be broadcast far and wide ($$$ to me, right?) and everyone will know the person being arrested must be guilty. Lots of irrelevent details purporting to prove this person's guilt can also be included by the bloggers/commentators with the video.
Why bother with a trial? Everyone that could be on the jury will have already seen the video.
As far as I know, Kazaa only has one kind. Please point out the "locally shared" option with Kazaa. That is after all the type of shared folder that was specifically mentioned.
they made music in the time of mozart you know. how many cds were around then?
Yes they did. Mozart was sponsored by rich patrons and his music was for their ears alone. The average peasant wasn't even aware Mozart existed. It certainly can be that way again.
and how much does it cost someone actually produce an album nowadays? hint: it's around the price of a laptop, because THAT'S ALL YOU NEED NOWADAYS
Absolutely. You don't need a studio. Who cares if you have echos and weird acoustics from your basement or garage. Nobody is going to notice that jet plane noise either. Just edit it out, right? Heard of Darwin Reedy? This is the music of the future. People will pay for stuff like that. Britney is gone. Check out Darwin!
Finally, movies are pretty much dead. When you have a DVD that is available to the rippers the day after the movie opens in the theaters, why bother? Theaters are running the show with 20 people a lot of the time because absolutely people want to watch the movie on their crappy 17" monitor for free. When the movie theater is free people will be glad to go there again. Right now, a lot of people are voting with their wallet and having discovered free movie downloads they aren't bothering. More money for beer.
The people I know like things just fine the way they are.
Simpleton fools buy CDs.
Smart people download everything for free.
Internet-savvy fools buy from iTunes.
Your idea of making something that is today a minor infraction that is handled by the civil courts into a criminal matter is playing right into the hands of the government making everything illegal. First thing that would happen is the "try out" label remover program would be freeware hosted outside the US.
Face it, nobody is going to make money from music anymore. There are dedicated bands of people out there determined to quash any possible revenue that can be gained from music distribution. Movies are next and software (sorry, BSA) is right there too.
One issue that has yet to be resolved is the ease of false derative works. Let's say the copyright expires in 5 years on a popular song. After five years most people still recognize it - assuming it was really that popular. OK, then I change a few notes digitally and republish it. It is to the ear indistinguishable from the original but now has a new publisher. Are we going to have "look and feel" regulations?
Or, again using the power of digitial editing, I take a popular song and overlay a new word into it. With a very short copyright period even for "current" media I can "stand on the shoulders of giants" and with a trivial amount of work capitalize on their work completely and often destructively. No, I seriously doubt this would be considered to be a legitimate parody. That certainly wouldn't necessarily be the idea or motivation.
The reason this (and most other consumer devices) do not allow for modifications is real simple. Anyone working with consumer electronics support knows exactly why. What do you do with someone that (a) denies modifying anything and (b) has some unexplicable problem. Do you hang up on them?
Do you have someone sit on the phone for an hour trying to figure out what the problem might be? After all, they are saying it wasn't modified so it might be some obscure bug that needs to be fixed. How can you tell?
I suppose you could "open" end-of-life units that there is no support for anymore. But that can compromise the existing codebase for new units as well.
Nobody has a good answer for this. None that I have heard, anyway. Fortunately, it affects maybe 1% of most devices user base so it doesn't really matter to anyone other than a device owner that wants to muck around with it.
If your job has you isolated in a cube farm with utterly no contact with the outside world during work hours, I'd say you can do whatever you want in your off hours. Today, jobs like that are getting rare and likely to be non-existent in the near future.
Let's say you have a technical job that involves nothing more than talking to an occasional tecnical partner of your employer. When the person you're talking to finds something outrageous about you, do you think it isn't going to get around? Worse, let's say they are a rabid fundamentalist and find out about your Wiccan postings on the web. Sure, it isn't any of their business but that hardly stops anyone anymore. If you can't communicate with the people you're supposed to communicate with as part of your job, it is going to come back to you. Yes, it is a round-about path up through your company's partner and back down, but it still happens.
If you have a customer service job, magnify this by about 100x. If your employer is ever connected with your online identity and you do something outrageous or offensive to some, it will come back around to you in the end.
Can your employer afford this sort of nonsense? Not usually. So much so that if your off-hours activities affect you, your job or your employer in any way you are going to need to find a new job that didn't get burned.
Finally, if you think your off-hours activities have no effect on your job, what would you say about a cop that belongs to the KKK or other white power group and patrols a black inner city area during the day? No connection? My guess is that police department is going to get sued by some big-name black folks if something like this ever came out. Even if he never does anything, the connection will taint everything. Your job may not be as sensitive or as public, but you can't isolate your life completely between work and non-work. Can't be done.
What is needed now is for every US company with any significant revenue produced by digital goods (music, movies, software, etc.) to set up a subsidary in Antigua and register their copyright with the government there. That then removes any and all risk of their rights being violated - the copyright applicable in Antigua would not be through the Berne convention but would be locally registered.
So Antigua doesn't recognize US copyright... no problem, there is then a local registration.
Pity the folks that don't have an Antigua subsidary. They are screwed because I don't see how this can be confined as long as the redistribution originates in Antigua. Claim it is a derivative work created in Antigua. Game over, folks.
Look at the economics and you will see where the changes are really going to come.
Today, promotional advertising is a huge part of the economy. It supports printers, advertising companies, magazines, and all manner of newsletters and such. It enables radio stations to play music for free, network television to exist and is why things work as they do today. Promotion of music, movies, books and other "intellectual property" has an overall economic impact far greater than simply compensating creators for their work.
We stand on the edge of a new age where there will be no compensation. Today's young people understand that advertising is something they want no part of and object when they are subjected to it. The idea that you are paying $10 for a piece of plastic that cost $0.50 to make because of all of the promotion that went along astounds them. They want to get rid of the $9.50 so they could buy their music for $0.50. There are two problems with that idea.
The first problem is nobody is going to make the studio recording that results in the $0.50 piece of plastic without the promotion that went along with it. While we might not like advertising, we haven't reached the enlightened age where products reach out and grab people when they are needed. Without promotion - including but not limited to advertising - you just aren't going to see products.
The second problem is many people have seen the vastly different landscape away from commercial products called "free". You get your music for free, maybe download some other entertainment for free. With faster Internet connections it will all be free. Nobody is going to be paying that $0.50 - they want it all for free.
I would expect to see lots of people out of work. Anyone connected with promotion is going to be out of work pretty soon. I don't think it will even take 10 years. Expect to see a vastly expanded welfare state because there just isn't anywhere for these people to work. They aren't needed and have no skills useful in the future.
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The EFF's argument to some extent is probably correct, but then it goes on and on into utter nonsense.
The contention that only "physical distribution" of "material objects" is addressed by copyright and that digital dissemination does not constitute distribution is not going to fly. That pretty much means that I can download anything and no matter what I do, no matter how blatent, as long as it is only in the "digital domain" that no copyright violation can be asserted.
That means that software has no copyright protection if it is downloaded.
That means there is no copyright protection for movies or music when distributed electronically.
While some might wish for this, it isn't going to happen. That pretty much means that any electronic distribution of GPL licensed software has no copyright protection. Really?
This assertion is interesting in the depths that it goes into, but it is senseless.
If you don't like it, let people know. Right now it is about the same as starting a campaign to eat small children. There are people that believe in the US that we are going to run the world out of resources and it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that the US does not do this. This is one example of that thinking.
Yes, resources on this planet my be finite. There may be disparities between what some countries have and what others have - mostly determined by actions of their own people. For every African country that says "colonial powers did this to them", remember that the US was indeed such a colony of a European country at one time.
The point is that if people believe there is a finite pie to be divided up and that such divisions should be made equally, we are all going to be living like Bangledeshi farmers soon. There are unlimited resources "out there" if we have the courage and determination to go get them. We have to, or humanity is going to die here after living with smaller and smaller populations.
Wait until the environmentists start on the population problem. Do you know there are too many people in your city? If you are going to support the environmental movement you should take matters into your own hands. If all the believers helped it wouldn't take that long to reduce the population significantly. Get a club, knife or gun and start help fixing the planet today!
I'm going to try really hard not to use a lot of adjectives to describe your thinking on this.
Are you nuts? Nuclear warheads? That is probably the absolute very last thing you would want to try to deflect a large body with. It might fracture, which would make problems much much worse.
You see, the problem with lots of little rocks entering the atmosphere is a little detail called "atmospheric heating". Rocks get warm, transfer their heat to the air. A few rocks, no problem. Lots and lots of little rocks, big problem. Which is why the ending of the movie Deep Impact would have resulted in the end of all life on the planet, not a nice speech by the President.
All it takes is a little push, or as previously alluded to, some paint to absorb solar radiation differently. No nuclear warheads. Maybe an Orion-type or NERVA propulsion system to get out that far.
Thank the scammers and the idiots that sign up for stuff with no intention of paying. They would just cancel the card and figured that would relieve them of any further responsibilities.
The scammers benefited from this as well, because you have these "impossible to cancel" things.
The solution is pretty simple, and it worked for 50-60 years before: don't sign up for stuff you don't want. And assume everyone is going to steal your money if you give them half a chance.
Small problem - you walk into any airport or large hotel today and you will find a computer-to-computer wireless network called "Free WiFi" or something similar. This is a program designed to steal stuff from YOU. You connect to it and virtually everything you do will be captured.
If you can't tell the difference between infrastructure and ad-hoc WiFi connections you are just asking for trouble looking for free WiFi.
This is all part of the "It takes a village" thinking. We're all responsible for everyone else. Of course it is nonsense, but it appeals to a certain mindset.
The problem is that this mindset is taking hold in courts and legislatures.
Why? Simple - filter or shut down. The simple answer is going to be that if copyright material is being transferred that the ISP is an agent acting on behalf of the infringer. They are enabling the infringement and by not doing everything in their power to stop it they are in fact encouraging it and allowing it to happen.
How far do you think we are from this? Not far, I'd say. The problem is that it really can't be stopped no matter what. Music and movies are no longer sources of revenue in any way. Books aren't far behind. Software? Ask your friends what they are paying for and what they are really using.
Copyright was partly enforced by physical limitations, which now do not exist. The rest of the enforcement was "respect" - nice people just didn't do it. Today there are no more nice people. Copyright is pointless - people are going to steal and they are going to take whatever they can when it is free. It is all free today and there is nothing whatsoever that ISPs, bands, record companies or movie studios can do about it. Their world is crashing down, and with it a significant number of jobs.
What will emerge from this? Well, you can bet there will still be plenty of music and movies available. It may not be the finest quality, but there are people that believe they are the best entertainer in the world and the world needs to see them. This will likely be the source of most music and movies in the near future.
Of course, it will all be free. Downloaders rejoice for you have reformed the world in a new image. There will be plenty of stuff to download and share.
The problem is that copyright infringement was limited by physical and financial limitations. You could probably decide to "share" copies of some music with 1,000 of your closest friends by mailing them each a tape but it would be unlikely that you would actually spend that much money doing it.
Today by placing a file in a directory and running a program you are sharing with the rest of the internet-using planet. Potentially millions of people. And there is no loss of quality.
As many people have figured out, when the sky opens up and free stuff falls out there is no need to spend money on the same stuff any longer. Not only that, but there is no need to spend money on similar but-not-quite-the-same stuff. One person can by a copy of a song and post it for the rest of the planet to "share". One person can borrow a movie and share it with the rest of the planet.
End result is I hope there are lots of people that feel the need to make movies, because there sure isn't going to me any revenue from it soon.
Problem in the US is that if we do not have results before midnight Eastern time a winner will be announced anyway, as was done in 2000. Do you really think the country can handle announcing Hillary as the winner at midnight and then at 2:00 AM saying "just kidding, John McCain is really the winner?"
Do you believe the government is in such good control of the news media so see to it that this doesn't happen?
In some countries it takes two weeks to announce the results. How come we can't be patient in the US?
There are a couple of problems that need to be solved with paper ballots today. Some of the solutions that have been proposed solve some of them, but most people don't seem to understand that if we can't solve all of them there isn't much point - just let the TV news announce the winner without any voting at all.
The first problem that e-voting is supposed to solve is to get the votes counted quicker. Remmber that in 2000 Gore was announced as the winner first. Do you really think that can be allowed to happen again?
The second problem is elimination of inconsistent recounts. The news folks are going to grab onto any variations as some kind of "proof" of something or another. Exactly reproducible counts are a requirement. A 1% variation will alternately select candidates and that is unacceptable.
The third problem is identity - there is a substantial faction in the US that believes no proof of identity should be necessary whatsoever. No photo ID, no "identity card", nothing. These folks generally are Democrats but not always. Anything less than identification-less voting is thought to discriminate against some group or another, such as absent-minded people that can't seem to remember to bring their driver's license.
The fourth problem is probably ADA-compliant voting. This means that handicapped people of all sorts have to be accomodated on request without requiring assistance. If they can talk to a lawyer, they better be able to vote without needing help.
I don't see any requirement for verified voting, or for accuracy. What I do see is making sure a candidate is selected once and finally and that it isn't done by checking exit polls or what the TV news people think.
A lease is better tax-wise than purchase because the purchase will often have to be declared as a depreciated capital expense whereas the lease is a write-off as an operating expense. The depreciation is going to be over five years. This can make a huge difference the minute you cross the threshold for capital expenses, which I think is $25,000 these days.
Ha. The US Air Force has had a depressingly effective policy of not standing behind pilots that do things wrong. The effect this has on the service overall is "by the book" and getting verification of everything.
Imagine if you will that you are at the controls of a fighter plane lined up behind a passenger aircraft that has been hijacked. One report of such a hijacking crashing into a building when for the last 40 years no hijack has resulted in loss of all of the passengers. OK, someone comes on the radio ordering you to shoot the plane down. Are you going to do it?
Remember, if do you it and it turns out badly the Air Force has spent the last 20-30 years proving they will not stand behind you. You will be in court with people saying that you were never given that order, that you misinterpreted the order and that you fired on the wrong plane.
Still think any fighter pilot would shoot down a passenger plane? Without a written order signed by the president? I don't believe for a second that any Air Force pilot would today stick his neck out that far. Would they have in 1960? Yes. How about 1970? Almost certainly. 1980? Maybe, but there is some question. 1990? Almost certainly not. 2001? Are you kidding?
You misunderstand. The whole point is to get nothing done. If they got things done, we would have a 90% tax rate and the government would be in charge of everything. There is no natual limit on the power of the US government other than their inability to do anything.
You are laboring under a delusion, one that is shared by many in the US.
The point of the system in use in the US is to ensure that as little as possible is actually accomplished. The problem identified by the "founding fathers" is that if you allow a government to accomplish things then things get done. Most of what a government can do is of no real utility to the people living there. It therefore makes sense to limit what the government can actually accomplish.
In the US this limitation is enforced by having two differently composed bodies (the House of Representatives and the Senate) being required to agree in order to implement anything. Everything has to be compromised on, limited and restricted to be acceptable to a supermajority in both houses. Having different election cycles for the two houses also ensures that someone is always running for office. This also limits the amount of "real work" that can be accomplished, but it is difficult to credit the foresight of the founding fathers with this.
Imagine if things changed in the US and there was a greal deal more cooperation between the two houses. The natural tendency for these elected people is to "do" things that they can show their constituents how much they have accomplished. Everything they "do" is going to cost tax dollars or otherwise make living and doing business in the US more expensive. The only real limit on this, barring other limitations, is how much you can take from the people before they revolt. As shown in Europe, you can take a lot more from people than is currently done in the US. Lots and lots more.
It is in everyone's interest in the US to have a limited form of government which is constantly battling with itself unable to do much than the basic requirements of keeping the government operating. Think what things would be like if the government could pass a new Patriot act every session. Or a new group of Congresscritters decide to revise the government-run health care system because they thought they could do a better job than the people that reworked in two years before.
Be very thankful that the system in the US is far, far from true democracy and is extremely unresponsive and accomplishes little.
Nonsense. The HTCIA is the organization that you are referring to and in no way does membership qualify you to testify in court. Most forensic examiners are not members of HTCIA in any way - it is a very heavy law enforcement membership that does require its members not to work for the defense.
There are a number of certifications, such as CCE, EnCE and CFCE that are pretty much required for practicing as a forensic examiner. You just aren't going to get anywhere without these. While the certifications seem like BS, what they are useful for is establishing to a non-technical court that you have been both educated and tested in the field. Part of being qualified as an expert witness in court is having your credentials questioned, so if you do not have certifications you will need lots and lots of other information that will need to be as convincing. I've see one person defend their qualifications without much in the way of certifications but it wasn't pretty.
Membership in HTCIA is restricted to law enforcement and law enforcement sponsored people. It does not qualify anyone as a forensic examiner because you do not have to be a forensic examiner to belong - anyone in law enforcement or associated with law enforcement can be a member. They just can't work for the defense. A court that used HTCIA membership as a qualification would be equivalent to a court requiring someone to have contributed to Bill Clinton's legal defense fund to be accepted as a legal expert.
Part of the problem is greed. I can get money for recordings of YOUR interactions with the government. Especially if because of camera angles, etc. it looks like something funny is going on. You can't get anywhere near as much money, so it is clearly worth more to me. You won't mind, will you?
Secondarily, we can get back to the "accused == guilty" mode in the media. If I can get a recording of someone being arrested for a high profile crime, it is clear that this can be broadcast far and wide ($$$ to me, right?) and everyone will know the person being arrested must be guilty. Lots of irrelevent details purporting to prove this person's guilt can also be included by the bloggers/commentators with the video.
Why bother with a trial? Everyone that could be on the jury will have already seen the video.
As far as I know, Kazaa only has one kind. Please point out the "locally shared" option with Kazaa. That is after all the type of shared folder that was specifically mentioned.
Well, that's a silly response.
they made music in the time of mozart you know. how many cds were around then?
Yes they did. Mozart was sponsored by rich patrons and his music was for their ears alone. The average peasant wasn't even aware Mozart existed. It certainly can be that way again.
and how much does it cost someone actually produce an album nowadays? hint: it's around the price of a laptop, because THAT'S ALL YOU NEED NOWADAYS
Absolutely. You don't need a studio. Who cares if you have echos and weird acoustics from your basement or garage. Nobody is going to notice that jet plane noise either. Just edit it out, right? Heard of Darwin Reedy? This is the music of the future. People will pay for stuff like that. Britney is gone. Check out Darwin!
Finally, movies are pretty much dead. When you have a DVD that is available to the rippers the day after the movie opens in the theaters, why bother? Theaters are running the show with 20 people a lot of the time because absolutely people want to watch the movie on their crappy 17" monitor for free. When the movie theater is free people will be glad to go there again. Right now, a lot of people are voting with their wallet and having discovered free movie downloads they aren't bothering. More money for beer.
Your idea of making something that is today a minor infraction that is handled by the civil courts into a criminal matter is playing right into the hands of the government making everything illegal. First thing that would happen is the "try out" label remover program would be freeware hosted outside the US.
Face it, nobody is going to make money from music anymore. There are dedicated bands of people out there determined to quash any possible revenue that can be gained from music distribution. Movies are next and software (sorry, BSA) is right there too.
One issue that has yet to be resolved is the ease of false derative works. Let's say the copyright expires in 5 years on a popular song. After five years most people still recognize it - assuming it was really that popular. OK, then I change a few notes digitally and republish it. It is to the ear indistinguishable from the original but now has a new publisher. Are we going to have "look and feel" regulations?
Or, again using the power of digitial editing, I take a popular song and overlay a new word into it. With a very short copyright period even for "current" media I can "stand on the shoulders of giants" and with a trivial amount of work capitalize on their work completely and often destructively. No, I seriously doubt this would be considered to be a legitimate parody. That certainly wouldn't necessarily be the idea or motivation.
I have a 604 WiFi...
The reason this (and most other consumer devices) do not allow for modifications is real simple. Anyone working with consumer electronics support knows exactly why. What do you do with someone that (a) denies modifying anything and (b) has some unexplicable problem. Do you hang up on them?
Do you have someone sit on the phone for an hour trying to figure out what the problem might be? After all, they are saying it wasn't modified so it might be some obscure bug that needs to be fixed. How can you tell?
I suppose you could "open" end-of-life units that there is no support for anymore. But that can compromise the existing codebase for new units as well.
Nobody has a good answer for this. None that I have heard, anyway. Fortunately, it affects maybe 1% of most devices user base so it doesn't really matter to anyone other than a device owner that wants to muck around with it.
If your job has you isolated in a cube farm with utterly no contact with the outside world during work hours, I'd say you can do whatever you want in your off hours. Today, jobs like that are getting rare and likely to be non-existent in the near future.
Let's say you have a technical job that involves nothing more than talking to an occasional tecnical partner of your employer. When the person you're talking to finds something outrageous about you, do you think it isn't going to get around? Worse, let's say they are a rabid fundamentalist and find out about your Wiccan postings on the web. Sure, it isn't any of their business but that hardly stops anyone anymore. If you can't communicate with the people you're supposed to communicate with as part of your job, it is going to come back to you. Yes, it is a round-about path up through your company's partner and back down, but it still happens.
If you have a customer service job, magnify this by about 100x. If your employer is ever connected with your online identity and you do something outrageous or offensive to some, it will come back around to you in the end.
Can your employer afford this sort of nonsense? Not usually. So much so that if your off-hours activities affect you, your job or your employer in any way you are going to need to find a new job that didn't get burned.
Finally, if you think your off-hours activities have no effect on your job, what would you say about a cop that belongs to the KKK or other white power group and patrols a black inner city area during the day? No connection? My guess is that police department is going to get sued by some big-name black folks if something like this ever came out. Even if he never does anything, the connection will taint everything. Your job may not be as sensitive or as public, but you can't isolate your life completely between work and non-work. Can't be done.
Last I heard, iTunes might have 90% or more of online music sales, but about 3% of online music distribution.
The other 97% is free distribution (and redistribution) by folks not charging for it.
Yeah, Apple's sales are certainly "industry crushing" alright.
What is needed now is for every US company with any significant revenue produced by digital goods (music, movies, software, etc.) to set up a subsidary in Antigua and register their copyright with the government there. That then removes any and all risk of their rights being violated - the copyright applicable in Antigua would not be through the Berne convention but would be locally registered.
So Antigua doesn't recognize US copyright... no problem, there is then a local registration.
Pity the folks that don't have an Antigua subsidary. They are screwed because I don't see how this can be confined as long as the redistribution originates in Antigua. Claim it is a derivative work created in Antigua. Game over, folks.
It is all free now. Just like you want it to be.
Look at the economics and you will see where the changes are really going to come.
Today, promotional advertising is a huge part of the economy. It supports printers, advertising companies, magazines, and all manner of newsletters and such. It enables radio stations to play music for free, network television to exist and is why things work as they do today. Promotion of music, movies, books and other "intellectual property" has an overall economic impact far greater than simply compensating creators for their work.
We stand on the edge of a new age where there will be no compensation. Today's young people understand that advertising is something they want no part of and object when they are subjected to it. The idea that you are paying $10 for a piece of plastic that cost $0.50 to make because of all of the promotion that went along astounds them. They want to get rid of the $9.50 so they could buy their music for $0.50. There are two problems with that idea.
The first problem is nobody is going to make the studio recording that results in the $0.50 piece of plastic without the promotion that went along with it. While we might not like advertising, we haven't reached the enlightened age where products reach out and grab people when they are needed. Without promotion - including but not limited to advertising - you just aren't going to see products.
The second problem is many people have seen the vastly different landscape away from commercial products called "free". You get your music for free, maybe download some other entertainment for free. With faster Internet connections it will all be free. Nobody is going to be paying that $0.50 - they want it all for free.
I would expect to see lots of people out of work. Anyone connected with promotion is going to be out of work pretty soon. I don't think it will even take 10 years. Expect to see a vastly expanded welfare state because there just isn't anywhere for these people to work. They aren't needed and have no skills useful in the future.