Renegade

The time limit on patents is not a ethical restriction. It is simply an arbitrary rule that society has put in place. I disagree. Regardless of how much work is put in or not, or how complex the concept is or not, it is still just an idea. It is an interesting debate on what activity deserves to be compensated and what doesn't. I don't think it is sufficient simply to put in effort, no matter how much, to decide that it will get compensated. For example, some people put extraordinary effort into their hobbies, but yet do not expect compensation. The expectation of compensation for the author comes because society has led him to that expectation. Our royalty mechanism is a relatively new concept. Previously artist had benefactors who funded them, or they simply did other work as well as their art. If in the Middle Ages a composer created a song, and then the populace sang the song without paying the composer, was that a moral transgression? If it wasn't then why is it now? I at least partially disagree. Ethics as I define it are your own moral standard, not society's. Society imposes rules which may or may not be based upon ethics. Society may impose a rule that I can only travel 100 km/hour. I certainly trangress that rule when I travel 110 km/hour, but in my view I don't trangress any ethical standard. If I snuck into a theatre, from a moral perspective, I am in violation of trasspassing, not of theft. If I walk by a stadium and hear a new song, and I continue to sing the song to my self, am I stealing the auhors' work by not compensating him? The flaws you point out in depriving them of their livelihood, are flaws in how we compensate the artists, not in the morality of the act. That would be presuming one even knew about the song or artist in the first place. People are much more likely to listen to the song if there is no cost to do so. As an example, the comedian Russell Peters was a relatively little known stand-up comic. A video of one of his performances was uploaded and then subsequently downloaded by audiences he had never been able to reach before. That one event has caused his popularity and demand for his performances to soar, despite the fact that he recieved no direct compensation from those who downloaded his performance.

Many 'ideas' cost a lot of money to create. Movies, drugs and software cost hundreds of millions to produce - no one would spend the kind of money required to produce these ideas if there was not some gurantee that they could get return on their investment. For that reason there must be some sort of social stigma applied to people who refuse to follow the rules set up to ensure that the idea creators get compensated. Yes I agree that the creators should be compensated. I'm not convinced that the royalty schemes are necessarily the only way to do so. The royalty schemes only benefit the creator and not the consumer. If it were a manufactured product, with a larger consuming market, economies of scale would drive down the cost and competition would result in net price decreases to the customer. With IP, the incremental cost to produce the next unit is essentially nil. Unfortunately with IP products such as movies, products from one creator are not readily substituted from that of another, so competition cannot work in the same manner as other goods. Part of the reason that the cost to produce the items are so high, are simply because of the royalty schemes. Movies are expensive to produce, in part, because movie actors command such high salaries simply because the royalty scheme gives the creator a lucrative funding mechanism. For years record companies essentially gouged the music market by charging what the market could bear even when their costs were lower (eg CDs cost less to produce than tapes). They even forced consumers to repay for IP they had already licensed (eg having to rebuy the song on CDs when they already purchsed that same song on records). That legacy has left many consumers without the social stigma that record companies are now trying to revive because it is in their best interest to do so. I do sympathize for the artists, however record companies get no sympathy from me.

Yes I do realize that, however, intellectual property is essentially "ideas". From a moral perspective, I believe ideas should be free. We reuse ideas all the time without paying for them. Do we pay royalties to the decendents of whoemever first invented the wheel? Why not? I agree that the current compensation mechanism may deprive the producer of payment. The fault I see is with the compensation mechanism, not with the morality of the act in question. Yes, I realize that "society" has agreed to a royalty-based compensation scheme, which is why I belive the violation is one of contract violation not one of ethics. Incidentally downloading doesn't necessarily deprive the producer of revenue. In some cases it generates demand for the ancillary producer's products which cannot be downloaded (such as live performances)

I know we are way off topic, but the temptation to respond is too strong. Let's say CPP is modified into a forced locked-RRSP contribution scheme as you suggest. Why wouldn't we apply this coercion to other aspects we deem are "good"? Why don't we force people to take life-insurance? Why not force people to save a portion of their income (I mean besides retirement)? Why not force them to abstain from alcohol? I fail to see why the CPP argument you make is different from any of these. BTW, CPP is income redistribution. It essentially redistributes from the workers to the retired. When the scheme was set up, the retired population got way more than they contributed including investment gains, and those now retired still do. The scheme depended upon constantly increasing populations for funding. Recent changes in the funding and investment of CPP have addressed some of those issues. I'm happy to discuss this further in a different thread.

What the do claim is that their software is not warranted to be defect free. That's as honest as you get. You just choose not to read or ignore the license agreement.

Then sue the manufacturer. Make your case in court. See if a judge agrees with you. Frankly I doubt you'll get far. No, I have not. Nevertheless, did the hair coloring perform as they said it would in their marketing campaign? Every commercial I saw only showed women with lustrous hair. They never explicitly claimed that the product created that hair. The "nice'n'easy" moniker would lead you to have some expectations on the application of the product. I guess "nice" was subjective, and "easy" was relative. Most people I know who used the product considered it neither nice nor easy. Then you have a moral standard different than the one which is commonly used in the world today. Marketing for all products puts a positive spin on products and tries to generate demand. That is the role of marketing. My point is that I don't see a different standard used for software than any other product. I was not concerned that it is "yours". I was concerned that it was "property" to begin with. (I'm with Hugo on this one). What onus do you have to protect your "property" with proper backups when you are fully aware of the volatile nature of the data on your disk? Yes, in that case I would blame Toyota. Show me how software vendors have done that. The "recommended system requirements" only list the basic requirements for the software. The do not list the configurations that the software is tested and validated on. Let's assume that manufacturer did take your recommendation and put on only the tested configuration as the recommended system configuration. Let's say each vendor did this. The "recommended system configuration" for each woudl be the OS and basic drivers and the application under test. Would you as a consumer purchase a different system for every application you wanted to use (eg one for Microsoft Office, one for Nero, one for Photoshop, etc). What would happen is that people would essentially ignore the recommended system requirements in the same way they ignore the fine print today. My mistake. I misunderstood. I thought your complaint was against all software. I realize that it is restricted to commercial vendors. Are you under the assumption that the free software you use, and Linux, have no security exploits and no defects? Or perhaps it is your contention since it is "free" it is then ok that it has those flaws because no represntations have been made. I agree. They were wrong, they suffered a backlash, and now they are forced to pay compensation. They will be a lesson to other vendors who venture into similar practices. Actually, I believe a comparison is impossible by the very nature of intellectual property. It is possible to construct scenarios whereby copying somebody's song creates more harm and an other whereby copying the weapon technology does more harm. That is the nature of intellectual property: it does not exist but for how we apply it. I agree. My point is not to guage which practice is more damaging. My point is to show that a double standard exist when the accuser uses the same practices as the accused.

The question is not that CPP is good or not. I agree that it is for the most part good. The question is do you give people a choice. First do you give them the choice to contribute. Second, presuming they have contributed, do you give them the choice on how it is invested. I can tell if you are for forced contributions, but if you are, maybe you can explain why your position on society's coercion is different in this case.

Example: I opt out of the pension scheme. I keep my CPP contributions and invest them wisely (or spend them if it matters). Come 65, I see my investments busted and I have to live on something. How can I opt back in? Go back to work and contribute to CPP for 40 years. Basically you get to start at the same position as eveyone else.

In my view there is nothing morally wrong with Intellectual Property violations. The violation is a legal transgression not a moral one. A moral trangression, would be one which deprived the owner of the use or posession of that which was taken. That is not the case with IP violations. It is also hugely amusing to me that the same government which writes IP laws, and strongly criticizes violaters , is itself one of the biggest violaters. Let me give an example. During the cold war (and still today), the US (and Russia, China, etc) commonly used spies to steal each other's technology and equipment. They used the IP gained to improve their own weaponary. Is that IP violation any different than copying a song, except for the scale?

You crack me up. You don't know me, but you know all about me, eh? I guess you know about as much about me as you do the topic of which you write. Do you even know the definition of "pubic"? Go look it up and tell me if it makes any sense as an adjective to "man". What's your point? That the current hockey equipment doesn't adequately protect women's uterus? Ok, I'll buy that. So how about we address that instead of a general categorization of women? I can equally say that men are much more vunerable to a shot to the nuts than are women. So should we ban men with large balls from playing hockey? BTW, since you like to call me "bobo",do you mind if I call you "Mo" as a kind of pet name for moron? Hey Mo, personally, I havent' thought about enough to say that size or weight is the factor we should use. It was just a suggestion I threw out there. I'm pretty sure though that size or weight is probably less arbitrary than gender. Mo, you say it is not wrestling, which uses weight classes. Perhaps you can explain why it is different? Why woudl weight be an acceptable means of differentiation in wrestling or boxing but not in hockey? You seem to use the fact that it is a team sport as an execuse to dismiss the idea that size should not be used. Well Mo, isn't gender currently used as the criteria for individual filtering even for team sports? Why wouldn't size or weight or whatever the appropriate criteria be used the same way? You keep saying it is plainly obvious, yet you can't explain the obvious. Both men and women have spots in which they are more vunerable. Wouldn't you agree that having vunerable spots should not disqualify them from participation? No I never claimed that women and men are physically the same. Show me where I said that. Thank you for telling me what I am thinking. I'm sure you know much better than me, Mo. You haven't explained at all. I'm still waitng for your explaination. As far a Mats is concerned, he is free to try out for the team (of either gender) which best fits his playing style. Again you claim things I never said. Where did I "pretend this is not the case"? I agree with you that young men and women are attracted during puberty, and hormones will fuel the fire. Despite this, you don't explain why then we don't segrate the rest of their activities. Should we have separate buses, classes, and schools for young men and young women? You also don't justify why we have the segregation well beyond puberty. Also, since gay young men and women are subject to the same homornal urges that other hetrosexual young kids are, why is it we dont' segerate them as well?

The locals news in Winnipeg said that the decision only applied to hockey and didn't mean that the boys could try out for girls teams. "Manitoba Human Rights Commission lawyer Sarah Lugtig said Harrison's ruling means that if girls want to try out for boys' teams in other high school sports, the MHSAA must "look at the ruling, apply this ruling when it comes to another sport." She said that Harrison said nothing about boys trying out for girls' teams. "The current system of girls-only teams stays in place," Lugtig said. " - Source Winnipeg Free Press Exactly. The ruling says nothing about boys trying out for girls teams. This is quite different from a ruling from the Human Rights Commission that a boy can't compete on female teams. In fact this has not been tested either before the courts or before the Human Rights Commission. All Lugtig is saying is that until there is a case, the status quo applies.

I'm realy not sure what "young pubic men" are, but regardless, I don't see how, while engaged in sports, they are in any closer contact with females than at a high-school dance or a crowded bus. As for your second issue, perhaps size shoudl be the discrimminating factor and not gender. There are large women, and there are small men. Gender alone does't determine whether someone is going get injured in sports. According to your logic, to prevent injury we should ban small statured men from trying out for hockey teams, yet we don't. I guess I'm an idiot then, because as far as I am aware, it is really up to the men to control their hormones whether on or off the field. You are making a bunch of generalizations which may not apply in the specifics. I don't think this is about pretending that the genders are the same. This is about giving people individual choice on where they compete without adding artificial discrimminatory barriers. BTW, if you think "hockey is a dangerous sport", then perhaps the effort should be spent to make the sport safe for both men and women, instead of instituting segregation into the sport.

Marketing slogans are not just confined to software. (ever hear of "Nice'n'Easy" hair colouring?). Frankly I find it hard to believe that someone over 5 years old could not distinguish between a marketing slogan and a product representation. Again this has nothing uniquely to do with software. Some software companies provide this level of service, some don't. I can say the same about some of the utilities and insurance companies I have dealt with. - losing data to any form of malware permitted by the operating system http://www.frsirt.com/english/advisories/2006/1218 - insecure browsers bundled with operating systems permitting security breaches and resulting in computer system non-functionality http://www.frsirt.com/english/advisories/2006/1218 I see. First, it is interesting that you think of data on your drive as "property" that you own. (That's probably a whole discussion on its own). Second, would you blame Toyota if someone stole your car and crashed it? You might have reason if Toyota didn't put in a door lock, or ignition lock. If despite having those things in place, a thief, still used sophisticated tools and exploited vunerabilities and still broke in, would you still blame the car manufacturer? Do you know any car which is unbreakable? If there were such a thing, would you be willing to pay the cost? Exactly! If, despite the bugs, it didn't still offer them value over what they were doing before, they would revert to their previous method. The fact that no one is using typewriters illustrates that, while yes, sometimes your software can hang, it is still a damm ways better than the old way. There was a day when the use of software was solely the realm of computer professionals who were intimately familiar with its internals. The commoditzation of software has meant that an increasingly complex product must be maintained by an untrained user. Unlike a car, software operates in an environment which is constantly changing. It must co-exist with software from multiple other vendors with which it was never tested. In addition when problems occur it is rarely obvious who the culprit is. Your use of a computer and the internet to post here demonstrates that despite your complaints, you still value the use of software over the alternative. I'm not out to defend all software practicies. I abhor Sony's decision to embed rootkits in their CDs. I believe it is something they now regret as well.

I saw it on Global News last night. The report also said that the girls on the boys team get individual coaching. http://www.picshare.tv/humanrights/Decision_Pasternak.PDF I read through the decison and didn't see any evidence to back your claim that "The Human Rights Commission was clear though that boys and men can't compete on female teams.". In fact based upon the justification, I would say that a boy, finding himself in a similar situation would be justified in claiming support in the decision for trying out for an opposite-sex team.

Do you have a cite for this? I'd be interested in how they justify a blatant double-standard.

I don't intend to do anything however they are free to particpate at the level of skill they achieve. For example, if the cutoff was based upon skill level rather than gender, "Tier 1" women players may be playing on the same field as "Tier 3" male players. Exactly, there is no 100% fair solution, so why pick one somewhat arbritary factor as the basis for discrimmination. There is a "fair" solution and skill is the discrimminating factor.

So what. It can be argued that some races have a physical advantage, yet we don't discrimminate on race.

link Should any barriers even exist to prevent girls or women from competing on the same playing field as boys or men? Is the a problem with a boy trying out for a girls team? Should this concept be extended even further, for example, why have separate "mens" and "womens" events at the olympics?

If you read the software license agreement, most software vendors do not warrant their software to be defect free. They only warrant that they will fix known defects for a certain period. Given that it is well know that software has defects, how is it a reasonable expection that it works defect free? Maybe you can elaborate on what you mean by "destroy your property"? I'd like to understand what kind of software does this, and why you continue to buy such software.

Yeah, you did. You are accepting agreemnets between two other associated parties besides yourself, the software distributor and the software manufacturer. They may or may not be related, and the software distributor may or may not represent the manufacturer. When you pay for the software you are only agreeing with the distributor. When you install the software and click that you agree to the terms, then you also enter into an agreement with the manufacturer as well. At that point, you agreed to restricted copying for personal use and not for redistribution. If you are not satisified with the terms, at any time prior to your agreement with the manufacturer, you can unwind the transaction and get your money back. What unknown restrictions are you talking about? I think I addressed your issue above.

Maybe the continued peaceful existance and the prevention of economic collapse depends upon us giving a rat's ass about Bob. Supposed Bob get fed-up of haivng his taxes go somewhere without his choice, and he gets together with his friends and revolts. Can't happen you say? Happened in 1776 in the US. Why not just give Bob the choice on where he invests? If you think you have a strong case that Bob should invest in the education system, make it to Bob, and then let him freely make that decision instead of forcing it on him.

It is an interesting question on if parents should have control over the chidren's reading material and how much control they should have. For example if the parent is bigoted aginst blacks, should they be allowed to prevent their kids about learning about the history of opression against blacks? There are a lot of areas where the parent is subject to society's determination on what is "right" for the child. For example, the parent has no choice on whether to educate the child. The parent, has no choice on the content of the education fundamentals (eg reading, writing, math, etc). The only choice the parent has is on the delivery on that education (public school, private school, home school, etc). If you want to argue that the parents should have the right to exercise control over their child's reading materials, you also have to demonstrate why this situation is different than any of the other subjects the children are requred to learn about.

It is not a huge logistical problem. We run "opt out" systems all the time. Witness a toll-road. People who "opt out" don't travel the road, and don't pay the toll. Essentially all systems which are completely funded as user-pay systems are "opt-out" Why is it an issue to opt back in at any time? Of course in some cases the price for opting back in, may not be the same as when the decision to opt out was taken.

It's possible but it's up to the church to interpret its own doctrines. If a Catholic feels they may have been misinterpreted in some cases, there should be (I assume) avenues to appeal. My point is that there's absolutely no reason to impose religious doctrines on the secular society. The one time I heard of this incident occuring, it was in Ontario. In Ontario Catholic schools are publicly funded. If they are to accept public funding, they should be subject to public norms of what is and isn't allowable forms of discrimmination. If the Catholic church felt that inter-racial marriages were a sin, should Catholic schools (as a publicly funded institution) be allowed to prohibit inter-racial courtships at the prom?

Yet a prom is a form of courtship which is more likely to lead to pre-marital sex than it is to lead ot marriage. There is no way a homosexual courtship can lead to homosexual marriage since the church does not even recognize this as a marriage. As far as the church is concerned the only thing that homosexual courtship can lead to is homosexual acts.