its kinda hard to have 2 monopolies in the same market.
Two different markets are involved. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems for x86 workstations. Apple has a monopoly on operating systems for PowerPC workstations.
Therefore, it would almost certainly be legal to write a program that takes copyrighted truetype "programs" as input, and produces equivalent programs (that is, they generate the same typeface) that are not copyrighted.
Such a program would have no different legal status from a C preprocessor; a U.S. federal court would probably consider the output to be a derivative work of the input. 17 USC 106 gives the copyright owner of a font file a limited exclusive right to prepare derivative works from a copyrighted work.
This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State. For purposes of this subsection, the term ''information security'' means activities carried out in order to identify and address the vulnerabilities of a government computer, computer system, or computer network.
From this day forward I will not use fonts anymore
You don't have to go that far. The legal issue under discussion pertains only to an aspect of TrueType font technology. There are alternatives, such as PostScript and good old bitmap fonts. And bitmap fonts are somewhat scalable with algorithms such as scale-blur-median-threshold and 2xSaI.
Yeah... it's what usually 600-800 replies for these hysterical DMCA threads? Let's say 10% will hit that "donate $1" button (probably highly unlikely), that gives you $80.
Not everybody who reads comments posts a comment, and only half of Slashdot's readers ever hit comments.pl at all.
I personally have a policy of NEVER giving out a Credit Card number over the internet, this would make a "One click donation" impossible.
How'd you come up with that policy? Credit cards are typically encrypted with 128-bit crypto, so only you and the site you connect to can see the information. A brute-force search of a 128-bit keyspace on a machine that can do 1 trillion keys/s (approximate power of a million PII-333's) would take over 10^19 years, which is several hundred million times the age of the universe. The ciphers that SSL uses have no known vulnerabilities that would reduce the effective size of the keyspace.
Early versions of MS-DOS were published for 68000-based machines as well as for IBM PCs. It probably would have been trivial to port those to the early Macintosh hardware.
Windows 2000 runs on Macintosh computers through Connectix Virtual PC software.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the default browser for Mac OS X, and Microsoft considers IE to be part of the operating system.
Quite simply what operating system you use should be determined by the task at hand.
I agree, with one caveat: Some people don't have enough money to buy as many boxes as they have tasks that they want to run simultaneously (e.g. Windows is best for games, but *n?x is best for file sharing), or the duopoly (cable and DSL) Internet service providers' TOS prohibit connecting more than one computer through their connection.
It gets me to thinking, though, that our audio language is probably not completely optimized yet, in terms of maximizing information flow. That is, if you were to transmit maximum information in bits/second over the same frequency range as the human ear is capable of processing, it's probably a lot more than the fastest intelligible human speech (~400 words per minute).
Add a little noise to the equation, and you'll see why human language is so close to optimal. It has language that let the ear separate it from ambient noise. It's optimized for use in the wild, not the lab.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to pay the MS tax
If the OEM refuses to issue a refund when you return your Microsoft software, then a good lawyer may be able to argue that the OEM becomes a party to violation of the EULA.
My favroit EULA have alwase been the ones used in online forms. Where they put the EULA in a TEXTAREA. I remove all the text and replace it with "I AGREE TO NOTHING". Is this still legaly binding?
If you don't get an error message after that, it means the web developer hasn't done her homework. You're supposed to SHA-1 the contract submitted in the POST form so that you can prove that the contract presented and the contract submitted are one and the same.
If you don't own the copy, but only the disk, then it seems that section 117 has been legal-hacked.
The letter of United States law states that the disc is the copy, making it a logical impossibility to own one but not the other. (Law outside the United States may differ.) According to 17 USC 101: "'Copies' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
I'm not a lawyer, but here's my armchair analysis of some sample contract language:
"The software is licensed not sold." You bought a copy, which gives you (the owner of a copy) rights under section 117, and you are licensing the work itself, which gives you additional rights.
"The copy of the software is licensed not sold." This language would be completely equivalent to a rental agreement. (Under section 109, only the copyright owner can authorize software rental agreements.)
You give me proof of insurance and proof of a current drivers license, I have you sign the title and registration...
You need a driver's license to get insurance, you need insurance to get a car, but you need a car to pass the driver's license test. Do I smell a chicken-and-egg infinite descent here?
The Product != a copy of the Product. The Product is a program; the law defines a copy of the Product as a medium containing such a program: "'Copies' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." (17 USC 101).
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.
This is a "linchpin clause"; the enforceability of the entire EULA hangs on the enforceability of this sentence. This means I should be able to format c: and return the XP discs to the OEM. If the OEM refuses to give me the "full refund" on the OEM license fee for this copy of Windows, then the OEM becomes a party to my violation of the EULA. Would "I cannot comply with the EULA if the OEM refuses to issue a refund" hold up in a small-claims lawsuit against the OEM?
Probably to reduce all the idiot calls they get from people who thing Windows is a 'Word Processor' (I'm not making this up, I've heard that one a few times).
Windows does contain a bundled word processor: Start > Programs > Accessories > WordPad. It's just like Word without the bloat; in fact, it appears to be a Win32 port of an old version of Word, enough to write a high school term paper on.
If I am correct that may constitute REVERSE ENGINEERING the software though, which may not be allowed under the DMCA,
I agree with "may not." May I clarify?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC 1201, bans most circumvention of access control. However, 1201(f) exempts from this ban several categories of reverse engineering aimed at interoperability. (The "right to use a copy of a computer program" is defined by sections 109 and 117 together with the "quacks like a sale" doctrine.) Whether overwriting a EULA counts as "interoperability" is anybody's guess; therefore "may not" is right.
Easy. Simply try every possible key against the content, and take what looks like valid content (all high bits turned off for ASCII text; valid MPEG-2 headers for DVDs) . This works best with the shorter key lengths used in some popular ciphers. For example, CSS, a 40-bit cipher, should take about 13 days to crack at 1 million keys per second. However, many ciphers and systems have holes, and CSS's Achilles heel lies in the disk key system. Given only the hash of the disk key, the complexity of a brute-force attack reduces to 25-bit, which should take well under a minute on even a slow PIII.
Unlike traditional broadcasting, the cost of operation jumps for each listener tuned in. Each listener requires an ongoing dialog with the server and a big chunk of bandwidth
Not with IP Multicast. You can broadcast UDP packets to entire networks across the globe from you. Of course, this assumes that all routers between you and them support multicast, and that's why MBONE is so important.
Slashdot Mirror
its kinda hard to have 2 monopolies in the same market.
Two different markets are involved. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems for x86 workstations. Apple has a monopoly on operating systems for PowerPC workstations.
Therefore, it would almost certainly be legal to write a program that takes copyrighted truetype "programs" as input, and produces equivalent programs (that is, they generate the same typeface) that are not copyrighted.
Such a program would have no different legal status from a C preprocessor; a U.S. federal court would probably consider the output to be a derivative work of the input. 17 USC 106 gives the copyright owner of a font file a limited exclusive right to prepare derivative works from a copyrighted work.
And when they use another IP to get at the protected content, you can sue them under the DMCA!
Wrong. According to 17 USC 1201(e):
You can't hide from the cops behind the DMCA.
From this day forward I will not use fonts anymore
You don't have to go that far. The legal issue under discussion pertains only to an aspect of TrueType font technology. There are alternatives, such as PostScript and good old bitmap fonts. And bitmap fonts are somewhat scalable with algorithms such as scale-blur-median-threshold and 2xSaI.
Yeah... it's what usually 600-800 replies for these hysterical DMCA threads? Let's say 10% will hit that "donate $1" button (probably highly unlikely), that gives you $80.
Not everybody who reads comments posts a comment, and only half of Slashdot's readers ever hit comments.pl at all.
I'd love to slashdot the credit card company.
I personally have a policy of NEVER giving out a Credit Card number over the internet, this would make a "One click donation" impossible.
How'd you come up with that policy? Credit cards are typically encrypted with 128-bit crypto, so only you and the site you connect to can see the information. A brute-force search of a 128-bit keyspace on a machine that can do 1 trillion keys/s (approximate power of a million PII-333's) would take over 10^19 years, which is several hundred million times the age of the universe. The ciphers that SSL uses have no known vulnerabilities that would reduce the effective size of the keyspace.
Is there another reason?
unless you know of a MS OS that runs on the Mac?
Early versions of MS-DOS were published for 68000-based machines as well as for IBM PCs. It probably would have been trivial to port those to the early Macintosh hardware.
Windows 2000 runs on Macintosh computers through Connectix Virtual PC software.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the default browser for Mac OS X, and Microsoft considers IE to be part of the operating system.
Really? Did they "innovate" the PCI bus and BSD?
Yes. Apple innovated pre-installed commercial BSD on the desktop. Apple also innovated bundled USB keyboards and mice.
Quite simply what operating system you use should be determined by the task at hand.
I agree, with one caveat: Some people don't have enough money to buy as many boxes as they have tasks that they want to run simultaneously (e.g. Windows is best for games, but *n?x is best for file sharing), or the duopoly (cable and DSL) Internet service providers' TOS prohibit connecting more than one computer through their connection.
What's the definition of "deep linking"? Is this some kind of special URL that is not the same as every other URL?
According to RFC 2396, an absolute HTTP URI consists of http://[userinfo@]host[:port]/path. If path is not empty, then the link is considered "deep".
It gets me to thinking, though, that our audio language is probably not completely optimized yet, in terms of maximizing information flow. That is, if you were to transmit maximum information in bits/second over the same frequency range as the human ear is capable of processing, it's probably a lot more than the fastest intelligible human speech (~400 words per minute).
Add a little noise to the equation, and you'll see why human language is so close to optimal. It has language that let the ear separate it from ambient noise. It's optimized for use in the wild, not the lab.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to pay the MS tax
If the OEM refuses to issue a refund when you return your Microsoft software, then a good lawyer may be able to argue that the OEM becomes a party to violation of the EULA.
Use GNU or Open Source software or write your own.
This is often impossible in the United States because of patents.
"So leave the USA." Do you know how much that costs? Upwards of six figures. Most of us don't have that kind of money.
My favroit EULA have alwase been the ones used in online forms. Where they put the EULA in a TEXTAREA. I remove all the text and replace it with "I AGREE TO NOTHING". Is this still legaly binding?
If you don't get an error message after that, it means the web developer hasn't done her homework. You're supposed to SHA-1 the contract submitted in the POST form so that you can prove that the contract presented and the contract submitted are one and the same.
and when I read that EULA if I don't agree, I can return it
If the OEM doesn't issue a refund, does this make the OEM a party to the violation of the EULA?
If you don't own the copy, but only the disk, then it seems that section 117 has been legal-hacked.
The letter of United States law states that the disc is the copy, making it a logical impossibility to own one but not the other. (Law outside the United States may differ.) According to 17 USC 101: "'Copies' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
I'm not a lawyer, but here's my armchair analysis of some sample contract language:
"The software is licensed not sold." You bought a copy, which gives you (the owner of a copy) rights under section 117, and you are licensing the work itself, which gives you additional rights.
"The copy of the software is licensed not sold." This language would be completely equivalent to a rental agreement. (Under section 109, only the copyright owner can authorize software rental agreements.)
You give me proof of insurance and proof of a current drivers license, I have you sign the title and registration...
You need a driver's license to get insurance, you need insurance to get a car, but you need a car to pass the driver's license test. Do I smell a chicken-and-egg infinite descent here?
The Product is licensed, not sold.
The Product != a copy of the Product. The Product is a program; the law defines a copy of the Product as a medium containing such a program: "'Copies' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." (17 USC 101).
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.
This is a "linchpin clause"; the enforceability of the entire EULA hangs on the enforceability of this sentence. This means I should be able to format c: and return the XP discs to the OEM. If the OEM refuses to give me the "full refund" on the OEM license fee for this copy of Windows, then the OEM becomes a party to my violation of the EULA. Would "I cannot comply with the EULA if the OEM refuses to issue a refund" hold up in a small-claims lawsuit against the OEM?
No, the entering into the contractual agreement is the measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work.
It's a measure, but it's a contractual measure, not a technological measure, so it may not count.
Probably to reduce all the idiot calls they get from people who thing Windows is a 'Word Processor' (I'm not making this up, I've heard that one a few times).
Windows does contain a bundled word processor: Start > Programs > Accessories > WordPad. It's just like Word without the bloat; in fact, it appears to be a Win32 port of an old version of Word, enough to write a high school term paper on.
If I am correct that may constitute REVERSE ENGINEERING the software though, which may not be allowed under the DMCA,
I agree with "may not." May I clarify?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC 1201, bans most circumvention of access control. However, 1201(f) exempts from this ban several categories of reverse engineering aimed at interoperability. (The "right to use a copy of a computer program" is defined by sections 109 and 117 together with the "quacks like a sale" doctrine.) Whether overwriting a EULA counts as "interoperability" is anybody's guess; therefore "may not" is right.
DMCA = US only
Not if the EUCD passes.
How the hell do you crack a key?
I read "crack a key" as "deduce a key".
Easy. Simply try every possible key against the content, and take what looks like valid content (all high bits turned off for ASCII text; valid MPEG-2 headers for DVDs) . This works best with the shorter key lengths used in some popular ciphers. For example, CSS, a 40-bit cipher, should take about 13 days to crack at 1 million keys per second. However, many ciphers and systems have holes, and CSS's Achilles heel lies in the disk key system. Given only the hash of the disk key, the complexity of a brute-force attack reduces to 25-bit, which should take well under a minute on even a slow PIII.
Unlike traditional broadcasting, the cost of operation jumps for each listener tuned in. Each listener requires an ongoing dialog with the server and a big chunk of bandwidth
Not with IP Multicast. You can broadcast UDP packets to entire networks across the globe from you. Of course, this assumes that all routers between you and them support multicast, and that's why MBONE is so important.
"Hi, we have these great PC's for $$$.$$ and Linux for dummies for $$.$$ and a boxed Mandrake distro for $$.$$"
The boxed Mandrake distro, the Linux® For Dummies® book, or even Lycoris Desktop/LX costs about the same as the Windows OEM license.