True, but they do own the name WikiTravel, and unless the people who own the trademark say it is moving, it isn't moving. If they had said 'members of the WikiTravel community are moving to WikiMedia instead' or something similar that would be different. But they worded it to make it appear as if WikiTravel itself was simply moving to a new host, which is likely to lead to confusion, which is exactly what trademarks are supposed to protect against.
I didn't state if it was true or not, and I have no idea. That is for the courts to decide. I was just pointing out that the suit is not about copyrights or people being volunteers like people were saying.
I don't know what you were reading, but they clearly do state the claim.
29. For example, on August 18, 2012, Holliday improperly and wrongfully emailed at least several hundred of Wikitravel members, purporting to be from Wikitravel and informing members that the Wikitravel Website was “migrating” to the Wikimedia Foundation. Upon information and belief, the number emailed is far greater.
30. Specifically, Holliday’s email contained the Subject Line, “Important information about Wikitravel” and its body stated, “This email is being sent to you on behalf of the Wikitravel administrators since you have put some real time and effort into working on Wikitravel. We wanted to make sure that you are up to date and in the loop regarding big changes in the community that will affect the future of your work! As you may already have heard, Wikitravel’s community is looking to migrate to the Wikimedia Foundation.”
No, that is entirely false. Read the lawsuit, not the bullshit flamebait summary.
The suit is about Trademark Infringement, Unfair business practices under the Lanham Act, Unfair business practices under California Business Practices Act, and Civil Conspiracy. Copyright is not mentioned at all.
Basically, WikiTravel (Internet Brands) is claiming that the site was forked, which they admit right in the suit is legal. However, these two 'unpaid volunteers' , who were admins for WikiTravel (and are the ones who forked the site) then went on WikiTravel's web site and made statements to the effect that WikiTravel was moving to or becoming WikiMedia. That is a lie. WikiTrave is a trademark owned by Internet Brands, and is going nowhere. They also used their admin authority to send emails from WikiTravels email to WikiTravels customers stating the same thing.
They can fork the site if they want. They can not claim or imply that the site is WikiTravel (a trademark violation). And they can not make it appear as if the WikiTravel business no longer exists or has become something else. That is a Lanham Act violation.
This case has very little to do with the content or the CC-sa license. That seems to just be a red herring used to raise the righteous indignation of slashdot.
The actual suit seems to be about trademarks and misleading statements. Namely statements that say that WikiTravel is becoming or moving to WikiMedia. WikiTravel is a trademark owned by Internet Brands, and is not moving to WikiMedia. Some people that used to be associated with WikiTravel are moving to WikiMedia and taking content with them, but that is not the issue..
This has nothing to do with them being volunteers, and very little to do with the fork.
If you read the actual suit, you will find tha tthe actual complaints are trademark violations, among some other things.
From the suit, they are claiming that the 'unpaid volunteers' decided to fork the site (which they admit they can do). However, the admins then went on WikiTravel's site and made posts stating that 'WikiTravel (a trademark) was moving to WikiMedia'. It is not. In addition, they claim, these volunteers sent out emails to WikiTravel's customers, using WiikiTravel's email accounts, and again stated in these emails that WikiTravel was moving to WikiMedia.
If true, that is not 'forking a project', it is lying and forgery.
It has been almost 40 years since these events took place. There have been countless investigations (including by Congress). There have been many interviews given and books written by parties involved in and near to the case. And the BEST explanation you (or anyone) can come up with for anyone thinking there 'must have been some back room deal' is... it's not ludicrous? It IS ludicrous by now. There is no evidence suggesting otherwise, just some kind of article of faith that 'there must have been a deal'.
Now, having said that, I will grant you the possibility that Ford thought that Nixon leaving office would be best for the country, and told him if he resigned he would be pardoned, but I don't see anything wrong with that. Or maybe Nixon approached Ford and said he would leave office if Nixon would pardon him. Nothing wrong with that either. The alternative would have been Nixon being removed from office, which certainly could not be considered a good thing for the country. And even if Nixon was removed from office, Ford would still get the presidency, and if that was his motive, as you suggest, he would not have to suffer the fallout of issuing the pardon.
'You resign, I'll pardon you, and the country can move on from this mess' is a perfectly valid and reasonable explanation.
'You resign, I'll pardon you, and mwuahahah I'LL BE PRESIDENT' is not. Not after all this time, and not when there is nothing in the man's life before or after that that would suggest he would do such a thing. And especially not when, it the absence of such a deal, it is extremely likely that Ford would be president anyway.
Yes, it does indeed take a conspiracy nut to come up with that theory. What great prize was the presidency? He inherited a heavily democratic congress, a nation that was a complete mess, and knew full well that the pardon would make a large part of the country hate him. He couldn't get any legislation passed, hell he couldn't even successfully veto legislation. He sacrificed his career for what he thought was for the good of the country, and even many of his friends turned on him. So what was the upside to being president that was so appealing he was willing to suffer all that?
The only way Amazon can become and remain a monopoly is by keeping prices low. As soon as the prices rise high enough it will become worthwhile for competitors to spring up (especially since there is a very low barrier to entry). Also, books are not a requirement of life. If the prices become too high, people will stop buying as many books, and Amazon will make less money, forcing them to lower prices.
It is weird that you pick Amazon and Wal-mart as examples. While it is true that their low prices forced others out of business, there is zero evidence that they have raised prices above what the competition was originally charging. That would be predatory pricing.
How long, exactly, is the 'long run'? Wal-mart has had pretty much a monopoly for certain things in my area for about 30 years. Prices are still low. When is that magically going to change?
The fact that you think that the Apple deal has anything to do with 'cost' shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
The deal Apple made does not have anything to do with the cost of books to Apple. It has to do with the PRICE of books to the consumer. Under the deal Apple made, NOBODY even has the option to sell books for a lower price. This ensures that Apple does not have to compete on price.
And your point about Amazon 'crushing' all other online book sales is meaningless. They have not yet done that. And if they do manage to do that, they will have become a monopoly and will be prevented from doing things that prevent competition. That leaves the door open for new competitors to arise, and Amazon will have to go back to competing. It is not like there is some great barrier to entry to becoming an eBook seller.
No, this is not true. Amazon may well say (to the publishers) 'nobody can buy books cheaper than the price Amazon' gets. Apple, on the other hand, says 'nobody can SELL books cheaper than Apple can'. Those are two vastly different things.
Even if nobody can get a better deal than Amazon, they can still sell them for the same or lower price than Amazon. In fact, that is what the publishers are complaining about Amazon doing to them. That, however, is competition, and results in lower prices for the consumer.
Apple's deal, on the other hand, says that nobody can SELL books for a lower price than Apple. Nobody even has the opportunity to use the books as a loss leader. That is anti-competitive behavior, and results in higher prices for consumers.
No, the problem with his argument is that this has nothing at all to do with fair use. Fair use is a defense against an accusation of copyright infringement, not an offense that can be used to force a provider to host your content.
IF the situation was that someone was being sued for copyright infringement, THEN they could raise fair use as a defense. But that is not the situation here at all. Here, the situation is that a hosting provider has decided, maybe incorrectly, that a particular piece of content infringes on someone else's copyright, and they decline to host that content. That is their right, they can use any criteria at all to decide what they will and will not host.
The copyright holders are not doing these so-called 'takedowns', the HOSTING companies are. And the HOSTING companies are free to host/not host content based on whatever criteria they want, including 'looks like maybe it infringes someone else's copyright'.
Except that no media companies made such claims. The hosting companies decided for themselves not to carry that content, because they thought it may infringe on someone's copyright. Their decision making may be flawed, but is not illegal in any way. They can decide what content to accept or reject based on any (legal) criteria they want. Illegal criteria would be the usual, such a based on the submitters race.
Oh get off your high horse. Vobile, Ustream, YouTube, et al are not copyright holders. They are not issuing 'false' anything. They are not making accusations. They are not breaking the law, or acting unethically. They are simply making business decisions on what content they want to host. That is their right. They don't need to explain their decisions to anyone. If you don't like the decisions they make, take the big bucks you are paying them to host your content elsewhere. Oh wait...
Which has nothing at all to do with fair use. The rights have not expired in a fair use case. So no, it is in no way a 'self-evident' right, as the constitution (as you pointed out) gives EXCLUSIVE right to the authors and inventors, therefore you have NO right to their work. 'Fair use' is an EXCEPTION to the their exclusive right, which is not self-evident at all.
Well, you'll be happy to know that this is already in place. Everytime YouTube or UStream gets one of these 'false takedown notices', they send a bill for that amount to whoever decided that the content should be taken down. Of course, since it is they themselves that are running these algorithms and making that determination, the net result is no money changes hands.
There are no takedown notices involved. What is so hard to understand about that? These are services used by the hosting providers (YouTube, UStream, et al) themselves to help them determine what content they will and will not host. And guess what! They can refuse to host your content for any legal reason at all (including 'we just don't want to').
All of this babble about 'takedown noticies' and 'fair use' and such is just distraction. These actions have nothing to do with that, and are simply a business deciding what it will and will not offer.
Now, why would they do that? Well, most obviously, it shields them from the massive legal headaches and workload of dealing with copyrighted works. Probably equally important to them is it prevents anyone from making a claim that they have become a 'commons', and therefore have lost the ability to restrict what they host. This way that can show that they have rejected thousands and thousands of things over the years, for a variety of reasons (porn, copyrighted, etc) and thus are in no way a commons.
News flash: YouTube, UStream, et al are not 'the core of our communication systems'. They are commercial entities who's current business model is allowing users to post/stream stuff for free. They are no different than a store that makes a choice on what kinds of items and what brands it wants to carry. They are not 'censoring' anything, they are simply deciding what they will and will not provide. You are perfectly free to take your hosting elsewhere or host it yourself.
Believe it or not, 'censor' does not mean 'makes it a little more difficult ot expensive than I would like'.
So basically, she did not commit and was not accused of committing any federal crime. But she may have violated a state law. And because the US DOJ and FBI did not illegally and unconstitutionally insert themselves into a state matter, it is proper to accuse them and the president of 'not wanting justice'.
On the other hand, we have someone who did violate a federal law and was properly investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the DOJ, and that is another example of 'not serving justice'.
Surely the contract you signed with whoever is hosting your content states the penalties for failing to host your content, doesn't it? What's that, no contract? Well, maybe you can try a warrantee claim, and at least get back the money you paid them to host your content. What's that, you didn't pay them anything? And you actually expect them to somehow owe YOU something?? That is a good one.
The problem is not the DMCA, or that there is no "pain", the problem is that some people actually think they are entitiled to literally get something for nothing.
Yes, business understands money. And if you actually PAY them money for a service, they understand you better.
He has Secret Service protection because he is a candidate for president. That has nothing to do with his status as 'just a citizen'. Or do you think that anyone who receives benefits of you tax dollars (teachers, police, firemen, town clerk, etc) becomes something other than a citizen and therefore forfeits their rights?
It is interesting how you think involuntary violation of someone else's rights can be dressed up as 'a public service'. I hope you keep that in mind when it happens to you.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Verification of the PUBLIC data means nothing. Marriages, property transfers, etc are a matter of public record. Anybody can go down to the courthouse and see who married who or what property they bought. It might take you a while to find something to do with Mitt Romney, but eventually you find something. So you put in your fake document that on 'Feb 3, 2008, 100 acres of property was purchased for x dollars in y.' Then you put in the same document that on 'Dec 15, 2008, $10000 was put in tax-deductible account z'.
You release said document. Reporter goes to the courthouse and finds that indeed Romney did buy 100 acres of property for x dollars. How in hell does that possibly 'prove' that the document is authentic, and that he did claim to put $10000 in a tax-deductible account? It doesn't. Not one bit. And since that is a private transaction, nobody is going to confirm or deny it.
First of all, Romney is not a 'member of the government'.
Second, what you meant was 'select from the best leaders who don't value privacy'. Which is undoubtedly a very small percentage of the 'best leaders' (probably 0).
Lastly, what makes you think (assuming you are capable of thought) that someone who values his own privacy so little is going to give a damn about your privacy?
Slashdot Mirror
True, but they do own the name WikiTravel, and unless the people who own the trademark say it is moving, it isn't moving. If they had said 'members of the WikiTravel community are moving to WikiMedia instead' or something similar that would be different. But they worded it to make it appear as if WikiTravel itself was simply moving to a new host, which is likely to lead to confusion, which is exactly what trademarks are supposed to protect against.
I didn't state if it was true or not, and I have no idea. That is for the courts to decide. I was just pointing out that the suit is not about copyrights or people being volunteers like people were saying.
I don't know what you were reading, but they clearly do state the claim.
29. For example, on August 18, 2012, Holliday improperly and
wrongfully emailed at least several hundred of Wikitravel members, purporting to
be from Wikitravel and informing members that the Wikitravel Website was
“migrating” to the Wikimedia Foundation. Upon information and belief, the
number emailed is far greater.
30. Specifically, Holliday’s email contained the Subject Line, “Important
information about Wikitravel” and its body stated, “This email is being sent to you
on behalf of the Wikitravel administrators since you have put some real time and
effort into working on Wikitravel. We wanted to make sure that you are up to
date and in the loop regarding big changes in the community that will affect the
future of your work! As you may already have heard, Wikitravel’s community is
looking to migrate to the Wikimedia Foundation.”
No, that is entirely false. Read the lawsuit, not the bullshit flamebait summary.
The suit is about Trademark Infringement, Unfair business practices under the Lanham Act, Unfair business practices under California Business Practices Act, and Civil Conspiracy. Copyright is not mentioned at all.
Basically, WikiTravel (Internet Brands) is claiming that the site was forked, which they admit right in the suit is legal. However, these two 'unpaid volunteers' , who were admins for WikiTravel (and are the ones who forked the site) then went on WikiTravel's web site and made statements to the effect that WikiTravel was moving to or becoming WikiMedia. That is a lie. WikiTrave is a trademark owned by Internet Brands, and is going nowhere. They also used their admin authority to send emails from WikiTravels email to WikiTravels customers stating the same thing.
They can fork the site if they want. They can not claim or imply that the site is WikiTravel (a trademark violation). And they can not make it appear as if the WikiTravel business no longer exists or has become something else. That is a Lanham Act violation.
This case has very little to do with the content or the CC-sa license. That seems to just be a red herring used to raise the righteous indignation of slashdot.
The actual suit seems to be about trademarks and misleading statements. Namely statements that say that WikiTravel is becoming or moving to WikiMedia. WikiTravel is a trademark owned by Internet Brands, and is not moving to WikiMedia. Some people that used to be associated with WikiTravel are moving to WikiMedia and taking content with them, but that is not the issue..
This has nothing to do with them being volunteers, and very little to do with the fork.
If you read the actual suit, you will find tha tthe actual complaints are trademark violations, among some other things.
From the suit, they are claiming that the 'unpaid volunteers' decided to fork the site (which they admit they can do). However, the admins then went on WikiTravel's site and made posts stating that 'WikiTravel (a trademark) was moving to WikiMedia'. It is not. In addition, they claim, these volunteers sent out emails to WikiTravel's customers, using WiikiTravel's email accounts, and again stated in these emails that WikiTravel was moving to WikiMedia.
If true, that is not 'forking a project', it is lying and forgery.
It has been almost 40 years since these events took place. There have been countless investigations (including by Congress). There have been many interviews given and books written by parties involved in and near to the case. And the BEST explanation you (or anyone) can come up with for anyone thinking there 'must have been some back room deal' is ... it's not ludicrous? It IS ludicrous by now. There is no evidence suggesting otherwise, just some kind of article of faith that 'there must have been a deal'.
Now, having said that, I will grant you the possibility that Ford thought that Nixon leaving office would be best for the country, and told him if he resigned he would be pardoned, but I don't see anything wrong with that. Or maybe Nixon approached Ford and said he would leave office if Nixon would pardon him. Nothing wrong with that either. The alternative would have been Nixon being removed from office, which certainly could not be considered a good thing for the country. And even if Nixon was removed from office, Ford would still get the presidency, and if that was his motive, as you suggest, he would not have to suffer the fallout of issuing the pardon.
'You resign, I'll pardon you, and the country can move on from this mess' is a perfectly valid and reasonable explanation.
'You resign, I'll pardon you, and mwuahahah I'LL BE PRESIDENT' is not. Not after all this time, and not when there is nothing in the man's life before or after that that would suggest he would do such a thing. And especially not when, it the absence of such a deal, it is extremely likely that Ford would be president anyway.
Yes, it does indeed take a conspiracy nut to come up with that theory. What great prize was the presidency? He inherited a heavily democratic congress, a nation that was a complete mess, and knew full well that the pardon would make a large part of the country hate him. He couldn't get any legislation passed, hell he couldn't even successfully veto legislation. He sacrificed his career for what he thought was for the good of the country, and even many of his friends turned on him. So what was the upside to being president that was so appealing he was willing to suffer all that?
The only way Amazon can become and remain a monopoly is by keeping prices low. As soon as the prices rise high enough it will become worthwhile for competitors to spring up (especially since there is a very low barrier to entry). Also, books are not a requirement of life. If the prices become too high, people will stop buying as many books, and Amazon will make less money, forcing them to lower prices.
It is weird that you pick Amazon and Wal-mart as examples. While it is true that their low prices forced others out of business, there is zero evidence that they have raised prices above what the competition was originally charging. That would be predatory pricing.
How long, exactly, is the 'long run'? Wal-mart has had pretty much a monopoly for certain things in my area for about 30 years. Prices are still low. When is that magically going to change?
The fact that you think that the Apple deal has anything to do with 'cost' shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
The deal Apple made does not have anything to do with the cost of books to Apple. It has to do with the PRICE of books to the consumer. Under the deal Apple made, NOBODY even has the option to sell books for a lower price. This ensures that Apple does not have to compete on price.
And your point about Amazon 'crushing' all other online book sales is meaningless. They have not yet done that. And if they do manage to do that, they will have become a monopoly and will be prevented from doing things that prevent competition. That leaves the door open for new competitors to arise, and Amazon will have to go back to competing. It is not like there is some great barrier to entry to becoming an eBook seller.
No, this is not true. Amazon may well say (to the publishers) 'nobody can buy books cheaper than the price Amazon' gets. Apple, on the other hand, says 'nobody can SELL books cheaper than Apple can'. Those are two vastly different things.
Even if nobody can get a better deal than Amazon, they can still sell them for the same or lower price than Amazon. In fact, that is what the publishers are complaining about Amazon doing to them. That, however, is competition, and results in lower prices for the consumer.
Apple's deal, on the other hand, says that nobody can SELL books for a lower price than Apple. Nobody even has the opportunity to use the books as a loss leader. That is anti-competitive behavior, and results in higher prices for consumers.
No, the problem with his argument is that this has nothing at all to do with fair use. Fair use is a defense against an accusation of copyright infringement, not an offense that can be used to force a provider to host your content.
IF the situation was that someone was being sued for copyright infringement, THEN they could raise fair use as a defense. But that is not the situation here at all. Here, the situation is that a hosting provider has decided, maybe incorrectly, that a particular piece of content infringes on someone else's copyright, and they decline to host that content. That is their right, they can use any criteria at all to decide what they will and will not host.
The copyright holders are not doing these so-called 'takedowns', the HOSTING companies are. And the HOSTING companies are free to host/not host content based on whatever criteria they want, including 'looks like maybe it infringes someone else's copyright'.
Except that no media companies made such claims. The hosting companies decided for themselves not to carry that content, because they thought it may infringe on someone's copyright. Their decision making may be flawed, but is not illegal in any way. They can decide what content to accept or reject based on any (legal) criteria they want. Illegal criteria would be the usual, such a based on the submitters race.
Oh get off your high horse. Vobile, Ustream, YouTube, et al are not copyright holders. They are not issuing 'false' anything. They are not making accusations. They are not breaking the law, or acting unethically. They are simply making business decisions on what content they want to host. That is their right. They don't need to explain their decisions to anyone. If you don't like the decisions they make, take the big bucks you are paying them to host your content elsewhere. Oh wait...
Which has nothing at all to do with fair use. The rights have not expired in a fair use case. So no, it is in no way a 'self-evident' right, as the constitution (as you pointed out) gives EXCLUSIVE right to the authors and inventors, therefore you have NO right to their work. 'Fair use' is an EXCEPTION to the their exclusive right, which is not self-evident at all.
Well, you'll be happy to know that this is already in place. Everytime YouTube or UStream gets one of these 'false takedown notices', they send a bill for that amount to whoever decided that the content should be taken down. Of course, since it is they themselves that are running these algorithms and making that determination, the net result is no money changes hands.
There are no takedown notices involved. What is so hard to understand about that? These are services used by the hosting providers (YouTube, UStream, et al) themselves to help them determine what content they will and will not host. And guess what! They can refuse to host your content for any legal reason at all (including 'we just don't want to').
All of this babble about 'takedown noticies' and 'fair use' and such is just distraction. These actions have nothing to do with that, and are simply a business deciding what it will and will not offer.
Now, why would they do that? Well, most obviously, it shields them from the massive legal headaches and workload of dealing with copyrighted works. Probably equally important to them is it prevents anyone from making a claim that they have become a 'commons', and therefore have lost the ability to restrict what they host. This way that can show that they have rejected thousands and thousands of things over the years, for a variety of reasons (porn, copyrighted, etc) and thus are in no way a commons.
News flash: YouTube, UStream, et al are not 'the core of our communication systems'. They are commercial entities who's current business model is allowing users to post/stream stuff for free. They are no different than a store that makes a choice on what kinds of items and what brands it wants to carry. They are not 'censoring' anything, they are simply deciding what they will and will not provide. You are perfectly free to take your hosting elsewhere or host it yourself.
Believe it or not, 'censor' does not mean 'makes it a little more difficult ot expensive than I would like'.
So basically, she did not commit and was not accused of committing any federal crime. But she may have violated a state law. And because the US DOJ and FBI did not illegally and unconstitutionally insert themselves into a state matter, it is proper to accuse them and the president of 'not wanting justice'.
On the other hand, we have someone who did violate a federal law and was properly investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the DOJ, and that is another example of 'not serving justice'.
Do I have that right?
Surely the contract you signed with whoever is hosting your content states the penalties for failing to host your content, doesn't it? What's that, no contract? Well, maybe you can try a warrantee claim, and at least get back the money you paid them to host your content. What's that, you didn't pay them anything? And you actually expect them to somehow owe YOU something?? That is a good one.
The problem is not the DMCA, or that there is no "pain", the problem is that some people actually think they are entitiled to literally get something for nothing.
Yes, business understands money. And if you actually PAY them money for a service, they understand you better.
What federal crimes did Palin supposedly commit, and what evidence of this crime even occurring was presented which would trigger an investigation?
He has Secret Service protection because he is a candidate for president. That has nothing to do with his status as 'just a citizen'. Or do you think that anyone who receives benefits of you tax dollars (teachers, police, firemen, town clerk, etc) becomes something other than a citizen and therefore forfeits their rights?
It is interesting how you think involuntary violation of someone else's rights can be dressed up as 'a public service'. I hope you keep that in mind when it happens to you.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Verification of the PUBLIC data means nothing. Marriages, property transfers, etc are a matter of public record. Anybody can go down to the courthouse and see who married who or what property they bought. It might take you a while to find something to do with Mitt Romney, but eventually you find something. So you put in your fake document that on 'Feb 3, 2008, 100 acres of property was purchased for x dollars in y.' Then you put in the same document that on 'Dec 15, 2008, $10000 was put in tax-deductible account z'.
You release said document. Reporter goes to the courthouse and finds that indeed Romney did buy 100 acres of property for x dollars. How in hell does that possibly 'prove' that the document is authentic, and that he did claim to put $10000 in a tax-deductible account? It doesn't. Not one bit. And since that is a private transaction, nobody is going to confirm or deny it.
First of all, Romney is not a 'member of the government'.
Second, what you meant was 'select from the best leaders who don't value privacy'. Which is undoubtedly a very small percentage of the 'best leaders' (probably 0).
Lastly, what makes you think (assuming you are capable of thought) that someone who values his own privacy so little is going to give a damn about your privacy?