There are quite a few places where you are required to carry ID and show it on demand to the relevant officials, Germany, Portugal and Belgium spring to mind, none of those qualify as police states, and I doubt it is a law that is rigorously enforced, I wouldn't be surprised if that list only accounts for a small proportion of nations that have that requirement, I will be even less surprised to find the US and the UK on it within the next 10 years given the security hysteria we are currently experiencing.
Someone wanting me to show a receipt at the door for no reason other than its store policy (no suspicion etc..) is not acceptable. If its to stop customer staff collusion in theft, then that's not my problem either, they need to deal with their employees not mes their customers about. In short it is a system that implies you are guilty by default and that you need to show you are innocent.
If when leaving a shop an alarm sounded I would stop and allow the staff to re-check my purchases (and only my purchases) until they found whatever it was that caused the (clearly false) alarm. The reason I think that that is OK is because if the alarm sounds than there is a reasonable assumption that something is amiss, and frankly I'd rather not set off every other store alarm for the rest of my shopping trip.
As for submitting to a search, I would never allow a store to search anything of mine (other than in the scenario with the alarm above) and the few times I have been stopped and searched by the police (usually after a night out) they always seem to have the courtesy to tell me why they decided to search me and are polite about it.
Just to qualify, you may be searched if you give permission, further it may be a condition of entry into an area, that is also OK, as long as an individual can refuse entry. What may be more interesting is how it applies to employment law (i.e. can you be refused entry to your workplace and if so can you be sacked) but I am not sure how that works outside of government, I know some shops require all their staff to be searched on leaving (frankly I wouldn't work there but hey.).
I've travelled a fair bit, and except for Hong Kong I have found the British Police to be the best I have come across (I cant make a direct comment with regard to US police forces but if the National Guard or Immigration Officers are anything to go by (At LAX) then it doesn't look good..). What I will say is that things are changing.
In the UK I still feel quite happy talking to a police officer, don't worry if I am stopped (happen rarely) and I am generally impressed with how professional they are. What is starting to get a little worrying is that there are less police officers on foot, more riot van on the street at night and police officers are starting to build an us and them mindset (not helped by the fact that they are starting to walk their beats equipped as if they are going to take part fight).
Don't get me wrong, there have been major problems, especially if your face doesn't fit or if you live in the wrong area, but with all the new legislation, ASBO's Anti-terror laws etc.. it seems that common sense is being eroded and things are changing. (at least the courts are still generally sensible.)
Mao Zedong is that you?
I honestly think the world would turn out a better place if anyone who willfully, through abuse of power or through deceit, cause harm to others, should be sterilised, and all their offspring sterilised too. You see, I would consider sterilising the innocent offspring of anyone who meets the conditions you have set to be an act that by your own definition would require the same punishment. So is this some insane infinite loop?
More to the point if its an infinite loop how will you ever get to 3) ??? and 4) Profit!?
Fair enough, but they are not generally usable for making or receiving calls until you sick £5 worth of credit on, so really the cost per SIM is £5 (although if you know of a carrier that offers SIMs that allow the reception of calls without ever having put credit on do tell, that would be rather handy.
Almost every phone I have seen in the UK has been locked to whoever the carrier is, as well as having been branded with the carriers logo (in both software and generally on the hardware too). The carriers will however unlock your phone for you (at about £15-£30 depending on the carrier). I actually spoke with an orange rep about getting my orange phone unlocked and they said that I could pay orange "20 to do it, or go to a local independent phone shop and have them do it for about £5-£10. So yes phones are locked in the UK. although I haven't come across any reduction in feature set (other than the fact that you cannot remove some of the cruft they dump onto some of the phones without having it unlocked/unbranded.)
This is particularly useful if you grab a non contract phone (Tesco were doing a nice(ish) Sony for £30 PAYG) so £35-£40 gets you a totally unlocked and out of contract phone. Oh and as most of the unlocks seem to only require the entry of a code on the device it is possible to get hold of the codes free on-line if you look hard enough.
As an added bonus I am yet to find a carrier that wont sell you a SIM card (PAYG and totally anonymous) for an existing phone for £5 so getting your phone up and operational again is easy too.
Shouldn't that be down to Microsoft technical support to sort out? My ISP wouldn't help me fix my connectivity issues If I told them I used Linux or Mac OS (or hell what about when My Ipaq running familiar was having DNS issues when used in conjunction with my mobile phone, should the phone company have sorted that out for me?). Doubly so when the fix includes a warning like:
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
OT
I've got a burner that I can't get to write to any other brand. That doesn't mean that their DVD's are any good (although they are OK imn my experience, if a tad pricey), it means your burner is crap.
Although I assume Verbatim are happy with the situation.
Interestingly they seem to have had some fairly fundamental Socialist policies come through, from the minimum wage to changes in the welfare state and continued support for national health and education services.
However these have been coupled with quite a few successful (and traditionally non-Socialist policies) like giving independence to the Bank of England (there must be a few more but I cant think of any...).
Then there have been the badly received and seemingly badly executed non-Socialist policies like PfI, Various Immigration policies, Various Law and Order Bills, The War in Iraq (Afghanistan seems less of an issue, Iran would be a disaster.).
So yes, The Labour government isn't totally socialist by UK or European standards, (its practically pinko commie by US standards:) ) it is still operating along a socialist model (realistic socialism?). It will be interesting where the new leadership takes the UK, although I doubt that there will be any fundamental changes, if anything I would expect a slow crawl further left to compensate for Lib Dem and Conservative policies (what was all that "Grammar Schools are bad" thing all about anyway? It was wonderful for cohesion!).
The UK manages to screw up its economy on a semi regular basis (with the help of external parties as often as not of course), issues with unions, strikes and unemployment have historically plagued both Socialist and Non-Socialist(?) Governments.
We do seem to have gotten over most of those cyclical problems now, and I would put that down to the quasi socialist policies of the quasi-socialist government that has been in power for the last 10 years. As someone previous in this thread mentioned, its not socialism or capitalism in itself that is the issue its fanatical adherence to either in an ideological sense coupled with the inability to adapt to the conditions of the day (or simple ineptitude of course).
OK my time estimates are probably wrong (it was your "rotting fruit" that swung it) and at present I dont feel able to redefine them.
However I have a problem with:
I suggested a solution to that. Short copyright, but extendable by the author, per work, for a price. Primarily as it leads to people without capital being left out, or worse having to sell all or part of their rights on order to get funding to secure their rights for a longer period.
Not sure how to address that though, maybe a single extension should be possible based upon some sort of criteria being met.
I have to agree, even if I am not sure how I would define life. It would be interesting if the software element of this could be used in conjunction with biological hardware, or hardware with biological traits (i.e. replication and energy production). It seems to me that having a central control mechanism (brain) for all large scale operations plus small independent modules for specific tasks would be a close approximation to biological life (less complete reproduction, although I suppose that may be possible at some point albeit more complex)
Your main point is the potential loss of revenue for the author, whilst I understand that wouldn't you agree (regardless of a copyright length of term) that the ability for society to make use of a work previously under copyright is an essential part of the copyright bargain? If you do agree do you not further agree that a work should leave copyright whilst it is still to some degree useful as a work from which further works can be derived, moreover shouldn't the work lose its copyright status whilst it is still relevant?
If you find that you do agree then surely you would also agree that any relevant work leaving copyright and then being improved upon or redistributed would be a work that would still have potential value to the original author. (For example the author could sell or license the work (if it were still under copyright) they would see financial gain but society would not get the benefit of a freely exploitable work.) A reduction in the term of copyright *would* take potential revenue from the author and allow any one else to exploit that work, but that would be a potential benefit to society as a whole and therefore forms the cost to the author for the benefit of any copyright protection in the first place.
Yes we can discuss the best length of copyright for any particular type of work, but the line must be drawn at a point where the author has had a chance to recoup their outlay and gain a benefit, and society would still gain from the works release. In short, for works like Star Wars, or Harry Potter, that time frame would be quite long, for works such as From Justin to Kelly or Showgirls the author would never benefit (they lost money) and the societal benefit would be immediate (if there could be aid to be one). We need a halfway point, after all it is not possible to assess the value of a work before it is published, and it is hardly fair to apply legislation ex post facto. Thereby Society benefits, (consumers get more choice, the arts should benefit as there is both an incentive to create original works and an incentive to improve upon existing work).
The more important element in my view would probably be some form of requirement to ensure that attribution to the original author is maintained so that they may benefit from any fame that is associated with later adaptations or derivatives of their work, fot that I would look to enact legislation similar to current law concerning "passing off"
Nothing wrong with most of that as far as I am concerned. The creator has a period to exploit the work and then it is available for anyone to work with. A film about a book is a derivative work anyway unless you are copying everything word for word, and derivative works, extensions and improvements should be encouraged. I am not quite sure that I need to modify my point to include using a book as the basis for a porn film as that is just another way to exploit a work.
I am not saying that works would be leached as they came out of copyright, but what I would say is that there would at least be a hell of a lot of choice, plus scope to take a work that is still fairly relevant in a direction other than that intended by the original creator. That is a benefit in my book.
With regard to the term, its quite interesting that you think 5 or 6 years is unreasonable for a book or a Movie. 100 years ago I would have agreed with you, but in this wonderfully modern world communication is so rapid that the exploitation of any work of art seems to happen fairly quickly (assuming copyright starts at the point of publishing rather than at the end of production). Hit films, books and music will make their outlay back in a short time and leave the owner a tidy profit over a period of a few years, so I see no reason to continue to protect their monopoly after a period of say 5-10 years (I almost agree that 5 is probably too short for that kind of work), Crap films books and music may not make their outlay back at all, well that's the case now, copyright doesn't help. The in between segment are the most important and it is that segment that should be used to determine a reasonable time frame. For the arts it is more difficult to determine a time frame because it is not easy to see at what point the work is still relevant culturally and the owner has had sufficient time to exploit it is.
For software I'd stick to 5 years, sure Office 200 is still out there and older than the period I am suggesting, the question would be has MS had enough time to recoup their outlay? probably yes. So Would it benefit society if it was not under copyright? Yes, it would force Microsoft to try an produce something so much better that it is worth paying for (boosting innovation) and also ensure that the cultural benefits of Office2k (whatever they may be) are available to everyone.
(OK I may have over stepped the mark with the cultural benefits bits)
Apparently you can (used to be able to?) mail yourself a copy of the design / code / idea etc.. registered post, that will get you a nice date stamped master to use if you need to, (I think you may be better mailing it to your solicitor and asking them to hold it) don't open it when you get it back though.
Might have been an old wives tale though.
Although realistically if it is a major find you should be grabbing a solicitor and filing your idea in whatever manner is appropriate.
Well yeah that's a given. Doesn't stop companies claiming that it was all jut a big mistake / enthusiasm on the part of a single person.
Strange thing is, if an employee of any company called me and offered me a very valuable service, cash or other products I'd damn well confirm it with whoever my contact was within that company, if the answer was still the same then I would take it as official communication and I'm sure that any other reasonable person / judge / juror / investigator would too.
Oh that's handy, so if I get a lower level employee, say a junior manager to do all those illegal things I have thought about doing then that's OK?
Whoever received the communication that Microsoft apologised for seemed to think that the communication was official, that is all that should matter. Organisations need to have some some responsibilities (isn't that what corporate responsibility and due diligence is supposed to be all about?) When it comes to agreements or communications between organisations all parties need to be happy that what is being communicated is the official line, otherwise any organisation could pull out of any agreement they feel is no longer beneficial (a sale, a purchase a contact etc..) by simply claiming that by some fluke the person who negotiated didn't get it right.
I replied to your sibling poster in a similar them so this is redundant but hey.
Cracking DRM, and having to wade through reverse engineered code (when have you seen source code leaked for a major application (Windows source code rumours excepted as I haven't actually seen any of it)) is a hassle, abolishing copyright would be a disaster for the open source community, maybe not from a continuation perspective, but certainly in terms of future expansion.
Your other points are essentially sound and are similar to what I would advocate, although I think 20 years is too long a copyright in certain areas (like software) because society has become much better at production and dissemination, software doesn't hold its value for 20 years (5 or 6 maybe) and therefore doesn't need protection.
In many places you can already reverse engineer software and re-implement what you wish, (patents being the only issue, but many places that allow reverse engineering do not have software patents). The problem is that reverse engineering is hard, this would in effect lock out the little guy who just wants to modify something, or port something from one OS revision to another.
As for DRM, no its not likely to become perfect, but once again you end up with the hassle of having to break it.
Your last paragraph is pretty much what I think, basically copyright is useful if it is implemented in a sensible manner, that means no excessive terms and overreaching terms. I'm not sure about a requirement to file (unless filing is free, in which case it is a brilliant idea).
Idle power consumption may not be important for systems that are under a constant workload all the time, but for office file servers, where any given server may be under heavy load for 8 hours a day (probably closer to 6 and probably not "heavy load at that), having it draw less power in the remaining 16 hours would be rather beneficial, after all a server like that would be idle 2/3 of the time.
Obviously ideally you would be using all your kit at 95% capacity all the time, but even then you would need some idle kit stood by to take case of any additional demand. Sadly company' who aren't planning their IT systems with load in mind (but rather by which vendor takes them to lunch more often or which has the coolest flashing lights) are probably not too interested in power consumption stats anyway
Slashdot Mirror
There are quite a few places where you are required to carry ID and show it on demand to the relevant officials, Germany, Portugal and Belgium spring to mind, none of those qualify as police states, and I doubt it is a law that is rigorously enforced, I wouldn't be surprised if that list only accounts for a small proportion of nations that have that requirement, I will be even less surprised to find the US and the UK on it within the next 10 years given the security hysteria we are currently experiencing.
See, I would look at it the other way around.
Someone wanting me to show a receipt at the door for no reason other than its store policy (no suspicion etc..) is not acceptable. If its to stop customer staff collusion in theft, then that's not my problem either, they need to deal with their employees not mes their customers about. In short it is a system that implies you are guilty by default and that you need to show you are innocent.
If when leaving a shop an alarm sounded I would stop and allow the staff to re-check my purchases (and only my purchases) until they found whatever it was that caused the (clearly false) alarm. The reason I think that that is OK is because if the alarm sounds than there is a reasonable assumption that something is amiss, and frankly I'd rather not set off every other store alarm for the rest of my shopping trip.
As for submitting to a search, I would never allow a store to search anything of mine (other than in the scenario with the alarm above) and the few times I have been stopped and searched by the police (usually after a night out) they always seem to have the courtesy to tell me why they decided to search me and are polite about it.
Just to qualify, you may be searched if you give permission, further it may be a condition of entry into an area, that is also OK, as long as an individual can refuse entry. What may be more interesting is how it applies to employment law (i.e. can you be refused entry to your workplace and if so can you be sacked) but I am not sure how that works outside of government, I know some shops require all their staff to be searched on leaving (frankly I wouldn't work there but hey.).
What is it that you can't do exactly?
I've travelled a fair bit, and except for Hong Kong I have found the British Police to be the best I have come across (I cant make a direct comment with regard to US police forces but if the National Guard or Immigration Officers are anything to go by (At LAX) then it doesn't look good..). What I will say is that things are changing.
In the UK I still feel quite happy talking to a police officer, don't worry if I am stopped (happen rarely) and I am generally impressed with how professional they are. What is starting to get a little worrying is that there are less police officers on foot, more riot van on the street at night and police officers are starting to build an us and them mindset (not helped by the fact that they are starting to walk their beats equipped as if they are going to take part fight).
Don't get me wrong, there have been major problems, especially if your face doesn't fit or if you live in the wrong area, but with all the new legislation, ASBO's Anti-terror laws etc.. it seems that common sense is being eroded and things are changing. (at least the courts are still generally sensible.)
More to the point if its an infinite loop how will you ever get to 3) ??? and 4) Profit!?
Fair enough, but they are not generally usable for making or receiving calls until you sick £5 worth of credit on, so really the cost per SIM is £5 (although if you know of a carrier that offers SIMs that allow the reception of calls without ever having put credit on do tell, that would be rather handy.
Almost every phone I have seen in the UK has been locked to whoever the carrier is, as well as having been branded with the carriers logo (in both software and generally on the hardware too). The carriers will however unlock your phone for you (at about £15-£30 depending on the carrier). I actually spoke with an orange rep about getting my orange phone unlocked and they said that I could pay orange "20 to do it, or go to a local independent phone shop and have them do it for about £5-£10. So yes phones are locked in the UK. although I haven't come across any reduction in feature set (other than the fact that you cannot remove some of the cruft they dump onto some of the phones without having it unlocked/unbranded.)
This is particularly useful if you grab a non contract phone (Tesco were doing a nice(ish) Sony for £30 PAYG) so £35-£40 gets you a totally unlocked and out of contract phone. Oh and as most of the unlocks seem to only require the entry of a code on the device it is possible to get hold of the codes free on-line if you look hard enough.
As an added bonus I am yet to find a carrier that wont sell you a SIM card (PAYG and totally anonymous) for an existing phone for £5 so getting your phone up and operational again is easy too.
Although I assume Verbatim are happy with the situation.
Interestingly they seem to have had some fairly fundamental Socialist policies come through, from the minimum wage to changes in the welfare state and continued support for national health and education services.
:) ) it is still operating along a socialist model (realistic socialism?). It will be interesting where the new leadership takes the UK, although I doubt that there will be any fundamental changes, if anything I would expect a slow crawl further left to compensate for Lib Dem and Conservative policies (what was all that "Grammar Schools are bad" thing all about anyway? It was wonderful for cohesion!).
However these have been coupled with quite a few successful (and traditionally non-Socialist policies) like giving independence to the Bank of England (there must be a few more but I cant think of any...).
Then there have been the badly received and seemingly badly executed non-Socialist policies like PfI, Various Immigration policies, Various Law and Order Bills, The War in Iraq (Afghanistan seems less of an issue, Iran would be a disaster.).
So yes, The Labour government isn't totally socialist by UK or European standards, (its practically pinko commie by US standards
The UK manages to screw up its economy on a semi regular basis (with the help of external parties as often as not of course), issues with unions, strikes and unemployment have historically plagued both Socialist and Non-Socialist(?) Governments.
We do seem to have gotten over most of those cyclical problems now, and I would put that down to the quasi socialist policies of the quasi-socialist government that has been in power for the last 10 years. As someone previous in this thread mentioned, its not socialism or capitalism in itself that is the issue its fanatical adherence to either in an ideological sense coupled with the inability to adapt to the conditions of the day (or simple ineptitude of course).
However I have a problem with: I suggested a solution to that. Short copyright, but extendable by the author, per work, for a price. Primarily as it leads to people without capital being left out, or worse having to sell all or part of their rights on order to get funding to secure their rights for a longer period.
Not sure how to address that though, maybe a single extension should be possible based upon some sort of criteria being met.
Anyway, thanks.
I have to agree, even if I am not sure how I would define life. It would be interesting if the software element of this could be used in conjunction with biological hardware, or hardware with biological traits (i.e. replication and energy production). It seems to me that having a central control mechanism (brain) for all large scale operations plus small independent modules for specific tasks would be a close approximation to biological life (less complete reproduction, although I suppose that may be possible at some point albeit more complex)
It learns to walk and t can compensate for damage?
well I assume that there will be no issues with cash flow, the military applications are obvious.
Your main point is the potential loss of revenue for the author, whilst I understand that wouldn't you agree (regardless of a copyright length of term) that the ability for society to make use of a work previously under copyright is an essential part of the copyright bargain? If you do agree do you not further agree that a work should leave copyright whilst it is still to some degree useful as a work from which further works can be derived, moreover shouldn't the work lose its copyright status whilst it is still relevant?
If you find that you do agree then surely you would also agree that any relevant work leaving copyright and then being improved upon or redistributed would be a work that would still have potential value to the original author. (For example the author could sell or license the work (if it were still under copyright) they would see financial gain but society would not get the benefit of a freely exploitable work.) A reduction in the term of copyright *would* take potential revenue from the author and allow any one else to exploit that work, but that would be a potential benefit to society as a whole and therefore forms the cost to the author for the benefit of any copyright protection in the first place.
Yes we can discuss the best length of copyright for any particular type of work, but the line must be drawn at a point where the author has had a chance to recoup their outlay and gain a benefit, and society would still gain from the works release. In short, for works like Star Wars, or Harry Potter, that time frame would be quite long, for works such as From Justin to Kelly or Showgirls the author would never benefit (they lost money) and the societal benefit would be immediate (if there could be aid to be one). We need a halfway point, after all it is not possible to assess the value of a work before it is published, and it is hardly fair to apply legislation ex post facto. Thereby Society benefits, (consumers get more choice, the arts should benefit as there is both an incentive to create original works and an incentive to improve upon existing work).
The more important element in my view would probably be some form of requirement to ensure that attribution to the original author is maintained so that they may benefit from any fame that is associated with later adaptations or derivatives of their work, fot that I would look to enact legislation similar to current law concerning "passing off"
Nothing wrong with most of that as far as I am concerned. The creator has a period to exploit the work and then it is available for anyone to work with. A film about a book is a derivative work anyway unless you are copying everything word for word, and derivative works, extensions and improvements should be encouraged. I am not quite sure that I need to modify my point to include using a book as the basis for a porn film as that is just another way to exploit a work.
I am not saying that works would be leached as they came out of copyright, but what I would say is that there would at least be a hell of a lot of choice, plus scope to take a work that is still fairly relevant in a direction other than that intended by the original creator. That is a benefit in my book.
When you put it like that it makes me want to start searching for jobs specs with the following in them:
"Required to be flexible, your role will include you becoming a scapegoat occasionally - remuneration : excellent"
With regard to the term, its quite interesting that you think 5 or 6 years is unreasonable for a book or a Movie. 100 years ago I would have agreed with you, but in this wonderfully modern world communication is so rapid that the exploitation of any work of art seems to happen fairly quickly (assuming copyright starts at the point of publishing rather than at the end of production). Hit films, books and music will make their outlay back in a short time and leave the owner a tidy profit over a period of a few years, so I see no reason to continue to protect their monopoly after a period of say 5-10 years (I almost agree that 5 is probably too short for that kind of work), Crap films books and music may not make their outlay back at all, well that's the case now, copyright doesn't help. The in between segment are the most important and it is that segment that should be used to determine a reasonable time frame. For the arts it is more difficult to determine a time frame because it is not easy to see at what point the work is still relevant culturally and the owner has had sufficient time to exploit it is.
For software I'd stick to 5 years, sure Office 200 is still out there and older than the period I am suggesting, the question would be has MS had enough time to recoup their outlay? probably yes. So Would it benefit society if it was not under copyright? Yes, it would force Microsoft to try an produce something so much better that it is worth paying for (boosting innovation) and also ensure that the cultural benefits of Office2k (whatever they may be) are available to everyone.
(OK I may have over stepped the mark with the cultural benefits bits)
Fair enough. I can bin that filing cabinet full of envelopes then.
Apparently you can (used to be able to?) mail yourself a copy of the design / code / idea etc.. registered post, that will get you a nice date stamped master to use if you need to, (I think you may be better mailing it to your solicitor and asking them to hold it) don't open it when you get it back though.
Might have been an old wives tale though.
Although realistically if it is a major find you should be grabbing a solicitor and filing your idea in whatever manner is appropriate.
This is not legal advice and IANAL.
Well yeah that's a given. Doesn't stop companies claiming that it was all jut a big mistake / enthusiasm on the part of a single person.
Strange thing is, if an employee of any company called me and offered me a very valuable service, cash or other products I'd damn well confirm it with whoever my contact was within that company, if the answer was still the same then I would take it as official communication and I'm sure that any other reasonable person / judge / juror / investigator would too.
Oh that's handy, so if I get a lower level employee, say a junior manager to do all those illegal things I have thought about doing then that's OK?
Whoever received the communication that Microsoft apologised for seemed to think that the communication was official, that is all that should matter. Organisations need to have some some responsibilities (isn't that what corporate responsibility and due diligence is supposed to be all about?) When it comes to agreements or communications between organisations all parties need to be happy that what is being communicated is the official line, otherwise any organisation could pull out of any agreement they feel is no longer beneficial (a sale, a purchase a contact etc..) by simply claiming that by some fluke the person who negotiated didn't get it right.
I replied to your sibling poster in a similar them so this is redundant but hey.
Cracking DRM, and having to wade through reverse engineered code (when have you seen source code leaked for a major application (Windows source code rumours excepted as I haven't actually seen any of it)) is a hassle, abolishing copyright would be a disaster for the open source community, maybe not from a continuation perspective, but certainly in terms of future expansion.
Your other points are essentially sound and are similar to what I would advocate, although I think 20 years is too long a copyright in certain areas (like software) because society has become much better at production and dissemination, software doesn't hold its value for 20 years (5 or 6 maybe) and therefore doesn't need protection.
In many places you can already reverse engineer software and re-implement what you wish, (patents being the only issue, but many places that allow reverse engineering do not have software patents). The problem is that reverse engineering is hard, this would in effect lock out the little guy who just wants to modify something, or port something from one OS revision to another.
As for DRM, no its not likely to become perfect, but once again you end up with the hassle of having to break it.
Your last paragraph is pretty much what I think, basically copyright is useful if it is implemented in a sensible manner, that means no excessive terms and overreaching terms. I'm not sure about a requirement to file (unless filing is free, in which case it is a brilliant idea).
Idle power consumption may not be important for systems that are under a constant workload all the time, but for office file servers, where any given server may be under heavy load for 8 hours a day (probably closer to 6 and probably not "heavy load at that), having it draw less power in the remaining 16 hours would be rather beneficial, after all a server like that would be idle 2/3 of the time.
Obviously ideally you would be using all your kit at 95% capacity all the time, but even then you would need some idle kit stood by to take case of any additional demand. Sadly company' who aren't planning their IT systems with load in mind (but rather by which vendor takes them to lunch more often or which has the coolest flashing lights) are probably not too interested in power consumption stats anyway