You want all that stuff? Just buy a USB splitter - I've got one and it works just fine and they cost next to nothing.
Besides, you miss the point. As stated most people don't give a toss about most of the things you talk about. They watch TV on their TV, they don't have Bluray player for their TV let alone for their computer, they don't fill their existing hard drives so they don't need a second one.
And even if they did need any of this they could just get the USB extender, get USB devices and it all still works.
Microsoft aren't Apple's main competitor. They're not a software house, they're a consumer electronics company.
Besides, a large part of the reason Apple don't suffer the same problems as Microsoft is because they control the hardware. They don't have to worry about supporting a million graphics cards, they only have to support what they choose to use. Start supporting clones (let alone a bunch of versions of "OS X lite") and within a couple of releases they'll be mired in compatibility issues.
In exchange for this what do they get? Currently they make enough on a Mac that they'd have to shift a bundle of clones to make the same and a load of people who would have bought a Mac will now buy a clone. The clone manufactures once licenced will start demanding big discounts (copies of Windows ship to OEM's for as little as $25).
Say it's $50 for an OEM OS X - they're going to have to sell 5 clones for every mac the lose just to break even. And the reason Apple don't sell more isn't really down to cost anyway, it's not as price elastic as you make out. As often as not it's down to people not wanting to change (for a load of good reasons, good and bad, I spent 18 years as a loyal Microsofty and never regretted it, it was absolutely the right thing at the time), it's about compatibility (perceived and actual), it's about platform standardisation (among corporates) and it's even about brand loyalty to Microsoft.
And for all the "urgh, look how shitty Vista is" it's the fastest selling version of Windows ever. Most people have, as ever, just dropped their trousers, bent over and, without the so much as a drop of lube, upgraded.
The reality is that there isn't going to be a massive scene change because of Vista, regardless of what Apple do, the movement away from MS (if it happens) will be gradual.
If you look at Rowling's history in matters of licensing, you'll tend to find that if she's anything she's a control freak rather than greedy. The contract with WB for the films gives her a near unprecidented level of control over the films, and she personally reviews many of the merchandising proposals.
Her concerns tend to be around keeping Harry "pure" - that is retaining control over how everything around it is presented, rather than wringing every last penny out of it.
In this instance it will be about wanting a single authorative lexicon, rather than multiple competing ones, some of which will not fit her vision of things, meet the quality standards she wants or whatever.
I'm not saying that this is right/legal/good, just that claims of greed show little understanding about the individual they are being made against and are probably wrong.
agreed, there needs to be damage, though as the allegation is that he's a rapist and a heroin trafficker, i don't think establishing damage will be too hard.
supposedly murray relishes the idea of getting certain people (possibly including) usmanov in court, under oath and grilling them. i suspect it's one of the reasons that usmanov isn't biting at the moment.
To be clear he was removed from post, not fired. He remained an employee of the UK government. The government claimed that it was for operational reasons and nothing to do with him claiming that the British security services had used information obtained by the Uzbek's through torture.
While there was talk of disciplinary action he eventually agreed to resign having negociated a very sizable settlement.
His blog did have a fairly detailed decription of it before it was taken down.
The onus in the UK in a civil case (as opposed to in a criminal case) is on the person saying something to show it to be true (in a criminal case the onus is on the prosecution), and the standard of proof is generally lower than the "beyond reasonable doubt" needed in a criminal case.
The interesting thing though is that Murray has been in touch with Usmanov's lawyers and asked them to sue him for libel and made sure that they know where to find him, and he has publicised this invitation in comments in the national press. So far they've declined to do so.
There's obviously nothing in law but I wonder if there should be some sort of "piss or get off the pot" law saying that where the root of the libel is clear you can not continue fighting those publicising it if you decline to fit the root.
The other interesting part of this is that his webhost unintentionally took down a whole load of other sites sharing the same server when they took his down (i'm guessing they panicked and killed the server as the fastest way to comply). One of those taken down was prominent right wing Member of Parliament and candidate for the London Mayor Boris Johnson. Needless to say this has further fuelled publicity around it.
that's not the offer. that's informing you of what you've signed up to so you can't deny knowledge.
the offer in the purchase of a dvd is when you go up and offer them the money. the acceptance is when they take the money and pass you the DVD. (note that YOU make the offer not them - what they do when they advertise it at price x is called an invitation to treat but is not an offer)
you might be able to request a refund (effectively voiding the contract) if you can show that you wouldn't have made the offer had you been aware of the terms but i'm not 100% sure how that would work in theory (though in practice most good retailers would just roll their eyes and give your money back in exchange for the DVD in resalable condition).
think of the parallels with a CD. if being made aware of the terms were part of the offer then there would be no contract involved in purchasing a CD as there is no explicit offer and acceptance of the license.
if memory serves you have to avoid bankrupcy, imprisonment and a few similar things for the three years to qualify, but yes, ultimately it is possible to get an MA from cambridge in law (and indeed in almost any other subjects - even sciences award BAs and MAs).
and he's need more qualifications than that to practice law here in the UK, let alone in the US.
i believe that in this instance "silence" is slightly misleading.
what it means is silence or inaction. you can't be bound by "if i don't hear from you in two day's i'll assume your acceptance", however you can accept terms implicitely, that is by acting as if you had accepted them.
this means that if you know about the existance of a licence or copyright, you can not choose to ignore it other than by not using the software. if you use/adapt/distribute the software your actions in doing so are sufficient to indicate legal acceptance and bind you to the licence terms (assuming that they're legal and reasonable).
Your slippery slope actually "leads" to one example which is basically the same as the case in question and two that are already illegal - lending CDs is not covered in the "licence" that goes with standard CD ownership and you're not allowed to (and it doesn't apply to libraries who have permission via the agreements they have), and publishing copyrighted material which you do not have rights to publish certainly is certainly illegal and should be.
The need to pass ownership of physical product containing material (as in CDs) was merely a function of a historical inability to distribute the material any other way. It was never intended that you gained the rights to use and redistribute the material, the fact you could and the implication with it was just an accident of the technology available.
As for the ruling, it's perfectly fair and most of the parallels people are throwing around are nonsense. If I went and burned a load of music CDs and left them on a table I was sat at in a bar and made it clear that i wouldn' object when people took them I'd rightly be seen as distributing. Why? Because given a choice I've decided to do things that allow others to take the material and have acted on that choice (it didn't just happen).
For any decent P2P client (including those being referred to here and all the most common ones) making your music collection available is something you have to do actively, it doesn't just happen. If you choose to do it then you have actively chosen to make copyright material available. Given that what is the defence?
And that's also why it's not a ruling against P2P - it's a ruling against the way some people choose to use P2P.
Slashdot Mirror
You want all that stuff? Just buy a USB splitter - I've got one and it works just fine and they cost next to nothing.
Besides, you miss the point. As stated most people don't give a toss about most of the things you talk about. They watch TV on their TV, they don't have Bluray player for their TV let alone for their computer, they don't fill their existing hard drives so they don't need a second one.
And even if they did need any of this they could just get the USB extender, get USB devices and it all still works.
Microsoft aren't Apple's main competitor. They're not a software house, they're a consumer electronics company.
Besides, a large part of the reason Apple don't suffer the same problems as Microsoft is because they control the hardware. They don't have to worry about supporting a million graphics cards, they only have to support what they choose to use. Start supporting clones (let alone a bunch of versions of "OS X lite") and within a couple of releases they'll be mired in compatibility issues.
In exchange for this what do they get? Currently they make enough on a Mac that they'd have to shift a bundle of clones to make the same and a load of people who would have bought a Mac will now buy a clone. The clone manufactures once licenced will start demanding big discounts (copies of Windows ship to OEM's for as little as $25).
Say it's $50 for an OEM OS X - they're going to have to sell 5 clones for every mac the lose just to break even. And the reason Apple don't sell more isn't really down to cost anyway, it's not as price elastic as you make out. As often as not it's down to people not wanting to change (for a load of good reasons, good and bad, I spent 18 years as a loyal Microsofty and never regretted it, it was absolutely the right thing at the time), it's about compatibility (perceived and actual), it's about platform standardisation (among corporates) and it's even about brand loyalty to Microsoft.
And for all the "urgh, look how shitty Vista is" it's the fastest selling version of Windows ever. Most people have, as ever, just dropped their trousers, bent over and, without the so much as a drop of lube, upgraded.
The reality is that there isn't going to be a massive scene change because of Vista, regardless of what Apple do, the movement away from MS (if it happens) will be gradual.
Don't like it, don't buy it...
And you're done.
Like copy protection on CDs and DRM on iTunes if it sucks that bad the market will kill it.
I'm not saying the market is perfect but it works well enough to cut the knackers off the real dumb stuff.
If you look at Rowling's history in matters of licensing, you'll tend to find that if she's anything she's a control freak rather than greedy. The contract with WB for the films gives her a near unprecidented level of control over the films, and she personally reviews many of the merchandising proposals.
Her concerns tend to be around keeping Harry "pure" - that is retaining control over how everything around it is presented, rather than wringing every last penny out of it.
In this instance it will be about wanting a single authorative lexicon, rather than multiple competing ones, some of which will not fit her vision of things, meet the quality standards she wants or whatever.
I'm not saying that this is right/legal/good, just that claims of greed show little understanding about the individual they are being made against and are probably wrong.
agreed, there needs to be damage, though as the allegation is that he's a rapist and a heroin trafficker, i don't think establishing damage will be too hard.
supposedly murray relishes the idea of getting certain people (possibly including) usmanov in court, under oath and grilling them. i suspect it's one of the reasons that usmanov isn't biting at the moment.
To be clear he was removed from post, not fired. He remained an employee of the UK government. The government claimed that it was for operational reasons and nothing to do with him claiming that the British security services had used information obtained by the Uzbek's through torture.
While there was talk of disciplinary action he eventually agreed to resign having negociated a very sizable settlement.
His blog did have a fairly detailed decription of it before it was taken down.
The onus in the UK in a civil case (as opposed to in a criminal case) is on the person saying something to show it to be true (in a criminal case the onus is on the prosecution), and the standard of proof is generally lower than the "beyond reasonable doubt" needed in a criminal case.
The interesting thing though is that Murray has been in touch with Usmanov's lawyers and asked them to sue him for libel and made sure that they know where to find him, and he has publicised this invitation in comments in the national press. So far they've declined to do so.
There's obviously nothing in law but I wonder if there should be some sort of "piss or get off the pot" law saying that where the root of the libel is clear you can not continue fighting those publicising it if you decline to fit the root.
The other interesting part of this is that his webhost unintentionally took down a whole load of other sites sharing the same server when they took his down (i'm guessing they panicked and killed the server as the fastest way to comply). One of those taken down was prominent right wing Member of Parliament and candidate for the London Mayor Boris Johnson. Needless to say this has further fuelled publicity around it.
that's not the offer. that's informing you of what you've signed up to so you can't deny knowledge.
the offer in the purchase of a dvd is when you go up and offer them the money. the acceptance is when they take the money and pass you the DVD. (note that YOU make the offer not them - what they do when they advertise it at price x is called an invitation to treat but is not an offer)
you might be able to request a refund (effectively voiding the contract) if you can show that you wouldn't have made the offer had you been aware of the terms but i'm not 100% sure how that would work in theory (though in practice most good retailers would just roll their eyes and give your money back in exchange for the DVD in resalable condition).
think of the parallels with a CD. if being made aware of the terms were part of the offer then there would be no contract involved in purchasing a CD as there is no explicit offer and acceptance of the license.
if memory serves you have to avoid bankrupcy, imprisonment and a few similar things for the three years to qualify, but yes, ultimately it is possible to get an MA from cambridge in law (and indeed in almost any other subjects - even sciences award BAs and MAs).
and he's need more qualifications than that to practice law here in the UK, let alone in the US.
i believe that in this instance "silence" is slightly misleading.
what it means is silence or inaction. you can't be bound by "if i don't hear from you in two day's i'll assume your acceptance", however you can accept terms implicitely, that is by acting as if you had accepted them.
this means that if you know about the existance of a licence or copyright, you can not choose to ignore it other than by not using the software. if you use/adapt/distribute the software your actions in doing so are sufficient to indicate legal acceptance and bind you to the licence terms (assuming that they're legal and reasonable).
Your slippery slope actually "leads" to one example which is basically the same as the case in question and two that are already illegal - lending CDs is not covered in the "licence" that goes with standard CD ownership and you're not allowed to (and it doesn't apply to libraries who have permission via the agreements they have), and publishing copyrighted material which you do not have rights to publish certainly is certainly illegal and should be. The need to pass ownership of physical product containing material (as in CDs) was merely a function of a historical inability to distribute the material any other way. It was never intended that you gained the rights to use and redistribute the material, the fact you could and the implication with it was just an accident of the technology available. As for the ruling, it's perfectly fair and most of the parallels people are throwing around are nonsense. If I went and burned a load of music CDs and left them on a table I was sat at in a bar and made it clear that i wouldn' object when people took them I'd rightly be seen as distributing. Why? Because given a choice I've decided to do things that allow others to take the material and have acted on that choice (it didn't just happen). For any decent P2P client (including those being referred to here and all the most common ones) making your music collection available is something you have to do actively, it doesn't just happen. If you choose to do it then you have actively chosen to make copyright material available. Given that what is the defence? And that's also why it's not a ruling against P2P - it's a ruling against the way some people choose to use P2P.