My post doesn't discuss whether copyright violation is ok or not. It states that copyright violation is not theft. My post doesn't rely on any of the silly strawman argument you have set up. I find it difficult to believe that you don't understand the difference. For one thing, they are covered by different laws. If I steal your wallet, your keys, your anything, that's theft. I have denied you the use of your property in order to enrich myself.

Copyright violation is fundamentally different. Copyright violation does not deny the original owner the use of their product. If I steal your CD that's theft. If I copy your CD that's the copyright violation. What's the difference? In copyright violation you still have your CD. If I steal your stocks or bonds, you no longer have your stocks or bonds. If I copy your bonds, that's forgery, not theft. If I copy your painting, that's forgery not theft. Get it?

Now it's true that copyright violation has a negative financial impact on the copyright holder. It's also true that Copyright is a restriction of your right to free speech. The civilized world has pretty much reached the uniform conclusion that restricting free speech, in the form of copyright, is a worthwhile trade off in order to encourage creative works and to encourage industry in the distribution of creative works. However, that restriction should not be too onerous, so originally copyright provided certain exceptions for fair-use and was limited in duration 10-20 years.

What has happened however is large corporations have banded together to pervert the original intent of copyright. They have become so powerful, both polically and culturally that they now own the concept of copyright. They have weakened fair-use to the point where it is practically non-existant. They have extended copyright to the point where it is effectively infinite. Every time a major piece of IP is about to enter the public domain, they start lobbying to have the copyright lifetime extended. At the same time they create oligarchist distribution mechanisms that allow them to pressure artists into unfair and exploitive conditions. These insanely long (90 years and climbing!) copyright terms are counter-productive, and they rob from the public domain. Are you familiar with the public domain and the purpose it serves?

In addition, information distribution has changed drastically. We as a culture should be pushing for weaker and shorter copyright laws, not stronger and longer. It's in the best interests of society. Certainly original fair-use doctrine needs to be reinstated, and copyright should probably be shortened down to 10 years, but even 20 would be a good start.

These arguments are a far cry from saying that it's okay to violate copyright. I am not making that argument. I am however making the argument that copyright violation != theft. This is not a statement of opinion, it's a statement of logical and legal fact.

Listen, I'm begging you. Please stop posting knee-jerk, reactionary, bloody stupid posts that just repeat the propaganda being spewed by the RIAA et al. Copyright reform is an important issue that has HUGE effects on our society. We need to talk about these issues like intelligent adults, not like propaganda departments of cold war countries. Copyright is a TRADEOFF between free speech, and providing incentives for creative works. It is not the same thing as property law. While the copyright oligarchists have been sadly successful in their attempts to frame the argument as a property-rights argument, it simply is not the case. When they come to charge me for copying that CD, I'm not being charged with property theft. If that were the case it wouldn't be necessary to create special laws which force jail time for copyright violation. They charge me with copyright violation which is a very different crime.

It's important to frame the discussion in neutral, factual tones, so we can arrive at decisions which benefit society as a whole.

Nothing in my post indicates that I am against copyright law. I am against equating copyright violation with theft, and I strongly oppose criminal charges and jail time for people engaging in copyright violation. What I have complained about in my post is the dishonest and disingenuous attempt to cast copyright violation as theft. The intent is clear: As a society we have very strong emotional reactions regarding property rights. If the copyright oligarchs succeed in getting the vast majority of us to think of copyright violation as being equivalent to theft, at least at an emotional level, this gives them tremendous power in preserving their financial empires. So this kind of newspeak manipulation should be fought against.

I don't have the answer to the question of the future of copyright. I am convinced however that we (as a society) arrive at better systems when we consider issues factually, based on their costs and benefits. When interested parties use emotional and fallacious arguments and associations to manipulate the public, this results in sub-optimal systems. In some cases it results in extremely harmful systems. This is the case with copyright and patent law in the United States (and elsewhere too of course). Our copyright and patent systems are sick, and if they are going to get better we have to get off of our asses and educate ourselves about the issues and consider and evaluate alternatives. Simplistic, misleading, fallacious, ill-intentioned attempts at manipulation like casting copyright violation as theft impair the process and should be scorned wherever they occur. The costs associated with our system need also to be fairly and completely considered.

Now your rant is pretty poorly thought out and emotional, so it's difficult to know how to respond to your questions per se. But I'll give it a bit of a go, with the understanding that I don't have the final answers, I just understand the issue well enough to know that it isn't simple, and that optimal solution is NOT to maximize copyright and copyright enforcement. It's an optimization problem. Those are complex, and there may not be a unique solution.

1. What is my solution? I discussed that above
2. Do I still want these 'oligarchs' to fund the creation of the content I want? That's a weird question. I find oligarchy to be a bad idea that leads to a lot of problems, so no I don't want these oligarchs to fund the content I want. I personally find that the mass-media mega-money era of cultural promulgation has led to a lot of pretty disappointing art and culture, and that the cultural influence has been by and large harmful. I think we'd see better stuff by self-organized, more small scale projects. In fact, technology is making it easier and easier for small scale projects with less funding to produce really credible and enjoyable films,music and video games. I do think that financial remuneration for creativity is a good idea, however the current reward system is a poor one, particularly in the music industry.
3. Why would they do so if there was no possibility of a return on their investment? This question, and the subsequent ones assume a positive answer to your first question. Since I don't want large commercial interests responsible for my society's culture, I'll answer a different question, which I think is more the question you should be asking: what would motivate people to creative work? Or more to the point, how would any creative work get done if people didn't think that they would get rich doing it? People have, for thousands of years, produced and performed creative works without the promise of obscene wealth, or the machinery of copyright. They are doing so now (see youtube, the creative commons, and any free software project). Why would they do so? Because artists get social recognition, which is a powerful motivator, and because artists get laid, and because they love their work and the act of creation. I don't however want to remove all possibility of financial rewards, and I'm not advocating the repeal of copyright. I am convinced that Copyright should be less than 20 years, and that penalties for copyright violation are out of control.
4. Am I aware that projects fail, what would inspire people to take the risk? These are essentially the previous question repeated, no?
5. More government?

6. You are aware that it takes additional government to impose and enforce copyright law are you not? You are aware that jailing people for copyright law requires more government than not jailing people for copyright law? If you advocate minimal government you should advocate the repeal of copyright law, and support free-market solutions such as the one discussed in the article, and drm. You should also be aware (but probably are not) that copyright laws are a restriction on your free speech. This is not a controversial wing-nut opinion. When the possibility of copyright law was discussed, it was discussed in precisely this context. It was thought to be a reasonable and productive temporary restriction on free speech, which would encourage creative endeavours. At the time it was almost certainly a good idea, however over the years weakness in the implementation has been discovered, the temporary nature has all but disappeared, as has the concept of fair use. The result is MORE government.

7. Magic fairy dust? Bullshit fantasy land?: when an individual resorts to this kind of silly polemic in a debate about a complex issue, they are revealing they don't have a good understanding of the issue, are unable to frame a discussion based on facts or reasoning, and have an opinion which is grounded in emotion not reason.

The lawyers at the FSF going after people for violating the GNU aren't going into court charging violators with theft. They are charging them with copyright violation. Since you are using the word "violating", one would think you would see the distinction. My conclusion is you are speaking (typing) without thinking.

I find people who do that tend to have opinions which are poorly thought out. It indicates that the individual in question is not in the habit of thinking critically about their own thought processes.

And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.'

I'm sure the EA lawyers didn't go into court calling their copyright infringement theft either. I would really like to see the press (at least the technical press) conditioned to call the PR assholes on their use of "theft" as a synonym for copyright infringement. The two things are legally and conceptually different. We live in an age where copyright laws, distribution models and our attitudes towards "intellectual property" desperately need to evolve and be rethought. Changes in technology have drastically transformed the cost function for distribution of idea and information distribution, and the old ways of doing things are, simply, harmful and holding us back. When I think that people's lives are being ruined (financially and through prison and social condemnation) i an attempt to keep oligarchs in power and wealth, well, it breaks my heart. At the very least we need to fight against this newspeak conditioning by the PR asshats.

Of course "and when you violate our copyrights, you steal from them..." doesn't carry the same punch does it?

You aren't the only one that feels that way. From the article:

Brad Niesluchowski has resigned from the Higley Unified School District in Gilbert after allegedly downloading software that seeks out alien life forms. "We support educational research and certainly would have supported cancer research," said Higley superintendent Denise Birdwell. "However, as an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T."

... Birdwell said the massive software slowed down educational programs in every classroom and cost the district more than $1 million in added utility fees and computer replacement parts.

Niesluchowski's wife, Susan... said the software was authorized by a previous administration and her husband has better things to do to than look for aliens.

I personally disagree with your view, although I respect your opinion. I do take umbrage at the tone of the article, which seems to imply that participitating in the SETI@home project means you probably wear tinfoil hats, speak klingon, and possibly stand out in fields at night looking for visitors.

Searching for evidence of extraterestrial intelligence is a perfectly respectable area of scientific research. A lot of good science has come out of SETI, including the SETI@home project, which was pioneering work in distributed computing. The pioneering work of SETI@home made BOINC and folding@home possible, for example.

You might prioritize cancer research, and that's a respectable point of view. But the SETI project isn't crackpottery, and deserves a certain amount of respect for their scientific work, and their mission.

This is getting a little off topic... But I recently played The Witcher, and I was well impressed. I found the plot and the cinematics engaging. It also did a good job of giving the impression that you're actions affect the game world.

I'm currently playing Oblivion, which scales the difficulty with your level, so while being a rpg, it doesn't have the features that the article describes (you advance, but so does the world). I'm finding it well impressive too, in a different way.

I tried a few MMORPG's, and had fun for up to a month or two, but I like to follow a story, and so far no MMORPG has done that for me.

Ugh. I find this really disturbing.

Search engine's shouldn't be responsible for the information they turn up. The people who should be ashamed of themselves are the people posting the images, not Google. It sets a dangerous precedent for censorship, and gives credibility to criticisms of media bias.

I'm personally of the opinion that showing M. Obama as a monkey is racially motivated, but I'm willing to grant that it's not black and white (ha ha). Even if it were... Even if it was a picture of M. Obama being strung up in monkey-effigy by a bunch of klu-klux-klanner's, I don't think censoring the picture is a good idea.

Beyond just violating the principle of free speech, and setting uncomfortable precedences, I think this kind of behaviour is harmful for society as a whole. Let's assume, for the purpose of discussion that these images are racially motivated. Cutting these images out of google searches makes it more difficult, for example, for an individual to fairly research and document the levels of racially charged propaganda out there. Also, the best way to give a movement a sense of solidarity is to persecute or censor them. It's far better to let the racists expose themselves, and then subject them to ridicule, than it is to censor them. Superman defeating the Klu Klux Klan is a good example of this.

Seriously dude, you're vastly ignorant about the history and intent of copyright law.

Copyright law is a compromise: A temporary restriction of our rights of free speech, with the intent of encouraging creative works. Anything from the 50's, 60's and 70's should be in the public domain. Lengthy copyright law robs from the public domain (which is, in essence, our culture) to grant wealth. Under current copyright law, most of that wealth gets granted to oligarchists who perform little useful function. That artists are taking back their copyrights and publishing themselves is positive, in that at least the artists are reaping the rewards of their labors rather than layers and accountants, but it's bad in that the work is more than 20 years old and belongs in the public domain.

Technological innovation in dissemination of information, and reduced costs in distribution, change the cost benefit ration of copyright law, which means we should be shrinking the power and length of copyright law. Unfortunately the oligarchists have very effective lobbies, and benefit from the ignorance of people like you, who have strong opinions despite knowing nothing about the issue, and are unable to value anything using any yardstick other than sums of financial transactions.

On the other hand, having older artists take back their copyrights might be a good thing. Perhaps in the long run it will weaken the copyright oligarchists, eventually allowing society's voice to be heard, as well as that of the expensive lobbyists.

You know, buying a an ebook reader doesn't mean swearing off ownership of paper books. I own an mp3 player AND a CD player, and a Vinyl player. I still buy CD's and records, even though I mostly listen to mp3/oggs. When someone makes an ebook reader worth buying I will own an ebook reader AND many paper books.

Currently I download many more books (primarily through project Gutenburg) than I purchase, but I still buy some. I read the downloaded volumes through my laptop, or occasionally I print them out (what a waste of paper). I'm just waiting for an ebook reader I think I'll be happy with for a few years.

Some of your objections to ebooks are silly, even in the context of currently available readers. Others are reasonable given the technical limitations of current readers, but can easily be overcome in the near future, with only minor technical advances.

• Battery

• Well, that's a big advantage of e-ink. Depending on how slowly you read, I think its very likely that, if not now, in the forseeable future, ebook batteries will last longer than it takes you to read even a sizeable book. When they can get the power consumption down so that a photovoltaic cell keeps it charged, that'll rock, but I can see that taking a while.

• Space: a good ebook reader will fit in your pocket. hundreds of books (or say 5 or 6 books taken on vacation) won't. Advantage: ebook.
• Durability: Regarding the reader, this is a question of good design and contruction. Regarding the content, there's no reason you can't keep your ebooks forever, if you provide sane storage.
• Obsolescence: Insist on open exchange formats like plain text, html, or pdfs. This is simply a question of voting with your dollars. It's why you shouldn't buy a kindle. Since the nook and the sony reader at least support PDF's, they might be acceptable.
• DRM: Don't accept DRM. Many books are available in PDF format, and even more are completely out of copyright and freely available at project Gutenburg. If a publisher doesn't sell an DRM free electronic version of a book you want, buy the paper version.
• Physicality: Well, for me this is a huge win for Ebooks. I have that same collector instinct too, but my home gets cluttered with all of the books, which are in some cases stacked double and triple deep on my bookshelves. I start to run out of shelf space and just box them up or give them away. In the case of my technical books, I want them mainly as a reference, and would be happy to just have them in electronic format, particularly if I had a good reader for them. Again, ebooks just provide you with more options, they don't take options away.

What I'm hoping for is a well built ebook reader that lets me underline and scribble notes, something like the Iliad. Unfortunately the Iliad seems to be buggy and poorly implemented, but the idea is a good one.

I have to disagree with you there. Obligatory service has many merits worth mentioning:

You say "oh no, I won't be able to do and work on the things i'm interested in because I'll be learning how to kill people". Well, that's not true. Unless you sign up as infantry or some such discipline, you'll likely be learning some other skill. I for example, was a mechanic in the marines, which comes in handy every once in a while today, despite the fact that it's unrelated to my work as a computational physicist, or any of my hobbies. My time in the military turned me into a confirmed and active pacifist and anti-war agitator. It was in fact a growing experience. I think a mandatory service system, similar to Swiss system, would be very good for the U.S. 3-6 months active duty for training, and 2 weeks a summer service. Kind of like modified reserves or national guard. Pacifists can volunteer for non-military activities, like aid work, medical services, environmental recovery etc. Heinlein (and I'm not a big fan) got oner other thing right: no officer class: officers start out as enlisted men and work their way up. The swiss do that as well.

Shared service (following the swiss model) then crosses class bounds. Intelectualls have work side by side with working class uneducated joes. One of my colleagues in my studies was a fat swiss kid, who was one of those really abstract mathematicians. He wasn't interested in anything remotely practical, and he had a pretty snobby, effete attitude. Having to live a working class life for a few weeks did him an enormous amount of good, and got him out in the fresh air for a spot of exercise. This is good for national unity, and improves political dialog, since it's harder to get people to group up in us vs them groups.

Mandatory service (following the swiss model) has profound cultural influences as well. Because the military is by a vast majority comprised of citizenry who mostly have better and more rewarding things to do, the military isn't glorified. Because almost everyone is either in the military or has a kid or loved one who is in the military, it's a hell of a lot harder to get a war going. Public opposition is almost immediately against it unless they perceive a real need. It improves the culture of a military reminding it that it's all about the people. It would be a lot harder to get a bunch of students serving their 2 weeks service to shoot on another bunch of students protesting a war, for example. It also pretty much eliminates the chance of a military coup, and reduces the role of the military as a another special-interest power player.

The current military system in the United States is, frankly, obscene. It has probably the worst instance of a class structure in an already highly class aware culture. It draws the cannon fodder from the poorest population, who seldom have other options available to them. The military and the citzenry goes blithely into wars because by and large they aren't affected, and after all the solders chose to join. It has an extremely tribal in group/out group mindset, and because of this screws up the proper functioning our democracy. It's not called the military industrial complex for nothing. Further, the class nature of our culture is so screwed up, we really have people living in tiny seperate realities. My sister lives in a gated community with armed guards, ten foot walls, a private golf course and radio controlled gates for christ sake, and this is meant to be a good culture? Our political discussions sound more like people cheering for different teams playing in the superbowl than they do like informed debates about complex issues.

Shared service would mitigate all of these evils.

Almost any of K.V.'s novels would be suitable for inclusion. Also worth being on the list, and conspicuously missing are Asimov and P.K. Dick. Gibsons neuromancer is interesting in particular for its cultural influence and devlopment of the web and web slang. Finally, Joseph Halderman (Forwever War, Forever Peace, etc) writes some of the most intelligent, interesting speculative fiction out there.

I followed up on your references. I was quite interested to read the usage notes on the word literally:

Since the early 20th century, literally has been widely used as an intensifier meaning âoein effect, virtually,â a sense that contradicts the earlier meaning âoeactually, without exaggerationâ: The senator was literally buried alive in the Iowa primaries. The parties were literally trading horses in an effort to reach a compromise. The use is often criticized; nevertheless, it appears in all but the most carefully edited writing. Although this use of literally irritates some, it probably neither distorts nor enhances the intended meaning of the sentences in which it occurs. The same might often be said of the use of literally in its earlier sense âoeactuallyâ: The garrison was literally wiped out: no one survived.

Of course language is mutable, and in America we don't have a "Duden" (a reference for what is the the official language). The use (or misuse, in my opinion) of the word has become common enough that dictionaries recognize it. My problem with this use of the word isn't that it makes the sentence unclear... it's obvious what the writer means... it's that it robs the English language of a good word which otherwise has a quite specific meaning. I could come up with a list of 50 or more colorful and effective adjectives to substitute for literally in this kind of context, and the sentence would only benefit from it. On the other hand, I can't think of a good substitute for literal in the original sense of the word.

I do freely admit that my comments have nothing to do with the subject at hand, and that my efforts to guide the evolution of the language are quixotic. I also appreciate having an intelligent conversation on the matter, so chapeau.

Thanks for posting that, I was looking to make the same point. With modern technologies lowering the barrier for publishing and reproduction, copyright terms should be shorter than they were 200 years ago, not longer. Nothing against the heirs, but these works belong in the public domain.

On the same theme, I've been thinking about trademark law lately. Marvel and DC have a co-trademark on the term superhero, which is frankly absurd. Could they trademark Spiderman? How does that work?

By the way, and I'm sorry to nitpick, but I get terribly annoyed by abuse of the word "literally". Literally is not a synonym for "metaphorically" . In fact, it's an antonym for metaphorically. It's also not a synonym for "truly" or "totally" or "badly" or whatever other word you might be able to fit in that sentence. For disney and friends to literally rape the public domain, the public domain would require a body, and representatives of disney and their friends would have to force unconsentual sex on that body. So while your comments are otherwise intelligent and well though out, the misuse of the word "literally" weakens your intellectual position.

Google =10^100.

micro = 10^-6.

Google*Microsoft = 10^96.

Would make for a queer company logo though...

I'm sorry, but you're falling into the "Apathy of Despair" anti-pattern, which is all too common.

It's true that our democracy is particularly dysfunctional, but one only needs to look at American history for the last 200 years to see that positive change can and does occur, despite strong opposition.

Where I lay fault in your previous comment is the phrase "what the president is trying to accomplish is socially impossible". Depending on how one frames his goal, you could well state it's impossible. For example if you say his goal is to "make sure everyone gets good health care without exception, and there are no abuses whatsover", sure, it's impossible, because we live in a world where such absolutes are impossible. But if the goal is to get rid of the worst of the abuses by the health care system, to make sure the vast majority of Americans are covered (to within margins of error, or at least to within people in the system, it's not impossible at all.

However, positive change in a democracy requires motivated advocates. The only reason the health care reform is encountering any difficulty is the huge number of wing-nut and money-fed advocates fighting it. This lunatic and biased (respectively) fringe has, sadly, a very loud voice. It is however a testament to how much effect being vocal and active, even if you are in the minority, can have.

By falling into the apathy-of-despair anti-pattern, and by posting messages encouraging others to do so, you fight against the president, and side with the lunatics and crooks who are trying to keep things the fucked up way that they are. Is that really what you want to be doing?

That said, I'm fundamentally a scientist at heart. So if you believe you can prove that this goal is impossible to achieve, I'd like to see your math and the underlying assumptions. Modelling social systems is pre-natal at this point, so I'm disinclined to take your word on it.