Quick poll. How many have not bought a nice track or album simply because it was DRM encumbered?
a billion iTunes tracks says you and I are among the few. Most people don't care, and even more people don't even know.
I was talking to someone over the weekend, and they were only peripherally aware of the Sony Rootkit fiasco... we talked about it as I looked at their extensive CD collection including Sony CDs... I couldn't remember the titles from the list, but I'm sure he's got a rootkit in his collection, and I know he (a) plays CDs on his computer, and (b) is not involved in the class-action suit.
This is/....people here are aware of the issues (and not even everyone here agrees on the issues) but once you leave here the rate of educated consumers (on this sort of subject) drops to near zero.
I honestly thought the rootkit would be the wake-up call. Especially with the callous and arrogant way Sony handled it, but apparently their arrogance is not misplaced: people will take it, like it, and even ask for more. I've not much faith left that we'll pull out of this somehow.
I highly doubt that you could play a CD on a gramophone. So, you can't really play it on whatever you wish, you can only play it on compatible hardware.
But I could play my record on any recordplayer, my tape on any casette player, and my CD on any CD player. And I could space-shift, and this was in fact enshrined in law (in the US) and companies made devices to help you do this.
Contrast with my DVD which only plays on DVD players in my 'region', so we are already more limited then copyright law. And DVD can't legally be space-shifted in the US, thanks to the DMCA, and so there's no devices to help you space-shift.
Continue to contrast with iTunes, where they change the 'license' on the product you buy after you buy it. wtf?
And if you think it's gotten as bad as it's going to get, I've read the next version(s) of media players will play on only one device. Ever. When you buy a second media player for the bedroom, you need to buy a new library of movies. When the media player in the basement tanks, you throw out all your movies along with it. Windows Vista will be the testing grounds: two major hardware upgrades == pay again.
So we've gone from 'plays on all compatible devices' to 'plays only when some foreign corporate entity lets you'.
So this isn't just about compatible hardware, it's about rights-erosion.
A company is not going to invest any time at all in making music if they can know that as soon as they release their tracks it is available at no penalty or risk on a file sharing network to any granny who wants it
First off, that's simply false. Libraries have been 'file sharing' networks for books for all of history, and yet we have a thriving book publishing industry.
Secondly, assuming you are right, why should I care if the RIAA folds and goes home? They no longer perform any useful service. We're not talking about the artists here -- and I will laugh long and hard if you try and tell me that the artists will stop because there's no longer a 'publisher' that takes >95% of the profit. In the internet age, anyone can publish themselves. It's the RIAA et-al as gate-keepers that work only to ensure their own profits and engage in monopolistic (oligopolistic specifically) and anti-competative behaviour to ensure that only their 'art' gets mass release.
Nobody would buy music ever!
I highly doubt that to be true. Would sales plummet? Probably. But what would really plummet is the price, and that would encourage a lot of people to buy from a known source instead of hunting...specifically I could think that the band could sell directly on their site : and lots of people would buy direct from the band, knowing that the band was being paid.
And even if the sales plummet, the artists couldn't do much worse at this point...
Maybe you think that would be a good thing but I doubt you would see your plethora of new music. And my guess anyway about the people bitching about the lack of new music from the studios is they have a total lack of imagination. There is more music from around the world in thousands of different genres available for your pleasure than at any time in the past.
Interesting. Am I reading this right? Are you saying:
There *is* a lot of music out there.
More music, in fact, than at any other time in history
Just not from the 'studios'.
...or are you saying that the abundance of new music is in fact from the major labels?
So if it's the former, then it proves that we no longer need the labels, as the music is being created without them. And if it's the latter and they're supposedly 'not profiting' from these minor releases than we have proof that they will invest despite low sales - meaning that it's not true that publishers will close-up if music doesn't 'sell'.
We're seeing a business model on it's deathbed...not art. Art will exist long after the RIAA is a footnote in history books.
In general, history doesn't agree with you:
Apple failed to open the Mac and has managed to keep 100% of 5% of the market, down from ~50% at peak. Contrast with the very open Intel x86 standard. (not just the chip, the whole architecture has competition)
Sony has introduced countless (now) irrelevent proprietary media types all of which either failed to ever get traction or started with a bang, but dropped off until they disappeared. Contrast with the very open CD media standard, and even the very licensable DVD standard, and the semi-open MP3 standard....leaving Sony with 100% of 0% of the market.
So basically, over time, the market tends to reward the most open standards, and relegate the most closed standards to the history books. Various levels of open survive for different terms, and various outside factors play into specific examples, but in general the most unencumbered standards tend to win.
The company that makes and publishes an open standard (read: the next 'CD', like Phillips did) will topple Apple, and will make a %age of the profits, while Apple's share will drop.
...probably the biggest obstacle in this however, is the music biz itself with it's retarded managment that can't do math or understand that DRM can't ever work -- and they just *might* be the outside factor that causes your analysis to be true afterall. We'll see!
Paper balloting is not safe. Neither is digital balloting, but at least digital balloting has a smaller margin of error.
I'll start by saying that I'm pro-E-Voting, but I'd just like to clarify that digital balloting only has a smaller unintentional margin of error. It opens up the possibilities of wholesale intentional errors (aka fraud) that simply can't exist in paper voting (or at least can't exist unless that same person also controls all* information flow) In other words, it's much more difficult for a single person to steal an election: it requires a much larger group of people to be involved, and with each person you add to a conspiracy the greater the probability that it won't succeed...
So what this means is that you need to take great precautions in an electronic system that software auditing is easy, possible, and enforced.
*and I mean _all_... news media, ballot centre reports etc
I'm no expert on this, but I am sure researchers can find a way to feed farm fish from sources other than ocean fish, and I'm sure it's already done today to a certain degree
It seems to me that when humans have tried to second-guess nature we've typically just fsked ourselves.
Nature is always trying to balance itself... high population counts result in starvation for some percentage of that population which decreases the population. We humans have broken this natural limit by being able to transport food over large distances and nature can't react quickly enough. We've developed insatiable appetites and the means to pillage entire stocks. If the good professor is right and we're arriving at some kind of point of no return then again nature will do what nature does: eliminate the problem and restore balance. *Life* will go on on this planet... just not humans.
This is why whenever I read something about how we're messing up the environment and people say: don't worry, it'll fix itself I think to myself "yup... but you might not like how nature deals with the problem..."
imho we desperately need to return to a more natural way of living and make sustainability the priority, decrease our dependance on chemicals, and dissallow corporate externalization of environmental costs... just a start, and just my 2c.
Got anything to back that up? It seems to me there are place on this planet that have higher (and no) speed limits that don't have increased accident rates... I fail to see a causal relationship between minimizing maximum velocity and minimizing accident rates. I do believe, however, that there is a causal relationship between better driving training and lower accident rates.
yeah... knew I shoulda picked a different word without explanation...
Re-writing the Windows API is difficult in much the same way that writing out the bible by hand is difficult. Something that takes a long time is not the same as something that is difficult to do.
Since the Windows API is public the task gets a rating of "trivial but long... very very long" which is what I said...
I don't see how this remixing/reworking/whatever is not included in the broad definition of the public freely enjoying previous works.
Yeah, I don't think our opinions differ in any great way. But I guess for me the distinction is important to make: afterall, if a CD is available on the store shelf for $20 then I buy it and I can enjoy it.
But as long as the copyright exists on that CD I can't remix and re-interpret that art without negotiation with the rights-holder.
So what is (to me) important is that creative people have a commons of art to inspire the next generation, and they can work with it...so while even with copyright-forever, the public-at-large is able to enjoy the works they buy, the more specific segment of the public (artists) need more than passive access to that art that the general public needs/gets.
I guess what I also didn't make clear in my initial post was that whenever I read someone posting that art needs to be 'free' I'm afraid that they are just going to get bashed as freeloaders etc., but the argument for this 'free' isn't about the public directly, it's about the artists directly, and this is what makes it better for society....just my own personal view on this, and like I said; I don't think we see this very differently.
The question is, will it be correctly valued in a world without IP? Answer: no
I guess the simple answer is "You don't know that". You have absolutely no way to back that statement. I'd suggest that quite probably the valuations will be no worse than they are today. And note there's nothing in the current system that leads me to believe that (for example) musicians are valued "correctly"... you're pretty much a serf to the Big Four as a musician.
Assuming you are correct, F/OSS developers don't get paid their value. Afterall, their work is freely available, and is (for the purposes of discussing "getting paid") totally without intellectual monopoly protection. And yet, they do get paid. IBM, Oracle, RedHat, mySQL and others pay people (real creative people) lots of money to write real creative code that is then given away for free... open-source is the aberration that proves that intellectual monoply is not a requirement for either creativity or remuneraton.
Yes, if (say) IBM needs knowledge of how to optimize its business process, then it will pay for that knowledge - and nobody else would be interested anyway, as the knowledge is only useful to IBM.
At best, the bits that are specific to IBM are of litte use to anyone else. The principles, however, are of use to various other organisations, and so if IBM hires a consultant (group) to come in and optimize they are going to pay people who have some history of optimizing other companies processes. The principles will be the same from company to company, and so without business method patents, the consultants are freely allowed to build on the existing works (principles) to help IBM optimize it's process...
But suppose you develop a new faster computer chip. Then who will pay for it? IBM? No, because the knowledge will be available to their competitors.
Why won't IBM pay for it? If it gives them a competative advantage they *will* do it, even if it means that their competitors follow (months or years later...) giving IBM a first-mover advantage. Let's also remember that making CPUs has a natural barrier to entry: you need a billion dollar fab to actually make them. This means that they don't have to worry that (other than a handful) of other companies are even going to try and compete...
We actually have a perfectly viable form of IP socialism right now. It's called the patent system.
The patent system as it stands today is completely broken, and opens companies to risks like submarine patents. The patent system as it was designed so many many moons ago was not as broken, but it was destined to be broken. imho, any system of unnatural barriers will eventually be subverted by people who will make massive profits well beyond their investments, and will be gamed by those that don't want to do 'real' work.
Patents are unnecessary and contain hidden costs that most apologists conveniently ignore. The patent system costs millions of dollars to operate, and all of that money is added to the cost of the products you buy.
First-mover advantage offers sufficient incentive to offset marginal increases in product.
While the patent system attempts to leap-frog innovation, what it really does is stop anyone from improving on your idea for 20yrs, thereby slowing down (not speading up) innovation.
A simple contrast is the rate of change in Linux vs. the rate of change in Microsoft.
One is locked-up, and tries to make expensive mammoth changes at a time. It requires massive capital outlay and massive returns only affordabe via some kind of long-term artificial protection. This method of progress justifies the arguments that intellectual monopoly laws are needed to ensure that this creativity happens in the first place. (Also note, that it causes the successful company to make profits that are way out of line with their investment, and tends
does anyone else find it ironic that for 99% of all human history, the exchange of information had natural barriers (time, distance, geography, small populations that didn't move much etc)
And this difficulty in exchange of information is what held humans back from progressing (and still does: look at countries that repress knowledge transfer). In other words, as the rate of information exchange increases, the rate of advancement also increases.
So we finally eliminate these natural barriers, and we get ourselves into a situation where information can be transmitted nearly instantly to all the corners of the globe, which should create an environment of explosive advancement, and instead of embracing the possibilites we fabricate unnatural barriers... wah?!
You miss the point of reducing copyright's lifespan, which is to allow people to freely enjoy stuff...
The point of copyright having any end whatsoever is so that works get added to the public domain to be remixed/reimagined by the next artist.
The public "freely enjoying" is only a distant second to ensuring that the next generation of artists has something to work with.
Is there any reason why the free software model cannot succeed with ideas, music, movies, and other copyrighted content?
That is entirely the point of the commons: By making more art a public good, it decreases the difficulty of an artist to express themselves; they can add and expand and create something new for the public to enjoy.
I think you're bang on: what F/OSS does for software, a copyright-less world can do for artists (not publishers, mind you, but I'm having a difficult time finding any use for art publishers these days...)
Just wondering. How easy is it to reverse-engineer a massive closed-source piece of software (like, say, MS Windows)?
Trivial... just takes time to "re-code" it... a lot of time... check out http://www.winehq.com/ who are in fact reverse engineering Windows.
Such a reverse-engineering job would be of obvious commercial interest (especially to parties who work in countries with lax regulatory regimes), so there is an obvious incentive to do it.
Why reverse engineer when you can just print copies? There's very little commercial interest in this...
I'm guessing the next step is to stop supplying natural diamonds to jewellers that insist on selling 'fake' diamonds, and hey presto, we're back to the old DeBeers cartel.
I don't kow what it costs to make a diamond, but if Adia can make them sufficiently inexpensively and in sufficent quantities they can flood the market. There *will* be stores that accept being cut off from DeBeers if they can sell diamonds for, say 1/2 price.
And there will be people who go into the store and say "the diamonds in this store come with the same cert. as the store down the street who wants double the price. I'll take it." They will neither know (nor care if they did know) that the diamond wasn't pulled out of the earth.
Sure, there will be people who insist on paying a premium because the marketer told them to, but in the long-term people are cheap.... that is one of the pillars of capitalism, right?
There are no lawsuits in Canada... they tried, the judge said "piss off... a screen shot is insufficent evidence to infringe on people's privacy"... which is what any sane judge should have said.
So while it's possible that the lawsuits in the US are causing Cannucks to think twice, I tend to agree with the other sentiments on this story: the stuff coming out isn't worth the bandwidth it costs to download....
Clearances are expensive and time-consuming, many companies cannot afford to do it
But these companies can afford to get mugged by their employees?
I'm not going to suggest that you will catch all the bad apples before you hire them, but one flawed sysadmin can ruin a company.
To say that it's too expensive means that the total loss of your systems and/or all trade secrets being sold to the competition is less costly then doing background checks.
And you can also bet that it will cut your available workforce significantly.
Yup, in much the same way that requiring (for example) a CS degree for a CS job. And in most HR departments that's considered a good thing. Are there guys w/o degrees that can do the job? Sure, but you've opened the pool to a lot of people that can't do the job. (in this case, de-qualifying people who have been a security problem decreases the chances of hiring someone who will be a security problem.)
If voters are allowed to handle the printouts they can be substitutet with blanks to cast doubt over the results.
The attendant can ensure that it's a ballot (they don't need to see the votes for this - something on the back etc) before it gets inserted into the box is a simple way to deal with this. If the only paper going into the box is a ballot it's not any different then paper voting.
Verification of the computer count requires a full recount
It requires a full recount per machine only. And "recounts" shouldn't be necessary once the system proves to have minimum accuracy. Audits yes, recounts, no.
and since the proccess is non-transparent it shouldn't take much to require one.
It is no more or less transparent than paper voting is today. Oh, and I forgot to mention: the source code should be public, and as a part of the audit, the code is verified as the version that was certified...
Bar code recounting by computer poses the same transparency problems as initial the computer counting.
Sure, and that's why I said that manual counting was the final audit. Once there is a level of satisfaction that the machine counts the votes correctly on a sample then the rest can be assumed correct. Again, with the public source code, etc... it's not like barcoding is rocket science.
As I see it the system basicly reduces to a hand count with a delay and all delays between the voting and the definitive count introduce the risk of ballot tampering.
No, thanks to the wonderful world of stats we can extrapolate. Picking random machines to audit gives us a sampling which will indicate whether or not the system is working. There should be no need to recount everything if the system is working. The only way a full recount is necessary is if in fact the system isn't working. And then someone gets sued. Put Diebold on the hook for the costs and I think they'll pay a little more attention.
See... the wonderful thing I've noticed over the years with tech is that the Legacy Manual System has all kinds of holes and problems, but it's near impossible to determine the level of error, and so everybody makes the mistake of assuming the Legacy Manual System has no flaws (because there's no nice little report stating that there were x% errors). Once you put an adding machine into the process you're suddenly able to tally how often there's a mistake. And so then people say crazy things like "a manual system is better"... the manual system gives us "hanging chads" and gives us a different number when we count again. It's obviously not even accurate! An automated, transparent system would make voting more, not less, reliable.
All of this assumes that the elections department has honest employees. And if they don't then this isn't a discussion about automation. Paper can be messed with, ballot boxes stuffed, ballots destroyed, altered whatever. Or they can just lie: Don't count the paper, just announce the results you want.
This just means that the auditing and paper trail don't include the user-id (which a bank machine does).
Here's a simple voting machine abstract:
The voter enters the polling station, and provides ID to an attendant. They are checked off the list on the attendants computer, which sets up the polling computer to expect a new voter.
The voter goes into a privacy booth where the computer is waiting for them, with their name on the screen: Are you Bobby J? Yes/No to ensure the right person has arrived.
they vote on the many possible choices via interactive prompts on the screen, the computer records all the votes, but does not commit them (basic SQL: the transaction is not commmited).
Once completed, the machine prints out all of their choices on physical paper with bar-codes for faster re-counting. No personally identifying marks are made on the paper, because this is the paper trail and is the true ballot, however the machine that spits the ballot out is noted for auditing puposes.
The person reviews the paper and agrees that what is on the paper is what they intended to vote for and hits "ok"
They return to the attendant with the paper. the paper is placed in a locked ballot box (just like paper voting) and the attendant commits the transaction.
If the person doesn't return with the ballot, the attendant cancels the transaction - it is their job to ensure that the number of paper ballots in the box match the number of committed votes.
If the person wants to make a change on the ballot before they file it, they must insert the printed one for shredding before it will let them make a change. A new ballot is then printed...
The computer counts the votes. For auditing purposes humans can either do a fast re-count using the bar-codes or to audit that the bar-codes are correct they can do a manual recount. There should be zero discrepancies between the paper and the electronic vote counts.
At the end of the day, the paper copy of the ballots (hand counted) is deemed to be correct. With the bar-codes auditing machines or sites is very quick. Start by ensuring a small sample of bar codes match the printed vote, and then simply scan all the bar codes and compare... voila!
wow... that was tricky. Let the computer do what computers do well: count. Make a paper version so we can check that the counting part is working right. In the event of a problem we ignore the computer results and count the paper by hand.
and everytime someone says that I have the right not to buy I note that they are missing the bigger picture.
Why did we grant (heh) temporary monopolies in the first place? It wasn't to enrich some people financially. It was because we want to encourage artists to create, because what the artists create is our culture.
So what you are really saying is that I am free to remain outside of society if I don't want to play by their new and improved rules.
That ain't right.
The rules were set up as a bargain between society and the publishers, and what's happening here is that they are unilaterally altering the agreement.
And that leaves one in the position that either they become self-inforced social outcasts, or they bend over and take it... *OR* they stand up and fight it and say that it's not right what the companies are doing... just like PP.
I guess I still don't understand what is so frickin' tricky that a company that makes bank machines can't make voting machines...
Bank machines must be 100% accurate
Bank machines must provide audit capabilities
Bank machines must provide paper trail
...and a voting machine is really different how? It's stuff like this that makes you wonder if the conspiracy-guys are right - the flaws are in fact features...
You're simply parroting the capitalist/monopolist propoganda. you're where I was a couple years ago. Do some reading, think about the current economy (guys like redhat, ibm and mysql all *pay* people to write *free* software... how does that figure into your dilemna?)
I've written some of it down in my journal here on/.... it's a good place to start, but I'm sure it'll lead you to make up your own mind.
Actually, profits in those other sectors *also* dwarf the profits in the entertainment industry. And, by and large, the political contributions are on a similar scale. The charity that manufacturing and agriculture extract from the federal government, for example, is mind-boggling.
Run me some numbers and references... I'm very interested... specifically in pure $$ how much money is being spent, and I guess more specifically how it is concentrated. It seems to me that it's the concentration of money (sony et al have the *same* message), and not the pure $$ count.
Please... whatever you've got, this is a subject that interests me. From both sides: the media corps and the corrupt politicos.
but in recent years almost all fishing grounds world-wide have seen severe reductions in population.
It's a failure to (re)populate the commons... and in much the same way the current copyright terms are drying up the artistic commons (nothing's being added any more!) and this will lead to a much poorer arts community... not a richer one as the Monopolist Middlemen would like us to believe.
What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the media industry is small potatoes.
Until you look at the number that's important: gross profit available to purchase politicians. While the sales in these other sectors is far larger than media, the dispensible income (and concentration thereof) is no where near.
Intellectual monopoly laws create an enviornment of unprecendented disposable profit.
Couple that with a political system that demands bribery as a requirement to win and we have laws that are disproportionately strong for the industries' true importance in the economy.
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I was talking to someone over the weekend, and they were only peripherally aware of the Sony Rootkit fiasco ... we talked about it as I looked at their extensive CD collection including Sony CDs ... I couldn't remember the titles from the list, but I'm sure he's got a rootkit in his collection, and I know he (a) plays CDs on his computer, and (b) is not involved in the class-action suit.
This is /. ...people here are aware of the issues (and not even everyone here agrees on the issues) but once you leave here the rate of educated consumers (on this sort of subject) drops to near zero.
I honestly thought the rootkit would be the wake-up call. Especially with the callous and arrogant way Sony handled it, but apparently their arrogance is not misplaced: people will take it, like it, and even ask for more. I've not much faith left that we'll pull out of this somehow.
Contrast with my DVD which only plays on DVD players in my 'region', so we are already more limited then copyright law. And DVD can't legally be space-shifted in the US, thanks to the DMCA, and so there's no devices to help you space-shift.
Continue to contrast with iTunes, where they change the 'license' on the product you buy after you buy it. wtf?
And if you think it's gotten as bad as it's going to get, I've read the next version(s) of media players will play on only one device. Ever. When you buy a second media player for the bedroom, you need to buy a new library of movies. When the media player in the basement tanks, you throw out all your movies along with it. Windows Vista will be the testing grounds: two major hardware upgrades == pay again.
So we've gone from 'plays on all compatible devices' to 'plays only when some foreign corporate entity lets you'.
So this isn't just about compatible hardware, it's about rights-erosion.
Secondly, assuming you are right, why should I care if the RIAA folds and goes home? They no longer perform any useful service. We're not talking about the artists here -- and I will laugh long and hard if you try and tell me that the artists will stop because there's no longer a 'publisher' that takes >95% of the profit. In the internet age, anyone can publish themselves. It's the RIAA et-al as gate-keepers that work only to ensure their own profits and engage in monopolistic (oligopolistic specifically) and anti-competative behaviour to ensure that only their 'art' gets mass release. I highly doubt that to be true. Would sales plummet? Probably. But what would really plummet is the price, and that would encourage a lot of people to buy from a known source instead of hunting...specifically I could think that the band could sell directly on their site : and lots of people would buy direct from the band, knowing that the band was being paid.
And even if the sales plummet, the artists couldn't do much worse at this point... Interesting. Am I reading this right? Are you saying:
So if it's the former, then it proves that we no longer need the labels, as the music is being created without them. And if it's the latter and they're supposedly 'not profiting' from these minor releases than we have proof that they will invest despite low sales - meaning that it's not true that publishers will close-up if music doesn't 'sell'.
We're seeing a business model on it's deathbed...not art. Art will exist long after the RIAA is a footnote in history books.
Apple failed to open the Mac and has managed to keep 100% of 5% of the market, down from ~50% at peak. Contrast with the very open Intel x86 standard. (not just the chip, the whole architecture has competition)
Sony has introduced countless (now) irrelevent proprietary media types all of which either failed to ever get traction or started with a bang, but dropped off until they disappeared. Contrast with the very open CD media standard, and even the very licensable DVD standard, and the semi-open MP3 standard.
So basically, over time, the market tends to reward the most open standards, and relegate the most closed standards to the history books. Various levels of open survive for different terms, and various outside factors play into specific examples, but in general the most unencumbered standards tend to win.
The company that makes and publishes an open standard (read: the next 'CD', like Phillips did) will topple Apple, and will make a %age of the profits, while Apple's share will drop.
In other words, it's much more difficult for a single person to steal an election: it requires a much larger group of people to be involved, and with each person you add to a conspiracy the greater the probability that it won't succeed...
So what this means is that you need to take great precautions in an electronic system that software auditing is easy, possible, and enforced.
*and I mean _all_ ... news media, ballot centre reports etc
Nature is always trying to balance itself ... high population counts result in starvation for some percentage of that population which decreases the population. We humans have broken this natural limit by being able to transport food over large distances and nature can't react quickly enough. We've developed insatiable appetites and the means to pillage entire stocks. If the good professor is right and we're arriving at some kind of point of no return then again nature will do what nature does: eliminate the problem and restore balance. *Life* will go on on this planet ... just not humans.
This is why whenever I read something about how we're messing up the environment and people say: don't worry, it'll fix itself I think to myself "yup ... but you might not like how nature deals with the problem..."
imho we desperately need to return to a more natural way of living and make sustainability the priority, decrease our dependance on chemicals, and dissallow corporate externalization of environmental costs ... just a start, and just my 2c.
yeah ... knew I shoulda picked a different word without explanation... ... very very long" which is what I said...
Re-writing the Windows API is difficult in much the same way that writing out the bible by hand is difficult. Something that takes a long time is not the same as something that is difficult to do.
Since the Windows API is public the task gets a rating of "trivial but long
But as long as the copyright exists on that CD I can't remix and re-interpret that art without negotiation with the rights-holder.
So what is (to me) important is that creative people have a commons of art to inspire the next generation, and they can work with it...so while even with copyright-forever, the public-at-large is able to enjoy the works they buy, the more specific segment of the public (artists) need more than passive access to that art that the general public needs/gets.
I guess what I also didn't make clear in my initial post was that whenever I read someone posting that art needs to be 'free' I'm afraid that they are just going to get bashed as freeloaders etc., but the argument for this 'free' isn't about the public directly, it's about the artists directly, and this is what makes it better for society. ...just my own personal view on this, and like I said; I don't think we see this very differently.
At best, the bits that are specific to IBM are of litte use to anyone else. The principles, however, are of use to various other organisations, and so if IBM hires a consultant (group) to come in and optimize they are going to pay people who have some history of optimizing other companies processes. The principles will be the same from company to company, and so without business method patents, the consultants are freely allowed to build on the existing works (principles) to help IBM optimize it's process...
Why won't IBM pay for it? If it gives them a competative advantage they *will* do it, even if it means that their competitors follow (months or years later...) giving IBM a first-mover advantage. Let's also remember that making CPUs has a natural barrier to entry: you need a billion dollar fab to actually make them. This means that they don't have to worry that (other than a handful) of other companies are even going to try and compete...
The patent system as it stands today is completely broken, and opens companies to risks like submarine patents. The patent system as it was designed so many many moons ago was not as broken, but it was destined to be broken. imho, any system of unnatural barriers will eventually be subverted by people who will make massive profits well beyond their investments, and will be gamed by those that don't want to do 'real' work.
Patents are unnecessary and contain hidden costs that most apologists conveniently ignore. The patent system costs millions of dollars to operate, and all of that money is added to the cost of the products you buy.
First-mover advantage offers sufficient incentive to offset marginal increases in product.
While the patent system attempts to leap-frog innovation, what it really does is stop anyone from improving on your idea for 20yrs, thereby slowing down (not speading up) innovation.
A simple contrast is the rate of change in Linux vs. the rate of change in Microsoft.
One is locked-up, and tries to make expensive mammoth changes at a time. It requires massive capital outlay and massive returns only affordabe via some kind of long-term artificial protection. This method of progress justifies the arguments that intellectual monopoly laws are needed to ensure that this creativity happens in the first place. (Also note, that it causes the successful company to make profits that are way out of line with their investment, and tends
And this difficulty in exchange of information is what held humans back from progressing (and still does: look at countries that repress knowledge transfer). In other words, as the rate of information exchange increases, the rate of advancement also increases.
So we finally eliminate these natural barriers, and we get ourselves into a situation where information can be transmitted nearly instantly to all the corners of the globe, which should create an environment of explosive advancement, and instead of embracing the possibilites we fabricate unnatural barriers... wah?!
The public "freely enjoying" is only a distant second to ensuring that the next generation of artists has something to work with. That is entirely the point of the commons: By making more art a public good, it decreases the difficulty of an artist to express themselves; they can add and expand and create something new for the public to enjoy.
I think you're bang on: what F/OSS does for software, a copyright-less world can do for artists (not publishers, mind you, but I'm having a difficult time finding any use for art publishers these days...)
And there will be people who go into the store and say "the diamonds in this store come with the same cert. as the store down the street who wants double the price. I'll take it." They will neither know (nor care if they did know) that the diamond wasn't pulled out of the earth.
Sure, there will be people who insist on paying a premium because the marketer told them to, but in the long-term people are cheap
So while it's possible that the lawsuits in the US are causing Cannucks to think twice, I tend to agree with the other sentiments on this story: the stuff coming out isn't worth the bandwidth it costs to download....
I'm not going to suggest that you will catch all the bad apples before you hire them, but one flawed sysadmin can ruin a company.
Yup, in much the same way that requiring (for example) a CS degree for a CS job. And in most HR departments that's considered a good thing. Are there guys w/o degrees that can do the job? Sure, but you've opened the pool to a lot of people that can't do the job. (in this case, de-qualifying people who have been a security problem decreases the chances of hiring someone who will be a security problem.)To say that it's too expensive means that the total loss of your systems and/or all trade secrets being sold to the competition is less costly then doing background checks.
See... the wonderful thing I've noticed over the years with tech is that the Legacy Manual System has all kinds of holes and problems, but it's near impossible to determine the level of error, and so everybody makes the mistake of assuming the Legacy Manual System has no flaws (because there's no nice little report stating that there were x% errors). Once you put an adding machine into the process you're suddenly able to tally how often there's a mistake. And so then people say crazy things like "a manual system is better" ... the manual system gives us "hanging chads" and gives us a different number when we count again. It's obviously not even accurate! An automated, transparent system would make voting more, not less, reliable.
All of this assumes that the elections department has honest employees. And if they don't then this isn't a discussion about automation. Paper can be messed with, ballot boxes stuffed, ballots destroyed, altered whatever. Or they can just lie: Don't count the paper, just announce the results you want.
Here's a simple voting machine abstract:
The voter enters the polling station, and provides ID to an attendant. They are checked off the list on the attendants computer, which sets up the polling computer to expect a new voter.
The voter goes into a privacy booth where the computer is waiting for them, with their name on the screen: Are you Bobby J? Yes/No to ensure the right person has arrived.
they vote on the many possible choices via interactive prompts on the screen, the computer records all the votes, but does not commit them (basic SQL: the transaction is not commmited).
Once completed, the machine prints out all of their choices on physical paper with bar-codes for faster re-counting. No personally identifying marks are made on the paper, because this is the paper trail and is the true ballot, however the machine that spits the ballot out is noted for auditing puposes.
The person reviews the paper and agrees that what is on the paper is what they intended to vote for and hits "ok"
They return to the attendant with the paper. the paper is placed in a locked ballot box (just like paper voting) and the attendant commits the transaction.
If the person doesn't return with the ballot, the attendant cancels the transaction - it is their job to ensure that the number of paper ballots in the box match the number of committed votes.
If the person wants to make a change on the ballot before they file it, they must insert the printed one for shredding before it will let them make a change. A new ballot is then printed...
The computer counts the votes. For auditing purposes humans can either do a fast re-count using the bar-codes or to audit that the bar-codes are correct they can do a manual recount. There should be zero discrepancies between the paper and the electronic vote counts.
At the end of the day, the paper copy of the ballots (hand counted) is deemed to be correct. With the bar-codes auditing machines or sites is very quick. Start by ensuring a small sample of bar codes match the printed vote, and then simply scan all the bar codes and compare... voila!
wow ... that was tricky. Let the computer do what computers do well: count. Make a paper version so we can check that the counting part is working right. In the event of a problem we ignore the computer results and count the paper by hand.
Why did we grant (heh) temporary monopolies in the first place? It wasn't to enrich some people financially. It was because we want to encourage artists to create, because what the artists create is our culture.
So what you are really saying is that I am free to remain outside of society if I don't want to play by their new and improved rules. ... just like PP.
That ain't right.
The rules were set up as a bargain between society and the publishers, and what's happening here is that they are unilaterally altering the agreement.
And that leaves one in the position that either they become self-inforced social outcasts, or they bend over and take it... *OR* they stand up and fight it and say that it's not right what the companies are doing
Bank machines must be 100% accurate
Bank machines must provide audit capabilities
Bank machines must provide paper trail
You're simply parroting the capitalist/monopolist propoganda. you're where I was a couple years ago. Do some reading, think about the current economy (guys like redhat, ibm and mysql all *pay* people to write *free* software ... how does that figure into your dilemna?)
I've written some of it down in my journal here on /. ... it's a good place to start, but I'm sure it'll lead you to make up your own mind.
specifically in pure $$ how much money is being spent, and I guess more specifically how it is concentrated. It seems to me that it's the concentration of money (sony et al have the *same* message), and not the pure $$ count.
Please ... whatever you've got, this is a subject that interests me. From both sides: the media corps and the corrupt politicos.
Thanks!
Intellectual monopoly laws create an enviornment of unprecendented disposable profit.
Couple that with a political system that demands bribery as a requirement to win and we have laws that are disproportionately strong for the industries' true importance in the economy.