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Rob Knop's Blog -- ramblings and rants about astronomy, cosmology, science education, general nerdism, and anything else.

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Rob Knop earned a PhD in Physics from Caltech in 1997, and did a 5-year post-doc with the Supernova Cosmology Project, and contributed to the discovery of the accelerating Universe. He was an assistant professor of Physics & Astronomy at Vanderbilt for 6 years before scattering out of academia. He now works for Linden Lab, the producers of Second LIfe. (Note: this is not an official site of Linden Lab! Although I work for Linden Lab, all content in this blog is posted without the review or approval of Linden Lab. All statements and opinions expressed here are my own.)

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« On Science, Religion, and "Compartmentalization" | Main | Congress & Colleges, a Tool for the RIAA ; Let's Hack the System! »

Copyright Violation : a Bigger Threat than Murder?

Category: Intellectual PropertyRant
Posted on: July 21, 2007 12:02 PM, by Rob Knop

Because, unlike what happens with copyright violation, students at Kansas University would at least be given due process and the right to a trial in which they could defend themselves if accused of murder.

Oh, and P.S., just like Josh's blog, if you're at KU and just read this, well, you're worse than a murderer, and under the rules of your University, your Internet access needs to be cut off. This page is, after all; under copyright. (For more info, see and click on the "Creative Commons" icon at the bottom of the left sidebar.)

Of course, if they abide by their rules, KU really out to shut themselves off from the Internet altogether. The fundamental protocols of the Internet (TCP/IP), after all, are designed in a "peer-to-peer" manner, and "peer-to-peer" software is evil and prohibited. This would be a nice solution; cut all of KU off of the Internet because the Internet violates their Internet policies. In any event, that's what their rules tell them they have to do. (And, I suspect that the RIAA and the MPAA would love nothing more than to see the entire Internet disconnected.)

It's just nuts how witch-hunty we've gotten about copyright violation. The slightest hint from the RIAA thugs that there's an issue, and you begin to wish that you were in Guantanamo Bay facing trial as an enemy combatant.... It's a wonder Cheny hasn't tried to harness the RIAA lawyer corps, for they seem to operate in a mode that plays to his heart.

Comments

In case anyone's interested, a few commenters have been discussing this issue over at Thoughts From Kansas.

Posted by: PhysioProf | July 22, 2007 2:02 PM

The notion that there is no recourse, no appeal, is what frightens me. Even the piss-poor wording aside, I can think of some circumstances, where an appeal would certainly be warranted, even if it was a more blatant ripoff of copyrighted material, without permission.

Posted by: DuWayne | July 23, 2007 9:21 PM

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