That's true, but if you make it very public, and represent it as the version that people will end up buying, then you may be liable for the unfair press.
The GPL exploits the copyright system to essentially do the opposite of what was intended, force people to release changes to intellectual property.
Buh-bong. GPL does exactly what copyrights were intended to do, at least, by some people: they allow a work to be controlled by its creator. If its creator wishes to make it free and retain the right to keep it free while watching it grow, then they can use the GPL.
And lastly, copyrights are not necessarily evil but they are currently too powerful, and ownership is retained for far too long.
Well obviously, but don't tell anyone else around here, because you might ever-so-slightly jade them against their constant stream of free entertainment on their high-speed internet connections, and possibly even their constant stream of bourgeoise entitlement. All you'll get is an overrated mod.
"We" decry copyrights as evil because they reduce the freedom of the end-user. The GPL uses copyright law to turn that situation around, effectively guaranteeing the freedoms of the end-user. There is no contradiction.
The GPL is not separate to copyrights. It relies on copyrights. There are other licenses that don't, but it does. There's no "copyrights are one thing, but the GPL is another". Copyrights are an artist's rights over their work, including their right to guarantee the availability of source code.
They are free to do so, the GPL does not restrict how a person or a company uses a piece of code. However, if they wish to distribute it to end-users beyond themselves, then they must ensure that those end users are given the same amount of Freedom that the company received.
Great, but they must be forced against their will to do so. Let's face it: information wants to be free, except when it's our information, then it's free exactly how we say it is. All thanks to copyright.
How can we decry copyrights as evil, when we keep trying to enforce the GPL? What if a company wants to use that piece of code, and not release the source for it? Information wants to be free, you know.
This is wrong. Copyright raises price and doesn't lower them.
That's not what I meant at all. Of course copyright raises prices. Without copyright, the few works that would be produced from then on would have to compete with identical free versions of itself, and nothing can do that.
What I was referring to was that given copyright, increasingly efficient business practices leads to (eventually) more competition against those companies refusing to lower their margins, and then lower prices. Not lower than without copyright naturally, just as opposed to what would happen if margins stayed the same or thinned, while prices stayed the same or raised.
Don't forget we're discussing copy protection, not copyright.
I've made three posts to this article, and every one has been followed up with one of your posts. Are you following me?;)
Sure it does, actually the invention of the lock necessitated the need for lockpicks.That's not what I meant, and you know it. I'm talking about illegal uses. The fact that such a tool exists, doesn't excuse its illegal uses.
That doesn't explain how copy protection saves money, it may explain how content creators make more money though.
Fatter margins = better leverage for competition and for consumers to press companies for better deals.
Except we now have more advertising.
We haven't satisfied the second step.
Other than that, you're right. I think there is potential there to lower prices, but the truth is that we aren't realising it to any degree, and meanwhile, we're paying for it.
Provided you don't have any defects, copy protection, on average, saves you money (in theory).
More copy protection -> less piracy -> more viewership -> more money per ad screened -> less ads needed to be screened -> less chance the average viewer will spend money on advertised item -> more money in average viewer's pocket (not to mention less advertising being its own reward)
Yeah, I know. The first step is a little dubious. I do believe that copy protection helps prevent casual piracy, but as to how much viewership that will actually glean is completely unknown.
Technically no. Even if the DMCA is bought and paid for, it is part of copyright law, and breaking it is copyright infringement.
You can look at it like this: now copyright holders have the right to determine whether or not their works are encrypted. If someone goes against their wishes, they are trampling a right that copyright gives copyright holders, and thus infringing on that copyright.
Perhaps, just like with malice and incompetence, there is an equivalent relationship between cooked and bad intelligence.
Scratch that.
Perhaps, just like with perceived malice and perceived incompetence, there is an equivalent relationship between intelligence perceived to be cooked and perceived to be bad (by someone basing this on heresay).
I also thought this was no surprise. Morality, how you treat your fellow man, all goes out the window when they want your head on a pike.
Who actually believes that our governments have any reason to exist anymore beyond their existence itself?
I do. Most sane people. The fact that something has survival instincts, doesn't mean it can't have other purposes as well. Or perhaps I'm mistaken, and we are incapable of doing anything except fulfil our most immediate biological urges.
You'd think so, but, in fact, often the confirmation comes the other way around. I look at people (when I'm in the same care with them) to see if they check their blind spot, and I only notice when they do check their blind spot (it's happened with one person I know, and he's no saint - he just knows I watch him when he drives).
Yeah, and I don't know if I've ever seen a car driver who obeys all the traffic laws. Most commonly, it's speeding, failing to stop at a stop sign, or changing lanes without checking a blind spot. What's your point?
But that's the problem! No-one would ever use what they paid for, since they weren't actually sold the bandwidth that they were told they were sold on paper.
Ha, isn't sad that empathy for different viewpoints must be padded so heavily with disclaimers?
Seriously though, unlike physical goods, airports are not the only point of entry for digital goods. In most homes, businesses, and many public venues, we have access to something euphemistically known as the information superhighway. It's immediate, it's cheap, and it can be virtually anonymous. Laptop checks are obsolete on arrival.
Nope! Decoding isn't illegal, just distributing tools that circumvent effective copy protection. If you don't need tools, and you can circumvent by hand, then good for you. ROT-13 also wouldn't count as a copy-protection measure, because it doesn't restrict copying. Think about it: if there was some device that could read a ROT-13-encoded medium and change it into cleartext (amazing, I know), then you could just copy the medium, and it would still work on any device. Thus, I think we can conclude that ROT-13 is not a copy protection measure.
Even then, we'd have to debate whether or not the parent qualifies as a copyrightable work. Oh my, this could take all day!
I don't know about this one, but certainly the US's DMCA attacks only technology who's primary purpose is to circumvent copy protection. Neither MacOSX nor Linux fit that description. Good luck getting libdvdcss through though.
... why someone selling copyrighted works is considered so much worse than someone giving them away on P2P networks by the hundreds?
The latter ends up being a far faster, more efficient way of spreading copyrighted works, and puts a far greater dent in demand and consequently sales. Selling has its limitations, whereas anonymous P2P is, well, anonymous. If you pay money, you at least have to give some personal details away, so consequently it's more risky. The price tag also serves as a deterrent.
Still, I can't help but be just a little confused at why "big business listening to the government" is so reviled. Do people really prefer it the other way around?
The first paragraph was a fairly neutral piece of information about the article you read (and was quite interesting).
Notice, if you will, it was written in an almost defensive tone. I even took a little time out to emphasise the word "excessive" in "excessive playing", lest some person who only skimmed over my post reply saying "surely a bit of game-playing every now and again will be less mind-corrupting than X, Y, or Z, all of which children are exposed to these days", or something similar but a lot less polite and a lot more aggressive. That's basically what I expected, and I must say, I was rather unpleasantly surprised by a post similarly impolite and aggressive, but from someone shoving viewpoints down my throat that I actually share. The fact that I share those viewpoints made all the worse, because it made me realise just how incompetent some of the ambassadors for my opinions really are.
The most generous interpretation I can come up with is that you were being ironic, but it comes off more as joining the parent in his disdain for game based journalism.
Gee, thanks (note: irony). The best interpretation (as opposed to "most generous interpretation") I can come up with is that I was doing exactly what I said, bringing up a point of interest that would most likely clash with the parent's way of thinking, and then at the end, having a little laugh at the study's expense. I must admit, I wasn't considering the study's feelings when I gossiped about it, but it was supposed to be harmless fun.
In my mind, it wasn't directed at you but more in general at the knee-jerk reaction that any anti-gaming article engenders.
Well, next time you want to lump me with some portion of the slashdot groupthink, I suggest you don't link to the Wikipedia article on strawmen.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, but if you make it very public, and represent it as the version that people will end up buying, then you may be liable for the unfair press.
Oh god! I just replied to you! This is where it starts!
How can we decry copyrights as evil, when we keep trying to enforce the GPL? What if a company wants to use that piece of code, and not release the source for it? Information wants to be free, you know.
What I was referring to was that given copyright, increasingly efficient business practices leads to (eventually) more competition against those companies refusing to lower their margins, and then lower prices. Not lower than without copyright naturally, just as opposed to what would happen if margins stayed the same or thinned, while prices stayed the same or raised.
Don't forget we're discussing copy protection, not copyright.
Other than that, you're right. I think there is potential there to lower prices, but the truth is that we aren't realising it to any degree, and meanwhile, we're paying for it.
Provided you don't have any defects, copy protection, on average, saves you money (in theory).
More copy protection -> less piracy -> more viewership -> more money per ad screened -> less ads needed to be screened -> less chance the average viewer will spend money on advertised item -> more money in average viewer's pocket (not to mention less advertising being its own reward)
Yeah, I know. The first step is a little dubious. I do believe that copy protection helps prevent casual piracy, but as to how much viewership that will actually glean is completely unknown.
Technically no. Even if the DMCA is bought and paid for, it is part of copyright law, and breaking it is copyright infringement.
You can look at it like this: now copyright holders have the right to determine whether or not their works are encrypted. If someone goes against their wishes, they are trampling a right that copyright gives copyright holders, and thus infringing on that copyright.
But the existence of that technology does not excuse its use.
Perhaps, just like with malice and incompetence, there is an equivalent relationship between cooked and bad intelligence.
Scratch that.
Perhaps, just like with perceived malice and perceived incompetence, there is an equivalent relationship between intelligence perceived to be cooked and perceived to be bad (by someone basing this on heresay).
Fuck off twitter, we don't want your anti-MS ra... ... oh what, you're twiiiter? Oh I'm so sorry. Please continue.
You'd think so, but, in fact, often the confirmation comes the other way around. I look at people (when I'm in the same care with them) to see if they check their blind spot, and I only notice when they do check their blind spot (it's happened with one person I know, and he's no saint - he just knows I watch him when he drives).
Yeah, and I don't know if I've ever seen a car driver who obeys all the traffic laws. Most commonly, it's speeding, failing to stop at a stop sign, or changing lanes without checking a blind spot. What's your point?
But that's the problem! No-one would ever use what they paid for, since they weren't actually sold the bandwidth that they were told they were sold on paper.
Ha, isn't sad that empathy for different viewpoints must be padded so heavily with disclaimers?
Seriously though, unlike physical goods, airports are not the only point of entry for digital goods. In most homes, businesses, and many public venues, we have access to something euphemistically known as the information superhighway. It's immediate, it's cheap, and it can be virtually anonymous. Laptop checks are obsolete on arrival.
What a shame that people are more sensible than that.
Even then, we'd have to debate whether or not the parent qualifies as a copyrightable work. Oh my, this could take all day!
I don't know about this one, but certainly the US's DMCA attacks only technology who's primary purpose is to circumvent copy protection. Neither MacOSX nor Linux fit that description. Good luck getting libdvdcss through though.
... why someone selling copyrighted works is considered so much worse than someone giving them away on P2P networks by the hundreds?
The latter ends up being a far faster, more efficient way of spreading copyrighted works, and puts a far greater dent in demand and consequently sales. Selling has its limitations, whereas anonymous P2P is, well, anonymous. If you pay money, you at least have to give some personal details away, so consequently it's more risky. The price tag also serves as a deterrent.
Lol :)
Still, I can't help but be just a little confused at why "big business listening to the government" is so reviled. Do people really prefer it the other way around?