IF this is a legitimate U.S. patent specifically covering a device critical to their product manufacture, they should have two choices: pay up, or work around it.
But Sony is not a US company, which means they have a viable third option: ignore US law and violate the patent. This is fairly common in developing economies, especially for pharmaceuticals- For example, I'm pretty sure that Brasil regularly declines to enforce patents over drugs that combat STDs. For another example, I'm pretty sure that Teva Pharmaceuticals in Israel simply disregards most international patents when making generic knockoff drugs for resale on the international market.
In these situations, the proper recourse is diplomatic- the US and other countries have trade deals that restrict the import and sale of products which would violate native copyrights and patents. You can't get around copyright law simply by making xeroxes of your Harry Potter book in Mexico (where US copyright law doesn't apply) and then importing them back across the border for resale here.
But if the Federal government refuses to enforce those laws, the patent owner is pretty much out of luck.
Anyone who needs a refresher on the free-speech implications can find it here (although digg found it first, so the whole article is temporarily posted static on the main page):
You are essentially claiming that I could drive through a green light and you could cite me for a violation that I would be guilty of until I proved I could drive through a green light. It doesn't work that way.
Copyright works EXACTLY that way. That's the crux of the problem. See, e.g., Fair use as a defense, citing Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. You and I can argue until we're both blue in the face about whether this interpretation is right or wrong, but it is the law in the United States today.
Practically, what this means is that if I can show you copied something, the burden shifts to you to show that your use is fair. And in the situation where you copied a sentence out of my post, it's likely that you could carry that burden. But if I'm drawing inspiration from the RIAA and I want to drag you into court, I allege copying and serve you with a complaint, you can't just show up and holler "fair use!" at the judge, because that's not how the system works. And you can't just ignore me, because if you don't respond then I win by default. At the very least you will need to write a brief (or get someone else to write a brief) because you actually did make the copy without my permission, and that fact is all I need to make out my case.
"Fair use" is an affirmative defense, which means that it only applies once you admit that you've violated my section 106 exclusive rights. I show that you've made copies, and then you get to use "fair use" as an excuse. If I don't agree that your use is fair, we have a trial to figure it out. But that's my whole point- this is a stupid thing to argue about, and waste money on, because you know and I know that people copy stuff on the web all the time. That's a huge part of what makes the internet so great.
But just because we both know it happens, that doesn't make it the law. The law today says I could sue you for damages, and that I might have a decent chance of winning. That's why I think the law needs to change.
You just made an unlicensed copy of that sentence I wrote, and "distributed" it to anyone who reads this thread. I own the copyright on that expression, per the note at the bottom of this page:
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster.
Every time you reply to an email and include the original, you are making at least one unlicensed copy for every person you send it to. Any time you copy/paste something from the web, you fall under the jurisdiction of the copyright act.
It's so easy you don't even realize you're doing it, much less that it's grounds for someone to sue you for copyright infringement. Title 17 sets the statutory damages for even innocent infringment at a minimum of $200 per count. If, say, 100 people read this comment, I could walk into court and claim with a straight face that you owe me twenty thousand dollars.
Sure, you might be able to claim "fair use!" and win the suit, but how much do you think that would cost? I could go on, but this is what I'm talking about. It's clearly nonsense that I could force you to defend the claim in the first place- that's the point I'm trying to argue for in my prior post. Routine small-scale copying should be explicitly exempted from the restrictions of copyright law to prevent jerks like me from suing poor innocent websurfers like you:-D
We all agree that piracy is a crime, but does the punishment fit ?
Piracy may be a crime, but not all unlicensed copying is piracy. And based on the number of people who have used Napster, grokster, AllofMP3.com, Pirate Bay, and similar sites that facilitate unlicensed copying, there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who take exception to the extent that governments have surrendered monopoly powers to the copyright licensing cartels.
Inherent in your question is the suggestion that we should consider a change to the punishment for infringement. I think that is a good step, but I don't think it's enough. We need to re-evaluate the definition of the CRIME, so that it prohibits only behavior that is properly outside of societal norms. Title 17 already has exceptions for fair-use copying. Those exceptions were written in the early 70s, when 8-tracks were state-of-the-art. Technology has advanced but the law has not kept pace. Now it is nearly impossible for anyone who uses a computer to go through a single day without creating an unlicensed copy of something. It is long past time to adjust the law to restore the proper balance between the author's interest in their works and the Constitutional interest in the promotion of "science and the useful arts."
This genie will not go back in the bottle. Since unlicensed copying for non-commercial personal use has become an established social norm, it should be specifically exempted from the definition of prohibited behavior.
eventually other kids will catch up to their level, and maybe surpass them.
ok, but it's also possible that won't happen. There are a lot of people who never really get all the rules of English, despite living in the US their entire lives.
And kids learn from their surroundings. A child who is spoken to as though he or she is an intelligent adult will naturally develop a better vocabulary than a kid who only hears "GODDAMMIT JIMMY! Shut the hell up when Dr. Phil is on TV."
I read it as something like "I wish the patent examiners only granted valid patents."
I think your read is fair, and not necessarily inconsistent with mine, although maybe it doesn't go as far. But even "valid" patents can be used to harm consumers in ways that would shock the authors of the Constitution.
My point is that, as long as there is any system for awarding government-protected monoploy power, some bad actors will attempt to take advantage of that system.
Once a patent is granted, the system we have depends on an adversarial contest in the federal courts to resolve questions about patent validity. Unfortunately, the cost of patent litigation for private parties has grown to the point that it is often cheaper for small businesses to just license an abusive patent rather than expend the resources to fight the patent in court. This has created an economic "dead zone," where it makes good business sense from a purely financial perspective to obtain even questionable patents, because it is possible to use questionable patents to extract rents from small players who can't afford the high cost of putting up a good fight. The cost of putting up a BAD fight is unthinkable, because losing a patent infringement lawsuit could be ruinous. Since the potential for abuse is inherent in the system, and the dead zone means the system can no longer police itself efficiently, we need groups like the EFF to challenge the bad actors.
Sure, this is a stupid patent. But according to the rules of the system, it's "valid." By definition, the patent examiners grant only "valid" patents. They remain "valid" until someone challenges them, exactly like the EFF is doing here. If the EFF doesn't bring the challenge, the patent will remain "valid," because it doesn't make economic sense for anyone else to put up a fight (until the patent-holders pick a fight with, say, IBM or Sony).
And sure, it's dumb that this particular fight has to happen, especially because it took all of 20 minutes on/. for someone to post prior art in the comments, suggesting that the patent should never have been granted in the first place. But we are fortunate to live in a society which permits groups like the EFF and PubPat to take legal action in the public interest. Without them, this dumb patent would continue to be "valid" until it expired or the scurvy parasites who are enforcing it screwed up and threatened someone bigger and meaner than they are.
If only the EFF didn't have to waste its money on this kind of thing.
which is essentially the same as saying, "If only there was no incentive for companies to obtain patents in the first place." I understand that from the perspective of good/evil or innovation/abuse, the problem is most apparent with submarine patents like the one in the article. But even in a perfect world where all actors obtain only valid and meaningful patents, those patents will be used by the rightsholder as a cudgel against other individuals and companies, to protect the patent-holder's monopoly on whatever the covered claims might be.
The problem is with government-sanctioned monopolies in general. And that problem can only be solved if enough people get pissed off that we force government to do something about it. Companies have been pushing to expand patent protections for a long time; the public pushback is just getting started. We should all be happy that the SCOTUS has shown some willingness to recognize the public interest in limited patents, especially considering the corporate pressure to do the exact opposite.
I think it's great that the EFF is fighting, and winning, battles exactly like this one. Their battles raise the visibility of the issue, and might eventually lead to a world where little guys who are threatened with junk patents like this one are willing to stand up and fight rather than give the bullies their lunch money.
Or, in true Neal Stephenson style, the cable is ALREADY tapped by the US, the Iranians know it, and this is just the excuse they're using to change all the codes...
No no, you caught me in an overgeneralization. naked pictures of, for example, newborn children, are of course not kiddie porn. And if you happen to be related to a young child who likes to get naked in public, and you happen to have pictures of this, that's not necessarily child porn either.
Taken in context, the thrust of that sentence was directed more at the requirement for law enforcement to obtain a search warrant than on what the target of that warrant might be.
I think that the definition of what is and is not child porn should be narrowly construed, in the same way that obscenity is narrowly construed: patently offensive, appeals to the prurient interest, subjects in the photograph are actually under 18 yrs old, content is obviously sexual in nature. Nudity should not be enough, standing alone, to meet that standard. But overtly sexy poses might.
This case is a very interesting overlap between 4th Amendment "right to privacy" cases and 5th Amendment "right not to self-incriminate" cases. I personally think that if the government can't break the encryption to "prove" what is hidden from them, they have no right to force the owner to do their work for them. People have a right to keep stuff private, and if they've hidden it effectively, then tough shit for the cops.
I acknowledge that child porn is inherently harmful to the children involved, and that laws targeting possession of child porn are therefore valid so far as they aim to protect children by destroying the market for the exploitative and harmful material. And there is no first-amendment protection for child porn. But the cops still can't break into your house without a warrant just because they they think you have pictures of naked kids inside, and they can't wiretap your internet connection without a court order (heh, they can't LEGALLY, even though it's probably going on right now OMGHI2NSA). Those are 4th amendment rights. But the 5th amendment kicks in to say that even with a court order and a valid warrant, the cops in your house can't force you to tell them which floorboard is the loose one with the bloody knife hidden under it. If you refuse to tell them, they have to find it on their own-- and if they can't find it, they can't use it as evidence against you. That's exactly how the 5th amendment is supposed to work.
A police force with the power to compel self-incriminating testimony becomes the enemy of any citizen who wishes to lawfully express dissent with any policy of government. The 5th Amendment is the most powerful safeguard citizens have against confessions extracted via torture finding purchase in US courts.
From the decision itself (lifted from that post at Volokh Conspiracy), bolded emphasis is mine:
Entering a password into the computer implicitly communicates facts. By entering the password Boucher would be disclosing the fact that he knows the password and has control over the files on drive Z. The procedure is equivalent to asking Boucher, "Do you know the password to the laptop?" If Boucher does know the password, he would be faced with the forbidden trilemma; incriminate himself, lie under oath, or find himself in contempt of court. Id . at 212.
The Supreme Court has held some acts of production are unprivileged such as providing fingerprints, blood samples, or voice recordings. Id. at 210. Production of such evidence gives no indication of a person's thoughts or knowledge because it is undeniable that a person possesses his own fingerprints, blood, and voice. Id. at 210-11. Unlike the unprivileged production of such samples, it is not without question that Boucher possesses the password or has access to the files. In distinguishing testimonial from non-testimonial acts, the Supreme Court has compared revealing the combination to a wall safe to surrendering the key to a strongbox. See id. at 210, n. 9; see also United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27, 43 (2000). The combination conveys the contents of one's mind; the key does not and is therefore not testimonial. Doe II, 487 U.S. at 210, n. 9. A password, like a combination, is in the suspect's mind, and is therefore testimonial and beyond the reach of the grand jury subpoena.
The government has offered to restrict the entering of the password so that no one views or records the password. While this would prevent the government from knowing what the password is, it would not change the testimonial significance of the act of entering the password. Boucher would still be implicitly indicating that he knows the password and that he has access to the files. The contents of Boucher's mind would still be displayed, and therefore the testimonial nature does not change merely because no one else will disc
Voluntarily? I think that alone is enough to call the rest of your opinions into question.
I'm kidding, I'm just kidding... but I worked with Kaiser Permanente IT in Oakland, CA for 3 or 4 years, so I'm not really kidding. They were a bunch of mindless jerks, running NT 4.0 on like 50,000 end user desktops in 2004 because they couldn't port client/server apps to any other platform or migrate away from the old app. Ask me about the time when Slammer was going around and they had to send monkeys to every desktop PC in the building (if not the whole company) to install patches... from a floppy disk.
What sort of "mission critical stuff" are you worried about? Lotus Notes 4.0? I'm pretty sure that runs on Linux too.
I think the issue here is that the article was a troll:-D The guy who is getting sued for infringement (1)space-shifted the files from his CDs to his computer, and then (2)he posted those files on Kazaa for other people to download. Part 1 is OK. Part 2 is not.
Yes there is a difference to them. The RIAA (and at least some of the federal courts, like SDNY, 2nd Cir, and 9th Cir) have realized that LPs are analog copies and CDs are digital, and therefore there is a greater risk of harm from CDs because each copy is a perfect duplication.
That doesn't mean it's not a fair use to rip music. It just means they're more worried about you ripping CDs.
Yeah. Confession: "tekel" is me. I'm not sock-puppeting though, honest- this is the only account I have here, because I had the UID from back in the day. "tekel" is the name I use to post most other places.
Slashdot Mirror
But Sony is not a US company, which means they have a viable third option: ignore US law and violate the patent. This is fairly common in developing economies, especially for pharmaceuticals- For example, I'm pretty sure that Brasil regularly declines to enforce patents over drugs that combat STDs. For another example, I'm pretty sure that Teva Pharmaceuticals in Israel simply disregards most international patents when making generic knockoff drugs for resale on the international market.
In these situations, the proper recourse is diplomatic- the US and other countries have trade deals that restrict the import and sale of products which would violate native copyrights and patents. You can't get around copyright law simply by making xeroxes of your Harry Potter book in Mexico (where US copyright law doesn't apply) and then importing them back across the border for resale here.
But if the Federal government refuses to enforce those laws, the patent owner is pretty much out of luck.
I had to check today's date 3 times because I was sure this was an April Fool's story.
Anyone who needs a refresher on the free-speech implications can find it here (although digg found it first, so the whole article is temporarily posted static on the main page):
Vying for Control of the Internet: is Wikileaks Unstoppable?
substitute "shaky" with "unfounded"
or "perjured and sanctionable"
I'd be willing to wager this means Ms. Lindor will be entitled to have the RIAA pay her attorney's fees.
how many bogomips per petaflop?
Copyright works EXACTLY that way. That's the crux of the problem. See, e.g., Fair use as a defense, citing Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. You and I can argue until we're both blue in the face about whether this interpretation is right or wrong, but it is the law in the United States today.
Practically, what this means is that if I can show you copied something, the burden shifts to you to show that your use is fair. And in the situation where you copied a sentence out of my post, it's likely that you could carry that burden. But if I'm drawing inspiration from the RIAA and I want to drag you into court, I allege copying and serve you with a complaint, you can't just show up and holler "fair use!" at the judge, because that's not how the system works. And you can't just ignore me, because if you don't respond then I win by default. At the very least you will need to write a brief (or get someone else to write a brief) because you actually did make the copy without my permission, and that fact is all I need to make out my case.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I am in law school.
"Fair use" is an affirmative defense, which means that it only applies once you admit that you've violated my section 106 exclusive rights. I show that you've made copies, and then you get to use "fair use" as an excuse. If I don't agree that your use is fair, we have a trial to figure it out. But that's my whole point- this is a stupid thing to argue about, and waste money on, because you know and I know that people copy stuff on the web all the time. That's a huge part of what makes the internet so great.
But just because we both know it happens, that doesn't make it the law. The law today says I could sue you for damages, and that I might have a decent chance of winning. That's why I think the law needs to change.
You just made an unlicensed copy of that sentence I wrote, and "distributed" it to anyone who reads this thread. I own the copyright on that expression, per the note at the bottom of this page:
:-D
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster.
Every time you reply to an email and include the original, you are making at least one unlicensed copy for every person you send it to. Any time you copy/paste something from the web, you fall under the jurisdiction of the copyright act.
It's so easy you don't even realize you're doing it, much less that it's grounds for someone to sue you for copyright infringement. Title 17 sets the statutory damages for even innocent infringment at a minimum of $200 per count. If, say, 100 people read this comment, I could walk into court and claim with a straight face that you owe me twenty thousand dollars.
Sure, you might be able to claim "fair use!" and win the suit, but how much do you think that would cost? I could go on, but this is what I'm talking about. It's clearly nonsense that I could force you to defend the claim in the first place- that's the point I'm trying to argue for in my prior post. Routine small-scale copying should be explicitly exempted from the restrictions of copyright law to prevent jerks like me from suing poor innocent websurfers like you
We all agree that piracy is a crime, but does the punishment fit ?
Piracy may be a crime, but not all unlicensed copying is piracy. And based on the number of people who have used Napster, grokster, AllofMP3.com, Pirate Bay, and similar sites that facilitate unlicensed copying, there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who take exception to the extent that governments have surrendered monopoly powers to the copyright licensing cartels.
Inherent in your question is the suggestion that we should consider a change to the punishment for infringement. I think that is a good step, but I don't think it's enough. We need to re-evaluate the definition of the CRIME, so that it prohibits only behavior that is properly outside of societal norms. Title 17 already has exceptions for fair-use copying. Those exceptions were written in the early 70s, when 8-tracks were state-of-the-art. Technology has advanced but the law has not kept pace. Now it is nearly impossible for anyone who uses a computer to go through a single day without creating an unlicensed copy of something. It is long past time to adjust the law to restore the proper balance between the author's interest in their works and the Constitutional interest in the promotion of "science and the useful arts."
This genie will not go back in the bottle. Since unlicensed copying for non-commercial personal use has become an established social norm, it should be specifically exempted from the definition of prohibited behavior.
ok, but it's also possible that won't happen. There are a lot of people who never really get all the rules of English, despite living in the US their entire lives.
And kids learn from their surroundings. A child who is spoken to as though he or she is an intelligent adult will naturally develop a better vocabulary than a kid who only hears "GODDAMMIT JIMMY! Shut the hell up when Dr. Phil is on TV."
I think your read is fair, and not necessarily inconsistent with mine, although maybe it doesn't go as far. But even "valid" patents can be used to harm consumers in ways that would shock the authors of the Constitution.
My point is that, as long as there is any system for awarding government-protected monoploy power, some bad actors will attempt to take advantage of that system.
Once a patent is granted, the system we have depends on an adversarial contest in the federal courts to resolve questions about patent validity. Unfortunately, the cost of patent litigation for private parties has grown to the point that it is often cheaper for small businesses to just license an abusive patent rather than expend the resources to fight the patent in court. This has created an economic "dead zone," where it makes good business sense from a purely financial perspective to obtain even questionable patents, because it is possible to use questionable patents to extract rents from small players who can't afford the high cost of putting up a good fight. The cost of putting up a BAD fight is unthinkable, because losing a patent infringement lawsuit could be ruinous. Since the potential for abuse is inherent in the system, and the dead zone means the system can no longer police itself efficiently, we need groups like the EFF to challenge the bad actors.
Sure, this is a stupid patent. But according to the rules of the system, it's "valid." By definition, the patent examiners grant only "valid" patents. They remain "valid" until someone challenges them, exactly like the EFF is doing here. If the EFF doesn't bring the challenge, the patent will remain "valid," because it doesn't make economic sense for anyone else to put up a fight (until the patent-holders pick a fight with, say, IBM or Sony).
And sure, it's dumb that this particular fight has to happen, especially because it took all of 20 minutes on
which is essentially the same as saying, "If only there was no incentive for companies to obtain patents in the first place." I understand that from the perspective of good/evil or innovation/abuse, the problem is most apparent with submarine patents like the one in the article. But even in a perfect world where all actors obtain only valid and meaningful patents, those patents will be used by the rightsholder as a cudgel against other individuals and companies, to protect the patent-holder's monopoly on whatever the covered claims might be.
The problem is with government-sanctioned monopolies in general. And that problem can only be solved if enough people get pissed off that we force government to do something about it. Companies have been pushing to expand patent protections for a long time; the public pushback is just getting started. We should all be happy that the SCOTUS has shown some willingness to recognize the public interest in limited patents, especially considering the corporate pressure to do the exact opposite.
I think it's great that the EFF is fighting, and winning, battles exactly like this one. Their battles raise the visibility of the issue, and might eventually lead to a world where little guys who are threatened with junk patents like this one are willing to stand up and fight rather than give the bullies their lunch money.
Or, in true Neal Stephenson style, the cable is ALREADY tapped by the US, the Iranians know it, and this is just the excuse they're using to change all the codes...
"hang up your cell phone"
"stop picking your nose"
Riddle me this: if I already download everything I watch, the change will affect me... how?
No no, you caught me in an overgeneralization. naked pictures of, for example, newborn children, are of course not kiddie porn. And if you happen to be related to a young child who likes to get naked in public, and you happen to have pictures of this, that's not necessarily child porn either.
Taken in context, the thrust of that sentence was directed more at the requirement for law enforcement to obtain a search warrant than on what the target of that warrant might be.
I think that the definition of what is and is not child porn should be narrowly construed, in the same way that obscenity is narrowly construed: patently offensive, appeals to the prurient interest, subjects in the photograph are actually under 18 yrs old, content is obviously sexual in nature. Nudity should not be enough, standing alone, to meet that standard. But overtly sexy poses might.
This case is a very interesting overlap between 4th Amendment "right to privacy" cases and 5th Amendment "right not to self-incriminate" cases. I personally think that if the government can't break the encryption to "prove" what is hidden from them, they have no right to force the owner to do their work for them. People have a right to keep stuff private, and if they've hidden it effectively, then tough shit for the cops.
I acknowledge that child porn is inherently harmful to the children involved, and that laws targeting possession of child porn are therefore valid so far as they aim to protect children by destroying the market for the exploitative and harmful material. And there is no first-amendment protection for child porn. But the cops still can't break into your house without a warrant just because they they think you have pictures of naked kids inside, and they can't wiretap your internet connection without a court order (heh, they can't LEGALLY, even though it's probably going on right now OMGHI2NSA). Those are 4th amendment rights. But the 5th amendment kicks in to say that even with a court order and a valid warrant, the cops in your house can't force you to tell them which floorboard is the loose one with the bloody knife hidden under it. If you refuse to tell them, they have to find it on their own-- and if they can't find it, they can't use it as evidence against you. That's exactly how the 5th amendment is supposed to work.
A police force with the power to compel self-incriminating testimony becomes the enemy of any citizen who wishes to lawfully express dissent with any policy of government. The 5th Amendment is the most powerful safeguard citizens have against confessions extracted via torture finding purchase in US courts.
From the decision itself (lifted from that post at Volokh Conspiracy), bolded emphasis is mine:
This is the only energy source that could be more powerful than the Infinite Improbability Drive!
and I'm a mindless jerk too, for not closing that italics tag. (use the preview button)
I work in Healthcare IT
Voluntarily? I think that alone is enough to call the rest of your opinions into question.
I'm kidding, I'm just kidding... but I worked with Kaiser Permanente IT in Oakland, CA for 3 or 4 years, so I'm not really kidding. They were a bunch of mindless jerks, running NT 4.0 on like 50,000 end user desktops in 2004 because they couldn't port client/server apps to any other platform or migrate away from the old app. Ask me about the time when Slammer was going around and they had to send monkeys to every desktop PC in the building (if not the whole company) to install patches... from a floppy disk.
What sort of "mission critical stuff" are you worried about? Lotus Notes 4.0? I'm pretty sure that runs on Linux too.
yeah, wake me up again when they're giving away the hardware to run it on too.
I think the issue here is that the article was a troll :-D The guy who is getting sued for infringement (1)space-shifted the files from his CDs to his computer, and then (2)he posted those files on Kazaa for other people to download. Part 1 is OK. Part 2 is not.
Yes there is a difference to them. The RIAA (and at least some of the federal courts, like SDNY, 2nd Cir, and 9th Cir) have realized that LPs are analog copies and CDs are digital, and therefore there is a greater risk of harm from CDs because each copy is a perfect duplication.
That doesn't mean it's not a fair use to rip music. It just means they're more worried about you ripping CDs.
I mean the only point of e-voting is that some poor government officials can go home earlier.
You're far too kind. The only point of e-voting is to allow Republicans to steal elections that they could not win legitimately.
Yeah. Confession: "tekel" is me. I'm not sock-puppeting though, honest- this is the only account I have here, because I had the UID from back in the day. "tekel" is the name I use to post most other places.