Slashdot Mirror
DMCA Vs. The Sewing Underground
Roundeye writes "So the folks at monsterpatterns.com dumpster-dive to get envelopes containing discontinued sewing patterns and sell the envelopes via their website. The sewing pattern company McCall invoked the DMCA to get the site shut down. Monsterpatterns is now suing to protect their 'fair use rights' to advertise and sell the discarded patterns. You might recall that this isn't the first time the sewing industry has cracked down on bootlegging grandmas and their suppliers."
How can this be considered piracy? He isn't reproducing the patterns, he is selling hard merchandise. I understand that "He did not pay for these patterns" as Mr. Herman from McCall stated, but doesn't that make it theft? Where I live, dumpster diving is considered tresspass which could lead to theft charges, but Mr. Gendron claims "they are abandoned property" and he may be right if that is what Detroit law says. This was an underhanded misuse of an already bad law to get the site taken down. Gotta love that whole consequences before proven guilt thing the DMCA has going for it.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Good news!
The domain, patterse.cx, is available for registration!
~~~
Good grief....my underwear may be next..
Damn midwestern grandmothers with their sewing circles. Up to no good! Oughta lock the whole lot of them up. Whole generation's going to hell in a handbasket.
How many more third graders will go to school without a hand-sewn elephant on his or her sweater before Ashcroft ceases this futile War on Knitting that has resulted in so many broken homes?
bodes ill for those of us who dumpster dive for fun. Screw the piracy and patent issues, I'm concerned about the negative image us dumpster diver enthusiasts will receive
YOU SUCK BALLS!
I thought there was some law about people's trash that made it fair game? I'm from Illinois though.
Wow, those Taiwanese can bootleg anything!
Sew, it's come to this, has it?
Sigs are bad for your health.
a lot of these sewing machines can be plugged into the computer and download patterns and then reproduce them on cloth, sort of like a cloth printer
I thought the DMCA was about copyright control circumvention?
What, are they claiming that a dumpster is copyright control?
BlackNova Traders
That if you put "DMCA" in it, you automatically have something that will get posted by the editors of Slashdot.
-JT
The old article stated that the Internet is responsible for declining sales of patterns for doilies and other sewing patters. Here's two reasons i think this is BS.
1.) Given the median age of the people who still knit and sew, i'd say that few of them use a computer, much less the internet.
1.) The people who do sew, are so old they're probably just dying off anyway, thus leading to the declining sales.
This sewing pattern industry must be reasonably low tech to have not yet considered IP theft, brand identity, shredders and burn bags.
That once your garbage hits the curb, its public domain. I think this should constitute..
The next big thing will be to monitor your trash--if someone wants whats inside, arrest them and place trash back on the market. That's what Microsoft did anyway...
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I've described the copyright battles over cross-stitching, player piano rolls, Happy Birthday and guitar sheet music as being good analogies for what "kids" are doing today with MP3s, Kazaa and keygen cracks.
The thing is: will you respect the current legal rights of the publisher, or will you create a new paradigm?
Who said, "The reasonable man adapts to his environment. The unreasonable man tries to adapt the environment to himself. Thus, all progress has been made by unreasonable men"?
[
If , as reported, they are selling actual patterns and not copies of same, then McCalls or anyone else has no business in using the DMCA in this, it just doesn't apply. Heck, it doesn't apply anyway, maybe copyright law would (for bogus copies, not for factory originals), but there is no digital security to defeat in any sewing pattern I've ever seen. Sounds like a more extreme abuse of DMCA that has ever been reported before, and there have been some good ones. Only thing they might have a leg to stand on is simply theft of property, but apparently they don't think they can support that. I hope McCalls gets sued real good on this one.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I was onto something here.
FLR
...my mother has taken an interest in Slashdot!
Perhaps out of this, more people can become aware of the possible Very Bad Things (tm) that can come out of the DMCA.
Incidentally, any product that can be used to create, maintain, objectify, alter, transmit, or destroy Very Bad Things (tm) is a violation of the DMCA and will cause litigation.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Free McCall Sewing Patterns
Results 1 - 10 of about 4,580. Search took 0.51 seconds.
Maybe since sewing grandmas don't have the same image as Eric Corley, this would be a good case to take the DMCA to the Supreme Court over?
Ah fuck it, at least they're not posting SCO stories...
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
That's usually what it takes -- an application of the law so abusrd that even Joe Average realizes it's a bad law. Remember the Life Begins at Conception laws where people started claiming their unborn children on tax returns for the year where they were in the womb, and female prisoners claiming that their unborn children were unlawfully imprisoned because the mother was?
Call it the Law of Unintended Consequences Applied to Law Law.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why isn't the companies that he yoinked the patterns from? What is the pattern-maker's claim here. Doesn't the producer give up the right to the product when the sell it to a reseller?
If the put these grandmas in prison, they'll then accuse them of transmitting escape plans in their patterns.
Has the act of throwing away an item actually been legally defined as giving up your ownership rights to a product? If so then clearly monsterpatterns is not in violation of ANY law. It is 100% legal to give up your ownership of said property and then have it resold. The used game and CD market is evidence of this enough. The owners of the patterns gave up their right to the pattern, then monterpatterns simply picked it up and decided to sell it. As long as they don't reproduce it, then there isn't an issue.
...while I think most of the time the dumpster is on the company property, this would be stealing as someone else said. If they grab it out of the dump is it illegal, too? I never visited a dump and saw if there was a "NO TRESPASSING" sign, but I would assume these days it is a reality. I think they'll go with the big NO TRESPASSING sign on the dumpster and then they'll be unable to legally enter and remove said items. **shrug**
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
c'mon, they threw them away.
i would think they're either going to get laughed at in court, or told to shove the DMCA claim right up their @$$.
courtesy of Steal This Country
Enjoy,
W00t
Get Your War On 24
I'm from Illinois though.
I think Sammy Sosa has taught us everything we need to know about fair games in Illinois. We should pass a law to put bear traps in the bottom of every dumpster. That would solve the problem.
PS. I read somewhere that Sammy is dead.. is that true?!
I cannot stop laughing, I can imagine my grandma sitting in front of her Mac, "New Angel Pattern, SCORE, 3l33t" LMAO
If there is nothing left worth living, what are you willing to die for?
They must have been sewing copies of the source for DeCSS.
"asking a judge to declare his dumpster diving, and the selling of his treasures, legal."
I think for international open-sea salvage laws to apply, they'd need to demonstrate dumpster diving was in fact some form of underwater diving.
Any reference to treasures and pirates as in "Pirated sewing patterns" can only help Mosterpatterns demonstrate the applicability of sea-faring rules. Was there a captain in the dumpster at the time of the escapade?
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Sounds like some ultra radical senior citizen knitting circle.
Sewage Underground, perhaps?
...because it just goes to show how ridiculous the DMCA is. Eventually, it's going to be obvious even to lawmakers that it should be repealed. Not that we're even close to that point yet, but it's nice to see that we're headed that way.
All this time I have pictured my Grandmom sitting home and sewing stuff for her grandkids, a fine upstanind citizen.
Now, sitting here wearing a shirt she made me, I wonder: is this covered under fair use or are they going to take the shirt off my back? How does one check if a garment was reproduced from a licensed patern? You have to wonder how many copywritable permutations of the shirt there really are.
Maybe this is why Granny wanted Kazaa loaded and that 120GB hard drive for Mother's Day?
"To Do Is To Be" - Socrates, "To Be Is To Do" - Sartre, "Do Be Do Be Do" - Sinatra
"I'm not a lawyer," he said. "I pick garbage."
I am living proof of the Peter Principle
For the same time period, both major pattern makers referred scores of customers to Monsterpatterns as a great source for discontinued patterns. These referrals came by way of email and telephone from Simplicity and McCall employees.
While this doesn't qualify as official company policy (employees referring customers to the site on their own, rather than the company telling the employees to refer them), I think it badly undermines the pattern companies' case. Obviously they knew about the site for a long time, they knew what it did and what it offered, and they turned a blind eye towards it.
Suddenly, some lawyer realizes it might be grounds for a quick courtroom profit and announces they're suing under (of all things) the DCMA. As if throwing boxes in the trash could possibly constitute encryption....
1. I find a bunch of old magazines in someone's trash.
2. I take the magazines and list them on my web site hoping to sell them.
3. I'm guilty of a DMCA violation?? This doesn't make sense! People are using the DMCA as a 'catch all' law to make EVERYTHING online illegal. This law must go away!
how about burning or shredding the patterns? btw, once it's in the trash, it's /my/ property (or whoever grabs it before me).
Yes, it's not spelled correctly, but that's what it is.
Fiesta SPAM Salad
Ingredients:
Marinade:
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salad:
1 (12-ounce) can SPAM Less Sodium luncheon meat, cut into strips
1 onion, sliced
1 bell pepper, cut in strips
Lettuce
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
Instructions:
In jar with tight-fitting lid, combine all marinade ingredients; shake well. Place SPAM strips in plastic bag. Pour marinade over SPAM. Seal bag; marinate 30 minutes in refrigerator.
Remove SPAM from bag; reserve 2 tablespoons marinade. Heat reserved marinade in large skillet. Add SPAM, onion, and green pepper. Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until SPAM is heated.
Line 4 individual salad plates with lettuce. Spoon hot salad mixture over lettuce. Garnish with tomato halves. Serves 4.
...is full of white trash.
Dumpster Diving saves society thousands of dollars, by reclaiming useable material before an irresponsible person puts it in a landfill and takes our taxpayer's dollars to make waste.
Why slashdot? Why not?
If she can find it cheaper on MonsterPatterns.com then maybe she can afford to give me two shiney quarters for cleaning out her gutters!
"What is neighborly fun for Conry is outright theft to needlepoint companies and the artists who create the patterns. Sales at the South Carolina design shop Pegasus have dropped as much as $200,000 a year--or 40%--since 1997, in part because of such swapping, said founder Jim Hedgepath. He and a handful of companies and pattern designers are gathering evidence to wage a legal battle against the homemakers. "They're housewives and they're hackers," Hedgepath said. "I don't care if they have kids. I don't care that they are grandmothers. They're bootlegging us out of business."" OK from this quote sales have dropped 40% since 1997 and Hedgepath states/implies they are all grandmothers/blue hairs. Maybe this 40% drop is due to death. Hell I don't know about you but my grandmother never touched a computer until 2000. She still only knows how to check email, forward feelgood chain letters and play a game or two of solitare.
We need lawsuits like this to show the world how silly DMCA is. I thought that they crossed the line with toners and ink cartridges but this one tops them all.
a g=fdfeed
At least there's one Senator that wants to limit DRM and DMCA.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-1013037.html?t
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Apparently, McCall has a similar process for excess patterns. The understanding with the merchants is that the excess patterns are NOT to be sold. Monsterpatterns is disrupting this process. While other means could be used (e.g., shredding the patterns) this would increase costs for the merchants. And is not a good thing.
So while DMCA may be hated on Slashdot, I believe McCalls has a right to protect their copyrighted materials, which they want to have removed from the marketplace.
DMCA... YMCA... They may have changed a letter but it's still gay.
How can the DMCA Digital Millenium Copyright Act be invoked for something which is not digital and requires no digital reverse engineering techniques? Has the world finally gone mad?
Free speech is getting expensive...
This article is older than dirt. It's so old, the link to latimes doesn't even work anymore. It's so old, the grandmas involved in the case are all dead. It's so old...
I guess they're using the DMCA because it's a website they're trying to shutdown.
I don't see that resale of merchanside is hacking or infringing copyright.
I have a friend who wants to start a glovemaking business. It turns out that the patterns are hard to come by, and that old glovemaking companies have been passing them down from generation to generation.
You can buy glove patterns, but you can't buy patterns that will allow you to compete. I think you'd have to put a lot of time into trial and error.
Could someone perhaps clearify the definition of the word public domain? I thought that is what happens when you throw something away, like in the garbage that it becomes public domain?
If McCalls can sue someone for picking in the garbage, who is to prevent companies from suing bums that pick stuff off the streets?
Is it just me, or is this just getting way too much out of hand?
First - dumpster diving has nothing to do with the DMCA. Nothing. What monsterpackets is doing is no different from me grabbing a turntable that someone tossed and selling it on eBay.
Second - if this is such a *huge* problem, why not FIX it?
Sell the packets in bulk to monsterpackets or someone else. buy a shredder and destroy them.Shit, this DMCA crap is tired already - it took me two minutes to think of these things, and I haven't even started drinking yet.
Now I know a lot of you think you're being funny with mentions of built-in copy protection in the patterns and whatnot, and McCall's could very well be barking up an empty tree (can they really prove that they're losing $$ because of this?), but the fact that this is over a website automatically involves the DMCA.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
not the copyright.
If this isn't exactly what the first sale doctrine is supposed to protect, what is? Once the copyright holder lets go of a particular hard copy, their copyright doesn't give them any further control over what happens to it. (Or do I have this wrong? I'm open to correction.) Unless perhaps they had some contract with the retail shops that required them to destroy discontinued patterns, but in that case it seems like it is the retail shops they have a course of action against. What would have happened if the retail shops had not disposed of the patterns but had continued trying to sell them?
This post is dedicated to all of those
Oops, I just violated DMCA. Better go turn myself in. But first, a word from our sponsor. I'm gonna echo sentiments here: The D in DMCA stands for 'digital'. Sewing patterns are NOT digital. Your mom will tell you that, and show a particular flavor of Timex as an example of what is digital.
This sig no verb.
Not my first choice of purchase, but has anyone looked at the cost of sewing nowadays?
I mean, supplies are expensive, the cost of sewing machines can be incredible (cheap ones in the hundreds, up to thousands for higher-end though), and patterns are definately a rip.
Maybe we need an "open pattern site" - anyone got a link?
How does a paper pattern fall under this law?
teh suck
i have nothing more
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
First Young Man: Well they come up to you, like, and push you - shove you off the pavement, like. There's usually four or five of them.
Second Young Man: Yeah, this used to be a nice neighbourhood before the old ladies started moving in. Nowadays some of us daren't even go down to the shops. '
Third Young Man: Well Mr Johnson's son Kevin, he don't go out any more. He comes back from wrestling and locks himself in his room.
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
There are 2 things running into each other here. 'IP' and abandoment. The federal case law on this is quite clear, ifyou throw somethign in the trash and someoen picks it out you can't claim they stole it from you. Once you toss it its considered abandonment. By throwing it away you have made the intention clear that you want to give it up. Which is why you threw it out right? This is why reporters can go thru your trash, you have no expectation of privacy on abandoned items.
I just can't wait for McCall to take their lead from Madonna and put on the Internet some of their own "designs" to help thwart pirating of their intellectual property.
The whole pattern pirating industry would be shut down in an instant as soon as some grandmother that downloaded a pattern called "Playful Kittens" and spent hours stitching it out, ended up with a pillow that says "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
For those who never studied history, Rosa Parks was not the first black person to be arrested for refusing to sit in the back of the bus.
The public was most sympathetic to her, though.
The public isn't going to be too worried if AOL/Time-Warner/NBC/Coca-Pepsi-Cola sues a bunch of 20+ year old computer geeks for "illegal file trading".
The public would probably have a different opinion if it got out into the press that they were sueing an 80-year old grandmother of six who bakes apple pies on the weekends after getting home from church for sharing needlepoint patterns.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
--"He did not pay for these patterns," said Robert Hermann, CEO of McCall. --
The local store that threw them away probably already did pay for the patterns. So what is the big deal?
Does he mean to say that he needs to get paid twice for the product to be sold only once?
I never thought this before, but sewing companies are a bunch of greedy bastards.
The McCall Pattern Company
Consumer Service
11 Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10001
1-800-782-0323 (Monday-Friday, 8:45 am to 4:45 pm EST)
consumerservice@mccallpattern.com
There you go boyz and gurlz!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Can I sue everybody everywhere who has ever made a profit just by claiming that I made the product originally, but threw it away? I've never really thought about it; I just kinda assumed that I was giving up rights to my trash. I'm generally more than happy to turn it over to the nice men who come twice a week to take it away. Are those sons-of-bitches getting rich at my expense?!
I'm suing!
If the grannies use the "DMCA infringing" patterns on a pair of boxers would that make it underwarez?
It's not like their scanning in the patterns, they're selling discarded merchandise.
One mans trash is another mans treasure.
I think McCall is just pissed because someone thought up a clever way to make money in a way they didn't forsee.
Maybe we'll get lucky and some judge will find a chink in DMCA's armor and the whole thing'll go up in smoke...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I agree. There's a local shop that carries all that. You can even scan in a pattern. To the other poster about quality, well you can get a commercial model. Not as gee-whiz but still just as capable.
Though I doubt McCall's would admit it, they're not losing sales because of this site and they damn-well know it. They're losing sales for the same reason the RIAA and MPAA are; They charge too much money for a product that becomes less and less attractive as the years go by.
What they're losing is customers. I don't buy music hardly at all anymore, and I haven't downloaded an mp3 in my life (Most I've heard don't meet my sound quality standards).
I've known a total of ONE woman my age that has a sewing machine, and I'll bet her daughter won't have one - times change, fer chrissakes. In 40 years, McCall's might as well be selling horse-drawn carriages for all the relevence they're likely to have by then. And I think McCall's doesn't want to remain relevant. I don't think they give a damn about they're customers, really. Why do I say that?
Please note: Patterns are not for sale on this site. Please visit your local retailer to purchase McCall's patterns.
At least you can buy the over-priced and increasingly pointless CDs online. McCall's won't even let someone sell their trash.
Seriously, if some of these people are so devoted to their hobby, you would think some of them would "author" their own patterns and release them for free to the community. Seems like that would be a better way of expressing your creativity than scanning in someone else's design and sending it to a group of 300 people.
Lasers Controlled Games!
From what we learned in the drug war, anything you throw out is fair game...
"The Supreme Court concluded that anyone who puts trash on a public curb forfeits a privacy claim to it, and that police seizure of it from a trash collector does not constitute an unreasonable search." - Hemp Products
I thought our rights stopped at the curb?!... I guess we better invoke the DMCA on the cops, people trying to steal our identities, and any poor bastard that touches our trash...
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Heh, the last time I went looking for a rom for BasiliskII, I ran across it on some cross-stitching site where the owner was hawking their HyperCard pattern utility and suggesting you run it on an emulator.
I was just upset that BasiliskII wouldn't work with the rom dumped from any of my PowerBook 540, Color Classic, or Quadra 840AV.
"One of them is a software contractor. there is a (fairly large) niche market for pattern-making/designing software. "
:(
None of it for Linux.
Exactly. As I recall, the "D" in DMCA stands for "digital" not "dumpster". There's nothing digital about this case so I don't see how DMCA applies.
Maybe the EFF should help with the case. Most DMCA challenges rely on techno-babble and feature long haired hippy-looking evil pirate hackers who most non-techie people wouldn't let date their daughters. This case involves grandmas and dumpsters, concepts more people can understand. This may be the case that breaks the DMCA, and the EFF should make sure that it doesn't die because it gets too expensive to pursue...
...only the criminals will have dumpsters.
If someone else's trash becomes my treasure, do they get it back? I don't think so. If I saw Gallileo's telescope in the trash and fished it out, that's one thing. Some unknowing buffoon ditched an international treasure. Sewing patterns? Furniture? Old computers, even? I think not.
stuff |
The understanding with the merchants is that the excess patterns are NOT to be sold. Monsterpatterns is disrupting this process.
But Monsterpatterns is not a party to the contractual agreement between the pattern manufacturer and the pattern retailer. If the retailer fails to execute their part of the agreement, no third party is bound to abide by the agreement in their stead.
"They're doing something that's not illegal but it's messing up our business model" is not a justification to sue. It's a sign that the business model needs to be altered.
('altered', ha... tailoring humor... thank you, I'll be here all week)
Okay, I may be one of the few slashdotters who sews (for a living, yet... it's slightly more profitable, in the right areas, than writing code from home. Go figure), and it's not really relevant to the issue itself, but...
Monsterpatterns is selling stuff for "30-40% off retail"?? If that's cover price, that's highway robbery, never mind where the patterns came from. McCall, Butterick and Vogue patterns are *normally* sold for 50% off cover. Most places (JoAnn, Hancock, etc.) have rotating sales where one particular line is a buck a pattern.
I guess Monsterpatterns (and the sewing stores) are targeting the folks that want a particular pattern RIGHT NOW and are willing to pay the fairly-outrageous cover prices ($9-15) on them.
(In other Slashdot-relevant news, I'm trying to decide on an appropriate "open-source" license for sewing patterns.)
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
4 year pre-law degree at Harvard: $141,600
4 year law degree at Harvard: $194,00
Using your 8 yea education to sue someone picking out of a garbage: priceless.
There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's always a lawyer.
The police have no additional rights to search and seizure than you or I unless they have a warrant.
I believe the objection to the resale of patterns stems from the idea that the garment design they represent is itself copyrighted. Typically, when you buy a pattern, you receive a 'license' to make a SINGLE garment from it. Officially, if you want to make more, you have to buy more 'licenses' (ie, buy the pattern again, or negotiate something with the company).
In this way, a pattern is not like a book - unless you purchase the license, you have no right to execute the design on the paper. While I think one could argue that it would be legal to sell the paper, the fact that one could not legally use it for its intended purpose does I think justify some degree of restriction on resale.
And the fact that the sales are online is, IMHO, a poor excuse for using the DMCA. This is far more a traditional copyright case.
(Sketch opens with a pan across Bolton. Voice of reporter.)
Voice Over: This is a frightened city. Over these houses, over these streets hangs a pall of fear. Fear of a new kind of violence which is terrorizing the city. Yes, gangs of old ladies attacking defenceless fit young men.
(Film of old ladies beating up two young men; then several grannies walking aggressively along street, pushing passers-by aside.)
First Young Man: Well they come up to you, like, and push you - shove you off the pavement, like. There's usually four or five of them.
Second Young Man: Yeah, this used to be a nice neighbourhood before the old ladies started moving in. Nowadays some of us daren't even go down to the shops. '
Third Young Man: Well Mr Johnson's son Kevin, he don't go out any more. He comes back from wrestling and locks himself in his room.
(Film of grannies harassing an attractive girl.)
Voice Over: What are they in it for, these old hoodlums, these layabouts in lace?
First Granny: (voice over) Well it's something to do isn't it?
Second Granny: (voice over) It's good fun.
Third Granny: (voice over) It's like you know, well, innit, eh?
....
Fourth Young Man: Oh well we sometimes feel we're to blame in some way for what our gran's become. I mean she used to be happy here until she, she started on the crochet.
Reporter: (off-screen) Crochet?
Fourth Young Man: Yeah. Now she can't do without it. Twenty balls of wool a day, sometimes. If she can't get the wool she gets violent. What can we do about it?
--text lifted from Pythonet.org
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
we should shun all patterns and wear open source camouflauge. Even if they wanted to sue us for something stupid, they won't be able to find us.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'm not "picking stitches" anymore, I'm "reverse engineering." I'm not "tailoring" anymore, I'm "setting my preferences," and I'm not "customizing a pattern" anymore, I'm "kernel hacking." Ah. Hmm, now that I can talk about it in 1337 code, I feel a lot better about admitting that I (can) sew!
Let's just say I won't be buying any McCall's patterns for quite awhile. I think I'll stick to Burda. (Burda 0wNz0rZ j00!)
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Well quilt me a dress and call me Susie! I ain't never taken a cotton those cor-por-ations that done sue people that take their trash!
Sheeeit! I try to make my daughter's child a jawa for halloween and them hoodlums get all testy that I picked up a tater sack from the star wars backlot in australia.
Poop on me and call me charlie! no, wait, call me george lucas. I ain't seen a man with a heavier directing fist since Mussolini. I done learned in statistics class that there is a relationship between George Lucas's weight and the amount of money he makes sellin' those 30-foot wide screensavers! For every 50 million he makes, he done gains another 50 pounds!
And guess what? They won't have to use anything but a bit uh blush n'some eye shadow in episode 3 when George himself stands in as Jabba-the-Hut. Sheeit. This granny's gonna git back to her lurkin' now.
I wish their investigation would have played out something more like this:
CLARICE Good afternoon... I wonder if you could help me. I'm looking for MacCall, the sewing pattern company?
MR. GUMB They don't live here anymore.
Mr. Gumb starts to close the door, only to have Clarice push back against it, politely but firmly. She holds up her ID.
CLARICE Excuse me, but I really do need to talk to you. This was MacCall sewing pattern company. Did you know them?
MR. GUMB Just briefly. What's the problem, Officer?
Clarice and Mr. Gumb, still eyeing each other through the door crack...
CLARICE I'm investigating a violation of the DMCA. Who are you, please?
MR. GUMB Jack Gordon.
CLARICE Mr. Gordon, do you know anything about MacCall dumpster-diving for sewing patterns?
MR. GUMB No. Wait... Was it those stupid little drawings made up of broken lines? I may have seen them, I'm not sure...
Mr. Gumb glances briefly over his shoulder, towards his kitchen, then turns back to Clarice with a smile.
MR. GUMB MacCall had some employees, maybe they could help you. I have some cards somewhere. Do you mind stepping inside, while I looks for it?
CLARICE Thanks.
Moments later...
CLARICE - looking up from the bottom of a hole in the basement.
MR. GUMB It rubs the DMCA on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it is told.
I believe the statement is being taken out of context. What it sounds like he is trying to say, is that due to Iraq swimming in Oil, their (already battered) economy was immune to further sanctions or diplomatic pressures. Therefore, war was the only remaining option.
I really hope that's what he meant to say.
The ______ Agenda
Wow, the DMCA huh? confirms what I've always thought...trash bins are security systems and your parents should have their a$$es sued off for making a circumvention device. Fvcking lawyers.
Almost as pathetic as the TSA morons searching old ladies at airport terminals... We all know that old grannies like to kill and steal.
C:\>
1) Would have to be digital.
2) Have a copy protection mechanism in place. My favorite dumpster copy protection mechanism consists of broken glass, rusty razor blades and animal dung. This will protect the contents of your dumpster from copying by all except the most dedicated of dumpster divers. It also really cuts down on the repeat offenders.
IANAL yadda yadda.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They original operator transferred me to another secretary. The secretary said that she would tell the company president, and that he would call me back. He doesn't get out of meeting until 5:30 today, but she said he may call me tommorow.
I would encourage everyone else to also call up the company, and tell the secretary you want to talk to the president about the pending lawsuit. We can run up their phone bill and waste their time -- all at almost no expense to you. If you want to be heard on the DMCA, this is much more effective than writing your legislator.
BTW, the number, as someone poster earlier, is 1-800-782-0323
Which would absolve them of the DMCA. The mere fact that the business is over the web doesn't invoke the DMCA. Their business is selling physical things; the web merely is a store front. If there were no web (or even computers), and they produced their own global catalog, their product would be the same.
The DMCA is essentially a red herring, possibly intended to be a shortcut through federal courts, or to scare the public. The legal issues at stake is whether or not taking the patterns from dumpsters is theft, and if not whether what is taken can be sold. And no, while trespassing charges may be something to worry about, it is really irrelevant. What matters is whether whatever dump the trash goes to allows for scrounging. If so, then they merely short-cutted a legal action (searching a public dump) with a possibly illegal one (trespassing). If they were trespassing, this would be between the store, local police, and the trespassers.
Given all of that, it is clear that if McCall's has a beef with anyone, it's with the stores for not actually destroying the patterns or marking them 'destroyed and unsell-able'. As has been pointed out, publishers and bookstores have a policy of removing front covers. Interesting possible precedents to McCall's case would include if book publishers ever sued over selling 'destroyed' books, and if there is any precedent that if the store didn't bother removing the covers then the publishers can't sue.
It may be that the upshot of all of this is that they will devise a way to mark patterns as destroyed to prevent resell. It could be as simple as a large hole-puncher that will put a square through ten at a time, before they are thrown out.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Ok. So, Publishing House X decides to print up a million copies of "A Floozy's Guide to Widgets," and distribute it out nationwide. The bookstores buy it, put up the displays, but it flops. Only 10% of the books get sold. After a few weeks, it becomes apparent they've got hundreds of thousands of books (probably amounting to a couple physical tons of garbage) that will never sell and be have to be disposed of. Logically, this problem belongs either to A)the publisher, or B)each bookstore. Instead of having the bookstores ship them back at great expense, the publisher says "Just send us the covers, and trash the books." So those 900,000 books go into the dumpsters. In most US cities, the trash service is paid for with tax dollars. Therefore, they have just taken a PRIVATE mess and disposed of it with PUBLIC funds. Yet, despite this, they continue to claim private ownership of the book up to the point it's destroyed, even as they make John Q. Taxpayer cough up the money to get rid of it? I don't think so. One or the other, not both. If they don't want citizens fishing the book out of dumpsters, then they have to dispose of it themselves. And if the bookstore was supposed to do that, and slacked off, then the BOOKSTORE is at fault for the loss. Not the dumpster-diver. But then, I suppose I'm yet again illustrating the futility of trying to apply logic or consistency to B-law.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
It's the (you really shouldn't wait for it)...
Dumpster mooching control act.
I think we'll need a mutual suicide pact.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Is the DMCA becoming a multi-purpose law to use against people who are doing things you don't like?
"Don't cut me off on the freeway or I'll DMCA you!"
"You're tresspassing on my property. I'm giving you 30 seconds before I DMCA your ass!"
Will it enter common usage?
"The Laker's totally DMCA'd the Bulls last night."
"I had to take a wicked DMCA last night after eating all those burritos."
Quite right. However, your analysis applies to something that is legitimately licensed copies, which these sewing patterns are not. The question in this, which is what makes it so much of a brainbender: by using a non-licensed copy of something, are you a pirate?
Ostensibly, the store is transferring the rights of the "original" back to the manufacturer - in effect, the product was "de-licensed," at which point it is supposed to be worthless, and is disposed of as such. Clearly, however, it wasn't rendered unusable. So, is using something that doesn't have a valid license the same or different from making a copy and THEN using something that doesn't have a valid license?
I think it's much the same. Consider this - let's say I have a site-license for some software on my servers, and I let that license expire. Now let's say I use it. Note that I have not illegally copied the software - it was copied quite legally, when it was licensed, by the company who licensed it to me. But now, can I use it without breaking the law? Of course not.
So, ultimately, it is ILLEGAL to use something that is not legitimately licensed, whether you or someone else made the copies. See the "stripped book" argument made by others in this thread.
That's not to say the DMCA applies here - it's hard to suggest anyone's reverse-engineering sewing patterns or something - but it's very likely against the law to use or especially sell them.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
...are crocheting their own eye patches.
Is there software for generating needlework designs? Both repetitive patterns, and rendering of scanned pictures? The problems of arranging circuits on chips and displaying words & pictures with pixels seem similar. Software can handle those problems quite well, sometimes better than any human can.
It used to be that sewing your own clothes was cheaper than buying, but patterns go for $12-15 now for basic stuff that would cost that much ready-made. Then you have to add in the cost of fabric.
Ah ha. Doing a little more homework...
McCall's isn't saying the patterns can't be sold. Wait. Let me say that a little louder.
MCCALL'S ISN'T SAYING THE PATTERNS CAN'T BE SOLD.
Their gripe is with Monsterpatterns putting pictures of the patterns on the website. You know: reproducing (as in making a COPY of) the copyrighted art/photographs on the cover of the patterns.
It's still a bit underhanded, but it makes a certain sort of sense, far more than "you can't resell the physical pattern."
Here's the forum message where the rep (owner?) says "Today The Mccall pattern company through their attorneys have told our web host company that we are 'infringing on their copyrights' by displaying pictures of patterns that we own."
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
I'm just speculating, but the problem may be related to the same problem that magazine publishers have with newsstands with regards to unsold issues. The newsstands get credit (or at least, used to) for the unsold issues-- at one time they would return the upper portion of the cover for proof, rather than send the entire issue back. Possibly what is happening here, is stores are getting credit for unsold patterns that the manufacturers don't want to pay to have returned, and expect the store to destroy them. If that is the case, then the stores are at fault for not sufficiently destroying them, but perhaps the pattern manufacturers realize that suing their stores is not particularly a good idea.
I've seen the same thing happen to magazines-- magazines with portions of the cover removed do sometimes get sold anyway, but I don't know what the legality of this is. It's probably less of a problem with a magazine publisher where a back issue of a magazine doesn't compete all that much with the current issue-- old patterns, on the other hand, could concievably be quite competitive with new pattern lines, thus making it a more significant issue with the pattern manufacturers.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out...
If I throw out a Windows 2000 CD, does that mean that Windows 2000 is now in the public domain? No, it means that any bum off the street can pick it up. It does not mean that the IP contained on that CD can now be freely distributed. There is a big difference here.
Lasers Controlled Games!
My roomate (Apreche) and I went dumpster diving a few times last year. We were short on cash, and we thought we could make a quick buck.
We found a lot of smelly things that useless things. We also found a lot of stores that secure their dumpsters (which sucked. Best Buy and Media Play were our primary targets... Guess they don't want people stealing their trash).
We eventually hit Toys R Us, where we found a dumpster full of perfectly good bicycle parts. We loaded the car full of them and vowed to sell them on E-bay. We figured we could sell them cheap as hell, since our net investment was zero and any profit was pure profit.
But, being lazy college students, we forgot all about the boxes of parts sitting in our foyer. Ended up throwing them all away when we moved out of the place...
And that's all I have to say about that.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
at least around here the local authorities have the decency to look the other way when would-be home-improvement types take a few sheets of discarded particle board or what-not.
Just do it on a weekend, and the sub-cons don't care. They'd only be mad if you did it while they're on site, as you present a liability if you get hurt. That's about it.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Yesterday I was at my grandma's and she was downloading some patterns off the internet... I asked her, "Grandma, isn't that illegal?" She shrugged stating, "I wouldn't have bought it anyway. Plus I don't like those top 40 patterns of old ladies with pineapples on their heads. When I stitch I like to stitch indie stuff anyhow which I can't find at the local needlpoint store." I thought it made sense but somehow... I dunno... it seems like I've seen that argument elsewhere... hmmmm...
Anyhow to all you grandma's that read slashdot out there... don't buy McAll's patterns! Buy from your local neighborhood needlepoint store!
You think this is funny but it is not. I have good information from unspecified sources from the justice department, the DoD, the CIA and the FBI, that there are direct links between sewing pattern pirating grandmas and terrorism.
And how do you know that sewing pattern piracy does not fund terrorism? Can you prove that? I think not.
Imagine a beo... naah, I don't dare. Sean
is the end of the thread. Cue the Singer.
Obviously, WarGrandmas are going to need a way to conduct their business underground more effectively. But instead of having to invent their own means of supporting their illicit WarQuilting, they already have a body of Warchalkers and Wardrives who's experience they can draw on.
Now here's the scenario: Wardrivers and Warchalkers need money, right? Otherwise they'd just purchase their own damned bandwidth, outside of any other nefarious reason they may have for surfing illicit waves. Well, here's the catch: Grandmas have money! And who has more money than a WarGrandma? No one!, except for Bill Gates, but any grandma could kick Gates' ass anyway. So that's the new mantra ... WarGrandmas and Warchalkers Unite!
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Thank you for clearing this up. It wasn't making sense until now.
So MonsterPatterns is going to have to pony up a little money to pay someone to recreate "not-to-scale" drawings of the the patterns they sell for significant mark-up.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Dumps and Junkyards SELL stuff they find in the trash that's still worth something.
I want an injunction order to seize their assets while I pick through them and determine what part of their profit I am entitled to.
Yes.
Can you sell a used book without the copyright owner's permission?
Having not signed anything to the contrary, yes.
the only thing copyright prevents the buyer from doing is copying it.
Not actually. Applied to a legally licensed copy, that is true. However, again, see the argument on stripped books, the sale of which is ILLEGAL. It's the same thing - an unlicensed, illegitimate copy of something being sold. They're both illegal. You can argue that it shouldn't be that way, but it is. Do a search on "stripped books" if you don't believe me.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
You're missing the first part of the sentence in your description:
Blah blah blah, "So the folks at monsterpatterns.com dumpster-dive to get envelopes containing discontinued sewing patterns and sell the envelopes via their website."
Even before the Internet, people could photocopy patterns and distribute them to others. But the Internet allows people to rapidly copy and disseminate items without permission from their creator, a trend that's raised the ire of groups such as the Hobby Industry Association. from what I can tell, the author is arguing that this case is identical to someone freely distributing copyrighted material on the Internet, so that others can avoid the bill; this argument says: 1. if someone wants to distribute copyrighted material, s/he require a medium. 2. and the Internet is more effective a medium over all others. 3. distributing copyrighted material is morally wrong, so 4. the dmca, as it is used to protect companies from digital copyright infringment, was used properly in this case. This is obviously irrelevvent to the case, because the question is whether or not a dumper-diver should be allowed to sell his "collected merchandise," and not piracy. The moral argument and negative references to Gendron serve as evidence to show that perhaps the author really doesn't understand the news as much as one might hope.
Wow, that's really cool. You're right, pretty much the same concept - even more interesting though, because it's legal to sell it if you call it one thing (recycled plastic), but not another (a CD). I wonder if they could post the following description on ebay:
5" disc of recycled plastic - adorned with the letters M-E-T-A-L-L-I-C-A. Useful as coaster.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Even in paperback books with the covers ripped off, the language warning against stripped books doesn't mention copyright liability. Here's the language used by one publisher:
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
The booksellers are authorized to destroy the books in lieu of returning them to the distributor, but the distributor retains the ownership of the book. The notice in the front of the book seems to me to be sufficient to inform you of just who owns the book. It's not a copyright issue at all - it's an issue a physical piece of property.
Oh, and just to maintain a thread of topicality, in my city (Boise, Idaho), when you toss something into the dumpster, it becomes the property of the garbage company. Of course, "property", in the sense of the book issue described above seems to take on a rather confusing label. Maybe custody is a better term.
-h-
I meant when you are taken down via DMCA you have to prove your innocence to get back up, and filing for any damages isnt premitted..
.. :).
You are at their mercy.. totally.
"Lost revenue" wasnt directly related to the "trash theft" issue.. So calm down a bit
---- Booth was a patriot ----
McCall's patterns notoriously suck--and I'm not the only sewer who says this. I'm surprised this guy has even found a market for these things. Most JoAnne's (and other chain fabric stores) mark patterns down to $0.99 before discard (down from $6-$18) and on most regular days you can get the things for half off. Unless the store ran out of it in your size or something, there's not much reason to have to go looking for the things online.
If McCall's and Simplicity were smart, they'd hire the guy since he's obviously able to make their crap sell better than they could.
Either way, I think the DMCA is the wrong damned thing to put this under.
Cheers,
Ian (McCall)
If what I toss in the dumpster becomes the property of the garbage company, would that make dumpster diving by employees of the garbage company legal even if it were not legal for others? So they could (might, should) go through the trash stream looking for things that are recyclable/reusable.
Duh...We get it.
t em =2326320116&category=11801s /eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2931835502&category=11697s /eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2326035256&category=3119 ...(HUNDREDS MORE)...
McCalls has NO PROBLEM with images of their precious packaging on EBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i
http://cgi.ebay.com/w
http://cgi.ebay.com/w
You have a FAIR USE RIGHT to take an image of anything you OWN and publish it to support the sale of that property.
McCalls, take my advice and fire your idiot attorneys. If you want your retailers to destroy old inventory, PAY them to destroy it.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
This is kind of funny. Doesn't destroyed mean gone, no longer in a recognizable form from what it once was? A book with it's cover torn off, sadly, is still a book. It is no more destroyed than stealing someone's hubcaps has totaled the car.
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
I have worked for both Staples and Orifice Depot and I got loads of stuff from store dumpsters or for discontinued and return merchendise that the store got credit for. I got Belkin printer cables, ink & toner cartridgers, software, floppies, CDr's, office furnature, office supplies, small electronics like calculators and pencil sharpeners, and once I even got an old Maxtor HD (yes it eventually bit the dust after a couple of years of servie). The shipping guys that were supposed to destroy the stuff would some times let me take stuff or I would go to the dumpster after work and stock up. Happy Dumpster Diving!
Why can't anyone get their terminology right in these articles? Pirates are illegal copies of legitimate works. Bootlegs are illegal original works sold by someone else. If I buy an illegitimate copy of a released album, like Michael Jackson's "Thriller", that is a pirate. If I buy a live concert recording of The Verve, which is officially unreleased, that is a bootleg.
These people are pirating the patterns, and the articles contain tacit admissions that they are breaking the law by copying patterns to avoid paying money for them. This is not bootlegging, this is piracy. Get the terms straight.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
You don't need the copyright holder's permission to sell. You only need permission to copy, perform, or create derivitive works.
That's why it is perfectly legal to buy and sell used CDs, without paying anything to the copyright holder.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
"Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership."
Where has copyright been violated here? Nobody is illegally copying patterns (although they may or may not be illegally selling them).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The president is actually a personable guy, though he did sound a little tired. He said he has called everyone back who has called about this, and I am inclined to believe it. He did say he had one lady he either described as "neurotic" or "crazy," I can't remember which. I kind of like the guy.
However, his big beef was that they were selling patterns they didn't buy. It wasn't the McCall images on the website. He also was mad about the patterns not being destroyed, and mentioned that someone at Jolene's was probably in cahoots with the Monsterpattern people. Having done dumpster-diving myself, I find it unlikely that they would get the quantity of patterns they have on their site by dumpster diving. The President said they have people investigating where he got his patterns, and they are working towards a settlement.
Having said that, and also including that I kind of liked the guy, I don't see any justification for using the DMCA. I didn't want to be confrontational (after all, he returned my call) so I didn't press him. But this is a clear case of the doctrine of "first sell." Once it is out there, whether they got it from a Jolene's manager or a dumpster, as long as he has the physical property, he can sell it. He can sell it over the counter or over the internet. I think they have a clear case of DMCA abuse. Now, collusion with Jolenes managers is an entirely different matter. But, this may go a long way toward generating enough bad publicity about the DMCA to result in it's modification.
The DMCA is only meant to prevent the decryption of digitally encrypted copyrighted content. Although there may be copyrighted content involved here, there is no digital encryption. The DMCA cannot apply.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
you have no idea what you are talking about.
today's sewing machines can cost more than $5000,
a typical quilter's embroidery machine is more than $1500
they are computer controlled and there are many digital cards for sitching patterns and designs available that cost in the area of $50 - $200 each
in short, sewing is a large $$$ business and growing
I've given a bit more thought to your post and have decided to write you a second responce.
It used to be that most of your clothes were made at home by your mother. Your school clothes, play clothes, even you prom dresses (if you were a girl) were made at home by your mother. Home-made clothes was the norm. Everybody wore them. Entire economic sectors were based on this simple fact.
Then things changed. Due to overseas sweatshops and increased automation store-bought clothes started to become as cheap as home-made, and then cheaper, if you factored in the time you spent making them. The next thing that happened was the twin prongs of the economic reality that a single income was no longer able to sustain a family and the growth of the women's rights movement. More women entered the workforce and fewer had the time to make their own clothes.
Then due to the advertising muscle of the clothing manufacturers we became obsessed with brands. We started to care not just for what our clothes looked like, but who made them. A home-made shirt could not compete with a name brand shirt from Tommy Stinkfinger (or whatever his name is).
In one generation we went from home-made clothes being a normal part of middle class existance to it being a source of shame. Home-made clothes meant you were poor. That your parents couldn't afford "real" clothes.
The home-made clothes market ended. Slaes of clothing patterns, cloth, thread, sewing machines, the whole ball of wax, went right into the can. My uncle's Singer sewing machine / Kirby vaccuume cleaner store went from a very profitable business to bankruptcy in less than ten years. He went from owning his own business to selling cameras at a friends store in ten years. BANG! End of the road.
Home-made clothes have made a slight comeback as a hobby, but that's all. But even this hobby isn't enough to raise the declining trend in pattern sales.
The harsh reality has nothing to do with the age and / or computer skills of the people that sew clothes. The harsh reality is that the market has shrunk to almost insignificance and nothing short of the total collapse of the import clothing business will change that.
People complaining that dumpster diving is killing off the pattern selling business is like people decrying the total lack of large screen CGA monitors. The marketplace has moved on. It's that simple.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
McCalls is trying to get Monsterpatterns to give them money, and that comes straight from their president. His big beef was that MonsterPatterns was selling McCalls patterns without compensating McCall. That is what he thought was wrong, not the fact that they had McCall pictures on the website. Once again, the DMCA has been mis-used. Instead of taking up the issue of "indsider pattern trading" with Jolene's, MonsterPatterns, and private investigators, they are using the DMCA. This is clearly an "abuse of DMCA" case where you are guitly until proven innocent.
Then explain to me how selling stripped books is illegal, in a way that is self-consistent with what you just said.
The physical object of the book is, indeed, a license of the work it contains. This license was transfered to you when you bought "Stranger" from a legitimate license-holder.
Copyright is not license.
An instance of a copyright involves an implicitly granted license. If this license is returned or revoked, the object (ie book) may no longer be legally used. This is what happens with stripped books. This is what happened with the sewing patterns.
This sewing thing is just like if I bought a hard drive off ebay and it had some software on it. I have no existing license agreement with the copyright holder, and I just found some software. Can I legally use it? Nooooo.... (Yes I know that ebay has restrictions against this thing now, but hypothetically). Same thing here - physical manifestation of a copyrighted work, where the owner kept the original license before ditching the media. Or if you like, if I find a windows install disc, can I legally use it? Once again, no! What all of these examples show is that the possession of the physical media is IRRELEVANT and grants no rights alone. In your case, the rightful license-holder of the book transferred his rights to you legally, and that's different.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Any gramma knows that when two kittens start being a bit *too* playful and start sniffing each other, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" is *exactly* what those cats are doing.
m
testing out my trending skills
With few exceptions, once the item has "entered into the stream of commerce", the holder of copyright can not prevent further sale. See: USA Copyright law And it's backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 1905 or so.
The doctrine allows the legitimate owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner, and produce images of it for purpose of aiding the sale. It does not permit copying the item in its entirety.
If the city codes allow dumpster diving and if they declare that the contents are "abandoned property", then the divers ARE the legal owners of the patterns and can tell McCall's to take a flying leap.
This issue comes up frequently on eBay. One $$$ fabric maker was invoking the DMCA to get auctions for items made of their fabric shut down. Their claim was that the photos showed their copyrighted fabric designs. It only took a few sellers ordering eBay to restore the content and to tell the fabric company that it was fair use (citing chapter, verse and Supreme Copurt decision number) and to go ahead and file to convince them they were out of line.
If clothes cannot be copyrighted, how can patterns of clothes be copyrighted?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
The covers are torn off to return to the publisher as evidence that the book did not sell, not to destroy the book. It's a token means of making sure that the bookstore doesn't sell the book then report it as being unsold.
The destruction part, naturally, occurs after the cover is torn off. Or at least, it's supposed to work that way.
One would assume that by throwing the books in a dumpster and having the trash company haul them to the landfill, the bookstore would have accomplished their mission of destroying the books. Given the kind of goo that ends up in the garbage truck, I'd say that they would be rather effectively rendered unreadable. However, sending them to a recycling center seems like a much better use of materials.
-h-
Where has copyright been violated here? Nobody is illegally copying patterns (although they may or may not be illegally selling them).
No copyright is violated. I never mentioned the word. I talked about ownership. Your parenthetical remarks pretty much sum up what I said in my post:
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
See? Nothing about copyright.
-h-
So, if they PRESUME I'm guilty, then I MUST BE guilty?!
I mean, they can have my livelihood (website) taken down based on the presumption that I'm doing something wrong. No proof whatsoever is required, just an accusation. Then maybe if I can PROVE myself innocent (in a month or three) they MIGHT allow me to make my living again....and if I want I can TRY to sue them...but good luck going against a herd of corporate lawyers.In other words, the big companies can CRUSH the little ones just because they want to and there's nothing anyone can do about it!
What happened to the presumption of innocence that's the cornerstone of USA law and justice?
Books, cds, tapes, sewing patterns, (and arguably mass market software) do not need licenses, implicit or otherwise, to be protected by copyright. Under the Bern convention, adopted by the U.S. in 1978, all original creative works are protected by copyright.
However, in the U.S., the First Sale Doctrine prevents publishers from placing binding licensing restrictions on the re-sale of used copyrighted materials.
The mass-market software industry has invented a legal fiction known as a "shrink wrap license" to attempt to get around the First Sale Doctrine as well as add other restrictions beyond those in copyright law. However, with one exception, these "licenses" have not held up in court, which is why the software industry is trying to persuade individual states to pass the perversion known as UCITA.
Informal licenses such as the GPL do work when they only grant the licensee rights that they would not otherwise have under copyright law. However, it is highly doubtful that license terms adding new restrictions (i.e. you cannot read this book aloud, you may only run this program on even numbered Tuesdays, you may not resell this package to others) would hold up in court.
In the case of discarded sewing patterns, books, magazines, etc., this doubly applies, because following long standard precedent, the relevant publishers do not even pretend to license the works to the end users.
There probably ought to be a law restricting dumpster diving in general, but I seriously doubt any copyright complaint is going to hold up. The pattern publishers simply need to require the retailers to physically destroy the patterns, preferably by shredding them, or better yet actually *sell* them to Monsterpatterns.
Sharing the needles...that's what they need to educate against.
The original retailer cannot sell or distribute stripped books because they are bound by contract with the publisher.
However, no such contract binds someone who obtains a stripped book from a dumpster. He or she can read or resell such a book at will, barring any laws against dumpster diving.
Now of course, there are ethical problems with that, but there do not appear to be any legal ones.
That is the whole reason why the books are stripped in the first place. The problem here is that the pattern industry is does not bother to do the same with their unsold patterns.
the question is where you draw the line;
trash is public domain, but if it is in a nonpublic dumpster, is it trash yet?
at what point does it cross over into public domain?
since i am in no way an authority on the matter,
i say the trash is public domain (it is marked as 'trash')
but the dumpster location means you're tresspassing to dig in it.
anything you take is yours if you're caught, but you still get caught for being there.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
If I intentionally abandon an item on public property, under common law I lose all ownership rights in that item. After some reasonable period (providing evidence of abandonment) that item is free to be legally acquired by any passerby.
In addition, unless there are local ordinances to the contrary, placing trash on a public street curb causes the owner to immediately lose all rights of privacy and ownership in that material. (Not intellectual rights, of course)
See CALIFORNIA v. GREENWOOD, 486 U.S. 35 (1988)
It's the digital reproduction of the packet art that is the DMCA violation.
I agree. The main reason to prohibit dumpster diving is maintaining the privacy of the people generating the trash.
Perhaps a more effective way of helping the desperately hungry would be to pass a law absolving the restaurants, grocers, etc, from liability for giving their leftover food away. It would certainly be in better condition than when dug out of a dumpster hours later.
Ya know, I actually used needle point paterns way back when I was learning basic.
There reached a point that I needed to stop copying programs out of a mag and I needed to design a program my self. I turned tward needle point mags in order to gain access to pre-existing graphical works. I spent alot of time converting this grid data into monochrome hex data, by hand mine you, and incorperated countless of these needle point paterns into computer software. Ok I never created anything worth publishing on any sorta large scale, but never the less. I was young but I made sure to REM statements that refered to my source.
At the time, I wouldn't have considered this to be piracy at all. I bought a patern from a mag under the dillusion that these were desgined to be copied. Hell, my grandmother has been copying these images by hand for years and putting them on display. It never occored to me that these were copyrighted works where the designers in question actually wanted royalities for each time their images are displayed. I guess I was just too young to understand the implications of learning basic.
-------------
To the same end, it sounds like these rougue needle pointers should empoy their scanners in a reverse technique I just described. Take an image / scetch and put it on the scanner. Convert to monochrome and lower resolution. Plop on tech little grid square approperate stitch. Become the designer, and license these paturns open source. Hell, I think i'll contact these people my self.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Pretty sad comentary on our governmental tax and corporate mindshare when some company like that decides it's better to throw them away then to just drop their price significantly so A someone gets the book,gets the enjoyment or knowledge transferred, and B, they receive at least some money for it. Maybe perhaps if they just released books at an over all cheaper price, they'd make up for "profits" with increased sales. Got a buddy of mine, major gasoline retailer, he says "sure, I only make a penny or two a gallon, but when I sell millions of gallons..."
:^)
I wonder what the over all numbers are, gross numbers of books shipped, versus gross numbers sold and not sold/stripped. I have no idea, is it 1% not sold and stripped, 5%, 10%, or what? I know it happens, no idea what those figures are. I just really can't conceive of how anyone can think it's cool to just bury them at a dump.
Geez,here's a skeery thought, archaeologists of the future excavating the dumps (which might be what withstands global nuke firestorm war or natural disaster, being all compacted deep underground) might only see the complete literary rejects, and go "ok, now we know why that civilization collapsed, they were just stoopid, here *try* to read this **&^ stuff"
this case is not that complicated that there is any need for a freakin analogy. what is the matter with you people?
The notification procedures in the DMCA are there to protect the communications provider from liability for copyright infringement.
Since there has been no copying, creation of derived works, or public performance of the items in question, there is no copyright infringement, hence the DMCA doesn't apply.
The real question is does the DMCA protect the ISP from held liable by MonsterPatterns for breach of contract for pulling their service in response to a highly dubious copyright claim.
About 15 years ago when I had only recently been thrown out of university, my flatmate found a largish number (40-50) of unsold textbooks in a dumpster behind the on-campus bookshop. He managed to sell at least 30 through the university's own second-hand bookstore before they became aware of the situation, and I think he sold a few more via noticeboard adverts.
More recently, me and a friend found well over 200 Windows manuals with licences for windows98 in a paper-recycling bin, and sold most of them through an auction site with no hassles whatsoever.
So what exactly is the difference between dumpster-diving an unsold sewing pattern, magazine or software licence, and dumpster-diving a slightly damaged but easily repaired "probably returned-under-warrantee" monitor?
Or is that 'piracy' too?
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
MONSTERPATTERNS.COM, LLC, )
)
Plaintiff, ) COMPLAINT FOR
) DECLARATORY, LEGAL,
v. ) AND EQUITABLE RELIEF
)
THE MCCALL PATTERN COMPANY, )
MP HOLDINGS, INC., BUTTERICK )
COMPANY, INC., CONSO INTERNATIONAL ) DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
CORPORATION (d/b/a CONSO PRODUCTS )
COMPANY and d/b/a CONSO )
INTERNATIONAL, INC.), SIMPLICITY )
PATTERN CO. INC. (d/b/a SIMPLICITY )
PATTERN CO. and d/b/a SIMPLICITY ) No.
PATTERN COMPANY, INC.), and DIGITAL )
RIVER, INC. )
)
Defendants. )
COMPLAINT
NOW COMES the Plaintiff, MONSTERPATTERNS.COM, LLC, a Michigan company,
by and through its attorney, Charles Lee Mudd Jr., and complains of the defendants, THE
MCCALL PATTERN COMPANY, a Delaware Company, MP HOLDINGS, INC., a Delaware
Company, BUTTERICK COMPANY, INC., a Delaware Company, CONSO
INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION (d/b/a CONSO PRODUCTS COMPANY and d/b/a
CONSO INTERNATIONAL, INC.), a South Carolina Company, SIMPLICITY PATTERN CO.
INC. (d/b/a SIMPLICITY PATTERN CO. and d/b/a SIMPLICITY PATTERN COMPANY,
Illinois ARDC: 6257957
2
INC.), a Delaware Company, and DIGITAL RIVER, INC., a Minnesota Company, and states as
follows:
NATURE OF ACTION
1. This action seeking declaratory, legal, and equitable relief involves the ability of a
small Internet company to market and sell abandoned and discarded products of the Defendants,
in essence two companies that dominate the sewing pattern market with a combined market share
of more than seventy-five percent (75%) of the domestic, United States market, without violating
federal copyright (United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101, et. seq.), trademark, and unfair
competitions laws.
PARTIES
2. MONSTERPATTERNS.COM, LLC ("Monsterpatterns") is a Michigan company
with an office located in Livonia, Michigan and with additional operations out of the home and
garage of Derek and Lynn Gendron (the "Gendrons") in Canton, Michigan. Prior to
incorporation, Monsterpatterns consisted of the Gendrons doing business as
Monsterpatterns.com.
3. THE MCCALL PATTERN COMPANY ("Defendant McCall") is a Delaware
Company with its principal place of business in New York, New York.
4. MP HOLDINGS, INC. ("Defendant MP") is a Delaware Company with its
principal place of business in New York, New York. Defendant MP owns Defendant McCall.
Illinois ARDC: 6257957
3
5. BUTTERICK COMPANY, INC. ("Defendant Butterick") is a Delaware
Company with its principal place of business in New York, New York. Defendant Butterick is
now a subsidiary of Defendant McCall.
6. SIMPLICITY PATTERN CO. INC. ("Defendant Simplicity") is a Delaware
Company with its principal place of business in New York, New York. SIMPLICITY
PATTERN CO. INC. also does business as SIMPLICITY PATTERN COMPANY, INC. with
offices in Niles, Michigan. SIMPLICITY PATTERN CO. INC. also does business as
SIMPLICITY PATTERN CO.
7. CONSO INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION ("Defendant Conso") is a South
Carolina Company with its principal place of business in Union, South Carolina. Defendant
Conso also does business as CONSO PRODUCTS COMPANY and CONSO
INTERNATIONAL, INC. In June 1998, Defendant Conso acquired all the outstanding common
stock of Simplicity Capital Corporation, the parent company of Defendant Simplicity.
8. DIGITAL RIVER, INC. ("Defendant Digital River") is a Minnesota Company
with its principal place of business in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
9. Where appropriate and unless otherwise noted explicitly or by context, Defendant
McCall shall include by reference Defendants MP and Butterick. Where appropriate and unless
otherwise noted explicitly or by context, Defendant Simplicity shall include by reference
Defendant Conso.
10. Where appropriate and unless otherwise noted explicitly or by context, "Pattern
Defendants" shall include by reference all defendants except Defendant Digital River.
Illinois ARDC: 625795
Mccalls attorneys Newman and Newman are using interesting tactics to remove Monsterpatterns.com websites as they resurface. They are invoking a technicality to threaten potential and costly litigation to any and all parties to an ISP claiming a ISP that does not have a registered copyright agent on file is liable. Read letter sent to New Edge networks AND SPREAD THE WORD as this IS a successful threat that causes even well designed ISP's to bow to pressure. If someone knows how to post a PDF file, I will post the full letter:
"NEW EDGE CANNOT AVAIL ITSELF TO THE PROTECTION OF THE DMCA.
Under the provisions of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, 17 U.S.C. 512, which was part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an Internet service provider is liable for acts of copyright infringement if it does not maintain a designated agent on file with the United States Copyright Office for notices of infringements. Specifically, 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(2) provides that:
[t]he limitations on liablity established in this subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider has designated an agent to receive notifcations of claimed infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the following information:
(A) the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent.
(B) other contact information which the Register of [Copyrights may designate].
While New Edge has purported to provide procedures for addressing copyright infringement, our research indicates New Edge fails to maintain a designated agent on file with the United States Copyright Office. New Edge is thus not in compliance with the DMCA, and therefore, it will be fully liable to McCall for all acts of copyright infringement occuring through the Infringing Site, and is likely liable for the trademark infringement as well.
So if they don't want patterns being salvaged, run them thru a shredder. Or just wet them down, that's enough to ruin the fragile paper they're made from (a pattern that's all stuck together is useless).
If McCalls has a problem with returns vs refunds, maybe they should use form of proof that the merchandise was rendered unsalable (such as the returned covers used to get refunds on unsold books).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Microenterprise Journal did a great article on the situation - a good read! Click here for article at http://www.microenterprisejournal.com/articles/leg al/20030602.html
Okay, seems we've all heard this story before.
1. It seems the beef is with the images of the patterns scanned from the envelopes and published as a thumbnail on the website. i.e. it's like a shopping cart and the site is publishing private works without permission. Similar to SlashDot getting asked to remove a couple of company logo's from the article headers.
2. Why not get the pattern companies together and have them talk to Apple. Heck if they can do what Apple did with music then they can do it with patterns. I am sure if my sewing friends could download a high quality pattern online for a buck it would benefit many people.
Use the Adobe PDF format with the encryption if you want. (of course someone could just download that software from that Russian company we all know so well...) Errr better come up with a better encryption scheme then what PDF uses.
Keep old patterns around forever without discontinuing them.
Make it easy to find the patterns you want and only pay for the patterns you really want.
Allow for easy access to those out in booney-ville who have to drive 2 hours to get to the nearest hobby sewing shop to buy a pattern.
Provide online forums and clubs where pattern lovers can get together and discuss the joys of needlepoint.
Make the patterns compatible with highend sewing machines that can accept electronic patterns. Heck partner up with the companies that make the sewing machines that can do that! Advertise the machines on the website! Heck, sell regular sewing patterns as well!
Bet they would sell a whole lot more patterns then they do now! They need to market it properly because most people simply would not know how cool it would be. i.e. target the needlepoint folks that you find online.
Heck, I keep telling people about the Apple music store and they haven't even heard of it yet. Imagine that! But several have gone, no kidding! A buck a song? Where's the nearest Apple store? Think I will go check them thar Apples out!
Think Different was a very true statement that became a slogan for Apple. But it really means you need to pull your head out of the sand and take a good fresh look around. Things change pretty fast in this world and those who don't adapt will die rather quickly. The Internet is starting to change many things around us every year. As more people get online and more families buy computers, more kids get online. This next generation will surpass the first generation and it will just keep going so in 10-20 years you will have even more computer literate people. Time to wake up and realize there are better ways to do things! Just having an online store is not enough, you need to make it work and you need to re-think everything you learned in business school because it simply doesn't work that way anymore!
Dumpster is a trademarked name. The preferred, non-trademarked terms are trash container, trash receptacle or trash bin.
c t/tabgood.ht m)
"Lawyers in charge of protecting the Dumpster trademark are infamous in media circles for sending friendly letters of admonishment ye ar after year to reporters and editors whenever news items erroneously refer to a large metal trash receptacle as a Dumpster instead of a dumpster unless it really is a Dumpster."
(http://users.rcn.com/sbuckner.entera
For more fun with tra demarks, peep the Internation Trademark Association's list:
http://www.inta.org/tmcklst1.htmtÃf
IANAL....
If the dumpster sits in the parking lot? I imagine that the store expects people to use the parking lot, therefor, being in the parking lot shouldn't be trespassing. I wouldn't think jumping into a dumpser (aka trash receptacle) on property where you are allowed would be considered trespassing.
Yeah, but just because they say it doesn't mean it's true or relevant. Claiming that goods that were reported destroyed are "stolen" is already a dubious claim. Given that it's impossible to determine if a book's cover was sent back to the publisher for credit or just torn off accidentally, the publisher claiming that this is proof the book was stolen is laughable. Essentially, the publishers are trying to shame people into not buying cover-less books because they're too cheap to pay the costs of shipping them back and destroying the books themselves.
Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
Since there's no law against having a book with no cover, you pretty much own it if you have it, regardless of how you got it. If you worked at a bookstore and pocketed a "destroyed" book, you might be fired if you boss finds out and the publisher might be able to demand payment from the seller who insufficiently destroyed the book, but a book with no cover is, on its own, not illegal to have.
Oh, and just to maintain a thread of topicality, in my city (Boise, Idaho), when you toss something into the dumpster, it becomes the property of the garbage company. Of course, "property", in the sense of the book issue described above seems to take on a rather confusing label. Maybe custody is a better term.
Usually garbage companies make it a matter of company policy that going through people's garbage is a strict no-no. Garbage collectors aren't supposed to take ANYTHING home (though you know they gotta run across something they can't resist once in a while!)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Several of you have emailed me requesting a comment about the case. Believe me, I am itching to respond with details, photos and a whole lot more, but have been advised not to. Seems everyone is telling me what to do these days - geez... I can say this, any suggestion of wrongdoing when we found these patterns is merely an attempt to cloud the facts. There was no collusion with Joann or their staff or any other of the dozen store chains where I retrieved abandoned property that was discarded. Suggestions otherwise are attempts to spin the story in an unhealthy direction, much like the use of the DMCA. True, this situation affects more than just those who sew and I welcome the review of our filed case by the Federal court, nonsense aside. In the interest of resolving this in court or by some settlement, I will reserve my burning desire to exercise my rights of free speech... Thanks everyone, I look forward to your comments and questions. Derek Gendron - finders keepers Monsterpatterns.com
Then explain to me how selling stripped books is illegal, in a way that is self-consistent with what you just said.
It's not illegal, necessarily. If a bookstore sells a stripped book that it was supposed to destroy, it's a violation of the retail agreement the bookstore has with the book's publisher. The illegality of that situation has nothing to do with copyright law or licenses. It is perfectly legal for consumers to resell a stripped book they might have in their possession. The same is true of advance readers' copies, which often become collectors' items. They are typically sent to key accounts and reviewers well in advance of publication. They almost always say "Not for resale," but that is simply to make sure the bookstores that receive them don't put them on the shelves. Second-hand and rare book dealers can and do sell them all the time. (For that matter, so do reviewers.)
An instance of a copyright involves an implicitly granted license. If this license is returned or revoked, the object (ie book) may no longer be legally used.
No, no, no...if that were true, then it would be illegal to resell the original editions of books that are out-of-print (but still in copyright), or to resell previous editions of a particular author's work when he changes publishers. Actually, if what you're saying was true, it would be illegal even to read those editions. You've just destroyed the entire aftermarket for books (and CDs, etc.)! The only license involved in copyright is between the creator and the distributor of his creation -- and that isn't an "implicit" license, it's an actual binding agreement, a.k.a. a contract.You seem to be unclear about the distinctions between a software EULA and copyright law. A typical EULA is much more restrictive with regard to the user's rights and privileges than copyright law would dictate. You're right about not being able (legally) to use the software you found on a hard drive you bought off eBay, but that is because of the EULA. If you bought a trunk off eBay that happened to contain some books, you would be able to read or resell those books, legally.
--Michael
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;..."
iSew.
Enter an agreement with the major pattern publishers to sell patterns for 50Â a pop, offer them in an iPhoto/iTunes-like browsing program, sell a translucent, USB-connected sewing machine, profit!
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
I think this demonstrates (again) how an industry that refuses to innovate will be left in the dust. Just like the music and movie industries, this one has refused to change with the times.
From bootlegging grandmas
After all, needlepoint designs are hard to come by, especially for women like Davis who live in rural areas. A trip to the nearest hobby shop can mean a three-hour drive. "There aren't very many stores that carry needlepoint patterns anymore," Davis said.
Evidently, there is a demand for easily available patterns. It is only fair (by the rules of capitalism) that these companies evolve or become extinct. Don't misunderstand me piracy is wrong, but so are industries that no longer value their customers. I don't think these people are out to screw the designers and am willing to bet they would pay for some type of internet service if it existed (which must not be the case).
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
this is very bad for the pro-choice crowd, and the thinking behind the name change is as bad as that for the naming of the US PATRIOT Act.
Sychetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
kyllingbiff
kalkunbiff
selbiff
seibiff
hvalbiff
finnbiff
All are big cuts of meat, except for the last which is hacked beyond recognition...
My Mom sews, My wife sews, My daughter sews. All of them own sewing machines of some type. the Daughters being the most expensive (you could build a few rally nice boxes for what she has in her sewing machine) Go into any "sewing center" and watch the money changing hands. My bet is there are more sewing shops in most cities and town than computer shops. It's all about money. Thats the bottom line.
I am up for the wiping your ass with the books. It's really the best use for them.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
First Sale + Fair Use = No Case
McCall sold the patterns to the stores, and therefore has no rights to control their disposition after that. Like Justice John Paul Stevens said, "The whole point of the first sale doctrine is that once the copyright owner places a copyrighted item in the stream of commerce by selling it, he has exhausted his exclusive statutory right to control its distribution."
And according to Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., from the 9th Circuit, thumbnail images are fair use, and that could be extended to this case, even more so since here they are used to sell the product in question. Plus there's section 109(c) of the copyright act essentially allowing thumbnails.
Not to mention that legally your garbage is public property as soon as the can hits the curb, which is also what gives the FBI the right to search your trash on garbage collecting day. How could garbage from a dumpster be any different?
If the dumpster sits in the parking lot? I imagine that the store expects people to use the parking lot, therefor, being in the parking lot shouldn't be trespassing. I wouldn't think jumping into a dumpser (aka trash receptacle) on property where you are allowed would be considered trespassing.
so, logically, you won't mind if i take stuff from your car through the opened window.
chances are that with a dumpster, they don't care and/or won't notice,
but the trash is still theirs and they still have the right to retrieve it at the last second.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I had no idea it was that high. That's a scandal if I ever heard of one, it's obscene. "Print on demand" for dead tree editions needs to take off more, help solve excessive costs and excessive wastes. Recycling paper sounds good, but it sure borks a huge amount of valuable fresh water, and uses energy. Better to not even have to do it in the first place, methinks, print only what is needed.
I have another pet peeve, and a possible solution to a big problem, going back to fresh water. Homes and buildings have both grey water and brown water waste systems. I see no reason to use expensive clean freshwater to flush away brown water. There should be small tanks installed in homes and other buildings that take the gray water from the house,store a reasonable amount, and use that for flushing. All gray water is, is soapy water basically. We could save literally billions of gallons of clean, treated freshwater a year across the nation with that simple modification, let alone savings at the waste water treatment plants, and from not having as much dumped into private septic systems. We also could go back to real toilets that use a real amount of water that 8works*, as opposed to these 1.5 gallon jobbers mandated bgy law now, that still waste water because they take 2 or 3 attemtpts to accomplish the task! I'd also like to see, where appropriate, a more widespread adoption of the now-advanced dry composting toilets, they work quite well. there are millions of places that could use those most of the time, perhaps as adjuncts to septic systems.
You would not be responsible to throw out a bunch of old dynamite, or batteries containing cadmium or lead, but a CD won't hurt anyone. The dumpster divers did not break a law, the guy who throws the CD out did not break the law, but the copyright holder lost money. Too bad - the law does not protect them in this case.
Eat at Joe's.
Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
See, the thing with that is this:
Say, when you can't sell a car, you take the hood off. So, if you buy a car without a hood, the dealer and the manufacturer have not recieved any money for it, because it was reported "unsold and destroyed"
What if a car dealership has a car. For whatever reason, no one buys the car, so they drive it to the curb, take off the hood, put a sign in the window that says "trash, please dispose" and leave it there, with the keys in the ignition.
Now, assume we're in a state where trash is public domain.
If I get in the car and drive it off, I'm not doing anything illegal (well, except mabey driving a car that wouldn't pass inspection because of the lack of hood).
If they tossed out the car, it doesn't matter what they say. Fuck 'em.
Same goes with books - if they tear the covers off and throw it away, and I snag it, that's their problem, not mine. What if, instead of taking off the covers, they took out page 23? Or shredded it? It doesn't matter what they say about it.
~Will
sig?
Of this dude's site. One Thousand Mirrors. The quilting pattern business can't be so pritable that they can afford to take legal action against 1,000 people. Or could it?
If I understand this correctly, there are 2 things going on:
1. Dumpster diving and re-selling of the envelopes AND THEIR CONTENTS. Possibly illegal, possibly not. Depends on your local laws.
2. Copyright violations relating to posting an image of the ENVELOPE on their web site.
It is the second item that allows the DMCA to be invoked, however, it really is incidental to selling the CONTENTS of the envelopes.
Think of it this way: Author sues Amazon.com for showing a picture of the front cover on Amazon's website.
Obviously no author is going to do this since they benefit from any sales that Amazon makes. However, since the publisher of the patterns gets no revenue from Monsterpattern's sales of patterns, they have an incentive to shut them down.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Umm, so logically, you think that stealing is the same thing as trespassing? So if I come into your house and take stuff perhaps I am just trespassing?
/. would have law degrees or any useful experience to back it up. I certainly don't.
I am hardly making a legal argument, but we were discussing whether or not it was "trespassing" to get into the dumpster. As in, it's not a copywrite violation to own a legal copy of something, so what other laws would prohibit it.
And as for if they have the right to retrieve it at the last second, I sincerely doubt you have the legal research to back that up. I know it is common practice for PI's to grab garbage from the street. Even cops can do it (and do).
As for stealing, I imagine they could argue that the trash wasn't at curbside and was protected by more than a thin plastic bag and therefor they had an expectation that materials from the dumpster would not be taken, but I still don't see how that comes up to a theft charge. The materials were still in a dumpster, which one might reasonably conclude means the contents are garbage, and that the owners have thrown it away. I would think this is something that would be covered by state law or even municipalities, so for most of us here it's just a matter of guessing what might be going on. Not to mention few of us on
Umm, so logically, you think that stealing is the same thing as trespassing?
no, i never said that
I know it is common practice for PI's to grab garbage from the street.
that's the street. this is about a private dumpster on private property.
take a look at the top of this thread, where somebody points that out and asks about dumpsters.
it's a good thing you disregarded everything i've said;
all i was doing was pointing out that if it isn't stealing,
diving into a corporate dumpster on private property is likely tresspassing.
referring to the parking lot being public argument:
parking lots are not public. the ones that care about your being there will post notice of such.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Usually garbage companies make it a matter of company policy that going through people's garbage is a strict no-no. Garbage collectors aren't supposed to take ANYTHING home (though you know they gotta run across something they can't resist once in a while!)
That explains the "Mr. Sparkle" episode..
"Here's a perfectly good basketball half!"
since you responded to my comment about trespassing with "so, logically, you won't mind if i take stuff from your car through the opened window." I would assume that you are comparing tresspassing to theft. don't mix them up. We were discussing whether or not it would be trespassing to get into a dumpster. Not whether or not it would be theft. Whether you are trespassing or not to reach into my vehicle and take my posessions I think anyone here can figure out that is theft, and of course someone would mind. Stuff in my car couldn't be safely assumed to be garbage and taking it would clearly be theft. I have no idea if just entering my physical property, in this case a car, would be "trespassing". Pay closer attention to the threads you are responding to.