Domain: jerf.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to jerf.org.
Comments · 161
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Stop it *how*, exactly?
Unlike the CBDTPA, DMCA, UCITA, and other laws, we can't lobby against Palladium. We can't (and shouldn't!) lobby to have it banned at the federal level. It's a Microsoft product. If they want to make it, they will.
All you can do is not buy it, and exercise your free speech to try to convince as many other people as possible to not buy into either.
What more is there to do? Am I missing something?
If you're looking for action to take, lobby against the CBDTPA, let your representatives know how you feel on these issues, and focus on the legal problems. Microsoft is perfectly free to offer Palladium if they want to, because as sucky as it is, it's not actually being mandated by law. (Yet. Re: CBDTPA, lest ye hurry to accuse me of paranoia.) Palladium is going to happen. (Since the first incarnation will be horrid, it may not even be worth worrying about; the market may well write it out of existance.) -
The laws
You do at least quote the proper laws which puts you ahead of most people who seem to think all manner of crazy things about "fair use". It is not a blank check to do whatever you like, but rather a limited set of exceptions to copyright law.
IANAL either, but I study this stuff in my spare time and try to read the law fairly, rather then twisting it around. Most notably, the rulings have been that all of the four guidelines must be met satisfactorily for a use to be considered fair use; it is not enough to claim that your use is non-commercial and try to ignore 2-4. The judge must take all factors into account.
The reason the law seems vague is because it is only saying what the guidelines consider. It has been left to the judicial system to nail down exact guidelines. To get a precise idea of what those guidelines are, you'd have to consult reams of case law and try to apply them to your situation.
However, in my non-lawyerly opinion, that is unnecessary in this case, because archiving the articles is quite clearly in the wrong. You are probably OK for the first guideline, because your weblog is probably non-commercial and might even be considered educational, depending on how you use it. Two is ambiguous in this situation, so we might as well throw it out... because guidelines three and four finish it for you.
By saving a copy of the work, you are "using" the whole work, which is the worst sort of infringement possible. And I think most judges would rule that you are adversely affecting the commercial value of the work, since people will choose to read your copy rather then paying the newspaper a fee for archive retrieval. Combine those two factors together, and you are on the wrong end of the exact thing that copyright law is meant to protect, which is the value of the work. (I emphasize "law" because in theory, we are trying to maximize the value to society. The law practically accomplishes this (or not, depending on your opinion) by trying to protect the work's value to the copyright holder.)
Basically, it's not even close to fair use.
Now, let me tell you what is fair use. In a weblog, it is rare for you to really respond to the whole article. Typically, a paragraph or two adequately captures the point you wish to make. . . it may not cover it completely, but it should do. You can take a paragraph or two (assuming that the article is not merely a paragraph or two!) and copy that into your post, which I frequently do myself. To ensure my protection, plus as a service to my readers, I frequently will even cut the paragraph down until it says just what I want to respond to, frequently chopping more then half the paragraph out. The less you use, the safer you are.
Here's a recent example in my weblog; just a single paragraph that allows me to make my points without grabbing the whole article.
This is, by the way, the "canonical" fair use example, which is quoting a small (!) snippet for the purpose of editorial comment or review. Again, IANAL, but I feel quite confident that nobody can sue me because of my weblog. (And it IS an IP weblog, of sorts...)
I strongly recommend this practice, instead of trying to save the whole article. I also recommend learning how to correctly quote parts of articles by using ellipses and square brackets (as seen in that example). -
OT: Flamebait ???
yes, some people are doing that. and that's what
/. allows, even if it wasn't what it was designed for. it's only censorship if the moderators dig into your user file and increase your threshhold above -1. you are browsing at -1, aren't you? if you're not, remember that that's the default, and _you_ changed it. -
Right to Integrity
Once a page leaves a server and enters my computer, my fair-use rights take over and I can do ANYTHING I want to that page, except rebroadcast it.
First, do you choose what ads to add in? No?
You aren't doing a thing to the page. It's being done by a third party, specifically Gator, without consent of the originator. Personally, I call that censorship, though YMMV.
Proof: If it were you doing that to the page, where are your payments for the ad space? What, Gator gets them? Clearly, they are the ones modifying the page, if they are selling this ad space to others.
Second, fair use applies only under very specific and limited circumstances... it's not the carte blanche you seem to think it is. In this case, of the four factors to be considered in whether or not something is fair use, this completely fails three of them; Gator's use is solely commercial (1), they use the entire copyrighted work (3), and the market for the work (as defined in copyright terms which tends to talk about money) is eliminated entirely for that viewing (4). Fair use is not a defense in this case.
It's none of the magazine's business if I do that, and it's none of anyone else's business if I choose to use Gator.
It is the magazine's business. They may not want to be a party to this third-party transaction. (You can make a case for choosing on your own not to view ads, but when you add a third-party in like Gator the situation changes dramatically, especially since Gator is directly profiting.)
Frankly, it doesn't matter if Gator informs them. What they're doing is highly unethical, and almost certainly illegal.
By the way, you need to be exceptionally careful about this. If you let Gator do this, then there's really nothing stopping them from modifying the contents of the page, since from a copyright point of view, that's exactly what they're doing. If they can modify for the purpose of commerical profit, then they can do it for any purpose, since that's the highest purpose in our broken copyright laws. Of course, if Gator can do it, anyone can.
Letting Gator doing this, and defending them is handing everybody in the world free reign to modify anything they can technically get access to, just because they can. ("Might makes right?") There's just no difference. I for one do not want to hand this power to anybody. That it will be abused pretty much goes without saying. We must defend the right to integrity.
It should be obvious that on this point, the right to integrity is more importent to us little guys then the Washington Post, which has the resources to defend itself.
I've been around this debate more then a few times; please, before replying (not Reality Master 101 personally, everybody), at least read the fair use link and educate yourself about the current state of the law. You're free to think it's not perfect, and should be some other way (as I do), but please, for the love of Gnu, no lengthy, fact-bereft lectures on personal misconceptions of copyright law... -
Re:Ah yes
Note to moderators: The parent was not a troll. I'd say it's a decently reasoned opinion.
For comparision, here's my take on the issue. First, I'm a bigtime privacy wonk. Second, despite that, I still believe that a corporation can pretty much do whatever it can get away with to its employees legally, and that legal action should NOT be taken to 'correct' this.
The fact of the matter is we have a perfectly fine set of union laws, which provide protection. This is a union issue. If you don't want to be monitored like cows, make your union make an issue out of it. It's stress inducing, it's probably a waste of company resources (after a certain point), it's probably not a net business gain (after a certain point) anyhow, rigid rules rarely match reality, it's not hard to come with counterarguments.
But until people care, and not just a bare minority, nothing will happen. In this case, I am actually against laws... they'd only make things worse. (Not that you were proposing them, I'm just giving my position for comparision to yours.) -
Re:Define "virus" first - then let's talk
Ah, a form of dancing. Keep an eye out for this style argument; it's pernicious, until you learn to see through it.
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CBDTPA is Immune to Criticism
I wrote an article that plays off of similar themes as your post: The CBDTPA Is Immune to (Conventional) Criticism.
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The CBDTPA is nonsense, literally
The CBDTPA is Immune to (Conventional) Criticism is probably worth a read before considering how to approach this problem. This is a surprisingly deep problem.
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Re:Their way or the highway
(As others suggested, if host resolution is your issue, you could run a local proxy on your 127.0.0.1 interface that converts host names into addresses.)
Unfortunately, that's not a complete solution. Example: Compare my home page versus the IP address that hostname resolves to.
Lots of servers do this. -
Conspiracy of Common Cause
I call it a Conspiracy of Common Cause.
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Re:All of these measures are cheap, but not right.
You remind me of an essay I wrote, Human Justice for Human Beings. Good point.