Um... excuse me, but you obviously misunderstood my "conclusion". The article you cited says the same thing I was saying. I stated that though the other party did not read the contract, by signing it they were obligating themselves to the terms. Where did you misunderstand?
Wait... I see. Yes, I admit that what you quoted was misleading. I simply worded it badly. But you have taken it out of the context of my story, in which I clearly stated
"But it was just as legal a contract as anything THEY handed ME."
What you quoted was wrong but I did not mean what it seems to imply. Look at the whole context of my story. I specifically stated that the contract was binding. You singled out this one badly written part and say that I am claiming it wasn't binding. And it does look like that was what I was saying there, but it doesn't fit with everything else I wrote. So I think you should have been clued in that I didn't mean what the part you quoted appears to say, when taken out of the context of my whole story.
Admittedly, I should not have stuck those sentences together in the way I did, because I was rambling and jumbled together some general concepts in a way that made it appear I was stating facts of law. But since I explicitly stated elsewhere that it was a binding contract, the passage you quoted could not have meant what it appears to imply.
In your quote I was referring to the general concept of the "meeting of the minds". It *IS* a guiding principle, and my instructors very much *DID* teach me that. And we even went over several case studies. Ideally, a contract is supposed to be understood by both parties. Otherwise the very concept of "contract" has no meaning. As a principle, that IS correct, but of course in practice that can sometimes be impossible to enforce. Because, after all, where is the evidence? In most cases all you have is the written contract.
In the case you cited, the man initialed the Italian price list and signed the agreement, indicating that he agreed with it (and presumably understood it). In no way does this contradict what I was saying in my story. All the hard evidence points to the position that he understood and agreed to the contract. His protests that he did not understand it are unsupported, and contradict the physical evidence. My story agrees with this. It is just that badly worded part you quoted (out of the context of my story) that seems to say something different.
My whole point was that they didn't bother to read the contract, but that they signed it so it was still binding... the same point that your cited case was making. The bit about "They can't have it both ways" was in reference to the fact that their business does rely on the fact that most people don't read the contracts they are handed. I turned their own business practice against them: they can't complain later that the contract was invalid just because they didn't know what was in it.
"They won't care that YANAL; they will care that you're practicing law very badly without a license."
I am doing nothing of the sort, and your taking my comments out of context does not make your case.
And just as a parting shot, I will add that you are directly and rather blatantly contradicting yourself, when you flatly deny ever making an absolute statement, and then a couple of sentences later asserting that the situation is, indeed, absolute.
I sure hope you're not a criminal lawyer, because your logical argument skills need serious work.
"No, your so-called "direct statement" was that courts would parse the consideration in a contract on an item by item or type by type basis to determine whether matching consideration existed. "
That is a mis-statement of what I wrote. You are taking the context of the first part of my very first comment, and trying to insert that context into the other comment I made. It won't work.
"There it was -- your contention that courts would analyze consideration "with that level of detail" in some cases."
Yep. There it was. I added the emphasis again, just to be sure you understand what we're talking about.
"A severe imbalance of consideration may be evidence supporting other reasons to invalidate a contract, but those other reasons also have to be supported by other facts."
And there is that quote again. We're moving right along here.
" I didn't and you did. Then you simply omitted any reference I made to to the original misguided point in order to say that I did."
Utter nonsense. Let's repeat what you stated:
"Courts do not analyze consideration with that degree of detail."
This is a blanket, absolute statement. This is a statement that courts NEVER ("do not") examine consideration at that level of detail. My statement was that they may in some cases. Your statement was an absolute. Mine was not. This is plain, simple English that an elementary-school student could understand.
"Once you attempt to spin my argument into "a blanket denial that it ever happens,""
I don't need to "spin" anything. You did it yourself. Saying "Courts do not" is a blanket denial. Once again: the plain English meaning of your words.
"My so-called blanket denials have been specifically directed to your initial point that a court would say "I see obligation A and consideration X, and obligation B, but no consideration Y, so there is no contract.""
Okay, but I have 2 things to say about that: First, this statement makes it apparent that you did not even understand what I was saying regarding the context of the situation. And 2, it's a silly goddamned thing to be arguing about since I originally admitted that I could be wrong, and have repeated that to since. So why are you still even arguing? You really do seem to have a problem with plain English, and you come across like someone with a pathological need to be right.
But since you have chosen to continue to argue out your ass, let me explain something: I did not say, or even imply, that that there was "obligation A and consideration X, and obligation B, but no consideration Y." And if YOU are a lawyer, you should fucking well know better, because from the information we have it was, to all appearances, a unilateral contract. So there was no A and X and B and absent Y. I mean, jesus christ. You can't even get that much straight?
I am done here. You have acted like an abusive, insulting asshole, and to say that your legal skills have left me far from impressed is about the understatement of the century. If you really feel the need to reply, I won't bother to read it.
"I'm not going to deconstruct your argument for you. You declared that the consideration for the copyright "Clearly [] isn't dentistry." Then at the last minute you hedged and declared that it "seems a pretty thin argument" without any explanation as to why. The only way to interpret what you wrote is that something had to be provided in exchange for the copyright other than dentistry, or that the dentist would be making the "thin argument" that (part of) the dentistry was paid for an assignment of future copyright. If you believed something else, you should have written it."
I know what my argument was. But apparently you don't seem to get that the final sentence was an admission that I could be wrong. Why do you have such a problem with that?
"A severe imbalance of consideration may be evidence supporting other reasons to invalidate a contract, but those other reasons also have to be supported by other facts.
Now you're arguing out of context. My direct statement to you was that courts may examine consideration in some cases, while YOUR statement was a blanket denial that it ever happens. However, this quote by you is affirmation that it does, indeed, happen in some cases. Thank you for proving my point.
"All I got for my money and copyright was dentistry" cannot by itself invalidate a contract."
And I repeat: I admitted that I could be wrong.
"Handwaving about supposed exceptions to "broad generalizations" is an even more egregious generalization."
It was far from "handwaving". You already proved that I was correct.
"The fact that you could get dentistry elsewhere without agreeing to the covenant means that you could have refused and taken your custom elsewhere, yet instead chose to contract -- who's to say why."
That's why I *THEN* wrote "I suppose it's remotely possible that the patients were trading their copyright for dentistry, but that seems a pretty thin argument."
I never claimed to be a lawyer. But on the other hand, I don't need remedial reading lessons, either.
Your blanket statement that "Courts do not analyze consideration with that degree of detail" is a generalization that is not true in all cases. It depends on the case, the contract, and the surrounding circumstances. Without knowing specifically what was in the contract, it is impossible to say. Obviously it was not an "everyday" common contract or this whole issue would never have arisen. Which means broad generalizations probably do not apply.
"The BBB is a scam, they just have really good marketing like DeBeers quality marketing."
I know some people who owned a store, & they were members in good standing of BBB. But eventually they dropped their membership. I asked the owner why.
He said "The BBB can't help companies. All they can do is hurt you. Nobody calls them with favorable reviews... the only calls they get are complaints."
One of the most basic principles of contract law is that there must be agreement between the parties. Therefore, nobody can legally obligate you to some 3rd party, without your prior consent.
So if it doesn't say in your contract that the debt can be assigned to somebody else, then it can't be assigned to somebody else. Which means you have the absolute right to settle the debt with the original party, regardless of their "standard policy" in regard to collections. Their internal policies do not obligate you, unless you agreed to that.
As a hypothetical example: let's say you have a contract with Mary... she'll send you flowers for your table every week, for a monthly fee of $100. (Like I said: hypothetical.) One month you had an unexpected repair bill for your car, so you missed your payment.
Mary sends her delinquent accounts to Bob, who runs a collection agency. He pays her 30% of the original debt, and anything he collects he keeps.
So a week later you go into Mary's shop, and try to pay her. She says you have to deal with Bob.
But... you never entered into any contract with Bob. You don't even know him. And your contract with Mary says nothing about collections.
In a case like that, hold on to any proof that Mary refused your money. Bob has no legal "right" to your money... you simply aren't legally obligated to him. And Mary (stupidly) refused your money when you tried to pay your debt. Which means, technically, you are no longer legally "liable" for that debt to anybody. They can't refuse your money and then complain that you didn't pay.
Many people who run businesses either forget or don't understand this simple principle. They can't legally create an obligation between you and somebody else, unless it explicitly says so in your contract.
You have a legal right to settle the debt with the original party, unless you signed that right away somewhere. Sometimes that is a clause somewhere on a form that you signed. But if you didn't, they can't legally force you to settle that debt with some 3rd party.
"ANAL, however I think modifications to boiler plate contracts have to be initialized by both parties to be valid. And that's for your benefit or they could add whatever they wanted after you signed it and claim it was there all along. So, funny story, but unless you pointed out your addition to them and got someone to initial it, you probably didn't really accomplish anything."
IANAL either, but I had very good instructors in Business Law in college.
Initialing a change is not a "requirement", it is merely evidence. Two different things.
Many people do not get this concept, but a piece of paper is not "a contract". It is merely evidence of a contract.
Also, a "contract" that is a pre-printed, mass-produced, standardized form, if enforceable at all, is a very weak contract. Any contract of that nature, which cannot be negotiated by both parties, is known as a "contract of adhesion". Many courts are loathe to enforce them, because they violate the central tenet of contract law, which is that both parties must be free to negotiate the terms upon which they agree.
Companies like that hand you a long form with lots of fine print, relying on the fact that most people will never bother to read them. But that means people aren't really agreeing to them, either. If there is not mutual understanding, there is no binding contract.
So back to my original point: the paper is not the contract. The agreement is the contract. The paper is merely evidence of it. They don't get to have that both ways. If they didn't read my amendment, then they didn't agree and there is no contract.
"Actually it's not, UNLESS you have a copy of that signed statement. Otherwise they can just strike it back out and without any proof they signed it with the clause intact you would get nowhere in court."
"I managed to stump them by asking them to send me an itemized bill."
This.
In the past I have done the same thing, more than once. I was getting annoyed by letters from some collection agency in some other state, claiming I owed X dollars. I had no idea what for... it simply said I owed, and identified it by a "case number". Nothing else.
I wrote them back and reminded them that the law in my state required them to send me an itemized statement, including what they original debt was for, to whom, and that any fees, etc. must be reasonable and also itemized.
I didn't hear back from them again.
On another occasion, I got a statement from a collection agency about a debt that was legitimate. (It wasn't an old debt... the company sent all unpaid accounts to collection after 30 days.) The problem there was that the agency showed the original amount, plus another amount for "fees" that was a good 50% of the original amount. No other label, just fees. And the amount was pretty outrageous.
I sent them a letter, reminding them that state law required the statement, including fees, to be itemized, and that fees must be reasonable. An additional 50% added on to the original debt was not "reasonable".
Another quite legitimate thing you can often do, is send them a letter telling them that while their claim is very nice, you simply prefer to deal with the other principle party in the transaction (i.e., whoever it is you actually owe money to). In the vast majority of cases, you have the legal right to settle the debt with the original party, collection agencies and their "fees" bedamned.
"Still, I feel sorry for small businesses today -- are there any restaurants whose online listings aren't choking with "gross" and "I'll never go there again!""
But over time that's a self-defeating fad. If people post frivolous critiques, sooner or later other people will stop taking the site seriously.
"I always do. I read absolutely everything that I sign, because there are too many unscrupulous people out there. You never know what bullshit is in those contracts, and I've even refused to sign some, and some they've changed or removed clauses"
Me too. And I have a good story. You should be aware that this works both ways, and you can use it to your advantage.
Years ago, I had to take a pee test for a pre-employment "drug screening". I have a strong philosophical objection to that practice, but I wanted the job so I did it. (I don't do that anymore, but that's another story.)
So I got to the clinic, which specialized in doing pee tests en masse. Big waiting room, lots of chairs and people, window with a woman behind it. She handed me a form to sign on a clipboard, and I sat down and read the whole thing. And it amazed me. The form said that the clinic could tell anybody (not just the company) anything they wanted about my pee test, even if it was wrong, and I waived any right to hold them responsible in any way.
I went up to the window and asked the woman: "Do I understand this correctly? You are in the business of doing these tests, yes?"
"Yes"
"But in order for you to test me, I have to waive any right to sue you or hold you responsible, even if you screw it up?"
(Annoyed look) "It's just a standard form."
I said "Well, I don't think it is. I think I'd like to own a business where nobody could hold me responsible for actually performing the service they pay me for. Seems like a pretty sweet deal." She looked pretty pissed off.
I sat back down, looking it over. And on the second page of the fine print, where it said I could not hold them responsible, I penned in "Except in case of negligence."
I signed the form and gave it back to the woman. She didn't even look at it... just signed and dated it, and threw it into the pile of papers to file.
Hahaha. I could have written in "And I get to fuck your brother" and nobody would even have noticed. But it was just as legal a contract as anything THEY handed ME.
"That's actually a feature of CUPS, which is available on any *nix-like system. It's not something special and magical that OS X can do."
Technically, no it's not. Unless it's a new feature introduced just this year. Because PDF printing in CUPS is done via external pre-filters (like the one supplied by KDE) before being fed to CUPS.
The person I was replying to was saying that good Apple graphics is a "myth". My point was that no, it is not a myth. They did have a GUI before Microsoft, which is part of where that rep came from. And for a while there, early on, its graphics were superior.
And then later, Mac Pro workstations were again good professional graphics machines, at a price point lower than Silicon Graphics. Not the "best" maybe, but still good professional graphics machines, which few other stock PCs could touch for anything like the same price.
No, Apple has not always had the best graphics. But at times it definitely had better graphics than standard commercially-available PCs. So no, it's not a "myth".
"Hollywood and the rest of the graphics industry went to Windows (for individual stuff) and Linux (for heavy lifting) long ago.
Yes, there is a OS X presence, it's just a pale shadow of it's former glory."
Okay, but that isn't arguing with me, you are affirming what I wrote. Yes, they did. Or Linux. And yes, it is. No argument there. But "a long time" is not "never", which is what I was replying to.
Well, in the less-than-ideal real world, another option is to make a "hackintosh". That is to say, a "generic" hardware machine running OS X.
It isn't "officially" allowed, but it can work very well. I know somebody who builds and sells them. Often you can get the same performance for far less money, but you have to choose your hardware very carefully.
I called it mild coercion. If you make regular sales available to only a select group, then people will want to be part of that group. If they understand what privacy they are trading for being in that group, then fine and it can be called fully "voluntary". But often that has not been the case. That was my point.
In order to be a valid contract, there has to be "consideration" on both sides.
What is the "consideration" given to the patient, in exchange for giving up copyright? Clearly it isn't dentistry, since that could be had elsewhere without the requirement of waiving copyright.
So what did Makhnevich give patients in exchange for that? If nothing, then there is no contract.
I suppose it's remotely possible that the patients were trading their copyright for dentistry, but that seems a pretty thin argument.
"You have to understand though, when it comes to these massive conglomerates under the same name, the different divisions are similar in name only. It may as well be a completely different company when comparing fridges to phones etc."
That's a pretty good point. The factory that makes cheap shit GE kitchen stoves and light switches is not the same factory that makes GE jet engines.
Slashdot Mirror
"Your conclusion is shockingly wrong."
Um... excuse me, but you obviously misunderstood my "conclusion". The article you cited says the same thing I was saying. I stated that though the other party did not read the contract, by signing it they were obligating themselves to the terms. Where did you misunderstand?
Wait... I see. Yes, I admit that what you quoted was misleading. I simply worded it badly. But you have taken it out of the context of my story, in which I clearly stated
"But it was just as legal a contract as anything THEY handed ME."
What you quoted was wrong but I did not mean what it seems to imply. Look at the whole context of my story. I specifically stated that the contract was binding. You singled out this one badly written part and say that I am claiming it wasn't binding. And it does look like that was what I was saying there, but it doesn't fit with everything else I wrote. So I think you should have been clued in that I didn't mean what the part you quoted appears to say, when taken out of the context of my whole story.
Admittedly, I should not have stuck those sentences together in the way I did, because I was rambling and jumbled together some general concepts in a way that made it appear I was stating facts of law. But since I explicitly stated elsewhere that it was a binding contract, the passage you quoted could not have meant what it appears to imply.
In your quote I was referring to the general concept of the "meeting of the minds". It *IS* a guiding principle, and my instructors very much *DID* teach me that. And we even went over several case studies. Ideally, a contract is supposed to be understood by both parties. Otherwise the very concept of "contract" has no meaning. As a principle, that IS correct, but of course in practice that can sometimes be impossible to enforce. Because, after all, where is the evidence? In most cases all you have is the written contract.
In the case you cited, the man initialed the Italian price list and signed the agreement, indicating that he agreed with it (and presumably understood it). In no way does this contradict what I was saying in my story. All the hard evidence points to the position that he understood and agreed to the contract. His protests that he did not understand it are unsupported, and contradict the physical evidence. My story agrees with this. It is just that badly worded part you quoted (out of the context of my story) that seems to say something different.
My whole point was that they didn't bother to read the contract, but that they signed it so it was still binding... the same point that your cited case was making. The bit about "They can't have it both ways" was in reference to the fact that their business does rely on the fact that most people don't read the contracts they are handed. I turned their own business practice against them: they can't complain later that the contract was invalid just because they didn't know what was in it.
"They won't care that YANAL; they will care that you're practicing law very badly without a license."
I am doing nothing of the sort, and your taking my comments out of context does not make your case.
Yes, there is. Repeat: she signed the papers after I did, as a witness that I had signed it. And I got a copy.
And just as a parting shot, I will add that you are directly and rather blatantly contradicting yourself, when you flatly deny ever making an absolute statement, and then a couple of sentences later asserting that the situation is, indeed, absolute.
I sure hope you're not a criminal lawyer, because your logical argument skills need serious work.
"No, your so-called "direct statement" was that courts would parse the consideration in a contract on an item by item or type by type basis to determine whether matching consideration existed. "
That is a mis-statement of what I wrote. You are taking the context of the first part of my very first comment, and trying to insert that context into the other comment I made. It won't work.
"There it was -- your contention that courts would analyze consideration "with that level of detail" in some cases."
Yep. There it was. I added the emphasis again, just to be sure you understand what we're talking about.
"A severe imbalance of consideration may be evidence supporting other reasons to invalidate a contract, but those other reasons also have to be supported by other facts."
And there is that quote again. We're moving right along here.
" I didn't and you did. Then you simply omitted any reference I made to to the original misguided point in order to say that I did."
Utter nonsense. Let's repeat what you stated:
"Courts do not analyze consideration with that degree of detail."
This is a blanket, absolute statement. This is a statement that courts NEVER ("do not") examine consideration at that level of detail. My statement was that they may in some cases. Your statement was an absolute. Mine was not. This is plain, simple English that an elementary-school student could understand.
"Once you attempt to spin my argument into "a blanket denial that it ever happens,""
I don't need to "spin" anything. You did it yourself. Saying "Courts do not" is a blanket denial. Once again: the plain English meaning of your words.
"My so-called blanket denials have been specifically directed to your initial point that a court would say "I see obligation A and consideration X, and obligation B, but no consideration Y, so there is no contract.""
Okay, but I have 2 things to say about that: First, this statement makes it apparent that you did not even understand what I was saying regarding the context of the situation. And 2, it's a silly goddamned thing to be arguing about since I originally admitted that I could be wrong, and have repeated that to since. So why are you still even arguing? You really do seem to have a problem with plain English, and you come across like someone with a pathological need to be right.
But since you have chosen to continue to argue out your ass, let me explain something: I did not say, or even imply, that that there was "obligation A and consideration X, and obligation B, but no consideration Y." And if YOU are a lawyer, you should fucking well know better, because from the information we have it was, to all appearances, a unilateral contract. So there was no A and X and B and absent Y. I mean, jesus christ. You can't even get that much straight?
I am done here. You have acted like an abusive, insulting asshole, and to say that your legal skills have left me far from impressed is about the understatement of the century. If you really feel the need to reply, I won't bother to read it.
"I'm not going to deconstruct your argument for you. You declared that the consideration for the copyright "Clearly [] isn't dentistry." Then at the last minute you hedged and declared that it "seems a pretty thin argument" without any explanation as to why. The only way to interpret what you wrote is that something had to be provided in exchange for the copyright other than dentistry, or that the dentist would be making the "thin argument" that (part of) the dentistry was paid for an assignment of future copyright. If you believed something else, you should have written it."
I know what my argument was. But apparently you don't seem to get that the final sentence was an admission that I could be wrong. Why do you have such a problem with that?
"A severe imbalance of consideration may be evidence supporting other reasons to invalidate a contract, but those other reasons also have to be supported by other facts.
Now you're arguing out of context. My direct statement to you was that courts may examine consideration in some cases, while YOUR statement was a blanket denial that it ever happens. However, this quote by you is affirmation that it does, indeed, happen in some cases. Thank you for proving my point.
"All I got for my money and copyright was dentistry" cannot by itself invalidate a contract."
And I repeat: I admitted that I could be wrong.
"Handwaving about supposed exceptions to "broad generalizations" is an even more egregious generalization."
It was far from "handwaving". You already proved that I was correct.
"The fact that you could get dentistry elsewhere without agreeing to the covenant means that you could have refused and taken your custom elsewhere, yet instead chose to contract -- who's to say why."
That's why I *THEN* wrote "I suppose it's remotely possible that the patients were trading their copyright for dentistry, but that seems a pretty thin argument."
I never claimed to be a lawyer. But on the other hand, I don't need remedial reading lessons, either.
Your blanket statement that "Courts do not analyze consideration with that degree of detail" is a generalization that is not true in all cases. It depends on the case, the contract, and the surrounding circumstances. Without knowing specifically what was in the contract, it is impossible to say. Obviously it was not an "everyday" common contract or this whole issue would never have arisen. Which means broad generalizations probably do not apply.
"The BBB is a scam, they just have really good marketing like DeBeers quality marketing."
I know some people who owned a store, & they were members in good standing of BBB. But eventually they dropped their membership. I asked the owner why.
He said "The BBB can't help companies. All they can do is hurt you. Nobody calls them with favorable reviews... the only calls they get are complaints."
I'll elaborate a little:
One of the most basic principles of contract law is that there must be agreement between the parties. Therefore, nobody can legally obligate you to some 3rd party, without your prior consent.
So if it doesn't say in your contract that the debt can be assigned to somebody else, then it can't be assigned to somebody else. Which means you have the absolute right to settle the debt with the original party, regardless of their "standard policy" in regard to collections. Their internal policies do not obligate you, unless you agreed to that.
As a hypothetical example: let's say you have a contract with Mary... she'll send you flowers for your table every week, for a monthly fee of $100. (Like I said: hypothetical.) One month you had an unexpected repair bill for your car, so you missed your payment.
Mary sends her delinquent accounts to Bob, who runs a collection agency. He pays her 30% of the original debt, and anything he collects he keeps.
So a week later you go into Mary's shop, and try to pay her. She says you have to deal with Bob.
But... you never entered into any contract with Bob. You don't even know him. And your contract with Mary says nothing about collections.
In a case like that, hold on to any proof that Mary refused your money. Bob has no legal "right" to your money... you simply aren't legally obligated to him. And Mary (stupidly) refused your money when you tried to pay your debt. Which means, technically, you are no longer legally "liable" for that debt to anybody. They can't refuse your money and then complain that you didn't pay.
Many people who run businesses either forget or don't understand this simple principle. They can't legally create an obligation between you and somebody else, unless it explicitly says so in your contract.
You have a legal right to settle the debt with the original party, unless you signed that right away somewhere. Sometimes that is a clause somewhere on a form that you signed. But if you didn't, they can't legally force you to settle that debt with some 3rd party.
"ANAL, however I think modifications to boiler plate contracts have to be initialized by both parties to be valid. And that's for your benefit or they could add whatever they wanted after you signed it and claim it was there all along. So, funny story, but unless you pointed out your addition to them and got someone to initial it, you probably didn't really accomplish anything."
IANAL either, but I had very good instructors in Business Law in college.
Initialing a change is not a "requirement", it is merely evidence. Two different things.
Many people do not get this concept, but a piece of paper is not "a contract". It is merely evidence of a contract.
Also, a "contract" that is a pre-printed, mass-produced, standardized form, if enforceable at all, is a very weak contract. Any contract of that nature, which cannot be negotiated by both parties, is known as a "contract of adhesion". Many courts are loathe to enforce them, because they violate the central tenet of contract law, which is that both parties must be free to negotiate the terms upon which they agree.
Companies like that hand you a long form with lots of fine print, relying on the fact that most people will never bother to read them. But that means people aren't really agreeing to them, either. If there is not mutual understanding, there is no binding contract.
So back to my original point: the paper is not the contract. The agreement is the contract. The paper is merely evidence of it. They don't get to have that both ways. If they didn't read my amendment, then they didn't agree and there is no contract.
"Actually it's not, UNLESS you have a copy of that signed statement. Otherwise they can just strike it back out and without any proof they signed it with the clause intact you would get nowhere in court."
It was on NCR paper, and I got the yellow copy.
"I managed to stump them by asking them to send me an itemized bill."
This.
In the past I have done the same thing, more than once. I was getting annoyed by letters from some collection agency in some other state, claiming I owed X dollars. I had no idea what for... it simply said I owed, and identified it by a "case number". Nothing else.
I wrote them back and reminded them that the law in my state required them to send me an itemized statement, including what they original debt was for, to whom, and that any fees, etc. must be reasonable and also itemized.
I didn't hear back from them again.
On another occasion, I got a statement from a collection agency about a debt that was legitimate. (It wasn't an old debt... the company sent all unpaid accounts to collection after 30 days.) The problem there was that the agency showed the original amount, plus another amount for "fees" that was a good 50% of the original amount. No other label, just fees. And the amount was pretty outrageous.
I sent them a letter, reminding them that state law required the statement, including fees, to be itemized, and that fees must be reasonable. An additional 50% added on to the original debt was not "reasonable".
Another quite legitimate thing you can often do, is send them a letter telling them that while their claim is very nice, you simply prefer to deal with the other principle party in the transaction (i.e., whoever it is you actually owe money to). In the vast majority of cases, you have the legal right to settle the debt with the original party, collection agencies and their "fees" bedamned.
"In this case it would appear that the consideration is the 'increased privacy' beyond HIPAA."
Fictitious consideration is the same as none.
"Still, I feel sorry for small businesses today -- are there any restaurants whose online listings aren't choking with "gross" and "I'll never go there again!""
But over time that's a self-defeating fad. If people post frivolous critiques, sooner or later other people will stop taking the site seriously.
Yes, true. But I think (I don't remember for sure) the issue with this dentist first came up before HIPAA was passed.
Besides: it's a pretty thin excuse for giving up copyright. Probably wouldn't fly if actually challenged in court.
"I always do. I read absolutely everything that I sign, because there are too many unscrupulous people out there. You never know what bullshit is in those contracts, and I've even refused to sign some, and some they've changed or removed clauses"
Me too. And I have a good story. You should be aware that this works both ways, and you can use it to your advantage.
Years ago, I had to take a pee test for a pre-employment "drug screening". I have a strong philosophical objection to that practice, but I wanted the job so I did it. (I don't do that anymore, but that's another story.)
So I got to the clinic, which specialized in doing pee tests en masse. Big waiting room, lots of chairs and people, window with a woman behind it. She handed me a form to sign on a clipboard, and I sat down and read the whole thing. And it amazed me. The form said that the clinic could tell anybody (not just the company) anything they wanted about my pee test, even if it was wrong, and I waived any right to hold them responsible in any way.
I went up to the window and asked the woman: "Do I understand this correctly? You are in the business of doing these tests, yes?"
"Yes"
"But in order for you to test me, I have to waive any right to sue you or hold you responsible, even if you screw it up?"
(Annoyed look) "It's just a standard form."
I said "Well, I don't think it is. I think I'd like to own a business where nobody could hold me responsible for actually performing the service they pay me for. Seems like a pretty sweet deal." She looked pretty pissed off.
I sat back down, looking it over. And on the second page of the fine print, where it said I could not hold them responsible, I penned in "Except in case of negligence."
I signed the form and gave it back to the woman. She didn't even look at it... just signed and dated it, and threw it into the pile of papers to file.
Hahaha. I could have written in "And I get to fuck your brother" and nobody would even have noticed. But it was just as legal a contract as anything THEY handed ME.
"That's actually a feature of CUPS, which is available on any *nix-like system. It's not something special and magical that OS X can do."
Technically, no it's not. Unless it's a new feature introduced just this year. Because PDF printing in CUPS is done via external pre-filters (like the one supplied by KDE) before being fed to CUPS.
Yes, but this is out of context.
The person I was replying to was saying that good Apple graphics is a "myth". My point was that no, it is not a myth. They did have a GUI before Microsoft, which is part of where that rep came from. And for a while there, early on, its graphics were superior.
And then later, Mac Pro workstations were again good professional graphics machines, at a price point lower than Silicon Graphics. Not the "best" maybe, but still good professional graphics machines, which few other stock PCs could touch for anything like the same price.
No, Apple has not always had the best graphics. But at times it definitely had better graphics than standard commercially-available PCs. So no, it's not a "myth".
"Hollywood and the rest of the graphics industry went to Windows (for individual stuff) and Linux (for heavy lifting) long ago.
Yes, there is a OS X presence, it's just a pale shadow of it's former glory."
Okay, but that isn't arguing with me, you are affirming what I wrote. Yes, they did. Or Linux. And yes, it is. No argument there. But "a long time" is not "never", which is what I was replying to.
"He is talking bullshit. You can dual-boot Windows and Linux on the same machine just like you have been able to do since like forever."
Try reading what I actually wrote. I didn't say it wasn't possible, or even difficult. I wrote that it "isn't officially allowed".
The rest of your comment is similar BS. If I were you I would work on my reading comprehension.
Well, in the less-than-ideal real world, another option is to make a "hackintosh". That is to say, a "generic" hardware machine running OS X.
It isn't "officially" allowed, but it can work very well. I know somebody who builds and sells them. Often you can get the same performance for far less money, but you have to choose your hardware very carefully.
To put it a different way: the issue here is informed consent.
If people are not fully informed, then they cannot validly be said to have consented. Instead they have been coerced.
I called it mild coercion. If you make regular sales available to only a select group, then people will want to be part of that group. If they understand what privacy they are trading for being in that group, then fine and it can be called fully "voluntary". But often that has not been the case. That was my point.
In order to be a valid contract, there has to be "consideration" on both sides.
What is the "consideration" given to the patient, in exchange for giving up copyright? Clearly it isn't dentistry, since that could be had elsewhere without the requirement of waiving copyright.
So what did Makhnevich give patients in exchange for that? If nothing, then there is no contract.
I suppose it's remotely possible that the patients were trading their copyright for dentistry, but that seems a pretty thin argument.
"You have to understand though, when it comes to these massive conglomerates under the same name, the different divisions are similar in name only. It may as well be a completely different company when comparing fridges to phones etc."
That's a pretty good point. The factory that makes cheap shit GE kitchen stoves and light switches is not the same factory that makes GE jet engines.