At 12:29 AM 7/29/2001, Seth wrote:
>I disagree strongly. This is a clear case of the DMCA being shown to be
>used as a tool to shut down, imprison and in general destroy the entire
>'fair usage' policy upon which copyright has been balanced.
And not evolve to become something between greedy corporate policy
and what the average end-user wants to spend for goods and services?
We're not in Stalin's Russia and they really don't want to imprison anyone.
If corporations WANTED to imprison, I would have been hanged as a dissident
long, long ago.
>If you really think you won't be affected, look at the DVD issue, at how
>much of your software is reverse engineered (use Samba? use ICQ? use a
>whole bunch of other tools?)
I buy and rent DVD's so far and use them per the terms of the game, software,
movie and/or music industry licenses contained therein. Samba & ICQ are
poor analogies due simply to the sheer numbers of users needing those
applications
for compatibility issues. In fact, I'll wager MS will never enter into more
than a verbal
pissing match over utilities such as this as their markets only can benefit
from their
continued use and development. There's no practical way to stem their use
unless
they owned the competition's OS platform. Highly unlikely. In the case of
ICQ, the
transport layer is already in the public domain and with literally millions
of users
keeping the communications protocol hushed would be no doubt impossible.
Further,
using Yahoo's IM as an example, the market demands a compatible tool and if
Mirabilis/AOL
would not have put out their own L/Unix tool, someone else would have. They
initially
attempted to sue several folks developing parallel tools for Amiga and
Linux, but later
gave out the protocol and decided bad press wasn't worth a feeble attempt at an
unstoppable movement.
>This is not a good thing, and yes, the average user IS affected by it. The
>sheer fact that Jim and you don't see it is why education is needed. This
>is NOT a bugaboo 'we don't know the whole story' issue. The facts are very
>public and undisputed. Adobe outright lied in press releases and when
>caught, pulled the press releases because they knew they had been caught in
>lies.
The fact of the matter is, whether it's carburetors, missiles or
intellectual devices,
the markets evolve eventually to get the end-user what he wants while allowing
some greed on the supply side of the chain. The end-user affect in this
case will
be infinitesimal at worst. Yes, it's bad. Yes Adobe sucks sphincter scabs.
Bummer
for Dmitry, he's a unwitting pawn in a crappy game. Evolution and progress
have costs.
> > There are kids starving in Mississippi folks....one more Mitkin-esque
>episode
> > by Uncle Sam don't put food in they bellies......
>
>James, you are really showing your ignorance here. The Mitnick case was
>about a guy breaking the law. Nobody argues that. Skylarov did NOT break
>the law in his country, and didn't even break it here... go read the facts,
>ok?
What he did was rise to the challenge Adobe laid on the table. Where did I
say anyone broke the law? Typical left-wing ruse: distort the facts a bit,
distort the opposing side's own words a bit, then attack. I'm not ignorant
Seth. YOU of all people know that firsthand. I CHOOSE not to get issues
like these stuck in my head for want of not losing sight of far more important
issues, such as malnourished children right here in the U.S.A. If you think
I bash liberals too much, ask me what I think of conservative money-pot
churches
going on "missions" to spend US dollars on starving kids in Africa and
Latin America.
It's downright shameful that we place a higher priority on issues that can
be out
of reach to our control for several to many years, such as DMCA, while
completely
and totally ignoring issues at home that ARE in OUR control, such as the
obscene
waste of money on the *new* Eugene Public Library Project. Kids right here in
Eugene need food and new, quality textbooks in their schools, yet WE continue
to vote in DeFazio and others (who does not support our children NOR rights
issues)
because they are the lesser of evils or we perceive their party to actually
care for
and work for us. Pishaw.
>A new list is already created, read the list earlier today.
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] to join.
>follow up to this there please.
Musta missed that, the archive seems to be about two days late.
I'll be happy to move this off to there.....
>and you are wrong James... it's not Orwellian paranoia. Before Skylarov,
>you might have been right, but I can picture at least a dozen MAJOR software
>authors who could be charged with DMCA violations the same way. Alan is one
>of them, by his own admission. Should some big corporation feel threatened
>by his authorship, they could charge that RedHat (his employer) sells his
>code (even though he gives it away also, as does ElcomSoft, they give it
>away crippled but working and sell a key for full decryption)... and thus he
>would be fair game exactly the same as Dmitry.
Doh! Hmmmm, I must have slept through all those economics courses.....
Not going to happen, due to evolving market conditions...but, if it does,
I'll buy you a bottle of Polish labeled Vodka produced in Belize. Oh wait,
I'll bet that violates some petty law somewhere.......tsk
- jk
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James S. Kaplan KG7FU
Eugene Oregon USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.rio.com/~kg7fu
ICQ # 1227639
Have YOU tried Linux today?
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