Licensing is not law, it's a form of contract (to simplify things). Getting rid of licensing wouldn't make copying unrestricted. Copying is restricted by Copyright Law, which allows for private use perfectly well. Authors have some exclusive rights to what they create. Once they sell a copy of that to someone else, they don't get to dictate how that someone else uses that copy outside of copyright law.
No, he bought a copy. The fact that it might be accompanied by a license is another matter, open to discussion as Sarten-X pointed out. But when you go into a store, pick up a dvd, a game or a cd, you're BUYING a copy. It doesn't matter what papers the company puts in the box, it's your copy, and as long as you don't violate copyright law (or any other law, like the DMCA), you can do anything you want with it. Some of those laws say that you can't perform publicly, redistribute, etc. but nowhere at all it says you can't privately use what you bought, or that they get to dictate how you can or cannot use your own stuff outside of what the law says. And yes, that copy is your own stuff. Even if EULAs are considered a legal contract, no contract can strip away any of your legal rights. Law is above contracts, just as the Constitution is above Laws. Licenses can give additional rights to the consumer, but they cannot take away any rights.
"A software license agreement is a contract between the "licensor" and purchaser of the right to use software. The license may define ways under which the copy can be used, in addition to the automatic rights of the buyer including the first sale doctrine and 17 U.S.C. 117 (freedom to use, archive, re-sale, and backup)."
(...)
"Some copyright owners use EULAs in an effort to circumvent limitations the applicable copyright law places on their copyrights (such as the limitations in sections 107-122 of the United States Copyright Act), or to expand the scope of control over the work into areas for which copyright protection is denied by law (such as attempting to charge for, regulate or prevent private performances of a work beyond a certain number of performances or beyond a certain period of time). Such EULAs are, in essence, efforts to gain control, by contract, over matters upon which copyright law precludes control.
In disputes of this nature, cases are often appealed and different circuit courts of appeal sometimes disagree about these clauses. This provides an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, which it has usually done in a scope-limited and cautious manner, providing little in the way of precedent or settled law.[citation needed]"
I'm not following you. What I quoted above refers to the exclusive rights of the owner of the work (say, Sony). That means that the rights listed above are the ones granted ONLY to the owner. Any other rights not mentioned there (or in the rest of the bill), are NOT exclusive to the owner of the work, and may be enjoyed by anyone. The right to privately perform (or play) a dvd, cd, etc is one such right, as it's not mentioned above. The definition of 'privately' is usually a matter of common sense, and if you end up in a situation where it's not clear, then it's up to a jury or a judge to decide.
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
These are the basic exclusive rights of the owner of the work. It says nothing about performing (i.e. Playing a record, dvd, whatever) in private. You have all the right to reproduce privately a legally owned copy of a copyrighted work, regardless of what any piece of paper attached to it might say. It's reproduction (copying), (re)distribution, PUBLIC performance, etc that are exclusive to the owner of the original work.
As long as he didn't sign any leasing contract, he did buy a copy... and as for it being an open issue, that's what I meant when I said it was my opinion, and you can see where I stand on that matter. I'm not aware that using the copy of the software you bought falls under anything different than watching a DVD that you buy.. over which, say, universal, has absolutely no say outside of specific copyright law restrictions (like not playing it in a public performance, or for commercial purposes, etc)
Ah but he didn't RENT the PS3. He BOUGHT it. And as for them being 'kind enough' to 'allow me' to use their software, fuck that. They sold him a console with a copy of their software on it (yes, they SOLD him a copy of the software), and I couldn't care less what they say we can do with it. We can do as much as copyright laws allow, and it doesn't say anything about tinkering with the stuff. Copyright is fundamentally about right to distribution (COPY-Right), but somehow these thugs have convinced people that just because they stick a little piece of paper with demands and limitations on the cd, they get to tell you how to use your stuff once they've sold it to you (and yes, that copy of the software is SOLD, not rented. the only limits we should respect are those in copyright law itself, not the "license"). If they want to RENT their stuff under specific conditions to retain the right to take away the product if we don't abide by those conditions, they should clearly state so when we pay, and also of course assume all the responsibility it implies to be providing a rental service instead of selling a product. Renting is very different than selling. When it suits them, it's a sale, when it doesn't, they're 'licensing'. You can't have your cake and eat it too
Of course this is a personal opinion based on what I understand of IP laws, but IANAL, so any lawyers are welcome to correct/corroborate/discuss
I think that's besides the point. A more interesting question, more or less raised in the summary is: For some time, you put effort and information into your account, generating value for facebook, which they profit from. Leaving the damages claimed ($$$) aside, don't you think the guy should be _at least_ entitled to get a zipfile with all his content, some paper saying it's permanently erased from FB servers (so he can use it in court if he ever finds out it isn't), or something like that?
I know it's not what he's asking, but that part just got me wondering about the responsability a company like FB should assume when dealing with their users of their services (which, as pointed out above, are NOT free).
i think it's funny people think a public facing company like Microsoft would ban this kid without very good evidence
I think it's funny that people think that because it's a public facing company, they can't be doing anything wrong or they can't make mistakes. These things need to be questioned and verified. As in this case, often they'll be right, but the day we start just assuming that they can't be doing wrong because they're a "public facing company" is the day we give them a free pass at doing whatever they want.
I think we should look for the guy who designed it and see if he glows in the dark.. maybe take him to the zoo and see if any big cats feel like licking his hands =P
IANAL, and I don't know how it is in the UK or the US (though I guess it must be pretty much the same), but here we have
Constitution > laws > contracts
So, no matter what a contract says, or if you signed in blood or anything like that. If it's against a law, it's not valid. period. Same goes for laws that go against something in the constitution. The problem usually is that to prove that something in a contract is against a law (or in a law vs the constitution) you need to get lawyers and court involved, which for many people is very expensive and/or time consuming, and a relatively MUCH bigger deal than it is to a big company.
it even has a psychological effect in people that don't really believe it--spreading doubts.That these accusations were upheld might or might not be due to political pressure by the US; it could also be that the prosecutor wants to show to the Swedish public that everyone is prosecuted no matter how prominent he is
Not only that, it also sends the VERY strong message of "Everyone who gets involved or helps this guy can expect to get in trouble".
Well, for starters, I'd install virtualbox and do all the work on a fresh install of windows running on it. Then you can take your pick of virus. I guess a very small non destructive old one would be best, especially if the source code is available (though that might be overkill if you just want them to get an idea of how virus work..) I was thinking of the 'stoned' virus.. then I remembered there was an app back in the day, for DOS, that would let you create your own virus.. you'd select some options like stealth capabilities, file or disk deletion, printing a message, etc. Then the program would generate a virus, both in compiled.com and asm source code. It was called NuKE, but I'm sure there's more like that one.
here's a link from google (I couldn't verify it since my work's proxy is blocking the site):
This is a very old app, so I'm not sure it'll work on winXP or newer OSs but it might be worth a try.
well, by that logic, the plane wasn't going to be just parked there so that Steve could play with his shuriken. It was going to fly, so they're not only responsible for the plane and passengers, also for the people that same plane could be crashed on if it were hijacked by some wacko with the stolen shurikens. So no, you don't get to carry weapons on board while flying I guess.
I just bought an Asus 1201PN and installed Lucid on it. It installed in a matter of minutes and it works like a charm. The only tweaking it needed was changing one line to/etc/defaults/grub to enable some of the Fn keys, and update the nvidia driver to get sound over hdmi.
Everything we do has an ideological/political/philosophical charge on it, not only in the interpretation but in the creation process itself; and videogames are definetly not the exception. You don't have to go to Wolfstein or Rise Of The Triad to check that.
I can't believe I had to get down this far into the comments to find a post like this. Games are designed and create by people, and all people have ideological and political viewpoints that one way or another permeate what they do. Sometimes it's evident, sometimes not. Sometimes it's intended and explicit, and that's ok. Games, especially if we think of them as an art form, are just as valid as movies or writing to express opinion of any kind, and that can also make the plot richer. Just because there's opinion it doesn't mean it's 'Propaganda' (as many people here like to label everything that doesn't conform to their POV). Politically and ideologically I didn't like some things in CoD4, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the game immensely.
Well, the difference would be precisely in the definition. I use the meaning of race more or less as it's described in wikipedia. It's kind of a big topic to cover on a single post, but essentially I'd rather adhere to the idea that there's one race (the human race), then there are several ethnies (sp?) and maybe some distinguishable traits that some people classify as defining a 'race' (like skin color), which even though I don't agree with that classifacation, are commonly used.
However, nationality has nothing to do with it. Discrimination or prejudices based on nationality can be counted as plain and simple xenophobia, and don't have anything to do whatsoever with 'race' in any definition I've ever seen, unless you consider 'French' or 'Canadian' to be races. That would be news to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Licensing is not law, it's a form of contract (to simplify things). Getting rid of licensing wouldn't make copying unrestricted. Copying is restricted by Copyright Law, which allows for private use perfectly well.
Authors have some exclusive rights to what they create. Once they sell a copy of that to someone else, they don't get to dictate how that someone else uses that copy outside of copyright law.
No, he bought a copy. The fact that it might be accompanied by a license is another matter, open to discussion as Sarten-X pointed out. But when you go into a store, pick up a dvd, a game or a cd, you're BUYING a copy. It doesn't matter what papers the company puts in the box, it's your copy, and as long as you don't violate copyright law (or any other law, like the DMCA), you can do anything you want with it.
Some of those laws say that you can't perform publicly, redistribute, etc. but nowhere at all it says you can't privately use what you bought, or that they get to dictate how you can or cannot use your own stuff outside of what the law says. And yes, that copy is your own stuff.
Even if EULAs are considered a legal contract, no contract can strip away any of your legal rights. Law is above contracts, just as the Constitution is above Laws.
Licenses can give additional rights to the consumer, but they cannot take away any rights.
"A software license agreement is a contract between the "licensor" and purchaser of the right to use software. The license may define ways under which the copy can be used, in addition to the automatic rights of the buyer including the first sale doctrine and 17 U.S.C. 117 (freedom to use, archive, re-sale, and backup)."
(...)
"Some copyright owners use EULAs in an effort to circumvent limitations the applicable copyright law places on their copyrights (such as the limitations in sections 107-122 of the United States Copyright Act), or to expand the scope of control over the work into areas for which copyright protection is denied by law (such as attempting to charge for, regulate or prevent private performances of a work beyond a certain number of performances or beyond a certain period of time). Such EULAs are, in essence, efforts to gain control, by contract, over matters upon which copyright law precludes control.
In disputes of this nature, cases are often appealed and different circuit courts of appeal sometimes disagree about these clauses. This provides an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, which it has usually done in a scope-limited and cautious manner, providing little in the way of precedent or settled law.[citation needed]"
I recommend reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement#Enforceability
Especially the part about Enforceability of EULAs in the United States, near the bottom.
I'd love it if Lawrence Lessig saw this thread and gave his opinion. He knows this stuff like the palm of his hand, plus he's good at explaining it :)
I'm not following you. What I quoted above refers to the exclusive rights of the owner of the work (say, Sony). That means that the rights listed above are the ones granted ONLY to the owner. Any other rights not mentioned there (or in the rest of the bill), are NOT exclusive to the owner of the work, and may be enjoyed by anyone. The right to privately perform (or play) a dvd, cd, etc is one such right, as it's not mentioned above.
The definition of 'privately' is usually a matter of common sense, and if you end up in a situation where it's not clear, then it's up to a jury or a judge to decide.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
These are the basic exclusive rights of the owner of the work. It says nothing about performing (i.e. Playing a record, dvd, whatever) in private. You have all the right to reproduce privately a legally owned copy of a copyrighted work, regardless of what any piece of paper attached to it might say. It's reproduction (copying), (re)distribution, PUBLIC performance, etc that are exclusive to the owner of the original work.
As long as he didn't sign any leasing contract, he did buy a copy... and as for it being an open issue, that's what I meant when I said it was my opinion, and you can see where I stand on that matter.
I'm not aware that using the copy of the software you bought falls under anything different than watching a DVD that you buy.. over which, say, universal, has absolutely no say outside of specific copyright law restrictions (like not playing it in a public performance, or for commercial purposes, etc)
Ah but he didn't RENT the PS3. He BOUGHT it. And as for them being 'kind enough' to 'allow me' to use their software, fuck that. They sold him a console with a copy of their software on it (yes, they SOLD him a copy of the software), and I couldn't care less what they say we can do with it. We can do as much as copyright laws allow, and it doesn't say anything about tinkering with the stuff.
Copyright is fundamentally about right to distribution (COPY-Right), but somehow these thugs have convinced people that just because they stick a little piece of paper with demands and limitations on the cd, they get to tell you how to use your stuff once they've sold it to you (and yes, that copy of the software is SOLD, not rented. the only limits we should respect are those in copyright law itself, not the "license"). If they want to RENT their stuff under specific conditions to retain the right to take away the product if we don't abide by those conditions, they should clearly state so when we pay, and also of course assume all the responsibility it implies to be providing a rental service instead of selling a product. Renting is very different than selling. When it suits them, it's a sale, when it doesn't, they're 'licensing'. You can't have your cake and eat it too
Of course this is a personal opinion based on what I understand of IP laws, but IANAL, so any lawyers are welcome to correct/corroborate/discuss
I think that's besides the point. A more interesting question, more or less raised in the summary is: For some time, you put effort and information into your account, generating value for facebook, which they profit from. Leaving the damages claimed ($$$) aside, don't you think the guy should be _at least_ entitled to get a zipfile with all his content, some paper saying it's permanently erased from FB servers (so he can use it in court if he ever finds out it isn't), or something like that?
I know it's not what he's asking, but that part just got me wondering about the responsability a company like FB should assume when dealing with their users of their services (which, as pointed out above, are NOT free).
i think it's funny people think a public facing company like Microsoft would ban this kid without very good evidence
I think it's funny that people think that because it's a public facing company, they can't be doing anything wrong or they can't make mistakes. These things need to be questioned and verified. As in this case, often they'll be right, but the day we start just assuming that they can't be doing wrong because they're a "public facing company" is the day we give them a free pass at doing whatever they want.
But.. Copyright != Trademark
If Internet Explorer was a trademark, shouldn't there be a (tm) next to it? (or a circled 'R' in spanish for marca Registrada)
Thanks for the link, that was a great read! :)
Kind of reminded me of Laplace's demon at the beginning
I think we should look for the guy who designed it and see if he glows in the dark.. maybe take him to the zoo and see if any big cats feel like licking his hands =P
It's not.
IANAL, and I don't know how it is in the UK or the US (though I guess it must be pretty much the same), but here we have
Constitution > laws > contracts
So, no matter what a contract says, or if you signed in blood or anything like that. If it's against a law, it's not valid. period.
Same goes for laws that go against something in the constitution. The problem usually is that to prove that something in a contract is against a law (or in a law vs the constitution) you need to get lawyers and court involved, which for many people is very expensive and/or time consuming, and a relatively MUCH bigger deal than it is to a big company.
But, it'll simulate everything, then it will also simulate itself, running the simulation, and so on. Looks like a recursive simulation :)
it even has a psychological effect in people that don't really believe it--spreading doubts.That these accusations were upheld might or might not be due to political pressure by the US; it could also be that the prosecutor wants to show to the Swedish public that everyone is prosecuted no matter how prominent he is
Not only that, it also sends the VERY strong message of "Everyone who gets involved or helps this guy can expect to get in trouble".
Or a "Mac r00lz" article, and we can start with the marketing/brainwashing conspiracy theories :)
Well, for starters, I'd install virtualbox and do all the work on a fresh install of windows running on it. Then you can take your pick of virus. I guess a very small non destructive old one would be best, especially if the source code is available (though that might be overkill if you just want them to get an idea of how virus work..) .com and asm source code.
I was thinking of the 'stoned' virus.. then I remembered there was an app back in the day, for DOS, that would let you create your own virus.. you'd select some options like stealth capabilities, file or disk deletion, printing a message, etc. Then the program would generate a virus, both in compiled
It was called NuKE, but I'm sure there's more like that one.
here's a link from google (I couldn't verify it since my work's proxy is blocking the site):
This is a very old app, so I'm not sure it'll work on winXP or newer OSs but it might be worth a try.
Good luck!
well, by that logic, the plane wasn't going to be just parked there so that Steve could play with his shuriken. It was going to fly, so they're not only responsible for the plane and passengers, also for the people that same plane could be crashed on if it were hijacked by some wacko with the stolen shurikens. So no, you don't get to carry weapons on board while flying I guess.
I just bought an Asus 1201PN and installed Lucid on it. It installed in a matter of minutes and it works like a charm. The only tweaking it needed was changing one line to /etc/defaults/grub to enable some of the Fn keys, and update the nvidia driver to get sound over hdmi.
Maradona wouldn't need to hide his hand under the miniskirt, he can just openly throw his hand in, it'd just give the press more to write about ;)
'you wouldn't steal a car'
Why, yes, I would, if I could just download a copy of it off the net.
like, for example, hire the local ISPs for connectivity. I'm sure they can use the business, and their employees families too.
If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line.
But it better work this time...
Everything we do has an ideological/political/philosophical charge on it, not only in the interpretation but in the creation process itself; and videogames are definetly not the exception. You don't have to go to Wolfstein or Rise Of The Triad to check that.
I can't believe I had to get down this far into the comments to find a post like this. Games are designed and create by people, and all people have ideological and political viewpoints that one way or another permeate what they do. Sometimes it's evident, sometimes not. Sometimes it's intended and explicit, and that's ok. Games, especially if we think of them as an art form, are just as valid as movies or writing to express opinion of any kind, and that can also make the plot richer. Just because there's opinion it doesn't mean it's 'Propaganda' (as many people here like to label everything that doesn't conform to their POV).
Politically and ideologically I didn't like some things in CoD4, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the game immensely.
How come parent hasn't been modded up into the stratosphere yet?
Well, the difference would be precisely in the definition. I use the meaning of race more or less as it's described in wikipedia. It's kind of a big topic to cover on a single post, but essentially I'd rather adhere to the idea that there's one race (the human race), then there are several ethnies (sp?) and maybe some distinguishable traits that some people classify as defining a 'race' (like skin color), which even though I don't agree with that classifacation, are commonly used.
However, nationality has nothing to do with it. Discrimination or prejudices based on nationality can be counted as plain and simple xenophobia, and don't have anything to do whatsoever with 'race' in any definition I've ever seen, unless you consider 'French' or 'Canadian' to be races.
That would be news to me.