Most people who are forced to file bankruptcy have already payed more than double what they initially borrowed. As with most things late penalties are calculated to maximize profit for the credit company, not be fair or reasonable. They recover more compensation than they can truly claim losses due to the lateness of the payment. While you can argue that part of this is punitive in order to discourage non-payment it can also be argued that it is in large part greed which drives the high costs of default.
I don't have too much sympathy for those who run up debt just to claim bankruptcy, but bankruptcy exists as a much needed last resort.
Just for the record, he wished to leave. The store manager wouldn't allow him to, physically preventing his vehicle from leaving the store's parking lot. He then called the police. The police arrested him for refusing to show his id. Incidentally Ohio law explicitly states he did not have to show his id.
He did not resist arrest. He did not become belligerent. No undue force was used by the police during the arrest since it was entirely unnecessary.
Of course ruling that way would throw the whole concept of shrink wrapped software EULAs into chaos. By agreeing to the liscence then ignoring it. Given what is at stake I don't believe that a judge would want to rule this way. If they do, so be it... but the consequences would reach beyond just the GPL.
To be fair to those CSR who are not mentally defective, you get an awfully lot of customers who can't do math or understand simple things like prorated bills. "Yes we promised it would be $X/mo. Notice this is 1.5 months worth of charges. No your bill isn't wrong."
That's an interesting thought. I understand the argument that you are purchasing a license to use the software, but when said software is distributed via a tangible medium there is also a sale of a physical object occurring. Has it ever been tested in court that when you purchase a product in this manner that no ownership has been created? If I were to steal the physical copy from you would you have no case since you didn't really buy anything? Obviously that isn't the case, but it frames the legal question a bit more clearly. You have received something. It is just as tangible as a book or music CD. License or no, you own that. Legally. Further at the point of sale, no contract has been created. You have agreed to nothing.
If there is an exception stating that you can run what you own then regardless of license. Obviously IANAL and have not looked at the "explicit exceptions" to copyright that was mentioned, but I think its erroneous to say that I am not a legal owner of a copy of the software if I disagree with the license. Perhaps the courts will rule that way in the end, but as of now I think that question is unresolved.
Private property rights would give them the ability to eject you from the game. IANAL so I can only speculate on the legality of the bootleg baseball game you managed to capture, but I'm pretty sure its covered under copyright as a live performance.
While I'm not defending the 5 years as the ideal length of protection, arguing that just because something is commercially viable it shouldn't be public domain seems odd. Mozart appears to be commercially viable still. There are stations who happily play his music. Should his work still enjoy copyright? The whole idea it to find the point where incentive is balanced with the overall cultural good. I personally like the 14 year original term of copyright. Especially in today's world I think it would serve its purpose.
And yes I am going to ignore Mickey Mouse. Perhaps trademark can help the Disney corporation maintain control over their aging creation. I don't believe copyright is the right tool after this length of time.
No, that is base 1. Unless you can figure out how base 1 would work other than that you'll still need to define base-0.:)
To be clear, base 10 consists of 10 symbols. Typically 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Base 2 consists of 2 symbols. Typically 0 and 1. Base 1 would allow only one symbol. You choose what you'd prefer.
Following that pattern I'm uncertain how information would be expressed with no symbols.
You're kidding right? Del Taco? While on a vacation my wife and I decided to give them a try. While I'm not going to hold Taco Bell as some paragon of fast food mexican perfection... Del Taco is leaps and bounds below them in taste. We now avoid them like the plague.
Sure, if you want to lose your right alt key in order to type those additional characters. I could also memorize the code if I really cared. The original point was diacritics really aren't part of the English language and will show up in use mainly in imported words. In the above example it is a commonly accepted practice to drop the mark. Check dictionary.com if you care to verify.
The problem with this approach is that it cuts you off from a huge number of potentially orphaned works or requires you to weave the labrynth of legal ownership rights to secure permissions for each and every book in your collection. This vastly reduces the cost effectiveness of the project and the usefulness of the end results.
I actually approve of this approach in that any author that actually cares has a simple and nearly cost free way of removing themselves. If this is indeed fair use then that is a courtesy, not a requirement. Part of the problem of having 100+ year copyrights is that they vastly outlive their usefulness for 99% of the works out there. The 1% that remains hardly justifies the costs for the other 99%.
On a tangent, it would be nice to have a "renew after X years or lose your copyright" system, except that I think international treaty specifically forbids it at this point.
Google doesn't own the books. Affiliated libraries own the books and theoretically lend them out on some occasions.
If you scan your own book and then lend out the original while retaining the scanned version for reference that may be a violation. I'd be curious to see if the scanning part would hold up as fair use if you copied the entirety of the book. Unless there are aggrevating circumstances its not likely to ever come up in court though.
Not all libraries are public or publically funded. Specialty libraries and those in private institutions (such as private universities) exist and have a right to exist. Some are funded on fees payed and thus the copyrighted works do benefit the institution. I'm not certain if any general publically accessible libraries work in this fashion, but the argument isn't quite as empty as you are making it out to be.
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure how they justify not having an original copy solely set aside for this project, but the books in question are all available for loan via the original libraries they were scanned. If you look at the snippets they provide for copyright works it is clear they are going to lengths to be within the fair use exemption. When our lurking slashdot lawyer's have offered opinions in the past on the subject it has been to the effect that the profit motive is only one factor to consider in the determination of whether a copyright infringement is fair use... and that it is not entirely clear that google's activities are or are not fair use. While I feel they've taken sufficient steps to make sure the search only locates the book and provides a bare minimum of context so you know you've located what you want, the issue will be open until the courts rule on it. As others have pointed out... that is the unfortunate part of fair use. When you are doing something new you don't know which side of the law you'll end up on.
The RIAA has no authority to sue on behalf of any copyright holder who has not agreed to be represented by them.
If they could then the following scenario would also be possible:
I am working in a school computer lab.
I witness someone on the computer in front of me download something which I suspect they do not have authorization to do.
I witness that person copy that file to a media, leaving the original download in the tmp directory.
Lets even say I happen to know said person, so identity is not in question.
Given these facts I would then be able to sue that person for "not more than $150,000." While a fun possibility, the actual act precludes this. At most I could notify the copyright owner and agree to serve as a witness to the act if they decided to bring the case. Similarly, the most RIAA could do in the P2P case is find the copyright owner and notify them, agreeing to provide the information that have collected.
Sounds like a good way to stop getting the courtesy of the two week notice. Fortunately most people don't think so badly of people that getting a two weeks notice means instant termination. Just like in most cases you don't fire the retiree 5 days before they retire. After all, what good will come of those 5 days? In service oriented jobs it matters little which warm body fills the seat, in skill oriented jobs you want loose end tied up. I'd hate to think of the difficulties someone would have trying to transition into my projects without some help, and I'd imagine that would be a good place to focus the energy of those last two weeks.
Exactly what does the average person do with their LAN anyways that it can't take the 128kbps from an average mp3? Perhaps on a larger scale network that would add up, but 100mbps is enough that streaming files on demand from one central location is not a problem and can indeed be very convenient.
Other than that, I agree that a product with a capable hard drive shouldn't be striving to artificially limit its ability to play from its hard drive.
Tell me then... how can I place $1 in the stock market.:) As far as I'm aware there are minimums and transaction fees and other barriers to entry which making playing with ultra low amounts of money unprofitable for all parties involved. If you make lump sums once per year ($52/year), you might be able to do something, granted... In my case the $5 I might spend a year on gambling of any kind will never make a good investment in the market.
That doesn't quite square with what this is saying. If they are playing a game 10 hours straight then obviously they have more time for sleep (if they so chose) than 2-3 hours. Heck, you could get 8 hours with 2 left over for gaming on that kind of schedule.
As a recent student who also held a nearly full-time job I can safely say that gaming wasn't an effective stress relief. Most games are created to be huge time sinks and as such aren't really appropriate for someone who has at most a few hours to devote to them over the course of a week.
Our current level of technology is enough to handle any situation that you have pointed out. You could probably manage a GPS unit which could be powered briefly by human means (crank system, or other) and you can locally augment GPS in general where you have line of site issues. Spelunking would present some challenges...
It seems like while it might become more difficult, we could deal with this within a generation if it happened today. (Certainly there would be a transition period in which we'd lose a few sea kayakers... but those who take up a sport are generally aware of the risks.) If we as a people fall into another dark-age... well, we have more problems than just getting places... but certainly for those routes that need to be traveled there will be a low tech way.
How is our two party system a good idea again? Neither of the two parties come close, as a whole, to the values I'd like to see. Certainly there are those, here and there, who do... but by and large it always seems to be coming down to the lesser of two evils. I personally would love to see proportional representation. If I feel a party is somewhat close to what I believe and 20% of the population agrees with me, then 1/5th the seats gets allocated to that party. I'd be at least represented to some degree. I'd even suggest leaving the Senate as it is. The house of representatives could be made a little larger to accomodate a wider variety of views. This would reestablish some of the difference between the house and senate which we've lost. (Previously the senate represented the state, the house represented the people of the state.)
The system we have currently is leading to a general sense of powerlessness in this country. Occasionally your vote might matter. If you live in an area which happens to be divided evenly enough that voter turnout can make a difference. And if you happen to be able to agree with enough of what a candidate stands for that you can in good concience place a vote for them. For many, we're sick of watching two nearly indistinguishable parties argue over petty differences, scared to death of saying anything that'll doom them to being in the minority. With more factions in the house perhaps it wouldn't be such a doom. At least you'd have coalitions to form, viewpoints to be discussed, and compromises to make.
And finally lets not fool ourselves. The parties I speak of exist within the parties we have today. Not just the existing minority parties: libertarians, greens, constitutionalists, etc. Both democrats and republicans have factions that could better be expressed as independent parties which form coallitions as necessary to accomplish things on their agenda.
From these descriptions I can't take this as evidence of a stockpile of WMDs. It would take more, even, than an unused crate of these shells since one has to leave the possibility of beaurocratic screwups open. It was known that chemical weapons had been used by this regime in the past, but the stockpiles had theoretically been destroyed. This was not the justification for us going to war.
If this is not the evidence you are referencing, then can you point to an artical or a source other than this?
However even the facts you choose to present, order presented in, and context can exhibit bias.
Two facts given in the article:
2004: Wal-Mart employees in... Quebec, Canada vote in favour of becoming the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America.
Five months later, Wal-Mart announces that it would close the store, citing poor sales.
These are two verifiable facts. The facts make Wal-Mart look bad.
Now assume we remove the second fact, or move it into a list of stores which have been closed, so that its no longer easily connectable. All the facts are still present, but Wal-Mart in that case comes out looking neutral or good.
There is always bias. Even when sticking to the facts. I think the idea here is that one sides point of view is being systematically repressed by eliminating even the mention of facts and controversy. This is not in the interest of a healthy public debate.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at least the democrats only wanted $2500 to tell him he wasn't welcome. The republicans wanted $35000 to tell him the same thing.
Most people who are forced to file bankruptcy have already payed more than double what they initially borrowed. As with most things late penalties are calculated to maximize profit for the credit company, not be fair or reasonable. They recover more compensation than they can truly claim losses due to the lateness of the payment. While you can argue that part of this is punitive in order to discourage non-payment it can also be argued that it is in large part greed which drives the high costs of default.
I don't have too much sympathy for those who run up debt just to claim bankruptcy, but bankruptcy exists as a much needed last resort.
Just for the record, he wished to leave. The store manager wouldn't allow him to, physically preventing his vehicle from leaving the store's parking lot. He then called the police. The police arrested him for refusing to show his id. Incidentally Ohio law explicitly states he did not have to show his id.
He did not resist arrest. He did not become belligerent. No undue force was used by the police during the arrest since it was entirely unnecessary.
Of course ruling that way would throw the whole concept of shrink wrapped software EULAs into chaos. By agreeing to the liscence then ignoring it. Given what is at stake I don't believe that a judge would want to rule this way. If they do, so be it... but the consequences would reach beyond just the GPL.
Maybe he means he pays over $1/kwh. I'd like to see the hamster farm his power company uses to get those kind of rates. :)
To be fair to those CSR who are not mentally defective, you get an awfully lot of customers who can't do math or understand simple things like prorated bills. "Yes we promised it would be $X/mo. Notice this is 1.5 months worth of charges. No your bill isn't wrong."
That's an interesting thought. I understand the argument that you are purchasing a license to use the software, but when said software is distributed via a tangible medium there is also a sale of a physical object occurring. Has it ever been tested in court that when you purchase a product in this manner that no ownership has been created? If I were to steal the physical copy from you would you have no case since you didn't really buy anything? Obviously that isn't the case, but it frames the legal question a bit more clearly. You have received something. It is just as tangible as a book or music CD. License or no, you own that. Legally. Further at the point of sale, no contract has been created. You have agreed to nothing.
If there is an exception stating that you can run what you own then regardless of license. Obviously IANAL and have not looked at the "explicit exceptions" to copyright that was mentioned, but I think its erroneous to say that I am not a legal owner of a copy of the software if I disagree with the license. Perhaps the courts will rule that way in the end, but as of now I think that question is unresolved.
Private property rights would give them the ability to eject you from the game. IANAL so I can only speculate on the legality of the bootleg baseball game you managed to capture, but I'm pretty sure its covered under copyright as a live performance.
While I'm not defending the 5 years as the ideal length of protection, arguing that just because something is commercially viable it shouldn't be public domain seems odd. Mozart appears to be commercially viable still. There are stations who happily play his music. Should his work still enjoy copyright? The whole idea it to find the point where incentive is balanced with the overall cultural good. I personally like the 14 year original term of copyright. Especially in today's world I think it would serve its purpose.
And yes I am going to ignore Mickey Mouse. Perhaps trademark can help the Disney corporation maintain control over their aging creation. I don't believe copyright is the right tool after this length of time.
No, that is base 1. Unless you can figure out how base 1 would work other than that you'll still need to define base-0. :)
To be clear, base 10 consists of 10 symbols. Typically 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Base 2 consists of 2 symbols. Typically 0 and 1.
Base 1 would allow only one symbol. You choose what you'd prefer.
Following that pattern I'm uncertain how information would be expressed with no symbols.
You're kidding right? Del Taco? While on a vacation my wife and I decided to give them a try. While I'm not going to hold Taco Bell as some paragon of fast food mexican perfection... Del Taco is leaps and bounds below them in taste. We now avoid them like the plague.
Sure, if you want to lose your right alt key in order to type those additional characters. I could also memorize the code if I really cared. The original point was diacritics really aren't part of the English language and will show up in use mainly in imported words. In the above example it is a commonly accepted practice to drop the mark. Check dictionary.com if you care to verify.
The problem with this approach is that it cuts you off from a huge number of potentially orphaned works or requires you to weave the labrynth of legal ownership rights to secure permissions for each and every book in your collection. This vastly reduces the cost effectiveness of the project and the usefulness of the end results.
I actually approve of this approach in that any author that actually cares has a simple and nearly cost free way of removing themselves. If this is indeed fair use then that is a courtesy, not a requirement. Part of the problem of having 100+ year copyrights is that they vastly outlive their usefulness for 99% of the works out there. The 1% that remains hardly justifies the costs for the other 99%.
On a tangent, it would be nice to have a "renew after X years or lose your copyright" system, except that I think international treaty specifically forbids it at this point.
Google doesn't own the books. Affiliated libraries own the books and theoretically lend them out on some occasions.
If you scan your own book and then lend out the original while retaining the scanned version for reference that may be a violation.
I'd be curious to see if the scanning part would hold up as fair use if you copied the entirety of the book. Unless there are aggrevating circumstances its not likely to ever come up in court though.
Not all libraries are public or publically funded. Specialty libraries and those in private institutions (such as private universities) exist and have a right to exist. Some are funded on fees payed and thus the copyrighted works do benefit the institution. I'm not certain if any general publically accessible libraries work in this fashion, but the argument isn't quite as empty as you are making it out to be.
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure how they justify not having an original copy solely set aside for this project, but the books in question are all available for loan via the original libraries they were scanned. If you look at the snippets they provide for copyright works it is clear they are going to lengths to be within the fair use exemption. When our lurking slashdot lawyer's have offered opinions in the past on the subject it has been to the effect that the profit motive is only one factor to consider in the determination of whether a copyright infringement is fair use... and that it is not entirely clear that google's activities are or are not fair use. While I feel they've taken sufficient steps to make sure the search only locates the book and provides a bare minimum of context so you know you've located what you want, the issue will be open until the courts rule on it. As others have pointed out... that is the unfortunate part of fair use. When you are doing something new you don't know which side of the law you'll end up on.
The RIAA has no authority to sue on behalf of any copyright holder who has not agreed to be represented by them.
If they could then the following scenario would also be possible:
Given these facts I would then be able to sue that person for "not more than $150,000." While a fun possibility, the actual act precludes this. At most I could notify the copyright owner and agree to serve as a witness to the act if they decided to bring the case. Similarly, the most RIAA could do in the P2P case is find the copyright owner and notify them, agreeing to provide the information that have collected.
Sounds like a good way to stop getting the courtesy of the two week notice. Fortunately most people don't think so badly of people that getting a two weeks notice means instant termination. Just like in most cases you don't fire the retiree 5 days before they retire. After all, what good will come of those 5 days? In service oriented jobs it matters little which warm body fills the seat, in skill oriented jobs you want loose end tied up. I'd hate to think of the difficulties someone would have trying to transition into my projects without some help, and I'd imagine that would be a good place to focus the energy of those last two weeks.
Exactly what does the average person do with their LAN anyways that it can't take the 128kbps from an average mp3? Perhaps on a larger scale network that would add up, but 100mbps is enough that streaming files on demand from one central location is not a problem and can indeed be very convenient.
Other than that, I agree that a product with a capable hard drive shouldn't be striving to artificially limit its ability to play from its hard drive.
Tell me then... how can I place $1 in the stock market. :) As far as I'm aware there are minimums and transaction fees and other barriers to entry which making playing with ultra low amounts of money unprofitable for all parties involved. If you make lump sums once per year ($52/year), you might be able to do something, granted... In my case the $5 I might spend a year on gambling of any kind will never make a good investment in the market.
That doesn't quite square with what this is saying. If they are playing a game 10 hours straight then obviously they have more time for sleep (if they so chose) than 2-3 hours. Heck, you could get 8 hours with 2 left over for gaming on that kind of schedule.
As a recent student who also held a nearly full-time job I can safely say that gaming wasn't an effective stress relief. Most games are created to be huge time sinks and as such aren't really appropriate for someone who has at most a few hours to devote to them over the course of a week.
Our current level of technology is enough to handle any situation that you have pointed out. You could probably manage a GPS unit which could be powered briefly by human means (crank system, or other) and you can locally augment GPS in general where you have line of site issues. Spelunking would present some challenges...
It seems like while it might become more difficult, we could deal with this within a generation if it happened today. (Certainly there would be a transition period in which we'd lose a few sea kayakers... but those who take up a sport are generally aware of the risks.) If we as a people fall into another dark-age... well, we have more problems than just getting places... but certainly for those routes that need to be traveled there will be a low tech way.
Then to even things out...
"First lunar McDonalds"
"deep fried tang"
Hmmm, not sure what I can substitute for the Dell Helpdesk.
How is our two party system a good idea again? Neither of the two parties come close, as a whole, to the values I'd like to see. Certainly there are those, here and there, who do... but by and large it always seems to be coming down to the lesser of two evils. I personally would love to see proportional representation. If I feel a party is somewhat close to what I believe and 20% of the population agrees with me, then 1/5th the seats gets allocated to that party. I'd be at least represented to some degree.
I'd even suggest leaving the Senate as it is. The house of representatives could be made a little larger to accomodate a wider variety of views. This would reestablish some of the difference between the house and senate which we've lost. (Previously the senate represented the state, the house represented the people of the state.)
The system we have currently is leading to a general sense of powerlessness in this country. Occasionally your vote might matter. If you live in an area which happens to be divided evenly enough that voter turnout can make a difference. And if you happen to be able to agree with enough of what a candidate stands for that you can in good concience place a vote for them. For many, we're sick of watching two nearly indistinguishable parties argue over petty differences, scared to death of saying anything that'll doom them to being in the minority. With more factions in the house perhaps it wouldn't be such a doom. At least you'd have coalitions to form, viewpoints to be discussed, and compromises to make.
And finally lets not fool ourselves. The parties I speak of exist within the parties we have today. Not just the existing minority parties: libertarians, greens, constitutionalists, etc. Both democrats and republicans have factions that could better be expressed as independent parties which form coallitions as necessary to accomplish things on their agenda.
Since this statement surprised me a bit I thought a source might be nice:
Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq
Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb
Finally, a credible writeup as to why this particular piece of evidence shouldn't be viewed as the smoking gun:
Iraq sarin shell is not part of a secret cache
From these descriptions I can't take this as evidence of a stockpile of WMDs. It would take more, even, than an unused crate of these shells since one has to leave the possibility of beaurocratic screwups open. It was known that chemical weapons had been used by this regime in the past, but the stockpiles had theoretically been destroyed. This was not the justification for us going to war.
If this is not the evidence you are referencing, then can you point to an artical or a source other than this?However even the facts you choose to present, order presented in, and context can exhibit bias.
Two facts given in the article:
These are two verifiable facts. The facts make Wal-Mart look bad. Now assume we remove the second fact, or move it into a list of stores which have been closed, so that its no longer easily connectable. All the facts are still present, but Wal-Mart in that case comes out looking neutral or good.
There is always bias. Even when sticking to the facts. I think the idea here is that one sides point of view is being systematically repressed by eliminating even the mention of facts and controversy. This is not in the interest of a healthy public debate.