No. The point is to get useful stuff created and published. Check the Constitution... check anyplace.
Look again:
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
The reason the requirement is "for a limited time" rather than "forever" is because the goal is not simply to fund production of content for a price, but to move that content *into the public domain*.
The reason that there is any monopoly system at all is because the founders felt that otherwise content production would not be funded (and there wouldn't be any content to *go* into the public domain). The goal behind granting a limited time monopoly was that movement into the public domain would be perhaps sometimes delayed a bit, but would happen.
I think it's less that the EFF/Slashdot endorse piracy and more the fact that the stance that they take pretty much leads to at least some measure of piracy always existing in the world -- if you have open, interoperable systems, information *will* copy and spread.
I agree that both the EFF and the RIAA try to market their stances by making them sound wonderful -- the RIAA pretends that its interest is something other than increasing profits without producing more works ("protect the starving artists"), and the EFF pretends that piracy isn't going to happen under the systems that they promote. That's just politics, and you're stuck with it if you're going to work with lobbyist organizations.
My belief is that the real thing that much of the Slashdot world wants is not for music to be free -- for them to have to pay absolutely nothing in taxes or fees for the content -- but for music to be commoditized, for prices to be driven down so far that anyone can have essentially whatever they want for little money. Even the Free software movement isn't about completely eliminating payment -- the GPL contains plenty of reference to payment -- but it *is* about eliminating lock-in and closed, proprietary systems.
The problem is that currently, we lack good ways to fund the production of IP. Our current approach is to try to use a mechanism that is *really*, *really* good at dealing with conventional good distribution, with physical goods -- just turn the IP into a physical product and distributed as if it were a limited commodity in a free market. So once an artist produces a song, theoretically every person on earth could immediately be given a copy and enjoy it, but because we cannot produce a more efficient mechanism for funding IP production, we are forced to provide that IP to only a limited, privileged few. The same goes for every movie and software package out there.
Open source is an example of the traditional economic systems breaking down. The cost of production is so low versus noise in the system (like the enjoyment that people derive from building software) that people can make software for free, and now that distribution is so cheap, give it to everyone.
If you are running a business that depends on the classical framework, of course you're concerned! Nobody has proposed a good way for you to continue putting bread on your table!
My guess is that within some number of years, production of IP will become increasingly centralized, funded by national or world organizations through taxes (as research often is), and then distributed freely. It's simply so much more efficient to give *everyone* a word processor that they can use forever, freely, and avoid all this screwing about with incompatible black box systems.
I don't see a "revolution", a sudden change, but rather a slow migration towards this model. Federal/state/local government providing art grants being provided specifically for the production of art that can be *digitally redistributed*. A slow increase in government-funded software production (the NSA's SELinux work, for instance). And, of course, the continued flood of hobbyist-produced work, and work coming from companies who have interest in introducing disruptive technology to a market (IBM's funding of Linux to keep MS weakened, for instance).
Slashdot readers yell as if they didn't know that it was mostly being used for piracy, and try to pretend that the majority of people only use it legitimately.
The most common use of P2P systems is to transfer copyright-infringing content.
The most common use of the Internet (in sheer bytes) is to transfer copyright-infringing content.
System-level debuggers, hex editors, and so on, all have quite shady uses and are often indeed abused.
However, all of the above provide benefits and the damage caused by the chilling effects of making illegal any of the above things far exceeds the simple ban on them.
Last time Lexmark tried using the DMCA, it was to attempt to make it illegal to produce interoperable ink cartridges. Luckily, they were shot down.
Next time, perhaps they will produce identical printer frames and differentiate between different models in software -- perhaps different drivers will "grant" access to different resolutions. And if some open-source type wrote a driver that added all sorts of nifty features, including the ability to use any desired resolution, you can bet that Lexmark would be flinging DMCA-waving lawyers at him at a moment's notice.
The question, aside from whether or not the DMCA is even a good idea at all, is whether the DMCA is a tool that can be used to create "black box" systems that cannot be interoperated with. I feel that it is damaging to society to allow such a use. Many companies obviously see the short-term benefit to themselves in taking advantage of such a black box -- society loses in the long run if everyone is out producing a black box, but each individual company wins in the short run. I don't really want a world full of black boxes. To my way of thinking, demonstrating *any* interoperability applications should immediately override any protections that the DMCA grants. That means that there are *no* sneaky ways to extend it to build monopolies and closed systems -- the applications of the DMCA would be sharply limited. Alas, Blizzard has chosen to take a path that opens the door to other companies to start exploring how the DMCA can be abused.
Anyone who uses Bnetd to play an illegal copy of a Bliizard game has broken the law. That does not put the Bnetd developers at fault however. They are within their rights to develop any software they want, whether or not Blizzard agrees that the software has a purpose. The Bnetd authors are only in the wrong if they are promoting it for illegal uses (this would be incitement).
No, you're wrong. The combination of the DMCA and the precedent set by Blizzard winning this court case make writing such open-source software illegal. I don't think that this should be the case -- I think that this law serves society very poorly, but it now exists.
There is an understood proviso there, that Ghandi's statement applies to the masses. He wasn't talking to a group of smart, dedicated, but ultimately limited-in-population geeks.
The OSS/geek world is powerful because it has the ability to release disruptive technologies (and has consistently done so, sending waves through the tech community, especially in the past few years). Its buying power may not be tiny, but it is still insignificant compared to that of the Joe Sixpack market.
And Blizzard has busily sealed off the main way that the OSS world can bring in disruptive technologies -- write software compatible with Blizzard software, and you get sued.
The only real remaining way would be to sit down and write a better version of whatever Blizzard produces, but Blizzard (unlike, say, Microsoft) produces products that have relatively little code and lots of content (audio, artwork, etc). The OSS world is rich in coders, and exceedingly poor in skilled people willing to donate talent on audio and graphics. So, yes, I can design and implement an WCIII-type RTS engine -- it still won't impact Blizzard's bottom line, because they have masses of artists and sound engineers that I *can't* get. Sure, there are open-source people busily producing RTS code, but as long as their audio and graphics aren't comparable to Blizzard's, Blizzard can easily shrug them off.
And as long as the DMCA sits around, as long as there are restrictions on reverse-engineering and producing interoperable software, the open source world is hamstrung in many ways.
Boycotts don't work, because while the OSS/geek community is vastly overrepresented in influence when it comes to the introduction of new systems, of disruptive technologies, it is not very effective when it comes to being a blunt club wielding purchasing power. Joe Sixpack has the pleasure of wielding that.
The reason the OSS world doesn't like this is because it's a big step forward towards kneecapping OSS. OSS is powerful because it has the ability to introduce disruptive technologies, because small, popular, interoperable software packages can rapidly spread over the Internet. There aren't that many Linux kernel hackers, and some of them are still in high school, but they make Gates stay up nights because their ability to influence the world through a small amount of their own, highly skilled effort is enormous.
Blizzard is arguing on the side of the large incumbent, who wants to halt people who might make interoperable or competing systems. Of course Blizzard wants to force people to use their systems under whatever constraints they want to place. The cell phone industry makes billions of dollars off selling ring tones, because they have a similar such black box -- in the computer world, this would never work, because interoperability is so much more widespread and people can write software and record and share their own ring tones. But because the cell industry has *control*, they can produce money by squeezing their customers. Blizzard doesn't want to lose control. It's a great short-term business decision. It just tends to fucks over society in the longer run.
But I don't see why that should allow them not to follow rules. Does it suck to be unable to create a private server? Yes it does... but that is not enough reason to anyone to start breaking laws... even if it is open source.
The question is whether or not making compatible software *should* be against the law.
I am pretty confident that it shouldn't be. If there are people infringing on copyright out there, then nail 'em to the wall and have fun with it. We have laws to already deal with it. What I find extremely concerning is laws that creep into the area of allowing a company to sue people that make interoperable things. The Internet and the computer industry was *build* by people making interoperable systems and people reverse-engineering things. Technology is not advanced by black-box system providers like Comcast -- at least not as compared to those people who run out and build little systems compatible with others that anyone can interoperate with.
The problem is that if the EFF gets this before the Supreme Court, they're going to stick some idiot up there who has to be ideologically pure instead of willing to do whatever it takes to win battles. Last time, IIRC, it was Larry Lessig arguing against the DMCA. Instead of just fighting the DMCA, Lessig had to try to fight the whole goddamn copyright reform war in one go, and argue that the copyright extensions of 1831 and 1909 were unconstitutional and should be retroactively rolled back. Now, that's just stupid. No Supreme Court is going to pass that. It would cause *chaos* in the business world. There are *vast* pragmatic issues. So by adopting an impossible cause, Lessig punched a hole in the bottom of his boat, killed the battle against the DMCA.
Don't get me wrong. I think that Larry Lessig qualifies as a good guy, someone out doing good work. But his arguments up there sounded something like a somewhat muted Stallman -- maybe visionary, inspiring flame in a crowd, but sure as hell not going to pass muster before a bunch of crochety Justices.
The EFF needs some people willing to be a lot more Machivellian, less ambitious, and less idealistic if it intends to compete with the competition, which doesn't have any of its idealistic hangups.
Since the point of the limited monpolies we grant in our IP systems is to get useful content into public domain, and software isn't useful after 70 years, I'd say that it's pretty much a no-brainer that it shouldn't be that long.
Of course, copyright for music/books/etc wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that long *either*, but when you have masses of companies with lots of money lobbying for the ability to get lots more money without producing new content versus...uh...nobody, it's pretty much a no-brainer what's going to happen.
Surprise, surprise. A/.er blaming evil corporations because they've cracked down on piracy, instead of blaming the software pirates who caused the mess in the 1st place. This has nothing to do with competition. They offer online game play for free.
If you honestly think this is just random flaming from people who don't want to pay $30 or whatever some Blizzard game comes from, you really aren't familiar with the PC's history. The reason we even have the PC as an open-architecture system and not a shitty closed black box controlled by IBM is because a bunch of engineers at Phoenix reverse-engineered the BIOS and managed to start producing compatible systems. In subsequent years, the PC went from an expensive business device that only a few people could buy into an incredibly valuable system that rapidly evolved into the inexpensive and powerful systems available to everyone today.
And it's not that IBM was doing something wrong -- they had an incredibly lucrative market, and they were doing exactly what was going to make them the most money, which was keeping a hard lock on the thing.
The thing is that they and other software and system vendors over the years never enjoyed the luxury of something that would simply let them sue people that made compatible systems. Now, thanks to the ever-free-from-corporate-meddling federal government, companies can enjoy unfettered control over whatever monopolies they choose to develop.
Suppose someone figures out how to make a combination PDA and portable PS2. That'd be a pretty cool device, right? Sony'd just slap 'em in exactly the same way that Blizzard did the open source authors here -- precedent's been established, and the wrong way for those of us who like pushing forward technology. Very much bad.
Yes, but you *knew* that companies were slathering at the chops to use the DMCA to ensure monopolies. Come on. Okay, a couple got shot down (Lexmark, trying to make it illegal for anyone to make compatible ink cartridges, for instance), but Blizzard, in suing a handful of open-source authors, has successfully opened the door to all sorts of abuses.
Please also note that it is Blizzard who will not allow the bnetd people to use their authentication process to prevent the use of illegal copies.
Actually, it's worse. IIRC, the bnetd people first wanted to interoperate with the auth system (Blizzard didn't go for it, as they'd lose control over the service associated with their product), and when they released it *without* the auth system, Blizzard sued them.
Man, I can see a whole ton of people lining up for using the DMCA on this one, given the lovely precedent that was just set.
Cell phone providers, say. "But, I want to put my *own* ring tones on my phone instead of buying one from my provider." "You'll damn well pay us for every three-second audio clip you want to play, and if anyone reverse engineers the thing and allows audio transfer of whatever recordings people want onto the phones, we'll *sue* them under the DMCA."
What about IM clients? Who wants to run a shitty little IM operation that has to compete on level ground, by being *better* than the competition, when you could just say that anyone that tries building interoperable software is in violation of the DMCA -- you get a much more lucrative monopoly to squeeze.
The Internet, the protocols in use today, were not built because a bunch of lawyers ran around suing the balls off anyone they thought that they could extract money from. It came around because people built *interoperable* systems that *no one person could control*. Technological advance comes from interoperable, *modular* ideas. Short-term financial gain comes from huge black boxes controlled by their owners. And, boy oh boy, are content-providing organizations sure lining up to get in on the money (which only exists, of course, because the previous generation didn't *have* said monopolies in place and could develop interoperable systems freely).
If every new server that comes out has a single, proprietary client and it's illegal to produce any interoperable clients, we might as well just give up on the Internet right now, and just go back to using the Bell-controlled telephone system, since that's what things will devolve to.
They're one of the few publishers that doesn't even bother with "We'll see if the market supports it" when asked about Linux support for their software -- they just say "no". They sue open-source developers. They had a habit of using infamously exploitable network designs in their games. Blizzard is right up their with Microsoft in my "People What Are Evil" book -- they just have the virtue of writing more entertaining software and having managed to get Tycho and Gabe to constantly advertise for them.
Think of the applications of a law that allows a software publisher to make *illegal* any reverse-engineered interoperable software. That's quite a find.
You know, a lot more people die each year in cars than pools.
Try and convince people that speed governors on cars restricting them to the speed limit would be worthwhile, and they will kick and scream until the end of time. But when it to dropping a hundred thousand bucks on every pool out there in the hopes that some kid will try breathing water in it...well *that* is entirely worth it.
But... "It then compares images to a database of thousands of examples of swimmers in trouble. "... seems like an inefficient and error prone way to solve this problem.
Ah hah! Your database doesn't have a single image of an octopus attacking a motorcycle rider after he accidentally drove his motorcycle into a pool, *does* it!
The number of states a person not in trouble can be in is large. The number of states a person in trouble can be in is far smaller.
I disagree. I think that maintaining your life places very harsh constraints on your environment, forces that can be affecting you, and the state of your body. I suspect that there are many more situations that are not conducive to continued life than situations that are conducive to life.
You realize that you can very cheaply save the lives of children in third world countries? You could easily afford to buy medicine and/or food for someone who would otherwise die or starve.
So Are you at the poverty line or not? I'm guessing not. So either someone has a gun to your head and is insisting that you not send a donation to an international aid agency, or you really do value some things (like the ability to entertain yourself posting on Slashdot) over the life of some kid somewhere.
I'm not blaming you. I'm in the same boat. That kid can go die quietly in a corner somewhere -- I like my Internet connection. Just pointing out the little irrationalities that make up the common mindset.
That's why we have this thing called society. Shared responsibility. Social contract. But then you're probably 12, so we can't expect you to understand that yet.
65K sterling is peanuts in a public sector budget.
I have some excellent Flaming Space Meatball insurance to sell you. Only $40K, and that's peanuts in a public sector budget -- imagine the horrors of lacking coverage and then being attacked by a Flaming Space Meatball!
Uh...you're assuming that an unassisted-by-a-monitoring-computer lifeguard has a 0% success rate.
I'm dubious that the system "saved" this swimmer either, though it may have played a role in it -- had the alarm not gone off, it's good odds that she would have been pulled out anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
But that's just a mapping to other artists you might like, not specifically to artists you might like that *sell non-DRM music*.
Some of us are willing to hold Apple to the same standard as everyone else, even though they're Apple.
[shrug] I own NWN for Linux, and enjoy playing it greatly, and I admit to being very dubious about your criticisms of Bioware.
No. The point is to get useful stuff created and published. Check the Constitution... check anyplace.
Look again:
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
The reason the requirement is "for a limited time" rather than "forever" is because the goal is not simply to fund production of content for a price, but to move that content *into the public domain*.
The reason that there is any monopoly system at all is because the founders felt that otherwise content production would not be funded (and there wouldn't be any content to *go* into the public domain). The goal behind granting a limited time monopoly was that movement into the public domain would be perhaps sometimes delayed a bit, but would happen.
I think it's less that the EFF/Slashdot endorse piracy and more the fact that the stance that they take pretty much leads to at least some measure of piracy always existing in the world -- if you have open, interoperable systems, information *will* copy and spread.
I agree that both the EFF and the RIAA try to market their stances by making them sound wonderful -- the RIAA pretends that its interest is something other than increasing profits without producing more works ("protect the starving artists"), and the EFF pretends that piracy isn't going to happen under the systems that they promote. That's just politics, and you're stuck with it if you're going to work with lobbyist organizations.
My belief is that the real thing that much of the Slashdot world wants is not for music to be free -- for them to have to pay absolutely nothing in taxes or fees for the content -- but for music to be commoditized, for prices to be driven down so far that anyone can have essentially whatever they want for little money. Even the Free software movement isn't about completely eliminating payment -- the GPL contains plenty of reference to payment -- but it *is* about eliminating lock-in and closed, proprietary systems.
The problem is that currently, we lack good ways to fund the production of IP. Our current approach is to try to use a mechanism that is *really*, *really* good at dealing with conventional good distribution, with physical goods -- just turn the IP into a physical product and distributed as if it were a limited commodity in a free market. So once an artist produces a song, theoretically every person on earth could immediately be given a copy and enjoy it, but because we cannot produce a more efficient mechanism for funding IP production, we are forced to provide that IP to only a limited, privileged few. The same goes for every movie and software package out there.
Open source is an example of the traditional economic systems breaking down. The cost of production is so low versus noise in the system (like the enjoyment that people derive from building software) that people can make software for free, and now that distribution is so cheap, give it to everyone.
If you are running a business that depends on the classical framework, of course you're concerned! Nobody has proposed a good way for you to continue putting bread on your table!
My guess is that within some number of years, production of IP will become increasingly centralized, funded by national or world organizations through taxes (as research often is), and then distributed freely. It's simply so much more efficient to give *everyone* a word processor that they can use forever, freely, and avoid all this screwing about with incompatible black box systems.
I don't see a "revolution", a sudden change, but rather a slow migration towards this model. Federal/state/local government providing art grants being provided specifically for the production of art that can be *digitally redistributed*. A slow increase in government-funded software production (the NSA's SELinux work, for instance). And, of course, the continued flood of hobbyist-produced work, and work coming from companies who have interest in introducing disruptive technology to a market (IBM's funding of Linux to keep MS weakened, for instance).
Slashdot readers yell as if they didn't know that it was mostly being used for piracy, and try to pretend that the majority of people only use it legitimately.
The most common use of P2P systems is to transfer copyright-infringing content.
The most common use of the Internet (in sheer bytes) is to transfer copyright-infringing content.
System-level debuggers, hex editors, and so on, all have quite shady uses and are often indeed abused.
However, all of the above provide benefits and the damage caused by the chilling effects of making illegal any of the above things far exceeds the simple ban on them.
Last time Lexmark tried using the DMCA, it was to attempt to make it illegal to produce interoperable ink cartridges. Luckily, they were shot down.
Next time, perhaps they will produce identical printer frames and differentiate between different models in software -- perhaps different drivers will "grant" access to different resolutions. And if some open-source type wrote a driver that added all sorts of nifty features, including the ability to use any desired resolution, you can bet that Lexmark would be flinging DMCA-waving lawyers at him at a moment's notice.
The question, aside from whether or not the DMCA is even a good idea at all, is whether the DMCA is a tool that can be used to create "black box" systems that cannot be interoperated with. I feel that it is damaging to society to allow such a use. Many companies obviously see the short-term benefit to themselves in taking advantage of such a black box -- society loses in the long run if everyone is out producing a black box, but each individual company wins in the short run. I don't really want a world full of black boxes. To my way of thinking, demonstrating *any* interoperability applications should immediately override any protections that the DMCA grants. That means that there are *no* sneaky ways to extend it to build monopolies and closed systems -- the applications of the DMCA would be sharply limited. Alas, Blizzard has chosen to take a path that opens the door to other companies to start exploring how the DMCA can be abused.
Anyone who uses Bnetd to play an illegal copy of a Bliizard game has broken the law. That does not put the Bnetd developers at fault however. They are within their rights to develop any software they want, whether or not Blizzard agrees that the software has a purpose. The Bnetd authors are only in the wrong if they are promoting it for illegal uses (this would be incitement).
No, you're wrong. The combination of the DMCA and the precedent set by Blizzard winning this court case make writing such open-source software illegal. I don't think that this should be the case -- I think that this law serves society very poorly, but it now exists.
And I can't spell "Gandhi"...sigh.
There is an understood proviso there, that Ghandi's statement applies to the masses. He wasn't talking to a group of smart, dedicated, but ultimately limited-in-population geeks.
The OSS/geek world is powerful because it has the ability to release disruptive technologies (and has consistently done so, sending waves through the tech community, especially in the past few years). Its buying power may not be tiny, but it is still insignificant compared to that of the Joe Sixpack market.
And Blizzard has busily sealed off the main way that the OSS world can bring in disruptive technologies -- write software compatible with Blizzard software, and you get sued.
The only real remaining way would be to sit down and write a better version of whatever Blizzard produces, but Blizzard (unlike, say, Microsoft) produces products that have relatively little code and lots of content (audio, artwork, etc). The OSS world is rich in coders, and exceedingly poor in skilled people willing to donate talent on audio and graphics. So, yes, I can design and implement an WCIII-type RTS engine -- it still won't impact Blizzard's bottom line, because they have masses of artists and sound engineers that I *can't* get. Sure, there are open-source people busily producing RTS code, but as long as their audio and graphics aren't comparable to Blizzard's, Blizzard can easily shrug them off.
And as long as the DMCA sits around, as long as there are restrictions on reverse-engineering and producing interoperable software, the open source world is hamstrung in many ways.
I like hacking on legal code that I can proudly stick my name on and collaborate with others on openly.
Yes, there have been some clever hacks written in little IRC channels somewhere, but you aren't going to get another Apache from said folks.
And the "just ignore the law" argument generally isn't a good long-term solution.
Boycotts don't work, because while the OSS/geek community is vastly overrepresented in influence when it comes to the introduction of new systems, of disruptive technologies, it is not very effective when it comes to being a blunt club wielding purchasing power. Joe Sixpack has the pleasure of wielding that.
The reason the OSS world doesn't like this is because it's a big step forward towards kneecapping OSS. OSS is powerful because it has the ability to introduce disruptive technologies, because small, popular, interoperable software packages can rapidly spread over the Internet. There aren't that many Linux kernel hackers, and some of them are still in high school, but they make Gates stay up nights because their ability to influence the world through a small amount of their own, highly skilled effort is enormous.
Blizzard is arguing on the side of the large incumbent, who wants to halt people who might make interoperable or competing systems. Of course Blizzard wants to force people to use their systems under whatever constraints they want to place. The cell phone industry makes billions of dollars off selling ring tones, because they have a similar such black box -- in the computer world, this would never work, because interoperability is so much more widespread and people can write software and record and share their own ring tones. But because the cell industry has *control*, they can produce money by squeezing their customers. Blizzard doesn't want to lose control. It's a great short-term business decision. It just tends to fucks over society in the longer run.
But I don't see why that should allow them not to follow rules. Does it suck to be unable to create a private server? Yes it does... but that is not enough reason to anyone to start breaking laws... even if it is open source.
The question is whether or not making compatible software *should* be against the law.
I am pretty confident that it shouldn't be. If there are people infringing on copyright out there, then nail 'em to the wall and have fun with it. We have laws to already deal with it. What I find extremely concerning is laws that creep into the area of allowing a company to sue people that make interoperable things. The Internet and the computer industry was *build* by people making interoperable systems and people reverse-engineering things. Technology is not advanced by black-box system providers like Comcast -- at least not as compared to those people who run out and build little systems compatible with others that anyone can interoperate with.
The problem is that if the EFF gets this before the Supreme Court, they're going to stick some idiot up there who has to be ideologically pure instead of willing to do whatever it takes to win battles. Last time, IIRC, it was Larry Lessig arguing against the DMCA. Instead of just fighting the DMCA, Lessig had to try to fight the whole goddamn copyright reform war in one go, and argue that the copyright extensions of 1831 and 1909 were unconstitutional and should be retroactively rolled back. Now, that's just stupid. No Supreme Court is going to pass that. It would cause *chaos* in the business world. There are *vast* pragmatic issues. So by adopting an impossible cause, Lessig punched a hole in the bottom of his boat, killed the battle against the DMCA.
Don't get me wrong. I think that Larry Lessig qualifies as a good guy, someone out doing good work. But his arguments up there sounded something like a somewhat muted Stallman -- maybe visionary, inspiring flame in a crowd, but sure as hell not going to pass muster before a bunch of crochety Justices.
The EFF needs some people willing to be a lot more Machivellian, less ambitious, and less idealistic if it intends to compete with the competition, which doesn't have any of its idealistic hangups.
Since the point of the limited monpolies we grant in our IP systems is to get useful content into public domain, and software isn't useful after 70 years, I'd say that it's pretty much a no-brainer that it shouldn't be that long.
Of course, copyright for music/books/etc wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that long *either*, but when you have masses of companies with lots of money lobbying for the ability to get lots more money without producing new content versus...uh...nobody, it's pretty much a no-brainer what's going to happen.
Surprise, surprise. A /.er blaming evil corporations because they've cracked down on piracy, instead of blaming the software pirates who caused the mess in the 1st place. This has nothing to do with competition. They offer online game play for free.
If you honestly think this is just random flaming from people who don't want to pay $30 or whatever some Blizzard game comes from, you really aren't familiar with the PC's history. The reason we even have the PC as an open-architecture system and not a shitty closed black box controlled by IBM is because a bunch of engineers at Phoenix reverse-engineered the BIOS and managed to start producing compatible systems. In subsequent years, the PC went from an expensive business device that only a few people could buy into an incredibly valuable system that rapidly evolved into the inexpensive and powerful systems available to everyone today.
And it's not that IBM was doing something wrong -- they had an incredibly lucrative market, and they were doing exactly what was going to make them the most money, which was keeping a hard lock on the thing.
The thing is that they and other software and system vendors over the years never enjoyed the luxury of something that would simply let them sue people that made compatible systems. Now, thanks to the ever-free-from-corporate-meddling federal government, companies can enjoy unfettered control over whatever monopolies they choose to develop.
Suppose someone figures out how to make a combination PDA and portable PS2. That'd be a pretty cool device, right? Sony'd just slap 'em in exactly the same way that Blizzard did the open source authors here -- precedent's been established, and the wrong way for those of us who like pushing forward technology. Very much bad.
Yes, but you *knew* that companies were slathering at the chops to use the DMCA to ensure monopolies. Come on. Okay, a couple got shot down (Lexmark, trying to make it illegal for anyone to make compatible ink cartridges, for instance), but Blizzard, in suing a handful of open-source authors, has successfully opened the door to all sorts of abuses.
Please also note that it is Blizzard who will not allow the bnetd people to use their authentication process to prevent the use of illegal copies.
Actually, it's worse. IIRC, the bnetd people first wanted to interoperate with the auth system (Blizzard didn't go for it, as they'd lose control over the service associated with their product), and when they released it *without* the auth system, Blizzard sued them.
Man, I can see a whole ton of people lining up for using the DMCA on this one, given the lovely precedent that was just set.
Cell phone providers, say. "But, I want to put my *own* ring tones on my phone instead of buying one from my provider." "You'll damn well pay us for every three-second audio clip you want to play, and if anyone reverse engineers the thing and allows audio transfer of whatever recordings people want onto the phones, we'll *sue* them under the DMCA."
What about IM clients? Who wants to run a shitty little IM operation that has to compete on level ground, by being *better* than the competition, when you could just say that anyone that tries building interoperable software is in violation of the DMCA -- you get a much more lucrative monopoly to squeeze.
The Internet, the protocols in use today, were not built because a bunch of lawyers ran around suing the balls off anyone they thought that they could extract money from. It came around because people built *interoperable* systems that *no one person could control*. Technological advance comes from interoperable, *modular* ideas. Short-term financial gain comes from huge black boxes controlled by their owners. And, boy oh boy, are content-providing organizations sure lining up to get in on the money (which only exists, of course, because the previous generation didn't *have* said monopolies in place and could develop interoperable systems freely).
If every new server that comes out has a single, proprietary client and it's illegal to produce any interoperable clients, we might as well just give up on the Internet right now, and just go back to using the Bell-controlled telephone system, since that's what things will devolve to.
They're one of the few publishers that doesn't even bother with "We'll see if the market supports it" when asked about Linux support for their software -- they just say "no". They sue open-source developers. They had a habit of using infamously exploitable network designs in their games. Blizzard is right up their with Microsoft in my "People What Are Evil" book -- they just have the virtue of writing more entertaining software and having managed to get Tycho and Gabe to constantly advertise for them.
Think of the applications of a law that allows a software publisher to make *illegal* any reverse-engineered interoperable software. That's quite a find.
You know, a lot more people die each year in cars than pools.
Try and convince people that speed governors on cars restricting them to the speed limit would be worthwhile, and they will kick and scream until the end of time. But when it to dropping a hundred thousand bucks on every pool out there in the hopes that some kid will try breathing water in it...well *that* is entirely worth it.
But ... "It then compares images to a database of thousands of examples of swimmers in trouble. " ... seems like an inefficient and error prone way to solve this problem.
Ah hah! Your database doesn't have a single image of an octopus attacking a motorcycle rider after he accidentally drove his motorcycle into a pool, *does* it!
The number of states a person not in trouble can be in is large. The number of states a person in trouble can be in is far smaller.
I disagree. I think that maintaining your life places very harsh constraints on your environment, forces that can be affecting you, and the state of your body. I suspect that there are many more situations that are not conducive to continued life than situations that are conducive to life.
Yes?
You realize that you can very cheaply save the lives of children in third world countries? You could easily afford to buy medicine and/or food for someone who would otherwise die or starve.
So Are you at the poverty line or not? I'm guessing not. So either someone has a gun to your head and is insisting that you not send a donation to an international aid agency, or you really do value some things (like the ability to entertain yourself posting on Slashdot) over the life of some kid somewhere.
I'm not blaming you. I'm in the same boat. That kid can go die quietly in a corner somewhere -- I like my Internet connection. Just pointing out the little irrationalities that make up the common mindset.
That's why we have this thing called society. Shared responsibility. Social contract. But then you're probably 12, so we can't expect you to understand that yet.
65K sterling is peanuts in a public sector budget.
I have some excellent Flaming Space Meatball insurance to sell you. Only $40K, and that's peanuts in a public sector budget -- imagine the horrors of lacking coverage and then being attacked by a Flaming Space Meatball!
So, just to get this straight, you believe that one kid has been *dying* every year in that pool, w/o the lifeguards doing anything?
I call bullshit.
Uh...you're assuming that an unassisted-by-a-monitoring-computer lifeguard has a 0% success rate.
I'm dubious that the system "saved" this swimmer either, though it may have played a role in it -- had the alarm not gone off, it's good odds that she would have been pulled out anyway.