This doesn't really discuss the point at hand, which is whether or not copyright infringement is theft, but I'll bite anyhow.
Yep, the RIAA does point at every single music download as a lost sale, which seems to imply that they believe that every single person who downloads a music file illegally would otherwise have purchased the album. Plus they don't try to factor in whether or not people download songs AND own the album (thus it being a legal download). Though they've never stated as much so blatantly.
Despite half truths from the RIAA, and despite whether or not you only download songs which you would not otherwise have bought, it's still illegal to download songs for which you have not paid. No matter whether or not you *are* taking money from the pockets of those whose work is embodied in the album, directly (artists) or indirectly (accountants, IT guys, janitors), it's still illegal to partake of someone else's intellectual property to which you have not been given permission (usually this permission is bought in the form of CD's).
No matter what lies are spread, no matter whether or not you cost anyone any money, it's illegal. Period.
Since all money will get spent anyhow, and you adequately describe that it's unimportant where it gets spent, so long as it is spent, then I suggest that we all merely send all of our money to a central agency that distributes this money to citizens on an equal basis, regardless of the level or quality of their work, and that we all work in government controlled companies, consuming goods as we see fit, and producing goods in our jobs that are simply good enough to meet required levels, and avoid any of this complicated innovation or pride in our work.
Except anyone who would have had a share of the profits of any sale that is not made because someone can get it for free.
I don't think that anyone would claim that not a single CD sale was lost because someone got the tracks for free online. Maybe this isn't you, but it sure is someone. Heck, it's several guys I know; the guy in the cube next to me loudly proclaims on a regular basis, "I used to spend $500-600 on CD's a year, and now I haven't bought one for 3 years since I just download my tracks." Maybe CD sales as a whole do go up, but it's an "ends and means" justification (ie, the ends don't justify the means). It is not OUR place to tell copyright holders what they should do with their copyright though covert infringement; this is their right as the copyright holder to make this decision on their own. We can tell them this with our wallets in other ways though, such as refusing to listen to the music of record companies with whom we do not agree.
The people who lose money due to any of these lost CD sales are the artists and record company execs, yes, but also the guys working security at the front gate, the technicians setting up the sound equipment, the guys running their email servers, the janitors sweeping their floors. Then it's the retailers around the country who lose sales because these guys are not making as much money (or have been laid off). These other losses are not as direct and visible, but money taken from the company comes out SOMEWHERE, and frankly it's not too likely that it's the execs' pockets from which it comes out.
Is this law stupid? Yeah. Is copyright infringement a form of theft though? You bet. If you were arguing that distributing a copyrighted item with out permission that is otherwise available for free is not a form of theft, I'd agree, but each time that someone downloads a track from a CD, and this prevents them from later buying the rest of the CD, this is theft. Maybe you putting a file up on the Internet is not a form of theft, but it knowingly permits theft.
I think P2P networks are cool, and I really hope they stick around after all the Copyright crap is over, but even despite squabbling over "theft" or "infringement" terms, no matter what you call it, it is still illegal, like it or not.
I never professed that this would all be easy. And what that other fellow said to you about selling is not terrifically bad advice. Think: right now the housing market in America is BOOMING as the Fed cuts and recuts Interest rates. House PRICES as a result have gone up, because people can afford to borrow more money (mostly in industries that haven't been being hit as hard as the tech industry).
The reality is that you have very little chance to make as high a salary as you did before. If the mortgage and loans you took out before were dependant on making that kind of money, you're basically faced with two alternatives: forclosure or selling on your own. Obviously selling on your own is the better alternative. It would be a good idea to sell your house now, while the housing market is good, and rent one for a while. I don't know what your family/kid situation is, for those with out kids, this is a lot easier, a husband and wife can live in a cheap single bedroom apartment; not comfortably, but survivably. The sale profit on your house, after fees, paying off the remainder of your mortgage, and such, should be at least the principal that you've paid in to your mortgage already (since house prices are up). Pay off *any* other debts you have, and bank the remainder. Think 5 years down the road, and open a CD, but keep 6 months to a year of survival cash (rent, food, etc) in liquid form, but in a savings account that pays interest. Then tighten your belt and save everything you can. Make sure you stay out of debt for this time, remember, debt costs you money; if you can't afford to pay cash for something, and you don't absolutely need it, don't buy it. Charge up your credit cards, but pay them off completely at the end of the month.
I, and the rest of the economists don't have a lot of good things to say for the economy in the IT industry for the next few years, these aren't idle predictions, but statements of almost absolute truth. Plan for it now, and you won't be sorry.
My wife and I were very fortunate: we decided to buy a house that was half of what we could afford at the time we signed our mortgage because when the bank tells you that you can afford a $500,000 house, they mean you can afford that, food, and not a lot else. As the belts are tightening around the country, we're prepared to tighten our own belts around the house, and so long as we don't end up making less than half of what we used to make, we should be able to hold on to it.
If your house was 90% of what you could afford, this is probably not a luxury you continue to possess.
Sadly this is a little idealalistic. "Worth" has varying definitions as you travel around the globe. An Indian programmer making USD 20,000/yr is far better off in his society than an American making USD 40,000/yr. Thus, an Indian programmer has a fundamentally higher capacity to do more for less. Over a great amount of time, as this money settles out in his economy from his spending it within that economy, that same money becomes worth less in comparison to the American-economy value of it, which is rising as the standard of living decreases in America (deflation, or inflation under 3%).
Also, making yourself worth more doesn't mean you're going to get a job. To make yourself worth more, and be able to prove it, you need additional degrees/certifications, which cost money. If you don't have the money for them, despite being as talented as the next guy who DOES have them, the job market will be a cold cold place to you.
However, Americans *will* have to accept lower salaries for the same jobs as before (already happening to huge extents), and this will shave off the outliers who were making salaries that were simply absurd. Unfortunately this shaving process too often takes off the top of the entire Bell Curve (too often in layoffs, those making the decision on who stays and who goes don't pay that much attention to who was worth their salt), and so more people who were making the correct value of their job will be fired than those who are fired because they make too much.
Once laid off (no matter how appropriately or not), it's extremely difficult to make your resume stand out from the resume of a pseudo programmer who knows enough about technology to banter jargon around, and fill their resume with acronyms because they heard them in an advertisement once. In order to make a competetive resume, one must either be over qualified, or a liar, because you're competing against other liars. And thus you end up having to take a job that is worth less than YOU are, and doesn't take advantage of all of your skills, nor help you to advance your own skills by pushing you at all. Thus you as an employee stagnate unless you have the time or drive to push yourself ahead on your own spare time. In that stagnation process (if you fall victim to it), you become worth less compared to those around you.
In the end I believe it will come around again full circle. What's going on in India, etc, is analogous to what happened in the U.S. in the 90's. An economy can only grow so fast in a healthy fashion. There's a lot of excess money from the 90's boom and subsequent crunch, which is looking for a new home which promises similar returns to the 90's boom. This money will flood economies that are not ready for it, these economies will artificially inflate, just like the U.S. one did, and eventually they're destined for collapse, just like the U.S. economy. This collapse will happen as a result of the U.S. companies having realized that "cheaper" doesn't mean "better," when they see that the quality of their product is reduced (if nothing else, through communication and time zone issues, let alone the "pseudo programmer" phenomenon from the U.S. 90's), and withdraw their money for the now not-significantly-more-expensive American worker alternative.
The next 10 years looks *very* bad for the U.S. IT industry, this is a pendulum, and it is still on its downward swing, away from the U.S. Things are going to get worse from here folks. Be *willing* to take a pay cut if it saves your job. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and thus a $40,000 job is worth an $80,000 job which you were laid off from. Certainly don't expect a raise any time soon.
"If I'm not allowed to share my chunk of a music file on the internet, than neither should the big sites."
But if they got permission to do something, and you did not, they should be permitted to do it and you should not (so long as it is not a right of yours).
An analogy would be saying, "If the FBI lets their 'big guy agents' in to the heart of FBI headquarters, then I should be permitted in there too." In the world, there are many who hold rights to many things, and they possess the authority to grant permission for certain accesses or uses to these things. Simply because permission has been given to another person doesn't mean that permission should also be given to you, and even if that were fair, that doesn't make it required or "right."
" In the real world, legal has nothing to do with what is fundamentally 'right' and 'wrong'."
I'm not sure what your basis of right and wrong are in this regard (which I assume for you is either ethics or morality), but traditionally these are defined in one of several ways: what society deems as "right and wrong," what the law deems as "right and wrong," and what religion deems as "right and wrong."
Society's view of this is usually based quite strongly on the law unless there is a moral conflict (born out of religion) with the law (and thus society's view is also strongly based on religion). The law is what it is (which has been based mostly on society, which in turn has been based strongly on religion). And religion is finally based on a "higher authority," and has little basis from society or the law (at least in modern times, particularly as a divide between religion and societal definitions of these terms opens up).
Most religions I'm familiar with say that short of a moral conflict with the law, the law lays down guidelines within religion (eg, the Bible doesn't ever say to not speed, yet it's still morally wrong to do so because of the law to this effect, in this case because the Bible commands you to respect those who are placed in authority positions over you, and do what they say so long as it doesn't conflict with the Bible).
Because I'm unaware of any religions with built in views on Copyright, I have to say that as far as Copyright is concerned, "right and wrong" are defined by the law, and nothing else. Thus if the law says you cannot break copyright, then breaking copyright is "wrong." And also thus, in the real world, "legal" has an awful lot to do with what is fundamentally "right and wrong." At least when it comes to Copyright.
This doesn't make it legal. There is still the fundamental problem that you possess a copyright file for which you have not paid. Further, are you sure that it's legal to provide 20 second clips with out permission even as an online distributor? It seems to me that this might be the sort of thing the RIAA et al. permit (officially or unofficially) because it results in revenue for them.
Or a day to install AOL software, Earthlink software, Juno software, and many other popular ISP packages, then dial up to various cities across the country, foot the long distance charge, and tack it to the next lawsuit filed against some teenager. If they can get subnets for these guys kicked off the network, then they win this battle, and use the networks' attempts to protect themselves as a weapon to cause the network to shut down huge portions of itself.
I agree with his article largely, but I have one minor quoible with it that I think is a point he overlooks.
Admittedly, I'm working on one year of college level Physics, and one year of high school level physics, so I'm by no means an authority.
He assumes that a black sail would reach an equilibrium temperature with the light source, and at that point the propulsion would cease. With a light weight material, this would be very quickly.
Does this happen with currently known black materials, or materials that are very close to black? No, how can we tell? They are still black. Thus, despite being exposed to extended light sources, they continue to maintain their blackness. This light energy is being converted in to heat energy. This heat energy is being dispersed through out the area radiantly.
In a black sail, light and heat are being applied to it from the sun. The law of thermodynamic conservation says that this energy cannot be destroyed, and so must be converted in some other fashion, or stored. The light->heat conversion is stored for as long as the sail is a lower temperature than the total thermal energy of light+heat from the sun. Once the sail and its inbound energy have reached equilibrium, this inbound energy can no longer be stored, and so must be deflected or converted. If the light energy is deflected, then the material ceases to be black and turns white (in fact, this is basically what happens when you turn a light switch on in a room, no?), but since we know from empirical evidence that black materials maintain their blackness, they must instead be converting this light energy in to some other sort of energy. If this energy is heat, and our material is already at heat capacity, it must be radiated outwardly (and backward). If 100% of this light energy that was absorbed (keeping in mind that we have no perfectly black surface) is converted to radiant heat, then no forward momentum would be achieved. Otherwise the rest of that energy MUST go somewhere, and that somewhere would almost certainly be forward thrust. It may not be a lot of thrust, but it should be some.
On another point: The perfect mirror sail couldn't possibly work because 100% of the light energy would be reflected back. Because you can't alter the speed of light, in such a situation you cannot harvest any of its energy (it's a theoretical perfect mirror, 100% is being reflected, so 100% of it is keeping 100% of its original energy level, thus none is imparted to the sail; any of its energy that was absorbed due to it being a non perfect mirror would fall under the same category as our previous black sail discussion).
But the only defaults on the license would be products sold AFTER the expiration of the license, all previous products would be covered under the old license, no?
"People will be running AIX without a valid license."
Can someone with a better legal understanding than mine tell me how you can revoke a license like this? Wouldn't they FIRST have to PROVE in a court of law that IBM violated the license contract, and thus was in default of it? I can't just say "*I*/suspect/ you of swapping my copyrighted material online because you use a p2p system, thus I revoke all your rights to the copyrighted material in question." Isn't the onus of desolving a contract (license) on the party attempting to desolve it? And don't they have to do so through the legal system by suing IBM?
Also, how can you give someone a license to resell, later revoke the lincense from the reseller, THEN accuse the end users of license violation. If you could, then hot dog, you could make a mint like this. Next SCO will be filing a lawsuit against all Fortune 500 companies for violating a revoked license that DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THEIR NAME ON IT, when they purchased the software while it was still good.
At risk of negative moderation, I want to state that the Slashdot commentary on this article seems to imply that no one should oppose Open Source in the government. This is very similar to saying something like "Can you believe these guys who have a financially vested interest in a point of view that opposes mine are actually working to protect their interests?" Well, wouldn't they be saying, "Can you ubelieve these guys who have no financially vested interest in a point of view that opposes mine are actually working to damage my interests?"
There *should* be people who uphold both sides, this IS what what is in the public's best interets. So long as they aren't upholding their interests by buying government officials small personal islands or vacation homes in the hamptons, then the technology with the higher merits will win.
Fortunately we all know from empirical data on just security vulnerabilities (and time to fix!) alone which technology is the superior one, and so as the open source community in general, we (developers and advocates) shouldn't be threatened by this, but rather let our work stand for itself, and not even be afraid of just a little bit of shady payoff, because if our work cannot stand up to that kind of attack as a whole, then we should try harder. We are Borg, our collective mind is far superior to the single mindedness of Redmond. It will be assimilated.
No, no, they're not charging you to use your burner, they're charging you to let you burn their content on your burner. You'd still be able to burn stuff on your own, you just wouldn't be able to download their songs and burn them for free. You pay a licencing fee which ultimately ends up in a few pennies making it back to the artist.
Your comment is like saying "$18 for the latest rap CD? You gotta be kidding me, they're charging $18 to let me use my own cd player!"
Looks like my game made it on Slashdot. Not exactly front page, but I'm not gonna complain:-)
I strongly urge everyone to head on over to http://lotgd.sourceforge.net and play on your lunch break, this is a well done game even if I do say so myself;-)
Looks like my game made it on Slashdot. Not exactly front page, but I'm not gonna complain:-)
I strongly urge everyone to head on over to http://lotgd.sourceforge.net and play on your lunch break, this is a well done game even if I do say so myself;-)
Although it wouldn't work under current setup, what he's saying is that if everyone was "on board" with this, then big companies would add their outbound mail servers as low priority MX's so that the lookup succeeds.
It sortof taints the whole protocol, but perhaps it's not a bad idea for someone to RFC an email source validation scheme where a record similar to MX provides a record of acceptable outbound mail servers for a particular domain. If the IP doesn't come up, then the email is rejected.
Even more complex, you could create a protocol with lookup servers, an email is accepted, then validated against an email validation server which basically says, "Yes, we sent that email ID out," then forgets that email ID so that it cannot be reused. Sortof a validation token. This could extend existing protocols, and provide a circumvention method for conventional blacklisting so that emails that already are considered suspicious can be verified. So that introduces a two-stage blacklisting, immediately discarding forged emails for a particular domain if it participates on this protocol, and if they are not forged, and that domain isn't blacklisted in the second stage (where even validated emails are rejected), the message is still dropped. It could extend current email protocols, and over time as more people complied with the validation technique, it would get closer and closer to catching all forged emails, and permit you to blacklist (by domain) true spam offenders.
Yes, buying domains to be able to generate spam is easy and not that expensive, but it does represent a new barrier to spammers, and additional cost as well.
It's an idea with some real merit, but of course it's not perfect.
Don't most Internet Filtering software operate as a proxy (thus disguising the point of origin)? And aren't libraries in Michigan required to run Internet filters?
So isn't this sortof like saying, "When you drive down the street, you must drive on the left of the median line. When operating a vehicle, drivers must operate them on the right side of the median line."
Simply taxing the software won't impact the situation that much. From what I've observed, most foreign software is component parts of domestic software. What needs to be done is to tax software that is wholly programmed in other countries, and tax the import of work that is represented by incoming component software.
What I mean: Lets say Company A manufactures product X. Functionally, product X is the merging of component Y and Z which are both also made by Company A. Component Y is coded in Singapore, and component Z is coded in India, and the two are combined in the states by domestic personnel to make product X. Although there are thresholds in material goods tarifs for which an item can be considered domestic, companies often come in just under the wire of these thresholds.
Instead what needs to happen is that all development efforts need to be classified as foreign or domestic, and foreign portions need to be taxed. If you hire an Indian consulting firm to help you with a software product, they need to itemize development and non-development costs of their bill. The development portion will be taxed.
Yes, this allows shady companies to simply say "2% were development efforts and the rest were merely research and advisory fees," when in reality it was 100% development, to avoid the tax, but most companies don't operate under those sort of scruples. Most other types of fees associated with foreign consultation should probably also be taxed, this is all stuff that can be done domestically, and is only sent abroad because of other countries' lower labor laws.
So tax wholesale software import, and tax wholesale labor import. In fact, this should apply to far more than just software, all imported labor should be taxed.
Companies do *not* spend money on marketing because they feel their pockets are too fat. They spend money on marketing because it results in more income than is spent. If it didn't, they'd stop marketing as marketing would be counter to its actual purpose.
And "healthy profit margins" is a tricky word to use, there are so many many hidden expenses that are impossible to quantify. It's not at all uncommon for a pharmaceutical to be reaping "healthy profit margins" and then discover that they are bankrupt. Plus, to maintain funding, they have to keep people interested in their stock, and in order to do that, they must make a profit.
These are corporate entities, not nonprofit organizations, they have stockholders to answer to. If stockholders aren't happy, they won't buy the stock, and the company will close. Then who is helped by a non-existant company?
True, but unlike sciences in physics and mathematics, one cannot simply apply an algorithm and definitively know whether or not another solution is viable, it takes many years of research. I guarantee you every solution they are capable of finding given "limited" (versus infinite) research capabilities, they do, and they sell.
Slashdot Mirror
This doesn't really discuss the point at hand, which is whether or not copyright infringement is theft, but I'll bite anyhow.
Yep, the RIAA does point at every single music download as a lost sale, which seems to imply that they believe that every single person who downloads a music file illegally would otherwise have purchased the album. Plus they don't try to factor in whether or not people download songs AND own the album (thus it being a legal download). Though they've never stated as much so blatantly.
Despite half truths from the RIAA, and despite whether or not you only download songs which you would not otherwise have bought, it's still illegal to download songs for which you have not paid. No matter whether or not you *are* taking money from the pockets of those whose work is embodied in the album, directly (artists) or indirectly (accountants, IT guys, janitors), it's still illegal to partake of someone else's intellectual property to which you have not been given permission (usually this permission is bought in the form of CD's).
No matter what lies are spread, no matter whether or not you cost anyone any money, it's illegal. Period.
Since all money will get spent anyhow, and you adequately describe that it's unimportant where it gets spent, so long as it is spent, then I suggest that we all merely send all of our money to a central agency that distributes this money to citizens on an equal basis, regardless of the level or quality of their work, and that we all work in government controlled companies, consuming goods as we see fit, and producing goods in our jobs that are simply good enough to meet required levels, and avoid any of this complicated innovation or pride in our work.
Oh wait, that's communism.
Except anyone who would have had a share of the profits of any sale that is not made because someone can get it for free.
I don't think that anyone would claim that not a single CD sale was lost because someone got the tracks for free online. Maybe this isn't you, but it sure is someone. Heck, it's several guys I know; the guy in the cube next to me loudly proclaims on a regular basis, "I used to spend $500-600 on CD's a year, and now I haven't bought one for 3 years since I just download my tracks." Maybe CD sales as a whole do go up, but it's an "ends and means" justification (ie, the ends don't justify the means). It is not OUR place to tell copyright holders what they should do with their copyright though covert infringement; this is their right as the copyright holder to make this decision on their own. We can tell them this with our wallets in other ways though, such as refusing to listen to the music of record companies with whom we do not agree.
The people who lose money due to any of these lost CD sales are the artists and record company execs, yes, but also the guys working security at the front gate, the technicians setting up the sound equipment, the guys running their email servers, the janitors sweeping their floors. Then it's the retailers around the country who lose sales because these guys are not making as much money (or have been laid off). These other losses are not as direct and visible, but money taken from the company comes out SOMEWHERE, and frankly it's not too likely that it's the execs' pockets from which it comes out.
Is this law stupid? Yeah. Is copyright infringement a form of theft though? You bet. If you were arguing that distributing a copyrighted item with out permission that is otherwise available for free is not a form of theft, I'd agree, but each time that someone downloads a track from a CD, and this prevents them from later buying the rest of the CD, this is theft. Maybe you putting a file up on the Internet is not a form of theft, but it knowingly permits theft.
I think P2P networks are cool, and I really hope they stick around after all the Copyright crap is over, but even despite squabbling over "theft" or "infringement" terms, no matter what you call it, it is still illegal, like it or not.
I never professed that this would all be easy. And what that other fellow said to you about selling is not terrifically bad advice. Think: right now the housing market in America is BOOMING as the Fed cuts and recuts Interest rates. House PRICES as a result have gone up, because people can afford to borrow more money (mostly in industries that haven't been being hit as hard as the tech industry).
The reality is that you have very little chance to make as high a salary as you did before. If the mortgage and loans you took out before were dependant on making that kind of money, you're basically faced with two alternatives: forclosure or selling on your own. Obviously selling on your own is the better alternative. It would be a good idea to sell your house now, while the housing market is good, and rent one for a while. I don't know what your family/kid situation is, for those with out kids, this is a lot easier, a husband and wife can live in a cheap single bedroom apartment; not comfortably, but survivably. The sale profit on your house, after fees, paying off the remainder of your mortgage, and such, should be at least the principal that you've paid in to your mortgage already (since house prices are up). Pay off *any* other debts you have, and bank the remainder. Think 5 years down the road, and open a CD, but keep 6 months to a year of survival cash (rent, food, etc) in liquid form, but in a savings account that pays interest. Then tighten your belt and save everything you can. Make sure you stay out of debt for this time, remember, debt costs you money; if you can't afford to pay cash for something, and you don't absolutely need it, don't buy it. Charge up your credit cards, but pay them off completely at the end of the month.
I, and the rest of the economists don't have a lot of good things to say for the economy in the IT industry for the next few years, these aren't idle predictions, but statements of almost absolute truth. Plan for it now, and you won't be sorry.
My wife and I were very fortunate: we decided to buy a house that was half of what we could afford at the time we signed our mortgage because when the bank tells you that you can afford a $500,000 house, they mean you can afford that, food, and not a lot else. As the belts are tightening around the country, we're prepared to tighten our own belts around the house, and so long as we don't end up making less than half of what we used to make, we should be able to hold on to it.
If your house was 90% of what you could afford, this is probably not a luxury you continue to possess.
Sadly this is a little idealalistic. "Worth" has varying definitions as you travel around the globe. An Indian programmer making USD 20,000/yr is far better off in his society than an American making USD 40,000/yr. Thus, an Indian programmer has a fundamentally higher capacity to do more for less. Over a great amount of time, as this money settles out in his economy from his spending it within that economy, that same money becomes worth less in comparison to the American-economy value of it, which is rising as the standard of living decreases in America (deflation, or inflation under 3%).
Also, making yourself worth more doesn't mean you're going to get a job. To make yourself worth more, and be able to prove it, you need additional degrees/certifications, which cost money. If you don't have the money for them, despite being as talented as the next guy who DOES have them, the job market will be a cold cold place to you.
However, Americans *will* have to accept lower salaries for the same jobs as before (already happening to huge extents), and this will shave off the outliers who were making salaries that were simply absurd. Unfortunately this shaving process too often takes off the top of the entire Bell Curve (too often in layoffs, those making the decision on who stays and who goes don't pay that much attention to who was worth their salt), and so more people who were making the correct value of their job will be fired than those who are fired because they make too much.
Once laid off (no matter how appropriately or not), it's extremely difficult to make your resume stand out from the resume of a pseudo programmer who knows enough about technology to banter jargon around, and fill their resume with acronyms because they heard them in an advertisement once. In order to make a competetive resume, one must either be over qualified, or a liar, because you're competing against other liars. And thus you end up having to take a job that is worth less than YOU are, and doesn't take advantage of all of your skills, nor help you to advance your own skills by pushing you at all. Thus you as an employee stagnate unless you have the time or drive to push yourself ahead on your own spare time. In that stagnation process (if you fall victim to it), you become worth less compared to those around you.
In the end I believe it will come around again full circle. What's going on in India, etc, is analogous to what happened in the U.S. in the 90's. An economy can only grow so fast in a healthy fashion. There's a lot of excess money from the 90's boom and subsequent crunch, which is looking for a new home which promises similar returns to the 90's boom. This money will flood economies that are not ready for it, these economies will artificially inflate, just like the U.S. one did, and eventually they're destined for collapse, just like the U.S. economy. This collapse will happen as a result of the U.S. companies having realized that "cheaper" doesn't mean "better," when they see that the quality of their product is reduced (if nothing else, through communication and time zone issues, let alone the "pseudo programmer" phenomenon from the U.S. 90's), and withdraw their money for the now not-significantly-more-expensive American worker alternative.
The next 10 years looks *very* bad for the U.S. IT industry, this is a pendulum, and it is still on its downward swing, away from the U.S. Things are going to get worse from here folks. Be *willing* to take a pay cut if it saves your job. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and thus a $40,000 job is worth an $80,000 job which you were laid off from. Certainly don't expect a raise any time soon.
"If I'm not allowed to share my chunk of a music file on the internet, than neither should the big sites."
But if they got permission to do something, and you did not, they should be permitted to do it and you should not (so long as it is not a right of yours).
An analogy would be saying, "If the FBI lets their 'big guy agents' in to the heart of FBI headquarters, then I should be permitted in there too." In the world, there are many who hold rights to many things, and they possess the authority to grant permission for certain accesses or uses to these things. Simply because permission has been given to another person doesn't mean that permission should also be given to you, and even if that were fair, that doesn't make it required or "right."
" In the real world, legal has nothing to do with what is fundamentally 'right' and 'wrong'."
I'm not sure what your basis of right and wrong are in this regard (which I assume for you is either ethics or morality), but traditionally these are defined in one of several ways: what society deems as "right and wrong," what the law deems as "right and wrong," and what religion deems as "right and wrong."
Society's view of this is usually based quite strongly on the law unless there is a moral conflict (born out of religion) with the law (and thus society's view is also strongly based on religion). The law is what it is (which has been based mostly on society, which in turn has been based strongly on religion). And religion is finally based on a "higher authority," and has little basis from society or the law (at least in modern times, particularly as a divide between religion and societal definitions of these terms opens up).
Most religions I'm familiar with say that short of a moral conflict with the law, the law lays down guidelines within religion (eg, the Bible doesn't ever say to not speed, yet it's still morally wrong to do so because of the law to this effect, in this case because the Bible commands you to respect those who are placed in authority positions over you, and do what they say so long as it doesn't conflict with the Bible).
Because I'm unaware of any religions with built in views on Copyright, I have to say that as far as Copyright is concerned, "right and wrong" are defined by the law, and nothing else. Thus if the law says you cannot break copyright, then breaking copyright is "wrong." And also thus, in the real world, "legal" has an awful lot to do with what is fundamentally "right and wrong." At least when it comes to Copyright.
This doesn't make it legal. There is still the fundamental problem that you possess a copyright file for which you have not paid. Further, are you sure that it's legal to provide 20 second clips with out permission even as an online distributor? It seems to me that this might be the sort of thing the RIAA et al. permit (officially or unofficially) because it results in revenue for them.
Or a day to install AOL software, Earthlink software, Juno software, and many other popular ISP packages, then dial up to various cities across the country, foot the long distance charge, and tack it to the next lawsuit filed against some teenager. If they can get subnets for these guys kicked off the network, then they win this battle, and use the networks' attempts to protect themselves as a weapon to cause the network to shut down huge portions of itself.
I agree with his article largely, but I have one minor quoible with it that I think is a point he overlooks.
Admittedly, I'm working on one year of college level Physics, and one year of high school level physics, so I'm by no means an authority.
He assumes that a black sail would reach an equilibrium temperature with the light source, and at that point the propulsion would cease. With a light weight material, this would be very quickly.
Does this happen with currently known black materials, or materials that are very close to black? No, how can we tell? They are still black. Thus, despite being exposed to extended light sources, they continue to maintain their blackness. This light energy is being converted in to heat energy. This heat energy is being dispersed through out the area radiantly.
In a black sail, light and heat are being applied to it from the sun. The law of thermodynamic conservation says that this energy cannot be destroyed, and so must be converted in some other fashion, or stored. The light->heat conversion is stored for as long as the sail is a lower temperature than the total thermal energy of light+heat from the sun. Once the sail and its inbound energy have reached equilibrium, this inbound energy can no longer be stored, and so must be deflected or converted. If the light energy is deflected, then the material ceases to be black and turns white (in fact, this is basically what happens when you turn a light switch on in a room, no?), but since we know from empirical evidence that black materials maintain their blackness, they must instead be converting this light energy in to some other sort of energy. If this energy is heat, and our material is already at heat capacity, it must be radiated outwardly (and backward). If 100% of this light energy that was absorbed (keeping in mind that we have no perfectly black surface) is converted to radiant heat, then no forward momentum would be achieved. Otherwise the rest of that energy MUST go somewhere, and that somewhere would almost certainly be forward thrust. It may not be a lot of thrust, but it should be some.
On another point:
The perfect mirror sail couldn't possibly work because 100% of the light energy would be reflected back. Because you can't alter the speed of light, in such a situation you cannot harvest any of its energy (it's a theoretical perfect mirror, 100% is being reflected, so 100% of it is keeping 100% of its original energy level, thus none is imparted to the sail; any of its energy that was absorbed due to it being a non perfect mirror would fall under the same category as our previous black sail discussion).
But the only defaults on the license would be products sold AFTER the expiration of the license, all previous products would be covered under the old license, no?
"People will be running AIX without a valid license."
/suspect/ you of swapping my copyrighted material online because you use a p2p system, thus I revoke all your rights to the copyrighted material in question." Isn't the onus of desolving a contract (license) on the party attempting to desolve it? And don't they have to do so through the legal system by suing IBM?
Can someone with a better legal understanding than mine tell me how you can revoke a license like this? Wouldn't they FIRST have to PROVE in a court of law that IBM violated the license contract, and thus was in default of it? I can't just say "*I*
Also, how can you give someone a license to resell, later revoke the lincense from the reseller, THEN accuse the end users of license violation. If you could, then hot dog, you could make a mint like this. Next SCO will be filing a lawsuit against all Fortune 500 companies for violating a revoked license that DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THEIR NAME ON IT, when they purchased the software while it was still good.
See my new sig from this article. This is a *great* quote.
At risk of negative moderation, I want to state that the Slashdot commentary on this article seems to imply that no one should oppose Open Source in the government. This is very similar to saying something like "Can you believe these guys who have a financially vested interest in a point of view that opposes mine are actually working to protect their interests?" Well, wouldn't they be saying, "Can you ubelieve these guys who have no financially vested interest in a point of view that opposes mine are actually working to damage my interests?"
There *should* be people who uphold both sides, this IS what what is in the public's best interets. So long as they aren't upholding their interests by buying government officials small personal islands or vacation homes in the hamptons, then the technology with the higher merits will win.
Fortunately we all know from empirical data on just security vulnerabilities (and time to fix!) alone which technology is the superior one, and so as the open source community in general, we (developers and advocates) shouldn't be threatened by this, but rather let our work stand for itself, and not even be afraid of just a little bit of shady payoff, because if our work cannot stand up to that kind of attack as a whole, then we should try harder. We are Borg, our collective mind is far superior to the single mindedness of Redmond. It will be assimilated.
Ok, sorry, ignore that last part.
No, no, they're not charging you to use your burner, they're charging you to let you burn their content on your burner. You'd still be able to burn stuff on your own, you just wouldn't be able to download their songs and burn them for free. You pay a licencing fee which ultimately ends up in a few pennies making it back to the artist.
Your comment is like saying "$18 for the latest rap CD? You gotta be kidding me, they're charging $18 to let me use my own cd player!"
I submitted mine about 2 months ago but got the big "Rejected" stamp across my forehead :-). I guess someone liked what they saw though!
Looks like my game made it on Slashdot. Not exactly front page, but I'm not gonna complain :-)
;-)
I strongly urge everyone to head on over to http://lotgd.sourceforge.net and play on your lunch break, this is a well done game even if I do say so myself
Looks like my game made it on Slashdot. Not exactly front page, but I'm not gonna complain :-)
;-)
I strongly urge everyone to head on over to http://lotgd.sourceforge.net and play on your lunch break, this is a well done game even if I do say so myself
Although it wouldn't work under current setup, what he's saying is that if everyone was "on board" with this, then big companies would add their outbound mail servers as low priority MX's so that the lookup succeeds.
It sortof taints the whole protocol, but perhaps it's not a bad idea for someone to RFC an email source validation scheme where a record similar to MX provides a record of acceptable outbound mail servers for a particular domain. If the IP doesn't come up, then the email is rejected.
Even more complex, you could create a protocol with lookup servers, an email is accepted, then validated against an email validation server which basically says, "Yes, we sent that email ID out," then forgets that email ID so that it cannot be reused. Sortof a validation token. This could extend existing protocols, and provide a circumvention method for conventional blacklisting so that emails that already are considered suspicious can be verified. So that introduces a two-stage blacklisting, immediately discarding forged emails for a particular domain if it participates on this protocol, and if they are not forged, and that domain isn't blacklisted in the second stage (where even validated emails are rejected), the message is still dropped. It could extend current email protocols, and over time as more people complied with the validation technique, it would get closer and closer to catching all forged emails, and permit you to blacklist (by domain) true spam offenders.
Yes, buying domains to be able to generate spam is easy and not that expensive, but it does represent a new barrier to spammers, and additional cost as well.
It's an idea with some real merit, but of course it's not perfect.
Let alone also by the same author!!
Don't most Internet Filtering software operate as a proxy (thus disguising the point of origin)? And aren't libraries in Michigan required to run Internet filters?
So isn't this sortof like saying, "When you drive down the street, you must drive on the left of the median line. When operating a vehicle, drivers must operate them on the right side of the median line."
Admission of crime. Please report to your local police station for incarceration.
Simply taxing the software won't impact the situation that much. From what I've observed, most foreign software is component parts of domestic software. What needs to be done is to tax software that is wholly programmed in other countries, and tax the import of work that is represented by incoming component software.
What I mean: Lets say Company A manufactures product X. Functionally, product X is the merging of component Y and Z which are both also made by Company A. Component Y is coded in Singapore, and component Z is coded in India, and the two are combined in the states by domestic personnel to make product X. Although there are thresholds in material goods tarifs for which an item can be considered domestic, companies often come in just under the wire of these thresholds.
Instead what needs to happen is that all development efforts need to be classified as foreign or domestic, and foreign portions need to be taxed. If you hire an Indian consulting firm to help you with a software product, they need to itemize development and non-development costs of their bill. The development portion will be taxed.
Yes, this allows shady companies to simply say "2% were development efforts and the rest were merely research and advisory fees," when in reality it was 100% development, to avoid the tax, but most companies don't operate under those sort of scruples. Most other types of fees associated with foreign consultation should probably also be taxed, this is all stuff that can be done domestically, and is only sent abroad because of other countries' lower labor laws.
So tax wholesale software import, and tax wholesale labor import. In fact, this should apply to far more than just software, all imported labor should be taxed.
*BLAM*
"... is it dead?"
I really figured I'd look in here and see about 30 posts for this one, but if they're there, they're below my threshold.
Companies do *not* spend money on marketing because they feel their pockets are too fat. They spend money on marketing because it results in more income than is spent. If it didn't, they'd stop marketing as marketing would be counter to its actual purpose.
And "healthy profit margins" is a tricky word to use, there are so many many hidden expenses that are impossible to quantify. It's not at all uncommon for a pharmaceutical to be reaping "healthy profit margins" and then discover that they are bankrupt. Plus, to maintain funding, they have to keep people interested in their stock, and in order to do that, they must make a profit.
These are corporate entities, not nonprofit organizations, they have stockholders to answer to. If stockholders aren't happy, they won't buy the stock, and the company will close. Then who is helped by a non-existant company?
True, but unlike sciences in physics and mathematics, one cannot simply apply an algorithm and definitively know whether or not another solution is viable, it takes many years of research. I guarantee you every solution they are capable of finding given "limited" (versus infinite) research capabilities, they do, and they sell.