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Limewire shutdown, permanently
4wd:
I find the situation oddly analogous to guns... I know... Somebody is sighing out there, but just hear it out...-Renegade (October 28, 2010, 06:38 PM)
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Yes, that would be me....
It would have been better if you had based your analogy on the knife - this is much closer to the mark.
A knife is a tool whose use is mostly benign as opposed to a firearm, (not gun, they are a subset of firearms), as you have pointed out, whose purpose isn't.
By making the comparison to a firearm you are immediately saying that the software was created intentionally to be malignant, ie. for pirating. As such, you should have no problem with it being put down.
Renegade:
I find the situation oddly analogous to guns... I know... Somebody is sighing out there, but just hear it out...-Renegade (October 28, 2010, 06:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, that would be me....
It would have been better if you had based your analogy on the knife - this is much closer to the mark.
A knife is a tool whose use is mostly benign as opposed to a firearm, (not gun, they are a subset of firearms), as you have pointed out, whose purpose isn't.
By making the comparison to a firearm you are immediately saying that the software was created intentionally to be malignant, ie. for pirating. As such, you should have no problem with it being put down.
-4wd (October 28, 2010, 07:13 PM)
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My analogies are by no means complete above. You've pointed out a different one that is more inclined towards the Limewire case or inclined towards a more objective view. I meant for the gun analogy to be extreme and skewed towards the RIAA case (gun control), hence my initial warning about laughter/sighing. :) (Gun control seems to me to be similar to invoking Godwin's law -- an extreme case.)
The McMillan analogy nicely points out the contradiction in the court ruling though, which is where I wanted to go. i.e. If you accept things at face value (the RIAA case/perspective), then why should McMillan be allowed to produce weapons with obvious malign intent? It's ok for these fellows over here, but not these other fellows?
Ahem... Rule of law perhaps?
But, I think you're right that "knife" would make a better analogy for an objective look at the topic. "Firearm/gun" is skewed and points out hypocrisy.
app103:
An important fact frequently overlooked: The RIAA only sues if the network or software is run by, developed by, or supported by a for profit company.
They have yet to go after anything open source, such as Ares (they tried before it went open source and dropped it as soon as the developer slapped a GPL on it and uploaded the source to Sourceforge) or WinMX (they tried there too, but the company "shut it down" and walked away as soon as they got a cease and desist letter, the users resurrected it and run it themselves now)
The problem for the RIAA in those 2 cases is they don't know who to sue. How do you stop an open source project that essentially belongs to the world and can be forked into a million similar projects by anyone that wants to? How do you stop a bunch of people in a bunch of countries that have taken it upon themselves to host peer caches in order to keep an old abandonware running, knowing if they receive a cease and desist letter, all they have to do is comply and pass the job of running a peer cache to someone else in another country? Overnight, it moves and is run by someone else. It's a game of cat and mouse, where the mouse always wins.
Napster, Kazaa, Limewire were all for profit companies that were easier targets and the RIAA could profit from if they won.
As far as torrents, as long as there is at least 1 open source torrent client/tracker, it can't be stopped. The RIAA can attack individual sites that run trackers, but if they manage to take one down, ten more pop up the next day to replace it, because the open source software to enable that is out there in the wild and distribution of that can't be stopped.
Renegade:
An important fact frequently overlooked: The RIAA only sues if the network or software is run by, developed by, or supported by a for profit company.
-app103 (October 28, 2010, 08:35 PM)
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Good point. LAME also fits into this category.
y0himba:
I love how folks find the necessity to defend this crap. Here is the truth:
It isn't the protocol or program, it is what is done with said protocol or program.
If I am using the protocol or program to share my family photos, content I own or created, no issues. Using the program or protocol to share other people's copyrighted works: issues. There is no defense or excuse for sharing the property of others without permission, profit or no profit. It lowers us to the level of the money-grubbing companies who screw us and that need to get with the times. Personally, I have pride and PAY for everything I own or want. If I cannot afford it, then I don't need it. Guess I had better get to work and save some money. I am not going to be a lemming and try to be cool, get free stuff, and defend something that is wrong even over being illegal.
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