Amiga World Tech Journal (October 1991)

Amiga World Tech Journal was a publication that was targeted to a more technical audience. It was an excellent resource for those who programmed or were interested in programming on the Amiga. It even included a disk that had various source code and executables related to the articles. The October 1991 issue includes:

Articles

• The Complete Guide for the Blittering Idiot - How to use the Amiga's Blitter chip. The Blitter could do things like copy areas of the screen, clear or set any rectangle on the screen, merge data from multiple sources, shift pixels horizontally or vertically, and much more.

• Extending ARexx - Building menus and requestors with Amiga's scripting language and certain libraries.

• Global Parlor Tricks - Algorithms for map projections.

• Multitasking in Amiga BASIC - Creating BASIC programs on the Amiga that take advantage of its multitasking capabilities.

• Modular Programming in C - Creating structured programs by using modules in C.

• Building an ARexx Function Host - A function host is a resident program that can perform functions triggered by ARexx.

• Designing a User Interface: A Matter of Principle - Part 1 of a guide to building user interfaces.

• The Finer Points of Pointers - A guide to using pointers in C.

• Font Formats - Supporting various font types in your programs. Font types include Bitmap, Intellifont, Type 1, DMF, and IFF DR2D OFNT.

• Manual Training - Tips for creating great user manuals.

• Arcade Elements - Creating a shoot-'em-up arcade style game using SAS/C.

Reviews

• TurboText 1.02 - An advanced text editor for the Amiga that includes ARexx support.

Columns

• Message Port - Why it's a bad idea to exploit bugs or undocumented features in your programs.

• Digging Deep in the OS - Processing input on the amiga using INPUT.DEVICE.

• Graphics Handler - Two new video modes for the Amiga.

• TNT - A look at new products for the Amiga including the SupraModem 9600, MaxTrax music driver, Comeau C++ version 2.1, and the RCU-200 Industrial I/O Control Unit.

• Letters - Letters about the NTSC/RS-170A standard, joystick programming, MIDI programming, and more.

...and more!

Europe Can Only Afford Its Welfare State by Heavily Taxing the Non-Wealthy

I argued last year that leftists should be nice to rich people because upper-income taxpayers finance the vast majority of the American welfare state according to government data. Needless to say, my comment about being “nice” was somewhat sarcastic. But I was making a serious point about the United States having a very “progressive” fiscal system. The top-20 percent basically pay for government and those in the bottom half are net recipients of that involuntary largesse.

I also pointed out a huge difference between the United States and Europe. Governments on the other side of the Atlantic impose much higher burdens on lower-income and middle-class taxpayers.

Here’s some of what I wrote:

…the big difference between the United States and Europe is not taxes on the rich. We both impose similar tax burden on high-income taxpayers, though Europeans are more likely to collect revenue from the rich with higher income tax rates and the U.S. gets a greater share of revenue from upper-income taxpayers with double taxation on interest, dividends, and capital gains (we also have a very punitive corporate tax system, though it doesn’t collect that much revenue). The real difference between America and Europe is that America has a far lower tax burden on lower- and middle-income taxpayers. Tax rates in Europe, particularly the top rate, tend to take effect at much lower levels of income. European governments all levy onerous value-added taxes that raise costs for all consumers. Payroll tax burdens in many European nations are significantly higher than in the United States.

So does this mean European politicians don’t like ordinary people?

I could make a snarky comment about the attitudes of the political elite, but I’ll resist that temptation and instead point out that taxes in Europe are much higher for the simple reason that government is much bigger and that means some segment of the population has to surrender more of its income.

But here’s the $64,000 question that we want to investigate today: Why are European governments pillaging lower-income and middle-class taxpayers instead of going after the “evil rich” and “greedy corporations”?

Part of the answer is that there aren’t enough rich people to finance big government. But the most important factor is the Laffer Curve. Politicians can impose higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers and companies, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into higher revenue. Simply stated, well-to-do taxpayers have considerable ability to earn less income and/or report less income when tax burdens increase, and they do the opposite when tax burdens decrease.

That’s true in the United States, and it’s true in European countries such as Sweden, France, Russia, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.

So even if politicians want to fleece upper-income taxpayers, that’s not a successful method of generating a lot of revenue.

Which is why a shift from a medium-sized welfare state (such as what exists in the United States) to a large-sized welfare state (common in Europe) means huge tax increases on ordinary taxpayers.

I’ve made this point before, but now I have some additional evidence thanks to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Paris-based bureaucracy is probably my least-favorite international organization because of its advocacy for statism, but it collects and publishes lots of useful statistics about fiscal policy in the industrialized world.

And here are three charts from the new study that tell a very persuasive story (and a depressing story for ordinary taxpayers).

First, we can see how the average tax burden has increased substantially over the past 50 years.



And who is paying all that additional money to politicians?

As you can see from this second chart, income tax revenues have become a less-important source of revenue over time while social insurance taxes (mostly paid by lower-income and middle-class taxpayers) have become a more-important source of revenue.



The third chart shows the evolution of the value-added tax burden. This levy takes a big bite out of the paychecks of ordinary people and the rate keeps climbing over time (and if we looked just at European governments that are part of the OECD, the numbers are even more depressing).



Now let’s put this data in context.

The United States now has a medium-sized welfare state financed mostly by upper-income taxpayers.

But because of dramatic demographic changes, we are doomed to have a large-sized welfare state. At least that’s what will happen if we don’t reform entitlement programs.

And if we leave policy on auto-pilot and there’s a substantial increase in the burden of government spending, it’s simply a matter of time before politicians figure out new ways of taking more money from lower-income and middle-class taxpayers.

Yes, they may also impose higher rates on “rich” taxpayers, but that will be mostly for symbolic purposes since those levies won’t generate substantial revenue.

Last but not least, don’t forget that European fiscal burdens will mean anemic European economic performance.

Reprinted from Intentional Liberty

Daniel J. Mitchell


Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The War on General-Purpose Computing Turns on the Streaming Media Box Community

For most of the lifetime of Kodi since its release as XMBC in 2002, it was an obscure piece of free software that geeks used to manage their home media collections. But in the past few years, the sale of pre-configured Kodi boxes, and the availability of a range of plugins providing access to streaming media, has seen the software's popularity balloon—and made it the latest target of Hollywood's copyright enforcement juggernaut.

We've seen this in the appearance of streaming media boxes as an enforcement priority in the U.S. Trade Representative's Special 301 Report, in proposals for new legislation targeting the sale of "illicit" media boxes, and in lawsuits that have been brought on both sides of the Atlantic to address the "problem" that media boxes running Kodi, like any Web browser, can be used to access media streams that were not authorized by the copyright holder. We've also seen it in the big TV networks' vehement, sometimes disingenuous opposition to the U.S. law and regulations that mandate effective competition in the cable set-top box market.

The difficulty facing the titans of TV is that since neither those who sell Kodi boxes, nor those who write or host add-ons for the software, are engaging in any unauthorized copying by doing so, cases targeting these parties have to rely on other legal theories. So far several legal theories have been used; one in Europe against sellers of Kodi boxes, one in Canada against the owner of the popular Kodi add-on repository TVAddons, and two in the United States against TVAddons and a plugin developer.

European Filmspeler Case

In Europe, the case Stichting Brein v Jack Frederik Wullems (Filmspeler) was brought against a seller of Kodi boxes that came pre-installed with third-party plugins that were configured to access copyright-infringing streams. Although the seller was not engaged in any unauthorized reproduction of copyright works himself, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in April this year that because the boxes were configured with plugins that linked to copyright-infringing content, the defendant was infringing the copyright holder's exclusive power to control "communication to the public" of a copyright work.

The finding that the seller had engaged in a "communication to the public" is, to be charitable, a stretch; especially because recital 27 of Europe's Copyright Directive states that "the mere provision of physical facilities for enabling or making a communication does not in itself amount to a communication."

As best as we can explain it, the court reasoned that the provision of the pre-configured Kodi boxes was, in practical terms, a necessary step enabling end users to access the copyright-infringing steams, since these streams were not readily accessible other then by use of Kodi configured with a plugin to access them. The judgment built upon an earlier bad decisionthat outlawed merely hyperlinking to copyright-infringing content if the party who posted the link knew that the content was infringing; and that they would be presumed to have such knowledge if the hyperlink was posted for financial gain.

Canadian TVAddons Case

The second legal theory that has been used against the Kodi community is that helping people get add-ons that can infringe copyright amounts to an inducement or authorization of users' copyright infringements. This claim has been used to bring complaints and threats against add-on developers, resulting in several of them shutting down, and also forms the basis of a lawsuit against the host of a repository of such add-ons, TVAddons, brought by Canadian telecommunications companies Bell, Videotron, Rogers and TVA.

The lawsuit caused controversy recently when in a shocking abuse of legal process, the plaintiffs executed an Anton Piller order (a form of injunction somewhat like a private search warrant) to raid the home of the TVAddons site administrator, where during a terrifying sixteen hour ordeal he was interrogated by company representatives who threatened to prosecute him. They later seized his personal computer, domain names and social media accounts. A Canadian court subsequently vacated the injunction, ruling that the TV networks' "true purpose was to destroy the livelihood of the Defendant, deny him the [] resources to finance a defense," and to engage in discovery without "procedural safeguards." However, the networks appealed, the lawsuit continues, and TVAddons has not recovered its domain names and equipment (it has continued operation at a new domain name).

It is undisputed that the vast majority of the Kodi add-ons hosted at TVAddons at the time of the seizure were not infringing. Although some add-ons facilitate the users' access to copyright-infringing streams, there is a strong case that no wrong has been committed by TVAddons for merely hosting them online for download. Canadian law, like American law, provides web hosts with a safe harbor making them “exempt from liability when they act strictly as intermediaries in communication, caching and hosting activities.”

The lawsuit against TVAddons seeks to skirt that important protection by arguing that by merely hosting, distributing and promoting Kodi add-ons, the TVAddons administrator is liable for inducing or authorizing copyright infringements later committed using those add-ons. This argument, were it to succeed, would create new uncertainty and risk for distributors of any software that could be used to engage in copyright infringement.

American Lawsuit Against ZemTV and TVAddons

In a counterpart to the Canadian case, Dish Network has sued the developer of an add-on called ZemTV for direct infringement of the streaming media sources that can be accessed through that plugin, and TVAddons for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, seeking awards of statutory damages against both. In this respect, American laws differs somewhat from Canadian law. This week, Dish amended its complaint to name the individuals it alleges to be the operators of ZemTV and TVAddons. While ZemTV's operators could be liable for infringement if they actually retransmitted broadcast TV channels without permission, the lawsuit's claims against TVAddons are weak. While the complaint claims that TVAddons's operator had "actual or constructive knowledge of [] infringing activity," and that he "intentionally induced ZemTV users to display the programs," the complaint doesn't say what, if anything, TVAddons did besides providing access to the ZemTV plugin amongst hundreds of other Kodi plugins. That doesn't add up to contributory infringement (or inducement).

Dish's attempt to plead vicarious infringement seems to be lacking, as well. Vicarious copyright liability requires that the defendant have the "right and ability to supervise" the conduct of the direct infringer, and benefit financially. Dish claims only that the TVAddons site made ZemTV "available for download." That's not enough to show an ability to supervise.

Despite the weakness of its claims, Dish, like the Canadian broadcasters, has ample resources to throw into litigation. Hopefully, TVAddons will have its day in court.

Conclusion

These lawsuits by big TV incumbents seem to have a few goals: to expand the scope of secondary copyright infringement yet again, to force major Kodi add-on distributors off of the Internet, and to smear and discourage open source, freely configurable media players by focusing on the few bad actors in that ecosystem. The courts should reject these expansions of copyright liability, and TV networks should not target neutral platforms and technologies for abusive lawsuits.

Source: The War on General-Purpose Computing Turns on the Streaming Media Box Community | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Why Europeans View Scottish and Catalan Secession Differently Than Brexit

Last week, the Spanish constitutional court decided to put a fine of over $14,000 on the organizers of the Catalonian independence referendum, for every day that it continues. Prior to this decision, thousands of referendum ballots had been seized by the central government, as Spain considers its rebellious region to behave unconstitutionally. Catalonia, currently a part of the Spanish Kingdom, has been seeking independence from the Iberian state for almost 100 years now, with no indication that Madrid will ever allow to let them leave. As a matter of fact, Spain would lose 6 percent of its territory, 16 percent of its population, more than half of its start-up investments, and 20 percent of its GDP.

But Brexit Is Different

Far more interesting than the actual struggle for independence is the incoherent position of EU-advocates towards this issue. Across Europe, most people seem to sympathize with the Catalan secessionists. While the EU has vowed to not intervene in the independence dispute, the European public seems to have picked a side in this fight, especially since the Spanish government has shown to be particularly stubborn. The Scottish National Party (SNP), which was a major contributor in organizing the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, is also a major supporter of Catalan secession, as it would increase its own chances of being heard in the United Kingdom. Famous Scottish secessionist Alex Salmond even vowed his support on Twitter, by holding a sign saying, "Si."

Despite there being no polls conducted in other EU countries about the support for these secessionist movements, there is also a consistent lack of criticism towards the independence movements in both Scotland and Catalonia. It seems odd that after the harsh criticism at the mere concept of a referendum after Brexit there would be so little concern about other secessionist movements. It surely couldn't be claimed that the general public position is that "the concerned people should make this decision for themselves." Brexit saw large commentary from all over the world, with even President Obama arguing against it.

The reason for this lack of opposition is due to the clear pro-EU stance of both of these independence movements. The SNP continuously points towards the fact a majority of the Scottish electorate voted to remain in the European Union and combines its marches with numerous EU flags. Catalan secessionists have also made it very clear to EU-leaders in Brussels that a secession from Spain would be "a good thing" for the union. And in fact, Catalonians seem to be more excited for the "European project." While about half of Spanish voters were confident that the EU improved the situation of the continent, Catalonians have consistently voted for pro-EU candidates as the regional presidents. The incumbent Charles Puigdemont, in a recent article for The Guardian, even believes that it is the role of the European Union Commission to intervene, by which he likely means the EU overruling the Spanish government and its constitutional interpretations.

Moral Inconsistency

Let us just imagine for a second that Brexit hadn't happened, but that a eurosceptic movement in Wales (which majoritively voted to leave the European Union) would ask an international body to overrule the United Kingdom's government and let Wales secede. Would people dress up as the Welsh dragon and call for the right of the people to decide for themselves? It seems highly implausible.

But we don't even need to imagine secessionist movements coming under fire for purely political reasons. The secessionists in Flanders, the Northern region of the Kingdom of Belgium, have the same demands regarding independence but don't generate any comparable support from abroad. The reason, once again, is their stance on the European Union: the New Flemish Alliance (NVA), the secessionist party arguing for independence, is a center-right movement which specifically states that it wants Flanders to remain in the EU. However, it also says that: "We are not afraid to question how the EU works." That, in the eyes of the rest of the continent, is the deal-breaker. The NVA is often labeled as far-right or "threatening stability" for Belgium.

This is the problem with most of European politics overall: it never stands on any sort of principle. Fervent defenders of self-determination painting Scottish flags on their cheeks turn into angry protesters accusing people of fascism once growing Euroscepticism manages to get one country to leave the EU or makes people even slightly question the legitimacy of some of the union's policy.

Secession is not a convenient political product marketed for a specific short-term political goal. The self-determination of people is their right to make their relationship with government as consensual as possible.

 

Bill Wirtz is a Young Voices Advocate. His work has been featured in several outlets, including Newsweek, Rare, RealClear, CityAM, Le Monde and Le Figaro. He also works as a Policy Analyst for the Consumer Choice Center.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.