It only takes a review of the purpose of copyright to see that the claim of copyright over an employment agreement should be thrown out. Whether the law itself is well-enough written to allow for that is another matter.
OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract. Whether an employment agreement is a contract at best varies by state, but I'm aware of no reason they couldn't contain confidentiality agreements regardless.
Of course, the protection for that isn't as strong as copyright. And in the end, it doesn't matter; if I know that a company isn't proud of its employment agreement such that they want it kept secret, then I'm thinking twice about subjecting myself to said agreement.
Attempting to define a patent in overly-broad terms is not unique to software. The PTO just doesn't seem to be very good at defining it in the context of software yet.
I think copyright protection for software is a poor fit. Copyright is a good fit for creative/expressive content (or at least, it would be if it weren't so messed up in its current legal form); but program code is functional in nature, and I don't think copyright works very well for that.
The application of copyright to software is IMO a pragmatic decision to make it possible to "sell" or "license" software to end users for profit. I think the principle is a stretch.
Copyright also has drawbacks in terms of how much protection it really offers. Once I know how your software works, I can write source code that works exactly the same way and copyright would not protect you. You talk about not getting protection if I can execute a process in a different way, but copyright wouldn't apply even if I execute it the same way you did, so long as I wrote my own code to do it.
That alone doens't speak to whether patents for software are appropriate, but it is why there is interest in the subject. The question I think remains poorly-addressed, even with this decision, is: in a world where algorithms are increasingly applied by configuring a general-purpose processor rather than by building some special device, how do you properly distinguish the algorithm (clearly shouldn't be patentable) from the innovative application thereof?
A defensive patent is one you don't actively license or enforce, but that you keep in reserve so that you can sue anyone who happens to have infringed it. You keep this threat in your back pocket in case someone sues you (particularly over IP issues). If you licensed it or used it against someone who hadn't sued you first, it would lose its defensive value.
It is an abuse of the system, and arguably a system that encourages it is broken (though I'm not convinced that any system could outright prevent it). Our system does encourage it by encouraging companies to infrigne patents. The root cause is a broken definition of "willful infringement" that increases penalties for infringing a patent you know about, but doesn't increase penalties for infringing a patent you willfully avoid knowing about.
As is often pointed out, this approach deters companies from doing good-faith patent searches. The risk of being caught "accidentally" infringing a patent doesn't outweigh the cost of negotiating a license; so a patent search really just increases costs in all regards.
But of course, that means you essentially know you're going to infringe some patents some of the time. If you can't elmiinate liability for infringement by being in compliance, then you go for mutually assured destruction - reduce liability by making sure nobody big would ever actually sue you.
Given modern technology it would be reasonable, IMO, to set up a system to facilitate patent searches (lower the cost of doing one) and then define willfull infringement to include infringement that stems from failure to use that system (i.e. "if you knew or should have known"). Then two majors symptoms of a broken system - acidental-on-purpose patent infringement and defensive patents - are at least no longer encouraged by the system, and may go away.
You seem to be saying that defamation laws should not be a limitation on free speech (but that people should choose to avoid it as it is unconvincing). I don't agree with that, although I suspect we do agree on the point that saying that any particular poiltician "is nuts" should not constitute defamation.
If Grayson approached this as a defamation issue, I would hope he loses but at least I could respect that he approached the question honestly. The concern here would be if he's trying ot trump up a defamation question that he knows he'd lose by representing that he's concerned about lies to election officials.
TFA is certainly presenting it that way, but I don't know that I trust TFA. I'm reserving judgement since I haven't seen the actual complaint. I find it hard to believe that he would seriously claim that using "my" in the domain name constitutes a statement to - much less a lie to - election officials.
I do disagree with the claim, made by the critic, that every Congressperson represents very U.S. citizen. The House as a whole represents the citizens as a whole, but each rep is responsible to/for a particular district. I think it's shady to call a congressperson other than the one for your district "yours"... but all else being equal, I don't think it's a crime.
The question, then, would be: is all else equal? Does the complaint allege other conduct that might back the claim of "lying" in a context where such a lie would be a crime? One news story that doesn't provide a link to the original complaint does not count as a conclusive answer in my book.
Note: just because Grayson has said stupid things before doesn't mean we can assume he's wrong here; and just because Fox News has shows political bias before doesn't mean we can assume they're doing so here. The only way to form an informed opinion is to fnid an authoritative source on the contents of the complaint.
I'm pretty sure you'd have to show that having multiple options for the phone's built-in search feature was a material part of the service as defined by the contract. I'm also pretty sure you can't.
Something you'll want to keep in mind - because you can bet if it were argued in court that Verizon's lawyers would be pointing it out: This is a UI change, not a change in the total functionality available to the user. Can you still browse to google.com? If so, you may find it hard to convince a judge or jury that removal of a shortcut to access that functionality through the phone's menus matters one bit.
Uh, actually, a lot of people do settle for nurses to do triage. My insurance offers me a phone number where I can reach a nurse at any time of day or night to determine if I have a medical concern that needs a doctor's attention.
The cordless phones that have been in use "for years without panic" were limited to.001W transmitter power, compared wtih cell phone transmitters typically in the 1W range. (Newer DSS cordless phones are permitted to use up to 1W.)
Of course, most people probably don't know either of those things. My real point is: please don't ask the crazy people questions to which they can provide a plausible answer. The best question is, "If cell phones cause cancer, why has no scientific study been able to demonstrate such a connection?"
Just because they're patenting something, doesn't mean they're going to apply it universally. Nor, if you read what they're talking about, is it necessarily about making the avatar match all of the player's real-life characteristics.
Really the point of this is to allow for games that take, as part of their input, characteristics like the player's weight. In other words, real-world activities and their impact on your body become part of playing the game.
Good? Bad? Like most ideas, it depends on what they do with it.
OTOH, I'm not even going to start trying to figure out what, if anything, related to this idea should be eligible for patent protection.
So if your decisions lead to health problems, you'll be waving off any government and/or insurance-based aid related to the resulting medical bills, right? Live and let live, etc, etc, etc.
As I've posted many times, I think it's a bit absurd to expect info you put on FB to be private in anything more than a "lock to keep your siblings out of your diary" sense. However, I do get sick of them making changes that loosen the privacy settings of existing users who probably had things set the way they wanted them for a reason.
And more on point, I'm tired of people making demonstrably false arguments, even if they are trying to support arguably reasonable conclusions, which brings me to parent's post.
Facebook is useless unless you publish your picture and friends list to everyone? Not seeing that one. I never published my friends list or picture; I could still be found. Even if I hid my name, I could still use FB to communicate with people I chose to communicate with.
If you think the only use for Facebook is to make it easy for people to find you, then you're not really using the majority of FB's functionality.
Ok, the issues with using a nuclear weapon are political, not social. Then again I'm more concerned about the physics of that solution.
As for dragging the asteroid so it will miss... the supposed social concern is that there will be times between when you start changing the path and when you've got it fully deflected, where it would (if you stop pushing) hit a place on Earth that it would not have hit before. Two things:
1) TFA mentions that you would start this mission decades before a possible impact. You wouldn't know for sure that it would impact yet. Much less would you know where the impact would occur. Hence, you wouldn't know where the "corridor of risk" would be. Nobody would have to choose which countries to "put at risk", because nobody would be able to make such a choice if they wanted to.
2) If the asteroid's initial trajectory is going to hit the Earth, then there's a 70% chance (roughly) that it will hit water. Even the people in any given country are probably at equal or less risk if the asteroid is momentarily pointed at their country's land mass, than if it is left to hit the ocean in their hemisphere. In other words, the "corridor of risk" wouldn't be at elevated risk - it would be at slightly less decreased risk than other locations on Earth.
It seems to me that if you want to drag the asteroid, picking the direction should be easy. Estimate its current trajectory as best you can. On the very unlikley chance that trajectory hits the center of the Earth, I guess you have to choose randomly; but in the vastly more likely case that it passes relatively near the center of the Earth (such that it would hit the Earth), wouldn't you drag it in the opposite direction (i.e. draw an arrow from the center of the earth to the line of the trajectory where it passes the center; push it the direction the arrow points)? Minimum energy and maximum chance of success...
Are you saying "why don't they jsut relinquish the patent in question"? Well, because they're not saying they will never sue anyone over this patent; they're saying that this particular use will not be the basis for such a suit.
In any case, GP is correct; they cannot say "we won't sue anyone who violates the patent in this particular way", wait for people to do so, and then sue them. Once people rely on the promise to put themselves in a worse position (e.g. by violating the patent in that particular way), the promise is binding.
Fair enough. I guess I should've realized the editors might be trying to add value again; I'm just so used to them doing nothing at all that I hadn't considered they might be making matters worse.
Dictionary definitions outside the context of the discussion are irrelevant.
In the context of censorship as a social wrong, it refers to the suppression of publication of ideas, period. If you insist on using the wrong definition of censor, then I disagree with the premise entirely. The filtering of objectionable material is not something that universally rubs me the wrong way. Only when that filtering is imposed on the recipient, which in practice can only be done by constraining publication, does it rub me the wrong way. Hence, this case - where the filter is allegedly imposed without the reader's permission, but not by suppresion of publication - is borderline.
You can choose to use censor to mean any constraint on the flow of information no matter how or by whom it's applied, or you can choose to argue that censorship is an unequivocal wrong, but trying to do both at once makes you a moron.
Really? So if I'm writing a paper for a college course, and I have permission from my classmate to copy his words as mine, then it's not plagiarism?
Wrong. Plagiarism isn't like copyright infringement. It has nothing to do with having the author's permission, because the author isn't the one being deceived; the reader is.
When the submitter plagiarizes from TFA, that rubs me the wrong way. Quoting the article is one thing; changing a pronoun from "us" to "me" so that the quote reads as your voice is obnoxious.
I think TFA's use of the word "censor" here is borderline; the zune app is not the means of publication. That said, if there's really no option to turn this feature off, then it's not an app I would use.
If you want to complain about the game because it's stupid, I'm with you. (But in that case, I'd suggest forgetting about the temporary boycot; easier to just not play stupid games.)
If you want to complain about the company because it manipulates the game in ways that abuse the players to extract cash from them (which the company's executives brag about doing), I'm with you. (Again, the solution is not a temporary boycot; if you don't want to be taken advantage of, don't.)
But if you want to complain that they use counter-measures to prevent, detect, and/or punish cheating (which you've cleverly called "optimizing your enjoyment"), then get lost. "Hey, I'd enjoy this game more if I were winning more fights against other players, which I cuold do with a more powerful weapon, which I can get by reverse-engineering the URL that would be generated if I'd done something to earn such a weapon. I think I'll 'optimize my enjoyment'."
There's a difference between taking away a feature to which users are accustomed vs. fixing a bug that users are accustomed to being able to exploit.
$26 software defeats American military? OMG, we've been beaten?
Oh, wait... you're just saying that insurgents have a tactical advantage in some missions because they've exploited a security vulnerability using $26 software. So maybe $26 software used as weapon aganist US military?
Ah... but the military discovered the problem in the field, and is working to plug the security hole. $26 software annoys American military temporarily.
Maybe. So what? I neither know, care, nor said anything about whether you could operate a business named Disney in the wine and liquor market.
As long as we're introducing irrelevant points, "disney adult video" would be in a market Disney occupies, even though the movies they produce don't happen to be adult videos. I can't say off the top of my head whether they have an entry in the food market, but I bet they do. I think you'll have to try a bit harder to think of a legally distinct market where Disney itself doesn't compete.
Even if that weren't the case, it may not matter, because using a child-oriented company's mark on adult products would likely be seen as harming the trademark holder's reputation trhough use of the mark, which itself can be actionable.
But back to the point: Simply registering disney.com is not an action regulated by trademark law.
1) The domain name disputes are over trademark, not copyright. The rules for trademark are completely different from the rules for copyright.
2) The domain name disputes are not a direct result of any IP law - not even trademark, and certainly not copyright. They are essentially a result of regulatory policies specifically surrounding domain name management. Trademark law would not, on its own, forbid me from registering disney.com (though it would prevent me from using disney.com to compete in any commercial space where Disney is a recognized trademark).
3) In any event, even if the esteemed congressman had asserted trademark over his name, that would not forbid its use by news outlets. Trademark protection is not nearly that broad.
The copyright assertion is not only stupid, it is in direct contradiction to the law.
The court's ruling does not prevent MS from pursuing its claims, particularly if they are legitimate. It does say that MS cannot try to deny the defendants their right to a fair trial. Even a guilty party has that right.
There is only a dilema if you believe you have reason to choose sides between the alleged pirates or MS. Why do you think you need to choose sides? If the alleged pirates are guilty, but also MS is trying to bully them, then both are wrong. On the other hand, while there is piracy in India, you don't know that these particular allegations are true.
That's the point of a fair trial. The rules shouldn't favor either side, so there is no need to take a side. All you have to decide to evaluate the merits of this ruling, is whether it makes the playing field more level or less so.
Ah, a social networking fanboy, I presume. Can't accept that the risk/reward for posting embarrassing information on Facebook is different from that for using a banking site? Or maybe you're just only capable of understanding absolutes. Whatever.
Now, it is true that when you tell someone something in the real world you're putting information in someone's hands. But when you say there's "nothing special" about the Internet or social networking sites in that regard, you are dead wrong.
What's special is, when you "tell your friends" something on Facebook, you're putting the info not only in their hands, but in the hands of people you do not know. You probably can't even list all the people to whom you've ceded control over that information. But if I'm talking to a friend, I know exactly who is getting control of my information.
If you want to compare that to Facebook, the real world analogy is calling over a stranger based only on his reputation for carrying messages, giving him an unsealed envelope with the understanding that he will make a photocopy of the contents, and asking him to deliver it to your friend in the real world.
I'm not wasting time on your other examples. They are all based on asking me to defend a position I never asserted. If you don't comprehend the inherent conflict in relying on social networking sites to protect the privacy of your information, then good luck to you.
The point isn't whether you should want a place to socialize without broadcasting to the world. The point is you should understand the nature of social networking sites, and that their nature is contrary to protecting the privacy of information you put on them.
Certainly Facebook wants to project the idea that they give you a place to socialize without broadcasting. Google, and Amazon, and anyone else offering a cloud computing service similarly wants you to perceive a system in which your data is in a balance of private and shared appropriate for your computing needs.
But in both cases, the reality is, you are putting your information in someone else's hands. You are posting your information to the Internet. Even if the companies involved had the best of intentions, and even if those intentions could never change, you are now trusting their ability to protect your information in a complex security environment.
Yes, there is a purpose for having a place to post information for certain people to see without showing it to everyone; but GP is absolutely correct in saying that social networking sites cannot, and never will be able to, fill that role. No matter what options they present to you, you are not in control of the information you put there.
Control doesn't flow from terms and conditions; those almost always state that they can be changed. Control flows from possession. If you don't control who possesses your information, then you don't control your information. If you put a picture on Facebook such that "only" your friends can see it, Facebook possesses that picture.
What happens when management changes and decides to change the deal? What happens when they get hacked? When their server backups get misplaced? When they receive a court order demanding your information?
It doesn't matter how careful they are to give you good privacy options. It doesn't matter how careful you are to use them. If you have information you want to control in any way, you shouldn't be posting it on a social networking site.
I'm guessing you haven't put much thought into the conditions necessary for a laser on the ground at the point of that cone to draw a spiral along the surface of the cone.
Anyway, not every rocket test would look like that. That is what a particular type of rocket failure looks like. (And yes, whether or not this event is a rocket failure, that is what such a failure looks like, as you can discover by looking through the material linked in TFS.)
But whatever; if you somehow you think these images give you a good enough angle to say that a rocket failure couldn't look like that even though witnesses to previous events and simulations say you're wrong, that's fine.
Slashdot Mirror
It only takes a review of the purpose of copyright to see that the claim of copyright over an employment agreement should be thrown out. Whether the law itself is well-enough written to allow for that is another matter.
OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract. Whether an employment agreement is a contract at best varies by state, but I'm aware of no reason they couldn't contain confidentiality agreements regardless.
Of course, the protection for that isn't as strong as copyright. And in the end, it doesn't matter; if I know that a company isn't proud of its employment agreement such that they want it kept secret, then I'm thinking twice about subjecting myself to said agreement.
Attempting to define a patent in overly-broad terms is not unique to software. The PTO just doesn't seem to be very good at defining it in the context of software yet.
I think copyright protection for software is a poor fit. Copyright is a good fit for creative/expressive content (or at least, it would be if it weren't so messed up in its current legal form); but program code is functional in nature, and I don't think copyright works very well for that.
The application of copyright to software is IMO a pragmatic decision to make it possible to "sell" or "license" software to end users for profit. I think the principle is a stretch.
Copyright also has drawbacks in terms of how much protection it really offers. Once I know how your software works, I can write source code that works exactly the same way and copyright would not protect you. You talk about not getting protection if I can execute a process in a different way, but copyright wouldn't apply even if I execute it the same way you did, so long as I wrote my own code to do it.
That alone doens't speak to whether patents for software are appropriate, but it is why there is interest in the subject. The question I think remains poorly-addressed, even with this decision, is: in a world where algorithms are increasingly applied by configuring a general-purpose processor rather than by building some special device, how do you properly distinguish the algorithm (clearly shouldn't be patentable) from the innovative application thereof?
That's not what "defensive patent" means.
A defensive patent is one you don't actively license or enforce, but that you keep in reserve so that you can sue anyone who happens to have infringed it. You keep this threat in your back pocket in case someone sues you (particularly over IP issues). If you licensed it or used it against someone who hadn't sued you first, it would lose its defensive value.
It is an abuse of the system, and arguably a system that encourages it is broken (though I'm not convinced that any system could outright prevent it). Our system does encourage it by encouraging companies to infrigne patents. The root cause is a broken definition of "willful infringement" that increases penalties for infringing a patent you know about, but doesn't increase penalties for infringing a patent you willfully avoid knowing about.
As is often pointed out, this approach deters companies from doing good-faith patent searches. The risk of being caught "accidentally" infringing a patent doesn't outweigh the cost of negotiating a license; so a patent search really just increases costs in all regards.
But of course, that means you essentially know you're going to infringe some patents some of the time. If you can't elmiinate liability for infringement by being in compliance, then you go for mutually assured destruction - reduce liability by making sure nobody big would ever actually sue you.
Given modern technology it would be reasonable, IMO, to set up a system to facilitate patent searches (lower the cost of doing one) and then define willfull infringement to include infringement that stems from failure to use that system (i.e. "if you knew or should have known"). Then two majors symptoms of a broken system - acidental-on-purpose patent infringement and defensive patents - are at least no longer encouraged by the system, and may go away.
You seem to be saying that defamation laws should not be a limitation on free speech (but that people should choose to avoid it as it is unconvincing). I don't agree with that, although I suspect we do agree on the point that saying that any particular poiltician "is nuts" should not constitute defamation.
If Grayson approached this as a defamation issue, I would hope he loses but at least I could respect that he approached the question honestly. The concern here would be if he's trying ot trump up a defamation question that he knows he'd lose by representing that he's concerned about lies to election officials.
TFA is certainly presenting it that way, but I don't know that I trust TFA. I'm reserving judgement since I haven't seen the actual complaint. I find it hard to believe that he would seriously claim that using "my" in the domain name constitutes a statement to - much less a lie to - election officials.
I do disagree with the claim, made by the critic, that every Congressperson represents very U.S. citizen. The House as a whole represents the citizens as a whole, but each rep is responsible to/for a particular district. I think it's shady to call a congressperson other than the one for your district "yours"... but all else being equal, I don't think it's a crime.
The question, then, would be: is all else equal? Does the complaint allege other conduct that might back the claim of "lying" in a context where such a lie would be a crime? One news story that doesn't provide a link to the original complaint does not count as a conclusive answer in my book.
Note: just because Grayson has said stupid things before doesn't mean we can assume he's wrong here; and just because Fox News has shows political bias before doesn't mean we can assume they're doing so here. The only way to form an informed opinion is to fnid an authoritative source on the contents of the complaint.
Hmm... the judicial branch's actions involve interpreting the law rather than writing new law? What a shock.
I'm pretty sure you'd have to show that having multiple options for the phone's built-in search feature was a material part of the service as defined by the contract. I'm also pretty sure you can't.
Something you'll want to keep in mind - because you can bet if it were argued in court that Verizon's lawyers would be pointing it out: This is a UI change, not a change in the total functionality available to the user. Can you still browse to google.com? If so, you may find it hard to convince a judge or jury that removal of a shortcut to access that functionality through the phone's menus matters one bit.
Uh, actually, a lot of people do settle for nurses to do triage. My insurance offers me a phone number where I can reach a nurse at any time of day or night to determine if I have a medical concern that needs a doctor's attention.
The cordless phones that have been in use "for years without panic" were limited to .001W transmitter power, compared wtih cell phone transmitters typically in the 1W range. (Newer DSS cordless phones are permitted to use up to 1W.)
Of course, most people probably don't know either of those things. My real point is: please don't ask the crazy people questions to which they can provide a plausible answer. The best question is, "If cell phones cause cancer, why has no scientific study been able to demonstrate such a connection?"
Just because they're patenting something, doesn't mean they're going to apply it universally. Nor, if you read what they're talking about, is it necessarily about making the avatar match all of the player's real-life characteristics.
Really the point of this is to allow for games that take, as part of their input, characteristics like the player's weight. In other words, real-world activities and their impact on your body become part of playing the game.
Good? Bad? Like most ideas, it depends on what they do with it.
OTOH, I'm not even going to start trying to figure out what, if anything, related to this idea should be eligible for patent protection.
Sounds good to me.
So if your decisions lead to health problems, you'll be waving off any government and/or insurance-based aid related to the resulting medical bills, right? Live and let live, etc, etc, etc.
You're part of a society. Get over it.
As I've posted many times, I think it's a bit absurd to expect info you put on FB to be private in anything more than a "lock to keep your siblings out of your diary" sense. However, I do get sick of them making changes that loosen the privacy settings of existing users who probably had things set the way they wanted them for a reason.
And more on point, I'm tired of people making demonstrably false arguments, even if they are trying to support arguably reasonable conclusions, which brings me to parent's post.
Facebook is useless unless you publish your picture and friends list to everyone? Not seeing that one. I never published my friends list or picture; I could still be found. Even if I hid my name, I could still use FB to communicate with people I chose to communicate with.
If you think the only use for Facebook is to make it easy for people to find you, then you're not really using the majority of FB's functionality.
Ok, the issues with using a nuclear weapon are political, not social. Then again I'm more concerned about the physics of that solution.
As for dragging the asteroid so it will miss... the supposed social concern is that there will be times between when you start changing the path and when you've got it fully deflected, where it would (if you stop pushing) hit a place on Earth that it would not have hit before. Two things:
1) TFA mentions that you would start this mission decades before a possible impact. You wouldn't know for sure that it would impact yet. Much less would you know where the impact would occur. Hence, you wouldn't know where the "corridor of risk" would be. Nobody would have to choose which countries to "put at risk", because nobody would be able to make such a choice if they wanted to.
2) If the asteroid's initial trajectory is going to hit the Earth, then there's a 70% chance (roughly) that it will hit water. Even the people in any given country are probably at equal or less risk if the asteroid is momentarily pointed at their country's land mass, than if it is left to hit the ocean in their hemisphere. In other words, the "corridor of risk" wouldn't be at elevated risk - it would be at slightly less decreased risk than other locations on Earth.
It seems to me that if you want to drag the asteroid, picking the direction should be easy. Estimate its current trajectory as best you can. On the very unlikley chance that trajectory hits the center of the Earth, I guess you have to choose randomly; but in the vastly more likely case that it passes relatively near the center of the Earth (such that it would hit the Earth), wouldn't you drag it in the opposite direction (i.e. draw an arrow from the center of the earth to the line of the trajectory where it passes the center; push it the direction the arrow points)? Minimum energy and maximum chance of success...
Make what free, exactly?
Are you saying "why don't they jsut relinquish the patent in question"? Well, because they're not saying they will never sue anyone over this patent; they're saying that this particular use will not be the basis for such a suit.
In any case, GP is correct; they cannot say "we won't sue anyone who violates the patent in this particular way", wait for people to do so, and then sue them. Once people rely on the promise to put themselves in a worse position (e.g. by violating the patent in that particular way), the promise is binding.
Fair enough. I guess I should've realized the editors might be trying to add value again; I'm just so used to them doing nothing at all that I hadn't considered they might be making matters worse.
Dictionary definitions outside the context of the discussion are irrelevant.
In the context of censorship as a social wrong, it refers to the suppression of publication of ideas, period. If you insist on using the wrong definition of censor, then I disagree with the premise entirely. The filtering of objectionable material is not something that universally rubs me the wrong way. Only when that filtering is imposed on the recipient, which in practice can only be done by constraining publication, does it rub me the wrong way. Hence, this case - where the filter is allegedly imposed without the reader's permission, but not by suppresion of publication - is borderline.
You can choose to use censor to mean any constraint on the flow of information no matter how or by whom it's applied, or you can choose to argue that censorship is an unequivocal wrong, but trying to do both at once makes you a moron.
Really? So if I'm writing a paper for a college course, and I have permission from my classmate to copy his words as mine, then it's not plagiarism?
Wrong. Plagiarism isn't like copyright infringement. It has nothing to do with having the author's permission, because the author isn't the one being deceived; the reader is.
When the submitter plagiarizes from TFA, that rubs me the wrong way. Quoting the article is one thing; changing a pronoun from "us" to "me" so that the quote reads as your voice is obnoxious.
I think TFA's use of the word "censor" here is borderline; the zune app is not the means of publication. That said, if there's really no option to turn this feature off, then it's not an app I would use.
If you want to complain about the game because it's stupid, I'm with you. (But in that case, I'd suggest forgetting about the temporary boycot; easier to just not play stupid games.)
If you want to complain about the company because it manipulates the game in ways that abuse the players to extract cash from them (which the company's executives brag about doing), I'm with you. (Again, the solution is not a temporary boycot; if you don't want to be taken advantage of, don't.)
But if you want to complain that they use counter-measures to prevent, detect, and/or punish cheating (which you've cleverly called "optimizing your enjoyment"), then get lost. "Hey, I'd enjoy this game more if I were winning more fights against other players, which I cuold do with a more powerful weapon, which I can get by reverse-engineering the URL that would be generated if I'd done something to earn such a weapon. I think I'll 'optimize my enjoyment'."
There's a difference between taking away a feature to which users are accustomed vs. fixing a bug that users are accustomed to being able to exploit.
$26 software defeats American military? OMG, we've been beaten?
Oh, wait... you're just saying that insurgents have a tactical advantage in some missions because they've exploited a security vulnerability using $26 software. So maybe $26 software used as weapon aganist US military?
Ah... but the military discovered the problem in the field, and is working to plug the security hole. $26 software annoys American military temporarily.
Maybe. So what? I neither know, care, nor said anything about whether you could operate a business named Disney in the wine and liquor market.
As long as we're introducing irrelevant points, "disney adult video" would be in a market Disney occupies, even though the movies they produce don't happen to be adult videos. I can't say off the top of my head whether they have an entry in the food market, but I bet they do. I think you'll have to try a bit harder to think of a legally distinct market where Disney itself doesn't compete.
Even if that weren't the case, it may not matter, because using a child-oriented company's mark on adult products would likely be seen as harming the trademark holder's reputation trhough use of the mark, which itself can be actionable.
But back to the point: Simply registering disney.com is not an action regulated by trademark law.
A few things.
1) The domain name disputes are over trademark, not copyright. The rules for trademark are completely different from the rules for copyright.
2) The domain name disputes are not a direct result of any IP law - not even trademark, and certainly not copyright. They are essentially a result of regulatory policies specifically surrounding domain name management. Trademark law would not, on its own, forbid me from registering disney.com (though it would prevent me from using disney.com to compete in any commercial space where Disney is a recognized trademark).
3) In any event, even if the esteemed congressman had asserted trademark over his name, that would not forbid its use by news outlets. Trademark protection is not nearly that broad.
The copyright assertion is not only stupid, it is in direct contradiction to the law.
I don't see anything in that to be torn over.
The court's ruling does not prevent MS from pursuing its claims, particularly if they are legitimate. It does say that MS cannot try to deny the defendants their right to a fair trial. Even a guilty party has that right.
There is only a dilema if you believe you have reason to choose sides between the alleged pirates or MS. Why do you think you need to choose sides? If the alleged pirates are guilty, but also MS is trying to bully them, then both are wrong. On the other hand, while there is piracy in India, you don't know that these particular allegations are true.
That's the point of a fair trial. The rules shouldn't favor either side, so there is no need to take a side. All you have to decide to evaluate the merits of this ruling, is whether it makes the playing field more level or less so.
Ah, a social networking fanboy, I presume. Can't accept that the risk/reward for posting embarrassing information on Facebook is different from that for using a banking site? Or maybe you're just only capable of understanding absolutes. Whatever.
Now, it is true that when you tell someone something in the real world you're putting information in someone's hands. But when you say there's "nothing special" about the Internet or social networking sites in that regard, you are dead wrong.
What's special is, when you "tell your friends" something on Facebook, you're putting the info not only in their hands, but in the hands of people you do not know. You probably can't even list all the people to whom you've ceded control over that information. But if I'm talking to a friend, I know exactly who is getting control of my information.
If you want to compare that to Facebook, the real world analogy is calling over a stranger based only on his reputation for carrying messages, giving him an unsealed envelope with the understanding that he will make a photocopy of the contents, and asking him to deliver it to your friend in the real world.
I'm not wasting time on your other examples. They are all based on asking me to defend a position I never asserted. If you don't comprehend the inherent conflict in relying on social networking sites to protect the privacy of your information, then good luck to you.
The point isn't whether you should want a place to socialize without broadcasting to the world. The point is you should understand the nature of social networking sites, and that their nature is contrary to protecting the privacy of information you put on them.
Certainly Facebook wants to project the idea that they give you a place to socialize without broadcasting. Google, and Amazon, and anyone else offering a cloud computing service similarly wants you to perceive a system in which your data is in a balance of private and shared appropriate for your computing needs.
But in both cases, the reality is, you are putting your information in someone else's hands. You are posting your information to the Internet. Even if the companies involved had the best of intentions, and even if those intentions could never change, you are now trusting their ability to protect your information in a complex security environment.
Yes, there is a purpose for having a place to post information for certain people to see without showing it to everyone; but GP is absolutely correct in saying that social networking sites cannot, and never will be able to, fill that role. No matter what options they present to you, you are not in control of the information you put there.
Control doesn't flow from terms and conditions; those almost always state that they can be changed. Control flows from possession. If you don't control who possesses your information, then you don't control your information. If you put a picture on Facebook such that "only" your friends can see it, Facebook possesses that picture.
What happens when management changes and decides to change the deal? What happens when they get hacked? When their server backups get misplaced? When they receive a court order demanding your information?
It doesn't matter how careful they are to give you good privacy options. It doesn't matter how careful you are to use them. If you have information you want to control in any way, you shouldn't be posting it on a social networking site.
I'm guessing you haven't put much thought into the conditions necessary for a laser on the ground at the point of that cone to draw a spiral along the surface of the cone.
Anyway, not every rocket test would look like that. That is what a particular type of rocket failure looks like. (And yes, whether or not this event is a rocket failure, that is what such a failure looks like, as you can discover by looking through the material linked in TFS.)
But whatever; if you somehow you think these images give you a good enough angle to say that a rocket failure couldn't look like that even though witnesses to previous events and simulations say you're wrong, that's fine.