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| 5/16 |
| 2003/9/11 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/Networking] UID:10142 Activity:moderate |
9/10 Does anybody else see themselves telling their kids in 15 years,
"Yeah, I shared files... but it was a different time back then."?
\_ Dual Income, No Kids, Early Retirement, Happy Life.
\_ Censor censor censor. Join the army and mark things.
\_ The motd censor struck, so I had to remark on it.
Apparently someone has decided that there is no such
thing as a fat sysadmin. Probably they're a fat sysadmin
themselves.
\_ You can't censor a content-free statement. Your fat
sysadmin silliness just adds noise. If you had something
to say it would still be here.
\_ I also like the fat sysadmin posts
\_ It's funny the first time. Now it's just noise.
Like other trolls and 100% noise posts, they'll be
purged instantly like all content-free posts. I'm
one of the louder anti-censor people but I also
understand that adding noise is a form of censorship
which makes it harder for others to see real content
or discuss anything real. By removing trash and
trolls, censorship is weakened.
\_ Your logic is flawed. The motd is 100% white
noise.
\_ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
\_ yes. and I can tell my kids (when they are old enough) that
I was part of underground resistance movement fighting against
unfair copyright and intellectual property laws. And no,
I don't think 90 years of protection is fair. RIAA is just
pissed off because they can no longer make obscene profit,
ignoring consumer's demand like the way they used to (force
all the junk down his throat when all he wanted is one single
hit song... just an example)
\_ Not to mention the fact that the artists themselves see only
a fraction of the profits unless they've already become wildly
successful...and typically lose the rights to the music that
they've created in the first place.
\_ It's funny that computer programmers don't see the irony
here. -tom
\_ Computer programmers are typically very well compensated
for the work that they do. Last I checked, musicians
aren't guaranteed any sort of compensation at all. I
see what you're getting at, but I think you're wrong.
\_ Neither are programmers. Heard of the H1b program?
\_ Yes. Two of my friends at Intel were H1B's (each with
MS degrees) and were paid according to their grade
level (which was the same as Americans with MS
degrees). They were also some of the best engineers I
knew. --emarkp
\_ are you saying software engineers are like musicians?
please name one piece of software that was written in
less than a week by four guys, and which was then used
for decades with no modification whatsoever and made
millions of dollars. and show me one job ad for
a musician to make 80k/year garrunteed with benefits,
regardless of wether their code directly makes money
or not. there are similarities in the IP issues, but
the economics of the two industries are totally different.
maybe i'm reading too much into your post.
\_ you're reading too much into the post.
\_ I agree with tom on this. The stars must be in some
weird alignment.
\_ the funny thing is that in the small, non-RIAA labels where
the artists actually do see a significant portion of profits,
the CD's are actually cheaper. http://www.misfits.com
And, they give away songs and videos free on the internet!
The Misfits may sing about evil, but unlike other segments
of the record industry they don't actually embody it.
amazingly they seem to understand that the same people who
download their video for free are likely to spend 30 bucks
to go see them in concert. personally, i'm just going to
buy all my music from Misfits records.
\_ This is all well and good, but it's clear you aren't
interested in fighting the (flawed) system but in getting
freebies, in other words, stealing. If you actually wanted
to fight you would organize politically. As it is you
are a twice dishonest thief.
\_ Failed your reading comprehesion, I see. I don't support
stealing or theft -- either by institutions or
individuals. You need to stop frothing at the mouth long
enough to really think.
\_ Easy on the assumptions, chief. What makes you think
the above poster doesn't contribute to defense funds
etc.?
\_ The ethics of file sharing is intimately related to copyright and
intellectual property law. As perhaps some children and
teenagers unconsciously appreciate, stealing a loaf of bread is an
inherently different act than downloading a song. Stealing bread
denies another from eating it, while downloading a song denies nobody
else from hearing it.
Of course, the musicians who produce a song should be compensated if
we as a society want to encourage the production of music. The
framers of the constitution recognized this by allowing congress to
grant an exclusive right to distribute books, music, etc. for a
LIMITED TIME.
Essentially, the idea of copyright is a social contract between the
consumers and producers of music. Consumers agree to pay the
producers for new works with the understanding that, after a
reasonable time, these works will pass into the public domain.
Limited copyright strikes a balance between the non-exclusive nature
of music (i.e., my downloading a copy does not deprive you of the use
of your version) and the need for musicians to be compensated.
Unfortunately, the producers of music, movies, and other media have
refused to hold up their end of the contract. Large corporations have
repeatedly lobbied congress to extend copyrights in order to prevent
their works from passing into the public domain. In addition, music
companies in particular have violated various other laws by colluding
to artificially prop up music prices. Consequently, a strong case can
be made that while file sharing may be illegal it is not unethical.
\_ it's incredible that we live in a country where the intellectual
property generated by a bunch of kids in a garage 50 years ago
property generagted by a bunch of kids in a garage 50 years ago
enjoys more protection than, say, a new drug that took years and
hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. It's even more
incredible that most people don't seem to think this is odd.
I'm not arguing for stronger patent law; I'm agreeing with you that
copyright law as it stands in the US is crazy. under US law, my
post is copyrighted, and technically i could sue all of you for
"stealing" it by reading this.
\_ technically, no you couldn't but I agree with the rest.
\_ that looks like some giant cut n paste from some site. it's also
based on the assumption that stealing a physical object is different
than intellectual property. i think Intel, Ford, and GE would
disagree with you that the IP they've spent (B)illions of dollars
to create is not yours for the taking if you find an empty work
station and bring your own floppy disk on a factory tour.
\_ Intel Ford and GE would be wrong then. Ideas are not the
same as things, no matter how much lawyers would like to
pretend otherwise.
\_ So you think it's ok to bring your own floppys on a company
tour and copy shit off their computers and take it home with
you and share it on the net? After all, it's only IP and not
something physical they're losing. They still have *their*
copy of the plans for their next chip/car/appliance, right?
I hope you understand that's what you're saying. The rest of
us, non-lawyers included, would call it theft.
\_ It's a cut n paste from a letter to the editor that I wrote.
Note that the point isn't that intellectual property should
not exist or that you should be able to "take IP". The point
is that IP is a fiction designed to balance compensating the
originators of IP and the benefit to society of making IP
freely available. In US law, IP is not a "right" like the
right to life, liberty, and happiness; IP is specifically
designed to promote science and the arts.
\_ Was it actually published? You made the point very well.
\_ Thanks for the compliment. I sent it yesterday and
recevied an automated reply saying that letters over
150 words would not be published.
\_ First off, *all* laws are fiction. You don't _really_ have
the *right* to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That's a fiction. The concept of physical property not
currently in your personal physical possession is also a
fiction. Only the law says your stuff is still your stuff
when you're not around. The law has been extended for
creative expressions known as Intellectual Property. Other
than people interested in free-as-in-beer music I think every
one should easily be able to see this.
\_ True, law is a fiction. But the law of physical
property goes back to primitive times and is designed
to promote peace and progress to mankind-- ie,
well-defined propery ownership benefits mankind by
minimizing disputes and enables some other worthwhile
goals (e.g., capitalism, avoiding the tragedy of the
commons, etc.). Intellectual property laws exist
because the Framers of the Constitutions recognized
that such laws could be of some similar benefit to
mankind-- encouraging a creative person to share his
invention/music/book/discovery by giving him a
temporary monopoly. Current law, however, is a sad
bastardization of what IP was meant to be.
\_ I disagree with you and the post you replied to.
According to documents written by the forefathers
of our government, people have certain inalienable
rights. These rights are not regarded as fiction.
You may disagree with this view, but certain rights
are viewed as fundamental parts of any legitimate
government and IP is not one of them.
\_ According to documents is the key phrase. The rights
*are* fiction. They are created by laws created by
men and didn't exist until this country was free from
Britain and even today must be guarded closely lest
we lose them. IP is merely an extension of simple
"stealing" it by reading this.
property rights. |
| 5/16 |
|
| www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. He had to help her-but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong-something that only pirates would do. And there wasnt much chance that the SPA-the Software Protection Authority-would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers. The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment-for not taking pains to prevent the crime. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory. There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal. In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger. Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises. It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers-you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computers root password. And that she chose him to ask for help, that could mean she loved him too. Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable-he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didnt matter whether you did anything harmful-the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was. Instead they were banned from the school computer systems, and would inevitably fail all their classes. Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university policy started only in the 1980s, when university students in large numbers began using computers. Previously, universities maintained a different approach to student discipline; In the US, the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act established the legal basis to restrict the reading and lending of computerized books and other data too. The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive. Until recently, there was one exception: the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, was not proposed until 2002. In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass. Following the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, this shows a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentees with clout control over the people actually using the computer system. The SSSCA has since been renamed to the CBDTPA think of it as the Consume But Dont Try Programming Act. In 2001 the US began attempting to use the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty to impose the same rules on all the countries in the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA is one of the so-called free trade treaties, actually designed to give business increased power over democratic governments; Using methods reminiscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to inform on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Argentina in 2001 made veiled threats that people sharing software would be raped in prison. When this story was written, the SPA was threatening small Internet service providers, demanding they permit the SPA to monitor all users. Most ISPs surrender when threatened, because they cannot afford to fight back in court. At least one ISP, Community ConneXion in Oakland CA, refused the demand and was actually sued. The SPA later dropped the suit, but obtained the DMCA which gave them the power they sought. The university security policies described above are not imaginary. For example, a computer at one Chicago-area university prints this message when you log in quotation marks are in the original: This system is for the use of authorized users only. Individuals using this computer system without authority or in the excess of their authority are subject to having all their activities on this system monitored and recorded by system personnel. In the course of monitoring individuals improperly using this system or in the course of system maintenance, the activities of authorized user may also be monitored. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring reveals possible evidence of illegal activity or violation of University regulations system personnel may provide the evidence of such monitoring to University authorities and/or law enforcement officials. This is an interesting approach to the Fourth Amendment: pressure most everyone to agree, in advance, to waive their rights under it. References The administrations White Paper: Information Infrastructure Task Force, Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights 1995. An explanation of the White Paper: The Copyright Grab , Pamela Samuelson, Wired, Jan. |
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