By supporting the baseless US extradition case against Richard O'Dwyer today at Westminster Magistrates Court the judge Judge Quentin Purdy has failed to inject the much needed shot of rationality into the insanity of the UK-US extradition arrangements we had all hoped for. The Sheffield student is accused of infringing copyright by setting up the popular UK-based website TV Shack.
TV shack provided a catalogue of links to other sites, with no illegal material available from it at any time. As the server was based in the UK, Richard's lawyer has pointed out that there is simply no valid reason to send a young British citizen to face a court in the US.
[...]
This outcome is a failure on the part of our British justice system to act in a sensible and reasonable way. This case is the perfect example of what enforcing copyright is; excessive, overblown and aimed at easy targets innocent or not whilst ignoring the human.
So, this is what protecting your copyright has come to mean. Accepting unacceptable human collateral like Richard O'Dwyer." http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/ofabu/tv_shack_creators_extradition_hearing_is/
People seem to expect parties, groups and movements to come out of nowhere and storm to the top, in the UK that simply isn't doable, it takes time and effort. In 2010 the best result in the national election was 0.6% in Gorton, Manchester (with a candidate who had a manifesto and people knocking on doors..), in the local elections in Bury the party managed 3.6% of the vote - obviously a smaller area and different issues, but again, with people out talking to residents and putting forward positions. It's a progression, it won't go on forever, it may fail but it's worth doing.
As to political power, the party has very little, where it has any influence at all it is through those people that have managed to raise their own profiles and end up on TV and radio presenting the other side, the party position. That helps a bit, but it certainly isn't the end game. The party needs to raise awareness of the issues it thinks are important and either threaten other partys in marginal seats/wards or find other ways of having other partys take similar positions to them. At present there isn't another party in the UK with similar positions on copyright reform, in fact I can't think of one that is going in the same direction...
>The bottom line is that the PP is not going anywhere as a political party until it has an opinion on day care. It is questionable whether it has it in itself of getting that, and if not it should stay out of election
That is exactly that the party is doing now. The party has been through a number of elections and the people who involved themselves in those elections, the people from the party who were out on the ground either knew this already or learned rather quickly, it is also why the party is pushing on policy and anything it can do to have it's positions heard in one forum or another.
As to vulgarizing the debate, I might have agreed a year ago (before I was a party member), indeed looking at some of the press stuff from the early days, the discussions etc.. it rings true to a certain degree, I would hope that this will change over the next few years as the party matures and learns, indeed that's what I am aiming for.
The problem really is two edged. If the party doesn't approach other issues, the ones everyone feels is important, no-one would vote for the party. This is the largest criticism the party see's, 'how can we vote for you, even if we support your ideas on copyright, civil liberties etc.. if you don't have any policies on education/health/the economy'. So it's time to see if we can find policies that makes sense given the ideals and principles that inform our positions on copyright.
Our candidates have theoretically had their own platforms in previous elections (with mixed success) but they haven't been well communicated or terribly well formed in all cases, broadening where there is consensus will help with this, more to the point, candidates can still do what they want to do in terms of policy, as long as they are clear to the party and the public, what they are standing on.
The issue that the party has is that it's small, has a limited number of activists and was scrambling somewhat in terms of political direction and understanding the process up until a few months ago. The way the party has been fixing that is by sorting the admin (new leadership team came in and fixed it..), getting some structure in place (candidate selection, policy process, even thins like web infrastrucutre and dev..) and building the people who can talk to the press to do so. The party didn't have a press office 6 months ago (it had a collection of people who would issue press releases ad hoc) it didn't have a central phone number, a development web server, amongst other things... There are massively more things that the party wants to do regionally, nationally and locally, but it will take us time with the members we have now, we could do more with more active members and supporters...
One of the problems I see in the UK is that many people discussing politics, especially those sympathetic to the Pirate Party, are only interested in fully formed parties that can 'win' immediately, whereas realistically it takes time to build an organisation and have an impact (if you can even do it...).
I would assume that that kind of information would be especially useful to whoever goes over the data that is obtained. Especially if the data pertains to a non-US based company. Searching and duplicating data at points of entry to a country will most likely be a boon for those agencies whose functions include industrial espionage. I don't think its the right way of doing things, it certainly isn't subtle, but it is a logical action to take. Border entry points are not US soil so an individuals legal position and protections are not clear, persons wishing to enter the US have to submit to whatever requests that customs officers make, if they don't, entry can be denied, that is a rather nice barrel to hold someone over if you think getting hold of useful data is likely. I am sure there is some intention to prevent the importation of illegal items as well (pornography, banned books, banned documents, terrorism related documentation), in fact that is probably the primary goal, but access to trade secrets is probably on the list somewhere too.
As previous posters have noted, it is probably best to ensure that the laptop you travel with does not hold sensitive information (Be sensible, your company's new logo probably is OK to take, your latest blueprints for a new avionics package for China's MiGs's should probably never be stored on anything that might end up in US government hands). If your data really is sensitive and you must access it abroad, take a laptop with the sole role of using it to access a secure extranet (and for god's sake don't store the credentials on the laptop or on anything you carry with you). If your laptop leaves your sight, make sure you have it checked to ensure it has not been interfered with, (there are ways of making tampering evident that may be sensible) before you use it again. Do not (especially if you are foreign) travel with encryption utilities or encrypted data, this will look suspicious. Ignore the many posters previous suggestions of using truecrypt, its functionality is well known and again, you don't want to look suspicious. If you want to be really safe, ensure that your extranet access is only available if you call your home office and tell them to enable it (have a plan to deal with you being coerced into calling, preferably something that doesn't put you at risk). With all that in mind, remember that your your concern should be for your own safety before your loyalty to your company, so try to keep things in perspective.
My personal policy and that adopted by my company is simple, no sensitive data (we mark things as to how sensitive they are and handle them appropriately) that travels outside of our offices does so in an unencrypted form, no data may be transmitted over any public network (regardless of type, if we don't control the wire and all the endpoints its public) unless it is appropriately encrypted, no data of any type may be carried across international borders (it prevents any risk to our people in transit). We also actively avoid flights through the US, partially because some people are uncomfortable with it, partly due to the fact that you are required to actually enter the US to get connecting flights (which is insane) which has its own problems.
As for working on sensitive document on the flight, well I wouldn't, but then as I said, it really depends on the value of the data you are talking about and the level of privacy you find acceptable. I guess for US citizens (who have little choice about entering the US), this is probably more of a problem. I should also point out that if I had passed data to another organisation under an NDA that prevented disclosure, if I became aware that data was confiscated or accessed by any party or agency without a warrant (or maybe even if there was a warrant issued because someone did something stupid....) I would count that as a breach and take whatever action's I would have taken in the case of the NDA having been breached intentionally (loss of contract, a monetary penalty, or legal action). Hell, If I found out that sensitive data had been worked on in what is essentially a public place (like an aircraft, or an airport terminal), I'd be fairly incensed, and would look at my options.
Many businesses, especially small to medium businesses have very minimal IT requirements, mail, web access and general administrative tasks. If you go the windows route that basic set up is quite expensive, prone to issues, inflexible and it will probably require more in the way of maintenance than a well configured FOSS based alternative. Many businesses have huge numbers of call centre seats that in effect need a web browser and possibly a very minimal agent application, with maybe one in 20 users requiring a spreadsheet application or a word-processor (Oh and they like to hot-seat), again, it doesn't have to be complex, and again its probably a better solution to use FOSS here too.
The truth is that for most people a non MS OS would probably do, we can both list things that are non-trivial to achieve, or possibly even impossible (running certain applications), without Windows, which is all well and good, but it is true to say that there is a large base of companies who could live without windows at all or with a mixed environment.
I'm not saying that FOSS is only suitable for small organisations, because that is not true, there is some extremely capable stuff out there, I would certainly say that there is an awful lot that is possible using FOSS that is either impossible with Windows, or prohibitively expensive, the problem as always is the fact that most businesses are entrenched in one technology or another and would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.
Anyway, this posted at a silly time in the morning, and I'm tired so excuse any rambling / grammatical errors or typo's.
A reputable SEO should really only be doing what you suggest in your second paragraph, they should be making sure that you page does not contain barriers to inclusion in any given index and preferably ensure that what content you have is easily indexed. Any SEO that engages in practices that 'game' (the more common tactics being comment spam type operations and link exchanges) search engines aren't worth dealing with, primarily because you will find your site way down in the rankings or de-listed when Google, Yahoo, Microsoft et al realise what's going on.
So, no they are not evil, they may be better informed than an average web design company with regard to what to do and what not to do when it comes to a website that you would like to be indexed (all flash site with no indexable text? utterly standards un-compliant code? all your content 90% of the way down the page if you look at the source? Not a good idea.). A decent web designer should be all you need though, but then they tend to be more expensive than many of the $50 a site designers out there.
To answer your first point; No. I'm saying that if these ineffective filters are all that exist then at present, no filtering system exists that would be effective in filtering copyright material. I am not saying that creating one is impossible nor that one cannot be created, I am saying that as it stands the technology does not exist in a viable form.
Secondly, about my sense of architecture, clearly it is superior to yours. How would I propose a website would distribute the Agents I suggested? Well I would guess that when you buy your computer that you would have to wait whilst whoever sold it to you contacted the RIAA via a website and had an Agent dispatched to your home. That way when you get home you will find your personal Agent waiting for you outside, he'd probably introduce himself and then he can get on with the task of "sit(ting) next to you whilst you browse the web and help you avoid infringing.".
...'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials... Unless this is a typo, it seems perfectly sensible, if you are not required to use filters (Assuming that "Safe Harbour" applies) at all, that you would certainly not use ineffective ones. If that is all that is available in terms of content filters, then I guess you could go further and say that there is *no* way of filtering content effectively and so it is absurd to take legal action against someone for not doing so.
I guess the best method would be ORAPC (One RIAA Agent Per Computer), they could sit next to you whilst you browse the web and help you avoid infringing.
The myspace 'generation' *are* supposed to be the ones using and seeing 'value' in all the weird and wonderful crap out there geared toward them, they are the ones who are supposed to be massively connected with their mobile phones, email and social networking account. They are supposed to be benefiting from a massively connected world, identifying and receiving wonderful services and consuming all those wonderful products geared toward them. They are the generation that (apparently) cannot tell real life from role playing, are emotionally and mentally damaged from playing video games and browsing the web. In short they are the generation that everyone is referring to when they scream "think of the children".
We, (I refer to the/. crowd, although I may be being over simplistic) are the demographic that saw the internet evolve, have technical knowledge of how parts work and can separate out our real lives and what we want to keep private, from our on-line identities and what we wish to be public. Unfortunately we are also the generation who don't understand nor see the appeal or utility in of many of the new and wonderful social experiments going on on the web, we see the real dangers involved in using them in an inappropriate or irresponsible manner.
We know the danger is from information about us being harvested, being used by future employers, insurance companies, the government, other corporates etc.. They (the 'myspace' generation) are worried about paedophiles and stalkers, whilst simultaneously being drawn to having deep personal relationships and generally being interesting (by whose standards I don't know) and pushing their personal information to anyone who will give them a linden dollar, a discount voucher or a chance to win an iPod.
Tactically the state (through policy) and terrorism pose a similar if different (in aims and method) threat. The chances of any given individual being abused and or killed by the state, (or an individual acting for personal gain but with the protection of state granted power) is much greater than any threat actually posed by terrorists. These actions are usually justified as being in the interests of the state (invasive security measures, the inappropriate use of lethal force), a by-product of existing legislation (the vast number of individuals who face legal penalties that neither reflect their crimes nor appear effective as a deterrent) or as simple bureaucratic incompetence (the cost and time required for justice to be served for example). These acts in isolation can seem very minor (when compared to a suicide bombing) but happen on a much larger scale (the US has faced extremely few terrorist attacks, even if one of them was of a disproportionate scale in comparison to others in the western world), and whilst most incidents are minor there are a large number of acts that directly take life or destroy liberty.
The extremism of terrorists cannot be equated to the devotion of a civil servant to the state. The former believes what he is doing is right, the latter hopes he is doing what his seniors would wish, usually based on a political stance that is already heavily compromised. Abuses of power and (mis)uses of the same occur because the state alows them to, and state employee's feel they can use them. (the policeman who speed's off duty, the airport security staff that stop pretty women/men, the bureaucrat who prevents you from proceeding because he *can*.
Strategically many of the concerns posed by the state evaporate. They are misuses by individuals of powers that the state has assumed . The fact that someone's freedom of movement has been removed because he has been misidentified is, in most cases, a failure by an individual, not part of a larger strategic goal. The fact that a police officer shoots and kills an innocent person is not because the state has decided that that would aid some larger goal, it is simply the the police officer has made a poor decision, often because the consequences of that decision are either unclear or insufficient to pose a deterrent. In some cases abuses of power happen because the person wielding the power has not been sufficiently trained or vetted and is therefore unsuitable to wield it (see the abuses at Abu-Gareb, issues surrounding airport security staff or indeed the bureaucratic nature of some state organisations). I doubt very much that the state has any direct wish to oppress and/or kill its citizenry, it is unlikely that there is a grand conspiracy in that direction. Much more likely is that the strategic goals of the state are those of its primary actors, I would suggest that these are the acquisition and use of great power and the accumulation of great wealth (as well as an element of nepotism and megalomania).
On the other hand terrorists often have well defined (if unlikely) strategic goals, each act is intended to further those goals, the attacks on 11th of September were an attack on US economic and military targets, suicide bombings in Iraq are attacks on the ability of the state to ensure order (although more recently this is probably being added to by a situation that is turning into more of a civil war, with both sides adopting similar methods to those who are simply opposed to the coalition presence). The problem here is that almost any target with sufficient impact(a shopping mall, a cinema, a school etc..) is seen as an advancement toward strategic success. Terrorists are not intending to erode the US's military strength, nor to destroy its economic capacity. They want to see the US isolate itself, their attacks are attacks on the US's willingness to fight.
Lastly, the US government is unlikely to adopt any but the most repulsive practices that you perceive are rampant i
To be fair to PopeRatzo, pointing out (even in rhetorical terms) that he is more afraid of his Government than those his government tell him to fear is an important and valid point*. Even more so if you take his example that he would rather have government security programs reduced and thus the reduce the ability of the state to 'monitor' and 'oppress' its citizens, even if it increases his risk of being killed by a terrorist.
* I was going to find a statistic on the number of Fatal shootings annually by police in the US or the number of deaths in custody (jails and on arrest as either would indicate a direct level of quantifiable threat by the state, but that data seems hard to come by
You don't complain. Moreover if you make illegal copies of the organism and distribute it (Atchoo!) then you will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Seriously though, DNA and Patents (like a lot of things) shouldn't be mixed.
The same people who thought that people would be exclusively buying their milk and meat (and admittedly other foodstuffs) on-line by now, some of them were VC's and dumped a huge amount of cash on this IIRC..
nobody has a desktop farm, after all Someone isn't thinking. What about large companies and other organisations that have 100,000's of desktop computers, one for each employee? Sure they have a data-centre somewhere to support it, but there is not going to be anything close to a 1:1 ration between servers and clients, 1:100 is probably closer). There may not be a common term like 'server farm' to refer to a huge mass of PC's but that is in effect what any large (and even small) company with IT systems is. Server's (and in this case we are talking about machines in server roles, not server spec hardware) by definition provide a service to other 'non server' computers, there should (and are IMHO) more of the latter than the former.
So we switch from the argument of its not available to the argument of it cannot be made available, if you look at Cities in the UK like London, Manchester and Sheffield, Cities in Germany like Berlin, Bonn and Düsseldorf you will note that public transport systems are possible in urban and suburban areas, the theory is that the more public transport is available the less vehicular traffic will be on the roads (thus reducing fuel use and dependence on imports) and that is largely true, granted it wont solve the problem in rural areas, but then it is not intended to.
Whether or not government intervention is required is neither here nor there, if there were public support (i.e. a cultural shift in the way America views personal transport) the Government would act to provide. As it is neither is true.
Interesting response, Ill get the first bit over with, I think that we are unlikely to agree, so I will state my opinion but not introduce anything new;
When necessary to protect the rights and safety of others, yes, as long as those zones do not interfere with the right to protest. Preventing protests or herding protesters into small areas *does* interfere with the right to protest, and whilst it may be true that in Boston it just wasn't feasible to allow a protest and maintain safety and right of access (I find that hard to believe unless the meaning of both were stretched), it cannot have been true in all the areas where protesters have been moved out of sight into a zone.
Now it may be my fault but I am unsure precisely what you mean with the middle part of your comment, so I'm going to ignore it, (clarify if you wish I will happily respond). The most interesting part was the last element of your comment;
That is obviously untrue, because the people democratically CHOOSE for those to be the dominant parties.... I obviously cannot claim this is untrue, it would be slanderous, however I think it may be a little disingenuous. From a foreign perspective (and the small amount of time I have spent in LA and NY) it would appear that the media treat politics in much the same way as they treat sports, its adversarial and there are two sides. This (unfortunately) seems to shape the entire political discussion, or at least a large portion of it. I am unaware of any major coverage of anything other than Republican and Democratic events, even politicians seem to come only in two flavours, (R) and (D) (and maybe (I)) now I know that this isn't the case, but it is how it appears. Moreover much of the campaigning (some of it apparently openly *by* the news media) appears to be negative, leaving me at least with the feeling that people were less likely to vote for the party they wanted to win any given vote, but rather the side they would rather not see in power. It also appears that the two parties resist any attempt to reform any elements of the current system that might reduce their own influence and position, but that really is a general impression.
Again this isn't a terribly well informed stance as I have spent at most 3 years working with Americans, but politically there really does seem to be something wrong with modern US politics when it is compared to Asia, (Hong Kong is an interesting place politically), South America and Europe.
Yep. And that is why I opposed the Free Speech Zones at the conventions in 2004. They should have been right near the entrance to the conventions. So, you think they should have been near the entrances, fine, that suggests that you *do* approve of these zones. Personally I think that they should have had a small area required for access as a 'clear area' and then allow people to protest wherever they wanted. With regard to free speech zones more generally, it may have been the Left that introduced them (I'm not American and really only get to see what your large media outlets release as news..), but as you are apparently a self professed member of the right and you seem to support their use, I would suggest that regardless of who 'started it' it is now something that is perpetuated by the right, or more correctly both parties.
As with most schemes that reduce personal freedoms and restrict the freedom of expression, it is those who are in power (right, left or centre) who benefit from it, and in general will not do anything (unless pushed) to change the status quo.
Now as a brief comment on the Republican vs Democrat discussion, if all you have in a democracy are two parties with any chance at power (without even the chance of a minority party holding a balance between two larger blocks) you don't really have a democracy. I can hardly tell the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, primarily because whilst there are some ideological differences, they do not seem to translate into different approaches to actually governing the US.
A) it doesnt matter who did it first, it doesn't matter who supports / opposes it now, it is a bad thing. B) Restricting areas to prevent clashes etc.. is fine, the reverse (only allowing protests in certain areas) is not. After all what is the point of a protest if you cannot be seen or heard.
I have had enough of the whole Left vs Right debate, I am part of what you might call the 'Old Left' and frankly I don't like what left leaning governments are going in quite a few places, (much like I didn't like many of the things that happened in the Soviet Union), but I wouldn't oppose a policy proposed by the right if I agreed with it just because it comes from the right, just as I wouldn't support a policy from a left wing group because it comes from the left. we need to stop talking party affiliation and start looking at policy.
As for free speech, if you do not have the right to protest and speak your mind when and where you wish, then you do not have free speech (The usual caveats regarding theatres and shouting 'fire' apply). Preventing someone from saying something anywhere but in a given area, or preventing a protest because it offends someone's sensibilities, or preventing either because it interferes with some other activity is *not* right, if protests have no impact they become worthless, if free speech is limited to times when no one with a dissenting (or no) opinion is within earshot is also pointless.
Many countries now seem to have their political agenda dictated by the media and their discussions held without their input, a winner (or loser) is simply announced and now we are limiting the last few real ways people have of influencing others.
The three countries with groups funding this are The US, China, and the UK, (although there is no indication of the proportion of funding being supplied by which), in each case the funding is being provided by organisations that exist to further science, in some cases specifically genome research. If you look at the other elements of the study you will see that pattern repeated, so I guess it is a case of (in the words of Jim Hacker) "great nations working together to answer the great questions of our age...".
Why you singled out China is surprising, especially given the rate of growth their economy is showing and the sheer number of graduates in the sciences that China produces each year (educated at home and abroad), unless of course you are suggesting that there is some ulterior motive that we should be ascribing to China.
I think it is great to see funding coming from multiple nations, working together, especially given how this kind of research should benefit all of us in the long run, it shows that countries that can afford it are still putting money into research (something that you wouldn't believe if you read some of the science related news in the media). Although I must say I am beginning to get concerned with the level of hostility and suspicion being levelled at certain members of the international community, it is reminiscent of the the suspicions between east and west during the cold war, I had hoped that now that is over we could start to see real global co-operation ans opposed to confrontation and competition (although competition may well be beneificial).
Parent is not a Troll, offtopic at a pinch but probably not.
You are right, it is not an evil, it is a potential problem and an inconvenience. I don't know about you but I don't have a single piece of media that I haven't paid for (or been given), primarily because I do think that people who produce things I want to see/listen to deserve to be compensated, also I would find it rather difficult to argue for copyright reform and yet ignore the law as it stands.
What I am guilty of in my previous point (and it is probably clear that this is the case given the fact its currently +4 insightful) is sensationalism, the term evil is there simply for its impact. It is a game played by politicians and in the context of any copyright debate, the media industry. I apologise for its use here, although I will probably use it again in a similar context as it does suit my purposes rather well and is probably the only method of combating the opposition if they are using the same tactics.
Now, as for having every film (or other piece of digital media) in any format you desire, well that is probably an accurate description of what I want. I want to be able to buy a film and format shift it as I see fit, mainly because when I buy a CD or a DVD I am buying a piece of media with data on it and for the first time this means that format shifting and portability are built right into the format. I do not see a problem, nor an valid argument that is persuasive in explaining why I should not be able to use any media I have purchased in any manner I see fit, as long as it is for personal use and I am not re-distributing work that is subject to copyright.
However what is happening is that artificial barriers are being put in place, primarily to encourage repeated repurchases of the same material on different (or even the same) media, these barriers have other consequences, they limit the longevity of the material purchased. sure you could argue that a VHS tape or Vinyl record are also not necessarily long lasting, but this is a problem inherent to the format, something not true of media distributed in a digital manner.
Lastly DRM really will limit the way digital material falls into the public domain. If there were no DRM at all, when $film falls out of copyright in 500 years (given the current trends...:) ) it would be possible for that to immediately be made available to everyone by anyone willing to make it available, with DRM schemes (and potentially increasingly complex and effective DRM schemes) that may not be the case, that would mean that the only way to get hold of that 'public domain' film may still be via a media cartel, who would still be perfectly entitled to protect the media with DRM. DRM is potentially a way to short circuit a transition of currently protected media into the public domain.
Anyway, I feel that this is potentially quite damaging, I also feel that it sets a trend toward corporate control of things purchased by a consumer, it shows a lack of consumer rights (albeit coupled with current consumer ambivalence and apathy), so I would say its a bad thing for us all, although, as you rightly pointed out it is not evil (The misuse of the term evil and similar terms (disaster springs to mind) probably is to blame for the fact that people are simply not aware of, or interested in current acts that really are evil, things like genocide, misleading propaganda that leads to unjustifiable war, torture and the gradual but systemic erosion of freedoms and civil liberties worldwide. As such I will try not to misuse it if I can avoid it.)
DRM is a part of that evil, it is an arbitrary and generally pointless (as you said it can be broken) method of preventing access. I would suggest that an archivist having to maintain not only data reliably, but also DRM circumvention for a long period would be an added burden (that is if there is a requirement to store things in their original format, i.e. with the DRM). In cases where an archive breaks the DRM and stores DRM free copies, well that adds a whole additional process before storage.
Now for a normal person, most of this will become impossible, and unlike previous problems with media longevity (i.e. the media physically changed and the method of reading it was significantly different between generations) we are talking about being able to access a simple file, a file that (under its DRM) is in a format that probably has publicly available (even if only from the historical record) specifications as to how it is to be decoded. A file that is probably easily stored and retrieved (its all just data after all) even on the most futuristic storage system, but one that will be difficult to read because the company that produced it and its protection no longer exist. It wont make it impossible (I hope) but it will make it more and more difficult. After all I can read a document stored in the National Archive 500 years after it was written with little difficlty, but I cannot easily open and read that text document that I have on floppy disk from 1992
Slashdot Mirror
Loz Kaye — Pirate Party UK Leader:
By supporting the baseless US extradition case against Richard O'Dwyer today at Westminster Magistrates Court the judge Judge Quentin Purdy has failed to inject the much needed shot of rationality into the insanity of the UK-US extradition arrangements we had all hoped for. The Sheffield student is accused of infringing copyright by setting up the popular UK-based website TV Shack.
TV shack provided a catalogue of links to other sites, with no illegal material available from it at any time. As the server was based in the UK, Richard's lawyer has pointed out that there is simply no valid reason to send a young British citizen to face a court in the US.
[...]
This outcome is a failure on the part of our British justice system to act in a sensible and reasonable way. This case is the perfect example of what enforcing copyright is; excessive, overblown and aimed at easy targets innocent or not whilst ignoring the human.
So, this is what protecting your copyright has come to mean. Accepting unacceptable human collateral like Richard O'Dwyer."
http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/ofabu/tv_shack_creators_extradition_hearing_is/
People seem to expect parties, groups and movements to come out of nowhere and storm to the top, in the UK that simply isn't doable, it takes time and effort. In 2010 the best result in the national election was 0.6% in Gorton, Manchester (with a candidate who had a manifesto and people knocking on doors..), in the local elections in Bury the party managed 3.6% of the vote - obviously a smaller area and different issues, but again, with people out talking to residents and putting forward positions. It's a progression, it won't go on forever, it may fail but it's worth doing. As to political power, the party has very little, where it has any influence at all it is through those people that have managed to raise their own profiles and end up on TV and radio presenting the other side, the party position. That helps a bit, but it certainly isn't the end game. The party needs to raise awareness of the issues it thinks are important and either threaten other partys in marginal seats/wards or find other ways of having other partys take similar positions to them. At present there isn't another party in the UK with similar positions on copyright reform, in fact I can't think of one that is going in the same direction...
>The bottom line is that the PP is not going anywhere as a political party until it has an opinion on day care. It is questionable whether it has it in itself of getting that, and if not it should stay out of election That is exactly that the party is doing now. The party has been through a number of elections and the people who involved themselves in those elections, the people from the party who were out on the ground either knew this already or learned rather quickly, it is also why the party is pushing on policy and anything it can do to have it's positions heard in one forum or another. As to vulgarizing the debate, I might have agreed a year ago (before I was a party member), indeed looking at some of the press stuff from the early days, the discussions etc.. it rings true to a certain degree, I would hope that this will change over the next few years as the party matures and learns, indeed that's what I am aiming for.
The problem really is two edged. If the party doesn't approach other issues, the ones everyone feels is important, no-one would vote for the party. This is the largest criticism the party see's, 'how can we vote for you, even if we support your ideas on copyright, civil liberties etc.. if you don't have any policies on education/health/the economy'. So it's time to see if we can find policies that makes sense given the ideals and principles that inform our positions on copyright. Our candidates have theoretically had their own platforms in previous elections (with mixed success) but they haven't been well communicated or terribly well formed in all cases, broadening where there is consensus will help with this, more to the point, candidates can still do what they want to do in terms of policy, as long as they are clear to the party and the public, what they are standing on.
The issue that the party has is that it's small, has a limited number of activists and was scrambling somewhat in terms of political direction and understanding the process up until a few months ago. The way the party has been fixing that is by sorting the admin (new leadership team came in and fixed it..), getting some structure in place (candidate selection, policy process, even thins like web infrastrucutre and dev..) and building the people who can talk to the press to do so. The party didn't have a press office 6 months ago (it had a collection of people who would issue press releases ad hoc) it didn't have a central phone number, a development web server, amongst other things... There are massively more things that the party wants to do regionally, nationally and locally, but it will take us time with the members we have now, we could do more with more active members and supporters... One of the problems I see in the UK is that many people discussing politics, especially those sympathetic to the Pirate Party, are only interested in fully formed parties that can 'win' immediately, whereas realistically it takes time to build an organisation and have an impact (if you can even do it...).
Buyers should also be aware that the miracle magnetic bead necklace also comes with a 5 day guarantee!
I would assume that that kind of information would be especially useful to whoever goes over the data that is obtained. Especially if the data pertains to a non-US based company. Searching and duplicating data at points of entry to a country will most likely be a boon for those agencies whose functions include industrial espionage. I don't think its the right way of doing things, it certainly isn't subtle, but it is a logical action to take. Border entry points are not US soil so an individuals legal position and protections are not clear, persons wishing to enter the US have to submit to whatever requests that customs officers make, if they don't, entry can be denied, that is a rather nice barrel to hold someone over if you think getting hold of useful data is likely. I am sure there is some intention to prevent the importation of illegal items as well (pornography, banned books, banned documents, terrorism related documentation), in fact that is probably the primary goal, but access to trade secrets is probably on the list somewhere too.
As previous posters have noted, it is probably best to ensure that the laptop you travel with does not hold sensitive information (Be sensible, your company's new logo probably is OK to take, your latest blueprints for a new avionics package for China's MiGs's should probably never be stored on anything that might end up in US government hands). If your data really is sensitive and you must access it abroad, take a laptop with the sole role of using it to access a secure extranet (and for god's sake don't store the credentials on the laptop or on anything you carry with you). If your laptop leaves your sight, make sure you have it checked to ensure it has not been interfered with, (there are ways of making tampering evident that may be sensible) before you use it again. Do not (especially if you are foreign) travel with encryption utilities or encrypted data, this will look suspicious. Ignore the many posters previous suggestions of using truecrypt, its functionality is well known and again, you don't want to look suspicious. If you want to be really safe, ensure that your extranet access is only available if you call your home office and tell them to enable it (have a plan to deal with you being coerced into calling, preferably something that doesn't put you at risk). With all that in mind, remember that your your concern should be for your own safety before your loyalty to your company, so try to keep things in perspective.
My personal policy and that adopted by my company is simple, no sensitive data (we mark things as to how sensitive they are and handle them appropriately) that travels outside of our offices does so in an unencrypted form, no data may be transmitted over any public network (regardless of type, if we don't control the wire and all the endpoints its public) unless it is appropriately encrypted, no data of any type may be carried across international borders (it prevents any risk to our people in transit). We also actively avoid flights through the US, partially because some people are uncomfortable with it, partly due to the fact that you are required to actually enter the US to get connecting flights (which is insane) which has its own problems.
As for working on sensitive document on the flight, well I wouldn't, but then as I said, it really depends on the value of the data you are talking about and the level of privacy you find acceptable. I guess for US citizens (who have little choice about entering the US), this is probably more of a problem. I should also point out that if I had passed data to another organisation under an NDA that prevented disclosure, if I became aware that data was confiscated or accessed by any party or agency without a warrant (or maybe even if there was a warrant issued because someone did something stupid....) I would count that as a breach and take whatever action's I would have taken in the case of the NDA having been breached intentionally (loss of contract, a monetary penalty, or legal action). Hell, If I found out that sensitive data had been worked on in what is essentially a public place (like an aircraft, or an airport terminal), I'd be fairly incensed, and would look at my options.
It depends what you are looking at.
Many businesses, especially small to medium businesses have very minimal IT requirements, mail, web access and general administrative tasks. If you go the windows route that basic set up is quite expensive, prone to issues, inflexible and it will probably require more in the way of maintenance than a well configured FOSS based alternative. Many businesses have huge numbers of call centre seats that in effect need a web browser and possibly a very minimal agent application, with maybe one in 20 users requiring a spreadsheet application or a word-processor (Oh and they like to hot-seat), again, it doesn't have to be complex, and again its probably a better solution to use FOSS here too.
The truth is that for most people a non MS OS would probably do, we can both list things that are non-trivial to achieve, or possibly even impossible (running certain applications), without Windows, which is all well and good, but it is true to say that there is a large base of companies who could live without windows at all or with a mixed environment.
I'm not saying that FOSS is only suitable for small organisations, because that is not true, there is some extremely capable stuff out there, I would certainly say that there is an awful lot that is possible using FOSS that is either impossible with Windows, or prohibitively expensive, the problem as always is the fact that most businesses are entrenched in one technology or another and would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.
Anyway, this posted at a silly time in the morning, and I'm tired so excuse any rambling / grammatical errors or typo's.
Cheers.
A reputable SEO should really only be doing what you suggest in your second paragraph, they should be making sure that you page does not contain barriers to inclusion in any given index and preferably ensure that what content you have is easily indexed. Any SEO that engages in practices that 'game' (the more common tactics being comment spam type operations and link exchanges) search engines aren't worth dealing with, primarily because you will find your site way down in the rankings or de-listed when Google, Yahoo, Microsoft et al realise what's going on.
So, no they are not evil, they may be better informed than an average web design company with regard to what to do and what not to do when it comes to a website that you would like to be indexed (all flash site with no indexable text? utterly standards un-compliant code? all your content 90% of the way down the page if you look at the source? Not a good idea.). A decent web designer should be all you need though, but then they tend to be more expensive than many of the $50 a site designers out there.
To answer your first point; No. I'm saying that if these ineffective filters are all that exist then at present, no filtering system exists that would be effective in filtering copyright material. I am not saying that creating one is impossible nor that one cannot be created, I am saying that as it stands the technology does not exist in a viable form.
Secondly, about my sense of architecture, clearly it is superior to yours. How would I propose a website would distribute the Agents I suggested? Well I would guess that when you buy your computer that you would have to wait whilst whoever sold it to you contacted the RIAA via a website and had an Agent dispatched to your home. That way when you get home you will find your personal Agent waiting for you outside, he'd probably introduce himself and then he can get on with the task of "sit(ting) next to you whilst you browse the web and help you avoid infringing.".
...'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials... Unless this is a typo, it seems perfectly sensible, if you are not required to use filters (Assuming that "Safe Harbour" applies) at all, that you would certainly not use ineffective ones. If that is all that is available in terms of content filters, then I guess you could go further and say that there is *no* way of filtering content effectively and so it is absurd to take legal action against someone for not doing so.I guess the best method would be ORAPC (One RIAA Agent Per Computer), they could sit next to you whilst you browse the web and help you avoid infringing.
The myspace 'generation' *are* supposed to be the ones using and seeing 'value' in all the weird and wonderful crap out there geared toward them, they are the ones who are supposed to be massively connected with their mobile phones, email and social networking account. They are supposed to be benefiting from a massively connected world, identifying and receiving wonderful services and consuming all those wonderful products geared toward them. They are the generation that (apparently) cannot tell real life from role playing, are emotionally and mentally damaged from playing video games and browsing the web. In short they are the generation that everyone is referring to when they scream "think of the children".
/. crowd, although I may be being over simplistic) are the demographic that saw the internet evolve, have technical knowledge of how parts work and can separate out our real lives and what we want to keep private, from our on-line identities and what we wish to be public. Unfortunately we are also the generation who don't understand nor see the appeal or utility in of many of the new and wonderful social experiments going on on the web, we see the real dangers involved in using them in an inappropriate or irresponsible manner.
We, (I refer to the
We know the danger is from information about us being harvested, being used by future employers, insurance companies, the government, other corporates etc.. They (the 'myspace' generation) are worried about paedophiles and stalkers, whilst simultaneously being drawn to having deep personal relationships and generally being interesting (by whose standards I don't know) and pushing their personal information to anyone who will give them a linden dollar, a discount voucher or a chance to win an iPod.
Or am I just getting old?
Sadly I'd disagree with you on all points.
Tactically the state (through policy) and terrorism pose a similar if different (in aims and method) threat. The chances of any given individual being abused and or killed by the state, (or an individual acting for personal gain but with the protection of state granted power) is much greater than any threat actually posed by terrorists. These actions are usually justified as being in the interests of the state (invasive security measures, the inappropriate use of lethal force), a by-product of existing legislation (the vast number of individuals who face legal penalties that neither reflect their crimes nor appear effective as a deterrent) or as simple bureaucratic incompetence (the cost and time required for justice to be served for example). These acts in isolation can seem very minor (when compared to a suicide bombing) but happen on a much larger scale (the US has faced extremely few terrorist attacks, even if one of them was of a disproportionate scale in comparison to others in the western world), and whilst most incidents are minor there are a large number of acts that directly take life or destroy liberty.
The extremism of terrorists cannot be equated to the devotion of a civil servant to the state. The former believes what he is doing is right, the latter hopes he is doing what his seniors would wish, usually based on a political stance that is already heavily compromised. Abuses of power and (mis)uses of the same occur because the state alows them to, and state employee's feel they can use them. (the policeman who speed's off duty, the airport security staff that stop pretty women/men, the bureaucrat who prevents you from proceeding because he *can*.
Strategically many of the concerns posed by the state evaporate. They are misuses by individuals of powers that the state has assumed . The fact that someone's freedom of movement has been removed because he has been misidentified is, in most cases, a failure by an individual, not part of a larger strategic goal. The fact that a police officer shoots and kills an innocent person is not because the state has decided that that would aid some larger goal, it is simply the the police officer has made a poor decision, often because the consequences of that decision are either unclear or insufficient to pose a deterrent. In some cases abuses of power happen because the person wielding the power has not been sufficiently trained or vetted and is therefore unsuitable to wield it (see the abuses at Abu-Gareb, issues surrounding airport security staff or indeed the bureaucratic nature of some state organisations). I doubt very much that the state has any direct wish to oppress and/or kill its citizenry, it is unlikely that there is a grand conspiracy in that direction. Much more likely is that the strategic goals of the state are those of its primary actors, I would suggest that these are the acquisition and use of great power and the accumulation of great wealth (as well as an element of nepotism and megalomania).
On the other hand terrorists often have well defined (if unlikely) strategic goals, each act is intended to further those goals, the attacks on 11th of September were an attack on US economic and military targets, suicide bombings in Iraq are attacks on the ability of the state to ensure order (although more recently this is probably being added to by a situation that is turning into more of a civil war, with both sides adopting similar methods to those who are simply opposed to the coalition presence). The problem here is that almost any target with sufficient impact(a shopping mall, a cinema, a school etc..) is seen as an advancement toward strategic success. Terrorists are not intending to erode the US's military strength, nor to destroy its economic capacity. They want to see the US isolate itself, their attacks are attacks on the US's willingness to fight.
Lastly, the US government is unlikely to adopt any but the most repulsive practices that you perceive are rampant i
Well done, a far saner solution IMHO - for home use anyway.
To be fair to PopeRatzo, pointing out (even in rhetorical terms) that he is more afraid of his Government than those his government tell him to fear is an important and valid point*. Even more so if you take his example that he would rather have government security programs reduced and thus the reduce the ability of the state to 'monitor' and 'oppress' its citizens, even if it increases his risk of being killed by a terrorist.
* I was going to find a statistic on the number of Fatal shootings annually by police in the US or the number of deaths in custody (jails and on arrest as either would indicate a direct level of quantifiable threat by the state, but that data seems hard to come by
You don't complain. Moreover if you make illegal copies of the organism and distribute it (Atchoo!) then you will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Seriously though, DNA and Patents (like a lot of things) shouldn't be mixed.
The same people who thought that people would be exclusively buying their milk and meat (and admittedly other foodstuffs) on-line by now, some of them were VC's and dumped a huge amount of cash on this IIRC..
So we switch from the argument of its not available to the argument of it cannot be made available, if you look at Cities in the UK like London, Manchester and Sheffield, Cities in Germany like Berlin, Bonn and Düsseldorf you will note that public transport systems are possible in urban and suburban areas, the theory is that the more public transport is available the less vehicular traffic will be on the roads (thus reducing fuel use and dependence on imports) and that is largely true, granted it wont solve the problem in rural areas, but then it is not intended to.
Whether or not government intervention is required is neither here nor there, if there were public support (i.e. a cultural shift in the way America views personal transport) the Government would act to provide. As it is neither is true.
Now it may be my fault but I am unsure precisely what you mean with the middle part of your comment, so I'm going to ignore it, (clarify if you wish I will happily respond). The most interesting part was the last element of your comment; That is obviously untrue, because the people democratically CHOOSE for those to be the dominant parties.... I obviously cannot claim this is untrue, it would be slanderous, however I think it may be a little disingenuous. From a foreign perspective (and the small amount of time I have spent in LA and NY) it would appear that the media treat politics in much the same way as they treat sports, its adversarial and there are two sides. This (unfortunately) seems to shape the entire political discussion, or at least a large portion of it. I am unaware of any major coverage of anything other than Republican and Democratic events, even politicians seem to come only in two flavours, (R) and (D) (and maybe (I)) now I know that this isn't the case, but it is how it appears. Moreover much of the campaigning (some of it apparently openly *by* the news media) appears to be negative, leaving me at least with the feeling that people were less likely to vote for the party they wanted to win any given vote, but rather the side they would rather not see in power. It also appears that the two parties resist any attempt to reform any elements of the current system that might reduce their own influence and position, but that really is a general impression.
Again this isn't a terribly well informed stance as I have spent at most 3 years working with Americans, but politically there really does seem to be something wrong with modern US politics when it is compared to Asia, (Hong Kong is an interesting place politically), South America and Europe.
As with most schemes that reduce personal freedoms and restrict the freedom of expression, it is those who are in power (right, left or centre) who benefit from it, and in general will not do anything (unless pushed) to change the status quo.
Now as a brief comment on the Republican vs Democrat discussion, if all you have in a democracy are two parties with any chance at power (without even the chance of a minority party holding a balance between two larger blocks) you don't really have a democracy. I can hardly tell the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, primarily because whilst there are some ideological differences, they do not seem to translate into different approaches to actually governing the US.
I think that covers everything.
Cheers
My point was
A) it doesnt matter who did it first, it doesn't matter who supports / opposes it now, it is a bad thing.
B) Restricting areas to prevent clashes etc.. is fine, the reverse (only allowing protests in certain areas) is not. After all what is the point of a protest if you cannot be seen or heard.
I have had enough of the whole Left vs Right debate, I am part of what you might call the 'Old Left' and frankly I don't like what left leaning governments are going in quite a few places, (much like I didn't like many of the things that happened in the Soviet Union), but I wouldn't oppose a policy proposed by the right if I agreed with it just because it comes from the right, just as I wouldn't support a policy from a left wing group because it comes from the left. we need to stop talking party affiliation and start looking at policy.
As for free speech, if you do not have the right to protest and speak your mind when and where you wish, then you do not have free speech (The usual caveats regarding theatres and shouting 'fire' apply). Preventing someone from saying something anywhere but in a given area, or preventing a protest because it offends someone's sensibilities, or preventing either because it interferes with some other activity is *not* right, if protests have no impact they become worthless, if free speech is limited to times when no one with a dissenting (or no) opinion is within earshot is also pointless.
Many countries now seem to have their political agenda dictated by the media and their discussions held without their input, a winner (or loser) is simply announced and now we are limiting the last few real ways people have of influencing others.
The three countries with groups funding this are The US, China, and the UK, (although there is no indication of the proportion of funding being supplied by which), in each case the funding is being provided by organisations that exist to further science, in some cases specifically genome research. If you look at the other elements of the study you will see that pattern repeated, so I guess it is a case of (in the words of Jim Hacker) "great nations working together to answer the great questions of our age...".
Why you singled out China is surprising, especially given the rate of growth their economy is showing and the sheer number of graduates in the sciences that China produces each year (educated at home and abroad), unless of course you are suggesting that there is some ulterior motive that we should be ascribing to China.
I think it is great to see funding coming from multiple nations, working together, especially given how this kind of research should benefit all of us in the long run, it shows that countries that can afford it are still putting money into research (something that you wouldn't believe if you read some of the science related news in the media). Although I must say I am beginning to get concerned with the level of hostility and suspicion being levelled at certain members of the international community, it is reminiscent of the the suspicions between east and west during the cold war, I had hoped that now that is over we could start to see real global co-operation ans opposed to confrontation and competition (although competition may well be beneificial).
Parent is not a Troll, offtopic at a pinch but probably not.
:) ) it would be possible for that to immediately be made available to everyone by anyone willing to make it available, with DRM schemes (and potentially increasingly complex and effective DRM schemes) that may not be the case, that would mean that the only way to get hold of that 'public domain' film may still be via a media cartel, who would still be perfectly entitled to protect the media with DRM. DRM is potentially a way to short circuit a transition of currently protected media into the public domain.
You are right, it is not an evil, it is a potential problem and an inconvenience. I don't know about you but I don't have a single piece of media that I haven't paid for (or been given), primarily because I do think that people who produce things I want to see/listen to deserve to be compensated, also I would find it rather difficult to argue for copyright reform and yet ignore the law as it stands.
What I am guilty of in my previous point (and it is probably clear that this is the case given the fact its currently +4 insightful) is sensationalism, the term evil is there simply for its impact. It is a game played by politicians and in the context of any copyright debate, the media industry. I apologise for its use here, although I will probably use it again in a similar context as it does suit my purposes rather well and is probably the only method of combating the opposition if they are using the same tactics.
Now, as for having every film (or other piece of digital media) in any format you desire, well that is probably an accurate description of what I want. I want to be able to buy a film and format shift it as I see fit, mainly because when I buy a CD or a DVD I am buying a piece of media with data on it and for the first time this means that format shifting and portability are built right into the format. I do not see a problem, nor an valid argument that is persuasive in explaining why I should not be able to use any media I have purchased in any manner I see fit, as long as it is for personal use and I am not re-distributing work that is subject to copyright.
However what is happening is that artificial barriers are being put in place, primarily to encourage repeated repurchases of the same material on different (or even the same) media, these barriers have other consequences, they limit the longevity of the material purchased. sure you could argue that a VHS tape or Vinyl record are also not necessarily long lasting, but this is a problem inherent to the format, something not true of media distributed in a digital manner.
Lastly DRM really will limit the way digital material falls into the public domain. If there were no DRM at all, when $film falls out of copyright in 500 years (given the current trends...
Anyway, I feel that this is potentially quite damaging, I also feel that it sets a trend toward corporate control of things purchased by a consumer, it shows a lack of consumer rights (albeit coupled with current consumer ambivalence and apathy), so I would say its a bad thing for us all, although, as you rightly pointed out it is not evil (The misuse of the term evil and similar terms (disaster springs to mind) probably is to blame for the fact that people are simply not aware of, or interested in current acts that really are evil, things like genocide, misleading propaganda that leads to unjustifiable war, torture and the gradual but systemic erosion of freedoms and civil liberties worldwide. As such I will try not to misuse it if I can avoid it.)
DRM is a part of that evil, it is an arbitrary and generally pointless (as you said it can be broken) method of preventing access. I would suggest that an archivist having to maintain not only data reliably, but also DRM circumvention for a long period would be an added burden (that is if there is a requirement to store things in their original format, i.e. with the DRM). In cases where an archive breaks the DRM and stores DRM free copies, well that adds a whole additional process before storage.
Now for a normal person, most of this will become impossible, and unlike previous problems with media longevity (i.e. the media physically changed and the method of reading it was significantly different between generations) we are talking about being able to access a simple file, a file that (under its DRM) is in a format that probably has publicly available (even if only from the historical record) specifications as to how it is to be decoded. A file that is probably easily stored and retrieved (its all just data after all) even on the most futuristic storage system, but one that will be difficult to read because the company that produced it and its protection no longer exist. It wont make it impossible (I hope) but it will make it more and more difficult. After all I can read a document stored in the National Archive 500 years after it was written with little difficlty, but I cannot easily open and read that text document that I have on floppy disk from 1992