It is only our current customs that push the idea that copying is harmful, and attempt to regulate it and restrict it by fiat.

I don't know where you are, but in the US, the constitution, the very document that authorizes the government, specifically opens the door to copyright or something with its essential functionality:

Article I, section 8, "Powers of Congress": To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Exclusive rights. That's clear, right? "limited Times" is also clear, but note that it is completely open-ended, so they can do (and have done) whatever they want with the terms of exclusivity. I would completely agree that the present terms are too long, but I would not agree that congress was out of line to try these longer terms out.

So the "fiat" you refer to here is not very arbitrary, if that's how you meant it. If you just meant "by decree", yes, that's what laws are. This is, however, explicitly an authorized act (and I have to say, given the other things congress and the courts get up to, it's sort of a relief to actually be able to say that.)

You can offer public civil disobedience if you feel the approach congress took is wrong; that is a very hard path, however. Jail sucks. Fines suck (and huge fines suck more.) Court sucks. Lawyers suck like a 120 VAC vacuum cleaner powered with 220 vac. Having everyone with a stake in the current mindset turn against you sucks. But... there is great honor in it, IMHO.

You can publicly advocate for your views, explaining your position and trying to win a sufficient number of people and organizations over such that you can pressure congress directly (good luck... not personally tough, but task-wise, still tough.) I should mention just as an aside that your short exposition above has not convinced me at all, and I *really* don't like our current system, so seems like it needs work. Arguing "used to be this way" is bankrupt. You need to argue "should be this way, this is how we'd make it work, and this is why we should do it this way" and then make it happen. Also very tough. Lots of people with a finger in this pie, and they're all going to hate you with a passion -- won't be fun at all.

Sub-rosa violation of the terms under which our creatives operate simply damages the creatives and serves as a challenge to the legislators, and usually gets just the response we see here: such acts are treated even more harshly. That's not how to get things done, IMHO.

You have to change public opinion, and then you have to get it through the heads of the legislators that it has actually happened.

In the interim, I am convinced that we shouldn't be waging a war upon the incomes of the very creatives whose work product we would like to have access to.

As to the other ways to compensate artists, there is patronage. Patronage has worked for centuries, and now, with modern technology we can do it so much better. We can crowdfund, which was impractical until very recently.

Yes, well, get on that. I've written quite a bit of software -- some of it major -- and made it available for free. One large and featureful app is nearing 30,000 currently active users. Where's my check? I have Paypal "contribute" buttons, but the idea that I could actually make a living -- even a very low-profile living -- off the voluntary patronage of my users strikes me as more than a little hilarious. The fact is, people use; but they don't give back except in extremely rare cases. Of those active 30k users, 14 -- that's *fourteen* -- people have hit that paypal button. Of those, I have to say they were quite generous; the total of the donations to date is $475.00. I have spent thousands of hours on this application, and it is broadly acknowledged as one of the best of its class. The praise I get -- which is nice, but can't be eaten or used to pay the utilities -- is extensive. But patronage? Not in any significant amount. My $/hour on this is somewhere north of ludicrous.

Now, I don't mind this, as I do it for the enjoyment of it (I use the app too, and constantly at that.. it's running right now) and I can well afford to do it so I keep doing it and smile while I do so, but I do think it is indicative of exactly how people are currently thinking: "Optional to contribute funding? Awesome. See ya later." Next time there's an upgrade, lather, rinse, repeat.

But again -- if you have some way to make your ideas work, by all means, do so. It'd be awesome to be supported in my creative efforts at any significant level.

I also want to mention that I made my fortune -- and it was a fortune -- selling an application -- different application -- that people were not given permission to copy and distribute freely. No ads, no nagging, no spamming, no copy protection other than a numeric software key, just a good app and so you could steal it with just a bare minimum of effort, no need to "crack" it, etc., but more than enough people actually bought it for me to set myself up quite well, buy some of my more valuable employees things like cars and houses, all while paying higher wages to everyone in the company than any operation in the state doing even remotely the same kind of thing.

Just because something is valuable doesn't mean it should be hoarded, and denied to the poor, most especially when the thing in question is not scarce

If you don't remunerate creatives somehow, "scarce" under-describes the problem. Many simply won't create for you. Making something artificially not scarce by copying it against the creator's will can only be contemplated in the light of a juvenile naivety, and will lead to exactly the same thing.

There's probably some middle ground, something like where people would pay a "creative tax" and creatives get "creative welfare" so that everyone has a chance at this, but until we work out how that works, or whatever else might work, taking copyrighted or patented items and running off with them yelling "it's not scarce now, you greedy mofos!" is ridiculously simpleminded -- and quite harmful.

Tell that to my employer

I tell it, or some version of it, to everyone. Feel free to pass it along though obviously consider your situation very carefully first.

Sorry about your situation. It's abusive.

Here's the thing: If you find the work they did valuable enough that you actually want to use it, and they only offer that work exchange it for a consideration, then either you pay them the consideration or decide not to use it after all, or everyone will know you are unable to navigate this most trivial of ethical mazes.

In addition, the way it's going now, you may end up with your life ruined. It just isn't worth it. They seem to be working very hard to make it ridiculously not worth it, and while I generally don't approve, every time someone tries to justify what they think they (don't) owe a creator by what they think of the creator's work or domain, I admit, the thought "I wish they'd drag that person into court" does run through my mind before I actually manage to work around to "no, even a dimwit doesn't deserve that."

As for "the universe creates itself", objective reality is right there, no need to toss glib, self-swallowing Igli-like* concepts around. Things work in a predictable, even somewhat reasonable, manner. Get with the program, or expect the program to pull an exception on your behalf and pre-emptively dump your registers due to abject computational failure.

One of the things that strikes me about this whole thing is that it almost certainly makes very little difference what the penalty for copyright infringement is, if you and yours simply don't do it. Radical idea, I know. But I've always been a rebel.

*** Igli: See "Glory Road," by Robert A. Heinlein. Well worth the time.

Lithium batteries are one way to store energy. They are not the only way at this time, nor is it reasonable to presume that there will not be new ways available in the future. Don't mistake media and/or manufacturer hype for a technology as an indication that it is your only option. That's often not the case, and it certainly isn't with energy storage.

The sun is always shining. What you mean to say is that the sun is not always visible due to clouds or fog, or on the side of the planet that would be optimum for power generation when the sky is clear. I'm not just being pedantic. Because:

Although that is all factual, the idea that solar does not generate power when when not in direct sunlight (cloudy, foggy, shaded, etc.) is wholly incorrect.

Solar works all day, every day, no exceptions. Rather than "not work", it varies in efficiency, and not so much that it doesn't remain useful when it is cloudy; efficiency of a well aimed system on cloudy days varies from about 20% to 50%, depending on the tech in the panel and just how dense the occlusion is. Here's a back-yard demonstration of exactly that. (TL;DW -- he gets about .6 amps out of his 4-amp panel on a cloudy day, without aiming: about 15 % efficiency.)

The more exposure and better angle you have, of course, the better it all works. But clouds and fog... facts of life. Yet you can still get all the energy you need from a solar system on days that aren't perfectly clear. You can even plan for it, and build in enough overcapacity (with full sunlight in mind) so that you always have enough power.

Concrete example: I have a small trailer that I have some 12 vdc ham gear in. It has lights, a refrigerator, and a 100-watt HF transmitter that pulls about 200 watts, worst-case. On the 10x6 roof, I have 6, (nominally) 100 watt solar panels. Minimum I've *ever* seen out of them at midday, on a cloudy winter day, is about 6 amperes. That's about 90 watts of continuous charge. I never, ever run out of power. Sunny days I have ridiculous amounts of excess power available, and I run an air conditioner or a heater with it.

I have an (unfortunately large, this tech isn't really where it needs to be yet) bank of ultracaps in the trailer. No batteries. I also run LED lighting and a very efficient small refrigerator. Surge power to start the compressor is no problem - the ultracaps can deliver far more than is required. Once running, the fridge's power draw is negligible. The charge and supply electronics are of my own design (ultracap discharge slopes aren't like batteries, so you need something significantly more complex than a wire and a fuse) and no doubt they could be improved, but I have never run out of power and I transmit quite a bit at times.

I've also gone out at night and done many hours of shortwave dx'ing (in the country, away from the town's copious RFI), lights on, opening the frig once about every half hour, and not run out of power.

My home's main roof area is 60x45. That's room for about 360, 100-watt panels, or about 36,000 watts of peak capacity. At 80% derating -- what we can anticipate on a really, really overcast day -- peak output is still about 7,000 watts. Quite usable for lighting and light duty loads. the pacemaker will get charged. :)

My house is very well insulated, too, so that's a bonus, heating- and cooling-wise.

Solar is the way to go. Period. All those rooftops, all those square miles of empty space, just waiting for us to get in gear.

Currently, individual ready-to-mount 100-watt solar panels are about $135 on Ebay, with a 25-year warranty. less in quantity. The math is quite compelling, even with the major shortcomings of battery lifetime. Set up a small system to run something. Learn the basics and work through it so you understand it. Batteries, charge controllers, panels, aiming and auto-aiming and either low voltage client devices like my trailer system, or an inverter and the usual type of 120 vac power clients. If you do, I suspect your enthusiasm level will change dramatically for the positive. There's something ultimately satisfying about spending money on YOUR infrastructure and giving the bird, even if it's a very small bird, to the power company.

lol... this study is squarely in the class of "we've determined that most water is wet" or for a more complex example, "statistics clearly indicate that the majority component of the contents of a glass packed full of water ice, is water ice,. *(But this is only true until or unless it melts)"

FFS, yes, there are environmental costs to making vehicles and renewable power systems, and those are further impacted by lifetime and reliability factors, and there are huge environmental costs to burning fossil fuels, and the less we do of that, the better.

Thanks, I'll take my million dollar NSF grant as a cashier's check. I hope to have another study ready tomorrow; I plan to definitively, once and for all, determine if most humans are air breathers. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath. I'm going to be out spending today's million tonight on strippers and fine whiskey. I may take a... breather... tomorrow. As the Italians say, "Alveoli, amici miei!"

I always thought that system startup should be controllable by the user, but that dependencies ought to be mapped graphically so that you have some idea of what ELSE you're going to be knocking out by stopping, for instance, system interrupts or the RTC.

That said, I'm pretty fond of init.d and crew. :/

Perhaps the government -- ours, the UK, whomever -- ought not to consider over-punishing someone for a minor infraction in order to deter others.

It seems to me that this is the real flaw in the entire mindset at work here.

Does society want to deter people from breaking a law? Sure. And yes, I agree, individuals violating copyright on a "I copied this work to use for myself" level is antisocial (but less so than spitting on the sidewalk is -- IOW, "meh.")

But do we want impose draconian and absurd punishments on peaceful and almost entirely harmless people?

Fuck. No. Because that's obviously unfair and unreasonable -- and stupid.

I'll go even further: A reasonable punishment is making the infringer pay twice what it would have cost them to pursue the legitimate path. For instance, you copy a CD that retails for $19.95, you get fined $39.40 which goes to the injured party, plus court and enforcement costs. Etc. And then you get after enforcing it, so that copyright violation becomes a no-win situation. So it would hurt, but it wouldn't generally wreck your life, your family's life, and screw up anything else that depends on your input, presence, or support.

People do this not because they are evil, but because (a) they are cheap, (b) the abstraction that someone actually put some valuable time into the work is too abstract for them to grasp, and (c) it is actually easier than purchasing the work.

We can't fix (c) because technology. It's only getting easier. I suspect it's likely to continue doing so, too.

We can't fix (b) because people grasp their rationalizations like a life ring in a storm-tossed ocean regardless of how close the shore is. Even really smart people. I refer, of course, to the idiotic but seductive "information wants to be free" meme. Information is held in people's heads unless they want to take it out of their heads, and a tangible reward is an excellent motivator to encourage them to do so. Doesn't mean you can't make free stuff; it just means that we'd like to tangibly reward those who want to do these kinds of things as a life pursuit -- or even you, doing it as a hobby, if you'd like to exchange your work for some reward of a more factual nature than "makes me feel good" and/or the cliched and mostly worthless "5 minutes of fame", if that's how you'd like to roll.

But we can sure as hell leverage (a) reasonably -- which is a damn sight better than trying to scare people by the equivalent of beating the shite out of someone for simply looking at you wrong.

Fucking lawyers and bureaucrats. There are days when I think they all need to be made to go home. System needs a reset.

Oh, look. A "-1, MURICA!11!1!" mod. How cute. :)

In re the Perl article the day of the outage... Slashdot is written in Perl. It went down, they probably spent the majority of that time looking up what $ and _ and so forth actually mean and do. Meantime, Rob's off somewhere chugging a beer and laughing his posterior off.

It's just a theory, mind you. :)

Of course there is a mechanism: a vibrant and well-informed democracy with high participation.

Wow. That sounds so cool! Where do you live? Me, I'm an American, and we can only dream about such things. Our last election brought out 36.3% of the electorate, while the quality of the participation resulted in a 94% re-election rate of those congress members up for re-eelection that were "enjoying" a 14% approval rate. Those aren't typos. 94% and 14%. Two thirds of the electorate couldn't be bothered to engage.

Democratically speaking (or more accurately, as a constitutional republic with a nominally democratic process that has been utterly infiltrated and over-ridden by moneyed and otherwise powerful interests), and with engagement in mind, this place is a textbook example of "highly dysfunctional."

Or were you only saying you can imagine a "vibrant and well-informed democracy with high participation"?

Hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and we think we can do better in a matter of decades of computer technology. Yea right.

Animals make evolutionary changes on a per-generation basis at best, and usually a lot slower than that, as often the changes don't breed true, take more than one generation to fully develop, or aren't bred at all.

A computer can do it many times a second, and be 100% sure to pass along worthy results. Computers aren't likely to be looking at each other going "nope, not enough money", "not handsome enough", "looks sickly", "dresses funny", "unacceptably low class" and so on. We can't pass our minds and our knowledge on (yet) but computers can. So when a human child learns it's not ok to beat their sibling, that doesn't advance the next generation. The vast majority of what we do, we are simply doing over, without any improvement at all. Consider the difference in the resulting human being if a child were born with the knowledge the parents had at the time of conception. Because that's a lot closer to how computers are likely to be doing it.

just as we control our instinct to have sex with every attractive human we see

Speak for yourself. Also, roll over.

yep.

Hey, I apologize. I was in a particular mindset due to another conversion, and I applied it to you in a completely unjustified manner. You were talking about educating in the first place. You have my sincere apologies for going off on you. Sigh. I should have more coffee. :/