I was, for quite a while, just one mod shy of being modded Troll, merely by pointing out that Obama is no different than other politicians in that he's made a lot of promises which he hasn't all kept. And I even am fairly satisfied over his overall performance, personally (being the cynic I am).
BTW, an AC who replied to me sent an interesting link
Oh, I'm also realistic. Which is why I think the "outrage" on this issue is particularly farcical compared to, for example, the current administration's failure to work to restore basic liberties which we lost in the security theater after 9/11.
But, I suppose, everyone has their own priorities.
> Obama did exactly what he said he would... pushed through health care.
Oh, I think that many of the things he has managed to do are good. I was just commenting on something another poster explained in more detail --- all politicians promise things which they don't manage to do. It's inherent in the current political culture.
This particular failing is small change in my eyes compared to Obama's failing to restore some of our fundamental rights at the cost of removing some of the security theater.
> Stallman would prefer it if there were no copyright
I believe he's come out several times with exactly opposite opinions, that it is dangerous to weaken copyright too much because it takes the teeth out of the GPL. I think you are missing Stallman's real ideal:
=> Stallman would prefer it if there were no closed sources (of information => which could benefit mankind if they were open)
But, yes, as I think you were trying to say, if there were also effective laws forbidding keeping beneficial information secret, I believe Stallman would probably be in favor of abolishing copyright (as the GPL would be unnecessary).
I will start by saying this is not a "belief". This is what I think the courts would decide, had you been brought before them for doing exactly what you say you're doing. We are currently not delving into my personal opinions on the matter.
A pity. It seems in a way that we are talking past each other (much as I am enjoying the conversation), because for me, what is important is what I feel is ethically correct --- and if there's anything I'm sure about, it's that what some dudes in DC decide has little to do with what is ethical or moral. Or to put it otherwise, you are talking about your original point #1 ("the law") and I am talking about your original point #3 ("morals and ethics").
Yes. As in, yes, you are entitled to the option to do that [physical recopy of owned physical IP].
I had a strange feeling after I wrote that, that I had assumed too much about your position, here, and you'd just pull the rug out from under my argument.
I guess, beyond everything, it doesn't fit with copyright law. The copyright holder has the right to determine, for whatever private reasons of his own, who distributes his works and who doesn't.
I find this strange, because you probably know that there are jurisdictions (e.g., the UK), where the consumer has no right to private copying, it is considered to be the domain of the copyright holder. So it doesn't seem to be a good argument vis-a-vis moral entitlement. But again, this may just be a reflection of the fact that each of us is talking about somewhat different facets of this issue (as stated above).
That's funny. Most people who are pro-piracy can't wait to extol the virtues of P2P as a method of distribution. It's generally key in their argument as to why the labels are no longer necessary these days,
I generally agree with your opinion here, but want to point out to you that the important part of my point was the "At the time these artists signed", i.e., before the Internet/P2P.
Three different articles, three different themes.
You miss the one unifying theme, which is that all three cases talk about RIAA making it as hard as possible for the artist to get the money he deserves. From two (or perhaps even three) different "tiers" of artists: the Eagles, Janis Ian, and a one-hit-record-wonder. But you are correct, I am not an expert in the popular music business, so I am only guessing about the presumed, all-pervasive evils of RIAA.
BTW, as for doing away with copyright, I instead believe in William Patry's position that copyright law should be revamped to optimize its utility to society (as opposed to the position that copyright law is a reflection/enforcement in law of a moral right). And my beliefs are that the term of copyright needs to be shortened, there needs to be provisions which enable society to recycle orphaned works more efficiently, and enable freer "fair use", and yes, that civil penalties for not-for-profit copyright infringement need to be reduced (no statutory damages). The major justification of that last point is that too many other rights are easily trampled in the name of trying to stop this kind of infringement, so if the legislature wants to strengthen those rights instead (and thus make it almost impossible to proceed against a not-for-profit infringer) I'd be OK with leaving that part of copyright law alone.
If eBook publishers start suing (which they will once their business grows larger, if people keep pirating their work)
Since eBooks are ridiculously easy to copy (because of their size), I think that only very, very stupid (and unlucky, of course) pirates would end up being caught. Everyone else will be using a distribution method which includes some form of plausible deniability. Or just recursive sneakernet. Or both.
and thus you have no entitlement to an electronic copy. You could always scan and use OCR for private use, if you wanted to.
This is interesting. If I own a physical copy, and it's starting to get too beat up or oxidized, then do you believe I have an "entitlement" to photocopy my old physical copy to produce a nice new one? Somehow, I would guess you'd say no. So if I have a digital copy, do you believe, analogously, that I have no entitlement to copy it to multiple devices?
I haven't heard too many sob stories from artists going broke after their label refused to pay them the money owed to them under contract.
And besides, it is a contract, voluntarily signed by both parties.
At the time many of these artist signed their contracts, the Big Labels had an illegal stranglehold on most forms of music promotion. So your "voluntarily" isn't so black-and-white.
That only assures your privacy to the extent that the person on the other end is trustworthy.
And how this is different than the problem of non-digital privacy? The discussion is about the extra problems caused by our (and our government's) use of new technologies.
So if you would have lived in Indiana, and the Indiana Pi Bill had passed, you would have used the value of 3.2 for pi?
Risk of heavy financial penalty
Ebook publishers haven't started to sue yet. Even if they had, the probability of being sued is so small that only very cowardly people don't download for this reason.
Morals and ethics
Not everyone who downloads an ebook is using it for free. I personally only download ebooks which I have bought in physical form. Others download the ebook to see if they are interested in buying it. But, I have to admit, there are some who abuse this.
Refusal on principle to support those leeches who run the place, making millions off the backs of artists who don't receive a penny
You also avoid music from the Big Labels, then? Well, OK, that's unfair. There are a few artists who do get paid some of what the labels owe them.
Desire for the artists I like to keep working
So if you like the ebook you downloaded, buy the physical one. Assuming, of course, that the artist in question is still alive and productive (well, actually, I recommend buying the physical book anyway, but that doesn't address your point).
An absence of a sense of entitlement over the work in question
We're not talking about a prized manuscript which the author keeps locked up in his safe because the world isn't worthy of it. Authors want people to be interested in their books. Some of them even understand that having their book downloaded for free is often the foot in the door for a reader to pay for that work later, or to pay for future works by the same author.
Let me explain: Microsoft discovered that all of their desktop computers were zombied with malware, and after wresting control from the botnet C&C, decided to take advantage of this increased ability to remotely administer their computers to run QA tests, on the off chance there might be some need for it.
I had had the impression he jumped on the opportunity to post something which is written in a language graphically closer to Kvikkalkul and whose contents are almost totally opaque except to hardcore gamers (maybe even only hardcore FPS gamers).
You lack imagination (and love to play the devil's advocate), eh?
I'm sure things will get interesting when the "next big thing" on Facebook (and the like) is having everyone post lists of all the media they own so that the "how many steps to the media I want to borrow" application can do its thing.
Of course, these same lists also have tons of less "infringement-inducing" applications --- for finding people who share similar tastes in media, for example.
No, the clock is ticking. Nothing will stop the winds of change. It will be interesting to see what will come of it all.
Ah, so if I feel like taking down a search site, I just have to have enough money to get a lot of people to post on their blog "Use YYY-site to find the latest blockbuster movie!", and then sue that site into the ground?
This doesn't seem reasonable. (BTW, I think we should coin a new term for such attacks --- they are Denial-of-Legality attacks.)
> 99% copyrighted material with no distribution rights from authors
Google is in the same spot, unfortunately, unless you believe that not blocking their spider in robots.txt is equivalent to giving distribution rights. Somehow I don't think that's going to fly in court ("fair use" might).
By the way, if your idea would fly, it would be practically impossible to run a site which distributes legal user-created content: the minute this site became a threat to Big Media's profit margins, they could easily pay for it to be "DoL"-ed (that's a "Denial-of-Legality" attack, when they pay third parties to upload enough illegal content to make it possible to sue and shut it down).
After all, Big Media has already been caught uploading its content to YouTube via third parties in a way to make it appear illegally pirated. I wouldn't put it past them to try this "DoL" shtik.
Why not focus on a different aspect? How exactly is Isohunt supposed to know what is infringing? Google (or rather, YouTube), when put in same spot as Isohunt, has nicely provided an example that authorized copyright holders have been known to post their content as if it were pirated.
> You should put that much effort into making sure you don't > buy MP3's that you can't play.
In the video world, DRM is still king. Why don't you just lay out your "argument" for everyone to see? Let's see:
Large corporations should be free to advertise as much as they want in order to try to make everyone believe that they need to consume their products.
In the case of video (or other intangible) products, these same corporations should be free to encumber their product with as much DRM as they want, so that it is difficult or impractical for the consumer to actually own the product they buy and use it however they wish (not including distribution).
These same corporations should be free to lobby the legislatures with some of the oodles of money they have, in order that these legislatures will pass laws like the DMCA which make it even less possible for consumers to actually own what they pay for.
Let me sum up what you're saying:
Dear consumer, after paying, please lower pants and bend over.
That's obviously the big part, and it's obviously not vague. OTOH, I don't see how Google would manage to pay for giving me such useful services if it didn't hoard its profiling data on me like gold. Which is why I put up with it.
> Others do too, you know...
The others are small fry, still, you know. Especially when talking about me. I intentionally try to concentrate my privacy leakage to Google as much as I can, because I figure it seems to be a better keeper for that data than most of the competing corporations. At least right now.
> mashup sites that take content from other sites and combine it
Somehow I think the GOOG would have something to say about that.
With all of the non-non-evil stuff which Google does which might annoy me, I am happy that it has a commercial interest in defending a lot of my rights, like (some kinds of) fair use.
No, you didn't understand. The problem isn't on the GPL side, here. It's on the console SDK side (which is why the poster to whom you replied explained that even BSD licensed code is a no-no).
Slashdot Mirror
This is Slashdot, and if you want to state a blunt political opinion, you're going to have to take the heat from moderation, and not necessarily in moderation.
I was, for quite a while, just one mod shy of being modded Troll, merely by pointing out that Obama is no different than other politicians in that he's made a lot of promises which he hasn't all kept. And I even am fairly satisfied over his overall performance, personally (being the cynic I am).
BTW, an AC who replied to me sent an interesting link
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
but I haven't managed to look through it that much...
> (I'm a bit more realistic in my expectations)
Oh, I'm also realistic. Which is why I think the "outrage" on this issue is particularly farcical compared to, for example, the current administration's failure to work to restore basic liberties which we lost in the security theater after 9/11.
But, I suppose, everyone has their own priorities.
> Obama did exactly what he said he would... pushed through health care.
Oh, I think that many of the things he has managed to do are good. I was just commenting on something another poster explained in more detail --- all politicians promise things which they don't manage to do. It's inherent in the current political culture.
This particular failing is small change in my eyes compared to Obama's failing to restore some of our fundamental rights at the cost of removing some of the security theater.
> ... is at odds with President Obama's promises
Reality is at odds with (many of) President Obama's promises.
Details at 11.
Google is your friend:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/redhat-fedora-linux-help/60324-remote-shutdown-windows-linux-box.html
This is info from 2006, things may have advanced a bit more since then.
> Stallman would prefer it if there were no copyright
I believe he's come out several times with exactly opposite opinions, that it is dangerous to weaken copyright too much because it takes the teeth out of the GPL. I think you are missing Stallman's real ideal:
=> Stallman would prefer it if there were no closed sources (of information
=> which could benefit mankind if they were open)
But, yes, as I think you were trying to say, if there were also effective laws forbidding keeping beneficial information secret, I believe Stallman would probably be in favor of abolishing copyright (as the GPL would be unnecessary).
I always have used "pedantry" (and have plenty of opportunity, when talking about myself).
Zipf's Law in action, I guess.
I will start by saying this is not a "belief". This is what I think the courts would decide, had you been brought before them for doing exactly what you say you're doing. We are currently not delving into my personal opinions on the matter.
A pity. It seems in a way that we are talking past each other (much as I am enjoying the conversation), because for me, what is important is what I feel is ethically correct --- and if there's anything I'm sure about, it's that what some dudes in DC decide has little to do with what is ethical or moral. Or to put it otherwise, you are talking about your original point #1 ("the law") and I am talking about your original point #3 ("morals and ethics").
Yes. As in, yes, you are entitled to the option to do that [physical recopy of owned physical IP].
I had a strange feeling after I wrote that, that I had assumed too much about your position, here, and you'd just pull the rug out from under my argument.
I guess, beyond everything, it doesn't fit with copyright law. The copyright holder has the right to determine, for whatever private reasons of his own, who distributes his works and who doesn't.
I find this strange, because you probably know that there are jurisdictions (e.g., the UK), where the consumer has no right to private copying, it is considered to be the domain of the copyright holder. So it doesn't seem to be a good argument vis-a-vis moral entitlement. But again, this may just be a reflection of the fact that each of us is talking about somewhat different facets of this issue (as stated above).
That's funny. Most people who are pro-piracy can't wait to extol the virtues of P2P as a method of distribution. It's generally key in their argument as to why the labels are no longer necessary these days,
I generally agree with your opinion here, but want to point out to you that the important part of my point was the "At the time these artists signed", i.e., before the Internet/P2P.
Three different articles, three different themes.
You miss the one unifying theme, which is that all three cases talk about RIAA making it as hard as possible for the artist to get the money he deserves. From two (or perhaps even three) different "tiers" of artists: the Eagles, Janis Ian, and a one-hit-record-wonder. But you are correct, I am not an expert in the popular music business, so I am only guessing about the presumed, all-pervasive evils of RIAA.
BTW, as for doing away with copyright, I instead believe in William Patry's position that copyright law should be revamped to optimize its utility to society (as opposed to the position that copyright law is a reflection/enforcement in law of a moral right). And my beliefs are that the term of copyright needs to be shortened, there needs to be provisions which enable society to recycle orphaned works more efficiently, and enable freer "fair use", and yes, that civil penalties for not-for-profit copyright infringement need to be reduced (no statutory damages). The major justification of that last point is that too many other rights are easily trampled in the name of trying to stop this kind of infringement, so if the legislature wants to strengthen those rights instead (and thus make it almost impossible to proceed against a not-for-profit infringer) I'd be OK with leaving that part of copyright law alone.
If eBook publishers start suing (which they will once their business grows larger, if people keep pirating their work)
Since eBooks are ridiculously easy to copy (because of their size), I think that only very, very stupid (and unlucky, of course) pirates would end up being caught. Everyone else will be using a distribution method which includes some form of plausible deniability. Or just recursive sneakernet. Or both.
and thus you have no entitlement to an electronic copy. You could always scan and use OCR for private use, if you wanted to.
This is interesting. If I own a physical copy, and it's starting to get too beat up or oxidized, then do you believe I have an "entitlement" to photocopy my old physical copy to produce a nice new one? Somehow, I would guess you'd say no. So if I have a digital copy, do you believe, analogously, that I have no entitlement to copy it to multiple devices?
I haven't heard too many sob stories from artists going broke after their label refused to pay them the money owed to them under contract.
You might want to check out this post by tinkerghost, this article with comments by the Eagles' agent, and you must have missed the 2002 interview of Janis Ian on Slashdot. My guess is that for every artist like Ian who speaks out, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who have just given up.
And besides, it is a contract, voluntarily signed by both parties.
At the time many of these artist signed their contracts, the Big Labels had an illegal stranglehold on most forms of music promotion. So your "voluntarily" isn't so black-and-white.
That only assures your privacy to the extent that the person on the other end is trustworthy.
And how this is different than the problem of non-digital privacy? The discussion is about the extra problems caused by our (and our government's) use of new technologies.
The law
So if you would have lived in Indiana, and the Indiana Pi Bill had passed, you would have used the value of 3.2 for pi?
Risk of heavy financial penalty
Ebook publishers haven't started to sue yet. Even if they had, the probability of being sued is so small that only very cowardly people don't download for this reason.
Morals and ethics
Not everyone who downloads an ebook is using it for free. I personally only download ebooks which I have bought in physical form. Others download the ebook to see if they are interested in buying it. But, I have to admit, there are some who abuse this.
Refusal on principle to support those leeches who run the place, making millions off the backs of artists who don't receive a penny
You also avoid music from the Big Labels, then? Well, OK, that's unfair. There are a few artists who do get paid some of what the labels owe them.
Desire for the artists I like to keep working
So if you like the ebook you downloaded, buy the physical one. Assuming, of course, that the artist in question is still alive and productive (well, actually, I recommend buying the physical book anyway, but that doesn't address your point).
An absence of a sense of entitlement over the work in question
We're not talking about a prized manuscript which the author keeps locked up in his safe because the world isn't worthy of it. Authors want people to be interested in their books. Some of them even understand that having their book downloaded for free is often the foot in the door for a reader to pay for that work later, or to pay for future works by the same author.
> I refuse to buy DRMed book, so I buy physical books, even if they're more inconvenient.
Why not buy the physical book and then look for a DRM-free copied ebook in all the usual places?
That's what I do. More or less. Of course, you do have the occasional book for which you can't find a DRM-free copy.
Let me explain: Microsoft discovered that all of their desktop computers were zombied with malware, and after wresting control from the botnet C&C, decided to take advantage of this increased ability to remotely administer their computers to run QA tests, on the off chance there might be some need for it.
</joke>
> other than betraying your desire to troll.
I had had the impression he jumped on the opportunity to post something which is written in a language graphically closer to Kvikkalkul and whose contents are almost totally opaque except to hardcore gamers (maybe even only hardcore FPS gamers).
> Where will you go? Somalia?
You lack imagination (and love to play the devil's advocate), eh?
I'm sure things will get interesting when the "next big thing" on Facebook (and the like) is having everyone post lists of all the media they own so that the "how many steps to the media I want to borrow" application can do its thing.
Of course, these same lists also have tons of less "infringement-inducing" applications --- for finding people who share similar tastes in media, for example.
No, the clock is ticking. Nothing will stop the winds of change. It will be interesting to see what will come of it all.
> But sue a few customers and everything changes.
Yes. I would sincerely hope so. You did use "customers" instead of "evil non-paying pirates" intentionally, right?
> whereas with IsoHunt it's just the opposite.
Ah, so if I feel like taking down a search site, I just have to have enough money to get a lot of people to post on their blog "Use YYY-site to find the latest blockbuster movie!", and then sue that site into the ground?
This doesn't seem reasonable. (BTW, I think we should coin a new term for such attacks --- they are Denial-of-Legality attacks.)
> 99% copyrighted material with no distribution rights from authors
Google is in the same spot, unfortunately, unless you believe that not blocking their spider in robots.txt is equivalent to giving distribution rights. Somehow I don't think that's going to fly in court ("fair use" might).
By the way, if your idea would fly, it would be practically impossible to run a site which distributes legal user-created content: the minute this site became a threat to Big Media's profit margins, they could easily pay for it to be "DoL"-ed (that's a "Denial-of-Legality" attack, when they pay third parties to upload enough illegal content to make it possible to sue and shut it down).
After all, Big Media has already been caught uploading its content to YouTube via third parties in a way to make it appear illegally pirated. I wouldn't put it past them to try this "DoL" shtik.
Why not focus on a different aspect? How exactly is Isohunt supposed to know what is infringing? Google (or rather, YouTube), when put in same spot as Isohunt, has nicely provided an example that authorized copyright holders have been known to post their content as if it were pirated.
> You should put that much effort into making sure you don't
> buy MP3's that you can't play.
In the video world, DRM is still king. Why don't you just lay out your "argument" for everyone to see? Let's see:
Let me sum up what you're saying:
Dear consumer, after paying, please lower pants and bend over.
"...antisemitism..."
Their neighbors are semitic, you idiot.
And the meaning of the word "antisemitism" isn't "being against Semites", you idiot. Natural language isn't math or computer languages. Live with it.
> Apart from a vague "stores lots of data"?
That's obviously the big part, and it's obviously not vague. OTOH, I don't see how Google would manage to pay for giving me such useful services if it didn't hoard its profiling data on me like gold. Which is why I put up with it.
> Others do too, you know...
The others are small fry, still, you know. Especially when talking about me. I intentionally try to concentrate my privacy leakage to Google as much as I can, because I figure it seems to be a better keeper for that data than most of the competing corporations. At least right now.
> mashup sites that take content from other sites and combine it
Somehow I think the GOOG would have something to say about that.
With all of the non-non-evil stuff which Google does which might annoy me, I am happy that it has a commercial interest in defending a lot of my rights, like (some kinds of) fair use.
The best FRC has an Ultimate Tensile Strength of only 6.4 MPa, the tensile strength of structural steel is ~400 MPa.
Give up.
No, you didn't understand. The problem isn't on the GPL side, here. It's on the console SDK side (which is why the poster to whom you replied explained that even BSD licensed code is a no-no).