The trick will be: does the law cover 'retransmit' or 'rebroadcast'? They don't presently broadcast, because you have to explicitly request that their server send you the data.
"broadcasting" means any transmission of programs, whether or not encrypted, by radio waves or other means of telecommunication for reception by the public by means of broadcasting receiving apparatus, but does not include any such transmission of programs that is made solely for performance or display in a public place;
Also of note is that when I agreed to the license agreement they made it sound like I was asking them to by my agent. Likely this is largely weasel words for the lawyers.
After watching the beginning of this thread and getting annoyed by clueless posts I'm going to make a stab here.
First off lets get some definitions straight. Patents and copyrights are two very different things. Patents apply to a specific method of doing some task. They need to be applied for in order to receive one. Copyrights apply to artistic/creative works. Somehow source code is covered as an artistic work. So here, movies and TV shows are covered by copyright. Copyright is much easier to obtain than a Patent. Any discussion of patents with regard to iCraveTV is probably irrelevant.
In general copyrighted material is completely controlled by the holder. The copyright holder can allow anything they want. A license is just another contract.
In the case of an average TV program, the producer sells a license to the station or network allowing the network to broadcast the show. The network pays for this privilege and in return hopes to get ad revenue.
Now the broadcaster must follow the rules of the regulator. In the case of Canada this is the CRTC. In the US it is the FCC. I don't know how conflicts between the broadcaster's governmental license and the copyright license are resolved. I guess that would be the interesting part of these law suits. When the broadcaster transmits a signal under license of the CRTC, they are agreeing to play by the rules of the CRTC. This is another key point.
Under Canadian Broadcasting rules people are allowed to rebroadcast other transmissions in their entirety. Unfortunately I have not been able to find the exact regulations that permit this however I am yet to see anything contrary. This is the single most important part of this lawsuit so don't forget it!
So what do we have? An agreement between the producer and the original broadcaster. An agreement between the CRTC and the broadcaster and rules published by the CRTC that allow iCraveTV to rebroadcast. Strictly speaking iCraveTV is following the rules.
It is also very important to note that the President of iCraveTV is no slouch. From the iCraveTV original Press Release it states how the leadership of iCraveTV is well experienced in the TV broadcast industry, including Government (CRTC?) experience.
What I don't understand is why the US objectioners filed the lawsuits in Pennsylvania. AFAIK Pennsylvania has no jurisdiction over iCraveTV. If anyone can answer this I would be interested.
Bottom line is that we have a Canadian company following legal Canadian actions that conflict with the copyright licenses of traditional broadcasters. The interesting part will be how this conflict will be resolved.
The AC beat me too the punch. I don't know about *all* jurisdictions but certainly the exceptions would have to be rare. As the AC pointed out, by incorporating (call it what you want: plc, Gmbh, inc. etc.) the company is now treated as an individual. This concept dates back to 16th Century England. The owners as a whole are not held responsible, but instead the directors ARE personally responsible. (Separations of Ownership and Management)
Also note that in Canada and US it is not always the federal government that has provisions for corporations but the state/province that recognizes corporations as well. I worked for a company in Silicon Valley that was registered in Nevada because their laws suited the owners better, even though they had no intention of doing business in Nevada.
The original thread worries itself about the actions of the employees. I'll leave the cases of renegade employees up to the courts but in general, most employees (especially in high tech) are well educated on the concept of proprietary information and that proprietary information MUST remain proprietary. But obviously leaks happen.
In general I would say the Mr. Rideau doesn't have a clue. Corporations are individual and are accountable. There are also very strict rules regulating employees acting in a capacity as agents of a company.
if the GPL is violated by someone, legal or illegal, who will represent GPL in sueing their asses???
It would be up to the copyright holder (the original author) to realize that the GPL was being violated, and that therefore his/her copyright was being violated. This copyright holder could then launch a lawsuit for copyright violation. As others noted, I'm sure the FSF would be there to back the individual up but the key concept is that everyone who releases material under the GPL is still the copyright holder.
The GPL is just that, a license. It is standard, well accepted and used by many. Though the license was created by GNU, it doesn't give GNU any special rights.
I have a hard time taking US airport security seriously until they stop unticketed passengers from going to the gates. Every other place I have been to prevents unticketed passengers from being in the secure area. Why are they letting people into the secure space who do not need to be there? Yes it is a great convenience and I don't think they should change the practice but they need to get off their high horse when it comes to security.
The other (universal) problem is the basic baggage scanner. A friend of mine work for a company that makes them. They were trying to create software that replaces the operator because test show that the current system allows approximately 50% of the 'test' packages to pass undetected. The error rate of these operator/inspectors is truly alarming.
Weird Stuff rocks. I got a 17" Sony Trinitron monitor for $100. Highly recommend weird stuff as the place to find 1 generation old hardware for bargain prices.
As a counterpoint to the posted URL, here are instructions on how to remove Windows NT.
Given that MS-DOS fdisk.exe can't even delete NTFS partions, I like this debug script that will obliterate your hard disk. very handy for automated deployments but very dangerous. This script is not for the faint of heart. Just dump the following into a text file and pipe it into debug and presto your hard disk is as good as new!
delpart.txt
a 100
int 13 rax 0301 rbx 0200 f 200 l 200 0 rcx 0001 rdx 0080 p q
It might be interesting to note that the ACM programming contest is entered by teams of three. I have not competed myself but my understanding is that it is normal for one competitor to be entering the solution for one problem while the second competitor checks over the shoulder. The third competitor is working on the next problem.
It would be interesting if their was anyone who knew what the ACM's reasoning is for having teams of three.
Here are more alternatives: ISBN Price Shopping will retrieve prices for an ISBN from a dozen or so online stores.
Even though they are in Canada I would still recommend Indigo or Chapters. I found some books that were the same price in CAD as in USD. That makes for a 33% discount over the average American price, given the exchange rate. I've used Indigo and was quite pleased.
I don't know American law but in Canadian Law it is clearly illegal regardless of your intent. The criminal code states: No person shall make, publish, print, execute, issue, distribute or circulate, including by electronic or computer-assisted means, anything in the likeness of a current bank note. There are a small number of exceptions that allow copying of bank notes.
The real solution is for Americans to employ be tter counterfeit protection in the paper they produce. It works for other countries. The new generation of bills are a definite step forward but are they good enough?
I decided that I didn't want to spend the $30/mo for cable, instead I got ADSL. I was left with 2 fuzzy channels I would get with an antenna here in Waterloo.
Now for no extra cost, I have the selection of basic cable with the same quality I had before.
In Ontario our donor card has two check boxes. 1 to donate organs and the other for donating your entire body. I will keep the organ box checked but this article reassures me that I was right in not checking the other box.
And of course this is all formally documented and somewhere there is a mil-spec describing what qualities a chicken must have for valid windshield testing. Mil-spec can be VERY frightening
Really the only product to gain from fusion is energy, not any components for nuclear weapons.
You really don't think the army would be interested in alternate energy sources? Think about it, nuclear subs aren't just about nuclear weapons, they can also be nuclear powered, meaning you don't have to haul all this diesel fuel around. Your range becomes much greater, a significant advantage.
This applies to any army vehicle, if you can replace the need for big bulky hydrocarbon stores you gain a significant advantage. You can eliminate the entire refuelling supply chain. (Or at least reduce it.)
Which options costs less? 1)Downloading an extra few kB and pressing Delete or 2)Taking a few minutes for every piece of spam I get and tracing it back to its origin.
I used to trace spam and send messages to abuse@domain.org but it is simply not worth my time.
Slashdot Mirror
It would appear they cover both, from the Broadcasting Act:
Also of note is that when I agreed to the license agreement they made it sound like I was asking them to by my agent. Likely this is largely weasel words for the lawyers.
First off lets get some definitions straight.
Patents and copyrights are two very different things. Patents apply to a specific method of doing some task. They need to be applied for in order to receive one. Copyrights apply to artistic/creative works. Somehow source code is covered as an artistic work. So here, movies and TV shows are covered by copyright. Copyright is much easier to obtain than a Patent. Any discussion of patents with regard to iCraveTV is probably irrelevant.
In general copyrighted material is completely controlled by the holder. The copyright holder can allow anything they want. A license is just another contract.
In the case of an average TV program, the producer sells a license to the station or network allowing the network to broadcast the show. The network pays for this privilege and in return hopes to get ad revenue.
Now the broadcaster must follow the rules of the regulator. In the case of Canada this is the CRTC. In the US it is the FCC. I don't know how conflicts between the broadcaster's governmental license and the copyright license are resolved. I guess that would be the interesting part of these law suits. When the broadcaster transmits a signal under license of the CRTC, they are agreeing to play by the rules of the CRTC. This is another key point.
Under Canadian Broadcasting rules people are allowed to rebroadcast other transmissions in their entirety. Unfortunately I have not been able to find the exact regulations that permit this however I am yet to see anything contrary. This is the single most important part of this lawsuit so don't forget it!
So what do we have? An agreement between the producer and the original broadcaster. An agreement between the CRTC and the broadcaster and rules published by the CRTC that allow iCraveTV to rebroadcast. Strictly speaking iCraveTV is following the rules.
It is also very important to note that the President of iCraveTV is no slouch. From the iCraveTV original Press Release it states how the leadership of iCraveTV is well experienced in the TV broadcast industry, including Government (CRTC?) experience.
What I don't understand is why the US objectioners filed the lawsuits in Pennsylvania. AFAIK Pennsylvania has no jurisdiction over iCraveTV. If anyone can answer this I would be interested.
Bottom line is that we have a Canadian company following legal Canadian actions that conflict with the copyright licenses of traditional broadcasters. The interesting part will be how this conflict will be resolved.
Ryan
Which lists 647 as Ontario. Though it is not yet fully implemented, it is probably destined for Toronto.
The AC beat me too the punch. I don't know about *all* jurisdictions but certainly the exceptions would have to be rare. As the AC pointed out, by incorporating (call it what you want: plc, Gmbh, inc. etc.) the company is now treated as an individual. This concept dates back to 16th Century England. The owners as a whole are not held responsible, but instead the directors ARE personally responsible. (Separations of Ownership and Management)
Also note that in Canada and US it is not always the federal government that has provisions for corporations but the state/province that recognizes corporations as well. I worked for a company in Silicon Valley that was registered in Nevada because their laws suited the owners better, even though they had no intention of doing business in Nevada.
The original thread worries itself about the actions of the employees. I'll leave the cases of renegade employees up to the courts but in general, most employees (especially in high tech) are well educated on the concept of proprietary information and that proprietary information MUST remain proprietary. But obviously leaks happen.
In general I would say the Mr. Rideau doesn't have a clue. Corporations are individual and are accountable. There are also very strict rules regulating employees acting in a capacity as agents of a company.
It would be up to the copyright holder (the original author) to realize that the GPL was being violated, and that therefore his/her copyright was being violated. This copyright holder could then launch a lawsuit for copyright violation. As others noted, I'm sure the FSF would be there to back the individual up but the key concept is that everyone who releases material under the GPL is still the copyright holder.
The GPL is just that, a license. It is standard, well accepted and used by many. Though the license was created by GNU, it doesn't give GNU any special rights.
The other (universal) problem is the basic baggage scanner. A friend of mine work for a company that makes them. They were trying to create software that replaces the operator because test show that the current system allows approximately 50% of the 'test' packages to pass undetected. The error rate of these operator/inspectors is truly alarming.
Weird Stuff rocks. I got a 17" Sony Trinitron monitor for $100. Highly recommend weird stuff as the place to find 1 generation old hardware for bargain prices.
Given that MS-DOS fdisk.exe can't even delete NTFS partions, I like this debug script that will obliterate your hard disk. very handy for automated deployments but very dangerous. This script is not for the faint of heart. Just dump the following into a text file and pipe it into debug and presto your hard disk is as good as new!
delpart.txt
a:\>debug.exe<delpart.txtIt would be interesting if their was anyone who knew what the ACM's reasoning is for having teams of three.
ISBN Price Shopping will retrieve prices for an ISBN from a dozen or so online stores.
Even though they are in Canada I would still recommend Indigo or Chapters. I found some books that were the same price in CAD as in USD. That makes for a 33% discount over the average American price, given the exchange rate. I've used Indigo and was quite pleased.
We all know what a wonderful idea, and how successful security through obscurity is.
The real solution is for Americans to employ be tter counterfeit protection in the paper they produce. It works for other countries. The new generation of bills are a definite step forward but are they good enough?
I decided that I didn't want to spend the $30/mo for cable, instead I got ADSL. I was left with 2 fuzzy channels I would get with an antenna here in Waterloo.
Now for no extra cost, I have the selection of basic cable with the same quality I had before.
In Ontario our donor card has two check boxes. 1 to donate organs and the other for donating your entire body. I will keep the organ box checked but this article reassures me that I was right in not checking the other box.
And of course this is all formally documented and somewhere there is a mil-spec describing what qualities a chicken must have for valid windshield testing. Mil-spec can be VERY frightening
You really don't think the army would be interested in alternate energy sources? Think about it, nuclear subs aren't just about nuclear weapons, they can also be nuclear powered, meaning you don't have to haul all this diesel fuel around. Your range becomes much greater, a significant advantage.
This applies to any army vehicle, if you can replace the need for big bulky hydrocarbon stores you gain a significant advantage. You can eliminate the entire refuelling supply chain. (Or at least reduce it.)
I used to trace spam and send messages to abuse@domain.org but it is simply not worth my time.