Hmm, good point about the demographics, I wasn't aware that there were economic trends to the non-voters. I just figured that the people who don't vote are evenly divided among all economic classes. You're probably right.
Credit card rates: I couldn't give a flying f*** what my credit card interest rate is, because I pay it all off every month and so should you.
ATM Fees: I don't know how bad it's gotten in the US, but up here in the frozen wasteland known as "Canada," I'm with CIBC, and the particular account I have waives all ATM fees, as long as I use a CIBC ATM, and keep a minimum balance of $1000 in my account. I also get free online banking and bill-paying. I've heard of some banks charging you a fee to use a real live teller, but I've never yet been charged, though I do believe it happens.
But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.
[Freakin' Preview]
Only if they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result would be the same.
But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result would be the same.
I thought that too, but then I considered that he'd been doing it for over two years, and could have put a stop to it at any point, but didn't, until he got greedy and got caught. Now I don't feel so bad for him.
in 1929, the United States' economy collapsed. It also dragged down with it the rest of the world
Newsflash: This ain't 1929 anymore. The rest of the world hasn't sat idle for the last 3/4 of a century. Things have changed a little in the past 74 years.
If we go into a depression, we stop buying other countries' products.
Like I said, prices would drop a little, then stabilize.
Sure, they can sell their stuff to other countries, but they sure as hell won't make as much money doing it.
Of course not. But they won't be thrown into "economic chaos and ruin," either. They'll simply make a little less.
If the USA 'collapsed' the entire world would plunge into economic ruin and chaos.
Oh puh-lease! Get over yourself. The US is roughly 5% of the world's population. I think the world would manage without you. You grossly overestimate your own importance on the world economic scale.
The US carries a net trade deficit, meaning you consume more than you produce. You import more than you export. Meaning if you disappeared, it's not like the rest of the world would have to do without your excess production - rather, there'd simply be a few less guys consuming everyone else's products. Prices would drop a little worldwide, then settle again. Life would go on.
It's comments like yours that are the reason the world calls the US "arrogant."
What they're doing amounts to terrorism (at least, under today's NewSpeak definition of "Terrorism"). Why are the authorities not trying to track these guys down? How hard can it be? It is extremely difficult to completely cover your tracks on the net. You find out where an email came from. Track it back to the ISP. Find out where it came from. Track it back to the next ISP. Check their logs. Continue until you get to a modem pool/DSL connection. There's your guy.
Are they all outside the country? Will those foreign ISPs not cooperate? Why is this so common?
So if I email you an ELF binary as an email attachment, and you save it and run it, that executable will not be allowed to crawl through your address book and send itself out to others?
Linux prevents it from doing that, eh? Really? Which distro might that be?
using the web to find native translators instead of using over priced local ones
Did I miss something? Aren't we opposed to outsourcing jobs overseas? Don't our big tech companies consider us "overpriced local programmers?" So, when it's a little guy, outsourcing to cheap, overseas labour is "innovative," but when IBM/Sun/Microsoft/Dell does it, it's Anti-American, and worthy of a global-scale boycott?
"nope, I saw an annoying commercial of theirs; nope, they shoved an insulting product placement in a movie down my throat; ah, that leaves generic brand, check"
There's only one problem with that: The generic brands often suck. Sure, many times the generic will work just as well, for cheaper. But I find that more often than not, the reason the name brands cost more is because they're better. Oreos are better than "No Name Frosted Cookies." Coke does taste better than "PC Cola." Cottonelle is softer than generic toilet paper, and Bounty does pick up more.
Of course, there are notable exceptions where the generic brand is BETTER than the name-brand. For example, I love President's Choice chicken breasts. I've tried name brands, and always keep coming back to good 'ol PC.
Perhaps Hollywood [...] might have to *gasp* INNOVATE, like everybody else to maintain a healthy profitable business.
I'm sorry, but frankly I'm getting a little tired of this line. Plenty of industries have been doing essentially the same things for decades, and the tried-and-true models are still working. But some of the more IP-based industries are suffering due to digital proliferation.
It seems to me that the "innovate" demand is often used as an excuse to justify copyright infringement. Now that we've finally found a way to circumvent your traditional business model and access your content without paying for it, you tell them to "innovate," rather than suggest that they might rather try to convince us to stop taking things without paying. They should "innovate" and find a way to block us from stealing again, until we find away around that roadblock too, at which point we'll simply advise them to "innovate" some more.
Failing that, people will say, "well they should stop making such crap then." Sure, the new Nikelback CD isn't good enough to pay for, but it's good enough to spend time and effort downloading it for free though, isn't it. Ditto for Hollywood movies. "Matrix Revolutions sucked," they'll say, "I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theatre." They say it sucked, yet they spent how much time (and money) downloading it? They'll bitch about the $0.001 in connection charges it costs them to download a 40kb spam, but have no problems downloading a 700MB movie, as long as they don't have to pay for it.
I guess they should just "innovate" (as long as it doesn't involve any technology to restrict your computer, car, DVD player, CD-ROM, or anything else, eh?), and stop making shows/movies that everybody else likes, and instead make more movies YOU like, right?
Sorry, that's one of my hot-buttons. Mods, do your worst.
You make a good point, but I still think that the spirit and interpretation of the Act relate specifically to copying original, physical media. Here's an excellent explanation of the changes to the Copyright Act. In virtually every related material I've read, it states that you can only copy the original recording (i.e., the legally purchased CD), not a copy.
P2P networks work in such a way that the client copies the mp3 file off the other person's computer
That's right, and that mp3 is NOT the "original copy." That mp3 IS ALREADY a copy, made by the owner of the CD. When he/she ripped that mp3 off their CD, they were making a copy. Placing that mp3 in their "Shared" folder is making a COPY available, which is NOT protected under Section VIII of the Copyright Act in Canada.
My hosting of the MP3 is the same as me loaning them the CD for copying
No, it is NOT. You are not lending them the original in this case. You are making the mp3 (which is already a copy) available.
The fact that the CD (or songs) was transmitted from one person to another via the internet has no effect on the enforcement of the law. We pay taxes on it, therefore it's legal.
There is ONLY a levy on MUSIC CD's in canada. Buy a data CD-R and it doesn't have the levy.
You're completely wrong. There are a few exemptions from the levy, but when I walk into FutureShop (/BestBuy/CircuitCity) and pick up a pack of Sony/Maxell blank CDRs, I'm paying the levy. The levy is already built into the price of the pack of blank CDRs.
And as if that wasn't enough, the industry is trying to extend the level to all music-playing devices with non-removeable storage, on a per-megabyte basis. Meaning your Rio/iPod/whatever with 20GB of storage just went up in price by about $200.
No it's not. TechCentralStation is wrong. In 1998, the Copyright Act was amended to legalize private copying of music. It specifically says that only the original media can be copied, but that the copier isn't required to own it. Basically, I can borrow your CDs and copy them, legally. Note that you cannot copy them yourself and give me the copies (though you are, of course, allowed to copy your own CDs for your own use) - I must copy them myself.
TechCentralStation mistakenly believes that this applies to music sharing. This position has already been rebutted in other articles, because the files that you are sharing (the MP3's) are NOT the originals. They are copies taken from the owner's CD. Therefore the owner has made the copy, not you. Also, you're making a copy of a copy, which is not permitted under Section VIII of the Copyright Act.
However, with the advent of online music stores (itunes.com, buymusic.com, etc.), now those MP3's in your shared folder could be argued to be the originals, and the people coming in and downloading them are making copies.
You were correct, however, in stating that none of this has been tested in court yet.
3) Other sites have gone up, yes. Are they deserving of the traffic? No. When a search for "web design Calgary" returns the home page for a hockey team in the #1 spot, that's broken.
I RTFA'd and tried the trick the author recommended. I searched for: "web design calgary -waffle -woggle -dowupped" and got a whole page full of very relevant links.
Interesting. Try including enough "-gibberish" words to match your valid search terms, and the relevance of your results seems to improve dramatically.
The fact that you're in the UK just makes this all the more funny. Canada is far, far closer to the UK politically than it is to the US. The queen is on all our money. Our governer general reports to the royal family. Canada is still practically a British colony!
And yes, Alanis Morrisette is Canadian. And yes, none of the things she lists in her song "Ironic" are actually ironic. But that, in and of itself, is ironic! That was her joke. Hardly anyone got it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, good point about the demographics, I wasn't aware that there were economic trends to the non-voters. I just figured that the people who don't vote are evenly divided among all economic classes. You're probably right.
Thanks for the compliment, by the way.
Credit card rates: I couldn't give a flying f*** what my credit card interest rate is, because I pay it all off every month and so should you.
ATM Fees: I don't know how bad it's gotten in the US, but up here in the frozen wasteland known as "Canada," I'm with CIBC, and the particular account I have waives all ATM fees, as long as I use a CIBC ATM, and keep a minimum balance of $1000 in my account. I also get free online banking and bill-paying. I've heard of some banks charging you a fee to use a real live teller, but I've never yet been charged, though I do believe it happens.
they weren't doing anything illegal,
Except, of course, tresspassing.
But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.
[Freakin' Preview]
Only if they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result would be the same.
But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result would be the same.
I thought that too, but then I considered that he'd been doing it for over two years, and could have put a stop to it at any point, but didn't, until he got greedy and got caught. Now I don't feel so bad for him.
in 1929, the United States' economy collapsed. It also dragged down with it the rest of the world
Newsflash: This ain't 1929 anymore. The rest of the world hasn't sat idle for the last 3/4 of a century. Things have changed a little in the past 74 years.
If we go into a depression, we stop buying other countries' products.
Like I said, prices would drop a little, then stabilize.
Sure, they can sell their stuff to other countries, but they sure as hell won't make as much money doing it.
Of course not. But they won't be thrown into "economic chaos and ruin," either. They'll simply make a little less.
If the USA 'collapsed' the entire world would plunge into economic ruin and chaos.
Oh puh-lease! Get over yourself. The US is roughly 5% of the world's population. I think the world would manage without you. You grossly overestimate your own importance on the world economic scale.
The US carries a net trade deficit, meaning you consume more than you produce. You import more than you export. Meaning if you disappeared, it's not like the rest of the world would have to do without your excess production - rather, there'd simply be a few less guys consuming everyone else's products. Prices would drop a little worldwide, then settle again. Life would go on.
It's comments like yours that are the reason the world calls the US "arrogant."
"Slack" is good. I think you meant to say "flack." Slashdot gets flack for posting too many positive reviews.
I'd have to save the attachment, chmod it then run it. Most unix people are smarter than that
Exactly my point! It's not the system, it's the users.
What they're doing amounts to terrorism (at least, under today's NewSpeak definition of "Terrorism"). Why are the authorities not trying to track these guys down? How hard can it be? It is extremely difficult to completely cover your tracks on the net. You find out where an email came from. Track it back to the ISP. Find out where it came from. Track it back to the next ISP. Check their logs. Continue until you get to a modem pool/DSL connection. There's your guy.
Are they all outside the country? Will those foreign ISPs not cooperate? Why is this so common?
So if I email you an ELF binary as an email attachment, and you save it and run it, that executable will not be allowed to crawl through your address book and send itself out to others?
Linux prevents it from doing that, eh? Really? Which distro might that be?
Part of their "recipe of success":
using the web to find native translators instead of using over priced local ones
Did I miss something? Aren't we opposed to outsourcing jobs overseas? Don't our big tech companies consider us "overpriced local programmers?" So, when it's a little guy, outsourcing to cheap, overseas labour is "innovative," but when IBM/Sun/Microsoft/Dell does it, it's Anti-American, and worthy of a global-scale boycott?
try, try again.
</PUN CLASS=BAD>
"nope, I saw an annoying commercial of theirs; nope, they shoved an insulting product placement in a movie down my throat; ah, that leaves generic brand, check"
There's only one problem with that: The generic brands often suck. Sure, many times the generic will work just as well, for cheaper. But I find that more often than not, the reason the name brands cost more is because they're better. Oreos are better than "No Name Frosted Cookies." Coke does taste better than "PC Cola." Cottonelle is softer than generic toilet paper, and Bounty does pick up more.
Of course, there are notable exceptions where the generic brand is BETTER than the name-brand. For example, I love President's Choice chicken breasts. I've tried name brands, and always keep coming back to good 'ol PC.
thereby demonstrating exactly how sick in the head people can be... they want me to PAY to see ADS?
Been to a movie theatre lately?
Perhaps Hollywood [...] might have to *gasp* INNOVATE, like everybody else to maintain a healthy profitable business.
I'm sorry, but frankly I'm getting a little tired of this line. Plenty of industries have been doing essentially the same things for decades, and the tried-and-true models are still working. But some of the more IP-based industries are suffering due to digital proliferation.
It seems to me that the "innovate" demand is often used as an excuse to justify copyright infringement. Now that we've finally found a way to circumvent your traditional business model and access your content without paying for it, you tell them to "innovate," rather than suggest that they might rather try to convince us to stop taking things without paying. They should "innovate" and find a way to block us from stealing again, until we find away around that roadblock too, at which point we'll simply advise them to "innovate" some more.
Failing that, people will say, "well they should stop making such crap then." Sure, the new Nikelback CD isn't good enough to pay for, but it's good enough to spend time and effort downloading it for free though, isn't it. Ditto for Hollywood movies. "Matrix Revolutions sucked," they'll say, "I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theatre." They say it sucked, yet they spent how much time (and money) downloading it? They'll bitch about the $0.001 in connection charges it costs them to download a 40kb spam, but have no problems downloading a 700MB movie, as long as they don't have to pay for it.
I guess they should just "innovate" (as long as it doesn't involve any technology to restrict your computer, car, DVD player, CD-ROM, or anything else, eh?), and stop making shows/movies that everybody else likes, and instead make more movies YOU like, right?
Sorry, that's one of my hot-buttons. Mods, do your worst.
You make a good point, but I still think that the spirit and interpretation of the Act relate specifically to copying original, physical media. Here's an excellent explanation of the changes to the Copyright Act. In virtually every related material I've read, it states that you can only copy the original recording (i.e., the legally purchased CD), not a copy.
P2P networks work in such a way that the client copies the mp3 file off the other person's computer
That's right, and that mp3 is NOT the "original copy." That mp3 IS ALREADY a copy, made by the owner of the CD. When he/she ripped that mp3 off their CD, they were making a copy. Placing that mp3 in their "Shared" folder is making a COPY available, which is NOT protected under Section VIII of the Copyright Act in Canada.
My hosting of the MP3 is the same as me loaning them the CD for copying
No, it is NOT. You are not lending them the original in this case. You are making the mp3 (which is already a copy) available.
it damned well does make it legal to copy CDs.
That's 100% correct.
The fact that the CD (or songs) was transmitted from one person to another via the internet has no effect on the enforcement of the law. We pay taxes on it, therefore it's legal.
That's 100% WRONG.
It matters. It matters very much. Read the law yourself. Specifically, see section 80.
There is ONLY a levy on MUSIC CD's in canada. Buy a data CD-R and it doesn't have the levy.
You're completely wrong. There are a few exemptions from the levy, but when I walk into FutureShop (/BestBuy/CircuitCity) and pick up a pack of Sony/Maxell blank CDRs, I'm paying the levy. The levy is already built into the price of the pack of blank CDRs.
And as if that wasn't enough, the industry is trying to extend the level to all music-playing devices with non-removeable storage, on a per-megabyte basis. Meaning your Rio/iPod/whatever with 20GB of storage just went up in price by about $200.
it is legal to download songs in Canada.
No it's not. TechCentralStation is wrong. In 1998, the Copyright Act was amended to legalize private copying of music. It specifically says that only the original media can be copied, but that the copier isn't required to own it. Basically, I can borrow your CDs and copy them, legally. Note that you cannot copy them yourself and give me the copies (though you are, of course, allowed to copy your own CDs for your own use) - I must copy them myself.
TechCentralStation mistakenly believes that this applies to music sharing. This position has already been rebutted in other articles, because the files that you are sharing (the MP3's) are NOT the originals. They are copies taken from the owner's CD. Therefore the owner has made the copy, not you. Also, you're making a copy of a copy, which is not permitted under Section VIII of the Copyright Act.
However, with the advent of online music stores (itunes.com, buymusic.com, etc.), now those MP3's in your shared folder could be argued to be the originals, and the people coming in and downloading them are making copies.
You were correct, however, in stating that none of this has been tested in court yet.
3) Other sites have gone up, yes. Are they deserving of the traffic? No. When a search for "web design Calgary" returns the home page for a hockey team in the #1 spot, that's broken.
I RTFA'd and tried the trick the author recommended. I searched for: "web design calgary -waffle -woggle -dowupped" and got a whole page full of very relevant links.
Interesting. Try including enough "-gibberish" words to match your valid search terms, and the relevance of your results seems to improve dramatically.
The fact that you're in the UK just makes this all the more funny. Canada is far, far closer to the UK politically than it is to the US. The queen is on all our money. Our governer general reports to the royal family. Canada is still practically a British colony!
And yes, Alanis Morrisette is Canadian. And yes, none of the things she lists in her song "Ironic" are actually ironic. But that, in and of itself, is ironic! That was her joke. Hardly anyone got it.
Maybe ... but just wait a few years 'till all those "Harry Potter" kids get old enough to vote. ;)