'The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue,' says Keen."
Apparently the possibility of doing something with motivations and benefits other than "revenue" is beyond the realm of that the average suit is capable of conceiving. The economic crisis is in large part the result of similar primitivism and narrow-minded beancounting mentality; it it could eliminate those, it would not be all bad.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, so my opinion is based only on the article and the remarks above. However from what I'm reading it seems to me that "the school system" is as convenient a scapegoat as ever. The real problem seems to be the people themselves. For some reason they are more worried about "what would people think" rather than trying out something they may possibly enjoy. To be perfectly honest, I don't think there is in fact any problem at all with the school: people like that, who are so concerned about conformity and being labelled, would not make great mathematicians at the first place.
Even if, for the sake of the argument, we admit that "social pressure" can be somehow relevant, it's still remarkable that having a talent in a certain field, enjoying it and excelling at it is seen as "socially" bad.
When you add the fact that the sole and only criterion for choosing an activity seems to be immediate financial gain, there is nothing to be surprised of and nobody else to blame.
Sorry if this post sounds harsh, by the way.
Yet-another piece of terrible legislation to protect outdated cartels from free market and make sure that the US are the most technology hostile place on Earth after North Korea.
Now that competitiveness in innovative communication technologies has been made illegal, I guess the only option left for the US prosper on the global market is to compete with China in the cheap labour department. I'm afraid it has been heading in that direction for some time anyway.
... to come up with such a piece of trivial BS. I especially love this old tired myth of a closed and proprietary product "out-innovating" (this marketing mumbo-jumbo is priceless, too!) an established open-source technology. Does anybody have some concrete examples of this having actually happened and being successful in putting open-source out of business (so to speak)?
You would believe that it's a Pavlovian response. Sales are plunging, we need new DRM. Yet, the customers have been clear: no DRM, high quality music in high quality encoding, or no sales, period. But the RIAA would try anything in the world to avoid giving their customers what they want. Not that anybody would expect music industry executives to have any bit of common sense at all, but still, I thought that even absolute lunacy had its limits. But it seems that I've been wrong...
In my opinion the Czech Rep is worth considering; there is a huge demand for experienced programmers there. From my experience the college or university you come from matters little, so does the fact that you only speak English (at least in the larger foreign companies' local subsidiaries: Oracle, Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Google... to name just a few). Being a post-communist country which still has some way to go before catching up, the wages there remain way below US or North/Western European standards, but the costs of living are equally lower and Prague is a plain fabulous city to stay in:)
... are the movie and music industries ran by a bunch of monkeys suffering from Alzheimer's disease? A three years old would immediately see all these new attempted business models of theirs as unbelievably idiotic ideas. How on Earth is it possible that somebody actually believes such crap could possibly work? This is beyond me. Please, if you are a CEO of a "content" production company, could you enlighten me, pretty please?
Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country.
As they should be able to. Any sovereign nation has the right to control who and what enters the country.
This is why i'm increasingly uneasy about the whole idea of nation states. An obsole concept, if you ask me, used mainly to impose arbitrary restrictions designed to further political interests.
Lots of students still don't understand why copyright exists. In fact, some will even try to explain that physical property is the only kind that should have value.
I actually share with the idea that only physical property has any kind of value or, in other words, that the so-called "intellectual property" is a myth. Yes, I'm an intellectual worker, making a (pretty good) living. You are very free to disagree, but I really don't see what is so "totally mind-boggling" about it. BTW, I don't think that there would be any trouble "trying" to explain it as you suggest - to the contrary, I believe my arguments against copyright, to which I came after many years of scepticism and pro-IP attitude, are sensible.
Do YOU have illegally stolen music files on YOUR computer? It's more likely than you think! If you do, then our new discount lawsuits could be for you!
I do not have any stolen music. I do have copyright infringing music. I did never steal a CD from anybody.
When you make any sort of investment, like buying insurance or a retirement plan, you don't ask how evil the corporations are. All you want is the biggest return for the lowest price, which means the portfolios that will make your investment will be composed of stock from the companies with biggest profit.
With all due respect, sir, you speak for yourself. I *do* check the behaviour and ethical standards of the companies I purchase from or invest in. Yes, sometimes this means lesser profit. So what?
I have currently two ID cards: a French one and a Czech one. Whenever I'm in one of these two countries I systematically use the other ID for identification, age proof etc... Of course this works only because in neither country you really need the national ID to access health care, public services etc.
The most terrible thing is that you are absolutely right. The US was the first country to develop modern democracy, and you are now just the first to slip into a new era of obscurantism and oppression. The rest of the world will follow. Here comes a new era where free (as in unrestricted) knowledge is forbidden, where unaligned research or discoveries are crimes and their authors endure hallucinatingly high penalties. One upon a time these people were accused of "wizardry" and "unfaithfulness", now they will be known as "IP thieves" and "infringers".
I remember that when I read 1984 for the first time, those ubiquotous screens vomiting nonstop propaganda that could not be turned off (and attempting doing so constitued a crime) seemed to me as a rather lame attempt at cheap horror effect in an otherwise brilliant book. Now this law introduces exactly that, and it's not stopping there. This whole idea of punishing "copyright violation attempts" regardless of actual result or success is the last stop before punishing thoughtcrime, and the only reason we don't have the latter is just because the technology is not yet ready.
These are sad times, and it's hard to keep any hope. But trying to do so is our duty. Trying desperately to find some optimism, I'd say these are agonic spasms of a dying hysterical benemoth. Just like Hitler became agressive beyond any limit as his Reich was collapsing, these so-called "owners" of the so-called "IP" know their time is over. The development of the Internet is the next Industrial Revolution, and they are desperately fighting for survival, just like the oil lamp industry tried anything and everything to prevent the development of electricity. There is a story about a city in Germany in the early 20th century, where the City Council passed a bill against electric light for a number of reasons, including the fact that it would be a harm to people's health (it would facilitate traffic and outdoor life, thereby exposing people to bacteria and diseases), that it would be anti-patriotic (there would be no difference between an illuminated national celebration and an ordinary night) and anti-Christian (God decided that night shall be dark). I don't remember which city that was, but the story is true.
(Un)fortunately, the politicians forget that what creates jobs and economic growth are mostly SMBs and young, innovative companies, not the **AA and the few clients of lobbying firms. Implement laws like this, and you'll throw the whole US economy (and, by extension, the economy of the Western world) into an abyss. Our societies will be washed from the IP-lawyers, politicians and their customers. The sooner it happens, the better.
By the way: IANAL, but doesn't the US constitution say something like a government who does not act in the people's best interest ("government by the people, for the people") is illegitimate and should be thrown away? Is there (theoretically) a possibility to attack such insane laws from this angle?
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'The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue,' says Keen." Apparently the possibility of doing something with motivations and benefits other than "revenue" is beyond the realm of that the average suit is capable of conceiving. The economic crisis is in large part the result of similar primitivism and narrow-minded beancounting mentality; it it could eliminate those, it would not be all bad.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, so my opinion is based only on the article and the remarks above. However from what I'm reading it seems to me that "the school system" is as convenient a scapegoat as ever. The real problem seems to be the people themselves. For some reason they are more worried about "what would people think" rather than trying out something they may possibly enjoy. To be perfectly honest, I don't think there is in fact any problem at all with the school: people like that, who are so concerned about conformity and being labelled, would not make great mathematicians at the first place. Even if, for the sake of the argument, we admit that "social pressure" can be somehow relevant, it's still remarkable that having a talent in a certain field, enjoying it and excelling at it is seen as "socially" bad. When you add the fact that the sole and only criterion for choosing an activity seems to be immediate financial gain, there is nothing to be surprised of and nobody else to blame. Sorry if this post sounds harsh, by the way.
... DRM for cars!
That's good, maybe they can get rid of this bogus concept of IP for us!
Yet-another piece of terrible legislation to protect outdated cartels from free market and make sure that the US are the most technology hostile place on Earth after North Korea. Now that competitiveness in innovative communication technologies has been made illegal, I guess the only option left for the US prosper on the global market is to compete with China in the cheap labour department. I'm afraid it has been heading in that direction for some time anyway.
... to come up with such a piece of trivial BS. I especially love this old tired myth of a closed and proprietary product "out-innovating" (this marketing mumbo-jumbo is priceless, too!) an established open-source technology. Does anybody have some concrete examples of this having actually happened and being successful in putting open-source out of business (so to speak)?
You would believe that it's a Pavlovian response. Sales are plunging, we need new DRM. Yet, the customers have been clear: no DRM, high quality music in high quality encoding, or no sales, period. But the RIAA would try anything in the world to avoid giving their customers what they want. Not that anybody would expect music industry executives to have any bit of common sense at all, but still, I thought that even absolute lunacy had its limits. But it seems that I've been wrong...
In my opinion the Czech Rep is worth considering; there is a huge demand for experienced programmers there. From my experience the college or university you come from matters little, so does the fact that you only speak English (at least in the larger foreign companies' local subsidiaries: Oracle, Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Google... to name just a few). Being a post-communist country which still has some way to go before catching up, the wages there remain way below US or North/Western European standards, but the costs of living are equally lower and Prague is a plain fabulous city to stay in :)
But the copyright holders don't know how to surf on the internet anyway, soo.....
... are the movie and music industries ran by a bunch of monkeys suffering from Alzheimer's disease? A three years old would immediately see all these new attempted business models of theirs as unbelievably idiotic ideas. How on Earth is it possible that somebody actually believes such crap could possibly work? This is beyond me. Please, if you are a CEO of a "content" production company, could you enlighten me, pretty please?
Well... what exactly do we need nation-states for?
Do YOU have illegally stolen music files on YOUR computer? It's more likely than you think! If you do, then our new discount lawsuits could be for you!
I do not have any stolen music. I do have copyright infringing music. I did never steal a CD from anybody.
With all due respect, sir, you speak for yourself. I *do* check the behaviour and ethical standards of the companies I purchase from or invest in. Yes, sometimes this means lesser profit. So what?
My personal favorite is the Recording Industry Against Artists ;)
Scandinavia (e.g. Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) has all of the above, if you don't mind the climate.
I have currently two ID cards: a French one and a Czech one. Whenever I'm in one of these two countries I systematically use the other ID for identification, age proof etc... Of course this works only because in neither country you really need the national ID to access health care, public services etc.
The most terrible thing is that you are absolutely right. The US was the first country to develop modern democracy, and you are now just the first to slip into a new era of obscurantism and oppression. The rest of the world will follow. Here comes a new era where free (as in unrestricted) knowledge is forbidden, where unaligned research or discoveries are crimes and their authors endure hallucinatingly high penalties. One upon a time these people were accused of "wizardry" and "unfaithfulness", now they will be known as "IP thieves" and "infringers".
I remember that when I read 1984 for the first time, those ubiquotous screens vomiting nonstop propaganda that could not be turned off (and attempting doing so constitued a crime) seemed to me as a rather lame attempt at cheap horror effect in an otherwise brilliant book. Now this law introduces exactly that, and it's not stopping there. This whole idea of punishing "copyright violation attempts" regardless of actual result or success is the last stop before punishing thoughtcrime, and the only reason we don't have the latter is just because the technology is not yet ready.
These are sad times, and it's hard to keep any hope. But trying to do so is our duty. Trying desperately to find some optimism, I'd say these are agonic spasms of a dying hysterical benemoth. Just like Hitler became agressive beyond any limit as his Reich was collapsing, these so-called "owners" of the so-called "IP" know their time is over. The development of the Internet is the next Industrial Revolution, and they are desperately fighting for survival, just like the oil lamp industry tried anything and everything to prevent the development of electricity. There is a story about a city in Germany in the early 20th century, where the City Council passed a bill against electric light for a number of reasons, including the fact that it would be a harm to people's health (it would facilitate traffic and outdoor life, thereby exposing people to bacteria and diseases), that it would be anti-patriotic (there would be no difference between an illuminated national celebration and an ordinary night) and anti-Christian (God decided that night shall be dark). I don't remember which city that was, but the story is true.
(Un)fortunately, the politicians forget that what creates jobs and economic growth are mostly SMBs and young, innovative companies, not the **AA and the few clients of lobbying firms. Implement laws like this, and you'll throw the whole US economy (and, by extension, the economy of the Western world) into an abyss. Our societies will be washed from the IP-lawyers, politicians and their customers. The sooner it happens, the better.
By the way: IANAL, but doesn't the US constitution say something like a government who does not act in the people's best interest ("government by the people, for the people") is illegitimate and should be thrown away? Is there (theoretically) a possibility to attack such insane laws from this angle?