If the music publishers owned by the major labels (aol, umg, bmg, sony) cross-license their songs, there is no infringement. However, if you're not already affiliated with a major music publisher, and you write a song, you will be sued. And if you don't already have millions in the bank, you will lose in the end because any victory will be Pyrrhic.
Especially since 4 bars is enough to constitute a copyright violation (was it 4? Can't remember).
Ronald Mack's publisher sued George Harrison's publisher and won, despite the fact that both sides agreed that George Harrison was not aware that he was copying anything.
Ever heard the expression "I liked $PRODUCT so much, I bought the company"? It's impossible for a public corporation[1] to set an infinite license fee for a patent or copyright. In theory, the maximum possible license fee is the price of a controlling interest in the company.
However, this does not change your point that copyrights and patents pose a problem when the copyright owner or patent holder sets an unreasonable license schedule.
editing html, and uploading files via ftp to the site.
Software analogous to blogging software could automate both of these tasks.
what's going to be more attractive: doing all of the above, or downloading a piece of p2p software from the web, hitting a button that says "share", and being done?
It's not always that easy because comparatively few Americans have always-on Internet access. When a person who connects to the Internet via a dial-up connection terminates the dial-up connection, the files that the person was sharing on a P2P network disappear from the P2P network unless somebody else who is connected to the Internet and is on the P2P network has downloaded those files and is sharing them.
An HTTP site doesn't have to have any index (think directory trees)
If an HTTP site is reachable via HREFs from http://www.yahoo.com/ and it doesn't have any robots.txt file, it will automatically have an index of sorts.
"What about files that aren't linked anywhere on the site?"
Many web hosting providers prohibit such practices in their Acceptable Use Policy.
Okay replace the word "copyrighted" with "Freeware" then. It still doesn't change the fact that the chances of finding any freeware software, images or music is extrememly low.
I went on WinMX (a Windows file-sharing program that's probably better than Kazaa) and shared my GBA folder, containing an emulator (VisualBoyAdvance) and a few redistributable ROMs. People actually downloaded them.
If you look at the linked article from ipmenu the preamble clearly states that this is an "innovation patent" (similar to German Utility patent).
I don't know about German law, but in USA law, "utility patent" refers to the ordinary 20-year patent on an invention, as opposed to a plant patent or design patent.
This is a _registration_ to prevent others from nabbing your idea.
Last time I checked, registration of an invention to prevent others from patenting it was called a "technical disclosure".
You get a reduced term of protection (ie Monopoly) the Patent Office doesn't search or examine the innovation patent - it's just registered.
I find any monopoly that encumbers independent invention and is granted without examination a Bad Thing.
it is for discussions related to an object for sale. A much harder case for prior art
Look to the left of the comments on this Slashdot page. In the "sections" box, between "askslashdot" and "bsd", is a link called books, which points directly at prior art.
Verbs in the passive voice are overused in patent applications.
Passive voice leaves the agent unspecified. The author of a patent application uses passive voice because he does not want to limit the scope of the patent by specifying the agent.
The meat of the patent is in the claims, which are written as a humongous noun phrase.
I'd think the USPTO is asleep at the wheel in the figurative sense, but the Australian patent office is asleep at the wheel in the literal sense. In fact, the Australian patent office was so asleep that it granted a patent on the wheel.
Once article foo is authored, submitted, formally reviewed and then approved is it actually put on the production news site.
OK, then use Bugzilla, Bonsai, and the rest of Mozilla developer tools. Giving the power to check-in only to 'reviewers' (those with the power to super-review) and to 'drivers' (those with the power to approve) solves much of that.
but when was the last time a one step upgrade gave any system a 2x performance.
Darn right. Even the upgrade from NES to GameCube doesn't push the frame rate of Super Mario above 60fps.
when i went from single channel ddr to dual channel ddr i did not see 2x performance
That's because you're playing "double" mode, which is designed for one person on both channels. You have to play "couple" mode with a friend in order to hit 2x the arrows with dual-channel Dance Dance Revolution.
How much does a USB 2 device controller cost vs. a USB 1.x device controller?
So what if it takes an hour to compress an MP3 file?
I didn't say that. I claimed that a fellow could load the device with compressed audio files faster than he could compress them. There is a limit to the practical speed of compressing CD audio on a home computer, and that's the physical limit of how fast a CD can safely spin during digital audio extraction, somewhere around 48x. Even when Moore's Law gets us to the point where a PC can encode as fast as it rips, 48 times 192 kbps is still less than the 12 Mbps of USB.
Are you a mac person by any chance?
I currently use a PC running a Windows OS, but I did start out on Apple II and Macintosh computers.
At 1 MB per second (the practical maximum for USB 1.x), a 20 GB hard disk would take 20,000 seconds (about 5+1/2 hours) to fill. Fill it overnight.
Got a whole bunch of audio files you ripped from the 3 CDs you just bought at Worst Buy? Just put the new recordings on the device. At 90 MB per CD after compression, it shouldn't take longer than five minutes to sync your device over USB 1.1, and if your OS multitasks well, you should be able to send a folder of.ogg or.mp3 files as you encode it.
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If the music publishers owned by the major labels (aol, umg, bmg, sony) cross-license their songs, there is no infringement. However, if you're not already affiliated with a major music publisher, and you write a song, you will be sued. And if you don't already have millions in the bank, you will lose in the end because any victory will be Pyrrhic.
Especially since 4 bars is enough to constitute a copyright violation (was it 4? Can't remember).
G. F. Handel's publisher won a lawsuit over four notes.
Ronald Mack's publisher sued George Harrison's publisher and won, despite the fact that both sides agreed that George Harrison was not aware that he was copying anything.
The only demonstrable example of a Microsoft patent that I can remember [relates to] CSS
Oh really? I remember a little fight about the ASF format.
Ever heard the expression "I liked $PRODUCT so much, I bought the company"? It's impossible for a public corporation[1] to set an infinite license fee for a patent or copyright. In theory, the maximum possible license fee is the price of a controlling interest in the company.
However, this does not change your point that copyrights and patents pose a problem when the copyright owner or patent holder sets an unreasonable license schedule.
[1] Google is not a public corporation.
editing html, and uploading files via ftp to the site.
Software analogous to blogging software could automate both of these tasks.
what's going to be more attractive: doing all of the above, or downloading a piece of p2p software from the web, hitting a button that says "share", and being done?
It's not always that easy because comparatively few Americans have always-on Internet access. When a person who connects to the Internet via a dial-up connection terminates the dial-up connection, the files that the person was sharing on a P2P network disappear from the P2P network unless somebody else who is connected to the Internet and is on the P2P network has downloaded those files and is sharing them.
An HTTP site doesn't have to have any index (think directory trees)
If an HTTP site is reachable via HREFs from http://www.yahoo.com/ and it doesn't have any robots.txt file, it will automatically have an index of sorts.
"What about files that aren't linked anywhere on the site?"
Many web hosting providers prohibit such practices in their Acceptable Use Policy.
Okay replace the word "copyrighted" with "Freeware" then. It still doesn't change the fact that the chances of finding any freeware software, images or music is extrememly low.
I went on WinMX (a Windows file-sharing program that's probably better than Kazaa) and shared my GBA folder, containing an emulator (VisualBoyAdvance) and a few redistributable ROMs. People actually downloaded them.
If you look at the linked article from ipmenu the preamble clearly states that this is an "innovation patent" (similar to German Utility patent).
I don't know about German law, but in USA law, "utility patent" refers to the ordinary 20-year patent on an invention, as opposed to a plant patent or design patent.
This is a _registration_ to prevent others from nabbing your idea.
Last time I checked, registration of an invention to prevent others from patenting it was called a "technical disclosure".
You get a reduced term of protection (ie Monopoly) the Patent Office doesn't search or examine the innovation patent - it's just registered.
I find any monopoly that encumbers independent invention and is granted without examination a Bad Thing.
it is for discussions related to an object for sale. A much harder case for prior art
Look to the left of the comments on this Slashdot page. In the "sections" box, between "askslashdot" and "bsd", is a link called books, which points directly at prior art.
Verbs in the passive voice are overused in patent applications.
Passive voice leaves the agent unspecified. The author of a patent application uses passive voice because he does not want to limit the scope of the patent by specifying the agent.
The meat of the patent is in the claims, which are written as a humongous noun phrase.
Is the patent office asleep at the wheel?
I'd think the USPTO is asleep at the wheel in the figurative sense, but the Australian patent office is asleep at the wheel in the literal sense. In fact, the Australian patent office was so asleep that it granted a patent on the wheel.
which targets merchandise (almost unlike /.)
What about Slashdot Book Reviews, which include a link to purchase a copy of the book at Barnes & Noble?
you never use a proprietary format
What backup tape physical format[1] invented over 20 years ago[2] still meets the demands of today's data loads?
[1] .tar.gz is not a physical format.
[2] It has to be non-proprietary, so the patent has to have expired.
Once article foo is authored, submitted, formally reviewed and then approved is it actually put on the production news site.
OK, then use Bugzilla, Bonsai, and the rest of Mozilla developer tools. Giving the power to check-in only to 'reviewers' (those with the power to super-review) and to 'drivers' (those with the power to approve) solves much of that.
Slashdot is part of OSDN. OSDN also owns SourceForge.net, which provides open source projects with their own CVS repositories.
I'm not even sure it stores more than two versions of a page to this day
Wikipedia's software stores all previous versions of a document.
Not a single Version Control system addresses publishing.
Wouldn't publishing just be a periodic checkout by the web server from the repository?
So you admit that you don't bother with backups?
What if the backups are f****d as well?
No, the secret of Life, the Universe, and Everything cannot be found in one tenth of a joint. The secret lies in the question.
but when was the last time a one step upgrade gave any system a 2x performance.
Darn right. Even the upgrade from NES to GameCube doesn't push the frame rate of Super Mario above 60fps.
when i went from single channel ddr to dual channel ddr i did not see 2x performance
That's because you're playing "double" mode, which is designed for one person on both channels. You have to play "couple" mode with a friend in order to hit 2x the arrows with dual-channel Dance Dance Revolution.
I thought you guys were Michiganders???
gander n. A male goose.
But what about the Michigeese?
How does one obtain a so-called "REAL email address" that passes through filters that block paying MSN subscribers and paying AOL subscribers?
And that's a reason for not including USB 2 why?
How much does a USB 2 device controller cost vs. a USB 1.x device controller?
So what if it takes an hour to compress an MP3 file?
I didn't say that. I claimed that a fellow could load the device with compressed audio files faster than he could compress them. There is a limit to the practical speed of compressing CD audio on a home computer, and that's the physical limit of how fast a CD can safely spin during digital audio extraction, somewhere around 48x. Even when Moore's Law gets us to the point where a PC can encode as fast as it rips, 48 times 192 kbps is still less than the 12 Mbps of USB.
Are you a mac person by any chance?
I currently use a PC running a Windows OS, but I did start out on Apple II and Macintosh computers.
Just the other day some newbie told me he could kick my ass in Quake 3... well one thing lead to another, and now he's dead.
Do you mean "dead" within the game and will respawn in five seconds, or "dead" outside the game, never to respawn?
If you add the ASCII values of the letters "BILLGATES" plus 3 (for Bill Gates III), you get the number of the beast:
At 1 MB per second (the practical maximum for USB 1.x), a 20 GB hard disk would take 20,000 seconds (about 5+1/2 hours) to fill. Fill it overnight.
Got a whole bunch of audio files you ripped from the 3 CDs you just bought at Worst Buy? Just put the new recordings on the device. At 90 MB per CD after compression, it shouldn't take longer than five minutes to sync your device over USB 1.1, and if your OS multitasks well, you should be able to send a folder of .ogg or .mp3 files as you encode it.