Oh yes, the GPL movement, including Linux, OpenOffice, and related stuff shows us that it's possible to create quality works without encumbering it with Copyright
This statement shows, beyond a doubt, that your understanding of copyright is not quite as complete as you seem to believe. All GPL software is encumbered by copyright. The 'L' in GPL stands for License, of the copyright variety. Take the Linux kernel for example: the compilation copyright owner is Linus Torvalds of the Linux Foundation. Under the GPL, I am licensed to use, modify, and/or distribute it, subject to one condition on distribution ? if I wish to distribute it, I must distribute the whole thing, not just the executable code, under the same license.
The family computers run Linux. They each have a copy of Microsoft Windows, unused, but only because of Microsoft's treatment of PC makers, which makes it essentially impossible to get a PC without Microsoft stuff.
At work, we used Microsoft, because we wrote software for that environment. (My screensaver was Marquee, reading "A computer without Microsoft is like chocolate cake without mustard".) We used Openoffice.org, even though we had Microsoft Office (or parts thereof) on each PC. I eventually learned which features of OO.o were too advanced for MS Word to handle, in order to be able to exchange documents with MSWord users.
We also used Eclipse, licensed like GPL but with some different terms, due to its different function.
Years ago, when I was involved with international standards-setting organizations (SSO), one of the first things we were told was that an international SSO derived such legitimacy as it had by the consensus process, rather than a 'majority rules' scheme. Consensus was (rather loosely) defined as the absence of significant opposition. This is the process that the ITU meeting was operating under ? until the chair surprised everyone by declaring a straw poll to be a 'majority rules' decision, despite significant opposition from multiple member countries.
If what we were told was true for all international SSOs (I found it affirmed in e. g. the ISO directives) and if it still holds, then ITU may have declared itself to be illegitimate by its own rules.
Of course, ISO de-legitimized itself by the way it allowed Microsoft to buy the IS26900 (is that the right number?) adoption some years ago, by the chair refusing to recognize significant opposition — and IS26900 has still not been implemented by anyone, including its buyer.
Obviously, this is a plot to destroy the German press by denying them the revenue derived from search-engine references. Qui bono? The beneficiaries will be the German-language press in other countries, like Austria and Switzerland. To a lesser extent, other beneficiaries will be press (in other countries) published in languages the German people have learned to read.
Article VI...
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
So tell us how "the supreme law of the land" does not apply to mere mortal citizens.
Blocking was basically erasing the DNS record and when you requested the IP address for piratesite.com, the DNS servers would just sit on it and not respond. Of course, there's no way to educate users with a message in this case, and many of them will think their ISP is having network issues.
Oooooo. That's a severe breakage of the DNS. I knew SOPA/PIPA/COICA were evil, but I didn't realize it was that bad.
In the best case, this would mean that each resolver and nameserver would need to be patched (but only in the USA: the rest of the world could still use the software that works properly). The NS data, wherever it is (authoritative or cached), would need a new field to distinguish between 'blocked' and 'really does not exist'; and each nameserver or resolver would need to look at that information to know whether to return the current 'name error' or to just ignore the query.
Even worse would be patched software that never returned the 'name error' state: then, every query would have to request recursion, since intermediate nameservers (neither root nor authoritative) couldn't let its requestor know that it needed to go up a notch.
And there I was, naively thinking that it was just DNSSEC that would be screwed up by SOPA/PIPA's DNS blocking. Or maybe it's just that this AC doesn't understand DNS.
"The majestic equality of laws forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
- Jacques Anatole I. France (Jacques Anatole Thibault)
MPAA/RIAA is not the source of the problem. They are just *one* of the ones currently playing the role of legislative manipulator. The real source of the problem needs to be traced to why we have this role and why it is such a prosperous one.
Isn't it obvious: The Big Government has been allowed to arrogate to itself the power to determine who prospers and who fails. So long as Big Government is allowed to go beyond enforcing honesty in dealings, Big AnythingElse will find it easier to corrupt the governors than to make themselves useful.
The US reached that stage long ago. The only possibility that I can see is Jefferson's observation, quoted above — take the power away from Big Government. I don't know how to do that, except by Jefferson's prescription, but Big Government also protects itself by whatever force it thinks it needs and can get away with.
The bill had absolutely zero to do with sites like Facebook and Wikipedia, yet there were all these dumb lemmings talking about how the bills would end the internet.
Of course, if you actually read bills instead of the talking (shilling?) points your employers give youi, you would know what the bills would really do, and why they're such a danger.
First, it allows for private cause of action: with these as law, anyone has the power of government to shut down whatever sites they don't like. It will stay shut down until the courts can work through their backlog and get around to giving the victim his day in court. That is, if the victim hasn't gone bankrupt by then.
Second, the definition of 'foreign' obviously includes actual non-domestic sites, but it also includes any domestic site, like google.com, which has a non-domestic counterpart, like google.nl. Facebook and Wwikipedia, and most everything else, is terminally vulnerable to any bad actor (like the MAFIAA) that comes along.
Except megaupload does in fact prevent duplicates on the server by giving multiple links to a single file on the server.
Each image on the disk represents all of the uploads. Each upload represents a separate, possibly infringing, possibly non-infringing, copy of the work. Each upload has distinct ownership and licensing characteristics: if Fred uploads a licensed copy, and George uploads an infringing copy, they both get linked to the same space on disk. This notion of linking should come as no surprise to anyone who understands the concept of linking used in Unix (including OSX), Linux, and Microsoft Windows NTFS.
The critical idea is that the uploads are independent, each from the others ? and it's not the physical file that's infringing, it's the upload (copying) and its associated virtual file.
Upon receiving the DMCA notice, they kill the link, but they do not remove the file from the server if the indictment is to be believed.
Each upload is given a distinct URL, and represents a different file, a different copy of the work, and a different set of ownership and licensing facts. The idea that the same disk image represents multiple copies is just an implementation detail, using linking to conserve space.
When the copyright holder says "this URL links to an infringing copy of the work", no statement is made about the other virtual copies generated from the same disk image. MU kills the virtual copy that's accused of infringement, and leaves alone the virtual copies that are innocent (so far as either the copyright holder or MU knows) of infringement.
The job for MU is to get this simple truth across to the trier of fact. The job for UMG and their DoJ minions is to obscure the simplicity, and confuse the trier of fact. The job of the UMG/MAFIAA shills here will be the same, with TD readers taking the place of the fact-trier.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Bill Price.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 12th, 2013 @ 8:51am
This statement shows, beyond a doubt, that your understanding of copyright is not quite as complete as you seem to believe.
All GPL software is encumbered by copyright. The 'L' in GPL stands for License, of the copyright variety. Take the Linux kernel for example: the compilation copyright owner is Linus Torvalds of the Linux Foundation. Under the GPL, I am licensed to use, modify, and/or distribute it, subject to one condition on distribution ? if I wish to distribute it, I must distribute the whole thing, not just the executable code, under the same license.
The family computers run Linux. They each have a copy of Microsoft Windows, unused, but only because of Microsoft's treatment of PC makers, which makes it essentially impossible to get a PC without Microsoft stuff.
At work, we used Microsoft, because we wrote software for that environment. (My screensaver was Marquee, reading "A computer without Microsoft is like chocolate cake without mustard".) We used Openoffice.org, even though we had Microsoft Office (or parts thereof) on each PC. I eventually learned which features of OO.o were too advanced for MS Word to handle, in order to be able to exchange documents with MSWord users.
We also used Eclipse, licensed like GPL but with some different terms, due to its different function.
Re: Re: Authority?
Years ago, when I was involved with international standards-setting organizations (SSO), one of the first things we were told was that an international SSO derived such legitimacy as it had by the consensus process, rather than a 'majority rules' scheme. Consensus was (rather loosely) defined as the absence of significant opposition. This is the process that the ITU meeting was operating under ? until the chair surprised everyone by declaring a straw poll to be a 'majority rules' decision, despite significant opposition from multiple member countries.
If what we were told was true for all international SSOs (I found it affirmed in e. g. the ISO directives) and if it still holds, then ITU may have declared itself to be illegitimate by its own rules.
Of course, ISO de-legitimized itself by the way it allowed Microsoft to buy the IS26900 (is that the right number?) adoption some years ago, by the chair refusing to recognize significant opposition — and IS26900 has still not been implemented by anyone, including its buyer.
Follow the Money, Honey
Obviously, this is a plot to destroy the German press by denying them the revenue derived from search-engine references. Qui bono? The beneficiaries will be the German-language press in other countries, like Austria and Switzerland. To a lesser extent, other beneficiaries will be press (in other countries) published in languages the German people have learned to read.
Re: Citizens can violate treaties
US Constitution:
So tell us how "the supreme law of the land" does not apply to mere mortal citizens.
Re: Re: Re: While they're at it...
A 451 error, per "A New HTTP Status Code for Legally-restricted Resources" would be more appropriate, ignoring Microsoft's non-standard usage.
Re: Re:
Oooooo. That's a severe breakage of the DNS. I knew SOPA/PIPA/COICA were evil, but I didn't realize it was that bad.
In the best case, this would mean that each resolver and nameserver would need to be patched (but only in the USA: the rest of the world could still use the software that works properly). The NS data, wherever it is (authoritative or cached), would need a new field to distinguish between 'blocked' and 'really does not exist'; and each nameserver or resolver would need to look at that information to know whether to return the current 'name error' or to just ignore the query.
Even worse would be patched software that never returned the 'name error' state: then, every query would have to request recursion, since intermediate nameservers (neither root nor authoritative) couldn't let its requestor know that it needed to go up a notch.
And there I was, naively thinking that it was just DNSSEC that would be screwed up by SOPA/PIPA's DNS blocking. Or maybe it's just that this AC doesn't understand DNS.
Re: Re: Re: We need to ABOLISH COPYRIGHT
"The majestic equality of laws forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
- Jacques Anatole I. France (Jacques Anatole Thibault)
Re: Re: But how
Isn't it obvious: The Big Government has been allowed to arrogate to itself the power to determine who prospers and who fails. So long as Big Government is allowed to go beyond enforcing honesty in dealings, Big AnythingElse will find it easier to corrupt the governors than to make themselves useful.
The US reached that stage long ago. The only possibility that I can see is Jefferson's observation, quoted above — take the power away from Big Government. I don't know how to do that, except by Jefferson's prescription, but Big Government also protects itself by whatever force it thinks it needs and can get away with.
Re: Re: Cheap Shot
Of course, if you actually read bills instead of the talking (shilling?) points your employers give youi, you would know what the bills would really do, and why they're such a danger.
First, it allows for private cause of action: with these as law, anyone has the power of government to shut down whatever sites they don't like. It will stay shut down until the courts can work through their backlog and get around to giving the victim his day in court. That is, if the victim hasn't gone bankrupt by then.
Second, the definition of 'foreign' obviously includes actual non-domestic sites, but it also includes any domestic site, like google.com, which has a non-domestic counterpart, like google.nl. Facebook and Wwikipedia, and most everything else, is terminally vulnerable to any bad actor (like the MAFIAA) that comes along.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Insanity Wolf
From reading the indictment ?
Each image on the disk represents all of the uploads. Each upload represents a separate, possibly infringing, possibly non-infringing, copy of the work. Each upload has distinct ownership and licensing characteristics: if Fred uploads a licensed copy, and George uploads an infringing copy, they both get linked to the same space on disk. This notion of linking should come as no surprise to anyone who understands the concept of linking used in Unix (including OSX), Linux, and Microsoft Windows NTFS.
The critical idea is that the uploads are independent, each from the others ? and it's not the physical file that's infringing, it's the upload (copying) and its associated virtual file.
Each upload is given a distinct URL, and represents a different file, a different copy of the work, and a different set of ownership and licensing facts. The idea that the same disk image represents multiple copies is just an implementation detail, using linking to conserve space.
When the copyright holder says "this URL links to an infringing copy of the work", no statement is made about the other virtual copies generated from the same disk image. MU kills the virtual copy that's accused of infringement, and leaves alone the virtual copies that are innocent (so far as either the copyright holder or MU knows) of infringement.
The job for MU is to get this simple truth across to the trier of fact. The job for UMG and their DoJ minions is to obscure the simplicity, and confuse the trier of fact. The job of the UMG/MAFIAA shills here will be the same, with TD readers taking the place of the fact-trier.