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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => General Internet News => Topic started by: Argo on June 14, 2002, 02:30:39 AM
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Something from our AO forums that maybe of interest in light of the current debate about and petition against Amiga, Inc.'s copy protection and licensing of Amiga OS 4.0.
"A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers.
But the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) would also wreak havoc on programmers and software companies -- both those distributing code for free and those selling it.
No more than two years and seven months after the bill becomes law, the only code programmers and software firms will be able to distribute must have embedded copy-protection schemes approved by the federal government."
The full article is here (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html).
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Well, isn't that a lovely bunch of crap!!
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Well, isn't that a lovely bunch of crap!!
By what I gather this means that every coder (be him PD, Commercial, Free or whatever) will have to purchase the linsencing thing to code legally if so it is a loada DRE :-x :-x :-x
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Yeah, I've been following this lapdog's antics on The Register. He's a fully bought-out idiot, blindly following the dictates of a lot of other idiots who own the big media companies. All it would do in practice is destroy the US electronics and software industries.
Anyone read up about Prohibition recently?
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:-( It seems to me that if a programer is not permitted to share software without embedding goverment mandated code, it would constitute a violation of the people's right to free speech, as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
:evil: Hopefully this bill will be shot down in flames.
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Anyone read up on Prohibition recently?
;-) That's when America had its first drive-by shootings; dealers fighting over territory. Today, speak-easies are a thing of the past, and most of our young people haven't even heard of them.
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Holy ####!!! :-x :-x :-x
That is about the lamest thing that I have ever seen. Does this mean that you guys "over there" will have to have a licence argeement for the SW in your watches?
What kind of idiot would come upd with an idea like this? :roll:
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Holy ####!!! :-x :-x :-x
That is about the lamest thing that I have ever seen. Does this mean that you guys "over there" will have to have a licence argeement for the SW in your watches?
What kind of idiot would come upd with an idea like this? :roll:
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DeCSS judge: Code isn't free speech (http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2000/08/18/decss_trial/)
Anyone know if this has been over turned?
An earlier article in 99'
Is code free speech? (http://www.arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/2q99/freespeech-1.html)
Nov 01'
Court upholds ban on DVD-cracking code (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2100043,00.html)
hmm, looks like it might depend on individual program as to weither they are expressive in making a point or art.
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These judges and politicians are retardlicans who have no business even THINKING about technical matters. The ones who aren't morons, are bought out hoes. Years ago I followed the Microsoft hearings via C-SPan, and the lies spewn from the industry (Ballmer, Micahel Dell, Alsop, etc) made me puke. Then you had Orin Hatch, John Ashcroft, Strom Thurmond, Herb Kohl, Mike DeWine and others kissing Gates' butt and singing the praises of Windows (and monopolies). This if nothing else, PROVES that scum rises and that Peter's Principle is correct.
This Hollings bill is just another phase of felch started by that jerk Jack "VCRs will destroy Hollywood" Valenti.
First it was the that damn DMCA. Now this. Fritz Hollings, you go to hell, you go to hell and you fry!
Normally I expect this from Republicans, not a lone Democrat.
We need to contact our senators and our house reps and tell them to cut this crap out. It's tantamount to mind control. No old white guy is going to tell me what to write, nor what to run. These old idiots don't even understand how a transistor works! They have no business tackling this issue.
But until campaign finance reform is done correctly (a total ban on non-personal giving) then our legislators will continue to be bought and sold.
Anyway, hopefully Patrick Leahy (Vermont) will torpedo this crap Hollings bill.
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I know this has been pointed out many time in other discussions, but here it is: This won't stop piracy.
IIRC This bill (which I haven't read by the way, just the news about it) would make it illegal to distribute any code that doesn't have any copy protection, or doesn't support the protection of media (which, both?)
Hackers will of course break whatever protection is approved, and then distribute those cracked versions.
Someone (a pro bill person) will say:
"But that'll be illegal and they'll be stopped"
to which another (sane) person will point out:
"yes, but it's illegal to distribute cracked code now, so what's the difference?"
I suppose the person this'll really bite is Mr(s). Average, who won't be able to backup his/her media without first downloading illegal software.
Hmm, I can probably this of a 1000 other reasons too (well, I make no promises :-D ), but then I guess a lot of people have probably come up with 1000s already.
Here's looking forward to the future, not!
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Boing: what is Peter's principel? :-o :-?
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Hopefullty this will not become law.(either this Usa thing or some European variant )
This whole copyright craziness comes imho from the fact that the (music/film/software) industry thinks it loses billions of income due to piracy, ok they will lose some money due to it but i know that I would never buy all the cd/movies/software that i have downloaded. i have some stuff i tried once and never touched since (photoshop, ms office amongst others ) but the industry would say that it has lost income due to that , yeah right !
ofcourse the industry has a right to try and make a living but laws like this are way over the top, trying to get consumers to pay as much and as often as possible and making it a law so you wont even have any alternative or the possibility to make/code one yourself.
I Wonder how clueless this Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) really is and what kind of home entertainment system he has at home (maybe a big sponsored one?)
Another large problem is that a lot of people really have no clue about laws like this (yea, it will stop evil hackers so it must be good) but what they dont realize/know is that it will hurt them too by making it impossible to share a piece of music between players ( no you can only play it at home, if you want to play it in your car too you'll have to pay again)
And there always is a way to work around it . how long will it be until there are tools that circumvent it ( by adding a false working watermark for example)
Yes it will be illegal, but people in general dont seem to care about that already (like downloading and sharing copyrighted mp3's is illegal).
Making and eventually (trying to ) enforcing laws like this is a waste of time,effort and money that could be better spent elswhere.
if this thing does become law then you better hang on to your old stuff and hope it never breaks because it will be the only thing that allows you to use it the way you want to.
Even DVD players (the stand-alone kind) are marketed here with a big sign saying : Regio code free.
This is in part why i dont trust politicians too much, they too easily make decisions in things that they dont have an understanding of ( and think this decision will make them get more votes), or are they influenced by companies with a lot of money?
Is America still the land of the free?
( i know, Europe is working hard on stuff like this too :-( :-x )
(permission to reproduce this post in entirety or in part is hereby granted to everyone in whatever form desired)
btw i dont really see the connection between amiga inc's copy protection/licences and this , this bill is far worse.
If the license is too restricting i wont buy it (like Windows Xp license and product activation, i'll use a pirated version because its easier to reinstall, if it wont let me update , then fine, i wont update), I like linux because it is free to copy, i can learn from it by copying other peoples code and use it and I will pay for programs(products) that i think are good. (like probably Aos4 / AmigaOne) that way supporting the company producing it.
(sorry about the long post , just wanted to get my opinion out while i still can)
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"My vision is very negative there, so I don't know, if you really wanna hear it. My general feeling is, that computers are doing more harm than good... And now look what happened. Pretty soon we'll have numbers tattoed on our forehead... I see computers bringing closer and closer the day of the Big Brother concept, where government can control every aspect of your life, because you're on the computer."
Jay Miner
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It's FUD and that's it. I'm the devils advocate most of the time, nut this is just plain FUD.
Blitter
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For the guy who asked what Peter's Principle was (do a web search) it's a phenomenon where people get promoted to their maximum level of incompetence.
If a guy is good at something, supposedly he's more likely to get promoted (after office politics). And if he's good in his new position, he'll be promoted on and on. Till he's put in a position that he does not excel in. And because he's not good at it, he never get promoted out of there. So he continues in that role, being inadequate and generally making everything worse, which in turn affects other things that rely on his job.
It's a generalized phenomenon that appplies to business, government, media, etc.
BTW if anybody doesn't know, the FLAT model for these forums is the one that seems to work best. Otherwise you might "miss" postings.
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@Weasel:
...i know that I would never buy all the cd/movies/software that i have downloaded. i have some stuff i tried once and never touched since (photoshop, ms office amongst others)...
:-? It occurs to me that all too many people have done just as you have, and that this sort of casual reproduction of others' intellectual property, just because the hardware allows you to, is why congress is trying to legislate physics so that newer hardware won't let you do it anymore. They can't succeed, of course, but they'll keep trying. And we'll lose more and more freedoms along the way.
:evil: It could be argued that casual pirates have no one to blame for this bill but themselves. The rest of us, on the other hand, can blame it all on you.
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Me have a small memory in the back of my mind, of Sony trying to stop all those copy protected CD's poping up everywhere. Something about that everything with the "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" label on it has to playable on all players. Not just the audio ones...
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People do it because it is free (casual reproduction of others' intellectual property). I like free stuff , dont you?
So if I have made an mp3 of a cd I bought and am telling people 'listen to this , i like this' then i am an evil industry/artist damaging pirate ? Well , I actually dont care about that.Maybe others will like it and maybe too buy the actual cd.
I have a friend that used to download complete albums, burn them to cd-audio and sell them (including the paper bits) but lately he finds it is too much trouble for too little money , because people will now just download it themselves .( a pirate going out of bussines because of piracy :-))
I would rater have the industry devellop a superior media carier (dvd-audio or better, surround sound etc.) and let people download the inferior quality mp3 for free (112/128 kbit stereo)
the goverment will take this stuff if they believe this is good for the economy or people want it , but the record/software industry is lobying very hard with impressive looking reports to support it.
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"A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers.
WTF are these people smoking? Personal computers? If I want to make a freeware game for a C= Pet I have to get approval on COPY PROTECTION from the feds? Copy protection on a freeware game for a C=Pet? Up theirs!!
This will never fly. The feds would have to buy and understand every platform ever made. Good luck on them tracking down all of them.
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Elektro,
Pretty soon we'll have numbers tattoed on our forehead
Or barcodes like in Dark Angel.
AmiGod
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Red,
Your message brings up a valid question. You talk about coding for the PET. Considering WIndows has a 95% hold on the market, and MacOS has the other 5%, I wonder if non-standard computers and operating systems would wind up being banned in the end.
This new law states that all software will have to go through the Government. If it's impossible to incorporate their copy-protection code into a computer's software, all programmers for this computer and/or software would automatically be in violation of the law.
And I doubt that they'll try to learn every platform and OS out there.
So in the end, only Apple and Microsoft would truly benefit from this law. Everyone else will either be eradicated, or be forced to work illegally. The new Underground Railroad. :-)
I'm just glad that Aminet's original site isn't located in the US, and I hope that up here in Canada, we won't be copying this law in any way.
AmiGod
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> Your message brings up a valid question. You talk about coding for
> the PET. Considering WIndows has a 95% hold on the market, and
> MacOS has the other 5%, I wonder if non-standard computers and
> operating systems would wind up being banned in the end.
I was reading about this bill last year, when it was called the SSSCA. I haven't followed it for a while so I'm not sure what changed, besides the name.
IIRC, there is a cutoff date involved as to the manufacture of the hardware, which would almost certainly render the PET exempt. That was one of the main arguments against the bill...that if it was passed, people would stop buying new computer hardware, new CD players, DVD-players, etc. If you think a 9-year-old Amiga 1200 has no more life in it, just wait until this bill passes!
Where this law really crosses the line is with open-source software, which it would almost certainly render illegal. Since the source code is always available and there's no way to insure that it's always compiled with the copy-protection code intact, I don't see another alternative. :-(
I believe that voting this bill down isn't enough. Senator Hollings must be run out of office, then tarred-and-feathered (or perhaps the other way around ;-) for his "kindly" actions on behalf of the American people. Only then do we stand a chance of of preventing another lapdog from taking his place.
Todd
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Yeah but ppl will still say: "But we have nothing to hide!" "You watched too much Star Trek!" "You're paranoid!"
Ppl are fu... dumb. :evil:
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It seems to me this could go as far as running Javascript in a webpage. Which is of course completly stupid!
BTW - if this does happen, and all operating systems are required to have a form of copy protection, it could makes Amiga Inc licence look the normal. And since everyone has to do it, it would be no disadvantage not to do it on Amiga Incs terms.
Interesting.
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Having been born and raised, and currently residing in the great state of South Carolina, I for one am casting my vote against Fritz. He's been in office too long anyway. He AND Strom have got to go. And Governor "Goober" Hodges, too. Man, the politics in this state suck.
-Sam
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This is just choice! I believe a house full of apes could run our gov't better than we can! Next thing you'll know is they will require folks who use sign language to include a copyright statement into their conversation!
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Well lets take this to extream is sillyness. Next time you lissen to the radio before they start playing a Britney Spears tune something like this, just in case somebody was going to recored it.
"Britney Spears is tradmark of woman how looks like Rag Doll, it has regisation in classes 1,4,5,6,7,21. This is copyrighted by %1 of population who own 99% of world inc. Voices are copyright by Tone Deaf inc. etc. etc."