No, they're both broken, but in completely different ways. Anyone can get a copyright, registring one is only about $30. Patents cost thousands and are hard to get. In that respect patents are broken, copyright not.
But patents only last 17 years, while copyright lasts effectively forever. In that respect patents are ok, copyright is broken.
Can you imagine the technological stagnation if patents lasted as long as copyrights? That's how art and music are suffering. And if copyrights were as costly as patents, only corporations and very rich individuals could obtain a copyright.
You already have to register the copyright in order to sue. The price, unlike patents, is affordable to most ($30 the last time I looked), to raise it would, like patents, put copyrighting something prohibitively expensive for most individuals... and artists and musicians usually don't earn a lot of money for their crafts.
Besides that, how can the ISP possibly know that it's infringing without spying on the user? And even then, how is the ISP supposed to know whether or not a suspected pirate file is really illegal?
Folks who download legal music (indies) can easily download RIAA dreck by mistake. Try to get The Station's song "Fingertips" from bittorrent. Do you have any idea how many completely different songs have that name? Try "Scatterbrain", there are hundreds of songs with that name, many legal and many not.
'Waaaaaambulence' annoys me. It wasn't cute or funny when it was new ten years ago and it's certainly not now that it's so long in the tooth.
That said, the RIAA should just stop whining and learn to use "free" to make money. Many others do, they should as well. But what do you expect from stupid, greedy people?
I'd rename it to "the now defunct, disbanded Department of Homeland Security". The military is supposed to secure our borders, and in my mind "security" doesn't mean being secure against tornados and earthquakes. FEMA should exist, DHS should not.
No, the GP is right. I'm the only one I know (in meatspace) that gets most content over the internet, but much of what I do get over the internet is over the air radio; I'm a little too far from St Louis to get KSHE and KIHT so I listen to them on the internet, but the EAS message would still come through.
You can't judge who's watching TV by the commercials, and besides, I see plenty of commercials for new cars, including luxury cars. And drugs. Poor people don't buy new Cadillacs or Cialis. I see commercials geared to farmers; seeds, pesticides, harvesters and combines. I see commercials for grocery and drug stores. Yes, I see them for attorneys (bankrupcy, divorce, personal injury) and title loans, remember that you have to have a paid-off car to get a title loan. And don't you see the commercials for McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Burger King, candy bars, KFC (KFC ain't cheap; I can go to D'Arcy's for less), etc.
No, it's not, but it's good to see something good come from something bad. Ball stood up to bullies, that's a good thing. Exposing the bullies as extortionists is also a good thing.
A better thing would be for the BSA to disappear and its leaders jailed.
In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.
Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."
Ball's IT crew settled on a potpourri of open-source software--Red Hat's version of Linux, the OpenOffice office suite, Mozilla's Web browser--plus a few proprietary applications that couldn't be duplicated by open source. Ball, whose father, Ernie, founded the company, says the transition was a breeze, and since then he's been happy to extol the virtues of open-source software to anyone who asks. He spoke with CNET News.com about his experience.
My Vaio Z doesn't boot from USB. That's incredibly weird, since it's a "premium" high-spec machine, but it makes using Linux a pain in the ass. (So does their disregard of TRIM in favor of a custom SSD garbage-collection system, and their proprietary switchable graphics, and their out-of-the-box RAID 0'd SSD's, and...)
It changed your Bing to Google? Somehow I sincerely doubt that. But if they did, it was just as wrong.
I have no problem with Bing being IE's default. If Bing had been FireFox's default search engine I would have had no problem with that, either, and simply would have changed it. What I have a problem with is having a third party change the search engine I selected to something else. Worse was adding a toolbar I never asked for.
If I'd chosen Bing as the search engine and a program that had nothing to do with search or the browser changed it to Google, I would be just as annoyed. YOU JUST DON'T DO THAT. It's incredibly bad manners to install software on or change a PC owner's selections without his or her permission. How would you like to wake up one morning and find that McAffee had uninstalled your OS and replaced it with BSD? Or replaced your copy of Microsoft Office with Open Office? It's the same thing.
No, it isn't evil of MS to pay AVG. What's evil is changing the search engine by default and worse, installing a goddamned toolbar!
(link says google because cracked.com is firewalled off here)
It's just plain WRONG to install stuff on someone else's computer without their permission. Period. And they did NOT have my permission! Look, I changed the default search to google, why would I want someone else to change it back?
The evil is using its desktoip monopoly to further its search engine. Hell, they got in trouble with the DoJ for using their desktop monopoly to make IE the dominant browser, how is this any different?
However, although I had a couple dozen front page stories posted at K5, the stories are still up but aren't listed if you look me up by name there. I never use any site's built-in search, I just use google and "site:[url].[url extension]" whether it's slashdot, K5, or the Illinois Times.
Hmmm... Google for "biters anonymous" and my old humorous K5 diary entry from 2005 about biting trolls still comes up first. I would expect that a newer item would, so apparently they didn't change it enough to screw it up.
As to Bing getting 33%, that's not surprising. Every new PC comes with Bing as the default search engine, and when I installed AVG Free on my notebook (haven't got Linux on it yet) it not only changed my search engine from Google back to Bing, it added a goddamned Bing toolbar!
Actually - I think that marijuana is psychologically addictive.
The term is "habituating", and anything can be habituating. You may be interested in what Wikipedia has to say about cannibis, it's insightful and informative.
Even caffeine is more addictive and more harmful than marijuana.
Caffeine is addictive (I'm an addict), marijuana is not (I've been smoking it for 40 years). There is no problem when I'm broke (damned tech habituation) or it's "dry". Actually, I'm high as I make this comment. Couldn't find any for the last week, NO PROBLEM.
The only thing about your comment I disagree with is the "more harmful". Neither is harmful, both are beneficial, anything can be abused.
Why would you want to give up coffee? I've not read of any adverse effects and many beneficial effects (like lower risk of cancer). So what if it's addictive?
Disclaimer: I drink about a pot a day. If your addiction doesn't adversely affect your life, how is it a problem?
Meth is highly addictive and will ruin your life, but it doesn't kill many people; afaik most deaths from meth is from when their "labs" explode and burn.
You must not know the difference between amphetamines and opiates. ODing on heroin is easy, ODing on meth isn't.
ODing on pot is impossible. There may be arguments for meth and heroin to be illegal (although I believe the laws against them harm society more than the drugs themselves), but there are no valid, rational reasons for pot to be illegal, except to keep the cartels and gangs in business. Pot laws also make pot users disbelieve ANY anti-drug propaganda since they know from experience that pot won't hurt you unless you get caught.
Drug laws and false anti-pot propaganda only benefit the gangsters.
I don't know about the Mexican government, but the US government must be in favor of the drug cartels. They could shut them down with the stroke of a pen, the same way Congress put the bootleg gangs (Capone et al) out of business in 1933.
More people die from alcohol overdose than all other drugs combined. Should it be illegal? If not, then why are all the other drugs illegal?
The US government shares the blame with Zeta for the headless corpses. Sell the stuff in liquor stores and the cartels have no customers.
Slashdot Mirror
Ducks are the last thing I would expect from an Apple fan!
Then why is marijuana still illegal? Why does everyone on the highway pass me when I'm doing the speed limit?
No, they're both broken, but in completely different ways. Anyone can get a copyright, registring one is only about $30. Patents cost thousands and are hard to get. In that respect patents are broken, copyright not.
But patents only last 17 years, while copyright lasts effectively forever. In that respect patents are ok, copyright is broken.
Can you imagine the technological stagnation if patents lasted as long as copyrights? That's how art and music are suffering. And if copyrights were as costly as patents, only corporations and very rich individuals could obtain a copyright.
You already have to register the copyright in order to sue. The price, unlike patents, is affordable to most ($30 the last time I looked), to raise it would, like patents, put copyrighting something prohibitively expensive for most individuals... and artists and musicians usually don't earn a lot of money for their crafts.
Indeed. Alcohol consumption doubled during prohibition.
Besides that, how can the ISP possibly know that it's infringing without spying on the user? And even then, how is the ISP supposed to know whether or not a suspected pirate file is really illegal?
Folks who download legal music (indies) can easily download RIAA dreck by mistake. Try to get The Station's song "Fingertips" from bittorrent. Do you have any idea how many completely different songs have that name? Try "Scatterbrain", there are hundreds of songs with that name, many legal and many not.
'Waaaaaambulence' annoys me. It wasn't cute or funny when it was new ten years ago and it's certainly not now that it's so long in the tooth.
That said, the RIAA should just stop whining and learn to use "free" to make money. Many others do, they should as well. But what do you expect from stupid, greedy people?
I'd rename it to "the now defunct, disbanded Department of Homeland Security". The military is supposed to secure our borders, and in my mind "security" doesn't mean being secure against tornados and earthquakes. FEMA should exist, DHS should not.
No, the GP is right. I'm the only one I know (in meatspace) that gets most content over the internet, but much of what I do get over the internet is over the air radio; I'm a little too far from St Louis to get KSHE and KIHT so I listen to them on the internet, but the EAS message would still come through.
You can't judge who's watching TV by the commercials, and besides, I see plenty of commercials for new cars, including luxury cars. And drugs. Poor people don't buy new Cadillacs or Cialis. I see commercials geared to farmers; seeds, pesticides, harvesters and combines. I see commercials for grocery and drug stores. Yes, I see them for attorneys (bankrupcy, divorce, personal injury) and title loans, remember that you have to have a paid-off car to get a title loan. And don't you see the commercials for McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Burger King, candy bars, KFC (KFC ain't cheap; I can go to D'Arcy's for less), etc.
Sorry, but you're just plain wrong.
No, it's not, but it's good to see something good come from something bad. Ball stood up to bullies, that's a good thing. Exposing the bullies as extortionists is also a good thing.
A better thing would be for the BSA to disappear and its leaders jailed.
Despite their best efforts, the BSA promotes open-source software.
If that's the case, why aren't liquor companies liable for drunk drivers? Why aren't gunsmiths liable for murders?
My Vaio Z doesn't boot from USB. That's incredibly weird, since it's a "premium" high-spec machine, but it makes using Linux a pain in the ass. (So does their disregard of TRIM in favor of a custom SSD garbage-collection system, and their proprietary switchable graphics, and their out-of-the-box RAID 0'd SSD's, and...)
Why do you keep buying their products?
It changed your Bing to Google? Somehow I sincerely doubt that. But if they did, it was just as wrong.
I have no problem with Bing being IE's default. If Bing had been FireFox's default search engine I would have had no problem with that, either, and simply would have changed it. What I have a problem with is having a third party change the search engine I selected to something else. Worse was adding a toolbar I never asked for.
If I'd chosen Bing as the search engine and a program that had nothing to do with search or the browser changed it to Google, I would be just as annoyed. YOU JUST DON'T DO THAT. It's incredibly bad manners to install software on or change a PC owner's selections without his or her permission. How would you like to wake up one morning and find that McAffee had uninstalled your OS and replaced it with BSD? Or replaced your copy of Microsoft Office with Open Office? It's the same thing.
I didn't choose the "fast install", I never do. What was worse was I unchecked the "install Bing toolbar" and it installed it anyway.
Perhaps it was a bug, but if so, that's even worse. A buggy AV is a worthless AV.
Well, they changed it then. Glad to hear it!
No, it isn't evil of MS to pay AVG. What's evil is changing the search engine by default and worse, installing a goddamned toolbar!
(link says google because cracked.com is firewalled off here)
It's just plain WRONG to install stuff on someone else's computer without their permission. Period. And they did NOT have my permission! Look, I changed the default search to google, why would I want someone else to change it back?
The evil is using its desktoip monopoly to further its search engine. Hell, they got in trouble with the DoJ for using their desktop monopoly to make IE the dominant browser, how is this any different?
Aug 12, 2006
However, although I had a couple dozen front page stories posted at K5, the stories are still up but aren't listed if you look me up by name there. I never use any site's built-in search, I just use google and "site:[url].[url extension]" whether it's slashdot, K5, or the Illinois Times.
Hmmm... Google for "biters anonymous" and my old humorous K5 diary entry from 2005 about biting trolls still comes up first. I would expect that a newer item would, so apparently they didn't change it enough to screw it up.
As to Bing getting 33%, that's not surprising. Every new PC comes with Bing as the default search engine, and when I installed AVG Free on my notebook (haven't got Linux on it yet) it not only changed my search engine from Google back to Bing, it added a goddamned Bing toolbar!
Microsoft hasn't changed its evil ways, it seems.
An addiction is only a problem when you can't satisfy it
Tell that to the guy who gets fired because he shows up for work drunk.
Actually - I think that marijuana is psychologically addictive.
The term is "habituating", and anything can be habituating. You may be interested in what Wikipedia has to say about cannibis, it's insightful and informative.
Even caffeine is more addictive and more harmful than marijuana.
Caffeine is addictive (I'm an addict), marijuana is not (I've been smoking it for 40 years). There is no problem when I'm broke (damned tech habituation) or it's "dry". Actually, I'm high as I make this comment. Couldn't find any for the last week, NO PROBLEM.
The only thing about your comment I disagree with is the "more harmful". Neither is harmful, both are beneficial, anything can be abused.
Why would you want to give up coffee? I've not read of any adverse effects and many beneficial effects (like lower risk of cancer). So what if it's addictive?
Disclaimer: I drink about a pot a day. If your addiction doesn't adversely affect your life, how is it a problem?
Meth is highly addictive and will ruin your life, but it doesn't kill many people; afaik most deaths from meth is from when their "labs" explode and burn.
You must not know the difference between amphetamines and opiates. ODing on heroin is easy, ODing on meth isn't.
ODing on pot is impossible. There may be arguments for meth and heroin to be illegal (although I believe the laws against them harm society more than the drugs themselves), but there are no valid, rational reasons for pot to be illegal, except to keep the cartels and gangs in business. Pot laws also make pot users disbelieve ANY anti-drug propaganda since they know from experience that pot won't hurt you unless you get caught.
Drug laws and false anti-pot propaganda only benefit the gangsters.
I don't know about the Mexican government, but the US government must be in favor of the drug cartels. They could shut them down with the stroke of a pen, the same way Congress put the bootleg gangs (Capone et al) out of business in 1933.
More people die from alcohol overdose than all other drugs combined. Should it be illegal? If not, then why are all the other drugs illegal?
The US government shares the blame with Zeta for the headless corpses. Sell the stuff in liquor stores and the cartels have no customers.