No, the original poster is correct. Bioware, the developer of Neverwinter Nights, made the original Infinity Engine and developed Baldur's Gate, Tales of the Sword Coast (the BG expansion), and Baldur's Gate II. All of those games were distributed through Interplay; I think that Interplay also procured some of the voice talent and did QA, but all of the development was done at Bioware.
Black Isle, Interplay's RPG division, used Bioware's Infinity Engine, and developed and distributed Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and Heart of Winter (the IWD expansion).
All of the games share a lot of common elements besides using the Infinity Engine. For example, BG2 has a load of monsters from IWD, and Heart of Winter contains a lot of the engine modifications and other features from BG2. While there's a lot of synergy between the two companies, though, they are quite separate.
Plaintiffs sued in District Court, who ruled against them. They appealed to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who ruled against them 2-1 (the decision linked). The appeal was reviewed de novo, which means that the Court of Appeals started with a fresh slate (as opposed to the way an appellate court reviews findings of fact; for instance, the D.C. Circuit should theoretically give deference to Judge Jackson's findings of fact in the Microsoft case).
Plaintiffs can submit a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, but there's no guarantee that the Supremes will agree to review the case. The Supreme Court rejects most petitions for certiorari. In all likelihood, the D.C. Circuit's decision is the final decision.
Although it's named for Sonny Bono, let's not forget the real purpose of extending copyrights from life of author +50 years to life of author +70 years.
There's a teensy-weensy media conglomorate whose flagship copyright was about to expire. Walt Disney died in 1966, so, under the old system, the copyrights on his works (ie, Mickey) would have expried in 2006. But with the Bono Act, Disney has awhile until it starts getting (even more) creative with the lobbying and the legal arguments.
Of course, even after copyright expiration, trademarks are still enforceable. But that's another can of worms.
I think the big difference is that Deja was providing a useful, free (ad supported), more-or-less unique service to the net at large.
Since Deja was floundering financially, the alternative is losing the service altogether. Think of Google as a "white knight" -- although that conjures up all sorts of bad connotations from corporate raiders.
I'm sure the brand name is worth quite a bit (at least compared to some other dotcom brands out there).
But I think there definitely is a lot of value in the old archives. Google's help screens say that they're using Google's archive of Usenet since August 2000. Who knows how many people have as comprehensive an archive of Usenet posts going as far back as Deja's?
Further, some people that are really protective about distribution rights have "nuked" their posts on the Deja archive (in addition to specifying X-No-Archive in the header). I would guess Deja's "nuke" list is similarly valuable "property", whose use might save a Usenet archiver some legal headaches.
One of the few downsides I can think of to Deja[News] becoming groups.google.com is that all of the old links to specific messages on deja.com no longer work. (For instance, if you knew the Deja ID number of a Usenet post, you could provide a URL and link directly to it.) All internal links to deja.com now seem to point to the front page of groups.google.com.
I guess people that practiced direct linking to Deja's archive are SOL for now -- the message ID URLs seem to be different.
Interestingly, Google's beta help page says that they've been archiving Usenet themself since August 2000...
The version at groups.google.com already is up and running. It only goes back 6 months, but that's what we were getting from Deja.com for the past few months now.
I'm surprised no one has commented on the first Pepsi ad. The Kasparov one was funny, but the one with Bob Dole spoofing his role as Viagra spokesman was priceless. (Oops, that was the Mastercard spot...)
Seriously, is that the new Pepsi schtick? Celebrities mocking themselves....At least it's better than the curly-haired kid.
The lower court decision (linked from/.) discusses this: schools made the following requests:
Radford English professor requested access in order to write book on censorship, William and Mary English professor requested access relating to 18th Century studies, Sociology professor requested access for studies of deviant behavior and social control, Machine Shop Supervisor requested access for study concerning personal medical problems. (cites and parens omitted)
Furthermore, "the paperwork associated with approval requests appears to be minimal, and approvals, when granted, are granted swiftly, some within twenty-four hours."
Certainly, the approval of a blanket request from hospitals or schools would probably satisfy a lot of/. readers. But the sticking point is probably this: what if a doctor needs access right now, and couldn't afford to wait? The regulators are given a huge amount of discretion to turn people down...
It's also important to note that the appellate court decision came out of the 4th Circuit, known amongst legal circles as one of the most conservative in the nation.
As a matter of fact, Clinton just made a recess appointment of Roger Gregory, a black judge, to the 4th Circuit (previous nominations had been held up by certain Senators...) Previously, the Fourth Circuit had been the only circuit to never have a black member.
There, the 4th Circuit states:
"But, the Act does not prohibit all access by state employees to such materials, for a state agency head may give permission for a state employee to access such information on computers owned or leased by the Commonwealth if the agency head deems such access to be required in connection with a bona fide research project or other undertaking."
So it looks like research hospitals are still allowed to access materials, as long as they get authorization.
Actually, in Feist, fake listings from the white pages were copied. There were a thousand or so entries directly lifted that were impossible to verify.
Although I suppose the copying of the four "made up" names is a technical infringement, since making up names is probably sufficiently original to warrant a copyright...But that wasn't addressed in the case.
Microsoft is now establishing copyright control on their bugs. Therefore, they could imvoke the DMCA on anyone, any site, that discloses, analyzes, comments on them, etc.
I don't think so. IF Microsoft implemented some sort of weak protection (ie, only allowing paying customers to see the bulletins), and someone hacked the protection, the act of circumvention (hacking) would be a violation of the DMCA.
But disclosing the content of the bulletins themselves (and analyzing and commenting on them) is the same issue that has been bandied about on this thread -- we have fair use to criticize, quote facts, etc.
Look at it this way: the DMCA applies to deCSS. It's a violation of the DMCA to circumvent the CSS on DVD's. But there's no DMCA violation involved on other copyright violations of the CSS-protected material.
Here's an example. Hacker uses deCSS to decode a DVD. That's a DMCA violation. Trader distributes the decoded version that Hacker mailed to him. That's a copyright violation, but Trader did not circumvent access controls, nor did he traffic in circumvention technology. So Trader doesn't violate the DMCA.
This is hair-splitting, admittedly (and should not be taken as legal advice).
But while I think it's fair to be worried about the DMCA and UCITA, this vanilla enforcement of copyrights by Microsoft, while draconian and unwise, shouldn't lead to paranoia and hysteria.
If the author of the bug report is a Microsoft employee, writing the report as part of his job, then it's a "work for hire", and Microsoft is considered the copyright holder.
Does this mean that I violate the DCMA if I tell you [...]
I fail to see how the DMCA actually applies to this case at all. The DMCA (or at least the part of it that/. readers usually care about) forbids the circumvention of access control methods.
Microsoft is publishing its security bulletins in plaintext on a publicly-accessible web page. No access control. No DMCA implications.
Actually, the phone book is one of the few things that isn't copyrightable. The mere alphabetical arrangement of names isn't sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection.
Please, let's use the right language here. Of course Microsoft has a copyright in the text of the bug report -- copyright subsists in all original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium.
If you write something, and it's not something unoriginal like an alphabetical list of names, you have a copyright in it. Thus, you have certain exclusive rights with respect to your work.
What Microsoft is doing is ENFORCING their copyright on the bulletin, by saying that no one can redistribute it. Since the bulletin is posted on the website, they've given an implied license for people to view it. Whether there's also an implied license for someone to take it from the website and copy it onto mailing lists is debatable; Microsoft is arguing that they can control further distribution.
Certainly, fair use allows Bugtraq,/., whomever, to excerpt parts of the work, and distribute it for the purpose of criticism or academic study. Similarly, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the facts underlying the work can't be copyrighted at all (although they may be trade secrets of some sort; but that's another can of worms).
There's a big difference between this copyright enforcement and the protection of trademarks or trade secrets, which a lot of the posts seem to be confused about.
IAAL. So there. (But this should not be construed as legal advice, etc. etc.)
Jamie -- I don't understand how you can argue that the guy was treated fairly when he didn't respond. Sure, Guineness may have raised some specious arguments, such as anger and eyeball-stealing, but if no one stands up and tells the judge that the argument is bunk, who's to say it isn't?
They threw the book at him because he didn't bother to respond. How is that unfair?
You don't think that maybe they gave a sample trademark registration? The pieces of paper that registrations are filed on are far less tasty than the beverages you're probably thinking about.
We really don't know if there was an offer to buy the domain names. For all we know, he could've asked them for a million bucks (and then they would've said, "See you in court!"). It's not in the decision, and we just don't have all of the facts available to us. But that never stops people from forming opinions...
WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization. It administers international intellectual property treaties (such as the WIPO copyright treaty and the Trademark Law Treaty of 1994).
ICANN has given WIPO the authority to arbitrate domain name disputes. ICANN-accredited registrars have to agree to WIPO arbitration; if you register a domain (under ICANN policy), you generally agree to WIPO jurisdiction.
If you read the decision, you'll notice that the domain owner never filed a response to Guinness. This is the legal equivalent of rolling over and playing dead. If you don't even bother to put up a fight, you'll lose.
Because the domain owner never responded, the panel had nothing to go on but what Guinness told them. So, for instance, according to the panel:
There is no evidence before this Administrative Panel that the Respondent intends to use the said domain names as the addresses or links to any sites which could be described as "complaint sites". For this reason the issues canvassed in any of the decisions relating to free speech are not relevant in this case.
While this seems to go against common sense, that's what happens when the panel only hears one side of the argument. Just another result of the adversarial legal system, I suppose...
Slashdot Mirror
but for a married, 35 year old father of two, "social life" is really churches, youth football leagues and PTO meetings.
/. readers skimming this message thought he was referring to the United States Patent and Trademark Office when he mentioned "PTO meetings"?
Ok, how many other
Oops. Forgot in my first reply -- here's an article that explains this all -- http://www.gamespy.com/articles/january01/blackisl e/
No, the original poster is correct. Bioware, the developer of Neverwinter Nights, made the original Infinity Engine and developed Baldur's Gate, Tales of the Sword Coast (the BG expansion), and Baldur's Gate II. All of those games were distributed through Interplay; I think that Interplay also procured some of the voice talent and did QA, but all of the development was done at Bioware.
Black Isle, Interplay's RPG division, used Bioware's Infinity Engine, and developed and distributed Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and Heart of Winter (the IWD expansion).
All of the games share a lot of common elements besides using the Infinity Engine. For example, BG2 has a load of monsters from IWD, and Heart of Winter contains a lot of the engine modifications and other features from BG2. While there's a lot of synergy between the two companies, though, they are quite separate.
A fully linked opinion is available on Findlaw at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?c ourt=DC&navby=case&no=995430A.
Plaintiffs sued in District Court, who ruled against them. They appealed to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who ruled against them 2-1 (the decision linked). The appeal was reviewed de novo, which means that the Court of Appeals started with a fresh slate (as opposed to the way an appellate court reviews findings of fact; for instance, the D.C. Circuit should theoretically give deference to Judge Jackson's findings of fact in the Microsoft case).
Plaintiffs can submit a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, but there's no guarantee that the Supremes will agree to review the case. The Supreme Court rejects most petitions for certiorari. In all likelihood, the D.C. Circuit's decision is the final decision.
This should not be interpreted as legal advice.
Although it's named for Sonny Bono, let's not forget the real purpose of extending copyrights from life of author +50 years to life of author +70 years.
There's a teensy-weensy media conglomorate whose flagship copyright was about to expire. Walt Disney died in 1966, so, under the old system, the copyrights on his works (ie, Mickey) would have expried in 2006. But with the Bono Act, Disney has awhile until it starts getting (even more) creative with the lobbying and the legal arguments.
Of course, even after copyright expiration, trademarks are still enforceable. But that's another can of worms.
I think the big difference is that Deja was providing a useful, free (ad supported), more-or-less unique service to the net at large.
Since Deja was floundering financially, the alternative is losing the service altogether. Think of Google as a "white knight" -- although that conjures up all sorts of bad connotations from corporate raiders.
I'm sure the brand name is worth quite a bit (at least compared to some other dotcom brands out there).
But I think there definitely is a lot of value in the old archives. Google's help screens say that they're using Google's archive of Usenet since August 2000. Who knows how many people have as comprehensive an archive of Usenet posts going as far back as Deja's?
Further, some people that are really protective about distribution rights have "nuked" their posts on the Deja archive (in addition to specifying X-No-Archive in the header). I would guess Deja's "nuke" list is similarly valuable "property", whose use might save a Usenet archiver some legal headaches.
One of the few downsides I can think of to Deja[News] becoming groups.google.com is that all of the old links to specific messages on deja.com no longer work. (For instance, if you knew the Deja ID number of a Usenet post, you could provide a URL and link directly to it.) All internal links to deja.com now seem to point to the front page of groups.google.com.
I guess people that practiced direct linking to Deja's archive are SOL for now -- the message ID URLs seem to be different.
Interestingly, Google's beta help page says that they've been archiving Usenet themself since August 2000...
The version at groups.google.com already is up and running. It only goes back 6 months, but that's what we were getting from Deja.com for the past few months now.
I'm surprised no one has commented on the first Pepsi ad. The Kasparov one was funny, but the one with Bob Dole spoofing his role as Viagra spokesman was priceless. (Oops, that was the Mastercard spot...)
Seriously, is that the new Pepsi schtick? Celebrities mocking themselves....At least it's better than the curly-haired kid.
The lower court decision (linked from /.) discusses this: schools made the following requests:
/. readers. But the sticking point is probably this: what if a doctor needs access right now, and couldn't afford to wait? The regulators are given a huge amount of discretion to turn people down...
Radford English professor requested access in order to write book on censorship, William and Mary English professor requested access relating to 18th Century studies, Sociology professor requested access for studies of deviant behavior and social control, Machine Shop Supervisor requested access for study concerning personal medical problems. (cites and parens omitted)
Furthermore, "the paperwork associated with approval requests appears to be minimal, and approvals, when granted, are granted swiftly, some within twenty-four hours."
Certainly, the approval of a blanket request from hospitals or schools would probably satisfy a lot of
It's also important to note that the appellate court decision came out of the 4th Circuit, known amongst legal circles as one of the most conservative in the nation.
. html.
As a matter of fact, Clinton just made a recess appointment of Roger Gregory, a black judge, to the 4th Circuit (previous nominations had been held up by certain Senators...) Previously, the Fourth Circuit had been the only circuit to never have a black member.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/politics/28JUDG
It'll be interesting to see what Bush does with this appointment. Since it's a recess appointment, Gregory will serve for at least a year.
The decision that upheld the Virginia law (by the 4th Circuit) (which the Supreme Court declined to review) is available at:h tml.
http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/feb99/981481.p.
There, the 4th Circuit states:
"But, the Act does not prohibit all access by state employees to such materials, for a state agency head may give permission for a state employee to access such information on computers owned or leased by the Commonwealth if the agency head deems such access to be required in connection with a bona fide research project or other undertaking."
So it looks like research hospitals are still allowed to access materials, as long as they get authorization.
Actually, in Feist, fake listings from the white pages were copied. There were a thousand or so entries directly lifted that were impossible to verify.
Although I suppose the copying of the four "made up" names is a technical infringement, since making up names is probably sufficiently original to warrant a copyright...But that wasn't addressed in the case.
Microsoft is now establishing copyright control on their bugs. Therefore, they could imvoke the DMCA on anyone, any site, that discloses, analyzes, comments on them, etc.
I don't think so. IF Microsoft implemented some sort of weak protection (ie, only allowing paying customers to see the bulletins), and someone hacked the protection, the act of circumvention (hacking) would be a violation of the DMCA.
But disclosing the content of the bulletins themselves (and analyzing and commenting on them) is the same issue that has been bandied about on this thread -- we have fair use to criticize, quote facts, etc.
Look at it this way: the DMCA applies to deCSS. It's a violation of the DMCA to circumvent the CSS on DVD's. But there's no DMCA violation involved on other copyright violations of the CSS-protected material.
Here's an example. Hacker uses deCSS to decode a DVD. That's a DMCA violation. Trader distributes the decoded version that Hacker mailed to him. That's a copyright violation, but Trader did not circumvent access controls, nor did he traffic in circumvention technology. So Trader doesn't violate the DMCA.
This is hair-splitting, admittedly (and should not be taken as legal advice).
But while I think it's fair to be worried about the DMCA and UCITA, this vanilla enforcement of copyrights by Microsoft, while draconian and unwise, shouldn't lead to paranoia and hysteria.
If the author of the bug report is a Microsoft employee, writing the report as part of his job, then it's a "work for hire", and Microsoft is considered the copyright holder.
Does this mean that I violate the DCMA if I tell you [...]
/. readers usually care about) forbids the circumvention of access control methods.
I fail to see how the DMCA actually applies to this case at all. The DMCA (or at least the part of it that
Microsoft is publishing its security bulletins in plaintext on a publicly-accessible web page. No access control. No DMCA implications.
Actually, the phone book is one of the few things that isn't copyrightable. The mere alphabetical arrangement of names isn't sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection.
See Feist v. Rural Tel. Svc. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).
Please, let's use the right language here. Of course Microsoft has a copyright in the text of the bug report -- copyright subsists in all original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium.
/., whomever, to excerpt parts of the work, and distribute it for the purpose of criticism or academic study. Similarly, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the facts underlying the work can't be copyrighted at all (although they may be trade secrets of some sort; but that's another can of worms).
If you write something, and it's not something unoriginal like an alphabetical list of names, you have a copyright in it. Thus, you have certain exclusive rights with respect to your work.
What Microsoft is doing is ENFORCING their copyright on the bulletin, by saying that no one can redistribute it. Since the bulletin is posted on the website, they've given an implied license for people to view it. Whether there's also an implied license for someone to take it from the website and copy it onto mailing lists is debatable; Microsoft is arguing that they can control further distribution.
Certainly, fair use allows Bugtraq,
There's a big difference between this copyright enforcement and the protection of trademarks or trade secrets, which a lot of the posts seem to be confused about.
IAAL. So there. (But this should not be construed as legal advice, etc. etc.)
Jamie -- I don't understand how you can argue that the guy was treated fairly when he didn't respond. Sure, Guineness may have raised some specious arguments, such as anger and eyeball-stealing, but if no one stands up and tells the judge that the argument is bunk, who's to say it isn't?
They threw the book at him because he didn't bother to respond. How is that unfair?
You don't think that maybe they gave a sample trademark registration? The pieces of paper that registrations are filed on are far less tasty than the beverages you're probably thinking about.
:)
Maybe I was missing the tag.
We really don't know if there was an offer to buy the domain names. For all we know, he could've asked them for a million bucks (and then they would've said, "See you in court!"). It's not in the decision, and we just don't have all of the facts available to us. But that never stops people from forming opinions...
WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization. It administers international intellectual property treaties (such as the WIPO copyright treaty and the Trademark Law Treaty of 1994).
_ content_frame=/about-wipo/en/gib. htm and at http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains /gu ide/index.html
ICANN has given WIPO the authority to arbitrate domain name disputes. ICANN-accredited registrars have to agree to WIPO arbitration; if you register a domain (under ICANN policy), you generally agree to WIPO jurisdiction.
More info is at http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/index.html?wipo
If you read the decision, you'll notice that the domain owner never filed a response to Guinness. This is the legal equivalent of rolling over and playing dead. If you don't even bother to put up a fight, you'll lose.
Because the domain owner never responded, the panel had nothing to go on but what Guinness told them. So, for instance, according to the panel:
There is no evidence before this Administrative Panel that the Respondent intends to use the said domain names as the addresses or links to any sites which could be described as "complaint sites". For this reason the issues canvassed in any of the decisions relating to free speech are not relevant in this case.
While this seems to go against common sense, that's what happens when the panel only hears one side of the argument. Just another result of the adversarial legal system, I suppose...