Why do The Powers That Be think we'll all be reduced to sniveling wussies if we see a skyscraper blow up in a work of *fiction*?
Yet no one seems to have any second thoughts about endlessly replaying *actual* footage of the WTC disaster from every conceivable angle...go figure.
Interesting how hollywood shows some hero endlessly slaughtering faceless foreigners in some third-world country or an execution or a Kevin Costner film without a second thought to how it might traumatize their audience. But when it comes to terrorists blowing up a building...that's just too graphic for people to accept.
Maybe someone can correct my logic here...but it seems to me that the students didn't break the NETA.
Since they were hired by the Recording industry who holds all the copyrights in question, wouldn't they be stealing from themselves (on an organizational level)?
It seems analogous to hiring a hacker to try to crack your network. While his actions would be illegal if he was unaffiliated with you, by hiring him, you've legitimized his actions which would otherwise have been illegal.
but IANAL...so there's a lot that's illegal these days that makes no sense to me.
<sarcasm>Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.</sarcasm>
You're right...we definitely need charities to help homeless/starving/victims of war watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound too.
If you're looking for a non-prescription way to raise serotonin levels, 5-HTP works pretty well. It's the body's natural precursor to Serotonin. For most people, it works well enough to avoid having to take prescription anti-depressants, and has far fewer side effects. It is a legal dietary supplement sold in most drug stores.
As with all herbs, taking excessive amounts can have undesired effects, but at the dosage I take (100mg/day), the only effect I've noticed is that I'm a much happier person.
Oh...and if anyone's interested in a possible interatction between 5-HTP and a certain illegal drug that deals with Serotonin, well, there are no *negative* interactions;)
I think just about anyone who lives outside the US looking in (as I do) would agree with this statement; one has only to observe the lack of knowledge American citizens display with regards to the rest of the world to see that this attitude is quite widespread, and probably does affect intelligence gathering. Raise your hand anyone who's seen the (Canadian) 22 minutes special "Talking to Americans". It's rather depressing actually, to think that so many people, including prominant politicians, could believe that Canada works on a 20 hour clock, or that we're going to change the country's name to Chicago (I'm not exaggerating either... quite a few people were taken in by this).
Wow...that's some of the most horribly flawed logic I've ever seen. You know, America is also one of the fattest countries in the world too. Yet somehow we always manage to win quite a few medals at any given olympics...and you know we produce waaaaaaaay too many waifish supermodels.
I find it amazing how fast people from other coutries are willing to stereotype me as an American (250 million people must all be the same, right?). When I travel, I find it amazing how many people will assume I can't understand their conversation just because I'm American (I speak 4 languages). We're not all dumb hicks from Arkansas and Texas (despite the leaders we've managed to elect).
Or...it could mean that they claim to use the service, but don't actually send in papers. The students would then be less likely to cheat believing that there is a possibility that they could get caught.
The placebo effect in action. That's what I originally thought the article was about. turnitin.com should also have a rate at which schools can *claim* that they use their services.
Total Agreement. I just sent then $25. I could really care less how many "ad free" pages this gets me. I've easily gotten $25 worth of service out of/. in the 3 years I've been reading it.
I don't have a gripe with/. asking for money...they give us a quality product (well, if it was spell checked;) and they deserve compensation. My only gripe is that they did it under the threat of advertising. I would have liked to have seen some sort of call for donations first. If they had posted a thread, "Keep/. Add Free!" with a link to a paypal donation, I would have probably given more. I would like to have seen how many loyal/.'ers would have paid money to keep the site add free for everyone. My guess is that quite a few would have done so. They could have always implemented this ad scheme afterwards.
A large portion of the/. community is part of the open source community. By definition, we give a large part of our time and energy away freely because we see the value in having quality resources be freely available. I think it shows a big lack of faith that/. doesn't believe that we would give our money freely as well.
So, Taco, please give us loyal/.ers the chance to show that we truly enjoy/. instead of showing how much we dislike advertisments.
Re:Google doesn't accept money, but accepts cheate
on
Search Engine Payola
·
· Score: 2
Google should do reverse lookups of the hostnames and degrade the quality of a result based on what subnet the reference comes from. If a site is recieving lots of references from a particular subnet, it could be determined that that site is spamming. It wouldn't be a ten minute setup process if each site you setup had to be on a different/24.
I can't think of any situations where this would unfairly degrade a user's quality rating...anyone?
Talk about missing the point! I bet you're an MBA aren't you? What part of "we don't need ANY proprietary software" did you not understand. That's right. No proprietary software. As in: Proprietary software is going the way of the dinosaur. Deal with it.
Nope...no MBA here, just some common sense. Perhaps you meant to say that commercial software is going the way of the dinosaur. In that case, it might be a half-way sentient argument. However, companies will always have code that they develop in-house and do not release to the public since there is no need to do so and there is a possibility that it could benefit their competition.
The point is, smart programmers don't NEED the corporate "we" that you refer to a dozen times in your argument.
The do if they want to gain any experience to put on a resume. Even consultants need a resume to show that they are capable of what they say they are capable of doing. From my experience, consultants do not get hired until they've had at least 5 years of software development experience. It may be the case that in your "pie in the sky" world, once proprietary software has been eradicated from this planet that a consultant can get hired right out of school, but until that time, they'll need to get some real experience under their belt before they can start enjoying writing open source for a living.
For that, those people WILL pay you if you offer a better total solution than proprietary competitors.
So why would anyone sign up with AOL these days? There are undoubtedly plenty of ISP's willing to give you net access for less that AOL charges. The reason is that AOL is a respected business with a proven track record. Consultants are hired the same way...based on not only the product that they can deliver, but the track record to proves that they can deliver.
Let me guess. The fact that I don't know what a TSD is (or how to write one from an FSD, whatever that is) makes me a bad person?
No, not at all. However, it does make you less qualified for a job where the requirements include thorough documentation. Like it or not, being able to read a function spec (FSD) that comes from product planning/marketing people is a reality of most proprietary software environments. A quality engineer should be able to take a functional spec and write up a good technical spec (TSD). This is important to show that the finished code implements what product planning had intended. No value judgements here, just ability to adapt to the process that results from developing software in a regimented environment.
The thing is, not everyone is looking to make a zillion dollars (no, really! they're not!). Not everyone is trying to pad their resumes with lame crap in order to pull the wool over some manager's eyes and get a bigger salary.
I'm not trying to make a zillion dollars either. All I want is to make a living writing software. I really don't enjoy all the extra hassle that goes allong with coding software for a corporation, but I put up with it since I get to spend at least some of my time writing code. My only point was that if you want a job writing proprietary software in a corporate environment, there are skills that show you can adapt to that environment. If you don't have them, maybe you're better off working in a small development team that does things in a more laid back manner. No sleight against you, but the skills you lack are necessary in many environments.
Some people (get this!) actually LIKE programming. Some people actually LIKE developing cool projects (not products) and putting them out there and saying "hey. i think this is cool. what do you think?" Or "I made this because I needed it. Maybe someone else will find it useful."
I actually love programming. I work a real job during the day, and I spend a lot of time outside of work programming too (and when I actually finish something, I release it as open source). But when I program outside of work, I just program. I don't let the aspects of my job that I don't like touch my personal code. There is no project planning to be accountable to. There is no functional spec that tells me feature x needs to be implemented. If I get half way through programming and decide that my program doesn't need feature x for me to enjoy using it, I don't implement feature x. The nature of open source is that it doesn't have a specific customer in mind. Programming software to the needs of a specific customer changes the process of developing that software.
Some jobs don't need politics.
Don't confuse politics with process. The backstabbing and schmoozing are irrellevant here. What does apply here are the ability to interact with your co-workers as part of your job functions. Prior experience with that aspect of the job cannot be gained from open source work. And it *is* something employers look for.
The problem with the analogy to cable was that there really was never any competition between providers in the cable tv space. People were presented with the option to either get cable or not.
The internet is much more granular. If websites start coming up with a "value add" subscription service, people will be forced to choose which subscription services to subscribe to. The problem here is that people hate being nickeled and dimed. If there was an option where people could pay a blanket subscription fee and have access to a whole family of website's "value add" sections, they might choose it. But for an individual website to start charging, is going to be a difficult proposition.
Unfortunately, there are already content providers doing this type of umbrella service. So anyone who tries to setup this kind of website network will have to compete with the AOL's and MSN's of the world...not exactly lightweight competitors.
Keep dreaming...anyone who is successful through programming open source software has more than likely pulled a stint or two at a *real* job. There's certain things that just can't be gained programming free software that employers look for.
When we look for new programmers, beyond language proficiency, we look for the ability to write a quality TSD (from an FSD). Writing sofware is more than just writing code. They should also be able to deal with management. This can end up being a big deal for some programmers. Thirdly (and sadly), in this tight market, we look for personal references from people who already work here. We simply discard most resumes that are sent to us from strangers. While open source will help you network, it probably won't work as well as a *real* job (knowing management types is *much* more useful than knowing programmers).
These types of experience are very difficult to get programming free software. Free software, by its nature, doesn't have much of the structure that is placed on proprietary software. Like it or not, people who produce proprietary software want people to have experience developing proprietary software.
However, there is hope for recent grads. During the internet boom, grads would get $100k jobs right out of school. But now that we're back to the real world, the old methods apply again. Get an internship. Companies are still willing to take the risk of hiring someone with little to no experience provided they're spending little to no money on him/her. Then, when you have 6 mo. to a year of experience under your belt, then you can start applying for a full paying job.
I'm all for developing open source software, but do it because you love it, not because you think it will get you a job. Open source isn't a shortcut...it's the scenic route.
most of us do profess to use a non-mainstream OS/ISP/computer tho...he didn't say university professors.
besides, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive to say, "The movie industry is under siege from a [really] small community of 16 year old dutch children"
I'm sure Mr. Valenti will be happy to represent the needs and interests of the Linux community.
After all, he can really identify with the needs of your average linux user...namely, to be able to easily and cost-effectively create Linux rendering farms. He realizes that the average linux user has no need to actually watch DVD's on linux, that's something only pirates do. He realized that reverse engineering Microsoft's protocols was taking up too much effort of the linux community, so he had anti-circumvention provisions built into the DMCA. So now, the linux community doesn't waste nearly as much time doing that.
So, when you think about, what better representative could Linux have?
Oooh...and for irony's sake, they could distribute it using DARTmail!
Hi Friend,
Do you hate SPAM. Are you sick of direct marketers sending you a seemingly endless stream of stupid offers? If so, click here [links to software program to update the hosts file].
If you would prefer to be hung like a horse, see young, virgin, barely legal redheads or get a masters degree through the mail from a fully accreditted college, click here [links to a message explaining why responding to SPAM is bad]
How is P2P radically different from Cable TV? With cable, how can you be sure someone is watching the tv signal that is being supplied to them. Did the tv broadcasters recieve more money from cable companies based on the numbers of viewers of their program? No, they recieved a set amount, Period. To put it in current terms, the cable companies pay the same amount for "Futurama" as they do for "Survivor" (if they were the same length), despite the fact that one show recieves a much higher viewership (granted if you multiply "quality of the show" times "viewership" to determine "value" these two shows would have roughly the same "value", but that's not why they recieve the same payment).
This same concept could be applied to P2P networks. If a piece of content is available over the P2P network, the company has to pay the compulsory license fee, or remove it from their network. They would pay it once, not for every download like the content creators would like.
I agree that monitoring things on a transactional level would be next to impossible. However, that kind of monitoring isn't what Lessig is talking about.
Back before the whole ebay thing, I used to participate in newsgroup based auctions for a once-popular CCG. Back then, there was no PayPal or online escrow services, so we employed other tactics to try to ensure that we didn't get ripped off.
First, many people would only trade with people that had legitimate.edu addresses. These are much harder to fake, and are generally pretty easy to track down. Most of the people on the newsgroup tended to be students or people affiliated with universities, so that wasn't too big a problem.
When someone did get ripped off, they posted to the newsgroup about it. Someone maintained a list of bad traders (both virtual and physical addresses) that people checked before trading anything. Bad traders were given the opportunity to defend themselves, but most complaints were usually legit.
Overall, there were supprisingly few scams. I conducted nearly 3000 trades and was only ripped off once (tho it was for over $2000). Many of my friends had similar results. I don't know what the ebay statistics are like, but I would imagine that they aren't as good.
the core reason the DOJ changed their mind about breaking up Microsoft was not because of Dell or Gateway but because Bush became POTUS
Democrats and republicans disagree on unimportant issues like abortion and education. When it comes to bending over and taking it up the a#% from corporations, there's little difference between the two. There were two major reasons for the DOJ changing their mind, and neither had anything to do with who's in the white house.
First, as I explained in my first post, the computer manufacturers wanted microsoft spared because a unified Microsoft is the only way to enforce the two year upgrade cycle (which they desperately need due to the low profit margins on new computers). Sure the computere manufacturers would like to offer their clients flexibility, but not the flexibility to successfully run software on computers that are 3-4 years old. Their business is to sell new computers, not support old ones. Microsoft helps them sell new computers, so now, despite the grip that Microsoft has, they like Microsoft.
Second, our friends at the RIAA and MPAA put heavy pressure on the DOJ to not break up Microsoft. They realize that the best way to protect their content is at the operating system level. Everything else will be almost trivially hackable. Microsoft has promised to build in copy protection at the OS level. The RIAA and MPAA can live in a world where Windows w/ copy protection runs on 99% of all computers. If Microsoft is forced to co-exist with Linux and other OS's, the RIAA (and possibly the MPAA) will likely go the way of the dinosaur.
And before you tell me that the Gore administration would not have caved to these pressures, just remember who signed the DMCA into law.
Slashdot Mirror
Busts out...
Was this intended to be a pun?
Nonsense...Microsoft has been coming up with new and innovative ways to screw over their customers since the early 80s.
And have you heard some of the logic spouted by the lawyers in the anti-trust case? Microsoft is nothing if not creative.
Why do The Powers That Be think we'll all be reduced to sniveling wussies if we see a skyscraper blow up in a work of *fiction*?
Yet no one seems to have any second thoughts about endlessly replaying *actual* footage of the WTC disaster from every conceivable angle...go figure.
Interesting how hollywood shows some hero endlessly slaughtering faceless foreigners in some third-world country or an execution or a Kevin Costner film without a second thought to how it might traumatize their audience. But when it comes to terrorists blowing up a building...that's just too graphic for people to accept.
Maybe someone can correct my logic here...but it seems to me that the students didn't break the NETA.
Since they were hired by the Recording industry who holds all the copyrights in question, wouldn't they be stealing from themselves (on an organizational level)?
It seems analogous to hiring a hacker to try to crack your network. While his actions would be illegal if he was unaffiliated with you, by hiring him, you've legitimized his actions which would otherwise have been illegal.
but IANAL...so there's a lot that's illegal these days that makes no sense to me.
<sarcasm>Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.</sarcasm>
You're right...we definitely need charities to help homeless/starving/victims of war watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound too.
Technically: Probably
Under the DMCA: Probably Not
Under the Geneva Convention: Expressly Forbidden
Not that they ever come off looking good anyways, but it'd be fun to see them try to villainize terminally-ill children.
"Your honor...don't let their ventilators, bald heads and palid complexions fool you...those children represent a huge menace to society."
I'm not sure even a lawyer could say that with a straight face.
If you're looking for a non-prescription way to raise serotonin levels, 5-HTP works pretty well. It's the body's natural precursor to Serotonin. For most people, it works well enough to avoid having to take prescription anti-depressants, and has far fewer side effects. It is a legal dietary supplement sold in most drug stores.
;)
As with all herbs, taking excessive amounts can have undesired effects, but at the dosage I take (100mg/day), the only effect I've noticed is that I'm a much happier person.
Oh...and if anyone's interested in a possible interatction between 5-HTP and a certain illegal drug that deals with Serotonin, well, there are no *negative* interactions
I think just about anyone who lives outside the US looking in (as I do) would agree with this statement; one has only to observe the lack of knowledge American citizens display with regards to the rest of the world to see that this attitude is quite widespread, and probably does affect intelligence gathering. Raise your hand anyone who's seen the (Canadian) 22 minutes special "Talking to Americans". It's rather depressing actually, to think that so many people, including prominant politicians, could believe that Canada works on a 20 hour clock, or that we're going to change the country's name to Chicago (I'm not exaggerating either... quite a few people were taken in by this).
Wow...that's some of the most horribly flawed logic I've ever seen. You know, America is also one of the fattest countries in the world too. Yet somehow we always manage to win quite a few medals at any given olympics...and you know we produce waaaaaaaay too many waifish supermodels.
I find it amazing how fast people from other coutries are willing to stereotype me as an American (250 million people must all be the same, right?). When I travel, I find it amazing how many people will assume I can't understand their conversation just because I'm American (I speak 4 languages). We're not all dumb hicks from Arkansas and Texas (despite the leaders we've managed to elect).
Or...it could mean that they claim to use the service, but don't actually send in papers. The students would then be less likely to cheat believing that there is a possibility that they could get caught.
The placebo effect in action. That's what I originally thought the article was about. turnitin.com should also have a rate at which schools can *claim* that they use their services.
...Cause, you know, Microsoft has never implemented their own proprietary version of something that was already implemented...*cough* *c#ough* *cough*
Total Agreement. I just sent then $25. I could really care less how many "ad free" pages this gets me. I've easily gotten $25 worth of service out of /. in the 3 years I've been reading it.
/. asking for money...they give us a quality product (well, if it was spell checked ;) and they deserve compensation. My only gripe is that they did it under the threat of advertising. I would have liked to have seen some sort of call for donations first. If they had posted a thread, "Keep /. Add Free!" with a link to a paypal donation, I would have probably given more. I would like to have seen how many loyal /.'ers would have paid money to keep the site add free for everyone. My guess is that quite a few would have done so. They could have always implemented this ad scheme afterwards.
/. community is part of the open source community. By definition, we give a large part of our time and energy away freely because we see the value in having quality resources be freely available. I think it shows a big lack of faith that /. doesn't believe that we would give our money freely as well.
/.ers the chance to show that we truly enjoy /. instead of showing how much we dislike advertisments.
I don't have a gripe with
A large portion of the
So, Taco, please give us loyal
Google should do reverse lookups of the hostnames and degrade the quality of a result based on what subnet the reference comes from. If a site is recieving lots of references from a particular subnet, it could be determined that that site is spamming. It wouldn't be a ten minute setup process if each site you setup had to be on a different /24.
I can't think of any situations where this would unfairly degrade a user's quality rating...anyone?
Talk about missing the point! I bet you're an MBA aren't you? What part of "we don't need ANY proprietary software" did you not understand. That's right. No proprietary software. As in: Proprietary software is going the way of the dinosaur. Deal with it.
Nope...no MBA here, just some common sense. Perhaps you meant to say that commercial software is going the way of the dinosaur. In that case, it might be a half-way sentient argument. However, companies will always have code that they develop in-house and do not release to the public since there is no need to do so and there is a possibility that it could benefit their competition.
The point is, smart programmers don't NEED the corporate "we" that you refer to a dozen times in your argument.
The do if they want to gain any experience to put on a resume. Even consultants need a resume to show that they are capable of what they say they are capable of doing. From my experience, consultants do not get hired until they've had at least 5 years of software development experience. It may be the case that in your "pie in the sky" world, once proprietary software has been eradicated from this planet that a consultant can get hired right out of school, but until that time, they'll need to get some real experience under their belt before they can start enjoying writing open source for a living.
For that, those people WILL pay you if you offer a better total solution than proprietary competitors.
So why would anyone sign up with AOL these days? There are undoubtedly plenty of ISP's willing to give you net access for less that AOL charges. The reason is that AOL is a respected business with a proven track record. Consultants are hired the same way...based on not only the product that they can deliver, but the track record to proves that they can deliver.
Let me guess. The fact that I don't know what a TSD is (or how to write one from an FSD, whatever that is) makes me a bad person?
No, not at all. However, it does make you less qualified for a job where the requirements include thorough documentation. Like it or not, being able to read a function spec (FSD) that comes from product planning/marketing people is a reality of most proprietary software environments. A quality engineer should be able to take a functional spec and write up a good technical spec (TSD). This is important to show that the finished code implements what product planning had intended. No value judgements here, just ability to adapt to the process that results from developing software in a regimented environment.
The thing is, not everyone is looking to make a zillion dollars (no, really! they're not!). Not everyone is trying to pad their resumes with lame crap in order to pull the wool over some manager's eyes and get a bigger salary.
I'm not trying to make a zillion dollars either. All I want is to make a living writing software. I really don't enjoy all the extra hassle that goes allong with coding software for a corporation, but I put up with it since I get to spend at least some of my time writing code. My only point was that if you want a job writing proprietary software in a corporate environment, there are skills that show you can adapt to that environment. If you don't have them, maybe you're better off working in a small development team that does things in a more laid back manner. No sleight against you, but the skills you lack are necessary in many environments.
Some people (get this!) actually LIKE programming. Some people actually LIKE developing cool projects (not products) and putting them out there and saying "hey. i think this is cool. what do you think?" Or "I made this because I needed it. Maybe someone else will find it useful."
I actually love programming. I work a real job during the day, and I spend a lot of time outside of work programming too (and when I actually finish something, I release it as open source). But when I program outside of work, I just program. I don't let the aspects of my job that I don't like touch my personal code. There is no project planning to be accountable to. There is no functional spec that tells me feature x needs to be implemented. If I get half way through programming and decide that my program doesn't need feature x for me to enjoy using it, I don't implement feature x. The nature of open source is that it doesn't have a specific customer in mind. Programming software to the needs of a specific customer changes the process of developing that software.
Some jobs don't need politics.
Don't confuse politics with process. The backstabbing and schmoozing are irrellevant here. What does apply here are the ability to interact with your co-workers as part of your job functions. Prior experience with that aspect of the job cannot be gained from open source work. And it *is* something employers look for.
The problem with the analogy to cable was that there really was never any competition between providers in the cable tv space. People were presented with the option to either get cable or not.
The internet is much more granular. If websites start coming up with a "value add" subscription service, people will be forced to choose which subscription services to subscribe to. The problem here is that people hate being nickeled and dimed. If there was an option where people could pay a blanket subscription fee and have access to a whole family of website's "value add" sections, they might choose it. But for an individual website to start charging, is going to be a difficult proposition.
Unfortunately, there are already content providers doing this type of umbrella service. So anyone who tries to setup this kind of website network will have to compete with the AOL's and MSN's of the world...not exactly lightweight competitors.
Keep dreaming...anyone who is successful through programming open source software has more than likely pulled a stint or two at a *real* job. There's certain things that just can't be gained programming free software that employers look for.
When we look for new programmers, beyond language proficiency, we look for the ability to write a quality TSD (from an FSD). Writing sofware is more than just writing code. They should also be able to deal with management. This can end up being a big deal for some programmers. Thirdly (and sadly), in this tight market, we look for personal references from people who already work here. We simply discard most resumes that are sent to us from strangers. While open source will help you network, it probably won't work as well as a *real* job (knowing management types is *much* more useful than knowing programmers).
These types of experience are very difficult to get programming free software. Free software, by its nature, doesn't have much of the structure that is placed on proprietary software. Like it or not, people who produce proprietary software want people to have experience developing proprietary software.
However, there is hope for recent grads. During the internet boom, grads would get $100k jobs right out of school. But now that we're back to the real world, the old methods apply again. Get an internship. Companies are still willing to take the risk of hiring someone with little to no experience provided they're spending little to no money on him/her. Then, when you have 6 mo. to a year of experience under your belt, then you can start applying for a full paying job.
I'm all for developing open source software, but do it because you love it, not because you think it will get you a job. Open source isn't a shortcut...it's the scenic route.
most of us do profess to use a non-mainstream OS/ISP/computer tho...he didn't say university professors.
besides, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive to say, "The movie industry is under siege from a [really] small community of 16 year old dutch children"
I'm sure Mr. Valenti will be happy to represent the needs and interests of the Linux community.
After all, he can really identify with the needs of your average linux user...namely, to be able to easily and cost-effectively create Linux rendering farms. He realizes that the average linux user has no need to actually watch DVD's on linux, that's something only pirates do. He realized that reverse engineering Microsoft's protocols was taking up too much effort of the linux community, so he had anti-circumvention provisions built into the DMCA. So now, the linux community doesn't waste nearly as much time doing that.
So, when you think about, what better representative could Linux have?
this was posted a couple of days ago...
Oooh...and for irony's sake, they could distribute it using DARTmail!
Hi Friend,
Do you hate SPAM. Are you sick of direct marketers sending you a seemingly endless stream of stupid offers? If so, click here [links to software program to update the hosts file].
If you would prefer to be hung like a horse, see young, virgin, barely legal redheads or get a masters degree through the mail from a fully accreditted college, click here [links to a message explaining why responding to SPAM is bad]
How is P2P radically different from Cable TV? With cable, how can you be sure someone is watching the tv signal that is being supplied to them. Did the tv broadcasters recieve more money from cable companies based on the numbers of viewers of their program? No, they recieved a set amount, Period. To put it in current terms, the cable companies pay the same amount for "Futurama" as they do for "Survivor" (if they were the same length), despite the fact that one show recieves a much higher viewership (granted if you multiply "quality of the show" times "viewership" to determine "value" these two shows would have roughly the same "value", but that's not why they recieve the same payment).
This same concept could be applied to P2P networks. If a piece of content is available over the P2P network, the company has to pay the compulsory license fee, or remove it from their network. They would pay it once, not for every download like the content creators would like.
I agree that monitoring things on a transactional level would be next to impossible. However, that kind of monitoring isn't what Lessig is talking about.
Never been scammed on ebay, but...
.edu addresses. These are much harder to fake, and are generally pretty easy to track down. Most of the people on the newsgroup tended to be students or people affiliated with universities, so that wasn't too big a problem.
Back before the whole ebay thing, I used to participate in newsgroup based auctions for a once-popular CCG. Back then, there was no PayPal or online escrow services, so we employed other tactics to try to ensure that we didn't get ripped off.
First, many people would only trade with people that had legitimate
When someone did get ripped off, they posted to the newsgroup about it. Someone maintained a list of bad traders (both virtual and physical addresses) that people checked before trading anything. Bad traders were given the opportunity to defend themselves, but most complaints were usually legit.
Overall, there were supprisingly few scams. I conducted nearly 3000 trades and was only ripped off once (tho it was for over $2000). Many of my friends had similar results. I don't know what the ebay statistics are like, but I would imagine that they aren't as good.
involving castrated rams is just going way too far!
Actually, considering the gnu logo and the dire predictions in the editorial, it seems strangely appropriate.
the core reason the DOJ changed their mind about breaking up Microsoft was not because of Dell or Gateway but because Bush became POTUS
Democrats and republicans disagree on unimportant issues like abortion and education. When it comes to bending over and taking it up the a#% from corporations, there's little difference between the two. There were two major reasons for the DOJ changing their mind, and neither had anything to do with who's in the white house.
First, as I explained in my first post, the computer manufacturers wanted microsoft spared because a unified Microsoft is the only way to enforce the two year upgrade cycle (which they desperately need due to the low profit margins on new computers). Sure the computere manufacturers would like to offer their clients flexibility, but not the flexibility to successfully run software on computers that are 3-4 years old. Their business is to sell new computers, not support old ones. Microsoft helps them sell new computers, so now, despite the grip that Microsoft has, they like Microsoft.
Second, our friends at the RIAA and MPAA put heavy pressure on the DOJ to not break up Microsoft. They realize that the best way to protect their content is at the operating system level. Everything else will be almost trivially hackable. Microsoft has promised to build in copy protection at the OS level. The RIAA and MPAA can live in a world where Windows w/ copy protection runs on 99% of all computers. If Microsoft is forced to co-exist with Linux and other OS's, the RIAA (and possibly the MPAA) will likely go the way of the dinosaur.
And before you tell me that the Gore administration would not have caved to these pressures, just remember who signed the DMCA into law.