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The /. journal entry I linked to mentions at least Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs .

This link should hopefully help you. I have the same problem with the mail server at my office.

Interesting, this story reminded me of the Jacquard Loom. The Jacquard Loom used punch cards to control the designs it embroidered into clothing material.

Herman Hollerith was hired to automate the 1890 US Census because it was apparent that information processing techniques simply weren't keeping up with the burgeoning US population. When it came time to do the 1890 census, they weren't yet finished processing teh previous census.

When Hollerith encountered the Jacquard loom and realized the significance of its punch card method he realized that he had stumbled on a method for automating the input of information for later processing.

He then took his information processing techniques and founded the Hollerith Corporation. This company later underwent a name change and eventually came to dominate in the computing field.

The AVENUE Project at Columbia University had an earlier implementation for modeling urban sites.

Also check out The MIT City Scanning Project.

Not quite.

Earlier public statements by Microsoft executives indicated a "Chinese wall" [11,2] that separated the application developers and operating system developers. Professing such a separation was meant to allay fears of unfair early access to vital API's by Windows application developers.

It seems their public statements can be at odds with reality; certainly it was the case in the context that particular "firewall" policy.

Take heart: maybe Bill's lying again and really thinks code should be perfect, in which case we'd be better off than we are with "acceptably imperfect" code.

The is attributed to Revolution Books, a chain of non-profit communist bookstores around the United States.

Here is an article posted at the Columbia University school of journalism about the store. http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2003-0 3-30/121.asp

Here is an interview with the manager of the store, Joan Hirsch. http://www.furious.com/rev.html

I'm glad to see that there are still some people left who have the backbone to stand up for what they believe in.

I have not refused to provide anything. Of course I can give citation for what I am talking about. Can you? Seriously everything you have said ths far about this subject seems to display a profound ignorance. You also do not give any evidence to support your claims that record companies give fair contracts. The artists seem to disagree with you.

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was sued by his previous label for subsequent songs that sounded like his previous work according to that label. His countersuit is here.

In this case, the copyrights to the songs belonged to the label and playing the originals did indeed require permission from the prior label (and payment of royalties). In addition, as was shown, they expected that if he made any future songs it must be with permission and paying the former label. Granted this is only one example of a very bad contract that led to decades of legal battles, but there are many others.

As for artists no longer owning rights to theri own name, Prince and George Michael come to mind, but there were a lot of others who could not use their name for anything because thier name belonged to the record label. How did other artists switch labels? They did not sign away rights to their name.

As for the RIAA bots, they are there. The RIAA has spiders that search for MP3s on the net. hey then sue people for distributing them and order their ISPs to shut down that person's internet conection. They do not check to see if they actually own the rights to the MP3s before doing this and have indeed cut off people for distributing their own MP3s. They have pushed for royalties to be paid to them by webcasters even if they only play music from labels which are independant of the RIAA. IN short they are claiming work that is not their own, which should not be surprising since it is their business (although it is a bit annoying that they claim all the music in the world regardless of whether the artist signs a contract with them).

But don't a few RIAA member labels' parent companies also own music publishers? You know, the kind that can sue you if you record and distribute a cover of a popular song or even if you subconsciously copy a motive from a popular song when writing your own song?

If you want me to listen, stay Independent

How is this possible? How can an independent singer-songwriter prove in court that the songs he claims to have written are in fact original, as opposed to being subconscious copies of an existing copyrighted work that has been played on the radio?

Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs: Read it and weep

VoIP using P2P technology is a great idea, byt Skype looks like a proprietary solution (correct me if I'm wrong).

Would someone care to enlighten me on VoIP/P2P solutions using open standards?

• The SIP home page at Columbia Univ.
• An excellent SIP FAQ, also hosted at columbia.
• and, naturally, the SIP RFC for those of you who get off on reading those things...

VoIP using P2P technology is a great idea, byt Skype looks like a proprietary solution (correct me if I'm wrong).

Would someone care to enlighten me on VoIP/P2P solutions using open standards?

• The SIP home page at Columbia Univ.
• An excellent SIP FAQ, also hosted at columbia.
• and, naturally, the SIP RFC for those of you who get off on reading those things...

I have downloaded free music that is offered free by artists often uninterested in composing for profit, and I now listen almost exclusively to free and/or libre music.

How is this possible? Yes, I know that some people write songs and publish them under a Creative Commons license, but how do they keep themselves from making the same mistake George Harrison made in subconsciously copying an existing song and thereby infringing its copyright?

Why the hell does the ebook version cost only a buck less than the paperback version? It only costs a buck to print and ship to distributors? That's friggin news to me!

A quick google search turned up a study on the costs of printing scholarly books. The numbers are a few years old, but things probably haven't changed much. About halfway through the article they give production costs for various size runs of handcover and paperback books. A production run is about 1-3 cents per page for paperbacks. They estimate the per book cost for a typical 2,000 book run with a 3-color cover to be $1.50 per paperback. A 3,000 book run to be $1.20. Both costs are well under half of the price a a typical paperback. This supports the argument that other costs such as editting, advertising, author pay, etc. drive the cost of a book, not the cost of printing.

Isn't this what a teletype and all those other typewriter/printer communication devices did? I mean come on.

Actually, the government has forced it to be their business, since the bar and bartenders can be held liable if you are served alcohol in their establishment, leave, and drunkenly hit someone or something. These are called Social Host Liability laws, or "Dram Shop" acts.

In fact, you could argue that the bars would be negligent in not instituting such a system. They also have monetary incentive since they will probably get insurance breaks for doing so.

Imagine "dialing" in the form of domain names.

That is exactly what SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) does. Instead of a phone number, a SIP URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) is dialed (e.g. sip:me@sipcall.com). IP phones that support SIP, like the Cisco 7960, Pingtel xPressa and others, allow dialing SIP URI's via the numeric keypad. Mobile networks based on 3G/UMTS (release 5) use SIP for signalling, blurring the line between the PSTN and IP communications.

Are you saying that Eben Moglen, who defends the GPL, is the lowest form of life?

I suppose all people involved with computers are also no better than the worst of them.

Anyway, if you must make a dig at lawyers - be funny. For example, "why do lawyers wear neckties ... it keeps the foreskin from crawling up their necks."

Simply saying all lawyers are evil is neither amusing, nor inciteful. It just makes you look bitter.

"What's the difference between a porquipine and two lawyers in Porsche?" ...

Are you saying that Eben Moglen, who defends the GPL, is the lowest form of life?

I suppose all people involved with computers are also no better than the worst of them.

Anyway, if you must make a dig at lawyers - be funny. For example, "why do lawyers wear neckties ... it keeps the foreskin from crawling up their necks."

Simply saying all lawyers are evil is neither amusing, nor inciteful. It just makes you look bitter.

"What's the difference between a porquipine and two lawyers in Porsche?" ...

I wrote, recorded, and mixed down a 40 track song

When you wrote the song, how did you make sure that it was in fact original and not "substantially similar" to some other song that was popular 30 years ago? Subconscious copying is infringement ( Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs ). What do you do to prevent yourself from making the same mistake George Harrison made?

IBM, being IBM, didn't want to get involved without understanding the legal issues, so they asked their lawyers to look over the GPL. The lawyers came back with the opinion that it was a well written legal document.

That might just be because it was penned by a former IBM attorney?

You might want to check out WordPerfect for DOS Updated (also found at http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/).

When can we drop this telephone/fee system so I can just call someones IP address without a centralized service?

Now.

It's noones business what I run on top of it.

Who is this Noone fellow? Is he an elected official? Or is it like Ulysses's pseudonym "Nemo"? (in that case...)

What if I own the copyright to the "uploaded copyrighted music"?

Can you prove in court that you own the copyright in both the musical work and the recording thereof? Can you do so in light of the Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs decision?

Umm yeah, lets start with www.cdbaby.com all independednt artists

What happens when the independent recording artists whose recordings are made available through cd baby, vitaminic, etc. get sued by major music publishing companies for writing songs that are "substantially similar" to popular songs? Even if it's an accident, it can be a six- to seven-figure accident; just look at what happened to George Harrison.

I've never fully understood this meme. I figured it was from some Unix shell that would display ^H when you pressed the backspace key. Teletype? As in (quickly googles) this?

Coach Wooden: A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that's teamwork.

Mr. Gates: Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community.

I've always thought of myself as both a literary historian and a literary critic, someone who loves archives and someone who is dedicated to resurrecting texts that have dropped out of sight."

Ms. Nasar: One little thing can solve an incredibly complex problem.

Ms. Marshall:Everything's about timing kid.

And finally,

Ali:Speak your mind. Don't back down.

I predict this ad will win many awards.

You wrote it...you own it.

Tell that to the estate of George Harrison.

If you happen to write the same lyrics as another songwriter has and you don't realize

Lyrics are not the problem as much as the melody. Please read my analysis of music theory as it relates to copyright law. The gist is that judges have interpreted "substantial similarity" so broadly that chance is almost as likely to produce infringements as flagrant copying.

I believe you have the right to revise your own material to be non-infringing.

The average member of an unsigned band probably doesn't have enough money to hire an expensive attorney to represent him. And without an expensive attorney, how can he assert this alleged right in court? What if the mistake isn't found until CDs have been sold to end listeners?

I've been a hardcore netizen since 1998, when I used to dial up from my uncle's home to a text-only shell account with a 1,500 bps modem :-) I remember waiting minutes to download a single JPEG file, then transferring it to my local machine using Kermit, and opening it up in Internet Explorer 3.0 on Windows 95, only to realise that it's the wrong one! Those were the days when I learnt to use Pine and Lynx, my favourite mail/www combo.

Those were the days of Internet success stories: ICQ, Napster, Winamp. Remember ShellSock?

In a perfect geek encounter, I met bluesmoon on comp.lang.java. Google didn't even exist back then.

Now, when I look around, I see "techies" with 5-10 years of experience in the software industry and no clue what All Your Base... means :-) Clearly, these guys have been here for the money. I, however, am here because I love it. The Internet is changing lives, and I want to be responsible for some of it. Somebody give me that perfect job! :-D

Stop playing RIAA music and you can then stop paying RIAA rates.

"Stop playing RIAA music"? What other music is out there? Many major record labels and music publishers are owned by the same companies. Even if an independent recording artist writes his own songs, how can a songwriter prove in court that the songs he writes are in fact original, that is, that they haven't already been written by somebody else?

I got these sites from:
http://door.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rank_biblio.html

A message from stanford to US News to stop publishing their shit:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/presiden t/speeches/961206gcfallow.html http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/presiden t/speeches/970418rankings.html

This an article from an education consultant:
http://www.washingtonparent.com/articles/9712/rank ings.htm

This article goes over the false assumptions about rankings:
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/features/99 /collrank.html

A page from petersons declaring college rankings irresponsible:
http://www.petersons.com/about/ranking.html A page on the ucla server giving tips on choosing a university:
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/mm/cc/info/choosing/eval .html

Articles from the chronicle:
http://chronicle.com/free/v44/i02/02a06701.htm http://chronicle.com/free/v44/i11/11a00101.htm

Article from columbia:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-1.1/vying.h tm

Slate articles:
http://slate.msn.com/id/34027/ http://slate.msn.com/id/34278/

A law school's article on rankings:
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/usnwr.htm

A law school association to ask to stop ranking:
http://www.aals.org/ranknews.html http://www.aals.org/validity.html

Law school admission counsel:
http://www.lsac.org/LSAC.asp?url=lsac/deans-speak- out-rankings.asp

AMU's response to their high ranking:
http://www.tamu.edu/new/vision/where.html

I'm not meaning this as a troll, but I don't see this huge difference between "stealing" and "copyright infringement."

Firstly, I have to say that yes, the spyware approach is a bit drastic.

Secondly, I can appreciate the distinction between physical theft and pirating an unlicensed copy of software. But I'm still having trouble reconciling with the idea that 'Information "theft" is not really theft or stealing.'

I'm not a programmer, but I am a musician, and I think there can be a common viewpoint between the two, or at least similarities.

Let me further complicate things by saying I support the sharing of .mp3 (ogg, whatever you like) files. Dave Matthews has allowed recording of his shows since day one, and he can afford to eat out once or twice a week. It gives more exposure to a performer than it detracts from that performer's profits.

[hypocrisy disclaimer]This is not to say I agree with the idea that it's everyone's right to make a copy for themselves.[/hypocrisy disclaimer]

Music fans that expect everything to be free are wrong, no matter what they tell themselves in justification. If you like someone's .mp3s, pay for a concert ticket, buy a shirt while you're there. At least go buy the CD from the artist's website. The notion that "NO ONE has a natural right to profit" isn't very clear. Are you saying that when someone works on something, they don't have a right to be paid for it? As arguable as it might be, I think Billy Ray deserves to be paid for every hopeless lemming that he managed to con into purchasing a copy of the painful abomination he released in the early 90s. If the artist chooses to sell their records through the RIAA, then it's their own fault if they're not getting a decent cut. But are you fixing that by not paying at all?

"Thousands of my users probably "steal" my software, but guess what! I DON'T CARE! It is information, which I CANNOT OWN!"

You wrote the code, and you can distribute it for free if you like, or you can charge (don't you?) for a pro version. Besides, don't you make money from the ad supported version of bearshare as well? As owner of BearShare, it would be a bit of a stretch for us to accept your opinion as completely unbiased. You SIG says, "Help me out, and use BearShare." Is that just for celebrity status?

AFA molecular reconstruction, I can't imagine technology like that being available to the average consumer to the point where it would be economically viable for anyone to "morph" themselves a brake pad. Ever.

Where does the my-copy-your-copy distinction lie in code? Open source is open source because people have voluntarily worked on it knowing that it will be shared. Smart money says these people have external sources of income; you can't pay the mortgage by working for free. There's a difference between 'personal "posession & ownership" of information' and writing original code with the intent of selling it. I don't see anything wrong with a programmer expecting money for every copy of his/her software that gets distributed.

Hmmm. "stealing money/goods/services" vs. merely "potential profits," I'll offer my Dad as an example. If he was going to buy a new computer, he could call Gateway or Dell, and he'd end up getting a licensed copy of M$ crap, for which they (M$) would receive a royalty. If I knew about it before he made the purchase, I'd have him get online, and we'd find and order the parts he needed, and then I'd... er, refer him to a friend who has an old copy of WinBlows he doesn't use anymore, and my Dad would no longer be contributing to the Expansion Of The Empire. Now assuming this would be an

It might be a DEC LA36 DECwriter II. I used to use one of them as the console terminal of a PDP-11/03 (LSI-11). The nice thing about them is that they use standard line printer fanfold paper. It had a 20 mA current loop serial interface, although I think there was an option for a RS-232 interface.

First of all, why are you pretending you know ANYTHING about the procedures of this type of lawsuit?

Why the hell are you assuming he doesn't? Just because one hasn't gone through law school doesn't mean one is totally ignorant of legal prodedings. People can *gasp* research these things you know.

And the poster is not just relying on his own assumptions like they were the gospel, he is referring to comments made by a professor of law and legal history. His opinions are based on legal education and experience.

SCO is a professional organization with a good litigation team with a very good track record.

SCO is an organization that is busily muddying legal waters as fast as it can. People like this are trying to clarify things.

What makes you think they WON'T show code in court? What makes you think they have to show ALL of the infringing code?

Where does he say they won't? What he says, if you read his post, is:

"Unless they have a lot better evidence than what they showed at the SCOsource fiasco, they would get bounced in a heartbeat"

To clarify, that's if they don't have any good evidence then their court case is frivolous. Thats if-then, not a sweeping generalization with no proof, even though there is much tangential evidence that suggests SCO is parading about in the emperor's new code (The code showed at SCOsource was not, in fact, SCOs; they're persuing multiple law suits without showing evidence; insiders are dumping shares while they're at a litigation-inspired high)

Rather than spouting conjecture about something you seemingly know very little about, maybe you should consider asserting fewer "facts" and asking more questions.

Maybe instead of attacking someone's well-supported opinions, you should shut your mouth and read what he's said.

Not yet.

Wait until RMS and Eben Moglen hear about this crap.
I can't wait to hear the Free Software Foundation's answer. SCO's in for another kick in the ear...

You know, back in the day, when I first came to Slashdot, Open Source was all about the free, wild and woolly creation of software, about freedom from The Man, and doing stuff because it was a Nerd Mountain and by goddamn we were going to climb it.

Open Source was never about freedom, it was and is about pitching the Open Source development methodology primarily to businesses: when businesses share source code they ostensibly get better programs developed with less expense because they can tap a large community of programmers who are willing to work on their project for no fee. Open Source talks about the practical outcome of sharing source code, not the freedoms that make those practical ends possible.

Freedom to share and modify programs was and is the message from the Free Software movement which started over a decade before the Open Source movement began. I recommend this essay for an instructive look at the differences between the two movements. It was the Free Software Foundation that brought us the GNU General Public License which secures the freedoms to share and modify and the community the Open Source movement has leveraged to spread their message. The FSF did these things well before the Open Source movement got started. I'm grateful the Open Source Movement is bringing users to Free Software and encouraging use of the GNU GPL (one of many Free Software licenses), but let's not overstate what the Open Source Initiative did--adding a license to a list of approved licenses cannot compare with writing and defending the license (links to parts one and two of Eben Moglen's essay).

I'm never sure if I should be happy or sad that companies such as Red Hat and Oracle are essentially hijacking the popularity of Linux.

SCO FUD aside, is Oracle interested in what's in the Linux kernel, or were you referring to the GNU/Linux operating system? I don't understand what you mean by "hijacking" here either--Red Hat has contributed a great deal to Linux and (as far as I know) all in accordance with the GPL. Everyone is free to study, share, and modify their contributions as well as the rest of the kernel.

You know, back in the day, when I first came to Slashdot, Open Source was all about the free, wild and woolly creation of software, about freedom from The Man, and doing stuff because it was a Nerd Mountain and by goddamn we were going to climb it.

Open Source was never about freedom, it was and is about pitching the Open Source development methodology primarily to businesses: when businesses share source code they ostensibly get better programs developed with less expense because they can tap a large community of programmers who are willing to work on their project for no fee. Open Source talks about the practical outcome of sharing source code, not the freedoms that make those practical ends possible.

Freedom to share and modify programs was and is the message from the Free Software movement which started over a decade before the Open Source movement began. I recommend this essay for an instructive look at the differences between the two movements. It was the Free Software Foundation that brought us the GNU General Public License which secures the freedoms to share and modify and the community the Open Source movement has leveraged to spread their message. The FSF did these things well before the Open Source movement got started. I'm grateful the Open Source Movement is bringing users to Free Software and encouraging use of the GNU GPL (one of many Free Software licenses), but let's not overstate what the Open Source Initiative did--adding a license to a list of approved licenses cannot compare with writing and defending the license (links to parts one and two of Eben Moglen's essay).

I'm never sure if I should be happy or sad that companies such as Red Hat and Oracle are essentially hijacking the popularity of Linux.

SCO FUD aside, is Oracle interested in what's in the Linux kernel, or were you referring to the GNU/Linux operating system? I don't understand what you mean by "hijacking" here either--Red Hat has contributed a great deal to Linux and (as far as I know) all in accordance with the GPL. Everyone is free to study, share, and modify their contributions as well as the rest of the kernel.

Read this article to understand why.

http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12. html

As the name implies and the article explains, the phone uses SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol. I did some research on SIP last year and found it to be somewhat intruiging.

SIP is basically used for setting up the endpoints of a human communication channel over an IP-based network. It negotiates what kinds of communcations are supported on each end, and what protocols to use. So if a video-SIP-phone calls a regular analog phone via a SIP-PSTN proxy, the proxy would only support audio certain codecs. The calling video-SIP-phone and the proxy would negotiate to use only audio using a matching protocol and the cal would go through.

And since SIP is a protocol just like SMTP or HTTP, it is very controllable. There are dozens of SIP products popping up from SIP servers to SIP proxies... and now SIP phones. For example, you can have a SIP proxy/server be concious of where a user is logged in and re-route SIP calls to their present location. As a Java programmer, I'm looking forward to the day when I find a reason to write a SIP Servlet.

Furthermore, the latest version of Messenger in Windows XP supports SIP. I would think that this means a SIPPhone could call someone using Microsoft's Messenger on Windows XP. However, I was not able to confirm this with a breif perusal of the SIPPhone site, and they also state this only works with other SIPPhones. That may be an over-generalization to keep people from thinking it works with regular phones, or maybe they did something crazy with it.

I'm crossing my fingers that it is a generic SIP endpoint that can contact any SIP-enabled device.

You are an idiot, and so are the moderators who got this up to +4.

News flash - you don't need to be a trial lawyer to be an expert in a legal issue. Maybe you should try reading his resume before you go off sounding like a moron. He is professor of law at Columbia University and the FSFs general counsel, but you would rather listen to some Lionel Hutz when it comes to a legal opinion about copyright issues. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported (04/19/02), companies in the United States have been reaping billions of dollars in tax breaks and death benefits from life insurance policies they took out on employees.

Taking advantage of an obscure line of insurance, which companies cynically refer to as "dead peasant's" or "janitor's" insurance, major corporations such as Wal-Mart, AT&T, and Disney have taken out life insurance policies on low-wage hourly employees that pay benefits to the company when the workers die.

today the RIAA supeonaed 70 8 year olds for reproducing other music they have heard off the radio.

Modulo some minor details (the NMPA, not the RIAA, manages musical works themselves), your joke isn't far from what has happened. Read Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs and weep.

Yes, they are in breach of contract. Licenses are contracts.

The FSF, and Eben Moglen (chief counsel of the FSF), who wrote the GNU GPL and deal with GPL cases all the time disagree with you.

And "IP infringment (copyright)" is wrong--the phrase "intellectual property" doesn't just refer to copyright. It's a mish-mash of copyright, patent, trademark, and a host of other areas of law that aren't always compatible. Again, the FSF disagrees with you here.

You see the common thread there, "contract" -- in the terms of "Licensing Contract".

The GNU GPL does not use the word "contract". There is another lawyer's analysis of this which illustrates the logic the FSF uses to show why they don't need a contract (and often don't have one anyhow) to accomplish what the GPL sets out to accomplish. The paper has some problems, but it is quite interesting as well. It also suggests a reason why it is valuable to purchase Free Software rather than getting it at no charge.

i wonder if he researched public drinking and intoxication laws before taking that photo... :)

Why? So far they've gotten every single challenger to back down, without going to court.

Read all about it.. People with a strong case don't need to go to court because the other side caves. Disputes only reach court when both sides think they have a good shot at winning.

If something were viral, you could end up "catching" it even if you didn't want to, but the only way to get yourself into a situation where your code must be distributed under the GPL is if you want that to happen, or if you don't bother checking the terms of use+distribution of the software you're using.

It's possible to copy a substantial portion of a work and infringe its copyright without even realizing that you're copying anything. See Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs .

You can do this already. As others have said, you can just use tightvnc/vnc or NoMachine.

You can also detach individual windows by using a pseudoserver such as Xmove, though it doesn't support applications that use X extensions (most gtk+ apps won't work).

The downside to using any of these programs for user switching is that you loose any sort of acceleration, XRender or glx/opengl wise.

Oops. Try this link instead.

If I sing a song I uniquely composed and wrote once in public, I have copyright on that song and that performance.

Not if you have ever listened to the radio. Copyright law states that if you copy a substantial amount from an existing copyrighted song, you infringe the copyright in the song. Precedents state that access + substantial similarity = copying. Access includes having heard a song even once on the radio, even if you forget that you have heard it by the time you write your own song ( Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs ). Substantial similarity has been found with as few as six notes of one song matching another song's main motive, which statistically is all but certain to happen. So if you hear a song even once on the radio, and you unwittingly compose a similar song years later, you break the law.

Details in my journal.