"Why limit it to software patents? Our country did so well at the beginning (in part) because we completely ignored the old world's patents. Patents exist to hinder competitors, and are slowing down our progress."
Completely irrelevant. A patent in one country still isn't valid in another. Try again.
"Fair use does not cover charging money for providing such information nor do I think it extends to sites with heavy add revenue."
Wrong.
If a newspaper can do it (and they do, all the time... not everything they quote comes from AP) -- and they are a profitable business, largely because of ad revenue -- then a website can too.
I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that profitability has exactly squat to do with fair use of this nature.
Now, to be sure, schools and other such institutions enjoy a somewhat different role in regard to fair use, but that is a different matter.
I think this should be looked into further. Because that is the claim, but it is my belief that it is actually the RIAA and MPAA that are engaging in the real act of carrying out the suit. My guess is that the studios are actually involved in name only. Which of course is illegal. If somebody could prove it, the whole house of cards could come crashing down.
In a way, this is very similar to a SLAPP suit, except that it is for a different purpose than to discourage "public participation": instead it is to intimidate people into ceasing some other act.
I believe that principles similar to SLAPP regulations should apply here as well.
It doesn't matter in this case what the ToS says. At all. The ToS cannot supersede the law.
Now, if an aggregator is abusing the privilege, then perhaps they should be sued. But a proper aggregator, that is to say, one that only lists a brief summary and a link to the original source, is very clearly a fair use under the law.
Your ToS might say anything at all that you want it to, but I have a legal right to summarize an article on your web page and provide a link to it, and there is nothing you can legally do to stop me. That's fair use, and that's the law.
And yes, I can even make a profit doing it, if I want.
"While I'm as paranoid as anyone about the powers the US gov is attempting to annex, this particular case is not one I'd ever touch in those arguments.Some things are just black and white and this was one of those cases, whether you like it or not."
Do do not agree, at all. Even enemy combatants can be captured, imprisoned, and later brought to trial. It has happened thousands of times in our history. Further, the United States has always maintained that killing is not the point of war, but rather an unfortunate necessity.
However, no attempt was made to capture al-Awlaki. Instead a concerted (successful) attempt was made to assassinate him, and in fact in such a way that capture was not ever possible. The act was against both U.S. and international law.
No, it is NOT "black and white". It's just plain black. It wasn't war, it was murder. According to the law.
Actually, under our Constitution, everybody has rights by virtue of their humanity, not just U.S. Citizens.
But by its very nature, our Constitution only holds on U.S. territory. Outside of the U.S., the only "authority" the U.S. has is military authority. However, our own values dictate that we still bring Americans back home and give them a trial, even if other places have laws that would allow Obama to do what he did.
"It's obvious that he was a soldier in a war against the United States."
Says whom? al-Awlaki himself? Hey, we have had crazies try to take credit for bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Sorry, but that's not sufficient evidence by itself for a conviction, much less an assassination.
Now, I freely admit that if you are NOT an enemy combatant in a war against the United States, it's probably pretty stupid to go around claiming you are... but stupidity, by itself, is not a crime.
The fact remains that according to our own law, and international law (by treaty), what Obama did was not war at all, but murder.
And I should add: not only is it fair use, but those agregators that do it properly are sending people to the original source! The news services should be kissing these people, not trying to charge them money.
"If we leave this market untouched, then all we are going to hear about, is whatever advertisers are willing to pay for.... think about it."
Uh... I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that has been the way TV has always worked -- and newspapers, too, for a couple of hundred years, at least.
So you think that suddenly this is an insufficient model for making a profit? Or what?
Agregators are not doing anything wrong, if all they are doing is giving a summary, and a link to the original source. It is EXTREMELY clear that this constitutes "fair use".
"First thing I thought of, when I saw "NewsRight". That, and Einstein's definition of insanity."
Yes, my thoughts exactly. I am not at all confident that they have "worked out the bugs"; I fully expect them to step in it just as badly as Righthaven did.
Sony still hasn't learned some of its lessons. I expect more of the same from the other media groups.
I'm going to start calling abusive copyright enforcement "rape" against customers and copyright lobbying "prostitution" with Congress.
As in, "Hey Pete! Look at all those rapists and whores in the media industry!"
If they can make up silly language, so can I.
I appreciate the sentiment.
But actually, in the case of "piracy" nobody in recent memory made it up. It was used to mean illegal commercial copying of copyrighted work in the early 1700s. Using it in other contexts is just wrong.
So, unlike your examples, it isn't something that was made up recently... it was just confused recently, by the "content industry", who WANT people to think that way. Which is precisely WHY we should not indulge them and should do the opposite of what they want.
But that illustrates my point: contrary to what other ACs have posted, "piracy" is defined by the law as copying for illegal commercial purposes. Downloading per se is not "piracy" in any legal sense, and any dictionary that says so is ignoring 300 years of established meaning of that word... so it's probably not much of a dictionary anyway.
Hard to imagine how PayPal could have a "stranglehold" on eBay, considering that eBay basically invented PayPal, and PayPal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay.
"Piracy" (in the context of copyrights) is defined as the act of illegally copying (and generally selling) for commercial profit!!!
PIRACY is a crime. Downloading is a civil infraction. They are NOT the same things, at all! And more than 99.9% of downloaders are NOT pirates.
When you conflate the two different concepts of infringement and piracy, you play straight into the hands of the content industry, which has been deliberately trying to confuse this issue for years.
STOP CALLING IT PIRACY, DAMNIT! It isn't. It's not the same act, it's not the same law.
There are two issues here: first, many sites are dependent on more than one external service to work. Maybe they're hosted on EC2 and load all their javascript from google.com or jquery.org.
All they are doing is multiplying their possible points of failure.
Second, if your own server goes down, YOU can decide what to do about it. You don't have to sit around in the dark waiting for somebody else to get around to it... if they ever do. (Like the Amazon incident I mentioned: the customer did not have a service contract. So Amazon said: "Yes, it was our hardware that failed. Yes, it's our fault. No, we won't lift a finger to help you fix it unless you buy at least a $400 service contract."
No. Don't be ridiculous. That's not what I stated at all.
Because it's not your server, and you are completely at the mercy of some other company.
If your server goes down, you can do something about it. You can decide what your priorities are, and act accordingly. If somebody else's server goes down, they decide what their priorities are, and you may not be among them.
For example: I know of a site that is served from the Amazon "cloud", requires a Yahoo login, and its email, which is essential to the site's operation, goes through gmail. In addition, it uses several javascript files, also essential to its operation, which are loaded from remote servers.
If any ONE of those services go down, so does the site. Or at least a major part of it.
Seriously. I never recommend to my customers that they rely on "cloud services". In the last year or so, even Amazon and other services have gone down, taking innumerable websites offline for unpredictable amounts of time.
Just recently, an Amazon server went down, and a customer was notified that their site was down and that they had 48 hours to save the site or it would be gone... and they received the notice about 24 hours after that 48 hours had already expired.
Other people I know have had other, similar experiences.
My advice to customers is: DO NOT make your business dependent on the performance of "services" over which your have no control. You are putting all your eggs in someone else's basket, and that's just plain a Bad Idea. And that includes everything from depending on Google Apps to sites on EC2.
Also, in the original post I forgot to mention a couple of things.
In its Declaration of Secession, prior to the Civil War (which really wasn't one, in any technical sense... the Southern designation "war between the States" is actually much more accurate), South Carolina listed State nullification of the Fugitive Slave Laws by certain Northern states as its very FIRST reason for seceding... other states listed it as a reason, too, but not the first one.
Which doesn't necessarily say anything in favor of nullification, but it does illustrate that there is nothing racist about it.
Also, I forgot to mention that a full 25 States... possibly 26 by now... have nullified the Federal Real ID Act. Every year Congress keeps "extending" the period for compliance, just in an attempt to minimize the amount of egg on its face, but in reality the Act is dead in the water. There is no way, now, it would ever go anywhere. If they try, they will just see even more states formally reject it.
The States really can be the answer to Federal overstepping. We just have to make sure that the "leaders" of our States understand this, and keep their noses out of Congress' ass.
At that point, there is no legal remedy -- at all.
At least, there is no short-term remedy. I agree. Which is why I think we really need to concentrate pressure on our state governments, and then continue to exert pressure from the ground up. There is no way the Federal government could resist enough pressure from the States. After all (and as distorted as the process has become), ultimately the States are still where the Federal government gets its money. The money, that is, that is not outright printed or borrowed.
Slashdot Mirror
Then they should go out of business and let somebody who can find a way to make it work take over that niche.
That's called business.
"Why limit it to software patents? Our country did so well at the beginning (in part) because we completely ignored the old world's patents. Patents exist to hinder competitors, and are slowing down our progress."
Completely irrelevant. A patent in one country still isn't valid in another. Try again.
"Fair use does not cover charging money for providing such information nor do I think it extends to sites with heavy add revenue."
Wrong.
If a newspaper can do it (and they do, all the time... not everything they quote comes from AP) -- and they are a profitable business, largely because of ad revenue -- then a website can too.
I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that profitability has exactly squat to do with fair use of this nature.
Now, to be sure, schools and other such institutions enjoy a somewhat different role in regard to fair use, but that is a different matter.
I think this should be looked into further. Because that is the claim, but it is my belief that it is actually the RIAA and MPAA that are engaging in the real act of carrying out the suit. My guess is that the studios are actually involved in name only. Which of course is illegal. If somebody could prove it, the whole house of cards could come crashing down.
"Barristry is something quite different."
Not according to some of their clients. :o)
In a way, this is very similar to a SLAPP suit, except that it is for a different purpose than to discourage "public participation": instead it is to intimidate people into ceasing some other act.
I believe that principles similar to SLAPP regulations should apply here as well.
It doesn't matter in this case what the ToS says. At all. The ToS cannot supersede the law.
Now, if an aggregator is abusing the privilege, then perhaps they should be sued. But a proper aggregator, that is to say, one that only lists a brief summary and a link to the original source, is very clearly a fair use under the law.
Your ToS might say anything at all that you want it to, but I have a legal right to summarize an article on your web page and provide a link to it, and there is nothing you can legally do to stop me. That's fair use, and that's the law.
And yes, I can even make a profit doing it, if I want.
"While I'm as paranoid as anyone about the powers the US gov is attempting to annex, this particular case is not one I'd ever touch in those arguments.Some things are just black and white and this was one of those cases, whether you like it or not."
Do do not agree, at all. Even enemy combatants can be captured, imprisoned, and later brought to trial. It has happened thousands of times in our history. Further, the United States has always maintained that killing is not the point of war, but rather an unfortunate necessity.
However, no attempt was made to capture al-Awlaki. Instead a concerted (successful) attempt was made to assassinate him, and in fact in such a way that capture was not ever possible. The act was against both U.S. and international law.
No, it is NOT "black and white". It's just plain black. It wasn't war, it was murder. According to the law.
But by its very nature, our Constitution only holds on U.S. territory. Outside of the U.S., the only "authority" the U.S. has is military authority. However, our own values dictate that we still bring Americans back home and give them a trial, even if other places have laws that would allow Obama to do what he did.
"It's obvious that he was a soldier in a war against the United States."
Says whom? al-Awlaki himself? Hey, we have had crazies try to take credit for bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Sorry, but that's not sufficient evidence by itself for a conviction, much less an assassination.
Now, I freely admit that if you are NOT an enemy combatant in a war against the United States, it's probably pretty stupid to go around claiming you are... but stupidity, by itself, is not a crime.
The fact remains that according to our own law, and international law (by treaty), what Obama did was not war at all, but murder.
Not if they form a group or service to do it for them... that is exactly the problem that Righthaven ran into.
And, I might add: that is a problem that should be explored more fully in regard to the RIAA and MPAA.
And I should add: not only is it fair use, but those agregators that do it properly are sending people to the original source! The news services should be kissing these people, not trying to charge them money.
"If we leave this market untouched, then all we are going to hear about, is whatever advertisers are willing to pay for.... think about it."
Uh... I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that has been the way TV has always worked -- and newspapers, too, for a couple of hundred years, at least.
So you think that suddenly this is an insufficient model for making a profit? Or what?
Agregators are not doing anything wrong, if all they are doing is giving a summary, and a link to the original source. It is EXTREMELY clear that this constitutes "fair use".
"First thing I thought of, when I saw "NewsRight". That, and Einstein's definition of insanity."
Yes, my thoughts exactly. I am not at all confident that they have "worked out the bugs"; I fully expect them to step in it just as badly as Righthaven did.
Sony still hasn't learned some of its lessons. I expect more of the same from the other media groups.
Wow. "Troll" mod for THAT? Since when is stating simple facts "trolling"? If you don't believe it, look up the records of incorporation.
I'm going to start calling abusive copyright enforcement "rape" against customers and copyright lobbying "prostitution" with Congress.
As in, "Hey Pete! Look at all those rapists and whores in the media industry!"
If they can make up silly language, so can I.
I appreciate the sentiment.
But actually, in the case of "piracy" nobody in recent memory made it up. It was used to mean illegal commercial copying of copyrighted work in the early 1700s. Using it in other contexts is just wrong.
So, unlike your examples, it isn't something that was made up recently... it was just confused recently, by the "content industry", who WANT people to think that way. Which is precisely WHY we should not indulge them and should do the opposite of what they want.
But that illustrates my point: contrary to what other ACs have posted, "piracy" is defined by the law as copying for illegal commercial purposes. Downloading per se is not "piracy" in any legal sense, and any dictionary that says so is ignoring 300 years of established meaning of that word... so it's probably not much of a dictionary anyway.
Hard to imagine how PayPal could have a "stranglehold" on eBay, considering that eBay basically invented PayPal, and PayPal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay.
For $8000 you could probably buy both an Eigenharp Alpha AND the Macbook Pro needed to run it.
"Piracy" (in the context of copyrights) is defined as the act of illegally copying (and generally selling) for commercial profit!!!
PIRACY is a crime. Downloading is a civil infraction. They are NOT the same things, at all! And more than 99.9% of downloaders are NOT pirates.
When you conflate the two different concepts of infringement and piracy, you play straight into the hands of the content industry, which has been deliberately trying to confuse this issue for years.
STOP CALLING IT PIRACY, DAMNIT! It isn't. It's not the same act, it's not the same law.
That is a completely different category from "cloud services" though.
That has almost nothing at all to do with it.
There are two issues here: first, many sites are dependent on more than one external service to work. Maybe they're hosted on EC2 and load all their javascript from google.com or jquery.org.
All they are doing is multiplying their possible points of failure.
Second, if your own server goes down, YOU can decide what to do about it. You don't have to sit around in the dark waiting for somebody else to get around to it... if they ever do. (Like the Amazon incident I mentioned: the customer did not have a service contract. So Amazon said: "Yes, it was our hardware that failed. Yes, it's our fault. No, we won't lift a finger to help you fix it unless you buy at least a $400 service contract."
No. Don't be ridiculous. That's not what I stated at all.
Because it's not your server, and you are completely at the mercy of some other company.
If your server goes down, you can do something about it. You can decide what your priorities are, and act accordingly. If somebody else's server goes down, they decide what their priorities are, and you may not be among them.
For example: I know of a site that is served from the Amazon "cloud", requires a Yahoo login, and its email, which is essential to the site's operation, goes through gmail. In addition, it uses several javascript files, also essential to its operation, which are loaded from remote servers.
If any ONE of those services go down, so does the site. Or at least a major part of it.
It's a dumb way to build an application.
Spoken like a true quitter.
I could not disagree with you more.
Seriously. I never recommend to my customers that they rely on "cloud services". In the last year or so, even Amazon and other services have gone down, taking innumerable websites offline for unpredictable amounts of time.
Just recently, an Amazon server went down, and a customer was notified that their site was down and that they had 48 hours to save the site or it would be gone... and they received the notice about 24 hours after that 48 hours had already expired.
Other people I know have had other, similar experiences.
My advice to customers is: DO NOT make your business dependent on the performance of "services" over which your have no control. You are putting all your eggs in someone else's basket, and that's just plain a Bad Idea. And that includes everything from depending on Google Apps to sites on EC2.
I'll pass, thanks very much.
Also, in the original post I forgot to mention a couple of things.
In its Declaration of Secession, prior to the Civil War (which really wasn't one, in any technical sense... the Southern designation "war between the States" is actually much more accurate), South Carolina listed State nullification of the Fugitive Slave Laws by certain Northern states as its very FIRST reason for seceding... other states listed it as a reason, too, but not the first one.
Which doesn't necessarily say anything in favor of nullification, but it does illustrate that there is nothing racist about it.
Also, I forgot to mention that a full 25 States... possibly 26 by now... have nullified the Federal Real ID Act. Every year Congress keeps "extending" the period for compliance, just in an attempt to minimize the amount of egg on its face, but in reality the Act is dead in the water. There is no way, now, it would ever go anywhere. If they try, they will just see even more states formally reject it.
The States really can be the answer to Federal overstepping. We just have to make sure that the "leaders" of our States understand this, and keep their noses out of Congress' ass.
At that point, there is no legal remedy -- at all.
At least, there is no short-term remedy. I agree. Which is why I think we really need to concentrate pressure on our state governments, and then continue to exert pressure from the ground up. There is no way the Federal government could resist enough pressure from the States. After all (and as distorted as the process has become), ultimately the States are still where the Federal government gets its money. The money, that is, that is not outright printed or borrowed.