People produced content for hundreds of years before copyright cartels and any copyright law.
Fuck, I am soooo sick of that argument! It makes no sense, as it completely fails to account for change. The internet pre-dates copyright law. That should be the end of the matter.
Who said the **AA are paying politicians? Y'know, there are a hell of a lot of people out there who actually support copyright, not because they were "brainwashed" or "bribed", but because they recognise the effect of copyright law in an age where works can be effortlessly copied and distributed. These politicians can appreciate such problems, even if they aren't up on the finer points of the technology. I don't think it's necessary to bribe them. Why waste the money, when you can just convince them with rhetoric?
If the US is so upset about copyright infringement abroad, why don't they stop exporting the culture to these countries? If the problem is so huge and their IP so insecure, it should be economically viable to pull out of those particular markets. If the countries want the US culture enough, they'll be forced to clean up their act. The only disadvantage is to the US, who would prefer to export the IP and to blackmail the countries at the same time (read: have their cake and eat it too).
Didn't the RIAA push for flexible pricing before? I swear I saw an article about it on Slashdot, but I can't find it. Basically they wanted to raise the price of certain releases, and lower the price of others to about $.70 IIRC.
I don't think there would be enough takers even for the lossless to financially justify any such changes. I have no doubt there would be a market for both lossless formats, but they would simply be too small. Many people out there can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps. So, yes. Still dreaming.
We have to arrive at some standard of what constitutes "good and evil" and often that is only by debate and consensus. Although in some occasions it is difficult to determine, it mostly boils down to some rather simple, well-worn, well-understood principles that have been accepted for millennia -- that is why most of us can quite happily agree that certain things ARE most definitely evil and certain things ARE most definitely good.
This thread is about censorship, which is by no means agreed upon. Google is being painted as evil because they (previously) didn't resist censorship. If they resist the censorship in Iran, they will fit an entirely different definition of evil. I'd have no trouble with people calling things "good" and "evil" if they acknowledged the subjectiveness inherent in the terms, but they often don't. From that ignorance, we get things like terrorism and the the war on terror. Some people can't accept that there are people out there who don't want freedom.
The argument that we cannot determine between good and evil is, in my experience, usually made by people who feel uncomfortable with moral judgements simply because they suspect the judgements of others aren't likely to go in their favour.
I have little doubt. Any situation where someone holds a minority opinion, will often see the person trying to defend their opinion, and trying stop the opposing opinion being taken for granted. That's the whole point of my argument: that people are taking morality for granted, and that it doesn't hurt to think outside the box every once in a while.
Those who live amorally who are the ones who have most to gain from obfuscating the idea of good and evil as distinct, distinguishable qualities.
There it is. Straight for the jugular. OK wise-ass, let me contradict you. I don't have anything to gain by obfuscating the idea of good and evil (as if the situation needed obfuscation). I generally don't break the law. No exaggeration, no cover-up. I even stay within social taboos. As far as anyone is concerned, I am an upstanding citizen. I lead a very morally "safe" life, and I don't give any reason for anyone to believe that I am evil. My father was like that too. He had his own moral code, but he also recognised that others held different ones. Therefore, he never took it for granted. That's two people who don't fit your theory, and I'm sure there are many more out there. As someone who is simultaneously "good" and doesn't believe in that concept, let me say that it is (IMHO) evil to profile people based on their beliefs, that it is evil to enforce your beliefs on others, and that it is evil simply to paint another as "evil". Now you have no reason to toss aside my argument based on perceived habits that I don't have.
After all, look at the success we have filtering spam adverts for viagra, cialis etc. from our mailboxes.
I think you need to count your blessings. It has worked for many emails, and I'm sure Iran will have similarly significant success in their censorship efforts.
First, they came for the "inappropriate" text messagers. But I did not speak out, because I felt our society was developing morally vacuous subculture.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" emailers. But I did not speak out, because I thought our younger generation was developing disrespect for Allah.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" web-surfers. But I did not speak out, because the web is full of blasphemous, immoral, illegal sites.
Then they came for me - I hoped no-one would find out about my *some minor offence*, but hopefully, with some good behaviour, I'll eventually regain some standing in society.
There, I said it. All this analysis of who is good and who is evil, it's all rubbish. While we humans disagree on issues of what constitutes evil, companies cannot possibly win (although, admittedly, some don't seem to try). For example, I believe that it is wrong for anyone to enforce their value system onto anyone else, but of course there are many out there who disagree. Who's right? Is the answer to that even possible to determine? It's a tired point, but it still needed to be said, and will continue to need to be said as long as people preach "good" and "evil" to those around them.
DRM is "defective by design", because it is designed to make defective anything it applies itself to. If anyone implements online voting, I'm sure they won't design it to be insecure, defective, or stupid (as someone mentioned earlier). Leave it alone!
... now would be the perfect time to point out that the RIAA did this before. Remember the blank media tax? It's not just all your music is belong to us, so much as all your potentially musical media, your distribution channels, your computers (remember the CBTPA?), your internets, basically your cultures are belong to us.
Man, that geeky reference just took a massive beating.
I've never like the concept of hypocrisy. It seems like a way of rejecting an idea, or piece of advice based on the person, not the advice/idea itself. Perhaps we should be judging her for her skill at the job above her history.
... would it work in practice? Wouldn't tap into good ol' fashioned human greed, and force those penny-pinching rich folk out there to only accept "poor" rates? Wouldn't the egalitarians cry murder as the poor are elevated above the rich? It seems nice, but giving to the poor, taking from the rich, it isn't what capitalism is for.
So if a majority wants a Jews exterminated because they made you lose the last war then that is OK too?
I wasn't saying anything was OK. It is expected that the will of the majority will rule a democracy. Whether you think that is OK is purely your business. If you don't like it, why don't you move somewhere a bit more fascist? Then again, you probably won't escape censorship, so much as swap it for censorship that people don't want. Face it. You have it pretty good.
Self censorship is one of the worst forms of censorship because it can never be determined whether any censorship took place at all.
Bull. That's the difference between serious, committed censorship and the kind we get here. If we were serious about censoring public opinion and expression, we wouldn't get news stories like this on Slashdot. This is a case of self censorship. I can tell it has occurred, can you?
It is an extreme form of conservatism, as all new ideas first have to be a minority opinion before they can reach a majority.
That would be true if it were the opinions themselves that were being censored. In actual fact, it's often the way the values are presented that are censored, and when they are censored, you can often seek them out if you really want to. As it stands, I'd consider it a mild form of conservatism.
Slashdot Mirror
He's a witch! Burn him! burn him!
Who said the **AA are paying politicians? Y'know, there are a hell of a lot of people out there who actually support copyright, not because they were "brainwashed" or "bribed", but because they recognise the effect of copyright law in an age where works can be effortlessly copied and distributed. These politicians can appreciate such problems, even if they aren't up on the finer points of the technology. I don't think it's necessary to bribe them. Why waste the money, when you can just convince them with rhetoric?
If the US is so upset about copyright infringement abroad, why don't they stop exporting the culture to these countries? If the problem is so huge and their IP so insecure, it should be economically viable to pull out of those particular markets. If the countries want the US culture enough, they'll be forced to clean up their act. The only disadvantage is to the US, who would prefer to export the IP and to blackmail the countries at the same time (read: have their cake and eat it too).
No, it isn't redundant. The higher quality refers to the audio stream, the DRM-free refers to the wrapper. Most people got that.
Didn't the RIAA push for flexible pricing before? I swear I saw an article about it on Slashdot, but I can't find it. Basically they wanted to raise the price of certain releases, and lower the price of others to about $.70 IIRC.
I don't think there would be enough takers even for the lossless to financially justify any such changes. I have no doubt there would be a market for both lossless formats, but they would simply be too small. Many people out there can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps. So, yes. Still dreaming.
Censorship? Isn't censorship only executed by people who have no right to control what they censor (i.e. they didn't create it)?
I thought it went more like this:
First, they came for the "inappropriate" text messagers. But I did not speak out, because I felt our society was developing morally vacuous subculture.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" emailers. But I did not speak out, because I thought our younger generation was developing disrespect for Allah.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" web-surfers. But I did not speak out, because the web is full of blasphemous, immoral, illegal sites.
Then they came for me - I hoped no-one would find out about my *some minor offence*, but hopefully, with some good behaviour, I'll eventually regain some standing in society.
There, I said it. All this analysis of who is good and who is evil, it's all rubbish. While we humans disagree on issues of what constitutes evil, companies cannot possibly win (although, admittedly, some don't seem to try). For example, I believe that it is wrong for anyone to enforce their value system onto anyone else, but of course there are many out there who disagree. Who's right? Is the answer to that even possible to determine? It's a tired point, but it still needed to be said, and will continue to need to be said as long as people preach "good" and "evil" to those around them.
DRM is "defective by design", because it is designed to make defective anything it applies itself to. If anyone implements online voting, I'm sure they won't design it to be insecure, defective, or stupid (as someone mentioned earlier). Leave it alone!
OOo looks much better, IMHO. It actually uses grey well, with plenty of colourful icons so that it doesn't look bleak and boxy.
What do we have here, another completely off-topic troll?
As much as I support evolution, we simply do not need another flamewar. Both sides have suffered too many casualties.
... now would be the perfect time to point out that the RIAA did this before. Remember the blank media tax? It's not just all your music is belong to us, so much as all your potentially musical media, your distribution channels, your computers (remember the CBTPA?), your internets, basically your cultures are belong to us.
Man, that geeky reference just took a massive beating.
I've never like the concept of hypocrisy. It seems like a way of rejecting an idea, or piece of advice based on the person, not the advice/idea itself. Perhaps we should be judging her for her skill at the job above her history.
... would it work in practice? Wouldn't tap into good ol' fashioned human greed, and force those penny-pinching rich folk out there to only accept "poor" rates? Wouldn't the egalitarians cry murder as the poor are elevated above the rich? It seems nice, but giving to the poor, taking from the rich, it isn't what capitalism is for.
Milo Minderbinder? Well I never! I always thought you were fictional!
Seriously though, profiling ACs? I don't think there's a group who could care less.
... complaining about the moderators results in a modding down. I wonder why I could have thought anything different.