I could not agree more !!! It used to be that if you did something for the good of the public you were praised...now it seems we are gonna be persecuted.
FTFY, unless someone actually went ahead and outlawed FOSS somewhere?
Are you kidding me? They made this data accessible on the public internet. I once read about a case where some kook had a website with a CGI file. Supposedly, accessing www.example.com/delete.cgi?file=example.txt (names changed to protect the guilty and because my memory sucks) would delete the file example.txt from the server. He then tried to claim that it was illegal for people to go to that URL and that he would... I don't even know what he actually intended to do about it but I think he was threatening to sue people over this. Moral of the story: If something is accessible on the public internet, you cannot assume noone will look at it/access it/whatever. If something is routable, you should assume it will be accessed. The government could easily have made this non-routable (behind a firewall or NAT router or something) or offline (don't plug in the ethernet; it's really that easy) or not a server (don't run Apache if you don't want people to look in/var/www or wherever) or password protected (unlike domain name records, passwords are not publicly accessible records that anyone with time can read). Any of those things would have been trivial to set up, and it is totally the government's fault for leaving a gaping hole there.
It's not being twisted around, honestly. Perhaps the intent was to prevent the injustices we're talking about now, but that isn't how it was written. The RIAA seeks what it sees as damages, at least ostensibly; this is compensation, not punishment. Even if this were a criminal trial, it would be foolhardy to use the eighth amendment to attack awards for statutory damages. Totally different story if we're talking about a fine.
And that's why they're talking about due process instead. I'm not sure how that works (certainly didn't read the brief), but it sounds logical to me.
The RIAA is not quite brazen enough to argue that it takes tens of thousands of dollars of damage for every song pirated. So they're punitive damages, i.e. punishments. IANAL either.
Except there is nothing wrong with 'typosquatting'. It isn't really squatting if they are paying to register those domains. As far as I know, and IANAL, brand names have very precise definitions and that is why anyone trying to make a fake/copy often has to change it a little so it isn't illegal.
Ever been to Vietnam and buy Tommi Hilfigger[sic] jeans?
The limit to trademark is "likely to cause confusion" IIRC. IANAL. Also, it is domain squatting if you try to charge the trademark holder an exorbitant amount of money for the domain when the IANA (or whomever) rules say it should be theirs in the first place.
Depending on your ISP, you may be able to run a server by just asking them to unblock port 80 -- they may even do it for free. You never know until you try*.
*Well, unless you read the fine print that is. And even then theory != practice.
Market fragmentation due to "Linux" not actually being a single targetable platform for gaming. A game dev shop could perhaps target one or two specific releases of specific distros, but that fragments the market further. See the previous item.
[snip]
Why not jump-start LSB again? Maybe change it to be more Debian-friendly, etc.
Unless it runs without electricity it consumes that as well.
Actually, it doesn't consume electrons. The utility company basically requires that you return all electrons they give you. If it consumed them, it'd require very few, E=Mc^2 and all...
IMHO, the UK is a very backwards nation; did you know that MPs aren't allowed to accuse each other of lying, even if it is blatantly obvious? I totally agree that libel laws can get too far and that there is a reasonable balance; the problem is that with some countries, it goes beyond mere laws; in the UK, reputation is and has historically always been very important, and their legal system is unfortunately built around that.
If a legislature isn't able to debate the truth of its member's claims, there's a problem.
IIRC, Asimov was fundamentally opposed to the notion of "technology revolting against its 'owners' (i.e. humans)", particularly w.r.t. strong AI. He felt it was a cliché.
If it took you an hour to reach a person from Microsoft's support center, you were either doing something terribly wrong or you have awful luck. Last time I had to call Microsoft to activate XP (mid December of 2009) it took about 10 minutes to navigate the call menu and get a person, and another 5-10 minutes to actually get XP activated. I have never had a Microsoft technician tell me, "there is nothing we can do." I am not calling you a liar, but that sounds fishy to me.
See gethuman.com and type "microsoft" into the search thingie. It doesn't say anything about ~1 hour to get to a human.
Slashdot Mirror
How about the fact that he valued YouTube comments at $1 Billion?
The fair use doctrine is clear as mud; it's certainly not the well-defined set of rules a real programming language would give you.
I could not agree more !!! It used to be that if you did something for the good of the public you were praised...now it seems we are gonna be persecuted.
FTFY, unless someone actually went ahead and outlawed FOSS somewhere?
Are you kidding me? They made this data accessible on the public internet. I once read about a case where some kook had a website with a CGI file. Supposedly, accessing www.example.com/delete.cgi?file=example.txt (names changed to protect the guilty and because my memory sucks) would delete the file example.txt from the server. He then tried to claim that it was illegal for people to go to that URL and that he would... I don't even know what he actually intended to do about it but I think he was threatening to sue people over this. Moral of the story: If something is accessible on the public internet, you cannot assume noone will look at it/access it/whatever. If something is routable, you should assume it will be accessed. The government could easily have made this non-routable (behind a firewall or NAT router or something) or offline (don't plug in the ethernet; it's really that easy) or not a server (don't run Apache if you don't want people to look in /var/www or wherever) or password protected (unlike domain name records, passwords are not publicly accessible records that anyone with time can read). Any of those things would have been trivial to set up, and it is totally the government's fault for leaving a gaping hole there.
They'll just extradite him. Do you really think he wants to spend the rest of his life hiding in Brazil?
Please don't bring religious issues here... you'll start a war.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
It's not being twisted around, honestly. Perhaps the intent was to prevent the injustices we're talking about now, but that isn't how it was written. The RIAA seeks what it sees as damages, at least ostensibly; this is compensation, not punishment. Even if this were a criminal trial, it would be foolhardy to use the eighth amendment to attack awards for statutory damages. Totally different story if we're talking about a fine.
And that's why they're talking about due process instead. I'm not sure how that works (certainly didn't read the brief), but it sounds logical to me.
The RIAA is not quite brazen enough to argue that it takes tens of thousands of dollars of damage for every song pirated. So they're punitive damages, i.e. punishments. IANAL either.
Methinks it's time for an Article V convention.
Was the "CD" from Sony BMG or someone else?
It's not my fault the industry in question is ruled by a load of useless bloody loonies.
Nope, wrong again!
Except there is nothing wrong with 'typosquatting'. It isn't really squatting if they are paying to register those domains. As far as I know, and IANAL, brand names have very precise definitions and that is why anyone trying to make a fake/copy often has to change it a little so it isn't illegal.
Ever been to Vietnam and buy Tommi Hilfigger[sic] jeans?
The limit to trademark is "likely to cause confusion" IIRC. IANAL. Also, it is domain squatting if you try to charge the trademark holder an exorbitant amount of money for the domain when the IANA (or whomever) rules say it should be theirs in the first place.
"Up to 50 Mbps" != "50Mbps".
It'll only catch up when we unbundle, which will never happen as long as they have lobbyists.
Depending on your ISP, you may be able to run a server by just asking them to unblock port 80 -- they may even do it for free. You never know until you try*.
*Well, unless you read the fine print that is. And even then theory != practice.
[snip]
[snip]
Why not jump-start LSB again? Maybe change it to be more Debian-friendly, etc.
Is it possible to do a lookup by user #? Who's #1337 (and how much did they get for it on eBay?)?
Actually, it doesn't consume electrons. The utility company basically requires that you return all electrons they give you. If it consumed them, it'd require very few, E=Mc^2 and all...
1 electron yields ~8E-14 Joules. That's not enough.
That's trade secret law IIRC. It's different. IANAL.
There are only about 6,000 million people in the world.
I think by "1,000,000 million" he meant "10 million" as evidenced by "now you have 10 people [...] and 9,999,990 people", and by what you said.
IMHO, the UK is a very backwards nation; did you know that MPs aren't allowed to accuse each other of lying, even if it is blatantly obvious? I totally agree that libel laws can get too far and that there is a reasonable balance; the problem is that with some countries, it goes beyond mere laws; in the UK, reputation is and has historically always been very important, and their legal system is unfortunately built around that.
If a legislature isn't able to debate the truth of its member's claims, there's a problem.
IIRC, Asimov was fundamentally opposed to the notion of "technology revolting against its 'owners' (i.e. humans)", particularly w.r.t. strong AI. He felt it was a cliché.
I made it through the 3rd-to-last paragraph and then TL;DR'd it. You?
If it took you an hour to reach a person from Microsoft's support center, you were either doing something terribly wrong or you have awful luck. Last time I had to call Microsoft to activate XP (mid December of 2009) it took about 10 minutes to navigate the call menu and get a person, and another 5-10 minutes to actually get XP activated. I have never had a Microsoft technician tell me, "there is nothing we can do." I am not calling you a liar, but that sounds fishy to me.
See gethuman.com and type "microsoft" into the search thingie. It doesn't say anything about ~1 hour to get to a human.
Don't use Windows. It's out to get you.