BitTorrent is p2p is a way similar to the original Napster. It's similar but not identical, since the indexes are not centralized for the entire BT network, merely centralized per file. So if the original Napster was p2p -- which is generally accepted -- then BT is also p2p.
I said there has not been any substantial useful use. I imply that p2p is either infringing or useless, not illegal.
If you really want, I can get you the bittorrent statistics from Duke's Red Hat mirror. I'd argue that its use is substantial, and has been for nearly two years now.
FTA: Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children.
Slashdot: Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games.
There seems to be a huge difference between these statements. Can you spot it?
The slashdot one isn't qualified (i.e., "the violent video games to children" bit), but the bill still limits the sale of video games. It limits "violent" games to adults.
Nobody's forcing you to buy the movie on DVD. If you don't want to, don't! I've held off buying any of the LotR movies until the boxed set of the extended edition arrives at Christmastime. Nobody's stopping you from doing the same.
The difference between Peter Jackson and George Lucas is that, by and large, Jackson wasy very upfront about which versions would come out when, and what would be on them. You know before the two-disc set hit the market that there would be four-disc and five-disc sets coming out in a few months.
With Lucas, you've got no f@$%^ng clue what's going to come out when, which changes it will have, whether it can be seen in the theater again, or what format it will be in. I like Star Wars, but I haven't bothered to buy any of the sets since I know whatever I get will just be re-released in some LIMITED EDITION BUY NOW OR SEE IT IN THE THEATERS SINCE THIS VERSION WILL NEVER COME OUT IN YOUR LIFETIME (*cough*wellmaybeitwillifLucaschangeshismind*cough *)
edition. I don't have the time or money to get jerked around by Lucas, so I don't play the game.
Enough US citizens get slagged for not knowing about the rest of the world, but you're such a tool, you don't know about the rest of the US. Where I live, elections every two years, unless there is a special election called.
Now that you've proved that you're the alpha-male by calling me a "tool", what state do you live in that only has elections every other year?
The average US citizen probably has 20, possibly now even 30, votes in their lifetime.
Uhm, 18 + 30 = 48? People don't make it to be 50?
I think you meant to say "about 60", since, you know, there is an election every year. It's just that a lot of them are for local offices rather than Congress or the President.
Granted they weren't bound by law to do this. Yet. But:
It's frightening that current law so heavily favors the content middlemen that TiVo felt it had to petition the FCC in the first place, and
What the FCC says is still no guarantee whatsoever that the MPAA, NFL, etc, won't sue TiVo later and succeed, especially if the Grokster/Morpheous case goes south, or if the INDUCE Act becomes law. In that respect, this is/nothing/ like a preliminary injunction.
The best scenario for TiVo's customers is not to have the FCC say "How high?" when the content middlemen say "Jump!"
There's one big point that a lot of people seem to be missing:
The fact that TiVo even had to ask the FCC in the first place.
The assumption being that the FCC has some say over whether or not your hardware has the capability to send bits over the wire. Note that it's not whether or not you can send the bits over the wire, but your hardware. The first is behavior potentially regulated by the Constitution, the second is simple innovation.
Yes, the FCC was nice. But it's crazy that TiVo had to ask in the first place. Don't forget that.
His argument is that not giving voters a receipt of their ballot is a restriction on our freedom, and that if any Bad Person(tm) does try to coerce people into voting a given way, the FBI will arrest that Bad Person(tm).
My point is that not giving voters a receipt is a preventative measure against vote-buying, and that it is much more effective than after-the-fact policing and cleaning up the mess caused by the Bad Person(tm).
So if this person runs computers the same way they would run an election, no one would have a password (preventing someone from accessing another person's account), and they wouldn't use an Intrusion Detection System (giving the sysadmin notice that someone was trying to break in, before they did damage) or a firewall (preventing known attacks from coming in) because you can trivially arrest and prosecute anyone who does anything bad, and cleaning up afterwards is a breeze.
We prefer to arrest people AFTER THEY HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME. I know, it's all new fangled, and hard to wrap your head around, but it is the way we do things 'round here. Y'all got that?
Dear God, I hope I never use a machine that you sysadmin. By your logic, we shouldn't have passwords, IDSs, or backups. Because, you know, if anyone does anything bad we can just arrest them.
It's called taking preventative measures, and this particular preventative measure -- not letting the voter keep a record of their own vote -- is the result of centuries of conducting election, in this country and others.
This is why a voter-verified paper ballot is so important. The voter knows that there is a tangible, hard copy of their vote that they personally have examined and deemed to be correct. It's up to the election officials to make sure nothing bad happens after that.
So, tell me, which seems like a better solution:
Keeping an eye on election officials and the ballots between the time you cast your vote and the votes are tallied,
or
Making sure that no one ever threatens a voter to provide them with a copy of that voter's receipt, or even bribes them to vote for a given party (provided they can prove that they did vote that way).
See, it's geniuses like you that create uselessly large units of measurement like the Farad. A while back, someone here proposed measuring ego in units of ESRs. Other than approaching parity with "a Shatner", how useful is an ESR or a SCO? I mean, we're going to have to prefix everything with "nano".
[Shameless_Plug]
I'm a member of the National Committee for Voting Integrity, which includes Avi Rubin, Rebecca Mercuri, Peter Neumann, Bruce Schneier, Marc Rotenberg (from EPIC), Cindy Cohn (from the EFF), and other people whose names I'm sure you'll recognize (well, and then me:)). Check out our written testimony to the EAC for some talking points and arguments for a voter-verified paper ballot (VVPB).
[/Shameless_Plug]
As a nitpicky (but important) aside, make sure you avoid the word 'receipt' like the plague. A receipt is something you get at the store that you take home with you, whereas a ballot is your vote and something you leave at the polling station. We support paper ballots, but oppose receipts. From the context of your text, I'm sure you meant 'ballot', but there's already enough FUD flying with vendors claiming that we are naive enough to support receipts that people take home with them, opening the election process up to vote-buying and vote-coercion schemes.
What really bugs me are reporters that use the word 'receipt' when we explicitly say 'ballot, not receipt.'
Apparently even when I agree with you, you tell me I'm wrong. So maybe I should just agree with you and let you get into an infinite loop where you can insult yourself to your heart's content.
I'm not disputing -- and have not disputed -- that someone can freely distribute GPL'ed code and face no penalty, so please stop claiming that scenario as a victory.
It's not free. It's a conditional license. The GPL requires payment in source code (of modifications) instead of money, but that is still a form of compensation for the authors.
I was referring to distribution rights, not modification rights. I can put copies of Red Hat or Debian or (god forbid) Gentoo on my webiste and distribute it without fear of a lawsuit (or at least any lawsuit that has a snowball's chance in hell of winning). Notice how my comment said "freely distribute" and made no mention of modification? Or were you too busy trying to prove me wrong to actually read what I wrote?
That can never happen, since programmer A has not sold anything to the user. Vendor X is the only one who can be sued by the user, since they have a contract with the vendor.
When lots of Ford SUVs starting rolling over faster than the French facing a column of Germans, who did the end-users (drivers) sue?
Bob's Ford Dealer and Distributor
Ford Motor Company
Consumer-protection laws allow people to sue the manufacturer of a dangerous item. That's why people sued the tobacco companies and not their local 7-11. And that's why a user whose computer exploded because of poor software would sue the creator of that program, not the distributor. A distributor might get in trouble if the plaintiff can prove that they knowingly distributed dangerous products, but the primary blame lies with the author. And as I've postulated in my previous posts, the combination of court cases and the GPL means that Sun is preventing the end-user from seeing the GPL, and the user is therefore not bound to the terms of the GPL, including the warranty disclaimer.
For instance, if you offer to help me move and you drop my expensive China vase, you will probably not be able to sue me for it
Picking through your god-awful use of pronouns leads me to believe you are, in fact, referring to Good Samaritan laws. While it's true that a FS/OSS developer may face fewer problems on the grounds that they are giving their work away, they still suffer from the fact that the end-user may not be bound to the warranty disclaimer. Just don't confuse that with GS laws (like you already have).
(this might be different in your country, but in mine, there is case law to support this).
Well, sir, I am in awe of your command of the U.S. legal system to be able to interpret it and apply it in a far superior fashion to someone who has actually studied it. Either that, or somehow the case law of foreign countries somehow overrides established court precedent in this country.
this thread started with talking the advertising clause.
The "advertising clause" generally refers to a special OSS licensing issue surrounding the old BSD license, requiring distributors to list everyone who contributed code under such license in every mention of that program. Google for
software advertising clause
to get the background. That is, in fact, what I was referring to in my original post, and what certain BSD zealots were crowing about in other posts, prompting me to post here initially.
Or were you too eager to try to take me down a peg or two to actually understand the context of the discussion?
they're misrepresenting the rights you have w.r.t. the majority of the software on that CD. That sounds like trying to distract users from the rights they have and introduce more restrictions.
"Introducing more restrictions" is impossible since Sun cannot take away the rights granted by the GPL
*sigh* Again, you're only focusing on one issue; distribution, in this post.
- When you buy software and there is no license included, do you have the right to use it?
- When you buy software and there is no license included, do you have the right to distribute it?
When I buy software and there is no license, here's the situation:
Modify = no
Distribute = no
Use = you can run only one copy on one computer
Copy = one copy for archival purposes
Warranty = determined by your state's lemon laws
Your post focused exclusively on distribution. Let's look at what I said in my previous post, which you ignored:
You're right that the GPL is more robust because of how it sits on top of copyright law; I haven't disputed that. What I am disputing is that a vendor or distributor of GPL'ed software might have to follow additional guidelines beyond those explicitly listed in the GPL (because of the case law) in order to be compliant with the GPL.
I'm not disputing -- and have not disputed -- that someone can freely distribute GPL'ed code and face no penalty, so please stop claiming that scenario as a victory. Let's look at another scenario:
Programmer A writes a program, and releases it under the GPL.
Software vendor X adds A's work to their distribution, but slaps a propriety license on the outside of the box with their draconian terms and a notice saying all of X's copyrighted work is provided without warranty.
Joe User uses A's program, which melts his computer, sets his hair on fire, and causes his wife to run away.
Joe User sues A under his state's lemon laws. The court rules that vendor X complied with the GPL by placing a "check other licenses in subdirectory/foo/bar/baz/snafu/blech/not-ours/keep/going/" but that since Joe never saw it, according to court precedent the GPL's terms didn't kick in.
Programmer A has to buy Joe a new computer, wig, and wife.
The GPL isn't only about copyright; copyright, warranty, and patent issues are all mentioned explicitly in the preamble to the GPL, and again in several sections of the full license. Focus on the big picture.
That can mean two things:
1. All the lawyers who had to deal with GPL infringements were less smart and knowledgable about the law than you.
2. You are wrong.
3. You're not reading what I'm writing.
4. You don't understand what I'm writing.
5. You prefer to ignore the parts that don't advance your worldview.
Again, if the authors wanted more advertising, they should have used a different license.
while(1) { printf("It's not about advertising, it's about users knowing their rights, obligations, and limitations.\n"); }
PJ's comments were made in the context of worrying whether Sun would continue to marginalize the GPL
I will not honor wild guesses and a lack of research when it comes to bad-mouthing a company. I will require somewhat credible evidence to indicate otherwise before I will discuss this 'issue' because we can't intelligently say anything about it otherwise.
From Sun's president and COO:
There is nothing that precludes us from taking the protocols we license from Microsoft and incorporating them into our products.
Now, where those products run is up to Sun. So, if we take a license from Microsoft, there's nothing that precludes us from incorporating that technology into our Java Desktop System. [Emphasis mine]
So Sun's own COO is saying they want to add glitzy propriety code to their JDS and decide where that product is used. Now, that's definitely within their rights. But if each JDS CD comes with a big "You can't copy this CD, and the software on this CD is licensed under the WeOwn
[...] an EULA is a license which governs the use of software.
And distribution, and modification, etc, etc. Yes, an EULA goes beyond what the GPL covers.
Therefore, there is no debate among knowledgable people about the whether the GPL is binding, because you will have to accept it in order to have a right to distribute software. EULAs are much more disputed, because you will usually have more rights when you are not bound to them.
From the LinuxJournal article you yourself cited:
The Adobe case is important because it emphasizes the importance of obtaining an affirmative assent to the terms of any license agreement that a software vendor wishes to enforce against its users. [...] These cases suggest that a software licensor should make its licensing terms plainly visible to any person who purchases a license of the software, either by including a copy in the box or on the packaging, in addition to including an electronic copy in the installation routine and elsewhere on the electronic media.
Is Sun doing what the authors of the GPLed software requested if they simply comply with the license (regardless of whether they actually did, which PJ did not argue against)?
Let's see what PJ complained about:
First, there isn't any sign on the cover that there is anything GPL inside, even though there is plenty. It does mention Linux and the GPL VERY briefly in the command window during bootup, but it is so brief, unless you were paying very close attention, you could easily miss it.
So the very case you cite plainly states that the license (or at least/something/ indicating a license) must be present in a prominent location for a person to be bound to the terms of that license. PJ complains that Sun is not doing that for the GPL'ed software they include in their JDS. This potentially creates a defense for a GPL violator, particularly if a vendor charges for their GPL product. And we've seen what damage SCO can do with a weaker argument (we didn't attach the copyright notice ourselves); what avenues does this open if Sun omits a "GPL Inside" (or similar sticker)?
Right. Even though I've shown that a judge disagrees with what you say on a fundamental point.
Again, let's see exactly what the judge says:
To the extent that the court in One Stop found that the transaction at issue was in fact a license, and not a sale, this Court simply declines to adopt that analysis.
Translation: I read the precedent, and I disagree, so I'm going to completely disregard it. I'm not saying the judge is wrong, I said that precedent was spotty due to conflicting court decisions, and it seems that this particular judge just ignored the precedent for their circuit. That's not unheard of, but very rare and difficult to work around; this judge appears to be cavalier about the precedent laid out for him.
The previous precedent in this area was the ProCD case. From that case:
The district court held [shrinkwrap licenses unenforceable], for two reasons: first, they are not contracts because the licenses are inside the box rather than printed on the outside; second, federal law forbids enforcement even if the licenses are contracts. [..] [W]e disagree with the district judge's conclusion on each. Shrinkwrap licenses are enforceable unless their terms are objectionable on grounds applicable to contracts in general.
Does it hurt so much to actually talk about the story to which this thread is attached? Does it hurt so much to stick to the facts instead of wondering about questions to which we don't know the answer?
The problem is that you're not seeing the big picture (in addition to not bothering to actually look at the precedents I'm citing). PJ's comments were made in the context of worrying whether Sun would continue to
Excuse me?
GPL = General Public License
EULA = End User License Agreement
Just because the GPL is less restrictive than most EULAs doesn't mean that it's not a EULA. That's like saying just because a program is released under the GPL, it's not actually a computer program.
An EULA is a 'contract'
No, which is why software vendors were so desperate to get UCITA passed. It would give software vendors contract-like control over their users, which they only have in spotty parts of the country due to conflicting court cases.
EULA cases and therefore not relevant to this case.
s/not/perfectly/g
EULAs will generally try to take these rights away from you after you already bought the software
Ah, but there's the rub. You don't buy software (at least most commercial software). You license it. You don't actually own it, meaning that the first sale doctrine never kicks in, and that's how they can prevent you from reverse engineering it, regardless of the fact that RE is legal according to copyright law.
But then I can apply my own morality and call it impertinent, unfair, etc. Because I find it offensive when authors [the authors of a GPL program] grant others certain rights [the right to copy and modify, subject to certain conditions] and you [Sun] try to come in between and redefine that grant. [confuse the user about their rights and obligations]
All this time I've been saying that I don't know if Sun violated the GPL, and that someone more knowledgeable about the situation should look into whether or not they have, based on 1. actually seeing the JDS, and 2. an understanding of the GPL and copyright law. Despite your utter lack of knowledge of copyright law, you seem to have annointed yourself that expert, dismissing the relevant court cases with Ari-Fleisher-like "that is not important" carelessness. Brav-o.
Let me put the emphasis differently:
From the GPL, Section 1
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. [emphasis mine]
And what, pray tell, does your emphasis actually prove? Sun is distributing verbatim copies of the source code, and it is questionable as to whether or not they're posting a conspicious copyright notice and warranty disclaimer.
Your quote says that there should be a copyright notice on the source code. A copyright notice is something like "this file is copyrighted by Sinterklaas under the GPL." That is totally different from the entire GPL license. Nowhere in the GPL does it say that you have to display the license to the user, you only have to provide it.
The GPL is a bit fuzzy, yes, but the courts have tended to say that for a EULA to be valid (and the GPL is a EULA) it has to be displayed to the user -- check out the rejection of a preliminary injunction in Adobe Software v. SoftMan Systems or Quality King Distribution v. L'Anza Research (IIRC). Whether or not Sun is following the GPL and the law is up for debate.
I agree that PJ is zealous in her attacks on Sun. I'm sure she would like to see them go beyond the GPL, but she does have some potentially valid points if Sun is misleading customers as to their obligations under copyright law and the licensing of applications on the CD with JDS.
No, it isn't. If it was, she wouldn't come up with a morality argument, but she would simply state what parts of the GPL are breached by the JDS.
I see it as both; the GPL is a very moral and legal license. Share and share alike, as per 17 USC. One can be offended morally and legally.
THWACK!!!
Ouch, doesn't it hurt to be wrong when you act so condescending?
Indeed. But don't beat yourself up over it. It's not your fault you didn't understand.
My question is what remedies can be made realistically to enforce this? I assume you can revoke the license but what about compensatory damages? What is the real incentive to adhere to the terms if a company such as Sun has no fear that substantive repurcussions will result?
The GPL is a license to distribute and modify said software. If Sun violates the GPL, it has the same choices as every other group that has violated the GPL:
Stop distributing the software.
start following the GPL by adhering to section 1,
or
commit copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work without permission from the author(s).
As we all know, copyright law imposes severe penalties for anyone caught doing number 3: up to $150K/infringement (i.e., copy of the CD). If even one author complains, that's one possible infringement. If N programmers complain, that's up to N*$150K per CD. If a dozen programmers complain, Microsoft's $1.95B payoff goes out the window after Sun distributes around 1100 CDs.
Is that enough "teeth" for you?
Now do you see why copyright laws are so broken? Trust me, Sun does not want to risk willful infringement if the community starts raising a fuss with pitchforks in hand. It's not likely to happen, but the potential costs of losing that case are very severe indeed.
-jdm
P.S.: I'm sure spelling it "Amerika" really wins you the hearts and minds of those other than the choir.
I sense a lot of bitter BSD developers thinking they've caught a Linux advocate in an instance of blatant hypocracy. HA-HA! We had that advertising clause, but you pushy GPL people kept nagging us over that clause until we finally gave in, but now you're bitching about the same thing!!!
THWACK!!!
From the GPL, Section 1
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium,
provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. [emphasis mine]
Notice that the GPL requires you to display the license agreement, not the names of the developers. The GPL requires that you notify the users and developers who obtain a copy of this code that they have certain freedoms and certain obligations. If Sun is hiding the GPL they may be in violation of Section 1.
For those who are saying that anyone who licenses their work under the GPL and "gives it away" deserves to have their work distributed absent the appropriate copyright notice, grow up. The work is not "given away", it is licensed; placing a work in the public domain is "giving it away" since the author(s) retain no control whatsoever over the work. A rudimentary understanding of copyright law would clue you in. PJ may be a bit zealous in her attack on Sun, but in all likelihood she knows the GPL and copyright law a hell of a lot better than you (or I) do.
PJ's complaint: not about advertising, but about licensing. For those who still can't understand the difference, there are places where you can get help.
Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!
This is a repost from something else I wrote, addressing the same misleading rant.
A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.
Rights can't be stolen, only infringed. If the government censors you unfairly, they haven't stolen your right to free speech (where'd it go?) they've infringed it. Even Merriam-Webster defines infringement this way:
1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers [...]
It's also used this way by lawyers and the law, particularly 17 USC Section 501, the part of law that defines exactly what is a violation of the exclusive rights of copyright holder.
Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 121 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be.
Copyright. Violation of a right is infringement, not theft. Repeat early and often. It's the law.
"Do You Have A License For Those Facts?" (my debunking and I'm a certified IP wonk).
And how, pray tell, does one get "certified" as an "IP wonk"? That article was not wrong, and in fact it was relatively on the money.
While IANAL, I have taken a class in copyright law at Duke Law School and have followed CS IP issues for about eight years now.
You're completely overlooking a few provisions of the bill. Mainly Sections 5(A) and 5(C)
(A) IN GENERAL- Subject to subparagraph (B), the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them.
[...]
(C) DISCRETE SECTIONS- The fact that a database is a subset of a database shall not preclude such subset from treatment as a database under this Act.
For an example of how rules this like this have already gone awry, read about this case over in the UK. In short, a horseracing agency licensed its database of races, start times, horses involved, etc, for use in casino-type betting agencies. William Hill, Ltd, the gambling company, also placed race times, horses, and odds on its website. The EU court ruled that placing even this amount of information on the web was an "unlicensed" use of a subsection of the database.
So, Mr. "IP Wonk", please explain why that won't happen here, given the two clauses above. There are a lot of horse races -- one might even say a "large" number of races -- and the "database" of race times and horses involved is a subset of the larger database of all horse-racing data.
"Your Honor, we conceed that the defendants might have looked/somewhere/ else to get race times, but they had access to race times from us through our database license, which did not allow them to post those facts^W^Wthat database on their website. They/stole/ our property."
And given this country's tendency to "litigate first, and let the court sort it out", plus the courts' willingness to bend over backwards to punish those "pirates", how long before another SCO shows up claiming that the database of error names, numbers, and description strings is theirs? Even Nimmer and Jane Ginsburg, both staunch pro-IP, pro-DMCA lawyers have stated that a database protection bill is unnecessary [pdf].
Of course, I might be wrong. I don't have my "IP wonk" degree yet.
A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.
Rights can't be stolen, only infringed. If the government censors you unfairly, they haven't stolen your right to free speech (where'd it go?) they've infringed it. Even Merriam-Webster defines infringement this way:
1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers [...]
It's also used this way by lawyers and the law, particularly 17 USC Section 501, the part of law that defines exactly what is a violation of the exclusive rights of copyright holder.
Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 121 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be.
Copyright. Violation of a right is infringement, not theft. Repeat early and often. It's the law.
You can twist statistics to say anything that you want, but in the end the numbers don't lie.
No, they don't. So you'll agree then that the 20,000 African-Americans is tens of thousands. Or would "thousands upon thousands" be more acceptable? Or "hundreds of hundreds"?
How about "significantly more than 537"?
Choice excerpts from the BBC transcript:
It says the company was paid millions of dollars to make telephone calls to verify they got the right names - but they didn't. There is nothing in the state of Florida files that says they made these telephone calls.
...
[...] DBT issued a new list naming 58,000 felons. But the one county which went through the whole expensive process of checking the new list name by name found it was still 95% wrong.
...
Altogether, it looks like this cost the Democrats about 22,000 votes in Florida.
Slashdot Mirror
BitTorrent is p2p is a way similar to the original Napster. It's similar but not identical, since the indexes are not centralized for the entire BT network, merely centralized per file. So if the original Napster was p2p -- which is generally accepted -- then BT is also p2p.
I said there has not been any substantial useful use. I imply that p2p is either infringing or useless, not illegal.
If you really want, I can get you the bittorrent statistics from Duke's Red Hat mirror. I'd argue that its use is substantial, and has been for nearly two years now.
FTA: Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children.
Slashdot: Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games.
There seems to be a huge difference between these statements. Can you spot it?
The slashdot one isn't qualified (i.e., "the violent video games to children" bit), but the bill still limits the sale of video games. It limits "violent" games to adults.
Where's the "huge" difference?
-jdm
Nobody's forcing you to buy the movie on DVD. If you don't want to, don't! I've held off buying any of the LotR movies until the boxed set of the extended edition arrives at Christmastime. Nobody's stopping you from doing the same.
The difference between Peter Jackson and George Lucas is that, by and large, Jackson wasy very upfront about which versions would come out when, and what would be on them. You know before the two-disc set hit the market that there would be four-disc and five-disc sets coming out in a few months.
With Lucas, you've got no f@$%^ng clue what's going to come out when, which changes it will have, whether it can be seen in the theater again, or what format it will be in. I like Star Wars, but I haven't bothered to buy any of the sets since I know whatever I get will just be re-released in some LIMITED EDITION BUY NOW OR SEE IT IN THE THEATERS SINCE THIS VERSION WILL NEVER COME OUT IN YOUR LIFETIME (*cough*wellmaybeitwillifLucaschangeshismind*cough *)
edition. I don't have the time or money to get jerked around by Lucas, so I don't play the game.
-jdm
Maybe if it's from an acoustic guitar. After all, The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" is just a C chord played over and over again.
Guitar tabs here.
-jdm
Enough US citizens get slagged for not knowing about the rest of the world, but you're such a tool, you don't know about the rest of the US. Where I live, elections every two years, unless there is a special election called.
Now that you've proved that you're the alpha-male by calling me a "tool", what state do you live in that only has elections every other year?
-jdm
The average US citizen probably has 20, possibly now even 30, votes in their lifetime.
Uhm, 18 + 30 = 48? People don't make it to be 50?
I think you meant to say "about 60", since, you know, there is an election every year. It's just that a lot of them are for local offices rather than Congress or the President.
-jdm
Granted they weren't bound by law to do this. Yet. But:
The best scenario for TiVo's customers is not to have the FCC say "How high?" when the content middlemen say "Jump!"
-jdm
There's one big point that a lot of people seem to be missing:
The fact that TiVo even had to ask the FCC in the first place.
The assumption being that the FCC has some say over whether or not your hardware has the capability to send bits over the wire. Note that it's not whether or not you can send the bits over the wire, but your hardware. The first is behavior potentially regulated by the Constitution, the second is simple innovation.
Yes, the FCC was nice. But it's crazy that TiVo had to ask in the first place. Don't forget that.
-jdm
His argument is that not giving voters a receipt of their ballot is a restriction on our freedom, and that if any Bad Person(tm) does try to coerce people into voting a given way, the FBI will arrest that Bad Person(tm).
My point is that not giving voters a receipt is a preventative measure against vote-buying, and that it is much more effective than after-the-fact policing and cleaning up the mess caused by the Bad Person(tm).
So if this person runs computers the same way they would run an election, no one would have a password (preventing someone from accessing another person's account), and they wouldn't use an Intrusion Detection System (giving the sysadmin notice that someone was trying to break in, before they did damage) or a firewall (preventing known attacks from coming in) because you can trivially arrest and prosecute anyone who does anything bad, and cleaning up afterwards is a breeze.
-jdm
We prefer to arrest people AFTER THEY HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME. I know, it's all new fangled, and hard to wrap your head around, but it is the way we do things 'round here. Y'all got that?
Dear God, I hope I never use a machine that you sysadmin. By your logic, we shouldn't have passwords, IDSs, or backups. Because, you know, if anyone does anything bad we can just arrest them.
It's called taking preventative measures, and this particular preventative measure -- not letting the voter keep a record of their own vote -- is the result of centuries of conducting election, in this country and others.
This is why a voter-verified paper ballot is so important. The voter knows that there is a tangible, hard copy of their vote that they personally have examined and deemed to be correct. It's up to the election officials to make sure nothing bad happens after that.
So, tell me, which seems like a better solution:
-jdm
See, it's geniuses like you that create uselessly large units of measurement like the Farad. A while back, someone here proposed measuring ego in units of ESRs. Other than approaching parity with "a Shatner", how useful is an ESR or a SCO? I mean, we're going to have to prefix everything with "nano".
-jdm
[Shameless_Plug] :)). Check out our written testimony to the EAC for some talking points and arguments for a voter-verified paper ballot (VVPB).
I'm a member of the National Committee for Voting Integrity, which includes Avi Rubin, Rebecca Mercuri, Peter Neumann, Bruce Schneier, Marc Rotenberg (from EPIC), Cindy Cohn (from the EFF), and other people whose names I'm sure you'll recognize (well, and then me
[/Shameless_Plug]
As a nitpicky (but important) aside, make sure you avoid the word 'receipt' like the plague. A receipt is something you get at the store that you take home with you, whereas a ballot is your vote and something you leave at the polling station. We support paper ballots, but oppose receipts. From the context of your text, I'm sure you meant 'ballot', but there's already enough FUD flying with vendors claiming that we are naive enough to support receipts that people take home with them, opening the election process up to vote-buying and vote-coercion schemes.
What really bugs me are reporters that use the word 'receipt' when we explicitly say 'ballot, not receipt.'
Cheers.
-jdm
Apparently Penny Arcade agrees that people plus an audience plus anonymity equals a breeding ground for people to do stupid stuff.
-jdm
Apparently even when I agree with you, you tell me I'm wrong. So maybe I should just agree with you and let you get into an infinite loop where you can insult yourself to your heart's content.
I'm not disputing -- and have not disputed -- that someone can freely distribute GPL'ed code and face no penalty, so please stop claiming that scenario as a victory.
It's not free. It's a conditional license. The GPL requires payment in source code (of modifications) instead of money, but that is still a form of compensation for the authors.
I was referring to distribution rights, not modification rights. I can put copies of Red Hat or Debian or (god forbid) Gentoo on my webiste and distribute it without fear of a lawsuit (or at least any lawsuit that has a snowball's chance in hell of winning). Notice how my comment said "freely distribute" and made no mention of modification? Or were you too busy trying to prove me wrong to actually read what I wrote?
That can never happen, since programmer A has not sold anything to the user. Vendor X is the only one who can be sued by the user, since they have a contract with the vendor.
When lots of Ford SUVs starting rolling over faster than the French facing a column of Germans, who did the end-users (drivers) sue?
Consumer-protection laws allow people to sue the manufacturer of a dangerous item. That's why people sued the tobacco companies and not their local 7-11. And that's why a user whose computer exploded because of poor software would sue the creator of that program, not the distributor. A distributor might get in trouble if the plaintiff can prove that they knowingly distributed dangerous products, but the primary blame lies with the author. And as I've postulated in my previous posts, the combination of court cases and the GPL means that Sun is preventing the end-user from seeing the GPL, and the user is therefore not bound to the terms of the GPL, including the warranty disclaimer.
For instance, if you offer to help me move and you drop my expensive China vase, you will probably not be able to sue me for it
Picking through your god-awful use of pronouns leads me to believe you are, in fact, referring to Good Samaritan laws. While it's true that a FS/OSS developer may face fewer problems on the grounds that they are giving their work away, they still suffer from the fact that the end-user may not be bound to the warranty disclaimer. Just don't confuse that with GS laws (like you already have).
(this might be different in your country, but in mine, there is case law to support this).
Well, sir, I am in awe of your command of the U.S. legal system to be able to interpret it and apply it in a far superior fashion to someone who has actually studied it. Either that, or somehow the case law of foreign countries somehow overrides established court precedent in this country.
this thread started with talking the advertising clause.
The "advertising clause" generally refers to a special OSS licensing issue surrounding the old BSD license, requiring distributors to list everyone who contributed code under such license in every mention of that program. Google for
software advertising clause
to get the background. That is, in fact, what I was referring to in my original post, and what certain BSD zealots were crowing about in other posts, prompting me to post here initially.
Or were you too eager to try to take me down a peg or two to actually understand the context of the discussion?
they're misrepresenting the rights you have w.r.t. the majority of the software on that CD. That sounds like trying to distract users from the rights they have and introduce more restrictions.
"Introducing more restrictions" is impossible since Sun cannot take away the rights granted by the GPL
*sigh* Again, you're only focusing on one issue; distribution, in this post.
- When you buy software and there is no license included, do you have the right to use it?
- When you buy software and there is no license included, do you have the right to distribute it?
When I buy software and there is no license, here's the situation:
Your post focused exclusively on distribution. Let's look at what I said in my previous post, which you ignored:
I'm not disputing -- and have not disputed -- that someone can freely distribute GPL'ed code and face no penalty, so please stop claiming that scenario as a victory. Let's look at another scenario:
The GPL isn't only about copyright; copyright, warranty, and patent issues are all mentioned explicitly in the preamble to the GPL, and again in several sections of the full license. Focus on the big picture.
That can mean two things:
1. All the lawyers who had to deal with GPL infringements were less smart and knowledgable about the law than you.
2. You are wrong.
3. You're not reading what I'm writing.
4. You don't understand what I'm writing.
5. You prefer to ignore the parts that don't advance your worldview.
Again, if the authors wanted more advertising, they should have used a different license.
PJ's comments were made in the context of worrying whether Sun would continue to marginalize the GPL
I will not honor wild guesses and a lack of research when it comes to bad-mouthing a company. I will require somewhat credible evidence to indicate otherwise before I will discuss this 'issue' because we can't intelligently say anything about it otherwise.
From Sun's president and COO:
So Sun's own COO is saying they want to add glitzy propriety code to their JDS and decide where that product is used. Now, that's definitely within their rights. But if each JDS CD comes with a big "You can't copy this CD, and the software on this CD is licensed under the WeOwn
[...] an EULA is a license which governs the use of software.
And distribution, and modification, etc, etc. Yes, an EULA goes beyond what the GPL covers.
Therefore, there is no debate among knowledgable people about the whether the GPL is binding, because you will have to accept it in order to have a right to distribute software. EULAs are much more disputed, because you will usually have more rights when you are not bound to them.
From the LinuxJournal article you yourself cited:
Is Sun doing what the authors of the GPLed software requested if they simply comply with the license (regardless of whether they actually did, which PJ did not argue against)?
Let's see what PJ complained about:
So the very case you cite plainly states that the license (or at least /something/ indicating a license) must be present in a prominent location for a person to be bound to the terms of that license. PJ complains that Sun is not doing that for the GPL'ed software they include in their JDS. This potentially creates a defense for a GPL violator, particularly if a vendor charges for their GPL product. And we've seen what damage SCO can do with a weaker argument (we didn't attach the copyright notice ourselves); what avenues does this open if Sun omits a "GPL Inside" (or similar sticker)?
Right. Even though I've shown that a judge disagrees with what you say on a fundamental point.
Again, let's see exactly what the judge says:
Translation: I read the precedent, and I disagree, so I'm going to completely disregard it. I'm not saying the judge is wrong, I said that precedent was spotty due to conflicting court decisions, and it seems that this particular judge just ignored the precedent for their circuit. That's not unheard of, but very rare and difficult to work around; this judge appears to be cavalier about the precedent laid out for him.
The previous precedent in this area was the ProCD case. From that case:
Does it hurt so much to actually talk about the story to which this thread is attached? Does it hurt so much to stick to the facts instead of wondering about questions to which we don't know the answer?
The problem is that you're not seeing the big picture (in addition to not bothering to actually look at the precedents I'm citing). PJ's comments were made in the context of worrying whether Sun would continue to
The GPL is not an EULA.
Excuse me?
GPL = General Public License
EULA = End User License Agreement
Just because the GPL is less restrictive than most EULAs doesn't mean that it's not a EULA. That's like saying just because a program is released under the GPL, it's not actually a computer program.
An EULA is a 'contract'
No, which is why software vendors were so desperate to get UCITA passed. It would give software vendors contract-like control over their users, which they only have in spotty parts of the country due to conflicting court cases.
EULA cases and therefore not relevant to this case.
s/not/perfectly/g
EULAs will generally try to take these rights away from you after you already bought the software
Ah, but there's the rub. You don't buy software (at least most commercial software). You license it. You don't actually own it, meaning that the first sale doctrine never kicks in, and that's how they can prevent you from reverse engineering it, regardless of the fact that RE is legal according to copyright law.
But then I can apply my own morality and call it impertinent, unfair, etc. Because I find it offensive when authors [the authors of a GPL program] grant others certain rights [the right to copy and modify, subject to certain conditions] and you [Sun] try to come in between and redefine that grant. [confuse the user about their rights and obligations]
All this time I've been saying that I don't know if Sun violated the GPL, and that someone more knowledgeable about the situation should look into whether or not they have, based on 1. actually seeing the JDS, and 2. an understanding of the GPL and copyright law. Despite your utter lack of knowledge of copyright law, you seem to have annointed yourself that expert, dismissing the relevant court cases with Ari-Fleisher-like "that is not important" carelessness. Brav-o.
-jdm
Let me put the emphasis differently: From the GPL, Section 1
And what, pray tell, does your emphasis actually prove? Sun is distributing verbatim copies of the source code, and it is questionable as to whether or not they're posting a conspicious copyright notice and warranty disclaimer.
Your quote says that there should be a copyright notice on the source code. A copyright notice is something like "this file is copyrighted by Sinterklaas under the GPL." That is totally different from the entire GPL license. Nowhere in the GPL does it say that you have to display the license to the user, you only have to provide it.
The GPL is a bit fuzzy, yes, but the courts have tended to say that for a EULA to be valid (and the GPL is a EULA) it has to be displayed to the user -- check out the rejection of a preliminary injunction in Adobe Software v. SoftMan Systems or Quality King Distribution v. L'Anza Research (IIRC). Whether or not Sun is following the GPL and the law is up for debate.
I agree that PJ is zealous in her attacks on Sun. I'm sure she would like to see them go beyond the GPL, but she does have some potentially valid points if Sun is misleading customers as to their obligations under copyright law and the licensing of applications on the CD with JDS.
No, it isn't. If it was, she wouldn't come up with a morality argument, but she would simply state what parts of the GPL are breached by the JDS.
I see it as both; the GPL is a very moral and legal license. Share and share alike, as per 17 USC. One can be offended morally and legally.
THWACK!!!
Ouch, doesn't it hurt to be wrong when you act so condescending?
Indeed. But don't beat yourself up over it. It's not your fault you didn't understand.
-jdm
My question is what remedies can be made realistically to enforce this? I assume you can revoke the license but what about compensatory damages? What is the real incentive to adhere to the terms if a company such as Sun has no fear that substantive repurcussions will result?
The GPL is a license to distribute and modify said software. If Sun violates the GPL, it has the same choices as every other group that has violated the GPL:
or
As we all know, copyright law imposes severe penalties for anyone caught doing number 3: up to $150K/infringement (i.e., copy of the CD). If even one author complains, that's one possible infringement. If N programmers complain, that's up to N*$150K per CD. If a dozen programmers complain, Microsoft's $1.95B payoff goes out the window after Sun distributes around 1100 CDs.
Is that enough "teeth" for you?
Now do you see why copyright laws are so broken? Trust me, Sun does not want to risk willful infringement if the community starts raising a fuss with pitchforks in hand. It's not likely to happen, but the potential costs of losing that case are very severe indeed.
-jdm
P.S.: I'm sure spelling it "Amerika" really wins you the hearts and minds of those other than the choir.
I sense a lot of bitter BSD developers thinking they've caught a Linux advocate in an instance of blatant hypocracy. HA-HA! We had that advertising clause, but you pushy GPL people kept nagging us over that clause until we finally gave in, but now you're bitching about the same thing!!!
THWACK!!!From the GPL, Section 1
Notice that the GPL requires you to display the license agreement, not the names of the developers. The GPL requires that you notify the users and developers who obtain a copy of this code that they have certain freedoms and certain obligations. If Sun is hiding the GPL they may be in violation of Section 1.
For those who are saying that anyone who licenses their work under the GPL and "gives it away" deserves to have their work distributed absent the appropriate copyright notice, grow up. The work is not "given away", it is licensed; placing a work in the public domain is "giving it away" since the author(s) retain no control whatsoever over the work. A rudimentary understanding of copyright law would clue you in. PJ may be a bit zealous in her attack on Sun, but in all likelihood she knows the GPL and copyright law a hell of a lot better than you (or I) do.
PJ's complaint: not about advertising, but about licensing. For those who still can't understand the difference, there are places where you can get help.
-jdm
Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!
This is a repost from something else I wrote, addressing the same misleading rant.
A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.
Rights can't be stolen, only infringed. If the government censors you unfairly, they haven't stolen your right to free speech (where'd it go?) they've infringed it. Even Merriam-Webster defines infringement this way:
It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers [...]
It's also used this way by lawyers and the law, particularly 17 USC Section 501, the part of law that defines exactly what is a violation of the exclusive rights of copyright holder.
Copyright. Violation of a right is infringement, not theft. Repeat early and often. It's the law.
-jdm
"Do You Have A License For Those Facts?" (my debunking and I'm a certified IP wonk).
And how, pray tell, does one get "certified" as an "IP wonk"? That article was not wrong, and in fact it was relatively on the money.
You're completely overlooking a few provisions of the bill. Mainly Sections 5(A) and 5(C)
For an example of how rules this like this have already gone awry, read about this case over in the UK. In short, a horseracing agency licensed its database of races, start times, horses involved, etc, for use in casino-type betting agencies. William Hill, Ltd, the gambling company, also placed race times, horses, and odds on its website. The EU court ruled that placing even this amount of information on the web was an "unlicensed" use of a subsection of the database.
So, Mr. "IP Wonk", please explain why that won't happen here, given the two clauses above. There are a lot of horse races -- one might even say a "large" number of races -- and the "database" of race times and horses involved is a subset of the larger database of all horse-racing data.
"Your Honor, we conceed that the defendants might have looked /somewhere/ else to get race times, but they had access to race times from us through our database license, which did not allow them to post those facts^W^Wthat database on their website. They /stole/ our property."
And given this country's tendency to "litigate first, and let the court sort it out", plus the courts' willingness to bend over backwards to punish those "pirates", how long before another SCO shows up claiming that the database of error names, numbers, and description strings is theirs? Even Nimmer and Jane Ginsburg, both staunch pro-IP, pro-DMCA lawyers have stated that a database protection bill is unnecessary [pdf].
Of course, I might be wrong. I don't have my "IP wonk" degree yet.
-jdm
A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.
Rights can't be stolen, only infringed. If the government censors you unfairly, they haven't stolen your right to free speech (where'd it go?) they've infringed it. Even Merriam-Webster defines infringement this way:
It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers [...]
It's also used this way by lawyers and the law, particularly 17 USC Section 501, the part of law that defines exactly what is a violation of the exclusive rights of copyright holder.
Copyright. Violation of a right is infringement, not theft. Repeat early and often. It's the law.
-jdm
You can twist statistics to say anything that you want, but in the end the numbers don't lie.
No, they don't. So you'll agree then that the 20,000 African-Americans is tens of thousands. Or would "thousands upon thousands" be more acceptable? Or "hundreds of hundreds"?
How about "significantly more than 537"?
Choice excerpts from the BBC transcript:
Any more nit-picking?
-jdm