I should not read or watch the news

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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Welcome to society.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Morkulv wrote:Welcome to society.
I want a refund. :P
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Terastas »

Just remember: If it wasn't so strange and unusual, it wouldn't be news.

I'll worry when crap like this stops getting reported due to lack of interest. As long as it shocks, amazes and pisses people off, it's news.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Grannies getting tased to death by cops:
Dude, she HAD A GUN!!! What do you want the cops to do? Wait until after she shot someone, then shoot her?!

Border Patrol shooting people in another country:
First incident was ruled a homicide. The second one is under investigation. Chill.

Police shooting unarmed civilians:
Once again, the hysterical ranting overlooks a few key points. The NOPD officers in question had been involved in shoot-outs all day long with people armed with AK-47 assault rifles. At roughly the same time that this was going down, the District 7 station was desperately fending off a full scale assault by gangers armed with assault rifles. It doesn't excuse it, but there were extremely unusual circumstances (as in Mad Max style anarchy), and they had cause to be extremely jumpy. Oh, and they are being charged with homicide, if memory serves.

Politicians trying to make stupid things into federal offenses:
Okay, yeah. Gay.

Ridiculous wiretapping laws:
Uh, hello. People have a right to privacy. They have a right to know if a conversation is being recorded. I'm more concerned that "accredited journalists" are however allowed to wiretap without constraint. In the U.S. even the cops need a warrant to do that sh**.

People getting arrested for downloading music:
You download intellectual property in violation of copyright, YOU ARE COMMITTING A CRIME! If you're too fragile to handle prison, DON'T BREAK THE LAW!

Libraries being touted as 'threats to culture':
With regard to violating copyright, see above post.

U.S. Feds seizing domains and bank accounts of websites not even in the country:
Ditto above.

BP's newest bout of idiocy:
BP screwed up. They shouldn't have been drilling at that depth. They however are the experts on plugging the leak, since all the experts and equipment is theirs. I'm not an engineer, and unless you are one, you having an opinion on the matter is as silly as me having one would be.

The Evils of Apple:
That's really more like The Evils of The PRC. Companies do business in China. Deal with it.

Internet searches being monitored:
Unlike the wiretapping thing above, once you're doing anything on the internet, you're in a public space where anyone who knows what they're doing can watch you. Why shouldn't the cops?

A woman getting arrested for filming a birthday party:
Once again... DO NOT VIOLATE COPYRIGHT. If you do and get caught, it's YOUR OWN D**N FAULT!

ACTA:
What part of closed session meeting did the guy not get? If he wanted to go into the conference, he could follow their rules or not go. What's the problem?

12 states making it illegal to film police:
Okay, yeah. Gay.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Uniform Two Six wrote:Internet searches being monitored:
Unlike the wiretapping thing above, once you're doing anything on the internet, you're in a public space where anyone who knows what they're doing can watch you. Why shouldn't the cops?
I wouldn't say anything on the Internet is public space (that would mean the Nigerians who hack your bank accounts are not breaking the law), but I would say it's true of search tools. The internet is still very much a legal no man's land -- that needs to change ASAP.

Still, they really should have pursued a legal recognition of what is public or private instead of just inviting themselves into it like that. I get why they're doing it, but they're not helping the Internet develop the needed regulations by taking full advantage of its current lack thereof.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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What the Nigerians do is illegal because it's fraud... using false information to gain access to financial accounts and steal funds from those accounts. What some hackers do is to steal account information. It's mostly all technically wire fraud. In essence, the same thing as picking a lock on a door to a financial institution's records room and taking paper files. The fact that they're stealing the stuff by using internet protocol instead of physically cracking a site, doesn't make it a crime. The act of stealing information is the crime.

If you're web-surfing, you're sending IP packets into the public domain. It's like walking down the street and window shopping. Anybody can see what you're doing because you're in public. People simply have this utterly bizarre notion that because they're sitting in their bedroom web surfing, that that is supposed to be private. It is not. The internet was never designed for personal privacy. It was designed to share data publically.

If you want to change that by crafting some sort of legislation, you need to realize that you're attempting to circumvent the basic design and intent of the internet (that practically all activity on the net is supposed to be accessible by the public). Second, the software that runs all of this stuff is designed to defeat any such attempt. And, lastly, you would need to have some way of enforcing such legislation over international boundaries (which is why child-pornography is unable to be removed from the internet... they just set up their servers in Thailand).
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Uniform Two Six wrote:People getting arrested for downloading music:
You download intellectual property in violation of copyright, YOU ARE COMMITTING A CRIME! If you're too fragile to handle prison, DON'T BREAK THE LAW!
There is, though, this little thing called excessive punishment. Copyright violations are a civil matter, not criminal (unless you're, like, selling the stuff and getting thousands of dollars for it). It's a sad state of affairs when minor intellectual property violations are treated the same as assault and murder, especially considering the excessive lengths there are to copyright, and the comparatively lengthy and broad application of patents.

Fun fact: MPEG-1 is still under patent protection, and it was created before some people here were even born. MPEG-2 had existed and was in use before DVDs, and MPEG-4 has been around for years already itself. There is no public benefit to keep such old technologies under patent "protection", disallowing people from improving upon it. But if you try to make anything remotely like it, to make something better or to access what you legally own, well you just better watch out. Even more f'd up, if you do come up with something that doesn't infringe on a known patent, someone can still claim you do infringe without providing proof, and pressure potential users into giving them money for licensing something you made up and created on your own (many bussinesses would rather pay a license fee than face a possibility of a legal battle, even if they know they could win, because the latter would simply cost more). And because there's so many patents, many of which are dubious in their validity, with more being applied for every day, you can't even prove that your creation doesn't infringe on one.

Additional fun fact: The MPEG Licensing Authority has said they won't go after browser developers or websites for license fees for handling mp4 video, as long as they don't make much money, for a few more years. This so mp4 can become the defacto standard for web video. After those few years are up, however, they will start requiring license fees. They're, very effectively, playing the system and making it so you will be required to pay them if you want to handle web video at all. Luckilly, Google's recent WebM format is open and free to use, without any license fees ever. Convenient, then, how there's vague rumors/threats that WebM violates the MPEG patents, scaring some people from adopting it...

It's also disheartening to realize there are almost no copyrighted works that were created after the year 1900 that has fallen into the public domain without the creator explicitly placing it there (and in some places you're not even allowed to do that). And since the 70s, all works are automatically copyrighted. The public domain is where society's artistic endeavors lie. It's where the public can look to see their own history in art. Then realize that there is so little there produced in the last century (and won't ever be there, considering the constantly-lengthened Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension; can't let such a defining, historic, and iconic character fall into the public's hands and risk Disney's profits). It's sickening to think we have to pay corporations for access to our own history, or that so much is lost because we were legally unable to save it from obscurity before the copyright was up.

IP laws are supposed to encourage artistic and novel (read: unique, outside-the-box thinking) creation, by promising a time-limited financial incentive to those creations. On paper, this sounds good: you create something people like and you can make some money, allowing you to create more, etc. But there's no need for such time lengths as we have now, and it's iInstead all-too-easy and often used as a tool to squander competition and squeeze out even more money by those who can already make plenty. People are afraid to create because a company can use these over-extended laws to go after them for taking away profits.
If you're web-surfing, you're sending IP packets into the public domain. It's like walking down the street and window shopping. Anybody can see what you're doing because you're in public. People simply have this utterly bizarre notion that because they're sitting in their bedroom web surfing, that that is supposed to be private. It is not. The internet was never designed for personal privacy. It was designed to share data publically.
There's a difference between having the data public, and the source of the data public, though. What you say in a public forum is public, sure. But that it was you that said it is a different matter. If I only give my real name and address to my ISP, and never post it online, I very much have a right to privacy that people online won't find it and post it themselves. Or that my ISP would release it for any reason other than for what they're legally obligated to.

And there are cases where you do have a legal expectation of privacy. HTTPS pages, for example, where the data is encrypted so only the other end can read it. When you make purchases online and you provide credit card or bank details, you won't go "oh well, someone found out my CC/bank details I sent over a secure connection. my bad." No, instead someone getting and using your card number from such an online connection is commiting fraud, because you were legally entitled to have the information kept private. Such a person can be sued and sent to jail, and you can get recompensated. I don't believe a person, who knowingly makes such information public, is afforded the same protection.
Uniform Two Six wrote:ACTA:
What part of closed session meeting did the guy not get? If he wanted to go into the conference, he could follow their rules or not go. What's the problem?
The problem is that the meetings should not be closed. They''re drafting treaties/laws which we, as citizens of the countries part of the negotiations, will be required to abide by. We should have every damned right to know what our representatives are negotiating so that we can voice our support, or lack thereof. Doesn't it bother you to not know what the people you voted for, are themselves voting for? To have absolutely no say (even indirectly) in the laws which we will eventually get from it?
Last edited by Chris on Wed Jul 14, 2010 10:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by JoshuaMadoc »

Uniform Two Six wrote:People getting arrested for downloading music:
You download intellectual property in violation of copyright, YOU ARE COMMITTING A CRIME! If you're too fragile to handle prison, DON'T BREAK THE LAW!

Hurrrrrrrrrrrrr I'm already tabbed for 500 years worth of debt and a life and a half jail term with the amount I have stashed. That's what you get for understocking games I want, setting prices upwards to $115 for new or popular titles, and thinking that most gamers are dumb enough for people to half-a** their games. Think you're up to taking the law into your own hands and hand me in to authorities just because I'm frustrated enough to protest about game quality? Be my guest, but don't you DARE dismiss my protest as a lame excuse.

In fact, hand over my immediate family while you're at it. They don't like how overpriced DVDs are over here.

What's that? Get a job, you say? Oh my god! Here, have a nice big fist thrown right at your face, because I'm being delayed for 2 or more years before I get a job because I don't have "qualifications" for one, let alone one I won't get the axe in very early.

Lastly, the system of law here punishes people even for being good. I'd sooner die than suck its toodles, and anyone who thinks I should do otherwise could probably use some cranial impact therapy.

In before Utter Jackass treatment once again, because being extremely angry at the world totally makes me an utter jackass, right?
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by JoshuaMadoc »

Let's not forget australia categorizing body armor as a PROHIBITED WEAPON. I don't want to hear crap like "there's no point outfitting civvies in armor" or "this is australia, it's a safe country!"

Do you people realize you just made an accidental double entendre saying that you want your people to die in the hands of illegally armed drunken Hell's Angels or drunken teenagers and leave things to law enforcement officers who hoard drugs for them to sniff, all the while doing absolutely bugger all to actually, you know, make the country feel safer? TO f*** HELL WITH THAT. The next time I'm going out of my house, I'm going to make sure I'm armed and armored.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Australia really scares me. I once thought England/UK was bad when it came to protecting yourself and your property, but AU seems to have taken that crown.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Chris wrote: There is, though, this little thing called excessive punishment. Copyright violations are a civil matter, not criminal (unless you're, like, selling the stuff and getting thousands of dollars for it).
And:
Set wrote:Chris pretty much hits the nail on the head regarding this. The punishment is extremely excessive for the "crime". People are getting jail sentences and fines in the MILLIONS for copying music.
The people who are getting nailed are the ones who are downloading a lot of music, videos, games, etc. That's the equivalent of shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of CDs from a "brick and moartar" store. You steal thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and it is NOT a civil matter, I assure you. The punishment entirely fits the crime.
Set wrote:AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT here are the definitions of sharing and theft:
And if someone posts a copy of something licensed for single use only, and you obtain a copy online in violation of copyright, it is not "sharing" anymore, it is "theft".
kitetsu wrote:That's what you get for understocking games I want, setting prices upwards to $115 for new or popular titles... but don't you DARE dismiss my protest as a lame excuse.
That's right, kitetsu. Stuff is overpriced, so that makes stealing stuff okay -- Oh, wait. I'm sorry. What I meant to say was "That makes stealing luxury goods like video games okay". I dismiss your protest as a lame excuse.
Chris wrote:...constantly-lengthened Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension...
Okay, I'll agree with you on that one. The copyright laws need to be changed, and the Disney thing is the best example of why. I doubt that there are many people out there who would dispute that. However, copyright protection does encourage invention, and artistic expression -- because it keeps people from taking something that they didn't create and reproducing it so that the actual creator cannot profit from his creation. Just because the law is flawed, or you just don't agree with it, does NOT mean that you have some sort of moral right to violate it.
Chris wrote:There's a difference between having the data public, and the source of the data public, though. What you say in a public forum is public, sure. But that it was you that said it is a different matter. If I only give my real name and address to my ISP, and never post it online, I very much have a right to privacy that people online won't find it and post it themselves. Or that my ISP would release it for any reason other than for what they're legally obligated to.
Dude, the data and the source of the data are the same thing. It's kind of like if you call someone on the telephone and they have caller ID, only there's no technical way to turn your identification off. Your IP address is embedded in all actions you take on the internet. The system cannot route without it. As for your ISP, unless you have a very unusual company, I'll bet that if you read your contract with them very carefully, you'll probably discover that they're not "legally obligated" to do sh**. You could probably find an obscure ISP out there that would be willing to offer a contract in which they agree not to sell your personal information to third parties, but be prepared to pay a premium. That's life.
Chris wrote:The problem is that the [ACTA] meetings should not be closed. They''re drafting treaties/laws which we, as citizens of the countries part of the negotiations, will be required to abide by. We should have every damned right to know what our representatives are negotiating so that we can voice our support, or lack thereof. Doesn't it bother you to not know what the people you voted for, are themselves voting for? To have absolutely no say (even indirectly) in the laws which we will eventually get from it?
Yeah it does... a little. These agreements have to include lots of other countries in order to be effective. Some of those countries are not as big on open government as others are, and if it was insisted upon being an open conference many of the major players would probably just not show up (and if we're talking about intellectual property piracy havens like Nigeria or the Ukraine, that would be bad).
Set wrote:The first woman had a gun, yes. She also had dementia and heart problems. The point was they USED A TAZER ON AN 87-YEAR OLD.
I think you watch too much TV. If someone is armed, they have the ability to fire the weapon, and you have reason to believe that their discharging of that weapon is imminent, (we call this the "Use of Deadly Force Triangle" -- Capability, Opportunity, and Intent) a law enforcement official's ONLY responsibility is to nullify that threat. Period. An 87 year old with no teeth, sitting in a rocking chair, and crapping into a colostomy bag (if armed with a firearm) can totally-kill-you-dead. No lie.
Set wrote:And what, pray tell, separates a digital library from a physical one?
Well, let's see -- A physical library loans out a book. When you're done reading it, you give it back. While you have it nobody else can read it. So, there really isn't any such thing as a "digital library". It's more like a digital printing press, making copies of books -- and not paying the legitimate publisher anything.
Set wrote:Uh...you do realize that the united States government does not and should not hold any sort of police jurisdiction over another country, right? Right...?
It's called jurisdictional nexus. If any part of the criminal activity took place inside U.S. jurisdiction (like data being relayed through a router inside the U.S. or being transmitted through any part of the American telecommunications grid (like stuff the FCC has authority over)), the Feds can nail you just fine. If your sorry butt just happens to be in a country that has extradition treaties with the U.S., the Feds can demand that your own country's cops arrest you and turn you over to the Americans. Oh, and if you're an American citizen and want to pull that kind of B.S. on another country -- it works in reverse too.
Set wrote:Why is that silly? I don't need to be an expert in XYZ to see when people are doing something blatantly stupid. Delaying putting the cap on the well will only allow MORE oil to spill into the Gulf.

WHY DO YOU SEEM TO THINK I NEED A DAMNED DEGREE TO UNDERSTAND THAT?
Because they're doing highly technical stuff for highly technical reasons. It's like some guy off the street watching open-heart surgery, and arm-chair-quarterbacking the surgeon. Exactly why do you think you're an expert on hydro-dynamics, metallurgy, and tele-robotics as applied to an aquatic environment five freaking thousand feet underwater? Yeah, you probably need a degree to understand that.
Set wrote:You seem to very much be the kind of person who's perfectly okay with being and having other people be someone else's b****. Do forgive me if I cannot understand your point of view.
Well, then, don't buy an Apple (or any of their associated products), and don't buy anything made in China (good luck).
Set wrote:She was FILMING A BIRTHDAY PARTY. She just happened to catch what...20 SECONDS...of the film while doing that. OMFSM, the sheer eeeevil of this act must be punished! With the most ridiculously over-the-top sentence that can be gotten away with!
And if she was told not to film, and she decided that the rules didn't apply to her... well, TFB.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Uniform Two Six wrote:
kitetsu wrote:That's what you get for understocking games I want, setting prices upwards to $115 for new or popular titles... but don't you DARE dismiss my protest as a lame excuse.
That's right, kitetsu. Stuff is overpriced, so that makes stealing stuff okay -- Oh, wait. I'm sorry. What I meant to say was "That makes stealing luxury goods like video games okay". I dismiss your protest as a lame excuse.
Then you pretty much enjoy berating people down on their luck with money just because they're too f*** stupid for society. Go on, hand me over to the authorities. You said it's stealing, right? Send my adress to those useless pigs, I'm sure they'd understand my predicament and ongoing dilemma. One less thief to minutely boost sales to ACTIVISION, the same company headed by someone who admits that games aren't meant for fun and only for profit, or UBISOFT, a company under the belief that DRM should be the future, and makes games that cannot run singleplayer offline modes if you don't have a persistent internet connection.

Or better yet, maybe I should clock myself in the head with some kind of firearm. It's an ideal way to deal with piracy, right? RIGHT??
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Uniform Two Six wrote:The people who are getting nailed are the ones who are downloading a lot of music, videos, games, etc. That's the equivalent of shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of CDs from a "brick and moartar" store. You steal thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and it is NOT a civil matter, I assure you. The punishment entirely fits the crime.
It is not the same thing. Taking copies from a brick and mortar store deprives the store of those copies, making it impossible for them to sell it to someone who would buy it. Downloading music and whatnot is making an entirely new copy at no cost to the original owner, and does not prevent the owner from selling it.

If the owner doesn't lose their property, it is not theft. Making your own copy does not deprive them of their property, no matter how you cut it.
Just because the law is flawed, or you just don't agree with it, does NOT mean that you have some sort of moral right to violate it.
It is a citizen's responsibility to challenge flawed, unjust laws. The only way to challenge them to is break them.

But if the RIAA is willing and able to spend tens of millions of dollars only to recover a small percentage of that, what hope would I have of successfully fighting such laws myself when I can only amass maybe a couple hundred dollars?
Dude, the data and the source of the data are the same thing. It's kind of like if you call someone on the telephone and they have caller ID, only there's no technical way to turn your identification off. Your IP address is embedded in all actions you take on the internet.
Your public IP address doesn't do squat to identify you. Your IP address can change, and the only way to connect an IP to a person's account is with the ISP's logs. And even that's no guarantee. Case in point, there are about 10 people connected to a LAN here, which all access the internet through a single connection. A connection from this IP address can be one or more of the 10 computers here. Not to mention whether it's even me on the computer at the time.

Then there's proxy servers, remote system access, shared/public-access computers, etc. You cannot tell who a person is from their IP alone.
Chris wrote:The problem is that the [ACTA] meetings should not be closed. They''re drafting treaties/laws which we, as citizens of the countries part of the negotiations, will be required to abide by. We should have every damned right to know what our representatives are negotiating so that we can voice our support, or lack thereof. Doesn't it bother you to not know what the people you voted for, are themselves voting for? To have absolutely no say (even indirectly) in the laws which we will eventually get from it?
Yeah it does... a little. These agreements have to include lots of other countries in order to be effective. Some of those countries are not as big on open government as others are, and if it was insisted upon being an open conference many of the major players would probably just not show up (and if we're talking about intellectual property piracy havens like Nigeria or the Ukraine, that would be bad).
By the same token, then, should the US not insist on open conferences, and not show up if the other countries don't allow us to be governed properly? Just because some countries don't like being open doesn't mean we should bend to their will and follow suit.
Well, let's see -- A physical library loans out a book. When you're done reading it, you give it back. While you have it nobody else can read it.
Except everyone else you're living with, anyone you meet up with while in posession of the book, etc. Though I do agree it's harder to "take back" a digital copy than a physical one.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Chris wrote: It is not the same thing. Taking copies from a brick and mortar store deprives the store of those copies, making it impossible for them to sell it to someone who would buy it. Downloading music and whatnot is making an entirely new copy at no cost to the original owner, and does not prevent the owner from selling it.

If the owner doesn't lose their property, it is not theft. Making your own copy does not deprive them of their property, no matter how you cut it.
Dude! It's intellectual PROPERTY. The costs of actually packaging a CD or something are a negligible percentage of the gross profit. If you download a piece of intellectual property, I'm just guessing that you're not going to then go and buy a copy of whatever that was. That's a copy THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO SELL. You've taken something that IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE just so that you don't have to pay for it. It's the exact same thing. It ABSOLUTELY is theft.
Chris wrote:It is a citizen's responsibility to challenge flawed, unjust laws.
Absolutely.
Chris wrote:The only way to challenge them to is break them.
:eyebrow: In what alternate reality? I mean, yeah -- in North Korea I guess.
Chris wrote:Your public IP address doesn't do squat to identify you. Your IP address can change, and the only way to connect an IP to a person's account is with the ISP's logs. And even that's no guarantee. Case in point, there are about 10 people connected to a LAN here, which all access the internet through a single connection. A connection from this IP address can be one or more of the 10 computers here. Not to mention whether it's even me on the computer at the time.

Then there's proxy servers, remote system access, shared/public-access computers, etc. You cannot tell who a person is from their IP alone.
Yeah, but you cannot hide your IP address, was my point. If you have some way of ensuring that the IP address embedded in your communications cannot be traced back to your real identity, then what's the problem?
Chris wrote:By the same token, then, should the US not insist on open conferences, and not show up if the other countries don't allow us to be governed properly? Just because some countries don't like being open doesn't mean we should bend to their will and follow suit.
How does demanding to dictate terms to other countires improve our position or benefit American business interests? I mean, we're the ones with all the money to lose to piracy.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Holy crap, wall of text. :blink:
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Uniform Two Six wrote:If you download a piece of intellectual property, I'm just guessing that you're not going to then go and buy a copy of whatever that was.
There's a couple points to this. First, that's not true. I have bought stuff I had previously obtained. In fact, I had bought that stuff because I had previously obtained it. I was able to try it, found that I enjoyed it, and wanted to reward the creators. If I hadn't downloaded it, then they wouldn't have gotten a sale from me. The gained a sale because of that copy. I am far from a lone case in behaving like this, too.

Secondly, all studies done on file sharing show that the majority of people who pirate stuff would not have bought it anyway. There was no sale to be made regardless of the download. Absolutely no loss to anyone there.

Besides, you can't measure loss from "potential sales", as you cannot know how many sales there would have been. And even if you could, to call it theft is still dishonest. That is unless you want to say a bad review, causing people to not buy something, is also theft?
You've taken something that IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE just so that you don't have to pay for it. It's the exact same thing. It ABSOLUTELY is theft.
Please to be reading previous posts. If you want to say it's wrong to violate copyright, that's fine. It's your opinion. But to call copyright violation theft is like calling a punch murder. It is not the same thing. The definition of theft does not cover copyright violations.
Chris wrote:It is a citizen's responsibility to challenge flawed, unjust laws.
Absolutely.
Chris wrote:The only way to challenge them to is break them.
:eyebrow: In what alternate reality? I mean, yeah -- in North Korea I guess.
Well, I admit I'm not some great legal expert, but from the stuff I've seen and read, you need to get charged under a law to take its validity to court. Unless you expect me to be able to make a great impassioned speech to the federal government, getting them to ammend/remove the bad portions of laws without the courts, and ignore the millions of dollars in "donations" from the big mega-corporations?
Yeah, but you cannot hide your IP address, was my point. If you have some way of ensuring that the IP address embedded in your communications cannot be traced back to your real identity, then what's the problem?
You're saying that information given when browsing or posting online is public and can identify you, so people shouldn't expect any privacy online. I'm saying that it can't identify you, and there are methods to encrypt the information allowing only the recipient to read it, so people should be able to expect some level of privacy.
How does demanding to dictate terms to other countires improve our position or benefit American business interests? I mean, we're the ones with all the money to lose to piracy.
Since when does the government only follow business interests? I thought it was "by the people, for the people". Our government was not made to draft and implement laws in secret like this, and no amount of "business interest" should ever change that. The decisions of our representatives should be public so they can be held accountable for those decisions. It's against the very principles of our government to act otherwise.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Chris wrote: I have bought stuff I had previously obtained. In fact, I had bought that stuff because I had previously obtained it. I was able to try it, found that I enjoyed it, and wanted to reward the creators. If I hadn't downloaded it, then they wouldn't have gotten a sale from me. The gained a sale because of that copy. I am far from a lone case in behaving like this, too.
Okay, by that reasoning, it's okay to shoplift a pair of jeans, wear them for a week or two, and then go back and pay for them in the event that you decide that you like them.
Chris wrote:Secondly, all studies done on file sharing show that the majority of people who pirate stuff would not have bought it anyway. There was no sale to be made regardless of the download. Absolutely no loss to anyone there.
First, I guess they didn't really need it in the first place, did they? Second, which is it? People who pirate will eventually buy the stuff, or they weren't going to buy the stuff in the first place? You just contradicted yourself. Third, that's kind of like saying that it's okay to steal a car off the lot -- but just so long as you weren't going to buy a car in the first place, and the dealer is having a slow week, because that way the automotive industry doesn't lose a sale.
Chris wrote:Besides, you can't measure loss from "potential sales", as you cannot know how many sales there would have been. And even if you could, to call it theft is still dishonest. That is unless you want to say a bad review, causing people to not buy something, is also theft?

If you want to say it's wrong to violate copyright, that's fine. It's your opinion. But to call copyright violation theft is like calling a punch murder. It is not the same thing. The definition of theft does not cover copyright violations.
Look, intellectual property is property. Just because it has no physicality, does not mean that it does not exist or that it cannot be owned. Look at it this way: The issue with intellectual property (and truth be told, with all property), is its inherent worth. That's the whole purpose of copyright at its basic level. These laws are meant to protect the inherent worth of property, and to ensure that its innate value is not taken from the rightful owners. If it had no innate value, then you wouldn't want it in the first place, would have no motivation to obtain it through any means, and there would be no problem. By the same token, if you desire that property for any reason whatsoever, then it has inherent value -- and the rightful owner has every reason to expect that his property will be protected under law from theft (or if you must -- from "unauthorized reproduction"). Now, you can argue that these laws are being abused to artificially inflate the profit margins on sales, or whatever, but that's really an issue between the buyer and the seller. If the price isn't right, you have the unlimited right to just walk away and say "no sale, buddy". You don't have the right to just wait until the guy's back is turned and palm something because you don't want to pay for it, and you figure he's not going to notice. That property (be it a physical item like a cool iThingy, or whatever -- or a piece of intellectual property that's just a string of 1s and 0s), belongs to the owner and he has the right to say what can and cannot be done with it (until such time as he is no longer the rightful owner of it). That is why it is theft, under law: You are taking something with inherent value away from its rightful owner (and it doesn't matter if it is only a copy -- the copy has as much inherent value as the original).

And on a slight aside: There's a really good example of this basic concept of the inherent value of intellectual property. Newspapers. There's a reason that newspapers have been dropping like flies over the past decade and a half. Namely, they have adopted a business model in which their whole concept of their product is viewed in much the same way that you and a few others have regarding electronic material. In the nineties they viewed electronic content as a cheap way to boost readership, and saw no harm in permitting unlimited downloads. By doing so, they could increase their circulation without having to even print more material. The reasoning went along the lines that by boosting readership, their sales of hard-copy newspapers would increase proportionally as it was thought that people would at some point forgo the convenience of e-news for the familiarity and comfort of a physical newspaper, and would select said paper based on a preference locked in by already reading it online. This lead to the peculiar phenemenon of newspapers having significant growth in readership coupled with meteoric drops in actual sales.
So in short: It is not a sustainable business practice to give away for free that which has inherent worth.
Chris wrote:Well, I admit I'm not some great legal expert, but from the stuff I've seen and read, you need to get charged under a law to take its validity to court.
Ah, I think I see your point. If what you meant by "flawed" laws was that the law in question itself violates some technical rule, procedure, or is superceded by another law, then yes, you are correct. To challenge the validity of a law, you have to go to court. If you object to a law because you feel it is unfair, or somehow inappropriate, then no, the proper form of protest is to pressure the requisite legislative body to alter or amend the law. Now, I will grant that laws that are so unjust, that they shock the conscience, will sometimes rise to such a level that they demand civil disobediance. However, somehow I have difficulty seeing how being banned from downloading music by reason of copyright, and say, Segregation are even in the same universe.
Chris wrote: Unless you expect me to be able to make a great impassioned speech to the federal government, getting them to ammend/remove the bad portions of laws without the courts, and ignore the millions of dollars in "donations" from the big mega-corporations?
Yes I do. If there is enough popular support to overturn the law, there's no stopping you. If on the other hand, enough people are apathetic on the issue -- well, life's tough.
Chris wrote: I'm saying that it can't identify you, and there are methods to encrypt the information allowing only the recipient to read it, so people should be able to expect some level of privacy.
Okay. Some level of privacy. That's still dependent upon either your level of technical skill, or the details of the agreement between you and your ISP. Otherwise, what's our disagreement?
Chris wrote:Since when does the government only follow business interests? I thought it was "by the people, for the people". Our government was not made to draft and implement laws in secret like this, and no amount of "business interest" should ever change that. The decisions of our representatives should be public so they can be held accountable for those decisions. It's against the very principles of our government to act otherwise.
Okaaaay... and if our government's purpose in even taking part in these conferences in the first place is not to serve the interests of the various businesses that are directly affected by these isues, then whose interests are at stake? Why even participate in such a conference at all? I genuinely don't get it.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Chris »

Uniform Two Six wrote:
Chris wrote: I have bought stuff I had previously obtained. In fact, I had bought that stuff because I had previously obtained it. I was able to try it, found that I enjoyed it, and wanted to reward the creators. If I hadn't downloaded it, then they wouldn't have gotten a sale from me. The gained a sale because of that copy. I am far from a lone case in behaving like this, too.
Okay, by that reasoning, it's okay to shoplift a pair of jeans, wear them for a week or two, and then go back and pay for them in the event that you decide that you like them.
You're still mixing copying with stealing. If you shoplift a pair of jeans and decide you don't like them, the store is out that pair of jeans. If you copy a CD/DVD and decide you don't like it, no one is out anything.
Chris wrote:Secondly, all studies done on file sharing show that the majority of people who pirate stuff would not have bought it anyway. There was no sale to be made regardless of the download. Absolutely no loss to anyone there.
First, I guess they didn't really need it in the first place, did they? Second, which is it? People who pirate will eventually buy the stuff, or they weren't going to buy the stuff in the first place?
Both. Most people will not have bought it (I can only begin to guess why they copied it in the first place; reasons ranging from sticking-it-to-the-man, to simply not enjoying it when trying it, to not having the money to buy it). Of the rest, there are a number of people who will buy it if they like it.

There's also people that will copy it even after they've bought it. Most pirated games, videos, and music are not laden with DRM that tries to prevent you from playing your legally-purchased copy.
Look, intellectual property is property. Just because it has no physicality, does not mean that it does not exist or that it cannot be owned.
I didn't disgree with that (though I do think what is considered to be ownable intellectual property is a bit too liberal, these days). But if I make a copy, they do not lose their ideas. They still have it and can sell it, so it wasn't stolen. The only way you could "steal" intellectual property is if you take the same idea and prevent the original owners from using/selling it themselves (such as Disney seeing a character design they like made by some no-name artist, taking it for themselves without permission, then sue/block the original creator whenever he tries to use it commercially; that would be IP theft).
If the price isn't right, you have the unlimited right to just walk away and say "no sale, buddy".
You may have the right, but the ability (or legality) is quite another thing. Go back 10 or so years, when Apple was on its death bed, and Linux was still a geek-only system. Your job makes it mandatory you to get a laptop. If you didn't want to buy Windows, can you 'just walk away and say "no sale, buddy"'? Me thinks most people wouldn't be able to, if they wanted to continue getting a paycheck to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads.

Monopolies are dangerous. Patents and copyrights are government-granted monopolies, and as such, needs to be watched with the utmost scrutiny. I'm not saying they're inherently bad, but it is easy to tip that way if care isn't taken.
That is why it is theft, under law: You are taking something with inherent value away from its rightful owner (and it doesn't matter if it is only a copy -- the copy has as much inherent value as the original).
A copy they never had of an idea they still possess. No matter how much you say it or try to liken it to stealing physical objects, it is not theft. Cite me one court case in the US that has successfuly prosecuted copyright or patent infringement as theft (and is not currently under appeal), when such infringement did not harm the original owner's ability to continue selling their property.
So in short: It is not a sustainable business practice to give away for free that which has inherent worth.
I'm sure there's some Linux distributions that would like to disagree with you. Several free/open source projects also might want to have a word, too.

Just because you don't sell the property itself doesn't mean you can't make money off it. And just because someone can get it for free doesn't mean they won't still pay. The very fact that Hollywood and video games are as profitable as ever, despite the explosion of file-sharing, should be proof of that.
If you object to a law because you feel it is unfair, or somehow inappropriate, then no, the proper form of protest is to pressure the requisite legislative body to alter or amend the law.
...
Chris wrote: Unless you expect me to be able to make a great impassioned speech to the federal government, getting them to ammend/remove the bad portions of laws without the courts, and ignore the millions of dollars in "donations" from the big mega-corporations?
Yes I do. If there is enough popular support to overturn the law, there's no stopping you.
As much as I prefer the sentiment, the sad reality is that money still has a large influence in US politics. A person can't "change the world" just because they want to really badly... not without a lot of money and/or a metric s***-ton of luck, at least.
Okay. Some level of privacy. That's still dependent upon either your level of technical skill, or the details of the agreement between you and your ISP. Otherwise, what's our disagreement?
Nothing, now. :)
Okaaaay... and if our government's purpose in even taking part in these conferences in the first place is not to serve the interests of the various businesses that are directly affected by these isues, then whose interests are at stake? Why even participate in such a conference at all? I genuinely don't get it.
That's what I'm saying. The government's purpose for taking part in these secret negotiations is to serve the big businesses, and that's the problem. When it's the people that are going to be affected, it should not be the big business interests that are served. If the people's interest is counter to the big business' interests, it should not be the people's interest that takes a back seat. The government should not change its core principles just because someone with a lot of money wants something.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Wingman »

Uniform Two Six wrote:
Chris wrote: I have bought stuff I had previously obtained. In fact, I had bought that stuff because I had previously obtained it. I was able to try it, found that I enjoyed it, and wanted to reward the creators. If I hadn't downloaded it, then they wouldn't have gotten a sale from me. The gained a sale because of that copy. I am far from a lone case in behaving like this, too.
Okay, by that reasoning, it's okay to shoplift a pair of jeans, wear them for a week or two, and then go back and pay for them in the event that you decide that you like them.
I"ve seen people do this plenty of times, except with multi-thousand dollar televisions. Superbowl rolls around, they go out and "buy" the tv with credit, and then return the tv for a full refund after superbowl. They acquired and used the product, but no actual sale was made and the creator of the product got nothing out of the deal. Or, if they decide they like the tv, they pay for it with their money at a later date. How is this different from stealing the tv, and then coming back later and paying for it?
I recently bought a screen, using credit, for my PS3 so I could play a new game. I've now completed the game, and according to store return policy I could return the screen and game for a full refund. I didn't, because I like them both still. I could have gotten full use out of both products without it costing me anything, or more likely only a fraction of the total cost since the products are now 'used'. One could almost say it's a steal.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

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Chris wrote: A copy they never had of an idea they still possess. No matter how much you say it or try to liken it to stealing physical objects, it is not theft. Cite me one court case in the US that has successfuly prosecuted copyright or patent infringement as theft (and is not currently under appeal), when such infringement did not harm the original owner's ability to continue selling their property.
Okay, I looked it up. You're right. I'm wrong. I apologize.

However... The distinction between theft and copyright infringement was only defined in the 1985 case of Dowling v United States, in which (among other things) it was determined that theft as a legal term could only be applied to physical objects. Prior to 1985, there was no such distinction (at least either codified as such or in case law). The legal concept of theft also remains the historical basis for all copyright laws prior to 1985. Enforcement against unauthorized reproductions actually has case law going back to English Common Law, and statutes specifying copyright didn't come into existence until 1709. Prior to that, there is a load of case law dating back at least as far as 1557 in which such cases were dealt with as theft under English Common Law. As such, even with specific statutes governing copyright, the basis for those laws was the concept of theft, which (once again, until 1985) was substantively the same thing, legally speaking. The main impetus to not prosecute as theft was most likely the same reason why we're having this conversation three hundred years later: explaining to a jury made up of lay-persons the difference between theft of a physical object, and theft of a work, would have been much more daunting than simply proving that a statute on the books specifying that particular act, had been violated would have been.
Chris wrote:If you copy a CD/DVD and decide you don't like it, no one is out anything.
Chris wrote:Most people will not have bought it (I can only begin to guess why they copied it in the first place; reasons ranging from sticking-it-to-the-man, to simply not enjoying it when trying it, to not having the money to buy it).
It still doesn't matter if there was no financial loss to the copyright holder. U.S. Code Title XVII grants exclusive rights to the copyright holder (among them the exclusive right to copy such material) and L.A. Times v Free Republic established that it's not fair use to copy material if obtaining such material requires paying for it, and the intent in copying it is to avoid paying for it. In other words, if you have to pay for it, it legally doesn't matter if you wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

And on a slight aside, it has also been established under Title XVII that the damages actually incurred by the copyright holder (if any) are not necessarily the basis for damages levied against the violator. Damages well in excess of those actually sustained are considered fully appropriate as long as their intent is deterrent in nature (which is the basis for criminal penalties, by the way).
Chris wrote:If you didn't want to buy Windows, can you 'just walk away and say "no sale, buddy"'? Me thinks most people wouldn't be able to, if they wanted to continue getting a paycheck to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads.

Monopolies are dangerous. Patents and copyrights are government-granted monopolies, and as such, needs to be watched with the utmost scrutiny. I'm not saying they're inherently bad, but it is easy to tip that way if care isn't taken.
Yes. Yes they are. And thank you for mentioning Microsoft, since they were declared a monopoly and their distribution of Windows operating system was placed under a number of restrictions by the courts as a result.
Chris wrote:I'm sure there's some Linux distributions that would like to disagree with you.
Poor choice of words on my part. If you're giving away freebies as part of a sales strategy, that's different. When you offer your main revenue product for free, you probably haven't thought your business model out very well.
Chris wrote:As much as I prefer the sentiment, the sad reality is that money still has a large influence in US politics. A person can't "change the world" just because they want to really badly... not without a lot of money and/or a metric s***-ton of luck, at least.
Yeah, money does influence politics... which is why if you want to change a law in which there are a lot of monied interests in favor of it, you need broad popular support. If you cannot get the masses too worked up over excessive copyright restrictions, or excessively long copyright exclusions, then you might just have to face the reality that not enough people care about the issue. That does not mean that you have some sort of moral right to then violate the law instead. If you don't like the law, change it. If you can't, you are expected to abide by it. If you choose not to abide by it, and get caught, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
Chris wrote:That's what I'm saying. The government's purpose for taking part in these secret negotiations is to serve the big businesses, and that's the problem. When it's the people that are going to be affected, it should not be the big business interests that are served. If the people's interest is counter to the big business' interests, it should not be the people's interest that takes a back seat. The government should not change its core principles just because someone with a lot of money wants something.
Huh? Wait a minute. Why do business interests not have the right to be represented by their host government in international negotiations? They pay taxes. Shouldn't they get some sort of representation at the table? Why should they have to slink off with their tails between their legs when the governement decides to refuse to participate in a closed session conference because some citizens don't like not being invited? And while we're on that subject, how the heck does Joe Blow have any more standing with regard to an anti-piracy conference than the corporation that's actually got a financial stake in their property getting pirated? And another thing: since when does everything that the government does get subject to direct involvement by the citizenry? Should General Eisenhower have submitted his invasion plan for Europe for public review, followed by congressional debate?
Wingman wrote:I"ve seen people do this plenty of times, except with multi-thousand dollar televisions. Superbowl rolls around, they go out and "buy" the tv with credit, and then return the tv for a full refund after superbowl. They acquired and used the product, but no actual sale was made and the creator of the product got nothing out of the deal. Or, if they decide they like the tv, they pay for it with their money at a later date. How is this different from stealing the tv, and then coming back later and paying for it?
Because for the duration that the set is on your card, you own it. The only reason that they have to take it back is that they have an agreement with you to do so. Seriously. Do you really need the distinction explained? Seriously?!
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Chris »

Uniform Two Six wrote:The legal concept of theft also remains the historical basis for all copyright laws prior to 1985. Enforcement against unauthorized reproductions actually has case law going back to English Common Law, and statutes specifying copyright didn't come into existence until 1709. Prior to that, there is a load of case law dating back at least as far as 1557 in which such cases were dealt with as theft under English Common Law. As such, even with specific statutes governing copyright, the basis for those laws was the concept of theft, which (once again, until 1985) was substantively the same thing, legally speaking.
Because during those times, there wasn't a concept of practically free, nearly-instantaneous reproduction of digital media that had no physical form. Copying text and pictures today is very different from copying books and paintings in older times. Copyright law was also generally used to prevent people from selling and making money from the work. It was not typically used against those that actually received the copy, but those who made and sold it.. and because actual money was changing hands, it was easier to see the infringer as getting money that would have gone to the copyright holder (or more realistically, their publisher).

Also, before the 70s, you actually had to apply to, and pay, the government to get and maintain a copyright. That you get copyright by mere creation of the work and have it for life, these days, is a fairly recent development.

PS: Please don't construe the above to mean I don't think copyright applies to such ease-to-create-and-copy property. I'm just saying it to illustrate that things are rather different now than before, and thus why legal concepts change over time.
It still doesn't matter if there was no financial loss to the copyright holder. U.S. Code Title XVII grants exclusive rights to the copyright holder (among them the exclusive right to copy such material) and L.A. Times v Free Republic established that it's not fair use to copy material if obtaining such material requires paying for it, and the intent in copying it is to avoid paying for it. In other words, if you have to pay for it, it legally doesn't matter if you wouldn't have bought it otherwise.
Absolutely right. I'm not saying copyright infringement isn't illegal. But unless you're making hundreds or thousands of dollars or something, petty infringement is handled by civil law, not criminal.
Huh? Wait a minute. Why do business interests not have the right to be represented by their host government in international negotiations?
I never said they didn't. They have the right to be represented, just like the rest of us... through open negotiations.
Why should they have to slink off with their tails between their legs when the governement decides to refuse to participate in a closed session conference because some citizens don't like not being invited?
Because closed negotiations are counter to how our government is supposed to operate. Why should businesses be able to change how our government works?
And while we're on that subject, how the heck does Joe Blow have any more standing with regard to an anti-piracy conference than the corporation that's actually got a financial stake in their property getting pirated?
Because Joe Blow is the consumer, and his rights are going to be affected. He has a financial stake in it too, as it will affect what he can and can't do with products he pays for with his hard-earned money. As it is, his rights are harmed thanks to crap like the DMCA, and by all accounts, ACTA is supposed to be worse. Make no mistake, corporations are there for profits. They don't care about your rights that get trampled on, as long as it gets them more money.

The government does not have a good track record when it comes to non-commercial piracy. Copy prevention and access control (DRM, made possible by the DMCA) does more to harm the consumer than it could ever hope to do against pirates. In fact, thanks to DRM, pirates can provide better functioning media than most creators do. But that's what you can expect from laws that were pushed by corporations.
And another thing: since when does everything that the government does get subject to direct involvement by the citizenry? Should General Eisenhower have submitted his invasion plan for Europe for public review, followed by congressional debate?
War is a special case; the government does act different when it has actually declared war (which, btw, does have to go through congress; it's not something that's declared with the snap of the president's fingers). There's a vested interest to keep the enemy from getting wind of attack and battle plans. That's a far cry from drafting international copyright laws, the effectiveness of which won't change if people know what they are beforehand.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Uniform Two Six »

Chris wrote: Because during those times, there wasn't a concept of practically free, nearly-instantaneous reproduction of digital media that had no physical form. Copying text and pictures today is very different from copying books and paintings in older times.
Which is probably at least one reason why it has morphed into something different under law. So, while I'm acknowledging that it isn't technically theft under law (anymore -- God, I hate having to admit I'm wrong) :x , I still hold that it has an historical basis in the legal concept of theft because it's like theft in some important ways. Give me that at least. Come on, taking copyrighted material and reproducing it in violation of that copyright just so you don't have to pay for it is sort of like stealing it. Come on -- give me that much. :(
Chris wrote:Absolutely right. I'm not saying copyright infringement isn't illegal. But unless you're making hundreds or thousands of dollars or something, petty infringement is handled by civil law, not criminal.
Hmmm... not necessarily. Since (I think) 1978 or so, copyright violation has been constructed to fall solely within the federal jurisdiction -- and when the Feds get involved, stuff often gets a little weird. The Feds can hit you with criminal charges for (what under other circumstances would be) "petty" crimes in some cases. "Excessive" penalties (as deemed by certain detractors), are considered acceptable legally (as in not considered "cruel or unusual", and thus unconstitutional) if it is deemed necessary to achieve deterrence. Making that argument can be a little tricky, though. My bet is that the ones who do get nailed for the minor stuff, are most likely people who got warned once and didn't take the hint. It sucks to be the one they decide to make an example of, I bet.
Chris wrote:I never said they didn't. They have the right to be represented, just like the rest of us... through open negotiations...
Because closed negotiations are counter to how our government is supposed to operate. Why should businesses be able to change how our government works?
Yeah, but if the government elects to not participate in such a conference, simply because it's closed, then the businesses with a financial stake in the whole process have just had their right to be represented abridged -- for purely political reasons. There's other democratic countries that don't hold to our standard of transparency. You can't just enforce that on other countries. Besides, for any agreement to have the force of law behind it (as in a treaty), the agreement has to be ratified by Congress in some way. The President has some latitude to make agreements of expediency under his own authority, but if it violates standing law, it has no legal validity and it's going to be ridiculously easy to defeat in court if push comes to shove.
Chris wrote:Because Joe Blow is the consumer, and his rights are going to be affected. He has a financial stake in it too, as it will affect what he can and can't do with products he pays for with his hard-earned money.
With the exception of product safety issues, and product misrepresentation issues, since when has the rights of the consumer superceeded the rights of the manufacturer/ distributor when the latter have a greater financial stake than the former? The really big right held by the consumer in that equation has traditionally been held to be the right to not buy the product.
Chris wrote:War is a special case
Absolutely right. Extremely poor example on my part. My bad. So okay, details about new currency anti-counterfitting technologies and schemes? How about details of proposed electronic signals encryption schemes for non-military branches of government (say Securities and Exchange Commission, or EPA)? How about details regarding State Department diplomatic proposals to foreign governments where disclosure of such proposals to the public could damage relations with the country in question? I mean, there's stuff out there that's kept secret that's not, strictly speaking, vital to national security, but is done for entirely valid reasons of expediency.
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Re: I should not read or watch the news

Post by Chris »

Uniform Two Six wrote:I still hold that it has an historical basis in the legal concept of theft because it's like theft in some important ways. Give me that at least.
In older times, perhaps. There was more financially at stake to the copyright holder (as printing presses were expensive, and you had to pay the government to keep your copyright), and an infringer was getting money that could have otherwise gone to the appropriate people. Though, that's more like the effect of infringement, instead of the infringement itself.
Chris wrote:Absolutely right. I'm not saying copyright infringement isn't illegal. But unless you're making hundreds or thousands of dollars or something, petty infringement is handled by civil law, not criminal.
Hmmm... not necessarily. Since (I think) 1978 or so, copyright violation has been constructed to fall solely within the federal jurisdiction -- and when the Feds get involved, stuff often gets a little weird.
It's been a while since I last looked over it, but copyright law defines what is and is not criminal infringement. I remember them revolving around selling the infringing copies and getting to the tune of thousands of dollars, or distributing not-yet-released works and harming the copyright holder's ability to sell it. There were a few more points to it, but it was heavy stuff like that that would get you hit hard.

WRT "excessive" penalties, yes, you are allowed to get fines that exceed the worth of the actual material. But there's still a limit even to that.
Yeah, but if the government elects to not participate in such a conference, simply because it's closed, then the businesses with a financial stake in the whole process have just had their right to be represented abridged -- for purely political reasons.
The same way that if the government elects to participate in such a conference, we have our rights abridged. So again, why do businesses get special treatment?
The President has some latitude to make agreements of expediency under his own authority, but if it violates standing law, it has no legal validity and it's going to be ridiculously easy to defeat in court if push comes to shove.
I'm not sure about the "rediculously easy" part. It could be possible, sure, but even the grossly unconsitutional portions of the PATRIOT Act took years and a lot of money to take down, and there's still a lot of questionable portions to it (like almost all of it).

The idea that we can enact bad laws and deal with them later is flawed, because between the time they're enacted and then dealt with (if it even comes out to a proper conclusion), a lot of people can be irreversably hurt by it. Laws need to be scrutinized before enacted, and IMO, laws that are found to be bad should have legal consequences to those that pushed it (the actual consequences of course depending on the severity and details of the case).
With the exception of product safety issues, and product misrepresentation issues, since when has the rights of the consumer superceeded the rights of the manufacturer/ distributor when the latter have a greater financial stake than the former?
You may want to look up the First Sale doctrine, which grants consumers the right to resell goods they've bought. Even copyright law specifically grants rights and protections to consumers.. eg, you are allowed to make personal copies of copyrighted works, make backups, etc. So-called format- and time-shifting (converting a CD to MP3s, recording live broadcasts to watch later) are also granted by it. These are things which businesses loath, as they think they should get money from any resale or reproduction, and it's no surpise that DRM (given legal weight by the DMCA) aims to restrict these rights you have.
So okay, details about new currency anti-counterfitting technologies and schemes? How about details of proposed electronic signals encryption schemes for non-military branches of government (say Securities and Exchange Commission, or EPA)?
Security through obscurity doesn't work, as has been shown time and again. If something is crackable, it will be cracked. Often times, crackers will take being closed as a challenge, and put that much more effort into breaking it. It's not a coincidence that some of the most secure encryption schemes in computers are those that are open.
How about details regarding State Department diplomatic proposals to foreign governments where disclosure of such proposals to the public could damage relations with the country in question? I mean, there's stuff out there that's kept secret that's not, strictly speaking, vital to national security, but is done for entirely valid reasons of expediency.
It may be one thing if it doesn't affect the rights of people, but that's not the case here. It will affect people, and they should have the right to have their voices heard on the subject.
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