You're assuming that the only way to make money from movies is the current business model, which is a false assumption.

If copyright in it's current form went away, movie producers would just change their business model. Maybe they'd still show movies in theatres, but they'd charge a lot extra to see the movie on the opening weekend (since after that anyone could just watch them at home). Maybe they'd add interactive features to movies so that you had to use their server to watch the movie properly. Maybe they'd just give up on making money off the movie itself, and instead make money off all the toys and McDonald's promotion deals and other tie-ins. Or maybe they'd do something entirely different that I can't think of in the two minutes it's taking me to write this.

The point is, they'd still make money, just probably less than they do now. Would we see as many big budget films? Probably not, but who knows? After all, necessity is the mother of invention, and the safe profits of the current business model might be preventing the studios from realizing even greater profits from a future business model.

But would the end of copyright as we know it mean the death of movies? Absolutely not: as long as their's still ways to make money off movies, and their still would be, movies would still get made.

You seem a little ignorant of recent history. Have you heard of America's rendition program? Have you heard of all the EU countries which participated? Here's a map to help:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I don't think anyone on the left (well, very few) would defend him if an arrangement could be made where he would just face the misogynistic charges. Sweden is a democratic country with a faire legal system, and I think most people would be happy to see Assange go through that system.

The problem is that the moment Assange steps on Swedish soil (or even outside the embassay) he's got a very good chance of being put on a one-way ticket to America to face much worse charges, in a court which is much less fair.

The people involved in common sex scandals aren't enemies of the most powerful state on Earth.

Yeah, it only runs the front end of EVERY WEBSITE IN EXISTENCE (which includes tons of "serious" SaS applications, and more and more "thick client" sites where the bulk of the code is in JS and the server is just used for database work). But yeah, other than that nothing mission critical at all.

It's not like C/Java/COBOL/FORTRAN/whatever other language someone is used to using.

To you, someone who obviously isn't a Javascript programmer, maybe. To someone who writes Javascript code every day, like myself, nothing at all is "broken" with the language (though obviously, like any language, it could use some improvements).

But I'm sure if I started writing COBOL I'd think plenty was wrong with it ...

One man's "stupidly broken" is another man's "feature".

Again, I nice simplistic response that's very easy to say when you're not the one paying the costs.

Easier to say when you're not the child getting molested. Which isn't to say you're wrong, but all too often the "FREEEEDOM!!!" crowd misses the very real costs that hurt very real (and very helpless) people. Its not as simple as all freedom all the time, we really do need a healthy balance.

... and? Fredom of speech protects your ability to say what you want without reprecussions from the *government*. It doesn't protect you from all possible consequences of your speech from anyone else (nor should it).

Wait, since when did ethics have anything to do with IP law?

False: Feinstein is only against spying when she is forced by circumstances to be publically against it. If this had all happened in private I *highly* doubt she'd do anything about it (except pat the NSA on the back and help their head find new consulting gigs).

Well, but the computer science major at my college required six other math classes (including two calculus classes beyond the first that I completed). For many programmers (obviously not all) that math is a complete waste of time.

The problem with all the articles like this is that they're either written by people who did take math or didn't, and in either case both believe their side is right. The article is clearly written by someone who took a lot of math so, surprise, he thinks math is good for programmers. But I took nothing past Calculus (and have never professionally used even Trigonometry), and I'm a successful programmer, so I think math is unecessary.

Until someone actually does a study on this, it's all gonna come down to "the way I did it was better" ... and that's just noise.