I'd say this case is an abomination of copyright law. The sole purpose of copyright is to allow distribution rights to the copyright holder. How the user treats his copy as long as he doesn't make copies for others is none of the copyright holder's business. The ability for 3rd parties to make add-on products is a well-established principle, and any violation of that is sheer insanity.
"Better" is true relative to nothing at all, but caveat emptor applies far more today than it did in 1968. That term applies in any day and age, and the problems you mention have exact analogies to shopping back then. There's no such thing as a perfect system.
The fact is I'd rather do my shopping today on the net than in 1968. The amount of information at your fingertips, even if watered down by untrustworthy sources, is unprecedented.
I will, however, defend my opinion with more of my own opinions. Of course.
Who is "they"? In this case "they" happens to be a large computer farm. No one at Google cares a whit about me personally and I trust them not to give my details to anyone who does care about me personally. There are people that run that large computer farm. How well protected do you think your data is from every employee at Google? If Google is served a national security letter, do you really think they're going to risk jail time to protect you? Will Google one day decide to sell all that data with no regards to your privacy?
The fact is collecting all that data entails serious risk for personal privacy.
Yes, it is. It is legal and where copyright is concerned legal == ok. The courts will decide it. Just because Google does not redistribute the content it does not give them permission to copy and store the whole book in the first place. I cannot legally go to the library and photocopy a whole book so that I may post a review later on. And while I agree the service may be useful, it is not for Google to decide. It should be an opt-in service only.
From my point of view the NDA looks a lot more like a mistake made out of habit by some underling than a corrupt corporation attempting to subvert the American way. Corporations do what they feel is in their best interest. They don't think too much about their actions, or if they do, corporate interests usually override. The fact remains they did what they did, and I don't recall seeing any apology or admission of mistake.
I don't see any plots or devious schemes here. I'm sure Google feels the same way. However, it's clear they are empire building, even though they started out insisting they would just be a search company.
I used to really respect Google, and had good feelings about them. They went out of their way to do the right thing. However it's clear now that they are driven by empire building first, doing the right thing second.
Don't get me wrong, I still like a lot of the good stuff they do, but I'm very leery and far less enamored than I used to be.
So far Google has never done anything as a company that I think is evil (yes even the China filtering) They started down the path when they started filtering your email for targeted advertising. That crosses the line from hosting your private content to seeing it as something they can peek at and make money on. Their whole culture is to accrue information about you. They want to know everything.
Is it ok for Google to massively copy books from libraries without permission so they can make a buck off advertising?
Government dealings shrouded in non-disclosure agreements? That's evil. They shouldn't be using their immense corporate power to subvert open government.
It's meaningless to bring this up as evidence of anything. All it does is dilute the serious charges. People will just dismiss you because you have shown that you'll latch on to every little petty thing and use it out of context to attack. You wouldn't accept this behavior from the other side.
Because that was the relevant part. Relevant to what? When not chopped of its surrounding context, the comment clearly made in jest and has no bearing on the real abuses of this administration.
What the fuck is your problem? Your intellectual dishonesty and brand of emotional politics. Doesn't it make you angry when others do the same thing when it's against your position?
Considering I gave the link for the context It saved me the trouble of a Google search, so "thanks". But providing a link does not make your out-of-context quote anything but a smear, Michael Moore style. Why did you chop the quote at exactly the point you did?
Comment like yours have no value I called out your smear for what it was. The same old, hate-filled politics, devoid of intellectual honesty. I added the missing context for the many who wouldn't bother checking it for themselves. And if somebody's argument is nothing but ad hominem, then pointing out that ad hominem will look like ad hominem as well. Nothing to do about that.
Comments like yours diminish real comments like the grandparent's. It shows a distinct lack of intellectual honesty. You are what you hate.
Here's the same statement in context:
Q The Alamo up on the wall is not an indication of how you feel in the White House right now, is it?
THE PRESIDENT: I feel great. Listen, I think we've had one of the most constructive first six months of any presidency. And we're making great progress on a lot of issues. No, I've always -- a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. But dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The President doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground.
All these religious conflicts are never going to end unless a few show some unprecedented heroics. And I'm sure you'll be leading the fight, Anonymous Coward.
A quick search of Google shows that it is often used as a slogan for an ideal. There's also some stuff on the origin of the term, where apparently "free" was meant in opposite to "valuable", and described information as having both properties and so there was a constant tension.
This is one of the points mentioned by the original article (not the re-hashed blog post):
We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think "Duh."
I don't think many people take the phrase literally. All it means is that it is very hard to keep a secret, human nature being what it is. I see it often used by hacker types as a way to personify the information, to get some kind of emotional response because you are keeping the information "prisoner". So it's used to justify breaking in to other peoples' computer systems.
You originally said "The grave robbers in this case". I followed the parents, and no other case was mentioned. So "this case" must refer to TFA, which had nothing to do with transplants.
Admit it, you got caught not RTFA and attacking a straw man. Nothing new on Slashdot, but when you're wrong, you're wrong.
Highly modded contrary views are quite common on Slashdot. Marking one of these posts with "I have karma to burn" is also quite common, and almost always results in a highly modded post. Quite lame. If you don't care about your karma, then don't mention it.
Actually, if you go farther back, and make God at least responsible as "first cause" - the Creator of everything, then my argument can hold up. If that is the starting point, there really can't be any evidence "against" God because He would STILL stand as watchmaker. But that's not the "God" described. The God described created Adam and Eve and all people sprung from them. The earth was created in 6 days. All you're arguing for is the possibility of a creator that set everything in motion -- which I already acknowledged is possible.
I get scientific thought on this - I really do - but I think that much of the animosity against God is really against the ignorance of the devout, who really don't keep up with what science says. Actually, I don't think you do get it. It's not just the devout that refute science, it's those who use mythology as a basis for reasoning about the world. An atheist, scientific approach has discarded modern religion just like we have discarded Zeus as a source of lightning. We don't adapt the mythology to science.
Also, science - by its nature - cannot account for the supernatural, unscientific causes. But it would surely take note of them. If there were common miracles occuring every day, such that nobody would doubt the existence of these miracles, science would admit the evidence. At least then religion would have a firmer platform to stand on. The problem is that religion tends to shrink as science grows, until you're left with God of the Gaps.
I can see the rationale that tries to prove that there isn't any pro-evidence for God, but if there is a variable interpretation for the first few chapters of Genesis - which can be read as a dumbed - down summary from an omniscient, all-knowing God without losing a lot of the essential meaning (God made it good, and man screwed it up with his sin), then the evidence "against" God really doesn't work all that well. But this is the problem with religion -- you keep on re-interpreting it whenever it fails, whereas the atheist position is to discard it all together as mythology. There is a lot of evidence for mythology besides just the science.
Which is a poor inference. Simply because natural processes explain how something works does NOT correlate that a non-natural process (God) cannot and does not exist. I'll speak as an "atheist" (lacking a better word, since I don't think "agnostic" has the right connotation either). The problem word here is "God", especially the God that supposedly created Adam and Eve. Evolution disputes the Adam and Eve story, and the idea that man was descended from apes is quite blasphemous. The problem evolution has for Christians is that it removes God as a watchmaker, and starts to make him look more like a god of lightning -- that is, a mythological creation to explain nature.
So when I, as an atheist, say I don't believe in God, I say I don't believe in the God that's commonly talked about. I think religion is the invention of man, based on the evidence I have seen. That's not to say that some higher power isn't possible, but just that we don't have the evidence for it, and plenty of evidence against "God" as described by many. I fully admit there could be some higher power that created us and the Universe, but if there is, I don't know anything about him/her/it/them/whatever.
(the SWF specs are unoffically available without a license) That's one way to put it. The other way is that it is only available if you agree not to build a player based on it. In other words, Flash is based on a completely proprietary format.
This certainly makes it an interesting solution. Which is where I disagree. Does a specification open for anybody to implement mean nothing? Why do you want to lock in your software to proprietary formats?
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I'd say this case is an abomination of copyright law. The sole purpose of copyright is to allow distribution rights to the copyright holder. How the user treats his copy as long as he doesn't make copies for others is none of the copyright holder's business. The ability for 3rd parties to make add-on products is a well-established principle, and any violation of that is sheer insanity.
The fact is I'd rather do my shopping today on the net than in 1968. The amount of information at your fingertips, even if watered down by untrustworthy sources, is unprecedented.
I get the feeling you know more about this issue than you're letting on.
The fact is collecting all that data entails serious risk for personal privacy. Yes, it is. It is legal and where copyright is concerned legal == ok. The courts will decide it. Just because Google does not redistribute the content it does not give them permission to copy and store the whole book in the first place. I cannot legally go to the library and photocopy a whole book so that I may post a review later on. And while I agree the service may be useful, it is not for Google to decide. It should be an opt-in service only. From my point of view the NDA looks a lot more like a mistake made out of habit by some underling than a corrupt corporation attempting to subvert the American way. Corporations do what they feel is in their best interest. They don't think too much about their actions, or if they do, corporate interests usually override. The fact remains they did what they did, and I don't recall seeing any apology or admission of mistake. I don't see any plots or devious schemes here. I'm sure Google feels the same way. However, it's clear they are empire building, even though they started out insisting they would just be a search company.
I used to really respect Google, and had good feelings about them. They went out of their way to do the right thing. However it's clear now that they are driven by empire building first, doing the right thing second.
Don't get me wrong, I still like a lot of the good stuff they do, but I'm very leery and far less enamored than I used to be.
Is it ok for Google to massively copy books from libraries without permission so they can make a buck off advertising?
Government dealings shrouded in non-disclosure agreements? That's evil. They shouldn't be using their immense corporate power to subvert open government.
Err, you brought it up. It's not the same to critique the comment as to make the comment. But yeah, I'm tired of dwelling in this muck, so bye.
It's meaningless to bring this up as evidence of anything. All it does is dilute the serious charges. People will just dismiss you because you have shown that you'll latch on to every little petty thing and use it out of context to attack. You wouldn't accept this behavior from the other side.
Here's the same statement in context: Q The Alamo up on the wall is not an indication of how you feel in the White House right now, is it?
THE PRESIDENT: I feel great. Listen, I think we've had one of the most constructive first six months of any presidency. And we're making great progress on a lot of issues. No, I've always -- a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. But dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The President doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground.
Sentences end in 1 period, not 3. You also might want to look into paragraphs.
A quick search of Google shows that it is often used as a slogan for an ideal. There's also some stuff on the origin of the term, where apparently "free" was meant in opposite to "valuable", and described information as having both properties and so there was a constant tension.
:)
So in short, usage differs
You originally said "The grave robbers in this case". I followed the parents, and no other case was mentioned. So "this case" must refer to TFA, which had nothing to do with transplants.
Admit it, you got caught not RTFA and attacking a straw man. Nothing new on Slashdot, but when you're wrong, you're wrong.
Too nerdy for even Slashdot.
Or 3) make reasonable profits instead of obscene, monopoly-based profits.
Highly modded contrary views are quite common on Slashdot. Marking one of these posts with "I have karma to burn" is also quite common, and almost always results in a highly modded post. Quite lame. If you don't care about your karma, then don't mention it.
How many souls can dance on the edge of it?
So when I, as an atheist, say I don't believe in God, I say I don't believe in the God that's commonly talked about. I think religion is the invention of man, based on the evidence I have seen. That's not to say that some higher power isn't possible, but just that we don't have the evidence for it, and plenty of evidence against "God" as described by many. I fully admit there could be some higher power that created us and the Universe, but if there is, I don't know anything about him/her/it/them/whatever.