Does listing sites criticizing the company as "nudity", "violence", or "profanity" constitute libel? It seems to me that Mattel has opened itself up to a monstrous class action suit here. They are deliberately misrepresenting the content of these sites to their customers.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on that account...the only problem is that as far as i know (IANAL), a libel suit will only have real grounds if the acts in question are in fact illegal. While nudity, profanity, and violence may be distasteful to some, they are not illegal in their own right. now if mattel were to, say, put them in the same category as kiddie porn or some comparable illegal act (and explicitly state it as such), then there would be a ruckus.
I think that the best response to this censorship is a whack-the-mole a la DeCSS--it's obviously impossible for mattel to take down/blacklist every single one of them. Furthermore, if mattel begins blacklisting thousands of sites or entire domains in order to save face it will only serve to discredit them.
With any luck, they will run themselves into the ground before too long.
This seems similar to a system i read about that let parents keep track of their teenagers' driving habits...it entailed the use of sensors to monitor things like speed, brake temperature (for hard braking), and g-forces (for hard turning/accelleration), etc. The parents could transfer this info into a computer for veiwing, and punish their kids accordingly;)
It's still the same kind of system, it's just a lot more efficient.
Actually, the reverse is true. Back when a programmer only had 256K to work with, you can bet that they were big on optimization. Now they have a lot more legroom, and many developers don't realize/don't care that most of the world doesn't have a brand new PC, and assume that we're all running Cool Athlon 900s. So a little bloatware is forgiveable because we've all got kickass hardware, right?
Otherwise, you're right. The underlying technology hasn't changed; it's just gotten smaller and now there's more of it.
Well, that's all great but...what's your point? Yes, we all agree that the recording industry execs are greedy bastards. But yours seems to be a rather long-winded complaint for what little was said. I'm very proud of you for having discovered your thesaurus--but if you have something worthwhile to say, SAY IT and don't easte my bandwidth with something like this.
Companies specializing in DNA sequencing have applied for patents on hundreds of thousands of sequences, including genes and gene fragments. PTO examines all sequence applications for fulfillment of four major patenting criteria: novelty, nonobviousness, usefulness, and enablement (i.e., detailed enough to enable one skilled in the field to use it for the stated purpose).
Human Genome News, July-September 1996; 8:(1)
I am a student at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter MN) and recently attended the Nobel Conference held here annually. This year's topic was Genetics--the opening speaker was Dr. J. Craig Venter from the Institute of Genomic Research, Rockville, Md., also the president of Celera, Inc. It would seem that many/.ers have misunderstood the purpose of patenting gene sequences--A patent on a sequence itself is possible only if the researchers can prove some distinguishing characteristic or application that sets it apart from other sequences. Given that 99.9% of the human genome is identical from one person to the next, it would prove very unlikely that the gene for a trait could be isolated; since many factors contribute to heredity and one sequence can affect a large number of biological variables, patenting the use of any one sequence would be useless in application.
Nevermind the fact that Intel (god forbid) has to play catch-up for once in its life, or that coppermine has nothing to do with copper junction technology. Nevermind that I'm writing this from a p133 because i'm a poor college student. The real winners in this situation are you & me & everyone who buys a computer in the near future, as anyone who's checked out the celeron and other non-top-shit processor prices lately can attest to. --cabr1to--
what strikes me as interesting is the fact that IDG really feels that threatened by an internet mailing list. The last time I checked, knowledge could not be patented. I suppose that they have also patented the word "dummy" too... -cabr1to
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Does listing sites criticizing the company as "nudity", "violence", or "profanity" constitute libel? It seems to me that Mattel has opened itself up to a monstrous class action suit here. They are deliberately misrepresenting the content of these sites to their customers.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on that account...the only problem is that as far as i know (IANAL), a libel suit will only have real grounds if the acts in question are in fact illegal. While nudity, profanity, and violence may be distasteful to some, they are not illegal in their own right. now if mattel were to, say, put them in the same category as kiddie porn or some comparable illegal act (and explicitly state it as such), then there would be a ruckus.
I think that the best response to this censorship is a whack-the-mole a la DeCSS--it's obviously impossible for mattel to take down/blacklist every single one of them. Furthermore, if mattel begins blacklisting thousands of sites or entire domains in order to save face it will only serve to discredit them.
With any luck, they will run themselves into the ground before too long.
Zeus!
This seems similar to a system i read about that let parents keep track of their teenagers' driving habits...it entailed the use of sensors to monitor things like speed, brake temperature (for hard braking), and g-forces (for hard turning/accelleration), etc. The parents could transfer this info into a computer for veiwing, and punish their kids accordingly ;)
Anyone else heard of this?
There's a difference. the mcdonalds lawsuit was frivolous, inane and this was actually a worthwhile use of our nation's legal system.
It's still the same kind of system, it's just a lot more efficient.
Actually, the reverse is true. Back when a programmer only had 256K to work with, you can bet that they were big on optimization. Now they have a lot more legroom, and many developers don't realize/don't care that most of the world doesn't have a brand new PC, and assume that we're all running Cool Athlon 900s. So a little bloatware is forgiveable because we've all got kickass hardware, right?
Otherwise, you're right. The underlying technology hasn't changed; it's just gotten smaller and now there's more of it.
Well, that's all great but...what's your point? Yes, we all agree that the recording industry execs are greedy bastards. But yours seems to be a rather long-winded complaint for what little was said. I'm very proud of you for having discovered your thesaurus--but if you have something worthwhile to say, SAY IT and don't easte my bandwidth with something like this.
Companies specializing in DNA sequencing have applied for patents on hundreds of thousands of sequences, including genes and gene fragments. PTO examines all sequence applications for fulfillment of four major patenting criteria: novelty, nonobviousness, usefulness, and enablement (i.e., detailed enough to enable one skilled in the field to use it for the stated purpose).
/.ers have misunderstood the purpose of patenting gene sequences--A patent on a sequence itself is possible only if the researchers can prove some distinguishing characteristic or application that sets it apart from other sequences. Given that 99.9% of the human genome is identical from one person to the next, it would prove very unlikely that the gene for a trait could be isolated; since many factors contribute to heredity and one sequence can affect a large number of biological variables, patenting the use of any one sequence would be useless in application.
Human Genome News, July-September 1996; 8:(1)
I am a student at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter MN) and recently attended the Nobel Conference held here annually. This year's topic was Genetics--the opening speaker was Dr. J. Craig Venter from the Institute of Genomic Research, Rockville, Md., also the president of Celera, Inc. It would seem that many
anyone got any pointers?
Nevermind the fact that Intel (god forbid) has to play catch-up for once in its life, or that coppermine has nothing to do with copper junction technology. Nevermind that I'm writing this from a p133 because i'm a poor college student. The real winners in this situation are you & me & everyone who buys a computer in the near future, as anyone who's checked out the celeron and other non-top-shit processor prices lately can attest to. --cabr1to--
what strikes me as interesting is the fact that IDG really feels that threatened by an internet mailing list. The last time I checked, knowledge could not be patented. I suppose that they have also patented the word "dummy" too... -cabr1to