This isn't really correct. Apple Records and Apple Computer reached an out-of-court settlement essentially favoring Apple Records. However, they later sued, and won for infringement in a later lawsuit.
See:
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/april/990419/ be atlesvsapple.html
"It already did -- ISTR that they had a dispute with Apple Records back in the 80s. Needless to say, Apple Computer won (or at least didn't lose)."
This is completely inaccurate.
Please see the link http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/april/990419/be atlesvsapple.html
In part, the article says:
"The suit involves Apple Corp., a record company founded by all four Beatles in 1968. Apple Corp sued Apple Computer and agreed to settle the case as long as Apple stayed out of the music business. According to the article, an appeals court ordered Apple Computer to pay the record company US$26.4 million."
There's more on the net about it, look up "Apple Computers Beatles" on any search engine for more information.
In theory, this should help the little guy and open source because they could be more responsible for their customer.
But in fact, it will have the opposite effect. It means that software will have to be "certified" before it could be released.
Little developers (guys in their basement) could never afford this. Big guys (Microsoft) could. Again, this favors big, established companies over upstarts.
But more seriously, lets look at the worst issue with having liability for unsecure software:
If I have a Firestone tire (as mentioned in one of the links), I expect that it will be safe to put on my car and drive up to the speed rating on the side. But if I used the tire as a swing in my backyard and I fell off and broke my arm, should Firestone be liable? After all, a lot of people use tires for swings, and they didn't do anything to make them safer for this purpose.
Silly? Maybe. But now apply to something like a computer operating system. What is its intended purpose? Basically its purpose is infinite. It will allow a piece of hardware to begin to have infinite possibilities. So now I have to make sure my software is safe in any possible circumstance that I can't even forsee!
Mind you, I'm not excusing bad software, but I don't see how this proposal will do anything, because a new license will come out that people will simply have to accept something like:
"I accept that if I use this software it is completely insecure and will allow bad people to do bad things to me and my computer. I completely waive all rights to bring legal action again the makers of this software, even if they knew there is or was a problem. "
This is a "good in theory, bad in practice" solution.
"but Mozilla isn't really an end-user product; it lacks some of the polish of commerical browsers. "
Really? I think Mozilla is probably the 2nd best browser out there. Its certainly better than any netscape browser, and I think it works a heckuva lot better than opera.
Perhaps you use your browser a different way and can tell us some of the ways you think it could be polished to make it more professional?
"They invented cookies so that advertisers could track readers "
Cookies primary use is to keep state information. Many legitimate sites use cookies, and most could care less about tracking you.
While its true cookies can be used to track user habits (and this is a stretch), modern browsers make this much more difficult. For example, for at least 2 versions IE hasn't allowed URL or javascript requests for out-of-domain requests.
In fact IE6 even eliminates this problem for the most part through its use of rejecting cookies that don't come from the primary URL the user is viewing.
There are a lot of threats to privacy. Cookies aren't the worst offender by a long shot.
"apply this to his train of though, and the "easily accessible" web sites need to be stopped... so we are forced to shut down the internet. totally irrational thinking."
I've said essentially the same thing before.
Within 18 months, I predict someone in congress will suggest that web sites must be licensed the same way radio stations are licensed.
It won't be because of copyright infringement, rather, it will be because of some other pretext, but the results will be the same.
Sure, but their liability is capped and in every case, the liability of the provider of a T1 is at most the monthly cost of the T1.
So if you pay $1600/month, and it goes down for a week, they'll simply won't charge you for the month.
You're right in that the SLA means they're out fixing it within a short period of time, but they never guarantee when they'll fix it. In fact, most T1 TOS don't even have a guaranteed latency or ping time.
So, no, you don't really get what you pay for with a T1, but the telco has a monopoly on the local loop, so its not like you can shop around for the best loop provider.
When the Mac came out in 1984-ish, a big part of the computer industry (including the press) talked about ideal user interfaces. That was the whole point of the GUI pioneered by PARC.
A lot of the interfaces done up until that time were unique; 1-2-3 had a unique interface, Wordperfect had a unique interface.
What apple did that was revolutionary wasn't the GUI, it was they defined an environment for all programs to use which enforced a common user interface. The net result was groudbreaking because a lot of the basics were the same in each application. Remember, WYSIWYG was the hot buzz word (words?) back then, so the entire frame of reference was different.
So, the evolution so far was:
No interface -> Application Specific Interface -> Common User Interface
What's wrong with this picture? Well back in the day when the CUI was the hot ticket, the idea of desktop "metaphors" was in vogue. The trash can was there because you understood that deleting a document was like throwing away a piece of paper on your desk. So in fact, the interface of the Mac was supposed to be a metaphor for a user's desktop (in fact, its still called a desktop).
But a desktop isn't a good metaphor for recording music, or taking pictures, or doing an unlimited number of tasks.
Why shouldn't the garden hose have the same interface as the typewriter? Because each interface exploits the unique features and attributes of that type of device.
So in 2001, computers are several orders of magnitude more powerful than 1984 and we really have the ability to create much closer metaphors.
In fact, you could say this argues against a common user interface. It says the interface should be the best to do the job at that time.
I fall somewhere in the middle. There is clearly a value of having the idea of a desktop metaphor. There is value in having experience framework for doing computer related tasks. But ideally there is a balance between consistency and the best interface for the task at hand.
So I find Jef's interview interesting, but I think he's still stuck in a 1988 period of UI design. No offense to him, he's a smart guy and I don't discount what he says, but based on the comment's he's made, I think the computer world has passed him by.
"I would rather not have movies at all than to be forced to use copy prevention on my PC. If the lack of copy prevention is what is keeping the MPAA from joining the internet age, well, they can just stay where they are as far as I'm concerned."
I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment.
I have yet to see content compelling enough to give up a single right, much less giving Hollywood the ability to gut the humble PC.
I can watch a DVD now. I can watch TV now.
Will the programming get better if I give up control of my PC? Will Hollywood look out for my best interest once I give up control?
Write your congressmen and senators with pen and paper. Be civil, but show some courteous passion that tells them that you won't vote for them if they vote for any more DMCA nonsense. Let them know, again very politely, that you'll let other people know about this nonsense. Don't just say "I'm very concerned", say "I believe this is not in my best interest and I would no longer support you in any future elections if you vote for such proposals". Hollywood isn't pulling any punches, and neither should you.
I've been told by someone who knows that if a represenative or senator gets 15 letters on a topic, they get extremely concerned.
Between us, do you think we could produce perhaps 1,000 letters?
" I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it."
This will have a major impact on the web that you may not be obvious.
Right now, in a day you might surf to 10-100 web sites. Why? Well, because its easy and free.
But imagine a web where every site required $5-$10/month to view.
How many could you afford? 1? 5? 10? 100?
I doubt most people would pay for more than 2. And if the web consists of 2 "channels", what's the point? I might as well join AOL; they at least have a community, and everything doesn't cost me money (well, once I'm past the $20/month).
Its unlikely this type of pay-per-web will happen because it removes the critical mass of information that makes the web useful and usable.
And as long as fairly good information exists for "free", there is not paying market for "better" information.
I just dont' see a viable way to charge on the net as more than a niche. ConsumerReports.org can do it because they have compelling information outside of the.org site, so the web serves as a mobile version of the magazine. But not many sites will have this sort of resource.
The web will change, but I don't think it will be in the direction you seem to think it will. I suspect anybody who claims to know is lying.
"The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). Cable TV offered value above and beyond broadcast TV that I lusted for but never attained as a child. (Now that I'm grown, I don't sit still long enough to watch TV 8*)"
Actually the draw for cable TV in its infancy was to simply get broadcast television to areas that couldn't get television.
This happened in the 50's, not the 70's as you seem to imply.
I should know, I grew up in a town in Pennsylvania that was one of the first to get cable TV.
There were 3 (count 'em) channels, and at some point I remember "educational TV" being put on. I think it was a forerunner of PBS. Later, they expanded the dial to fill up VHF positions 2-13. And it was that way until the mid-80's.
Its funny to think the "scrambling" employed by cable companies for HBO when it came out was to pick a frequency in between 6 & 7 where most tuners couldn't tune (remember, this was the analog days). Depending on your TV, you could simply fine tune channel 6 until you got HBO, or there were home-brew hacks to your tuner that people swore would work. I don't know, my parents would never let me experiment with the color TV.
The point is that cable TV was expensive in those days ($10/month. Holy cow...this was when a brand new car was $3,000), but if you wanted TV you paid for cable.
Isn't it funny that after all these years, the humble PC is still considered one of the most controversial devices invented in the last 30 years?
If good ole' Happy Jack had his way there wouldn't be PC's, but there is and there's not an easy solution to the power they represent for people like "Happy Jack".
"if it is thought that it is in the public interest to take someone's land for public purposes, the land is *bought*. It is called "eminent domain". Fair market value is paid."
Not always.
In the front of virtually every property, there is access taken for things such as sidewalk, underground water, electrcity, telephone. As a property owner, you aren't given compensation for this (in fact, in the case of water, sometimes you pay for the privledge). Everyone has decided that its a benefit for everyone to have access (including the landholder). Now this isn't 100% correct and when the government does something to decrease the value of my physical property, then the *first* owner is generally compensated. But by allowing access to the public, I can make the same argument that the value of the copyright/trademark is increased.
As to your example of "mickey mouse", no one is arguing that copyright holder shouldn't be able to exploit those rights. But its a stretch to say Disney should have perpetual copyright limitation.
Mickey Mouse as a trademark? Sure. But why should Disney keep copyrights to an 80 year old cartoon? It serves the public better if those cartoons are now public domain. Two immediately come to mind: (1) there's an incentive for Disney to create new Mickey Mouse cartoons (2) The public freely gets to see "steamboat willy" as free entertainment.
Imagine if Beethoveen's relatives had the right to prevent any public performances of the 9th symphony. Whose interests are served? Why should the creation of a book, painting, music, video be a perpetual money making machine? The concept of "Intellectual Property" forces us to torture logic as it is. Why force us into a future where everthing you do or say could potentially be the property of large corporations. We're very rapidly headed that way now, and that future isn't especially appealing for me.
Slashdot Mirror
My link was bad, somehow in pure text mode spaces are added. Try Apple vs. Apple
Whoops, my apologies, a space got inserted there somehow. Apple Versus Apple
This isn't really correct. Apple Records and Apple Computer reached an out-of-court settlement essentially favoring Apple Records. However, they later sued, and won for infringement in a later lawsuit.
/ be atlesvsapple.html
See:
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/april/990419
"It already did -- ISTR that they had a dispute with Apple Records back in the 80s. Needless to say, Apple Computer won (or at least didn't lose)."
e atlesvsapple.html
This is completely inaccurate.
Please see the link http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/april/990419/b
In part, the article says:
"The suit involves Apple Corp., a record company founded by all four Beatles in 1968. Apple Corp sued Apple Computer and agreed to settle the case as long as Apple stayed out of the music business. According to the article, an appeals court ordered Apple Computer to pay the record company US$26.4 million."
There's more on the net about it, look up "Apple Computers Beatles" on any search engine for more information.
In theory, this should help the little guy and open source because they could be more responsible for their customer.
But in fact, it will have the opposite effect. It means that software will have to be "certified" before it could be released.
Little developers (guys in their basement) could never afford this. Big guys (Microsoft) could. Again, this favors big, established companies over upstarts.
But more seriously, lets look at the worst issue with having liability for unsecure software:
If I have a Firestone tire (as mentioned in one of the links), I expect that it will be safe to put on my car and drive up to the speed rating on the side. But if I used the tire as a swing in my backyard and I fell off and broke my arm, should Firestone be liable? After all, a lot of people use tires for swings, and they didn't do anything to make them safer for this purpose.
Silly? Maybe. But now apply to something like a computer operating system. What is its intended purpose? Basically its purpose is infinite. It will allow a piece of hardware to begin to have infinite possibilities. So now I have to make sure my software is safe in any possible circumstance that I can't even forsee!
Mind you, I'm not excusing bad software, but I don't see how this proposal will do anything, because a new license will come out that people will simply have to accept something like:
"I accept that if I use this software it is completely insecure and will allow bad people to do bad things to me and my computer. I completely waive all rights to bring legal action again the makers of this software, even if they knew there is or was a problem. "
This is a "good in theory, bad in practice" solution.
"but Mozilla isn't really an end-user product; it lacks some of the polish of commerical browsers. "
Really? I think Mozilla is probably the 2nd best browser out there. Its certainly better than any netscape browser, and I think it works a heckuva lot better than opera.
Perhaps you use your browser a different way and can tell us some of the ways you think it could be polished to make it more professional?
"They invented cookies so that advertisers could track readers "
Cookies primary use is to keep state information. Many legitimate sites use cookies, and most could care less about tracking you.
While its true cookies can be used to track user habits (and this is a stretch), modern browsers make this much more difficult. For example, for at least 2 versions IE hasn't allowed URL or javascript requests for out-of-domain requests.
In fact IE6 even eliminates this problem for the most part through its use of rejecting cookies that don't come from the primary URL the user is viewing.
There are a lot of threats to privacy. Cookies aren't the worst offender by a long shot.
"apply this to his train of though, and the "easily accessible" web sites need to be stopped... so we are forced to shut down the internet. totally irrational thinking."
I've said essentially the same thing before.
Within 18 months, I predict someone in congress will suggest that web sites must be licensed the same way radio stations are licensed.
It won't be because of copyright infringement, rather, it will be because of some other pretext, but the results will be the same.
I think the reasonable position is:
1) Anybody can encrypt anything they want.
2) Anybody can try to decrypt anything they want.
The government should not get involved in this technology escalation. They will always make it worse because legislation always favors one side.
"Elcomsoft had a US presence "
Presence means "physical presence". I don't believe that's true.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Where are their US offices located?
Does the univerisity claim ownership of all work produced by a student?
If not, how can the univerisity assign the copyright of something that isn't theirs?
Its kind of like me going to a Disney movie and then giving the copyright to my friend because Disney showed it to me.
...but a solid firewall.
http://www.fwtk.org/main.html
There's still a lot of support and I believe an active mailing list.
I put one together 5 years ago, and the company I work for still uses it for their mailing host.
Interface? There is none. But it works pretty damned good if you're willing to spend 1 day understanding how it works.
Not a bad deal.
Sure, but their liability is capped and in every case, the liability of the provider of a T1 is at most the monthly cost of the T1.
So if you pay $1600/month, and it goes down for a week, they'll simply won't charge you for the month.
You're right in that the SLA means they're out fixing it within a short period of time, but they never guarantee when they'll fix it. In fact, most T1 TOS don't even have a guaranteed latency or ping time.
So, no, you don't really get what you pay for with a T1, but the telco has a monopoly on the local loop, so its not like you can shop around for the best loop provider.
When the Mac came out in 1984-ish, a big part of the computer industry (including the press) talked about ideal user interfaces. That was the whole point of the GUI pioneered by PARC.
A lot of the interfaces done up until that time were unique; 1-2-3 had a unique interface, Wordperfect had a unique interface.
What apple did that was revolutionary wasn't the GUI, it was they defined an environment for all programs to use which enforced a common user interface. The net result was groudbreaking because a lot of the basics were the same in each application. Remember, WYSIWYG was the hot buzz word (words?) back then, so the entire frame of reference was different.
So, the evolution so far was:
No interface -> Application Specific Interface -> Common User Interface
What's wrong with this picture? Well back in the day when the CUI was the hot ticket, the idea of desktop "metaphors" was in vogue. The trash can was there because you understood that deleting a document was like throwing away a piece of paper on your desk. So in fact, the interface of the Mac was supposed to be a metaphor for a user's desktop (in fact, its still called a desktop).
But a desktop isn't a good metaphor for recording music, or taking pictures, or doing an unlimited number of tasks.
Why shouldn't the garden hose have the same interface as the typewriter? Because each interface exploits the unique features and attributes of that type of device.
So in 2001, computers are several orders of magnitude more powerful than 1984 and we really have the ability to create much closer metaphors.
In fact, you could say this argues against a common user interface. It says the interface should be the best to do the job at that time.
I fall somewhere in the middle. There is clearly a value of having the idea of a desktop metaphor. There is value in having experience framework for doing computer related tasks. But ideally there is a balance between consistency and the best interface for the task at hand.
So I find Jef's interview interesting, but I think he's still stuck in a 1988 period of UI design. No offense to him, he's a smart guy and I don't discount what he says, but based on the comment's he's made, I think the computer world has passed him by.
"I would rather not have movies at all than to be forced to use copy prevention on my PC. If the lack of copy prevention is what is keeping the MPAA from joining the internet age, well, they can just stay where they are as far as I'm concerned."
I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment.
I have yet to see content compelling enough to give up a single right, much less giving Hollywood the ability to gut the humble PC.
I can watch a DVD now. I can watch TV now.
Will the programming get better if I give up control of my PC? Will Hollywood look out for my best interest once I give up control?
Write your congressmen and senators with pen and paper. Be civil, but show some courteous passion that tells them that you won't vote for them if they vote for any more DMCA nonsense. Let them know, again very politely, that you'll let other people know about this nonsense. Don't just say "I'm very concerned", say "I believe this is not in my best interest and I would no longer support you in any future elections if you vote for such proposals". Hollywood isn't pulling any punches, and neither should you.
I've been told by someone who knows that if a represenative or senator gets 15 letters on a topic, they get extremely concerned.
Between us, do you think we could produce perhaps 1,000 letters?
" I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it."
.org site, so the web serves as a mobile version of the magazine. But not many sites will have this sort of resource.
This will have a major impact on the web that you may not be obvious.
Right now, in a day you might surf to 10-100 web sites. Why? Well, because its easy and free.
But imagine a web where every site required $5-$10/month to view.
How many could you afford? 1? 5? 10? 100?
I doubt most people would pay for more than 2. And if the web consists of 2 "channels", what's the point? I might as well join AOL; they at least have a community, and everything doesn't cost me money (well, once I'm past the $20/month).
Its unlikely this type of pay-per-web will happen because it removes the critical mass of information that makes the web useful and usable.
And as long as fairly good information exists for "free", there is not paying market for "better" information.
I just dont' see a viable way to charge on the net as more than a niche. ConsumerReports.org can do it because they have compelling information outside of the
The web will change, but I don't think it will be in the direction you seem to think it will. I suspect anybody who claims to know is lying.
"The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). Cable TV offered value above and beyond broadcast TV that I lusted for but never attained as a child. (Now that I'm grown, I don't sit still long enough to watch TV 8*)"
Actually the draw for cable TV in its infancy was to simply get broadcast television to areas that couldn't get television.
This happened in the 50's, not the 70's as you seem to imply.
I should know, I grew up in a town in Pennsylvania that was one of the first to get cable TV.
There were 3 (count 'em) channels, and at some point I remember "educational TV" being put on. I think it was a forerunner of PBS. Later, they expanded the dial to fill up VHF positions 2-13. And it was that way until the mid-80's.
Its funny to think the "scrambling" employed by cable companies for HBO when it came out was to pick a frequency in between 6 & 7 where most tuners couldn't tune (remember, this was the analog days). Depending on your TV, you could simply fine tune channel 6 until you got HBO, or there were home-brew hacks to your tuner that people swore would work. I don't know, my parents would never let me experiment with the color TV.
The point is that cable TV was expensive in those days ($10/month. Holy cow...this was when a brand new car was $3,000), but if you wanted TV you paid for cable.
But believe me, the commercials were there.
"In other words, they're not stupid; they're delusional"
They're not dilusional, they're simply wealthy. Not "I make $250K a year" wealthy, wealthy like "I have people who do that for me" wealthy.
Isn't it funny that after all these years, the humble PC is still considered one of the most controversial devices invented in the last 30 years?
If good ole' Happy Jack had his way there wouldn't be PC's, but there is and there's not an easy solution to the power they represent for people like "Happy Jack".
"if it is thought that it is in the public interest to take someone's land for public purposes, the land is *bought*. It is called "eminent domain". Fair market value is paid."
Not always.
In the front of virtually every property, there is access taken for things such as sidewalk, underground water, electrcity, telephone. As a property owner, you aren't given compensation for this (in fact, in the case of water, sometimes you pay for the privledge). Everyone has decided that its a benefit for everyone to have access (including the landholder). Now this isn't 100% correct and when the government does something to decrease the value of my physical property, then the *first* owner is generally compensated. But by allowing access to the public, I can make the same argument that the value of the copyright/trademark is increased.
As to your example of "mickey mouse", no one is arguing that copyright holder shouldn't be able to exploit those rights. But its a stretch to say Disney should have perpetual copyright limitation.
Mickey Mouse as a trademark? Sure. But why should Disney keep copyrights to an 80 year old cartoon? It serves the public better if those cartoons are now public domain. Two immediately come to mind: (1) there's an incentive for Disney to create new Mickey Mouse cartoons (2) The public freely gets to see "steamboat willy" as free entertainment.
Imagine if Beethoveen's relatives had the right to prevent any public performances of the 9th symphony. Whose interests are served? Why should the creation of a book, painting, music, video be a perpetual money making machine? The concept of "Intellectual Property" forces us to torture logic as it is. Why force us into a future where everthing you do or say could potentially be the property of large corporations. We're very rapidly headed that way now, and that future isn't especially appealing for me.
That's what makes them expensive (well, that and the reliability).
Most of the top monthly magazines cost about $12-20 a year when discounted.
Are web sites willing to take $2 a month?
And remember, they do real work for that $2, testing cars, putting in recipes, travelling to fashion shows.
The ones that have opinions (New Yorker) are niche magazines.
I don't understand how a niche web site can make money. You can't say "Everybody come to my web site, but then you have to pay for it".
Look at Slate for how that model failed.
Hmmm, I'm detecting a pattern here...
Would it be okay for a friend to videotape it for them and then loan it to them to watch it later?
Or is it only okay to watch it as its broadcast?
I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just trying to understand the limits of fair use.
As someone else pointed out, the intial 2 releases of NT didn't have a client license fee.