I'm pretty sure that the Feds didn't get copies of emails from Eric Schmidt saying that they need to fix the audio/video synchronization on the Sopranos... or that they need to rate-limit DMCA takedowns so they don't interfere with growth... or that they should ensure that when they do takedowns that they don't take EVERY copy down.
It's a specious comparison, made possible only because almost nobody on HN bothered to read the indictment before they got mad.
Thanks for letting us know; you are correct- I didn't see the indictment. I read the article quickly and came here to see what people were saying. I saw a lot of debate about "% of piracy," so I commented.
Wow the executives were deep in blatant piracy. It's fair that the site was shut down. Amazing, not surprising though.
Thank you. It's nice that at least ONE person recognized that maybe their uninformed reaction to a short article might not be 100% correct, and was willing to go read the indictment and learn a bit more.
Arrests for large-scale commercial copyright infringement and money laundering schemes aren't new. This simply isn't an example freedom getting more and more restricted.
Have you looked at how all the popular open source media players handle bug reports? Pretty much all of them don't care whether the file in the report is pirated or not and a surprising amount of bugs seem to be found and fixed because they break pirated content...
Also, trying to take every pirated copy down has a huge false positive problem.
It's disgusting that you chose to reappropriate that quote in this context.
If you read the indictment, it's clear that this was the purposeful monetization of pirated material. It wasn't a few users who uploaded some things. It was a criminal site, operating in bad faith, committing a multitude of crimes.
You should seriously be ashamed of yourself for comparing those famous words to seven criminals (who have strong evidence against them) who are about to get a jury trial.
You wouldn't say that if, in years ahead, you find yourself looking back and realizing acts like this were the beginning of a tight grip on information and freedom from a world where you're afraid to do much of anything anywhere in the world for fear of your business being shut down, being arrested, and treated as guilty until proven innocent, you probably wouldn't feel this was a disgusting comparison.
I understand that it's easy to get swept away in fearful hyperbole, but it's not a bad thing to keep a cynical eye on the actions of a government, and not a bad thing to look to history at its worst for warning of a future we'd like to avoid. It's not a 1:1 comparison he's done, but it's a valid concern.
Nothing about this case makes me fear your future.
I read the indictment. The cause for fear simply isn't there.
It's useless to pretend you're keeping an eye on the government when all you're really doing is getting a tiny shred of information and then getting hysterical because of it.
Please don't pat yourselves on the back simply because you're able to get hysterical with your willfully ignorant, less-than-half-baked ideas about what happened. You aren't doing something noble, you're doing the opposite. You're making it hard to fight REAL fights because you're using energy on bullshit.
I don't feel anyone is getting hysterical, and I feel his quote wasn't invoked for the benefit of the MegaUpload execs but rather at the current climate in general. Part of paying attention is to digest every 'shred' you do get.
Also, this is an online forum, I doubt anyone feels their conversations here are noble acts or something to pat oneself on the back over, so painting broad ugly pictures of people you know very little about is just rude and not helpful to the discussion.
I think you don't realize that my comment was a response to noonespecial: First they come for the sites that are 90/10 pirate to legit. ... When will it be too much? When does it become unreasonable?
So, I think the quotation was very fitting for the occasion, because it means exactly that. They may start taking people in custody because of a seemingly legit reason (in this case, copyright infringement, in the case of Nazi Germany, the Dolchstoßlegende). But power corrupts, and if they start passing laws to control more and more and more the Internet, who will be the next? It can be Reddit, an editor of Wikipedia, or even You.
But of course, if you wish to honor your nickname, that's not my problem :) have a nice day.
> I think you don't realize that my comment was a response to noonespecial: First they come for the sites that are 90/10 pirate to legit. ... When will it be too much? When does it become unreasonable?
If you'd read the indictment you'd know that the problem wasn't the percentages. We aren't standing on a slippery slope. Well, we are... but this case is not part of it at all. This case is a distraction from that problem.
This is, at it's heart, a completely traditional bust of a large-scale for-profit copyright infringement regime. Nothing particularly new about it at all, except that instead of finding a warehouse filled with tapes or discs, it's all on spinning metal disks.
KIM DOTCOM is a convicted criminal. (securities fraud, embezzling, and some other crap)
He's about to be tried again, for another crime. But he's already a criminal.
The person I responded to was comparing mass genocide to the orderly trial of a criminal who is suspected of committing more crimes. That disgusts me. It casually trivializes massive horrors.
For your information, half of my father's family died in Auschwitz. Luckily, my grandparents came here before war started and they saved their lives. So that's why I have very present what that quote means. But I also live in Argentina, where 36 years ago a Dictatorial Government killed people passing laws, just to arrest and disappear the ones who opposed to them. And what was the reaction of the rest of out society? Just say to their children: "Don't get involved in that." "Just leave well enough alone."
So no, I don't compare piracy with holocausts. That would be mad. But I have present that passing laws that allow the government to monitor everything you do online, may gradually and eventually lead to a dark future. And I dont want to get there seeing this moment as where it all started, and having done nothing about it.
Neither German nor US government have the right do define or power to define language beyond its use in government affairs. In the English language shared by millions of people, Kim is in fact a convicted criminal.
It seems unproductive to society to treat "criminality" as a write-once binary switch, which once flipped can never be erased. There are far too many confounding factors. Someone is benefiting from the desire to brand human beings for life for something in their past, as well as the immediate assumption that accused is as good as guilty, but it isn't society.
In fact, I know someone who used to like Megaupload to an extent, but even before a trial, thanks to this cultural tendency and inflammatory news coverage, said, "It turns out they were guilty of racketeering and money laundering, so they were some pretty bad guys." Despite being a reasonably well-informed person, he too fell victim to the urge to equate accusation with guilt.
At this point it doesn't matter what Kim Dotcom did a decade ago in Germany, or whether Megaupload is guilty of all the things they're accused of and more. The damage to the public's perception of legitimate file sharing has been done, and what I think was the most important thing to come out of Mega, the MegaBox music service, is most likely dead.
Using the term "criminal" to describe somebody has already paid their debt to society for the crimes they were convicted of last decade is, to put it lightly, not polite.
There were indeed some awful things that happened back then, but if we act as though nothing else can possibly compare to them then we won't have learnt anything from them. It could be that things continue to get worse, and eventually are as bad, but by the time we get there it's too late - which seems like exactly what Niemoller's quote is trying to point out.
I'm not an investor, but I've had a parallel experience having been involved with roughly 150 tech contracts in my career.
A strong predictor for mediocrity is when communication is troubled. If we're unable to have two-way conversations with all project stakeholders, it's almost a guarantee that we'll end up delivering something that has less value than it could, at a higher cost than was possible, and that nobody is thrilled with.
I assume that once you pitch designs to one of your clients, it's fine with you if they photograph it, copy it, and never pay you a dime?
People love design, and do great design without making a single dime on it. The rich designers are rich because professional networking, big companies and IP laws make them big. Not because they were the best of the crop.
Boo Freaking Hoo. Real designers do it for love. Only phonies want to get paid.
Part of the reason you are paid so much as a designer who works "for hire" either employed or as a freelancer is that your client wants something unique.
Let's assume that there is no copyright.
You get a contract from a client to design them a logo , website and smartphone app to promote their business.
However your client knows that if a competitor wishes to copy their entire website including logo and app etc they can do so with impunity so all that they will get from whatever sum they invest in your work is a slight first mover advantage and probably the better the work you do the more likely someone else is to copy it.
How much do you think they are willing to pay you for your work now?
Ever walked into a department store like Macy's? It's all ripoff from designers. There is no copyright on clothe design yet that hasn't killed the designer clothing market.
Counterfeit goods to my knowledge fall under trademark laws.
I think this is why people have such high regard for labels in fashion.
Fashion is also a very visible way to display wealth whilst software is not, "aaah but was your copy of Office 2010 compiled by Steve Ballmer himself".. just doesn't happen.
If we got rid of software copyright what would actually happen would be that all commercial software would be moved into a SaaS model and companies would keep their servers and code under lock and key so that nobody could get physical access to it. This would probably give you less freedom rather than more.
Perhaps some movies would also be screened only at cinemas so that nobody ended up with a DVD that they could copy.
Its worth pointing out that fashion is a unique industry when it comes to copying; everyone copies everyone else.
There was a great article on this on the net, written by someone in the industry who fleshed it out with anecdotes which included a high level designer going into a budget store and looking at the design and products there, to copy.
If all my software is only available via a cloud service then it would restrict my freedom compared to having a local copy to the extent that I have no control over any changes to the software.
If they release an update that I don't like for example then it will not be possible for me to retain the older version.
If they decide to discontinue the software or go bust etc then I will lose access to it, this would not happen if I had my own copy.
If I have all my data saved on their servers then I am at their whim as I don't have the files myself so that makes it harder to move to another piece of software should they change their ToS in a way I do not agree with.
If I have confidential data stored with them and their servers are broken into then this causes issues that could be avoided by holding it on my own computer firewalled away from the internet.
And crucially I will not be able to access it without a working internet connection.
This may be the way of the future whether I like it or not but I wouldn't hail it completely as a good thing in terms of freedom or digital rights etc.
I actually find it somewhat ironic that a lot of the best FOSS work (Linux , Apache , Python etc) that was intended to create a software freedom utopia is actually being used primarily to build walled gardens where you have no control over the software.
All your software don't have to be available via the cloud. The data could be or vice versa. There will still be plenty of free alternatives just as there are today.
You very well know there are plenty of ways around this and it is being practiced today.
Spotify is one example.
You are creating pseudo problems that would not really exist.
If you have software without the cloud then you return to the same copyright problem repeated ad nauseum in this thread.
Ok, perhaps you could have applications in the cloud with locally stored data but I can't see this as being popular for 2 reasons.
1) Vendors would like the lock-in power that storing your data gives.
2) If I have a lot of data it may not be practical to upload it every time I use the cloud software on a slow uplink.
There are not really "plenty of free alternatives" to many types of software, at least alternatives that are as good as commercial offerings. Examples would include image editors and games.
Using Spotify as an example, all of the music is streamed from the internet so if they remove a track from their library then I lose my ability to stream it.
Also to sign up for Spotify now you need a facebook account, I don't have one or want one. Luckily I got my account before this was a requirement but if they decide to apply this policy retroactively then I'm shit out of luck.
Assuming there is another service that fits my needs, doesn't have the same problem, has a price I like and will let me move all my data over from the old service..
I just don't understand why you think losing all control over your software would be preferable to copyright?
Of course people create cover versions of songs or re-use a good riff, there is always an element of copying ideas but I think this is different to completely ripping something off 100% since you must still create the rest of the body of work around the original idea.
Of course you could argue how much imitation should be allowed before it is considered a copyright or patent violation.
I think the legal system deals with that.
If you believe that you are losing money due to somebody else stealing your intellectual property then you can sue.
I would not equate copying necessarily with stealing but each copy that is made of your software/music whatever will dilute it's value to an extent unless there is some compensation. Commercial software hopes you will compensate by paying money, OSS hopes you will compensate by providing code or some other service.
So it's not really any different, besides of course that transcribing someone's licks and incorporating it into your own style isn't going to get exposed.
What do you mean "isn't going to get exposed" , people complain all the time that certain songs re-use riffs from older songs.
Your argument seems to boil down to what the minimum unit of valid IP is. This is a complex issue and is often fought in courts.
Taking a riff from someone elses song and rebuilding a new song around it requires a lot more creativity time and money than simply copying and redistributing the song.
Copyright isn't so much for protecting an "idea" as such (that's what patents are for).
It is to stop somebody reproducing a complete piece of work without prior agreement.
Let's say I build a new type of software and publish it, then somebody else thinks that is a good idea and builds their own version that is similar to mine (without re-using my source code). I would view that as flattery and competition. However I have a strong first mover advantage and whilst they may have learned from some of my mistakes they still have to actually do the work of creating their software which puts us economically on a relatively even footing.
Suppose instead they simply redistribute my software with their logo on it for half the price then they have a strong economical advantage because they didn't have to invest the initial development costs that I did.
So to clarify: if you do work with the intent of selling it to one buyer it should be protected, but if you do work with the intent of selling it to two or more buyers it should not?
No. Rather, the point is that you are paid for your work rather than a copy of the result of your work. This is just like a software developer working for a salary rather than somebody eking out an existence in an app store.
But who will pay me for my work if it is not some bespoke contract thing?
Will you ask for donations?
What happens if you announce you will work on something and take a bunch of donations in the first couple of months (enough to live off).
What happens if the donations then dry up and you run out of money so you can't continue to work on the program full time but it is not finished? Do you have to go into debt to repay the people who donated or do they have to take a gamble that your program will get finished and be good enough?
Or do you only start work when you have sufficient donations to finish development? What happens if you misjudge this?
I don't know how it translates to non-programming stuff, but the vast majority of developers do work for in-house stuff (I've seen this cited somewhere, but can't remember exactly where). Only a minority try to actually sell programs (admittedly including some big companies like Adobe and Microsoft, but that's a different story). Moreover, as somebody using exclusively open-source tools--and being more productive than before--I can testify that the world would not be too bad without anybody selling proprietary programs.
My point isn't that this model can carry over unchanged to a different field; rather, all I maintain is that it is possible for a creative endeavor to be pushed largely by creators working for a salary rather than a royalty. I do not know enough about fields outside of programming to figure out exactly how it would work, but I see no reason it could not exist.
Paying someone a salary inhouse will work for stuff like "Bespoke BigCorp Customer Database" but I don't think it would work so well for general use applications intended to be sold to the population and I don't think we want those type of apps to die.
Open source dev tools are great because they are built by developers who understand what developers want and crucially they were built because they were needed i.e there was nothing commercial that did the job in the way they wanted.
How many developers know enough about developing image , video or audio editing software to do it well on their own? Most OSS solutions in this area are basically poor clones of commercial software. Also where will the money come from to fund them doing this full time?
I know as one example Ardour is developed full time and is quite a cool piece of OSS for sound editing but it's developed by one guy who can barely pay his bills from the donations, he probably makes what he would at burger king.
You would think that computer programmers would be able to design some awesome OSS games right? After all about 50% of my CS class joined the course because they wanted to make games and it's probably one of the most popular topics on any programming forum.
Well I can't really think of a single OSS game that has ever really impressed me and certainly none have become popular in the same way Half life or Skyrim has (by OSS game I mean a game that was developed under an OSS model, not something where the code was released by the developer 10 years later or something that is essentially an open source mod for a commercially developed game).
And I have yet to be provided with any reasonable business model that would still enable the creation of something like the Great Pyramids of Giza, or the Great Wall of China. I just don't think this idea of abolishing slavery has legs.
Well I'm no historian but I think it's possible that in the time of the ancient Egyptians the idea to abolish slavery would not be feasible whilst retaining their society. If they didn't have slaves to do the heavy lifting then it's likely that another civilization which did use slavery would simply wipe them out due to better efficiency.
Slavery was abolished partly because there was enough technology to make it less necessary.
If we could automate human creativity then I suppose copyright would no longer be necessary.
There was a time, not that long ago, when there was no such thing as recorded music or films. People just performed the music live. Then one day, the phonograph was invented, and thomas edison paid musicians to perform in front of a phonograph recording machine. The musicians were happy, because they got paid for a performance. Thomas Edison was happy, because he got to make a gajillian zillion dollars off of that artists performance using his "automated creativity machine". Since then the major advance has been that record companies have worked out how to not bother paying the musicians for that original recorded performance.
Not really a helpful answer, doesn't address any of my points.
I think "adapt or die" has the risk of killing a lot of good business models that have so far provided us with some great content/software etc.
I have yet to be provided with a good business model for content in a post copyright world that can be made to work for every type of content that we currently enjoy.
Come on ! That's exactly what happens everyday. When you pitch some creative work, you know you're throwing it to the winds and hope the pitched guy will see more benefit in hiring you than in copying it. You cannot protect art in general.
I've worked for very decent folks (google in Dublin to name one) and very undecent ones. When you are not a mainstream artist, when you are part of the profesional artists crowd (people who live from it but don't make millions) which is the overwhelming majority of artists, you don't give a damn about all this bullshit on piracy. But you do pay attention on the fact that anything that further strenghtens big corporations will in turn make your situation more fragile.
This is typical for how Postgres adds features and functionalities. They tend to add a new core feature in one release, then add adjacent functionality and performance improvements in later releases.
I'm not on their core developer mailing lists, but I presume this is because of a prioritization of stability over most everything else.
It's also because Postgres work to internal release deadlines.
They'll take a stable half-feature over a buggy full-feature at any given deadline. What matters is that over time they patiently and carefully expand those half features.
The most visible example is the slowly increasing coverage of replication. This JSON feature is another example -- I expect it will grow in future into a fuller feature set.
I apologize if my question was unclear; that's almost certainly because of a lack of expertise on my side.
On one end of the spectrum, I envision the same salt used for every user, allowing for the easy and effective creation of rainbow tables. On the other end, I envision unique salts with many bits of entropy for each user, making rainbow tables technologically infeasible.
Read the indictment. It contains evidence of this (amongst other issues).