> It was designed to facilitate the sharing of > data.
Actually...AFAIK the internet was "designed" to facilitate the rather shortsited idea of responding to a nuclear strike (I dunno...if back during the cold war russia had decided to nuke the US...I don't know that I would really care if we were able to strike back....we are dead anyway who cares?)
The idea being that prior to networking protocols there were just direct wires from one place to another that launch orders could be transmit down, however...what happens if the space between here and there in a direct line is destroyed?
Networking allows you to "Route around the damage" and make sure that the entire world ends, you know...its vitally important to kill the enemy off even though we are dead.
hmmm kind of sad to think that research that lead to the net started out from the most infantile mindset available, "You broke my toys, im gonna break yours, so there:P".
> his makes me wonder just where that DNA info is > going and how well it will be tracked. I know > labs can screw up
Heh labs screw up? never!
Reminds me of a story of a highly publicised case in the 80s where a train wreck occured and the Driver was tested for drugs after the crash. He tested positive for marijuana and there was a huge to do about it.
Later on it turned out that the lab that did the tests wasn't actually doing drug tests. Turnes out they had just been making up test results for months (either due to lack of funding or because they were incompetent and couldn't run the equipment) - that story didn't make the major press though.
> I once had a drug test when I was considering > working for GTE in Florida
Heh I refuse to take a job that requires drug testing. I don't want to work for someone who can't respect that what I do on my private time is my buisness, and my body chemistry is none of their buisness. (I read somewhere that drug testing falls into the same catagory legally as a full body cavity search...would you submit to one of those as a condition of employment? I wouldn't)
> Anything written (yes, this is a 'written' > medium) is immediately copyright of the person > who writes the text.
Yes I realise this...however, this hi-lights an interesting problem with copyright. This is not the same type of written medium that copyright was intended for.
Slashdot is a discussion forum. Prior to the ability of people to "get online" and "post" to web pages, prior to email, this sort of thing would go on in a big room full of people, standing around and talking.
In many ways this forum is superior to that, however, it brings in the whole copyright mess, because it is "written".
Its somewhat of a cross between writting a letter to the editor of a newspaper (which basically assumes that unless you say otherwise, they can print it) and speaking out in public (the comments arn't usually directed at the owners of slashdot like letters to the editor are.
You will note, I never said slashdot posts are not copyright by their owners. I simply said it SHOULD be treated exactly the same as a statment made in public. Should being a statment of my opinion, not necissarily my legal opinion (as IANAL) but my opinion of how the world should work and what I would do in their situation.
I think that the nature of this forum conveys an understanding that what is said is public, and should be treated as any public statment.
> No one is expecting them to do that. But the > ETHICAL and LEGAL thing to do is to not publish > unattributed quotes at all. Instead, they chose > to publish them because it wasn't convenient for > them to do the ethical and legal thing.
IANAL so I can't speak about legal...but I can speak about Ethical.
In the specific case of "Anonymous Coward" posts I disagree. In my eyes if a person has posted anonymously, then they have, themselves, removed their own name (well ommited) from their post.
That is, in and of itself, a request to remain anonymous. That is them saying "I don't want to be tracked down". As such, I think they were perfectly right to use the posts (the ones that were AC) in the fashion that they did.
Slashdot posts are public statments. If you walk up to a podium at a press conference and make a statment, without giving your name, and wearing a black mask to hide your face, then wouldn't you expect to have your statment published anonymously?
I consider AC posts on slashdot to be the easy, electronic, equivalent of such an act.
However, in the case of non-AC posts...I tend to agree with you, they should have been asked. At least as a curtesy. They should at the very least get to chose whether they will want to be anonymous or not. (ACs have already made that choice)
I think that posts on/. should be treated exactly the same as if they were statments you made in public.
I think of slashdot as the public form of a little podium out in the park where people can gather and anyone can stand up to it and speak out about the issues at hand to whatever crowd gathers.
Its just so happens there is a tape recorder in the podium that anyone can go back and listen to what you said.
> It's good journalism to cite your sources. > Even if it's just a username
Well its not always good to cite sources. If the "source" could possibly face retribution for their comments (in any form), then it is important to respect their wishes if they want to remain anonymous. In fact, I would go farther and say that the only safe thing to do is keep them anonymous, unless they can be specifically contacted and give permission to have their name used.
Look at the types of things that DO go on in our society. Look at another "controversial" area... abortion. There are groups that sit outside of clinics and take down licence plate numbers of every car that enters one, they use this to find the owner of the car and harass them (with no acktual knowledge of whether they were just getting counseling, or going in for a completely unrelated procedure).
On the same issue, there was a list of practioners names and home adresses on a web page, as a list of "evil people".
The point is, merely having your name or other contact info even associated with a controversial issue can open you up to harassment and possibly worst.
What I think should have happened here, is simple. They should have made a "best effort" to contact every person and ask permission. Those who could not be contacted, should have been made anonymous (along with any who wished to remain anonymous)
However, I don't see how its a huge deal, anything said here is a public statment. As such I figure they are fair game for quoting in articles, anonymous or not.
This brings up an interesting point...what makes a site "illegal"?
Lets say they make information on making widgets illegal. Ok...so its illegal to post it on my site right?
What if the site that I link is on a server where widget making information is legal? say in sweeden?
Furthermore...its illegal to link a site with info on making widgets. Does that mean it is illegal for me to put up such a site...or illegal for a host in the country to host a site?
If I have a shell acount in sweeden, where widget making info is legal, and I post such a page, am I breaking the law? Does this only apply if the server itself is in the country?
All in all this is really really silly. To think that people wont post on servers outside of their reach or something similar is absurd.
Even the United States making such a law would have no real impact on the content of the Web.
> Well that depends on what you consider your > rights and the artists rights to be. If > you think that your right to freeload outweighs > the artists right to be paid, then maybe you > have a point.
Since this is an old discussion and I doubt anyone else looks back this far for replies, I will try to be breif.
There is no "Right to be paid" or "Right to Freeload". Neither of these are basic "rights" that I recognize.
My entire system of morality is one which I try to derive from the simple idea of, every person has the absolute right to do whatever they wish as long as they are not harming anyone else, or putting non-consenting others in "undue harm". (ie driving on public roads drunk, fireing off guns at random, pointing guns at otherwise non-threatening individuals etc)
As such, coping a tape or CD doesn't put anyone in the way of harm, so I can't say it is morally wrong. (yes I realise this is a debatable point, I believe my stance on this is already pretty clear - since I am not trying to write a book on my personal philosophy, I wont belabor this point)
Does that mean that I go around coping CDs and generally giving MP3s and CDs away to every person i see? Nope. I don't. Do I spend my day looking for MP3s? Nope.
Generally if music is any good at all, I will buy a CD of it. I have very very few MP3s of music that I don't have a CD for (however I keep a private MP3 collection of almost all of my CDs)
Calling me a "Freeloader" simply because I do not agree with you in "Artists Rights" is uncalled for. If you really need to resort to name calling, so be it, tho I don't like it. I don't go around calling you a greedy capitalist pig. Or an Authoritarian idiot. There is really no cause for using loaded terms like "Freeloader". It detracts from the conversation.
It is increasingly obvious to me that this entire discussion is pointless. It is like arguing about whether the teachings of Islam or the teachings of Christianity are better than one another. We have a fundamental disagreement, that no amount of rational discussion will resolve.
You obviously are a believer in "Music as property" and I am not. I can not "prove" to you that it is not, any more than a Muslim could "prove" to a chistian that the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven and dictated the Koran to Muhammed.
All I can say is that when I lay my head on my pillow at night, it is my sense of morality that I have to answer to. It is the highest authority in the world to me (in fact, the only authority) Mine obviously is more permissive than yours, so be it.
I have to agree and disagree. Certainly there IS an expectations difference. However, Linux is in general MUCH more stable than windows. I know from first hand experiance, both as a windows user, a few years back, a PC technician, a year ago, and a Linux sysadmin (current).
As a desktop, my linux boxes have average uptimes of 50 days or more. Its Much more common for me to have a hardware failure than a kernel crash (except on this box...even so, I have 48 days uptime on it...)
We use Linux for some of the servers at work. I have never seen them go down (in fact, while they have never crashed, in the time I have been there our big Compaq Alpha running DEC Unix has gotten itself wedged in ways that the only way it could be fixed was to crash it and reboot at least twice and our other big Alpha has done only marginally better. (admittedly there is a major load difference, the linux servers do not usually have 400 simultaneous logins)
SO yes, there is an expectations difference. The Microsoft products look "professional" and generally fail to make the grade (don't anyone try to tell me windows is actually very stable, I have used it and fixed it for others myself, it does not stand up to normal real user use)
On the other hand...while linux is "rough around the edges" and has a steeper learning curve, it is much more stable on the whole. It tends to exceed expectations.
As a friend said when he realized it was time to stop running windows..."You have to expect that a computer is going to crash...oh wait..no thats wrong, you shouldn't have to expect it will crash. What bullshit, theres no reason for it to crash so much"
Bizzare....I almost never have apps under linux crash on me...been using it exclusivly for the past 3 years too.
The exceptions are netscape (which is a pile of shit...but the best pile of shit I can find). Tho netscape crashed 3 times as much as it does now when I left Java and Javascript turned on, and 6 times more when i ran windows and left them on.
Course...I have had Kernel crashes. In fact the linux kernel crashes for me more often then most applicationes (which never crash). Of course, thats on the order of once or twice every 6 months of continuous use. (I was getting alot of crashes about 3 months ago...went away...may have been a buggy program that was accessing hardware directly...Ie X)
Interestingly...its never crashed on my other machines...probably a hardware problem I would guess...
Still better than Windows where I was lucky to get 2 days of uptime...a couple of hours was much more common. Course...I havn't used it in 3 years now. Don't miss it.
-Steve
(btw kernel crash means no response, not even to alt-sysreq - which I leave turned on - and can't even ping from another terminal.)
Actually I don't browse playboy.com....I mean I have once or twice, but not often.
Come on...the Articles in Playboy ARE good. Sure, thats never been my motivation in buying the magazine...but after giving the pictures a good eye over (and the meat a good pounding) the Articles do make a good read.
Which is really too bad since Playboy Does have very good articles. In fact, it could be a pretty good magazine in and of itself, without the pictures.
First of all its not taking away artists rights. Its simply not cedeing our own rights to the artists. (The whole idea of copyright law is that society gives up its rights to the author for a fixed time...real rights don't "expire")
Secondly...I must ask...what good does the law do when it is unenforcable? Even with copyright law, people break it every single day and how many people have actually been prosecuted? how many have been stopped?
A few very large sites maybe? The visable public sites get shut down all the time, but new ones pop up just as fast as they dissapear.
The net effect is that it stops nothing. It is impossible to stop end users from trading and sharing music. Read it, impossible. (not that our society is above throwing hoards of resources into impossible things...like drug prohibition to name but one)
Ok...people accuse me of being staunch...well I am I am a hard head....well here is somewhat of a compromise. Since (as I have stated) stopping MP3 sharing etc is impossible, why not restore copyright to what it was originally intended for ...simply a mechanism to protect authors or artists from publishing houses who want to use their work to make a profit.
Allow anyone to share music among eachother (since it can't be stopped anyway...and has never been actually shown to have a negative impact on record sales) but only artists or authorized publishing houses can distribute for profit.
Of course...beyond that...I think the whole system stinks. The situation that large publishers have used to cheat musicians is just reprehensible. (and perfectly legal). I would like to see musicians Unionize. Form their own publishers and begin taking charge of their work.
The artists need to stand up to their real enemy, the "recording industry". The "industry" has litterally nothing without the Artists (well they have the rights to old works and could conceivably sit back and just live off the royalties of those for quite a while)
There needs to be a stop in the stifling of creativity. Creativity isn't all comming up with new stuff. Sometimes it is using old stuff in new ways. I don't think artists should be limited the way they have been. Give them the freedom to give a new spin to an old song, and thus give it new life, without having to worry about being sued or dealing with lawyers.
There is just too much wrong with the system. Yea I favor scrapping it completely, but I would be happy if just some of this stuff was fixed, and it was returned to what it was meant to be, an incentive to be creative.
Another thing I would do is limit the time of copyright. 20 years, maybe 30. The whole REAL purpose is defeated if works NEVER become Public Domain, Which is obviously what some companies are pushing for. (M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-N-E-Y)
> Education is not a right of the rich, and the > poor are honestly incapable of affording > private institutions.
I agree tottally here. However, even now in many ways it is. I have been to both public and private schools. The private schools are so much better than the public that it isn't even funny.
I actually know people who have graduated from public High Schools without EVER taking a single class in simple Algerbra! Never mind that in the private High School that I wennt to, Algerbra was taught to all students as a requirement Freshman year.
It has been said that "Government, while it does small things badly, does large things badly too".
I propose spinning off the "Public Schools". Not to be run by a For-Profit, but rather by Non-Profit organizations. I seriously think that a real non-profit where school funds are no longer controlled by political interests, but rather by charitable donations and fund raisers would be optimal.
Make every dollar that a person donates to schools completely tax dectutable to 100% with no cap.
> which is a restriction that TheCarp himself > places upon people who choose to replicate > his intellectual property at no cost to him.
It is?
hmmm I probably did write that at some point.
Actually...I see nothing wrong with claiming credit for ones works. To say that one wrote something which one did not, is fraud.
In the end though, I truely don't care to much about it (I am assuming that you went to my web page and saw that statment by me that I want credit...heh thats several years old. I am too lazy to update the page. Certainly my personal beliefs have evolved greatly from the time that I wrote that)
> This undermines the artist's means to > compensation, because noone will buy CDs if > everyone can freeload.
Which is exactly why I and many others have gone out and purchased CDs of artists AFTER hearing being exposed to their music from MP3s.
Its exactly the reason that as "unauthorized Copying" of music continues, unabated and even increases constantly, the profits of record companies....oops...they are higher than they have ever been.
Gee...I just knew all this unauthorized copying was bad.
> Well, it's a matter of phrasing it. I would put > it like this: if they don't own what they make, > they will not make anything.
Which assumes that the act of making the music, in and of itself has no value to the artist. I would hope that you realize that this is completely untrue.
I would simply point to the majority of musicians in the world, the ones who have never seen a dime of money for what they do.
> Are you going to punish the not so hot > live bands by taking away their income from > recordings?
I don't see it as a punishment. Ok, so its harder to make money. Thats really too bad. If they are better recorded then live, I would happily buy a CD. Perhaps they could find sponsers?
Why is it that we feel the need to protect "Musician" as a full time job? People still buy CDs when music is available for free. Radio play has never hurt any artitst that I have heard of. No musician, who I have talked to, has said they play for the money. In fact, most play despite the fact that its not making them money.
All I am attacking is the copyright system. I think it is silly to have a law that says that I can't share music with a friend.
I let friends borrow my CDs. Freinds of mine let me borrow their CDs. Sometimes we make copies for eachother. If the music is good enough, I go out and buy my own copy.
I do not see why any of this should be illegal. If for no other reason than its completely unenforcable.
I am not even going to respond to your "paraphrasing" more than to say it is not an accurate representation of what I said. If it were, then you wouldn't have needed to "paraphrase".
I have said it before I will say it again. I am perfectly willing to pay artitst for art. I am willing to buy CDs from artists. I am willing to pay for concert tickets.
I am not willing to accept the idea that I can not share music with a friend. I am not willing to accept claims that copying something and shareing it is morally wrong.
> So what do you do for a living?
I am a systems programmer. I love the idea of people using my software. If its not being used, then its worthless. I would be writting code even if there wern't someone around to pay me for it.
I should also note that every musician who I have talked to has stated that money is not their motivation for making music.
It seems to me the only people going around claiming that musicians are harmed by copying are either publishers, or just generally NOT actually musicians.
In fact, a musician I do know said "if someone put MP3s of my band up on the net, I would have to hunt them down and shake their hand"
my brain is too fried right now to do anything but make a joke...
> This, essentially, means that no good > (full-length, feature) movies will be made, > ever.
Which some might interpret as the current day situation anyway.
Basically what you seem to be saying is that these industries are completely unable to make a profit without government subsidy, given in the form of favorable legislation, to force them into a position of monopoly.
After a long work related meeting while still fighting off a head cold, this is the only new response I have the energy to respond to.
> Ownership is not based on physical control of an > object - so why should it matter that > intellectual properly has no physical substance > and is not scarce?
Its simple. I borrow your car. Its your property, you have allowed me to drive it. However, I can't sell it, afterall its yours.
However, if you let me borrow your car, should I be prohibited from making an exect copy of your car, at my own expense (ie I buy the steal, platic etc), for myself? Should I then be prohibited from selling my copy of your car? Is my copy "yours"? (even though I bought the physical 'stuff' it is made from and put that physical 'stuff' into the configuration which makes it a copy of your car)
Does it matter if "your car" was made by you, or simply a product you bought? (I am of course ignoring the possibility of patented systems in the car, as they are a completely different beast - of course, I have the same objections to them).
Now, if you make some music and put it on a CD, you lend me your CD. I can not sell your CD...I don't own it. Should I be prohibited from copying your CD? Should I be prohibited from seeling MY copy of your CD?
Why is a CD materially differnt from a car? (if your answer is that I should not be allowed to copy your car or sell my copy, then just forget it, your moral viewpoint and mine will never agree)
> It seems people confuse the classification of > a group of rights known as 'ownership' and that > known as 'authorship'.
Here I agree. Authorship is not (IMNSHO) Ownership It should not be treated as ownership. The two are just plain NOT the same.
I believe that authorship should always be recognized, anyone who takes another work and claims it as their own is committing an act of fraud in my eyes. That in and of itself is enough to call their actions wrong.
However, I feel that a person has the right (right as in my own personal moral sense of what a persons rights are, not necissarily the view of my government, my employer, my sexual partner, or anyone else for that matter) to copy a work for their own use, and to share copies. This applies to cars, books, music, whatever. Noone ever has the right (see above) to stop someone else from doing these things (I do not mean, of course, that you have no right to not give me access to your works, simply that once I have a copy in my posession , noone has any right to stop me)
Simply put, in my world view, no person should EVER have any rights over what other people do. Each person should be free to do whatever they deem fit, with whomever deems fit to consent with them, as long as they do not harm anyone or otherwise damage or without authorization use the property of another.
> You cannot replicate intellectual works for $0. > There is a cost to everything - weather its a > pen and paper and someone's time to copy a > manuscript, a printing press and someone to set > the type, or someone sucking up all the OC3 > links, several megabytes of disk space (oh, is > that free?)
Ok fine...how about effectively $0. Yes, It takes a small fraction of a watt of electricity to write the data onto a sector of the hard drive or send it over the network. Yes, hard drives are not free, neither are the computers, however they are within the reach of many, and once you have one, whether you copy one pattern of bits or another, the cost is materially the same.
> But if I have something you want, then there > is nothing wrong, unethical, evil, or otherwise > morally corrupt about asking you to pay for it
I never said there was. Howver, I think it is morally corupt for you to claim the right to stop me from making copies of what you sold me and giving them away or seeling them. My copy is not yours.
> I think you meant to say it should not be > property. Just because your definition of > "property" does not include non-tangible > stuff does not mean other people think of it > the same way.
You are right. Not everyone agrees with me. Ok Allow me to rephrase. According to my definition of "Property", information (ie intellectual works) do not qualify as property. I recognize that others do see them as property and try to respect their worldview, however, I do not and will not share that world view, and will only allow my actions to be dictated by that world view as I deem apropriate.
By the same token, I am not a christian. I will not go around pissing on crosses, but I wont bow my head in front of them either.
> 1) Let's take music. > However, think about it in a different way: > good music is definitely a scarce resource.
The ability to produce New Good Music is scarce. Once it is produced, there is no scarcity. I have no problem with hireing musicans to play music, or going to concerts etc etc. Certainly they are talented and should recieve compensation for their talents.
> but money is a bigger motivator than you > probably want to acknowledge.
Yes, money is a big motivator. However it is not the only big motivator. Most people are not solely motivated by money. Artists would still be free to try and make money, just not by holding distribution monopolies. (it should be noted that all but the most famous artists don't ever see a dime fron distirbution anyway)
> of course, as soon as I wrote an essay, or a > piece of code, or drew a picture -- I lose all > rights to them.
You are assuming that there are rights to lose. What you are asking for is not rights to a piece of property but the right to dictate the actions of others. If Alice writes a poem and gives Bob a copy, Then Bob gives a copy to Carol, then how dows the Bob/carol transaction effect Alice? For alice to claim the right to stop the transaction, she is claiming the right to influence transactions between other people, that do not involve her.
Does this make publishing music less profitable? Yes it does, it means CD pressers would actually have to compete with eachother. It would mean anyone who can press a CD is their competition.
Does it mean artists wont be able to make money? Hell no. They can still perform. There will always be a market for live performance. If that doesn't pay well enough, then they will either need to change how performing works (charging more, giving artists a greater cut) or...shudder...get day jobs
Which is exactly why "ownership" is an improper term for Intellectual Works. Something that any person can replicate for $0 cost can not be owned. It is not Property.
The entire concept of property exists because "Stuff" is finite and any resource that exists in "meatspace" is thus, on some level, scarece. With the exception of Air, noone claims to own air.
Thus I need the right to exclude people from using my car, because if they damage my car, I don't have a car. I can not replicate my Car for 0 cost...it would cost a ton or two of metal (another scarse resource...or at least one that takes work to aquire) and plastics just for raw materials.
With information, relication occurs for 0 cost with essentially 0 resources. Thus the concept of ownership is absolutly silly.
Slashdot Mirror
> It was designed to facilitate the sharing of
:P".
> data.
Actually...AFAIK the internet was "designed" to
facilitate the rather shortsited idea of
responding to a nuclear strike (I dunno...if back
during the cold war russia had decided to nuke the
US...I don't know that I would really care if we
were able to strike back....we are dead anyway
who cares?)
The idea being that prior to networking protocols
there were just direct wires from one place to
another that launch orders could be transmit down,
however...what happens if the space between here
and there in a direct line is destroyed?
Networking allows you to "Route around the damage"
and make sure that the entire world ends, you
know...its vitally important to kill the enemy off
even though we are dead.
hmmm kind of sad to think that research that lead
to the net started out from the most infantile
mindset available, "You broke my toys, im gonna
break yours, so there
> his makes me wonder just where that DNA info is
> going and how well it will be tracked. I know
> labs can screw up
Heh labs screw up? never!
Reminds me of a story of a highly publicised case
in the 80s where a train wreck occured and the
Driver was tested for drugs after the crash. He
tested positive for marijuana and there was a huge
to do about it.
Later on it turned out that the lab that did the
tests wasn't actually doing drug tests. Turnes
out they had just been making up test results for
months (either due to lack of funding or because
they were incompetent and couldn't run the
equipment) - that story didn't make the major
press though.
> I once had a drug test when I was considering
> working for GTE in Florida
Heh I refuse to take a job that requires drug
testing. I don't want to work for someone who
can't respect that what I do on my private time
is my buisness, and my body chemistry is none of
their buisness.
(I read somewhere that drug testing falls into
the same catagory legally as a full body cavity
search...would you submit to one of those as a
condition of employment? I wouldn't)
This reminds me of a story I ran across when
searching for Zen Koans and other assorted
goodies.
It went smething like this...the master looked at
a dog (there was some reason for this) and said
"He is happy"
the student said "but you are not a dog, you can't
know if he is happy"
The master replied "But you are not me, you can't
know that I don't know if he is happy"
-Steve
> Anything written (yes, this is a 'written'
> medium) is immediately copyright of the person
> who writes the text.
Yes I realise this...however, this hi-lights
an interesting problem with copyright. This is
not the same type of written medium that copyright
was intended for.
Slashdot is a discussion forum. Prior to the
ability of people to "get online" and "post" to
web pages, prior to email, this sort of thing
would go on in a big room full of people, standing
around and talking.
In many ways this forum is superior to that,
however, it brings in the whole copyright mess,
because it is "written".
Its somewhat of a cross between writting a letter
to the editor of a newspaper (which basically
assumes that unless you say otherwise, they can
print it) and speaking out in public (the comments
arn't usually directed at the owners of slashdot
like letters to the editor are.
You will note, I never said slashdot posts are
not copyright by their owners. I simply said it
SHOULD be treated exactly the same as a statment
made in public. Should being a statment of my
opinion, not necissarily my legal opinion (as
IANAL) but my opinion of how the world should work
and what I would do in their situation.
I think that the nature of this forum conveys
an understanding that what is said is public, and
should be treated as any public statment.
> No one is expecting them to do that. But the
> ETHICAL and LEGAL thing to do is to not publish
> unattributed quotes at all. Instead, they chose
> to publish them because it wasn't convenient for
> them to do the ethical and legal thing.
IANAL so I can't speak about legal...but I can
speak about Ethical.
In the specific case of "Anonymous Coward" posts
I disagree. In my eyes if a person has posted
anonymously, then they have, themselves, removed
their own name (well ommited) from their post.
That is, in and of itself, a request to remain
anonymous. That is them saying "I don't want to
be tracked down". As such, I think they were
perfectly right to use the posts (the ones that
were AC) in the fashion that they did.
Slashdot posts are public statments. If you walk
up to a podium at a press conference and make a
statment, without giving your name, and wearing
a black mask to hide your face, then wouldn't
you expect to have your statment published
anonymously?
I consider AC posts on slashdot to be the
easy, electronic, equivalent of such an act.
However, in the case of non-AC posts...I tend to
agree with you, they should have been asked. At
least as a curtesy. They should at the very least
get to chose whether they will want to be
anonymous or not. (ACs have already made that
choice)
> This is known as an unpublished copyright
/. should be treated exactly
Not exactly unpublished.
I think that posts on
the same as if they were statments you made in
public.
I think of slashdot as the public form of a little
podium out in the park where people can gather and
anyone can stand up to it and speak out about the
issues at hand to whatever crowd gathers.
Its just so happens there is a tape recorder in
the podium that anyone can go back and listen to
what you said.
> It's good journalism to cite your sources.
> Even if it's just a username
Well its not always good to cite sources. If the
"source" could possibly face retribution for their
comments (in any form), then it is important to
respect their wishes if they want to remain
anonymous. In fact, I would go farther and say
that the only safe thing to do is keep them
anonymous, unless they can be specifically
contacted and give permission to have their name
used.
Look at the types of things that DO go on in our
society. Look at another "controversial" area...
abortion. There are groups that sit outside of
clinics and take down licence plate numbers of
every car that enters one, they use this to find
the owner of the car and harass them (with no
acktual knowledge of whether they were just
getting counseling, or going in for a completely
unrelated procedure).
On the same issue, there was a list of practioners
names and home adresses on a web page, as a list
of "evil people".
The point is, merely having your name or other
contact info even associated with a controversial
issue can open you up to harassment and possibly
worst.
What I think should have happened here, is simple.
They should have made a "best effort" to contact
every person and ask permission. Those who could
not be contacted, should have been made anonymous
(along with any who wished to remain anonymous)
However, I don't see how its a huge deal, anything
said here is a public statment. As such I figure
they are fair game for quoting in articles,
anonymous or not.
This brings up an interesting point...what makes
a site "illegal"?
Lets say they make information on making widgets
illegal. Ok...so its illegal to post it on my
site right?
What if the site that I link is on a server where
widget making information is legal? say in
sweeden?
Furthermore...its illegal to link a site with info
on making widgets. Does that mean it is illegal
for me to put up such a site...or illegal for a
host in the country to host a site?
If I have a shell acount in sweeden, where widget
making info is legal, and I post such a page, am
I breaking the law? Does this only apply if the
server itself is in the country?
All in all this is really really silly. To think
that people wont post on servers outside of
their reach or something similar is absurd.
Even the United States making such a law would
have no real impact on the content of the Web.
> Well that depends on what you consider your
> rights and the artists rights to be. If
> you think that your right to freeload outweighs
> the artists right to be paid, then maybe you
> have a point.
Since this is an old discussion and I doubt anyone
else looks back this far for replies, I will try
to be breif.
There is no "Right to be paid" or "Right to
Freeload". Neither of these are basic "rights"
that I recognize.
My entire system of morality is one which I try
to derive from the simple idea of, every person
has the absolute right to do whatever they wish
as long as they are not harming anyone else, or
putting non-consenting others in "undue harm".
(ie driving on public roads drunk, fireing off
guns at random, pointing guns at otherwise
non-threatening individuals etc)
As such, coping a tape or CD doesn't put anyone in
the way of harm, so I can't say it is morally
wrong. (yes I realise this is a debatable point,
I believe my stance on this is already pretty
clear - since I am not trying to write a book
on my personal philosophy, I wont belabor this
point)
Does that mean that I go around coping CDs
and generally giving MP3s and CDs away to every
person i see? Nope. I don't. Do I spend my day
looking for MP3s? Nope.
Generally if music is any good at all, I will buy
a CD of it. I have very very few MP3s of music
that I don't have a CD for (however I keep a
private MP3 collection of almost all of my CDs)
Calling me a "Freeloader" simply because I do not
agree with you in "Artists Rights" is uncalled
for. If you really need to resort to name calling,
so be it, tho I don't like it. I don't go around
calling you a greedy capitalist pig. Or an
Authoritarian idiot. There is really no cause for
using loaded terms like "Freeloader". It detracts
from the conversation.
It is increasingly obvious to me that this entire
discussion is pointless. It is like arguing about
whether the teachings of Islam or the teachings
of Christianity are better than one another. We
have a fundamental disagreement, that no amount of
rational discussion will resolve.
You obviously are a believer in "Music as
property" and I am not. I can not "prove" to
you that it is not, any more than a Muslim could
"prove" to a chistian that the Angel Gabriel
came down from heaven and dictated the Koran to
Muhammed.
All I can say is that when I lay my head on my
pillow at night, it is my sense of morality that
I have to answer to. It is the highest authority
in the world to me (in fact, the only authority)
Mine obviously is more permissive than yours, so
be it.
I have to agree and disagree. Certainly there IS
an expectations difference. However, Linux is in
general MUCH more stable than windows. I know from
first hand experiance, both as a windows user, a
few years back, a PC technician, a year ago, and
a Linux sysadmin (current).
As a desktop, my linux boxes have average uptimes
of 50 days or more. Its Much more common for me to
have a hardware failure than a kernel crash
(except on this box...even so, I have 48 days
uptime on it...)
We use Linux for some of the servers at work. I
have never seen them go down (in fact, while they
have never crashed, in the time I have been there
our big Compaq Alpha running DEC Unix has gotten
itself wedged in ways that the only way it could
be fixed was to crash it and reboot at least
twice and our other big Alpha has done only
marginally better.
(admittedly there is a major load difference, the
linux servers do not usually have 400 simultaneous
logins)
SO yes, there is an expectations difference.
The Microsoft products look "professional" and
generally fail to make the grade (don't anyone
try to tell me windows is actually very stable,
I have used it and fixed it for others myself, it
does not stand up to normal real user use)
On the other hand...while linux is "rough around
the edges" and has a steeper learning curve, it
is much more stable on the whole. It tends to
exceed expectations.
As a friend said when he realized it was time to
stop running windows..."You have to expect that
a computer is going to crash...oh wait..no thats
wrong, you shouldn't have to expect it will crash.
What bullshit, theres no reason for it to crash so
much"
Bizzare....I almost never have apps under linux
crash on me...been using it exclusivly for the
past 3 years too.
The exceptions are netscape (which is a pile of
shit...but the best pile of shit I can find). Tho
netscape crashed 3 times as much as it does now
when I left Java and Javascript turned on, and 6
times more when i ran windows and left them on.
Course...I have had Kernel crashes. In fact the
linux kernel crashes for me more often then most
applicationes (which never crash). Of course,
thats on the order of once or twice every 6
months of continuous use. (I was getting alot of
crashes about 3 months ago...went away...may have
been a buggy program that was accessing hardware
directly...Ie X)
Interestingly...its never crashed on my other
machines...probably a hardware problem I would
guess...
Still better than Windows where I was lucky to
get 2 days of uptime...a couple of hours was much
more common. Course...I havn't used it in 3 years
now. Don't miss it.
-Steve
(btw kernel crash means no response, not even to
alt-sysreq - which I leave turned on - and can't
even ping from another terminal.)
Actually I don't browse playboy.com....I mean
I have once or twice, but not often.
Come on...the Articles in Playboy ARE good.
Sure, thats never been my motivation in buying
the magazine...but after giving the pictures
a good eye over (and the meat a good pounding)
the Articles do make a good read.
Which is really too bad since Playboy Does
have very good articles. In fact, it could be a
pretty good magazine in and of itself, without the
pictures.
First of all its not taking away artists rights.
Its simply not cedeing our own rights to the
artists. (The whole idea of copyright law is that
society gives up its rights to the author for a
fixed time...real rights don't "expire")
Secondly...I must ask...what good does the law
do when it is unenforcable? Even with copyright
law, people break it every single day and how
many people have actually been prosecuted? how
many have been stopped?
A few very large sites maybe? The visable public
sites get shut down all the time, but new ones
pop up just as fast as they dissapear.
The net effect is that it stops nothing. It is
impossible to stop end users from trading and
sharing music. Read it, impossible. (not that our
society is above throwing hoards of resources into
impossible things...like drug prohibition to name
but one)
Ok...people accuse me of being staunch...well I am
I am a hard head....well here is somewhat of a
compromise. Since (as I have stated) stopping
MP3 sharing etc is impossible, why not restore
copyright to what it was originally intended for
...simply a mechanism to protect authors or
artists from publishing houses who want to use
their work to make a profit.
Allow anyone to share music among eachother
(since it can't be stopped anyway...and has never
been actually shown to have a negative impact
on record sales) but only artists or authorized
publishing houses can distribute for profit.
Of course...beyond that...I think the whole system
stinks. The situation that large publishers have
used to cheat musicians is just reprehensible.
(and perfectly legal). I would like to see
musicians Unionize. Form their own publishers and
begin taking charge of their work.
The artists need to stand up to their real enemy,
the "recording industry". The "industry" has
litterally nothing without the Artists (well
they have the rights to old works and could
conceivably sit back and just live off the
royalties of those for quite a while)
There needs to be a stop in the stifling of
creativity. Creativity isn't all comming up with
new stuff. Sometimes it is using old stuff in
new ways. I don't think artists should be
limited the way they have been. Give them the
freedom to give a new spin to an old song, and
thus give it new life, without having to worry
about being sued or dealing with lawyers.
There is just too much wrong with the system. Yea
I favor scrapping it completely, but I would be
happy if just some of this stuff was fixed, and
it was returned to what it was meant to be, an
incentive to be creative.
Another thing I would do is limit the time of
copyright. 20 years, maybe 30. The whole REAL
purpose is defeated if works NEVER become
Public Domain, Which is obviously what some
companies are pushing for. (M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-N-E-Y)
> Education is not a right of the rich, and the
> poor are honestly incapable of affording
> private institutions.
I agree tottally here. However, even now in many
ways it is. I have been to both public and
private schools. The private schools are so much
better than the public that it isn't even funny.
I actually know people who have graduated from
public High Schools without EVER taking a single
class in simple Algerbra! Never mind that in the
private High School that I wennt to, Algerbra was
taught to all students as a requirement Freshman
year.
It has been said that "Government, while it does
small things badly, does large things badly too".
I propose spinning off the "Public Schools". Not
to be run by a For-Profit, but rather by
Non-Profit organizations. I seriously think that
a real non-profit where school funds are no
longer controlled by political interests, but
rather by charitable donations and fund raisers
would be optimal.
Make every dollar that a person donates to schools
completely tax dectutable to 100% with no cap.
> which is a restriction that TheCarp himself
> places upon people who choose to replicate
> his intellectual property at no cost to him.
It is?
hmmm I probably did write that at some point.
Actually...I see nothing wrong with claiming
credit for ones works. To say that one wrote
something which one did not, is fraud.
In the end though, I truely don't care to much
about it (I am assuming that you went to my web
page and saw that statment by me that I want
credit...heh thats several years old. I am too
lazy to update the page. Certainly my personal
beliefs have evolved greatly from the time that
I wrote that)
> This undermines the artist's means to
> compensation, because noone will buy CDs if
> everyone can freeload.
Which is exactly why I and many others have gone
out and purchased CDs of artists AFTER hearing
being exposed to their music from MP3s.
Its exactly the reason that as "unauthorized
Copying" of music continues, unabated and even increases constantly, the profits of record
companies....oops...they are higher than they have
ever been.
Gee...I just knew all this unauthorized copying
was bad.
> Well, it's a matter of phrasing it. I would put
> it like this: if they don't own what they make,
> they will not make anything.
Which assumes that the act of making the music,
in and of itself has no value to the artist. I
would hope that you realize that this is
completely untrue.
I would simply point to the majority of musicians
in the world, the ones who have never seen a dime
of money for what they do.
> Are you going to punish the not so hot
> live bands by taking away their income from
> recordings?
I don't see it as a punishment. Ok, so its
harder to make money. Thats really too bad. If
they are better recorded then live, I would
happily buy a CD. Perhaps they could find
sponsers?
Why is it that we feel the need to protect
"Musician" as a full time job? People still buy
CDs when music is available for free. Radio
play has never hurt any artitst that I have
heard of. No musician, who I have talked to, has
said they play for the money. In fact, most
play despite the fact that its not making them
money.
All I am attacking is the copyright system. I
think it is silly to have a law that says that
I can't share music with a friend.
I let friends borrow my CDs. Freinds of mine
let me borrow their CDs. Sometimes we make copies
for eachother. If the music is good enough, I
go out and buy my own copy.
I do not see why any of this should be illegal.
If for no other reason than its completely
unenforcable.
I am not even going to respond to your
"paraphrasing" more than to say it is not an
accurate representation of what I said. If it
were, then you wouldn't have needed
to "paraphrase".
I have said it before I will say it again. I am
perfectly willing to pay artitst for art. I am
willing to buy CDs from artists. I am willing to
pay for concert tickets.
I am not willing to accept the idea that I can
not share music with a friend. I am not willing
to accept claims that copying something and
shareing it is morally wrong.
> So what do you do for a living?
I am a systems programmer. I love the idea of
people using my software. If its not being used,
then its worthless. I would be writting code even
if there wern't someone around to pay me for it.
I should also note that every musician who I have
talked to has stated that money is not their
motivation for making music.
It seems to me the only people going around
claiming that musicians are harmed by copying
are either publishers, or just generally NOT
actually musicians.
In fact, a musician I do know said "if someone
put MP3s of my band up on the net, I would have
to hunt them down and shake their hand"
Doesn't sound like he feels to "harmed".
my brain is too fried right now to do anything
but make a joke...
> This, essentially, means that no good
> (full-length, feature) movies will be made,
> ever.
Which some might interpret as the current day
situation anyway.
Basically what you seem to be saying is that these
industries are completely unable to make a
profit without government subsidy, given in the
form of favorable legislation, to force them
into a position of monopoly.
After a long work related meeting while still
fighting off a head cold, this is the only
new response I have the energy to respond to.
> Ownership is not based on physical control of an
> object - so why should it matter that
> intellectual properly has no physical substance
> and is not scarce?
Its simple. I borrow your car. Its your property,
you have allowed me to drive it. However, I can't
sell it, afterall its yours.
However, if you let me borrow your car, should
I be prohibited from making an exect copy of
your car, at my own expense (ie I buy the steal,
platic etc), for myself? Should I then be
prohibited from selling my copy of your car?
Is my copy "yours"? (even though I bought the
physical 'stuff' it is made from and put that
physical 'stuff' into the configuration which
makes it a copy of your car)
Does it matter if "your car" was made by you, or
simply a product you bought? (I am of course
ignoring the possibility of patented systems
in the car, as they are a completely different
beast - of course, I have the same objections to
them).
Now, if you make some music and put it on a CD,
you lend me your CD. I can not sell your CD...I
don't own it. Should I be prohibited from copying
your CD? Should I be prohibited from seeling MY
copy of your CD?
Why is a CD materially differnt from a car?
(if your answer is that I should not be allowed
to copy your car or sell my copy, then just forget
it, your moral viewpoint and mine will never
agree)
> It seems people confuse the classification of
> a group of rights known as 'ownership' and that
> known as 'authorship'.
Here I agree. Authorship is not (IMNSHO) Ownership
It should not be treated as ownership. The two
are just plain NOT the same.
I believe that authorship should always be
recognized, anyone who takes another work and
claims it as their own is committing an act of
fraud in my eyes. That in and of itself is enough
to call their actions wrong.
However, I feel that a person has the right (right
as in my own personal moral sense of what a
persons rights are, not necissarily the view of my
government, my employer, my sexual partner, or
anyone else for that matter) to copy a work for
their own use, and to share copies. This applies
to cars, books, music, whatever. Noone ever has
the right (see above) to stop someone else from
doing these things (I do not mean, of course, that
you have no right to not give me access to your
works, simply that once I have a copy in my
posession , noone has any right to stop me)
Simply put, in my world view, no person should
EVER have any rights over what other people do.
Each person should be free to do whatever they
deem fit, with whomever deems fit to consent
with them, as long as they do not harm anyone or
otherwise damage or without authorization use
the property of another.
> You cannot replicate intellectual works for $0.
> There is a cost to everything - weather its a
> pen and paper and someone's time to copy a
> manuscript, a printing press and someone to set
> the type, or someone sucking up all the OC3
> links, several megabytes of disk space (oh, is
> that free?)
Ok fine...how about effectively $0.
Yes, It takes a small fraction of a watt of
electricity to write the data onto a sector of
the hard drive or send it over the network.
Yes, hard drives are not free, neither are the
computers, however they are within the reach of
many, and once you have one, whether you copy
one pattern of bits or another, the cost is
materially the same.
> But if I have something you want, then there
> is nothing wrong, unethical, evil, or otherwise
> morally corrupt about asking you to pay for it
I never said there was. Howver, I think it is
morally corupt for you to claim the right to
stop me from making copies of what you sold
me and giving them away or seeling them. My
copy is not yours.
> I think you meant to say it should not be
> property. Just because your definition of
> "property" does not include non-tangible
> stuff does not mean other people think of it
> the same way.
You are right. Not everyone agrees with me. Ok
Allow me to rephrase. According to my definition
of "Property", information (ie intellectual works)
do not qualify as property. I recognize that
others do see them as property and try to respect
their worldview, however, I do not and will not
share that world view, and will only allow my
actions to be dictated by that world view as
I deem apropriate.
By the same token, I am not a christian. I will
not go around pissing on crosses, but I wont bow
my head in front of them either.
> 1) Let's take music.
> However, think about it in a different way:
> good music is definitely a scarce resource.
The ability to produce New Good Music is scarce.
Once it is produced, there is no scarcity. I have
no problem with hireing musicans to play music, or
going to concerts etc etc. Certainly they are
talented and should recieve compensation for their
talents.
> but money is a bigger motivator than you
> probably want to acknowledge.
Yes, money is a big motivator. However it is not
the only big motivator. Most people are not solely
motivated by money. Artists would still be free
to try and make money, just not by holding
distribution monopolies. (it should be noted that
all but the most famous artists don't ever see a
dime fron distirbution anyway)
> of course, as soon as I wrote an essay, or a
> piece of code, or drew a picture -- I lose all
> rights to them.
You are assuming that there are rights to lose.
What you are asking for is not rights to a piece
of property but the right to dictate the actions
of others. If Alice writes a poem and gives Bob
a copy, Then Bob gives a copy to Carol, then how
dows the Bob/carol transaction effect Alice?
For alice to claim the right to stop the
transaction, she is claiming the right to
influence transactions between other people, that
do not involve her.
Does this make publishing music less profitable?
Yes it does, it means CD pressers would actually
have to compete with eachother. It would mean
anyone who can press a CD is their competition.
Does it mean artists wont be able to make money?
Hell no. They can still perform. There will always
be a market for live performance. If that doesn't
pay well enough, then they will either need to
change how performing works (charging more, giving
artists a greater cut) or...shudder...get day jobs
Which is exactly why "ownership" is an improper
term for Intellectual Works. Something that
any person can replicate for $0 cost can not be
owned. It is not Property.
The entire concept of property exists because
"Stuff" is finite and any resource that exists
in "meatspace" is thus, on some level, scarece.
With the exception of Air, noone claims to own
air.
Thus I need the right to exclude people from
using my car, because if they damage my car, I
don't have a car. I can not replicate my Car
for 0 cost...it would cost a ton or two of metal
(another scarse resource...or at least one that
takes work to aquire) and plastics just for raw
materials.
With information, relication occurs for 0 cost
with essentially 0 resources. Thus the concept
of ownership is absolutly silly.