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> "a reasonable reading of the law". Anyone relying on this when thinking about new laws deserves to have their constitutional rights slowly eroded year by year.

Let me add another historical example of reasonable reading of law going awry - in renaissance and later Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was noble democracy - all nobles had equal voting rights (that was +- 10% of country population). They elected kings, decided country matters during parlament sessions, etc.

There was instituion of "liberum veto" - it was thought to be consequence of all nobles being equal in voting rights - it meant that every nobleman could stop any decision made by parliament, just by saing "liberum veto".

For many centuries it was not as stupid, as it sounds, because it was common understanding, that this person could be then challanged to duel by anybody not agreeing with him (so people weren't overusing it), and that this veto only applies to one matter currently discussed, not everything that was decided during given session.

But starting in 1652 understanding of this law changed to "liberum veto means any nobleman can cancel all decisions made during parlament session". And people started escaping after screaming "liberum veto".

Of course it was abused by foreign countries - you just have to bribe one nobleman out of 10% of country population to block any decision (like decision to enlarge army). Slightly more than century later Commonwealth disappeared.
My main problem with the way that copyright law has been "harmonized" between different countries is that the "harmonization" is always done by increasing the copyright restrictions of the freer country, rather than by loosening the copyright restrictions of the less-free country. It's like a ratchet, always pushing for more and longer copyright restrictions.
It is not an analogy. What is the analogue? The slope is descending from now (you cannot get arrested for singing happy birthday) to then (you can). Slippery.
This should probably come as a timely reminder for me, as I'm dangerously close to burning out at the moment. I already find myself losing motivation and taking 2-3x longer to get anything done.

I think my problems are mostly related to chasing payments. If I was paid even half what I was owed, I could take a break for a few months quite comfortably. As it is, I get just enough to cover my bills. So I find myself working longer hours to try and bring in more money, getting less sleep/time to myself and none of that is helping. It's a kind of vicious circle in a way, I haven't the time or inclination any more to create an amazing Github profile or do freebie work to land a decent gig. I'd love to take a holiday (have had maybe 7 days off in 18 months) but I just can't afford to.

It's also quite difficult to talk about this to friends etc as it does sound on its face a very first world problem to have, especially when friends are having pensions slashed and the corporate axe dangling ominously. I can understand them having little sympathy.

Now, this isn't to whine (although it may read like that!). I know I'll figure it out in the end but hopefully reading stuff like this will give me that extra little bit of hope or the last push I need to really starting fixing things. It's a horrible feeling and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, except maybe Hitler (what a bastard!).
I think his point was that only bike shops would collapse. Society would be just fine. That doesn't mean we shouldn't protect bike retailers from theft.
I was in the same burnout boat. I took a month long vacation out of the country and when I came back I felt more energized for a total of 2 weeks. After the 2 weeks, it was back to feeling burned out and really just unhappy. I kept working and figured it was just a phase. It wasn't.

I quit my job last month. We'll see how I feel in 6 months. Hopefully, that was the cause! :)
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Are you new to this argument, or are you deliberately being ignorant? I have trouble believing that someone in the tech industry has not come across this before.
The only reason I don't dig deeper here is because it's late and I'm sure everyone has moved on now but I just have to say I don't like Red Hat being used as a model for how to be profitable while giving away a product. It doesn't scale. Most software doesn't lend itself well to that. You're not paying for software, you're paying for the output.
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That sucks - chasing payments sounds really frustrating, because it's not even like you're doing something wrong, it's just this situation that you shouldn't even have to deal with, but you do. It sounds really stressful. Good luck with everything.
Yeah, I get NAT'd IPv4 as well.
The CDA vote:

Democrats: 30-16 in favor
Republicans: 51-2 in favor (1 not voting)

Neither party looks good in that vote, but one party looks like it lacked even a significant principled minority...

The DMCA was a Republican initiative legislatively, but passed on an unopposed voice vote and was of course signed by Clinton. Cosponsored by 7 Republicans and 3 Democrats; drafted by the office of Howard Coble (R-NC), who also pushed it through the committee he chaired.

If you want to assign blame by overall party control, both laws, along with the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, were passed by a split government, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, and Democrats controlling the Presidency. So I guess they're "bipartisan achievements", for which we can thank the 1996-1998 "dream team" of Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Trent Lott, who set an inspiring example in pushing through so much major legislation rather than letting themselves be mired in partisan gridlock.
I find this incredibly fascinating. As someone who doesn't lives in the US, I used to just dismiss the amount of misinformation or propaganda (as some of my online friends in the states call it) was spread by news media as exaggeration. I never really got what the big deal was with 'Fox News LOL'. But this seems to be the pretty extreme.
This entire debate has been wrong footed from day 1, "piracy" is and always has been a misnomer and an aggressive attempt to frame the debate.

Sharing, lending, and broadcasting have been a core part of the dissemination of creative works for centuries. Libraries. Personal borrowing. Museums. Broadcast TV and radio. For the entirety of the modern age it has been the norm for the average individual "consuming" a creative work to do so without directly purchasing a licensed copy. Somehow creative industries survived.

Today the limits to copying are very different and thus unfamiliar if not frightening for some. Yet creative industries have not died and are not dying, despite persistent attempts to fight against modern technology at every stage (resisting digital distribution, creating experiences that are typically wholly inferior to the "piracy" experience). Imagine if literature, music, etc. never embraced libraries, radio, or television. Imagine if book lending was made illegal.

There are ways to embrace sharing and dissemination of IP without direct payment for every consumed copy while still maintaining profitability. The old limits are dead. Portraying all manner of sharing of creative works as "intellectual property theft" is frankly ridiculous. The idea that the line between borrowing a book from a library (or reading a book within the library) and borrowing a digital copy of a movie from a friend (or even a stranger) is a line between acceptable behavior and theft is an idea born of prejudice and provincialism. We need to get over such old prejudices and begin to form new models and new boundaries.
No it isn't. Stealing is taking something from the owner. Like if I steal your bike, you no longer have a bike. If I copy your bike (were it possible), you still have a bike.

Copyright infringement isn't stealing just like it also isn't rape or murder. That doesn't make it right, but it definitely make it different from theft.
Each of those has the most tiny effect. You would do much better to 1) Stop hiring/buying DVDs 2) Stop going to the cinema 3) Stop buying music
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I find it somewhat ironic that the only way I knew that "Creative America" even existed and that it was running TV and billboard ads was through the Web.

Also, it's not just "foreign criminals" who are pirating content. People right here in the US are making money doing it. See http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk for an example. (I did a whois on funnyjunk.com and they appear to be US based).
What's more laughable is that a minority decide to pirate a piece of software, and everyone gets punished. No, actually, in large part only the people who chose not to pirate get punished. How far does it have to go before people realize the whole strategy is absurd?
I've talked about this before on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366032), but I think a big problem with these discussions is people seem to assume, as an axiom, that allowing authors to control downstream copying is natural. It isn't - this principle was invented around the time the printing press made mass production of creative works possible, for reasons which were very good at the time, but which may not be justified, overall, anymore.

Any argument about copyright cannot end up in "Well, I think the authors should have control of their own works." This is circular, and it boils down to assuming copyright as an axiom without justification. It also can't end up in an analogy to a case in the physical world - there are too many differences between physical goods and IP. For instance, in your example of the hen with bread, if this were a case of copyright, everyone _including the hen_ could end up eating bread, after the hen put in the work. Is this fair to the hen? Maybe not. On the other hand, though, there have to be ways to balance things just enough to reward the hen for her efforts without starving all the other animals. The conclusion we gained from the physical-world analogy in which _only one animal_ could eat the bread simply does not apply, as one of its fundamental assumptions has been violated.

In short, there are perfectly good arguments you can use (and which have been used, when copyright was invented) to argue why copyright is good and essential _for society as a whole_, and there are of course arguments against it as well, but too often these are not articulated _at all_. People argue from the end result "Artists should have control over their work!", which is essentially the _definition_ of copyright, and use it to argue for copyright. And all too often, the position of the rest of society - which, since they outnumber the artists, ought to be given more weight - is ignored.
So, basically Mongrel2 with SPDY?
Incidentally, the senators newly opposing PIPA are overwhelmingly republican:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/pipa-support...
Finally someone gets it. Boycott is the only way forward in this messed situation.

Stop buying movies/music, PCs and Apple computers, there is a fine list of SOPA proponents. For all of them there is an alternative, buy operating support from RedHat or Canonical instead of Microsoft, donate money to independent studios and watch their movies.

Your money is doing this. Your money. You decide what to do with it. Each dollar is a vote.
This is a very sad, but also dignified way for a company to face the fact that their business model is based on technology that has passed. Now, the recording industry...
I do, do you? Microphone sharing (a) means only one person at a time can access it and (b) it is way more inconvenient. Microphone creators are not threatened by sharing, digital creators are.
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I certainly intend to find and distribute pirate versions of FinalTouch.

You're ok with that, right?
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Same goes for the intellectual "property" rights. Mixing together three completely different areas of law (copyright, patents and trademarks) is bad enough; implying they are related to physical property rights is unforgivable: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
As a non-white person, I also registered a few weeks back after seeing the occasional posts on HN.
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They should call it “backend workers” instead. Backend “subscribers” (think ”workers” please) don't use PUB/SUB because then the same message will be delivered to every worker. You hardly want that behavior to process web requests. PUSH sockets only deliver the same message to one PULL socket.
Yes, but it is not stealing.
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The world would also be a better place if everyone was a police officer, and a chef, and a plumber, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean it's practical.
Why are customers being made to jump through hoops that do practically nothing to deter actual infringement?
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I'm a big proponent of properly taking weekends off (and not feeling guilty about it!). By this I mean not doing 'career' work; things like cleaning the house, DIY, shopping etc. are allowed.

In the long run, I'm much more productive taking weekends off, not to mention much less likely to get RSI, which I had problems with a few years ago. I can't say I know it prevents burnout, but I do know that starting work again after a weekend, I always feel more energised than I did on the Friday before.
If her and her husband Richard Blum's shady finance deals over the years haven't been enough to get her primaried, I doubt PIPA will do the trick...
If someone steals 20 microphones from the mic creator he has 20 microphones less. If someone downloads 20 songs from a song creator the creator of that song still has the song.

That is the difference.
why is this different from leap years?
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I have to register my GPL'd script to protect my attribution? No thanks.

Everything should be immediately copyrighted if you mark it and specify its license terms.

14 years is long enough for total copyright but attribution rights should last forever.
Sad thing is that Kodak invented the digital camera. At the time the sales of the film for their Kodak camera's were doing so well they decided to shelve the project instead of jeopardize those sales. (That is how I understand it anyway)

20 years or so later everyone has a digital camera and all Kodak has are some patents.
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I wasn't talking about the legislation. I simply said TPB's only greater efficiency is that they don't have to charge for their product, because they come about it dishonestly. And I know plenty of creatives who support this opinion.
The earth is slowing down. No matter how you calibrate the clocks, you'll constantly have to change it. At some point the second was accurate to the earth.

And in any case the second is very precisely defined based on physical objects (specifically how long it takes an atom of cesium to oscillate a specific number of times).

Changing it would ripple through all sorts of things, for example the length of objects would change (or more accurately the number we use to measure the length of an object would be different). The number used to represent the length of an object is based on how far light travels in a certain amount of time. Change that time, you change how far the light traveled, which would then give a new definition for how long a meter is.
If that's the case then it's a completely different ball-game. I was about to abandon the whole idea of using DynamoDB due to the pricing of throughput. This makes it a whole lot more interesting!
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.
Hmmm...seems like the internet is the new California then.
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Kodak joins a lot of older companies that just cant keep up with the changing world. Take RIM for example who said to the original iPhone “There is no way that phone can do what they showed off on stage.” It is sad but bound to become more commonplace. Blockbuster and Circuit City also come to mind as companies that used to dominate, but are now long gone.
You might enjoy "How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-06/postrel-how-art-his...
The same thing that happens when a game gets discontinued today.
No, that's only the case in the lower courts. The Supreme Court's sole job is to uphold the constitution and they are free to ignore everything else.
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A lot of companies even larger than Kodak have emerged from bankruptcy though.

It's just a sign that old management methods have failed and time to change.

The problem is once something becomes a commodity, it's hard to make profit from there. I am going to be very curious to see what happens to the iphone brand in a decade. Once it would have been impossible to imagine the "walkman" brand to fade away.
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I think the CD is your property , you can destroy it if you want but the contents of the CD are only licensed to you.

Obviously this is a strange concept since the contents of the CD are a physical part of the CD itself.
This is not unexpected, but a very sad "Kodak moment." I can't help but think about Innovator's Dilemma when I think about Kodak. Didn't they decide not to pursue digital camera so that they don't cannibalize their film business?
I don't think "empathy" and "morality" are fundamentally required; rather, they are convenient heuristics for interacting with other humans. As long as you are rational, then acting without empathy or morals would still result in similar behavior (depending on how "smart" and well-informed you are, I guess).

A rational agent seeks to maximize utility. It turns out that murdering people for their organs does not maximize utility! At the very least, society is cleverly structured in a way that the probable utility of murdering somebody for their organs is relatively low.

Basically, my point is that your argument is a straw man. The issue isn't too much logic but rather than you (the agent killing everybody in the example) did not use enough of it. For some reason, all the "arguments" about the inferiority of logic always assume the logical person is extremely short-sighted or ill-informed.
Logic is not the only, or even the most important, factor which undermines productive debate.

Logic is only a means to an end. With the advent of computer technology it is too easy to think that logic is what runs (or should run) the world, or that some political positions are "logical" and others are not. But logic, like technology, can be used for any end.

The important debate is one of ethics, intuition, (future) human values, and cost/externalities. And should indeed be framed as such. I am not advocating dishonesty, as it is easily called out and used against you.
It's stories like this that make you realise what's really important. It's so easy to get sucked into a life of computers and tech but heartwarming stories like yours, Amit, are what keeps us all human. I wish you the best for the forthcoming weeks, months and years, and I really look forward to hearing your progress on your blog, once you have recovered.
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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.
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Ask HN: From biotech industry to web technology: how and where should I start?
Hi HNers. I have been reading this forum since last two years to keep
me update on tech world.

A little bit about me.

I have a PhD in biotech/pharma field and worked as a post doc for few years (45K/year). I have always enjoyed doing science but now I am slowly realizing that I am not cut out for the research or cubicle jobs. I would like to work on something which will involve interacting with real people in real world (directly or indirectly).I want to get out of bench/cubicle culture. Lately,I have developed tremendous interest ( do not know if I can call it a passion) towards web programming and web development as I feel I can come up with a MVP pretty quick to test a concept compared to bringing something in biotech or pharma field. I have moved to Bay area with a new research related job recently and i want to leverage it.

In my long term plan I am clear that I want to do the following things.
1. I wan to be an entrepreneur and I want to add value in people's life
2. I need to be financially independent as soon as possible.
3. Start my own company and work with awesome people around world.

Babysteps so far taken:-

To get in to webworld and entrepreneurship, I have started the following things-

1. I have bought few domains and have started launching few sites with
static pages and test blogs ( To know the basics of web application).

2. Watching Stanford course on Web applications and Programming.

3. I have started learning HTML, CSS and Javascript. For web
programming,I tried with python programming but quickly got frustrated with it. I just could not get my head wrap around it.So I have started MHartl's a Ruby on Rails tutorial and I like it.

4. Few days ago I came across with ROR bootcamp offered by Sheeref on
HN and really wanted to join but being the sole bread earners with a family and kids
(bread and health insurance?), I was too afraid to join .

So my few questions to fellow HNguys including PG (If I am lucky) who have been there and done that (and still doing),

1. What is the quickest but sturdiest path to get into programming to build a MVP?

2. Is there any place in Bay area where I can learn programming in evening?

3. If my long term goal is to be a web entrepreneur then how realistic it is to learn programming and then developing something and launching it?

4. Any experienced fellow on HN would like to help by becoming a mentor?

Any suggestions and inputs are highly appreciated. My email is on my profile.

I apologize for any typo or grammatical errors as English is not my
first language.

Thanks to all.
Exciting.. Like really. I'm not even a proper dev and I wet my pants a teeny bit.
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Major companies supporting SOPA