People seem to forget that the main reason to have copyright & patent laws is to benefit society as a whole by enriching the public domain.
The reasoning goes something like this: if every invention and creation is free for grabs, nobody would invest in the creative process, so let's give the inventors/creators an incentive in the form of a *limited* monopoly on implementing and distributing their invention/creation.
Keep in mind that the protection is not an end in itself but only a means to the real end. Therefore, we must be careful not to let it outweigh the public benefit.
Does the society, really *need* protection duration of creator life + 70 years? Would the creative process stop if we limit it so something reasonable, like 10 years?
Does the society, really *need* broad patents that claim everything under the sun, or patenting of ideas (as opposed to implementations) or mathematical formulas? Remember what Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants and consider what good does it do to the public if a person or organization can hold all R&D in a certain field hostage until it no longer relevant?
The creators and inventors should be able to make a decent living from the application of their talents, we should guarantee them nothing more.
When a brilliant physician stops healing, the flow of money stops - even if the patients whose life they may have saved continue living and enjoying their health!
When a brilliant teacher stops teaching, the flow of money stops - even if his students continue to rip the rewards of their excellent education.
Currently, the legislators are preocupied with enriching the "intellectual property" owners at the expense of fair use. This is a sham. Intellectual "property" is nothing more than a racket. When there is a conflict between the wants of the society and the wants of the IP holders, the public interest should always take precedence.
Think about it.
Do something about it.
Convince 10 other people to do something about it.
Convince them to repeat the process.
Start an avalanche. Nothing less will cure the system.
> If you've got a name on the card of "Helga Olafson" and the person using > it is a 6'9" African-American gentleman, you may want to ask a question or > two about it.
Maybe it was a transgendered African-Scandinavian, (insert obligatory "you insensitive clod" here).
> I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware that Canadian statute qualified as "most jurisdictions".
No, it does not. It is just an example I am most familiar with.
> Here in the U.S. for instance, there has been a much publicized and landmark series of legal battles [...] as to should or should not "simulated" child pornography be considered illegal.
According to the link you provided, it is currently the law.
> The Canadian statute does not care if the material is intended to get > pedophiles off, or if it has genuine artistic merit.
Is it that hard to click on a link and scroll one page down?
(6) Where the accused is charged with an offence under subsection (2), (3), (4) or (4.1), the court shall find the accused not guilty if the representation or written material that is alleged to constitute child pornography has artistic merit or an educational, scientific or medical purpose.
>I don't like the idea of simulated child porn. But I don't think that it should be a crime.
I find child porn, even simulated, totally sick and repulsive but I also think that the legislation goes too far in unnesserarily restricting freedoms. See my other post in this thread. McCarthy would have been proud.
> Heck, I spent over a grand on a credit card transaction, Discover used to call me up and "harass" me.
Several years ago, I drove to the states to visit relatives. When I came back, there was a voice message from Visa waiting for me. I called them back to ask what the problem was. Well, somebody (that would be me...) used my credit card to purchase gas in a US gas station and "it did not fit my usage profile".
Couple of years later, we went on vacation to Muskoka. I wanted to arrange a dog-sled ride for the kids. Problem is, outside the GTAMy Fido cell phone turns into a pumpkin. I'm also out of quarters so I use the Visa card at a pay phone. Whan I get back, you guessed it, another chat with Visa telling them not to worry, the transaction is legit, "usage patterns" notwithstanding.
Customer protection or privacy invasion? You decide.
Next, flying abroad to visit relatives. This time, I call them preemptively. I will be out of country approximately between xxx and yyy, the card will be used in the following countries, don't give me any troubles.
> Why? Because they stand to lose money if its a fraudulent transaction.
> And the non-availability of something in a country often means that > getting it "illegally" is not illegal. For example, canadian courts have > consistently ruled that decrypting US satellite TV signals is not stealing, > nor illegal because the US satellite TV providers are prohibited from selling > their subscriptions in Canada. So, US satellite TV providers have to use > private investigators within Canada to track "illegal" subscribers and often > use bounty hunters to kidnap them in Canada and drag them to the US where > they get jailed for not committing a crime in the US...
You information is several years out of date. Unauthorized decryption of US sattelite signals has been declared illegal by the supreme court.
For example, subsections (4.1) and (4.2) mean that you can spend 5 years in jail for clicking a link.
That, however, is not nearly enough for the OPP. As part of their "Operation Snowball", the mere suspicion of posessing child pornography is grounds to denounce you as a paedophile in a public press conference.
Of course, that fact that you may be innocent is not enough to stop them from ruining your life. Don't believe me? Ask James LeCraw. Oh, sorry, you can't - he committed suicide, eight months after all charges against him were withdrawn.
An AC wrote: > What about comments equating statutory rape (i.e. having sex with a > willing person who happens to be under the current age of consent) with > child abuse (the wilful abuse of a non-consenting child)?
Indeed.
Especially when you consider that the age of consent is an arbitrary figure that mostly reflects how puritan the society is.
What is statutory rape in the USA (age of consent: 18), can be harmless fun in Canada (age of consent: 14).
> In order to make these photos someone has to be, possibly irreparably, harmed. > That's why child pornography is illegal whereas simulated child pornography > (animation, fiction, etc) is not.
Wrong.
In most jurisdictions your so called "simulated child pornography" is just as illegal as the "real" kind.
Quoted from the Canadian Criminal code, Part V, Section 163.1:
163.1 (1) In this section, "child pornography" means
(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,
(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or
(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years; or
(b) any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.
Meanwhile, slowly getting into FF and TB 1.0 Can anyone point me to some recommended plugins? There are plugins that do similar things but (obviously) some are better than others.
James, In order to have a meaningful conversation, one has to listen to what the other side says. I already addressed these issues in my previous comments. Please re-read them as I have no inclination to repeat everything all over again.
I was referring to individual organs, not a complete being.
But...
> with an I.Q. of 80, have the same legal rights as the result of the interaction > of an ovum and a sperm that resulted in a child with an I.Q. of 80?
If it was up to me, yes.
> Does property ownership play a role? If I grew something on a "papaya > tree" with an I.Q. of 80, (remember, I watered, pruned, and fertilized (no > pun intended)) that tree, do I then have "Property Rights" over the fruit of > that tree? (again, no pun intended.)
You feed, clothe and nurture your children (or at least I hope that you do), what's the difference?
> So YOU say, but you do not speak for the entire human race.
Who does?
> Think about it.
OK. Now what?
> And how then, would you define what a "person" was?
By their capacity to think, to feel, to be (or become) self aware. The old "Cogito ergo sum", or the potential thereof.
And if you ask "what about people with diminished mental capacity?" I will ask you back: if a person has the mental capacity and potential of a chimp, why should we afford him more rights than we afford the chimp? Or, to look at it from another side, if a chimp has the mental capacity and potential of a (mentally deficient) person, why should we afford it less rights than we afford that person?
> What rights would something that came from less than 100% human gene stock have?
Hmmm... Allow me to play with this a bit. For example: "What rights would something that came from less than 100% Arian gene stock have?"
To answer your question: Same rights and responsibilities, given they meet my definition of "person" above.
> You have really not even begun to scratch the surface of the biological, political, economic, ethical OR moral perspectives, and yet you just blindly assume that it's all for the good?
If I can graft human genes into a cow and make it grow human-compatible organs for transplants then, yes, it is for the good, regardless of the "biological, political, economic, ethical OR moral perspectives". If I can graft them into a papaya and grow the organs on trees, that's even better.
Every invention has the potential for misuse. This is Slashdot, we do not advocate banning baseball bats, steak knives or DeCSS programs.
> I think you might have forgotten why Nobel created the peace prize.
I think you might have forgotten that Nobel also instituted prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine.
> There are only two possible positions. Either something can act on the > system (life, the universe and everything) from "outside" (God, or whatever > you want to call it), or the system has starting conditions, rules, and is > working itself out mathematically. > > If you choose option two, you are throwing away the illusion of choice and > free will. You may believe you are making decisions in your life, but they > are mathematically preordained. Your choice of college, career, spouse, or > breakfast cereal are just the result of particles interacting according to > preset rules.
Let's leave the uncertainty principle for a moment and consider the following, simplistic example:
You have three point-sized objects moving in vaccum. The only force acting on the objects is gravity. The system is closed -- there are no outside influences.
Given the objects' mass, position and velocity, you should be able to predict their position at any time, right? After all, it is only math and such a simple problem should be easy to solve, right?
Well, if this simple three-body problem was proven to have no general solution and can only be approximated by numerical methods, how can we determine the behaviour of such complex systems as human beings?
And if a solution cannot be determined, does it really matter whether it exists?
Let's say that I ask you to pick a number. Then I tell you that your choice is predetermined by math equations but they are so complex that they cannot be soved. Not now, not ever. In effect, we know that your choice is predetermined but nobody knows, nor will ever know, what it will be.
So, for all practical purposes, your choice will appear to be completely random (or based on "choice and free will") to any observer, including yourself.
Thus the "illusion of choice and free will".
And if the illusion is so complete as to be indistinguishable from the real thing by any method, is it really an illusion? And is the "real thing" really real?
How do you know that you are not living in a virtual reality? That you are not just a brain in a jar, laced with electrodes supplying electrical stimuli? Answer: you don't.
But is there is absolutely no way of being sure, should it make any difference?
Oh, by the way, even if "something can act on the system from outside", how do you know that this "something" didn't rig the game? The mere existance of an omnipotent entity does not imply that you have any more "choice and free will" than, say, the sun, the wind or the sea.
> I know which I believe, but it frustrates me that the science bullies here > can't or won't follow their logic to its cold, heartless end.
What is better, to be governed be the laws of science or to be a puppet, operated by an entity who's whims and motives you cannot even guess?
* A better query language, with wildacrds ("Word*") or stemming, proximity operators, parentheses, complex boolean expressions (something like what Dejanews and the pre-Yahoo AltaVista used to offer).
> if you live in Europe, also has a CD/DVD printer builtin. > > The printer can't know where I live.
That's what you think...
Fingerprint sensors on the front panel (cleverly disguised as buttons) combined with remotely accessing the joint FBI/CIA/InterPol database (via internal cellular transmitter) and the problem is solved.
Slashdot Mirror
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Parent
Up
People seem to forget that the main reason to have copyright & patent laws is to benefit society as a whole by enriching the public domain.
The reasoning goes something like this: if every invention and creation is free for grabs, nobody would invest in the creative process, so let's give the inventors/creators an incentive in the form of a *limited* monopoly on implementing and distributing their invention/creation.
Keep in mind that the protection is not an end in itself but only a means to the real end. Therefore, we must be careful not to let it outweigh the public benefit.
Does the society, really *need* protection duration of creator life + 70 years? Would the creative process stop if we limit it so something reasonable, like 10 years?
Does the society, really *need* broad patents that claim everything under the sun, or patenting of ideas (as opposed to implementations) or mathematical formulas? Remember what Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants and consider what good does it do to the public if a person or organization can hold all R&D in a certain field hostage until it no longer relevant?
The creators and inventors should be able to make a decent living from the application of their talents, we should guarantee them nothing more.
When a brilliant physician stops healing, the flow of money stops - even if the patients whose life they may have saved continue living and enjoying their health!
When a brilliant teacher stops teaching, the flow of money stops - even if his students continue to rip the rewards of their excellent education.
Currently, the legislators are preocupied with enriching the "intellectual property" owners at the expense of fair use. This is a sham. Intellectual "property" is nothing more than a racket. When there is a conflict between the wants of the society and the wants of the IP holders, the public interest should always take precedence.
Think about it.
Do something about it.
Convince 10 other people to do something about it.
Convince them to repeat the process.
Start an avalanche. Nothing less will cure the system.
>> "My girlfriend has a cycle every month."
>
> Heat?
Running at about 380 nano-Hz, I would rule out heat issues.
In Canada, there are several alternative money transfer methods that you could use instead of PayPal. They have their limitations but they work.
Try:
- INTERAC Email Money Transfer
- HyperWallet
They may be others as well.
> If you've got a name on the card of "Helga Olafson" and the person using
> it is a 6'9" African-American gentleman, you may want to ask a question or
> two about it.
Maybe it was a transgendered African-Scandinavian, (insert obligatory "you insensitive clod" here).
> I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware that Canadian statute qualified as "most jurisdictions".
No, it does not. It is just an example I am most familiar with.
> Here in the U.S. for instance, there has been a much publicized and landmark series of legal battles [...] as to should or should not "simulated" child pornography be considered illegal.
According to the link you provided, it is currently the law.
> The Canadian statute does not care if the material is intended to get
> pedophiles off, or if it has genuine artistic merit.
Is it that hard to click on a link and scroll one page down?
>I don't like the idea of simulated child porn. But I don't think that it should be a crime.
I find child porn, even simulated, totally sick and repulsive but I also think that the legislation goes too far in unnesserarily restricting freedoms.
See my other post in this thread. McCarthy would have been proud.
> Heck, I spent over a grand on a credit card transaction, Discover used to call me up and "harass" me.
Several years ago, I drove to the states to visit relatives.
When I came back, there was a voice message from Visa waiting for me.
I called them back to ask what the problem was.
Well, somebody (that would be me...) used my credit card to purchase gas in a US gas station and "it did not fit my usage profile".
Couple of years later, we went on vacation to Muskoka.
I wanted to arrange a dog-sled ride for the kids. Problem is, outside the GTAMy Fido cell phone turns into a pumpkin. I'm also out of quarters so I use the Visa card at a pay phone.
Whan I get back, you guessed it, another chat with Visa telling them not to worry, the transaction is legit, "usage patterns" notwithstanding.
Customer protection or privacy invasion?
You decide.
Next, flying abroad to visit relatives.
This time, I call them preemptively. I will be out of country approximately between xxx and yyy, the card will be used in the following countries, don't give me any troubles.
> Why? Because they stand to lose money if its a fraudulent transaction.
Zigackly!
> And the non-availability of something in a country often means that
> getting it "illegally" is not illegal. For example, canadian courts have
> consistently ruled that decrypting US satellite TV signals is not stealing,
> nor illegal because the US satellite TV providers are prohibited from selling
> their subscriptions in Canada. So, US satellite TV providers have to use
> private investigators within Canada to track "illegal" subscribers and often
> use bounty hunters to kidnap them in Canada and drag them to the US where
> they get jailed for not committing a crime in the US...
You information is several years out of date. Unauthorized decryption of US sattelite signals has been declared illegal by the supreme court.
> The LoC is normally quoted at 10tb.
Either quote the parent or expand your US-centric acronyms.
For a moment there I was thinking how many Lines_of_Code you could stuff in 10TB...
Here in Canada, "Child Pornography" is a similar bogeyman to "Terrorism" in the US.
I strongly urge you to read the relevant parts of our Criminal Code.
Particularly, PART V -Sexual Offences, Public Morals and Disorderly Conduct
and specifically Section 163.1.
For example, subsections (4.1) and (4.2) mean that you can spend 5 years in jail for clicking a link.
That, however, is not nearly enough for the OPP.
As part of their "Operation Snowball", the mere suspicion of posessing child pornography is grounds to denounce you as a paedophile in a public press conference.
Of course, that fact that you may be innocent is not enough to stop them from ruining your life. Don't believe me? Ask James LeCraw. Oh, sorry, you can't - he committed suicide, eight months after all charges against him were withdrawn.
An AC wrote:
> What about comments equating statutory rape (i.e. having sex with a
> willing person who happens to be under the current age of consent) with
> child abuse (the wilful abuse of a non-consenting child)?
Indeed.
Especially when you consider that the age of consent is an arbitrary figure that mostly reflects how puritan the society is.
What is statutory rape in the USA (age of consent: 18), can be harmless fun in Canada (age of consent: 14).
> In order to make these photos someone has to be, possibly irreparably, harmed.
> That's why child pornography is illegal whereas simulated child pornography
> (animation, fiction, etc) is not.
Wrong.
In most jurisdictions your so called "simulated child pornography" is just as illegal as the "real" kind.
Quoted from the Canadian Criminal code, Part V, Section 163.1:
163.1 (1) In this section, "child pornography" means
(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,
(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or
(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years; or
(b) any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.
> So you had Jacques Lacan writing:
> "Thus the erectile organ [...] is equivalent to the square root of minus one [...]
What does he mean by that?
The penis is imaginary???
(checking...)
Phew, got me worried for a moment here, mate.
Meanwhile, slowly getting into FF and TB 1.0
Can anyone point me to some recommended plugins?
There are plugins that do similar things but (obviously) some are better than others.
> some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children
If your children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is your failing as a parent.
If my children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is none of your damn business!
Capiche?
James,
In order to have a meaningful conversation, one has to listen to what the other side says.
I already addressed these issues in my previous comments. Please re-read them as I have no inclination to repeat everything all over again.
> Would that "grown on a papaya tree" being,
I was referring to individual organs, not a complete being.
But...
> with an I.Q. of 80, have the same legal rights as the result of the interaction
> of an ovum and a sperm that resulted in a child with an I.Q. of 80?
If it was up to me, yes.
> Does property ownership play a role? If I grew something on a "papaya
> tree" with an I.Q. of 80, (remember, I watered, pruned, and fertilized (no
> pun intended)) that tree, do I then have "Property Rights" over the fruit of
> that tree? (again, no pun intended.)
You feed, clothe and nurture your children (or at least I hope that you do), what's the difference?
> So YOU say, but you do not speak for the entire human race.
Who does?
> Think about it.
OK. Now what?
> And how then, would you define what a "person" was?
By their capacity to think, to feel, to be (or become) self aware.
The old "Cogito ergo sum", or the potential thereof.
And if you ask "what about people with diminished mental capacity?"
I will ask you back: if a person has the mental capacity and potential of a chimp, why should we afford him more rights than we afford the chimp?
Or, to look at it from another side, if a chimp has the mental capacity and potential of a (mentally deficient) person, why should we afford it less rights than we afford that person?
> What rights would something that came from less than 100% human gene stock have?
Hmmm... Allow me to play with this a bit. For example:
"What rights would something that came from less than 100% Arian gene stock have?"
To answer your question: Same rights and responsibilities, given they meet my definition of "person" above.
> You have really not even begun to scratch the surface of the biological, political, economic, ethical OR moral perspectives, and yet you just blindly assume that it's all for the good?
If I can graft human genes into a cow and make it grow human-compatible organs for transplants then, yes, it is for the good, regardless of the "biological, political, economic, ethical OR moral perspectives". If I can graft them into a papaya and grow the organs on trees, that's even better.
Every invention has the potential for misuse.
This is Slashdot, we do not advocate banning baseball bats, steak knives or DeCSS programs.
> I think you might have forgotten why Nobel created the peace prize.
I think you might have forgotten that Nobel also instituted prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine.
> There are only two possible positions. Either something can act on the
> system (life, the universe and everything) from "outside" (God, or whatever
> you want to call it), or the system has starting conditions, rules, and is
> working itself out mathematically.
>
> If you choose option two, you are throwing away the illusion of choice and
> free will. You may believe you are making decisions in your life, but they
> are mathematically preordained. Your choice of college, career, spouse, or
> breakfast cereal are just the result of particles interacting according to
> preset rules.
Let's leave the uncertainty principle for a moment and consider the following, simplistic example:
You have three point-sized objects moving in vaccum.
The only force acting on the objects is gravity.
The system is closed -- there are no outside influences.
Given the objects' mass, position and velocity, you should be able to predict their position at any time, right? After all, it is only math and such a simple problem should be easy to solve, right?
Well, if this simple three-body problem was proven to have no general solution and can only be approximated by numerical methods, how can we determine the behaviour of such complex systems as human beings?
And if a solution cannot be determined, does it really matter whether it exists?
Let's say that I ask you to pick a number.
Then I tell you that your choice is predetermined by math equations but they are so complex that they cannot be soved. Not now, not ever.
In effect, we know that your choice is predetermined but nobody knows, nor will ever know, what it will be.
So, for all practical purposes, your choice will appear to be completely random (or based on "choice and free will") to any observer, including yourself.
Thus the "illusion of choice and free will".
And if the illusion is so complete as to be indistinguishable from the real thing by any method, is it really an illusion? And is the "real thing" really real?
How do you know that you are not living in a virtual reality? That you are not just a brain in a jar, laced with electrodes supplying electrical stimuli?
Answer: you don't.
But is there is absolutely no way of being sure, should it make any difference?
Oh, by the way, even if "something can act on the system from outside", how do you know that this "something" didn't rig the game? The mere existance of an omnipotent entity does not imply that you have any more "choice and free will" than, say, the sun, the wind or the sea.
> I know which I believe, but it frustrates me that the science bullies here
> can't or won't follow their logic to its cold, heartless end.
What is better, to be governed be the laws of science or to be a puppet, operated by an entity who's whims and motives you cannot even guess?
> All science is a slave to math.
All religion is a slave to fear.
Right about stemming.
Parentheses (as in "(A and B) or (C and D)") don't work
>> "*
>Already in there, it seems.
I seem to have missed it. Have a pointer?
In no particular order:
* A better query language, with wildacrds ("Word*") or stemming, proximity operators, parentheses, complex boolean expressions (something like what Dejanews and the pre-Yahoo AltaVista used to offer).
* Filtering out linkfarms and search-pages.
The should be no such think as "government interests". Ever!
The only interestes the government needs to concern itself with are those of the public.
> Ten years ago, I bought my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time and just taking office as a DA [...]
That would be illegal on so many levels...
> if you live in Europe, also has a CD/DVD printer builtin.
>
> The printer can't know where I live.
That's what you think...
Fingerprint sensors on the front panel (cleverly disguised as buttons) combined with remotely accessing the joint FBI/CIA/InterPol database (via internal cellular transmitter) and the problem is solved.