For most programmers that'd be a huge help, actually. Most of the world's software is written for internal-use only and, if it hits the Public Domain in 5 years, you could use your own code while working for a different employer without fearing legal repercussions from your old one.
Sure, it'd be problematic for ISVs who don't rely on support contracts for their income, but let's not pretend they're the rule rather than the exception.
On top of the ones already mentioned by the sibling posts, I'll add my recommendation for Robert Charles Wilson, specifically his novel "Spin" which is one of the finest sci-fi novels I've ever read, and decidedly on the 'hard' side of the genre.
Perhaps the best thing about it is that it wouldn't be so hard to turn it into a movie, as most of the plot happens on "10 seconds into the future" Earth. Unlike, for instance, Asimov's Foundation series or Larry Niven's Ringworld which have *huge* potential of turning into campy, CGI-ridden monstrocities simply by virtue of their settings.
Basically what you are saying is that an musician cannot sell a copy of their music without selling all rights because copyright should not exist.
Wrong, as that falls under "redistribution" and not "use". As pretty much the rest of your post relies on that flawed assumption, I won't comment on it.
Laws are related to the 'average' feeling society has for an issue so to say they are not related to morals is false. All laws are based on morals, specifically the morals of the society that created the laws.
There is no such thing as "morals of the society", morality is strictly an individual concept.
but I think that if you develop a product you should be allowed to sell that product on your terms,
Nice. I don't, and apparently neither does the GP.
and the law agrees with that.
Laws have nothing to do with morality.
Just because someone else wants to sell a product that is a derivative of your work doesn't mean you have to let them.
For many of us, the act of actively prohibiting third parties from modifying and redistributing your work is inherently inmoral, regardless of whether its done for profit or otherwise.
Books, music, DvD's etc all use these sorts of (legal) protections, and while some of us may loathe the methods they use to protect their wishes, not many people would claim they shouldn't have the right to limit reasonable use. i.e. You can't buy a DVD and start screening that movie for money.
What if we are some of those "not many people"? is one deprived of excercising his/her opinion solely because its a minority one?
Saying Apple is being immoral in this instance would imply nearly any contract that dictates how a product may be used is also immoral based on your reasoning for the immorality (EULA stating what can be done).
Hell *FUCKING* yeah. Limiting redistribution and modification is in some sort of a "moral gray area" for me, there are good arguments for both sides (though I tend to fall closer to the 'freedom' camp), but limiting *use* is the single biggest load of bullshit present in the huge, stinking shithole that is modern Copyright law.
If there is an alternate reason for the immorality please let me know but as you have stated it all I see is a conflict of interest between two companies. That does not constitute immorality.
For you. Others may feel differently and it is their right to do so.
When people hold up Bradbury over Vonnegut or Niven over Murakami, you know that they aren't reading anything but pulp
When people hold fiction writers as example of what an educated man should read rather than somebody like Donald Knuth, you know they should've studied a bit more in high school and gotten a degree in something useful, like Mathematics or Engineering rather than English Literature.
Disclaimer: I enjoy reading fiction, I simply don't pretend I'm better than anybody else based on my particular tastes in it.
The fundamental and basic point being, that is Cory's right to insist on those terms for his work, NOT FOR THE WORK OF OTHERS.
Prove it.
Despite what the lobbying organizations want you to believe, copyright isn't recognized anywhere as a basic human right. And, assuming they're not inalienable rights, it *is* Cory's right as citizen to insist on those terms for anyone else's works through legislation (be it erecting new laws or demolishing the old ones preventing it).
Those are a result of technology (and a lot of other things -- simple existence of technology doesn't magically supply you with better hard drives and network connections). That has nothing to do with "the laws of physics", even if you think it makes for a super cool phrase.
So the advancement of technology is unrelated to our increased understanding of physics? let me guess, you're neither a physicist nor an engineer, are you? for a popular example, read up on optical fiber. For a more recent example, read up the recent Slashdot article on fingernail-sized storage chips, and for a weirder example, check out Quantum Computing.
Lets face reality though, Pirate Bay exists to facilitate copyright infringement. You really can't deny that, it does not make any attempt what so ever to prevent it.
Wrong. The Pirate Bay exists to facilitate sharing of any data people may desire to, and their failing to prevent copyright infringement is simply the logical continuation of that philosophy. Its the difference between loaning your car knowing it'll be used in a bank robbery, and between loaning your car to whoever asks, some of which are bank robbers.
Think about that for a minute, and the rest of your post should fall in line.
Watching a geek self-destruct in the courtroom is one of life's most innocent pleasures.
And watching a geek give legal advice online without being a lawyer is another one.
Now, I'm not a lawyer either and this is not legal advice, but I do know that whether torrents themselves can constitute copyright infringement depending of the contents of the file they point out depends on a *huge* amount of factors that I'm unable and unwilling to research for myself, let alone somebody else so go pay a lawyer if you really wanna know.
To clarify: Apple doesn't have a problem when Joe User comes in, buys OSX and makes a hackintosh, as long as he doesn't try to resell it. If he does, however, then they *do* have a problem, first sale doctrine be damned.
you pay 10k for the books, audio CDs or movie DVDs?!? really? They are copyright encumbered but you are the de facto owner of the copy you purchased, why on earth it should be different with games?
So you get ownership over a shiny disc. What does that buy you? having your license ownership invariably tied to your particular copy of the contents you're licensed to, which means you get an easier time reselling it, with the downside that you have to take care of that copy otherwise you'll have to purchase a new one. Not exactly a world-breaking advantage, is it?
No, its not different with games than with movies or music. Thing is, you don't get any special rights by buying *those* in retail either, you still can't make copies for your friends, you still can't play them on your restaurant, store or amateur radio, and so on.
If you really, *really* cared about your freedom to use the products as you see fit, you shouldn't be arguing for retail copies, you should be arguing for Open Source and Creative Commons licenses instead. With those at least you do get something in return other than a shiny disc.
There are those oldschool values like true ownership not rental, freedom to use stuff you paid for as you please - and they are important to some people.
True, but most of us can't afford to pay $10k+ for the copyrights of each game we want to play, so we settle for a simple $20 license instead.
No. The bad is that *your* notebook is problematic. Mine (Dell D630) works just fine, thanks very much. I'm sure other people's do too.
Don't get me wrong here; I like Linux. I use it at work and am glad to do so. But for a large slice of the regular computing world, it's still got a long way to go.
Nice double standard you've got there. Say what you will about the GP, at least he was consistent in holding the OS responsible for working with the hardware instead of the other way around.
If that was the point the GP wanted to make he should've made an analogy with, for instance, giving money for a charity, where the decision of whether to spend money or not lies solely on ethics and the moral values of the individual at hand. Not "paying for an overpriced drink often as a result of being thirsty or cold".
I don't know about you but I neither pay $1.99 for a cup of coffee, nor do I buy *coffee* for personal entertainment, so no the comparison isn't valid.
Microsoft would have to be certifiably insane to consider Ubuntu even a marginal form of competition.
Prove it.
Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability,
Prove it.
Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.
Prove it.
You know, as in sound support that doesn't die every few hours, or graphics drivers that don't intermittently cause kernel panics.
Prove it.
Seriously, Linux users who try and claim that any Linux distribution has any remotely conceivable chance of legitimately competing with either Microsoft or Apple at this point, literally leave me gasping. The amount denial and delusion engaged in is mind boggling.
Prove there's any "delusion" or "denial" involved. Also, if I were you I'd go see a doctor for that gasping.
Ubuntu reached a point, once, where I thought that could eventually become true; but since Hardy, Canonical have blown it completely.
True for the second, but oh-so-much-wrong for the first. I've yet to play an RPG approaching the openness of Nethack that's not a direct Nethack derivative (ie, Slash'em and such). Only a few have randomized dungeons but usually the interaction with the enviroment is nonexistant beyond opening doors, even basic things such as needing to eat and having edible and non-edible monster corpses is absent almost everywhere, let alone having the food you consume affect your stats or rotting over time.
Nethack was, and still is, very much ahead of its time. My only regret is that nobody has yet to make a good-looking interface for it beyond (the outdated and apparently unmaintained) Falcon's Eye. Perhaps one of these days I'll try and do it myself, even the younger, graphics-addicted generations deserve to know what a good single-player RPG is like.
Work for hire isn't paying for "IP", it's paying for services rendered as the payment is dependant on the time under service, not on the quantity or number of active users of the products delivered. To pretend otherwise is to stretch the definition of "IP" beyond any reasonable level.
The original BSD license is listed under "GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses", while the revised one is under "GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses" alongside RMS's own GPL so yes, both are considered Free Software licenses by the FSF.
And I can't see why it'd be wrong for RMS to claim the modified BSD license is ethical, unless you wish to imply he implies its an ethically-inferior choice compared to the GPL which as my link above proves its not the case. Stallman has said many times that the copyleft requirements of the GPL are due to practical concerns, rather than ethical ones.
Wrong. The BSD license and its ilk *are* Free Software licenses, they're just not "copyleft" which is a desirable but not vital quality as far as RMS is concerned. The ones that are OSS-but-not-Free are those like the license of Pine which disallows redistribution of modified works, or some of Microsoft's Shared Source licenses which disallow commercial redistribution at all.
If you wish, you can educate yourself further here, and the FSF's definition of Free Software here.
How did *that*, then, contradict the statement that "software developers (...) charge for services, not for some 'intellectual property' bullshit"? In fact, work for hire is precisely one of the models I recommended for songwriters to replace the current, "IP" based one.
Software writers can very much charge for their software (and do) with regards to "intellectual property bullshit". It's only OSS developers that need to charge for services, due to their voluntary relinquishing of their rights to the work. Most software in the world is not OSS, and you need to pay for most of it. Seems to work fine.
Wrong. Most of the world's software is written for internal use of the organization that paid for it: you're hired to code, and you get a stable salary regardless of how many people use the software that incorporates it. ISVs are only a very tiny fraction of the software world, regardless of what the people outside the industry may believe.
But men who care about what their peers expect from them and allow themselves to be manipulated by a stripper into giving her money for services you didn't want nor asked for *are* wimps.
Thankfully you seem to have grown some balls afterwards, but stop pretending "playing the game" was the only thing you could do at the time.
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For most programmers that'd be a huge help, actually. Most of the world's software is written for internal-use only and, if it hits the Public Domain in 5 years, you could use your own code while working for a different employer without fearing legal repercussions from your old one.
Sure, it'd be problematic for ISVs who don't rely on support contracts for their income, but let's not pretend they're the rule rather than the exception.
On top of the ones already mentioned by the sibling posts, I'll add my recommendation for Robert Charles Wilson, specifically his novel "Spin" which is one of the finest sci-fi novels I've ever read, and decidedly on the 'hard' side of the genre.
Perhaps the best thing about it is that it wouldn't be so hard to turn it into a movie, as most of the plot happens on "10 seconds into the future" Earth. Unlike, for instance, Asimov's Foundation series or Larry Niven's Ringworld which have *huge* potential of turning into campy, CGI-ridden monstrocities simply by virtue of their settings.
Basically what you are saying is that an musician cannot sell a copy of their music without selling all rights because copyright should not exist.
Wrong, as that falls under "redistribution" and not "use". As pretty much the rest of your post relies on that flawed assumption, I won't comment on it.
Laws are related to the 'average' feeling society has for an issue so to say they are not related to morals is false. All laws are based on morals, specifically the morals of the society that created the laws.
There is no such thing as "morals of the society", morality is strictly an individual concept.
I know morals involve some opinion
Correct, hence:
but I think that if you develop a product you should be allowed to sell that product on your terms,
Nice. I don't, and apparently neither does the GP.
and the law agrees with that.
Laws have nothing to do with morality.
Just because someone else wants to sell a product that is a derivative of your work doesn't mean you have to let them.
For many of us, the act of actively prohibiting third parties from modifying and redistributing your work is inherently inmoral, regardless of whether its done for profit or otherwise.
Books, music, DvD's etc all use these sorts of (legal) protections, and while some of us may loathe the methods they use to protect their wishes, not many people would claim they shouldn't have the right to limit reasonable use. i.e. You can't buy a DVD and start screening that movie for money.
What if we are some of those "not many people"? is one deprived of excercising his/her opinion solely because its a minority one?
Saying Apple is being immoral in this instance would imply nearly any contract that dictates how a product may be used is also immoral based on your reasoning for the immorality (EULA stating what can be done).
Hell *FUCKING* yeah. Limiting redistribution and modification is in some sort of a "moral gray area" for me, there are good arguments for both sides (though I tend to fall closer to the 'freedom' camp), but limiting *use* is the single biggest load of bullshit present in the huge, stinking shithole that is modern Copyright law.
If there is an alternate reason for the immorality please let me know but as you have stated it all I see is a conflict of interest between two companies. That does not constitute immorality.
For you. Others may feel differently and it is their right to do so.
Or the necrophile's hope for having ample subjects for his particular love, and no law enforcement around to stop him.
When people hold up Bradbury over Vonnegut or Niven over Murakami, you know that they aren't reading anything but pulp
When people hold fiction writers as example of what an educated man should read rather than somebody like Donald Knuth, you know they should've studied a bit more in high school and gotten a degree in something useful, like Mathematics or Engineering rather than English Literature.
Disclaimer: I enjoy reading fiction, I simply don't pretend I'm better than anybody else based on my particular tastes in it.
The fundamental and basic point being, that is Cory's right to insist on those terms for his work, NOT FOR THE WORK OF OTHERS.
Prove it.
Despite what the lobbying organizations want you to believe, copyright isn't recognized anywhere as a basic human right. And, assuming they're not inalienable rights, it *is* Cory's right as citizen to insist on those terms for anyone else's works through legislation (be it erecting new laws or demolishing the old ones preventing it).
Those are a result of technology (and a lot of other things -- simple existence of technology doesn't magically supply you with better hard drives and network connections). That has nothing to do with "the laws of physics", even if you think it makes for a super cool phrase.
So the advancement of technology is unrelated to our increased understanding of physics? let me guess, you're neither a physicist nor an engineer, are you? for a popular example, read up on optical fiber. For a more recent example, read up the recent Slashdot article on fingernail-sized storage chips, and for a weirder example, check out Quantum Computing.
Lets face reality though, Pirate Bay exists to facilitate copyright infringement. You really can't deny that, it does not make any attempt what so ever to prevent it.
Wrong. The Pirate Bay exists to facilitate sharing of any data people may desire to, and their failing to prevent copyright infringement is simply the logical continuation of that philosophy. Its the difference between loaning your car knowing it'll be used in a bank robbery, and between loaning your car to whoever asks, some of which are bank robbers.
Think about that for a minute, and the rest of your post should fall in line.
Watching a geek self-destruct in the courtroom is one of life's most innocent pleasures.
And watching a geek give legal advice online without being a lawyer is another one.
Now, I'm not a lawyer either and this is not legal advice, but I do know that whether torrents themselves can constitute copyright infringement depending of the contents of the file they point out depends on a *huge* amount of factors that I'm unable and unwilling to research for myself, let alone somebody else so go pay a lawyer if you really wanna know.
So you want everything to be updated faster, but slower. Great thinking, there.
I don't think you quite understand how Linux development and distro packaging work just yet.
To clarify: Apple doesn't have a problem when Joe User comes in, buys OSX and makes a hackintosh, as long as he doesn't try to resell it. If he does, however, then they *do* have a problem, first sale doctrine be damned.
you pay 10k for the books, audio CDs or movie DVDs?!? really? They are copyright encumbered but you are the de facto owner of the copy you purchased, why on earth it should be different with games?
So you get ownership over a shiny disc. What does that buy you? having your license ownership invariably tied to your particular copy of the contents you're licensed to, which means you get an easier time reselling it, with the downside that you have to take care of that copy otherwise you'll have to purchase a new one. Not exactly a world-breaking advantage, is it?
No, its not different with games than with movies or music. Thing is, you don't get any special rights by buying *those* in retail either, you still can't make copies for your friends, you still can't play them on your restaurant, store or amateur radio, and so on.
If you really, *really* cared about your freedom to use the products as you see fit, you shouldn't be arguing for retail copies, you should be arguing for Open Source and Creative Commons licenses instead. With those at least you do get something in return other than a shiny disc.
There are those oldschool values like true ownership not rental, freedom to use stuff you paid for as you please - and they are important to some people.
True, but most of us can't afford to pay $10k+ for the copyrights of each game we want to play, so we settle for a simple $20 license instead.
No. The bad is that *your* notebook is problematic. Mine (Dell D630) works just fine, thanks very much. I'm sure other people's do too.
Don't get me wrong here; I like Linux. I use it at work and am glad to do so. But for a large slice of the regular computing world, it's still got a long way to go.
Nice double standard you've got there. Say what you will about the GP, at least he was consistent in holding the OS responsible for working with the hardware instead of the other way around.
If that was the point the GP wanted to make he should've made an analogy with, for instance, giving money for a charity, where the decision of whether to spend money or not lies solely on ethics and the moral values of the individual at hand. Not "paying for an overpriced drink often as a result of being thirsty or cold".
I don't know about you but I neither pay $1.99 for a cup of coffee, nor do I buy *coffee* for personal entertainment, so no the comparison isn't valid.
Microsoft would have to be certifiably insane to consider Ubuntu even a marginal form of competition.
Prove it.
Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability,
Prove it.
Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.
Prove it.
You know, as in sound support that doesn't die every few hours, or graphics drivers that don't intermittently cause kernel panics.
Prove it.
Seriously, Linux users who try and claim that any Linux distribution has any remotely conceivable chance of legitimately competing with either Microsoft or Apple at this point, literally leave me gasping. The amount denial and delusion engaged in is mind boggling.
Prove there's any "delusion" or "denial" involved. Also, if I were you I'd go see a doctor for that gasping.
Ubuntu reached a point, once, where I thought that could eventually become true; but since Hardy, Canonical have blown it completely.
Prove it.
Prove me wrong, Linux users.
Prove yourself right first.
True for the second, but oh-so-much-wrong for the first. I've yet to play an RPG approaching the openness of Nethack that's not a direct Nethack derivative (ie, Slash'em and such). Only a few have randomized dungeons but usually the interaction with the enviroment is nonexistant beyond opening doors, even basic things such as needing to eat and having edible and non-edible monster corpses is absent almost everywhere, let alone having the food you consume affect your stats or rotting over time.
Nethack was, and still is, very much ahead of its time. My only regret is that nobody has yet to make a good-looking interface for it beyond (the outdated and apparently unmaintained) Falcon's Eye. Perhaps one of these days I'll try and do it myself, even the younger, graphics-addicted generations deserve to know what a good single-player RPG is like.
Work for hire isn't paying for "IP", it's paying for services rendered as the payment is dependant on the time under service, not on the quantity or number of active users of the products delivered. To pretend otherwise is to stretch the definition of "IP" beyond any reasonable level.
The original BSD license is listed under "GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses", while the revised one is under "GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses" alongside RMS's own GPL so yes, both are considered Free Software licenses by the FSF.
And I can't see why it'd be wrong for RMS to claim the modified BSD license is ethical, unless you wish to imply he implies its an ethically-inferior choice compared to the GPL which as my link above proves its not the case. Stallman has said many times that the copyleft requirements of the GPL are due to practical concerns, rather than ethical ones.
Wrong. The BSD license and its ilk *are* Free Software licenses, they're just not "copyleft" which is a desirable but not vital quality as far as RMS is concerned. The ones that are OSS-but-not-Free are those like the license of Pine which disallows redistribution of modified works, or some of Microsoft's Shared Source licenses which disallow commercial redistribution at all.
If you wish, you can educate yourself further here, and the FSF's definition of Free Software here.
How did *that*, then, contradict the statement that "software developers (...) charge for services, not for some 'intellectual property' bullshit"? In fact, work for hire is precisely one of the models I recommended for songwriters to replace the current, "IP" based one.
Software writers can very much charge for their software (and do) with regards to "intellectual property bullshit". It's only OSS developers that need to charge for services, due to their voluntary relinquishing of their rights to the work. Most software in the world is not OSS, and you need to pay for most of it. Seems to work fine.
Wrong. Most of the world's software is written for internal use of the organization that paid for it: you're hired to code, and you get a stable salary regardless of how many people use the software that incorporates it. ISVs are only a very tiny fraction of the software world, regardless of what the people outside the industry may believe.
But men who care about what their peers expect from them and allow themselves to be manipulated by a stripper into giving her money for services you didn't want nor asked for *are* wimps.
Thankfully you seem to have grown some balls afterwards, but stop pretending "playing the game" was the only thing you could do at the time.