>>The whole MIT/BSD culture can be described with one sentance;
>>Being able to read other people's source code is a nice thing, not a fundamental freedom.
Which is interesting considering that the roots of open source started in MIT's labbs with people like R. Stallman in the 60's. Its a shame they haven't followed the example set by their students.
Well that's the LAN parties illegal then as well. If iPod users here are in violation, what's an SMB share at QGL constitute?
*Sigh*
Yet another means for driving underground what could be used instead as a legitimate revenue stream.
As for Bittorrent, there are companies distributing updates and patches through it, along side Linux distributions which *should* at least have stopped them [corporate interest clause] and yet we see that going down as well.
Copyright has for a long time been biased in favour of the user, perhaps too much so, but this is not a compromise, it is the same problem but in reverse and exacerbated. Placing all the rights into the hands of publishers and ostensibly the artists leaving the consumer with none is more of a gross injustice than giving too much to the consumer at the possible expense of the artist.
If a product is interesting to enough people then people will share it, it is a s simple as that. Most people will ignore the fact that it constitutes stealing. However, this also constitutes a very powerful form of free advertising for companies in a medium where most advertising is ignored [eg. E-Mail ads and those annoying pop-ups] potentially opening those companies up to another re4venue stream.
An example: Much of the music I own I heard first on the radio. Similar stories abound on the net. Download a low-medium quality rip of an album or movie, find you enjoy it - buy it - else delete it. You also don't get the pretty album art with a download unless you do some hard searching.
Another way of looking at it is the question: "Have you ever wanted a single song that was only available on an album where you hate/dislike the rest of the disk?" I answer "yes" a lot to that question, I'm also fairly poor. The ability to download single songs is not yet at a stage where it mirrors the choices offered by CD/DVD vendors.
P2P is often described in the media as being illegal. This as any informed Slashdotter will of course know is grossly untrue. P2P systems such as Skype or Seti@Home which take advantage of the Ad-Hoc nature inherent within the Internet are not illegal and by itself neither is file sharing [Although serving copyrighted content is a whole other can of worms].
If suing/ prosecuting those who operate networks used for illegal activities is justifiable then why aren't the Telco's who own the copper and fibre networks being hauled in front of courts? Its their networks being abused as much as its say Kazaa's. Road networks are used for illegal racing, parts dealers to obtain speed and performance enhancing gear, so why aren't they liable in the same way as a file share network?
The networks are a service, they have a legitimate purpose - the sharing of information. Their usage only becomes illegal when the use of that service becomes an abuse of that service. How does that differ from the above examples where the service providers are not liable?
We are using an electronic medium that traverses borders? Nope: phone phreaks, spammers and almost every type of crook you can imagine uses the telephone networks and/or internet to conduct or plan illegal activities. Yet it is them who are targeted not their service providers.
So is it because the net is an inherently more lawless environment than the other networked systems allowing them to squeeze more money out of ISP's and small businesses instead of having to target [relatively] poor end-users? Looks like it doesn't it?
So to cut a long story short: Sharing good. Court-cases [potentially] bad.
Slashdot Mirror
http://yro.slashdot.org/~Es02/journal/101257/
I wonder, with all that power, if it would play pong?
>>The whole MIT/BSD culture can be described with one sentance;
>>Being able to read other people's source code is a nice thing, not a fundamental freedom.
Which is interesting considering that the roots of open source started in MIT's labbs with people like R. Stallman in the 60's. Its a shame they haven't followed the example set by their students.
Is it stocked with warez mp3s and Div-X ;-] ?
If so they'll hunt you down and bomb it from the sky[pe].
Well that's the LAN parties illegal then as well. If iPod users here are
in violation, what's an SMB share at QGL constitute?
*Sigh*
Yet another means for driving underground what could be used instead as a legitimate revenue stream.
As for Bittorrent, there are companies distributing updates and patches through it, along side Linux distributions which *should* at least have stopped them [corporate interest clause] and yet we see that going down
as well.
Copyright has for a long time been biased in favour of the user, perhaps too much so, but this is not a compromise, it is the same problem but in reverse and exacerbated. Placing all the rights into the hands of publishers and ostensibly the artists leaving the consumer with none is more of a gross injustice than giving too much to the consumer at the possible expense of the artist.
If a product is interesting to enough people then people will share it, it is a s simple as that. Most people will ignore the fact that it constitutes stealing. However, this also constitutes a very powerful form of free advertising for companies in a medium where most advertising is ignored [eg. E-Mail ads and those annoying pop-ups] potentially opening those companies up to another re4venue stream.
An example: Much of the music I own I heard first on the radio. Similar stories abound on the net. Download a low-medium quality rip of an album or movie, find you enjoy it - buy it - else delete it. You also don't get the pretty album art with a download unless you do some hard searching.
Another way of looking at it is the question: "Have you ever wanted a single song that was only available on an album where you hate/dislike the rest of the disk?" I answer "yes" a lot to that question, I'm also fairly poor. The ability to download single songs is not yet at a stage where it mirrors the choices offered by CD/DVD vendors.
P2P is often described in the media as being illegal. This as any informed Slashdotter will of course know is grossly untrue. P2P systems such as Skype or Seti@Home which take advantage of the Ad-Hoc nature inherent within the Internet are not illegal and by itself neither is file sharing [Although serving copyrighted content is a whole other can of worms].
If suing/ prosecuting those who operate networks used for illegal activities is justifiable then why aren't the Telco's who own the copper and fibre networks being hauled in front of courts? Its their networks being abused as much as its say Kazaa's. Road networks are used for illegal racing, parts dealers to obtain speed and performance enhancing gear, so why aren't they liable in the same way as a file share network?
The networks are a service, they have a legitimate purpose - the sharing of information. Their usage only becomes illegal when the use of that service becomes an abuse of that service. How does that differ from the above examples where the service providers are not liable?
We are using an electronic medium that traverses borders? Nope: phone phreaks,
spammers and almost every type of crook you can imagine uses the telephone
networks and/or internet to conduct or plan illegal activities. Yet it is them
who are targeted not their service providers.
So is it because the net is an inherently more lawless environment than the other networked systems allowing them to squeeze more money out of ISP's and small businesses instead of having to target [relatively] poor end-users? Looks like it doesn't it?
So to cut a long story short: Sharing good. Court-cases [potentially] bad.