1. We admitted we were powerless over our operating system --that our computers had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that an OS greater than windows could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our computers over to GNU/Linux as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of files with proprietry formats.
5. Admitted to our local LUG and to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Free software remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked the mailing list to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had sent malicious code to, and sent GNU/Linux install CD's.
9. Help such people with the installation wherever possible, except when to do so would result in them being fired.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we had used proprietry programs, formats or protocols promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through slashdot and man pages to improve our conscious contact with GNU/Linux, as we understood it, asking only for knowledge of how to get our hardware working and perform our tasks.
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sufferers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
When does human life begin? Is still not the question. The question is whether or not you (assuming you are female) have a right to your own body.
Of course a woman has rights to her own body, it is not even up for question to most people. The question of when human life begins needs to be answered though, for these reasons:
1 - It is established that a parent has a legal responsibility to see that their child is cared for adequately (even if through adoption etc). People can be charged with neglect, not for harming a child (abuse), but for not adequately protecting/providing for it. Therefore if the fetus is determined to be human, there is a strong case for saying that the responsibility of the woman as the parent to protect and provide for the child, and that this responsibility takes a higher priority than the woman's right to her own body.
2 - Pregnancy is a possible consequence of having sex. You can reduce the likelyhood by contraception, but it remains a possibility. It has been said that you can choose your actions, but you can't choose the consequences. If a woman chooses to have sex, she is exercising her rights of her own body. If that choice results in pregnancy, it does not give her the right to kill any human. Of course, there are circumstances like rape etc that deserver further discussion, but since most abortions are not a result of special circumstances, I will not deal with those in this post.
I think it is obvious that a woman has rights to her own body, but without determining if the fetus is human, it is impossible to determine what actions the woman may take as a result of those rights. In the US, it is established that you have the right to the pursuit of happiness, but you may not kill other humans in your pursuit of happiness. If the fetus is not human, there is no contest, she should be able to do as she pleases. If the fetus is human, it is murder to kill it.
So the questions to be answered are: When do we consider the fetus to be legally human? At the stage we consider the fetus to be human, how do we balance the rights of the child and the rights of the mother?
To say the the only/most important question is does a woman have rights to her body presupposes that the fetus is not human. Many of us want to challenge that presupposition, this discovery (and others) of science being some serious evidence that should be considered.
What's wrong with the whole world being pulled out of abject poverty and living in industrialized nations? That's pretty much the whole point, isn't it?
Yes. Like much growth and improvement, it is temporarily disruptive and painful, particularly to those who have entered a 'comfort zone' based on the status quo.
If you learn the business skills, sales skills
and the business perspective/language, you
can then "sell" your advice to management
much more effectively. The last 3 people in
my current position failed to do that. Same
position vacated 3 times in 12 months. I am
having a much easier time than they did,
because I translate my suggestions into
profit/loss, sales volume and how they affect
the KPI that the people I am trying to convince get judged on.
If you don't have some understanding of business, you can't communicate nearly as effectively with management, who decide what resources you have, and what you will be working on.
Without some understanding of business, you tech skills are worth little more than a hobby, unless you have someone above you in the chain of command with both tech and management skills.
Have you ever tried to explain even low level tech to someone who had decided they didn't want to learn it, even though they needed to (like it was a part of their job, email etc)? They quickly become a burden, no matter how skilled they are in other areas. Well, most of us work in *fanfare* businesses! If you wont learn the basics of business at least, you become a burden.
Management and tech staff are supposed to both be working for the profitability of the business (Remember profits, the origin of paycheques). To work together, you need to communicate. To communicate at least one of the groups needs to understand both the language and thought process of the other group. If you make that person who knows be you, it benefits your career, even if you are not headed for management.
Business skills being more important doesn't make tech skills non-essential.
And that is the essence of "tech viewpoint" vs "business viewpoint".
May I dare to suggest that you develop tech skills and business skills? I am not employed in management, and don't intend to be, but understanding some of the skills/viewpoints of management allows me to:
1. Better understand the priorities of management (you know, those guys that sign the cheques?)
2. Be more skilled at promoting my ideas to management (the stuff alot of workers find really difficult, but is really valuable to the company)
3. Deal with customer issues more succesfully (for some reason our customers are more concerned with being profitable than with being assured by me that our product is within the ordered specification. This sometimes involves coming up with solutions that require some knowledge of business)
I think the point being made is that business/sales skills are more important for your career not for the business. As long as the technical skills are available to keep the tech going, sales etc. will put you at a higher level in the business than tech skills. I agree though, I would hate to be a good businessman trying to sell broken products, or products made on a broken production line.
Business skills being more important doesn't make tech skills non-essential.
I guess you also believe that it's more difficult to determine what needs to be build than to engineer and produce a high quality product.
Not more difficult, but more imortant, or just as important.
Marketoids is a derogatory term that has no useful meaning in a discussion about business.
Market driven means delivering high quality products because this is the first thing that customers want.
Market driven means demand driven. Demand is determined by percieved needs/desires. Percieved needs/desires are more heavily influenced by marketing than engineering, I'm not saying that's how it should be, just that's how it really is. Customers do not first want high quality, sorry. Most customers (not necessarily smart customers, but most) want quantity of goods before quality (Most people will buy enough cheap clothes to wear all week well before they buy a tailored suit). Think Wal-Mart, McDonanlds etc. High volume cheap crap.
There are, of course, segments of the market where this is not so true, more tech oriented fields, finance industry etc. For the majority of the home PC market though, once the tech is "good enough" (can play games, process video etc) further increase in quality is way down in the list of priorities, below low price, feeling good about the purchase etc, etc. Making them feel good about the purchase is king. Quality is only a small part of this, sales/marketing is most of it.
That said, while quality is a small part, a certain level of it is necessary, and if not looked after, no amount of marketing will save the company. Engineering and quality are essential, but not predominant for a business.
What is happening is people are using a generalised term to refer to copyright infringement in order to build an argument.
The point everyone misses when I try to make this argument is simply that using a loose terminology doesn't alter the poster's argument.
Theft is not a generalised term or loose terminology, it is quite specific, and highly inaccurate. It does indeed alter the arguement significantly.
...We know we're not talking about theft...
From a previous post of yours: I don't plan to stop calling people who download my stuff illegally 'theives' any time soon
So you know (your emphasis) you're not talking about theft, but insist on calling people theives. People who have not, according to you, committed theft. You see, what some of us want is to have an honest discussion. Until that becomes important to you, I can see that we're not going to agree on this. I'm sure that most people, and probably you, are not deliberately misleading people. It's an emotional issue for you as it affects your income, I understand. I think you need to put a bit more thought into how you approach this type of discussion though.
I personally do take offense to the insinuation that if I were to call a spade a digger I would actually be thinking of a crowbar, and I think most people would.
I'm not sure how you don't see the difference here. A spade is a digger. Even you have admitted that copyright infringement is not theft.
of course they've only been 'infringed', they won't have lost anything, right?
I wouldn't say 'only' infringed. I haven't said infringement is not as bad as theft, or that it can't cause loss, only that it is not theft. Arson, for example, causes the loss of property, but is not theft. People don't say, oh, it's 'only' arson. Neither do they insist on calling arson theft.
As for your assertion that if the Arctic Monkey's music is copied again it will "definitely NOT benefit them", I don't see how you could be so sure. Last time, it caused people to buy their CD. I see no reason why this wouldn't happen again. It's a bit like saying that radio playing a bands music would reduce the bands income, which was, as I understand it, the recording industry's original stand on radio. Now artists love to get radio exposure. Go figure.
The question is why are we talking about it at all?
Because people keep calling it theft. Others think it is a very important distiction. You wrote:
...pedantic distinctions between ripping people off indirectly vs going into their house to do it.
Here is the problem. Calling it theft has affected the way you think about it. Copying is not always infringement. Infringement does not always affect the copyright holder negatively (even if it is illegal, or even wrong). Theft, however, is always theft. It always removes the owners property. Calling copyright infringement theft causes people to categorise it and think about it in ways that are in significant conflict with reality. They then vote/legislate/act according to this erroneous thinking, affecting us all negatively. That is why we are willing to go over and over this distinction.
There was recently an unsigned band the Arctic Monkeys in the UK who had the fastest selling album. They got this because they had given some CD's out at gigs they had done. Fan's shared the CD by p2p. Enough people who heard it liked it and bought the CD to put them at the top of the UK charts.
I think they were not "ripped off" as you put it. I'm not saying this makes copyright infringement ok, but if it was theft, it would never benefit the copyright holders in this way.
If people are to understand what copyright infringement is (and it is currently an very important issue, with new laws and effects all over the world, and impacted by the net), it is necessary for them to think of it accurately. If they think it is theft, they cannot do so. It is not just semantics, it is necessary. It is like getting people to discuss new laws about theft, but continually repeating that theft is rape, and the difference is entirely semantic. It is not, they are different actions with different effects.
There is a significant problem with the logical consistency of your arguement here. It is shown up by artists and other copyright holders who release their work at no charge over the internet (for various reasons). Musicians who release mp3's or allow them to be released as a way of promoting/advertising their band, for example. If your assertion that artists lose money when a song is downloaded is true, then it must cost thousands for musicians to make their own songs available for download. Except it doesn't.
Also, regarding your innuendo that I'm a thief (or copyright infringer, or both, depending on how you see it), this is an unsubstantiated and unjustified attack on my character. Read the thread, and you will see that I have not at any point said that violating copyright is good or acceptable. I have merely stated that I do not think it is theft, and given reasons why I think that. Having an opinion different to yours does not make me a thief. It is a dishonest way to argue to slander the person rather than counter the points made. I offer two points for your consideration:
1. Such character attacks, if not made anonymously, are indeed subject to the same type of legal repercussions that copyright infringement is. You are no longer in a legally superior position to a copyright infringer. Some would say morally as well.
2. If you require dishonest discussion tactics to make your point, you might need to reconsider if you point is worth making.
they will just take it and pay you "Fair market value"
Significantly different, don't you think, since they pay for it. Not really very similar to fair use rights at all. As for grandfathering etc, they are just methods of transfering ownership. Perhaps not entirely just, depending on your point of view, but entirely different to fair use. Fair use does not transfer the copyright to the user. The copyright owner still has the copyright when you exercise your fair use rights.
When the government resumes land, the payment acknowledges that they are taking your property (even though you were just renting it from the government). When you exercise fair use, you don't have to pay, which is an acknowledgement that you are not taking any property, therefore we say that copyright infringement is not theft (which is not to say that it isn't wrong).
if you are caught in blizzard in the mountines, like hell you won't break into a cabin, in order to survive, or tresspass an estate if other paths are blocked by forest fire, flood, etc. If you are fleeing disaster endagering your existance, are you not going to "borrow" a car or boat and flee?
Of course I would, but would also be liable to pay for damages etc. and return goods. I could not use a car to flee a fire and keep the car, I would have to return it, so it is not an exception to property rights in any way similar that fair use is an exception to copyrights.
Receiving the information without paying demanded fee may not be theft in classical sense of the word
So you agree? This was exactly my point. You needn't have posted, AC.
perhaps I can help you out with this. This is obviously an emotional issue for you, and affecting you financially.
People who say that copyright infringement is not theft aren't all saying it's legal, or even moral, just that it's not theft. There are plenty of things that are wrong but aren't theft, ok?
If I didn't pay a power bill I owe, it's wrong. I am obliged to pay, I can be legally forced to do so, but it's not theft. If I used the service never intending to pay, perhaps it's fraud. If I accessed the power lines and used electricity without authorisation, that would be theft though.
Can you see that refusing to call it theft is not justifying it at all, it's simply attempting to describe it accurately, even though some people may try to use this arguement to justify it?
That would only be moral relativism if you view copyright infringment as theft. Many of us don't, and have reasons why we think so.
A couple of examples of the difference between copyright law and property law:
1. copyrights expire, property ownership does not expire.
2. Copywritten material may be copied by private citizens for fair use. Property has no fair use exclusion that allows you to take it.
There are also natural differences (since you gave the example of a car):
If I make a copy of a song, the copyright holder does not loose anything they had. With or without permission, the act of copying does not remove the property. If I take a car (with or without permission) the owner no longer has the car.
None of this proves that copying copyrighted material is either right or wrong, just pointing out that it is inherently different to property theft.
There is also the fact that property ownership has been generally recognised by most societies throughout history. It could be regarded as self-evident. Even when people set up communities that don't acknowledge personal property rights, there is generally a tendency to re-establish property rights eventually (USSR, China, various hippy communes whose ex-members are now capitalists etc.) Property rights could be considered self-evident. Copyrights, however, are purely the result of legislation. That doesn't mean that copyright isn't good, even necessary, just that it is a different catergory of rights to property rights.
You don't have to agree, but we are not being logically inconsistent, and it isn't moral relativism.
I agree that schools need to teach how to use MS Office, but here in Aussie, there are 12 years of school, with most either leaving after 10 or going all the way to 12. Since schools often use out of date software anyway, why not use openoffice.org to the end of year 8. 2-4 years of MS should be more than enough time to learn, and the resulting savings could be used to ensure always up to date copies of MS software where it is needed.
I'm pretty sure the parent meant: the IFPI is less quick to sue American companies because the American companies have better lawyers to defend them (than the Chinese companies). That is, the IFPI choosing to sue Chinese companies rather than American companies.
Sublime arguement you make there! If you read the thread, you'll see I haven't been defending or denying attrocities done in the name of religion. I have simply refuted the idea that atheism has not inspired the same type of actions, because it clearly has. So if you have noticed an elephant...
If you think there were no atheistic/materialistic undertones to the crusades you are also missing the point. I have done more reading about the Chinese Communitist Party than I have about Stalin, but I don't think there would be many surprises there for me. If the "Three-Self Patriotic Movement" (the official Christian church in China, really the most important doctrine is loyalty to the CCP) went on a crusade, would you consider it a religious war, or atheistic war? I would certainly consider it to be atheist/communist. If people used religion to help bring about the dominance of an atheist politial system (and they have), it hardly makes it a religious movement.
I think you would find that the Catholic Church teaches sexual abstinence outside of marriage. Very effective prevention to AIDS. Now not everyone wants to do that, obviously, but you can hardly blame the Catholic Church for the results of you choosing not to follow their teaching. (I am not a Catholic).
As for atheism, you could do well to read "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" ISBN 1-59068-101-0 which is written from the perspective of "Falon Gong" practitioners. (I am not a "Falon Gong" practitioner either). There is plenty of evidence of attrocities committed in the name of communism/atheism. Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao did no less than the crusades.
From the article: "Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850."
So, it is now warmer than any time in the last 400 years. Approx. 250 of the last 400 years were a "mini ice age". The temperature has, in the last hundred years, gone up.... 1 degree!!! *gasp*... but, wouldn't that just mean we're not in an ice age... I mean, if it's risen more sharply lately than at any other time, 1 degree over the last 100 years means less than 1.5 degrees since the end of the last "mini ice age"! Are you beginning to see why some of us aren't particularly worried about being 1.5 degrees warmer than an ice age?
Comparing us to Nazi's reveals far more about your tendency to hysteria than it does about us.
"Take the time to read Singer's FAQ on the page I linked, you'll find where your line of reasoning ends if taken to it's logical conclusion."
I did, this is not at all where my line of reasoning is heading. Just about the only similarity between his thinking and mine is that Singer also believes in determining rights on a creature basis. Also he never said it is right to kill children, he said its less immoral then killing adults.
As for Singer, I didn't misrepresent him at all. Check the FAQ on his own website [princeton.edu]. Here is a select quote for you:
"So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn't mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents. Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support - which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby's life swiftly and humanely."
So, killing a baby after it is born is fine if it's disabled and the parents want to, according to Peter Singer. I'm interested to have you explain how I've misrepresented him.
Singer does indeed say it is ok to kill children on that site. The fact that he qualifies the children as disabled only serves to make my point. Now, to clarify what I meant, I'm sure you don't wan't to kill children, and therefore don't see your reasoning as leading that way, but others could (and do) use the same reasoning (defining humanity on developement stage rather than heritage) to justify infanticide etc.
Children's rights are not significantly different, except that they are given those rights in society as we have deemed them able to excercise them, eg: the right to vote. There is not really a comparison between making a child go to school (so they hopefully become fully capable of exercising other rights like life, liberty & pursuit of happiness) and saying "Because of your developement stage, you are not yet human so I can kill you". I hope you can see that.
here i am thinking human as a species, while you are thinking human as-in the rights that you have. There certainly are rights that you have all your lifetime
among them being the right to life. I define the begining of lifetime as conception. The embryo is not independant, but it is alive. It's not that I think of human as in rights instead of human as a species, but rather that being human as in species means you have the rights, regardless of your developement.
I hope i have communicated my opinion of this.
You have, quite clearly. I just don't think you have understood the legal implications of having those opinions made law.
Why doesn't this get the same attention that the lack of women in science and engineering gets?
Because according to the current anti-male political correctness, where women are not doing as well, or are not in high numbers, it is because of discrimination. Where men are not doing as well, or not in high numbers, it is because they need to change because of inadequacies etc (read: become more like women.)
Slashdot Mirror
1. We admitted we were powerless over our operating system --that our computers had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that an OS greater than windows could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our computers over to GNU/Linux as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of files with proprietry formats.
5. Admitted to our local LUG and to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Free software remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked the mailing list to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had sent malicious code to, and sent GNU/Linux install CD's.
9. Help such people with the installation wherever possible, except when to do so would result in them being fired.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we had used proprietry programs, formats or protocols promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through slashdot and man pages to improve our conscious contact with GNU/Linux, as we understood it, asking only for knowledge of how to get our hardware working and perform our tasks.
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sufferers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
When does human life begin? Is still not the question. The question is whether or not you (assuming you are female) have a right to your own body.
Of course a woman has rights to her own body, it is not even up for question to most people. The question of when human life begins needs to be answered though, for these reasons:
1 - It is established that a parent has a legal responsibility to see that their child is cared for adequately (even if through adoption etc). People can be charged with neglect, not for harming a child (abuse), but for not adequately protecting/providing for it. Therefore if the fetus is determined to be human, there is a strong case for saying that the responsibility of the woman as the parent to protect and provide for the child, and that this responsibility takes a higher priority than the woman's right to her own body.
2 - Pregnancy is a possible consequence of having sex. You can reduce the likelyhood by contraception, but it remains a possibility. It has been said that you can choose your actions, but you can't choose the consequences. If a woman chooses to have sex, she is exercising her rights of her own body. If that choice results in pregnancy, it does not give her the right to kill any human. Of course, there are circumstances like rape etc that deserver further discussion, but since most abortions are not a result of special circumstances, I will not deal with those in this post.
I think it is obvious that a woman has rights to her own body, but without determining if the fetus is human, it is impossible to determine what actions the woman may take as a result of those rights. In the US, it is established that you have the right to the pursuit of happiness, but you may not kill other humans in your pursuit of happiness. If the fetus is not human, there is no contest, she should be able to do as she pleases. If the fetus is human, it is murder to kill it.
So the questions to be answered are: When do we consider the fetus to be legally human? At the stage we consider the fetus to be human, how do we balance the rights of the child and the rights of the mother?
To say the the only/most important question is does a woman have rights to her body presupposes that the fetus is not human. Many of us want to challenge that presupposition, this discovery (and others) of science being some serious evidence that should be considered.
What's wrong with the whole world being pulled out of abject poverty and living in industrialized nations? That's pretty much the whole point, isn't it?
Yes. Like much growth and improvement, it is temporarily disruptive and painful, particularly to those who have entered a 'comfort zone' based on the status quo.
If you learn the business skills, sales skills
and the business perspective/language, you
can then "sell" your advice to management
much more effectively. The last 3 people in
my current position failed to do that. Same
position vacated 3 times in 12 months. I am
having a much easier time than they did,
because I translate my suggestions into
profit/loss, sales volume and how they affect
the KPI that the people I am trying to convince
get judged on.
If you don't have some understanding of business, you can't communicate nearly as effectively with management, who decide what resources you have, and what you will be working on.
Without some understanding of business, you tech skills are worth little more than a hobby, unless you have someone above you in the chain of command with both tech and management skills.
Have you ever tried to explain even low level tech to someone who had decided they didn't want to learn it, even though they needed to (like it was a part of their job, email etc)? They quickly become a burden, no matter how skilled they are in other areas. Well, most of us work in *fanfare* businesses! If you wont learn the basics of business at least, you become a burden.
Management and tech staff are supposed to both be working for the profitability of the business (Remember profits, the origin of paycheques). To work together, you need to communicate. To communicate at least one of the groups needs to understand both the language and thought process of the other group. If you make that person who knows be you, it benefits your career, even if you are not headed for management.
And that is the essence of "tech viewpoint" vs "business viewpoint".
May I dare to suggest that you develop tech skills and business skills? I am not employed in management, and don't intend to be, but understanding some of the skills/viewpoints of management allows me to:
1. Better understand the priorities of management (you know, those guys that sign the cheques?)
2. Be more skilled at promoting my ideas to management (the stuff alot of workers find really difficult, but is really valuable to the company)
3. Deal with customer issues more succesfully (for some reason our customers are more concerned with being profitable than with being assured by me that our product is within the ordered specification. This sometimes involves coming up with solutions that require some knowledge of business)
I think the point being made is that business/sales skills are more important for your career not for the business. As long as the technical skills are available to keep the tech going, sales etc. will put you at a higher level in the business than tech skills. I agree though, I would hate to be a good businessman trying to sell broken products, or products made on a broken production line.
Business skills being more important doesn't make tech skills non-essential.
I guess you also believe that it's more difficult to determine what needs to be build than to engineer and produce a high quality product.
Not more difficult, but more imortant, or just as important.
Marketoids is a derogatory term that has no useful meaning in a discussion about business.
Market driven means delivering high quality products because this is the first thing that customers want.
Market driven means demand driven. Demand is determined by percieved needs/desires. Percieved needs/desires are more heavily influenced by marketing than engineering, I'm not saying that's how it should be, just that's how it really is. Customers do not first want high quality, sorry. Most customers (not necessarily smart customers, but most) want quantity of goods before quality (Most people will buy enough cheap clothes to wear all week well before they buy a tailored suit). Think Wal-Mart, McDonanlds etc. High volume cheap crap.
There are, of course, segments of the market where this is not so true, more tech oriented fields, finance industry etc. For the majority of the home PC market though, once the tech is "good enough" (can play games, process video etc) further increase in quality is way down in the list of priorities, below low price, feeling good about the purchase etc, etc. Making them feel good about the purchase is king. Quality is only a small part of this, sales/marketing is most of it.
That said, while quality is a small part, a certain level of it is necessary, and if not looked after, no amount of marketing will save the company. Engineering and quality are essential, but not predominant for a business.
The Disney corporation has transferred all it's copyrights to an employee, who has now entered a state of cyrogenic suspension.
What is happening is people are using a generalised term to refer to copyright infringement in order to build an argument.
...We know we're not talking about theft...
The point everyone misses when I try to make this argument is simply that using a loose terminology doesn't alter the poster's argument.
Theft is not a generalised term or loose terminology, it is quite specific, and highly inaccurate. It does indeed alter the arguement significantly.
From a previous post of yours: I don't plan to stop calling people who download my stuff illegally 'theives' any time soon
So you know (your emphasis) you're not talking about theft, but insist on calling people theives. People who have not, according to you, committed theft. You see, what some of us want is to have an honest discussion. Until that becomes important to you, I can see that we're not going to agree on this. I'm sure that most people, and probably you, are not deliberately misleading people. It's an emotional issue for you as it affects your income, I understand. I think you need to put a bit more thought into how you approach this type of discussion though.
I personally do take offense to the insinuation that if I were to call a spade a digger I would actually be thinking of a crowbar, and I think most people would.
I'm not sure how you don't see the difference here. A spade is a digger. Even you have admitted that copyright infringement is not theft.
of course they've only been 'infringed', they won't have lost anything, right?
I wouldn't say 'only' infringed. I haven't said infringement is not as bad as theft, or that it can't cause loss, only that it is not theft. Arson, for example, causes the loss of property, but is not theft. People don't say, oh, it's 'only' arson. Neither do they insist on calling arson theft.
As for your assertion that if the Arctic Monkey's music is copied again it will "definitely NOT benefit them", I don't see how you could be so sure. Last time, it caused people to buy their CD. I see no reason why this wouldn't happen again. It's a bit like saying that radio playing a bands music would reduce the bands income, which was, as I understand it, the recording industry's original stand on radio. Now artists love to get radio exposure. Go figure.
You take it easy too.
The question is why are we talking about it at all?
...pedantic distinctions between ripping people off indirectly vs going into their house to do it.
Because people keep calling it theft. Others think it is a very important distiction. You wrote:
Here is the problem. Calling it theft has affected the way you think about it. Copying is not always infringement. Infringement does not always affect the copyright holder negatively (even if it is illegal, or even wrong). Theft, however, is always theft. It always removes the owners property. Calling copyright infringement theft causes people to categorise it and think about it in ways that are in significant conflict with reality. They then vote/legislate/act according to this erroneous thinking, affecting us all negatively. That is why we are willing to go over and over this distinction.
There was recently an unsigned band the Arctic Monkeys in the UK who had the fastest selling album. They got this because they had given some CD's out at gigs they had done. Fan's shared the CD by p2p. Enough people who heard it liked it and bought the CD to put them at the top of the UK charts. I think they were not "ripped off" as you put it. I'm not saying this makes copyright infringement ok, but if it was theft, it would never benefit the copyright holders in this way.
If people are to understand what copyright infringement is (and it is currently an very important issue, with new laws and effects all over the world, and impacted by the net), it is necessary for them to think of it accurately. If they think it is theft, they cannot do so. It is not just semantics, it is necessary. It is like getting people to discuss new laws about theft, but continually repeating that theft is rape, and the difference is entirely semantic. It is not, they are different actions with different effects.
There is a significant problem with the logical consistency of your arguement here. It is shown up by artists and other copyright holders who release their work at no charge over the internet (for various reasons). Musicians who release mp3's or allow them to be released as a way of promoting/advertising their band, for example. If your assertion that artists lose money when a song is downloaded is true, then it must cost thousands for musicians to make their own songs available for download. Except it doesn't.
Also, regarding your innuendo that I'm a thief (or copyright infringer, or both, depending on how you see it), this is an unsubstantiated and unjustified attack on my character. Read the thread, and you will see that I have not at any point said that violating copyright is good or acceptable. I have merely stated that I do not think it is theft, and given reasons why I think that. Having an opinion different to yours does not make me a thief. It is a dishonest way to argue to slander the person rather than counter the points made. I offer two points for your consideration:
1. Such character attacks, if not made anonymously, are indeed subject to the same type of legal repercussions that copyright infringement is. You are no longer in a legally superior position to a copyright infringer. Some would say morally as well.
2. If you require dishonest discussion tactics to make your point, you might need to reconsider if you point is worth making.
they will just take it and pay you "Fair market value"
Significantly different, don't you think, since they pay for it. Not really very similar to fair use rights at all. As for grandfathering etc, they are just methods of transfering ownership. Perhaps not entirely just, depending on your point of view, but entirely different to fair use. Fair use does not transfer the copyright to the user. The copyright owner still has the copyright when you exercise your fair use rights.
When the government resumes land, the payment acknowledges that they are taking your property (even though you were just renting it from the government). When you exercise fair use, you don't have to pay, which is an acknowledgement that you are not taking any property, therefore we say that copyright infringement is not theft (which is not to say that it isn't wrong).
if you are caught in blizzard in the mountines, like hell you won't break into a cabin, in order to survive, or tresspass an estate if other paths are blocked by forest fire, flood, etc. If you are fleeing disaster endagering your existance, are you not going to "borrow" a car or boat and flee?
Of course I would, but would also be liable to pay for damages etc. and return goods. I could not use a car to flee a fire and keep the car, I would have to return it, so it is not an exception to property rights in any way similar that fair use is an exception to copyrights.
Receiving the information without paying demanded fee may not be theft in classical sense of the word
So you agree? This was exactly my point. You needn't have posted, AC.
perhaps I can help you out with this. This is obviously an emotional issue for you, and affecting you financially.
People who say that copyright infringement is not theft aren't all saying it's legal, or even moral, just that it's not theft. There are plenty of things that are wrong but aren't theft, ok?
If I didn't pay a power bill I owe, it's wrong. I am obliged to pay, I can be legally forced to do so, but it's not theft. If I used the service never intending to pay, perhaps it's fraud. If I accessed the power lines and used electricity without authorisation, that would be theft though.
Can you see that refusing to call it theft is not justifying it at all, it's simply attempting to describe it accurately, even though some people may try to use this arguement to justify it?
Hope this helps
That would only be moral relativism if you view copyright infringment as theft. Many of us don't, and have reasons why we think so.
A couple of examples of the difference between copyright law and property law:
1. copyrights expire, property ownership does not expire.
2. Copywritten material may be copied by private citizens for fair use. Property has no fair use exclusion that allows you to take it.
There are also natural differences (since you gave the example of a car):
If I make a copy of a song, the copyright holder does not loose anything they had. With or without permission, the act of copying does not remove the property. If I take a car (with or without permission) the owner no longer has the car.
None of this proves that copying copyrighted material is either right or wrong, just pointing out that it is inherently different to property theft.
There is also the fact that property ownership has been generally recognised by most societies throughout history. It could be regarded as self-evident. Even when people set up communities that don't acknowledge personal property rights, there is generally a tendency to re-establish property rights eventually (USSR, China, various hippy communes whose ex-members are now capitalists etc.) Property rights could be considered self-evident. Copyrights, however, are purely the result of legislation. That doesn't mean that copyright isn't good, even necessary, just that it is a different catergory of rights to property rights.
You don't have to agree, but we are not being logically inconsistent, and it isn't moral relativism.
I agree that schools need to teach how to use MS Office, but here in Aussie, there are 12 years of school, with most either leaving after 10 or going all the way to 12. Since schools often use out of date software anyway, why not use openoffice.org to the end of year 8. 2-4 years of MS should be more than enough time to learn, and the resulting savings could be used to ensure always up to date copies of MS software where it is needed.
I'm pretty sure the parent meant: the IFPI is less quick to sue American companies because the American companies have better lawyers to defend them (than the Chinese companies). That is, the IFPI choosing to sue Chinese companies rather than American companies.
Sublime arguement you make there! If you read the thread, you'll see I haven't been defending or denying attrocities done in the name of religion. I have simply refuted the idea that atheism has not inspired the same type of actions, because it clearly has. So if you have noticed an elephant...
If you think there were no atheistic/materialistic undertones to the crusades you are also missing the point. I have done more reading about the Chinese Communitist Party than I have about Stalin, but I don't think there would be many surprises there for me. If the "Three-Self Patriotic Movement" (the official Christian church in China, really the most important doctrine is loyalty to the CCP) went on a crusade, would you consider it a religious war, or atheistic war? I would certainly consider it to be atheist/communist. If people used religion to help bring about the dominance of an atheist politial system (and they have), it hardly makes it a religious movement.
I think you would find that the Catholic Church teaches sexual abstinence outside of marriage. Very effective prevention to AIDS. Now not everyone wants to do that, obviously, but you can hardly blame the Catholic Church for the results of you choosing not to follow their teaching. (I am not a Catholic).
As for atheism, you could do well to read "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" ISBN 1-59068-101-0 which is written from the perspective of "Falon Gong" practitioners. (I am not a "Falon Gong" practitioner either). There is plenty of evidence of attrocities committed in the name of communism/atheism. Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao did no less than the crusades.
http://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/ubuntu-releases /6.06/ is one of the Australian mirrors linked to from ubuntu.com/download and has the source iso's
From the article: "Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850."
.... 1 degree!!! *gasp* ... but, wouldn't that just mean we're not in an ice age ... I mean, if it's risen more sharply lately than at any other time, 1 degree over the last 100 years means less than 1.5 degrees since the end of the last "mini ice age"! Are you beginning to see why some of us aren't particularly worried about being 1.5 degrees warmer than an ice age?
So, it is now warmer than any time in the last 400 years. Approx. 250 of the last 400 years were a "mini ice age". The temperature has, in the last hundred years, gone up
Comparing us to Nazi's reveals far more about your tendency to hysteria than it does about us.
I did, this is not at all where my line of reasoning is heading. Just about the only similarity between his thinking and mine is that Singer also believes in determining rights on a creature basis. Also he never said it is right to kill children, he said its less immoral then killing adults.
plunge tried to say Singer never said it too. I quote from my reply to plunge which contains direct quotation from Peter Singers site
Singer does indeed say it is ok to kill children on that site. The fact that he qualifies the children as disabled only serves to make my point. Now, to clarify what I meant, I'm sure you don't wan't to kill children, and therefore don't see your reasoning as leading that way, but others could (and do) use the same reasoning (defining humanity on developement stage rather than heritage) to justify infanticide etc.
Children's rights are not significantly different, except that they are given those rights in society as we have deemed them able to excercise them, eg: the right to vote. There is not really a comparison between making a child go to school (so they hopefully become fully capable of exercising other rights like life, liberty & pursuit of happiness) and saying "Because of your developement stage, you are not yet human so I can kill you". I hope you can see that.
here i am thinking human as a species, while you are thinking human as-in the rights that you have. There certainly are rights that you have all your lifetime
among them being the right to life. I define the begining of lifetime as conception. The embryo is not independant, but it is alive. It's not that I think of human as in rights instead of human as a species, but rather that being human as in species means you have the rights, regardless of your developement.
I hope i have communicated my opinion of this.
You have, quite clearly. I just don't think you have understood the legal implications of having those opinions made law.
Why doesn't this get the same attention that the lack of women in science and engineering gets?
Because according to the current anti-male political correctness, where women are not doing as well, or are not in high numbers, it is because of discrimination. Where men are not doing as well, or not in high numbers, it is because they need to change because of inadequacies etc (read: become more like women.)