I'm not entirely sure how legally a file format can be public after a (relatively) short period of time such as 25 years. Most software methods and formats are copyrighted, not patented.
A copyright does not "protect" a proprietary software publisher from a third party reverse-engineering the file format and another third party creating interoperable tools. Neither does the DMCA's circumvention ban (17 USC 1201(f)). Only a patent can do that, and in the USA, a patent lasts filing date + 20 years.
having the lawyers tell you it might be illegal or a DMCA violation
The DMCA's circumvention ban makes an explicit exemption regarding reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability (17 USC 1201(f)).
So, in my opinion, hell yes there should be an experation date! There is no logical reason why trying to convert a 25 year old format when no one else seems to know how should present a legal issue.
If we were to allow (well-thought-out) software patents, this wouldn't be a problem, as any 20-year-old invention (in the USA, patents last up to filing date + 20 years) would be described in great detail.
You can drive down the street with any decent set of tyres; in general (excepting extreme road conditions), you don't have to match your tyres to the road. On the other hand, you can't watch a particular file with just any codec; it has to be able to understand the particular format of compressed data.
Sorenson isn't a file format
ASCII isn't a file format either, but both Sorenson Video and ASCII (as encodings) share the characteristics of a file format that apply to the present discussion.
Do you want this built in a month using VB, or in 6 months using C?
"Do you want this built in a month using Microsoft Visual Basic, or in a month using GNOME Basic?" This will be the situation once GNOME Basic progresses some more.
Even if "you can take the developer out of VB, but you can't take the VB out of the developer", you can take the developer out of a Microsoft environment while leaving the developer in what is essentially still VB. If you want to see this happen, fund the GNOME Basic project.
Government regulation of radio frequency spectrum was designed to minimize interference and create "bands" where users could reasonably expect the service they want to be located. Otherwise you would have to search through 10gHz of spectrum to find NBC news.
Likewise, government regulation of Internet addresses was designed to minimize interference and create "bands" where users could reasonably expect the service they want to be located. Otherwise you would have to search through 4 billion IP addresses to find MSNBC.
Their concept of "software radio" only works if these radios know every source of possible interference in a geographical area and moves in the right way to avoid it. Who determines which way is the right way seems to me to be important and I'd much rather have a government entity do it.
Sounds logical. After further research into packet radio protocols is completed, I propose government-regulated location service on a dedicated location band and then a band for simply broadcasting packets.
The kid in Brazil is allowed to access the shortwave band as long as he uses the right equipment. He gets his license and he follows the rules established by everyone.
Technologies, platforms, languages does not matter, what you produce and provide with them does.
The hardware for any solution that requires the Microsoft platform will be nearly twice as expensive because of the cost of the Microsoft operating system and server software licenses.
"So... do you want this package that runs on a relatively inexpensive Linux server, or this other package that runs on Windows.NET Server?"
And don't count on being able to talk the heirs into re-licensing the software. In general, heirs tend to be greedier about copyrights than the author was.
You CAN'T have IE for Linux, IE and Windows are absolutely inseperable, remember?
Heck, if Microsoft engineers can port IE from Win32/x86 to the Macintosh platform (a different API on a different processor with a different endian-ness), surely it'd be easy for them to improve ReWind (a Windows compatibility layer released under a BSD-ish license) enough to run IE.
But the Right Thing is not to write code to any proprietary API (even your own). This is part of why Netscape wrote a cross-platform wrapper around system libraries.
I'm using os x, and those windows-esque controls look like ass.
What's anybody supposed to do about it? Mozilla developers can't use native widgets because the Aqua widgets do not support the rendering options required by CSS, and Mozilla developers can't use look-alike widgets because of Apple's hard-ass policy against Aqua look-alikes.
Don't like it? Make a skin that looks like KDE Liquid and submit a patch.
In order to display your DVD on their wireless headsets, it would have to be broadcast to them and broadcasting a DVD would be restricted by copyright
Wrong. In copyright law (Title 17, United States Code), "broadcasting" a movie is called "performance." Performance is not an exclusive right of a copyright holder; you're thinking of public performance and display (17 USC 106). Performance within a household would almost certainly count as fair use (17 USC 107).
EULAs presented after the sale aren't likely to be all that enforceable against an individual citizen acting in a private home viewing environment.
when it speaks back to you,it'll probably be in a robotic monotonic voice
No it won't. Software synthesizers have been able to apply prosody (the rise and fall of pitch) since the 1980s, starting with SAM for the C=64 and Apple II. Listen to "The Laziest Men on Mars - Invasion of the Gabber Robots.mp3" once. Note that Cats is the only character with a monotonic voice; all other characters have half-natural voices thanks to SoftVoice's superior technology. (Yes, it was SoftVoice; go to softvoice's web site and play the Colossus sample to see who did the voice for Cats.)
Interestingly enough, though, in the old days, unlicensed games happened every so often. I recall that Taito reverse-engineered the NES cartridge and put out their own games...
That wasn't Taito (a licensed publisher of Arkanoid and Bubble Bobble); it was Atari, under the Tengen brand. (By the way: Tengen's NES port of Klax had some of the best music on the NES. They were able to squeeze bass out of that system that not even Nintendo probably knew was there.)
Most of the independently published games published by companies other than Tengen sucked. Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree games really weren't all that playable, except for Crystal Mines (aka Exodus) and the "King of Kings" 3-in-1. Hacker/Panesian had only one hit, Bubble Bath Babes (aka Soap Panic), and it was a puzzle game somewhat similar to Kirby's Avalanche.
However, in the modern era (post-NESticle), a new NES scene has sprung up. (Read More...)
No, you have it all wrong. The Xbox encrypts the flash with RSA's RC4 symmetric cipher (i.e. not a public key cipher). The remainder of this post is (strictly) off-topic because the Xbox boot process does not use public-key encryption.
The private key decrypts.. the public key encrypts.
In a public-key secrecy scheme, you're correct. But in a public-key authentication scheme, the private key encrypts the hash into a signature, and the public key decrypts the signature for comparison with the hash.
He has the private key. And you can derive the public key from the private key.
This opening of the Xbox may eventually a fellow run independently developed game software on the Xbox hardware. ("Independently developed" means that Microsoft doesn't get a cut of the revenue. So much for razors and blades business model.) With a port of the GNU/Linux system to Xbox hardware, such games would potentially include the whole gnome-games suite, the freepuzzlearena suite, Tetanus On Drugs, Tux Racer, Quake III Arena, and every NES and Game Boy Advance game in existence.
But the BIOS does. Without a text mode, many versions of BIOS will refuse to complete POST.
you can compile without any VGA support at all, and assuming you had the appropriate framebuffer driver included, there shouldn't be any problem.
So how will the Linux distributions' installers support the various flavors of display hardware if they can't fall back on text, VGA, or VESA? That'll make for one big a$$ kernel on the install disc.
When the freshness wears off, the prices drop to try to get something from the people who aren't willing to pay that much.
No, prices really drop to clear out the inventory. The publishers of music, movies, and video games don't want you to buy old stuff; they want you to buy their more expensive new stuff. Witness the movie companies (especially DisneyCo) pulling old videos from store shelves and lobbying for copyright term extensions to thwart the preservation of classic films.
VALENTI:... I have what is known as "visual aids."
Here, "aids" is a singular noun; otherwise, Valenti would have said "I have what are known as visual aids." In general, when the English word "aids" is singular, it is written with all capital letters and refers to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, the HIV disease spread by sexual promiscuity and sharing of hypodermic needles.
If Valenti can share his private parts and/or needles, why can't we share his movies?
Firstly, [copyright infringement is] not a criminal offense.
Yes it is, at least in the United States. When you unlawfully copy a copyrighted work, you are deriving "private financial gain" equal to the manufacturer's suggested retail price of a copy. Deriving private financial gain from a copyright infringement is a federal felony (17 USC 506).
Secondly, pay the $19 dollars that that CD albulm costs; big deal. You'll make up for it by all the stuff they didn't catch.
No. In the U.S., even not considering criminal penalties, copyright infringement makes the infringer liable for something called "statutory damages" of up to $150,000 (17 USC 504), no matter how small the actual damages to the copyright owner.
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If I create a file format and want it to be adopted as a standard, I will make it public domain or else adopt a liberal licensing scheme.
And then, once you're the market leader, terminate all the royalty-free licenses.
I'm not entirely sure how legally a file format can be public after a (relatively) short period of time such as 25 years. Most software methods and formats are copyrighted, not patented.
A copyright does not "protect" a proprietary software publisher from a third party reverse-engineering the file format and another third party creating interoperable tools. Neither does the DMCA's circumvention ban (17 USC 1201(f)). Only a patent can do that, and in the USA, a patent lasts filing date + 20 years.
having the lawyers tell you it might be illegal or a DMCA violation
The DMCA's circumvention ban makes an explicit exemption regarding reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability (17 USC 1201(f)).
So, in my opinion, hell yes there should be an experation date! There is no logical reason why trying to convert a 25 year old format when no one else seems to know how should present a legal issue.
If we were to allow (well-thought-out) software patents, this wouldn't be a problem, as any 20-year-old invention (in the USA, patents last up to filing date + 20 years) would be described in great detail.
[analogy between car tyres and video codecs]
You can drive down the street with any decent set of tyres; in general (excepting extreme road conditions), you don't have to match your tyres to the road. On the other hand, you can't watch a particular file with just any codec; it has to be able to understand the particular format of compressed data.
Sorenson isn't a file format
ASCII isn't a file format either, but both Sorenson Video and ASCII (as encodings) share the characteristics of a file format that apply to the present discussion.
Maybe file formats should be handled the same way [as patented pharmaceuticals]?
Actually, they are. Apple/Sorenson's video codec (used in .mov) is patented. Fraunhofer's MP3 audio codec (used in .mp3) is patented. Unisys's LZW still-image codec (used in .gif) is patented. Iterated Systems's fractal-transform still-image codec is patented.
Do you want this built in a month using VB, or in 6 months using C?
"Do you want this built in a month using Microsoft Visual Basic, or in a month using GNOME Basic?" This will be the situation once GNOME Basic progresses some more.
Even if "you can take the developer out of VB, but you can't take the VB out of the developer", you can take the developer out of a Microsoft environment while leaving the developer in what is essentially still VB. If you want to see this happen, fund the GNOME Basic project.
Government regulation of radio frequency spectrum was designed to minimize interference and create "bands" where users could reasonably expect the service they want to be located. Otherwise you would have to search through 10gHz of spectrum to find NBC news.
Likewise, government regulation of Internet addresses was designed to minimize interference and create "bands" where users could reasonably expect the service they want to be located. Otherwise you would have to search through 4 billion IP addresses to find MSNBC.
Their concept of "software radio" only works if these radios know every source of possible interference in a geographical area and moves in the right way to avoid it. Who determines which way is the right way seems to me to be important and I'd much rather have a government entity do it.
Sounds logical. After further research into packet radio protocols is completed, I propose government-regulated location service on a dedicated location band and then a band for simply broadcasting packets.
The kid in Brazil is allowed to access the shortwave band as long as he uses the right equipment. He gets his license and he follows the rules established by everyone.
s/everyone/entertainment industry lobbyists/
>70 years
The Titanic sunk in 1912, that's 90 years.
After Sonny Bono's heirs get done with it, it'll be 110 years.
Technologies, platforms, languages does not matter, what you produce and provide with them does.
The hardware for any solution that requires the Microsoft platform will be nearly twice as expensive because of the cost of the Microsoft operating system and server software licenses.
"So... do you want this package that runs on a relatively inexpensive Linux server, or this other package that runs on Windows .NET Server?"
"I don't have the money for Windows .NET Server."
So what happens if the hacker dies in between?
In that case, tough beans.
United States copyright law, 17 USC 302, provides for a perpetual copyright on all works created on or after January 1, 1978. Currently, it's 150 years (life plus 70), but Congress reserves the right to pass a 20 year copyright term extension every 20 years, and if Eldred loses the Supreme Court case this fall, count on an immediate 1,000 year extension act.
And don't count on being able to talk the heirs into re-licensing the software. In general, heirs tend to be greedier about copyrights than the author was.
You CAN'T have IE for Linux, IE and Windows are absolutely inseperable, remember?
Heck, if Microsoft engineers can port IE from Win32/x86 to the Macintosh platform (a different API on a different processor with a different endian-ness), surely it'd be easy for them to improve ReWind (a Windows compatibility layer released under a BSD-ish license) enough to run IE.
But the Right Thing is not to write code to any proprietary API (even your own). This is part of why Netscape wrote a cross-platform wrapper around system libraries.
I'm using os x, and those windows-esque controls look like ass.
What's anybody supposed to do about it? Mozilla developers can't use native widgets because the Aqua widgets do not support the rendering options required by CSS, and Mozilla developers can't use look-alike widgets because of Apple's hard-ass policy against Aqua look-alikes.
Don't like it? Make a skin that looks like KDE Liquid and submit a patch.
But a conventional LCD, in order to be useful, has to be a certain size
Then make a rear-projection LCD. This way, you can shrink the LCD element and maintain a reasonable sized picture.
In order to display your DVD on their wireless headsets, it would have to be broadcast to them and broadcasting a DVD would be restricted by copyright
Wrong. In copyright law (Title 17, United States Code), "broadcasting" a movie is called "performance." Performance is not an exclusive right of a copyright holder; you're thinking of public performance and display (17 USC 106). Performance within a household would almost certainly count as fair use (17 USC 107).
EULAs presented after the sale aren't likely to be all that enforceable against an individual citizen acting in a private home viewing environment.
when it speaks back to you,it'll probably be in a robotic monotonic voice
No it won't. Software synthesizers have been able to apply prosody (the rise and fall of pitch) since the 1980s, starting with SAM for the C=64 and Apple II. Listen to "The Laziest Men on Mars - Invasion of the Gabber Robots.mp3" once. Note that Cats is the only character with a monotonic voice; all other characters have half-natural voices thanks to SoftVoice's superior technology. (Yes, it was SoftVoice; go to softvoice's web site and play the Colossus sample to see who did the voice for Cats.)
You have more than one [penis]?! You lucky bastard.
It's not that uncommon for a male to have more than one joy-stick. For example: Earwigs have two penises. Sharks have a pair of "claspers". Many marsupials have a bifurcated (Y-shaped) penis, which may look like two penises. And a Google search reveals accounts of human men with two penises, and not just the common joke of "one for peeing and the other for brushing the babysitter's teeth."
Interestingly enough, though, in the old days, unlicensed games happened every so often. I recall that Taito reverse-engineered the NES cartridge and put out their own games...
That wasn't Taito (a licensed publisher of Arkanoid and Bubble Bobble); it was Atari, under the Tengen brand. (By the way: Tengen's NES port of Klax had some of the best music on the NES. They were able to squeeze bass out of that system that not even Nintendo probably knew was there.)
Most of the independently published games published by companies other than Tengen sucked. Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree games really weren't all that playable, except for Crystal Mines (aka Exodus) and the "King of Kings" 3-in-1. Hacker/Panesian had only one hit, Bubble Bath Babes (aka Soap Panic), and it was a puzzle game somewhat similar to Kirby's Avalanche.
However, in the modern era (post-NESticle), a new NES scene has sprung up. (Read More...)
You have it backwards.
No, you have it all wrong. The Xbox encrypts the flash with RSA's RC4 symmetric cipher (i.e. not a public key cipher). The remainder of this post is (strictly) off-topic because the Xbox boot process does not use public-key encryption.
The private key decrypts.. the public key encrypts.
In a public-key secrecy scheme, you're correct. But in a public-key authentication scheme, the private key encrypts the hash into a signature, and the public key decrypts the signature for comparison with the hash.
He has the private key. And you can derive the public key from the private key.
No, you can't do that in (for example) RSA.
it's to play games
This opening of the Xbox may eventually a fellow run independently developed game software on the Xbox hardware. ("Independently developed" means that Microsoft doesn't get a cut of the revenue. So much for razors and blades business model.) With a port of the GNU/Linux system to Xbox hardware, such games would potentially include the whole gnome-games suite, the freepuzzlearena suite, Tetanus On Drugs, Tux Racer, Quake III Arena, and every NES and Game Boy Advance game in existence.
I don't think Linux needs VGA text mode
But the BIOS does. Without a text mode, many versions of BIOS will refuse to complete POST.
you can compile without any VGA support at all, and assuming you had the appropriate framebuffer driver included, there shouldn't be any problem.
So how will the Linux distributions' installers support the various flavors of display hardware if they can't fall back on text, VGA, or VESA? That'll make for one big a$$ kernel on the install disc.
When the freshness wears off, the prices drop to try to get something from the people who aren't willing to pay that much.
No, prices really drop to clear out the inventory. The publishers of music, movies, and video games don't want you to buy old stuff; they want you to buy their more expensive new stuff. Witness the movie companies (especially DisneyCo) pulling old videos from store shelves and lobbying for copyright term extensions to thwart the preservation of classic films.
VALENTI: ... I have what is known as "visual aids."
Here, "aids" is a singular noun; otherwise, Valenti would have said "I have what are known as visual aids." In general, when the English word "aids" is singular, it is written with all capital letters and refers to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, the HIV disease spread by sexual promiscuity and sharing of hypodermic needles.
If Valenti can share his private parts and/or needles, why can't we share his movies?
"Now, they are up to 6 hours. They are going to be up to 24 hours. Pretty soon, they will have a cassette that will record all year long"
Like TiVo? It records all year long, but shows expire.
Audio, on the other hand... A single CD-R disc can store over 48 hours worth of better-than-telephone-quality (32 kbps MP3) audio.
Firstly, [copyright infringement is] not a criminal offense.
Yes it is, at least in the United States. When you unlawfully copy a copyrighted work, you are deriving "private financial gain" equal to the manufacturer's suggested retail price of a copy. Deriving private financial gain from a copyright infringement is a federal felony (17 USC 506).
Secondly, pay the $19 dollars that that CD albulm costs; big deal. You'll make up for it by all the stuff they didn't catch.
No. In the U.S., even not considering criminal penalties, copyright infringement makes the infringer liable for something called "statutory damages" of up to $150,000 (17 USC 504), no matter how small the actual damages to the copyright owner.