Which is why the hashes would probably be made from mp3's with the id3 tag completely stripped. Any forensic examiner worth the title would be likely to already understand this.

While that's true, including those functions would break the ABI, so they aren't going to be added. Although, it's very possible they will be added at some point in a future release.

Look at the bottom of the announcement.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/05/msg00175.html

It was actually a rhetorical question. I didn't really expect an answer. It was based on the assumption that you own your blood, for if you didn't it would be either be shared public property, or free property that was up for grabs to the first person to stake a claim on it.

People are not ownable by others, but they are most certainly self owned.
The right to control your body derives from the fact of it being your property.

Correction, land is recognized as property by governments.

Ownership existed before the government formed to protect it. The base case for ownership is the staking of a claim, and defending that claim. One of the reasons that government exists is to recognize those claims, distinguish between valid and invalid claims, and provide a mechanism where this can be determined, and settle disputes over those claims.

Who owns the blood that courses through your veins?

It's used for initrd images. Debian used to use cramfs, and had kernel patches to handle that, but they've also switched to using cpio for the initrd.

I've heard them, too. I hope your experiences were better than mine.

BTW, that was a good response. :)

A cute joke, but it only demonstrates the difference between stopping and slowing down.

I have successfully avoided being penalized for running red lights in the past in the wee hours of the morning by explaining that there was no traffic on the road, and just sitting waiting for a light to change was only a waste of time. Of course, I didn't just fly through the intersection, but I prudently made sure that there were no other cars on the road when I did. If the cop doesn't like the sound of that explanation and gives you a ticket anyway, just tell the judge that you will be explaining it to a jury, and the charges are likely to be dropped.

That's ok, there are many people who don't bother to distinguish between test and tempt, and it's one of the things I'm used to pointing out.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on what you mean by trying and testing and how that relates to divine explanations. Believing in God is a matter of faith, but that doesn't include believing in all the dogma surrounding it.

Agreed, it's not even a good explanation of a critical thinking scholar, scientist or not. This is the point where many, otherwise intelligent people, stop thinking and wondering about stuff, and it is here that cattle is made of men.

I live smack in the heart of the bible belt. I found that being well versed in the bible helps me to interact with a lot of people here. This is the main reason that I told you that I wasn't trying to "thump the bible" on you, but to give you a tool to be used wisely. I can see that you have already learned this. :)

They are, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was being really general, perhaps too general when I said that "An artist is driven to create..". That does seem to imply that it's many or most, when it could be some or few. I really don't know how to calculate that, and I'm not really interested in trying to. Besides, later on you get closer to what I'm talking about and I'll respond to it in a minute.

I never tried to imply that there wouldn't be an adverse effect, only that it would not be as drastic as you seemed to imply. What I was meaning to imply is that life goes on, and so does civilization, and so does art. For many years, there have been enough books to keep a person reading for a lifetime, and we are reaching a point where there is enough modern media to do the same. More so movies, and less so TV, but still, there's enough of it to keep people busy while things sort themselves out. I will agree that certain forms of creation will be limited, but it remains to be seen just how limited, and how adverse of an effect that it will have on our culture. It may be that it only has a very temporary limited adverse effect on part of our culture, but has a more pronounced and dramatic beneficial effect over the duration of it.

I haven't really been shifting my argument. Perhaps I'm unable to communicate what it is very well. I suppose it's nice to be perceived as sensibly irrelevant, rather than absurdly relevant. ;) What I've been trying to say is that there is a large number of people (regardless of whether it's most, or just a few, I can't really estimate which) that will create for reasons other than monetary compensation. I have tried to display instances where people will create works that are easy and difficult to distribute. Here, I'd say that there are more artists creating difficult to distribute (or copy and distribute widely) works than there are creating easily distributable(sp?) works. But the gist of this is that I'm trying to point out that we're not really in any danger of losing this since there is a lot that is already here, and there are people continuing to create.

Agreed. In my example that you quoted, although I didn't come out and say it, production (i.e. creation) of native artifacts rose when the distribution expanded. Same with the spices, but that's not really art with respect to the producers, although it increased the creation of culinary artwork. You may note that the creation of native artifacts (or trinkets would maybe be a better term) is still pretty strong in places with a large amount of tourism.

Yes, and thanks newest penetration tool (lol, it sounds like I'm starting to describe the internet as a sex toy! Your comment must've influenced me :) ), we have created an incentive for more people to create. Even the people who aren't skilled enough to create are driven to pay somebody else to create a web site.

This can be the case, whether copyright is involved or not. This is just a fact of nature, and one of the reasons that gold is valued over iron. Copyright just makes the scarcity artificial and impedes the evaluation of how much something is worth. Copyright can also be used as a form of censorship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Umeboshi#Israeli_art_students

The link above is part of a discussion where an article was deleted from wikipedia. It was pulled from wikipedia due to a lack of mainstream sources about it. Fox News ran a series of reports about this subject, but the videos were pulled from Fox's website, and Fox also went after other websites with copies of the videos taking them offline, claiming copyright infringement. I did manage to save both the wikipedia article and those videos for future reference, but without me doing that, the information could've been lost forever (at least with respect to the general public).

I agree with this totally. I can see now how I appear to be conflating two things together. I suppose this is due to how I perceive things. To me, Hollywood is already dead. The television networks have died right along with them. I haven't watched TV or been out to see a movie in many years. As a result, I'm already viewing this with the assumption that the elimination of copyright has already taken place, and it is also here that I am confusing the issue of copyright with the big publishers, that you mention later on. I really find that it's hard not to confuse them, as those big producers have been mostly responsible for extending the length of copyrights to unacceptable terms. I really apologize for this confusion, as I also want to make a distinction between the two. The fact of the matter is that these big publishers have been able use copyright to push things to where they are right now; which is people going to jail for not infringing copyright. The purpose of copyright is not to reward the artist, but to promote the progress of the arts and science. The rewarding of the artist through a limited monopoly was the means to achieve this, but not the reason for it.

You've worded this in such a way that it makes it extremely difficult to wrap my head around it. First, I have to assume that you are completely wrong. The problem is that I don't think that you are completely wrong. I don't think that I'm completely right, either. I do think that both of us have been doing our best to expose our ideas, and have them bounced between each other so we can better determine how we feel about the current copyright situation and our views on what would happen if it were to be eliminated. And again, here it is easy to confuse with copyright with the big publishers, but as I've stated earlier, the two issues go hand in hand at the moment. I really don't trust my powers of reason any further than I can throw them, regardless of whether or not you are right or wrong, completely or incompletely. I do trust them enough to support the elimination of copyright as an experiment to determine where and how their use would be appropriate. You see, as I said above, I agree with the purpose of the system, but not it's current implementation. I do not think that an elimination has to be permanent and enduring, but I also don't think that such an experiment should be stopped at the first signs of adversity. It's like learning to ride a bike. You may fall and skin your knee, but hopefully that won't stop you from getting on the bike and trying again.

I have been thinking of this problem for many, many years. Discussing this with you is probably unlikely to change my mind, overall, but it does give me the chance to really try and think things out and try to explain how I feel about it in a more structured manner, and I really thank you for taking the time to provoke my ideas. :)

We already have this business model. At least with respect to the movie industry. We also have a comparable model for the music industry. The method is basically restricted distribution. A movie studio can produce a movie and distribute it to their theaters, or theaters that they contract with. Breach of contract will help limit the leaks from the theaters. A movie studio is not required to release a movie to dvd. Long ago, in a country close to home ;) Star Wars was released to the theaters. It ran for a while. It was put out to the theaters the following year, and the year after that. It was put out the the theaters for as long as it was profitable to do so. This can still be done today. When the movie is no longer profitable to be doled out to the theaters, they can then start making dvd releases. The releases can be staged so that the first to get the release are the more wealthy, and are bound by contract not to copy and redistribute. Here, watermarks can help to keep the leaks down to a minimum, as the source of the leak can be identified, and the damages can be substantial enough to deter the leak from occurring in the first place. You see, when access to media is tied to an agreement not to redistribute, that in itself helps to minimize the problem. The way things are currently, most people are bound by law to keep from copying and redistributing. There are people who don't agree with that law, and they are able to purchase or obtain their copy without having to agree to that law, just as they are able to purchase, obtain, and redistribute certain plants in the same manner. I do understand that there are "bad apples" who may agree up front, then renege later, but generally those numbers are rather small compared to those who feel that keeping an agreement is important. This is why I mentioned limited distribution at first. By the time this method of distribution is unprofitable, it should have earned enough revenue to allow the creation of the next work, and there should be no need to stifle it's further redistribution.

But now we come to the real problem with this method, and one of the main reasons that I think that copyrights have been extended for so long. With this method, the older works have a chance of competing with the newer works. The upside to this is that it will force the movie studios to create a better work, but the downside is that it will also force them to lower the prices, due to the competition. It is along this idea that we may find some common ground. Instead of eliminating copyrights across the board, restrict them to a very limited term, which can be gauged by the time it takes for a movie to make it to general distribution. Congress could make a study of this from the days of the vcr to present times, to determine the appropriate length to award copyright for. While this may work only for movies, copyrights can be given classifications, and term limits that depend on their classification. This would help in other areas where a longer or shorter term may be more appropriate.

Here, I was referring to the creation of derivative works. Also, as I said in an earlier post, before television, a lot of people spent their spare time with artistic crafts. While television doesn't inhibit this, it does limit the amount of spare time crafts that are created. But, that was just another idea I was throwing out there. By referring to them inhibiting our creativity I was mainly talking about derivative works.

Is it your turn to confuse copyright with big publishers? Here I was talking entirely about the big publishers that control the most popular content.

There is already a mechanism that's been in practice for ages. They're called contracts. Don't distribute your work until you've made a contract that compensates you and keeps the other party from redistributing.

I do have the right to make copies of the information in my possesion, as that information is mine and I can do with it as I please, as long as I'm not infringing on somebody else's right. So I can't play the stereo too loud, I can't fling cd's through people's windows, but I can and will give somebody a copy of something if that person wants the copy. I'm well within my rights to do that. I'm not one to try and confuse the issue, but rather to clear it up.

*note that "I want to be a leech and get everything for free" isn't going to be a very convincing argument for most sane people, who recognise the value of their own and others' time/work.

Agreed, that's why I seed as well as leech.

Hopefully Jack won't fall on it and break it, as he may need it to help build his house one day. :)

Fear is the most effective tool of the tyrant.

This is an effective tool of the socialists. Besides, they are inherent upon recognition, and they aren't taken away, but denied assertion. Suppose the majority of people think that you don't need to breathe anymore since you are too ugly? Do you think that this is acceptable because the majority of a culture has demonstrated their agreement on this? Would you walk to the guillotine willingly on your own, or would you have to be guided there by force? Would it ever occur to you that you have an inherent right to breathe, regardless of how ugly you are? (please don't think I'm calling you ugly, I'm just trying to show how a culture can act unreasonably. I could use race or religion, but those are used too many times as examples).

So to have inherent rights, they need to be in some form of magical protection?

I would hope that my assertion and exercise of my right to defend myself would stop him, but who knows, I may be too weak or unlucky. But like I said earlier, inherent rights come from recognition. If I couldn't stop him, I'd hope that somebody else recognizing those inherent rights would recognize that they've been infringed and stop the killer from doing it again.

You seem to understand what's at stake by imposing artificial limits. :)

I never said it(murder) was either a right or a freedom, I was merely explaining why the activity is legislated against. You were the one that said "thinking about it, murder is freedom for the murderer".

I probably can't give you proof of that, since you modified artists with commercial. When I used the word artist in the statement you quoted, I backed it up by the next statement referring to people planting flowers in their yard. Perhaps you don't consider that artwork, but as they say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I can however give you proof of artists creating because they are driven to do so, regardless of monetary compensation, but I shouldn't have to, as a quick perusal of many websites across the internet should make that very clear. If not, take a look up and down the street while you are out one day and see all the cars with aftermarket products that enhance their looks. I'll admit that some look tacky, as do the plastic pink flamingos, but you can see that people create art all the time. In fact, I'm willing to bet that most people create art in some form or another, even if it's just a simple arrangement of furniture. Before we had TV, many people spent their time doing crafts such as quilting, knitting, woodwork, making bird houses out of gourds, etc. In fact, there are so many examples of people creating art for the pleasure of doing so, instead of making a living doing this, that I have a hard time understanding how we will run out of new artworks to share, as our civilization is built around this simple fact. As I said earlier, we are only in danger of running low on high budget artwork, but we will only run just so low on that. The money that is saved by not having to support such art as that will bring it back to a more sustainable level where more people are happy.

We have just the created the most valuable tool that allows for the deepest culture penetration known to mankind. The internet and ability to share files are having a larger impact on our culture than the spice trade and trade in native artifacts across the world ever did.

Have a child. Raise him or her. Will you hang his/her drawings on the refrigerator? Will you take a picture of it to share with your friends?

To top all of this off, take a look at this:

http://wesnoth.org/
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page (cause civilization should be free ;))
http://www.simutrans.com/
http://www.globulation2.org/

Art, and the human desire to create will die when the last man dies. We are never in danger of losing this, as this is why we live. I pulled most of those links from a quick browsing at http://happypenguin.org/ , but you can look around more places for more things. I for one would be willing to pay an ISP to maintain access to these works. If others are willing to pay for access to the works then we'll not be in danger of losing them. We are only in danger of losing what we don't want, presuming that we don't lose our civilization to some catastrophe. We have nothing to fear by the removal of these monopolies that inhibit our creativity. This is what these people who control those works and regulate the creation of new works have done their best to make you believe.