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 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Part Two |
Posted by JonKatz on Wednesday March 08, @11:45AMfrom the corporatism-vs-the-geeks:-first-blood dept.
Note: This is the second in a two-part series.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a frontal assault on the open source ethic, both technological and social. The underlying political issue is both clear and significant: Must we depend on the creative choices and products of a handful of ferociously greedy and monopolistic corporations who have increasingly come to dominate media, culture and entertainment? Or can we define our own cultural experiences? (Read more below.)
Before the passage of this law, the answer was yes; individuals controlled at least some of their choices.
Increasingly, though, the answer now seems to be no; corporatism rules. This act directly affects individuals' consumer options and cultural choices. It also dramatically restricts the right of individual artists to have their works seen, heard and sold. That makes it a First Amendment as well as a corporate issue. One of the Net's universally shared ethics, at least among geeks, has been empowerment and choice, along with a growing open-source instinct about software and technology. But new software and hardware applications that affect entertainment, culture and information are now limited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Before DMCA, sites let users create custom playlists, creating individualized music programs. That practice has been slowed by the law's restrictions on the number of songs from a single artist or album that can be transmitted at one time.
Internet radio stations are still allowed to broadcast music, but under a completely different set of rules. The DMCA stipulates that unlike ordinary radio and TV broadcasters, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies. Webcasts are limited to three songs from one album in any three-hour period.
This is a particularly noxious provision of the DMCA, as it sets a different standard for Net music than for offline music broadcasting. Previously, Net culture has tended to be freer than offline culture. Music, the spark for a surprising percentage of the Net's legal battles, has become a metaphor for the emerging political struggle over who defines and propagates culture on the Web and the rest of the Net.
The implications are enormous. Several years ago, the federal courts overturned not one but two efforts by Congress to police "indecent" speech on the Net: the Communications Decency Act and its equally hoary successor, the baby CDA. The federal court ruling, one of the first significant legal precedents set regarding online freedom, held that the Internet had established a tradition of free speech and free flow of ideas and opinions that was entrenched and constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. It said congressional efforts to curb that freedom were offensive as well as unconstitutional. Hopefully, that precedent will apply to the DMCA.
Judicial rejection of CDA notwithstanding, the DMCA threatens to do much more harm to freedom on the Net than the CDA ever would have. The Communications Decency Acts, however obnoxious, were both efforts at political theater, staged mostly for constituents. They were ludicrously unenforceable and vague. By contrast, the DMCA is already proving itself shockingly effective.
The Net is, in fact, redefining what content and intellectual property are. Many people of good faith are bitterly divided about that issue. Many artists and companies argue that the distributors of content have the right to be paid for the work they transmit or create, and that music downloaders are stealing, plain and simple. Others sense that music will simply be distributed and sold in freer, more diverse ways. It's a valid debate, and a necessary one. But the DMCA doesn't promote a debate on that issue; in fact, it's a back-door effort by lobbyists and politicians to circumvent debate or discussion entirely.
The law's proponents claim that the DMCA was intended to promote balance, but so far, at least, it tilts sharply towards copyright holders, not copyright challengers. It advances a principle of blind copyright protection that in no way takes into account the Net's unique nature, nor the rights and sensibilities of a generation that defines culture differently. Nor does it even acknowledge the idea of any universal right to define choice, options or personal enjoyment. This kind of pre-Net copyright protection will advance the same sort of tepid and homogeneous culture that the music and movie industries have forced on the offline world by promoting products that can generate enormous revenues, and by gobbling up independent companies and acquiring media and entertainment companies and mass-marketing (and in effect, censoring and moderating) popular culture. Corporatism isn't the same as capitalism, or corporations. It's new, bigger, more global and vastly more powerful. It has acquired most mainstream media. It is the primary contributor to the political system. It is viscerally at odds with free speech and individual expression.
Everywhere it reigns, from Wal-Mart to AOL/Time Warner to Microsoft, corporatism discourages creativity, pushes individuals to the margins and promotes conformity and control of software, hardware, intellectual content and culture.
One of the striking aspects of geek culture is that it's so far remained much freer than the mainstream. Software and hardware have enabled individuals to seek out rich, diverse and highly individualized entertainment. The ability to personalize culture in this way is unprecedented, a unique feature of life online.
But that ability is endangered. A less appealing hallmark of geek ideology is the sometimes unconscious but pronounced arrogance that comes from having so much freedom. The belief that even if laws restrict the Net, innovative software and hardware will triumph, is pervasive. The DMCA suggests that may be wishful thinking.
Although many people online pride themselves on their lack of traditional political consciousness, what they have built -- the software and hardware that runs the Net and the Web -- is intensely political, especially to corporations seeking footholds online. Geeks may be the only barrier standing between us and the rampaging corporatists drooling over profits from cyberspace.
The primary political struggle of the 21st Century -- corporatism versus individualism -- has erupted right under our noses. And with little political consciousness or response, we seem to be losing the first big battle.
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| The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. Listen to CmdrTaco, Hemos, and Nate talk about the latest events to happen - or not happen in the computer world. Perhaps you are seeking Jon Katz's series of articles related to recent events in Colorado. These articles include Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth or The Price of Being Different, For something different, try reading a little essay Thoughts from the Furnace about the internet, and flame. And for a bit of an amusing take on the Open Source world, check out Open Source as an Ant Farm Update: 01/03 03:10 by CowboyNeal: |
| This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted. |
| Well, Duh! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @11:50AM EST (#2) |
| I>The primary political struggle of the 21st Century -- corporatism versus individualism -- has erupted right under our noses. And with little political consciousness or response, we seem to be losing the first big battle. Jon, Where have you been? This has been going full steam for the better part of ten years. Thank you captain obvious. |
| Leave Katz Alone (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @11:58AM EST (#9) |
| He's drawing attention to this problem, which is very important right now. |
| Re:Leave Katz Alone (Score:1) by Rei on Wednesday March 08, @03:23PM EST (#205) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| This is going to seem weird... but... I actually *agree* with Jon on this one ;) That hasn't happened since his Columbine articles... its a strange feeling ;) Now he's not talking about the horrors of genetic engineering or the nine continents of the internet or little fluffy bunny rabbits or whatever else he gets worked up about (not sure about the last one, I'm just extrapolating on the current trend). But, for once... I agree! - Rei A woman's place is in the house... and the Senate. |
| Re:Leave Katz Alone (Score:1) by Deimos_ (deimos@nospam.com) on Wednesday March 08, @11:20PM EST (#312) (User Info) http://kfa.cx/ |
| He's been to some degree 'right' on all his articles/essays. The only thing wrong is he doesn't see the big picture. Slowly, our freedom is ebbing away, taken in small, almost unnoticeable chunks by those who derive their power from us! The power the internet puts back in the hands of the people scares the hell out of government. We are begining to become oppressed. Time to oppress the government instead. "If everything that was alive is now dead, and everything that is now alive is going to die, wheres the sacred part come in?" -- George Carlin |
| Re:Well, Duh! (Score:0) by stephensamuel on Wednesday March 08, @01:13PM EST (#104) (User Info) |
| Is it simply standard to score anonymous coward as zero, or do you not like the combination of irony and seriousness? Granted the online/corporate fight has been with since the '80s, when the net fought a rear-guard battle against corproatization. Unfortunately, it has mostly occured in places like net.admin, where few general users have forayed. Now the war has hit the suburbs, and people are recognizing that it's more than a theoretical battle. |
| Re:Well, Duh! (Score:0) by delmoi (delmoi at hot mail dot com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:18PM EST (#109) (User Info) |
| Is it simply standard to score anonymous coward as zero Yes. AC posts start at zero, registerd users posts start at 1, with the option to post at 2 if they have > 30 karma [ c h a d o k e r e ] [selectbox \/] |
| Self-limiting choices (Score:1) by Kaiwen (Lee_Kai_Wen@hotmail.spam-b-gone.com) on Wednesday March 08, @08:06PM EST (#281) (User Info) |
This issue is simply yet another case of people creating their own problems. If you don't want to pay for your entertainment, there's a broad body of public domain options available -- from literature to movies to music. The only way there's a problem here is if you insist that your only valid entertainment options are the small percentage of copyrighted works corporations are trying to charge money for. If you don't want to pay for Stephen King, try Edgar Allen Poe. If you don't want to shell out money for U2, listen to Mozart. If you feel imposed upon when paying $8 for a ticket to the latest Jim Carrey flick, watch the Three Stooges. They're all better entertainment anyway. |
| Aye (Score:0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @11:53AM EST (#3) |
| Carumba |
| DCMA, etc. (Score:5, Insightful) by chandler (bwebpages@spamstub.home.com) on Wednesday March 08, @11:55AM EST (#6) (User Info) http://luis.sourceforge.net |
| First of all - I think that this article simply repeats an overused sentiment - that big bad corporations are ruining it for us, the consumer. That's where Ralph Nader (he's running for prez on the Green Party ticket this year, I hear) comes from. But what are we to do about it? Whine, as I'm certain that the one-million-monkeys who post to slashdot will do? Or will we buckle down for a little civil disobedience and get the law reversed? |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:28PM EST (#37) |
| corporations suck. period. But they arnt the problem here. human nature is. people are scared easily and the govm'nt is trying to capitolize on it. Theyre getting nice kickbacks im sure and the genreal public is going "well if someone was playing MY music without paying me id be pissed" which is essantially nonsense. Most people if not all are happy to see people using their work constructivly. The fact that the sales staff is still using data mining app i wrote during lunch one day makes me happy. In terms of what katz said about internet radio, what if the person who help the copyright said you could, do you still have to pay roalties? is it one of those "even if its jsut a pennny" deals. What if you cover a song while playing live on the net? do you have to pay the origonal copyright holder? what if a band wants their album player in whole? would the law prevent it. Katz has made some rather brash statements without anything to back them up with. Does anyone have the text of the law at all or are we all just bitching about hear-say? |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:2) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:44PM EST (#59) (User Info) |
| Civil disobedience is not always very effective, IMO it actually hurts more that it helps. Especially if it is run by this crowd. No flames intended. Look, how do you think it would appear if a bunch of slashdotters and the like engaged in some sort of hacktivism? You would come off as just a bunch of l33t script kiddies and be spun to be the bad guys. Look at what happened at WTO in Seattle. From a post BroncBuster over at attrition posted earlier today: So what we have now is Hacktivism boiling down to nothing more then Script Kiddie antics. Great. I am sure this will help to convince people that it is a legit method of action. All the protests and Dos attacks made for some sexy headlines, but in the long run made the folks attempting the disobedience look like a bunch of hippies with nothing better to do than stage riots, both physical and electronic. Maybe a better track would be to use the channels available to us, like writing your congressmen or joining an association like EFF . Civil disobedience doesn't change laws, Congress does. Go fast, turn left. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:2) by MillMan (millmanatthekeyboarddotcom) on Wednesday March 08, @01:25PM EST (#115) (User Info) |
| The WTO protests were pretty damn effective, I thought. The media might have put a negative spin on it, but the message got out. The media attention allowed the protesters to tell their side of the story, instead of the typical corporate line, or, even more powerful, the fact that people didn't even know what the WTO was or what it does! What percentage of americans do you think knew about the WTO before the protest? It's unfortunate that a lot of people, yourself included, look down on protesting in the way you do. It's as if you'd prefer to just go with what the corporations say and keep your mouth shut, because thats the "repectable" life. It's also unfortunate because this is exactly the kind of publicity we need: how many people even know about these bills? This is step one to get them overturned. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:2) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:44PM EST (#134) (User Info) |
| What message? That a bunch of long hairs impacted the workers commuting in and out of Seattle for 3 days? This isn't the sixties, the ITO protesters were horribly ineffective. The press that I saw never promoted the protesters issues, they just took pictures and reported on the exciting stuff, like rock throwing, masses in the streets, general civil unrest. The interviews I saw on CNN , ABC etc, were the field reporters asking the protesters why they were protesting. Almost every protesters response was something along the lines of " hey man, like, we're for freedom and all that." When asked specifically what they were protesting, most didn't know. I do look down on most civil disobedience because there are better ways to go about making a change happen, specifically when dealing with the US government. Throwing rocks and bottles and staging sit ins does nothing to help reverse or modify the policies or the DMCA. I agree that getting publicity will help in curbing the DMCA, but WTO style antics are not step one, writing you representatives is step one. Save the civil disobedience and hacktivism for the hippies, the anti-DMCA front needs to professional or at least have the appearance that we're not a bunch of pot smokin' kids, and needs to use the avenues in place. They will work if they are used. Go fast, turn left. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:2, Insightful) by Some Strange Guy on Wednesday March 08, @03:14PM EST (#198) (User Info) |
| What message? That a bunch of long hairs impacted the workers commuting in and out of Seattle for 3 days? This isn't the sixties, the ITO protesters were horribly ineffective. The press that I saw never promoted the protesters issues, they just took pictures and reported on the exciting stuff, like rock throwing, masses in the streets, general civil unrest. The interviews I saw on CNN , ABC etc, were the field reporters asking the protesters why they were protesting. Almost every protesters response was something along the lines of " hey man, like, we're for freedom and all that." When asked specifically what they were protesting, most didn't know. I must have been watching the OTHER WTO protests in Seattle that week, since that's not what I saw. Whipping on over to cnn.com, and doing a search for "seattle wto protests" yields two articles at the top of a long list. The first is a classical "free trade is good, even though sometimes it's hard to see that" argument, but the second says, more or less "the protests worked, people are thinking". I do look down on most civil disobedience because there are better ways to go about making a change happen, specifically when dealing with the US government. Throwing rocks and bottles and staging sit ins does nothing to help reverse or modify the policies or the DMCA. I'd argue that throwing rocks and bottles never helps anything, and nonviolent civil disobedience is probably not the most effective tack for changing the DMCA. However, nonviolent civil disobedience has a long history as an effective tool to work towards positive change. Obvious examples are Mahatma Ghandi and the Indian liberation movement, Martin Luther King Jr, and the civil rights movement. Even today, your distasteful "long hairs" are using it effectively in smaller battles, such as the recently-ended tree sit in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe you're convinced that Ghandi could have written to the British governer of India and had much better results, but somehow, I doubt it. Many issues, including the WTO, require the attention of the public at large to start a change. Thoreau wrote the now classic essay Civil Disobedience over a century ago, and it argues the point of civil protest in social action more eloquently than I can, here. Please, don't denegrate a culture or method of social activism you obviously either don't want to or can't understand. |
| Re: Re DMCA, etc (Score:1) by phantomcow on Wednesday March 08, @07:46PM EST (#279) (User Info) |
| The solution of civil disobedience is viable. If everyone ignores the DMCA it will go away. The corporations will not be able to lobby for more draconian laws, because competition will drive them out. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by rfbeck on Thursday March 09, @12:18AM EST (#319) (User Info) |
| I'd argue that throwing rocks and bottles never helps anything... I'd argue that you're wrong. Throwing rocks (and flammable liquids and bombs) is very effective. Violent civil disobedience, whether you like it or not, works. Famous rock thrower Yasir Arafat is now in charge of a semi-autonomous Palestinian state. Rock tossing members of the IRA have almost got themselves a deal for a unified Ireland. Bottle throwing ANC leaders got themselves majority rule in South Africa. And, oh yeah, a few very VIOLENT stone casters got themselves a country a few centuries ago- the United States they called it. So, let's not be too mamby pamby. And let's remember that when it comes to OUR freedoms that the DMCA tries to snuff, well... does "by any means necessary" strike any chords? |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by Grab (graham.bartlett@no.spam.here.pitechnology.com) on Thursday March 09, @05:13AM EST (#337) (User Info) |
| I beg your pardon?! Thread drift here, but... The IRA had a superb chance of peace in NI. But they weren't willing to give up their guns, even though they'd got what they asked for (devolved government) so the British and Irish governments have just ditched it. If the IRA had handed over even a small fraction of their arsenal, the devolved 'state-like' NI parliament would still be going. And although the IRA stated its aims as a united Ireland, the Irish government doesn't actually want them! How's that for irony?! :-) Palestine and South Africa are both examples of where a moderate liberal government can do more than all the protests in the world put together. It took liberal heads of government in both cases to put together the changeover - the 'stone throwers' had nothing to do with it. Off-topic here, but anyway. In essence, I have to say that violent opposition only focusses the attention against fighting that opposition. I'd watch the news a bit better, mate! Grab. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by Yakko (yakkoj@netscape.net) on Wednesday March 08, @06:56PM EST (#269) (User Info) http://www.vim.org/ |
| I do look down on most civil disobedience because there are better ways to go about making a change happen, specifically when dealing with the US government. Such as what? Letter campaigns are more ineffective than violence, afaik... and probably make us look just as stupid in the lawmakers' eyes. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not a bit optimistic. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @07:35AM EST (#347) |
| You're right, of course. This isn't the 60's. Unlike the coverage of the ITO protesters, the news media back then portrayed the war protesters as reasoned, intelligent young adults concerned with American foreign policy. They never portrayed them as long-haired dope-smoking drop-outs. The blacks fighting against discrimination were likewise reported as responsible citizens intent only on making sure the country lived up to the rich promises of it's founder's philosophy. They were never uppity niggers trying to drag the white man down. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by Rysc on Wednesday March 08, @11:01PM EST (#310) (User Info) |
| Civil disobedience is not always very effective, IMO it actually hurts more that it helps. Especially if it is run by this crowd. No flames intended. Look, how do you think it would appear if a bunch of slashdotters and the like engaged in some sort of hacktivism? You would come off as just a bunch of l33t script kiddies and be spun to be the bad guys. Look at what happened at WTO in Seattle. The problem is that few of us want to make use of the system (since it does suck) to change things, we'd rather ignore the system. The problem is that it wont ignore us. We need to use the system until such time as we can make it irrelevent. But, personally, the system makes me sick to watch, I'd never survive participaion. We need some geek who's willing to be a politician (in other words, become the enemy) for the good of all of us. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by lef.forvrin on Thursday March 09, @02:02AM EST (#325) (User Info) |
| Actually, there was nothing civil about the disobediance in Seattle. :P Civil Disobedience means two things: 1. that we defy the law because it is an unjust law. 2. We accept any and all consequences of said law, because in the end it is not the fact that we are getting away with it that is the problem, but the fact that the law is unjust, and we are willing to risk jail, beatings, hazings, and any number of other brutalities to see it repealed. So when you call for civil disobedience, remember Indians getting struck in the head with rattans, and civil rights protestors getting dogs and fire hoses turned on them. |
| Anonymous Meme War (this is not a flame!) (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @06:10AM EST (#342) |
| First: If you think the WTO protests were a stage riot then you don't know what it was really like for those of us involved. For us it was the fist of the people assembled to tell the fascist dominators that we were unhappy. That we wanted a little of the democracy they stole from us back. It was not staged. It's unfortunate that the corporate media was so succesful in spreading distorted memes about the event. Second: Sexy Headlines with accurate coverage of the civil disobediance/protest event is the goal of the event. We must spread our memes. In order for a democratic system to function it must have an informed population. The purpose of the event is to inform the population with our memes as effectivly as possible through the corporate controlled media filters. Third: Congress is a part of the problem, they make shitty laws. Most of them don't actually represent us, the few that do are like snowflakes in a hail storm, they are not going to break any windows. Congress has been corrupted by the corporations. You think they actually READ what you write to them? Most of them only care if there is money or good publicity involved. Nearly all of them work for the corporate lobbyists and special interest groups (which also happen to be typically corporate backed). If the deck wasn't stacked against us we wouldn't be at the point where these types of events are necesary. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @11:32AM EST (#356) |
| Maybe a better track would be to use the channels available to us, like writing your congressmen or joining an association like EFF . Civil disobedience doesn't change laws, Congress does. Joining EFF is your best chance. Unless you are within the "rich" in society you just flat out do not have a voice in government. It use to be "Government for the people, of the people and by the people." but now it is "Governement for the government, of the government and by the government." Individuals writing or calling a congressman/congresswomen have very little effect on how they will act or vote. Unless you have LOTS of $$$$$ and make sizable donations to their election campaigns. Big corporations get what they want most of the time because they use $$$$ t oget what they want. The U.S. Governement is corrupt to the core. The wants of the people don't matter anymore. The DMCA shows what the power of $$$$ has. Corporations use $$$ and lobbiests to get what they want. We as individuals for the most part don't have lots of $$$ nor can we afford to hire a lobbiest to go to congress. If we want change we must as geeks say form a "geek" political party. What do you think would happen if hundreds of thousands if not the millions of geeks banded together and say put up our own candidates, and voted as a block for "our" candidates. We can't settle for the better of two evils. Hell, look at what we have a choice of in November. Al Gore the Bore and George W. Bush man. Jesus, give me a break none of the candidates for President are worth voting for. They are all clowns!!! I think Dan Quale is an example of the combined intelligence of the U.S. Government. The whole concept our governemtn has right now is one of Control of it's people. It's all a matter of time before the NWO is upon us. We as geeks will have to go underground to survive. DMCA, DeCSS, UCITA all these are Direct attacks against a geeks core values, freedom of speech, freedom of inovation, open source etc.. I am beggining to wonder if we really have a chance to beat the corporations and the Government through normal means. I think we may have to come up with some radical new ideas to do it. I don't mean DOS and hack attacks against every corporate Web site and server. Though that does hit them where it hurts, the pocket book. But it only weakens our stance severely. Can a hear an amen for maybe a new political party? No. well It was an idea. Gabriel/TSS! "Take your average person, then realize that half the people in the world are dumber than THAT!" George Carlin |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by Tom Womack (tom_womack@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:45PM EST (#62) (User Info) |
| No. What this article tells us is that the corporations are asking for hideous restrictions on the use of their works. Go one better. Stop using the things. In the words of your grandfather, make your own entertainment - and license it the way you want. You won't make the sort of money the Spice Girls have made; you won't get the exposure, but at least you can think of it as adding to the resources of humanity. The goods are tied to the license; if you take the goods and leave the license, you're committing theft. So leave the goods and leave the license also; stick to, and add to, the pool of liberally-licensed content out there. Did RMS distribute someone else's editor or compiler against their license conditions? Hell no! He wrote emacs and gcc, then used the rights of a creator to license them pleasantly. Tom |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by number_six on Wednesday March 08, @03:08PM EST (#195) (User Info) |
| Go one better. Stop using the things. In the words of your grandfather, make your own entertainment - and license it the way you want. Yes. This is the attitude to take. The problem is, 90-98% of the people who own recording equipment haven't ever attached a Microphone or a Camera to the machines. They just want to duplicate what somebody else already did. We can banter for hours here about wether just duplicating someone else's work is theft or not. I don't think anybody will argue that it is a creative act. |
| WOW (Score:1) by andyf (andyf at wye eigh eightch oh oh dot see oh em) on Wednesday March 08, @04:16PM EST (#233) (User Info) http://www.newfolden.k12.mn.us/legopc |
| I read your message, and I just sat back and said WOW. You hit the nail on the head. I shouldn't be saying "I am gonna listen to Spice Girls whenever and however I want, copyright be damned", it's "If they want me to pay large sums of money to listen to the Spice Girls, I'm not gonna listen to them at all." I'll make my own music. Part of the whole copyright debate seems to stem from our desire for popular culture. We want it because they are paying to put it everywhere.... Andy |
| Anti-wow (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @06:36AM EST (#343) |
| Another great argument from that desire for popular culture is that corporations abuse their power to define popular culture to suit their needs and we want demand more freedoms from that abuse. Corporations use their control of media to promote agendas, and to rip off consumers and artists. Popular Culture should be democratic, it should represent reality, and it should not be engineered to serve the interests of those who own the media. The copyright debate stems from our larger desire of regaining some control back from corporate domination. |
| Invent around them... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @02:59AM EST (#329) |
| Some of us are doing this (see mp3.com), but the problem is we need to get the populace to adopt it, to go for it, like Linux. |
| /. is eating my links. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @03:32AM EST (#331) |
| http://www.icomm.ca/macos/ |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by DemiGodez on Wednesday March 08, @01:20PM EST (#111) (User Info) |
| Read Locke or Thoreau sometime - it has to do with the core political theory upon which our government derives its power as a democracy. Locke's theories can be used on either side of the issue. For example, in Locke's social contract, he states that the purpose of gov't is to do for people that which they can not do for themselves. (That being the only reason we would leave a state of nature and enter into society). It is a very legitimate argument to say that, for example, the music industry needs the goverment to step in to help them protect their property. If the government didn't step in to stop people from getting MP3s for free, the practice of buying CDs would be less prevalent (which Katz shows very well in Geeks). In the social contract perspective this could be perceived as no different than the government agreeing to protect my property (a very core sentiment of social contract theory). Clearly a corporation is a different entity, but not one that Locke himself had a lot of experience with. My point is that there is a philosophical line and the true threat of these new laws is that some some of what they do is good but most is very bad. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by chandler (bwebpages@spamstub.home.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:24PM EST (#113) (User Info) http://luis.sourceforge.net |
| Thanks for the correction - what I meant was that in this case the govmnt is not protecting the rights of all equally. I included it as a base step for the idea of social contract - what I mean gets further fleshed out by Thoreau, particularly in Civil Disobedience. "The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time." -- Jean-Louis Gassée |
| Locke and property rights (Score:2, Insightful) by rgmoore (glandauer@worldnet.att.net) on Wednesday March 08, @02:30PM EST (#172) (User Info) |
It is a very legitimate argument to say that, for example, the music industry needs the goverment to step in to help them protect their property. If the government didn't step in to stop people from getting MP3s for free, the practice of buying CDs would be less prevalent (which Katz shows very well in Geeks). The counterargument, though, is that copyright and IP rights in general are not natural rights in the same way that other property rights are. They are created rights that were invented by society to benefit the public by encouraging creativity. Thus the government is only obligated to protect those rights to the extent that it is generally beneficial. If the web is structured so that it is more beneficial that IP have less protection, then that's the way that it ought to be. |
| Re:Locke and property rights (Score:1) by FalseConsciousness on Wednesday March 08, @07:55PM EST (#280) (User Info) |
| The counterargument, though, is that copyright and IP rights in general are not natural rights in the same way that other property rights are. Natural? Property rights are also created by society. They are not a law of nature, nor are they part of each and every human society that has ever existed. Not natural. Invented by people. Proudhon asked the question "What is property?" and concluded "Property is theft." I have also seen a variation of this, where Donald Gutstein (in his book E.con: How the internet undermines democracy) attributes to Proudhon the statement "Intellectual property is theft." To say that the currect structure of our society is somehow natural and inevitable is to demonstrate a lack of both imagination and insight. |
| Re:Locke and property rights (Score:1) by GenCuster on Thursday March 09, @04:44AM EST (#334) (User Info) |
| "The counterargument, though, is that copyright and IP rights in general are not natural rights in the same way that other property rights are." Let me offer a counter example. If I am a farmer, is the produce my farm my property? Of course. They precedent is this: The products of my property are my property. This was used to justify the idea that slaves' children were also slaves, and owned by the parents owner. Note that the argument that slaves kids were not slaves, was never made. The understood that as long as a slave was a person’s property, the offspring were also property. By the same token, the products of your mind are considered your property. No one can argue your mind is not your property, thus the argument that IP is not property fails. Locke spent a long time crystallizing English Common Laws' precedent, into a consistent system of property law. Which is exactly what is system is based on. Hobbes on the other hand, argued that property was created by society and thus owned by it. If you want to use a respected philosopher in your argument he is much better suited. Best regards, Nate Custer |
| Do? Follow the SUCCESSFUL example of prohibition! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:17PM EST (#157) |
| But what are we to do about it? Whine, as I'm certain that the one-million-monkeys who post to slashdot will do? I'm doing somnething right now. I'm ignoring the law and making perfect digital copies using computer peripherals and breaking region coding on players an importing DVDs and DeCSSing movies and watching then under Linux, and making CD compilations of CDs I own. All for my own personal use. And I'm succeeding. It others do the same, gov't and corps. will realize the futility of protection schemes and they will go the way of DIVX, the bozo bit on Macs, the lawsuits over the VCR, prohibition, crypto regs [in the 9th circuit court]... need more examples? Peacefully disregarding unjust laws and happily going with one's life and normal routine is a stunningly successful means of repealing them. I am not a pirate. I *know* this in my heart. Case closed. I pay fair compensation to the artists who's CDs and DVDs I buy. I do openly flout the RIAAs attempted robbery and imprisonment scheme. It is not consistent with the spirit of IP law. And again, I contunie to SUCCEED in my activities. Have for decades. I've already won. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by richieb (richieb@netlabs.net) on Wednesday March 08, @02:17PM EST (#158) (User Info) http://www.netlabs.net/~richieb |
| I agree that it makes sense to do some of the innovation ourselves, but we can't depend upon that for our consumer rights - we have to simply say that the Government has no right to regulate our private use of products we pay for. The problem is that individual citizens are more and more disconnected from the political process and corporations can use their vast amounts of money to get many laws passed. You're rights are being sold by your congressmen. I'm in the middle of reading a rather depressing book by Arianna Huffington, "How to Overthrow the Goverment", in which she details some of these nasty connections between big bussiness and the goverment. ...richie |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by latcarf on Wednesday March 08, @03:25PM EST (#208) (User Info) |
| The DMCA was passed primarily to implement the U.S. obligations under the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and the Performances and Phonograms Treaty. The U.S. was the prime mover in establishing these treaties because (1) Americans increasingly derive their incomes from the fruits of intellectual property ("IP") rather than from actually manufacturing "things" and (2) American's IP in chemicals, software, artistic creations, and on and on, have been used on a large scale around the world without compensating the owners of that IP. The need for extending the principles of copyright to the digital world should be obvious. The DMCA tries to do that but it remains to be seen how well it has been written because little of its novel provisions have been subject to judicial review. There are some things that should be abundantly clear if you take the time to read the DCMA and the "Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference". The first is that the Congress intended to keep intact the principles of "fair use" that allow you to make copies for non-commercial use such as "time shifting" television programs using your VCR and "space shifting" songs using your computer and RIO. The second is that Congress recognized that the application of the law in the world of the internet is a moving target and so included Sec. 104. "Evaluation of Impact of Copyright Law and Amendments on Electronic Commerce and Technological Development" which calls for studies to be undertaken and reports to Congress. Clearly the DMCA has put a crimp in some of the neat ideas that fellow readers have come up with to exploit the web. Some almost certainly were blatant commercial use without license while others were probably grey enough to test the boundaries of the law. The problem is, of course, that it much cheaper to quit than fight the prosecution with qualified (i.e. high priced) legal talent. In that regard, it remains to be seen what the outcome of the DeCSS and Napster prosecutions will be. One can only hope that the defenses aren't botched and that the most reasoned precedents are established. It is naive to assert that the DMCA is the way it is because the Congress is a tool of the RIAA just as it is naive to assert that you have the right to copy 10,000 songs using Napster because you can. The DMCA reflects the competing interests of lots of economic actors who either create, distribute, use, or study IP and the folk who actually make the hardware associated with the IP. The RIAA wins some, the computer makers win some, the librarians win some, and, believe it or not, the private consumer wins some. Eventually the competing interests are balanced and life goes on. If the competing interests aren't sorted out in either the public forum or in private, we have a situation such as DVD-audio where consumers don't have it because the software and the hardware folk can't agree on how copyright protection will be implemented. You tell me whether waiting a couple extra years for a higher quality audio experience is an economic loss. 'nuf said. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. -- John Maynard Keynes |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:1) by aardvarkjoe (minch@u.arizona.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @06:07PM EST (#264) (User Info) |
| To be honest, I really can't see where he's coming from when he claims that the DMCA 'limits innovation,' and that it's a frontal assault on creativity. As far as I can tell, these corporations really couldn't care less if you're creative or not...they're interested in having a nice wad of bills in their pockets, and that's about it. We shouldn't be opposing this act because of what it supposedly attempts to do...prevent _illegal_ copying of music and other copyrighted material. If anything, we should uphold that 'ideal.' What we should really be opposing is its ultimate effect -- that these laws will end up placing unwanted restrictions on our use of the net. Yes, that's sort of what the article was getting at, but claiming that it's some kind of conspiracy by the corporations is just an attempt to get everyone angry. |
| Re:DCMA, etc. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @11:02AM EST (#354) |
| The DMCA limits creativity in that creativity tends to be incremental. Older melodies have many sets of lyrics, there are paintings of statues, Poems refer to each other, jazz musicians use each others riffs. This is just the sort of thing the DMCA prevents. Now it is illegal to publish a painting of Mickey Mouse without the permission of Disney Corp. (note that the _creator_ of Mickey is no longer alive). Regardless of the amount of _individual_ creativity involved, the subject matter is controlled IP for another 50 YEARS! By the time it is legal to be creative with Mickey outside Disney Corp, Mickey will no longer be relevant to creativity. This is part of the problem with according Corporations the rights of Natural Persons without imposing on them the corresponding responsibilities. |
| Re:DCMA, natural rights? (Score:1) by The Phred on Thursday March 09, @02:11AM EST (#326) (User Info) |
| It makes me nervous when the term natural rights is thrown around with elan and vigour. The documents that created this country ensured natural, inalienable rights. Natural rights are not to be killed, tortured, not to starve, not to be robbed. To excerise free speech, to vote, to bear arms. We do not have a natural right to do whatever we want with what we pay money for. We do not have the right to infringe on others natural rights (ie to be robbed) with the goods that we buy. And that means we do not have the right to infringe on copyright just because we bought the program, or the music, or the movie. Because the people who worked their asses off to produce that good deserve to have the benefits of that good, and if they do not wish to give us the right to distribute, then the right is not ours. Its not a natural right to commit theft. If we as part of an open source community wish to distribute each other's work, that's sharing and disseminating with permission. That's free speech. There is a difference. We can't use our beliefs in open source to infringe on the rights of those who don't. That's our natural responsibility as members of a society. It's not pretty, or nice, or convenient, but its true, and we have to live with that. |
| Sensationalism (Score:2, Insightful) by Axiom (john.watkinson@toronto.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @11:55AM EST (#7) (User Info) http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jw/intergalactics |
| Everywhere it reigns, from Wal-Mart to AOL/Time Warner to Microsoft, corporatism discourages creativity, pushes individuals to the margins and promotes conformity and control of software, hardware, intellectual content and culture. Obviously, this is an opinion piece, but this little paragraph definitely falls under the category of "sensationalism". Such a strong statement should be backed up with some evidence, lest it be dismissed as superstition. |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:1) by SEWilco on Wednesday March 08, @12:17PM EST (#28) (User Info) http://www.wilcoxon.org/~sewilco |
| It depends upon the corporation or the part of the corporation one is involved in. We know some of the things which Xerox PARC created. |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:1) by pmc on Wednesday March 08, @12:54PM EST (#78) (User Info) |
| Everywhere it reigns, from Wal-Mart to AOL/Time Warner to Microsoft, corporatism discourages creativity, pushes individuals to the margins and promotes conformity and control of software, hardware, intellectual content and culture. One of the striking aspects of geek culture is that it's so far remained much freer than the mainstream. Software and hardware have enabled individuals to seek out rich, diverse and highly individualized entertainment. The ability to personalize culture in this way is unprecedented, a unique feature of life online. These two paragraphs sort of struck me as a strange juxtaposition. In the first there is a strong antipathy towards the entertainment industry. But the second implies that the geeks seek out their "rich, diverse, and highly individualized" entertainment from these vendors of mediocrity. Odd that - I don't think that it's a valid complaint. There is obviously more in the DMCA that is wrong. The main one is the the prohibition against reverse engineering. You have several ways sanctioned by your government to protect intellectual property: Trademarks, Patents, and Copyright. There are reasons for the existence of all of them (the reasons have been hotly debated here, but let that pass for the moment). Trademarks aren't really germane here to this discussion. Copyrights allow someone the exclusive rights to publish something in return for them publishing in the first place - the idea being that everybody benefits. The creator can profit from his work, the rest can benefit by it, and after a while it belongs to everyone. Patents are the same idea - you tell everybody how to do something, you get to benefit for a set period of time, society also benefits, and after a while it belongs to everybody. The companies using DMCA want to have all the advantages of copyrights and patents (a government sanctioned monopoly) without the quid pro quo. More than this - they want it to reduce the rights that you have under patent and copyright law. And the sting in the tail is they want it to be illegal for you to try and get those rights back. An example of this is expiry of copyright. Consider a film that has the full bells and whistles DVD protection. You have a copy of it. The copyright expires. Now what? Can you copy it? Nope. Can you reverse engineer the copy protection so you can copy it? Nope. The DMCA is completely unbalanced in that it is focussed solely on the protection of the rights of copyright owners, and ignores the reasons for the existance of copyright in the first place. |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:2) by FreeUser on Wednesday March 08, @03:51PM EST (#222) (User Info) http://jean.nu/ |
| An example of this is expiry of copyright. Consider a film that has the full bells and whistles DVD protection. You have a copy of it. The copyright expires. Now what? Can you copy it? Nope. Can you reverse engineer the copy protection so you can copy it? Nope. Don't expect copyrights to be expiring anytime soon. The Sonny Bono (may he rot in his grave) Copyright Act extended copyrights from 75 years to (I believe) 95 years, just in time to keep Disney's lousy Mickey Mouse out of the hands of The People(tm). The DMCA is clearly written to protect corporate interests, and clearly assumes that copyrights will be extended, indefinitely. Expect legislation to extend copyrights again about 15-19 years following the enactment of the Sonny Bono Act. And, assuming some fairly radical campaign finance reform hasn't been passed (and it isn't bloody likely it ever will be in any form), expect your congressperson to industriously line their pockets with entertainment money in exchange for your rights again when the time comes. |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:1) by pmc on Thursday March 09, @07:48AM EST (#348) (User Info) |
| Don't expect copyrights to be expiring anytime soon. The Sonny Bono (may he rot in his grave) Copyright Act extended copyrights from 75 years to (I believe) 95 years, just in time to keep Disney's lousy Mickey Mouse out of the hands of The People(tm). Tell me about it. A friend of mine has a business selling CDs of out of copyright recordings. He was put in the bizarre position of having to withdraw some of his catalogue because when the copyright act was amended here (from 50 to 70 years after the creators death) it had the effect of placing un-expiring expired copyrights. Totally mad. |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:1) by Pteryx (pteryx@ime.net.meow) on Wednesday March 08, @04:47PM EST (#244) (User Info) http://w3.ime.net/~pteryx/ |
| These two paragraphs sort of struck me as a strange juxtaposition. In the first there is a strong antipathy towards the entertainment industry. But the second implies that the geeks seek out their "rich, diverse, and highly individualized" entertainment from these vendors of mediocrity. Odd that - I don't think that it's a valid complaint. You forget that the Internet allows people to publish their works without having to go through a corporation to do it. MP3.com is the classic example, though the various online comics (User Friendly, Penny Arcade, etc.) should be considered as well. Not to mention the existence of MSTs of works of fan fiction that happen to be bad, IRCRPGs and their logs, and so-called "role-playing stories" such as NuRPG, all of which are unique to the Net. I'm sure others here could name other examples of entertainment found only on the Net, including ones as obscure as the last two genres I mentioned, as well. That's the great thing about it; it allows the world to see ideas and products that corporations would never consider publishing. It has the potential to free the artist, provided the corporations don't manipulate things such that it's illegal to publish something without the possibility of a corporation making a profit from it... (Of course, if they do, it would serve them right if a "creativity drain" into countries with more favorable Net laws took place as a result...) Your point about the purpose of copyright and patents and the corporations' desire to distort these in order to have complete control of and maximum profit from the content they sell is well-made, however. Would someone please moderate that post up to 2? |
| Re:Sensationalism (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @07:43PM EST (#360) |
| Obviously, this is an opinion piece, but this little paragraph definitely falls under the category of "sensationalism". Such a strong statement should be backed up with some evidence, lest it be dismissed as superstition. My favorite example is the "Banana Republic" store (although you can see lots of other examples). The original stores started out being very quirky, and not for everyone. They imported a lot of their products, and you could find really interesting, and hard to find stuff. As they started opening more stores, and gradually they stopped carrying unique items. Eventually they got bought out (by the Gap), and now they are an ordinary clothing store (only token of the original stores is that they sometimes stock unusual colors). They are now completely bland, and I for one, see no reason to shop there anymore. My best guess at why this happened was the demands of size. If you are only buying for 1 (or up to 10 stores), you can buy small amounts of stock. If you are buying for 100+ stores, that really limits what you can buy. Also all that small stuff is hard to manage (at least by the older inventory management systems), and you can't maximize your profits (by volume discounts). Also as your target audience grows, the unusual tends to go away (why sell 100 unusual things if you can sell 100,000 bland things). The grocery industry has been dealing with this issue for quite a while, and perhaps a bit more successfully. Twenty years ago, if you went into a large chain store, you saw pretty much the same stuff. Local producers, even if they had great products, has little chance of having their products stocked (and lets not even talk about the "slotting fees"). Now, some store have started allowing the local store manager to have a small "buying" responsibility, which allows them to stock local products. How well they actually do this varies from store to store, but at least you now have a chance to find local products at large chain stores. Now let's tie this back into the thread. New technology is making it easy to have lots of products (mp3.com does not have to worry about inventory levels of CDs, and the artists/producers don't have to worry about how many CDs to produce). Although the eliminates one of the reasons we had a clogged channel, marketing is still expensive. Even large music companies only have so much budget. That means they will produce and support only a subset of the products out there (most likely, the ones they think will give them the most profit, and that is usually the ones that appeal to the most people). That is why I agree with the statement that "corporatism promotes conformity". The reason they want control (aside form the obvious pirating issues), is two-fold. (1) Raise the cost of entry for current and future competitors. (2) Stamp-out fair use, and the whole concept of public domain. That is why they have lobbied (successfully) for longer copyright periods. That is why DVD were designed to prevent fair use copies. The DAT SCM was not great, but at least it allowed for fair use. On the whole, I am quite pessimistic that congress will do anything positive about the situation (the corporations with big money have too much influence there). My only real hope is that the worst provisions of the DM Copyright act will be somehow chucked out by the legal system. Too bad the copyright act is not in the constitution (thereby allowing it be ruled unconstitutional). What other legal grounds are there for tossing out poor laws? The primary conclusion I've reached is that EFF, EPIC, and the like will need lots of finical support! |
| a geek jihad? (Score:2, Interesting) by Lady Kinbote on Wednesday March 08, @11:59AM EST (#10) (User Info) http://members.xoom.com/LadyKinbote |
| Quite an interesting article from Jon. However, the idea of the geek society participating in its own jihad against the corporate mcworld is rather ironic considering how each of us is what keeps said corporate world running and in control. Each step forward in technology is then packaged and marketed just so in that cookie cutter way that makes homogeneous society so delightful . Lady Kinbote |
| a geek jihad? (Score:1) by Barahir on Wednesday March 08, @12:46PM EST (#65) (User Info) http://www-d0.fnal.gov/~satish/main.html |
| A Geek Jihad? As appealing as that might be, it's not the answer (are you even advocating it?). As geeks, we are in many ways fringe members of society. Any real and lasting solution to the problem has to have wider support. If we think of this solely as a geek movement, we're screwed. But this raises an important point: What do we do about this? Complaining about it is a good first step, but if that's all we do, then complaining and worrying is pointless. On a related issue, to what extent is the wider culture aware of what the DMCA is and what it threatens? The vast majority of the news I hear about it comes from slashdot. I hear almost nothing about these issues on the more popular news media (admittedly, I get most of my news from NPR, which is hardly the news source of the masses). Is the next step to get the word out to the mainstream? |
| Re:a geek jihad? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:58PM EST (#84) |
| Write your elected officials, they are the ones who can change laws. Taking mainstream will only get a little(read very little) press. |
| Re:a geek jihad? (Score:1) by DrMaurer (DrMaure@ilstu.eduSPAM) on Wednesday March 08, @12:49PM EST (#71) (User Info) http://www.ilstu.edu/~drmaure |
| "ironic considering how each of us is what keeps said corporate world running and in control" I think you have too much faith in your fellow Geek. There is no such thing as a universal geek ethic. Many of us, sadly, are in it for the money not because they (necessaarily) enjoy it. (Though, we have to admit, it can be frustrating sometimes. :) A mass geek exodus (or any other movement) is impossible because there is too much variety in our group. Of course, I think it would be interesting to watch. (see Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it's interesting, as it describes an exodus of those who make the world go 'round, but watch out for some of the off-kilter philosophy.) later Dan -- I may or may not believe everything I write. |
| Re:a geek jihad? (Score:1) by ACK!! on Wednesday March 08, @02:52PM EST (#187) (User Info) http://bailes.home.mindspring.com |
| Of course.. the world is packaged in neat little containers for the consumption of mothers and grumpy dads with not enough time on their hands to make real choices... People have such a limited view of existence though. Listen, when the web is a mess of corporate goo, the hardcore geeks among us will retreat back to our FTP sites and IRC and find another way to communicate that allows us to be just as free. That is the great thing about computers. We fashion our own reality. I remember BBSes all gone and forgotten. One day the World Wide Web will be yesterday's news as well. Another way will come and we will get the play free pass until the government and the corporations figure out how they can make a buck off of it. I can't complain too much because out here in the digital world is where I make my money as well. Remember the internet is not the Web and the Web is just one big ass corner of something far bigger. Don't despair there will always be a place for freedom, you just have to look for the next frontier before the big boys do. We are the first generation to live within our own illusions. --Daniel Boorstein |
| Re:a geek jihad? (Score:1) by lowtechmom on Thursday March 09, @12:34PM EST (#359) (User Info) |
| A geek jihad? It CAN happen. Watch the SPEEA strike against Boeing. (http://www.speea.org) It is having an impact, and corporate America is watching with great trepidation. You geeks do have more power than you know. |
| Absolutely. (Score:5, Interesting) by Millennium (millennium@spam.spam.eggs.bacon.andspam.mac.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:01PM EST (#11) (User Info) |
| The problem is, companies still trying to force the Net to fit into the old rules of economics. These rules work fine in the physical realm, because they rely on scarcity. There can only be X amount of stuff in the world/nation/whatever region at any one time. Furthermore, there is no way to increase this amount; to make one thing you must destroy something else. The digital realm is different. While initially producing something may cost money, once that has been done it is present in the digital realm in basically infinite supply. As long as one instance of something exists, an infinite amount of instances can be created at zero cost. Because the digital realm is a zone of abundance rather than one of scarcity, new rules must be found to work with it. The DMCA, and its silly restrictions on Net broadcasts/publishing/whatever, isn't really trying to impose a double standard. What it's trying to do is fit the old rules over a new realm. And in the end that doesn't work. The Net restrictions on broadcasting, for example, are there because RIAA sees Net radio not as a broadcast medium but as a distribution medium (in truth it is both and neither at the same time, but this isn't possible in the physical world so RIAA never realized that), and therefore lobbied for different standards. The truth is, corporations are scared of the Net. They're afraid that it'll kill off their precious profits. The fact is it won't, but corporations have to adapt, to be willing to throw the old rules out the window for a new set which fits the digital realm. What are those rules? I don't claim to know; I don't think the Net has yet been around long enough that one could form a set which works. The old economic laws certainly don't work; the Net itself violates even the most basic law of supply and demand (supply is essentially infinite, but demand is clearly nonzero). The Open-Source ethic might be an answer, but it also might not. Companies don't have to worry as much as they do, not even RIAA. This is simply an economic evolution, one which they would be better off adapting to rather than resisting. If they want to pull out of the digital economy completely, the physical economy will always be there. At least, it will as long as there are physical beings, like people. But it's useless to map old economic laws onto a place which violates just about every one of them by its very nature. -Millennium |
| Round Peg in a square hole (Score:4, Insightful) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:12PM EST (#24) (User Info) |
| Reminds me of the old Negraponti[sp?] analogy of the library in his "Being Digital" book. If you go to the library and check out a book, the next person must wait for you to return the book before he/she can check it out. If you go to the digital library and check out a book, there is always a book left. A fundamental shift in business model. The companies who can understand this shift have a significant advantage on how we are going to be tdoing business tomorrow. The same goes for DMCA if they apply the same "Old School" model to today./tomorrows technical environment problems, the problems will not get addressed, they will increase ten fold. I don't thing the folks behind DMCA are nessasarily evil, they just simply are using the wrong tools, the wrong model and for some reason forcing a round peg in a square hole. Go fast, turn left. |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:2) by MillMan (millmanatthekeyboarddotcom) on Wednesday March 08, @01:05PM EST (#93) (User Info) |
| The truth is, corporations are scared of the Net. They're afraid that it'll kill off their precious profits. The fact is it won't, but corporations have to adapt, to be willing to throw the old rules out the window for a new set which fits the digital realm. That is absolutely not a fact, currently it is only a possibility, specifically for any corporation who deals in "information" as you described early in your post. It all depends on what the consumers decide to do with their money, whether its against the current law or not. Here are three possible futures I just thought up, with varying amounts of corporate control: 1) The world slips into a "1984" style environment where the internet is heavily censored and run by corporations, and free flow of information is very limited (so you still have to pay lots of money for your one copy of some music). 2) The world stays similar to what is is today as far as control. A few new corporations figure out how to make money on the internet without imposing copyright protections on the information they distribute, at the cost of having to sell it for much less than the old music corporations would have charged. Most old music corporations die, a few survive by making the price concessions to consumers. 3) Society decides that it has had enough of this corporate bondage and fully supports open formats like mp3. Society also decides it will no longer accept the crap that is spoon fed to them, and becomes pro-active about which music they listen to. All music corporations die, as all music is now purchased directly from the artist at a very low fee that covers studio costs, bandwidth costs, and a bit of profit. I would prefer to see number three happen, but since I'm usually pessemistic I'd say two or one is more likely. They all depend on what society decides to do (or doesn't do). The technology isn't the variable, it's what we decide to do with it. This is nothing new: technology can be used for good or evil. |
| music to the audience AND audience to the music (Score:1) by thomasj (thomasj.nospam@nospam.superusers.dk) on Wednesday March 08, @02:59PM EST (#191) (User Info) http://www.diku.dk/students/thomasj |
3) And this is probably the way we want to go. In the traditional music industry it takes a certain volume to release a piece of music. If a band wants to make a record, they go to a record company that will audit it and decide if it will have chance to break through. If it does, they will spend more than a few bucks to market it, and if not you are SOL. The record industry tell most new bands, that their music is redundant, to old, to new, to narrow, to political to ... -- so the flip side of the problem is, that there are to many musical creators out there that would give their right arm (don't take me too literal on this) to get anybody to listen to their music, because they has a message to the world. Most interesting bands do music for the same reason the hackers code, simply for the purpose, the joy and the heck of it in any individual order. But it can be different now! the mp3 technology secures that everyone can be heard, if their doings are worth a listen. But somebody has to choose it, like OSS software. It is only a couple of years ago the idea of OSS slipped through to the broad audients, now we have to sell the idea of listening to OCM (open content music). Last time I checked at www.mp3.com there were loads of music to be downloaded and some of it was more than allright. Isn't it the way to go? |
| Physical people (Score:2, Interesting) by DrgnDancer on Wednesday March 08, @04:45PM EST (#242) (User Info) |
| Your futures all leave out one critical detail, there are still poeple out there who don't own computers and are not connected to the 'net. These people are not going to fade away slowly. It may be decades before physcial media is not required for most of the word to view movies/listen to music. It may be a century. Most people (even geeks) that I know prefer book to reading the same information on a computer screen. Literature may never become totally digital. Physical media exchange of IP has a long life left in it for corps. to make money on. That is part of why traditional media companies are having such a hard time adapting. They still make WAY more money on physical media containing IP then they could hope to make on digital data at this point. They want to make the digital arena like "the real world" because it simplifies everything. The 'net is potential, but companies are shortsighted, they see the money coming in form CD's now, and don't want it to stop. If we make money on CD's, why should we change things and maybe not make as much money on this new way. We know this is profitable. We know that this will continue to be profitable as long as most people aren't wired or don't know what to do with it if they are. We'll just make this electronic thingie an extention of what we know works. Companies don't have to deal with the new unlimited supply paradim yet, and they are trying to arrange things so that they never do. UNIX: Because you want to USE your computer |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:3, Interesting) by jeillah on Wednesday March 08, @01:12PM EST (#99) (User Info) |
| Don't you think it's funny that it's the Record Companies and thier puppet organizations who are raising the most stink about the whole Internet Radio/MP3/Napster thing and not the musicians themselves. In fact many artist are experimenting or switching to this new distribution system. That's why the Record Companies are so against it. They keep the biggest chunk of every dollar spent on traditional media and they don't want that to change. |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:1) by jallen02 on Wednesday March 08, @01:12PM EST (#102) (User Info) http://gdev.net/~jallen |
| As long as one instance of something exists, an infinite amount of instances can be created at zero cost There is a cost to reproducing digital content especially something like a DVD. The bandwidth alone to download a DVD is to prohibitive so yes you can create as many copies as you want but who will have access to this infinite media? Another point it does take some time and some machines bandwidth to reproduce digital media/content and time is money in my book so there is a *cost* even if its negligible there is a cost and special considerations with that statement JA |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:3, Insightful) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Wednesday March 08, @01:43PM EST (#131) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| Another point it does take some time and some machines bandwidth to reproduce digital media/content and time is money in my book so there is a *cost* even if its negligible there is a cost and special considerations with that statement. Yes, but the thing about it is...these distribution and reproduction costs are ALL PAID FOR BY THE CONSUMER. The zero cost is what is incurred by the owner of the media (if they wish to set it free.) One could also include promotion as an unnecessary cost, if you take the stance that if something is good enough the average consumer would want to tell their friends about it and a mechanism exists that they can share the something. But as it stands the current copyright holders would rather pay for distribution, reproduction, and promotion themselves, it's a lot easier to add $3 to $15 than it is to add it to $1. -- Is it just me or is everyone smoking crack 24 hours a day? |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:1) by jheinen (jheinen@home.nospam.net) on Wednesday March 08, @04:35PM EST (#238) (User Info) |
| "There is a cost to reproducing digital content especially something like a DVD. The bandwidth alone to download a DVD is to prohibitive so yes you can create as many copies as you want but who will have access to this infinite media?" But these currently minimal costs are purely the result of technological limitations that are rapidly fading. It won't be long when the typical end user has enough bandwidth to download the average mp3 in a second or two. It won't be much longer after that that you will be able to grab a whole movie in a matter of seconds. Mass storage capacity will get cheaper and cheaper, allowing you to store whatever you want. Actually, by that point bandwidth will probably be enough that you won't need to store things locally. Just DL it every time you use it. The cost of distribution *will* go to zero, sooner than later. The only option at that point is to figure out other profit models that don't directly charge for the content. We'll live in a world where you can grab a copy of The Phantom Menace anywhere for free. But you might want to get a compilation of every scene from every movie that Natalie Portman has appeared in. For this I would be willing to pay a small fee. I think micropayments are one of the keys. Profit will be based on volume. Services will also be big too. I think the most rapidly evolving segment of eCommerce is the service industry. There are all kinds of things, from information search and retrieval services, to financial services, and others people haven't even thought of yet that are going to be real profit drivers.
|
| Quibbles (Score:1) by rgmoore (glandauer@worldnet.att.net) on Wednesday March 08, @01:37PM EST (#128) (User Info) |
The truth is, corporations are scared of the Net. They're afraid that it'll kill off their precious profits. The fact is it won't, but corporations have to adapt, to be willing to throw the old rules out the window for a new set which fits the digital realm. I'm not sure that the sentiments presented here aren't self-contradictory. You say that the net won't hurt corporate profits, but also state that companies must abandon their old business models (on which those profits are based). The plain fact is that the net will hurt overall profits because those profits are based on scarcity of physical resources and that scarcity isn't present on the net. The real issue is that companies can see the potential for their existing business model to be destroyed by the new reality of the net, and they're trying to fight that. The DMCA and similar acts are nothing less than an attempt by business to legislate that the old rules of economics will continue to apply on the net. I don't doubt that this effort is doomed to fail in the long run. It's fundamentally an attempt to screw customers. In the long run screwing customers is bad business practice, and companies that don't try to do so (by adopting the new economics of the net) will wind up winning the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of customers. The problem is that it's going to be a long, bloody, drawn out fight. The estblished businesses have too much clout and money to go down without a fight. |
| That's the whole point. (Score:1) by Millennium (millennium@spam.spam.eggs.bacon.andspam.mac.com) on Wednesday March 08, @03:21PM EST (#202) (User Info) |
| Abandoniing an old business model doesn't necessarily mean killing profits. The trick is, you need a new model to replace the old. They're out there, waiting to be discovered. The only reason no one's thought of then is that there's never been a need for them; why worry about economies of abundance when this world is an economy of scarcity, no matter where you go? But the times have changed. Now there is a place where an economy of abundance exists. And now, we need those business models that no one ever worried about before. And I can pretty much guarantee, whoever figures out how to make it work is going to die a very rich person indeed. -Millennium |
| Re:That's the whole point. (Score:1) by rgmoore (glandauer@worldnet.att.net) on Wednesday March 08, @05:52PM EST (#261) (User Info) |
Abandoning an old business model doesn't necessarily mean killing profits. The trick is, you need a new model to replace the old. They're out there, waiting to be discovered. The only reason no one's thought of then is that there's never been a need for them; why worry about economies of abundance when this world is an economy of scarcity, no matter where you go? I don't dispute that it will be possible to make money in the new economy, nor that some people can become very wealthy in the process. The point is that an economy of abundance is almost certainly going to be less profitable than an economy of scarcity (from a producer standpoint at least) because people have a limited ability to consume. That's what produces the abundance in the first place; people can get their hands on more stuff than they can consume. That inherently means, though, that it's a buyers' market because supply outstrips demand, and buyers' markets drive down profitability. Now there are certainly are places in this system to make money. One, as someone has pointed out, is by providing information and services to people who are overwhelmed with choices. Another is to produce something with value added that can't be kept effectively by copying- like very time-sensitive information. The most obvious, of course, is to produce the physical goods that make the digital abundance possible- routers, fiber optics, digital recording media, home music studios, etc. |
| It's Not Cost (Score:1) by Artagel on Wednesday March 08, @02:28PM EST (#170) (User Info) |
Cost is only one basis for establishing prices. Cost is most appropriate for commodities with many providers selling essentially interchangable goods. To stay in business requires charging more than the cost, but the competitors keep you from getting very far about it. When you have a monopoly of some kind, there are no competitors to keep you near your cost. You can now charge near what the value to the buyer is. Although there may be substitutes to keep you more or less in line, the fact that if someone wants your thing they have to pay the price for it gives you a power that does not exist for commodities. Copyright is a kind of monopoly. If you don't want to pay the price they ask, don't buy. Don't complain that the 'cost' should be defining the price though. Go get your substitute. The term for the really unhappy here is "deadweight loss." These are the people who do not get served, but could be, with the same net income to the seller. It is sad that markets do not work in ways that maximize distribution for the same profit for the seller, but the nature of digital copyright isn't at fault for that. |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:1) by jheinen (jheinen@home.nospam.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:08PM EST (#196) (User Info) |
| "What are those rules? I don't claim to know; I don't think the Net has yet been around long enough that one could form a set which works. The old economic laws certainly don't work; the Net itself violates even the most basic law of supply and demand (supply is essentially infinite, but demand is clearly nonzero). The Open-Source ethic might be an answer, but it also might not." While I don't have all the answers, here's one possible solution. As the poster said, the net creates a "zone of abundance" where digital products essentially exist in infinite supply. Economics dictates that the cost of an item in infinite supply should be zero. So how does someone continue to earn money in such a situation? The answer, I think, is service. The net is a vast terrain of information. With enough work, anything can be had for free. The profit model that can work in this situation is to provide services that make it easier to navigate this sea of information, or services that provide some value over and above the $0.00 cost of the information itself. For example, while I can probably find any song I want on the net for free, I would rather pay a modest fee, say $.50 a song, to go to a place that allows me to search and download easily. Similarly, when I want to buy something, I could spend the time to research the available products myself, but I would much rather pay a small fee to someone who would do that work for me. Essentially I am no longer paying for the information on the the internet, I am paying for the work of the individuals who bring context to the information, or provide some other service over and above the granular information item. As the net grows, this model has to become more commonplace. It is simply getting too big to find everything you want efficiently. The best search engine out there only indexes what, 30% or 40% of the internet? When content is free, context will become king. Those that fail to recognize this may be lost in the shuffle. |
| Old Economic laws still work. (Score:1) by Stu Charlton (stuartcharlton@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @05:15PM EST (#251) (User Info) |
| You seem to be missing (or overlooking?) a lot in your above statements. Supply and demand are not destroyed through the information age. Oh, sure, they are in superficial and trivial ways, such as the "abundance of distribution" argument... but we discovered that almost a decade ago: remember, Microsoft is a monopoly today partially because of the theory of increasing returns. There will *always* be a shortage of skill and talent when it comes to producing interesting content. That is: good software, good music, good movies, good books, good periodicals, etc. The old media companies are noticing this disturbing trend: we're watching less TV, we're buying less music, and even though we're watching more box-office movies, we're renting less movies - indicating that we're becoming more demanding with the movies we watch. To solve this, their bulking up through mergers and lobbying - trying to set up a situation where they can milk every last cent out of the relatively few "hits" they have. They're not innovating, they're running away frightened. -Stu |
| Re:Absolutely. (Score:1) by jburroug (jburroug@*NOSPAM*lib.uaa.alaska.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @09:41PM EST (#299) (User Info) http://www.customcpu.com/personal/pointless |
| The old economic laws certainly don't work; the Net itself violates even the most basic law of supply and demand (supply is essentially infinite, but demand is clearly nonzero). The Open-Source ethic might be an answer, but it also might not. Your wrong on this point, the old laws are alive and well, and are in fact responcible for everything we are seeing on the internet today. Classical and neo-classical economic theory basically states that in free markets people will do what benefits them the best. Because of market forces this will also lead to people doing what is best for society. Why? Because the market represents societies wants/desires/needs. Adam Smith called it "harmony of interests" the market rewards people who give it what it wants. This applies to open source as well. A particular niche in the market has a desire for the source code to any software that they use, they are prepared to reward individuals and companies that provide it, the reward is often in the form of giving programming/testing help to the developer. Us OSS advocates also pay for free software, and will give preference to any commercial product that includes rights to the source code. It's capitalism baby. Supply of IP is certainly not infinate, even on the 'Net! While the supply of copies of Godsmack's Voodoo may be unlimited, the supply of good music is limited. Only a small portion of the population has the musical talent needed to write and perform music that appeals to even a modest audience (say 10,000 fans, worldwide) and even among the talented only a few of them are able constantly create music that continues to appeal to us, and even those amazingly talented people are only able to create a limited number of songs per year. The same applies to movies, software, /. colums etc... Ya see there is scarcity in the world of IP, even on the Internet. The current situation also fits pretty well with Karl Marx's Theory of Dialectic Materialism, which simply put says that over time technology will advance to a point where the old economic system in place can no longer cope and ends up constraining production and eventually there will be a revolution in which the old ideas are thrown out and a new economic system that reflects the new technology is put in place until eventually technology once again outpaces the system etc... Marx went on to say that every society goes through six stages (tibalism or primitive communism, slave-state, feudelism, capitalism, state socialism, utopian communism) The concept of dialetic materialism is fairly sound, in the West we've advanced all the way to stage four. A follower of the neo-classical school (such as myself) would argue that socialism/communism will never happen and free market capitalism is the final economic stage of a mature society, using the argument that capitalism is the only economic system with enough built in flexibility to cope with changing technology. Hell the oldest socialist nation in the world recently "reverted" to capitalism rather than "progressing" onward to communism, so that says something for my case ;-> So rather than a revolution happening, companies in a capitalist market will respond to market conditions, entrepanuers(sp) will start new companies and some old ones will die, capitalism evovles with technology for the most part. What clearly doesn't work today is mercantilism, which never really worked well in the first place. Katz calls it "corpratism" and thinks it's a new thing, but it's been around since before we were a country. Mercantilists have an appealing argument, they want to do what's best for the country, and what's best for the country is to: export goods for a profit, import less, prevent theft/piracy. Using these justifications they get stuff like the DMCA passed, which restrict consumer rights in order to preven piracy and protect profits (mostly from those evil foreign pirates). It's an old story, and I could go into a lot more detail about it but I just finished writing several pages on all of this for a Econ test yesterday and I'm kinda tired of it ;-> For those interested in learning more about all of this, I'd suggest reading Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, along with the writings of some popular mercantilists like Munn, or Colbert. It wouldn't hurt to read Marx either. For a good overview of economics I'd suggest either taking a History of Economics course or at least reading the textbook for one, I forget the authors of mine at the moment but if you email I'll send you more information when I have access to my notes and stuff. |
| Free speech is not the same as paid interest! (Score:1) by www.sorehands.com on Wednesday March 08, @12:01PM EST (#12) (User Info) http://www.sorehands.com |
| Some people will stand up behind free speech. Companies will spend large amounts of money to try to eek out an advantage, if they see an issue as an advantage. A large corporation will spend money to keep out competition, or even negative comments (like Mattel). They will do this by either spending money on getting the laws passed, or just trying to litigate oposition into oblivion. RSI injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates! |
| consumer warfare (Score:4, Insightful) by EnderWiggnz (hettar@SPAMORAMA.nni.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:01PM EST (#13) (User Info) |
| what really puzzles me about this whole thing, is that these companies want US to patronize them? seriously... they treat all of their customers like criminals. They lie, cheat, spread propaganda and attack their customers... And worst of all, they force stuff like the backstreet boys and brittney spears on us... And yet, the very people that they are attacking are supposed to patronize these fascist dictators of america. Seriously - if someone described a country where control of the government is centralized into the hands of a few (big corporations), the artwork was controlled by the same few i.e. movies, books, music. And the NEWS was controlled byt these same groups... We would call it a fascist/communistic country... and that folks, is where we are at. tagline. You're it. |
| Perhaps someone would care about my .01 opinion (Score:1) by aav on Wednesday March 08, @12:37PM EST (#46) (User Info) http://paul.rutgers.edu/~angheles |
| I have no idea if you know how living in a communist country, but I do and there are a few things I would like to say When I firstly got to the embassy I went there prepared with a lot of identification papers etc, to make sure they had enough information about me. Do you know what they asked me ? To tell them my name. The very next second the operator of that pc knew even the size of my underwear. Honestly this scared me like hell - and made me see the communist police as naive. I haven't changed my mind since. Conclusion : this is not a communist model ! It's worse. |
| Re:Perhaps someone would care about my .01 opinion (Score:1) by Srin Tuar (a5897456 @ hot mail) on Wednesday March 08, @12:46PM EST (#64) (User Info) |
| You dont really think its any different here in the USA, do you? |
| Re:Perhaps someone would care about my .01 opinion (Score:1) by aav on Wednesday March 08, @12:49PM EST (#70) (User Info) http://paul.rutgers.edu/~angheles |
| Of course it is. I eran a lot more. |
| Re:consumer warfare (Score:1) by shadrack on Wednesday March 08, @12:51PM EST (#74) (User Info) |
| >>And worst of all, they force stuff like the backstreet boys and brittney spears on us... << Oh yeah, I call it the Manufactured Male Group plague. Take a bunch of handsome, but no talent guys, teach how to carry a basic tune, get them to pretend they can move like a 60's soul group, add the now nauseating standard electronic kazoo background music and hoist them on the public. barf barf barf. |
| Re:consumer warfare (Score:2) by A Big Gnu Thrush on Wednesday March 08, @01:50PM EST (#139) (User Info) |
| Corporate America == Communist America They control everything. Even our bold online revolutionaries take their pseudonyms from mass market paperbacks. Don't worry, Ender Wigginz, I'm not talking about you. I'm sure your handle came from a much more original Open Source source. |
| would you prefer demosthenes? (Score:1) by EnderWiggnz (hettar@SPAMORAMA.nni.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:22PM EST (#164) (User Info) |
| seriously... that may be a more accurate there is a serious problem in this country... it needs to be fixed. Hopefully it can be fixed peacefully using the more than adequate methods laid out by the fathers of this country. but its time to hold our politicians and leaders accountable for what they were elected for - Representing the PEOPLE tagline. You're it. |
| Corporate America is not communist (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:09PM EST (#247) |
| Corporate America is fascist. There is a distinct difference. |
| Totalitarianism (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:42PM EST (#257) |
| Two points: One, the kind of system of absolute control is better described as totalitarianism than fascism or communism. Fascism relies heavily on totalitarianism, but encompasses much more, most of which is even worse. Communism has traditionally existed in the form of a quasi-socialist totalitarian government, as seen in the USSR, the People's Republic of China and Castro's Cuba, but the fundamental theory as suggested by Marx does not call for anything like this. The totalitarian aspect of communism is primarily the work of Lenin. Second, the United States bares few similarities to a totalitarian state for a single vital reason: the "evil corporations" which control a large amount of our daily lives do NOT have identical agendas, and are not necessarily friendly to each other. In short, they are not the kind of unified power which must exist in order for a government to be called totalitarian. While it may seem from time to time that corporations are allied against the common man, the only way they can weather competition is by pleasing us, the masses. Thus, while one corporation will lobby for an issue to save itself, another will lobby against it to improve its market share. If the majority of the voting public is unhappy with the government's decisions, the decisions will be reversed, regardless of the influence of corporations. While we are not yet the majority of the voting public, we can still make our presence felt if we work at it. The rest is out of our hands, and there's nothing we can do about it. That's how democracy works. |
| Re:Totalitarianism (Score:1) by Rysc on Wednesday March 08, @11:55PM EST (#318) (User Info) |
| Second, the United States bares few similarities to a totalitarian state for a single vital reason: the "evil corporations" which control a large amount of our daily lives do NOT have identical agendas, and are not necessarily friendly to each other. In short, they are not the kind of unified power which must exist in order for a government to be called totalitarian. While it may seem from time to time that corporations are allied against the common man, the only way they can weather competition is by pleasing us, the masses. Thus, while one corporation will lobby for an issue to save itself, another will lobby against it to improve its market share. Mergers. I don't think I need to explain. |
| Re:consumer warfare (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @09:30PM EST (#362) |
| We would call it a fascist/communistic country... and that folks, is where we are at. I prefer the term 'oligarchical kleptocracy' |
| Equal Protections (Score:1) by unicorn (kentbunn@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:04PM EST (#14) (User Info) |
| I would assume, that the equal protections coverage that's in the Constitution, will let Internet radio stations operate with the same freedom that airwave stations have. ------ Count me grateful to MS. If they make it too easy to use, I'll have to get a real job. |
| Napster alternative (Score:3, Interesting) by yurik (ySuPrAikM69@hotmail.SPAM.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:04PM EST (#15) (User Info) |
| Napster has two major weaknesses: it's owned by a single company and has a central search database. Big $$ can easily fight a small company by simply overspending it on legal expenses, and shutting down the "brain" -- main SQL computers. Proposal: an open source, distributed database search engine, where the search is performed in parallel by a large number of logged-in clients, and results are combined on the requesting client. When a new client runs, it uploads file info onto several other clients, whose location is found from the cached results of the last run / public web sites / hidden ftp servers / information from friends / whatever else you might come up with. Search can be performed akin the infamous worm viruses with graph search depth limitations. As for the name, we can call it World Wide Search (WWS), or some other silly choice to attract attention. Obviously, this thing has to be portable enough to run on all platforms, including non-Linux. E-mail me if you are interested. Remove "SPAM" twice to reply. Remove "SPAM" twice to reply. |
| Re:Napster alternative -> Freenet (Score:1) by jhines on Wednesday March 08, @12:42PM EST (#51) (User Info) |
| See http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ for information on a project already underway. |
| Re:Napster alternative (Score:2) by technos (technos@iLuvSpam.crosswinds.net) on Wednesday March 08, @01:04PM EST (#92) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~technos/ |
| I thought about this in depth a while back, and even started some skeleton code. This is the implementation I came up with Alternate method 5. Relying on sheer penetration of such a client and the growing horsepower of both client user bandwidth and CPU power to hold a local database. Inter-client communication would be weakly peer-to-peer and individual client ‘hello’ could be handled by either a single server (a la ICQ) or by simple contact list notification and keep-alive (NetPhone). Once again, search results are communicated to each node of the search for local cache, and the nodes are daisy-chained for bandwidth conservation. The local search database can consist, in addition to the cache of results from previous searches, of any locally available information. Browser cache, the local file tree, etc, are possible sources of information. Advantages: No centralized entity required for operation. Dedicated servers/and repeaters could be added to the network on an impermanent basis. Disadvantages: The trust model of a weakly peer-to-peer network would lead itself to all sorts of abuses. Hacked clients returning incorrect result data (pr0n, spam, etc). A trust model for other clients, call it client moderation, could cull the bad results but would require user interaction to be effective. My copy of the software the MPAA loves to hate! |
| Distributed Library (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @03:28AM EST (#330) |
| As noted, you need a solution to a malicious coproration (or organization), so you need moderation. We also need a distributed login model. So that people on dial-up lines don't find their IP blocked from a corporate lackey who used it previously, or said corporate lackey jumping IP to IP when his gets blocked by a moderator. A distributed login model should only give information that the person is a user, nothing else, tracking preferences in musical (or file tastes) should be done in a different manner. System should also handle all types of files, have sometype of meta-tagging, so you can do simple searches (filesize, type of file, content, copyright information (Public Domain/Owned), license information (GPL/OCL), date created, etc) to find what you want. And should have preferences on what type of connections you're willing to accept, and give, with bonus points (wider access to incoming lists of available documents, ability to push requests) to people who're more open (reward people who allow other people to connect to them, and put stuff online, and people who're online more often -- that's how you keep the system/distributed library operating) and people who fulfill requests... -- Ender, Duke_of_URL |
| Re:Napster alternative (Score:1) by Richy_T (slashdot@perihelion.demon.co.uk) on Thursday March 09, @05:25AM EST (#339) (User Info) |
| Inter-client communication would be weakly peer-to-peer and individual client ‘hello’ could be handled by either a single server (a la ICQ) or by simple contact list notification and keep-alive (NetPhone). Alternative: Multicast your search requests. Client responses come back as appropriate. Connections then ensue. Sure, client to client is open to abuse but then again, so is napster to a degree. The actual file communication is peer to peer anyway. Rich |
| It's called Freenet (Score:2) by Robotech_Master (robotech@eyrie.org) on Wednesday March 08, @01:20PM EST (#112) (User Info) http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/index.html |
| The interesting thing is, there's a Wired News article about something similar to this concept in this very day's issue. Freenet (not to be confused with the library system of providing free Internet access) apparently creates a sort of decentralized network for the exchange of files and information and such. It looks like an interesting idea, though critics charge it would be nothing more than a tool for piracy. |
| Freenet will not work for Media exchange. (Score:1) by yurik (ySuPrAikM69@hotmail.SPAM.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:43PM EST (#133) (User Info) |
| I've just looked at freenet, and it seam to have several major problems: 1. It seams to be very susceptible to "flood attacks". A corporation can inject a large piece of random junk into the net, and later have a very large number of clients all over the world continuously request it. This will force immediate propagation, which in turn will push useful info off the storage of limited size. Since such malicious network can easily be organized by even a small size company, and the amounts of random junk is infinite, no useful info will ever survive in such scenario. 2. Media files are very large, and users will always like to use mp3 files locally. Freenet approach does not allow the user to listen to her files, while at the same time allowing others to download them. Doing so would save substantial amount of storage resources. Remove "SPAM" twice to reply. |
| Re:Freenet will not work for Media exchange. (Score:2) by Hobbex (i_read_replies_to_my_posts) on Thursday March 09, @04:53AM EST (#335) (User Info) |
| (I'm a coder for The Freenet Project, but I can't speak for everyone else involved.) 1: While this sort of attack is an issue, Freenet does deal with it. Because Requests and Inserts are randomly spread over the entire network, in order for such an attack to be successful you have to have greater capacity then the rest of the entire network put together. Also, as long as all your inserts and requests are targeted at a limited number of nodes, those nodes will "float" toward one another in the routing (that's a vague statement, for a better reply you have to understand the system), until your attack is only hurting the nodes you are targeting directly (in which case you might as well DoS them conventionally). 2: This is true, Freenet is not ideal for copying wide arrays of large media. That is the cost of freedom and anonymity. Freenet does allow for a large amount of parallelism however, and specs for how to split files into smaller chunks that can be requested simulataneously are being worked on. Also, the size of a 5 meg file is shrinking rapidly (Freenet will not be ready for mainstream use for some time). I encourage everyone to give our project a little more thought before deciding that it doesn't work. I'm not convinced that it works either, but so far nothing has convinced me that it doesn't (and I have been looking for a reason for the last nine months), which justifies going for it in my book. - We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way. - Huxley |
| Adapting Freenet (Score:1) by yurik (ySuPrAikM69@hotmail.SPAM.com) on Thursday March 09, @10:02AM EST (#353) (User Info) |
| From the discussion so far, it seams that FreeNet has several great ideas in progress, that theoretically could be used for our cause. The actual media files do not need to be uploaded, only an XML label for a file with host IP and a limited TTL. It can be propagated through the network, and will get refreshed on a regular basis if the provider stays on-line. If the nodes move quickly enough, and the search engine has enough flexibility, this addition to freenet might benefit it get jumpstarted. This method is not very secure -- the host IP addresses will be in the plain view, but I doubt much can be done if pear-to-pear connection is desired. Remove "SPAM" twice to reply. |
| Re:It's called Freenet (Score:2) by technos (technos@iLuvSpam.crosswinds.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:30PM EST (#211) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~technos/ |
| It's a decentralized library requiring huge amounts of replication. It isn't really suited for piracy; it resembles some sort of insane military style redundant storage system for WWIII more than anything! Once something is in, it is in for good, even if none of the original hosts survive.. It would be a fitting place to put documents reserved for the future, or for banned content. Piracy, no.. The original poster was trying to suggest something like Napster but with no central server. (And hopefully serving a broader audience than Warez d00ds). My copy of the software the MPAA loves to hate! |
| Re:Napster alternative (Score:1) by lilnobody on Wednesday March 08, @08:18PM EST (#285) (User Info) |
| Sorry, but I dont think this would work. I think im what makes napster so cool. I have an upload queue set and 1.3 gigs of stuff sitting there, most of it specialized (i.e. I have a -LOT- from one or two bands, more than just another entry of the newest song), and log on all the time just to be nice. I am lucky to have uncapped cable, so I can transfer 30k/sec and not notice the ping in half-life. I wouldnt be online a lot if i was sparing CPU cycles too. What you see as Napster's flaw, I see as its greatest asset--transparent server. Napsters mild customizability lets me keep bandwith in check, and the cpu processes are minimal. |
| Quit whining, start downloading (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:05PM EST (#16) |
| Hey John -- you have a nice platform. Instead of re-iterating the obvious, how about using that platform to write some alternative music reviews? Get on mp3.com, download a dozen legal mp3's, and tell us what you think of the music. Then tell us how many (if any) of the independent mp3 artists you're supporting with $$$. |
| Re:Quit whining, start downloading (Score:1) by HendrikW (funkmandu@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:43PM EST (#57) (User Info) http://www.mp3.com/HendrikW |
| You can download any of my music on MP3.com. And guess what, you don't have to support me, it's all completely free :P |
| Re:Quit whining, start downloading (Score:1) by Chris_Pugrud (insert @ and add .net to my name) on Wednesday March 08, @02:33PM EST (#175) (User Info) |
| After the first article I decided to give mp3.com a try again. I have been thrilled and amazed by the excellent music available, especially in the rave/techno/industrial sphere. what I am looking for now is a way that I can support the artist without buying the CD. For some bizarre reason I do not have a desire to own more CD's, not to mention that cutting the CD out of the picture will decrease cost to me and increase revenue to the artist. To simplify, say I have $20 to spend on music. If I buy a CD the artist ( I am guessing) gets $2. So I could buy ~3 CDs and get $6 back to the artists. I would rather spend that $20 to get $19 back to the artists (asuming the loss of some overhead costs that are now hidden in the CD Production costs). Thoughts? chris -- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday. |
| Re:Quit whining, start downloading (Score:1) by richieb (richieb@netlabs.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:17PM EST (#200) (User Info) http://www.netlabs.net/~richieb |
| Cool. I'm listening to it right now.... |
| Resistance is not futile (Score:5, Insightful) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Wednesday March 08, @12:10PM EST (#17) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| it is the only thing that will keeps companies honest. In the future world where two or three mega-corps control every industry, it is only through vocal protests and real-world action that the teeny-tiny voices of indinidual consumers will ever be heard. We must speak up, we must spread the word, and when it's needed, shout from every rooftop and bitcast from every node. People can't resist when they don't know they are fighting. It's in the established businesses best interests to keep consumers ignorant, and they'll spend a lot of money o their best interests. It won't be as much censoring what you say, but just saying so much more than you so that no one can ever hear. Or spewing forth such rhetoric, that by the time you have a chance to debate with "average joe" he has already been told 100+ times that you are a pirate, a thief, and the scum of the earth because you don't think you should pay for unnecessary services from a monopolist. Make conscious consumer choices, make an effort to educate your friends, and don't give up. The only way to lose is to stop fighting. -- Is it just me or is everyone smoking crack 24 hours a day? |
| The role of the government (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:39PM EST (#48) |
| Isn't this the role of the government - to stand up for the public/consumers/users/faceless masses The government is based on the fact/idea/belief/lie it represents the people. If the people demand change then it is only the government that can change it, however many people you get together you are very unlikely to have an affect on the finances of a company a government can effect a companies financies without trying. The problem is if a company tries to take away peoples rights/affect their lives all people ever do is whine, if a government tries to change anything - even for the better (or at least what they think is) people kick'em down. Support the government, guide it to where they can actually make decent decisions - don't keep attacking it and then complain when nobody stands up for your rights. |
| My role in the government, or lake there-of (Score:2) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Wednesday March 08, @12:54PM EST (#80) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| The problem with the goverment is one of volume. My vote doesn't carry the volume necessary for a Senator to hear my voice. A million dollar donation that buys him loads of advertising to get the loads of votes he need to keep his job, carries a whole lot more weight than my "Dear sir I think parts of the DMCA are unfair" letter. I am also a fairly mobile young professional. This makes my voice in goverment mean even less to that goverment, since power is accumulated on a fairly local level, and the main problems I see are on the (inter)national level. Also with a market based culture, I would rather use that to solve the problem. When you keep asking the government for help, you depend on them to save you, so where do you turn to save you from them? -- Is it just me or is everyone smoking crack 24 hours a day? |
| No, you had it right (Score:2) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:25PM EST (#116) (User Info) |
| Your role in government. Normally I agree with you, however I think your view is somewhat narrow. Have you ever sat down with your congressman or senator? Explained as a constituent your point of view? From you post I would have to say probably not. I have and I was amazed at the impact. The big companies have their industry lobbies and their PACs but the constituents voice has a much higher volume. I forget the exact numbers, but it goes something like this when in comparative perspective you look at constituent volume vs lobby volume. 1 Constituent letter = 100 Lobby or PAC letters Again, I'm not right on with the numbers, however I am in the ballpark. Your voice does have an impact and just giving up because big bad corporation has more money than me just doesn't hold water. You can have a difference and the avenues for you to have a face to face with your elected officials are there and easy to use. Pick up the phone and call to get a meeting. It's that simple. Go fast, turn left. |
| Re:No, you had it right (Score:2) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Wednesday March 08, @02:03PM EST (#148) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| Thanks for the kick in the ass. I just went down to his office (its in the same building, yes I can be that lazy) and will be setting up an appointment when he returns from Washington. That's the big fight for me, fighting the cynicism over seeing the way our government appears to work. I told the secretary I wanted to talk about Internet laws and give my two cents on the growing copyright debates. I was thinking about wearing by DVD-CCA t-shirt..anyone have suggestions on how to approach (first time talking to a congressamn) or good URLs that I can give him? -- Is it just me or is everyone smoking crack 24 hours a day? |
| Re:No, you had it right (Score:2) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:13PM EST (#156) (User Info) |
| Yeah, I have a ton. Mail me for the detail. But in general, be nice, professional and be prepared. Most likely you won't get more that 20 minutes with the representetive, but you can meet with the telecom aide for a lot longer, he/she's the one who really does the work on this anyway. Lay out your point of view like this: - A little background of the problem If possible, practice your twenty minute gig beforehand, also try to get time with the aide the same day, the aide will update the member at the end of the day. If possible, bring a camera and get a picture of the two of you, they love that stuff.
Go fast, turn left. |
| Re:No, you had it right (Score:1) by rgmoore (glandauer@worldnet.att.net) on Wednesday March 08, @06:00PM EST (#262) (User Info) |
was thinking about wearing by DVD-CCA t-shirt..anyone have suggestions on how to approach (first time talking to a congressamn) or good URLs that I can give him? I'd advice against the T-shirt. It will make you look like a far out wacko, rather than an ordinary concerned citizen. Politicians are much more receptive to concerns of the mainstream than far out elements; after all, many more voters are in the mainstream than the fringes. It would probably also pay to spend a bit of effort researching the guy you're going to talk to. If you know what his personal hot buttons are, you're much more likely to be able to find some angle on the issue that's really convincing to him. I know that it sounds awfully cynical, but everyone draws their conclusions differently, and you need to know what kind of argument is likely to convince your target. |
| Re:No, you had it right (Score:2, Insightful) by strudeau on Wednesday March 08, @08:34PM EST (#287) (User Info) |
| > 1 Constituent face to face meeting = 100 Lobby or PAC meetings Those are some fascinating numbers and I'd like to know who told you that .. probably an elected representative who hopes you actually believe it. > Your voice does have an impact and just giving up because big bad corporation has more money than me just doesn't hold water. I think it holds a lot of water and at least I don't really believe most elected representatives really listen to what I have to say. Before pointers to some hard information I'll give you an anecdote from my own experience: The Michigan Music is World Class Campaign, led by Tom Ness, a local independent magazine publisher (and Green Party candidate for US Senate), was part of the national movement to relegalize low power FM radio stations. In this process, the MMWCC petitioned the Michigan State Legislature to pass a resolution in support of a favorable FCC ruling. The MMWCC presented each and every representive thousands of constituent letters of support, including dozens of community and religious organizations. Many cities (I think up to 45 at last count) in MI passed resolutions in support. Resolutions are non-binding and simply and expression of the constituency the legislature purports to represent. Members of the MMWCC visited EACH and EVERY member of the legislature at least twice face to face. Every member was presented with well put-together packets of information. They didn't even bring the issue to the floor. Why? Four words: Michigan Association of Broadcasters (aka Big Bad [media] corporations with lots of money.) And this is how a group with a simple demand (with incredibly limited adverse consequences -- the only consequence I can think of is less money from the MAB), and an incredible range of constituent support is treated -- how do you think a simple individual's concern will actually affect any decision your "representative" will make? > Pick up the phone and call to get a meeting. It's that simple. And they might even meet with you, shake your hand, and nod their head politely, and listen with all seriousness... and then turn to the folks who are slipping $10000+ checks into their campaign funds when it comes time to make decisions on the floor. For some info online check out: Common Cause Also, I recommend Jim Hightower's new book, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They'd Have Given Us Candidates which is a great read and dishes out some dirt on who gets money from whom and what they get in return. Campaign contributions buy access to politicians -- even most politicians will admit that. Only 4% of the population in this country donates $$ to campaigns, and most of those are less than $200. Only .05% donate more than $1000. Many federal house races can cost well over $1 million -- who do you think your "representative" pays real attention to? The 99.9% of people who donate less than $1000? In fact, politicians set up special golf outings, retreats, and other opportunities for "face time" that their big donors get to participate in exclusively. You might say: "Just because they take the money, doesn't mean they do what the people giving them the money say?" Yeah right. If their voting record doesn't match up with a company's interest, the plug is pulled. So if your "representative" is voting in the interest of the 99.9% that don't fill his/her pocket, and those votes happen to contracdict the interest of the money that is filling their pocket .. well, let's just say they don't last very long. Stark Raving Sane |
| Re:Resistance is not futile (Score:1) by Lowther on Wednesday March 08, @12:44PM EST (#60) (User Info) |
| Right on !!!!!!! Corporations are running scared. They have invested billions in their existing infrastructure, business processes and marketing methods. the Internet threatens to change the rules and to remove competitive advantage gained from this investment. They are trying to eliminate this threat by emasculating the Internet. It was designed to withstand a nuclear war, so they know they can't kill it. Music royalties are a regular battleground. Yet the music industry is littered with fat cats and hangers on, each creaming off their percentage. Let's face it, we can all hazard a guess at how much it costs to press CDs in bulk. The artist gets probably pennies of each £14 or so that is paid for an album. There are too many intermediaries in that business, and the prices demonstrate this. The internet is great at bypassing intermediaries. In conclusion, I would say that the biggest threat to these corporations was not the internet, but their own attachment to business processes which have worked in the past, but will fail them in the future. I believe and fervently hope that no amount of rapacious legislation will stop this from happening. Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profundum variat |
| Do something about it! (Score:1) by RancidPickle (store_my_uce_for_100_dollars@warpedreality.com) on Wednesday March 08, @06:41PM EST (#267) (User Info) http://www.warpedreality.com |
| Wah has an excellent point. Look at the bottom line of the corporate mentality: MONEY. You have a choice to support those companies that behave responsibly, and to avoid buying from those that trample on your rights. Another choice is to get involved. Take, for example, the current discussion concerning the DMCA and the possibility for exempting certain types of media, like DVD's and reverse-engineering. There were only around 250 comments made. Mine is there, if you think your voice should be heard, you can post responses to comments for a while longer. The website is located at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/1201, and you can add your comments to letters from Time-Warner and MPAA. Your rights, use it or lose it. |
| Resistance is not futile... just pointless. (Score:1) by istartedi (comments@vrml3d.com) on Wednesday March 08, @08:51PM EST (#292) (User Info) http://www.vrml3d.com/ |
As a comparitive case study, might I suggest we look at the beer market? Until not too long ago, it could be said that a few large corporations controlled most of the beer market. Then something happened in the late 80s or early 90s: People realized they wanted more interesting tastes and variety in their beer. Home brewing soared in popularity; "microbreweries" and brew pubs appeared in greater numbers. All of this happened without anybody whining about the dominance of the big brewers, and nobody even suggested that all beer recipes should be open-sourced. So, resistance if not futile... just pointless. If you'd like to discuss this in greater depth, and live in the Washington DC area, feel free to e-mail me--for directions to the local brew pub of my choice. Pointless discussions like this are usually more fun when beer is involved. Tell us more about how Open Source is great for business. |
| Perhaps Orwell was wrong (Score:1) by j0nb0y on Wednesday March 08, @09:15PM EST (#296) (User Info) |
| I think Orwell was wrong when he predicted three large governments fighting for world dominance and stripping the individual of freedom. I think it is much more likely to be three large corporations. A corporation can become mult-national, it can span boundaries, it can infiltrate governments (err, I mean "lobby"). It seems that most governments have restrictions which keep them from controlling the media. Companies do not have these restrictions. The all-mighty dollar can buy the media, the government, and ultimately, enough control of the world to control the individual. So instead of Oceania, East Asia, and Eurasia, we'll have Microsoft, AOL, and Disney. "Beware of multi-nationals. You can't fight IBM." - Robert Heinlein |
| Any Fossils Know Were Goerge Clinton is? (Score:1) by JosephA (jarrieta@ix.netcom.com) on Thursday March 09, @09:23AM EST (#350) (User Info) http://www.jarrieta.com |
| Fossil checking in here. Meaning I actually do remember a time long, long ago in a place far away when Play that Funky Music, White Boy was on the radio. Some other fossils are smiling right now--this one knows HTML, programs in Perl and can do anything with an image. Take off, eh? Anyway, that song used to be played and we sorta enjoyed it, but couldn't dream of buying it--allowance was fifty cents a week. It was a radio song, and everyone has scores of them in their heads that they knew they'd only ever hear at the whim of some rebellious dj not playing the corporate list on a classic station. But the fossils mainlining memories on Napster didn't forget Funky Music, White Boy. Turns out a guy named George Clinton wrote and played it, a distant cuz of the prez. Funky Music, White Boy got ripped and copied and grew like corporate lawyers at a DeCSS site on Napster and spread like fire all over the country. Now sagging hips all over the country do mirror time to Funky Music, White Boy while the subwoofer pulses that sound in a way we'd never imagined in that time long ago when it was broadcast mono on the AM band. And that song has a whalin' git solo I'd forgotten about. I Wonder what George Clinton thinx of this. People stopped generating royalty income for him with Funky Music, White Boy eons ago, but his art and his voice now actively crackle the nuerons of countless people who never would have heard that song again had it not been for the free sharing on Napster. I'm going to find him and find out. I bet he's thrilled with it, and probably okay with resisting the corporate forces alligned against Napster. Perl ROX |
| Differences (Score:2, Insightful) by aav on Wednesday March 08, @12:11PM EST (#18) (User Info) http://paul.rutgers.edu/~angheles |
| There are a couple of differences between the situations evoqued int the article ans I think they are woth mentioning. Firstly let's analyse who is behind the two acts mentioned in the article : DMCA - large corporates, people that are trying to grab the control of everything (I'm not questioning why - I assume you all will have a different, correct answer). CDA - the US government (and others too - is there a law in Australia that forbids 4 letter words in information sent over the net ?). If the CDA would have passed, it would have ment the sudden death of a very young industry : cyber-sex. Does anyone know how much money does this mean ? Billions ? More ? Thus, you have a perfectly good reason for not passing the CDA - that would have hurt the corporations - which is bad On the other hand, the DMCA is trying to prevent free access to information (music is only a fashionable subject) by imposing some stupid rules. And even if this may seem far out of line : this is exactly what happened in the late '70s when the govt. banned drugs. There was a movement that preached freedom, that was non-conformist, that didn't care about the rules imposed from above. As long as they could make money from selling drugs to them, they allowed it. When a whole generation said "Fxxk you, I don't want to fight your stupid war" then all changed. It wasn't profitable any more. So they destroyed it. They may do the same with the internet. I'm almost sure they will. However, we will find another way to express our freedom (virtual reality, populating other planets, who knows ?) because after all that's what all is about. Since Adam, we tried to be free, to be our own chiefs to assume responsibilities. This has been around long before Microsoft, AOL or WalMart. And it will remain long after they will not even be remembered. What's this all about then ? Easy : there will always be a battle for dominance between corporates trying to own the minds and souls of individuals and their will to remain free. History tells us that human have existed longer than corporates. This is the difference ! |
| Information is a Commodity (Score:3, Interesting) by Seumas on Wednesday March 08, @12:11PM EST (#19) (User Info) http://www.seumas.com |
| Pardon me, as I will extrapolate this into a broader argument . . . I disagree with the last statement that this is erupting under our noses. This has already erupted and has long since been put to bed. As much as we like to think that information and intellectual property in and of itself should be granted, to some degree, to the public (humanity itself), the very obvious reality is that information and any intellectual effect which can be profited from, can be. In addition, the construct of our political and legal system seems to prefer the rights of those who would make commercial use and economic gain by means of exploiting information and intellectual creations over those who would wish to make that information more or less available to all without restriction. This may not be our law or the way we see ourselves, but it is what we've seen practiced over the last few decades. As we know, precedence often supersedes word-for-word legal decrees. Perhaps I'm just a bit too cynical. I have been the 'victim' of plagiarism and copyright infringement and acknowledge the right of the creators to distribute and limit their 'product' as they see fit, but I also am slightly (and unrealistically) compelled to side with the utopian dream of limitless free information for everyone. I say this not as some punk who wants to rip every CD on the face of the earth to build his MP3 collection (I actually OWN a CD copy of every MP3 I have), but as someone who believes that information should never-the-less not be limited by and for those who can afford it. |
| Re:Information is a Commodity (Score:1) by Stu Charlton (stuartcharlton@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @05:43PM EST (#258) (User Info) |
| Information wants to be free, but we're not all geniuses. Hence, we need to keep money flowing to those that have the skill and talent to actually enthrall us... .. Or would you prefer a cacophony from the whole world sharing "free information", where the truly valuable stuff is drowned out amid the noise? Controversial thought: Some thoughts and opinions are more valuable than others. To paraphrase the editor of Slate magazine, "There's no such thing as an intellectual free lunch". Slashdot is a prime example of this observation in effect. -Stu |
| Re:Information is a Commodity (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @07:36PM EST (#277) |
| Unfortunately, the fountains of that intellectual property are usually far undercompensated for it. The actual profit goes to those who distribute said knowledge. There are many ways to justify giving an artist $.50 of every $18 compact disc sold or to give an author of a best-selling book $1 of every $35 book sold. I still think there is a gross negligence when such extremely small portions of the costs of intellectual products (information, etc) goes to either the creator or the cost of the actual information. The majority of the cost is distributed to the middle-man. Which is why we all hate agents. ::grin:: |
| We do have a choice... (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:11PM EST (#20) |
| We simply do not have to purchase to garbage that mainstream media constantly pumps out. I threw out my tv last month and it was a liberating experience. There are thousands of books that are copyright free and some of the best music is in your back yard played by local bands. Come on people are we really such sheep that we think we cannot live without pop culture. |
| Not exactly (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @01:36PM EST (#127) (User Info) |
| This reminds me of an argument made back in the 1850's. If you don't like slavery, you don't half to own slaves. But the issue is much deeper than that, as long as anyone has the right to impose on someone's liberties, that is in effect the right for someone to impose on anyone's liberties. Acting the way they do is unnactable, and is a threat to us and our liberties wether we choose to deal with them or not. |
| The problem is when the choices are bad. (Score:1) by Tau Zero (spherethis@youknownottoincludethis.yahoo.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:48PM EST (#137) (User Info) |
There are thousands of books that are copyright freeThis is great, unless you happen to like a genre or style which didn't exist 75 years ago. And what about the new authors? Are we supposed to stop supporting them, just because of the corporate framework which dominates their distribution (for the moment)? What would we have to read today if those authors of 75 years ago had been ignored due to a copyright-law dispute, and nobody could make a living by writing? some of the best music is in your back yard played by local bandsAgain, this assumes you live in a place where there's enough of a market for the style of music you like to have bands that play it. It also assumes that you can get out for your music; what do you do at work, at home? To list just one troubling question, are sick people undeserving of decent music? Any way you slice it, there isn't any alternative to fixing the DMCA and the rest of our broken system. |
| Ok, lots of talk here, so what? (Score:1) by evil_one (danwarner at ufies dot org) on Wednesday March 08, @12:11PM EST (#21) (User Info) http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~dwarner |
| I mean, are we sitting on our butts typing back and forth? Yes. We are hoping that the recent lawsuits brought against napster and the DeCSS gang will work out, but the fact of the matter is that even if they win, the DCMA is still there. What needs to be done is lobbying and petitioning, and not this stupid online petition BS. I'd love to get started on it myself, but this is an American issue, and I'm not a U.S. citizen. Sig who? |
| Electonic Economic Colonialism (Score:1) by VultureMN (jcaseATuswestDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @12:11PM EST (#22) (User Info) |
| The 'net, along with mass-market digital copying goods, should be stimulating new ideas for these mongo corporations, so that the most imaginative of them could stay alive and do well. But nooo; they can't tear themselves away from their outdated mindset, so they try to force everyone else to play by the old rules even if they don't fit the new technology. Why don't these business geniouses find a way to Leverage the new Paradigm of the Internet to bring Consumer Satisfaction through Innovation, thereby enhancing Shareholder Value? God, that pisses me off. The blood and sweat of net pioneers built the net. Now big money wants to turn it into the World Wide Stripmall. Anything you wanna buy, we got it! Sanitized for your protection! (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!) No discomforting thoughts here; just dotcoms and spam. The electocop will be by shortly; no weirdos allowed. One thing I think is inevitable, and probably not that far away, is Big Business pressure to increase the cost of domain names. "To encourage and stimulate business," of course. Why should we waste neatname.com on some slacker who's not enhancing the economy? Nah, we'll raise the price to 10k a year so the name-pool will be reserved for deserving Legitimate Businesses. Or how about requiring -all- sites to go through security analysis? Why, we don't want to encourage DDOS attacks, so it's only being economically responsible to require all sites be inspected by the FBI. (of course, to save taxpayer's money, we'll have to charge the site owner a reasonable fee; 50k a year should cover it, don't you think?) Bah. ---- quark. I like to say "quark." |
| The law moves slow, the world moves fast (Score:5, Interesting) by Lux Interior (incognito@obscurantist.net) on Wednesday March 08, @12:12PM EST (#23) (User Info) |
| 1)Jurisprudence moves slowly, which is why these laws are getting passed-- they're the first post -type precedents in this new territory. Grassroots movements have notorious difficulty fighting laws like this that claim whole swaths of legal authority. Hell, it has taken the women's rights movement 150 years to nearly achieve equality, and they were fighting already-obsolete laws from the 17th century!! Besides, EVEN IF it can be fairly maintained that digital music is a first amendment issue, don't forget that the actual rights to the music are owned by record companies, rendering it more a commerce and copyright issue if the courts so decide.( This wouldn't be the first time an anti-free-speech law went on the books in the US, either (1798, repeatedly in the 1890s and during the Red Scare)). And that's another problem-- the fact that these new laws, CDA, UCITA, DMCA, span so many legal categories, makes them hard to grok fully, much less fight. Your average legislature hasn't the time to parse 80 pages of text when they have 800 bills on the docket and an expert testimony in front of them that says it's okay. Of course that testimony was written by. . . 2) Do you know where staffers from Capitol Hill go when they burn out?? Across the Potomac to the Northern VA/Maryland tech corridor, where they get jobs as "legislative consultants." That's fancy talk for lobbyists. The tech companies are not stupid, they're mining the very source for legislative talent. See # 1 above, and marvel at the collusion going down. -- |
| It's about physical laws, not man made ones (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @01:42PM EST (#130) (User Info) |
| No matter how many lasw you pass, it will always be easier for individuals to copy, than to control. Control must always be organized and maintained from a central, master point - copying can be done in any context. |
| Offshore data havens (Score:1) by homer_ca on Wednesday March 08, @12:14PM EST (#25) (User Info) |
| Since this is still a US law, what are the chances of a foreign country in the free world setting up a data haven to host Shoutcast and other streaming audio servers? Big internet pipes cost big money, so is this economically viable at all? Shoutcast servers tend to be run more by hobbyists than the big corporate netradio sites, and they tend to play all kinds of illegal things- like 3 songs from the same album in a 3 hour period. |
| It's not all bad (Score:2) by spiralx (spiralx@removethis.anti-social.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:15PM EST (#26) (User Info) |
Music, the spark for a surprising percentage of the Net's legal battles, has become a metaphor for the emerging political struggle over who defines and propagates culture on the Web and the rest of the Net. Music hasn't really become a metaphor, more like the first battle of the war. It advances a principle of blind copyright protection that in no way takes into account the Net's unique nature, nor the rights and sensibilities of a generation that defines culture differently. Okay, I'm as big a fan of the net as the next geek, but the Internet doesn't deserve special treatment because of any "unique nature". This counts both ways - while we might lose some of the benefits we currently enjoy, we would also be free of laws that impose stricter controls in the net than for the offline world, such as the DMCA. Of course in an ideal world the freedoms we can theoretically enjoy on the net should also be available in the real world, but that's just being idealistic unfortunately. This kind of pre-Net copyright protection will advance the same sort of tepid and homogeneous culture that the music and movie industries have forced on the offline world by promoting products that can generate enormous revenues, and by gobbling up independent companies and acquiring media and entertainment companies and mass-marketing (and in effect, censoring and moderating) popular culture. That's not entirely true. There has always been, and always will be, an underground scene for music especially. I listen to a lot of acid techno, a form of music not available on any major label but which I can find supported by any number of independant record labels, some of which have been going for years. There have been many genres of music which go unnoticed and untouched by major record labels. Everywhere it reigns, from Wal-Mart to AOL/Time Warner to Microsoft, corporatism discourages creativity, pushes individuals to the margins and promotes conformity and control of software, hardware, intellectual content and culture. Again this is a sweeping statement about a subject which has a vast scope. Yes, maybe most corporations are like this, but certainly not all of them. There are companies out there which encourage their staff to be creative and push their ideas - the first example I can think of is Dyson who make vacuum cleaners over here in the UK. Geeks may be the only barrier standing between us and the rampaging corporatists drooling over profits from cyberspace. Okay, now this sounds like part of the trailer for a Hollywood film - you know with that bloke going "It was a time for political activism" :) "An intellectual is someone who has been moderated beyond their intelligence." |
| On webcasts (Score:1) by ContinuousPark (cp@strangedomainname.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:16PM EST (#27) (User Info) |
| It was interesting to know about the limitations on Internet radio stations. I didn't know that. But now I have to ask: Why, then, hasn't the RIAA sued Shoutcast.com (owned by Winamp owned by AOL) or MyCaster.com? These are services that give the user the ability to webcast anything he wants in the order he wants. Many of these broadcasters use original material but many don't. Wouldn't it be in the RIAA's best interest to track these so-called pirates down? Second point: Maybe we are wishful thinkers. It has been commented here at /. that it would have been best that instead of complaining on an Act that has ALREADY been passed we had done something to prevent it. Now, this lobbying that would have been necessary is quite expensive. But someone has to do it!! Come on, even big bad corporation Microsoft didn't lobby hard enough and that's one of the reasons they are being prosecuted so energetically by the Justice Department, because there aren't enough lawmakers behind them because Microsoft didn't thought for a minute it would help; they thought thay could win this case by their own arguments. Well, maybe this is a bad example because Microsoft did wrong and it's a corporation. But the point is that it would be very helpful if some of the I-got-a-huge-IPO Linux Companies started lobbying which means, after all, talking to congressmen, explaining the OSS community arguments to them, etc. Finally, I know it's expensive, but could someone give an opinion on how expensive and what the best means are to have our voice heard on Congress because that's where, corporatism aside (or maybe this is wishful thinking too because you can't separate both things), everything is decided after all. "All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti |
| Unite! (Score:1) by tootired (tootired@zombieworld.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:21PM EST (#30) (User Info) http://www.tootired.net |
| IT people around the world must realize that these very companies and governments that threaten our freedoms are in fact at OUR mercy. If we, the IT community were to stand up for ourselves and unite to protest in unison by not going to work or by refusing to finish a project, the corporate world might sit back and hear our complaints. We are weak as individuals, but together we can acheive anything. What we need is an organized effort like Echelon day to smoke out bad laws. In America the pilots union can strike to have regulations changed, what makes IT personnel any less important than pilots? If anything we are the backbone of the financial world and should be listened to and respected. The immortal words of Voltaire ... "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it." Stupid people should not breed. |
| Good idea... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:23PM EST (#165) |
| Yes, it's a good idea, but (and it's a big but) It's been suggested before, and (as someone else put it) it would be too much herding cats... IT people are too independant to do something like that... |
| hmm (Score:1) by Phil-14 (pgfatglobalreachdotnet) on Wednesday March 08, @12:22PM EST (#31) (User Info) |
I must be getting senile with age. Katz actually started making sense with this one. Anyway, I've been wondering lately whether or not Microsoft might actually be more of an ally in the content wars than an enemy? I would be willing to bet that they're not very interested in becoming a minor fiefdom in the Sony/Disney empire. Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita pgfatglobalreachdotnet |
| Retorical question (Score:1) by publius on Wednesday March 08, @12:26PM EST (#35) (User Info) |
| Who is John Galt? |
| Re:Retorical question (Score:1) by pyroskie on Wednesday March 08, @01:12PM EST (#100) (User Info) |
| Who is john guilt ? right ? |
| Re:Rhetorical question (Score:2) by SEWilco on Wednesday March 08, @02:22PM EST (#163) (User Info) http://www.wilcoxon.org/~sewilco |
| The spelling was correct. You probably need more information: |
| Re:Rhetorical question (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:50PM EST (#221) |
| It was an Illuminatus reference, the book contained a rather transparent parody of Atlas Shrugged called Telemachus Sneezed. |
| Get Involved! (Score:2) by 348 (threeforeight@.hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:32PM EST (#38) (User Info) |
| Don't just bitch about it here on /.. Go do something! Write the DMCA, write your representatives in Washington, join EFF or an association like it. Complaining that the DMCA and all behind it are evil open source killers etc. etc. does no good whatsoever. Get involved if you want to make a difference. There are plenty of vehicles. Write letters, send an e-mail, make a phone call. Do these actions as individuals, as members of a LUG, as constituents or just as joe average net user. Write the execs and the share holders of the corporations and industries behind the support of the DMCA. Look, the current administration is not going to help. Clinton's policies surrounding this are all over the road. His administration is focusing on only two things, 1, ramp up the failing Clinton legacy and 2, get Gore in the White House. This needs to come from grass roots efforts, they do have impact if they are communicated effectively. This means politely, professionally and with out flame. Find out who your local congressional member or senator is and communicate with them that the DMCA is way off base and catering not to the general good of the citizens, but to specific industries. Make sure that in all your verbal or written communication to either an elected official, industry lobby or industry exec that you be nice. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. You will come off as a script kiddie and be completely ignored. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about how "big brothers keepin' us down man" do something about it! The house of representatives has a search facility to find your representative: Go fast, turn left. |
| Civil dis. is a better way to Get Involved! (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @01:49PM EST (#138) (User Info) |
| people like Harriet Tubman (spelling) did more to end slavery than all of the petitioning congress combined. If you want to do somthing that helps, you can simply copy, buy coppies, sell coppies, of any type of CD, DVD, software and media you can think of. |
| Re:Civil dis. is a better way to Get Involved! (Score:1) by number_six on Wednesday March 08, @03:36PM EST (#216) (User Info) |
| Yes. What a great idea. I think I will start with this Linux CD. If I get going at it right away I can obliterate all mention of copyright, the GPL, and any of the creators of the software. Then I'll package it all up and distribute it widely. Anybody want a free copy of this OS? I am calling it Freenix (but you are free to call it anything you like!), and no, you don't have to worry about copyrights. None of the code belongs to anybody. It's been liberated. Oh, and if you, say, work for a company called Microsoft, don't worry! I don't know where any of this code came from, and either do you. Do whatever you want with it. If you want, you can call it a Microsoft product. That's what freedom is all about. |
| Government influence over space and non-space (Score:1) by GianfrancoZola (jkoepp-at-atlas.socsci.umn.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @12:33PM EST (#39) (User Info) |
| In case you haven't read the DCMA, you can link up to a text version of it by clicking here The government is in the unenviable situation of trying to regulate the patterns and processes of Net activity. In real space, the various geographies (physical, economic) are pretty well understood, they can do this--hence, we have things like the Interstate Commerce Commission. Granted, illegal activities take place in which we can't account for the movement of capital and goods, but it's a relatively minor part of the economy. In digital space, geographies are difficult to define, change rapidly, and are poorly understood in general--especially by government types. Things like MP3s, which are getting everyone into a froth, can be created, copied, hosted, and distributed with no relation to political boundaries, and the actors involved may or may not be U.S. citizens. I understand the government's position of wanting to do something about what's happening on the Net, because it clearly facilitates gross violations of laws and regulations that are applied in physical space. Hopefully, someone can clearly articulate to our lawmakers what it is about online culture that's different from physical space and deserves to be treated differently. |
| foo. (Score:1) by raindog151 (slashdot@forevergreen.net) on Wednesday March 08, @12:37PM EST (#45) (User Info) http://www.forevergreen.net/danny/ |
| so if i sit at my desk in the office, play 'illegal' mp3's really loud, but give a plug to the artist between tracks. (and maybe a mcnugget blurb.) am i a radio station? ------------------------------------------------------------ .~. Daniel Nagy /V\ / \ *nix admin / cold fusion development. /( )\ ^`~'^ |
| radio stations do pay royalties. (Score:2, Informative) by millia on Wednesday March 08, @12:39PM EST (#47) (User Info) |
| they pay performance royalties to the song's publishers, usually an agent such as ascap or bmi. so do tv stations. mtv doesn't, because it claims it's doing promotion for the song, even when they use it in something like 'the real world.' when you're an 800 pound gorilla, you can get away with that. i admit to not knowing all the answers, though: i don't think they pay royalties to the record company. do web broadcasters pay ascap/bmi royalties in addition to the record company? |
| Re:radio stations do pay royalties. (Score:1) by robjob (robjob@robjob.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:55PM EST (#190) (User Info) |
| They don't pay royalties to the song's publishers but to the performing rights societies like ASCAP and BMI which primarily represents artists, not publishers. MTV doesn't pay record companies, because unless they produced the video, they have nothing to do with the video itself. I think MTV pays the artists though, but I not postive on that. (NOTE MTV is being investigated by the DOJ for antitrust violations in the music video industry excatly because it is the 800 gorilla and does what it wants.) As for the webcasters, I think that they were supposed to pay a royalty to the record companies but that negotiations on the rates broke down. It was apparantly very acrimoniuos. I don't remember what the final result was though. Rob Jones |
| Back in the days (Score:1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:40PM EST (#49) |
| I remember my grandparents telling me stories about the DMCA. That's why they moved to America, since their government was cracking down on it. They told me about the "media burning" rallies where scores of MP3 players, MiniDisc recorders, and dance mix tapes were destroyed. Peoples houses were being raided by the Government's Ministry of Recordings, looking to confiscate pirated recordings of Britney Spears and Blink 182. My grandparents were lucky to escape with their ZIP disks and Compact Flash cards(which they used to bootleg Tori Amos singles, hidden in their digital cameras) intact when they moved to Duluth. |
| Hiaku (Score:1) by thrig (jmates@u.washington.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @12:42PM EST (#52) (User Info) http://www.sial.org/ |
| D.M.C.A. rears, Corporations cheer, and say: "Internet, route this!" (With apologies to John Gilmore and The Matrix.) |
| I've been giving this more thought.. (Score:5, Insightful) by Millennium (millennium@spam.spam.eggs.bacon.andspam.mac.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:42PM EST (#54) (User Info) |
| I think I'm finally beginning to understand why RIAA and DVD-CCA want so badly to control the Net as they do. It's a logical fallacy of theirs, one which has become common as of late (interesting how Enlightenment philosophers seem to have gotten it better than modern ones). The idea is, simply put, that of "intellectual property" which is at best a misnomer and at worst a total myth. Before the Objectivists here start flaming me, hear me out... Let's use art as an example. You paint a picture. Do you own the painting? Yes; you bought the materials and made the painting. You build a sculpture; do you own it? Yes; again you bought the materials and used them. But let's say you record a CD. Certainly you own the CD. But how do you own sound, even a specific configuration thereof? Or let's say you write a book; you certainly own the book, but how do you own words? You write a piece of software; how do you own thought? You build something; you own what you have built, but how do you own the concept of whatever it is you have made? The simple fact of the matter is, you don't. You can't, any more than you could own fire. So who owns it, then? Nobody does; nobody can. This is where the patent, copyright, and trademark offices come in. The idea is to promote the distribution of these non-ownable things by stating that for a certain period of time, no one but the first person to register these may use the idea, except by permission or fair use. Each handles a different thing; trademarks cover corporate identity, copyrights cover thoughts, and patents cover devices. Now, before someone goes to claim that I'm saying that a person has no rights to his mind, that's not what I mean. It does mean you have to view the mind from a different perspective, but it ends, as with the "intellectual property" myth, with a person keeping rights to his own mind. Certainly you own your own body. This means that among other things, you own your brain. Your brain (at least according to generally accepted theory) houses your mind, and you own that too because it's a part of you. What does the mind do? It produces thought. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that the mind is (or at least should be) sacrosanct, not something that anyone else has the right to interfere with, if only because each person owns his own mind. Because of this, you have a right to your own thoughts, just as if you did own them. The difference is only that you have no intrinsic right to sell your thoughts (the concept doesn't work anyway; if you sell your idea to someone else you lose nothing except perhaps the time it took to explain it, so it's not a fair trade). This is why I think we really need to come up with a better phrase than "intellectual property" for this sort of thing. No doubt it was started by the corporation, because it tips the balance in their favor. But it's also a misnomer. -Millennium |
| MODERATE UP! (Score:1) by Art Tatum (jhclouse at hotmail dot com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:35PM EST (#124) (User Info) http://www.gnustep.org |
| Please moderate the parent of this comment up! Help! Help! I'm being repressed! |
| You are right, and it sacres the hell out of me. (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @02:01PM EST (#146) (User Info) |
| You are right, and it frighten's me because the fact is many large institutions have bet well over a tirllion dollars on the assumption that intellectual property is like a basic right. it is not, and when it fails them god only knows what will happen, even though we history gives us some idea. The only thing we have that's even close to this is in the 1850's when very large institutions bet huge amounts of resources on the assumption that slave ownership was a basic right. when it became unsustainable, a very violent war eventually broke out. If that was to happen today, these new technologies would make it even harsher, and it would not be a north vs south, because IP has no specific geographic regions, it would be more like a mini anarchy. of course, this is extreme speculation - but it just underscores why people need fight the concept of intellectual property at any chance they get. |
| OT: You own your body/mind, but don't have control (Score:4, Insightful) by isaac (isaac.hatesspam@pobox.com) on Wednesday March 08, @05:17PM EST (#252) (User Info) |
Certainly you own your own body. This means that among other things, you own your brain. Your brain (at least according to generally accepted theory) houses your mind, and you own that too because it's a part of you. What does the mind do? It produces thought. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that the mind is (or at least should be) sacrosanct, not something that anyone else has the right to interfere with, if only because each person owns his own mind. You may own your body, but you're in error if you think you can do anything to it that you like. Suicide is a crime in many jurisdictions (although enforcement is a bit of a problem). You do not have the right to determine what you put in your own body (see the "War On Drugs"). Altering your own brain/body chemistry without government approval IS a criminal offense. In many places, it's a felony. That's right, if you put the wrong thing in your body, and your government finds out, men from said government will come with guns to put you in a cage. If we can't, as a nation, accept that people have the natural right to do to their own bodies as they see fit, then we shouldn't be surprised when we find our other freedoms abridged. Thoughtcrime isn't a crime yet, but only because it's not yet possible to police. Don't you thing EMI or Bertelsmann would love to take a penny every time you hum/remember a tune they own? Don't you think they'd require it if they could? Waxing cynical,
|
| More to the point (Score:1) by kapelski on Wednesday March 08, @06:57PM EST (#270) (User Info) |
| Intellectual Property is indeed a misnomer but for more resons than its ethereal lack of physical possesibility. None of us lives or was raised in a vacum. We get our ideas from the expriences we've had and the things we've learned. Knowledge is gained, not created. So if I take a bit of knowledge from column A and a bit from column B and put them together to make a new column C, how can I claim to own that? Because I was clever enough to do it? Hardly. If anything, maybe I should get some kudos for being clever enough to do it before anyone else did, but I hardly think I'm owed anything particularly spectacular for having done it. Now, maybe all of you are so appreciative that I was clever enough to put those things together, and so you're willing to give me some compensation for saving you the work it would have taken to do it, but the presumption that I somehow have the right to demand that you do it and punish you if you make your own column C is erroneous. Suppose some dude halfway around the world came up with column C at the same time as, but independently of, me? Do I know have the G-Men hunt him down and prosecute him for stealing my column C? The premise is what's false. It's called social invention, and you can't own that. Yes! Oh yes! My soul is snoring! - Tom Servo I want an harmonica - Maj. C.E. Winchester III |
| Re:I've been giving this more thought.. (Score:1) by drbonzo on Wednesday March 08, @07:19PM EST (#273) (User Info) http://whis.net |
| IANAL and all that, but I always had the naive thought that "intellectual property" was not about a "property" right, per se, but about the right to "enjoy the fruit of one's own labor". Here, read "fruit" as including, but not limited to, the commercial fruits ($$$, if what my labors have produced has monetary value to someone) and what I'll call "reputational fruits" -- the right to be identified as the author or performer of a unique or novel work, and to be praised for it (if it's good). I'll grant you that "intellectual property" then becomes a misnomer, since it seems to apply property law principles to what is really a question of just compensation for effort. Nevertheless, even if it's misnamed, I'd not want to call it a "myth". |
| Intellectual Property (Score:1) by kubalaa (adrian@w3.to) on Wednesday March 08, @08:47PM EST (#291) (User Info) http://adriank.cjb.net |
| I have to agree with what seems to be the direction of this argument; that one owns the rights to one's mind, but not to restrict the use of the thoughts which originated there. You can look at the logical side of it any way you want. The fact is, on the internet, everything is information, like thoughts, and there is no way to reliably police it without crippling the medium itself. I do believe, however, that one has the right to sell the products of one's mind; really, one has the right to sell anything. A novel produced by a writer is not really an original creation of that writer. It is the product of the writer's brain, which is in turn the product of its environment. Should the writer have to pay royalties to his parents for having him? Just as above, no matter what your position, it must be agreed that it is impossible to give "credit where credit is due," without imposing arbitrary lines on where that credit is due. The fundamental change that will have to occur is that people, artists, movie-makers, etc., will have to remember that they are selling themselves, as creative engines, not their output in the form of music or movies. I've heard of systems to handle this that will work; there's an excellent idea (forgot where I read it) for handling publishing on the internet without need for copyright laws. Basically, the public employs writers to write for them. If you like a writer, you donate X dollars to his next book. The publisher keeps these donations in escrow (and takes a cut) until the writer completes and publishes his book, then the writer is paid. Thereafter the book is free to have anything done to it; you can copy it, or sell it (although you wouldn't have much of a market when it can be obtained for free), or whatever. There's no worry about plaigarism, because the point is, the writer's brain is a good enough commodity that people pay him just to use it. Sure, it's like public tv; people will read the books who never contributed a cent. But the writer got paid, and that's what matters. The same model could be applied to music. The question is, will enough people be willing to "donate" to writers? Well, think, if your favorite author said he wouldn't write a book until he got X dollars, and the money wasn't coming in, you'd send him a couple bucks. If everyone thinks that way... it works. |
| Re:I've been giving this more thought.. (Score:1) by GenCuster on Thursday March 09, @05:15AM EST (#338) (User Info) |
| "Let's use art as an example. You paint a picture. Do you own the painting? Yes; you bought the materials and made the painting. You build a sculpture; do you own it? Yes; again you bought the materials and used them. But let's say you record a CD. Certainly you own the CD. But how do you own sound, even a specific configuration thereof? Or let's say you write a book; you certainly own the book, but how do you own words? You write a piece of software; how do you own thought? You build something; you own what you have built, but how do you own the concept of whatever it is you have made? " Now, you are getting into aesthetics. Arts values is not in the canvas, the oil, or in the case of music the sounds. It is the emotional communication that occours when you view art. The first two notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Hail to the Victors (The theme song for University of Michigan) are exactly the same. However no has ever confused on with the other. By the same token the subject, method, style of The Thinker and David are the same however the aesthitic event that happens when both are view is not the same. I sell the profits of my experience on a daily basis. I am compensated because my experience can be applied to add value. Music can do the same thing. A copy of a painting can create the same aesthetic experience as the original. If I was to download your resume, and give it to a company with my name on it, would that be fraudulent? I would be gaining profit from experience that is not my own. If you copy a CD, then sell it to someone else, you are not repaying the artist for both the experience and the skill he showed in communicating that emotion. Nate Custer |
| Some more thoughts, maybe too much thoughts... (Score:1) by Steeltoe (steeltoe@mail.com) on Thursday March 09, @06:38AM EST (#344) (User Info) |
| This all boils down to the word "ownership". Is it really something that exists? It seems more likely that it's more a construct of our minds, than something real. There's nothing in the universe that states ownership of this-and-that object found lying on the ground, excepts in our minds. WE come up with answers, and WE live by them for better and for worse. But yet we treat ownership as something real, because we live in a society. And we come up with more and more rules to cover more grounds, so that everything seems "fair" and everyone can live "happily" together (except for those in the 3rd world, etc, etc. *sarcasm on* But they can hardly be called people right? I mean, they live so far away, they're just RGB-dots on our expensive TVs. *sarcasm off*). The problem is that ancient rules gets outdated with each new technology. It's ALWAYS been so, and we're going to experience this even more, not just with information, but with real physical objects and energy too. What happens if someone invents a car that doesn't consume any fuel and pollutes less for instance? Fact is there are people out there that are willing to do just about anything to prevent viable alternatives to develop "too soon". That's because they hold power and influence over us, not just fantastic wealth. Rich people get richer on controlled stagnation, and yet they earn our respect. That only shows how much influence money can have. It's the same foolish admiration people had for conquerors in the past, until their own village got pillaged and raped. This debate isn't about free speech or our "rights". Those words are meaningless in the universal sense. This debate is about ourself wanting to take back the power that we have given away. Perhaps unknowingly and in our upbringing, but still we're responsible for our own lives. We'll only win if we know what this issue is REALLY about, or else we'll compromise on these issues until we're left with nothing. Why do we accept the current power-structures? It's because we've already forgotten that we can do whatever fucking thing we want to do in this life. But if we continue down the road we're on, we'll soon have implants that could even prevent that! There's nothing basical in the universe forcing us how to live, we choose that ourselves. I'm not saying let's start a revolution, instead let's spread more information at how this world really works. Informed people tend to make more informed choices. - Steeltoe |
| New Economics (Score:1) by ren-tzu (kaffenai@miavx1.muohio.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @12:43PM EST (#55) (User Info) |
| It seems to me that policy such as this goes against everything that has been making our country SO economically stable of late. As of right now, the U.S. is experienceing an unprecedented run of economic expansion for peace time. Most economists attribute this to the fact that demand for capital (one of the major factors in economic growth) is now continually growing due to the constant stream of technological innovation (hardware AND software) as opposed to the spurts of advancement seen in previous eras. The non-stop advancement cancels out the diminishing returns that would normally put an end to economic growth. End result: "Discoveries bring profit and competition destroys profit (Parkin)." So, in the end, this kind of legislation can only prove to hinder an economy that is currently beneficial to all, including the gov't AND the corporations. That in mind........what in the hell are they doing!?!?! |
| corporate welfare (Score:1) by Rexamongis on Wednesday March 08, @12:43PM EST (#56) (User Info) http://www.mullnet.org |
| Many artists and companies argue that the distributors of content have the right to be paid for the work they transmit or create, and that music downloaders are stealing, plain and simple. The stated aim of the "downloaders" in this case should not just be to re-define music sales and distribution, but to place the responsibility of securing distributed media squarely on the shoulders of the MPAA et al. At this point, the "media giants" have done an exceedingly poor job of protecting their content from unwanted distributon. To solve this they are now seeking government compensation for their lack of vision and technical expertise. If the enforcement of the DMCA does in fact become a reality, it could be the largest and most expensive case of welfare--corporate or otherwise--to date. My $.02 |
| I could care less (Score:1) by dzimmerm on Wednesday March 08, @12:45PM EST (#61) (User Info) http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~maggieoh |
| Music is a part of my life that I can definately live with out. If I need music that bad I will hum to myself. I always turn off the music in PC games as it is distracting and totally out of place in Unreal, Quake, or Doom. How many battle hardened warriors do you see with a walkman on? I have not bought a record, tape, or music CD in many many years and that is not likely to change. In short, let those who care pick up this battle. I will rest in my favorite sound environment, silence. |
| The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @02:06PM EST (#152) (User Info) |
| I could care less, they are hauling off the Jew's, but I am not a jew so I have nothing to worry about. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by StanSmith (martin/dev/null@hobgoblin.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:33PM EST (#215) (User Info) http://hobgoblin.net |
| By comparing this issue to the holocaust, you diminish your own arguement far more than the person's whom you attempted to discredit. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @06:15PM EST (#265) (User Info) |
| I wasn't compairing it to the holocaust, but the arguments that I shouldn't care about X because even if X is immoral it doesn't affect me right now - is invalid and I provided an example brought to its logical conclusion. I think you should consider that some industries have bet over a trillion dollars on the assumption that copyrights are a basic right. It is not, and if you don't think in the end that people will be willing to kill, or even consider worse. Think very carefully, because even the germans thought of themselves as rational civilized people protecting their interests. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by StanSmith (martin/dev/null@hobgoblin.net) on Wednesday March 08, @10:03PM EST (#301) (User Info) http://hobgoblin.net |
| First of all, I think you mean 'even the Nazis' rather than 'even the Germans'. It's a symptom of your seeming tendancy to overgeneralize that you assign Nazism to all Germans. Second of all, and I hesitate to address this as all you did was restate your first point without adding supporting for it, I disagree that the holocaust is the logical conclusion patent enforcement will come to. If you can link a past horror on the magnitude of the holocaust to anything remotely akin to patent enforcement, I'd love to hear it. (Most people would say you can't, because there's never been anything as bad as the holocaust, but that's because they've been educated in the US and for some reason we don't learn about Stalin) The fact is, although ethnic cleansing is born of numerous factors, patent enforcement has never been shown to be a significant factor in it's development. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by GenCuster on Thursday March 09, @05:47AM EST (#341) (User Info) |
| "On August 19, 1934, 95% of the Germans who were registered to vote went to the polls and 90% (38 million) of adult German citizens voted to give Adolf Hitler complete and total authority to rule Germany as he saw fit. Only 4.25 million Germans voted against this transfer of power to a totalitarian regime." William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich They voted for Mien Kampf they knew what they were votng for. The point that was being made was greater than patent infignment. It was dealing with complantancy towards imoral acts. Assuming this is an immoral act, the diferance is one of scale alone. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by StanSmith (martin/dev/null@hobgoblin.net) on Thursday March 09, @12:27PM EST (#358) (User Info) http://hobgoblin.net |
| Your statistics about Germans who voted for Hitler, while accurate, doesn't support the claim that Nazis = Germans. There were residents unregistered to vote, expatriots, children, etc. When you attempt to cover an entire race with the blanket of one political party, however prevalent, you're behaving in a racist manner. Given that, it's unsurprising that you're unable to grasp the other arguement, as racism is the stronghold of the ignorant. When you extend the scale of a comparison too far, you invalidate it. You're no longer taking something to it's logical conclusion, but engaging in make-believe and assigning illogical consequences to an action. Do I think we should ignore immoral actions? Of course not. However, overstating the consequences to such a degree does nothing but radicalize your position, making for a weaker arguement. Which was my original point. |
| Re:The 1940's version of this argument (Score:1) by GenCuster on Friday March 10, @03:56AM EST (#363) (User Info) |
| The point I was making was not that Germans = Nazis, but that the idea that most Germans were not Nazis, that Nazis were an extremely small subset of Germany is patently false. Your accusation of Racism is particularly upsetting however. I am the grandson of two families that emigrated from Germany after WWI, including a Jewish family on one side. Members of my family died in the holocaust. While you discuss abstract terms, I present facts and eyewitness accounts. My grandfather left Germany, just after Hitler was elected (He is Jewish). He has told me of the systemic racism that was prevalent in Germany at the time. However, I also speak fluent German, have visited there for two summers, and have some great friends in Germany. Now I am not implying that all Germans were neither Nazis nor racists. However, to be fair, the Nazi party was the largest party in Germany, the majority of the population was at least complacent. They liked the fact that Hitler restored dignity to Germany, made them feel important, and reversed the economic chaos, slowed inflation and spawned many great scientists (The wonderful line about why the US won the space race "Our Germans were better than your Germans." comes to mind.) "However, overstating the consequences to such a degree does nothing but radicalize your position, making for a weaker argument. Which was my original point." You make a good point; the point made above was a slightly different one, which you seem to have missed. Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is done to show how horrible a argument can be. The argument is not "If we allow this, somehow we will cause another holocaust." But, "This is the same mentality that was present here and that mentality ought to change." Again it is not radicalizing the position but shocking the reader and forcing the reader to question the basis of his or her argument. Which is implied to be false. This method does not relate to the argument itself but the presentation of it. Your criticism cannot be of the argument itself that has not been changed in the slightest but, instead with the presentation of that argument. When I wrote this I had been up for about 33 hours strait, and did not communicate the argument with the lucidity I desired. For that you have my apologies. Nate Custer P.S. One other interesting stat. There were 11 million people killed in the holocaust, 5 million were Jews, 4 million were Catholics, 2 million were Gays, Gypsies, and the Handicapped. They don't teach that anymore. |
| What about other countries? (Score:1) by pasti (pasti@SPAMMERS.GO.TO.HELL.dlc.fi) on Wednesday March 08, @12:46PM EST (#63) (User Info) |
DMCA is an US law and it applies to US citizens (naturally), but can it apply to non-US citizens / corporations? What about the E-mail not being very private-thing? To an outsider like me (I'm from Finland) this starts to seem like your government was something you can't get a grip on. It does what it wants and that's pretty much it. No matter what you say or do. It feels like the US government was something big, dark.. not something you can point a finger at. A faceless organization with all the power they could want / need. It's spooky. Makes me think if Mulder & Scully were right after all. But then again, I'm an outsider. What do I really know? I used to look up to the States and it's citizens, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I used to think I'd leave Finland for USA, but I think that'd be a bad idea. The land of the free seems to be far from free. Hell, If my computer was that badly messed up, I'd reinstall it. |
| Geek Party (Score:1) by imho123 (imho) on Wednesday March 08, @12:48PM EST (#67) (User Info) http://www.cnn.com |
| What would happen if geeks formed their own party? Would a real geek have a chance? Are there enough geek votes out there? (I would vote for anyone showing COMMON SENSE on these issues. Are we in a minority?) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ Read my lips; no new faxes ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Re:Geek Party (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:06PM EST (#151) |
| If someone puts together a party full of geeks who don't mind paying for music or software, I'm all for it. As long as being geeky is inexorably interwoven with refusing to accept that life costs money, I'll stay political party free. |
| A16: Call to Action! (Score:4, Interesting) by dominion (mchisari@nospam.usa.net) on Wednesday March 08, @12:50PM EST (#72) (User Info) http://strange-exchange.dhs.org |
Listen up, people! On April 16th, a diverse group of protesters will be converging on Washington DC to protest the IMF. More importantly, though, they will be protesting corporate rule and the placement of profit over freedom. It just so happens that I found this on the RIAA website: > The RIAA is located at: > 1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300 > Washington, DC 20036 > Phone: (202) 775-0101 > Fax: (202) 775-7253. If I'm not mistaken, this isn't that far from where the A16 action will occur. We need to organize and get our voices heard! We have a few different options, from physically occupying their offices and demanding certain concessions, to locking arms around their building, to attacking their building with grafitti and posters outlining why we feel the RIAA and others are destroying the culture of sharing information. If you can get to A16 in D.C., do it! Contact groups like the Direct Action Network, the Ruckus Society, or possibly other more revolutionary groups, and start talking about how to organize. You don't get things accomplished by continually posting on Slashdot. At some point you have to get off your butt and take to the streets! Michael Chisari mchisari@usa.net |
| Re:A16: Call to Action! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:53PM EST (#142) |
| This is the dumbest fuckin' thing I've heard all day. Go ahead, storm the building and when you get arrested, and meet your new husband for the night in the DC jail, don't bitch. |
| Re:A16: Call to Action! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:15PM EST (#250) |
| Dumb??!? I have been arrested in DC for civil disobedience (Feb. 28 anti-death penalty/Mumia demo) and my arrest was short and painless. I was out without being charged with anything (even misdemeanor) and the action got the attention of the popular press and was wildly considered a success. Until you have a basis from which to speak I suggest you refrain from making such comments. |
| Re:A16: Call to Action! -- oh, puh-leeze! :p (Score:2) by Randym (randym@cyberspace.int) on Wednesday March 08, @02:29PM EST (#171) (User Info) |
| You don't get things accomplished by continually posting on Slashdot. At some point you have to get off your butt and take to the streets! ...where you can get arrested, get labeled as an anarchist, get an arrest record, pay a whopping fine, give ammunition to those forces calling for a state crackdown, and go home having accomplished nothing but feeling like you've accomplished something. Protest is to effective political change as masturbation is to sex -- it feels great, but there's no chance at a long-term effect. A better way to act would be to organize progressive people in your local neighborhood and do something *locally* (NOT stand around with a sign "protesting", though). Put pressure on your local politicians by showing up at their meetings, asking the questions that no-one else will, talk to everybody you can, and organize yourself and your friends into a local political party. All over America people are waking up, organizing (using the Net), and scaring the sh*t out of professional politicians. Be one of *them*, not just some hippydippy-wannabe, who thinks that simply being morally correct is going to change anybody's mind. (Oh yeah -- before you flame me, let me point out that I've been an activist since the early '80's and have been helping to build the Michigan Green Party for the last 7 years. I know what I'm talking about -- been there, done that. I don't disagree with your ends -- just your means.) You don't get things accomplished by continually demanding and attacking. At some point you have to get off the streeets and take to the ballot box!
|
| Re:A16:Call to Action!(not for the weak of spirit) (Score:1) by dominion (mchisari@nospam.usa.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:07PM EST (#194) (User Info) http://strange-exchange.dhs.org |
| ...where you can get arrested, get labeled as an anarchist, get an arrest record, pay a whopping fine, give ammunition to those forces calling for a state crackdown, and go home having accomplished nothing but feeling like you've accomplished something. You're saying that Seattle accomplished nothing? That the university occupations haven't accomplished anything? That the 9-month long UNAM student occupation was worthless? That the Zapatistas should just give up and vote for somebody different in the next Mexican election? Where have you been? By the way, I am an anarchist, and a wobblie too. Oh yeah -- before you flame me, let me point out that I've been an activist since the early '80's and have been helping to build the Michigan Green Party for the last 7 years. I know what I'm talking about -- been there, done that. I don't disagree with your ends -- just your means.) Ah, so you're a Green. Great, why don't you just keep writing your letters and soliciting donations, voting for candidates that have been proven ineffectual, and hoping that you can make capitalism more "environmental" and "caring" any more than you can make the marxist state "egalitarian" and "democratic." Meanwhile, I'll be focusing on things a little bit more realistic. Protest is to effective political change as masturbation is to sex -- it feels great, but there's no chance at a long-term effect. Either you skipped history class completely, or the class you enrolled in was taught using the John D. Rockefeller Approved (tm) Curriculum of the Bosses ©. Go read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Protest, striking, sabotage, etc., are all very strong parts of our history,and they're the reason you're able to write emails to fellow "Greens" who have faith in the capitalist system that otherwise would have you working in a sweatshop. You don't get things accomplished by continually demanding and attacking. At some point you have to get off the streeets and take to the ballot box! Why, so I can choose my temporary dictator? That's not democracy, and it is definitely not freedom. Be one of *them*, not just some hippydippy-wannabe, who thinks that simply being morally correct is going to change anybody's mind. If you'd like to be an ineffectual liberal (probably middle-to-upper class, I'm betting, as most Greens are), that's your choice. The fact of the matter is that a couple of days of lockdowns, occupations or strikes would accomplish the kind of awareness that Greens haven't been able to attain with years of working "within the system". Michael Chisari mchisari@usa.net |
| Re:A16:Call to Action!(not for the weak of spirit) (Score:1) by lef.forvrin on Thursday March 09, @03:35AM EST (#333) (User Info) |
| A couple things. You're both wrong. To an extent. The only place sabotage gets on is on the black list. We're geeks. We fight with words, not fists. But we do fight. Second, if getting arrested for civil disobedience or spending a night in jail bothers you, Get out. Stop your whining, because you don't deserve the things you complain about. I'm sure it bothered the Indians fighting for independance that they were going to be beaten by English Guards by sticks and worse, but did it stop them? And, the last time I checked, Gandhi wasn't an anarchist or worse. Do not. I repeat, DO NOT destroy anything. We want to create freedoms. Not for us, but for EVERYONE. That means we can't infringe on another's freedoms to do so. So you want to participate in civil disobedience? You want to make a statement? Develop a device that defeats Region coding on DVD's. Program DeCSS. Then when they come to arrest you, accept it. When they fine you, don't pay. When they put you in jail, don't quaver. Is it worth it? To be free? I don't know what my part in all this is going to be, or even if I'm ready to make a part. But for all that you might consider holy or worthy, do not hurt those of us who haven't made up our minds by wreckin' sh*t. :P |
| huh? (Score:1) by Ray Yang on Wednesday March 08, @05:21PM EST (#253) (User Info) http://www.princeton.edu/~ray |
| Why was this moderated up? How is a protest against the International Monetary Fund even remotely related to excessive copyright laws? |
| Bring on the Data Haven (Score:1) by Cullpepper on Wednesday March 08, @12:50PM EST (#73) (User Info) |
| Bring on the data haven, in a politically independent country that doesn't fear U.S. "sanctions." *That* would revolutionize the banking/music/entertainment/data sectors over night. If Cuba were smart....... -Cullpepper |
| Re:Bring on the Data Haven (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:11PM EST (#230) |
| Who needs a politically independent country? As soon as one of the anonymous network initiatives (http://freenet.sourceforge.net) come online, you'll see your revolution. Files that can't be traced or forcibly deleted??! Coming this spring??! And you thought 'napster' let the cat out of the bag. |
| Time to be devil's best buddy (Score:2, Insightful) by mikewood on Wednesday March 08, @12:51PM EST (#75) (User Info) |
| A want to disagree with this article by making 3 points. 1) I know that we all like to think that the internet is something unique and revolutionary in human experience, but many of these issues have happened before. Case in point: For the whole issue of downloading music to make our own CD's being squashed by the Gov this is remarkably similar to some years ago (10?) when colleges had their "reader" privilages stopped. Back then teachers could take a bunch of books down to Kinko's and have them photocopy the best parts and create a reader made up of a many books. This helped students 'cause they didn't have to pay for all the books. THis pissed of publishers cause students didn't have buy the books. Eventually the Law came down on the side of the publishers because this could completly circumvented their way to make profits. This has also been causing hell for the zine community for many years. 2) I'm getting really sick of the term "corporatism". I find this term to be a great way to dehumanize the people who actually work for, and manage the corporations. I think this term is becoming increasing used so we can ignore the wishes of anyone who wants to use technology to make money. Though I really want to make my own CD's I can understand someone getting pissed off becuase I'm preventing him/her from making money by doing this. Intellecual propery rights or not that person may have put in a lot of work to produce what I am now redistributing. 3) The line "corporatism discourages creativity" is true, but corporations do an amazing job dumbing down stuff so people who don't want to be creative can use it. This applies to both microsoft putting out a crap OS that people love for familiarity and (somewhat) ease of use, to Hormell putting out tasteless chili, when any of us creative folks could go cook our own chili. Corporations often serve a great service to people "not-in-the-know" in a field, but to those "in-the-know" our thought of as bland and inefficient. Thanks for listening. "something witty here" -- mikewood |
| Re:Time to be devil's best buddy (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:02PM EST (#246) |
| downloading music to make our own CD's being squashed by the Gov this is remarkably similar to some years ago (10?) when colleges had their "reader" privilages stopped. Back then teachers could take a bunch of books down to Kinko's and have them photocopy the best parts and create a reader made up of a many books. This helped students 'cause they didn't have to pay for all the books. THis pissed of publishers cause students didn't have buy the books. Eventually the Law came down on the side of the publishers because this could completly circumvented their way to make profits. Actually, this is an excellent example of corporate greed run amok. I was a college student back in the 80's, and the concept of the reader was a godsend, since most of the chapters or articles were not in print in the first place. So the reader was really the only way to get the material, short of sharing a single library book amongst 30-100 fellow students. By preventing the printing of readers, the publishers did not generate any significant profits that they were "losing" to the readers. Most of the articles in my history classes were no longer under copyright anyway! So the publishers were not losing money on the deal. Nor were they willing to put most of this stuff back into print. Thanks to corporate greed, hapless students now have to share one or two copies on reserve in the library, rather than having a single convenient reader for each student. We certainly are not buying any more books from the publishers; there is a limit to how much professors are willing to force their students to buy. The publishers could have come to some kind of arrangement with the universities, but no. They are not interested in our education, only in their profits. |
| Radio stations *do* pay royalties. (Score:2, Informative) by xsmasher on Wednesday March 08, @12:54PM EST (#81) (User Info) |
| The statement "unlike ordinary radio and TV broadcasters, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies" is incorrect. Every station on your dial pays royalites to ASCAP and BMI for the music they play. This smacks of lack of research, and kind of deflates your they're-picking-on-us stance. Are content companies trying to surpress progress? Yes. But it's out of fear, not out of malice. |
| Re:Radio stations *do* pay royalties. (Score:1) by ka-klick on Wednesday March 08, @02:03PM EST (#147) (User Info) |
| Absolutely right! Not only do radio and TV stations have to pay licence fees to ASCAP & BMI (which they must keep copious logs for) - If they want to use a particular piece (say in a TV show or movie) the producer of the show must obtain individual "Grand" rights for that piece which are negotiated one on one with the holder of the copyright. The ability to make numerous copies of something is NOT really the issue, when you buy a CD you are at least paying a share of all of the time that went into producing that work - which is not just the artist's time to play that tune once - it's the hours of studio time, it's the years of practicing and honing their craft - you're not buying a piece of plastic, you're buying someones time. MSRP - Tax, Title & Licence Extra Your Milage May Vary |
| Re:Radio stations *do* pay royalties. (Score:1) by richieb (richieb@netlabs.net) on Wednesday March 08, @02:47PM EST (#185) (User Info) http://www.netlabs.net/~richieb |
| The ability to make numerous copies of something is NOT really the issue, when you buy a CD you are at least paying a share of all of the time that went into producing that work - which is not just the artist's time to play that tune once - it's the hours of studio time, it's the years of practicing and honing their craft - you're not buying a piece of plastic, you're buying someones time. The problem is that less than 10% of the price goes to the artist and the rest goes to the person making and distributing the plastic. Furthermore, to get this artists are forced to sign away the rights to their own creations. The Internet removes the need for making and distributing plastic. ...richie |
| Re:Radio stations *do* pay royalties. (Score:1) by robjob (robjob@robjob.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:35PM EST (#176) (User Info) |
| Actually, the original poster is correct and you are wrong. Radio companies do pay royalties to ASCAP and BMI, but those royalties are for the public performance of the music and lyrics. ASCAP and BMI represent the artists and musicains, but not the record companies themselves. The music and lyrics are not typcially owned by record companies, who own the rights to the phonograph itself. These rights extend to authorship used in engineering the record itself,and the selection and composition of the songs on the record. That is all they "own". And the Copyright act is very clear that there is no public performance right for phonographs, and it was a matter of heated debate in 1976 when the Copyright act was being enacted. The record companies wanted that right and the radio stations didn't want to have to pay them royalties. The radio stations won. As a result, radio stations DO NOT pay royalties to the record companies for the broadcast of their records. It is important to remember that the record companies are NOT the rights owners when it comes to music, they are the producers and distributors. Rob Jones |
| The real problem... (Score:1) by David Ishee on Wednesday March 08, @01:00PM EST (#90) (User Info) http://slashdot.org/ |
| is those who use mp3's to pirate music. The record companies are painting all mp3 users with a broad brush as pirates since that is a better sound bite on the 6:00 news. The pirate's actions are causing all the problems for those who want to use mp3's for their own collection, or for legitimate uses. You can whine and complain all you want, but the artist signed a contract restricting re-distribution, and you agreed to pay for that CD. You knew all along what you were getting in to. If you want to trade music around freely, then only listen to and purchase music from bands and independent labels that will allow it. If you can't find any then start your own band and allow unlimited redistribution. Don't claim the "right" to break a contract you entered into just because you don't like it. You can also whine and complain all you want about how much the big media companies stink. If you don't like them, don't patronize them. Don't support them. Find alternatives. They may be influential because of their size, but that doesn't force you to support them. The big media companies don't have absolute control over music. -- Set laser printers to stun and prepare to beam down. |
| Something to think about. (Score:2, Insightful) by zerog on Wednesday March 08, @01:10PM EST (#98) (User Info) http://mottnews.horde.net/zero-g/ |
| Quite an interesting article, but it leaves something unsaid about where we're gonna be in the future. Look at it this way. As long as we live in a society based on money and large corporations we're gonna have problems. CD's are always gonna cost over $15.00 and any micro$oft product is gonna cost at least $88. Sure, the idea is to get rid of large corporations, but can we survive as a country without them? I sense a digital war in the future. Take a step back. Look at the RIAA. Copying music and giving it away for free. It's been going on for years, but on a smaller scale. How many tapes do you own? Sure it may cut into corporate profits, but they shouldn't be worrying about that. Real bands want recognition. Corporations don't give a s*** when (say) Hanson goes out of style because they're riding the fad wave and making immense profits. (Ohh, ohh. Mommy, mommy. I want a Spice girl doll too!) Overall, adaption is the key word. Until corporations realize this, they are absolutely helpless. I hate it when the government starts trying to create "rights" for the internet. Sure, there may be some "decency" issues, but it should be taken on at the family level. In essence, there never will be any so called "rights" on the internet, because it is based in a purely virtual world where there truely are no real rules. Sure, the US may come up with a law to totally outlaw or regulate something, but (a) how many people are going to listen to it or even hear about it and (b) how hard is it to host a site in another country? Any so called "rights" that are placed on the internet can only be described as censorship and a clear violation of civil rights. I say we form an official pro-rights coalition. Remember the phrase "strength in numbers." (End rant) Zero G |
| Wrong way Katz at it again (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:14PM EST (#105) |
| But the DMCA doesn't promote a debate on that issue; in fact, it's a back-door effort by lobbyists and politicians to circumvent debate or discussion entirely. And exactly where does that debate take place, Katz? IN CONGRESS! THEY ALREADY DEBATED IT! We live in a representative democracy, right? It advances a principle of blind copyright protection that in no way takes into account the Net's unique nature, nor the rights and sensibilities of a generation that defines culture differently. Nor does it even acknowledge the idea of any universal right to define choice, options or personal enjoyment. Do you really have people proofread your stuff? Really? Because what kind of sixth grade drivel is this!? WTF is a 'universal right to define choice'? Copyright exists to benefit society by encouraging creativity with the idea that your work will be protected. Copyright is limited, but as new technologies appear, we have to adapt our laws to cover them. The web isn't any different, and whether we revise basic web protocols (IVP6) or pass laws or some combination to protect copyright it's the same process as we have engaged in before. Now, if you can coherently explain where "universal right to define choice" appears in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, I might listen. But don't expect society to take you seriously when this is the nut of your argument. Please, if you are going to continue posting, please grow out of your oral stage. I! ME! MINE! I'M JON KATZ AND I SPEAK FOR GEEKS! WAAAAHHH! I WANT MY NAPSTER! |
| Common law (Score:1) by Wintermancer (wintermancer@exothermicmail.com (Spam proofed)) on Wednesday March 08, @01:18PM EST (#108) (User Info) |
| A fundamental problem with the rash of intellectual property driven laws is the fact that they are increasingly distant from their intended origins. Simple stated, copyright (and other intellectual property) is designed to reward the creator of artistic product. No one denies the right for an individual to be gainfully employed through proceeds (ie: royalties) from their craft (ie: songs, writings, etc.) Historically, this can be viewed as an offshoot of the patronage-artisan agreement. The artisan would receive earnings from the sale/performance of their work, and the patron would receive acknowledgement of their contribution (primarily, through financially supporting them and allowing them to develop their craft). The problem lies in that the current set of laws rewards the corporations moreso than the creators. Significantly so. Digital distribution of artistic work is a direct threat to the corporation's highly refined business model. As creative work is a primary export for the United States (ie: television, movies, and music), the legislative bodies are going to pay attention when lobbists come knocking. After all, the did cut the artist out of the equation a long time ago. We will see how well geographically delinated laws survive in a geopolitical internetworked world. Chances are, poorly. -- Friends don't let friends climb slabs. |
| Kill your congressman (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:18PM EST (#110) |
| They saw an opportunity to line their pockets by auctioning off the public good to the high bidder. They've already sold your children into slavery. Kill them. It's the only solution. When the evil of failing to revolt exceeds the evil of revolting, it is morally obligatory to revolt. |
| Occlusion Of The Point (Score:3, Insightful) by chromatic on Wednesday March 08, @01:24PM EST (#114) (User Info) http://snafu.wgz.org/chromatic/ |
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a frontal assault on the open source ethic, both technological and social. The underlying political issue is both clear and significant: Must we depend on the creative choices and products of a handful of ferociously greedy and monopolistic corporations who have increasingly come to dominate media, culture and entertainment? Or can we define our own cultural experiences? Before the passage of this law, the answer was yes; individuals controlled at least some of their choices. And after the passage of this law, individuals no longer control their choices? How amazing -- the DMCA subverts free will. I no longer have the ability not to watch television, or not to listen to the radio, or not to write my own books or songs? DMCA enforcement squads will prevent me from flying halfway across the country to attend an Over the Rhine concert? I doubt it. While your concerns may be warranted, you do your argument a disservice with this exaggeration. One of the Net's universally shared ethics, at least among geeks, has been empowerment and choice, along with a growing open-source instinct about software and technology. Is it universal, or is it shared among geeks? Be precise. Previously, Net culture has tended to be freer than offline culture. This, from someone who has decried the so-called "Digital Divide"? Aren't the barriers to participation in Net culture sufficiently higher (the cost of a PC and an Internet connection) than those of offline culture (the cost of a radio)? If you don't like me reframing the question in those terms, be more specific on what you mean by 'freer'. (I suspect the answer lies in a latter paragraph which mentiones "free flow of ideas and opinions". I was fortunate enough to find this, among college students, before I discovered the Internet.) Music, the spark for a surprising percentage of the Net's legal battles, has become a metaphor for the emerging political struggle over who defines and propagates culture on the Web and the rest of the Net. Step back and look at the bigger picture. The question is, "What are the legal and ethical ramifications of trivially duplicated Intellectual Property?" That question has bounced around for decades, if not longer. (I would imagine that it came up as recording equipment became popular and practica for home use, and again as photocopying technology spread.) The current incarnations of the debate (MP3s, DVDs, TV rebroadcasting) only demonstrate that the issue has never been resolved. The Net is, in fact, redefining what content and intellectual property are. Some would argue that the definitions were never very good. The law's proponents claim that the DMCA was intended to promote balance, but so far, at least, it tilts sharply towards copyright holders, not copyright challengers. It advances a principle of blind copyright protection that in no way takes into account the Net's unique nature, nor the rights and sensibilities of a generation that defines culture differently. What is "the Net's unique nature"? Who is this mythical generation? How does it "define culture differently"? Please support your opinions with some facts. That will, at least, give your essay the semblance of commentary. Nor does it even acknowledge the idea of any universal right to define choice, options or personal enjoyment. Perhaps you need a law to tell you that it is okay to like something you didn't see on TV or hear on the radio, but the rest of us are doing okay without it. I am not a mindless consumer, bleating advertising jingles all day long, waiting for 5 pm when I can invade the mall with the rest of my flock, emerging bleary eyed, emblazened with the corporate logos. This kind of pre-Net copyright protection will advance the same sort of tepid and homogeneous culture that the music and movie industries have forced on the offline world by promoting products that can generate enormous revenues, and by gobbling up independent companies and acquiring media and entertainment companies and mass-marketing (and in effect, censoring and moderating) popular culture. Someone interested in "choice, options, or personal enjoyment" might even acknowledge that some people have made the choice, or, horrors, personally enjoy that "tepid and homogenous culture". Jack Valenti certainly did not send his good squad to force me to attend a movie or two last year. One of the striking aspects of geek culture is that it's so far remained much freer than the mainstream. Again, in which ways? The geeks who like Star Trek? The hardcore libertarian bunch? Cypherpunks? Script kiddies? Alt.binaries.* readers? MCSEs? Warez d00ds? Software and hardware have enabled individuals to seek out rich, diverse and highly individualized entertainment. As did cable television, libraries, oral tradition, and imagination before them. The ability to personalize culture in this way is unprecedented, a unique feature of life online. When you define culture as "a list of bookmarks in a web browser", you are correct. Unfortunately, no one else defines culture in such a short-sighted fashion. The belief that even if laws restrict the Net, innovative software and hardware will triumph, is pervasive. The DMCA suggests that may be wishful thinking. Whereas you suggest that the idea that I can decide not to partake of the "tepid, homogenized mass media culture" is wishful thinking. Is there cause for concern with the DCMA? Certainly. Is it anything new? No. Is it the end of the world? Certainly not. Grandiose exaggerations, sweeping generalizations, a limited sense of proportion and history, and vague notions about some sort of utopian geek paradise threatened by evil big business do very little but occlude the real issue. |
| "The Net is redefining..." (Score:2) by dpilot on Wednesday March 08, @01:26PM EST (#117) (User Info) |
| As unpopular as this will be/has been on Slashdot, I must continue to say that the Net, as it has been, is a terribly fragile and endangered thing. The freedoms we have been accustomed to can be easily taken away, and the erosion has already been done. The heritage of the Net has always been free, probably because it was born of the University setting. But now it's a largely commercial place, like it or not. There are many, many points of control where the freewheeling days of the past can get shut down, cold. To begin with, the Law has come down against linking to deCSS code. The Law has also gone to ISPs to enforce this situation. This comes VERY close to turning ISPs from common carriers into content providers - potentially putting AOL-like Terms of Service on all of us. (in the US - to begin with) Beyond that, in the old days anyone could buy a bank of modems and become an ISP. In these days where we all crave bandwidth, the rules have shifted. So far cable modem users end up having the cable provider as their ISP. DSL is a little more diversified, but not far from the same boat. Becoming a DSL ISP requires co-located equipment, and has become a higher bar to jump over. Forget about satellite - the sky's the limit on requirements, there. So the very infrastructure has shifted - become less diffuse and has better defined points of control. Money has been speaking, and freedom eroded. We're not that many steps from being forced into AOL-like user status, TOS and all. We can scream to our representatives, but we're also a small minority. As long as content flows TV-like along the pipes to the majority (AOL-like) we lack the clout needed to stop this trend. Note that none of these legal moves do a thing to hinder TV-like delivery of content from big providers. Oh, well. |
| Re:"The Net is redefining..." (Score:4, Interesting) by warpeightbot (taliesin at-sign speakeasy.org) on Wednesday March 08, @02:47PM EST (#184) (User Info) http://www.babcom.com/~taliesin |
| I'm going to go out on a limb, and post this not as an AC (which would be safe, but relatively unheard) but as myself, because I think it needs to be heard. When are we going to figure out that what 534 boneheads and one libertarian (the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ron Paul) vote on up there in the District O'Crime, aka The Law, means exactly jack when it comes to what you and I do on a daily basis? How many of us speed on a daily basis? Even better: How many of us actually stop the car completely every time at a stop sign when nothing is coming? I thought so. The Law can't be everywhere. What does this mean for you and me and the DMCA? Nothing, really. The DMCA is worth less than the paper it's printed on. On the other hand, it also means a lot. It means that we've just been pushed (back) over the line into being a culture of outlaws, like our predecessors in the Sixties. This is constraining, in that some of us will have consequences for exercising our freedom of choice. It is also freeing, in the idea that, hey, if we're going to be outlaws, we may as well act like it. They can't kill the net, they can only push it underground. You guys still remember how to do Fido and UUCP, don't you? We can also tunnel protocols across the "legit" Net, encrypt our data, steganize it, all sorts of shifty things to keep The Man off our backs. The tech to do this is already out there, in the clear, currently unfettered. All we have to do is USE IT. Bottom line is, I agree with a previous poster. If we don't like what Big Brother is doing, t'hell with him. See to it that he doesn't get any of our money, or our friends' money. Support your local mom and pop band. ISP. Grocery/health food store. Credit union. (Get the hell out of Megabank.... but that's a whole 'nother can of worms) In short, make the message resoundingly clear with our silence: Big Brother, stick it. -- |
| Big Brother, stick it (Score:1) by dpilot on Wednesday March 08, @04:03PM EST (#227) (User Info) |
| Obviously I agree with the sentiment. But it also means going underground, and that's kind of like cracking someone's system. Nobody believes that their security is completely ironclad, it just makes it too hard to bother cracking. (or slows the cracker down enough that humans can intervene.) By the same token, trying to take the free Net underground might well expend so much energy that we'd forget what we wanted to be free with. Kind of like if the British had kept shoving tea boxes at the original Patriots to throw overboard, so they'd never get past the Tea Party. There was already an effort to do what you speak of announced in the past week or two, to distribute 'free speech data' in a pinch-point free fashion so it can be accessed, but not rooted out and deleted. (URL forgotten) |
| We must be like the slaverunners! (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @01:27PM EST (#119) (User Info) |
| Back in the old days, the solution wasn't to wait arround for government to get off their ass, and petittion congress to end slavery - it was to fight slavery at any chance no matter how the system felt about it. People like Harriet Tubman (spelling) did more to end slavery than entire armies of politicians, it came to a point that since nobody in the north would honor slavery anyhow, they made it illegal up there. Today, we must take it upon ourselves to ignore, fight,bypass and challenge copyrights and patents at any cost. While there are some people out there trying to figure out if IP is right or wrong, we need to have the attitude that we already made up our minds and are doing somthing about it no matter what the others think. Contrary to what others would have you believe, there are some very easy ways to fight these things, eg. for every one company that they catch for using unauthorized copies of software - there are millions that they can never catch. No matter what type of legal structure is in place, it is a lot easier to clone that it is to capture - this gives those of us against copyrights a very big tatical advantage. David |
| Experience the DMCA for yourself... (Score:2) by szyzyg (spm@star.arm.ac.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @01:43PM EST (#132) (User Info) http://star.arm.ac.uk/~spm/ |
| Trygetting an account at myplay.com, load up a few tracks and then try to 'Share Music' This basically is supposed to let you make up a 'compilation tape' of mp3's which you want everyone to listen to, a mini radio show of your favourite tracks. Of course, because of the DMCA broadcasting/sequencing rules myplay has to check and 'approve' your selection before it can be legally made available. Some poor programmer has had to go and code up a DMCA compliance checker. You can't go and put up the complete 'Dark Side Of The Moon', at least not without cheating. Personally, I've never come close to infringing these sequencing rules, I think the idea is to have fun with the mixing - if you can't come up with more interesting sequencnig than the original then what's the point? BUT! I don't like any rules like this, even if it does help keep the playlists more interesting...... (go on - try my playlist - DMCA Approved). |
| Re:Experience the DMCA for yourself... (Score:1) by Salsaman (gabriel@DIE.SPAMMERS.DIE.pixle.demon.co.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @04:36PM EST (#239) (User Info) |
| Nice playlist !!! Only problem is it's at 128Kbaud, and therefore useless over my crappy BT line. eXistenZ is *paused* |
| Odd side effects. (Score:3, Insightful) by bons (bons@home.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:44PM EST (#135) (User Info) http://www.virtualsurreality.com |
Some things to think about with these laws:
----- Want to reply? Don't know HTML? No problem. |
| We can still opt out (Score:1) by Once&FutureRocketman on Wednesday March 08, @02:46PM EST (#182) (User Info) |
| I don't usually post Me Toos, but I wanted to emphasize a point from the last post The truth is, the corporations can sue us only as long as we buy their stuff. Once we realize that it's just glitter without substance, we're free from them. We are only subject to their rules if we want to play their game. I personally hate DMCA, but I must admit that one of the recurring arguements against it just doesn't make sense: people say that the DMCA will destroy the ability of the small, independent artist to use the digital medium to distribute his work. Bullshit! If an artist does not sign with a major label (i.e. retains copyright to his own work) and wants to distribute his stuff via Napster, etc, I don't see how DMCA can stop him. Granted, if you can't get mainstream music off of Napster, services like it will become the domain of small, independent artists and their fans, and be alot less popular. So this will hurt the indies, and their ability to compete with the mainstream. But it's not like it's gonna kill the medium. And the degree to which this effect occurs is entirely dependent on the level of fan support given to the indies. Again: The megacorps can't hurt you (much) if you just don't eat their dogfood. If you care about the small independent artists and their ability to get their stuff out, then stop buying mainstream artists (or go pirate, if you must) and focus on the independents. Remember, you are the consumer. In our culture, that makes you (ultimately) all powerful. (And listening to indie music is alot more fun than writing letters to your congressman, but you should do that too.) And on the subject of piracy: In a previous comment (subject: Napster Alternative) Yurik suggested the idea of a distributed, client-based Napster-like music server system. If you think that making a profit off of information is wrong, this is an exellent idea. Yes, there are serious technical difficulties, and I'm not the guy to address them (I'm a mechanical geek, not a electronic geek). But you're all bright boys and girls -- I'm sure you can figure it out, given the proper motivation. And the motivation is there: free music, and a chance to stick it to the major corps. So there is an endrun around the DCMA problem, if you care to exploit it. Yeah, sure, it'd still be illegal, but so what. There is no way they could enfore the law effectively against a distributed network. So if you want your free music, get busy! That said, I think that DMCA is a lousy law, setting a lousy precedent. And it is clearly a case of an old, stagnant industry using its clout try to block progress because it is easier to be reactionary than to adapt to changing times. Which means that, in the end, they will fail; it just might take a long long time. And Bons is right: most people (the AOLites) are going to continue to toe the line and eat from the corporate feedbag because they don't know any better. DMCA will perpetuate that behavior, with the consequence of a general reduction in quality of life for us geeks (i.e. it retards culture, and the ability of people around you to think for themselves). So get out there and fight DMCA. But try not to get too depressed about it. "Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun |
| Another way to fight (Score:2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:51PM EST (#141) |
| Personally, I think we're going to end up with two separate artistic cultures, for a while: the corporate one Katz talks about, where you pay for every bit and are required to knuckle under to corporate interests, and an entirely separate one consisting of all the artists who don't have major recording contracts and such, who have no truck with the DMCA and so on, who allow their works to be freely copied. Political protests and technical "remedies" are important, but a third thing we can do is simply to support the independent artists. Download their music, send the stuff you like to your friends, go to their shows, buy their T-Shirts. Start a weblog highlighting your favorites. Free music can compete in the free market, and the RIAA will die a natural death. |
| What is the real issue? (Score:1) by mberkow on Wednesday March 08, @01:54PM EST (#143) (User Info) |
| It has been a long running debate that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The gun manufacturers are rarely sued for misuse of their products. The MPAA is claiming: people don't copy DVDs, DeCSS does. It is like putting a gun on trial for murder. What is scary about the situation is that now they have legislation and legal precedent to back them up. A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. --Patton |
| Copyright is merely a screen for the real issue (Score:1) by RalphSlate on Wednesday March 08, @01:58PM EST (#144) (User Info) http://www.hockeydb.com |
| I'm becoming more and more convinced that the only reason people are passionately against the DCMA (and seemingly copyright in general) is that it was sponsored by corporations rather than individuals. The perceived problem the DCMA is trying to fix is the prevention of individuals from stealing copyrighted works from corporations. However, this bill, and copyright in general also protects corporations from stealing copyrighted works from individuals. If record companies were taking independent MP3's, pressing them onto CD's, and selling them without getting permission or giving royalties, people would be squarely behind the DCMA. People would not be claiming that any abstract work (like a song, or a computer program) is public domain and that the concept of copyright should not exist. Ralph Slate |
| Re:Copyright is merely a screen for the real issue (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @08:27PM EST (#361) |
| Hmm. These same people are writing independent software, which corporations press onto CDs and sell without getting permission or giving royalties, and everybody's happy about it. Your argument doesn't hold up. |
| Atlas Shrugged (Score:2, Interesting) by Kakurenbo Shogun on Wednesday March 08, @02:03PM EST (#149) (User Info) http://www.enol.com/~crouton/1000/ |
| This article and the responses to it are a perfect example of the "Freedom, freedom freedom! For me, Me, ME!" attitude that is so common on /.. I'm all for "Freedom, freedom, freedom", but what I think is often missing are the "for everybody, everybody, everybody" and "responsibility, responsibility, responsibility" parts. Now, I'm not saying that I think the DMCA is a good idea. From what I know about it (admittedly not that much), it sounds flawed. But I'm talking about this article and the responses to it, not the DMCA. So what do I mean by "for me, Me ME!"? The attitude of "I have the right to do anything I want." Fortunately, at least some people add the caveat of "as long as I'm not actively injuring someone else," but even those who do generally seem to ignore indirect or passive "injuries" to others. Let's say I'm a musician. I write a song. I want to sell it. Do I, or do I not have the right to choose how to sell my work? Do I have the right to give it away for free? As long as I haven't (freely) made a contract with someone which restricts my right to do so, yes. Do I have the right to sell hard copies without placing any copying restriction on the purchaser? Same answer (though I don't think this is very common). Do I have the right to sell copies that do include restrictions on copying? It sounds like most of the people posting here want to take away the freedom to choose this business model. Is it a smart business model? Would the artist be better off choosing a different model? I don't know. As far as laws are concerned, I don't care. The artist (and whoever else has acquired a legal interest in their music) should have the right to choose whatever sales model they want, even if it's a stupid, selfish model. Despite what a few people have said here, capitalism is not simply a question of material supply and demand. Just because digital copying is essentially free, that doesn't mean that a person has no right to charge for digital copying. A person has the right to sell the product of their work however they want (not caveat below). The consumer has the right to refuse to do business with a person who chooses to sell in a way they don't like. Has anyone here read "Atlas Shrugged"? While I certainly disagree with certain aspects of Ayn Rand's philosophy, one thing I do agree with is the idea that no one has the right to take the product of someone else's work without the free consent of the producer. No one has the right to dictate the terms by which others may be allowed to do business (except to prevent harm to unrelated parties--for example, it is legitimate to restrict a person's right to hire a hit man to kill someone). Getting back to my ill-informed opinion of DMCA, I agree that people should have the right to make their own archival copies and personalized collections of things they've paid for, and that they should be able to copy them to other media for their own use. I suppose the producer COULD legitimately restrict all copying in their license agreements, but I personally would be tempted to boycott anyone who did. Anyway, the main point I want to make is, while you're campaigning for freedom, remember to take others' freedom into account, and take into account how the policies you're advocating will affect the freedom of others. "I'm not interrupting you, I'm putting our conversation in full-duplex mode." - Antone Roundy |
| Limitations (Score:1) by Tony on Wednesday March 08, @02:49PM EST (#186) (User Info) |
| Your reasoning, while quite fair and well-thought-out, is incomplete. Using music distribution as an example, you mention that the creator of the music should be able to decide the ways in which their music is distributed. This is fair, I agree, but even in today's society their options are extremely limited. The only way an artist can distribute their music is to enter into an agreement with a record company. This agreements essentially strip ownership of the creation from the creator. Now, you might say the artist has willingly agreed to this arrangement. But let me ask you, would *anyone*, especially an artist, agree to release their rights to their creation unless there was no other option? So, we've established that a person has the right to do whatever they want with their creation (except harm other people, as you've noted), but that *in practice*, they are limited to the available methods of distribution. The internet, and the free trade of information (trade meaning exchange, not sale) it embodies, provides another means of distribution, one that is completely outside the current regime of recording studios. This distribution channel does not rely on the physical distribution of any media; rather, it relies on the logical distribution of pure information. This distribution channel has certain trade-offs WRT the media moguls that currently rule music distribution; but, there are many successful models that give control *back* to the artist. *THIS* is what the media is afraid of-- if the artist controls their own wares, there is no way for the middle-man to siphon off profits. Instead of creating distribution stations (like mp3.com), the current lords of music are fighting the encroachment of an entirely new outlet. And they are doing it at the source. By essentially outlawing the legitimate trade of music (that is, music put out on the 'net by artists who are not beholden to a media tychoon), they are stopping the creation of a new music industry based on a creator/consumer relationship. Since the media giants do not get to choose the next star musician, they can no longer manufacture the industry. *THIS* is what they fear-- the end of easy money. Lots and lots of easy money. Anyway, I just thought I'd clarify the real issue. The creator currently has no control over their creation anyway, so this new media just cuts out the middle-man (or, should I say, the *real* pirates). .................... Tony |
| Re:Atlas Shrugged (Score:2) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @03:21PM EST (#203) (User Info) |
| Here's the thing: how can you assert any claim of ownership on an idea? Quite simply, unless you never, in any way (speech, writing, implementation) reveal the idea, you can't. Of course there is no value to a secret idea in the marketplace. Already, fundemental differences in the nature of real property versus ideas become evident. Here's another conundrum which illustrates that you cannot treat ideas as though they were tangible things: It's well established that the owner of some real property can own it for as long as they live. They can do anything with it that they like. This includes transferring it to another person, who may then own it for as long as they wish and transfer it, etc. However, if this is the case for ideas, then even thinking about something that someone else says, without their permission is a violation of their property rights. Using a word someone else has coined is similarly a violation. And since the original owner can transfer ownership and this process can be repeated indefinately, ideas will forever be owned by people. Clearly this is bad. The reality of the situation is that ideas are never owned by anyone. This means that while you own some tangible expression of your ideas (e.g. a CD with music you made on it, which you own as real property) you don't own the ideas themselves (e.g. the actual music). Again, this levels the playing field - while I have the ability to copy content you created, you have the same for me. However, and this was hotly debated when the US constitution was framed, an incentive system was developed, even though this infringes on your natural rights. The idea behind copyright is simply that to encourage people to create content or advance science a monopoly which is only in effect for a limited time can be granted by Congress. It clearly isn't considered to be an ennumerated right, and in fact the Constitution itself does not state any copyright laws. It merely permits Congress to make those laws. And the laws are clearly unconstitutional if they are not of a limited time (and they meant limited - copyrights were originally 14 years long) or do not promote the advancement of the useful arts and sciences. And don't forget that copyrights don't confer ownership anyway. Only secondary rights (usage, redistributing new copies, etc.) which generally are not held to impair the rights you have to real property (which is why you're allowed to redistribute copies that you bought from the author). Going one step further, while IANAL it is my understanding that the courts generally look very closely at whether copyrights have not advanced the useful arts and sciences. It is from this that much of the fair use doctrine came. Should a teacher have to get a copy of a book for every student in order to read aloud to them? No, it is a foolish argument, and requiring this would not advance anything except the author's pocketbook. Making money is not enough to justify copyrights, as you can clearly see. Now licenses are a different matter altogether. Licenses are contracts. But you don't need a contract at all to protect a copyright. I am not allowed to make copies for sale of some content I do not hold the rights to, as a matter of federal copyright law. A license would be redundant. It's obvious that the only instances in which a license is useful is when the licensor wishes to further restrict your rights beyond what is granted as a matter of copyright. This is disturbing morally. And furthermore, the courts (AFAIK, IANAL) generally look down upon non-negotiated contracts, including the sort we're used to in the computer world. Throw UCITA and other similar legislation into the mix and we might end up in the very BAD position of automatically agreeing to a contract that you don't even get to read first upon listening to music that someone else is playing. Rand rather depended on both a peculiar legal system *and* certain types of behavior from the people who interacted in it. But we do not live in her little world. We have to work with what we've got, and what we're getting these days stinks on ice. Copyrights are going way too far, and it's being driven by corporate interests that have become so large that we generally can't influence them any more. (particularly when the companies you're boycotting owns most news sources, the tools used to distribute information widely, etc.) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Ideas vs. expression (Score:1) by Tony on Wednesday March 08, @04:43PM EST (#241) (User Info) |
| Ideas do not belong to anyone, but how about expression? If I express an idea in a unique way, and it is my skill and craft that make the expression interesting, then do I not own that expression? In music, who owns the recording of a performance? Where is the line drawn between idea and expression? (Or, if I don't own my expression of an idea, why should I bother expressing it?) This is the idea (freely availabe-- distribute it as you like) behind the current copyright scheme. The publishing industry (whether paper print or music) has perverted this so the publishers (and distributers) of the music end up with 98% of the profits. I, for one, am willing to pay for the music and print I consume, whether on or off-line. What I am *not* willing to do is support a system where the creators see almost nothing, while the distributors get the profit. If no-one can "own" expression, then the argument is moot. But, if you think artists (whether music, print, or visual media) deserve something for their time, effort, and creativity, then there *must* be some way for the artist to see the rewards of their labors, and not have some heavyweight thugs suck off the cream of the revenue stream. At least, that's my opinion. I could be wrong. |
| Re:Atlas Shrugged (Score:1) by Stary (stary@spammenot.novasphere.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:59PM EST (#225) (User Info) |
| Anyway, the main point I want to make is, while you're campaigning for freedom, remember to take others' freedom into account, and take into account how the policies you're advocating will affect the freedom of others. In what way does my freedom to view my paid-(alot-)for movie in Swaziland or Zimbabwe if i so wish hurt the artists' right to sell that movie? Why should the companies have a right to suck my money out of my wallet just because I happen to live in Europe instead of the US? In what way does the removal of the DMCA means it's suddenly legal to copy songs? Ever heard of copyright law? The DMCA complaints are not about copy restriction, theyre mainly about restrictions of use. |
| Is it time for a Music-and-Movie Out? (Score:2, Interesting) by ChrisGoodwin (archer7@nospam.mindspring.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:22PM EST (#162) (User Info) http://www.mindspring.com/~archer7/e-gold.html |
| Since we have the Great American Smokeout and the Great American Gasout, why not the Great American Music-and-Movie Out? I propose a day where nobody sees a movie or listens to music, including on TV, or buys any media containing movies or music. If you wanted to get really hardcore, you could also boycott companies who buy advertising on TV, radio, and in movie theaters. -- Osprey -- the Open Source Paper Roleplaying Engine Y |
| what a damn fool thing to write (Score:5, Insightful) by ATKeiper on Wednesday March 08, @02:23PM EST (#166) (User Info) http://www.tecsoc.org/ |
| Katz, O Katz, O Katz, O Katz - How hast thou gone wrong? Let me count the ways... 1. ... unlike ordinary radio and TV broadcasters, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies. Webcasts are limited to three songs from one album in any three-hour period. This is false. Radio stations - like TV stations, cable networks, etc. - need to get licenses from performing rights groups like ASCAP or BMI. Even businesses and restaurants larger than a certain size (2000 sq. ft. and 3750 sq. ft., respectively) need to get licenses. Those licenses are not free - they are bought for millions of dollars sometimes, and the money from their purchase goes to the songwriters and performers. 2. [The DMCA] also dramatically restricts the right of individual artists to have their works seen, heard and sold. That makes it a First Amendment as well as a corporate issue. Well, duh. All copyright laws are First Amendment issues in part. All of them. Why? Because copyright laws are inherently about what you can and cannot do and say. The DMCA is no more especially a First Amendment matter than any other copyright law. And recognizing that there are free-speech issues involved, the DMCA (like other copyright acts) leaves intact the "Fair Use" doctrine, which permits the use of copyrighted material for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. 3. [The DMCA is] a back-door effort by lobbyists and politicians to circumvent debate or discussion entirely. First of all, calling it a "back-door effort" ignores the facts that there were lobbyists and politicians on both sides of every part of the issue, and that comments and input were solicited from the online community and libraries and computer makers. What's more, some of the Act's provisions had been discussed and debated internationally, as part of a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty - and were first publicized years and years ago. Calling it secretive or "back-door" is plain inaccurate. 4. ... blind copyright protection that in no way takes into account the Net's unique nature, nor the rights and sensibilities of a generation that defines culture differently. This is nonsensical. How is the DMCA "blind"? The point of the law, whether you like it or not, is that it does take into account the Net's unique nature, by recognizing that the Net can be used to disseminate information instantly everywhere. It isn't blind: it tries to stop some of that information from just disappearing into the ether, possibly leaving creators unpaid. What do you mean this generation "defines culture differently"? Every generation defines culture differently, and (if you'll allow me to follow your logic to its natural conclusion) every person defines culture differently. This is not a culture gap, and there is no acceptable reason for lawmakers, musicians and other copyright holders to be held hostage by people who don't want to pay for anything. 5. Corporatism isn't the same as capitalism, or corporations. It's new, bigger, more global and vastly more powerful. It has acquired most mainstream media. It is the primary contributor to the political system. Like the theory of phlogiston, your argument here sounds great. But, like the theory of phlogiston, there is not a great deal of empirical evidence to back it up. First of all, your statement about "mainstream media" is circular since you are defining mainstream media as "those media which are owned by corporations." Second, the primary contributor to the political system, in terms of money and in terms of vocal input, is the ordinary voting population; it contributes more money than any other contributing segment. In fact, even though nobody talks about this, corporations are not allowed to support candidates for federal office. 6. ... corporatism discourages creativity, pushes individuals to the margins and promotes conformity and control of software, hardware, intellectual content and culture. O, Katz, come on. Compare the words you use for corporations (discourages, pushes, conformity, control, rampaging, drooling) with the words you use for geeks (free, diverse, individualized, unprecedented, unique). What propaganda! Things are a whole lot more complicated than that. First of all, you refuse to admit the positive effects of the corporate control you so disdain. Thanks to AOL, 20 million people are online. Thanks to Microsoft, lots of confused non-techies are able to use these machines we take for granted. Thanks to WalMart, people have access to more and cheaper products. How you can claim this is not capitalism is beyond me. With the exception of monopolistic behavior (the integrated-browswer debate is not worth getting into here), each of these companies is behaving as capitalist firms should - by offering products and services that consumers are drawn to. What's more, it's ridiculous to cast corporations as an Evil Empire trying to crush the plucky, charming geeks who can see how "culture" is changing around them. Even as the Net lets people express themselves more individually, it also spreads a common culture, full of common language and terms and beliefs which can themselves become tyrannical. Before writing "Geeks," you should have sat down and read some Alexis de Tocqueville. 7. The belief that even if laws restrict the Net, innovative software and hardware will triumph, is pervasive. The DMCA suggests that may be wishful thinking. I disagree here again. Technology is extraordinarily powerful, and right now, it is shaping the law - not the other way around. (And if you believe Lawrence Lessig, in many ways, the technology is the law.) I expect that trend will continue for several decades. 8. The primary political struggle of the 21st Century -- corporatism versus individualism -- has erupted right under our noses. And with little political consciousness or response, we seem to be losing the first big battle. First of all, to claim that "corporatism versus individualism" is the "primary political struggle" of the next century demonstrates as much a sense of history as the people who called the O.J. Simpson trial the "trial of the century." Life always ends up amazingly unlike what we had supposed. Second, again, you are unwilling to see political activism by geeks because you are defining "geeks" circularly - as those who are not politically active. There are many people, including many people here in Washington, D.C., who share the political and technological views of geeks, and are fighting every day to prevent new dumb laws from being passed. Most people are not politically conscious - not just geeks - and that's a wonderful thing. It's a sign of our freedom and safety. The places where political cognizance is a necessary good are places like Chechnya or Somalia or Cuba or China, where a lack of political sense can land you in jail. A. Keiper |
| Can Katz; Get This Guy. (Score:1) by CdotZinger on Wednesday March 08, @03:18PM EST (#201) (User Info) |
| 999,999 additional Katzes Katzing for a million years could not produce a single sentence as cogent as any of the above. Aren't "we" supposed to be smart, here? Your mouth is like Columbus Day. |
| Theory vs. reality (Score:2, Interesting) by Tony on Wednesday March 08, @08:15PM EST (#283) (User Info) |
| You argue well, but you miss the point. For instance, you say that corporations are not allowed to support candidates for federal office. This is, in fact, correct. In practice, it is *not* correct. Corporations have spent many years circumventing rules and regulations. By spinning off "non-profit" groups and supporting these non-profits with huge amounts of cash, they are able to influence (perhaps even "buy") politicians. That is why corporate-friendly laws are passed more often than consumer-friendly laws. Corporations also have more lobbying money than the opposition, and so are able to buy votes that way. Even though individuals contribute more money to political parties than corporations, individuals do not have a coherent political agenda. This is the difference between a lightbulb and a laser. Now, even if the DMCA were designed as a copyright protection mechanism, it is used to coerce an online community to follow the rules as the RIAA chooses. For instance, by trying hard to stamp out MP3 sites and software in the name of "copyright protection," they interfere with the legitimate distribution of artists who *choose* to distribute their works in this manner. Copyrights are designed to protect the artist. However, in todays society artists, especially musicians, have no control over their own creation. Currently, almost all profits go directly into the coffers of the corporations who distribute the music; musicians (eg, those who created the work in the first place) see only a small (often as little as 1%-3%) percentage of the profits of their labors. If they wish to see their works distributed at all, they must enter into contracts that strip them of their rights, essentially giving all copyright to the distributors, leaving them with nothing. You may say that is the price of doing business. You would be correct. That is the price of doing business the *old* way, where the distribution of a physical CD or vinyl album was important. But today, an artist can place their work on the 'net, and distribute their work themselves. The members of RIAA want to maintain their extremely lucrative stranglehold on the distribution mechanisms of music; this is what Katz is referring to as "corporatism." They see the net as a friction-free distribution system for the artists; the 'net cuts out the middle-man, the recording studios. The current plan for distribution is to create a system in which the consumer downloads music for free, and is only able to play the music on a device that bills the listener every time a song is played. Who will manage this system? The members of the RIAA. Who will reap the benefits? The members of the RIAA. This has nothing to do with copyright, and everything to do with corporate control. In an ideal world, the musician would retain complete copyright control over their works. In today's world, a musician with a contract to any member of the RIAA cannot release their own non-album music on the net. If they created a song that will not be available to their fans, they have no recourse. They have signed away the rights not only to the music they produce for the studio, but the rights of any music they produce in the future, sometimes for years in the future. The current situation is hardly equitable; the internet may be able to change that. And finally, Katz' definition of mainstream media is probably close to mine-- anything that is nationally distributed, like NBC, Newsweek or even the New York Times. These media outlets are getting swallowed whole by other major corporations; they are no longer only in the business of providing news or entertainment. The media sources are being subsumed by the media distribution channels. So, to sum up: corporations eat individuals whenever possible; corporations have more political clout than individuals; and the DMCA is designed to allow old-media corporations to control the new-media distribution channel (the Internet). Geeks don't like it, because it wrests the power from the person and gives it to the corporation, and individuals may have a concience, but corporations do not. |
| you're oversimplifying (Score:1) by ATKeiper on Wednesday March 08, @09:51PM EST (#300) (User Info) http://www.tecsoc.org/ |
| You've made some really good points, Tony, and I'd like to respond to a few of them. You are quite right to point out that corporations donate lots of money to nonprofit organizations, and find lots of other ways to have a voice, since our political process creates unnatural and ineffectual barriers to money in the political process. Do what you might, but money will find a way to get into politics - and the more arcane the "campaign finance reform" becomes, the more contortions corporations will perform. This is not "circumventing rules and regulations," but rather being whipped into laughable secrecy by campaign finance laws that create the silly fiction of a money-free political system. It would be far better, in my opinion, to raise (or eliminate) all the restrictions on political moneygiving, so corporations and old rich people could all be less surreptitious about trying to achieve particular political ends. But I strongly disagree with your claim that lobbyists can "buy" politicians, or that corporations can overwhelm the political process. That's wonderful jingoism, but empirically false. Even though it has spent millions of dollars on influencing the political process, Microsoft is still being bruised by the Justice Department. Lockheed and Boeing face new fines every other week. The telecom firms face stringent oversight from Congress. And the number of decisions every week handed down by legislators and regulators in this town that run counter to the interests of corporations is astounding. In other words, while it's comfortable to relax in the platitudes of powerful corporate cronyism, in fact, corporate omnipotence is grimly overstated. You write that "individuals do not have a coherent political agenda." This is true. Neither, however, do businesses. As direct as your superb laser/light bulb analogy is, it is not apt; businesses fight with one another, with consumer groups, with politicians and many other interests in this town. There is no "agenda" that would universally benefit corporations. Take the recent debate over cable open access, which has all but disappeared since the announcement of the AOL/TW merger. In that debate, Microsoft and AT&T fought hard against AOL and the ISPs. The lobbying on both sides was great sound and fury, but it amounted to nothing. There is no uniform corporate agenda at work. You claim that "almost all profits go directly into the coffers of the corporations who distribute the music." You say sometimes just 1-3% of the profits from music goes to those involved in its creation. That's quite a misleading number, and I'm not sure where you got it. You make it sound as though BMI and ASCAP just gobble up 99 percent of the money. In fact, BMI is quite proud that over 80 percent of its income from licensing goes to those involved in making music. You then go on to make a bit of a straw man argument, the heart of which is this: "The members of RIAA want to maintain their extremely lucrative stranglehold on the distribution mechanisms... The current plan for distribution is to create a system in which the consumer downloads music for free, and is only able to play the music on a device that bills the listener every time a song is played." First, there is no "current plan for distribution"; everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do, and companies are going to experiment with new media and modes of distribution and alliances which we cannot now foresee. Of course RIAA (and other industry groups) are going to react in surprising (and even detrimental) ways to these changes - but I am confident that the technology will overwhelm the artificial limits put on it. Finally, as for "mainstream media" being in the pocket of corporations, as much as Noam Chomsky would delight in hearing you say that, it is only partly accurate. Consider this: where do you actually hear all the bad things you have heard about corporations? From - surprise! - mainstream news media. The corporations report about and criticize one another. Power is not simply "wrested" (as you say) from individuals by big, evil corporations; it is give-and-take, and consumers (despite your lamentations) are willing participants - not helpless, powerless, victims as you would caricature them. That's why TV shows fail, movies flop and new musical genres develop - because we are in a system that encourages interaction and market exchange, instead of stifling it. A. Keiper |
| NO, you're oversimplifying (Score:1) by Rares Marian (rmarian@winblowsstart.com) on Wednesday March 08, @10:59PM EST (#308) (User Info) |
| You lump all politicians in one box. As if the DoJ had anything to do with gun laws (I support the #2nd amendment, but not w/o some sort of training to exercise that right effectively, ethically, and properly.) Next you'll tell me that if the DoJ is fighting MIcrosoft the gov't will stand up for patients' right to sue HMO's too? Get real man. They're just human beings not men of steel (translation of the word Stalin iro nic ain't it?). Whatever's convenient goes and frankly we're responsible too. I undersatand why people don't vote. But at least call some politicians at 4:00 am to talk politics, see if you don't get results. I've heard of cases when it works. Maybe Katz is a bit passionate about the topic. I know I tend to be. But your stuff has some holes in it. When you see a commercial for education and kids raise their hands, does that mean they're learning in real life? I hate to say this but your whole post looks like a commercial. Not one bit of evidence thatr isn't taken out of context or overgeneralized. I'd love to continue this but it's late. Lastly, you don't believe politicians are bought? Hello? Do they have some special Bokononian Purity Gene? Nice long post really. Petrified Iron Clad solution: Rob, Jeff - Create the /. API that let's us parse titles and content in articles |
| Re:NO, you're oversimplifying (Score:1) by ATKeiper on Wednesday March 08, @11:54PM EST (#317) (User Info) http://www.tecsoc.org/ |
| I'm afraid you somewhat misunderstand me. (Or perhaps I you.) My central thesis is that the situation is not simple, so I'm unclear on how I can be oversimplifying. Corporations (I argued) are not necessarily evil, and corporatism (I argued) is not necessarily an evil force. Politicians (I argued) are not simply bought and sold like chattel. Consumers (I argued) are not simply passive, timid victims. Geeks (I argued) are not simply libertarian individualists. All are swept in the dizzying revolution, and all are complicit in the events propelling it, and in the insights and mistakes that let us leap and lurch along. I'm saying that things are not simple - and assuming that the worst possible scenario will develop from this nascent situation is inappropriate. |
| Re:you're oversimplifying (Score:2) by Hobbex (i_read_replies_to_my_posts) on Thursday March 09, @03:34AM EST (#332) (User Info) |
| Finally, as for "mainstream media" being in the pocket of corporations, as much as Noam Chomsky would delight in hearing you say that, it is only partly accurate. Consider this: where do you actually hear all the bad things you have heard about corporations? From - surprise! - mainstream news media. The corporations report about and criticize one another. Power is not simply "wrested" (as you say) from individuals by big, evil corporations; it is give-and-take, and consumers (despite your lamentations) are willing participants - not helpless, powerless, victims as you would caricature them. That's why TV shows fail, movies flop and new musical genres develop - because we are in a system that encourages interaction and market exchange, instead of stifling it. I have yet to see any DMCA critical articles or coverage in ANY mainstream media. And of all the articles I read about the DeCSS affair, ALL of them had a pro-"let's keep the gun in their mouths" slant. Were I dependent on mainstream media to gain understanding of the existing power structures desperate struggle for survival at the cost of our freedom, I would probably be as ignorant to gravity of the situation as you are (though you speak eloquently and a lot - right at home in Washington I guess). Oh, and the situation is _simple_. Enforced copyrights and freedom cannot coexist in cyberspace. Period. - We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way. - Huxley |
| Re:you're oversimplifying (Score:2) by ATKeiper on Thursday March 09, @11:35AM EST (#357) (User Info) http://www.tecsoc.org/ |
| You know what - you're quite right. "Mainstream media" (assuming Katz and you mean newspapers and television) have done a terrible job of covering the DMCA issue, and this DeCSS affair. I suspect, though, that it is largely because they see it as an online-only issue that has not yet become important for the general public. (They are incorrect in believing that - I certainly think this is a matter of great urgency, and that intellectual property is in a volatile, near-crisis state right now, as demonstrated by the dumb DeCSS lawsuits and the fight over patenting parts of the genome.) I spent a few minutes looking for articles on the websites of newspapers, magazines and TV networks to disprove you, but I was hard pressed to find anything. I came across a few, like this at USA Today and another at CNN, but most of their coverage was articles culled from ZDNet, C|Net and IDG. I certainly hope their coverage improves, and I expect it will. Newspapers and TV networks sometimes do a superb job of reporting on controversies in their industry, and I hope that continues. I think my real point - that news groups owned by corporations often report against the alleged "corporate agenda" - is still valid. I also agree with you that "Enforced copyrights and freedom cannot coexist in cyberspace." But it would have been just as true if you inserted "meatspace" instead. Copyright enforcement, like all intellectual property - or any law enforcement, for that matter - inherently involves limits on freedom. As precious as our current freedom in cyberspace is, it is going to be curtailed again and again in the coming years. We must accept that, and realize that it is incumbent upon us to make sure we influence the direction of those limitations, so as to minimize their authoritarian effect. I also agree with what you said about me being a windbag; it's inherited. Cheers. |
| Re:what a damn fool thing to write (Score:1) by Norman Lorrain (normanlorrain@home.com) on Wednesday March 08, @09:05PM EST (#294) (User Info) |
| Well said. This business with the "Evil Empire" is getting pretty old now; companies still have to convince a buyer to buy their products. I used to think that recording companies were doomed in the age of the Net, but now I think they'll do just fine. Why? In one word: content. No, not the music itself. The artist, rightly, has the copyright to that. Owning a CD does not give you the right to distribute endless copies of it. Even Madonna has a kid to feed ;-) By content I mean promotion, packaging, marketing, videos, etc. This stuff does not come for free. It's all about value-added. When an artist signs with a record company, this is what they get in exchange. You can't ftp an album cover. I draw an analogy to news: I could spend hours reading the newswires, but who has the time? Rather, I'm willing to pay for a weekly magazine that's organized, analytical, etc. This is value-added. Sort of like "any fool can have the facts; a wise man has an opinion". This is where I think the Net is going; yes a lot will be free, but as always you get what you pay for. This is where capitalism wins. |
| Re:what a damn fool thing to write (Score:1) by LonEagle on Wednesday March 08, @11:37PM EST (#315) (User Info) |
| Ah, a perfect reply to some of the bad points in JKatz's article. While I agree with most of your points, I have to take a couple to task. First, praises. This is not a culture gap, and there is no acceptable reason for lawmakers, musicians and other copyright holders to be held hostage by people who don't want to pay for anything. AMEN! My peers annoy me when they deny that things have worth. I believe that everything I buy has worth, otherwise I wouldn't buy it. I am a teen, but I don't belong to the "everything should be free" category. I also resent the assumption that geeks are not politically active. I plan on voting in my first presidential election in November, and I am following the race and the various stands of the candidates eagerly. My main point of disagreement is this: What's more, it's ridiculous to cast corporations as an Evil Empire trying to crush the plucky, charming geeks who can see how "culture" is changing around them. Even as the Net lets people express themselves more individually, it also spreads a common culture, full of common language and terms and beliefs which can themselves become tyrannical. Before writing "Geeks," you should have sat down and read some Alexis de Tocqueville. I believe that corporations CAN be bad. I don't recall the exact instance, but I believe Ford made some cars that were prone to fuel tank explosions. Later, it was found that the executives KNEW about the problem, but they decide d it would be cheaper to settle lawsuits from people that were killed than recall and fix the tanks. WHY? The corporation was placing a pittance of a value on human life. One could even argue that their shareholders BOUND them to maximize profits, even at the expense of human life. Why do we have an EPA? Because left to their own devices, producers would harm the general public health with pollutants in order to maximize profits. Why do we have an FDA? Again, left to their own devices, producers may put carcinogenic substances, among others, in our food. In a perfect capitalist world, people would find out about this and they would force the companies to cessate those activities. However, we don't live in a perfect capitalist society. How many people do you know that say they're against sweatshop labor but don't check where their products come from? Corporations MAY be bad guys! All things told, I prefer to purchase most of my products from small producers, rather than large. But that's a personal choice, I choose with my dollars. There is a place for AOL, as there is a place for a local ISP run by 2 guys in the basement of a realty company. |
| Re:what a damn fool thing to write (Score:1) by ATKeiper on Thursday March 09, @01:43AM EST (#324) (User Info) http://www.tecsoc.org/ |
| You're exactly right - corporations can be bad guys. In a sense, that's where the idea of the "corporation" came from. People form corporations so they will not be held responsible themselves when they screw up; they create a fictional person (corpus=body) who must take all the heat. So when a guy runs a painting business, he incorporates it so that when he screws up and spills paint on his customers' cars (as happened in my hometown recently), he personally cannot be sued, but the corporation can be. You're quite right, I didn't mean to give the impression that corporations are somehow infallible. They screw up, and often. And I think they're seriously wrong on a lot of these intellectual property issues. But I'm just fed up with all the irrational, blind corporation bashing, and by Katz's penchant for describing those with whom he disagrees as mortal threats. Good point, thanks. |
| If you use bunk to debunk something... (Score:2, Informative) by freeBill on Thursday March 09, @05:44AM EST (#340) (User Info) |
...do you actually increase its credibility? The first "way" ATKeiper uses to criticize Jon is as follows:
This sounds good, but unfortunately Katz is factually correct. And ATKeiper is factually incorrect (although he is close to getting it right). Ordinary radio stations etc. do not have to pay money to record companies for playing their songs. They have to pay it to ASCAP and BMI, who pass it on to the copyright owners (who are the songwriters, not the performers). Paul Anka has made more from "My Way" than Frank Sinatra because he wrote it. This is an important distinction, and (I believe) the one Katz was trying to make. This is the first time an entity not involved in the creative process has been granted copyright interests simply for being the distributor of the intellectual property. Note that the performer (who is probably the one the listener is tuning in to hear) is getting the short end of the stick on both the old radio rules and the new Internet radio rules. So, the net effect of the DMCA is to restrict artists' ability to get their stuff played on the web (it can't be done without paying their record company). This (I believe) is the point Katz was making in the sentence criticized in point 2 of ATKeiper's rant. And, once again, Katz is factually correct and ATKeiper just doesn't get it, however much his view of the world may be popular with some of the pseudo-Libertarians on /. who don't mind any restrictions to their freedoms as long as they are restrictions which come from corporations rather than governments. In this case, they even seem to be willing to accept the restrictions coming from governments as long as government is acting on behalf of those corporations. I'm not going to comment on the rest of the items in this rant because they are more opinion-oriented than fact-oriented. But I don't mean to imply by not commenting that I agree with the opinions either. Does anybody know who this organization he's promoting is? The TESOC? |
| Re:what a damn fool thing to write (Score:1) by Faramir (faramir@NOSPAMsafnet.com) on Friday March 10, @04:32PM EST (#364) (User Info) http://www.safnet.com |
First of all, I'd like to particularly thank everyone in this particular thread-fork for the high level of dialogue. While I obviously can't agree with everything in this fork, I can certainly appreciate the differing perspectives it has brought to my attention. On a more specific level, while the veractiy of individual points can be debated back and forth, I think that the warning JonKatz brings to us still stands: we must analyze and question the implications and insinuations of the laws passed--or not passed--today in the name of technology. We cannot afford to blindly sit idle. We may find the implications to be quite innocent, or we may find their controlling nature quite sinister. But if we do not explore the issue, we will never know where in the spectrum things lie... JonKatz seems to be right when he claims that these issues are mostly passed on by the "mass media". And why so? Because, in many cases, there are simply more pressing, more dire topics on the docket. Which leaves the issue to be discussed and understood by a more specialized group. Thus the torch passes to the /. and other online communities for exploring the ramifications in (mostly) rational dialogues such as this. |
| Using Copyright Material For Personal Use (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:24PM EST (#167) |
| Don't get me wrong...I don't like the restrictions that are trying to become law with respect to using copyright material... But any law about using copyright material for personal use (re-mixing CDs that you own, making VHS tapes of DVDs that you own) will _have_ to stay legal (or at least it will not be enforcable) because, as far as I know, none can come barging into your own house (for evidence purposes) unless they have a warrent which requires suspicion. If you truely are using the copyrighted matierial (that you own) for your own personal use then there can't be any suspicion and thus no warrent. Obviously if you are distributing the material in some way then it is no longer for personal use and thus the law should apply. Some of these copyright laws, IMHO, are necessary to prevent the original author from getting screwed but these laws have always been very foggy. Even before the Web brought in a whole slew of copyright problems there was always videos. When you rent a (movie) video to watch at home you can not (by copyright laws) hold a public viewing...Well just how many friends can you invite over before you are breaking the law? In University you can get some big gathering all piled into one room watching a show/movie? |
| Abraham Lincoln on corporatism (Score:3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:27PM EST (#169) |
| "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." |
| World Geek Sick-Out Day? (Score:1) by mindstorm on Wednesday March 08, @02:44PM EST (#180) (User Info) http://www.zing.net/~dperry/ |
| I'm fed up. We need to make ourselves clear. I advocate a global geek sick-out day where we all call in sick. Who wants to join me? |
| Linux Legacy: Popular Mechanics .vs. AARP (Score:1) by ElitistWhiner on Wednesday March 08, @03:14PM EST (#197) (User Info) |
| Linux, the culture, has usurped Linux, the kernel, in defining this phenom. It is the community, not the technology for which it stands that will determine whether Linux assends its rightful place at the table of American democracy. Egalitarian as the tenents of Linux faithful profess, Linux the movement must coalesce its interests into *powerful* voting blocks at the pols. Strong advocacy groups must lobby for the freedoms we have taken for granted (printing, scanning, etc... right down to our own genes) Assault upon the foundations of social, cultural and technological pinnings of the new digital economy can be fought by no other body politik than that represented by Linux. AARP has organized the largest block of voters in the nation to protect Social Security and Medicare. Linux is a great moment in history when "the people" define the course of human events. It's a great time to be alive, as a geek. Empowered access to all the tools to make our dreams reality, Linux is like having all the tools to fix the old cars. Enjoy it while it lasts before Linux, the community, goes the way of Popular Mechanics. Or get active and involved to protect what rights you have left before USTPO and Corporations mediate your freedoms down to those necessary to serve their interests. -Rex Riley |
| Copyright Law: Protecting Property At A Cost (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:26PM EST (#209) |
| I believe, as many other do, that the original authors of various copyrighted material (songs, videos and so on) should be credited for their work. But too much protection inhibits the creativness of other authors. Parody masters like Weird Al Yankovic are prevented from distributing some of their parodies because the original authors are unwilling to give them the music right. Why? The fact that an author is not going to let Weird Al do a parody of his/her song is not going to make me want to buy the original song any more that if a parody did exist. So normally parody artists like Weird Al are limited to performing these songs in Concert only (don't ask me why - but that appears to be the law). But now, with the Internet Spree, devoted fans get get their hands on these rare parodies. Ok...So the original artist is a little screwed (since these parody masters are using the music) but its their own faults for not coming to an agreement in the first place...As for the parody fans - they get what they want. |
| Here's a reward (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:48PM EST (#220) |
| $5000 to the person who makes Jon Katz shut the fuck up. |
| One bright side-effect? (Score:1) by MorboNixon on Wednesday March 08, @03:52PM EST (#224) (User Info) |
| "Webcasts are limited to three songs from one album in any three-hour period." Am I alone in wishing that the traditional media (i.e., radio) would be forced to do the same? It'd be well worth it to avoid another Lou Bega/Macarena tragedy that have scarred past generations. ;^D Views expressed here are solely those of the author and the biotech firms that own his gentic code |
| Copyrights become patents (Score:2) by blakestah (dblake@phy.ucsf.edu) on Wednesday March 08, @04:01PM EST (#226) (User Info) http://www.keck.ucsf.edu/~dblake |
| The most aggregious assault on personal liberties by the DMCA involves the ways in which copyright has been turned into patent level protection. For example, copyright provides NO protection against reverse engineering. An musician can hear a rhythm from another musician, figure out how to make it, and add it to his repertoire. The source code of a program can be read, studied for its algorithms, and then those exact same algorithms can be implemented in different code completely legally. But the DMCA specifically forbids reverse engineering to get around copyright protective measures. These measures can be totally trivial and they still prevent things like using DeCSS in the USA. That is a patent level of protection. This level was originally specifically EXCLUDED from copyright law - it is in patent law. A patent provides you the chance to forbid others from using your new invention without licensing. You can note how cleanly now the DMCA prevents others from playing DVDs without licensing. This has turned a copyright into a patent, plain and simple. The separation between these concepts, copyright and patent, was made for a reason. Copyright is identified as coming from a source - one's reputation and value from one's words are at stake. Patents are intellectual property, and must pass a MUCH higher standard for being awarded. This higher standard (regrettably not high enough IMHO) has now been bypassed with DMCA so that corporations with lawyers can prevent people from accessing copyrighted material than they own. What a gross perversion, and it will only get worse if UCITA passes. -- Dave Blake dblake@phy.ucsf.edu |
| Hmmm (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:07PM EST (#229) |
| yes dark clouds afoot... Btw, anyone point me to an online copy of this beast, all i ever see is others interpertations... |
| 1984ish future (Score:1) by Keith McClary on Wednesday March 08, @04:30PM EST (#236) (User Info) |
| The problem is that many people have bought the corporate line that this is about protecting artists and don't see where this is heading: In the future oue home computers, TVs, radios, VCR's and game players will "converge" into a single type of "appliance". This will be a sealed box contining proprietary technology owned by a consortium of media and software corporations. It will be remotely controlled over the net and users will have limited control through a dumbed-down interface. It will be a crime to open the box or publish information about its inner workings. At first this will not affect our ability to access or publish content. But soon the corporations will complain about independent publishers distributing material that is unsuitable for their customers or just plain competes with their own stuff. Why should they allow others freeload on their technology? So they will find ways to effectively control content. Perhaps they will make it so by default you can only access their encrypted content and make it very inconvenient for most people to change the default. (Just edit a few configuration files with vi, sorry, documentation not included.) --------------------------------- "You must reinstall Windows[OK]" -W98 alert box. |
| the value of copyright (for poets) (Score:2, Insightful) by ryantate on Wednesday March 08, @04:31PM EST (#237) (User Info) |
| As E.S. Raymond has said, programmers can feed themselves on the use value of what they create, and thus it is usually in their best interests to create and surround themselves with free code that belongs to everyone and to no-one. That is, since programmers create functional copy, they can wisely forgoe the sale value of their creations in exchange for maximized consulting, customization and other service-oriented profit opportunities (*cough*Andover.net*cough*). In other words, use value. How do poets, guitarists or actors wring use value out of their creations? How do they eat without some copyright protection? Bob Dylan should have been a college professor, or harmonica coach? John Lennon ("imagine no possessions ...") a piano instructor? Toni Morrison forced to write excellent Toyota ads ("... and so through the filth, through the bigotry, and because of--not despite--our rich cultural heritage, we were, in the end, Everyday People.")? Of course they shouldn't. Trying to wring use value out of an artistic creation, as in the above examples, is far more hoary and commercial than simple copyright, which lets at least popular artists focus on art, rather than on making money from art. It is not that copyright protection needs to be as intrusive as it may be in the DMCA. But, reading through Mr. Katz's post and some of the top responses, I repeatedly encountered the notion that copyright itself is less valuable in the digital world, since the cost of reproducing data is close to zero. But the cost of producing content is never xero, no matter what it costs to *re*-produce. Content producers have to eat, and it is the independent, struggling artists and writers and creators who are hungriest. Shouldn't they have some say in whether Live365.com can rake in $2,500/day in banner and audio ads off of some newly-popular song they've written? Shouldn't they get a cut of that? And shouldn't hugely popular musical geniuses on major labels be able to live well off of their creations? Should the Ani DiFrancos and Arto Lindays and DJ Shadows and Dr. Dres, whose tunes make some people feel really, really good, have to get day jobs? Do we want them to have to get day jobs? Do we want budding musicians and writers, child prodigies, to know that they will never be able to dedicate themselves to any creation without use value? There is a gulf between Perl and the Philharmonic. Does DCMA help AOL/Time Warner a great deal? Excellent! Hundreds of the country's best government watchdog journalists, best folk singers, best actors, best directors, best agitators, best iconoclasts, best Think Different billboard candidates, best Penguin-drawers, best hack-on-Apache in their spare time webmasters and best gotcha-made-you-think nonfiction book authors eat every day because of AOL/Time Warners copyrights. And while most slashdotters can eat without owning, most of these bright folks cannot. Because there is, in the end, a difference between emacs source and "Oye Come Va." Not everyone can afford to give it away. |
| Research!!! (Score:0, Offtopic) by panda on Wednesday March 08, @04:47PM EST (#243) (User Info) |
| It's called "research," Katz. Do some. How 'bout citing some sources? How 'bout offering something other than your opinion? You say "The DMCA stipulates that unlike ordinary radio and TV broadcasters, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies." Uh, since when do regular radio stations not pay royalties to record companies? Why don't you try asking a station manager at a local radio station? I'm sure they'll be glad to explain to you how it works. Once again, Katz is full of tripe! Not only is he clueless about the "new media," he's clueless about the old, too! I'm turning the "Katz filter" back on. Evidently, Slashdot is just the dumping ground for the junk he can't sell to real editors. Feel free to moderate me down. To paraphrase Tricky Dick, "I am not a whore." |
| so which of these are abusing a copyright? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @07:27PM EST (#276) |
| i buy a cd and take it home, then i: play it on my sterio. play it on my computer. hook many speakers to my sterio and play it in each room of my house, plus garage. string wires to a friend's hose miles away, and hook speakers to that. record the cd onto my hard drive (aiff), and destroy the original. play it. record the cd on my hard drive as mp3's. record the cd on my hard drive, but only ever listen to the original. record the cd on my hard drive, and listen to both, but never at the same time. ...listen to the recording on my hard drive, and the original in my cd rom at the same time. listen to one at work as someone else is listening to my copy at home. load a copy of the cd onto my main computers drive which can be accessed by three other computers in the house. play the networked copy on all four computers at once. load the cd into my cdrom and play it on all four computers at once. live in bill gates house and play it, from the main file server, through the internet enabled couch, toilete, toaster, and dish rag. load it onto a file server on a network of varing sizes, two through a thousand. load it onto the internet. build the worlds biggest speaker and blast it loud enough for everyone to hear. somebody draw me a line? |
| How many times... (Score:2, Insightful) by Dave Walker on Wednesday March 08, @08:17PM EST (#284) (User Info) |
| ... do they want me to pay? I _finally_ downloaded the gnapster client last nite. I've been reading about it for awhile, and finally decided to see what it was all about. I was, naturally, impressed. The first song I snagged was "Strawberry Fields", by the Beatles. I sent my little sister (she's 40, but she's still my little sister) an email urging her to check out napster. And what I typed next set me back a bit; it forced home just what's going on with MP3's and DVD's. I justified my download by stating that "I have this song on a 45 RPM, an LP, a cassette tape, a CD, and a VCR tape. I think I've paid for the right to download it from the 'net. Most of my copies of that song are unplayable, anyway". THIS is what is scaring the 'labels'; people are finally realising that they're being forced to pay for the same IP over and over and over again. And that the media DOES wear out. It's not a big leap from worn media to pay-per-play! I've been buying 'albums' for 30 years now. I have over 600 LP's, about 400 cassette tapes, and about 200 CD's. There are some duplicates in there (Beatles, Led Zep...) but I've been busy converting a lot of my favorite single tracks from CD's to MP3. I've been planning to buy a turntable (a what?) to start ripping some of my LP's. I may still do that, but in the mean time, if I find a track I want using napster that lives on an LP I bought 20 years ago, I'll not think twice about downloading it, and I won't lose (lose, NOT loose) any sleep over it. |
| You're missing the point (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @08:35PM EST (#288) |
| They don't care if it's unethical, and they really don't care if it restricts your cultural freedom. The point is, it's now the law. So do we (all of us in the U.S., anyway) all become criminals by breaking Federal copyright laws, or do we find some other way to get the music + culture we want? One idea that comes to my mind is to find some way to have the music industry allow creation of customized CD's. You go to a website, pick the songs you want, plug in your credit card #, and a week or so later you get your CD. You can have the music you want, with no problems whatsoever. As for the limitation of choices this supposedly brings around, they have no control over independent artists. So let's say a really good group down the street hasn't signed on with a recording company yet. They can record their songs, burn CD's of them, and give/sell them to anyone they want. They can put MP3's of their music on the 'net. That's because they have the copyright, and they can do what they want with the music they created. Life's not all bad, people. Quit complaining and be glad we even HAVE music. |
| An RIAA scare letter (Score:2) by Spazmoid (spazm(NOSPAM)@cfw.com.ISAIDNOSPAM) on Wednesday March 08, @08:56PM EST (#293) (User Info) |
| I had a fresh stack of moderator points and would have loved to moderated in this thread as there are many good comments here, but many of you have not seen the RIAA's form letter to ISP's. Some of my favorite parts: "he RIAA is a trade association whose member companies create, manufacture and distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States." So, If I record a sound and distribute it, its not legitimate wothout their blessing??? At least they call it sound and not music.. bleh.. They also say that, we, the ISP may be in violation of the DCMA for allowing this to reside on our network. IANAL but I thought that the ISP was not responsible for the content posted by its customers?? So, without further BS, here is the whole thing: Some parts have *'s to protect the ISP and the site address. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 13:40:58 -0500 From:antipira@riaa.com To: dns@***.com Cc: webmaster@***.com Subject: unauthorized music site VIA E-MAIL March 3, 2000 Administrative Contact *** Communications **** **** Lane ******, ** ***** RE: ftp://leech:leech@216.**.**.**/c:/ Dear Sir or Madam: I am contacting you on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) and its member record companies. The RIAA is a trade association whose member companies create, manufacture and distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. Under penalty of perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its member companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet. We believe your service is hosting the above referenced site on its system. This site, which we accessed on 3/1/00 at 1:34 p.m. (EST), offers approximately 740 sound files for download, including songs by such artists as Bryan Adams, Ozzy Osbourne, Filter, Cake, Radiohead and Sponge. Many of these files contain recordings owned by our member companies. We have a good faith belief that the above-described activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assert that the information in this notification is accurate, based upon the data available to us. We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized activity. Specifically, we request that you remove the site, delete the infringing sound files or that you disable access to this site or the infringing files being offered via your system. In addition, please inform the site operator of the illegality of his or her conduct and confirm with the RIAA, in writing, that this activity has ceased. You should understand that this letter constitutes notice to you that this site operator may be liable for the infringing activity occurring on your server. In addition, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you ignore this notice, you and/or your company may be liable for any resulting infringement. This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained. Finally, if you or your users wish additional information concerning copyright law as it applies to sound recordings, please feel free to visit and/or link to our educational web site at http://www.soundbyting.com. Please communicate with me at RIAA, 1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C., 20036, Tel. (202) 775-0101, or e-mail antipiracy@riaa.com, to discuss this notice. We await your response. Very truly yours, Sarah Ehrlich Paralegal, Anti-Piracy RIAA A computer without a microsoft Operating System is like a dog without bricks tied to its head. |
| Nope (Score:1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @11:00PM EST (#309) |
| Internet radio stations are still allowed to broadcast music, but under a completely different set of rules. The DMCA stipulates that unlike ordinary radio and TV broadcasters, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies. Webcasts are limited to three songs from one album in any three-hour period. Radio and TV broadcasters do pay royalties for their content. Radio music broadcast (and all public music performance) fees are paid through licensing agencies like ASCAP and BMI. Internet radio stations are violating the letter and the spirit of laws predating the DMCA by operating without the appropriate licenses. |
| Corporate Domination (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @07:03AM EST (#346) |
| I like the comments, but what have any of you done to stem this tide. I've seen a site at http://www.londoners.net/ that's trying to get users to put their homepages online. Albeit they ask for your soul in return by asking you to display something on your site, but at least these guys seem to have seen a massive hole in the internet that we seem so hung up about. But the battle's already lost. I'm off to buy a CD from CDNOW. |
| DMCA was to bring US in line with WTO (Score:1) by Ice Tiger on Thursday March 09, @10:00AM EST (#352) (User Info) http://www.mars.org.uk |
| As I understand it the DMCA was to bring it in line with the IP treaties set up by the WTO. Now I noticed on the WTO members lists that there were no consumers groups at all. It would seem that one needs a consumer as well as a producer to trade and so the WTO is in my view unballanced and so you end up with still births like the DMCA. Looking at slashdot for example I can see a huge number of consumers that are dissatisfied with the way things are turning out. Any suggestions how we get heard on the WTO? Important Proir cases affecting DECSS, a must read |
| Political Clout (Score:1) by WorldMaker (world_maker@NOSPAMPLEASE.yahoo.com) on Friday March 10, @05:54PM EST (#365) (User Info) http://zap.to/dragonzine |
| Most major groups have political lobbying groups in Washington... why don't we Geeks? Let's turn it into a POLITICAL MOVEMENT... Let's get Techno-Saavy people in high positions. We can make it larger than the CDA Blue Ribbon movement... We can make the '60s look like a small domestic problem compared to it. Do you know how many people INTERNATIONALLY would be willing to fight... they realize how much American political desicions affect the Internet... they realize it sometimes more than we ourselves do. I think that maybe we should even have a Third House of Congress; a Geek Senate... an Internet Senate that only needs to vote on Internet/Computing related issues. Why not? JOIN THE FIGHT: GET MORE GEEKS IN WASHINGTON D.C.!! WorldMaker Editor, DRAGONzine (zap.to/dragonzine) |
| Fine tune Debate & Score only one for bad guys! (Score:1) by stingbee on Friday March 10, @06:11PM EST (#366) (User Info) |
| Although I am not an expert on the DMCA, after reading your post, I understand the gist of the law and for the most part I agree with your comments regarding the dangers of corporatism. In addition I agree with your reaction to the limitations created by this onerous law. I think it is anti-individual, anti-democratic, artistically and intellectually stifling and therefore just plain wrong. I am however, a firm believer in the strength and the insidiousness of the technophiliacs who up until now have been stealing without limitation or regard for the extent of their crime. They have forced the corporations to take aim directly at their practices because these geeks have trashed all the traditional respect for intellectual and artistic copyright protection. This corporate retaliation is more than a shot across the bow because the corporations have already been victimized by a broadside that they cannot ignore. As the battle ground stood prior to DCMA the free and unrestricted distribution of artistic and intellectual property over the internet was becoming a reality that would have obliterated these businesses as we know them. Maybe that's a good thing for mostly everyone, but to the corporate power structure that lives off of its heretofore monopoly of distribution this is a matter of life and death. Don't misunderstand me, I am not apologizing for their heavy hand, in fact I am pleased to see the cracks that have developed in the corporate walls, but I don't hold any illusions that boardrooms will simply hand over their fiefdoms to a few smart serfs who have figured out that they don't have to live inside the corporate castle. I am not surprised that the corporate powers have sponsored legislation that will preserve their futures. I think that we would all be very naïve to believe that anything less would happen. They are, after all, due to their wealth and willingness to apply that wealth, the guiding forces in American politics and they tend to guide that force in their own direction whenever their well-being is at issue. Any revolutionary idea that is backed by anything short of a grass roots uprising, a massive civil disobedience, or a well organized media campaign will always be faced with powers greater than the individual can muster. The labor movement at the turn of the last century is a case in point. The right of women to choose abortions is another. Individual rights were won in each of these cases only after hard fought political battles were joined by most of the voting public. The oligarchic nature of corporations with their close ties to political party power structures requires them to act in a way that is inherently pro-corporation. I think that the most important next step is for individuals and small corporations to challenge the law and to challenge the corporations who are defending themselves. I am not sure how the DCMA can be legally challenged, but I hope that there are lawyers and activists working on that right now. In so far as challenging the large corporations, I see that as a function of the geeks and the nerds and techno wizards who can understand that people who produce intellectual property ought to be compensated. Everyone has to eat! I trust free enterprise to create an internet mechanism that is fair, allows profit, encourages mass participation, and rewards individual excellence. A company that does that and also recognizes and discourages theft and cooperates in the punishment of criminals will be hailed by all as a godsend to the internet legal landscape. The powerful entrenched corporations will have no battleground on which to fight if the artists and the thinkers sign on with small companies. The war will not be over until a new generation of the free owners of ideas decide to distribute those ideas in a way that will erode and gradually undermine the owners of the old forms of distribution. The best technique is to use our existing laws against them in a slow but deliberate way. New writers singers and thinkers have their lack of wealth going for them. They cannot lose what they don't have. Lets see if ideals can triumph over dollars by acknowledging that money ought to change hands in the distribution of property, albeit in a modest way. The real enemy here is not corporate power. It is greed. Greed affects even the most impoverished person. Can the geeks give up their greed for a completely free internet in exchange for an acknowledgement by the powers of distribution that the cost to distribute has become miniscule compared to the past? |
| Re:Good Thing (nothing to do with OSS) (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @12:21PM EST (#29) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| okay i can see where an artist might like these things, but i have a beef about some of your linux comments: [rant] "I fail to see what this has to do with shareware products like Linux". Linux is not shareware, if anything its FREEWARE, free as in speech (free source code) and free as in beer (costs no $$ to legally obtain). "I once used Linux 6 myself". Linux 6? Perhaps you mean RedHat 6.0, RedHat is not Linux, its just a Linux distribution...they have their own versioning scheme, totally independent of the linux kernel, which has ITS own versioning scheme. "nor understand why anyone would be willing to revert to DOS". LINUX IS NOT DOS!!! just because it has a commandline (optional to use - for the most part anyway) does not mean its some simple-ass command interpreter like DOS is.... Linux has a HUGE plethora (is that redundant? :P) of programs that exploit the power of the unix command line. If youre ever in Linux again, try typing 'ps -ef' (minus the quotes of course) and you will se a swath of programs running, as opposed to DOS which cant naturally handle more than one program at the time. Try reading about Linux and the power of its command line interface :) [/rant] "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Not bad... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:37PM EST (#43) |
| This is definitely one of the better troll-inspired rants I've seen... Normally people get baited, but don't get caught hook, link and sinker... LOL |
| Re:Not bad... (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @12:48PM EST (#69) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| why thank you :) i sometimes consider a good rant a work of art :) "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Re:Not bad... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:10PM EST (#97) |
| Let me put it in simple terms for you: That was a troll. You are a fuckwit. troll + fuckwit = OPEN SOURCE SMARGLE! SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE! SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGL E!SMARGLE! SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE!SMARGLE! As in SMARGLE BUTTSEX! As in SMARGLE MONKEY! As in SMARGLE NINJA! As in SMARGLE NAKED AND PETRIFIED! AS IN SMARGLE! SMARGLE! SMARGLE! S-M-A-R-L-E! It's Open Source! And it wants RED HOT ANUS-BUTTSEX with YOU, my squeeky friend. That's right: SMARGLE IS NOW OPEN SOURCE! |
| Re:Not bad... (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @01:50PM EST (#140) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| okaaaaaay...i know i got way into that rant, but you know, you just gotta let yourself go and fuck wit da flaimbate :) I kow he was itchin for ppl to respond..so i did :) i have -31 or so Karma (not from trolling, just bad luck hehe) so i really dont care anymore about being marked down :) "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Re:Typical DOS/Linix geek (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @01:00PM EST (#89) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| thank god that marked as flaimbait! If this person is serious, as they seem to be, he or she is judging my creativity based on the fact that I'm into computers. that, sir (or madam if the case may be), is to PRE JUDGE, ever heard the word PREJUDICE? where do you think it comes from?? I do love a good slick GUI, lots of pretty widgets (Oooo...eyyyecaaandyyyy hehe) but the GUI cant interfere with my productivity. Thats why i generally use BeOS...it's fast, stable, plenty unixy for me :), and helps me GET THINGS DONE. Linux also helps me get things done, mostly Java stuff (Java isnt well supported on BeOS :( ) as well as when I wanna go paint in GIMP or whatnot. PLEASE [buy/rent/whore for] some clues so you can sem like at least a moderatly intelligent person "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Re:Typical DOS/Linux geek (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:01PM EST (#91) |
| Answer me this: If you're so damn smart, how come you're just a computer geek? People like you are support staff: They help creative people get things done. Thanks for the help and all, but if it weren't for me, you would be on a breadline. would you like to reveal exactly what it is you do? and could you do it without us? wed still be doing this anyway. GUI designers/graphic artists cant do technology for shit. Our webdesigner gave us broken html that didnt fit any conventional standard. We had to edit it all so we could convert the code to php so we could maintain it easier. also id like to see these people who get away with net objects and front page add in search fucntions and cgis with the code they put out. christ. rember you can build yourself a pretty house but without the "support staff" like plumbers and electritians youll be shittin in the woods and cooking over a fire. |
| Was plumbing invented to support plumbers? No. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:05PM EST (#94) |
| I'm not sure what you're doing babbling about FrontPage; that's a geek tool. You may have some silly "one-upmanship" thing going on with the "lesser geeks" who use it, but from a management and/or creative perspective, you're all just the same little people who handle the tedious, mindless little technical details so we can get on with doing serious work. Don't bother me. |
| Re:Was plumbing invented to support plumbers? No. (Score:1) by EyesOfNostradamus on Wednesday March 08, @02:19PM EST (#161) (User Info) |
| On which planet is front page considered a geek tool? And before you bash geeks, keep in mind that it was the creativity of programmers that allowed you to show your ass to so many people today. Just like it was the creativity of plumbers that allowed you to empty your ass so cleanly this morning. And don't forget to pull the cord, it's not just a plumber's tool. |
| Re:Was plumbing invented to support plumbers? No. (Score:1) by wyvernlord (therealwyvern@yahoo.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:40PM EST (#178) (User Info) |
| You never did answer the question? What is it you do that is so important? You sound like someone who is jealous that you lack the intelligence to have a technical job that earns alot of people a ver good living and keeps many parts of society running so people like you can pretend you are a significant part of it when you really contribute nothing of value. You sound like management, no brains and the lack of wisdom to use it! The Difference Between Genius and Stupidity.....Genius has limits! |
| Okay, okay. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:22PM EST (#204) |
| What is it you do . . . ? Full-time software developer, part-time troll :) you sound like someone who is jealous that you lack the intelligence to have a technical job You sound like somebody who takes himself way too seriously. Good managers are necessary, just like good developers are, good sales'n'marketing, etc. "Suits" may be goofy and they may do jobs that I find unbearably boring, but what they do is necessary. If they're incompetent (or mindlessly and unjustifiably arrogant about what they do, like you are), that's another matter. When that happens, the thing to do is find another job at a company that's not fucked up. I was satirizing halfwits who try to claim that their jobs are more important than anybody else's. Thanks for providing me with a real-life example of the breed. |
| Haw Haw Haw (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19, @10:44PM EST (#367) |
| YHBT. YHL. HAND. (relating to the parent, not you). |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by Silverhammer on Wednesday March 08, @12:23PM EST (#33) (User Info) http://silverhammer.org/ |
You're talking about physical property, of which there is only one distinct and unique manifestation and only one legally recognized owner per manifestation. This is talking about intellectual property, which can be reproduced perfectly ad inifinitum and sold to multiple consumers and which permeates the public consciousness, spawning variations and derivative works. It's not the same thing. |
| Property is property. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:59PM EST (#88) |
| Ever heard of scarcity value? If everybody has my IP, it doesn't matter that I still have it, because it has become worthless. You want to deny me my just profits from my own work. The US government, fortunately, is still capable of just acts from time to time. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:0, Flamebait) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @01:07PM EST (#95) (User Info) |
| If everybody has 'your' IP, then it matters very much because you now have quite a reputation. Next thing you know, Linus will be a bum on the streets because everybody can copy his kernel - by your logic. Besides, what makes you think that somthings a property right just because the government defines it that way Did your ancestors own slaves??? |
| Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:13PM EST (#103) |
| what makes you think that somthings a property right just because the government defines it that way "We hold these truths to be self-evident": Even the Constitution concedes that rights are not "granted" by the government, but rather recognized by the government. My property is mine, come what may. I am fortunate enough to live in a nation where the law recognizes this fact. Did your ancestors own slaves? No, but I confess to being amused by the so-called "Emancipation Proclamation": Those people were free already. They were not "owned" in any sense of the word. The laws that "legalized" slavery were meaningless, because they did not reflect moral realities. Any slave was perfectly free to assert his freedom at any time simply by walking away from the plantation, because the rights of their "owners" did not extend to preventing such a thing. |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @01:30PM EST (#121) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| slaves were not owned? excuse me, but i think keeping people (with what we would now called unlawfully) forceablly on a property is called slavery. and bullshit they could just Walk Away. if YOU were a slave and just started walking away, Massa would sick his hounddogs on you, or just shoot your. And the law could not do anything about it b/c youre his property and he can do anything with you he wants... that doesnt sound like slavery? "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:3, Informative) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @01:34PM EST (#123) (User Info) |
| Sigh. You're obviously a troll, but even deliberately stupid arguments like yours have to be fought lest someone actually believe you. The phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident" is not even in the Constitution. It's in the Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, copyrights are not ennumerated rights. The constitution never, ever says that people can own ideas. It says that the Congress has the power to enact legislation which grants copyrights, patents, etc. This is very different. It means that the only controls over ideas are laws, which are trumped by the Constitution. Therefore it's easily possible for a court to interpret the current gang of copyright laws as being unconstitutional, even though the Congress has the power to make these types of laws (because the exercise of that power requires that it carry the intent that is explicitly written in the Constitution). So to recap: 1)Copyright laws are not natural, ennumerated rights 2)Copyright laws are not granted in the Constitution 3)Copyright laws are merely possible, provided they fulfill the associated requirements spelled out in the Constitution 4)The copyright laws you're so fond of are quite likely unconstitutional 5)And not only that, but any copyright law ever is contrary to your natural rights anyway I won't even dignify the 2nd part of your post with any response other than reiterating that you're very much a troll. Why people can't be honest around here is beyond me.... -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:36PM EST (#126) |
| "We hold these truths to be self-evident": Even the Constitution concedes that rights are not "granted" by the government, but rather recognized by the government. First of all, that phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Interestingly enough, the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" originally read "life, liberty, and the right to own property". It was changed because the authors of the Declaration were certain it would be extended into areas where it wasn't appropriate (which you are doing; slavery was their chief worry at the time), and because of a recognition that outside some sort of governmental structure, the concept of private property has no meaning. It never ceases to amaze me how people will quote the Declaration and Constitution at will to support their positions even though they have little knowledge of what they actually say and none at all about why they say what they do. |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:18PM EST (#159) |
| "Emancipation Proclamation" freed the slaves THAT WERE NOT UNDER LINCOLN'S CONTROL, only in the Confederacy. http://www.nara.gov/exhall/featured-document/eman/emanproc.html It was much later, after the war that the slaves in the North were free. Don't get me started on the violations of Lincoln, such as the suspension of habius corpus, illegal executive orders, draft, taking over the legislature of MD, etc. The Constitution is often ignored. We DON'T own property, or do we? Why do we pay property taxes. In VA they pay taxes on personal property like boats (kind of a sales tax each year). The government can take your house if they need to build a road.... If you leave the property to your kids and have much of an estate, you have to pay tax on it AGAIN. So do we really "own" our property? For obvious reasons, this is an AC post.... |
| Yeah, that was flamebait all right. (Score:1) by Rei on Wednesday March 08, @03:52PM EST (#223) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| In response to the first part, 2 words sums it up: Civil War I don't blame lincoln at all. Also, since when has the draft been illegal? In response to the last one: a) the vast majority people who leave estates don't have to pay any tax on them; only large estates get hit with an estate tax, which is designed to stop people from gaining somewhat of a nobility status from constantly passing on inherited wealth. b) That would be the most pathetic thing in the world if the government had to build everything around anyone who didn't want to sell (what will we do, build hovering roads?) - and they try to, anyways, out of personal respect. And the government is required to appraise your property and give you a fair amount for it - and if you think they cheated you, or delibberitly picked on or descriminated against you, you can press charges. Its not like someone walks in with a gun and says "leave". Just clearing up a bit of debris that was left around this part of slashdot ;) - Rei A woman's place is in the house... and the Senate. |
| Re:Yeah, that was flamebait all right. (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @07:21PM EST (#274) (User Info) |
| Well... IIRC there's no provision for a draft in the Constitution. Therefore, draft laws can be trumped. I think offhand there could be a 13th amendment case against the draft. In fact, there _have_ been 13th amendment cases against the draft, and suprise, suprise, the Supremes didn't go for them. I seem to recall a sentiment which was something like '...any American should be proud to serve...' As for your second point, the 5th amendment has been violated all over the place. When I-90 was being built in Boston, the city basically kicked out with virtually no compensation, the residents of Boston's West Side. Note that you don't hear about that neighborhood anymore. However, I'm all for the exercise of 5th amendmetn rights when real property is confiscated by the government. This has nothing to do with copyrights though. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Wrong (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @01:26AM EST (#322) |
How do you think Wubba Bush made all his money? He arranged for the government to forclose on a bunch of personal property, then give it to a baseball team, so they could own it and realize private gains on it. Then they consortium sold it, and Bush got quite a take from it (compared to his investment) because he had the political pull to put it together. |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:03PM EST (#192) |
| "Those people" were free? "Those people" were not owned? I guess my great-great-grandmother and grandfather, both of who were BOUGHT at a slave auction, didn't hear that news. I guess the guy that BOUGHT them didn't hear it, either. He obviously hadn't heard it when he BEAT my great-great-grandfather half to death with the stock of a rifle when he attempted to take your advice and "walk away from the plantation". I know that I'm supposed to ignore people like you, but comments like this are so deeply hurtful that sometimes I can't stop myself. I don't care if it was a joke or not, I hope the moderators mark it down so nobody else has to see it. |
| Re:Natural rights vs. Legal rights (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:15PM EST (#199) |
| Using your definition of legal right, IP is a legal right which the Constitution gives Congress the power to grant to authors and inventors for a limited time |
| HEY MODERATORS!!! that wasn't flamebait (Score:1) by argoff on Wednesday March 08, @02:25PM EST (#168) (User Info) |
look, he said creating works doesn't matter if everyone could copy your IP, and he was wrong. He implies the IP was a basic property because the government said it was. I challenged that too. What's the deal??? |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:3, Funny) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @01:15PM EST (#106) (User Info) |
| Bzzzt. Wrong, but thanks for playing. It is impossible to, and immoral to attempt to restrict the ways in which a person can think. Yet this is what you propose. I am going to coin a phrase: The frogs jumped from the tower. According to you, I not only now own this phrase, but you aren't allowed to redistribute it. You can't repeat it. You can't write it down. You can't write something derivative of it. Frankly, you aren't even allowed to *think* it. No without my specific approval. And furthermore, you (I'm making the safe (IMHO) assumption here that you're the previous AC) claim that I can eternally assign this ownership to my heirs, so that unless they're feeling charitable, no one will ever, through the entire course of the future ever, EVER repeat that phrase in any way whatsoever. That's insane. However, my course is now clear. I think I'll just rev up the old computer and have it print out a list containing every possible combination of letters up to words that are 20 letters long (approx 2*10^29 unless my math is off). I and my heirs will forever own all of these words, so you'd better not get caught using any of them, ever. Beginning to see the problems with your argument? -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:2, Insightful) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Wednesday March 08, @03:05PM EST (#193) (User Info) http://www.caralis.com/us/lucas/ |
| How come it seems that the people that think that IP laws and patents are dumb are also the same people that have no IP or patents of their own? I'd be much more interested in these arguments if people or companies like Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft etc all came forward and said they thought that existing patent and IP laws should be done away with. There still are plenty of original ideas waiting to be thought up... Maybe if people did, they could use those ideas as leverage to get access to other people's ideas. In most cases it just doesn't seem fair to expect to be able to use someone elses ideas or works without fairly reimbursing them... And if they don't want to share, they don't have to. |
| Oracle, I... (Score:1) by MadAhab (6a7440616861622e636f6d) on Wednesday March 08, @05:47PM EST (#260) (User Info) http://www.ahab.com |
How come it seems that the people that think that IP laws and patents are dumb are also the same people that have no IP or patents of their own? I'd be much more interested in these arguments if people or companies like Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft etc all came forward and said they thought that existing patent and IP laws should be done away with.I'm afraid you are talking through your hat, here. Most of the opinions to which you refer are not against intellectual property in general, but opposed to the spurious and grasping nature it has recently acquired, especially in the area of software patents. I have co-filed patents. I thought they were stupid things to patent, but they were done for defensive reasons. Oh, what was that, you wanted statements from large software companies? Well, here is an incredibly powerful and direct statement from Oracle that falsifies your claim. I would also point out that an increasing amount of code from companies like IBM and Apple is being unburdened from the usual IP restrictions. Standards and openness are good for innovators. I'm sure there are other companies, top talent, and management who feel the same way, but who don't have the courage to step forward. Granted, Bill Gates and Scott McNealy are probably not among them. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:2) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @06:58PM EST (#271) (User Info) |
| You have misinterpreted my earlier post. 1)I never said copyright/patent/trademark laws in general are dumb. I said that the current laws go too far, and are probably unconstitutional. Further, the argument which I was replying too not only was in favor of the harsh laws we currently have, but actually suggested that we go even further than we have. I don't mind supporting copyright et al laws if they satisfy the constitution (which means that they are of limited duration, which is de facto no longer the case, and that they promote the useful arts and sciences, which is more frequently not the case either) and my moral faculties. The DMCA is not satisfactory for either requirement. 2)I have created a number of works, which puts me on par with Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, etc. I have a number of copyrights, though sadly no patents yet. However, I'm all for doing away with the *current* laws, and putting in some *good* laws. 3)The original poster was operating on the untrue assumption that copyright laws have some basis in reality and are not artificial legal constructions. I feel that I proved him wrong: Copyrights exist as a matter of law, but they are not natural rights, such as your right to free speech. It is important to keep this in mind, because copyrights are an incentive to get more material into the public domain, where it truly benefits everyone, not just those that can afford to pay for it. The intent and construction of copyrights in the Constitution is clearly not so that people can assert nonexistant property rights. 4)Why isn't it fair to use someone else's ideas or works without fairly reimbursing them, provided that you in no way impair their ability to use their own ideas or works? As I had mentioned before, the coining of words or phrases seems to be a legitimate, though extreme, use of copyright from this point of view. Let us consider the word 'Quiz.' There's a fairly likely, though apocryphal story that this word was coined by a man in Dublin. Basically he made a bet that a word which had no meaning would be the talk of the entire city within a day. Whereupon he wrote it in chalk all over the town. And won the bet ;) Let us assume that this story is true. Furthermore, let us assume that at that time, everyone adopted copyright laws which stated that 'because it is fair, people who create ideas or works deserve to be reimbursed if those ideas or works are used by others.' That's what you propose, is it not? And lastly, let us assume that the current trend towards extending copyrights illegally is followed to the logical conclusion, and that copyrights last forever, and can be transferred just like real property (sold, inherited, etc.), and that 'quiz' has never entered the public domain. This *is* your argument, right? While the current law has a time limit on copyrights, that's a legal issue - you're talking about 'fair.' 'Quiz' will always have been coined by the same guy. So this means that just speaking that word, or writing it, incurs a use. And you have to pay him. Now how come the logical extension of your argument sucks? It would be a world in which people couldn't even communicate unless charitable souls placed the words that they coined or inherited into the public domain, or where you had to give different people nickles whenever you opened your mouth. Because that's _fair_. You're using things that other people invented. You have to pay them for that. Fortunately, this has never happened. What has happened, and what has been the rule for most of history, is a state in which no one is ever compelled to pay for the use of an idea, and where there are no protections on ideas. Strangely enough, companies like Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, etc. have benefited from the use of ideas which had no legal restrictions on them. Disney routinely makes movies which are derivative works of other creators - "The Little Mermaid" was originally written by Hans Christian Andersen. Disney never paid him a red cent. By your argument, this is unfair. I would argue that it's okay because in a world with no relevant laws (intriguing certainly) I could make a copy of their movie without paying them. Of course, I couldn't just take the tape - that would be stealing the tape (not the movie). But I could pass out copies to all my friends. Curiously, this state of affairs is what Andersen had to deal with, and he still published. More realistically, I would argue that Disney can keep the monopoly for only a short period of time. Let us say, 5 years. They have that long to recover the cost of the movie, plus any profit they wish to make. After that, it's up for grabs. The only difference between that and the current system is that right now Disney has roughly 100 years to do so. And Disney is well known for lobbying legislators to extend copyrights so that when that ~100 years is up, it will surely have been extended to ~1000 years. Obviously this is an unconstitutional copyright law, but that's besides the point. I suspect that, accounting tricks aside (never take the net) Disney made the cost of their movie and a healthy profit in 5 years. I can accept letting them get _some_ profit as an incentive to do it in the first place, but copyrights exist to benefit everyone, and not the copyright holder. Beyond a certain point, when greed takes over, I have no more reason to support *that* copyright. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:1) by ReporterDave (reporterdave@yahoo.com.au) on Wednesday March 08, @09:05PM EST (#295) (User Info) |
| Imaging if cave-people had intellectual property??? Uug!..you no use wheel unless you give sabre tooth tiger royalty! Hin!..fire patented, you give wife and first born as royalty Gug!...you no use clothes...my idea!! Cool...we all run around in the nude eating raw fruit...great civilisation guys! I wonder what happened to those innovative Romans????? |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @10:05PM EST (#302) (User Info) |
| well... don't knock running around in the nude eating raw fruit. but i admit that it's not what i want to do all the time ;) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:30PM EST (#305) |
| That's a good point, my only problem with it is the math. You are close but from x=1 to x=20, the sum of x^26 is 2.07 * 10^28. Then again, why not go for 50? That's only 5.83 * 10^70. Not an anonymous coward. Just too lazy to go find my password or create a new one. -MathJMendl |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @11:33PM EST (#314) (User Info) |
| Note that I am an art guy, not a programmer or math head. my math is off though. it ought to be 2.28 * 10^29. This is 27! * 21, because you need a 27th character for 'end of word' and sometimes you'll have a 20-character long word but still need to fit in a EOW. But i forgot about the 21st character last time. but it's been so long since i needed to do any math besides rotate a ratio wheel, that i'm obviously completely wrong and any preschooler nowdays can point out my errors... so far i've got a, b, c, d.... However, I must point out that some bastard already invented *letters* which is really going to make this a difficult thing to pull off ;) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @01:20AM EST (#321) |
| my math is off though. it ought to be 2.28 * 10^29. This is 27! * 21, because you need a 27th character for 'end of word' and sometimes you'll have a 20-character long word but still need to fit in a EOW. But i forgot about the 21st character last time. Nah. What happens when your second character is the EOW character? You don't care what the remaining characters are, so you shouldn't count two words that vary only in the post-EOW data as two different words. And your math is a bit off, anyways. If your alphabet has k distinct characters, there are k^n different words of length n. To count the number of distinct words with a length less than or equal to 20, just do the sum (26)^1 + (26)^2 + (26)^3 + ... + (26)^20 |
| Re:Property is property. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @06:57AM EST (#345) |
| Yeah, if everybody had the same IP address, the 'net would not work!!! |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:45PM EST (#219) |
| What does it MATTER????? The point is that if I create something, it's MINE. It belongs to ME. IF I want to give it to someone, sell it to someone, or whatever, it's MY choice, since it is, after all, MY property. It doesn't matter if it costs $1 to reproduce, or $1000. It is still MY property. I've never seen a rational basis yet that justifies the theft of property. "Because I want it, and it doesn't cost you anything," is a total cop-out. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by MadAhab (6a7440616861622e636f6d) on Wednesday March 08, @06:07PM EST (#263) (User Info) http://www.ahab.com |
| The big deal is that intellectual property is not truly property, as it does not naturally have one of the main characteristics of property; exclusivity. That means, if I enjoy the thing, then you cannot. So intellectual property - ALL OF IT - is a limited, government supported monopoly which CREATES property out of a thing in order to creat this specific characteristic, and thereby give TEMPORARY benefits to the creators in order to give them an incentive to create. But there are supposed to be limits to this. Most of us feel that if we buy a CD, it belongs to us, in that we can listen to it, make copies of it, play it out loud, etc. It doesn't matter whether a record company spent $1 or $1,000,000 to promote it, when we spent money, we acquired the rights I mentioned above. Now look at region locking in DVDs, or artificial degradation of digital copies, and see if they don't infringe on the rights THAT WE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. The problem is that governments are now so often corrupted by business interests (corruption is what I call it when a company gives money to a politician, who then acts on the company's behalf), that governments are going too far in CREATING property rights where, in fact, none naturally exist. I've never yet seen a rational basis for creation of monopolies by governments for the sole benefit the monopolists. "Because we have it, and we had Sonny Bono change the rules in our favor so I can keep it" doesn't justify anything, and is also a mickey-mouse cop-out. Literally. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @07:19PM EST (#272) |
Revolutionary acts aside, "theft of property" cannot be justified because the term itself denotes wrongdoing. On the other hand, if you throw out the ill-conceived and possibly even harmful concept we have of property (John Locke burdened us all with this one) then the idea of property could bear some re-appraisal. [I am an artist myself - an active, producing, public, valuing-my-own-work artist, and I would love to be paid to do nothing but that. On the other hand, I also have a few other skills that pay my rent and put food on my table.] Doing one thing well, once, and expecting to be appreciated and financially supported by that the rest of your life is a "total cop-out." I say that as an artist - especially as an artist. And even now... if we could devise a way to get, for example, the contracts of recording artists a bit more like the contracts of other content providers, we could keep getting those artists paid for what they do, regardless of how many copies of their CD's get ripped and distributed digitally, without the consent of the record company. As far as I'm concerned (under this, our beloved capitalist system), as long as the creator of a work gets compensated, I'm happy. Let the record company work for its money. Let it pay the artists a flat fee (negotiated) for their services, and then additional contractual terms (royalties, copyright, etc.) can be negotiated. Then it's up to the companies to make some money for themselves, but we as consumers can feel confident that the artist is getting paid in a way that they, the artist, think is at least somewhat reasonable. The record companies can fight all they want, but they should not have the luxury of making us (the constituency) feel bad for the artists as an argument to get more money for themselves. Without the artists - who while not the big moneymakers themselves probably do make the biggest impression - the record companies will be evaluated for what they actually do. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by Dervak on Thursday March 09, @09:07AM EST (#349) (User Info) |
No it is not. Information isn´t property, it cannot be owned. The reasons for this is basically twice: (as explained by others here as well) 1. There is no need to. Property denotes scarcity commodities; if I use it you cannot. Information can be copied enlessly, at zero cost. Because information is so different in its essence the concept of property does not apply to it. 2. Even if you write, say some new software, or music, or a book, or whatever - this information never originates entirely with you. You are always using earlier information, most of which you have got access to for free. You are in essence, standing on the shoulders of giants. Trying to make this your derivative work your exclusive property in not only greedy and immoral, it is theft from the commons. Also, the US Constitution does not grant various monopolies (copyright, patents etc.) as some kind of "natural" right to the claimants; it is explicitly done only to promote the progress of the useful arts. It is a means to an end, not the end in itself, a necessary evil of sorts. These monopolies also, according to the Constitution, should be limited in duration. The current IP laws are therefore clearly unconstitutional, on two counts, as they neither promote progress nor are limited in duration (in any meaningful sense of the word). /Dervak |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2) by Lord Kano on Wednesday March 08, @12:24PM EST (#34) (User Info) http://trfn.clpgh.org/wpngg |
| If you deed your house to your children, and they to theirs, there is no "time limit" after which the house becomes public property and any random homeless person can just walk into your living room and make himself at home. That would be absurd. In some states "squatters rights" can be more important than ownership. IANAL, and I don't know all of the provisions but if someone "squats" in your abandoned house for 20 or 30 years ad you do nothing about it, then you can't arbitrarily evict them. LK If women like it, it's erotica. If men like it, it's pornography. WTF?!?! |
| What about compilations or import DVDs I paid for? (Score:3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:26PM EST (#36) |
| So it's against the law to steal somebody's property. This is not a tragedy, it's common sense and it's been the law all along. Please enlighten me and describe how any of the following constitute a "crime" or "theft": (1) Combining tracks from several different CDs I own onto a single read and burned fully digitally (no analog conversions) on my computer's CDR burner for my own personal use. (2) Modifying my DVD player or buying the parts or modify my DVD player or buying a pre-modified DVD player in order to defeat the region coding so I can play the import DVDs I ***paid*** for. (3) Defeating macrovision in order to copy a DVD to VHS so my daughter can watch The Little Mermaid over and over and over. Kids can be brutal to media and easily scratch and ruin a DVD. I'm listening. |
| How is this a crime or a theft (Score:2, Insightful) by luckykaa (squigly@maxmail.co.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @01:30PM EST (#120) (User Info) |
| None of the following are my opinion, just my biased interpretation of other peoples opinion, although I don't think piracy can be considered theft since you aren't actually removing anything from somebody else. It should still be prevented. (1) According to the RIAA - because they didn't get any money from the sale of your computer, and as far as they're concerned if you have the ability to play a fraction of a second of any of their intelectual property on 2 machines at the same time, you're depriving them of money, and the purchase only allows one person to listen to it at the same time. (It should also be a criminal offence to hum the tune if you don't own it) (2) The movie companies feel that you should not be able to see a film before its released on the cinema in your country because that is stealing the claim to first showing from the cinemas. (3) You COULD use this to produce pirate videos. It doesn't matter that you wouldn't. The fact that you merely have the knowledge to do so means that they should lock you up and throw away the key. |
| *can* be used in a crime != *will* be used. (Score:4, Insightful) by root (root at megami dot org) on Wednesday March 08, @01:59PM EST (#145) (User Info) http://www.megami.org/ |
| (1) According to the RIAA - because they didn't get any money from the sale of your computer, Now this really *pisses* *me* *off*. RIAA thinks it it entitled to assess a fine *upon* *me* because *other* people are pirating. This leads me to one of two conclusions. (1) this fee is wrong, and should be banned or (2) Since I'm being punished along with the pirates, I may as well actually set out and pirate since I've already been judged guilty with sentence carried out. Since the crime has already been paid for, why not to pirate? What's next? Do we tax a "murder fee" onto knife sales and give the monet to law enforcement, because x% of knives are used in murders every year? (2) The movie companies feel that you should not be able to see a film before its released on the cinema in your country because that is stealing the claim to first showing from the cinemas. I might agree with this if region locks somehow automatically expired after a certain time. But fucking 50 year old movies are coming out today on DVD with region locks?! Kinda lays waste to the distribution argument, eh? Of course, many of the import DVDs I have will *never* see a local release, and even if they did, videos are often edited, extra features removed, audio dubbed over... the point being that IT ISN'T EVEN THE SAME PRODUCT ANYMORE. It's changed, so how can it can be seen as competing with the other region product anymore? And when I buy an import DVD, are not the original IP owners getting compensated? Isn't this what this whole protection scheme is supposed to really (3) You COULD use this to produce pirate videos. This logic is so flawed, I'll leave its dubunking as an excercise for the reader. |
| Re:*can* be used in a crime != *will* be used. (Score:1) by luckykaa (squigly@maxmail.co.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @03:24PM EST (#207) (User Info) |
| Well, as I said, these are just my interpretation of other people opinions. Nice to know they made an impact or (2) Since I'm being punished along with the pirates, I may as well actually set out and pirate Yes, I came up with the same conclusion. The other problem being that independent artists get no compensation at all, and they're a) the ones that would benefit most and b) more likely to have their CD's pirated because of the difficulty of finding them in the shops. But fucking 50 year old movies are coming out today on DVD with region locks?! I think in this case, the region locks are just a reflex. Nobody suggested making it region 0. This logic is so flawed, I'll leave its dubunking as an excercise for the reader. Sorry, best I could come up with. |
| Re:*can* be used in a crime != *will* be used. (Score:1) by istartedi (comments@vrml3d.com) on Wednesday March 08, @08:34PM EST (#286) (User Info) http://www.vrml3d.com/ |
Now this really *pisses* *me* *off*. RIAA thinks it it entitled to assess a fine *upon* *me* because *other* people are pirating. Now I'm really pissed off. The government keeps taxing me to build jails because other people are murdering. Tell us more about how Open Source is great for business. |
| *Everyone* will be jailed for 8 months. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:27PM EST (#304) |
| It has been determined that the average time spent in jail across all citizenry is 8 months over the lifetime of any one person. As such, *everyone*, criminal or not, will be required to serve an 8 month tour of duty in jail to pay for the total crimes committed by society. SHUT THE FUCK UP DOOFUS! |
| Re:*can* be used in a crime != *will* be used. (Score:1) by mini me on Wednesday March 08, @09:33PM EST (#298) (User Info) |
This will probably sound like a "me too" post, but here it goes: Now this really *pisses* *me* *off*. RIAA thinks it it entitled to assess a fine *upon* *me* because *other* people are pirating. This leads me to one of two conclusions. (1) this fee is wrong, and should be banned or (2) Since I'm being punished along with the pirates, I may as well actually set out and pirate since I've already been judged guilty with sentence carried out. Since the crime has already been paid for, why not to pirate?I have always thought the same thing, if I'm going to pay extra for my CD-R's or *insert favorite media here* I may as well get my moneys worth!! Sure I could use the media to store personal property, but if I'm going to pay for storing other people's property on it then why can I not do so? Besides doesn't pirating usually make sales of the original property go up???? (such as software or music) |
| Re:*can* be used in a crime != *will* be used. (Score:1) by operagost on Thursday March 09, @09:34AM EST (#351) (User Info) http://www.operagost.com |
| What's next? Do we tax a "murder fee" onto knife sales and give the monet to law enforcement, because x% of knives are used in murders every year? Well, that's what some politicians want to do with firearms, and some of you are going to support them because you'd rather feel "safe" than have liberty. If we aren't able to freely communicate, travel, and arm ourselves, then we will be anything BUT "safe". |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:1) by bracyman (bracyman@hotmail.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:08PM EST (#154) (User Info) |
| The law doesn't work that way. You can go through and copy a book word for word, from a library or a friend, and you couldn't be indicted for copyright violation. It was determined that the same goes for Xerox machines, so you can photocopy the book to your heart's content. So as of now, the RIAA and co. have very shaky foundations for their arguments that you can't copy stuff in your own home. Bsides I can't really feel sorry for the "poor" recording industry. And does no-one else feel slightly outraged at paying $7.50 to go see a movie that high chances are will suck? |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @06:17PM EST (#266) |
| Uh no. Legally, you can't just copy willy-nilly any book in your house. Copyright includes the exclusive right to reproduce the work in question. Obviously, there is a practical impediment to anybody ever pursuing you for that infringement, as long as you don't start distributing the copies -- but if I steal $25 from someone and they don't complain about it, am I less of a thief? (And your point about Xerox machines is just plain wrong as well. What the courts have held is that photocopy machines, in and of themselves, are not prohibited by copyright law, even though someone might use one to make infringing copies. Copying books is just as infringing with a Xerox machine as it is with a typewriter.) Yes, I am an Anonymous IP Lawyer. |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:1) by Grand Poobah of PRAM on Wednesday March 08, @02:39PM EST (#177) (User Info) |
| I have a Leatherman with a knife on it. Should the police arrest for that? After all, I could kill someone with it. I can beat someone to death with my bare hands. Should the police arrest me for possession of bare hands? Mere possession of something that could be used to commit a crime is usually not considered a crime because of the problem of limiting that logic. You can use it as an excuse to arrest anyone. After all, that computer of yours can be used to copy data...maybe they should run you in before you use it to get a copy of software the RIAA dislikes |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:1) by luckykaa (squigly@maxmail.co.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @03:32PM EST (#213) (User Info) |
| Mere possession of something that could be used to commit a crime is usually not considered a crime Have you heard about the DMCA? I think it stops short of saying that possession of a device that can be used for piracy is against the law, but distribution and production are. So if you were to apply the same rules as the DMCA don't try to give that knife to someone else or lend the use of your hands to another person. Even the person who sold you that knife is a criminal. |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:40PM EST (#179) |
| Just looking at point 3...I hope you mean that sarcastically...Otherwise what happened to "innocent until prooven guilty" or better yet "With a car I have the potential for a hit and run...should that be taken away from me?" |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:1) by luckykaa (squigly@maxmail.co.uk) on Wednesday March 08, @03:24PM EST (#206) (User Info) |
| I hope you mean that sarcastically Of course I did. Since you don't seem to be the only person to make this mistake I guess I should have made myself clearer My point was this seems to be the argument from the MPAA. The whole post was meant to be a satire. I also don't really think that it shuld be a criminal offence to hum a tune youi don't own. As another wiser poster (root) pointed out: "This logic is so flawed I'll leave its dubunking as an excercise for the reader" |
| Re:How is this a crime or a theft (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:53PM EST (#188) |
| 1) According to the RIAA - because they didn't get any money from the sale of your computer, and as far as they're concerned if you have the ability to play a fraction of a second of any of their intelectual property on 2 machines at the same time, you're depriving them of money, and the purchase only allows one person to listen to it at the same time. (It should also be a criminal offence to hum the tune if you don't own it) That right...Any time I purchase CDs when I play them while my friends are over I make them wear earplugs so that I don't break that "one person" condition. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by Izubachi (Izubachi@mechpilot.com) on Wednesday March 08, @12:35PM EST (#41) (User Info) |
| This is different because, now, you're not owning a physical object, you're owning something that isn't really there. A house exists, it took effort to build and has to be tended to. A program is a series of electronic signals, it's not really "there". It can also be created without physical effort after the first version of it is produced. So, you just cannot apply those examples to this situation, it's different. And I really don't see how it has anything to do with communism. Our Congress rules almost always in favor of brute capitolism. Very brute capitolism, which isn't much better at its lowest then communism. Probably worse. The truth does not set you free, it just makes everyone irratable. Your mother lied to you. |
| Re:Good Thing (nothing to do with OSS) (Score:1) by shadrack on Wednesday March 08, @12:37PM EST (#42) (User Info) |
| Your are right. The law doesn't prevent an artist from using the net and mp3 format to ditribute their content. It does give the artist(or copyright holder) the right to decide how and where it is done. New artists can still use the net, set up their own recording companies, create mp3 CDs if they so choose. If they choose not to, they at least have some protection. There is still the possibiblity for abuse though. The RIAA in the past has used strong arm tactics to get artists to sign, threatening to not allow them to participate in concerts and other events unless they sign up. That really is a violation of Constitutional rights, but is usually too expensive for the artist to take legal action. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by Grog6 (Grog6@thevillage.gov) on Wednesday March 08, @12:37PM EST (#44) (User Info) |
| So, You think that, just because you've paid for it, your house belongs to you? Don't pay taxes on 'your' property and see what happens. Or, maybe some legislator concieves a sweetheart deal, and your property is in the way. can you say Eminent Domain? We're all Slaves, from top to bottom. Who holds the strings? We will never know... I Am Not A Number... Um...except for my TCP/IP address.- Gr0GB0rG |
| Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:56PM EST (#83) |
| "Eminent Domain" is a legal theory popular in the days of kings. It won't wash in a free society. I'll be pilloried for saying this, but an unarmed society is not and can not be a free society, for this very reason: You can't enforce an unjust law on an armed man. |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by spazimodo (spazimodo@hempseed.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:26PM EST (#118) (User Info) |
You can't enforce an unjust law on an armed man. yes you can, you just need to bring a bigger gun. I love how people use that kind of sophistry to propogate a belief that is really rooted in their own fear. Much akin to what the DMCA is being used for. Its something to hide behind, since no one would buy into "well, the world's moving too fast for us, and the suits in our industry collectively just shit their pants." Freedom is a state of mind, not something that can be fought for. Hail Eris. All Hail Discordia. Kallisti. -Spazimodo Fsck the millennium, we want it now. Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min] |
| When did anyone take up arms against gov't & win? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:31PM EST (#122) |
| You can't enforce an unjust law on an armed man. The Montana Freemen, Waco, and see where it got them. "Right to bear arms" or not. If you use 'em to oppose the gov't, then the gov't will jail you or kill you. The last large scale attempt was in 1861, when the south attempted to leave the union. Didn't work then either. Can anyone really be "armed" successfully against the gov't anymore? |
| Remember England vs The colonies? (Score:1) by EnderWiggnz (hettar@SPAMORAMA.nni.com) on Wednesday March 08, @02:07PM EST (#153) (User Info) |
| enough said. tagline. You're it. |
| Re:Remember England vs The colonies? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:30PM EST (#173) |
| Yes. And those upstart rebellious colonists created their own gov't, but created it in such a way that its citizens could never do to them, what they did to the British crown. The learned well from the mistakes of their forefathers. |
| Re:When did anyone take up arms against gov't & wi (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @07:38PM EST (#278) |
| The last large scale attempt was in 1861, when the south attempted to leave the union. Didn't work then either.
It did. All of the Confederate States were re-admitted to the union.
Waco is a different animal. Think Athens, Tennessee, 1946. At Waco, they were supposed to be serving a search warrant, which the ATF neglected to bring with them. They did not have any arrest warrants at the time.
Can anyone really be "armed" successfully against the gov't anymore? Not by your self. And not if the government is willing to kill hundreds of people to enforce its will. And lie, cover up, manufacture evidence etc. to justify those killings. Think Ruby Ridge. |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by SEWilco on Wednesday March 08, @02:04PM EST (#150) (User Info) http://www.wilcoxon.org/~sewilco |
"Eminent Domain" is a legal theory popular in the days of kings. It won't wash in a free society.Then you won't mind if your neighbor cuts down the power and telephone poles that he's not using... |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by DrgnDancer on Wednesday March 08, @02:19PM EST (#160) (User Info) |
| I find this statement silly. Of course I cna enforce an unjust law on an armed man. Your gun (even a really cool gun) is really no match for an armored police vehicle, much less an M1-A1 or a Bradley. I can say with some certainty (Since I work around Military vehicles all the time) that 99.999% of civilians don't have any weapon that could scratch an armored vehicle. Luckily they don't need to. Our protection is the law, sometimes laws are bad (The DMCA comes to mind), but they will only be repealed through judicial review or later reconsideration, your gun will have no effect what-so-ever. If you wan t to change things, give up posturing with toys and take up law. It is only through legisaltion and judical review that we can be saved. That or civil disobedience. Trust me, the government has WAY more guns than you do. UNIX: Because you want to USE your computer |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by Suburban Shaman (scecil@npc.spam.net) on Wednesday March 08, @03:41PM EST (#217) (User Info) |
| According to "Uncle Fester's Homemade Explosive's Book" I might be able to construct any of 10 or more "weapons" to demolish an armored personel carrier. Guns, no - explosives, yes. Just look at the IRA for example! |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by DrgnDancer on Wednesday March 08, @05:11PM EST (#248) (User Info) |
| Granted. If you find an unguarded armored personel carrier, you could destroy it. You might even get a few with booby traps fully loaded. The Army has thousands. My point was not that you shold be afraid of the governments armored personel carriers, my point is that you could not successfully rebel against the US governmetn right now. Fifty years from now if the government has become a truely facist state you might be able to get enough support to be successful, but it would require the support of at least part of the military to be anything other than an in effective guerrilla campaign. A milita group might be able to take out a few vehicles, but there are more, and the fighter planes, and the bombers, and the trainig and disipline that makes the men behind those weapons effective. Under normal circumstances you would never have to face and APC or tank though, that is also my point. The government would never send one after you. An indiviual or small group could never face off against the entire US military, but they don't have to. It would take a signifigantly smaller number of people complaining about this law to get it changed then it would to attempt armed restistance. UNIX: Because you want to USE your computer |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:06PM EST (#228) |
| I find this statement silly. Of course I cna enforce an unjust law on an armed man. Your gun (even a really cool gun) is really no match for an armored police vehicle, much less an M1-A1 or a Bradley. I can say with some certainty (Since I work around Military vehicles all the time) that 99.999% of civilians don't have any weapon that could scratch an armored vehicle. Luckily they don't need to. Our protection is the law, sometimes laws are bad (The DMCA comes to mind), but they will only be repealed through judicial review or later reconsideration, your gun will have no effect what-so-ever. If you wan t to change things, give up posturing with toys and take up law. It is only through legisaltion and judical review that we can be saved. That or civil disobedience. Trust me, the government has WAY more guns than you do. This runs along the lines of the "all overly general statements are untrue (including this one)". It's all a matter of will. Sure, a gun may be no good against a tank. But a gun, the will to use it, and the support of others of like mind go further than having no gun and no will to resist. Consider one of the things that the Allies dropped to resistance groups in occupied Europe in WWII was a one shot pistol, cheaply made from punched metal parts. A worthless weapon, in itself, but it allowed one to get better weapons, if one had the courage to use it. We see similar results elsewhere, in Afghanistan, for example. The better armed side does not always win. |
| Communism and the Second Amendment (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:38PM EST (#255) |
| We see similar results elsewhere, in Afghanistan, for example. The better armed side does not always win Incorrect assumption. Afghanistan was fighting a communist country. Since Afghanistan was operating on a free market economy, it was able to produce better weapons more quickly and for less money. In the end, this is what gave Afghanistan the victory. But even supposing that the Afghani weapons were inferior somehow, there is a reason why they would still win: they have a right to keep and bear arms. The Soviets, being under communist rule, could not. As a result, the Afghanis were trained marksmen, the Soviets, like all Russians, were drunken Vodka addicts. It becomes clear then, why they won, and why a capitalist nation will always triumph over a communist one. |
| Re:Communism and the Second Amendment (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @08:11PM EST (#282) |
| Incorrect assumption. Afghanistan was fighting a communist country. Where the hell did you learn your history, son? Afghanistan was a communist country. It took the Afghani people fighting the communists with guns designed in the 30's, made from railroad tracks, before the west even became interested in supplying state of the art weapons.
And when they killed a commie, they took their weapons. To take out a tank, they'd set fire to themselves and hop on in. Never underestimate the desire of the rebel to win at any cost. Let's not forget Mogadishu. What were those people armed with when they downed a helicopter? Don't forget the lessons of guerilla war and terrorism. Make it unsafe for the soldiers to leave their compound, and you'll win.
In Afghanistan, in the end, what gave them victory was a desire to win and western aid, because they did not have better weapons or a better economy than the USSR did. |
| Re:Communism and the Second Amendment (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @08:42PM EST (#289) |
| Where the hell did you learn your history, son? Afghanistan was a communist country. Sorry, but history isn't "open source". You can't just re-arrange the facts whenever they don't fit your prejudices. It took the Afghani people fighting the communists with guns designed in the 30's, made from railroad tracks, before the west even became interested in supplying state of the art weapons. More revisionist history. I guess growing up in the Cold War left you more succeptible to propaganda. The Afghanis were armed with M-16s, which are certainly *not* from the 1930's. While you might find it hard to believe that you've been decieved, the facts are plainly right in front of your face. Never underestimate the desire of the rebel to win at any cost. Especially to free themselves of socialism. The very fact that the Afghanis were willing to do that shows that marxism is unnatural and thus immoral. They were willing to die to revert to capitalism: how much more proof do you need? Let's not forget Mogadishu. What were those people armed with when they downed a helicopter? Hmm...I guess if you're willing to overlook the fact that they were given FOREIGN AID by the Russians, you could say anything. But I'm not overlooking the facts. They had modern weapons from a modern, then-capitalist nation. Don't forget the lessons of guerilla war and terrorism. Make it unsafe for the soldiers to leave their compound, and you'll win. Or cut off their alcohol supply, as was the case in Afghanistan. Why do you think the Russians gave up so easily? A nation of alcoholics can't survice too long without booze. In Afghanistan, in the end, what gave them victory was a desire to win and western aid, because they did not have better weapons or a better economy than the USSR did. Please. Any fool could see what a sorry state the Soviets were in economically. And big surprise, too: they were a communist nation, which invariably leads to economic collapse. The Afghanis won because they had superior technology. PERIOD. |
| Re:Communism and the Second Amendment (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:08PM EST (#303) |
| More revisionist history. Or flamebait. (SIGH). It's just so damn boring at work tonight. I apologize to the slashdot readers for having to put up with this. |
| Re:Communism and the Second Amendment (Score:1) by kapelski on Wednesday March 08, @11:16PM EST (#311) (User Info) |
| Especially to free themselves of socialism. The very fact that the Afghanis were willing to do that shows that marxism is unnatural and thus immoral. They were willing to die to revert to capitalism: how much more proof do you need? Oh, please. Now who's re-arranging the facts to fit his/her prejudice? The Afghanis weren't out on some high-horsed-lets-be-capitalists campiagn. Nobody much liked the Soviets and American money seemed more appealing. But, the Soviets =! Marxism--far from it. Your conclusion that Marxism is therefore unnatural and thus immoral is itself prejudiced and one hell of a logical fallacy. Ever check into Afghanistan these days? Or Russia, or the Czech Republic or... They ain't such pretty, happy-go-lucky countries as we capitalists want everyone to belive. Ever been to any of them? I bet the Cubans don't find their free healthcare so unnatural and thus immoral. Or for that matter, the Canadians, or the Englilsh, or the Irish or the... Gosh, I bet you'd be surprised to find out that their democracies are based on socialism, as in SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Take your Rush Limbaugh gasbag attitude elsewhere. Yes! Oh yes! My soul is snoring! - Tom Servo I want an harmonica - Maj. C.E. Winchester III |
| Sorry, don't know how that got posted twice (Score:1) by kapelski on Wednesday March 08, @11:24PM EST (#313) (User Info) |
| EOF Yes! Oh yes! My soul is snoring! - Tom Servo I want an harmonica - Maj. C.E. Winchester III |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @11:24AM EST (#355) |
| My brother's in the infantry. He says the thing that tankers fear the most is snipers. Of course you're not going to hurt the tank, but those things aren't air-conditioned. That's why the driver tends to leave his head out, where it's cool and he can see. If he gets hit by a sniper, it takes a while before the other guys even realize it, since the intercomm goes down all the time. Not to mention, the whole crew comes out every day to do maintenance. A population armed and skilled with rifles is indeed an effective check against government tyranny. They would lose in a conventional battle, but that's not remotely relevant. |
| The Gov't's role: Kill Gun-Fascists like you (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:31PM EST (#212) |
| The sooner ATF comes and exterminates you like they did at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the happier I'll be. You racist Jesus-freak right-wing pigs disgust me, and I can't wait until we kill you all off. This is not your country. You don't even have a right to be here if you won't abide by the laws which are DESIRED BY THE MAJORITY. |
| Re:The Gov't's role: Kill Gun-Fascists like you (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:40PM EST (#256) |
| Excuse me? Since when did owning a gun and disliking Gov't policy make one a right wing racist jesus freak? This is flamebait and should be moderated down. |
| Re:The Gov't's role: Kill Gun-Fascists like you (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @08:46PM EST (#290) |
| Excuse me? Since when did owning a gun and disliking Gov't policy make one a right wing racist jesus freak? This is flamebait and should be moderated down. Ever since six year-olds started shooting each other, maybe? But wait, that's what the NRA wants, isn't it? Personally, I reccomend you put your gun to your head and give the trigger just one last pull. |
| Re:The Gov't's role: Kill Gun-Fascists like you (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:48PM EST (#306) |
| When did the left become the "my America, love it or leave it" crowd? |
| Gun-Facists != Militia, Militia != Racists (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @02:18AM EST (#327) |
| Gun-facists merely believe in the fundamental law of the country (and inalienable rights), I guess you like criminals. Not all Militia are racists, in fact there are some jewish and negro militia members... it takes all stipes. While I'll agree a lot of good-ole-boy racist people are in militias, don't think that means that all militia organizations are racist. And you want examples of Government killing black people (activists), go look at the MOVE organization, who got *FIRE-BOMBED* by the cops (took out 46 houses), and when the cops shoot one of their own (he was shot in the back at a down angle) while trying to shoot?(over a 1000 shots)/drown the MOVE organization in the basement of their burned out house, they put 9 people away for owning one gun... Btw: the cops, commissioner of police, etc, all walked becuase the state decided that they were all exempt from the law. -- Ender, Duke_of_URL |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:1) by porges on Wednesday March 08, @06:48PM EST (#268) (User Info) |
| >You can't enforce an unjust law on an armed man. Others have handled the "Yes, you just need a bigger gun" answer; let me also respond that any mechanism that makes this true will also produce the result that you can't enforce a *just* law on an armed man. |
| Re:Two words: "Second Amendment". Let them try. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:53PM EST (#307) |
| By this logic, you can't enforce any law on any armed man. Is this what you want? Any man can use his weapon to resist anything he wants to. I assume you do not want to do away with the conveniences granted you by modern society/government. |
| Re:Right on target (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:41PM EST (#50) |
| <suspending common sense> The thing about coders is that they are indeed very creative. As much as any artist. The only diffrence is the medium that this creativity involves. I still like to know how people get off saying that coding an app isnt cretive. lets see you do it. Lets see all these fools do this job and tell me that creativity isnt an intragal component to the process of writing good code. and once again as the official unixpunx.org diplomat to slashdot id like to say that i know MANY artists who rip their OWN cds and distribute the mp3s freely. When i was doing an internet radio show back before streaming mp3s I actaully told bands they were being played and the only two responces i got were "woah cool" and "whats the url?". The scarier thing is alot of these uncreative geeks are also musicians and artists. so you sir can fuck off <resuming common sense> nice troll. love the sarcasm :) |
| Copyright law and PB&J... (Score:2, Insightful) by WhiskeyJack on Wednesday March 08, @12:42PM EST (#53) (User Info) |
You compare owning copyright to owning a house...but the two are very different things. Ownership of a physical object is simple. I have it, I own it, it's here in my hand, and that's that. If you want one, you can make one like it, true, but that requires work on your part and materials. Otherwise, you can buy mine, giving me something that I value as much as the Thing in question to recompense me for the effort and and materials that went into making It, and also to recompense me for the loss of Its use. And if you steal It, well, I'm out all of those things and have nothing to show for it. Information isn't like that. If I discover the Great and Mighty Secret(G&MS) behind the production of a better peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I choose to share my knowledge with you, I still know the G&MS myself. Just because I showed you how to do it in no way deprives me of the ability to make my new and improved PB&J sandwich. And if I share that secret out, then society can only benefit from it -- someone might be inspired by my G&MS into producing a more flavorful tofu, for instance -- but there's a hitch...what if I spent $100 on experimentation to get the recipe just right? Shouldn't there be a mechanism in place that allows me to recoup my research investment as well as give me a chance to reap some reward for improving humanity's lot? It's only fair...so we come up with an arrangement where for the first little while, I'm the only guy who has the right to produce this new improved sandwich (and I can license that right to others), giving me a chance to benefit from my creativity. But it can only be temporary, else how si that information going to eventually get out to that guy experimenting with tofu and inspire him to _his_ great contribution to the culinary arts? And that's the origianl basis for copyright law....recognizing that society reaps the most benefit from the free exchange of information, but acknowledging that the folks who come up with the ideas need some incentive (and reward) for doing so. Copyright law is a compromise, allowing us to make our PB&J sandwiches and (eventually) eat them, too. --WhiskeyJack |
| Re:Right on target (Score:0) by PHroD (zephcATearthlinkDOTnet) on Wednesday March 08, @12:44PM EST (#58) (User Info) http://hotsos.8m.com |
| are you for real or just flaimbate? if youre for real, youve posted on totally the wrong forum. Because I'm into computers, I'm not creative? what the fuck kind of logic is that?!? Because I can use a command line, I suddenly cant write a two-piece ballad for guitar and piano for my girlfriend? I can't paint or draw or write a novel because I also find elegance in (well-written) computer code? Im afraid you've totally lost any kind of battle arguing that everyone into computers is not creative. Most programs out there would not exist were it not for creativity from programmers, and you would never have any software sound editing tools. I think Alex Trebeck is offering Clues, why don't you check that out? Maybe you ought to figure out that things like the DMCA really only protect record companies and their cash flow...any real artists is concerned less over their cash flow and more over the integrity of their art; thats one reason a lot of Linux programs are both free AND high-quality, because these people CARE about what their doing, their not doing it just to pay the bills! "There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix "SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick "Redeyes! Didn't expect to see you so...SPOON!"-Blue Raja, Mystery Men |
| Re:Right on target (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @05:03AM EST (#336) |
| , I suddenly cant write a two-piece ballad for guitar and piano for my girlfriend? Wow, that is the wankiest thing I ever heard in my entire life. |
| Free Speech For the Dumb! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:52PM EST (#76) |
| Even this conservative fuck should have his voice heard. This guy is the antiKatz. To say something as hairbrained as "Corporations like Microsoft and Sun which, I might add, are almost singlehandedly responsible for the USA having the highest standard of living in the world" proves my point. Buddy, what do you know about spiritual impovershment that allows you to make such a broad conclusion about chinese people? Moral gutter of liberalism? Fuck my left ass. |
| Re:Right on target (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:53PM EST (#77) |
| Ya know... I'm truely offended by your over simplifications. If you are going to argue something, stick with the facts. You have some valid points, and I feel that some people don't like to look at both sides of the coin. I don't think you need to be bashing anyone here. If you have ever programmed before, you would know that it is an art of itself. I'm a Computer Engineer, and have training in both CS and EE. Both sides require a lot of technical know-how, but the CS side requires a lot of artistic abilities. What is art to you? Just because the screen is my canvas, am I less artistic? Opinions are one thing, but don't assume your statements are a solid basis for a real arguement because they are far from it. |
| MODERATORS SMOKING CHEAP CRACK AGAIN! (Score:1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:54PM EST (#79) |
| -1 Flamebait????? Whoever moderated this one was smoking cheap $3 crack. The fact is that Jon Katz advocates Communism in its most brutal form, and its up to us to send him to a place where he will be appreciated. I reccomend China or Pluto. Thank you. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:54PM EST (#82) |
| All freedom is predicated on private property Hmmm, I wonder. Who has/had more freedom, the American Indians of today living in poverty on the little chunks of private property granted them by the United States government, or their ancestors of 500 years ago who had no concept of private property? Your statement makes a nice little soundbite, but I think it doesn't bear much resemblance to reality. I won't call in moronic; that would be rude. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:13PM EST (#231) |
| Hmmm, I wonder. Who has/had more freedom, the American Indians of today living in poverty on the little chunks of private property granted them by the United States government, or their ancestors of 500 years ago who had no concept of private property? No concept of private property? Not true. They could not have signed treaties with the US Govt. without some concept of property. Yes, certain things were communal in nature (much like the commons in Britain, before the enclosures), but other things were most definately private property. If this were not so, trade in furs, liquor, guns, knives, and other goods would not have been going on! If they had no concept of private property, then a lot of the behaviour of American Indians makes no sense. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:12PM EST (#249) |
| No concept of private property? Not true. They could not have signed treaties with the US Govt. without some concept of property. Sure they could, and did. In fact, it's the very thing that caused them so much trouble. It never occurred to them that they were giving up all rights to the land they lived on, because as far as they were concerned it wasn't theirs to give. If this were not so, trade in furs, liquor, guns, knives, and other goods would not have been going on! I think you're looking at this from a biased viewpoint. Look at barter of these things more from the standpoint of providing the service of creating/gathering them, rather than the direct trading of property, and things should make more sense. I also think you may be confusing the concepts of private property and personal possesions; they are different, and I assumed that this discussion was being held from that standpoint. I may be wrong about that though. |
| American indians + concept of property (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:15PM EST (#232) |
| American indians 500+ years ago more accurately had communial property. They were tribal, and had little or no concept of individual property, but they did have TRIBAL property, which no other tribes could take from them. This was generally respected by other tribes, but if tribe a wanted tribe b's land, they took it by force. That said, the only way for anyone to be free is if EVERYONE respects thier right to be free and recognizes them as such. -- Reverse engineering of IP -- Say I have knowledge of a copyrighted algorithim, but I do not wish to pay royalties to use the thoughts of the copyright holder, then is it illegal for me to make my own algorithim which has the same final result? It shouldn't be, because invented it. It'd be the same as if I copyrighted the circular saw and everyone who used it payed me money. But joe wanted to cut wood, but didn't have my circular saw, so he invents a reciprocating saw to cut his wood. Because he cut wood, is he then breaking my copyright on the circular saw? |
| Re:American indians + concept of property (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @05:22PM EST (#254) |
| American indians 500+ years ago more accurately had communial property. They were tribal, and had little or no concept of individual property, but they did have TRIBAL property, which no other tribes could take from them. This was generally respected by other tribes, but if tribe a wanted tribe b's land, they took it by force. This is basically correct, but I think using the word 'property' in the sense as we understand it today is a little misleading; it was much more fluid than that would lead you to believe. Many of these tribes were nomadic, and their concept of their tribal property basically extended to wherever they happened to be living at the time. I think the original comment still applies; they didn't have 'private property' as we understand the meaning of that phrase today, and I think as compared to their descendants that do have it now, they had more freedom. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by DigiBlitz (Blitzghost@hotmail.com) on Thursday March 09, @01:16AM EST (#320) (User Info) http://blitzstasisx.hypermart.net/ |
| Sorry buddy, Not Indians, Native Americans. Indians live on another continent. (unless your suggesting native americans migrated from india...) ~If USA really is a free country, wouldnt someone take it?~ |
| Stupid "libertarians" really love government (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:58PM EST (#85) |
| Since when is an expression of an idea "property"? The phrase "Intellectual Property" is a recent idea, and it has never been made into law, though that is clearly the goal of the big media corporations. Before printing presses, no form of copyright existed. If you heard a song you liked, you were free to share it with someone else. If you read a book you liked, you were free to copy it. Yes, copying wasn't easy, but they had no ridiculous notion that the expressions were property. The first copyright law in the U.S. protected works for only 14 years. The reason for this protection was not that they believed that the author and publisher had some natural right to use coercion to keep people from sharing the creative work, but rather it was a practical decision to limit the public's very real right to share creative works in the interest of encouraging future creative works. Anything more than 14 years, and you encounter diminishing returns for encouraging future works, so they felt that was good enough. Later, as media corporations came into existance and started amassing the money and power needed to buy laws, the time limit stretched and stretched. But now, these laws that eat away at the public's natural right to share expressions serve no useful public good. This misguided "libertarian" claims: If you hold your personal property only on the revocable sufferance of the government, you are essentially a slave.The truth is that copyright law has nothing to do with property, and certainly not "personal" property. As for the nonsense of people sharing MP3s somehow makes us slaves of the government... The truth is that the media corporations are using the power of government to limit our personal freedoms. You might find that limitation of personal freedom to grant special rights to corporations as justified, but don't try to give us nonsense to suggest that cops kicking in your door for bootleg music is freedom and listening to your friend's tunes is slavery. He also said: we don't live in the People's Republic of ChinaYeah, the same Republic of China that shoots individuals down in the streets to protect their power, and then when U.S. corporations claim that the Chinese government is not enough of a police state proceeds to throw thousands more in prison so that Disney can make some more profits. If you don't like individual freedom why don't you go move to China?! |
| Re:Stupid "libertarians" really love government (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:15PM EST (#107) |
| The first copyright law in the U.S. protected works for only 14 years. I think it's also worth noting that copyright came within a hair's breadth of being explicitly outlawed in the U.S. Constitution, precisely because of fears of the types of abuses that are happening today. |
| Re:Stupid "libertarians" really love government (Score:1) by phantomcow on Wednesday March 08, @07:25PM EST (#275) (User Info) |
| Amen brother AC |
| Re:Right on target (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:58PM EST (#86) |
| Just keep in mind that it was the creativity of programmers that allowed you to show your ass to so many people today. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful) by cpt kangarooski on Wednesday March 08, @12:59PM EST (#87) (User Info) |
| Ideas are not property. If ideas _were_ property, you'd still owe money to the heirs of the guy who invented words like 'the'. Rather, there is no natural law that grants anyone ownership of any idea. That's impossible. Just conveying your idea to others spreads it. I suppose if you had an idea which you never said, or wrote, or illustrated in any way you would own it. Wouldn't do any good though, huh? Furthermore, copyright laws are really quite new. For thousands of years, barring any cultural restrictions (e.g. our God says you have to be a holy scribe to write his mysteries down; the King frowns on people who correspond with his enemies) there have been no laws regulating ideas. If you wrote a book anyone could reprint it (although there were limits on what kind of writing the government might allow, and if they'd let you keep your press or your life...), if you gave a speech, anyone could repeat it, and if you invented something, anyone could figure it out and make a copy. (in fact, the only reason we have anything of Shakespeare's is due to people stealing his papers and printing the contents, and actors transcribing the plays from memory. I remember seeing a really hilarious version of Hamlet's soliloquy where the actor didn't remember things properly) But the common thread here, is that there is no such thing as ownership of an idea. Ownership relies on the scarcity of things. But tell me an idea and now we *both* have the idea. Scarcity has not been reduced. Ergo, you do not own your ideas. No one does. As an INCENTIVE for coming up with ideas though, copyright and patent laws came about. They granted a temporary monopoly on some limited types of use (e.g. copyrights prevent other people from making many copies and selling them all, although they can sell any copies they bought from the copyright holder) But the monopoly is only to be granted for a limited time (so sayeth the Constitution), because monopolies stifle creativity. They only give you a reason to persue creative persuits in the first place, but limit you when you're doing it. After this time has expired, your monopoly ends and your ideas are no longer artificially constrained. Anyone can use them in any way, and if this helps them come up with something, so much the better. And btw, you're dead wrong on your ideas about real property too. Squatter's rights have a long established history. If you own some piece of property which you ignore, and someone else improves your property for you - putting in effort that you don't expend yourself - eventually the rights to it transfer to them. You have to use it or lose it. So do try to remember that free copying and use are the natural way of things. Congress has actually been acting unconstitutionally IMHO in regards to copyrights for the few decades. (the Constitution says that it has to both promote progress and be for a limited time, and right now it's effectively doing neither) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:What's the big deal? + Shakespeare (Score:1) by kapelski on Wednesday March 08, @11:48PM EST (#316) (User Info) |
| To bolster your conclusions, I'll point you to my post ("More to the point") under the "I've been giving this some thought" section And even more to the point than my more to the point, many Enlish Lit scholars (myself included) are relatively convinced by compelling research that Shakespeare never did write those plays; they were most likely penned by Francis Bacon. Yet we STILL have to pay royalty fees to the publishers of the plays who hold the copyrights. What gives them the right to be paid for the work of someone who probably didn't even do the work? I come at this debate from two conflicting viewpoints. I just finished writing a book about Linux. I now own the copyright to that book (and share it with my publisher). Sure, like the next guy I want to get paid for my effort, and so I'm happy to have a copyright. But, that doesn't mean I don't share my original mauscript with people instead of forcing them to buy the book (after it actually get printed). My publisher would probaly shit himself, but I don't see the big deal. Okay, I just lost $6 by letting someone read it, but I'm not ut to gorge people. That's the job of my publisher. Though it is conflicting, my resoulte concluion is that there's no way I can claim to be the sole owner of the information I wrote in that book because I learned it from other people--including you /.ers. So how can I say that it's my intellectual property? I didn't invent Linux (and neither did Linus--he got his initial idead from Minix, Unix, etc. and they got their ideas from...and so on) and I learned about it the same way we all did--from SHARED information. See the problem with IP? Yes! Oh yes! My soul is snoring! - Tom Servo I want an harmonica - Maj. C.E. Winchester III |
| Re:What's the big deal? + Shakespeare (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Thursday March 09, @02:46AM EST (#328) (User Info) |
| Ah. I was also a lost soul^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H English major in college. So I've heard the whole Shakespeare was Bacon, or deVere, or Marlowe.... Frankly, I no longer care. I'll just call the author of those plays 'Shakespeare,' and until there's overwhelming evidence one way or another put it aside. Perhaps we just need to have Sherman set the wayback machine ;) And I agree that there are severe problems with any idea of legislating the use and distribution of information. One thing a lot of people here may not be aware of is that when you wish to distribute your copyrighted information widely (e.g. take it to a book publisher, or a music label) they will refuse to even consider it, unless you give them the copyright. So in fact, illegally copying copywritten information rarely does hurt the author or artist. It's not theirs either, and they only get to work with the fruits of their own labor if the company which owns it permits them to. Which is not always the case. Example: One great filmaker (he makes films) by the name of Mike Jittlov is well aware of this. Particularly after having been screwed royally wrt his opus magnum, "The Wizard of Speed and Time." But he's very cool, and encourages people to just duplicate the film since he hasn't got any more rights to it than anyone else, and is most decidedly not being harmed by anything other than having had it effectively stolen from him to begin with. He has his own usenet group, alt.fan.mike-jittlov, and posts there, so you might wish to talk with him on the subject. You'll never find a more bright and cheery guy, I kid you not. (and watch the movie, it's very geeky) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Only criminals need to worry about this. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:08PM EST (#96) |
| "Corporations . . . which are almost singlehandedly respnsible for the USA having the highest standard of living" Let's see, who does most of the work for those corporations. Would it not be . . . the EMPLOYEES. The INDIVIDUALS who are frequently given no credit and no share in the rewards reaped by same? Could Bill Gates "Singlehandedly" write twenty million lines of code? I doubt he could write ten, today. Could Sun's CEO (whoever he is) "singlehandedly" design and implement the fucking DOT in DOT COM? "USA + Strong Intellectual Property Law = Free, Affluent, Wealthy Spiritually enriched Society." This doesn't even qualify as a syllogism. You provide little or no evidence to relate strong intellectual property law to anything, except by providing your feeble counterexamle below: "China + NO Intellectual Property Law = Totalitarianism, Low standard of living, spiritual impoverishment" How about China + No Respect for Individual Rights = Totalitarianism, etc, etc, etc. And US + No Respect for Individual Rights = Rapid Slide Into The Same . . . I don't know what planet you live on, but I have no respect or desire to preserve an economy that's based not on your contribution to it but your ability to sqat on its vital resources and drib them out for astronomical fees. Further, as a musician myself who has never managed to even break the seal on the lamebrained music biz, I could cackle madly as the record companies all slid into the ocean and not miss a damnned thing. After all, I don't need them to play music, and in ALL REALITY at this juncture, neither does anyone else. I can record and distribute my music to a huge audience (provided they're willing to listen) without even having to talk to one of those blow-dried imbeciles. Anyone who has access to a PC (which costs less than an average musical instrument) can do the same. So frig 'em all . . . |
| Re:Only criminals need to worry about this. (Score:1) by Hammer on Wednesday March 08, @01:12PM EST (#101) (User Info) |
| "Corporations like Microsoft and Sun which, I might add, are almost singlehandedly responsible for the USA having the highest standard of living in the world" It just so happens that USA does not have the highest standard of living, I'm not even sure if you guys made the top 10. If you make it in USA, you will have a very good standard of living, if not, tough shit. Defining # of Cable channels as standard of living is kinda goofy and besides neither M$ nor Sun has created any such... |
| Re:Only criminals need to worry about this. (Score:1) by tbarjoe (joe_spam@yahoo.ca) on Wednesday March 08, @01:47PM EST (#136) (User Info) |
| Nope, good 'ol CANADA has the highest standard of living. Our good friends from the UN have given us the Quality of Life Index #1 position for quite a few years now. Go Canada! And no, the world does not turn into ice and snow as soon as you cross the boarder into Canada. "I could've stayed, I could've even been king, but in my own way I am king... Hail to the king baby." - Ash |
| Oh Canada! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @02:46PM EST (#183) |
| <p><i>the world does not turn into ice and snow as soon as you cross the boarder into Canada.</i></p> <p>Really? So howcome whenever I watch the weather channel, and they show the temperatures, the numbers drop by ungodly amounts?</p> <p>For example, I was watching once, and the temp was 85 on the US side of Niagra, but it was only 25 on the Canadian side - that's DAMN cold! You know, I always thought that that's how they knew where the border was... you just walk north, and as soon as you hit that wall of cold, then you know you're in Canada!</p> |
| Re:Oh Canada! (Score:1) by Hammer on Wednesday March 08, @03:28PM EST (#210) (User Info) |
| That's because we use the metric system. I know, it is a strange concept, someone (like the rest of the world :-) is using standards that is not used in the "good ol' US of A" You may also realize if you stick to the numbers on the speed limit signs you will very soon end up arguing with a friendly Canadian police officer ;-) |
| Infinite ownership is a class based society. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @01:36PM EST (#125) |
| The infinite ownership of a house that you speak of does not exist. If you quit paying taxes on the house, the government will regain possession of it. In essense, "ownership" is often just cheaper renting with a much larger downpayment. Consider for a moment a society where I could "own" limited quanity items like land or information. If I had rich Great-Great...Grandparents, that wealth(in land or information) would not expire due to property taxes or copyright limits. If I had not so rich Grandparents, I would most likely be renting from someone, as all of the land is already "owned" by someone, and there is nothing left to buy. As for information: Religion, Education, and Art are only for the rich. The Bible is copyrighted, and royalties are paid to all the authors heirs. The wheel and car are still patented, and enourmously expensive, and underdeveloped because of all the royalties involved in devopment and sale. Coke is the only Cola, and is not a trade secret. It is an infinite patent, along with most other food products like Homoginized milk, ... You get the point. With infinite ownership, the elite control society. Unless you are an heir to one of the founding owners, you are only a surf. |
| Re:Infinite ownership is a class based society. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:24PM EST (#235) |
| You get the point. With infinite ownership, the elite control society. Unless you are an heir to one of the founding owners, you are only a surf. I was a surf once, but then I realized I was all wet. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by hardburn (admin@REMOVE.madtimes.com) on Wednesday March 08, @01:38PM EST (#129) (User Info) http://hammer.prohosting.com/~linuxnet |
You make irrelevent comparisons of software, music, movies, and the like to physical objects. These are hardly the same. You can send this stuff all over the net for essentialy no cost to you. Theres no reason for anyone to actualy own things like that and demand others give them something for it. Perhaps it would have been better all along if we had followed the teachings of certian Native American tribes, who have no concept of ownership, even for physical things. ---------- |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @04:40PM EST (#240) |
| New Age bullshit alert! Perhaps it would have been better all along if we had followed the teachings of certian Native American tribes, who have no concept of ownership, even for physical things. "Teachings"? If they had no concept of the thing, they could hardly have had a teaching concerning it. I've often heard this claim, but cannot remember the names of the tribes who allegedly had no such concept. They must have been pretty poor and insignificant, and living on worthless land. Otherwise they would have developed a sense of property. It is easy to share when you have nothing! The concept of ownership is most definately observable amongst all the North American tribes of any significance. Trade routes existed all over pre-Columbian North America, and French, English, and American traders and fur trappers had no problem setting up a booming trade in various manufactured goods. These are not the actions of peoples who had no concept of private property. |
| Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1) by hardburn (admin@REMOVE.madtimes.com) on Wednesday March 08, @05:44PM EST ( |