they don't seem to define "terminal server" anywhere
Which means that a court will define it in a way that most closely preserves the spirit of the agreement.
and the document appears to assume that you'd use Windows Terminal Services, rather than simply exporting an X display (which doesn't actually involve a terminal server at any point, client and server are reversed in X).
A "terminal server" under the agreement would probably include any computer that exports an X display.
Nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice. Use Slashdot only as a tool for getting a rough feel for other users' experience in similar situations; discuss details with your attorney.
what if they want to read it through a brail reader?
This method might be faster then text to speach.
According to this page, a blind user behind text-to-speech can read roughly three times as fast (150 wpm) as a blind user can read Braille text (50 wpm).
I have plenty of copyrighted works still in my head, unpublished
No you don't. A copyrighted work does not exist under United States law until it is fixed in a tangible medium. A work that exists only in the wetware of the human brain is not considered "fixed".
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."... Since the authors of the law went to the trouble of putting this clause in, it makes the most sense to conclude that they never intended for chapter 12 to in any way prohibit the fair uses of copyrighted works.
Copyright infringement is one offense under United States law.
Circumvention is a different offense under United States law.
Copyright infringement and circumvention are completely orthogonal, as different as rape is from bank robbery. It's possible to commit one offense without committing the other.
I mean, if it's okay to break an e-book for fair use (I'll trust Henry V.009 here), is that work still considered "protected" by the DMCA?
Yes. The publisher's argument: The translation of the original text into a restrictions-managed eBook constitutes a new derivative work that deserves a new copyright term. Whether this will fly in court is anyone's guess.
If it doesn't, then there exists a legal attack on DVD CSS: try decrypting Charlie Chaplin films, or if Eldred wins, try decrypting "Steamboat Willie". Then try selling a distribution of free software that checks the DVD against a list of titles known to contain public domain works and, if so, decrypts those public domain works. You still haven't violated DMCA because your product as shipped isn't capable of breaking access control on works under a subsisting copyright. (The implication here is that the check against the list...)
17 U.S.C. 1201 (a)(1)(B) basically says that paragraph (A) doesn't apply to people who are attempting to make noninfringing use of a protected work. That hardly qualifies as a "narrow exception."
But section 1201 (a)(1)(C) states that only the Librarian of Congress can grant such exceptions.
In 2029 $10.000 may allow you to buy a bag of dog food
In A.D. 2002, a 9 kg (20 pound) bag of Kibbles 'n Bits dog food costs about $25. In order for 400-fold inflation to occur in 27 years, you'd need an annual inflation rate of 100*(1-400^(1/27)) = nearly 25 percent. (Economists call double-digit annual inflation "galloping inflation".) The actual inflation rate of the United States dollar is closer to 4 percent, putting a 9 kg bag of Kibbles at $25*1.04^27 = $72 in A.D. 2029, assuming we don't have an episode of hyperinflation similar to what the Germans experienced during the World Wars of the twentieth century A.D.
On the other hand, predicting long-term inflation trends isn't as sound as it may seem. Humorous example: When a fellow considers inflation of the United States dollar far into H. G. Wells's future, it would appear that the Morlocks of A.D. 802701 eat Eloi because the Morlocks can't afford a bag of dog food for $25*1.04^800699 = $10^13700.
I guess blind-deaf users need day-to-day-help anyway
So what about Braille terminal users who aren't also deaf? Should Section 508 compliance (required for USA government web sites) allow a web site to require all blind users to have sound cards?/p)
I suppose it could generate a spoken list of words in a sound file that is linked to from the image.
The CAPTCHA web site has such a test, but of the sites that use image-based bot tests, only PayPal offers an audio alternative.
Another problem is that sites often present the tests in proprietary formats with expensive implementation royalties, such as.gif and.mp3.
But even providing both the image in a free image format (.png) and the audio in a free audio format (.ogg) won't help blind users behind a Braille terminal without a speaker, such as blind-deaf users.
Under these circumstances, during discovery, no corporation (except maybe [a shady consulting firm]) is going to fail to produce the exact page they displayed when asked for it.
Then how do you explain Unisys suddenly ending the program for royalty-free licensing of LZW patents in royalty-free software? (Look at Burn All GIFs under "Didn't they already settle this?".)
I suppose the duct tape over the power and reset buttons falls under the topic of properly administered?
Booting from any device other than the primary hard disk requires a BIOS administrator password. Changing the password without knowing the old password requires opening the case, which the sales personnel are trained to recognize.
patents and copyrights do not require a contract to use -- they only require a licence.
However, in the absence of a contract specifying otherwise, a licence can be revoked at any time, and it's your word against theirs whether or not you actually had a licence.
If you let a trademark get diluted in the marketplace, your claim to that trademark grows weaker, or even goes away entirely. Patents don't work like that.
It works for patents as well, just not as strongly. Look up the laches doctrine and see how it applies to patent infringement lawsuits. Quick summary (IANAL): If Alice harms Bob in delaying legal action for an infringement, then Alice loses the right to collect damages for infringements that happened before she filed the lawsuit.
Is it not going to be open source as you are not allowing people to contribute openly?
"Release early, release often" does not mean release the product of one day of planning. Good free software projects start with the cathedral model, with only one or a few engineers working on the thing. Then, once there's enough architecture in place to sustain the beginnings of a bazaar, the developers produce a first milestone release.
All these new Desktop computers seem to have Power Down buttons on the keyboard and i love pressing them while walking tru a computer store....
That's a flaw in Microsoft Windows. You push power down, and it immediately halts the system, killing all apps (including your web browser) that don't have unsaved work. That's pretty harsh for a key that anyone can just bump because it's so close to the edge of the keyboard. As usual, Apple did it right, starting at about Mac OS 7.5, putting up an alert box to confirm a shutdown.
Slashdot Mirror
There's this new technology called "The internet."
Yeah, and now I have to buy network cards for all my old computers. Do they even make ISA NICs anymore?
they don't seem to define "terminal server" anywhere
Which means that a court will define it in a way that most closely preserves the spirit of the agreement.
and the document appears to assume that you'd use Windows Terminal Services, rather than simply exporting an X display (which doesn't actually involve a terminal server at any point, client and server are reversed in X).
A "terminal server" under the agreement would probably include any computer that exports an X display.
Nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice. Use Slashdot only as a tool for getting a rough feel for other users' experience in similar situations; discuss details with your attorney.
what if they want to read it through a brail reader? This method might be faster then text to speach.
According to this page, a blind user behind text-to-speech can read roughly three times as fast (150 wpm) as a blind user can read Braille text (50 wpm).
they already broke the dmca.
Has a court ruled decisively as to whether the Congress even had power under the Constitution to pass the DMCA?
I have plenty of copyrighted works still in my head, unpublished
No you don't. A copyrighted work does not exist under United States law until it is fixed in a tangible medium. A work that exists only in the wetware of the human brain is not considered "fixed".
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." ... Since the authors of the law went to the trouble of putting this clause in, it makes the most sense to conclude that they never intended for chapter 12 to in any way prohibit the fair uses of copyrighted works.
Copyright infringement is one offense under United States law.
Circumvention is a different offense under United States law.
Copyright infringement and circumvention are completely orthogonal, as different as rape is from bank robbery. It's possible to commit one offense without committing the other.
I mean, if it's okay to break an e-book for fair use (I'll trust Henry V .009 here), is that work still considered "protected" by the DMCA?
Yes. The publisher's argument: The translation of the original text into a restrictions-managed eBook constitutes a new derivative work that deserves a new copyright term. Whether this will fly in court is anyone's guess.
If it doesn't, then there exists a legal attack on DVD CSS: try decrypting Charlie Chaplin films, or if Eldred wins, try decrypting "Steamboat Willie". Then try selling a distribution of free software that checks the DVD against a list of titles known to contain public domain works and, if so, decrypts those public domain works. You still haven't violated DMCA because your product as shipped isn't capable of breaking access control on works under a subsisting copyright. (The implication here is that the check against the list...)
17 U.S.C. 1201 (a)(1)(B) basically says that paragraph (A) doesn't apply to people who are attempting to make noninfringing use of a protected work. That hardly qualifies as a "narrow exception."
But section 1201 (a)(1)(C) states that only the Librarian of Congress can grant such exceptions.
if some twit comes in and reboots all the machines to the bios password, it's not processing the data.
The BIOS password would only be an admin password (used for changing the boot drive), not a boot password (used for starting the windows bootloader).
Besides, its prolly only going to run XP and it takes little to crash it if you know how.
How? What's the easiest way to crash a non-network-connected Windows XP system by manipulating only the keyboard and mouse?
Any physical process can be computed by a Turing machine
Really? Even inherently unpredictable quantum processes?
It is simply a question of time required to compute it.
Solution: Enforce a time limit on the prover.
I discuss the accessibility implications of CAPTCHAs in this writeup on Everything 2.
In 2029 $10.000 may allow you to buy a bag of dog food
In A.D. 2002, a 9 kg (20 pound) bag of Kibbles 'n Bits dog food costs about $25. In order for 400-fold inflation to occur in 27 years, you'd need an annual inflation rate of 100*(1-400^(1/27)) = nearly 25 percent. (Economists call double-digit annual inflation "galloping inflation".) The actual inflation rate of the United States dollar is closer to 4 percent, putting a 9 kg bag of Kibbles at $25*1.04^27 = $72 in A.D. 2029, assuming we don't have an episode of hyperinflation similar to what the Germans experienced during the World Wars of the twentieth century A.D.
On the other hand, predicting long-term inflation trends isn't as sound as it may seem. Humorous example: When a fellow considers inflation of the United States dollar far into H. G. Wells's future, it would appear that the Morlocks of A.D. 802701 eat Eloi because the Morlocks can't afford a bag of dog food for $25*1.04^800699 = $10^13700.
I guess blind-deaf users need day-to-day-help anyway
So what about Braille terminal users who aren't also deaf? Should Section 508 compliance (required for USA government web sites) allow a web site to require all blind users to have sound cards? /p)
I suppose it could generate a spoken list of words in a sound file that is linked to from the image.
The CAPTCHA web site has such a test, but of the sites that use image-based bot tests, only PayPal offers an audio alternative.
Another problem is that sites often present the tests in proprietary formats with expensive implementation royalties, such as .gif and .mp3.
But even providing both the image in a free image format (.png) and the audio in a free audio format (.ogg) won't help blind users behind a Braille terminal without a speaker, such as blind-deaf users.
Under these circumstances, during discovery, no corporation (except maybe [a shady consulting firm]) is going to fail to produce the exact page they displayed when asked for it.
Then how do you explain Unisys suddenly ending the program for royalty-free licensing of LZW patents in royalty-free software? (Look at Burn All GIFs under "Didn't they already settle this?".)
Go to the Control Panel, open Power, click "Advanced," and look at the section entitled "Power buttons."
Thanks. I didn't know that was there, because I had that keyboard for only a week.
I suppose the duct tape over the power and reset buttons falls under the topic of properly administered?
Booting from any device other than the primary hard disk requires a BIOS administrator password. Changing the password without knowing the old password requires opening the case, which the sales personnel are trained to recognize.
patents and copyrights do not require a contract to use -- they only require a licence.
However, in the absence of a contract specifying otherwise, a licence can be revoked at any time, and it's your word against theirs whether or not you actually had a licence.
so it's better to use PNG
Unfortunately, PNG doesn't support animation, IE doesn't support MNG out of the box, and users may be unable or unwilling to install MNG4IE.
If you let a trademark get diluted in the marketplace, your claim to that trademark grows weaker, or even goes away entirely. Patents don't work like that.
It works for patents as well, just not as strongly. Look up the laches doctrine and see how it applies to patent infringement lawsuits. Quick summary (IANAL): If Alice harms Bob in delaying legal action for an infringement, then Alice loses the right to collect damages for infringements that happened before she filed the lawsuit.
Is it not going to be open source as you are not allowing people to contribute openly?
"Release early, release often" does not mean release the product of one day of planning. Good free software projects start with the cathedral model, with only one or a few engineers working on the thing. Then, once there's enough architecture in place to sustain the beginnings of a bazaar, the developers produce a first milestone release.
You guys are acting as if you are PAYING for this software.
Ximian sells copies of the Ximian distribution of the GNOME desktop on CD for only $30.
What percentage of these instore machines will be set up properly?
All of them, if they're installed from a properly designed system image on CD.
on both my Windows 2000 and XP boxes I get a confirmation "Standby / Power-Off / Cancel" box when I press either the keyboard power key
Can you tell me where to specify that Windows should put up that box?
It's entirely a matter of how the computer is configured.
Well-chosen default settings are an important part of UI design.
All these new Desktop computers seem to have Power Down buttons on the keyboard and i love pressing them while walking tru a computer store....
That's a flaw in Microsoft Windows. You push power down, and it immediately halts the system, killing all apps (including your web browser) that don't have unsaved work. That's pretty harsh for a key that anyone can just bump because it's so close to the edge of the keyboard. As usual, Apple did it right, starting at about Mac OS 7.5, putting up an alert box to confirm a shutdown.