DRM catches a bad rep because they use it beyond it's ostensible purpose.
It can restrict beyond copyright.
But worse it has been used to restrict beyond copyright law's provisions.
Will libraries unlock material which is actually in the public domain? Or will the provider be responsible for managing the restrictions - in which case they will inevitably err on the side of restriction.
As you are probably aware, but elected to obscure, open source and free software are not copying and emulating existing software by reason of "lack of imagination".
They (we) write replacements for software that has closed licensing. One of the original tenets of Free Software was the creation of a completely free system. This is impossible without free replacements of all the pieces (including applications).
You thinking having to give away for free, that which could have got your monopoly a shitload of revenue, lack of punishment?
Actually the revenue from MS products sold to schools is already minimal in comparison to the business sector.
Throw in the fact that schools will take more free licences than they would if they were paid-for, and you have a small impact. Then there's the fact that MS will be paying less tax, which reduces the impact even more.
It's quite clear that getting school kids familiar (if not expert) in MS products is one major win, and reducing kids exposure to Free Software is another major win.
Whichever way you look at it, this can only be good for Microsoft. And bad for choice (and therefore bad for competition).
No, MS is offering a choice of "choose us exclusively or not at all", and there position makes "not at all" an impossible option.
As for school preparing children for work - that's total BS. School prepares children for conformity.
My seven years old son was given an identity card. Eventually all US citizens will be required to carry them.
As for Linux being "out there", if Microsoft can keep it out of the schools, where it's low cost and flexibility would otherwise make it a prime choice, they've won an important battle.
I absolutely agree with everything you said about Microsoft (not the GPL), and just wanted to add a little peeve. Actually a big one:
It is my understanding that Microsoft will ONLY give schools "free" software if they agree not to use software from other vendors, including Linux and other free and/or open source software.
The law codifies what facts are used to determine whether copyright infringement has occurred, and the extent.
One fact is the quantity of the protectable elements that is copied. So for example, if you only copy 10% of the work, you are probably safe.
Another is the commercial intent of the copy. ie if you copied it to sell versus copying to give to a friend.
Another is parody. Parody is actually allowed, again depending on the other facts (such as commerce and percentage copied)
Copyright is supposed to carefully weigh the promotion of science and the "useful arts" against the public good. Giving a monopoly for any purpose is at best a balancing act.
Copyright is now 90years in some cases, and covers all kind of activities never even considered until recently. No additional benefit to the public can possibly be demonstrated, and yet people still post comments supporting these draconian measures.
Quit supporting this crap - it only benefits a few people at the top of all the music and movie companies.
In the past you used to actually OWN the copy (not the RIGHTS, of course).
A book for example. You own the actual physical book.
But with downloaded tracks, you don't own the "bits". And with DRM, the content provider can (and does) limit you well beyond the law.
Don't believe me? A recent example was a public domain track released in eBook format. The provider prevented all kinds of things, including the read aloud feature. This was public domain, remember. There are no restrictions on what anyone can do legally, but the DRM prevented it anyway.
Actually, duplicating some of a CD or cassette tape for a friend or family member has long been accepted as fair-use - ie not requiring authorization from the copyright holder.
So is duplicating some of a book.
The monopoly provided by copyright is there for one reason and one reason only: promoting science and the "useful arts".
The RIAA and MPAA and others (including the software industry) have perverted copyright to promote their own interests.
The most valuable time you have is that you spend doing something you enjoy, especially if it's shared with those you love.
If your time is too valuable for you to spend it having fun, then your priorities are screwed up.
The truth is that games are no less entertaining than movies or opera - to a specific group of people. As time goes on, those of us who grew up with games will become old folks who like video games.
But maybe less so when our reaction times decrease.
I disagree: it's not whether the titles are great - it's whether there are sufficient titles.
If there are only a few titles, I'd go buy the $99 playstation. Even if I have PS/2, I wouldn't get the XBox/360 until there is compelling reason to.
Of course, I hate Microsoft, and won't be buying an XBox/360 regardless. (Actually I'm torn - they make a loss on every one. I should buy it, then load Linux on it)
Even if I have to wait until 2007, I'll be buying PS/3 and running Linux on it.
I said that software being freely available is "much in line" with mathematics being freely available. I did not say they are equal.
But many of the same reasons exist. The fact is that many of the processes that mathematicians go through are very similar or identical to software engineers. The big difference is that mathematicians have the notion that they "discover" mathematics. Whereas software engineers are more inclined to attribute creation.
Also, recent developments in mathematics allows all software to be restated in terms of mathematics - making the two absolutely identical.
One could certainly argue that "mathematics and scientific discoveries" belong to no-one
One could make this argument. One could also argue that mathematics should be patented and only accessible with purchased licensing - in fact some have.
Fundamentally, copyright is an artificial restriction imposed to facilitate scarcity in a product or service that does not naturally suffer from it - because scarcity is the only way we can ascertain value (and profit from it).
Bullshit. None of the things currently discussed under the topic of copyright are scarce in any way. They have intrinsic value, and many people would pay for them without copyright.
In fact, they did, prior to the institution of copyright.
The sooner everyone admits this (and stops wanking around with terms like "protecting artists' rights" and "progressing the sciences and arts") the sooner we might be able to have some form of reasonable copyright reform.
This is bullshit too.
"progressing the sciences and useful arts" is what copyright is for. It is it's purpose.
Calling it something else won't bring reform any closer.
It way beyond serving that purpose now. It now serves to enrich a small number of people, and empower them to lobby congress to further restrict my rights and remove my freedoms.
How does the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd reconcile the liberty of other people's information with the privacy of their own?
There is a vast difference between the kinds of information mentioned:
Open source
This is largely irrelevant to the discussion, as "Open Source" refers to the kind of software created by those who believe making the source code available for any purpose results in better software. The author was probably intending:
Free Software
A large group of people (myself included) believe that software should be freely available to everyone for any purpose. This is much in line with the view that mathematics should be freely available, and that scientific discoveries should be published and peer reviewed.
Copyfighters
The general problem today that copyfighters oppose concerns a large swing in the laws of copyright.
Many years ago, in England, when copyright was instituted, many authors and publishers became concerned that the availability of the printing press would mean that attempts to sell books would be undercut by immoral publishers who would (without any permission, as none was needed) copy a manuscript and sell it cheaper than the original publisher.
This led many to suggest the author be given a legal monopoly on publishing the work (and the right to give permission to publish) for a term. Originally 7 years. Note that this did not include copying - ie it was still perfectly legal to take your copy of a book and write entire sections (or indeed the entire manuscript) without any permission.
I think everyone would agree that the current system of copyright is rather more restrictive. It now covers:
Music
Film/Movies
Performances
Software
Many other things
It also covers more kinds of activities:
Copying
Distributing
Making derivatives
In certain cases (DMCA) Reverse engineering
Furthermore, since the advent of the digital age, the vast majority of the developed world has access to and uses regularly the computer and internet.
Copyright as extended to the internet is far more restrictive, as everything on the internet is a copy. Thus everything on the internet is protected, without any action on the part of the original author, by copyright.
This is vastly more restrictive than the original copyright laws, and go way beyond promoting publishing. They serve a very small (relatively) number of people who actually maintain this copyright (which lasts for 90 years now - depending).
Very generally copyfighters want some kind of reform to make the laws serve their purpose. Most of us would agree that copyright originally had a hugely beneficial effect; making books, much more widely available than they otherwise ever would have been.
Personal data can be further broken down:
Website visits
Search terms
Products purchased/viewed/rated and reviewed
Advertisments viewed/clicked
Health history/medication data
Reading preferences
Education
Careers/hobbies
When you break the list down, it becomes quite clear that the purposes of collecting the various kinds of "information" is quite varied.
The division appears to come between, on the one hand, serving the people as a whole - at the expense of few or none, and on the other hand serving individuals at the expense of the citizens.
1. Some of the things that have changed:
The copyright term. This is currently around 90 years (a bit more than the original 7), and subject to future lobbying. Don't ever expect Mickey Mouse TM to ever drop into the public domain.
Copyright now covers, in addition to books, movies, music, software, and more or less anything written.
2. Whether someone may say "boo", depends on many factors. Some have more consideration than others:
Commercial consideration. Copying something for non-commercial purposes suffers less copyright protection.
Amount of the work as a whole which is copied. This is perhaps more important than the above point. If you duplicate an entire book, and hand it out for free, that's almost certain to be infringement - even though it's non-commercial.
Protectablilty. Whether the content is actually protectable. Many parts of works are not actually protectable under copyright law.
Access to original material. Lack of access to the copyrighted material is an affirmative defense. You actually have to have copied the material. Seperately creating a work, no matter how similar, is not copyright infringement. Of course, it's hard to prove you didn't copy something, and the level of similarity is good evidence.
Parodies are given less regard under copyright law - even for commercial purposes.
So, it's true that if you independantly create a work, you are not infringing copyright. But if you have access to it, and your own work is strikingly similar in large part, then you could find it hard to prove you didn't copy it.
Those that I could actually measure any difference actually ran FASTER under Linux.
This may not be a fair test, because I have finer grained control over resources on Linux, others may not have optimized their systems as I have.
The legal systems in the UK and US are based on precedents. Once a Judge has made a ruling with holdings, those holdings are used (held) in future cases.
One problem with this one, is that there is no longer any way of "wirelessly" advertizing permission to use an access point. (Not in a curerntly supported standard way, anyway).
But the bigger problem is that is sets a precedent of "default is closed". ie that access to networks must be specifically permitted.
This has widespread effect.
Browsing the net
Web spiders
internetworking in general
anonymous ftp (how can you remain anonymous if you have to have specific permission)?
Nearly all of the internet is based on the premise that access is granted by default.
Even if the guy was being a dick, this is a bad, bad ruling.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember people have been put to death for certain kinds of speech.
Never surrender one of our most important freedoms - especially by reason of a fallacy
If it went down, it possibly could have resulted in the death of my daughter.
That's the sound of me packing for France.
Oh wait - isn't France full of French people?
Never mind...
It can restrict beyond copyright.
But worse it has been used to restrict beyond copyright law's provisions.
Will libraries unlock material which is actually in the public domain? Or will the provider be responsible for managing the restrictions - in which case they will inevitably err on the side of restriction.
They (we) write replacements for software that has closed licensing. One of the original tenets of Free Software was the creation of a completely free system. This is impossible without free replacements of all the pieces (including applications).
PS This post will likely be modded Funny not Insightful!
Throw in the fact that schools will take more free licences than they would if they were paid-for, and you have a small impact. Then there's the fact that MS will be paying less tax, which reduces the impact even more.
It's quite clear that getting school kids familiar (if not expert) in MS products is one major win, and reducing kids exposure to Free Software is another major win.
Whichever way you look at it, this can only be good for Microsoft. And bad for choice (and therefore bad for competition).
As for school preparing children for work - that's total BS. School prepares children for conformity.
My seven years old son was given an identity card. Eventually all US citizens will be required to carry them.
As for Linux being "out there", if Microsoft can keep it out of the schools, where it's low cost and flexibility would otherwise make it a prime choice, they've won an important battle.
Remember that giving software to schools was a punishment for being guilty under anti-trust laws.
Not much of a punishment if you ask me.
It is my understanding that Microsoft will ONLY give schools "free" software if they agree not to use software from other vendors, including Linux and other free and/or open source software.
I don't think that should be even legal.
One fact is the quantity of the protectable elements that is copied. So for example, if you only copy 10% of the work, you are probably safe.
Another is the commercial intent of the copy. ie if you copied it to sell versus copying to give to a friend.
Another is parody. Parody is actually allowed, again depending on the other facts (such as commerce and percentage copied)
Copyright is supposed to carefully weigh the promotion of science and the "useful arts" against the public good. Giving a monopoly for any purpose is at best a balancing act.
Copyright is now 90years in some cases, and covers all kind of activities never even considered until recently. No additional benefit to the public can possibly be demonstrated, and yet people still post comments supporting these draconian measures.
Quit supporting this crap - it only benefits a few people at the top of all the music and movie companies.
A book for example. You own the actual physical book.
But with downloaded tracks, you don't own the "bits". And with DRM, the content provider can (and does) limit you well beyond the law.
Don't believe me? A recent example was a public domain track released in eBook format. The provider prevented all kinds of things, including the read aloud feature. This was public domain, remember. There are no restrictions on what anyone can do legally, but the DRM prevented it anyway.
The code checks one box that IE doesn't have checked - Accessibilty for rich internet apps.
This is a carefully designed move to further boost Firefox. It's an excellent reason to give for switching, especially at government facilities.
So is duplicating some of a book.
The monopoly provided by copyright is there for one reason and one reason only: promoting science and the "useful arts".
The RIAA and MPAA and others (including the software industry) have perverted copyright to promote their own interests.
Unless we fight, we will continue to lose ground.
AND they didn't count the mouse buttons very accurately!
Realtime texture map generation, natural sounding audio effect, all kinds of things become possible.
If your time is too valuable for you to spend it having fun, then your priorities are screwed up.
The truth is that games are no less entertaining than movies or opera - to a specific group of people.
As time goes on, those of us who grew up with games will become old folks who like video games.
But maybe less so when our reaction times decrease.
If there are only a few titles, I'd go buy the $99 playstation. Even if I have PS/2, I wouldn't get the XBox/360 until there is compelling reason to.
Of course, I hate Microsoft, and won't be buying an XBox/360 regardless. (Actually I'm torn - they make a loss on every one. I should buy it, then load Linux on it)
Even if I have to wait until 2007, I'll be buying PS/3 and running Linux on it.
I said that software being freely available is "much in line" with mathematics being freely available. I did not say they are equal.
But many of the same reasons exist. The fact is that many of the processes that mathematicians go through are very similar or identical to software engineers. The big difference is that mathematicians have the notion that they "discover" mathematics. Whereas software engineers are more inclined to attribute creation.
Also, recent developments in mathematics allows all software to be restated in terms of mathematics - making the two absolutely identical.
One could make this argument. One could also argue that mathematics should be patented and only accessible with purchased licensing - in fact some have. Bullshit. None of the things currently discussed under the topic of copyright are scarce in any way. They have intrinsic value, and many people would pay for them without copyright.In fact, they did, prior to the institution of copyright.
This is bullshit too."progressing the sciences and useful arts" is what copyright is for. It is it's purpose.
Calling it something else won't bring reform any closer.
It way beyond serving that purpose now. It now serves to enrich a small number of people, and empower them to lobby congress to further restrict my rights and remove my freedoms.
The question:
There is a vast difference between the kinds of information mentioned:
This is largely irrelevant to the discussion, as "Open Source" refers to the kind of software created by those who believe making the source code available for any purpose results in better software. The author was probably intending:
A large group of people (myself included) believe that software should be freely available to everyone for any purpose. This is much in line with the view that mathematics should be freely available, and that scientific discoveries should be published and peer reviewed.
The general problem today that copyfighters oppose concerns a large swing in the laws of copyright.
Many years ago, in England, when copyright was instituted, many authors and publishers became concerned that the availability of the printing press would mean that attempts to sell books would be undercut by immoral publishers who would (without any permission, as none was needed) copy a manuscript and sell it cheaper than the original publisher.
This led many to suggest the author be given a legal monopoly on publishing the work (and the right to give permission to publish) for a term. Originally 7 years. Note that this did not include copying - ie it was still perfectly legal to take your copy of a book and write entire sections (or indeed the entire manuscript) without any permission.
I think everyone would agree that the current system of copyright is rather more restrictive. It now covers:
It also covers more kinds of activities:
Furthermore, since the advent of the digital age, the vast majority of the developed world has access to and uses regularly the computer and internet.
Copyright as extended to the internet is far more restrictive, as everything on the internet is a copy. Thus everything on the internet is protected, without any action on the part of the original author, by copyright.
This is vastly more restrictive than the original copyright laws, and go way beyond promoting publishing. They serve a very small (relatively) number of people who actually maintain this copyright (which lasts for 90 years now - depending).
Very generally copyfighters want some kind of reform to make the laws serve their purpose. Most of us would agree that copyright originally had a hugely beneficial effect; making books, much more widely available than they otherwise ever would have been.
When you break the list down, it becomes quite clear that the purposes of collecting the various kinds of "information" is quite varied.
The division appears to come between, on the one hand, serving the people as a whole - at the expense of few or none, and on the other hand serving individuals at the expense of the citizens.
What the hell is wrong with the mod?
That was +5,Funny
Couldn't have said it better myself.
The copyright term. This is currently around 90 years (a bit more than the original 7), and subject to future lobbying. Don't ever expect Mickey Mouse TM to ever drop into the public domain.
Copyright now covers, in addition to books, movies, music, software, and more or less anything written.
2. Whether someone may say "boo", depends on many factors. Some have more consideration than others:
So, it's true that if you independantly create a work, you are not infringing copyright. But if you have access to it, and your own work is strikingly similar in large part, then you could find it hard to prove you didn't copy it.
Those that I could actually measure any difference actually ran FASTER under Linux.
This may not be a fair test, because I have finer grained control over resources on Linux, others may not have optimized their systems as I have.
The legal systems in the UK and US are based on precedents. Once a Judge has made a ruling with holdings, those holdings are used (held) in future cases.
One problem with this one, is that there is no longer any way of "wirelessly" advertizing permission to use an access point. (Not in a curerntly supported standard way, anyway).
But the bigger problem is that is sets a precedent of "default is closed". ie that access to networks must be specifically permitted.
This has widespread effect.
Nearly all of the internet is based on the premise that access is granted by default.
Even if the guy was being a dick, this is a bad, bad ruling.