The production of tangible objects is more open to variation, since you have a huge spectrum of techniques at your disposal. You can truly "think outside the box" to tools that others may have not even considered yet, and create true innovation. Not only that, but others can easily find other ways to do the same thing in a completely different way, and the two ideas can compete.
Software is built from limited sets of CPU instructions. For 99% of the tasks that a computer has to do, there is one most efficient way to do it, and we can't afford to sell off those best practices to any one person or group. If software patents are to stay, their scope must apply only to extremely high-level, subjective concepts (e.g. GUIs), rather than lower level, under-the-hood concepts (e.g. linked lists).
My point was that when you implied that we citizens don't have anything to fear from the government except for the paranoia it inspires (at least that's how I read it), it's easy to find examples that run counter to that logic.
If it's so easy, how come you choose an example where the FBI only allegedly committed foul play? Surely, if it's so easy, you can find a situation where it has been proved that People In Power(tm) are out to get Ordinary People(tm)? Your example doesn't really prove anything, except that, given enough paranoia, allegations can suddenly become truth.
You ask WHY the FBI would want to spy on you, which is of course such a simple question to answer that any 12 year old could provide it. You really don't know? Okay, I'll spoon-feed you this one. Total Information Awareness.
Yeah, but unlike most 12-year-olds, I won't just take the spoon-fed answer just on your word. WHY do they need to know everything? Do you really think that an organisation gets that nervous about not knowing everything that everyone else is doing? It's not like there's an uprising against them in the works. It's not like there's anything outside their job that needs domestic surveillance.
So, we haven't exactly proved that this second internet suggestion from a former FBI agent isn't exactly what he said it is. In fact, I would call it a rather large leap in logic to translate "better accountability" into "we want to spy on you" (as the FP did). Perhaps, "we want to enforce the law more efficiently" would have been apt, but no, he goes straight for the spying. Now, this will forever go down in people's minds without a shadow of a doubt that the FBI tried to spy on them, and possibly will be used to justify their paranoia when someone questions them.
Look I'm sorry that I'm flying off the handle a bit, but I get mightily sick of all this paranoia and negativity surrounding power, especially when it seems to be self-justifying. I'm sceptical, you're paranoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H concerned, maybe I should just leave it at that.
Exactly. Remember kids, if you constantly abuse your freedoms they can and will be taken away from you. Let's cherish the fact that we don't have an oppressive government in power.
What did David Koresh have to do with domestic surveillance? Was your point that I was thinking dangerous thoughts, and the last guy who did that was allegedly burned to death by the FBI?
Everyone tells me the FBI wants to spy on me, as if they are waging a war against my privacy, and we should fight back. It's always been a very "us vs them" attitude. What people fail to explain to me is why the FBI wants to invade your privacy at any cost. If you can satisfactorily explain to me that, I'll take your paranoid assumptions about their intentions more seriously.
If there weren't so much going on, wikileaks wouldn't have so much notoriety now would they?
But that's just it! If the stories that made it notorious are a result of attention seeking more than they are the result of actual events, then you can't be sure that there is that much corporate funny-business going around. Without accountability, you can't safely believe anything you read.
But they are targeting everyone! These companies will pass the costs down to the customers in an effort to regain profit levels. Add more suits like this, and using fossil fuels suddenly becomes a lot less economically efficient. Many, many people are sued indirectly for their fair share of the compensation.
Libertarian telling everyone else how to raise their children = +5, insightful Someone else acknowledging that parents can raise their children their way, so long as it doesn't interfere with others = +3, Interesting (at best)
Exactly. I've always been very sympathetic to the think-of-the-children crowd, right up until they start significantly interfering with me and my tax dollars.
Please note that I never defended the proposition. You raise some fine points, but they certainly don't attack or defend the idea that censorship is never OK, which is what my post was about.
However, while we're here, I'd like to point something out:
Labor's "clean feed" system would prevent users from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, including sites containing child pornography, acts of extreme violence or cruelty, and X-rated material.
That's from the ALP website. It makes a certain amount of sense that they block those kinds of media, because child pornography is illegal, and X-Rated possession of X-Rated material is only permitted in the ACT and sold via mail order. In a vast majority of the country, the sale of hardcore pornography is illegal, and the internet is a loophole in the enforcement of the law. It makes sense to plug the enforcement loophole, so the law is clear and easy to follow. Perhaps the problem isn't so much the mandatory filtering, but the laws that it helps enforce? Perhaps we need a better classification system, or at least lift the ban on X-rated movies?
... the RIAA "expert", who is against P2P, is called "borderline incompetent" by not just an expert, but by one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing! That's right. The RIAA's shill is an "expert", the guy who opposes him is a scientist, so he must be right!
Look, to be fair, the guy probably is incompetent, but Slashdot just has a way of questioning the facts only at convenient times.
You sound like an intolerant extremist nutjob. You've made it perfectly clear that you don't believe in the greys in life, you don't believe in mitigating circumstances, and you believe that fighting censorship should be above:
a) The will of the people (except your will, of course!) b) National security c) Privacy d) Well, everything really
And all for what? Censorship doesn't turn a government fascist. It has been integrated successfully into societies for many years, and we still haven't seen any stable democracies turn to fascism. Censorship of political speech can be a sign that a government is proposing to overthrow the political system in favour of fascism, but that is neither guaranteed, nor what's happening here. But then again, I'm assuming your irrational fear of censorship stems from something that, in a different context, could have been rational. Perhaps you don't like censorship because the word "censorship" looks ugly.
Thankfully, those of us who live in democracies can feel secure in knowing that your personal preferences only exercise a tiny influence on our government, at best.
This is a blow not only against the RIAA legal machine, but also against "thought crime" of all sorts (such as the argument that selling guns facilitates murder).
But (the selling of) guns does facilitate murder. Not just that, it also facilitates tragic accidents, and threats. No matter how useful guns can be for self-protection and hunting, that will always be true. The fact that they are so useful outside of their highly illegal purposes makes them freely available, or at least controlled by the government in many countries.
With making available copies of copyrighted works, in a vast majority of cases, there is no plausible reason for the works to be made available, aside from allowing others to copy those works for themselves. The harm caused by those vast majority of cases far outweighs the benefits brought by those tiny minority of cases when the person has a legitimate reason for doing so. Therefore, I have no problem with the making available theory, so long as the accused failed to take the necessary precautions to prevent copyright infringement.
Okay, let's start off with the fact that I do think that some form of copyright is required in order to promote the creation of new materials in today's society.
In which case, you should really be suspicious of proof by analogy. Separate to your belief that copyright infringement is not a kind of theft, you (like many) have reservations about copyright and its effects. The line between acceptable and non-acceptable applications of the principles of copyright will probably be different when applied to different situations. But, moving on...
I believe the pumpkin analogy works against this argument in isolation. I have created another source from which the pumpkins can come, and because I've broken the monopoly, I've undermined the value of the original pumpkin grower's wares.
Yes, but in order for it to be stealing, the "victim" must own what is being stolen. The copyright holder owns the rights to the work, and people can take those rights, thus depriving the copyright holder of the value of those rights (which is, in my eyes, stealing). The pumpkin seller doesn't own the rights to the humble pumpkin, he just makes a living distributing them. The reason why the copyright holder owns his work and the pumpkin seller doesn't is for all the reasons I described in my previous post (which you've helpfully quoted and discussed in the next paragraph).
Lets say this pumpkin grower has spent 15 years breeding pumpkins to be big, and round, and bright orange, and generally perfect for jack-o-lanterns. I've taken those seeds from him to grow other pumpkins. When I grow my own pumpkins, I'm not going to bother weeding, or picking them, or washing off the dirt. The people who take my pumpkins are going to have to do that. Similarly, when I share a set of music files on a P2P network, I'm not going to be burning them to a CD, including fancy cover art, and giving it to the people that want it in a nicely shrink-wrapped jewel case.
If the pumpkin seller has spent that long breeding the perfect pumpkin, then he may be eligible for a patent on that pumpkin. Should he choose to register that patent, you would be in similarly hot water for selling your dirty versions of the pumpkin, for infringing on his IP. Even though he is selling a superior product, he still would own the patent, he would still have done all the work in designing the pumpkin, and you are taking a portion of his business riding on his success.
What do the record companies charge money for? Is it for the physical CD? Or is it for a license to listen to the music on the CD?
The answer, just like with the pumpkin seller, is both. They pay for the copyright of the work, plus the media it comes on. But, I guess, the latter is the only relevant answer, because they (are supposed to) hold no monopoly on CD production, just the bits contained on the CD. You really should be able get a replacement CD at blank media cost if you could prove that you owned the CD, and that the other CD was destroyed. In reality though, copyright law as it's enforced today doesn't permit that without the copyright holder's consent.
But have you really? The cost to copy and distribute a digital copy is essentially zero, or close to it. Otherwise everybody and their granny wouldn't be able to get everything they want off bittorrent in the first place. Any share of zero, fair or otherwise, is neccessarily still zero. These companies are trying to claim a non-zero "share" out of a zero-sized pie. It just can't work.
The fact that there's no money in the transaction is part of the problem. There's a certain amount of money owed to those companies for devaluing their copyright (by adding to the flood of copies in the market), which they procured in exchange for all the financial risks, work, etc. That money can be external to the original transaction (i.e. out of the bank account of the sharer and sharee).
They're the ones that deserve some money.
They get money! Artists have a choice thanks to the middlemen in the copyright industry. They can either realise the full commercial potential of their copyright, by risking their own money, and working their butts of to promote themselves, or they can choose to receive substantially less money, but not have to work at it, or have any risk. They sell their copyrights to the publishers, who will buy them at market price, and unlock the copyright's potential themselves. When we share files, and devalue their copyrights, we lower the market price for copyrights. New artists will then be paid less as infringement rates go up for their copyrights. The artist does suffer.
But it certainly isn't stealing, because there simply isn't anything to steal.
Well, I disagree. You are stealing the value of the copyrights, not the files themselves. People fail to see that because they don't see the abstract destruction of copyright infringement; they just see creation.
Copyright is the payment that we give artists for creating their works. It is a rule, nothing more, nothing less. The value comes from the potential for artificial scarcity that that rule can create. If no-one obeys the rule, like any other rule in the same situation, it will become worthless. If we as a society promise not to distribute the work without permission, and break that promise repeatedly, then the value of our payment declines. It's not a divine right, it's just our promise to artists in exchange for the creation of their art.
But currently copyright law is acting in a way it was never intended to: It is a restriction on the actions of _everyday citizens_.
P2P has blurred the line between everyday citizens and industry. Traditionally, everyday citizens would only share in minute quantities, only with people they knew, and industry would trade with masses of people that they previously had no connection with, in large quantities. P2P is everyday citizens participating in industrial scale copyright infringement. They trade huge quantities of works with complete strangers, just like an industry. I would argue that copyright law, in that respect, is operating exactly how it was intended to.
We live in a democracy. If the way a law is going to work is going to change in such a fundamental way, I think that the citizenry of whatever country you reside in ought to have a say on it.
I know, but I'm a little afraid that the public are going to listen to their desires for lots of free stuff over the short term over the wisdom of the economists. There's still a way to go though, since the (major) copyright reform issue has yet to reach critical mass.
I'll tell you what: if you can get 1 in 20 people to sign a petition stating that they honestly believe that a fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars PER INFRINGEMENT for a college kid downloading some songs in a non-commercial context, then not only will I support your thesis that copyright infringement == theft, I'll eat that petition and put it on youtube. So make sure it's a long list.
I have no idea why the penalty per copyright infringement, or the wisdom of the crowds have anything to do with copyright infringement == theft. I think copyright infringement is a type of theft (copyright infringement == theft implies that theft is the same as copyright infringement) because it makes sense, not because I think everyone else thinks that hundreds of thousands of dollars per infringement is justified. It's MY OPINION, no-one else's.
While we're here, though, I'd also like to say that the exorbitant amounts for each infringement make a certain amount of sick sense. You're being punished not just for your offences, but for every offence down the line. You share to 20 people, they each share to another 20, then each of the 400 share to another 20, etc, etc. All those copies are a copy from your copy. There is A LOT of potential damage from each infringement, and the numbers reflect that.
Look at what I have done. I have just created another avenue for the supply of pumpkins, which undermines the value of the pumpkins that you're growing. Is what I've done something that you would consider theft?
No. The pumpkin seller is not charging for the abstract design of a pumpkin; he's selling you the work he did in order to plant, grow, and pick those pumpkins. When you grow your own pumpkins, you will have to do the same work as the seller, and you won't have to rely on the seller to do that work. You have created your own stable and complete competitor to the original pumpkin seller.
Looking at file-sharing as a business model for supplying the world with culture, it's not hard to see why it won't work. The file-sharing business model is supplied by the copyright industry, and yet it competes with it. The file-sharing business model is considerably more attractive than the copyright model, so it should end up eating pretty much all of the customer base of the copyright model. The copyright model would die, but then, where would the file-sharing model get its new fix of art?
File sharing is NOT a stable, viable alternative, because it's just a leech on the side of the copyright industry. Once the industry is sucked dry, file sharing can't go on, unless people are content with listening to the same music over and over, watching the same movies over and over, etc.
You don't like open source, do you? Because its another source from where your operating system can come from, which diminishes the saleability of your BeOS (or whatever).
The difference between piracy and open source is that open source delivers complete and distinct alternatives to commercial software, whereas piracy just leaches off the success of the commercial product, and the work of its programmers, all the while harming its business and contributes nothing back to the market. Open source could replace commercial software; it has a stable and effective business model. You can't say either of those facts about piracy.
I too am a relativist, and I agree with your point, but as part of fairness being relative, it's also relative to certain frames of reference. Popular opinion is one, like you say, but not the only one. If you were to measure fairness against, for example, the capitalist dream, then anything where you work hard to create that is popular deserves money, in which case, file sharing doesn't have a case. You could also measure it against what is healthy for further art creation in the future, and file sharing doesn't have a case there either. What the people want and what will make them happiest (in the long term) are sometimes completely different things.
Slashdot Mirror
As you said, 128-256mb of system ram is a joke at $1500+.
The production of tangible objects is more open to variation, since you have a huge spectrum of techniques at your disposal. You can truly "think outside the box" to tools that others may have not even considered yet, and create true innovation. Not only that, but others can easily find other ways to do the same thing in a completely different way, and the two ideas can compete.
Software is built from limited sets of CPU instructions. For 99% of the tasks that a computer has to do, there is one most efficient way to do it, and we can't afford to sell off those best practices to any one person or group. If software patents are to stay, their scope must apply only to extremely high-level, subjective concepts (e.g. GUIs), rather than lower level, under-the-hood concepts (e.g. linked lists).
... which is, ironically, the same tool most commonly used against them!
So, we haven't exactly proved that this second internet suggestion from a former FBI agent isn't exactly what he said it is. In fact, I would call it a rather large leap in logic to translate "better accountability" into "we want to spy on you" (as the FP did). Perhaps, "we want to enforce the law more efficiently" would have been apt, but no, he goes straight for the spying. Now, this will forever go down in people's minds without a shadow of a doubt that the FBI tried to spy on them, and possibly will be used to justify their paranoia when someone questions them.
Look I'm sorry that I'm flying off the handle a bit, but I get mightily sick of all this paranoia and negativity surrounding power, especially when it seems to be self-justifying. I'm sceptical, you're paranoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H concerned, maybe I should just leave it at that.
Exactly. Remember kids, if you constantly abuse your freedoms they can and will be taken away from you. Let's cherish the fact that we don't have an oppressive government in power.
What did David Koresh have to do with domestic surveillance? Was your point that I was thinking dangerous thoughts, and the last guy who did that was allegedly burned to death by the FBI?
Everyone tells me the FBI wants to spy on me, as if they are waging a war against my privacy, and we should fight back. It's always been a very "us vs them" attitude. What people fail to explain to me is why the FBI wants to invade your privacy at any cost. If you can satisfactorily explain to me that, I'll take your paranoid assumptions about their intentions more seriously.
OK, sorry guys, that was just lame...
But they are targeting everyone! These companies will pass the costs down to the customers in an effort to regain profit levels. Add more suits like this, and using fossil fuels suddenly becomes a lot less economically efficient. Many, many people are sued indirectly for their fair share of the compensation.
So, who would pay for the FOSS projects?
Libertarian telling everyone else how to raise their children = +5, insightful
Someone else acknowledging that parents can raise their children their way, so long as it doesn't interfere with others = +3, Interesting (at best)
Exactly. I've always been very sympathetic to the think-of-the-children crowd, right up until they start significantly interfering with me and my tax dollars.
However, while we're here, I'd like to point something out:That's from the ALP website. It makes a certain amount of sense that they block those kinds of media, because child pornography is illegal, and X-Rated possession of X-Rated material is only permitted in the ACT and sold via mail order. In a vast majority of the country, the sale of hardcore pornography is illegal, and the internet is a loophole in the enforcement of the law. It makes sense to plug the enforcement loophole, so the law is clear and easy to follow. Perhaps the problem isn't so much the mandatory filtering, but the laws that it helps enforce? Perhaps we need a better classification system, or at least lift the ban on X-rated movies?
... the RIAA "expert", who is against P2P, is called "borderline incompetent" by not just an expert, but by one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing! That's right. The RIAA's shill is an "expert", the guy who opposes him is a scientist, so he must be right!
Look, to be fair, the guy probably is incompetent, but Slashdot just has a way of questioning the facts only at convenient times.
(Mods, look away for a sec...)
You sound like an intolerant extremist nutjob. You've made it perfectly clear that you don't believe in the greys in life, you don't believe in mitigating circumstances, and you believe that fighting censorship should be above:
a) The will of the people (except your will, of course!)
b) National security
c) Privacy
d) Well, everything really
And all for what? Censorship doesn't turn a government fascist. It has been integrated successfully into societies for many years, and we still haven't seen any stable democracies turn to fascism. Censorship of political speech can be a sign that a government is proposing to overthrow the political system in favour of fascism, but that is neither guaranteed, nor what's happening here. But then again, I'm assuming your irrational fear of censorship stems from something that, in a different context, could have been rational. Perhaps you don't like censorship because the word "censorship" looks ugly.
Thankfully, those of us who live in democracies can feel secure in knowing that your personal preferences only exercise a tiny influence on our government, at best.
With making available copies of copyrighted works, in a vast majority of cases, there is no plausible reason for the works to be made available, aside from allowing others to copy those works for themselves. The harm caused by those vast majority of cases far outweighs the benefits brought by those tiny minority of cases when the person has a legitimate reason for doing so. Therefore, I have no problem with the making available theory, so long as the accused failed to take the necessary precautions to prevent copyright infringement.
While we're here, though, I'd also like to say that the exorbitant amounts for each infringement make a certain amount of sick sense. You're being punished not just for your offences, but for every offence down the line. You share to 20 people, they each share to another 20, then each of the 400 share to another 20, etc, etc. All those copies are a copy from your copy. There is A LOT of potential damage from each infringement, and the numbers reflect that.
Looking at file-sharing as a business model for supplying the world with culture, it's not hard to see why it won't work. The file-sharing business model is supplied by the copyright industry, and yet it competes with it. The file-sharing business model is considerably more attractive than the copyright model, so it should end up eating pretty much all of the customer base of the copyright model. The copyright model would die, but then, where would the file-sharing model get its new fix of art?
File sharing is NOT a stable, viable alternative, because it's just a leech on the side of the copyright industry. Once the industry is sucked dry, file sharing can't go on, unless people are content with listening to the same music over and over, watching the same movies over and over, etc.
I too am a relativist, and I agree with your point, but as part of fairness being relative, it's also relative to certain frames of reference. Popular opinion is one, like you say, but not the only one. If you were to measure fairness against, for example, the capitalist dream, then anything where you work hard to create that is popular deserves money, in which case, file sharing doesn't have a case. You could also measure it against what is healthy for further art creation in the future, and file sharing doesn't have a case there either. What the people want and what will make them happiest (in the long term) are sometimes completely different things.