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Slashback: Rumination, Apologies, Kisses
View the meal from which the soundbite was extracted! Jim Tyre writes: "When Slashdot reported on the preliminary injunction against Napster, and then on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' stay of that injunction, a missing piece was the actual ruling by the lower court, since it was an oral ruling from the bench, and a transcript had not yet been made available. C|Net now has the transcript here, and it makes for good reading for those interested in what the court's thinking was, not just the result."
On second thought, I'd rather not dance. Andreas writes: "As reported by the Heise Newsticker The German company CMG, which threatened to sue over the use of their registered name SAMBA, has stepped down from their plans. Nice to see at least some kind of clueness."
The article is in German, but the fish renders it quite intelligible.
If you want a kiss from CmdrTaco, you must be this big ... ClubNation writes: "Empeg have released their MP3 car player download software under the GPL. Before now you could only get an i386 binary for Linux, but now the source should build on pretty much anything with GCC or another good Posix C++ compiler with STL. I've heard on the empeg BBS that it builds out of the box on PPC and someone's working on a native Mac version.
You can get the code from their Web site or from their Geek Site which is also pretty cool and has a photo of CmdrTaco and Hemos in the photo album!"
And even though companies like Aiwa and Kenwood are selling MP3 head-units, the Empeg has one of the coolest industrial designs I've seen in anything for a long time. When I am a bazillionaire, I will put the Mark XXII in my Escort;)
So, in layman's terms, what might these projects be? Robert McMillan writes: "Linux Magazine has an interview with the brand new CEO of MandrakeSoft, Henri Poole. In it, he says that Tucows has apologized to his company about the Penguin Payola controversy. Poole also hints at some new open source projects that MandrakeSoft will be sponsoring in the next year and talks about what former CEO Jacques Le Marois will be doing now."
And now it's time for a mini, mini, mini review: invisik writes: "I got my NIC (New Internet Computer) yesterday. It's definitely a Linux box, running Netscape Navigator (browser only) 4.73, in 800x600 (can't change it). Connects easily to their ISP, your ISP, or your ethernet connection (DHCP or static IP). Has some utilities to make life easier, telnet, ssh, citrix, vnc, IRC clients. Also some games, solitaire, etc, etc. Speed is good, it doesn't really have much running on it to bog it down, though. And there's a little red light that flashed when it seen network activity--pretty cool. Not too bad for $199 if you really need some decent connectivity to your office (ssh/citrix/telnet) which I'd guess most other Internet terminal-type devices lack ..."
Indeed, 'nature abhors a vacuum,' and 'some things are too good to last.' Napster served an important and positive market function by responding to a new media and demand. It stimulate market interest in soft copies of a vast resource of older music that existed below the threshold of profitablilty. Now that the corporate world (and thus the legal world) have taken attention to this new frontier, Napster will fade away and the Columbia Music type services will pave-over this once wild eutopia.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
You could probably repackage the iMac as a network computer for $325... maybe call it the iSore.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
The makers of this heinous product have given the common criminals of the world a fairly powerful method of drug storage and distribution. Ziplocs not only keep the drug in, but also keep out moisture! They help you to avoid being caught by limiting the odors that the drug emits. They can be used as a protective device when smuggling drugs in your intestinal tract!
It's about time they were sued for contributory drug trafficking. Either A) They'd lose, and we'd no for sure that freedom is dead or B) They'd win, and we'd have proved the absurdity of the Napster suits. A manufacturer or programmer should be held liable for direct damage from the product. (Ziplocks coated with benzene before packaging would kill people, and it'd be there fault, but it would be your fault if you stored crack in it.) Likewise, Napster should be responsible if their software is actually a virus, but not if other people violate the law. What happened to the common carrier concept?
The way telephone companies preserve their rights and avoid liability is by not censoring anything. As soon as they do, they become liable for anything they don't censor. By simply carrying any sound, they aren't forced to be police. That's what the police are for.
Sue ziploc!! together we will win the battle against stupid lawsuits (or possibly just get lots of cash from ziploc).
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
Oracle is going to keep reinventing the "Network Computer" until people decide to actually start buying them, aren't they?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Considering the quantity of beer consumed by college students, pleading poverty doesn't hold a whole lot of water though. It also doesn't excuse copywrite violation, music isn't a necessity and the radio is free as are most local bands if you bother to go to the bars where they play.
Particularly troubling is the Court's assertion that a personal computer does not constitute a home audio recording device. This could raise the issue of recording MP3's for personal use could come under fire. Besides that, since a PC can be (and commonly is) used to record audio, I think it falls well into the definition of a Home Audio Recording Device. If you doubt it's common, why does Windows include Sound Recorder??
That one comment is enough to make me a bit wary of the Judge's technical understanding of what is at stake in the Napster trials.
All of that said, I do think Napster et al will have a hard time showing that their primary purpose is noninfringing -- they shot themselves in the foot by advertising thier capacity to allow users to infringe. I think it would be in thier best interest to show why someone who legally owns a song (i.e. on CD) would download rather than rip an MP3. I think that case could be made: with my DSL, I can download a song much faster than I can rip and encode!
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Just wanted to say, I've found when visiting non-english sites that FreeTranslation works better than the Fish. http://www.freetranslation.com for those interested.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
Are you sure about this? I just bought a Slim Jim and tried opening someone's car door with it, and it just gets all mushed up and stuff. And it doesn't even taste good anymore. Perfectly good wasted of a buck, if you ask me.
Maybe I should have let it sit out in the sun for a week to get harder or something.
- Mike
I don't think the judge is biased in the narrow sense, but rather in the larger sense in that she is a conservative (not in the sense of 'Republican') who will simply interpret the law according to previous cases and the current laws--without regard to larger issues, such as constitutional limits on the powers of copyright, or examination of how these laws are getting out of hand. And that's not all a judge's role is, in fact. Judges can and have made larger, more sweeping, statements. But Patel isn't of that mold, I suspect. Here's a pretty key statement, in my opinion:
"I cannot essentially sit by [because the infringement is hard to justify], and plaintiffs are entitled to enforce their copyright rights and not have them infringed just because the nature of the technology is such that it's too hard to identify."
This is a fairly sweeping statement. Basically, this would allow the copyright-holders to enforce their copyrights against anything. Including the net as a whole. This is another area where the judge is not, in my opinion, considering the implications of the current state of copyright law. Also, no consideration anywhere is made of the good that the Napster service provides to the community in general. Again, a conservative and narrow view, focused on money and profit, because that's the traditional focus of this kind of case. That's not entirely Patel's fault, of course.
Another thing that interests me is the fact that intent is considered, quite explicitly, by Patel. I didn't realize that the intent of the creators of a device could have such a large part to play in the legal fate of that device. If Napster had been created in all innocence of infringement issues, would it have a stronger defense? Or can intent merely be used as ammunition for the plaintiffs? It's hard, at this point, to imagine innocence or in fact almost anything being a viable argument, based on intent, for the defense. Which again is more of a systemic issue--one that Patel is not that concerned with, in my opinion. Naturally this brings up some of the weaknesses of the judicial system in general, but I won't address that here.
So, what's next? If difficulty-of-enforcement is no defense, what networks are safe? The only real defense that the net itself has is that it is distributed, that it is really really big (in terms of numbers using) and that it was around for quite some time before an suits were brought against it (which would give it some defense in the intent stakes, and make it seem more like a victim of late-coming abusive users than a collaborator in copyright infringement). But any new network is it real trouble, because it doesn't have any of those defenses, and proving innocence of intent will be almost impossible. So, the copyright rulings have an additional chilling factor on technological development as well as the already-existing one on free speech; cf. cases concerning parody in particular. It would seem that the only real hope is for some titanic ruling (such as one against the entire Internet) that dramatically shows up the deleterious effects of the current 'IP' laws, and thus brings about a radical shift in direction. I'm not holding my breath.
The final page of the transcript, showing Patel's exchanges with the attorneys, supports the above view. Patel (and I suspect she is in the mainstream of American judicial opinion here) considers Napster (and probably any other new thing that comes along and facilitates copyright infringement) to be a genie let out of the bottle. And she considers it the responsibility of Napster, the company, to put it back in the bottle. In other words, any new thing that is created that can be used to infringe copyright is going to be forced, judicially, to deal with that use or cease operation. That may sound reasonable at first, but look at it more closely and think again. Copyright infringement is very easy to do these days, due to the massive efforts put in by interested parties to extend the concept of copyright. What this ruling, and the laws that made it possible, essentially do is give to the major interested parties (MPAA, RIAA, etc.) the power to veto new technologies.
('Hey look, I've created a device that can duplicate anything! An end to poverty! An end to hunger! An end--what? You're representing who? What do you mean, an injunction?')
Would suing over the SAMBA name seem so clueless in Germany?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Hmm... All we need is a NIC running a GNU mp3 player stapeled to my dashboard and WHAMO!
Instant car mp3 player.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
After much duct tape, electrical tape, solder, etc. My ride-on lawnmower now has HDTV, a DVD player, and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. It also has a NIC running over 802.11b to the home network and internet connection, all properly hacked together off the lawnmower alternator. The power was unclean at first, but that got fixed after only 3 computers and 2 DVD players. The TV seems to not like the bumps, and is slowly getting more staticky (sp?). Oh yeah, I decided I needed a splashguard after that incident with the neighbor's cat, so now it's waterproof too. Anyway, my wife is now telling me to stop mowing the lawn all the time. I can't decide whether I just shouldn't mow it three times a week or if she's just mad about the rosebush. But all in all, not too bad. Lemme know if you want more details.
---
If you people would bother to read the RIAA response to Napster's stay request, you'd see the clear difference.
Take the Xerox lawsuit. They were sued because they aided in the duplication of copyrighted printed materials. Same with the Sony lawsuit - their VHS technology allowed the reproduction of television transmissions, and allowed the duplication of copyrighted casettes.
The difference being - Sony and Xerox sell a consumer good. At the point of sale, their involvement in the use of the product ends. They don't have a wire going into their boxes from their headquarters feeding it copyrighted stuff - they just say "Here you go, do what you want."
Napster, on the other hand, is involved during the entire process. They own the client, and they own the servers that allow the sharing of files. If they would've been more like Gnutella where client connects to another client with no middleman servers, RIAA probably wouldn't have as strong of a case. Instead, they opened themselves to liability by incorporating a business solely to aid in the distribution of copyrighted materials.
POSIX doesn't specify compilers. You mean an ANSI/ISO compiler with a POSIX library.
Compiler and library are, fairly often, separate tools.
It's dimly possible that POSIX has special C++ bindings, but so far as I know, they still just use the POSIX C bindings, and rely on the link-compatability with C++.
There is no such thing as POSIX C++. There is such a thing as ISO C++ on a POSIX system, but that's subtly different.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Sure... pick the market segment most technologically able and with the lowest income, and then whinge about the fact that they don't buy your music.
'OK... I just won't bother eating for a week, then I can buy myself a CD.'
yay.
Got a NIC in the first shipment. Added a bash shell hack the first night. Posted screenshots to the website the first night. (http://www.bestkungfu.com/nicfit)
/. thread was gonna happen on it. Gee, I love when I'm right (too easy to predict /. these days)
It's a cute little box, and for the price, quite reasonable. Try to build a thin client cheaper, and you'd be hard pressed. Yes, you could add a harddrive, but WHY?
Runs Linux, quite nicely. It's a homebrew, not based on anyone else's distro. This from the horse's mouth...
The 4 meg is an IDE flash disk, and it's a little daughterboard. You could remove it and use it elsewhere (hint hint)
The guys at Thinknic are GREAT... and they have been VERY very supportive and more on the mailing list(s). Everything we could wish for and more.
As for the GPL, they ARE going to release source... already asked for it, and it's been assured to me they will be taking care of it. In fact, I told them that a
Tonight I cracked the root password for the box, so I not only own one, I 0wN one. (grin)
Personally, I want to see additional CD and flash stuff developed for it. It's happening now... check out the mailing lists for more details (egroups.com)
Larry has a hit on his hands. I can see lots of people and companies buying these. Custom CDs will be used by companies, making upgrading a breeze. Schools, hotels, libraries, other public places will benefit from a cheap and useful terminal that won't be easily broken.
Summary: Recommended. Highly. Cheap and good.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea. As a internet connected "appliance" for people like my grandparents (who are vaguely interested in this "newfangled internet thing") or those who have no real need or desire for a PC, but wish to get email and browse the web.
On that note, where's the ability to read email? You'd only be able to use web based email as far as I can tell with this. That seems like a mistake. How much more difficult would it have been to add the ability to use NS Communicator and have one piece of functionality added? It wouldn't have added much overhead, space, or difficulty, so far as I can tell.
Any ideas why they didn't include something of that nature?
To be honest, I've never had much success with Mandrake (I've tried to install their distro both by FTP and from a CD image numerous times and always had it fail for some non-user-related error (a crash, a failed dependency, something). However, they most unheralded project which they currently support and use has got to be Supermount. The new author (forget his name) has managed to update the patches all the way up to 2.3.99pre5, and those patches should work with the latest 2.4.0test kernels as well.
What does supermount do? Basically, it virtually mounts your filesystems and then monitors the drives to see whether or not they should be really mounted. This means that you can mount the floppy drive as supermountfs, stick in a floppy, access the drive, remove the floppy, stick in a new floppy, access the drive, etc. etc. Basic removeable media flexibility, just like other OSs. It's something that Linux desperately needs to allow it to compete in the desktop market, and it isn't a kludge like autofs.
I've used it for quite some time with no problems, but Mandrake continues to help maintain this when it needs to and their distro has included it for quite some time. I may not be able to use Mandrake, but at least I can use some of their efforts.