Reverse engineering is a legal way of making trade secrets public. Once it's public, it's not protected as a trade secret anymore. If Digital Convergence was depending on trade secret law to protect them, then they'd have to show that the secret was obtained illegally (i.e. by violating an NDA or by obtaining the information from an employee or other who was under an NDA). Since they clearly have no reason to suspect that that is what happened (since the protocol was trivial to figure out), they have no case under trade secret law.
This is not the same as trademark law. A company can still selectively enforce its patents without risking the loss of control that a trademark holder can suffer due to dilution. The link you give just explains that a company cannot take an unreasonably long amount of time to bring suit against someone allegedly infringing on their patent because it could result in material predjudice to the defendant. This bit of law could be designed to undermine "submarine patents." It does not require that the patent holder prosecute every known infringement as trademark law does, therefore their "defend it or lose it" claim is still false.
Should be a correction. There are instances in which it can be illegal to use a product in a manner inconistent with it's stated purpose. Generally because using the product improperly could harm others. This is why we have laws about what you can do with your car, guns, etc. I can't think of a single such law that would be applicable in this situation though.
In his position, I would be pretty pissed off with all the self-righteousness and posturing in these messages, just 'cos some guy decided to reverse engineer his protocol and put his livelihood at risk, not even for serious reasons, but as an amusing hobby.
Two things. First, I'd be a lot more pissed at myself for not forseeing this inevitable outcome, and for relying on such a weak business model as this one could end up being. Second, it remains to be seen whether his business model will succeed or fail. I think the number of people who use these readers in unintended ways will be completely insignificant next to the number of people who take one home, throw it in a drawer and never touch it again.
None of the stuff you mention even applies to this case though. Even if they were claiming IP rights to the actual printed codes, nobody is copying their bar codes. The protocol was reverse engineered, something that is apparently (remains to be decided in court) upheld even by the DMCA. Even if they claim it as a trade secret, reverse engineering can make it legally public.
Well, of course they pay royalties for using the manufacturer's diagrams. Those are owned by the manufacturer. If they'd created their own diagrams, then they wouldn't have to pay royalties. They simply made a business decision by comparing the cost of the royalties versus the cost of creating their own diagrams.
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
The problem is that the authors of the DMCA seem to want to prohibit reverse engineering, but haven't figured out how to do it without being so blatant that it wouldn't get through Congress. So, we end up with this schizophrenic piece of legislation. Sec. 1201(f)(1) states:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title."
It comes down to whether or not your lawyers are good enough to get you off based on this clause or not. Hopefully the DeCSS case will eventually establish a good precedent. They haven't done very well so far, but hopefully things will go better in the appeals courts.
You can patent a business model and keep others from using the same model. They've mentioned no such patent, and it wouldn't apply in this case anyway since nobody is trying to duplicate their business model (probably with good reason).
I think its time to change the law to say that ALL contracts of ALL types are required to be signed contracts....get rid of this shrink-wrap bull shit.
Sounds great, but that might make it harder for corps to make money, therefore it will not happen. People are, in general, too ignorant about things such as IP, the DMCA, UCITA, etc. Do you hear the presidential candidate talking about such things? Nope. I did some searches at vote-smart.org on the speeches that they've given, and can hardly find any mention of intellectual property issues, except for a couple comments where they say they support strong protection of corps' IP. Since nobody talks about this stuff and the media has a vested interest in avoiding the subject as much as possible, nothing is likely to change.
I didn't claim that it did. You claimed that it didn't. Every article I've seen called it a "system crash." That would seem to support the theory of the OS crash more than it supports your theory that it was only an application crash. Either way, you made the idiotic claim that the OS was not at fault, even though there is no evidence, even circumstantial, to support that claim.
Why? They didn't create those things. They aren't responsible for them either. If I want to write my own damn server that works with EQ clients, then that's my own damn business. They have no right to tell me that I can't do it. I don't give a rat's ass about their profits any more than they care about my rights. Especially if I never agree to their EULA. Even though it probably isn't enforceable anyway. My aim would be to create something that does what I want it to do, rather than what they want it to do. I'm not concerned about robbing anybody of anything. It's not IP theft. You're taking the whole IP thing way too damn far. Corps shouldn't be able to have that much control over what we do or don't do with a product that we buy.
IIRC, copyrighted works do not have to have any sort of notice on them. Many publishers and others do put notices on their works for clarity's sake, and to give them additional leverage in court if it comes to that. If a work doesn't have any copyright notice on it, the defendant could claim that he didn't know it was copyrighted. This wouldn't help him win the case, but it may help limit his liability when it comes time to hand down the punishment.
Qwest did not create their own network. They did lay some additional backbone fiber. They're using USWest's network. There is a limit on how much cable can be laid, and where and when and by whom. This severely limits the number of entrants into the cable market. Yeah you can try other methods such as satellites, but that really isn't the point. Being as entrenched as they are, and owning both cable and satellite networks already, the existing cable companies enjoy far too great an advantage for the market to work itself out on its own. I don't agree that unfettered competition with the field as unlevel as it is would be better than what we have now. As with the deregulation of the electric companies, we'll probably see prices go way up, and service go way down.
Yeah right. I guess everyone would have to stop using Bind, Sendmail, Apache, Linux, etc. Then we'd get to watch the Internet come to a grinding, abrupt halt.
Can't you just picture an MPAA lawyer scrolling down his page, clicking the icon, ending up at the top of the page, scrolling down, clicking the icon, ad infinitum?:)
Huh? I'd say this depends very heavily on where you work. About 95% of the people in my office have to communicate directly with the clients they're working for. This solution would not work at all.
Did the government get a commitment from them to do so?
Apparently the government has the laws it needs already. The cable companies must obey the FCC. They've known this all along. They are idiots if they thought the public would just throw money at them to help put them where they are today and expect nothing in return. TNSTAAFL.
The answer is to take away what subsidies the cable companies currently enjoy, wash your hands of whatever support they got in the past
You're joking, right? So, we just fix the laws so that everybody gets the same treatment? We can just ignore the fact that we've already put the cable companies on top of a mountain with the ability to rain thunderbolts down on the competition. Just brush aside the fact that we've already helped the existing companies build their networks, and that without government support, no new networks can be built to compete. Yeah. That sounds like a real good idea.
Sorry, but removing the government's control while ignoring the realities of the market is a recipe for disaster. As I said before, the libertarian belief that the market will regulate itself relies on a level playing field existing to begin with. Unless we can level the field, removing the government's control will probably do a lot more harm than good.
How the hell does he plan to do this stuff? You'd pretty much have to do it all at once really. You'll never get the copyright terms down to their original limits without getting congress to go for it, and there is virtually no support for such a thing there. He'd probably get assassinated for even suggesting the things you mention. Cato can try to badmouth regulations on the cable companies all it wants. But given the realities of the market as it exists today, and the history of how the cable companies came to their present state, the statements that Cato is making just makes them look like morons. They should start fixing the problems at the root, not with the leaves. Otherwise they will end up causing a lot more problems than they solve.
No, that's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that it's too broke to be fixed by repealing a few laws. Like it or not, those who have already gotten rich want to stay that way. Whether the law stays on their side or not, they've already got the power. Cable companies already have their networks thanks to the government. Are we gonna dig up their lines and dump them on their doorsteps? How will the playing field be leveled? The libertarian "invisible hand" theory requires a level playing field. We don't have that. To remove the regulations now would be like Putting the Green Bay Packers on one team and my neighborhood elementary school cheerleaders on another team and having them play football. It would be stupid, and most likely quite tragic.
Wrong. The fact is that they DID get the benefits. Therefore they are responsible for making certain concessions as the government deems necessary. Cato seems to think that the context around the issue is irrelevant and that the corp should be able to accept or reject any ISP that it wants. That simply isn't the case.
I'm not saying that the cable companies should have received the benefits that they got, I'm saying that you can't ignore that fact and then expect there to be a level playing field when you turn the cable corp loose to do as it pleases. The market has already been screwed up. It won't fix itself anytime soon, if ever.
The Cato Institute is scary in that they seem to believe that corporations should be running everything rather than government. They always rant about government regulation of business. They're running a piece now about the opening of broadband cable networks to ISPs where they claim that it's a violation of the cable company's free speech rights to make them open their networks to the ISPs. Nevermind the fact that their networks never could have been built without the government's permission and help (both financial and legislative). Nevermind that people don't want every damn ISP out there digging up our streets to lay cable for their own networks. There are many compelling reasons to make the cable companies open up access. Do the cable companies think they should be able to receive those benefits that give them a big boost in the market without having any responsibilities as well?
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Reverse engineering is a legal way of making trade secrets public. Once it's public, it's not protected as a trade secret anymore. If Digital Convergence was depending on trade secret law to protect them, then they'd have to show that the secret was obtained illegally (i.e. by violating an NDA or by obtaining the information from an employee or other who was under an NDA). Since they clearly have no reason to suspect that that is what happened (since the protocol was trivial to figure out), they have no case under trade secret law.
This is not the same as trademark law. A company can still selectively enforce its patents without risking the loss of control that a trademark holder can suffer due to dilution. The link you give just explains that a company cannot take an unreasonably long amount of time to bring suit against someone allegedly infringing on their patent because it could result in material predjudice to the defendant. This bit of law could be designed to undermine "submarine patents." It does not require that the patent holder prosecute every known infringement as trademark law does, therefore their "defend it or lose it" claim is still false.
Should be a correction. There are instances in which it can be illegal to use a product in a manner inconistent with it's stated purpose. Generally because using the product improperly could harm others. This is why we have laws about what you can do with your car, guns, etc. I can't think of a single such law that would be applicable in this situation though.
In his position, I would be pretty pissed off with all the self-righteousness and posturing in these messages, just 'cos some guy decided to reverse engineer his protocol and put his livelihood at risk, not even for serious reasons, but as an amusing hobby.
Two things. First, I'd be a lot more pissed at myself for not forseeing this inevitable outcome, and for relying on such a weak business model as this one could end up being. Second, it remains to be seen whether his business model will succeed or fail. I think the number of people who use these readers in unintended ways will be completely insignificant next to the number of people who take one home, throw it in a drawer and never touch it again.
None of the stuff you mention even applies to this case though. Even if they were claiming IP rights to the actual printed codes, nobody is copying their bar codes. The protocol was reverse engineered, something that is apparently (remains to be decided in court) upheld even by the DMCA. Even if they claim it as a trade secret, reverse engineering can make it legally public.
Would be nice if they'd admit that they didn't write it rather than implicitly claim it as their own work.
Well, of course they pay royalties for using the manufacturer's diagrams. Those are owned by the manufacturer. If they'd created their own diagrams, then they wouldn't have to pay royalties. They simply made a business decision by comparing the cost of the royalties versus the cost of creating their own diagrams.
Sec. 1201(a)(1)(A) of the DMCA states:
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
The problem is that the authors of the DMCA seem to want to prohibit reverse engineering, but haven't figured out how to do it without being so blatant that it wouldn't get through Congress. So, we end up with this schizophrenic piece of legislation. Sec. 1201(f)(1) states:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title."
It comes down to whether or not your lawyers are good enough to get you off based on this clause or not. Hopefully the DeCSS case will eventually establish a good precedent. They haven't done very well so far, but hopefully things will go better in the appeals courts.
You can patent a business model and keep others from using the same model. They've mentioned no such patent, and it wouldn't apply in this case anyway since nobody is trying to duplicate their business model (probably with good reason).
I think its time to change the law to say that ALL contracts of ALL types are required to be signed contracts....get rid of this shrink-wrap bull shit.
Sounds great, but that might make it harder for corps to make money, therefore it will not happen. People are, in general, too ignorant about things such as IP, the DMCA, UCITA, etc. Do you hear the presidential candidate talking about such things? Nope. I did some searches at vote-smart.org on the speeches that they've given, and can hardly find any mention of intellectual property issues, except for a couple comments where they say they support strong protection of corps' IP. Since nobody talks about this stuff and the media has a vested interest in avoiding the subject as much as possible, nothing is likely to change.
I didn't claim that it did. You claimed that it didn't. Every article I've seen called it a "system crash." That would seem to support the theory of the OS crash more than it supports your theory that it was only an application crash. Either way, you made the idiotic claim that the OS was not at fault, even though there is no evidence, even circumstantial, to support that claim.
Show me one single source that says that the OS did not crash. (A non-Microsoft source that is.)
You're probably right, but we don't have much choice. We can't afford any politicians of our own.
Why? They didn't create those things. They aren't responsible for them either. If I want to write my own damn server that works with EQ clients, then that's my own damn business. They have no right to tell me that I can't do it. I don't give a rat's ass about their profits any more than they care about my rights. Especially if I never agree to their EULA. Even though it probably isn't enforceable anyway. My aim would be to create something that does what I want it to do, rather than what they want it to do. I'm not concerned about robbing anybody of anything. It's not IP theft. You're taking the whole IP thing way too damn far. Corps shouldn't be able to have that much control over what we do or don't do with a product that we buy.
IIRC, copyrighted works do not have to have any sort of notice on them. Many publishers and others do put notices on their works for clarity's sake, and to give them additional leverage in court if it comes to that. If a work doesn't have any copyright notice on it, the defendant could claim that he didn't know it was copyrighted. This wouldn't help him win the case, but it may help limit his liability when it comes time to hand down the punishment.
Qwest did not create their own network. They did lay some additional backbone fiber. They're using USWest's network. There is a limit on how much cable can be laid, and where and when and by whom. This severely limits the number of entrants into the cable market. Yeah you can try other methods such as satellites, but that really isn't the point. Being as entrenched as they are, and owning both cable and satellite networks already, the existing cable companies enjoy far too great an advantage for the market to work itself out on its own. I don't agree that unfettered competition with the field as unlevel as it is would be better than what we have now. As with the deregulation of the electric companies, we'll probably see prices go way up, and service go way down.
Yeah right. I guess everyone would have to stop using Bind, Sendmail, Apache, Linux, etc. Then we'd get to watch the Internet come to a grinding, abrupt halt.
Can't you just picture an MPAA lawyer scrolling down his page, clicking the icon, ending up at the top of the page, scrolling down, clicking the icon, ad infinitum? :)
Most people don't need email access at work.
Huh? I'd say this depends very heavily on where you work. About 95% of the people in my office have to communicate directly with the clients they're working for. This solution would not work at all.
Did the government get a commitment from them to do so?
Apparently the government has the laws it needs already. The cable companies must obey the FCC. They've known this all along. They are idiots if they thought the public would just throw money at them to help put them where they are today and expect nothing in return. TNSTAAFL.
The answer is to take away what subsidies the cable companies currently enjoy, wash your hands of whatever support they got in the past
You're joking, right? So, we just fix the laws so that everybody gets the same treatment? We can just ignore the fact that we've already put the cable companies on top of a mountain with the ability to rain thunderbolts down on the competition. Just brush aside the fact that we've already helped the existing companies build their networks, and that without government support, no new networks can be built to compete. Yeah. That sounds like a real good idea.
Sorry, but removing the government's control while ignoring the realities of the market is a recipe for disaster. As I said before, the libertarian belief that the market will regulate itself relies on a level playing field existing to begin with. Unless we can level the field, removing the government's control will probably do a lot more harm than good.
How the hell does he plan to do this stuff? You'd pretty much have to do it all at once really. You'll never get the copyright terms down to their original limits without getting congress to go for it, and there is virtually no support for such a thing there. He'd probably get assassinated for even suggesting the things you mention. Cato can try to badmouth regulations on the cable companies all it wants. But given the realities of the market as it exists today, and the history of how the cable companies came to their present state, the statements that Cato is making just makes them look like morons. They should start fixing the problems at the root, not with the leaves. Otherwise they will end up causing a lot more problems than they solve.
No, that's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that it's too broke to be fixed by repealing a few laws. Like it or not, those who have already gotten rich want to stay that way. Whether the law stays on their side or not, they've already got the power. Cable companies already have their networks thanks to the government. Are we gonna dig up their lines and dump them on their doorsteps? How will the playing field be leveled? The libertarian "invisible hand" theory requires a level playing field. We don't have that. To remove the regulations now would be like Putting the Green Bay Packers on one team and my neighborhood elementary school cheerleaders on another team and having them play football. It would be stupid, and most likely quite tragic.
However it is that you get paid, somebody is paying the taxes on that cash somewhere along the way.
Wrong. The fact is that they DID get the benefits. Therefore they are responsible for making certain concessions as the government deems necessary. Cato seems to think that the context around the issue is irrelevant and that the corp should be able to accept or reject any ISP that it wants. That simply isn't the case.
I'm not saying that the cable companies should have received the benefits that they got, I'm saying that you can't ignore that fact and then expect there to be a level playing field when you turn the cable corp loose to do as it pleases. The market has already been screwed up. It won't fix itself anytime soon, if ever.
The Cato Institute is scary in that they seem to believe that corporations should be running everything rather than government. They always rant about government regulation of business. They're running a piece now about the opening of broadband cable networks to ISPs where they claim that it's a violation of the cable company's free speech rights to make them open their networks to the ISPs. Nevermind the fact that their networks never could have been built without the government's permission and help (both financial and legislative). Nevermind that people don't want every damn ISP out there digging up our streets to lay cable for their own networks. There are many compelling reasons to make the cable companies open up access. Do the cable companies think they should be able to receive those benefits that give them a big boost in the market without having any responsibilities as well?