response 167 of 219:

Mar 16 04:49 UTC 2002

I think sometimes people go on fishing expeditions in U.S. courts, too.  I
remember hearing about some other foreign cases that were filed here, but
dismissed when the judge ruled he didn't have jurisdiction.

response 169 of 219:

Mar 16 23:12 UTC 2002

Really interesting article from the NYT on the future of music:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=76&u=/nyt/20020316/tc_nyt/w
her
e_music_will_be_coming_from
(sorry about the excessive URL; this is a no-registration version from Yahoo)

response 171 of 219:

Mar 17 16:49 UTC 2002

        Leaving aside the question of "wrong" and "right", or "legal" and
"illegal", the peer-to-peer file sharing issue does illustrate that the
traditional record-selling method really isn't viable anymore.  You can sell
fruit out of a stand in downtown Detroit, but if you leave the fruit there
overnight, someone's going to steal it.  It's still wrong, and illegal, but
it's the business model that's failed.

response 173 of 219:

Mar 17 21:32 UTC 2002

Re #170:  Still a faulty analogy, as you have a transfer of PHYSICAL
PROPERTY (just so you can't claim to have missed it again) from
someone else's possession to  yours.

Here's a better analogy.  Suppose that Friskies were available only
in huge, lifetime-supply quantities (like an album on CD, once you
own it you may never need another).  Further suppose that you got
the recipe for Friskies and made some of your own, to see if your
cat liked them.  It would not deprive anyone else of a thing, and
it would let you sample the wares before you buy instead of being
stuck with an expensive, non-returnable item that you can't use.
The only way you would be harming the maker of Friskies is if you
continued to make your own instead of going out and buying the
package once you knew your cat liked them.

And in case you missed it, "intellectual property" is a LEGAL
CONSTRUCT.  No such thing exists in nature.  Once you let someone
else learn your idea, your poem or your song, nothing prevents
them from repeating it to others for nothing; it becomes part of
the commons, available to everyone.  It requires a legal system
to give the inventor, poet or composer anything resembling "property
rights" in any work once revealed to the public.

As Jefferson (who helped author the copyright clase of the
Constitution, so he should be an authority) wrote in 1813:

    If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others 
    of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called 
    an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he 
    keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself 
    into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess 
    himself of it.  Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses 
    the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.  He who 
    receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without 
    lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light 
    without darkening me . . . . 

    Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.  Society
    may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an
    encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but
    this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience
    of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

Both Jefferson and Madison classed copyrights and patents as grants of
monopoly, only to be allowed for limited periods and only for the
purpose of creating an incentive to invent and make inventions public.

Patents and copyrights are supposed to exist only for the purpose of
increasing the public good.  To the extent that rigid enforcement of
copyright increases monopoly rents on music, movies or anything else,
they are contrary to the public interest.  Ditto any mode of enforcement
which keeps people from space-shifting or time-shifting; such should
be ruled contrary to the Copyright Clause and thus un-Constitutional
to enforce legally.  Bye-bye, DMCA.

response 175 of 219:

Mar 18 05:45 UTC 2002

*sigh*  well, congratulations.  The conversation between the two of 
you has convinced me to admit I'm a petty thief.  Not a thief to be of 
any real notice, but a thief.  Now-- let enough alone so I don't have 
a reason to forget this item.

response 177 of 219:

Mar 18 14:12 UTC 2002

Ok, Mike, what is the "absolutely critical difference between the two acts"
that makes my analogies "deeply flawed"? Isn't it at all possible that my
perspective and yours differ, without one of them being the objective,
unmalleable truth?
 
Again, just because I disagree with something doesn't mean I'm ignoring it,
or being obtuse, or whatever.

Russ, polite? Hah. You must be joking.

response 179 of 219:

Mar 19 03:11 UTC 2002

I think brighn likes bickering more than he likes firm conclusions.
Get to the root of the issue and resolve it, and he sulks and won't
talk to you anymore.  I'll have to remember this if I'm ever stuck
in a car with him. ;-)

response 181 of 219:

Mar 19 08:10 UTC 2002

  re #180:  You asked me a "simple" question to which you already know,
  or should already know, the answer.  Your question isn't an honest one --
  it's asked not out of a desire to hear my answer but because you want
  to prolong a pointless argument.  As I've already said, I don't see any
  point in obliging you.

response 183 of 219:

Mar 19 14:48 UTC 2002

Hell, no.

response 185 of 219:

Mar 19 23:41 UTC 2002

Oh, no, brighn.  I won your withdrawal from the discussion fair and
square, I'm not about to give you license to come back with more
postmodern pointlessness.  (I'm also not going to let you pretend
that the question you asked in #177 wasn't already answered in #173,
or that you're the only one who doesn't publicly acknowledge this.)
I know you like to feel like everyone's against you, but you shouldn't
be so insecure that you need us to re-affirm it several times a day.
We're not about to stop disagreeing with you that fast; you might
want to check back once a week.

And as long as I'm on a roll with analogies here, let me try to work
up one that Courtney Love might agree with:

Downloading music and listening to it without ever buying the media is
like bypassing a criminal cartel which has enslaved most of the artists
and paid them almost nothing for their work; you've taken the cartel's
ill-gotten gains and put them back in your own pocket.  If you spend
any of that money on tickets to a live concert, you've given the artist
more than most would ever get from buying music in a store.

Waitasec, that's not an analogy; it's pretty much what Love says herself.

response 187 of 219:

Mar 20 04:18 UTC 2002

#185> Russ, I didn't withdraw from the conversation, I withdrew from talking
to you about it so long as you were going to insult me. If you're going to
answer the question, politely and civilly, I'll gladly discuss it with you.
 
Since that's not likely to happen, I really don't have to worry about it, but
I'm ready in case you do.

response 189 of 219:

Mar 20 18:21 UTC 2002

I think Russ is just funny, period. ;}