Nice argument re: the bill of rights, but it's fantasy. Retrieving something online doesn't make it your property, although clearly that's the point of contention. There's no legal basis for the idea that by posting something online I automatically give away property rights to it. Again, copyright protects the copyright holder and puts the onus for defending fair use on the user. The gray area falls on the side of the copyright holder. It seems you don't agree that should be the case, an opinion that you're certainly entitled to.
Your intepretation of copyright law is very broad, and very convenient. Unfortunately, it's not borne out by much legal precedent, nor is the EFF's (in this case).
I'm going to get flamed for this, but under what idea of "Fair Use" would this fall? IANAL but I don't see how this is particularly transformative, and it certainly isn't parody. Pretty much just a guy who got his feelings hurt, sounds like. There is no inalienable right to use copyrighted material, and the law generalizes on the side of the copyright holder, not the user. In general, copyrightable materials are copyrighted unless proven otherwise, not in the public domain unless proven otherwise.
And oh by the way, YouTube is private. They're not obligated to post anything, ever. Or as a corrolary, they can pretty much take anything down anytime they want. You don't have to like it, support YouTube, etc., certainly, but the whole idea of having some inalienable right to use a service that costs somebody else money for free, on your own terms, is pretty laughable.
I have to say the EFF is starting to look like the ACLU in that their arguments are becoming increasingly bizarre. The EFF should probably recommend that people boycott my media server too, since I don't have any intention of ever letting anyone outside of my immediate family post to it.
Fire away...
IANAL, but "signing away" isn't really correct terminology here... software is generally considered a "work for hire" in the U.S., which means that whoever's paying for the software (the employer) owns it. In point of ugly fact, that usually applies to any software that you write, whether or not it's on company time, if writing software is part of your job. In this particular case, the university has signed away some of their rights to some people and not to others.
Of course you should not sign a contract that contains clauses you don't agree with, whether or not it's conventional wisdom or law. My point is only that you really need to be aware of labor law around your work when you go to work for somebody else. The "lost right" that's shown here was actually never a right you had in the first place, at least in most places in the U.S.
There's a lot of speculation here, but it's all just conjecture. There's definitely not any new facts in this article, and it is only "analysis" in the sense that it contains a much larger volume of speculation than most of the 1,000,897 other articles on the same subject. Obviously a new definition of the word, "analysis" of which I was not previously aware...
Seriously. I was in the IT business in the late 70's, before Bill's name was even on the radar, and IT was nerdy even back then, I can promise you.
Of course, this is Slashdot, so evil must mean Microsoft...
... although I'd think intuitively that some data sets could be well-represented by predictive algorithms as well.
For a model of a general data-set however, I think a good analogy is that of a lossy compressed graphic. A good compression algorithm can certainly reconstruct a decent likeness of the original graphic, depending on the density of the original data and the algorithm used, maybe even a copy that would not be perceived as different by the human eye (or some other measure). But that lossy copy will never be quite as accurate as the original graphic, by definition.
I guess another way to look at it would be that any predictive algorithm is, in some sense, statistical. While the statistics may be incredibly accurate, they can never predict the statistical anamolies.
This seems pretty fundamentally intuitive to me, but I wouldn't even know where to begin going about proving it...
comments?
On a purely philosophical point... what is the use of having an international standard if the said standard changes based on the whims of a single corporation?
While I appreciate and support the goals of the Web Standards Project, I think "International Standard" is misrepresenting Acid2. "International Standard" implies the buyin of some recognized standards body, doesn't it? Not trying to be argumentative nor split hairs, just trying to point out that the acceptance of a given metric as a standard, even by a great number of people, does not make it a recognized, formal standard.
Perhaps a better way to say that would be, standards are only as standard as we are willing (or legally obligated) to make them. If you like Acid2 and think browsers should render it correctly as a fundamental capability, then don't user browsers that don't properly render Acid2. Don't have a choice for your work (I don't)? That's a business decision. Don't control that decision at your place of work (I don't)? Work somewhere else.
It all depends on how dedicated *you* are to enforcing Acid2 as standard.
Or it could be that a bunch of slashdotters were completely trolled in by a hoax and went off to the races with unfounded allegations.... nah, that could never happen.
I'm just wondering if you would be coming to the defense of Microsoft had Greenpeace leveled the same allegations against them...
... thought not.
So the problem apparently is that they're goring your sacred cow, not somebody else's. Don't know if that actually qualifies as "unfair"... more like a cost of being a leader in the market.
Baiting aside, I do think that the criticism may be somewhat more relevant when leveled at Apple than at competitors, because Apple has always cultivated that valley, consumer-friendly persona. If I'm part of Greenpiece (and I am not), I'm probably interested in hitting the target that will make the most media impact. That's the purpose of a lobbying group, after all, to get media and public attention for their causes.
Just business as usual for everyone involved, in my opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
Note the difference between the title of the actual article and the title of this thread. No bias there ... oh, wait ... it's /.
Nice argument re: the bill of rights, but it's fantasy. Retrieving something online doesn't make it your property, although clearly that's the point of contention. There's no legal basis for the idea that by posting something online I automatically give away property rights to it. Again, copyright protects the copyright holder and puts the onus for defending fair use on the user. The gray area falls on the side of the copyright holder. It seems you don't agree that should be the case, an opinion that you're certainly entitled to. Your intepretation of copyright law is very broad, and very convenient. Unfortunately, it's not borne out by much legal precedent, nor is the EFF's (in this case).
I'm going to get flamed for this, but under what idea of "Fair Use" would this fall? IANAL but I don't see how this is particularly transformative, and it certainly isn't parody. Pretty much just a guy who got his feelings hurt, sounds like. There is no inalienable right to use copyrighted material, and the law generalizes on the side of the copyright holder, not the user. In general, copyrightable materials are copyrighted unless proven otherwise, not in the public domain unless proven otherwise. And oh by the way, YouTube is private. They're not obligated to post anything, ever. Or as a corrolary, they can pretty much take anything down anytime they want. You don't have to like it, support YouTube, etc., certainly, but the whole idea of having some inalienable right to use a service that costs somebody else money for free, on your own terms, is pretty laughable. I have to say the EFF is starting to look like the ACLU in that their arguments are becoming increasingly bizarre. The EFF should probably recommend that people boycott my media server too, since I don't have any intention of ever letting anyone outside of my immediate family post to it. Fire away ...
IANAL, but "signing away" isn't really correct terminology here ... software is generally considered a "work for hire" in the U.S., which means that whoever's paying for the software (the employer) owns it. In point of ugly fact, that usually applies to any software that you write, whether or not it's on company time, if writing software is part of your job. In this particular case, the university has signed away some of their rights to some people and not to others.
Of course you should not sign a contract that contains clauses you don't agree with, whether or not it's conventional wisdom or law. My point is only that you really need to be aware of labor law around your work when you go to work for somebody else. The "lost right" that's shown here was actually never a right you had in the first place, at least in most places in the U.S.
There's a lot of speculation here, but it's all just conjecture. There's definitely not any new facts in this article, and it is only "analysis" in the sense that it contains a much larger volume of speculation than most of the 1,000,897 other articles on the same subject. Obviously a new definition of the word, "analysis" of which I was not previously aware ...
Seriously. I was in the IT business in the late 70's, before Bill's name was even on the radar, and IT was nerdy even back then, I can promise you. Of course, this is Slashdot, so evil must mean Microsoft ...
... although I'd think intuitively that some data sets could be well-represented by predictive algorithms as well. For a model of a general data-set however, I think a good analogy is that of a lossy compressed graphic. A good compression algorithm can certainly reconstruct a decent likeness of the original graphic, depending on the density of the original data and the algorithm used, maybe even a copy that would not be perceived as different by the human eye (or some other measure). But that lossy copy will never be quite as accurate as the original graphic, by definition. I guess another way to look at it would be that any predictive algorithm is, in some sense, statistical. While the statistics may be incredibly accurate, they can never predict the statistical anamolies. This seems pretty fundamentally intuitive to me, but I wouldn't even know where to begin going about proving it ...
comments?
While I appreciate and support the goals of the Web Standards Project, I think "International Standard" is misrepresenting Acid2. "International Standard" implies the buyin of some recognized standards body, doesn't it? Not trying to be argumentative nor split hairs, just trying to point out that the acceptance of a given metric as a standard, even by a great number of people, does not make it a recognized, formal standard.
Perhaps a better way to say that would be, standards are only as standard as we are willing (or legally obligated) to make them. If you like Acid2 and think browsers should render it correctly as a fundamental capability, then don't user browsers that don't properly render Acid2. Don't have a choice for your work (I don't)? That's a business decision. Don't control that decision at your place of work (I don't)? Work somewhere else.
It all depends on how dedicated *you* are to enforcing Acid2 as standard.
Or it could be that a bunch of slashdotters were completely trolled in by a hoax and went off to the races with unfounded allegations .... nah, that could never happen.
except for the *quickly* part, but yeah ...
I'm just wondering if you would be coming to the defense of Microsoft had Greenpeace leveled the same allegations against them ...
... thought not.
... more like a cost of being a leader in the market.
So the problem apparently is that they're goring your sacred cow, not somebody else's. Don't know if that actually qualifies as "unfair"
Baiting aside, I do think that the criticism may be somewhat more relevant when leveled at Apple than at competitors, because Apple has always cultivated that valley, consumer-friendly persona. If I'm part of Greenpiece (and I am not), I'm probably interested in hitting the target that will make the most media impact. That's the purpose of a lobbying group, after all, to get media and public attention for their causes.
Just business as usual for everyone involved, in my opinion.
He's *doing* the research, that's why he's asking the question. Geez ...