American productions tend to be un-funny "comedies" targetted at teen audiences, action flicks that can be enjoyed while intoxicated, and slasher/horror flicks that seem tame compared to the news."
I certainly agree with this. I must be the only person alive who had no interest in seeing American Pie, 1 or 2. The comedy in the previews looks downright stupid (a guy having sex with a pie... in the kitchen... right next to the door that leads into the house.. that he doesn't live in alone? A guy not realizing that it's super-glue and not lubricant he has in his hand before actually appling the stuff to his genitals?) and the "funny" parts I was told about were all very predictable.
Horror flicks are the same. It's ashame to see horror going for the eye candy (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rebecca Gayheart, etc.) instead of the kind of stuff that usually makes the weak stomached avert their eyes. Pretty women are fine, but make them the main attraction in a movie about pretty women, not about blood and guts.
There are plenty of no-name talented actors and actresses that could carry a character through a well-written movie, but the investors insist on blowing millions on big-names and then whine when they don't make a few million profit back.
This is another big problem. Not that I mind seeing the big actors. But that I mind seeing actors that can't act! You don't have to spend millions of dollars on a big name actor to find one with talent, they are all over the place, but so many movies, TV commercials, radio commercials, etc. can't seem to find them. In fact I think sucky acting, the insistance on sounding like a cartoon character, and WAY to much usage of the reverb filter is a requirement for radio commercials.
Actually, I've taken quite the opposite view of yours alot. Not that current generation of movies are great, but that critics generally aren't worth a damn. If I wanted somebodies opinion of a movie, I'd ask my cousin, who has very similar taste in movies to me. Critics are paid to give an opinion on an almost entirely subjective matter. Everyone's likes and dislikes are different. Critics seem altogether pointless to me.
Well, first of all, not all schools have greatly funded athletics, mine didn't. I would have loved to wrestle in high-school, but when I was there we didn't have a wrestling team.
Secondly, where I went to school the Valedictorian was convicted of armed robbery, and we STILL didn't have 90% of the kids getting beat up. And if we did, perhaps the school spending money on equipment for sports that are more supervised than handing the kids a few basketballs and telling them to have at it would help solve things.
In general though, you bring up very good points. But let's face it, computers shouldn't replace teachers in school. That said, most of the "learning" done on a computer in a school environment is that same point and click nonsense that a kid learns at home on his own computer. Maybe if they were to implement a LOGO workshop or BASIC for higher up kids, I could understand it, but that's not what computers are being used for largely. Largely they are being used to replace other already adequate audio visual tools, and IMHO (and this is by far not a one way issue) it's not really worth it. The cost versus the benefits as applied to how the computers are being utilized right now, just don't add up to me.
That depends on how you define "Education". I think teamwork and good exercise habits are damned important for a growing child to learn. Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic aren't the only things that our kids need to be learning.
It is an interesting idea, the savings over desktops could then go to other activities other than computers. I happen to agree with Leo Laporte that computer labs shouldn't be the primary concern of schools. Computers are very useful tools, but one kids are very often exposed to at home. I think that many schools that are lacking in Art/Music or Athletic departments should consider putting the money into that. Art and health is just as important as technology.
Maybe by using cheap palmtop devices we can have our cake and eat it too.
Because they provide you with a service, as a corporation, they can legally observe and log every detail of enery task you use the service to complete?
Forgive my ignorance on this matter, but don't ISP's ALREADY log every task you complete? I could be wrong, but I would think they have records of what websites and newsgroups and such you've been to. This info is probably supposed to be kept private, but who knows nowadays.
Either way, it's just short hop from logging all your internet activity to MONITORING all your internet activity. It just surprises me, that of all the crimes they could go after, copyright infringement is the one they chose.
Looking at my past posts you'll see that I'm actually in defense of copyright more so that most slashdotters, but if they HAVE to violate our privacy, can't they do it to keep tabs on who downloads instructions for making nuclear bombs or who sends porn spam to potentially underage kids or something? Next to the wealth of dangerous and or illegal content on the web, copyright seems kinda harmless.
SDL is one of the better things to happen for the open source community though - I just wonder how many commercial gaming companies will pick it up and run with it - making all the Linux gamers happy.
I think some commercial companies might be a bit scared of Linux, especially upstarts which would be adopting a new dev tool. Not scared of Linux because it's hard to code for (everone knows UNIX is a programmers best friend. hehe), but scared of Linux because every non-GPL'd software gets bashed. Just look at reviews on HappyPenguin. All the shareware/commercial games have at least one comment saying something like "This sucks because there's no source"
As someone else who wants to write games for a living, and also loves Linux, it's hard. People don't seem to realize that commercial games, first of all take a hell of alot of work, It would take a decade or so for a fully opensourced Quake III or Myth II, etc to be developed. Secondly commercial income can lead to many great free (speech) software, just look at Loki's contributions.
It's not fair to expect a game programmer to do a job he doesn't like, so you can have a free game, and it's shortsighted to think that all commercial endeavors are "evil" and have no benefit to free software, but that is exactly what software companies are up against.
I remember learning to very strongly disagree with RMS's tactics/views after reading an email exchange between him and the head developer of Crystal Space regarding the legality of porting CS to PS2, which would involve using Sony's proprietary software of course.
The link is here. Although apparently it was mentioned on Slashdot before. But I found it odd that he seemed against the whole thing until this statement:
"But I could imagine that a PS2 wrapper that supports some standard interface used on other machines might make SONY extremely unhappy, because of encouraging people to write their software portably instead of writing it specifically for the PS2. Making them unhappy seems like a good thing given the circumstances."
WTF!? Closed implementations are bad, but if it pisses a commercial developer off it's OK?
All in all I think he is right though, people DO confuse "Open Source" and "Free Software". It's a good thing for RMS to, I realize this is going to be marked as flamebait, but I think if people knew what a bigot RMS was, they would be much less likely to support "Free Software".
And thank-you btw CmdrTaco for using "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".
For myself, I cannot help but question their consistency. A political party that is so pro-life is also so pro-death penalty.
First of all, let me say that I in no way consider myself a republic, and very seldom agree with G.W. But are you honestly putting forth the proposition that a fetus is equal to a murderer. A murderer (the kind that are executed) has and probably will kill again, what horrible crime against society has a fetus commited?
Patents are a whole different ballgame. Thomas Jefferson was VERY clear on the requirements of a patent, of which 90% of what got through to day, wouldn't have got through before.
I agree that there will be a change, Steven King going onto the web and charging a $1 or $2 per chapter was a fairly good move, don't you think?
The problem is there are many people who don't even want to pay 1 or 2 dollars.
The thing is that maybe you, and everyone else, still doesn't understand, is that you are NOT necessarily paying for the ideas of Steven King, but rather the time it takes him to record those ideas.
I suppose it does not good to argue, because I am not so greedy that $1 or $2 is going to effect me. Maybe you aren't either, but like it or not, most of the people who think copying and distributing as many copies as you want should be legal, are just greedy.
Your quote from Jefferson and your interpretation thereof contains a number of logical fallacies. In the end Jefferson supported both patents AND copyrights. Contrary to what "gimme something for nothing" people such as yourself want to think, Copyrights and Patents were created to ENCOURAGE the sharing of ideas. For example, I LOVE Steven Kings work. Steven has released his latest works on the internet saying that he will keep writing if 75% of his viewers buy. Now Steven writes full time, if he didn't support himself by writing, I would not have gotten to enjoy many of the books from him that I have. A privelage which I am willing to pay for. Without copyright law, Steven would not continue to write, and his ideas would not be shared. I have no problems paying Steven to write full time, because I want him to do so.
If you do not agree with me, then the simple solution is to not buy his books. That's it. But don't try to deprive me of the result of his full time writing, read from someone who does it as a hobby and can give their work away. The same goes for music, if you don't want to pay for Metallica, then go to mp3.com and download some music from people who are willing to give it away.
So let's declare all published authors and musicians exempt from taxes. That would be an increase in the incentive to produce creative works. Likewise, let's give them all free cars at taxpayer expense. If you deny these requests, it looks like you're just supporting the status quo without any real logic - how did you decide the that current level of incentive is the correct one?
You can't possibly be that stupid. I didn't decide that the current incentive is the correct one, the people who buy the books did. Giving them a tax cut or a free car from taxpayer money, would be taking money all of us WITHOUT or permission or consent. That is a far cry different from me willingly purchasing or not purchasing a book.
On another note, it is the investor's job to make his investment profitable, not mine. I suggest investing in things people are willing to buy, rather than investing first and then seeking legal protection to make your investment feasible.
You are absolutely correct, and that is my point exactly. If creating movies or books ceases to be profitable, they will stop creating them. Do you really think James Cameron would spend $200 million on another movie if everyone was just going to copy it? Right now the movie-going experience is better than home video experience so movies aren't in immediate danger but books are. See my response to this next guy for a more in depth explanation.
Actually I think Townshend Brown might have been a better inspiration. The Tesla shield IIRC was some sort of repulsion device (wasn't a "force field" accidently discovered at a 3M plant a few years back due to polywhatchamaclit sheets passing parellel and in opposite directions to one another or something?), but the Biefield(sp?)-Brown effect is supposedly electrogravity (it apparently worked in a vacuum, disproving claims that it was mere "electric wind")
Still, on the subject of Tesla, I've always been amused the that skeptics dictionary lists him as a "pseudo-scientist" and pretty much removes and credibility these hardcore skeptics might have had with me. Anyone who spends the bulk of their time trying to _disprove_ things (not being able to prove a negative is a fairly basic scientific rule) and calls one of the greatest electrical engineers ever born (who did the "impossible" more than once I might add) a psuedo-scientist for trying to actually do something constructive, is a bigger kook than any of the mystical "woo-woo's" they like to rave on about so much.
That's a truly frightening thing you're saying, there. I hope you reconsider it. Freedom always has a price, and if that includes irritated celebrities, so be it. I'd rather be bothered and free than oppressed and "happy". Just ask Winston Smith.
I agree that freedom has a price, and that we should be willing to pay the price. In fact I was just saying the same thing on Yahoo! to a gun-control advocate. The problem is the paparazzi do more than "annoy" celebrities. Princess Di is dead and there is a very good chance it was the paparazzi's fault. I knew someone who had a reporter show up at their loved ones funeral and ask them how they feel, do you think that should be protected under the constitution? Respect for peoples feelings and privacy should be a given. I didn't mean to imply that the press have no freedom, just that they didn't have near unlimited freedom.
Your automotive - horse analogy is utter bull. The horsemaker would be out of work, yes, but he wouldn't be expected to keep doing the work. If I writer can write a book, make $10 or so off it, and have everyone just give a copy away, why would he? Why would he spend months and months of his life creating something that he is going to get no return from? Sure he'll probably still write for enjoyment, but if you are entertained by his hard work, why should he have to get a "regular" job?
Why should people spend 100's of millions of dollars making a movie, if one person is going to buy it, and the rest are going to copy it?
The thing all you "everything should be free" people don't seem to understand is that it takes an investment to create something, people have to get a return on that investment in order to make the investment worthwhile.
Maybe so, but if the founding fathers knew about high-tech zoom lens, and various other tools Paparazzi and General Press use they might have re-considered freedom of the press.
The thing is that after 200 years of evolution based around copyrights and patents, 200 years of people being able to support themselves solely as a writer or a musician we no longer have the liberty to change things.
Is it really that inconvenient for you to pay somebody for their work? Can you honestly tell me that these people should have to earn less than their full potential and perform a job they hate because you DESERVE a free book?
That is an extremely selfish view, I can only be glad that the majority doesn't agree with you.
No,
Tomas Jefferson would just be smart enough to BUY the book as opposed to RENTING it. Problem solved. I don't see where this is a big deal, until they completely stop SELLING books and go exclusively to RENTING them, what is the problem?
You are given a choice, some people might not want to read the book all ten times, why should those people have to pay as much for 10 hours of use as you do for a lifetime of use?
People are always trying to pluck such strings to get their propaganda across. Like the "The Truth.com" commercials that implied "Big Tobacco" was targeting "ethnic" people. They know that rascism will get peoples dander up, it doesn't matter that "Big Tobacco" doesn't control what signs are put up in "ethnic communities" as opposed to major shopping centers, or that in real life there has, to the best of my knowledge, never even been an "ethnic" person in a tobacco ad. (In fact the Marlboro Man is about as Honky as you can get).
It's the same with the current crop of pro-choice ads on the radio where I live now. They start out with "We hold these truths to be self-evident". I certainly don't want to start an abortion debate, but how one earth does the next sentence "that all men were created equal", support the view that you should be allowed to kill a child that you created? Once again, they are just plucking patriotism strings.
MS's "Freedom to Innovate" and "Restore the public's faith in the Judicial System" are really the same thing. Frankly, I would expect more than cliche'd propoganda from the MS spin team.
I've never seen Dark Angel, but I have to comment on the annoyingness of the ads. They always refer to Dark Angel as being from "Titanic"'s James Cameron.
Umm, hello? What about "Alien"'s James Cameron. After all I highly successful sci-fi movie franchise is a FAR better credential for a sci-fi television show than is a sappy love story, regardless of how successful it was.
It just annoys me when marketing types care more about what's popular and less about what's relevant.
Those are all fine points and I agree, however they still have nothing to do with free speech. Free speech does not allow us to write any code we want without consequence.
Regardless of how stupid this case makes judges look, we aren't going to accomplish anything by coming across just as stupid.
He is being jailed for something he wrote. Code is writing and should be protected as such.
I keep hearing people say that, but it is wrong. If I write a virus that deletes the victim's harddrive and distribute it, taking out hundreds of thousands of vital business and government computers, can I claim "Free Speech"? No.
As many have said before, whether or not the DMCA is a fair law is debatable, but it is a law, and therefore must be enforced. The correct course of action is not to complain to other slashdot readers, but to the people who made and have the power to unmake the law.
Funny, I was unaware that the electrical companies were fronting the bill to keep the sun in the sky and operational.
Hmm, you learn something new everyday.
Umm, I'm sure you are just trying to troll, but don't you think that CmdrTaco, whose website is the source of the dreaded "Slashdot effect", knows a thing or two about what is and isn't necessary to pay the bills?
The main reason humans don't need to worry is that we will always need them to do the voices, so animation will always be an "in addition to" as opposed to "instead of" expense-wise. Animation might look really cool, but for animation you will have to hire the actor AND the cgi animator, so regardless of how realistic it looks, the benefits are limited. It will be great for special effects, but I don't think it will ever fully replace humans, there's just no reason for it to.
He did sue the government over the Star Wars name, when the technology was first anounced, IIRC.
Furthermore as others have pointed out, if he doesn't want to lose the copyright he has to defend it, it's not a matter of being a good or bad person.
Slashdot Mirror
I certainly agree with this. I must be the only person alive who had no interest in seeing American Pie, 1 or 2. The comedy in the previews looks downright stupid (a guy having sex with a pie... in the kitchen... right next to the door that leads into the house.. that he doesn't live in alone? A guy not realizing that it's super-glue and not lubricant he has in his hand before actually appling the stuff to his genitals?) and the "funny" parts I was told about were all very predictable.
Horror flicks are the same. It's ashame to see horror going for the eye candy (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rebecca Gayheart, etc.) instead of the kind of stuff that usually makes the weak stomached avert their eyes. Pretty women are fine, but make them the main attraction in a movie about pretty women, not about blood and guts.
There are plenty of no-name talented actors and actresses that could carry a character through a well-written movie, but the investors insist on blowing millions on big-names and then whine when they don't make a few million profit back. This is another big problem. Not that I mind seeing the big actors. But that I mind seeing actors that can't act! You don't have to spend millions of dollars on a big name actor to find one with talent, they are all over the place, but so many movies, TV commercials, radio commercials, etc. can't seem to find them. In fact I think sucky acting, the insistance on sounding like a cartoon character, and WAY to much usage of the reverb filter is a requirement for radio commercials.
OK, I'm done ranting for now. :)
Actually, I've taken quite the opposite view of yours alot. Not that current generation of movies are great, but that critics generally aren't worth a damn. If I wanted somebodies opinion of a movie, I'd ask my cousin, who has very similar taste in movies to me. Critics are paid to give an opinion on an almost entirely subjective matter. Everyone's likes and dislikes are different. Critics seem altogether pointless to me.
Well, first of all, not all schools have greatly funded athletics, mine didn't. I would have loved to wrestle in high-school, but when I was there we didn't have a wrestling team.
Secondly, where I went to school the Valedictorian was convicted of armed robbery, and we STILL didn't have 90% of the kids getting beat up. And if we did, perhaps the school spending money on equipment for sports that are more supervised than handing the kids a few basketballs and telling them to have at it would help solve things.
In general though, you bring up very good points. But let's face it, computers shouldn't replace teachers in school. That said, most of the "learning" done on a computer in a school environment is that same point and click nonsense that a kid learns at home on his own computer. Maybe if they were to implement a LOGO workshop or BASIC for higher up kids, I could understand it, but that's not what computers are being used for largely. Largely they are being used to replace other already adequate audio visual tools, and IMHO (and this is by far not a one way issue) it's not really worth it. The cost versus the benefits as applied to how the computers are being utilized right now, just don't add up to me.
That depends on how you define "Education". I think teamwork and good exercise habits are damned important for a growing child to learn. Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic aren't the only things that our kids need to be learning.
It is an interesting idea, the savings over desktops could then go to other activities other than computers. I happen to agree with Leo Laporte that computer labs shouldn't be the primary concern of schools. Computers are very useful tools, but one kids are very often exposed to at home. I think that many schools that are lacking in Art/Music or Athletic departments should consider putting the money into that. Art and health is just as important as technology.
Maybe by using cheap palmtop devices we can have our cake and eat it too.
Forgive my ignorance on this matter, but don't ISP's ALREADY log every task you complete? I could be wrong, but I would think they have records of what websites and newsgroups and such you've been to. This info is probably supposed to be kept private, but who knows nowadays.
Either way, it's just short hop from logging all your internet activity to MONITORING all your internet activity. It just surprises me, that of all the crimes they could go after, copyright infringement is the one they chose.
Looking at my past posts you'll see that I'm actually in defense of copyright more so that most slashdotters, but if they HAVE to violate our privacy, can't they do it to keep tabs on who downloads instructions for making nuclear bombs or who sends porn spam to potentially underage kids or something? Next to the wealth of dangerous and or illegal content on the web, copyright seems kinda harmless.
I think some commercial companies might be a bit scared of Linux, especially upstarts which would be adopting a new dev tool. Not scared of Linux because it's hard to code for (everone knows UNIX is a programmers best friend. hehe), but scared of Linux because every non-GPL'd software gets bashed. Just look at reviews on HappyPenguin. All the shareware/commercial games have at least one comment saying something like "This sucks because there's no source"
As someone else who wants to write games for a living, and also loves Linux, it's hard. People don't seem to realize that commercial games, first of all take a hell of alot of work, It would take a decade or so for a fully opensourced Quake III or Myth II, etc to be developed. Secondly commercial income can lead to many great free (speech) software, just look at Loki's contributions.
It's not fair to expect a game programmer to do a job he doesn't like, so you can have a free game, and it's shortsighted to think that all commercial endeavors are "evil" and have no benefit to free software, but that is exactly what software companies are up against.
"But I could imagine that a PS2 wrapper that supports some standard interface used on other machines might make SONY extremely unhappy, because of encouraging people to write their software portably instead of writing it specifically for the PS2. Making them unhappy seems like a good thing given the circumstances."
WTF!? Closed implementations are bad, but if it pisses a commercial developer off it's OK? All in all I think he is right though, people DO confuse "Open Source" and "Free Software". It's a good thing for RMS to, I realize this is going to be marked as flamebait, but I think if people knew what a bigot RMS was, they would be much less likely to support "Free Software".
And thank-you btw CmdrTaco for using "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".
For myself, I cannot help but question their consistency. A political party that is so pro-life is also so pro-death penalty. First of all, let me say that I in no way consider myself a republic, and very seldom agree with G.W. But are you honestly putting forth the proposition that a fetus is equal to a murderer. A murderer (the kind that are executed) has and probably will kill again, what horrible crime against society has a fetus commited?
I agree that there will be a change, Steven King going onto the web and charging a $1 or $2 per chapter was a fairly good move, don't you think? The problem is there are many people who don't even want to pay 1 or 2 dollars.
The thing is that maybe you, and everyone else, still doesn't understand, is that you are NOT necessarily paying for the ideas of Steven King, but rather the time it takes him to record those ideas.
I suppose it does not good to argue, because I am not so greedy that $1 or $2 is going to effect me. Maybe you aren't either, but like it or not, most of the people who think copying and distributing as many copies as you want should be legal, are just greedy.
Your quote from Jefferson and your interpretation thereof contains a number of logical fallacies. In the end Jefferson supported both patents AND copyrights. Contrary to what "gimme something for nothing" people such as yourself want to think, Copyrights and Patents were created to ENCOURAGE the sharing of ideas. For example, I LOVE Steven Kings work. Steven has released his latest works on the internet saying that he will keep writing if 75% of his viewers buy. Now Steven writes full time, if he didn't support himself by writing, I would not have gotten to enjoy many of the books from him that I have. A privelage which I am willing to pay for. Without copyright law, Steven would not continue to write, and his ideas would not be shared. I have no problems paying Steven to write full time, because I want him to do so.
If you do not agree with me, then the simple solution is to not buy his books. That's it. But don't try to deprive me of the result of his full time writing, read from someone who does it as a hobby and can give their work away. The same goes for music, if you don't want to pay for Metallica, then go to mp3.com and download some music from people who are willing to give it away.
You can't possibly be that stupid. I didn't decide that the current incentive is the correct one, the people who buy the books did. Giving them a tax cut or a free car from taxpayer money, would be taking money all of us WITHOUT or permission or consent. That is a far cry different from me willingly purchasing or not purchasing a book.
On another note, it is the investor's job to make his investment profitable, not mine. I suggest investing in things people are willing to buy, rather than investing first and then seeking legal protection to make your investment feasible.
You are absolutely correct, and that is my point exactly. If creating movies or books ceases to be profitable, they will stop creating them. Do you really think James Cameron would spend $200 million on another movie if everyone was just going to copy it? Right now the movie-going experience is better than home video experience so movies aren't in immediate danger but books are. See my response to this next guy for a more in depth explanation.
Still, on the subject of Tesla, I've always been amused the that skeptics dictionary lists him as a "pseudo-scientist" and pretty much removes and credibility these hardcore skeptics might have had with me. Anyone who spends the bulk of their time trying to _disprove_ things (not being able to prove a negative is a fairly basic scientific rule) and calls one of the greatest electrical engineers ever born (who did the "impossible" more than once I might add) a psuedo-scientist for trying to actually do something constructive, is a bigger kook than any of the mystical "woo-woo's" they like to rave on about so much.
I agree that freedom has a price, and that we should be willing to pay the price. In fact I was just saying the same thing on Yahoo! to a gun-control advocate. The problem is the paparazzi do more than "annoy" celebrities. Princess Di is dead and there is a very good chance it was the paparazzi's fault. I knew someone who had a reporter show up at their loved ones funeral and ask them how they feel, do you think that should be protected under the constitution? Respect for peoples feelings and privacy should be a given. I didn't mean to imply that the press have no freedom, just that they didn't have near unlimited freedom.
Your automotive - horse analogy is utter bull. The horsemaker would be out of work, yes, but he wouldn't be expected to keep doing the work. If I writer can write a book, make $10 or so off it, and have everyone just give a copy away, why would he? Why would he spend months and months of his life creating something that he is going to get no return from? Sure he'll probably still write for enjoyment, but if you are entertained by his hard work, why should he have to get a "regular" job? Why should people spend 100's of millions of dollars making a movie, if one person is going to buy it, and the rest are going to copy it?
The thing all you "everything should be free" people don't seem to understand is that it takes an investment to create something, people have to get a return on that investment in order to make the investment worthwhile.
The thing is that after 200 years of evolution based around copyrights and patents, 200 years of people being able to support themselves solely as a writer or a musician we no longer have the liberty to change things.
Is it really that inconvenient for you to pay somebody for their work? Can you honestly tell me that these people should have to earn less than their full potential and perform a job they hate because you DESERVE a free book?
That is an extremely selfish view, I can only be glad that the majority doesn't agree with you.
Tomas Jefferson would just be smart enough to BUY the book as opposed to RENTING it. Problem solved. I don't see where this is a big deal, until they completely stop SELLING books and go exclusively to RENTING them, what is the problem?
You are given a choice, some people might not want to read the book all ten times, why should those people have to pay as much for 10 hours of use as you do for a lifetime of use?
It's the same with the current crop of pro-choice ads on the radio where I live now. They start out with "We hold these truths to be self-evident". I certainly don't want to start an abortion debate, but how one earth does the next sentence "that all men were created equal", support the view that you should be allowed to kill a child that you created? Once again, they are just plucking patriotism strings.
MS's "Freedom to Innovate" and "Restore the public's faith in the Judicial System" are really the same thing. Frankly, I would expect more than cliche'd propoganda from the MS spin team.
Umm, hello? What about "Alien"'s James Cameron. After all I highly successful sci-fi movie franchise is a FAR better credential for a sci-fi television show than is a sappy love story, regardless of how successful it was.
It just annoys me when marketing types care more about what's popular and less about what's relevant.
Regardless of how stupid this case makes judges look, we aren't going to accomplish anything by coming across just as stupid.
I keep hearing people say that, but it is wrong. If I write a virus that deletes the victim's harddrive and distribute it, taking out hundreds of thousands of vital business and government computers, can I claim "Free Speech"? No.
As many have said before, whether or not the DMCA is a fair law is debatable, but it is a law, and therefore must be enforced. The correct course of action is not to complain to other slashdot readers, but to the people who made and have the power to unmake the law.
Hmm, you learn something new everyday.
Furthermore as others have pointed out, if he doesn't want to lose the copyright he has to defend it, it's not a matter of being a good or bad person.