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Except that it doesn't work that way. Our patent system (flawed as it may be) works on rewarding patent to the first to invent, not the first to register for patent.

That's true now, but not for long if the Patent Reform Act of 2005 passes into law. You can read more about it in this Groklaw article.

Ah, Congress...always finding a way to mak things even worse.

Actually, that's exactly how first-to-file works. Say you invent X, but you haven't patented it yet. Someone else can claim to have inveted X and file. Then, becuase they were first to file, they have the rights, not you. Scary eh?

The original poster quotes the European System, but congress is trying to move the US system to be the same. Take a look at The Patent Reform Act of 2005. Groklaw, of course, has a good analysis of what would happen in this case if we had first-to-file.

If anyone cares to email the lawyers involved:
David O. Carson, General Counsel: daca@loc.gov

Perhaps you just don't realize that we didn't have an income tax until almost WWI (1913).

Perhaps you don't realize that we had an income tax in 1861. (http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/hottopic/irs_histo ry.html and elsewhere). If you're going to take a haughty tone, please be right.

Are you implying that the Federal needed huge expansion and social programs to help with civil rights? They ratified a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights. It was already illegal to murder someone, regardless of race.

Yes, it was already illegal. Which is why we needed the Federal government getting involved, because no one cared. You can pass all the constitutional amendments you want, and it doesn't mean anything unless you have the teeth to back it up.

Learn the English language.

And copyright doesn't have to have anything to do with copying; misappropriation of a companies logo bearing property can invoke copyright violations.

Just another example of Sony wallowing in their own crapulence.

Actually, the Constitution says exactly the opposite: the first amendment guarantees our right to criticize the government. Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Whether you like the patriot act or not, the president has a duty to do something and I'd rather have a president that is overreacting than one who is doing nothing so as to avoid labels like fascist

Actually, no -- the president's duty is not to "do something", but to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." If you think fascism can't happen here, you may be right -- but only if the American people are willing to defend the Constitution even when it isn't convenient to do so. If people don't take their freedoms seriously, they will likely lose them.

If anyone can give actual provable examples of the US government abridging Constitutionally protected free speech, I'd love to hear it.

To be honest, the widespread porting of the lucene engine(beagle backend) is the highest amount of forking i've ever seen.

There exists a port for every language, it just doesn't make sense. The basic algorithms for searching, and storing indexes hasn't changed for quite some time.

In the digital library space there even exists quite old (10 years) open source software such as zebra[1] which can handle large indexes fast. There are actually open standards[2] for information retrieval (IR), but nobody in the open source desktop space seem to know about it(?).
[1]http://www.indexdata.dk/zebra
[2]http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/

2. Under the patriot act rules the House is currently renewing, if the government wants to put a tap on your phone records, they don't have to explain to a judge what they're doing. They just have to say "we are going to seize some records, but we aren't going to tell you which ones".

Your elected representatives can't read minds. You have to tell them explicitly how they can best represent you. Big business sure does, why not even private citizens? ;)

the most leftist

First off, as a Leftist with many Leftist friends living in the most liberal section of the country, I can tell you we don't regard Senator Clinton as Liberal or Left-leaning at all. She's a moderate. Sometimes she sponsors liberal legislation, sometimes she sponsors Conservative legistlation-- but most of the time she does what every other Representative does-- they sponsor legislation which will offend the least amount of people while making them look busy.

Second-- in regards to GTA: It's not just Clinton is it? You're so busy blaming Clinton, you ignore the House while they slip same sort of investigation under the radar.

Over in the House, Congressman Upton, a Republican from Michigan, introduced the bill to the House. It passed 355 for, 21 against, 56 abstain. Nobody is complaining about him.

This is stupid. Why are all you idiots pinning the blame on Clinton, when plenty of other government representatives are involved, including Republicans.

Congressman Upton, a Republican from Michigan, introduced the bill to congress. It passed 355 for, 21 against, 56 abstain.

Yet nobody here is saying "Oh fuck those Congressional Republicans for introducing the supid bill", or fuck those Democrats and Republicans for passing the bill. You're saying "Fuck that Senator Clinton".

It's true, Senator Clinton also asked the FTC to investigate Rockstar, and it's a stupid waste of time-- ala the Janet Jackson breast exposure.

A male congressmember can be an asshole and nobody complains, but as soon as Senator Clinton gets uppity, you all call her a bitch. Where the even-handedness here?

H RES 376

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll419.xml
has the list of who voted how

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.RES .376:
has more information

I suppose you also believe that the USA PATRIOT Act allows the FBI to perform a mass library record search without the approval of a judge. Libraries aren't even mentioned in the entire text of the law, and the language people blow out of proportion would only allow the search of a single person's records on approval of a federal judge with respect to a specific ongoing investigation. Please try to verify things you read on Slashdot before passing it on, including what I just said.

Not that I disagree with you that things could quickly get out of hand. I assume because you feel so strongly on the matter that you have contacted your Congressman to support H.R. 1076: Detention of Enemy Combatants Act , which acknowledges the need to detain enemy combatants who are U.S. citizens, but enacts specific requirements on the duration, conditions, and judicial review of such detentions.

It's worth noting that the Senate Judiciary committee unanimously recommended a different PATRIOT reauthorization act on Thursday. It's discussed in the Washington Post. Excerpt from Post article:

"Earlier in the day, however, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that goes significantly further in modifying the Patriot Act. It would require greater oversight of the Justice Department and would place new restrictions on secret searches and surveillance in terrorism probes [...] would allow people to challenge warrants approved by a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and would require that subjects of secret searches be notified within seven days unless an extension is approved by a judge."

This was an 18-0 vote in a committee which includes some of the Senate's most vocal conservatives (Jeff Sessions, Sam Brownback) and, on the flip side, some of its most liberal members (Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold). Feingold was the *only* Senator to vote against PATRIOT in 2001, and even he found this version palatable.

The bill which was reported out of committee was a substitute for S.1389. Thomas should have this new version up in a day or two. PATRIOT is going to be reauthorized - that's a given. Accepting this, liberals and conservatives alike should be backing the Senate Judiciary version of this legislation. As the Post notes, it is significantly more contrained than any of the others under consideration.

Call your Senators and Representatives. Support S.1389, the Specter/Feinstein/Kyl USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.

Check this webpage for the record of who voted what, whenever they get around to putting it online. That's what I was linked to by my local representative's site.

Do a search in Thomas for HR 6, which is the bill in question. The section changing the daylight saving time date is Sec. 111. But... as far as I can tell, that section isn't in the final version passed by the senate (referred to as "H.R.6.EAS"). It also isn't in the "Public Print" of the bill (which you can find here.

I'm not an expert of legislative technicalities, but it could very well be that we're all getting worked up about nothing. I guess we'll have to wait until Thomas posts the final version of the bill.

Ah, multi-target urls? I picture this as clicking 1 link, opening 2 different links; though, drop down menus all over a page could be just as annoying.

I'm picturing yet another feature that will only useful to spam companies. I'd like to throw this idea in the trash next to pop-up(under) windows, blinking text, flash pseudo pop-ups, and the marquee tag.

None of which are bad in and of themselves, just how they are used. All we need now is for wikipedia to turn into an annoying version del.icio.us, with every word linked to search results of that word. (BTW, the link for "that" I believe is the definition of irony.)

Now, imagine this used on a whole page, with each one popping up a list of 20 links. This isn't a new idea, but just the idea of everyone using it just turns my stomach.

...The mod's author - Patrick Wildenborg of Deventer, Netherlands - told The Associated Press Friday that his code merely unlocks content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game, the latest edition of the top-selling "Grand Theft Auto" series.

...Wildenborg, 36, wrote in an e-mail. "My mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."

[. . .]

"Lock me in a room with a computer, an original San Andreas DVD and a binary-file editor, and I will be able to unlock the stuff in a matter of minutes," he said defiantly.

---Ron Harris, Investigation, denials and outcry over video game's sex scenes, AP-Published in San Francisco Chronicle, July 8, 2005

• H.R.2281
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
• (a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES-
• (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

Wildenborg hacked the code blocking scenes not released as a part of the software. He circumvented a "technological measure that effectively controls access" to these scenes.

Anyone who uses the mod is also violating the DMCA, and probably the EULA.

You bet it's trivial and pansey-assed, but consider the source of the law.

section 217 is one of the applicable sections.

EFF has a decent PATRIOT Act analysis. See especially heading 'cheif concerns' 1a.

Thomas has a listing of most of the USA PATRIOT Act, though a few things are missing. Notably, section 217 linked above.

Except that cryptography in furtherance of a crime is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. So if you send an encrypted email mentioning an illegal act(conspiracy), then you are guilty of a felony.

1082 books would appear to be about 0.00003731 Libraries of Congress!

IANAL, I only know what I read over at Cornell. True, US law is mostly irrelevant to these Aussies, but I doubt what you're saying makes any more sense under AU law.

While 17 USC 1 seems to imply that you may be correct insofar that copyright on a derived work may be held separately from the original, this requires that creation of the derivative work be legally authorized (section 103a). The right to authorize derivative works is one of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder (section 106). Without that, the creation is illegal.

Furthermore, according to this handy PDF copyright office circular (which is probably based on the US case law)

When the collecting of the preexisting material that makes up the compilation is a purely mechanical task with no element of editorial selection, [...] copyright protection for the compilation or abridgment as a new version is not available.

A representative fingerprint of the blocks of the original work has not been deemed a Copyright issue yet, despite its use in multiple protocols and digital signature systems.

Merely because no-one has tried the argument in court, does not mean the judge will not have to recess for an hour while he tries to stop laughing when someone presents it. Just because lawyers are trained in straining at gnats and swallowing elephants does not imply the judge must swallow that elephant.

I own a web hosting company so I know a bit about this topic because I have had to research it.

You have to register an agent for copyright infringement and accept email communication as adequate notification because according to the U.S Copyright Office at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/onlinesp/, the following is what you have to do in order to limit service provider liability:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, signed into law on October 28, 1998, amended the copyright law to provide limitations for service provider liability relating to material online. New subsection 512(c) of the copyright law provides limitations on service provider liability with respect to information residing, at direction of a user, on a system or network that the service provider controls or operates, if the service provider has designated an agent for notification of claimed infringement by providing contact information to the Copyright Office and through the service provider's publicly accessible web site.

NOTE: Be sure to follow the exact procedures specified in subsection 512(c):

(3) Elements of notification.

(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

(B)(i) Subject to clause (ii), a notification from a copyright owner or from a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner that fails to comply substantially with the provisions of subparagraph (A) shall not be considered under paragraph (1)(A) in determining whether a service provider has actual knowledge or is aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.

(ii) In a case in which the notification that is provided to the service provider's designated agent fails to comply substantially with all the provisions of subparagraph (A) but substantially complies with clauses (ii), (iii), and (iv) of subparagraph (A), clause (i) of this subparagraph applies only if the service provider promptly attempts to contact the person making the notification or takes other reasonable steps to assist in the receipt of notification that substantially complies with all the provisions of subparagraph (A)."

NOTE: Be sure to realize the consequences for misrepr

I'd much rather see those hundreds of millions of dollars invested in, for instance, making all out of print recordings and books available on-line. It's a smaller problem (sounds like), but would benefit the world much more than online copies of every government employee's timecard records

On second thought, that would be a seriously cool way to store video - stacks and stacks of frames. And if the power went out and you got bored, you could use them as flipbooks!

Don't laugh. That's exactly what used to happen in the early, early days of film in the US. For copyright protection, films had to be printed out frame by frame and deposited in the Library of Congress.

In more than one instance, the original film was lost but the paper prints survived - so people just rephotographed the paper prints to make a new copy of the film.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edppr.html

The full Senate has not yet considered the CJS Appropriations.

I posted this elsewhere on the thread before seeing your post:

They marked it up in subcommittee yesterday (here's a brief report.), but it hasn't been considered by the full Appropriations committee yet. That's tomorrow. Then it will be some time before it finds its way to the Senate floor.

You can track the progress using this page from Thomas.

The bill referenced in the article is the House version of the bill....

They marked it up in subcommittee yesterday (here's a brief report), but it hasn't been considered by the full Appropriations committee yet. That's tomorrow. Then it will be some time before it finds its way to the Senate floor.

You can track the progress using this page from Thomas.

The bill referenced in the article is the House version of the bill....

It's not that simple unfortunately. A line-item veto did exist briefly during the Clinton Administration, but died upon it's first use.

President Clinton briefly had the power of the Line Item Veto between 1997 - 1998. It was Declared Unconstitutional in 1998, after President Clinton's first attempt to use the veto. If I remember right, Clinton knew that the Line-item veto wouldn't survive, and chose to use it in a mostly symbolic act.

The Courts said that this particular attempt at a line-item veto gave unprececented legislative power to the executive branch.

Indeed. Might this be the very vote?

I have been looking at http://thomas.loc.gov/ and haven't found jack regarding any new broadcast flag legislation that is due to hit the floor. I'm not saying that I'm incompetent (I'll leave that for everyone else to say) but I would have guessed that it would be here.

Am I looking in the right location or is this just a scare tactic? I have yet to see a particular bill number (such as HR 2354) listed or even the "short title" (such as "TV Consumer Choice Act") anywhere.

I'm not saying it isn't happening (as I feel it would be in character for the MPAA), just that all I have seen is a vague rumor floating around with no actual facts to support it.

BTW, link with more info.

Are you sure?

I can already see it: "With our nation at war it is in our best interests to promote continuity and guarantee strong leadership for years ahead..."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:1:./tem p/~c109cf6ITt::

"Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution"

Legislation has been introduced to repeal the 22nd Amendment. This seems to have "slipped" past the media.

they didn't necessarily change the laws, they bill was an appropriations bill, and just said "any of the money that we are giving to the justice dept. can't be used in accordance w/section 215 of the patriot act" so since money==salaries==FBI agents time, they are at least for this year (FY06) not allowing them to execute section 215 of patriot... or at least that is the way I understand it from looking at the bill... see the info on the bill for more info, and to check what other appropriations were made for the $$$

"That's a good point. I always thought that there would just be another "terrorist" incident just before the 2008 enections, and martial law would be declared, thus keeping Bush in office indefinitely. I guess this is a cleaner, more permanent way to accomplish the implementation of [what I perceive to be] the new dictatorship of the USA."

That's perhaps not necessary. Did anyone of you read the following proposed bill:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. (Introduced in House)

JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article --
`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed.'.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.J.RES .24.IH:

and martial law would be declared, thus keeping Bush in office indefinitely.

No no no, it's much more simple than that, you just repeal the 22nd amendment limiting presidential terms.

There are actually TWO bills proposed with that same topic. Still scary though.

SPEECH OFHON. STENY H. HOYEROF MARYLANDIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing today a joint resolution to repeal outright the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment requires that no person who has served two terms or has served two years of another President's term be permitted to serve another term of office.
The time has come to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, and not because of partisan politics. While I am not a
[Page: E303] GPO's PDF
supporter of the current President, I feel there are good public policy reasons for a repeal of this amendment. Under the Constitution as altered by the 22nd Amendment, this must be President George W. Bush's last term even if the American people should want him to continue in office. This is an undemocratic result.
Under the resolution I offer today, President Bush would not be eligible to run for a third term. However, the American people would have restored to themselves and future generations an essential democratic privilege to elect who they choose in the future.
A limitation on the terms that a President could serve was not fully discussed by the Founding Fathers. However, Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper 72, recognized that one important benefit of not having term limits on the President would be:

We do not have to rely on rigid constitutional standards to hold our Presidents accountable. Sufficient power resides in the Congress and the Judiciary to protect our country from tyranny. As the noted attorney and counsel to Presidents, Clark Clifford, said:
I believe we denigrate ourselves as an enlightened people, and our political process as a whole, in imposing on ourselves still further disability to retain tested and trusted leadership. The Congress and the Judiciary are now and will remain free to utilize their own countervailing constitutional power to forestall any executive overreaching.

Not everybody is trying to take his toys away... some are trying to give him better ones:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.J.RES .24.IH:

PS (OT) -- is anyone else having trouble with IP bans on slashdot? I get 2 downmods on apost and suddenly I'm IP banned! I only got this posted through Tor, but that's not that much better as slashdot blocks most of the nodes there too. Any help?

Interesting.

If you check the list of submitted bills, it isn't there either. It is mentioned in the Record, but only if you search for a closely numbered bill.

The GPO site is also missing the bill. Let us get our tin-foil hats ready now.

Interesting.

If you check the list of submitted bills, it isn't there either. It is mentioned in the Record, but only if you search for a closely numbered bill.

The GPO site is also missing the bill. Let us get our tin-foil hats ready now.

?

http://thomas.loc.gov

It's a real shame more people don't know about this.

Unless providing information to the public could be construed.as competing with the private sector, since private sector entities sell information. How soon will we see a bill like this, that turns the government into a subsidized wholesaler of information for well connected companies?

The link to H.R. 550 is broken in the summary, but it can be seen here.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.279 5:/

They haven't put the bill online yet, but once they do in the next day or two this will link to it.

Bill info on Thomas

It has no provision regarding eliminating "business method" (read: software) patents. This bill won't do anything but clog up the patent office more with so-called opposition requests.

It would be interesting if the Judiciary committee could be swayed to eliminate software patents. If your congressman is on the committee, let them know how you feel.

My understanding is it took fewer than that to create it in the first place...and they seem to indicate that this guy actually has some skills.....