Re: Re: Re: Anything that can weaken protections for artists
Despite your stated disagreement, I don't think we really have opposing views.
If people value things created by artists; - obviously some people value some things created by artists. So at least some of the time this is true.
If rewarding artists would cause them to create more and/or better things, which results in greater value to people; - obviously this is true in some cases.
If the increase in value outweighs the cost of the reward to people; - for some amount of reward, this also is obviously going to be the case.
So we seem to agree that in some cases a reward is appropriate.
Please note - I didn't say simply "Artists must get rewarded for creating things". That would reward them for valueless things.
And as for the "must", it's imperative if you think increasing value for everyone, while decreasing it for no one, is imperative. That is, if you think making the world a better place is really important, than this is really important.
Yes. I am not a child. I said look at "your phone", not at "the phone network".
Indeed, the telephone calling functionality of modern phones (E.164 et al, harking back to Alex Bell) is already obsolete, and persists only due to momentum and (more important) the ability of service provides to charge by the minute for usage. VoIP telephone ala Skype, Google Hangouts, SIP, etc. are already vastly more advanced technology.
My point being that modern smartphones have all the functionality such a system needs - always-on Internet access, with strong encryption and endless possibilities for prioritization and customized applications.
That wasn't true in 2001 when this monstrosity was invented (I was on several of the relevant standards committees at the time).
But it is true now. If there ever was a reasonable justification for this project (I didn't think so at the time), there certainly isn't now.
It's 20th century thinking - the government needs it's own special network that's going to keep working when the public Internet goes down.
There are only 2 conceivable scenarios when such a thing would even be useful:
1 - Some enemy attacks and brings down the entire Internet in the US, as the Russians tried to do to Estonia in 2007.
2 - Somebody in the government thinks they will "turn off" the public Internet in the event of some emergency - terrorism, civil war, rebellion, etc.
Re #1, even Russia couldn't do it to tiny Estonia. (Not that they didn't cause trouble, but the Internet didn't ultimately go down.)
And if some enemy did succeed, then they've already won the war - without the Internet the US is a dead duck. No commerce, no hospitals, no nothing - everything is dependent on a working network. Without it there is no country to defend.
Re #2, this is paranoid fantasy. Even if the US government tried to "turn off" the public Internet, even if they had legal authority to do it, even if the NSA hacked into routers and tried to break them - they couldn't.
Because of #1. Because virtually all of the economy is dependent on the network working, political pressure wouldn't let them turn it off. Too many powerful people would lose money. And even if they tried it anyway, it wouldn't work. Network techs and service providers would be under so much pressure from their important customers - businesses losing money! - that they'd block the NSA and fix it. Tech aware customers would route around the blockages. They'd have no choice. Things would be fixed within hours, whether the government likes it, or allows it, or not. They can't shoot every nerd in the country.
So the whole thing is just...stupid 20th century pre-Internet thinking.
The government doesn't need it's own special network. Make the one we all use robust. And use that one. Without it we're all dead ducks anyway, so fix it properly.
The argument often made in favor of privately-held weapons (which, like it or not, has an element of truth) applies even more strongly in this case.
Criminals and terrorists don't obey the law. That's why they're criminals.
If you mandate backdoors or weaken encryption, all you accomplish is to weaken the defenses of the law-abiding, while leaving the bad guys with strong encryption.
You make the situation worse rather than better.
(Worse for civil society, that is. If you're law enforcement, you might care more about "making busts" than you do about protecting citizens. If so, I suppose backdoors look good to you.)
A practical question from someone who doesn't use Facebook (I'm of the generation that hasn't quite figured out what it's useful for. Oh, and please get off my lawn.)
Why didn't the guy just put the video on YouTube and post a link?
Why does anybody post videos to FB in the first place?
Re: predatory types using Pokemon Go to attract victims
How does banning the predators from playing the game help?
The players are the potential victims; not the offenders.
The predators can hang out and wait for victims whether they play the game or not.
If if that weren't the case, how would this ban help? These people are felons - if the existing penalties are not enough to discourage them, how is adding a law against playing the game going to make any difference?
FWIW, in my view Trump and Clinton are both horrible, but in very different ways.
Clinton is horrible in the normal way that Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama were horrible.
Which is, in my book, pretty bad.
But Trump is a whole different class of horrible.
I can't in good conscience vote for either of them.
My vote will go to Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. They're far from perfect too, but they are not corrupt, obviously incompetent, or insane, and will respect the Constitution.
That's something - more than I can say for Clinton and Trump.
That would disqualify all major party candidates of the last 100 years (and a majority before that).
I find the whole thing ironic - for decades I've been told not to worry about excessive government power, because in our democracy the leaders will always be reasonable, civilized people who won't abuse them.
Not some kind of crazies like the people who led [nightmarish dictatorship of your choice].
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Situations in which it's notably wrong
For example, copying and republishing without proper attribution is plagiarism.
Which is wrong.
But it's not theft.
On the post: Why The Latest Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng May Have A Much Bigger Impact On Copyright & Fair Use
Re: Re: Re: Anything that can weaken protections for artists
If people value things created by artists; - obviously some people value some things created by artists. So at least some of the time this is true.
If rewarding artists would cause them to create more and/or better things, which results in greater value to people; - obviously this is true in some cases.
If the increase in value outweighs the cost of the reward to people; - for some amount of reward, this also is obviously going to be the case.
So we seem to agree that in some cases a reward is appropriate.
Please note - I didn't say simply "Artists must get rewarded for creating things". That would reward them for valueless things.
And as for the "must", it's imperative if you think increasing value for everyone, while decreasing it for no one, is imperative. That is, if you think making the world a better place is really important, than this is really important.
On the post: Our 'Copying Is Not Theft' T-Shirt Seems To REALLY Upset Some People
Fantastic sales pitch...congratulations TechDirt!
I imagine they're flying off the shelves.
On the post: Allegations Of Dysfunction Continue To Plague FirstNet, Our $47 Billion (And Growing) National Emergency Network
Re: Re: Re: Re: 20th century thinking
Indeed, the telephone calling functionality of modern phones (E.164 et al, harking back to Alex Bell) is already obsolete, and persists only due to momentum and (more important) the ability of service provides to charge by the minute for usage. VoIP telephone ala Skype, Google Hangouts, SIP, etc. are already vastly more advanced technology.
My point being that modern smartphones have all the functionality such a system needs - always-on Internet access, with strong encryption and endless possibilities for prioritization and customized applications.
That wasn't true in 2001 when this monstrosity was invented (I was on several of the relevant standards committees at the time).
But it is true now. If there ever was a reasonable justification for this project (I didn't think so at the time), there certainly isn't now.
On the post: Allegations Of Dysfunction Continue To Plague FirstNet, Our $47 Billion (And Growing) National Emergency Network
Re: Re: 20th century thinking
On the post: Federal Election Commission To Crack Down On 'Deez Nuts' As Presidential Candidate
Pranksters will just have to be more subtle
For example,
Raymond D. O'Shack
or... Donald Trump.
On the post: Allegations Of Dysfunction Continue To Plague FirstNet, Our $47 Billion (And Growing) National Emergency Network
20th century thinking
It's 20th century thinking - the government needs it's own special network that's going to keep working when the public Internet goes down.
There are only 2 conceivable scenarios when such a thing would even be useful:
1 - Some enemy attacks and brings down the entire Internet in the US, as the Russians tried to do to Estonia in 2007.
2 - Somebody in the government thinks they will "turn off" the public Internet in the event of some emergency - terrorism, civil war, rebellion, etc.
Re #1, even Russia couldn't do it to tiny Estonia. (Not that they didn't cause trouble, but the Internet didn't ultimately go down.)
And if some enemy did succeed, then they've already won the war - without the Internet the US is a dead duck. No commerce, no hospitals, no nothing - everything is dependent on a working network. Without it there is no country to defend.
Re #2, this is paranoid fantasy. Even if the US government tried to "turn off" the public Internet, even if they had legal authority to do it, even if the NSA hacked into routers and tried to break them - they couldn't.
Because of #1. Because virtually all of the economy is dependent on the network working, political pressure wouldn't let them turn it off. Too many powerful people would lose money. And even if they tried it anyway, it wouldn't work. Network techs and service providers would be under so much pressure from their important customers - businesses losing money! - that they'd block the NSA and fix it. Tech aware customers would route around the blockages. They'd have no choice. Things would be fixed within hours, whether the government likes it, or allows it, or not. They can't shoot every nerd in the country.
So the whole thing is just...stupid 20th century pre-Internet thinking.
The government doesn't need it's own special network. Make the one we all use robust. And use that one. Without it we're all dead ducks anyway, so fix it properly.
On the post: French Government Wants A 'Global Initiative' To Undermine Encryption And Put Everyone At Risk
Hurt the good guys, help the bad guys
Criminals and terrorists don't obey the law. That's why they're criminals.
If you mandate backdoors or weaken encryption, all you accomplish is to weaken the defenses of the law-abiding, while leaving the bad guys with strong encryption.
You make the situation worse rather than better.
(Worse for civil society, that is. If you're law enforcement, you might care more about "making busts" than you do about protecting citizens. If so, I suppose backdoors look good to you.)
On the post: Another Unfortunate Example Of Facebook Silencing Important Videos
Why do it that way?
Why didn't the guy just put the video on YouTube and post a link?
Why does anybody post videos to FB in the first place?
On the post: Judge Tosses 200 Hours Of Recordings From FBI's Courthouse Bugs
Re:
On the post: New York Makes Playing Pokemon Go, Other Online Games A Sex Offender Parole Violation
Re: predatory types using Pokemon Go to attract victims
The players are the potential victims; not the offenders.
The predators can hang out and wait for victims whether they play the game or not.
If if that weren't the case, how would this ban help? These people are felons - if the existing penalties are not enough to discourage them, how is adding a law against playing the game going to make any difference?
On the post: Yes, You Read That Correctly: China Says It's OK For Members Of The Public To Record The Police
Yay, China
On the post: 'Wish I Had The Power' To Hack Enemies' Emails, Says Man Very Close To Having Such Power
Re: Re: Re: immediately disqualified
FWIW, in my view Trump and Clinton are both horrible, but in very different ways.
Clinton is horrible in the normal way that Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama were horrible.
Which is, in my book, pretty bad.
But Trump is a whole different class of horrible.
I can't in good conscience vote for either of them.
My vote will go to Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. They're far from perfect too, but they are not corrupt, obviously incompetent, or insane, and will respect the Constitution.
That's something - more than I can say for Clinton and Trump.
On the post: 'Wish I Had The Power' To Hack Enemies' Emails, Says Man Very Close To Having Such Power
Re: immediately disqualified
I find the whole thing ironic - for decades I've been told not to worry about excessive government power, because in our democracy the leaders will always be reasonable, civilized people who won't abuse them.
Not some kind of crazies like the people who led [nightmarish dictatorship of your choice].
Then comes Mr. Trump...
On the post: MIT Media Lab Launched Disobedience Award, Funded By Reid Hoffman
Ed Snowden
On the post: Whether Or Not Russians Hacked DNC Means Nothing Concerning How Newsworthy The Details Are
Who to choose?
If they don't, they wont.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/poll-troops-prefer-gary-johnson-over-trump-clinton/
On the post: Techdirt's New T-Shirt Is Now Available... But Its Content Isn't
Glad you updated it
On the post: Elon Musk's Master Plan Includes Turning Tesla Into An Autonomous Uber
Re: Re: Franchise
Aircraft autopilots will happily fly into a mountain if there happens to be one in the way.
Autopilot is not the same as "autonomous".
On the post: Ton Of Tech Industry Leaders Say Trump Would Be A Complete Disaster For Innovation
Re: Not a Trump supporter either, but...
On the post: Ton Of Tech Industry Leaders Say Trump Would Be A Complete Disaster For Innovation
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Eisenhower was the last President who was both decent and competent.
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