Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Australia, Nomenclature, Books
Please, no more name changing. suqur writes "As a follow-up to many stories previously posted, News.com reports that the recently renamed Mozilla Firebird browser (previously known as Phoenix) has finally given up on its new name, and relinquished the name. The new names for the Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird will be Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail, respectively. Looks like they're right back where they started, eh?"
Whatever the name, Mozilla is still only almost perfect: GeekLife.com writes "An old Mozilla exploit continues to crash almost any version/flavor of Mozilla with just 5 lines of plain HTML code (no JavaScript, ActiveX, etc.). If you're very brave, you can test/crash your Mozilla by going here.
It's important to report fairly on issues like this, or people will come to think of the Open Source journals as biased, uninformative, irresponsible propaganda machines, which will greatly harm any legitimate cause that the OS folks are promoting."
Books to download, at varying prices. Scott Pendergrast writes "We're working here at Fictionwise to convince publishers to release Neal Stephenson's works as eBooks. Recently his Cryptonomicon work finally became available in Secure Microsoft and Palm Reader formats (yes, the irony of this title being sold in an encrypted format is not missed ;-)
To encourage sales of this title, which hopefully will result in more of his works becoming ebooks, we're offering a 50% micropay rebate on it (so we're actually losing a bit on each sale)."
If you like your books free and non-fiction, though, mindpixel writes "I am not lying. The National Academies Press which was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States, has more than 2,500 free, searchable, high quality books online. Some random examples:
- The Genomic Revolution: Unveiling the Unity of Life
- Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time
- Who Goes There?: Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy
- Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response"
This ought to be tax-deductable, too! ThreeToe writes "Recently the RIAA settled a lawsuit with four college students; one of them was Daniel Peng of Princeton University. Daniel is accepting donations to help pay his $15,000 settlement fee along with related legal fees. You can send money via paypal by clicking here. Remember that Daniel simply wrote an MP3 search engine; he didn't distribute MP3s himself. Those who share my belief that this lawsuit was wrong-headed should make a statement by assisting Daniel."
I'm not sure you have to be brave to click the link that crashes your Mozilla. It's like not pressing the red button that says "Don't Press". I knew what it was going to do and I still clicked the link. Give stupid/curious people like me some credit too thanks.
Nothing from nowhere I'm no one at all
According to this --
Perhaps I'm not understanding correctly, but weren't there mp3s *on his box* available for downloading? Unless they were all ok for distribution (certainly possible, but unlikely) wouldn't this qualify as `distributing mp3s himself' ?Absolutely, look once the press have walked away the kid's lawyer will turn round to the RIAA and point out that their chance of collecting any judgement on a college kid until he gets out of college are nil. The RIAA will then accept an undisclosed sum in actual settlement. This was not about getting the damages.
Now spam senders on the other hand is a different game. AOL's lawyer definitely wants to put as many of those people under and keep them in debt for the rest of their lives. He is very pround of the fact that none of the defendants he has won judgements against have discharged them in bankruptcy.
The ACLU has enough to do protecting the rights that are not authors of their own misfortunes from the likes of Ashcroft. Heck even Bob Barr is frightened by the guy's behavior!
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The guy isn't guilty of any crime, but he had to settle as if he were? Someone enlighten me... I'm still forming my opinion on this, but if the RIAA is willing to pursue bully tactics (intimidating people with lawsuits with no merit against people who can't fight back), and price fixing, they shouldn't have the nerve to complain when the consumer resorts to the same things when fighting back. Not saying it's right, or legal, but they shouldn't act shocked when human nature asserts itself. Oh, and the people who ACTUALLY DO something against the law, even when pursuing their own form of justice should be prepared to face the consequences... (in general, not referring to the lawsuits in question)
Not an MP3 trading application, just a search engine that could be used, as Altavista and Google can, for finding MP3s...
That doesn't matter. Remember the Sony decision: as long as there is a possible substantial non-infringing use of the technology, the mere fact that the technology exists isn't enough for the provider to be liable.
A pure mp3 search engine is fine.
There are only three factors to be considered, and whether the search engine is general purpose or not is NOT one of them.
1) Does it help people infringe?
2) Does the provider know of specific infringements that it has helped? (more specific than knowing that they're possible; less specific than knowing individual filenames, though that would be good too)
3) Could the provider have stopped helping people infringe by changing his technology or failing to provide it anymore?
I suspect this kid knew that people were actually infringing using his search engine. I bet he even used it himself in that manner, as even getting a listing of illegally downloadable files could infringe the copyright holder's distribution right.
There is also one other way to escape liability; it is the one that the search engines use. And that is to comply with the DMCA safe harbor in 17 USC 512. But these kids didn't do that either, or else they'd be laughing at the RIAA while totally immune from suit.
So the reason to not sue Google et al, aside from that they do have better lawyers, is that Google was smart enough to shield themselves with the law; these kids were stupid and left themselves wide open to liability. Even though it would be easy-peasy to get the immunity.
But they didn't, and RIAA _was_ right here. Still a bully, but right. It happens from time to time, you know.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
1) Does it help people infringe?
2) Does the provider know of specific
infringements that it has helped? (more specific than knowing that they're possible; less specific than knowing individual filenames, though that would be good too)
3) Could the provider have stopped helping people infringe by changing his technology or failing to provide it anymore?
First, excuse me for being so brash, but you deserve it...
Put this list back in your ass from whence you pulled it.
How come the RIAA hasn't sued Sony (I know, a paradox) for making CDRW drives. It meets your three criteria. What about Sony's MP3 players? Check. How about the CDR manufacturers. Check. Or any VCR manufacturer. Check. Or photocopying machine makers. Check.
Shall I go on, or do you get the point yet? Besides, this list you made up contradicts the previous sentence you wrote: Remember the Sony decision: as long as there is a possible substantial non-infringing use of the technology, the mere fact that the technology exists isn't enough for the provider to be liable.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.