The problem is with service packs and updates. If you remove stuffarbitrarily, it is extremely difficult for Windows Update or service packs to
work properly.
Then someone in Redmond is incompetent. But we knew that already...
And when Microsoft causes Windows service packs
to deactivate application software like Eudora,
and replace it with other application software
like Outlook, and dosot on Federal Interest
Computers -- as they have done,
then Microsoft has committed a felony. And
should have been punished accordingly: not
simply broken up into different divisions,
but broken up, dissolved, and all their assets
confiscated.
Verizon has not publicly admitted the fact,
but last fall, the portion of net backbone
owned by Verizon was brought
to its knees for two days by CodeRed DOS'ing
their internal network. I personally know the
people responsible for monitoring the backbone, and they tell me that the virus's activity
signature is unmistakeable.
The claim "the virus scare is all hooey" is
itself all hooey.
...what if book publishers start licensing books to consumers, the same way music, software and movies are licensed.
That is what the publisher tried to do in the original case: the SC said "it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it swims like a duck. It is a sale, not a license."
The law on that point is that the authors have already received all they can expect on the basis of the first sale of the book; they cannot expect nor deserve more. This was codified by the US Supreme Court saying exactly that, back in 1910.
The theoretics is this: secondary markets (used-X sales, for whatever X you choose) are a characteristic of free markets; attempts to suppress secondary markets are (technically) exercises in fascism.
The pragmatics are this: for all that Paragraph 1 says that the authors already have theirs, the reality is that probably the publishers got it but the authors never saw it. It makes me sad; an editorial on MediaChannel argues that the habits
of publishers would make a good object for antitrust action: see http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/bookcontrac t.shtml
Murder is already actively enforced. Copyright infringement is not.
But as a singer of classical music, I can assure you that fraudulent claim of copyright is pervasive (I know only one honest publisher, Kalmus), but according to Stanford Law School Prof. Lessig, the penalties for fraudulent claim of copyright have never been applied. Not even once!
Here's what I wrote (hard copy to all the members of the House Judiciary Committee (which had requested comment), to the Speaker of the House, and to the two ranking members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee; electronic copy to the rest
of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's rather
long (7 hard-copy pages) and rather blunt...
Commentary on Copyright Law and the CBDTPA
Carlie J. Coats,Jr., Ph.D.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Copyright law must itself be lawful.
The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it restricts
Congress' ability to make copyright law. Senator Hollings' so-called
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) is
unConstitutional on a number of grounds. It should be defeated
resoundingly just for that reason.
Copyright law should not endanger the National Security of the
United States.
The US Congress, in the wake of the September 11 bombings, has found
that the smooth operation of digital computer and networking technology
is critical to the national security. Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would
enforce a digital "monoculture". This monoculture would be dominated
by exactly the least secure part of digital technology--the Microsoft
technology on which computer viruses and worms depend. The CBDTPA
would outlaw the open source development that has led to the most
secure digital systems currently available.
Copyright law should benefit artists, authors, and the general
public.
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would do exactly the opposite: it would
benefit a only tyrannical publishing oligopoly that has attempted to
suppress progress and artistic freedom at the expense of artists,
authors, and the general public.
Copyright law should respect private property, not subvert it.
The access controls envisioned by Senator Hollings' CBDTPA do NOT
prevent pirates from making fully functional bit-for-bit copies of
materials; what they actually do is to put restrictions on how
law-abiding users can have access to the CDs and other recordings they
have purchased. This doctrine makes a mockery of private property --
even after I have bought a work, it is still not mine; it is controlled
by the publisher's digital access mechanisms.
Law should not be over-broad and vague
Sen. Hollings himself has admitted in interviews with Wired magazine
that the provisions are deliberately vague, in order to get a bill
passed with provisions that may be applied far more broadly than
Congress intends or believes reasonable. Congress should not permit
itself to be so deceived.
Copyright law needs reform, not "more of the same".
Sen. Hollings' CBDTPA is going in exactly the wrong direction,
strengthening narrow corporate interests against the legitimate
interests of the public. There are a number of reforms to copyright
law which Congress should be considering:
Access for the handicapped and disabled;
Restoration of Constitutionally-mandated limited term for
copyright;
Criminalization of fraudulent claim of copyright
Limited term for copy-protection schemes.
Public domain status for all laws.
1. COPYRIGHT LAW ITSELF MUST BE LAWFUL.
The US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land. Congress only has
authority to make copyright law under Article 3, Section 8, Paragraph 8
of the Constitution.:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for
limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
respective writings and discoveries;
There are two points with regard to this Constitutional requirement
which are essential, in order for any bill with regard to means of
digital copy protection to be legal:
The term of protection must be limited. In particular, such
protection must expire upon expiration of the underlying copyright.
Means of protection that do not terminate themselves at that point are
not permitted under the Constitution.
The protection must be afforded to the authors and inventors only.
For Congress to permit such protection for works that are properly in
the public domain is itself a violation of this Constitutional mandate,
and should be punished at least as severely as copyright infringement.
Additionally, to be legal, copyright law must respect the rest of the
Constitution, and particularly the First Amendment, which guarantees
freedom of speech and of the press. The First Amendment guarantees are
in fact the origin of the doctrine of "fair use," as established by the
Supreme Court in 1823. In its absolutism, Senator Hollings' CBDTPA
would destroy fair use and the First Amendment.
The Founding Fathers did not regard "intellectual property" as a
natural right, but rather as a limited legislated monopoly which was of
benefit to society as a whole _if managed properly_. They had had
relatively recent experiences with both no-copyright situations and
with permanent Crown monopolies on publishing (and, sadly, they tended
to be better versed in history than many are today.) They knew that
copyright was of greatest benefit to society at large if it offered a
quid pro quo: in exchange for a temporary monopoly on copying, the
authors must pass their works into the public domain--the property of
all of us--at the expiration of the limited term. This bargain has
already been brought to the breaking point by current copyright law,
especially the so-called Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA); the
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA breaks it completely. That Act is purely and
specifically for the narrow benefit of a few large publishing houses
who fear that digital technology will break both their stranglehold on
the authors and music-writers and their captivation of the public at
large.
2. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD NOT ENDANGER THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE
UNITED STATES.
The US Congress, in the wake of the September 11 bombings, has found
that the smooth operation of digital computer and networking technology
is critical to the national security.
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would mandate anationally certified standard
for software of all types, including operating systems and Internet
software. Only the largest "players" among the authors and
distributors of these software would survive this regime; in
particular, the not-for-profit "Open Source" software movement would
not be allowed. The "Open Source" software movement has contributed
some of the most secure systems now available, including the Linux and
FreeBSD operating systems and the Apache web-server software. These
would be outlawed.
What would remain is exactly the systems and software which have shown
themselves most vulnerable to attack: the ones from Microsoft.
Virtually all of the disruptive "virus" and "worm" attacks of the last
five years have been made possible by defects in the inherent design of
Microsoft operating system, server, and email and application software.
This is well-documented on the web site of Kaspersky Labs
(http://www.viruslist.com/eng/index.html) which maintains lists of the
most active worms and viruses on a monthly basis. The
computer-security situation is so serious that last fall the very staid
Gartner Group management consulting firm issued a warning recommending
that their clients immediately remove Microsoft internet server
software and replace it with products from other vendors such as Apache
and IPlanet (see
http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=101 034). A year and a
half ago, the US National Security Agency concluded that it was
impossible to make Microsoft systems sufficiently secure for sensitive
applications, and constructed an especially secure configuration of the
Linux operating system for that purpose (see
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/).
As I write this (April 2), one of the stories on ZDNET news this
morning has the headline, "The inherent security of the Linux
environment was a key motivation for Burlington Coat Factory in
choosing the operating system for a large retail point-of-sale
environment." See
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/0,14179,2859688,00.html
The CBDTPA criminalizes secure Open Source software such as Apache,
Linux, and FreeBSD, forcing their replacement by vulnerable Microsoft
software. This is a clear and present danger to the National Security.
3. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD BENEFIT ARTISTS, AUTHORS, AND THE GENERAL
PUBLIC.
The publishing houses have established a regime in which they, not the
authors, have title to the copyrights. As Thomas Hauser writes for
MediaChannel (q.v.,
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/bookcontrac t.shtml):
Best-selling writers might be treated fairly by the media conglomerates
that dominate publishing today, but the average author isn't. And no
clearer proof exists than the "standard" book contract, routinely
forced upon authors and their agents. Many of the clauses that have
been imposed on authors throughout the industry bear no relationship to
any economic reality other than the best interests of the publisher.
Yet these clauses flourish because virtually every major publisher
insists on them--and the average author has no recourse... And if one
cares about the future of the printed word something must be done to
remedy the situation, because it's driving a lot of good writers out of
book publishing. They simply can't make a living writing books anymore.
The situation is similar in music recording and publishing. For
$10,000, one can put together a studio recording system with
capabilities that would have cost $5000,000 just a few years ago.
There ought to be the opportunity for new competition in the music
publishing and recording industries. But the current Big Four have a
stranglehold on the situation -- a stranglehold they fear might be
broken -- and by more artists than just Cyndi Lauper and the Artist
Once Again Known as Prince.
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would strengthen this publishing stranglehold,
both at the expense of the public (who will never hear the music that
would have been produced) and at the expense of the artists
themselves. The technology he espouses will be controlled exclusively
by the big publishing houses; the CBDTPA creates a situation in which
it will be impossible for an independent to break in. This
stranglehold is already in evidence with the DMCA: the publishers have
a monopoly on the CSS "content protection" system, and have made it
quite clear by their statements and their actions that "no one else
need apply."
4. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD RESPECT PRIVATE PROPERTY,
NOT SUBVERT IT
With its demands for "content protection," embodied in first the DMCA
and now in Senator Hollings' CBDTPA, publishing industry is making a
concerted attack on the foundations of private property. If I own a
children's book for my three-year-old and I own a pair of scissors, I
am completely within my rights to use the scissors to "edit" the book
so that only content suitable for my three-year-old remains.
Consider, however, if you own a DVD of the Disney movie "An American
Tail", and want to show it to your three-year-old. But when you put it
on, up comes an ad for "Dinosaurs" that frightens him. When he
screams, you hit the SKIP button -- but the screen says, "Sorry, DVD
action not permitted." The CBDTPA has deprived you of your right to
control how the DVD can safely be viewed by your toddler,and
criminalized your attempt to find any way out of the situation.
If I buy an item, it is my property. I am free to do with my property
as I will, to use or misuse it according to my wishes (at least within
the bounds of the law; I am not free to use it as a bludgeon on the
head of my neighbor). If I am not free to do these things, then it is
NOT my property, and the purported sale is not a sale but instead a
fraud. This is exactly the situation the publishing industry wishes to
foist off upon us, under Senator Hollings' CBDTPA.
5. LAW SHOULD NOT BE OVER-BROAD AND VAGUE
Sen. Hollings himself has admitted in interviews with Wired magazine
that the provisions of his CBDTPA are deliberately vague, in order to
get a bill passed with provisions that may be applied far more broadly
than Congress intends or believes reasonable. Congress should not
permit itself to be so deceived. This attitude is appalling in and of
itself. Congress should censure him for it, not encourage it and allow
it to proliferate.
6. COPYRIGHT LAW NEEDS REFORM, NOT "MORE OF THE SAME".
Access for the handicapped and disabled.
Section 107 of the Copyright Act should be amended so as to protect the
rights of persons with disabilities. It should be established by law
that when a handicapped or disabled person owns a copyright work, it is
fair use for that person or his agent to make enhanced copies for his
use in accomodating his handicap or disability. If technological means
are used for "copy protection" that prevent the creation of such
enhanced copies, then the copyright owner should be required to make
enhanced copies to accomodate the disabilities, and offer them for sale
at exactly the same price as the "normal" copies.
Restoration of Constitutionally-mandated limited term for
copyright.
The Constitution requires that copyrights have limited term. This is
part of the quid pro quo negotiated by the Founders, for which a
limited monopoly on content is exchanged for public accessibility and
use after the expiration of that limited term. The present Copyright
Act violates this in a number of ways:
In mathematical terms: If Congress is free
retroactively to extend the term after it has been set, then by
mathematical definition, that term is not limited. It has been
argued that this extension of copyright encourages authorship.
Such an argument is purely specious: it is impossible that an
author already 50 years dead can be encouraged to produce further
works by the extension of his copyrights for another twenty
years.
In operational terms: Copyright law that ensures
"protection" for works made a generation before I was born in 1953,
and extends that protection for a generation after I expect to be
dead--and moreover that has been extended during that period so
that no works have actually made it into the public domain during
my adult lifetime nor during its expected remainder--is
indistinguishable from "protection forever" by any experiment I can
perform.
In functional terms: the lifetime of magnetic
media is at most 20 years; film and optical media such as CDs have
a lifetime of less than 50 years. Current copyright term is more
than double the longest of these. The works will have become
unreadable before they become publicly acessible. This breaks the
quid pro quo of copyright law: when the term exceeds the physical
lifetime of the media on which the works are stored then the term
has no effective expiration. The progress of science and useful
arts can never be promoted under these circumstances.
Moreover, such retroactive action violates the spirit of law itself.
In a civil society, law must be knowable and predictable at the time a
citizen acts. Provisions that change the law regarding an action after
the action itself attack the very basis of civil society, as well as
being in violation of the plain reading of the Constitutional
prohibition on ex post facto laws. (I know, I've heard the arguments
that the prohibition is only with regard to criminal law, but in my
fifty years as a mathematician I've heard lots of other bogus claims as
well.)
At a minimum, copyright term for existing works should be restored to
what that term was at the date of the work's creation. Moreover,
serious consideration should be given to reducing the copyright term so
that it is less than the expected lifetime of the physical media on
which the works are stored. With anything less, the copyright law
itself breaks the law.
Criminalization of fraudulent claim of copyright.
Section 506(c) of the Copyright Act describes penalties for the
fraudulent claim of copyright. These penalties are miniscule, entirely
out of scale with the penalties for copyright infringement, and can
only be sought by the US Department of Justice (unlike infringement
cases, which can be brought by both civil and criminal actions). Yet
fraudulent claim of copyright is stealing from the Public Domain, the
legacy of us all. In fact, no such case has ever been brought,
according to Stanford Law School Professor Lessig, in spite of the fact
that such fraudulent claims are rampant in the publishing industry.
I am a choral singer, principally of baroque and classical music. In a
recent survey of the thirty-odd pre-1800 pieces I have sung over the
past decade, the four pieces published by Kalmus publishers (NY,
Berlin) did NOT claim copyright in entirety. Nor did one piece
type-set in 1905 by Oxford University Press. EVERY ONE of the
remainder claimed, "Copyright 19xx, [publisher]. ALL rights reserved"
(emphasis mine). They did NOT say "Editorial markings copyright..."
nor did they (with one exception by Barenreiter) distinguish in any
manner between editorial markings and the original text. Case law says
that they must do both of these things.
The major work I sang most recently was the Magnificat of Franz
Schubert, which Schubert completed on September 25, 1816, almost two
centuries ago. The edition we are using is published by Lawson-Gould,
a subsidiary of Time Warner, and claims to be copyrighted by them in
its entirety, with all rights reserved. To add insult to injury, the
entire work is type-set in a tiny print that appears to be the 8-Point
Bookman font, and is hard for any eyes over 40 to read (much less
someone with a visual disability, or under concert lighting
conditions). Not only is Time-Warner stealing from the Public Domain,
they are also discriminating against both those with disabilities and
even the less-than-youthful.
Fraudulent claims of copyright will cease only if private citizens can
enforce the laws against such fraud. Several alternative amendments
would so empower us. For instance, Section 506(c) of the Copyright Act
could allow a private cause of action for damages; inasmuch as a single
damaged citizen may reasonably determine the cost of the attorney would
outweigh the damages award in such a case, I suggest the law allow
alternative damage awards of either punitive or treble damages (both
allowing recovery of the injured plaintiff's attorney fees). As an
alternative, fraudulent claims law should be elevated to a criminal
act; punishable accompanied by fines high sufficient to act as a
deterrent and allow qui tam actions by private citizens to help ferret
out the criminals and act at private attorneys general.
Limits for technological copy-protection schemes.
In order to meet the Constitutional mandate of "limited term,"
technological copy protection schemes (as under the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act (DMCA)) should be required to deactivate themselves at
the end of the copyright term of the material they protect. Not to do
so is to steal from the Public Domain, and should be punished at least
as severely as copyright infringement.
Likewise the use of technological copy protection schemes to protect
non-Copyright material is also an act of stealing from the Public
Domain, and likewise should be punished at least as severely as
copyright infringement.
Unless the DMCA is amended to meet both of these criteria, it violates
the Constitutional "limited term" and "to Authors and Inventors"
restrictions upon copyright. The DMCA as it stands is an unlawful law.
All laws should be public domain.
Section 105 of the Copyright Act should be amended so as include in the
Public Domain not only "any work of the United States Government" but
also all laws Federal, State, or local. Note that some trade
associations have had local and state governments adopt their
copyrighted codes as public laws, while still maintaining a copyright
upon them. As a matter of public policy, the law should not be owned
by private interest groups, and this practice of copyrighted codes of
law should be forbidden.
SUMMARY
The publishing and recording industries come to the copyright
legislation table with dirty hands. They have persistently made
fraudulent claims of copyright, they have knowingly used specious
arguments in favor of their positions, and their own trade practices
are frequently unethical and monopolistic. In the interests of
preserving their monopolies, they have suborned politicians such as
Sen. Hollings, hijacked copyright law and stolen from the public all
those works -- 1930's jazz, for example -- that should now properly
belong to the public, and should reside in the public domain. They are
a bunch of thieves and robbers and do not deserve the consideration
they have customarily been given.
Fair use is never mentioned in the Constitution (not eve mentioned in any copyright law until 1976). Rather, it originated as a means by which producers of intellectual property could make limited use of the work of others (and allow somewhat freer use for nonprofit educational purposes).
US Supreme Court, 1823:
Congress may pass no copyright law so stringent
as to abridge Freedom of Speech nor Freedom of the Press.
That US Supreme Court decision is the origin of the doctrine of Fair Use. It is a matter of Constitutional rights.
OTOH, many of the uses claimed as fair use do not meet the SC's Freedom of Speech and Press constraint on copyright law.
Dear Avi:
In your recent essay, "Creating Integrated High Quality Linux
Applications" you engage in HTML-composition practices that seriously
create a Low Quality Web Application: you format the entire article
as a TABLE containing a nested TABLE, in such a fashion as to force
the main text display to an average text-line length of 130 characters in a web browser.
This line-length is quite hostile to the reader; human factors experts
say that line-length optimally should be on the order of 60 characters;
much longer lines--such as yours--make the text very difficult to read.
This principle is even evident in the HTML source for your article, which (one
observes) uses indentation for readability, together with an evident
right margin column of 75, and a mean line length of 41.0485 characters.
You have preserved readability for *yourself* but have seriously
com promised it for others.
What kind of computer would I need to run Linux 7.3 and X-Windows and KDE...
Linux: 386/16 with 1 MB RAM
... and X-Windows: 486/25
with 8 MB RAM, if you use a lightweight
window manager like IceWM
... and KDE: P3/400 or better,
with 32 MB RAM or better (and 64MB RAM
is much better!:-)
My letter-to-the-editor to Salon.
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Salon says it likes editorial letters short and
concise, so here's my reply to their article:
Dear Salon:
Congressional authority with respect to
copyright, copy protection, etc, is set
by the text of that Supreme Law of the
Land, the Constitution of the United
States, which grants the power as
follows:
To promote the progress of science
and useful arts, by securing for
limited times to authors and
inventors the exclusive right to
their respective writings and
discoveries...
Note that restriction, "limited times."
Such measures as those espoused by the
existing DMCA and the proposed SSSCA are
legal only if they satisfy the following
two conditions:
1) Protection MUST expire upon
expiration of copyright; and
2) Protection MUST be forbidden for
non-copyright (i.e., public domain)
materials.
I do not see either of these conditions
required in the existing DMCA nor the
proposed SSSCA. Both of these acts are
unConstitutional on their faces, and
those Congressmen, Presidents, and
judges who support them are lawbreakers
who are violating their oaths of office.
Copyright is a government granted limited monopoly that must (according to the US
Constitution) be granted for a very specific and limited purpose and for a limited term.
The records of the writers of the Constitution
unanimously make it very clear that copyright is not property and that it must be limited; that it is granted for a purely
pragmatic purpose. Some, Jefferson particularly,
were opposed to as strong a measures as even the
original limited 14-year term (granted only after
registration with the Lobrary of Congress and after payment of the appropriate fees).
That's the Constitutional picture. It is the
law that is supposed to bind
Congress, the President, and the courts.
Nothing has passed into the public domain during my adult lifetime, nor (unless the Supreme Court does the Right Thing(tm)
can I expect anything to pass into the public domain during the remainder of that life.
Scalia is one of the more right wing of the justices but he's very much a strict constuctionist... He's probably somebody would strike down the concept of fair use without a second thought...
Almost certainly (as a strict constructionist),
he would side with the Supreme Court of 1823,
when they said, "Congress may not pass any
copyright act so stringent as to abridge Freedom
of Speech nor Freedom of the Press." That
free-speech decision by the Supreme Court is where "fair use" came
from, by the way.
...I don't like laws being applied retroactively. Note - it's not retroactive as in an ex post facto law so it's not unconstitutional for that reason - Congress is within their full right to change the copyright length of a work.
No.
First, the US Constitution demands that copyright
term be limited. When Congress
retroactively expands copyright term, it breaks that limit.
As for the argument that it's not ex post facto -- well, I have heard that piece of
hair-splitting argument (I won't call it "Jesuitical"--it's not!), and it helps me to
understand where Bill Clinton's "It all depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is..." comes from.
If a work is in the public domain, how exactly would one go about profiting from it?
By publishing it with a claim that the work is again copyrighted. That is also one of the
thrusts of this case (especially with co-plaintiff
Kalmus.
I am an avid amateur singer, especially of classical music. Almost all of the publishers
(Kalmus being the exception) claim copyright
in full when they publish even pre-1800 works.
The Schubert Magnificat that I sang at
Christmas, for example, was written in 1794. But the publisher (a subsidiary of Time-Warner), claims copyright in entirety. And adds injury to
insult by using a tiny, unreadable font (that
appears to be 8-pt. Bookman).
If a comcast victim/customer sends a packet to port 80 at any IP address, it is intercepted by the Inktomi Traffic-Server, the contents of the packet are examined for the GET url and the "Host:" field. The Inktomi Traffic-Server then sends the http request on to your destination from it's address with modified content and headers... This allows them to monitor and change (or insert ads into) what you read.
Now look at that from my point of view as a content provider at the web site being requested.
Comcast is engaged in the large-scale activity of making unauthorized derivative works (with that modified content and extra ads) of (copyrighted!) web sites for commercial gain . If a few of us web-smiths nail down the evidence solidly, the court ought to make us rich off the damages! Not to mention the fun we could have following the (M$, BSA, Scientology) precedents with ex parte orders for copyright violation search!
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors...
...If you asked them, they would say to make the "limited time" as short as possible...
If Congress is free to extend the term of copyright at will, then by definition of "limited", then that term is not limited. But Congress has repeatedly extended copyright term during my lifetime, to the extent that no work has had its copyright term expire during my adult lifetime, nor can I expect any to expire during the remainder thereof. So not only does it fail the mathematical definition of "limited" (I'm a math Ph.D, and I studied under some of the best mathemtical logicians in the world; I speak with authority here!), it also fails the operational definition: there is no experiment I can perform that will distinguish between the current state of affairs and a state with unlimited copyright term.
The Constitution is the Law (it says so right here®), and the publishing industry, the Congress, and the courts are all a bunch of lawbreakers!
but for that you have to go in the 18 inch or above LCD and it costs 5000$
A quick check with Google shows a best price for the Samsung SyncMaster 240T 24" 1920x14400 LCD at
$4808.95. 20.1" 1600x1200 VS VP201mb at $1996, 21" 1600x1200 Samsung 210T at $3360, 22" 1600x1200 VS VP230MB at $3940.
I bought my wife a KDS 17 last fall for her new home system, ahd she loves it, Beautifully sharp, good contrast and viewing angle, and only about $600.
And it is compatible with other things than Macs (as the cinema display is not). The best price I can find on it is $3940; the list is $5370.
Even better is the IBM C220, at about 3Kx2.5K, but it requires a special IBM graphics card and special drivers. Moreover, it runs $21,000.
HW/SW question for slashdotters:
For my next system, I'm thinking of getting either a 1920x1440 or a 1600x1200 LCD (probably the VS VP201, instead of the 230--I can afford it better).
I like large virtual displays under Linux/XFree86 (currently I'm running 2Kx1.5K that seems to be the most that nVidia will support under XFree86). What graphics card should I choose to be able to get VIRTUAL 3200 2000?
At least the current technology for OLEDs has a problem: has a much shorter lifetime than the other competing technologies -- how would you like it if your monitor "faded out" after 6 months' use (at 40 hours a day, that's about the lifetime of current OLEDs). Sad.:-(
LCDs display much better at their design resolutions than at other resolutions (think about it--you might say that they have "hard-coded" pixels, instead of "wherever the electron beam hits.") Stores, unfortunately, don't bother to set them up like this, and instead run their display samples at some stupid resolution like 800x600 that is way off the actual resolution of the screen. Result: they look horrible.
A properly set-up LCD running at its design resolution looks sharp!
Slashdot Mirror
And when Microsoft causes Windows service packs to deactivate application software like Eudora, and replace it with other application software like Outlook, and dosot on Federal Interest Computers -- as they have done, then Microsoft has committed a felony. And should have been punished accordingly: not simply broken up into different divisions, but broken up, dissolved, and all their assets confiscated.
The claim "the virus scare is all hooey" is itself all hooey.
Correction: It should have been 1908 for the Supreme Court First Sale Doctrine decision. More precisely, it's Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339 (1908). See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=210&invol=339
The law on that point is that the authors have already received all they can expect on the basis of the first sale of the book; they cannot expect nor deserve more. This was codified by the US Supreme Court saying exactly that, back in 1910.
The theoretics is this: secondary markets (used-X sales, for whatever X you choose) are a characteristic of free markets; attempts to suppress secondary markets are (technically) exercises in fascism.
The pragmatics are this: for all that Paragraph 1 says that the authors already have theirs, the reality is that probably the publishers got it but the authors never saw it. It makes me sad; an editorial on MediaChannel argues that the habits of publishers would make a good object for antitrust action: see http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/bookcontrac t.shtml
Commentary on Copyright Law and the CBDTPA
Carlie J. Coats,Jr., Ph.D.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Copyright law must itself be lawful.
- Copyright law should not endanger the National Security of the
United States.
- Copyright law should benefit artists, authors, and the general
public.
- Copyright law should respect private property, not subvert it.
- Law should not be over-broad and vague
- Copyright law needs reform, not "more of the same".
- Access for the handicapped and disabled;
- Restoration of Constitutionally-mandated limited term for
copyright;
- Criminalization of fraudulent claim of copyright
- Limited term for copy-protection schemes.
- Public domain status for all laws.
1. COPYRIGHT LAW ITSELF MUST BE LAWFUL.The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it restricts Congress' ability to make copyright law. Senator Hollings' so-called Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) is unConstitutional on a number of grounds. It should be defeated resoundingly just for that reason.
The US Congress, in the wake of the September 11 bombings, has found that the smooth operation of digital computer and networking technology is critical to the national security. Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would enforce a digital "monoculture". This monoculture would be dominated by exactly the least secure part of digital technology--the Microsoft technology on which computer viruses and worms depend. The CBDTPA would outlaw the open source development that has led to the most secure digital systems currently available.
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would do exactly the opposite: it would benefit a only tyrannical publishing oligopoly that has attempted to suppress progress and artistic freedom at the expense of artists, authors, and the general public.
The access controls envisioned by Senator Hollings' CBDTPA do NOT prevent pirates from making fully functional bit-for-bit copies of materials; what they actually do is to put restrictions on how law-abiding users can have access to the CDs and other recordings they have purchased. This doctrine makes a mockery of private property -- even after I have bought a work, it is still not mine; it is controlled by the publisher's digital access mechanisms.
Sen. Hollings himself has admitted in interviews with Wired magazine that the provisions are deliberately vague, in order to get a bill passed with provisions that may be applied far more broadly than Congress intends or believes reasonable. Congress should not permit itself to be so deceived.
Sen. Hollings' CBDTPA is going in exactly the wrong direction, strengthening narrow corporate interests against the legitimate interests of the public. There are a number of reforms to copyright law which Congress should be considering:
The US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land. Congress only has authority to make copyright law under Article 3, Section 8, Paragraph 8 of the Constitution.:
There are two points with regard to this Constitutional requirement which are essential, in order for any bill with regard to means of digital copy protection to be legal:The term of protection must be limited. In particular, such protection must expire upon expiration of the underlying copyright. Means of protection that do not terminate themselves at that point are not permitted under the Constitution.
The protection must be afforded to the authors and inventors only. For Congress to permit such protection for works that are properly in the public domain is itself a violation of this Constitutional mandate, and should be punished at least as severely as copyright infringement. Additionally, to be legal, copyright law must respect the rest of the Constitution, and particularly the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. The First Amendment guarantees are in fact the origin of the doctrine of "fair use," as established by the Supreme Court in 1823. In its absolutism, Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would destroy fair use and the First Amendment.
The Founding Fathers did not regard "intellectual property" as a natural right, but rather as a limited legislated monopoly which was of benefit to society as a whole _if managed properly_. They had had relatively recent experiences with both no-copyright situations and with permanent Crown monopolies on publishing (and, sadly, they tended to be better versed in history than many are today.) They knew that copyright was of greatest benefit to society at large if it offered a quid pro quo: in exchange for a temporary monopoly on copying, the authors must pass their works into the public domain--the property of all of us--at the expiration of the limited term. This bargain has already been brought to the breaking point by current copyright law, especially the so-called Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA); the Senator Hollings' CBDTPA breaks it completely. That Act is purely and specifically for the narrow benefit of a few large publishing houses who fear that digital technology will break both their stranglehold on the authors and music-writers and their captivation of the public at large.
2. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD NOT ENDANGER THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
The US Congress, in the wake of the September 11 bombings, has found that the smooth operation of digital computer and networking technology is critical to the national security.
Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would mandate anationally certified standard for software of all types, including operating systems and Internet software. Only the largest "players" among the authors and distributors of these software would survive this regime; in particular, the not-for-profit "Open Source" software movement would not be allowed. The "Open Source" software movement has contributed some of the most secure systems now available, including the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems and the Apache web-server software. These would be outlawed.
What would remain is exactly the systems and software which have shown themselves most vulnerable to attack: the ones from Microsoft. Virtually all of the disruptive "virus" and "worm" attacks of the last five years have been made possible by defects in the inherent design of Microsoft operating system, server, and email and application software. This is well-documented on the web site of Kaspersky Labs (http://www.viruslist.com/eng/index.html) which maintains lists of the most active worms and viruses on a monthly basis. The computer-security situation is so serious that last fall the very staid Gartner Group management consulting firm issued a warning recommending that their clients immediately remove Microsoft internet server software and replace it with products from other vendors such as Apache and IPlanet (see http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=101 034). A year and a
half ago, the US National Security Agency concluded that it was
impossible to make Microsoft systems sufficiently secure for sensitive
applications, and constructed an especially secure configuration of the
Linux operating system for that purpose (see
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/).
As I write this (April 2), one of the stories on ZDNET news this morning has the headline, "The inherent security of the Linux environment was a key motivation for Burlington Coat Factory in choosing the operating system for a large retail point-of-sale environment." See http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/0,14179,2859688,00.html
The CBDTPA criminalizes secure Open Source software such as Apache, Linux, and FreeBSD, forcing their replacement by vulnerable Microsoft software. This is a clear and present danger to the National Security.
3. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD BENEFIT ARTISTS, AUTHORS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
The publishing houses have established a regime in which they, not the authors, have title to the copyrights. As Thomas Hauser writes for MediaChannel (q.v., http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/bookcontrac t.shtml):
The situation is similar in music recording and publishing. For $10,000, one can put together a studio recording system with capabilities that would have cost $5000,000 just a few years ago. There ought to be the opportunity for new competition in the music publishing and recording industries. But the current Big Four have a stranglehold on the situation -- a stranglehold they fear might be broken -- and by more artists than just Cyndi Lauper and the Artist Once Again Known as Prince.Senator Hollings' CBDTPA would strengthen this publishing stranglehold, both at the expense of the public (who will never hear the music that would have been produced) and at the expense of the artists themselves. The technology he espouses will be controlled exclusively by the big publishing houses; the CBDTPA creates a situation in which it will be impossible for an independent to break in. This stranglehold is already in evidence with the DMCA: the publishers have a monopoly on the CSS "content protection" system, and have made it quite clear by their statements and their actions that "no one else need apply."
4. COPYRIGHT LAW SHOULD RESPECT PRIVATE PROPERTY, NOT SUBVERT IT
With its demands for "content protection," embodied in first the DMCA and now in Senator Hollings' CBDTPA, publishing industry is making a concerted attack on the foundations of private property. If I own a children's book for my three-year-old and I own a pair of scissors, I am completely within my rights to use the scissors to "edit" the book so that only content suitable for my three-year-old remains.
Consider, however, if you own a DVD of the Disney movie "An American Tail", and want to show it to your three-year-old. But when you put it on, up comes an ad for "Dinosaurs" that frightens him. When he screams, you hit the SKIP button -- but the screen says, "Sorry, DVD action not permitted." The CBDTPA has deprived you of your right to control how the DVD can safely be viewed by your toddler,and criminalized your attempt to find any way out of the situation.
If I buy an item, it is my property. I am free to do with my property as I will, to use or misuse it according to my wishes (at least within the bounds of the law; I am not free to use it as a bludgeon on the head of my neighbor). If I am not free to do these things, then it is NOT my property, and the purported sale is not a sale but instead a fraud. This is exactly the situation the publishing industry wishes to foist off upon us, under Senator Hollings' CBDTPA.
5. LAW SHOULD NOT BE OVER-BROAD AND VAGUE
Sen. Hollings himself has admitted in interviews with Wired magazine that the provisions of his CBDTPA are deliberately vague, in order to get a bill passed with provisions that may be applied far more broadly than Congress intends or believes reasonable. Congress should not permit itself to be so deceived. This attitude is appalling in and of itself. Congress should censure him for it, not encourage it and allow it to proliferate.
6. COPYRIGHT LAW NEEDS REFORM, NOT "MORE OF THE SAME".
- Access for the handicapped and disabled.
- Restoration of Constitutionally-mandated limited term for
copyright.
- Criminalization of fraudulent claim of copyright.
- Limits for technological copy-protection schemes.
- All laws should be public domain.
SUMMARYSection 107 of the Copyright Act should be amended so as to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. It should be established by law that when a handicapped or disabled person owns a copyright work, it is fair use for that person or his agent to make enhanced copies for his use in accomodating his handicap or disability. If technological means are used for "copy protection" that prevent the creation of such enhanced copies, then the copyright owner should be required to make enhanced copies to accomodate the disabilities, and offer them for sale at exactly the same price as the "normal" copies.
The Constitution requires that copyrights have limited term. This is part of the quid pro quo negotiated by the Founders, for which a limited monopoly on content is exchanged for public accessibility and use after the expiration of that limited term. The present Copyright Act violates this in a number of ways:
Moreover, such retroactive action violates the spirit of law itself. In a civil society, law must be knowable and predictable at the time a citizen acts. Provisions that change the law regarding an action after the action itself attack the very basis of civil society, as well as being in violation of the plain reading of the Constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws. (I know, I've heard the arguments that the prohibition is only with regard to criminal law, but in my fifty years as a mathematician I've heard lots of other bogus claims as well.)At a minimum, copyright term for existing works should be restored to what that term was at the date of the work's creation. Moreover, serious consideration should be given to reducing the copyright term so that it is less than the expected lifetime of the physical media on which the works are stored. With anything less, the copyright law itself breaks the law.
Section 506(c) of the Copyright Act describes penalties for the fraudulent claim of copyright. These penalties are miniscule, entirely out of scale with the penalties for copyright infringement, and can only be sought by the US Department of Justice (unlike infringement cases, which can be brought by both civil and criminal actions). Yet fraudulent claim of copyright is stealing from the Public Domain, the legacy of us all. In fact, no such case has ever been brought, according to Stanford Law School Professor Lessig, in spite of the fact that such fraudulent claims are rampant in the publishing industry.
I am a choral singer, principally of baroque and classical music. In a recent survey of the thirty-odd pre-1800 pieces I have sung over the past decade, the four pieces published by Kalmus publishers (NY, Berlin) did NOT claim copyright in entirety. Nor did one piece type-set in 1905 by Oxford University Press. EVERY ONE of the remainder claimed, "Copyright 19xx, [publisher]. ALL rights reserved" (emphasis mine). They did NOT say "Editorial markings copyright..." nor did they (with one exception by Barenreiter) distinguish in any manner between editorial markings and the original text. Case law says that they must do both of these things.
The major work I sang most recently was the Magnificat of Franz Schubert, which Schubert completed on September 25, 1816, almost two centuries ago. The edition we are using is published by Lawson-Gould, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and claims to be copyrighted by them in its entirety, with all rights reserved. To add insult to injury, the entire work is type-set in a tiny print that appears to be the 8-Point Bookman font, and is hard for any eyes over 40 to read (much less someone with a visual disability, or under concert lighting conditions). Not only is Time-Warner stealing from the Public Domain, they are also discriminating against both those with disabilities and even the less-than-youthful.
Fraudulent claims of copyright will cease only if private citizens can enforce the laws against such fraud. Several alternative amendments would so empower us. For instance, Section 506(c) of the Copyright Act could allow a private cause of action for damages; inasmuch as a single damaged citizen may reasonably determine the cost of the attorney would outweigh the damages award in such a case, I suggest the law allow alternative damage awards of either punitive or treble damages (both allowing recovery of the injured plaintiff's attorney fees). As an alternative, fraudulent claims law should be elevated to a criminal act; punishable accompanied by fines high sufficient to act as a deterrent and allow qui tam actions by private citizens to help ferret out the criminals and act at private attorneys general.
In order to meet the Constitutional mandate of "limited term," technological copy protection schemes (as under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)) should be required to deactivate themselves at the end of the copyright term of the material they protect. Not to do so is to steal from the Public Domain, and should be punished at least as severely as copyright infringement.
Likewise the use of technological copy protection schemes to protect non-Copyright material is also an act of stealing from the Public Domain, and likewise should be punished at least as severely as copyright infringement.
Unless the DMCA is amended to meet both of these criteria, it violates the Constitutional "limited term" and "to Authors and Inventors" restrictions upon copyright. The DMCA as it stands is an unlawful law.
Section 105 of the Copyright Act should be amended so as include in the Public Domain not only "any work of the United States Government" but also all laws Federal, State, or local. Note that some trade associations have had local and state governments adopt their copyrighted codes as public laws, while still maintaining a copyright upon them. As a matter of public policy, the law should not be owned by private interest groups, and this practice of copyrighted codes of law should be forbidden.
The publishing and recording industries come to the copyright legislation table with dirty hands. They have persistently made fraudulent claims of copyright, they have knowingly used specious arguments in favor of their positions, and their own trade practices are frequently unethical and monopolistic. In the interests of preserving their monopolies, they have suborned politicians such as Sen. Hollings, hijacked copyright law and stolen from the public all those works -- 1930's jazz, for example -- that should now properly belong to the public, and should reside in the public domain. They are a bunch of thieves and robbers and do not deserve the consideration they have customarily been given.
OTOH, many of the uses claimed as fair use do not meet the SC's Freedom of Speech and Press constraint on copyright law.
fwiw.
This line-length is quite hostile to the reader; human factors experts say that line-length optimally should be on the order of 60 characters; much longer lines--such as yours--make the text very difficult to read. This principle is even evident in the HTML source for your article, which (one observes) uses indentation for readability, together with an evident right margin column of 75, and a mean line length of 41.0485 characters. You have preserved readability for *yourself* but have seriously com promised it for others.
Please reconsider!
Thank you
Copyright is a government granted limited monopoly that must (according to the US Constitution) be granted for a very specific and limited purpose and for a limited term.
The records of the writers of the Constitution unanimously make it very clear that copyright is not property and that it must be limited; that it is granted for a purely pragmatic purpose. Some, Jefferson particularly, were opposed to as strong a measures as even the original limited 14-year term (granted only after registration with the Lobrary of Congress and after payment of the appropriate fees).
That's the Constitutional picture. It is the law that is supposed to bind Congress, the President, and the courts.
The way I see it, that is an unlimited term.
First, the US Constitution demands that copyright term be limited. When Congress retroactively expands copyright term, it breaks that limit.
As for the argument that it's not ex post facto -- well, I have heard that piece of hair-splitting argument (I won't call it "Jesuitical"--it's not!), and it helps me to understand where Bill Clinton's "It all depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is..." comes from.
I am an avid amateur singer, especially of classical music. Almost all of the publishers (Kalmus being the exception) claim copyright in full when they publish even pre-1800 works. The Schubert Magnificat that I sang at Christmas, for example, was written in 1794. But the publisher (a subsidiary of Time-Warner), claims copyright in entirety. And adds injury to insult by using a tiny, unreadable font (that appears to be 8-pt. Bookman).
But the maximum penalty is $2500 (see US Code Title 17, section 506, e.g., at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/506.html and as Lessig notes elsewhere, no one has ever been prosecuted for this offense.
If the term of copyright is "limited" then
by definition Congress is not free
retroactively to extend it.
Congress has 11 times broken the Constitution on
this point.
Comcast is engaged in the large-scale activity of making unauthorized derivative works (with that modified content and extra ads) of (copyrighted!) web sites for commercial gain . If a few of us web-smiths nail down the evidence solidly, the court ought to make us rich off the damages! Not to mention the fun we could have following the (M$, BSA, Scientology) precedents with ex parte orders for copyright violation search!
The Constitution is the Law (it says so right here®), and the publishing industry, the Congress, and the courts are all a bunch of lawbreakers!
fwiw
it, Beautifully sharp, good contrast and viewing angle, and only about $600.
And it is compatible with other things than Macs (as the cinema display is not). The best price I can find on it is $3940; the list is $5370.
Even better is the IBM C220, at about 3Kx2.5K, but it requires a special IBM graphics card and special drivers. Moreover, it runs $21,000.
HW/SW question for slashdotters: For my next system, I'm thinking of getting either a 1920x1440 or a 1600x1200 LCD (probably the VS VP201, instead of the 230--I can afford it better). I like large virtual displays under Linux/XFree86 (currently I'm running 2Kx1.5K that seems to be the most that nVidia will support under XFree86). What graphics card should I choose to be able to get VIRTUAL 3200 2000?
At least the current technology for OLEDs has a problem: has a much shorter lifetime than the other competing technologies -- how would you like it if your monitor "faded out" after 6 months' use (at 40 hours a day, that's about the lifetime of current OLEDs). Sad. :-(
A properly set-up LCD running at its design resolution looks sharp!