Some of you guys take your little anti-microsoft crusade (and yourselves) a little too seriously.
I've found that the same people that make statements like this are also the people make flip remarks such as "Well don't buy their products then" when someone complains about Microsoft's unethical business tactics.
Sure, for now. How long until they are deemed illegal though? I think the corps are biding their time on that one. If they tighten the noose too quickly the masses might notice that they're about to be hung and do something about it. God help them if Oprah or someone similar decided to do a show on it or something. Then they'd really be fucked. (Yeah, I can't picture Oprah doing a show on SDMI either, but you know what I mean.)
Record companies are going to sell what people want to buy, that's how the free market works.
The record industry is already buying legislation to enforce their desires on the masses. What difference does it make if there is a "free market" when the corporations are the ones that decide what is allowed to be sold in that market?
Granted, that's what was tried for DivX at Circuit City, but it was only one retailer.
Actually, IIRC, DIVX machines cost MORE than regular DVD players. Since the discs were also inferior to regular DVDs, people realized they were getting ripped off.
This may well cost more than just providing the mp3s themselves, especially when you stop and consider that 99% of their searches and database are for pirated material.
You keep saying this, but you aren't really giving us any evidence either. How much does it cost MP3.com to create and maintain their databases? How much does it cost Napster? That's the information we need, and apparently don't have. So this is all just idle speculation with nothing to back it up on either side.
A 10 year copyright (very short) would not affect the huge losses occuring today by people downloading Britney.
What huge losses? The music industry just had a record year for profits. Even when asked, they haven't been able to show any real losses. The losses are just as imaginary as copyright itself.
But the only "problem" is the "problem" of "I don't wanna pay for it and don't wanna have to wait 75 years for it."
No, the problem is that there's no reason for us to grant a copyright to artists and other creators or publishers if we aren't going to get something out of it as well. The original "bargain" was for 14 years. We wouldn't publish something that was copyrighted without paying the artist for it, and at the end of the term the work went into the public domain and was free to all. That bargain is long broken and there is no longer anything in it for the public. The US courts said long ago that copyright is a privilege, not a right. If that privilege isn't benefitting the public as a whole by making more works part of the public domain, then what reason do we have to maintain our end of the bargain long after the publishers broke their end?
Disney wants to keep it's rights to early Mickey Mouse because they KNOW it's sill a valuable property. This hasn't stopped them from continuing to spit out new movies every other year.
Aside from the distinction between a trademark and a copyright, I don't think that it matters that the mouse is still profitable. The term should have expired long ago. Trademark law might still apply to it in some cases, but other than that, the mouse should be fair game.
There was originally a balance struck with copyright. People accepted the rights of authors to have control over their work for a period of time (then 14 years). This allowed the author (and publisher) to make money from his work. In return, at the end of that period of time, the work would become part of the public domain, free for all to use. That bargain is long dead, broken by publishers. They continually lobbied for more control and longer copyright terms, and they got them. Now copyrighted works don't go into the public domain for at least 70 years, and that's only if the author dies right after creating the work. Is it any wonder that many people have no respect for copyright anymore? We haven't seen anything go into the public domain for decades! We're going back to the times before the Statute of Queen Anne in Britain where publishers had perpetual copyright control over works they published. That was stopped by the Statue of Queen Anne, and US courts acknowledged that copyright is a privilege, not a right, and that there were no perpetual rights granted to authors or publishers for control over the works they create and publish.
Today, publishers are still seeking perpetual control over the works they publish. People should understand that if there is to be a bargain, they must keep their end. Why should we create laws that serve only to enrich a few at the expense of the freedom of the rest of us? We grant copyrights so that authors will continue to create new works for us to enjoy and learn from. They will continue to create these things whether we give them 14 years of copyright protection or 1400 years of copyright protection. It is in the best interest of most of us if we limit the term to something reasonable such as 14 years. As things stand today, anything created in our lifetime will likely not go into the public domain in our lifetime. That's just not right and illustrates how the scales are tipped heavily in the publishers' favor. What we need now is copyright reform. We need to roll back the copyright term to the original 14 years (plenty of time to turn a very nice profit). There will be a fight. Highly profitable corporations do not give up money without a very big fight. But we need to restore a balance between the creators and the public. That alone could go a long way towards restoring respect for the copyright system and ensuring that the creators will profit from their creations. Yes, the publishing industry will have to resign themselves to not being able to milk a creation for all eternity, but there's really no reason they should have ever had such a right to begin with.
I remember reading something at least similar to what he says she said. I believe it was in an interview and the question was something along the lines of, "Does the RIAA really believe they can stop all of these new software programs and devices from appearing and allowing people to get music for free?" I'll go dig around in my bookmarks and see if I can find a link when I get home tonight.
That still doesn't explain why images of kids having sex are suggestive, but images of rape, murder, assault, etc., are not. That's what I'm trying to understand here.
(Granted, it sort of depends on how you define "technology".)
Medicine certainly qualifies as technology. We wouldn't know a fraction of what we do today without such technological advances as microscopes and radiology.
Because in California there are too many damn fool environmentalists who don't want any more pollution.
Yes, we should all embrace the pollution and strive to create more whenever possible.
Perhaps the problem is that we don't invest enough in creating non-polluting or at least less polluting ways of generating energy. Mainly because those damn power companies and others who make their living by polluting the environment fight any attempts to create an alternative to their services.
If the general idea of deregulation is to lower costs to consumers, why deregulate when it doesn't seem to have the desired effect? What was wrong with the regulated market that we have had for so long. It seemed to provide the power at a pretty good price to consumers. Why change?
However, they may have filed them in order to have bargaining chips in case other companies claimed infringement against other patents. That's not purely defensive, but it's still different from going out and sueing other people.
This is what I meant by defensive use. They use them to keep other companies off their backs.
Don't they have to have a history of trying to protect their patent in order to have the right to "go after" offenders now?
Nope, you're confusing trademark law with patent law. Patents are routinely enforced in this manner. In fact, there is a type of patent known as a "submarine patent" which is much more devious than even this scheme. Basically the patent is kept pending for as long as possible through various legal tricks so that many companies begin infringing on it before they can even know it exists. Then when it finally passes it catches everyone completely by surprise when the patent owner starts suing everyone and their dogs. These have been largely eliminated now I believe due to new regulations that mandate that patents be revealed after 18 months (IIRC) regardless of whether they have been approved or not.
but I am truly angered that they wait for it to become common place before trying to enforce it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Actually it was smart, smart, smart of them to do in order to maximise their gains. It's just our patent laws and PTO management that are stupid, stupid, stupid.
There are many ways to go about indexing websites without resorting to spiders, so there are other ways of supporting other search engines -- no one's going to be forced out of business by this one.
They seem to think they've got the whole field covered by their patents. Take this quote:
[Digital was] the first to spider and index the Web. And Digital did a good job of recognizing the potential value of that intellectual property. And they were very thorough in filing broad and deep and narrow patents. And we have another 30 patents that are in application. So we believe that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of those key patents.
Guess it might not matter if you use different methods if they have a broad enough patent.
Patents make companies look good on paper and feel good at heart.
Corporations with a heart? Bwahahahahaha! Good one!
To do otherwise is to cast an umbra on the very ideals of property that bind our society together.
Whatever. The right thing to do would be to kick the management of the PTO out of the building and put people with a freaking clue in their places. Then stop letting the PTO be a source of revenue for the government. In fact, it should be given its own funding to allow it to hire competent examiners at competitive wages. This is just for starters. There's a whole laundry list of reforms that the PTO is desperately in need of. Until we get them done, we'll always have to deal with these kinds of garbage patents.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of you guys take your little anti-microsoft crusade (and yourselves) a little too seriously.
I've found that the same people that make statements like this are also the people make flip remarks such as "Well don't buy their products then" when someone complains about Microsoft's unethical business tactics.
Sure, for now. How long until they are deemed illegal though? I think the corps are biding their time on that one. If they tighten the noose too quickly the masses might notice that they're about to be hung and do something about it. God help them if Oprah or someone similar decided to do a show on it or something. Then they'd really be fucked. (Yeah, I can't picture Oprah doing a show on SDMI either, but you know what I mean.)
Record companies are going to sell what people want to buy, that's how the free market works.
The record industry is already buying legislation to enforce their desires on the masses. What difference does it make if there is a "free market" when the corporations are the ones that decide what is allowed to be sold in that market?
Granted, that's what was tried for DivX at Circuit City, but it was only one retailer.
Actually, IIRC, DIVX machines cost MORE than regular DVD players. Since the discs were also inferior to regular DVDs, people realized they were getting ripped off.
And the other .04%?
They are the marketers who will try to sell us on SDMI :)
I didn't word that well did I? Thanks :)
Congress made the term for corporate-owned copyrights to be 90 years with their most recent term extension bill.
This may well cost more than just providing the mp3s themselves, especially when you stop and consider that 99% of their searches and database are for pirated material.
You keep saying this, but you aren't really giving us any evidence either. How much does it cost MP3.com to create and maintain their databases? How much does it cost Napster? That's the information we need, and apparently don't have. So this is all just idle speculation with nothing to back it up on either side.
Excellent post!
A 10 year copyright (very short) would not affect the huge losses occuring today by people downloading Britney.
What huge losses? The music industry just had a record year for profits. Even when asked, they haven't been able to show any real losses. The losses are just as imaginary as copyright itself.
But the only "problem" is the "problem" of "I don't wanna pay for it and don't wanna have to wait 75 years for it."
No, the problem is that there's no reason for us to grant a copyright to artists and other creators or publishers if we aren't going to get something out of it as well. The original "bargain" was for 14 years. We wouldn't publish something that was copyrighted without paying the artist for it, and at the end of the term the work went into the public domain and was free to all. That bargain is long broken and there is no longer anything in it for the public. The US courts said long ago that copyright is a privilege, not a right. If that privilege isn't benefitting the public as a whole by making more works part of the public domain, then what reason do we have to maintain our end of the bargain long after the publishers broke their end?
Disney wants to keep it's rights to early Mickey Mouse because they KNOW it's sill a valuable property. This hasn't stopped them from continuing to spit out new movies every other year.
Aside from the distinction between a trademark and a copyright, I don't think that it matters that the mouse is still profitable. The term should have expired long ago. Trademark law might still apply to it in some cases, but other than that, the mouse should be fair game.
There was originally a balance struck with copyright. People accepted the rights of authors to have control over their work for a period of time (then 14 years). This allowed the author (and publisher) to make money from his work. In return, at the end of that period of time, the work would become part of the public domain, free for all to use. That bargain is long dead, broken by publishers. They continually lobbied for more control and longer copyright terms, and they got them. Now copyrighted works don't go into the public domain for at least 70 years, and that's only if the author dies right after creating the work. Is it any wonder that many people have no respect for copyright anymore? We haven't seen anything go into the public domain for decades! We're going back to the times before the Statute of Queen Anne in Britain where publishers had perpetual copyright control over works they published. That was stopped by the Statue of Queen Anne, and US courts acknowledged that copyright is a privilege, not a right, and that there were no perpetual rights granted to authors or publishers for control over the works they create and publish.
Today, publishers are still seeking perpetual control over the works they publish. People should understand that if there is to be a bargain, they must keep their end. Why should we create laws that serve only to enrich a few at the expense of the freedom of the rest of us? We grant copyrights so that authors will continue to create new works for us to enjoy and learn from. They will continue to create these things whether we give them 14 years of copyright protection or 1400 years of copyright protection. It is in the best interest of most of us if we limit the term to something reasonable such as 14 years. As things stand today, anything created in our lifetime will likely not go into the public domain in our lifetime. That's just not right and illustrates how the scales are tipped heavily in the publishers' favor. What we need now is copyright reform. We need to roll back the copyright term to the original 14 years (plenty of time to turn a very nice profit). There will be a fight. Highly profitable corporations do not give up money without a very big fight. But we need to restore a balance between the creators and the public. That alone could go a long way towards restoring respect for the copyright system and ensuring that the creators will profit from their creations. Yes, the publishing industry will have to resign themselves to not being able to milk a creation for all eternity, but there's really no reason they should have ever had such a right to begin with.
I remember reading something at least similar to what he says she said. I believe it was in an interview and the question was something along the lines of, "Does the RIAA really believe they can stop all of these new software programs and devices from appearing and allowing people to get music for free?" I'll go dig around in my bookmarks and see if I can find a link when I get home tonight.
Forcing me to uninstall and reinstall the game IS harm. It's a big waste of my time.
That still doesn't explain why images of kids having sex are suggestive, but images of rape, murder, assault, etc., are not. That's what I'm trying to understand here.
Child pornography exists in a very special category (and for good reasons!).
And those reasons are?
This has got to be the most incoherent rambling post I've ever seen on /.
I want the last several minutes of my life back dammit!!!
Of course not. Don't be silly. That's Dubya's job now.
(Granted, it sort of depends on how you define "technology".)
Medicine certainly qualifies as technology. We wouldn't know a fraction of what we do today without such technological advances as microscopes and radiology.
stupid troll filter... bah...
Because in California there are too many damn fool environmentalists who don't want any more pollution.
Yes, we should all embrace the pollution and strive to create more whenever possible.
Perhaps the problem is that we don't invest enough in creating non-polluting or at least less polluting ways of generating energy. Mainly because those damn power companies and others who make their living by polluting the environment fight any attempts to create an alternative to their services.
If the general idea of deregulation is to lower costs to consumers, why deregulate when it doesn't seem to have the desired effect? What was wrong with the regulated market that we have had for so long. It seemed to provide the power at a pretty good price to consumers. Why change?
However, they may have filed them in order to have bargaining chips in case other companies claimed infringement against other patents. That's not purely defensive, but it's still different from going out and sueing other people.
This is what I meant by defensive use. They use them to keep other companies off their backs.
Don't they have to have a history of trying to protect their patent in order to have the right to "go after" offenders now?
Nope, you're confusing trademark law with patent law. Patents are routinely enforced in this manner. In fact, there is a type of patent known as a "submarine patent" which is much more devious than even this scheme. Basically the patent is kept pending for as long as possible through various legal tricks so that many companies begin infringing on it before they can even know it exists. Then when it finally passes it catches everyone completely by surprise when the patent owner starts suing everyone and their dogs. These have been largely eliminated now I believe due to new regulations that mandate that patents be revealed after 18 months (IIRC) regardless of whether they have been approved or not.
but I am truly angered that they wait for it to become common place before trying to enforce it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Actually it was smart, smart, smart of them to do in order to maximise their gains. It's just our patent laws and PTO management that are stupid, stupid, stupid.
There are many ways to go about indexing websites without resorting to spiders, so there are other ways of supporting other search engines -- no one's going to be forced out of business by this one.
They seem to think they've got the whole field covered by their patents. Take this quote:
[Digital was] the first to spider and index the Web. And Digital did a good job of recognizing the potential value of that intellectual property. And they were very thorough in filing broad and deep and narrow patents. And we have another 30 patents that are in application. So we believe that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of those key patents.
Guess it might not matter if you use different methods if they have a broad enough patent.
Patents make companies look good on paper and feel good at heart.
Corporations with a heart? Bwahahahahaha! Good one!
To do otherwise is to cast an umbra on the very ideals of property that bind our society together.
Whatever. The right thing to do would be to kick the management of the PTO out of the building and put people with a freaking clue in their places. Then stop letting the PTO be a source of revenue for the government. In fact, it should be given its own funding to allow it to hire competent examiners at competitive wages. This is just for starters. There's a whole laundry list of reforms that the PTO is desperately in need of. Until we get them done, we'll always have to deal with these kinds of garbage patents.
Did Digital ever try to enforce them? Perhaps they did it as a defensive measure.