AngelicVampire

No, Kazaa is legally safe as it cannot control the content on its network, Napster was illegal as it indexed the stuff and kept a central file store. Kazaa users are being hit not Kazaa...

Emulators do not circumvent ownership, they allow you to run SOFTWARE YOU OWN on a different hardware configuration. It is legal to use them as you have a right to use software you own, you do not legally need to own the device or it may have broken down at some point.

Most of this kind of stuff flows from the Xerox rulings (basically saying that Xerox were not responsible for what their clients do with the photocopiers as they could not control it and do have legal uses) and the Sony BetaMax stuff (saying that it is legal to record freely available content and store it for replay at a later time without breaching copyright(time shifting)). Companies and suchlike are normally only guilty when they provide a service which can only be used to break the law, Kazaa has good points - and cannot control what is on the network, Napster could not control what was on the network however could have not listed copyrighted materials... subtle differences that make the Napster network responsible and Sharmin merely an annoyance (dunno exactly how this all applies under US law but under British law Kazaa is not responsible).

Also remember that different countries laws apply, even if emulation was illegal in the US it may be legal where the poster is.

bingle

Yes. PearPC does not circumvent ownership of a copywritable work. Apple owns their operating system - PearPC does NOT provide illegal copies of the Mac OS. It simply emulates a hardware platform that can run Mac OS. They have not broken any law. The DMCA would apply if PearPC broke Apple's digital protection on their OS, but that is not the case. The PearPC website will tell you you need to have a valid Mac OS CD in order to install any operating system.

You seem to have a bit of confusion over what emulators do - You mentioned up above that PC emulators "pay money to windows". That's incorrect. Microsoft (which I think is what you meant when you said 'windows') does not own the PC hardware architecture. They only produce software for that hardware platform - many companies do. Linux is another operating system that runs on x86 hardware - they have nothing to do with Microsoft.

What the emulator coders do is make a piece of software that interprets machine instructions just like the original hardware. Again, no one can own the rights to these machines - they can own their implementation of it. Otherwise, AMD would be in a lot of trouble for producing x86 (invented by Intel) chips. So emulator writers, through trial and error and freely available knowledge, try to make something that acts exactly the same as the original hardware. They never succeed 100%, but they can come close enough for usability. These emulators are entirely legal. In fact, there's a huge market for emulators of all sorts of machines - if you are developing software for hand-held devices, for instance, you'll use an emulator to run it for most of your development cycle.

There are also some OS emulators, which are slightly different - things like WINE for Linux, or FreeDOS. These do the same thing but instead of replicating the machine codes, they replicate the OS API calls. They're also perfectly legal, provided they don't use any copyrighted materials from the emulated OS. But again, PearPC and BasiliskII both require that you provide your own copy of the OS - all they emulate is the underlying machine hardware.

I hope this clears things up for you. I suggest you do a search on Google for a more in-depth explanation of reverse-engineering and hardware emulation.

Bingle

irseg

Yep, that's one side of the argument. The other one being that Kazaa is nothing but a framework for filesharing, and it's not up to the government to decide that the intentions of certain people who use it to break the law make P2P apps inherently illegal. The point of contention regarding the law you stated is whether it really was designed to circumvent copyright laws, and whether it has limited use otherwise. Don't forget that a lot of independent musicians release things on Kazaa, I knew a bunch of college bands who would distribute their music just to see how far it spread.

It's like rolling papers, or "tobacco water pipes".. Everyone knows that they're almost exclusively used for smoking pot, but that's irrelevant: there's nothing illegal about a piece of pipe with a tube sticking out of the side, and it's marketed for use with tobacco. The fact that most people buy it with other intentions in mind don't make the product itself illegal.

kutulu

lol, tell that to Tommy Chong. Asscroft seemed to disagree.

bingle

Actually, Kazaa is pretty f***ed now. The court got access to a bunch of documents of the executives talking about how they technically *could* track and log downloads on the network, and indicated that they knew copyrighted content was being shared. It also talked about how employees hated installing Kazaa because of all the spyware, but that's another issue :-)

However, you're right about the principle - network providers who are not knowledgable cannot be held liable for content. I think this was tested in regards to the phone companies - they can't be held liable if you use the phone network to plan a murder or something, because they don't and can't control the network content.

Bingle

bacon_masta

macs and pc's both have their pros and cons, just pick one and put linux on it

jaypc2

I love my Mac, I use it more than any of my other 2 computers (one running linux and the other XP) really it all depends on 1. what your willing to pay (in most cases macs will cost more) 2. what your using the computer for. in my opinion if your doing anysort of video, imaging, music production, or even composition i would recommend mac. if your just playing games PC. if i were in your shoes i would go with mac... much much more stable mines never crashed! thats my 2 cents on the issue

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Coppertop

Seeing as how:

• the original post was about building a computer 9 months ago
• the original poster never returned
• the thread has seriously devolved

... maybe it's time for this thread to die a lonely death?

AngelicVampire

It was obvious that Sharmen tracked kazaa, however there were "safe" versions... but if they have officially said they can track stuff then they start to lose their distinction... better to have left that off the official books me thinks.

irseg

I didn't know about the Kazaa execs acknowledging on paper that they ought to track things and they knew copyrighted material was being exchanged. That definitely blurs the line. To extend my water pipe analogy, it's kind of like if a bong company had internal documents explaining how their product is designed to make pot taste smoother, or that they did a customer survey and 98% of them use it for pot.

My take on "borderline illegal" things like these are if it's not marketed or solely used for illegal purposes and no mention is officially made of how it can be used illegally, it's none of the government's business because they are punishing THOUGHTS and POSSIBLE INTENTIONS regarding how the product is to be used, rather than anything objective. And although they may very well be right that Kazaa is used 99% of the time for trading copyrighted materials, that sets an extremely dangerous precedent--imagine buying some nails and pipe for a remodeling project, then being sent to jail because some cop thought you planned to make a pipe bomb based solely on that evidence. Or being convicted of burglary because you happened to have a crowbar in your car. Same thing.

But once the company documents that they are perfectly aware their product is being used illegally by most of its users and does nothing to curtail such behavior (or worse yet, encourages it), that hurts their case dramatically because then there is objective, tangible evidence.

So basically the Kazaa people should not have tracked usage, and should've kept their damn mouths shut about using it for sharing copyrighted materials.

kutulu

So? Good conversations can continue without the originator and they don't have to stay true to the original topic.

rubicon

Can somebody just close this thread!!!

Windows people who have never used a Mac for more than a few days will never get it. Likewise, continually stating that people buy Macs to "look cool" is ridiculous. Have you seen the crazy mod crap that kids are buying for their PC? Neon lights? Alien Face cases?

Aren't neon lights just to look cool? If not, then it's a matter of style. I'd use that to describe Mac buyers - they have a sense of style, which incidentially, doesn't seem to gravitate to neon.

(oh god, why am i feeding this nasty monster of a thread...)

It's as obvious as the last election that Red and Blue is split almost 50/50.

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bingle

Actually, I think modern Macs are fantastic. OSX is a fantastic blend of the security and power of BSD with the beauty and ease-of-use that only Apple can devise.

However, I'm also a big fan of Linux, and I would never tell someone to use a Linux PC at college. (Unless they're going to be doing Comp. Sci. at Berkeley or someplace) There's a grim reality that people have to face: you're going to have better luck with a Windows PC at college because that's what everyone else will be using, all of your software will be available for it, and when you play games you won't be stuck with a 6-year-old copy of Starcraft while everyone else is playing UT2k6. Trust me, I had friends who were Mac people in college, and they suffered because of it. It's not like it's a 50/50 split, remember - it's something like 2 percent vs. 95 percent.

This isn't a discussion about which is the better platform overall, it's a discussion about which one you should buy for your first year in college.

Bingle

Willravel

Have a good thread ppl.

Lasereth

That's basically the end to the story. No denying it.

-Lasereth

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