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This is OT, obviously, but, I've had 50 karma for years, so I can take the hit here.

Thanks for that link. First, the quotes were entertaining. Second, the AIDS subject at the bottom of the page was fascinating. At first I thought the author was a quack, as there were articles about crop circles and the "face on mars," but the AIDS article fascinated me. I independently checked the sources, and the doctors interviewed in the article do exist, and are prominent members of the academic community, including tenured professors at UC Berkeley and a nobel price winner for chemistry, and they have on many occaisons made similar statements to the ones they make in those interviews.

I had no idea HIV has never been isolated. It's crazy...you can go on google, and type in "polio virus image" and you'll find dozens of scanning electron microscope images of the isolated virus. If you do the same thing for HIV, you'll find artists conceptions, or pictures of a culture...but no actually virus. Those HIV tests only detect antibodies, which could be cross-reacting from dozens of other illnesses or conditions. The FDA hasn't even ever approved any of these tests, and in Africa health officials decide if you have HIV/AIDS based on symptoms, which are symptoms of a myriad of other common diseases in Africa caused by malnutrition and unsanitary condtions. Just incredible. If you haven't read it yet, check out the article. I was skepitcal, too, but...damn.

You're right, everything important has been discovered.

An Italian astronomer named Schiaparelli created some of the first maps of Mars. He named features using words from biblical and mythical geography. Some of these names, such as Argyre, Hellas, and Tempe, are still used on maps and globes of Mars.

In the 1970s, after the Mariner spacecraft flew by Mars, many new images were returned to Earth. A special group of people was formed to decide on names for the newly discovered features. This group also set up rules for naming future discoveries.

All features on Mars have two names. The first is a formal name following the international rules that have been established. The other is a geologic name. The second name tells us what type of geologic feature it is. Following are some examples of geologic names:

• Mons: mountain
• Crater: circular depression
• Dorsum: ridge
• Planum: plateau or high plain
• Fossa: depression (hole)
• Valles: valley

For example, Olympus Mons is a mountain formed by a volcano. It is named after Mount Olympus in Greece. Sometimes the name order is reversed. For example, in Valles Marineris, the geologic name comes first. Valles Marineris is a valley named after the Mariner spacecraft that first flew by Mars.

Anyone can submit a name for a specific feature on Mars! The group meets once each year to consider appropriate names. If you would like to suggest a name for a feature on Mars, send your suggestion to the U.S. Geological Survey, Branch of Astrogeology, Room 409, 2255 N. Gemini Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86001.

Rules for Naming Martian Features

Large craters are named after deceased scientists who have contributed to the study of Mars.

• Gusev (Maturei M., 1826-1866, Russian astronomer)
• Lowell (Percival, 1855-1916, American astronomer)

Small craters are named for villages and towns of the world with populations less than 100,000.

• Aspen (Town in Colorado, USA)
• Bira (Town in Russia)
• Isil (Town in Spain)
• Jama (Town in Tunisia)
• Kakori (Town in India)

Large valleys are named for the word used for Mars in various languages of the world.

• Ares Vallis (word for Mars in Greek)
• Mangala Valles (word for Mars in Sanskrit)
• Marte Vallis (word for Mars in Spanish)
• Mawrth Vallis (word for Mars in Welsh)
• Nirgal Vallis (word for Mars in Babylonian)
• Tiu Vallis (word for Mars in Old English)

Small valleys are named for classical or modern names of rivers.

• Indus Vallis (river in Pakistan)
• Naktong Vallis (river in Korea)
• Warrego Valles (river in Australia)

All other features retain the names given by Schiaparelli or Antoniadi, another Italian astronomer.

• Amazonis Planitia (classical name)
• Libya Mons (classical name)
• Olympus Mons (classical name)

Rules for Naming Craters

Naming rules exist for most features on planets, moons, and asteroids. The following are the regulations for craters:

• Craters on Mercury are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, painters, or authors.
• Large craters on Venus are named after famous women.
• Small craters on Venus are given common female first names.
• Large craters on Earth's moon are named after famous deceased scientists, scholars, or artists.
• Small craters on the moon are given common first names.
• Craters on Jupiter's moon Europa are given names of Celtic gods and heroes.
• Craters on Jupiter's moon Ganymede are named for gods and heroes of the ancient Fertile Crescent people.
• Craters on the asteroid Ida are named for caverns and grottos of the world.

http://chainreaction.asu.edu/solarsystem/digin/nam e.htm

you can't use Mickey Mouse because he's still under copyright.

Mickey has already fallen into the public domain for reasons other than the expiration of copyright. Try lack of notice when it was required.

A show that is no longer available on TV is still illegal: it is still copyrighted.

Copyrighted? Yes. Illegal? Not necessarily. Though the second and third fair use factors weigh in favor of the copyright owner, the first and all-important fourth factors would weigh in favor of a hypothetical non-profit distribution network that allows sharing only of what has definitely fallen out of print.

You might not be able to find a copy of Steamboat Willy ANYWHERE in the real world--but you're still breaking the law

"Steamboat Willie" may not be under copyright at all thanks to a faulty copyright notice that was not corrected in time.

The jellyfish protein introduced as a transgene in different organisms is known as green fluorescence protein, or GFP. There are actually quite a few derivatives of this protein with different spectral properties (e.g. see here http://www.clontech.com/gfp/excitation.shtml). Since the late 1990's, many researchers have engrafted GFP into the genome of mice as well as zebrafish to study developmental processes. GFP has also been used to label and track HIV-1 in light microscopy studies (see here, here, here, and here). Because of the protein's stability and ability to fluoresce under physiological conditions, it has been enormously useful to track live processes at the molecular level in real time. In short, this molecule rocks.

The researcher at NTU hasn't really done anything new or innovative, and patent rights to this molecule and its applications are in part held by Columbia University (at least they used to be). Thus even if a firm is interested in these glow-in-the-dark fish, they're likely going to pay significant royalties to be licensed to do so.

The jellyfish protein introduced as a transgene in different organisms is known as green fluorescence protein, or GFP. There are actually quite a few derivatives of this protein with different spectral properties (e.g. see here http://www.clontech.com/gfp/excitation.shtml). Since the late 1990's, many researchers have engrafted GFP into the genome of mice as well as zebrafish to study developmental processes. GFP has also been used to label and track HIV-1 in light microscopy studies (see here, here, here, and here). Because of the protein's stability and ability to fluoresce under physiological conditions, it has been enormously useful to track live processes at the molecular level in real time. In short, this molecule rocks.

The researcher at NTU hasn't really done anything new or innovative, and patent rights to this molecule and its applications are in part held by Columbia University (at least they used to be). Thus even if a firm is interested in these glow-in-the-dark fish, they're likely going to pay significant royalties to be licensed to do so.

I can't believe that they are advocating Shrek as an alternative to Disney movies.

What alternatives would you suggest? I know the webmaster of losingnemo.com, and perhaps I could give him some better alternatives.

Hello...Lord Farquaad...

I think Shrek portrayed Eisner quite accurately.

Also, what is so ridiculous about wanting to copyright something that you have done

I agree that copyright is the lesser of n evils, but don't you think 95 years is excessive? Do you not see the value of the public domain?

Good point - look at an XRay of a PowerBook and what do you see?

...the images you see should be true-color, too.

A large majority of publicy-available Mars images--particularly maps taken from orbit by Mars Odyssey and most of the Sojourner images--are not really color-calibrated at all. Mars is actually a lot redder than you think, and you really can't see clouds at all.

Here at Cornell, we're working on properly calibrating the images for the new missions. With some luck, everything that's publicly released next year will be sRGB! (Check out progress.)

James Lovelock, one of the true ninja hacker lords, has suggested that of all planets in the solar system, only Earth looks like it harbors life, because only it has an atmosphere that is out of chemical equilibrium.

Lovelock, a atmospheric chemist and inventor who made his fortune on the ion-capture gas chromatography detector, is the author of the so-called Gaia Hypothesis. Romantic name aside, it's the idea that the presence of life alters a planet's environment to be more favorable to life. (The idea and name have been appropriated by eco-mystics who take it to mean that there actually is some sort of earth deity, but that's emphatically not what Lovelock is saying.)

On our planet, many atmospheric gases are grossly out of equilibrium. For instance, although the atmosphere is about one-fifth oxygen, there are detectable traces of methane, mostly from termites and "the farts of ruminants". If life were not continually renewing the methane, it would combine with the oxygen, and disappear in a few hours.

Of course, the presence of oxygen itself is an anomaly. It is so reactive that if it were not renewed by photosynthesis, it would bind with the copious free carbon lying about.

Lovelock gives many other examples in his excellent book, Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth. (He also mentions that the presence of fluorocarbons, like Freon, in the atmosphere is a clear sign, not just of life, but of intelligent life. Since you can determine atmospheric composition by spectrometry through a telescope, this gives a way to detect civilization if only you can image a planet hosting it.)

There's a clue in the simple appearance of the planets from space: compare the complex and constantly-changing appearance of the Earth's patchy clouds, liquid-water ocean, and of course its wildly varying landmasses (including snowcaps, yellow deserts, chlorphyll-green jungles, and seasonal temperate forests and grasslands), with the dead, relatively static appearance of any other planet in the system. Our nervous systems have life-detection circuits built in; honestly now, do you see any when you look at Mars?

The key is that Earth is alone in all the solar system in having a disequilibrium chemistry. This doesn't mean that there wasn't life elsewhere at one time; it may not even mean that there aren't small, isolated outposts that support some life, but not enough to control the entire planet. Certainly, life on Earth had to start that way.

Nevertheless, although there may indeed have been a time, early in its history, when life florished on Mars, it seems dead now.

The character might be copyrighted

But then again, it might not thanks to a faulty copyright notice.

I have a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Arizona State University. I like to think that I am an engineer. I feel that the work I do is above just coding but at the same time I work with people with "Software Engineering" from a "design" school. They are the ones who seem happy to call themselves software engineers. I went to school and suffered through statics, physics, and calculus like the electrical, chemical, and civil engineers around me. My college had ABET accreditation so again I like to think that I am a real engineer. I know I may be viewed as a code monkey but I have a job so call me what you will.

I have a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Arizona State University. I like to think that I am an engineer. I feel that the work I do is above just coding but at the same time I work with people with "Software Engineering" from a "design" school. They are the ones who seem happy to call themselves software engineers. I went to school and suffered through statics, physics, and calculus like the electrical, chemical, and civil engineers around me. My college had ABET accreditation so again I like to think that I am a real engineer. I know I may be viewed as a code monkey but I have a job so call me what you will.

the icons of our culture (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer IIRC, and certainly Micky Mouse et. al.) are all privatly owned, copyrighted material.

Really? Here's why Mickey Mouse may have fallen into the public domain, not through copyright expiration but rather through lack of proper notice when notice was required.

Politicians do ultimately listen to votes, not dollars, but as long as people like yourself remain inactive dollars will equal votes.

Voting for candidates doesn't work if neither major party candidate represents my views ("don't blame me; I voted for Browne"). So how do I get one or more of the congressional candidates in my area to adopt any of my pet issues as a plank?

Check this out.

Arizona State's former department of EXERCISE SCIENCE and PHYSICAL EDUCATION

from the site
That's certainly one caring looking devil.

Transfer. Or better yet, just hang out nearby.

In case this gets /.-ed (like it won't =| )...

http://www.public.asu.edu/~jmellen/fnat.pdf. Have at it!!

They are busy with their demands that Verizon
provide the name of a user who may have downloaded some music which may be
copyright and they are busy with their allegations about KaZaA music service,
a company which has the good sense to challenge the operation of the RIAA.

In the same manner it used in the Napster trial,
the RIAA is making wild assertions that gullible media, public and even legal
authorities appear to be accepting as fact. So far at least, it has managed
to give the impression that everyone apart from its members are to blame
for a slump in music sales. It can't be them - it must be those evil people
using the Internet.

No doubt the RIAA was emboldened by the judgment
against Napster and this gives it the feeling it can flex its muscles at
the world at large.

There is little doubt that Napster was guilty
of copyright infringement but only directly in so far as they themselves
copied music; that Napster had knowledge that users were infringing copyright
but only in so far as they could ascertain that copyright applied to certain
tracks; that they were guilty of contributory copyright infringement but
only in so far as they encouraged users to infringe copyright, and that they
were guilty of vicarious copyright only in so far as their income was dependent
on the use of copyrighted material.

That they themselves copied music from CD into
digital form is not clear. That they knew users were making illegal copies
is true, but the means of policing such action was beyond them if they had
no list of copyrighted works or any other means of checking. That they encouraged
others to infringe copyright is also probably true, but again the exact extent
of this and its influence on users is impossible to gauge. That its income
was dependent on copyright infringement is an accepted fact but again the
exact extent of this is impossible to determine.

For the record, Napster did not store music
on its own servers - it simply held the databases of music tracks that could
be accessed from users' own systems. The software they offered for peer-to-peer
copying between systems was also standard, although some minor enhancements
were made to improve the copying of large MP3 files. Providing something
as a legitimate use means it cannot be banned on the basis of possible
illegal use.

Findlaw.com has an archive of documents related to the trial and they
make very interesting reading. Time and time again, there are assertions
that Napster caused a slump in record sales but none of the many witnesses
- and there were many because the RIAA has deep pockets - presented any more
than circumstantial evidence.

How bad were the lies and distortions? The
response by Peter S Fader of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
provides an interesting rebuff to many of the witnesses. (You can find it
here.)

For example, one music storeowner near Syracuse
University in New York attributed a steep decline in music sales to the use
of Napster. He forgot to mention that in the time period to which he referred,
he had changed his emphasis from CDs to vinyl records and had moved to a
new store which was outside the main local shopping area. He later reluctantly
agreed that perhaps these were significant factors in his drop in income
and that perhaps he was making an assumption about Napster.

In a survey commissioned by the RIAA, the results
to open-ended questions (i.e. those with no specific choices) were interpreted
with a strong bias towards that association. This survey also concentrated
on college and university students then attempted to generalise the results
and paint a grim picture. More thorough surveys by other researchers indicated
that these "financially challenged" students were not typical Napster users
because more than 50% of users were over 30. Scattered through the various
submissions are all kinds of assertions that Napster was taking large numbers
of customers away from legitimate enterprises. Not one of these submissions
produced any incontrovertible evidence that showed a direct connection between
the use of Napster and a decline in music sales.

Several musicians who had been either ignored
or badly treated by record companies saw Napster as highly beneficial. Some
submissions are included in the Findlaw archive but other such as Janis Ian,
with 25-years in the recording business, chose to make their own public statements.
Janis's two postings can be found here.
She notes that Napster created a lot of interest in her work, far more than
before Napster arrived on the scene.

Other artists also commented on this phenomenon,
a point that dovetails nicely with numerous surveys - including some from
the RIAA itself - that showed consumers used Napster for sampling different
music. A shock horror tale in one pro-RIAA trial submission was that only
25% of the surveyed users went out and bought the CDs for at least 1 in 4
of the tracks they downloaded. Oddly enough, that corresponds well to the
idea of sampling. What a pity the same survey did not ask about deletions
of downloaded music too, because a large number of deletions within a few
days of downloading would further confirm this sampling.

Various surveys also supported these claims.
A survey by Jupiter Communications in July 2000 concluded that Napster users
were 45% more likely to have spent more buying music than non-users. This
survey was of 2200 online music fans and it found that the only people who
were not likely to increase their music purchases were 18 to 24 year old
"cash-strapped, computer-savvy users".

Jupiter Communications was certainly not alone
in these findings. The consensus was that Napster let people listen to music
that they would not otherwise made the effort to consider. As a result, musical
tastes spread. Another report mentioned that it made it easy to rediscover
artists or to find additional material by them. Both cases meant an increase
in sales of CDs and of vinyl records. There were several comments - of course
from people outside the RIAA - that Napster looked far more likely to increase
music sales than diminish them.

Another reason that students used Napster was
that it let them access one or two good tracks on an otherwise forgettable
CD. I am sure that we all have CDs that fall into that category. The attitude
of the RIAA seems to be that consumers must buy the rubbish in order to get
the few small jewels.

The fact that music sales were declining just
as the use of Napster was increasing presented the RIAA with the perfect
scapegoat, so absolving the music industry of blame and saving it the effort
to think there might be other reasons behind the slump.

After Napster died, the RIAA spouted the same
assertions about online music, whether or not such opinions were false, ill-founded
or unrepresentative.

Here's a typical pronouncement published by DC.Internet during February 2002. "The
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is blaming online piracy
and CD burning as the major culprits for a 10.3 percent slide in 2001 music
sales. According to RIAA data, total U.S. shipments dropped from 1.08 billion
units shipped in 2000 to 968.58 million in 2001. ... Coinciding with the increase
in copying music, the study found that ownership of CD burners has nearly
tripled since 1999: in 2001, two in five music consumers owned a CD burner
compared to 14 percent who owned one in 1999."

At the same time the RIAA declared the rise
in sales of blank CDs was further proof of music piracy, and that blank CD
sales should be curtailed.

Let's dispose of this whole nonsense about CD
burners and blank CD sales quickly and then move back to the more important
issues.

Computer security is not something that the
RIAA is very familiar with, judging by the number of times its own Web site
has been hacked.

Blank CDs are used to back-up computer data.
When one blank CD costs about the same price as one diskette but stores
about 460 times the amount of data, is faster to record and takes far less
space than the equivalent thousands of diskettes, it would be stupid not
to use CDs for backups. The RIAA was quite adamant that the 10% drop in
CD sales in the USA in 2001 as compared to sales in 2000 was purely due to
music piracy but this assertion has to be very seriously questioned.

Firstly, if the RIAA is correct, it would follow
that the general interest in music was unchanged and that attendances at
concerts would be about the same as previous years. They weren't. According
to MTV's reports on the web, concert attendances dropped off by about 15%
in 2001 and revenues were down. The average ticket price rose by about 7%
during the year but as usual it is difficult to say if this deterred ticket
buyers or generated the best possible revenue in a bad situation.

An article in the Miami Herald of March 2002 provides a more balanced
commentary about the slump in music sales than the RIAA's rants. It attributes
a lot of problems in the industry to the fact that the record companies were
under attack from many directions - the government was threatening investigations
into payola, the companies were suffering the excesses of the technological
boom and bust, costs were rising and recording artists were in revolt about
the terms and conditions of their contracts with the record companies.

The terms and conditions are normally that artists
are contracted to produce a certain number of CDs in a certain time - but
it is the companies which dictate what music is acceptable to be marketed
and the manner in which a CD will or won't be marketed. For all this, the
artists receive 10 to 20 percent of the profits of the sale, but only after
the record companies charge them for promotional and marketing costs. Janis
Ian has in fact described the situation as being like indentured slavery,
and it is therefore no wonder that some artists were very pleased with using
Napster to get their music more widely known.

According to the same Miami Herald report,
sales of Latin music were up by 9% in 2001 but "In Latin America itself,
riddled with economic hardship and rampant piracy, mid-2001 sales fell about
20 percent." At least someone made the connection between personal wealth
and piracy.

For a further commentary about issues within
the music industry that were contributing to its slump, try this article
which also provides a far better analysis of the situation that the RIAA's
allegations. This gives an indication of the tone of the piece: "Given the
slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger
drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one
of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal
customers. "

One obvious factor that seems to have been ignored
by the RIAA is the nature of the music being released by the record companies.
Let me throw some names at you ... Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd,
Rod Stewart, Moody Blues, Brian Ferry, Genesis, Elton John and Cliff Richard.
If you are old enough to remember them you will probably like some of them
but dislike others. That is not the point; the point is that they co-existed
on the music charts in the late 1970s and this kind of variation is a far
cry from the kind of music that has been dominating the charts.

The current number of "revivals" or modern versions
of old songs suggests that the music from the 60s, 70s and 80s had something
that is seriously lacking in modern music. Perhaps the record companies
should spend time figuring out just why this is so.

The RIAA's claims that piracy has caused a worldwide
slump in music sales are questionable. By virtue of its population size,
the figures for the USA distort the total picture. The claims also ignore
the fact that US music sells across the world - so if US music is unappealing,
sales will be down everywhere.

To refute the RIAA's claims, CD sales in the
UK actually increased by 5% in 2001 and in France by a similar amount. (The
BBC News report here has the usual comment about piracy but mentions
this very important point only as a final comment.) I would not be at all
surprised if the influence of US music on the UK and French was somewhat
less than for other countries - or that the locally produced music in 2001
was rather more appealing than US music.

To label all US music as unappealing is quite
unfair. Latin and Country music sales have been quite good - probably because
they offered variety, positive energy and far broader appeal than mainstream
pop.

The possible causes of a decline in music sales
go further than these reasons.

Potential music consumers today have far more
choice in their form of entertainment than just listening to music. They
also have other things on which to spend their money and in many cases, they
have less money to spend than they did a few years ago.

Computer games continue to improve and they
are a big leisure activity. Games cost money that might otherwise be spent
on music. Further, games have audio and there is little point playing a
CD if the game's audio will drown out the music.

DVD sales continue to be good and the availability
of "home cinema" systems with DVD player and high quality audio has made
this a popular pastime. Entertainment has become more visual, at least for
those with time to sit and enjoy it. Music videos themselves have increased
the emphasis on the visual aspect of music.

In the USA the price of movie tickets compared
to CDs shows a dramatic difference, with movie tickets reportedly less than
half the price of a CD. Recent reports also say that movie attendance figures
are very high.

Finally, mobile telephone use is on the increase
especially among teenagers who might otherwise buy music CDs. Music might
be aimed at this demographic but most of them are still reliant on pocket-money
and probably have to pay their own mobile phone charges. Little wonder then
that they cannot also afford CDs when some of them rack up bills equivalent
to the GDP of a small country.

The RIAA is under threat from a number of directions
and it is fighting, on behalf of its members, for continued monopolistic
existence. They are under attack from increasing diversions in entertainment
and for the would-be music buyers' money. And they are also under attack
from a new medium that threatens to drastically change the way that music
is distributed and to reduce their control.

They are also seriously concerned about copyright
law and fear that as copyrights expire they will lose significant profits
and, even more importantly, their control over music distribution.

Since the RIAA started raising a fuss with Napster,
the US copyright laws have been changed and the period for which copyright
applies has been extended. Depending on your source you will find that this
is either the eleventh or fifteenth extension of copyright period in about
forty years. One report also indicated that many of these extensions have
occurred as various Walt Disney characters were nearing the end of their
copyright. (For more details see here).

Those with an interest in extending copyright
are more organised and have much deeper pockets than those opposed to change,
and so can finance a greater amount of pro-extension lobbying than those
who are opposed.

In 1998, an extension to the copyright laws meant
that period would last 70 years after the death of the creator, while works
owned by corporations were extended to 95 years. The RIAA is pleased with
this decision because we would otherwise been nearing the time when certain
music from about the early 1950s - the early days of rock and roll - would
have moved to the public domain. Anyone would have been free to publish
it and equally free to take the profits.

This 1998 extension to copyright period was
challenged but in mid-January of this year (2003) the court upheld the earlier
ruling and the RIAA and its cohorts were able to relax in the comfort that
their various treasure chests would not be released to the public. Don't
forget though, when the RIAA was fighting Napster, this outcome was far from
certain.

Cynics among us look at the notions behind the
copyright law and shake our collective heads. The US law was first introduced
in 1790 for a 14-year period with the aim of encouraging creativity and ensure
that the artists or thinkers could enjoy the profits of that creativity.
Extension of the copyright period is only in the interest of groups like
the RIAA because it means they can rely on older material and can minimise
any efforts to find new talent.

The battle for copyright is not yet over because
European authorities do not kowtow to American interests quite so easily.
EU copyright protection lasts only 50 years, as opposed to 95 in the US,
and so music recordings from the 1950s are becoming public domain in Europe.
The 1950s were a boom in popular music with rock and roll exploding and a
big jump in the number of records being released. Elvis Presley's first
record appeared in 1956 and Chuck Berry's first just two years later.

US music distribution companies have indicated
that they will start to fight CD imports, declaring that the import of European
CDs would be an act of piracy and that customs agents have the authority
to seize these imports.

Make no mistake, the RIAA is under attack from
many different directions, some legislative, some social, some from their
artist "slaves" and others from technology. Loss of control of the music
business would mean a dramatic loss of profit for these companies and it
is for those reasons they are currently embarking on a scare campaign about
music piracy around the world.

Again, European authorities are not impressed
by this blathering. According to a recent BBC report here, the European Commission has only outlawed commercial
(i.e. for profit) piracy but has decided not to criminalise people who download
music from the Internet for their own use. Needless to say the RIAA, and
its international counterpart the IFPI, are up to their normal tactics and
alleging - on no proven basis - that this will cause losses of 4.5 billion
euros annually.

In the bigger picture, these organisations are
out to police everything on the web that just might be somehow related to
the copyrighted works that they jealously guard.

In July 2002 a bill was introduced to the US
House of Representatives to permit the owners of material under copyright
to hack into any computer that accesses or uses a peer-to-peer file transfer
service to see if it was holding any illegal copies of the material. It
was described as vigilante justice in the 21st century. I think I know how
commercial enterprises such as banks would view such intrusions!

It appears that they need no "due cause" which
is what even the various law enforcement agencies require for any similar
search activity.

Using similar wild claims about piracy destroying
their business, the RIAA and IFPI are embarking on what amounts to a marketing
campaign to protect their backsides. Unfortunately the assertions are getting
lots of press attention, and there is a danger of the old problem that if
a lie is repeated often enough it gets accepted as truth.

In their latest moves the RIAA and other are
trying to persuade legal authorities to hold ISPs responsible for any illegal
material that is stored on their servers. (For example, see this report). I am
not certain if the ISPs will be required to call out the rottweilers (i.e.
the RIAA) or to decide if a music file is public domain, copyright but authorised
or copyright and illegal, and then act as judge and jury to decide the form
of punishment.

As I have argued earlier, the ISPs should not
be held responsible because it is not their problem if a user wishes to risk
prosecution for whatever crime. I am waiting for the day when ISP operations
can be fully automated and there is no need for any middle-person who currently
provides a ready and easy target for legal authorities and those who pretend
they are legal authorities.

Already the RIAA has managed to convince a
US court into demanding that Verizon hand out the personal details of a user
who is supposed to have copied music files. I know of no other legal situation
where a middle party has been obliged to provide these details to someone
who believes that they may have been a victim of some crime.

Fortunately Verizon is already objecting to
this demand

This Verizon case was discussed in an Australian
article, which went on to blame music piracy for a drop
in CD sales (yet again) and make the typical kind of claim that we have already
seen from the neo-Luddites. "The finger of blame is pointed at the internet,
as industry officials cite a corresponding increase in broadband adoption
as proof that increasing numbers of people are stealing music and movies."

The truly sad thing is that the RIAA is not
acting in the interests of consumers or even their musical artists. It is
only protecting its members, but a lot of influential people are swallowing
the story hook, line and sinker.

Stop. Do not Copy
http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/08-13-Cop yProtection.htm

Suppose you purchase a copy of Time magazine and find an article on the politics of Zimbabwe very interesting. You want your friend Bob to read the article. Can you just give him your magazine? Of course you can. Can Bob then pass it on to some of his friends? Sure he can. Can a library purchase just one copy and make it available to all of its readers to read. Sure, happens all the time. Can you make a photocopy of the column and give it to Bob. Oh well, in most cases, the answer is yes. How about you make hundreds of photocopies and hand them out at the street corner to all people who care to take one? Definitely not!

There may not seem much of a difference between handing out an original copy of a magazine for many people to read and copying the same for the readers. But there is a crucial difference and the difference is based on copyright law. Every country or jurisdiction has its own set of copyright laws and these laws though similar, vary quite a lot. Copyright law (and similar restrictions on patents and products) is designed to protect "artistic value" and "intellectual property". The article in the magazine belongs to the publisher of the magazine, and only the publisher is allowed to make copies and then distribute (sell or give away as per the publishers discretion). The discussion about copyright in this column will reflect the current US laws on copyright.

Copyright protects the authors, publishers and other creators of information, art, writing, books, music, videos, movies, pictures and such artifacts. Copyright, in a nutshell, creates ownership of creative works and prevents stealing of the same via copying. The first copyright law was enacted in England in 1710, and the US adopted copyright in 1790. The US law has been revised in 1831, 1870, 1909, 1976 and 2000, often to keep up with technological innovations.

Copyright is not a complete ban on copying. A purposely-crafted loophole in the law allows for copying for "fair use". That mean, if you like the article in Time magazine you could make a few copies to keep and throw the magazine away. You could also copy to let Bob read the article, if you do not want to give your copy of the magazine to him. In case of computer software, or music, or videos, you could make a copy for use in another location (like a copy of the music to play in your car).

Prevention of copying in the Western world is largely based on a deeply cultivated honor system. Most ordinary citizens do not copy books, music, videos, preferring to buy them because that is the "right thing to do". Breaking the law, even if it is easy and not detectable is a crime and a large majority has respect for the law. Hence, most vendors of artistic works, in fact have nothing to worry about. Of course, things do get copied and sure there is loss of revenue due to copying, but the loss is not significant enough to do something about it.

In addition to the honor system, people do not copy, because it is not convenient to do so and not financially very rewarding. Before the advent of copy machines, of course, copying books was not even possible. The earlier copyright laws prevented plagiarism. For example it would be illegal for some ordinary Joe from copying in his own hand, works from Shakespeare and passing it off as his own writings. The typewriter and then the copy machine made copying easier. However, even with a copy machine, copying a book is a painful task. Most people found it easier to buy the book than to make a copy. Hence, copying was not really a problem.

The first real threat to copying was the audiotape machines, particularly the audiocassette. Piracy of audiocassettes became more common and the music industry just had to bear with it. Luckily, the cassette reproduction was not as good as records or CDs so piracy was kind of limited by quality. Then came the VCR. Two VCR's can copy a videotape, but the quality is less than desirable.

Honor system aside, the incentive to copy rises with cost of the original. When movies became available at about $80 per tape, copying was rampant. Soon the movie vendors found that if they dropped the price to about $20 people stopped copying and purchased the original. In fact, they made more money selling videos at $20 than at $80 (due to enlarged volume).

To stem the loss of revenue from the few who choose to copy rather than buy, the industry started incorporating copy protection schemes. The first copy protection scheme was a method called Macrovision, invented by a company called Macrovision. Macrovision is a special invisible signal that is recorded along with the video on videotapes. A TV set is not affected by this signal but it fools a VCR, and when a Macrovision encoded video signal is recorded on a VCR the picture gets unstable and almost unviewable. Of course it is possible to defeat Macrovision by changing the design of the VCR recording circuitry, but VCR manufacturers were pressurized by the movie industry not to do it.

When the PC's started becoming popular, in the late 1980's software vendors found copying to be a real problem. The price of software was quite high and this promoted copying. It is too easy to make copies of software--one person buys it and makes copies for all the buddies, neighbors and other leeches. Some folks claimed this is permissible under the fair use clause, but it became quite clear that fair use was being stretched. So some software vendors turned to copy protecting the software.

Software is a string of digital bits stored on magnetic media such as hard disks or floppy diskettes. Any computer can make identical copies of the software--how can one copy protect it? The copy protection on diskettes involved techniques such as "nibble counting" and "hidden tracks". These are schemes that rely on some non-standard way of recording floppy disks such that the data is unreadable by the computer running standard software, but some special software provided by the software vendors can read the disks but will not copy them. Of course, there are ways to bypass these schemes.

The copy protected software soon died. Consumers refused to buy disks that they could not copy or backup. In fact there was a backlash, honest people said "I do not steal software, if you make it difficult for me to make a backup copy, as you don't trust me, I will not trust you. I will not buy your product." Other vendors notably Microsoft started selling software at prices so low that people did not copy them. The copy protected software vendors went bankrupt for loss of sales.

Since those days, we have come full circle. The current technology with recordable CDs, networks, massive digitization makes copying trivial. Producing high quality MP3 copies of music and sharing them over the Internet is quite easy. "Napster" is a service that pushed "fair use" to its limits. If someone has a copy of a hit song, he or she could publish this fact on the Internet, using Napster, and then all those who want this song for free can suddenly become this person's friend and download the song from his/her computer. After a long battle in courts, the legal eagles decided such use was not fair and Napster had to shut down.

A fancy scheme was invented for DVD video disks (called Divx) that make it possible to create DVD's such that the movie on it can be viewed only a few times. Then the disk becomes useless. Quite an invention, luckily it died, as no consumer wants to buy such stunted products.

The software from Microsoft has now reached the high ends of expense (encouraging copying) and Microsoft has decided to put an elaborate "registration" system in the new XP series of software products to make copying well next to impossible. Of course the registration strategy is quite nefarious and is an invasion of privacy (the software will contact Microsoft every so often to make sure it is running on a computer authorized to run that copy). Whether this will create a backlash is yet to be seen.

The new copyright law called Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DCMA) takes government control to a new height. This law, amongst other things, makes it illegal for anyone to create methods that bypass copy protection schemes. Research into analyzing encryption schemes to bypass them would be illegal. If I tell you how to bypass a particular copy protection method, I am guilty. That actually, in my opinion, infringes free speech rights and makes criminals out of people involved in academic pursuits.

The parade continues. Some claim that Macrovision has a new scheme by which converting music videos to MP3 digital copies would be made impossible. There may not be much truth to this rumor, but it is a sad commentary on how the music industry wants to reach out and harass the consumer. Over the years, copy protection schemes have been considered an affront to the honest consumer. The majority of these have proven unsuccessful. We should hope the current crop of greedy misguided ventures go the way of its predecessors.

Partha Dasgupta is on the faculty of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Arizona State University in Tempe. His specializations are in the areas of Operating Systems, Cryptography and Networking. His homepage is at http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha.

Bear in mind that the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, excuse me, Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, actually brings US copyright terms in line with the EU.

No, it doesn't. The copyright term for copyrighted works held by private citizens was harmonised by the CTEA. At the same time, the CTEA created a larger disconnect between EU and US copyright law in other areas. Detailed information can be found here

The "harmonisation" argument was, IMHO, an excuse for increasing the corporate copyright term with 20 years in order to save Mickey.

http://www.asu.edu/counsel/brief/privilege.html. Sorry!

Bruce

I know some bioengineering graduate students at my school (ASU) also get Dell laptops for their research. Technically, they're supposed to be returned to the university upon graduation, but since most of them are obsolete by that point, few (if any) are required to.

So, Mickey Mouse and Winnie The Pooh are no longer copyright protected in Canada?

Wrong. Walt Disney died in December 1966 and was cremated; the copyright on Mickey Mouse does not expire until January 1, 2017, under the copyright term in force in Canada and Australia. If the Supremes cooperate, the USA may get free Mickey before Canada does.

A. A. Milne, author of the Pooh books, died in 1956. E. H. Shepard, who created the original "classic Pooh" drawings, died in 1976.

However, Mickey may have actually fallen out of copyright in the United States due to a faulty copyright notice.

Mickey Mouse will NEVER be in the public domain because his likeness is protected by Trademark law.

There has to be a likelihood of confusion of origin of the product. For instance, one company sells inexpensive VHS video tapes of "Bugs Bunny" short cartoons whose copyright Warner never renewed under the two-28-year-terms system of 1909 law. They get away with it by conspicuously disclaiming any connection to Warner on the package: "This video cassette contains audiovisual works in the public domain. XYZ Video is in no way affiliated with the author of these works."

But actually, Disney lost copyright on Mickey Mouse when it failed to provide a copyright notice on works first published when notice was required. Of course, Disney could file a frivolous lawsuit, but then the company and its retained lawyers risk a countersuit for barratry.

I couldn't disagree more. Hawaii was colonized by military action in order to benefit America's sugar interests. "Indian" Reservations are administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, originally under the War Department. "Indians" were moved on to reservations, and forced to remain there by military force.

And there are many more examples of Government action on "Indian" reservations. The Pine Ridge Reservation shooting and ensuing investigation shows the willingness of the Federal Government to send an innocent man to jail for life.

As for Captial Punishment, in the US, the people think it is needed.

Certainly not all people, and likely not a majority. Most states don't have the death penalty. The Old Testament "eye for an eye" mentality may serve angst-ridden youth, but does little to improve our society and should not be adopted by our government.

That being said, I feel that our legal system is more fair than not. There are many places for improvements of course. The judicial branch is not the independent watchdog over the legislative and executive branches that it was supposed to be. But the rights of the accused laid out in the 4th and 5th amendments, Miranda v. Arizona, and other areas offer a better possibility of fair treatment.

In theory the legal system is well designed - various checks and balances, presumption of innocence, rights of the accused. But in reality it has flaws. Anybody who can not afford an attorney can attest to this.

Anyway that's my two cents.

High court weighs copyright law

The point is that bad policy isn't always unconstitutional, and the court may take that as reason to disagree without acting.

In general, this article is very light on the legal specifics behind this case and this law, but there are good resources out there, including specifically:

Opposing Copyright Protection

Cash flow, they don't show profits, they have non cash charges that mean that no movie ever shows a profit, but all of them pull in large cash flows. I can't find much online, but this mentions the issue on the first page. It is all legal according to GAAP, which are the rules for accounting, but the accounting boards are trying to fix some of the issues associated with this problem. It's like depriciation, when a company buys a piece of equipment, say a server with a price of $10,000, that will last several years, say three for our example, they company would pay for the server up front, but would not charge all of the cost to their earnings in the year they purchased it. Instead, they would take a charge of $3,000 each year, assuming the server is worth about $1,000 at the end of the three years. The company's profits are reduced by $3,000 each year, but the depriciation does not affect each year's cash, they already bought the server. The biggest benefit is that your taxable earnings are reduced by your depriciation, so you lower your future taxes. Cable companies almost never make a profit, and I don't think any movie in history has ever shown more than a negligable net profit, there are many costs that can be ammortized against profitable movies.
So, if any of you ever are in working out a movie contract, be sure your cut is of Gross not net, note that you could also hire a good agent or lawyer with experience in motion picture contracts. They should know this as well.

Someone needs to get you a proper map. Left is obviously east. Duh!

-Adam

It's also interesting to note from his CV, that he's only an Associate Professor. ASU might want to make sure this guy's on a tenure track (if he wasn't before, I'm sure he is now.)

Also from his CV: "1996-t/n Linux Consultant in Arizona"

A glance at Nikitin's publication list will show that he works in Control Theory, and never published in Topology or Geometry journals before... It's a bit as if a statistician announced a proof of Fermat, with a (by math standards) surprisingly short and elementary proof. Hats off if it's right, anyway I guess any mistake would be found pretty soon.

On 1 Jan 1996 the copyright term throughout the EU was extended to life + 70 years by directive. This directive was published in 1993, back when it was the European Economic Community (EC or EEC).

The principal argument in the US Congress for passing the Sonny Bono copyright extension (in 1998) was to achieve parity with this.

If you read article 7 of the EU directive, you will see that this question of parity was, and is, a real concern. In Europe, copyrights would last 20 years longer on European works in comparison to US works, unless the US extended copyright terms as well.

Personally, I feel that this is not reason enough to justify a copyright extension in the US. But I am still seriously pissed off at the EU bureaucrats for being one of the instigators of this.

I remember when announced they discovered of the first extrasolar planet in 1995. I felt really jealous that some guy who got to work a massive telescope was the one who found it. I thought it was a shame that astronomy was "out of the hands" of the amateur. I'm glad I was wrong.

Here is a link to a page that has a nice overview of the history and procedures used to find extrasolar planets.

.1mm = 100nm

You missed 3 orders of magnitude there. I tried to explain it here, but Slash doesn't allow me to use properly expressive HTML (can't use mu or superscripts).

Check out Readings on Powers of Ten for a decent explanation.

This wasnt even close to the coolest thing at SIGGRAPH! Takeo Igarashi's work on predictive interfacing making easier 2d and 3d drawing tools was cooler. Digiplasty , a kind of 3d exquisite corpse as shown by Stewart and Makai was cooler. (For that matter the Studio, manned by Makai, Stewart, Scott and many others, where you could create 2d and 3d art and print 2d and 3d was AWESOME - you could work in there for hours, vs. the few seconds of playing with a silly virtual sword.) Scotts Dodecahedron was a wonderful example of taking something abstract and virtual and making it real and usable. Isa's overview of wearable tech and cyberfashion (she took out the notes, dammit!) was refreshing, if not so new to a frequent slashdotter. (She's a burner too!) Some of the mixed reality work being done at the University of Singapore was really neat. (This is an example of some of the most exciting stuff there. Several researchers showed some great work being done in augmented reality, and combining that with some of the reasonable priced wearable and wirelessable computing, we can see some real headway being made. One researcher even composites a virtual face back onto a fellow participant in the augemented reality environment, masking the HMD, even going so far as to track the eyes and simulate the gaze.) The results of last years meditation chamber research installation was an interesting and possibly VERY useful application of VR technology. W. Bradford Paley's work on applying alternative interfaces to explore other media was fascinating, where you can use this LARGE java tool named TextArc to examine graphically over 400 literary works. The Web3D Consortium's release of the final working draft of X3D (with tools) could end up being much more important than the newest video card from ATI. Dietmar Offenhuber's work on non-isotropic spaces at wegzeit was an interesting approach to mapping and representing real places. Zachary Simpson et al's delightfully simple shadow interactivity was many times more fun than the virtual swordfight. Fabric.ch's knowscape was also exciting, both for the viewers and the presenter, as he would find additions from his European counterparts each morning when he logged on to the shared 3d space. Kenneth Huff's beautiful art using maya was just one example of some wonderful digital work being done. Lastly, Michael J. Lyons soon-to-be-published research on the aesthetics of Tokyo's Kyoto Gardens was both informative and inspiring. And this is just a TINY PART of what happened there!

Really, SIGGRAPH was NOT just an exhibition floor with cheesey swag (although the little green LED lights were very nice) and some cool new toys. It was presentation after presentation by resesarchers, some barely able to speak engrish, but all excited about their work and open to collaboration. It was hours and hours of animation, some (Like Allain Escalle's "Le Conte du monde flottant") were so stunning as to make you forget where animation ended and life began. Disney's work on replacing one actors face with another, retaining ALL facial expression, was downright scary. And the Spiderman gag footage, his spidey-suit oddly replaced with a fully reflective silver surface, like most of the rest of SIGGRAPH'S less entertaining presentations, were surely an indication of things to come.
Take the time to go to SIGGRAPH2002 and look around. If you find something interesting, write the author. This is where the new VR and AR comes from - not ATI!

This wasnt even close to the coolest thing at SIGGRAPH! Takeo Igarashi's work on predictive interfacing making easier 2d and 3d drawing tools was cooler. Digiplasty , a kind of 3d exquisite corpse as shown by Stewart and Makai was cooler. (For that matter the Studio, manned by Makai, Stewart, Scott and many others, where you could create 2d and 3d art and print 2d and 3d was AWESOME - you could work in there for hours, vs. the few seconds of playing with a silly virtual sword.) Scotts Dodecahedron was a wonderful example of taking something abstract and virtual and making it real and usable. Isa's overview of wearable tech and cyberfashion (she took out the notes, dammit!) was refreshing, if not so new to a frequent slashdotter. (She's a burner too!) Some of the mixed reality work being done at the University of Singapore was really neat. (This is an example of some of the most exciting stuff there. Several researchers showed some great work being done in augmented reality, and combining that with some of the reasonable priced wearable and wirelessable computing, we can see some real headway being made. One researcher even composites a virtual face back onto a fellow participant in the augemented reality environment, masking the HMD, even going so far as to track the eyes and simulate the gaze.) The results of last years meditation chamber research installation was an interesting and possibly VERY useful application of VR technology. W. Bradford Paley's work on applying alternative interfaces to explore other media was fascinating, where you can use this LARGE java tool named TextArc to examine graphically over 400 literary works. The Web3D Consortium's release of the final working draft of X3D (with tools) could end up being much more important than the newest video card from ATI. Dietmar Offenhuber's work on non-isotropic spaces at wegzeit was an interesting approach to mapping and representing real places. Zachary Simpson et al's delightfully simple shadow interactivity was many times more fun than the virtual swordfight. Fabric.ch's knowscape was also exciting, both for the viewers and the presenter, as he would find additions from his European counterparts each morning when he logged on to the shared 3d space. Kenneth Huff's beautiful art using maya was just one example of some wonderful digital work being done. Lastly, Michael J. Lyons soon-to-be-published research on the aesthetics of Tokyo's Kyoto Gardens was both informative and inspiring. And this is just a TINY PART of what happened there!

Really, SIGGRAPH was NOT just an exhibition floor with cheesey swag (although the little green LED lights were very nice) and some cool new toys. It was presentation after presentation by resesarchers, some barely able to speak engrish, but all excited about their work and open to collaboration. It was hours and hours of animation, some (Like Allain Escalle's "Le Conte du monde flottant") were so stunning as to make you forget where animation ended and life began. Disney's work on replacing one actors face with another, retaining ALL facial expression, was downright scary. And the Spiderman gag footage, his spidey-suit oddly replaced with a fully reflective silver surface, like most of the rest of SIGGRAPH'S less entertaining presentations, were surely an indication of things to come.
Take the time to go to SIGGRAPH2002 and look around. If you find something interesting, write the author. This is where the new VR and AR comes from - not ATI!

Some good points there (someone should mod the parent up - it would be a shame for all that effort to got to waste)

The problem with enforcing copyright laws that were formed in the paper content world is that they do not apply all that well to electronic content.

What would the implications be for libraries of online content? Would they have to ensure that only one person is reading each piece of electronic content at any one time? If so, how would they do this? How would they tell that someone is reading the content? Would there have to be a check out/in system?

Without a check out/in system, the only time that the library would know there is someone accessing the content is when they are actually downloading it. This being the case, could services such as google claim that they are only sharing the content with one person at a time, as only one person is downloading it at any one time?

There are lots of difficulties here - traditional copyright simply does not work very well when we try to apply it to electronic content.

We need to get back to what the actual purpose of copyright it (hint - it's not to help people make money - see this article) and work out some laws, guidelines and ettiquette that is appropriate to electronic content. Simply trying to apply existing laws to it does not seem like the best way forward to me.

even if Mickey Mouse became public domain

You forget, Micky Mouse IS in the public domain. Here's the legal reasoning.

but then [Michael Eisner and the Walt Disney Company] lock Mickey Mouse up through their continued efforts to lengthen copyright law

Even in the presence of a potential Bono Act every 20 years, the early Mickey Mouse films have fallen into the public domain because Walt Disney screwed up a copyright notice. Summary of the argument: Back in the 1920s (under the Copyright Act of 1909), a copyright notice was required on the first publication of a work, and "© 1929" wasn't sufficient; it had to be "© 1929 Walt Disney".

Besides, legislators may require that DRM opens the work at the expiry of copyright.

They already have. In the United States, the DMCA's circumvention ban (17 USC 1201) applies only to "a work protected under this title". A work that has fallen out of copyright is no longer "a work protected under this title". Therefore, now that Mickey Mouse is public domain due to faulty copyright notice, and some 1900s and 1910s silent films (PD due to copyright term expiration) have hit DVD, DeCSS software is now legal when marketed to be used only with such titles.

If not, maybe some of the movie copyrights can be invalidated -- don't you love irony?

Lauren Vanpelt has done the math and found that Mickey Mouse has already fallen into the public domain due to a faulty copyright notice. (Back then, "© 1929" wasn't enough; it had to be "© 1929 Walt Disney".)

Therefore, because there is a public domain DVD encrypted with CSS, and because the DMCA's circumvention ban (17 USC 1201) affects only "works protected under this title" (i.e. copyrighted works), DeCSS is now legal if marketed only to decrypt public domain content on DVDs (1201(a)(2); 1201(b)(1)). Good news for Charlie Chaplin DVD collectors.

People often misunderstand the electrocution hazards presented by electricity. Yes, technically it's the amps that hurt you, but the volts have to be there too.

I could hold a 1 volt 300000 amp power supply's leads all day and not be hurt. The reason is Ohms law.

Your body generally has a pretty high resistance. Ohms law states that amps=volts/resistance. Your body is probably between 20,000 and 300,000 ohms, depending on which part you are talking about. Wet or sweaty parts have lower resistance. Higher voltage is more dangerous, because more amps will flow through your body. A 500 volt at 1 amp power supply would probably be lethal, especially if you had wet hands.

A rule of thumb is that anything above 50 volts should be treated very carefully. This is about the threshold of where you will normally start to conduct possibly dangerous amounts of current. If your hands are sweaty or wet, or you are grounded well for some reason, better cut that down to 30 volts.

Here's a link

The parent post is correct though, be careful in any case. Don't try this stuff unless you know what you are doing around electricity.

I know of no DRM systems which provide for expriation of protection.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides no protection against circumvention for works that have fallen into the public domain. From 17 USC 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" (emphasis by yerricde). Works "protected under this title" include works under a subsisting copyright.

This means it's lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt the pre-1923 content on Charlie Chaplin DVDs. And without copyright term extensions, it would also be lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt "Mickey's Early Years" and other pre-1946 content. (Actually, Mickey Mouse cartoons have fallen into the public domain due to a copyright notice flub-up.)

Article I, Section 8: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

Congress's Copyright Giveaway

Alternatively, it might be that humans have bred cats to meow, subconsciously favouring the more 'appealing' animals when pairing mates.

The domestic cat is quite far removed from anything natural.

You don't need to be fit for a 'natural' purpose to survive, providing the environment is suitably artificial.

Empire, Moria, Labrinth and Dry Gulch. I would love to know what became of these games...are they still alive anywhere? That would be awesome to bring some of them back!!

Moria's still around, being maintained by David J. Grabiner... some people still play it on "modern" platforms (or you can telnet to chungkuo and play it there along with many other classic games.)

I'm not familiar with Empire but it seems to have turned into a PC game (now ancient and available at Underdogs and other fine establishments). THis page looks like a good bet, it has download links for PDP-10, PDP-11, VAX/VMS, PC, source etc.

I see the others mentioned historically here but "dry gulch" and "labyrinth" are too commonly used for me to find anything actually useful.

AzTeC Computing Free-Net provides free web space to Arizona based non-profits and free text based web access, local discussion groups, e-mail and usenet access.

The system has supported as many as 30,000 users and is still going, even in these days of ... flashy, blinking, dancing babies ...

Free-Nets were built all over the world in the early 1990's many have closed down, some have turned commercial and others continue to survive.

If you want to try it, you can telnet there.

The login is guest and the password is visitor

And I'm sure all you stupid consumers are more than ready to fork over $8 to go and watch this, right? And another $20 for the DVD. Money that'll just go to bribe another politician like Senator Hollings,

Dude, I think you need to cheer up. Here's some links:

Parody of the Matrix script.

spoof of the film in a series of still pictures using Internet Relay Chat and hacking terminology.

slashdot article covering the previous spoof in a series of still text using Usenet and linux terminology:

parody of the matrix in a comic strip.

The Matrix Parody Poster...???

The Agent Smith Memorial Page

Mr. T vs. The Matrix

Yet another matrix wazzup

The matrix trojan (great for LAN parties!!)

Matrix vs. The X-files

Your Arizona link does not exist...

• http://w3fp.arizona.edu/soc/areaDetails.asp?tblTex t_category=networks

Here is link @ ASU that maps a network of recent newstories.