On Thu, 2004-02-12 at 00:09, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote: > > > If I lived in the USA, I would have no legitimate way to take my CD's > > > into MP3s (which is what a MP3 player -- much easier to find and buy > > > than one that also plays Ogg/Vorbis -- plays). > > > > If you own them, you can. > > No I can't. I'm not talking about owning or not the CD's but of not > being authorized by the owners of patents concerning MP3 (which are > valid in the USA). Remember that I only use Free Software. Remember that > Fedora Core only distributes Free Software. Since MP3 is patent > encumbered, RedHat and FC can't distribute MP3 related software. Oh yes. That's true. Well, you could buy a license for the MP3 codec, though I don't know if they sell them. But that means you're getting really pedantic (and most end users, and lawyers, probably won't bother). > > > There is no such act of that so called "piracy" (although I don't > > > understand what hijacking ships, murdering and stealing have to do with > > > copying). > > > > "piracy" can be defined many times in the English language. Its just > > like the English word for "free". > > Actually, the term piracy only started being pushed into this context > ever since WIPO started, so no, that's not the same case (by far) of > free as speech vs free as in beer. Piracy is a word, its what the word implies that matters. Whoever started it when it came to refer to it during software, music, etc... did it because its a good marketing term. > It's totally artificial and created with the intention of subconsciously > associating someone who copies a work (without permission from the > owner) with a real pirate, who do real harm instead of not so big > profits. Copying work is bad, period. Fair use is a different scenario. > Software patents are excellent helpers for guys like IBM, Microsoft and > such to engage in real act of "piracy" forbidding authors from using > their own hard work (remember the Eolas patent?) This is highly off-topic, so this will be my last e-mail with regards to this on list. Regards. -- Colin Charles, byte@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.bytebot.net/ http://fedoranews.org/colin/fnu/ - Fedora News Updates
