The Supreme Court never said that botanically a tomato is a vegetable. They said that for the purposes of determining import tariffs a tomato could be considered a vegetable.
If the question is about a point of law (what is the legal definition of rape), then the judge certainly has that answer and will provide it. Pretty much any other information (like info about rape trauma syndrome) is not something the judge (nor anyone else) will answer. If the subject of rape trauma syndrome came up in the trial, then both sides had opportunity to present experts on the subject. Any information on the subject of rape trauma syndrome would come from a reading of the transcript (which the judge will provide). If the subject did NOT come up in trial, then the jury has no business thinking about it at all, because now they have moved from being a jury to being an advocate for one side or the other.
So in other words, Google wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS. Apple wants to get as many iTunes users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS. Oracle wants to get as many Java, OpenOffice, and MySql users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS. GNU wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS. Microsoft wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another browser.
Get back to us when Google provides some special plugin to make Bing work better on Windows. Or Apple improves the experience for Rhapsody users on Linux. Or Oracle improves C# on Windows.
So by that sound logic any business running servers should have the ability to put such servers on an ISP's network for free, because other people have already paid for the ability to download?
Suppose you are an ISP, and some guy comes to you and says 'I have a great idea for an internet service. Your customers will love it, and I am going to get rich. All I need you to do is provide me with a few GB/s links that I can hook my servers to. And by the way, your customers already paid for the ability to download my data, so I expect you to provide me with the links for free.' Would you (or any sane company) actually go for such an arrangement? How is that any different from what Level3 is doing?
Let's suppose the NetFlix (or a similar service) is hosted on Comcast, and is only accessible from Comcast's network. By your logic, Netflix should be able to connect to the network for free, because the other Comcast customers have already paid. That makes no sense at all. So why would it change just because instead of fiber connecting directly to Netflix's servers the fiber is connected to Level3's router?
After reading some of the other posts I thought of another reason for MS to do this. For example, there is a post by someone whose company has a mainframe, but it is very lightly used and the rest of the stuff is Microsoft. It seems to me that that lightly used mainframe represents a big threat to MS, in that someone could wake up one day and say 'hey, we could move a couple hundred web servers and SQL servers to run on that mainframe with Linux', and there goes MS's grip on that customer. So it is advantageous for MS to push for a product that would remove the lightly used mainframe before that can happen.
That may be true, but it has nothing to do with Hercules or this story. AS/400 is what used to be called a mini-computer. It was sold as a turnkey system to small and medium sized businesses, and as a departmental server in large businesses. It has it's own processor architecture and instruction set, and it's own operating system (OS/400). Hercules, on the other hand, is emulating the z/Architecture machines. These machines have a completely different architecture (which started out as S/360) and operating system (z/OS, formerly MVS). zSeries machines have price tags in the millions and are purchased mostly by Fortune 100 type companies. The software licensing costs can be in the 10's of thousands of dollars each month.
So, the customer set for a product like this would be zSeries customers who don't need the performance or reliability of a mainframe, but are still willing to pay IBM thousands of dollars in license fees each month rather than port their application to a native *nix or Windows solution. That seems to be a very small set.
OK, so originally it was based on the ESA architecture, now it is the z/Architecture. Still never had anything to do with MVS at any point in it's life.
Hercules is not based on MVS in any way. Hercules is based on the z/Architecture Principles of Operation, which describes the instruction set, etc for the z/Architecture. Hercules (+windows+pc) is a 'replacement' for mainframe hardware, nothing else.
Has IBM actually said z/OS can only run on IBM hardware? The only statement related to that that I have seen is where they said they wouldn't license for Hercules, because they think Hercules infringes on patents and other IP.
Correct. IBM itself has offerings to allow you to emulate a zSeries on a linux box for development purposes.
However, I must point out that the EU complaint is not about IBM objecting to companies that are running old stuff using Hercules. IBM is objecting to companies running the very latest z/OS on an emulation of IBM's latest hardware.
Well, in the 50's (US), IBM was forced to license it's patents to anyone who wanted them. If IBM and the other party could not come to agreement on the royalty the court would decide it.
Hercules is a hardware emulator. Running stuff on Hercules does not get you any closer to migrating to Windows than running on a real zSeries machine does. The only thing Hercules does is allow you to move from expensive but highly reliable hardware to cheap hardware. Of course that move comes with an enormous performance penalty, and your 5 9s mainframe reliability has just gone in the toilet. There are probably only a handful of IBM customers world-wide who would even seriously consider doing that. The only thing Microsoft 'gains' from this is potential damage to IBM.
That must depend on where you are. Where I live (NYS), they have been installing more and more pedestrian signals, and they most definitely work. When someone presses the 'cross' button traffic is stopped in all directions (including a red arrow to block right-on-red) for somewhere between 25 and 45 seconds, depending on how wide the street is. During this time a countdown is displayed to the pedestrians to let them know how long they have to complete crossing. If no-one pushes the cross button that phase is skipped entirely.
I agree. This seems more like behaviorism - if I push this button, I may get a reward.
As for the thermostats, they are kidding themselves if they think people actually believe they work. People stop calling because at that point the realize it is pointless to continue complaining, because nothing is going to be done about the situation.
Ta da! You finally get it. Harm from copyright infringement can never be proven, under any circumstances, which is why there are STATUTORY DAMAGES.
As to the amount of damages: yeah, it is easy to show statistics about how severe the award is. But try a little honesty. She wasn't given this 'life sentence' of $1.5M for a single infringement. She was ordered to pay $62K for a single infringement. Is that a lot? Sure is. Is it excessive (as is impossible to get out from under)? No. Unfortunately, she did not commit a single infringement, she committed 24. That is not the fault of the law, or the court, or the jury, or the RIAA. It is solely her fault.
Where is the goal of enhancing the public domain stated? If the primary goal of copyright was to enhance the public domain, they could have made the law say 'for each book published, a stipend of six-months average wage will be paid to the author'. That would 'enhance' the public domain quite a bit. However, the vast majority of the stuff would be complete garbage which no-one will ever read.
Instead, they wanted to enhance the public domain with quality stuff (defined as that which people actually want to read). To do that, they basically said 'as long as your work has value, you get the reap the benefits'. However, back then the 'value' would drop off fairly quickly, because the cost of setting up a new printing, etc would outweigh the sales from that printing. In order to ensure that the work did not disappear forever at that point, the work enters the public domain.
Today, the work holds it's value for a lot longer, because the cost of production is so low. Copyright terms have been adjusted to account for the longer time the work has value.
Nope, no contradiction, just complete lack of understanding on your part. Liability is a civil term. You have ALWAYS been liable for even non-commercial infringement. If the party you harmed so desired he could always sue you for non-commercial infringement. Every one of the RIAA cases has been this type/ The law you keep blathering about is a CRIMINAL law. As much as you keep trying, you can't gloss over the difference. A criminal law says that the federal government will investigate alleged crimes, and if you are found guilty, it is jail time. Prior to widespread non-commercial infringement the PEOPLE (state) had no interest in prosecuting violations, because it was a low-enough impact that the civil prosecutions could handle it. Now, non-commercial infringement is a major problem, so all people (the state) have an interest.
Likewise, you have failed to argue that pirates DON'T cost anyone money. It is equally as silly to say none of the pirated copies represent a lost sale as it is to say every pirated copy is a lost sale. It is impossible to prove either way. That is why there are statutory damages.
Your logic is faulty. The only thing an exchange of money shows is how much you could have made IF, and only IF, you were willing to sell under the same conditions. Therefore, selling at a discount, for instance, proves nothing. I was not going to sell my song for 50 cents, so the 50 cents you made on it does NOT represent 50 cents I didn't get. It either represents a loss of MY full price of the song (if the person was willing to buy on my terms), or it represents a loss of nothing (if they were not). Exactly like giving it away for free. There is no middle ground.
Next, this is not a fine, it is a civil judgment. The 8th amendment does not cover civil law, it covers criminal law. The harm a person can inflict on someone else is not limited to the first parties ability to pay. As the old saying goes - don't do the crime if you can't afford the time.
Because good laws are written narrowly. The specific problem they were trying to solve at that time was commercial infringement. That doesn't mean the non-commercial infringement was rampant and considered acceptable. It means that it wasn't considered a problem, which was probably because it was not occurring.
Here's the thing - there is no point in making laws for things that can't or don't happen. In 1897 there was no 'non-commercial' infringement. No-one was going to go to the time and expense of copying something for distribution if it wasn't going to make them a profit. That only changed in the last few decades, when it became not only possible but easy to make and distribute copies for no cost. There is nothing incompatible with the original intent of protecting the copyright holders in prohibiting new avenues of infringement as they occur.
But you're still looking at it from the wrong point of view. You need to look at it from the copyright holders point of view, because that is who the law is protecting. From the copyright holders point of view it is not 1 or 2 copies, it it many thousands of copies. Now, ideally you would be able to identify each and every infringer, like you could in the old days, you would be able to count how many copies they made, and make each one pay accordingly. Of course, that is impossible. So what is the solution? Make the penalties so high that people aren't tempted to infringe. Of course, they still do, then get all irate when hit with those penalties. Is this system perfect? Hell no. It isn't even very good. But, so far, no-one has come up with an alternative that meets the original (centuries old) goal of protecting creators.
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What the hell is 'factual information'? Is there some universally agreed on book of truths that is beyond reproach?
The Supreme Court never said that botanically a tomato is a vegetable. They said that for the purposes of determining import tariffs a tomato could be considered a vegetable.
If the question is about a point of law (what is the legal definition of rape), then the judge certainly has that answer and will provide it. Pretty much any other information (like info about rape trauma syndrome) is not something the judge (nor anyone else) will answer. If the subject of rape trauma syndrome came up in the trial, then both sides had opportunity to present experts on the subject. Any information on the subject of rape trauma syndrome would come from a reading of the transcript (which the judge will provide). If the subject did NOT come up in trial, then the jury has no business thinking about it at all, because now they have moved from being a jury to being an advocate for one side or the other.
So in other words, Google wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS.
Apple wants to get as many iTunes users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS.
Oracle wants to get as many Java, OpenOffice, and MySql users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS.
GNU wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another OS.
Microsoft wants to get as many users as possible, even if it means supporting another browser.
Get back to us when Google provides some special plugin to make Bing work better on Windows. Or Apple improves the experience for Rhapsody users on Linux. Or Oracle improves C# on Windows.
So by that sound logic any business running servers should have the ability to put such servers on an ISP's network for free, because other people have already paid for the ability to download?
Suppose you are an ISP, and some guy comes to you and says 'I have a great idea for an internet service. Your customers will love it, and I am going to get rich. All I need you to do is provide me with a few GB/s links that I can hook my servers to. And by the way, your customers already paid for the ability to download my data, so I expect you to provide me with the links for free.' Would you (or any sane company) actually go for such an arrangement? How is that any different from what Level3 is doing?
Let's suppose the NetFlix (or a similar service) is hosted on Comcast, and is only accessible from Comcast's network. By your logic, Netflix should be able to connect to the network for free, because the other Comcast customers have already paid. That makes no sense at all. So why would it change just because instead of fiber connecting directly to Netflix's servers the fiber is connected to Level3's router?
After reading some of the other posts I thought of another reason for MS to do this. For example, there is a post by someone whose company has a mainframe, but it is very lightly used and the rest of the stuff is Microsoft. It seems to me that that lightly used mainframe represents a big threat to MS, in that someone could wake up one day and say 'hey, we could move a couple hundred web servers and SQL servers to run on that mainframe with Linux', and there goes MS's grip on that customer. So it is advantageous for MS to push for a product that would remove the lightly used mainframe before that can happen.
That may be true, but it has nothing to do with Hercules or this story. AS/400 is what used to be called a mini-computer. It was sold as a turnkey system to small and medium sized businesses, and as a departmental server in large businesses. It has it's own processor architecture and instruction set, and it's own operating system (OS/400). Hercules, on the other hand, is emulating the z/Architecture machines. These machines have a completely different architecture (which started out as S/360) and operating system (z/OS, formerly MVS). zSeries machines have price tags in the millions and are purchased mostly by Fortune 100 type companies. The software licensing costs can be in the 10's of thousands of dollars each month.
So, the customer set for a product like this would be zSeries customers who don't need the performance or reliability of a mainframe, but are still willing to pay IBM thousands of dollars in license fees each month rather than port their application to a native *nix or Windows solution. That seems to be a very small set.
OK, so originally it was based on the ESA architecture, now it is the z/Architecture. Still never had anything to do with MVS at any point in it's life.
Hercules is not based on MVS in any way. Hercules is based on the z/Architecture Principles of Operation, which describes the instruction set, etc for the z/Architecture. Hercules (+windows+pc) is a 'replacement' for mainframe hardware, nothing else.
Has IBM actually said z/OS can only run on IBM hardware? The only statement related to that that I have seen is where they said they wouldn't license for Hercules, because they think Hercules infringes on patents and other IP.
Correct. IBM itself has offerings to allow you to emulate a zSeries on a linux box for development purposes.
However, I must point out that the EU complaint is not about IBM objecting to companies that are running old stuff using Hercules. IBM is objecting to companies running the very latest z/OS on an emulation of IBM's latest hardware.
Well, in the 50's (US), IBM was forced to license it's patents to anyone who wanted them. If IBM and the other party could not come to agreement on the royalty the court would decide it.
Hercules is a hardware emulator. Running stuff on Hercules does not get you any closer to migrating to Windows than running on a real zSeries machine does. The only thing Hercules does is allow you to move from expensive but highly reliable hardware to cheap hardware. Of course that move comes with an enormous performance penalty, and your 5 9s mainframe reliability has just gone in the toilet. There are probably only a handful of IBM customers world-wide who would even seriously consider doing that. The only thing Microsoft 'gains' from this is potential damage to IBM.
That must depend on where you are. Where I live (NYS), they have been installing more and more pedestrian signals, and they most definitely work. When someone presses the 'cross' button traffic is stopped in all directions (including a red arrow to block right-on-red) for somewhere between 25 and 45 seconds, depending on how wide the street is. During this time a countdown is displayed to the pedestrians to let them know how long they have to complete crossing. If no-one pushes the cross button that phase is skipped entirely.
I agree. This seems more like behaviorism - if I push this button, I may get a reward.
As for the thermostats, they are kidding themselves if they think people actually believe they work. People stop calling because at that point the realize it is pointless to continue complaining, because nothing is going to be done about the situation.
Ta da! You finally get it. Harm from copyright infringement can never be proven, under any circumstances, which is why there are STATUTORY DAMAGES.
As to the amount of damages: yeah, it is easy to show statistics about how severe the award is. But try a little honesty. She wasn't given this 'life sentence' of $1.5M for a single infringement. She was ordered to pay $62K for a single infringement. Is that a lot? Sure is. Is it excessive (as is impossible to get out from under)? No. Unfortunately, she did not commit a single infringement, she committed 24. That is not the fault of the law, or the court, or the jury, or the RIAA. It is solely her fault.
Where is the goal of enhancing the public domain stated? If the primary goal of copyright was to enhance the public domain, they could have made the law say 'for each book published, a stipend of six-months average wage will be paid to the author'. That would 'enhance' the public domain quite a bit. However, the vast majority of the stuff would be complete garbage which no-one will ever read.
Instead, they wanted to enhance the public domain with quality stuff (defined as that which people actually want to read). To do that, they basically said 'as long as your work has value, you get the reap the benefits'. However, back then the 'value' would drop off fairly quickly, because the cost of setting up a new printing, etc would outweigh the sales from that printing. In order to ensure that the work did not disappear forever at that point, the work enters the public domain.
Today, the work holds it's value for a lot longer, because the cost of production is so low. Copyright terms have been adjusted to account for the longer time the work has value.
Nope, no contradiction, just complete lack of understanding on your part. Liability is a civil term. You have ALWAYS been liable for even non-commercial infringement. If the party you harmed so desired he could always sue you for non-commercial infringement. Every one of the RIAA cases has been this type/ The law you keep blathering about is a CRIMINAL law. As much as you keep trying, you can't gloss over the difference. A criminal law says that the federal government will investigate alleged crimes, and if you are found guilty, it is jail time. Prior to widespread non-commercial infringement the PEOPLE (state) had no interest in prosecuting violations, because it was a low-enough impact that the civil prosecutions could handle it. Now, non-commercial infringement is a major problem, so all people (the state) have an interest.
Likewise, you have failed to argue that pirates DON'T cost anyone money. It is equally as silly to say none of the pirated copies represent a lost sale as it is to say every pirated copy is a lost sale. It is impossible to prove either way. That is why there are statutory damages.
Your logic is faulty. The only thing an exchange of money shows is how much you could have made IF, and only IF, you were willing to sell under the same conditions. Therefore, selling at a discount, for instance, proves nothing. I was not going to sell my song for 50 cents, so the 50 cents you made on it does NOT represent 50 cents I didn't get. It either represents a loss of MY full price of the song (if the person was willing to buy on my terms), or it represents a loss of nothing (if they were not). Exactly like giving it away for free. There is no middle ground.
Next, this is not a fine, it is a civil judgment. The 8th amendment does not cover civil law, it covers criminal law. The harm a person can inflict on someone else is not limited to the first parties ability to pay. As the old saying goes - don't do the crime if you can't afford the time.
Because good laws are written narrowly. The specific problem they were trying to solve at that time was commercial infringement. That doesn't mean the non-commercial infringement was rampant and considered acceptable. It means that it wasn't considered a problem, which was probably because it was not occurring.
Here's the thing - there is no point in making laws for things that can't or don't happen. In 1897 there was no 'non-commercial' infringement. No-one was going to go to the time and expense of copying something for distribution if it wasn't going to make them a profit. That only changed in the last few decades, when it became not only possible but easy to make and distribute copies for no cost. There is nothing incompatible with the original intent of protecting the copyright holders in prohibiting new avenues of infringement as they occur.
But you're still looking at it from the wrong point of view. You need to look at it from the copyright holders point of view, because that is who the law is protecting. From the copyright holders point of view it is not 1 or 2 copies, it it many thousands of copies. Now, ideally you would be able to identify each and every infringer, like you could in the old days, you would be able to count how many copies they made, and make each one pay accordingly. Of course, that is impossible. So what is the solution? Make the penalties so high that people aren't tempted to infringe. Of course, they still do, then get all irate when hit with those penalties. Is this system perfect? Hell no. It isn't even very good. But, so far, no-one has come up with an alternative that meets the original (centuries old) goal of protecting creators.