Re: In defense of Sydnor's understanding of freedom
Scott, talking of doublespeak, you wouldn't happen to call yourself a libertarian by any chance would you?
I take it you're a full supporter of the Progress and Freedom Foundation?
Lessig's book 'Free Culture' may certainly be criticised for falling short of a vision for a cultural freedom unfettered by the constraints of copyright, and consequently utilisation of an inferior definition of 'free', making a poor basis for 'free culture' in the truest sense. However, such criticism cannot be credibly levelled by any member of the PFF who must avow strong support for the IP privileges of copyright and patent.
If you truly wish to postpone copyright's imminent abolition I suggest you'd be far better off lauding Lessig's thinking, praising his works, and heavily sponsoring Creative Commons. No-one else is being so constructive in keeping copyright on the statute books.
Property arises out of our natural/human rights to privacy and truth. Our natural right to privacy arises out of our physical ability to hold and protect a private space and articles within it (material or intellectual). Our social sense of honour, integrity, and the permanence of facts gives rise to the right to truth, that people may create voluntary binding agreements, e.g. to exchange property (private space or articles).
We establish the state to enforce our natural rights rather than have to rely upon our individual brute force.
Unfortunately, a corrupt or misguided state may suspend its recognition of some of our natural rights to privilege a section of society that the state feels would consequently create a benefit to the rest of society that outweighs the value of the rights it has suspended.
Predictably, the beneficiaries of such privileges are the ones who lobby most persuasively and argue most fervently for their creation, preservation, and extension. Meanwhile, the poor citizens who've had their rights suspended by the very state that was supposed to protect them find it difficult to do much about it.
Fortunately, the Internet renders the privileges unenforceable, unnecessary, and irrelevant.
Unfortunately, it takes a long time for the privileged incumbents to confront this fact.
Intellectual works, as expressed in a medium, are just as much property as any material object or work.
So, tangible or intangible, intellectual or material, doesn't affect what may be property.
However, copyright is an unnatural and unethical privilege that suspends our natural property rights to give a commercial benefit to publishers. Copyright is an economic incentive for supposedly greater cultural production than would otherwise occur, that we are to believe compensates for the loss of the public's natural IP rights, their liberty to share and build upon the published IP they purchase.
It's clear why the publishing cartel would sponsor a think-tank to argue for the retention of copyright, and to persist in misconstruing copyright as a natural property right (when it is nothing of the sort).
Abolish copyright and restore everyone's intellectual property rights.
But, don't jump from the frying pan into the fire and institute a tax to compensate publishers for the loss of their unethical commercial incentive.
Let the maximalists change the leather padding inside the public's manacles for serrated steel, and keep those misguided reformists who would replace it with soft fur well away from discussions.
The manacles of copyright must be removed, and making them more comfortable persuades the people to rest a little longer in their constrained slumber.
'Fair use' is a redundant and invidious concept, a paltry concession against the intrinsic unfairness of copyright. The thing is, copyright is intrinsically unfair in the first place.
Fundamentally, use of a published work can be fair (in the true sense of the word) even if it involves making unauthorised copies or derivatives.
Unfairness only tends to occur when people make misrepresentations of others or misattribute each others' work.
If the use of Imagine misrepresents John Lennon as endorsing something he did not, such as creationism, then the use is unfair.
As long as the use does not impair truth then it is a fair use.
Of course, despite being a fair use, it may still infringe someone's copyright, but that infringement doesn't constitute unfairness, merely a contravention of someone's anachronistic and intrinsically unfair privilege.
NB Attribution should be unnecessary, but for the benefit of those who have never heard these words, they are the lyrics to the song 'Imagine' by John Lennon.
If I give you a box with software in it then I have distributed the software to you if you can access the software sufficient to obtain a copy of it. If you can use the software, but are unable to access it to make a copy of it then the software has not been distributed to you.
The question is, can users of these routers access the software within it sufficient to make a copy?
NB This has no bearing on, and is nothing to do with, the RIAA's making available claim.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The inanity of the anti-IP bolsheviks
What evidence do you have that I've stolen your ideas rather than arrived at them independently?
Note that theft cannot occur by coincidence, and requires unauthorised access to a place where your ideas are only privately available, such that I could obtain them without your permission.
It is the privilege of patent that causes ideas to effectively remain the property of their patentees even after publication, and prevents anyone else using an indistinguishably similar idea even if they arrive at it independently.
What we don't need are monopolistic privileges such as patent that permit people to give their ideas to the public and yet still own them.
As with any property, once you sell it to someone, it's theirs not yours. Naturally, by communicating an idea to someone you do not consequently forget the idea you still have - you still own the idea you still have - you simply do no longer own the idea that you gave to someone else and they can do with it what they want.
However, the fact remains, that people should still not steal ideas from each other. Ideas are property. You may not burgle my workshop to steal my ideas.
Patents suspend people's natural liberty to implement and build upon ideas they legitimately arrive at, discover, or become informed of.
Patents are an unethical suspension of our natural right to liberty, to the free practice of our ingenuity and exchange of our intellectual labour and products thereof in a free market.
It seems someone's figured out that the mobile phone network can also be used for low bandwidth TV broadcasting (to all mobiles).
It is indeed a waste of bandwidth. It would probably be better simply to turn the whole thing into a wireless Internet and let people choose whether they send text, voice, data, or video.
There'd be no point in broadcasting movies because these can be distributed via landlines and uploaded to mobile phones via a domestic wifi service (which could be made hassle free). The only benefit of broadcasting to mobiles would be for live video feeds (news, sport, etc.).
I recently used the Nokia N800 to watch a movie, but then it has a 4.1" 800x480 pixel dispay.
I managed to squeeze a movie into 128Mb. So given you can put two memory cards in it, e.g. 16MB, that would allow the loading of 128 movies (in case you needed such a large choice). You can buy small rechargable battery packs to extend viewing time from 2 hours to the 12 or so that you might need in a long series of plane flights.
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Re: In defense of Sydnor's understanding of freedom
I take it you're a full supporter of the Progress and Freedom Foundation?
Lessig's book 'Free Culture' may certainly be criticised for falling short of a vision for a cultural freedom unfettered by the constraints of copyright, and consequently utilisation of an inferior definition of 'free', making a poor basis for 'free culture' in the truest sense. However, such criticism cannot be credibly levelled by any member of the PFF who must avow strong support for the IP privileges of copyright and patent.
If you truly wish to postpone copyright's imminent abolition I suggest you'd be far better off lauding Lessig's thinking, praising his works, and heavily sponsoring Creative Commons. No-one else is being so constructive in keeping copyright on the statute books.
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Re: "literally" - common rhetoric absurdity
We establish the state to enforce our natural rights rather than have to rely upon our individual brute force.
Unfortunately, a corrupt or misguided state may suspend its recognition of some of our natural rights to privilege a section of society that the state feels would consequently create a benefit to the rest of society that outweighs the value of the rights it has suspended.
Predictably, the beneficiaries of such privileges are the ones who lobby most persuasively and argue most fervently for their creation, preservation, and extension. Meanwhile, the poor citizens who've had their rights suspended by the very state that was supposed to protect them find it difficult to do much about it.
Fortunately, the Internet renders the privileges unenforceable, unnecessary, and irrelevant.
Unfortunately, it takes a long time for the privileged incumbents to confront this fact.
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Why can't we all just get along?
So, tangible or intangible, intellectual or material, doesn't affect what may be property.
However, copyright is an unnatural and unethical privilege that suspends our natural property rights to give a commercial benefit to publishers. Copyright is an economic incentive for supposedly greater cultural production than would otherwise occur, that we are to believe compensates for the loss of the public's natural IP rights, their liberty to share and build upon the published IP they purchase.
It's clear why the publishing cartel would sponsor a think-tank to argue for the retention of copyright, and to persist in misconstruing copyright as a natural property right (when it is nothing of the sort).
Abolish copyright and restore everyone's intellectual property rights.
But, don't jump from the frying pan into the fire and institute a tax to compensate publishers for the loss of their unethical commercial incentive.
On the post: Copyright Scholar Kicked Out Of Canadian Copyright Panel
Not so terrible
Let the maximalists change the leather padding inside the public's manacles for serrated steel, and keep those misguided reformists who would replace it with soft fur well away from discussions.
The manacles of copyright must be removed, and making them more comfortable persuades the people to rest a little longer in their constrained slumber.
Let them add vicious spikes too, I say. ;-)
On the post: Yoko Ono vs. Ben Stein: Imagine There's No Expelled...
Re: Councilman?
Fundamentally, use of a published work can be fair (in the true sense of the word) even if it involves making unauthorised copies or derivatives.
Unfairness only tends to occur when people make misrepresentations of others or misattribute each others' work.
If the use of Imagine misrepresents John Lennon as endorsing something he did not, such as creationism, then the use is unfair.
As long as the use does not impair truth then it is a fair use.
Of course, despite being a fair use, it may still infringe someone's copyright, but that infringement doesn't constitute unfairness, merely a contravention of someone's anachronistic and intrinsically unfair privilege.
On the post: Yoko Ono vs. Ben Stein: Imagine There's No Expelled...
Re: Sharing all the world
On the post: Yoko Ono vs. Ben Stein: Imagine There's No Expelled...
Sharing all the world
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
On the post: Bill Gates Claims Open Source Means Nobody Can Improve Software
Re: Re: He's right though
I was trying to say that it isn't enough to have open access to the source code. One must also be free to publish improvements.
In this respect, Bill Gates could be siding with Richard Stallman against 'open source' and for Free Software.
On the post: Bill Gates Claims Open Source Means Nobody Can Improve Software
He's right though
On the post: Why The RIAA May Want To Side With Open Source Developers In France
Re: If I give you a box with software in it...
If you've purchased a box with software in it, then it doesn't matter whether you can access it or not, it's yours just as much as the box it came in.
On the post: Why The RIAA May Want To Side With Open Source Developers In France
If I give you a box with software in it...
The question is, can users of these routers access the software within it sufficient to make a copy?
NB This has no bearing on, and is nothing to do with, the RIAA's making available claim.
On the post: Rather Than Giving Banks A Patent Exemption, Why Not Fix The Patent System?
Re: Re: Re: Re: The inanity of the anti-IP bolsheviks
Note that theft cannot occur by coincidence, and requires unauthorised access to a place where your ideas are only privately available, such that I could obtain them without your permission.
It is the privilege of patent that causes ideas to effectively remain the property of their patentees even after publication, and prevents anyone else using an indistinguishably similar idea even if they arrive at it independently.
Abolish patent. Restore everyone's intellectual property rights.
On the post: Rather Than Giving Banks A Patent Exemption, Why Not Fix The Patent System?
Re: Re: The inanity of the anti-IP bolsheviks
We DO need property rights for ideas.
What we don't need are monopolistic privileges such as patent that permit people to give their ideas to the public and yet still own them.
As with any property, once you sell it to someone, it's theirs not yours. Naturally, by communicating an idea to someone you do not consequently forget the idea you still have - you still own the idea you still have - you simply do no longer own the idea that you gave to someone else and they can do with it what they want.
However, the fact remains, that people should still not steal ideas from each other. Ideas are property. You may not burgle my workshop to steal my ideas.
Patents suspend people's natural liberty to implement and build upon ideas they legitimately arrive at, discover, or become informed of.
Patents are an unethical suspension of our natural right to liberty, to the free practice of our ingenuity and exchange of our intellectual labour and products thereof in a free market.
On the post: Rather Than Giving Banks A Patent Exemption, Why Not Fix The Patent System?
Re: Re: Patents are unethical and should be abolis
I make no statement concerning whether the inventions, designs, or mechanisms so patented are ethical.
http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=74
On the post: Who Wants To Watch Full Length Movies On Their Mobile Phones?
No Bandwidth consumption?
Just like listening to a phone's built in FM radio, it's just up to the user as to whether they actually want to watch broadcast/streamed TV.
On the post: eBay Bans Auctions Of Digital Goods
Try the Digital Art Auction
See the Digital Art Auction for more details:
http://www.digitalartauction.com/history/essay.htm
On the post: Who Wants To Watch Full Length Movies On Their Mobile Phones?
A better delivery
It is indeed a waste of bandwidth. It would probably be better simply to turn the whole thing into a wireless Internet and let people choose whether they send text, voice, data, or video.
There'd be no point in broadcasting movies because these can be distributed via landlines and uploaded to mobile phones via a domestic wifi service (which could be made hassle free). The only benefit of broadcasting to mobiles would be for live video feeds (news, sport, etc.).
On the post: Who Wants To Watch Full Length Movies On Their Mobile Phones?
How about a web tablet, e.g. Nokia N800
I managed to squeeze a movie into 128Mb. So given you can put two memory cards in it, e.g. 16MB, that would allow the loading of 128 movies (in case you needed such a large choice). You can buy small rechargable battery packs to extend viewing time from 2 hours to the 12 or so that you might need in a long series of plane flights.
Not everyone can afford business class flights.
On the post: Rather Than Giving Banks A Patent Exemption, Why Not Fix The Patent System?
Patents are unethical and should be abolished
On the post: Can A Luxury Theater Get People To The Theater?
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/news/story/0,,2266761,00.html
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