therefore is immune to any lawsuit originated in the U.S.
Sheesh. Stop and think for a second. Do they do business in the US? Then they aren't immune. Just think of the ramifications if foreign companies that did business in the US actually were immune from lawsuits like you claim.
Of course, most businesses aren't The Olympics - for worse (there isn't a better), they manage to get exclusive privileges that the worst corporate offenders only dream of. Really - who's going to sue the Olympics? (Not the least of which is that you can't even sue the IOC, since all the deals divert all blame/expense back to the host city.)
1. You have, I hope, noticed how radios always cut off part of the song at the beginning or the end? This is precisely to make it less attractive for people to simply record songs off the air.
Less attractive, true.. but if I get two copies of the song (one voiced-over at the beginning, one at the end), I'm pretty sure I can use Audacity to splice together a clean copy.
What, you mean like all the free copies they hand out to radio stations
Side thought - it's trivial (and has been trivial for many cycles now) to record music from the radio. What's the damages associated with redistributing something that is being explicitly handed out for free?
Uhm, right there in the first paragraph he says 'I uploaded and downloaded music'. Thats distribution right there.
upload (transfer a file or program to a central computer from a smaller computer or a computer at a remote location)
download. v. To transfer a file or files from a remote computer to a local computer electronically.
distribution. n. the marketing, transporting, merchandising, and selling of any item.
Every time you sync your iPod you're uploading and downloading music. Neither of them are equivalent to distribution.
That 'logic' falls apart when you realise that copyright law does not cover just the work as a whole, but also the work as a part. Which makes all seeders liable.
If you believe that you're liable for distributing "part" of a work, then each word in your post is "seeding" part of innumerable copyrighted works. (How many works say "when you realize" or "does not cover"?)
Failed analogies. In both cases there is a fixed amount of stuff (money, houses) and ownership of it changes.
In the case of money, that's quite obviously untrue - governments can literally print money.
To use the previous example, if those bits suddenly show that I have $9,999,999 in my account, that doesn't necessarily mean that I stole it from another person's account (their bits can be completely unaltered).
That's the rub with digital media - it's perfectly possible for my bits to arrange themselves in a particular order without your bits being removed.
I would bet the company just decided it was less risk to wait a week or two to use the name than it was to roll the dice with potential litigation.
Also, the realization that they can make the statement they wanted to make (congrats to athlete), while *also* making a statement about the IOC (they're idjits), *and* staying clear of any legal trouble, all at the same time...
Among the other things IOC can correctly claim is rights to part of the Canadian national anthem (it's copyrighted as part of some slogan or another), and (name of 3rd largest Canadian City) + (year).
And no, I'm not kidding. And while they assure us that we can still sing our national anthem and use the year, we now do so at their whim.
And I've already stopped watching it - and to those of who wanting to "support our athletes", I'd suggest doing so at the other year-round competitive events. You know, the ones that don't screw the local community over (quite as much).
Now isn't that amusing in that they have turned "Authority to regulate interstate commerce" to mean that if we attempt to regulate it, it becomes interstate commerce, and therefore we can regulate it.
Well, it doesn't help that "interstate commerce" has changed from a rare thing (when it took a few days to ride to the next state) to a daily occurrence. It's hard to find a product that *doesn't* cross a state line between supplier to buyer.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is sitting on billions, but only spends 3% of their endowment in a given year.
This is actually a smart move - it ensures that it's unlikely that the endowment loses value (it only needs to make a 3% return to maintain value). If you're playing for long-term gain (read: make your legacy "philanthropist and nice guy"), you want to keep handing out money as long as possible. It's easier to increase the payouts later than to decrease them.
Note that this doesn't mean anything in terms of what they're using the money for.
Remember, my post was in response to a guy suggesting that this consumer information was important to assisting the government in silencing dissent. Even given these interconnections, do you seriously think that the government is waiting for you to buy snacks and liquor so that it will create the perfect conditions for them to snatch and grab you from a party full of your closest friends?
Not as such, no. (By which I mean no, I don't think there's Snack Gestapo standing outside my local 7-11.)
What I suspect we'll see is discrediting people by presenting "evidence" out of context. We already get that, of course - but as the cost of gathering that data is lowered, it becomes more cost-effective to dig up dirt on people who won't shut up. (And as the saying goes, everyone's guilty of *something*.)
And then try reminding these businesses that by law they have to offer another way around it. By law, the only people you are supposed to give out your SSN to is the government for Social Security and tax purposes. No one else is supposed to have access to it. The credit system is broken and required by just about everyone these days.
And don't forget that even though they may have to give you "another way", they are free to make it as unappealing as possible.
Friend of mine tried to get on a monthly cell plan years ago (before the prepaid stuff became available). Doesn't have a credit card, and asked about deposit. The amount of the deposit was hundred of dollars - it was justified as the price of the phone + a year's "average use". It was jaw-dropping, astoundingly, stupidly expensive. It was obvious that they never intended on selling a plan that way - but it was still a legal "alternative".
But data mining needs enormous amounts of data to process, with that amount of data member #5534289 is no longer important, only the aggregate of millions of users. The actual user is obscured through density, even if his trends are somewhat maintained by the mining operation.
Only until Bob Q Public (aka 5534289) becomes a Person Of Interest (maybe he's been arrested, maybe he's running for office, maybe he just honked off someone who has access to the database). Then suddenly all those obscured details come into clarity.
I honestly don't see how knowing what groceries you bought last week makes you any easier a target for the black helicopters vs. all the critical information that the IRS already has like where you live, work, if you're married and to whom, etc.
The problem is the interconnections.
Take your basic grocery loyalty card. The offer seems simple: let us track your grocery buying habits, we give you a discount.
The problem is what else they can connect that data to - without talking to everyone else, they know not only what you buy, but when you buy it, and how you pay. And that's enough to start making inferences - do you pay by debit at the beginning of the month, and credit at the end? That suggests you're having trouble making ends meet.
Now, scale up to the multi-vendor cards, like Air Miles. Now we can start drawing connections about your habits, and with a bit of modern GPS work, they can start inferring where and how you travel, plus some details about your lifestyle. (Snacks at grocery store + liquor = probable party.)
Add in employment and banking records, and you're off to the races. (I fuel my car on Fridays, around 4:45pm. If you know where that gas station is, and where I work, pretty easy to guess what my hours are.)
The big issue that disturbs me is that it's not remotely reciprocal - I can't find out that level of detail about any of these companies. Heck, I can't even find out what they've decided this all means about me.
Does anyone here go a single day without using Google a dozen times at least? Can even the technically-adept people here get along easily without it? How about the other 95% of web users?
Well, I use Google quite extensively (lemme think, Gmail, Maps, Reader, Calendar, Documents, and general search). If I decided today that Google was Teh Evil, could I get away? Let's see:
Gmail: easy - I use it mainly as an aggregator for my "real" accounts (almost nothing comes addressed to the gmail account), and because of the nice web interface. Turn off the forwarding, pick everything up in PortableApps-Thunderbird. (Or I could use my host's inferior webmail, as a backup plan).
Maps/Earth: I'd miss these ones (again, because they work), but MapQuest or Bing Maps will work as well.
Reader: heck, any RSS reader will replace this. I think Thunderbird does RSS feeds (if we want to keep portable).
Calendar: I think there's a PortableApps for this - looks like Mozilla Sunbird. (Again, I'd miss some of the features, but it's totally doable.)
Documents: OpenOffice. (Again, also in PortableApps form). I don't use Docs for anything serious anyways.
general search: Pick whatever you like.
So, could I get away from Google Apps? Yep - PortableApps + USB key gives me pretty much the same portability and flexability (and gets me off the cloud). Now, it could be said that I'm trading one Overlord for another, but I imagine if I dug around a bit I'd find other alternatives as well.
That's the one advantage Microsoft has over Google - it's a lot harder to replace your operating system than your search provider.
It can be claimed that FOSS users in "Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea and Cuba" already own access to the code and are in point of fact not importing the code.
Which leads into the question I have - if I'm in Canada, and I use SF to host my files (I presume SF doesn't claim any ownership), am I suddenly under US export controls? And would I have to prevent US citizens from contributing to my code to avoid becoming "tainted"?
SF should have added a third option just to make a point:
1. Not under export controls, everyone can see.
2. Under US export controls, owned by a US citizen (keep the "evil people" out)
3. Would be under US export control, but not owned by a US citizen (keep US out)
Agreed. I'd add that saying "you can't legally do anything with the information" isn't a justification for collecting it. (To extend the original example, you probably won't let me tape your sex acts, just because the law says I can't post it all over the internets).
And to go to the original issue (newborn screening), (a) faced with an expensive claim, you bet your ASCII that insurance companies will pay to get that newborn screening (a.k.a. "proof of pre-existing condition"), and (b) parents of newborns are pretty much the textbook definition of "not of sound mind"...
If not then when nature says you're time here is done then it's done.
You would make a wonderful example to others. All you need to do is contract one of the uglier diseases out there, and live out your few remaining days filled with pain, but resolute that since you can't afford that life-saving treatment, you deserve to die.
Well, if you want to stop at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, I suppose that's up to you. Personally, I'd like to live in a world where my every action and movement isn't sold to the highest bidder.
I agree with you on 1 (recording equipment and studio space is getting cheaper all the time) and 3 (ease of entry means bands can "discover" themselves), the studios still hold an advantage on 2 and 4. An independent band will have far more trouble getting radio play, not to mention shelf space at the HMV or Walmart.
Digital distribution is eroding that advantage, but it's still there.
Well, I've got no issues about the two-hour limit. The "no warning shutdown" strikes me as a bit of an asshat move, though. Seems like a good way to annoy the hell out of some people.
(I've purchased my copy of Win7, just waiting for Amazon to deliver.)
Can't say that's necessarily a bad thing - if you're not interested in it, and don't need it, why take a hit to your GPA?
I dropped high school Chemistry the moment I found out that Calculus counted as a science for university admissions. Why? Because I (a) sucked at Chemistry, having a tendency to drop/spill things, (b) was very good at math, and (c) had no need to know chemistry (and haven't needed it since). Why take a course I don't like and won't do well at when I don't need it?
And just to defuse the inevitable "state tells your kids what to think", while I can't speak for Germany's laws, the required curriculum for Canada was amazingly lax, and I'd be concerned at any parent who didn't want their kids learning it. It was literally the pure basics. Reading (and not *what*, just that they *can*). Writing. Math. I'm not even positive there was a social studies, history, or science component. GED-level stuff.
While I feel for the family, I also think that if there's families out there who deserved asylum more. You know, in countries where they get shot at, maybe?
Slashdot Mirror
therefore is immune to any lawsuit originated in the U.S.
Sheesh. Stop and think for a second. Do they do business in the US? Then they aren't immune. Just think of the ramifications if foreign companies that did business in the US actually were immune from lawsuits like you claim.
Of course, most businesses aren't The Olympics - for worse (there isn't a better), they manage to get exclusive privileges that the worst corporate offenders only dream of. Really - who's going to sue the Olympics? (Not the least of which is that you can't even sue the IOC, since all the deals divert all blame/expense back to the host city.)
Two things:
1. You have, I hope, noticed how radios always cut off part of the song at the beginning or the end? This is precisely to make it less attractive for people to simply record songs off the air.
Less attractive, true.. but if I get two copies of the song (one voiced-over at the beginning, one at the end), I'm pretty sure I can use Audacity to splice together a clean copy.
What, you mean like all the free copies they hand out to radio stations
Side thought - it's trivial (and has been trivial for many cycles now) to record music from the radio. What's the damages associated with redistributing something that is being explicitly handed out for free?
Uhm, right there in the first paragraph he says 'I uploaded and downloaded music'. Thats distribution right there.
upload (transfer a file or program to a central computer from a smaller computer or a computer at a remote location)
download. v. To transfer a file or files from a remote computer to a local computer electronically.
distribution. n. the marketing, transporting, merchandising, and selling of any item.
Every time you sync your iPod you're uploading and downloading music. Neither of them are equivalent to distribution.
That 'logic' falls apart when you realise that copyright law does not cover just the work as a whole, but also the work as a part. Which makes all seeders liable.
If you believe that you're liable for distributing "part" of a work, then each word in your post is "seeding" part of innumerable copyrighted works. (How many works say "when you realize" or "does not cover"?)
Failed analogies. In both cases there is a fixed amount of stuff (money, houses) and ownership of it changes.
In the case of money, that's quite obviously untrue - governments can literally print money.
To use the previous example, if those bits suddenly show that I have $9,999,999 in my account, that doesn't necessarily mean that I stole it from another person's account (their bits can be completely unaltered).
That's the rub with digital media - it's perfectly possible for my bits to arrange themselves in a particular order without your bits being removed.
I would bet the company just decided it was less risk to wait a week or two to use the name than it was to roll the dice with potential litigation.
Also, the realization that they can make the statement they wanted to make (congrats to athlete), while *also* making a statement about the IOC (they're idjits), *and* staying clear of any legal trouble, all at the same time...
Among the other things IOC can correctly claim is rights to part of the Canadian national anthem (it's copyrighted as part of some slogan or another), and (name of 3rd largest Canadian City) + (year).
And no, I'm not kidding. And while they assure us that we can still sing our national anthem and use the year, we now do so at their whim.
And I've already stopped watching it - and to those of who wanting to "support our athletes", I'd suggest doing so at the other year-round competitive events. You know, the ones that don't screw the local community over (quite as much).
If we banned them all, we'd have like 2 servers left, full of people who are actually good at the game. I'd have no one to shoot.
I think there's plenty of sub-awesome non-cheaters out there to shoot at.
Now isn't that amusing in that they have turned "Authority to regulate interstate commerce" to mean that if we attempt to regulate it, it becomes interstate commerce, and therefore we can regulate it.
Well, it doesn't help that "interstate commerce" has changed from a rare thing (when it took a few days to ride to the next state) to a daily occurrence. It's hard to find a product that *doesn't* cross a state line between supplier to buyer.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is sitting on billions, but only spends 3% of their endowment in a given year.
This is actually a smart move - it ensures that it's unlikely that the endowment loses value (it only needs to make a 3% return to maintain value). If you're playing for long-term gain (read: make your legacy "philanthropist and nice guy"), you want to keep handing out money as long as possible. It's easier to increase the payouts later than to decrease them.
Note that this doesn't mean anything in terms of what they're using the money for.
Remember, my post was in response to a guy suggesting that this consumer information was important to assisting the government in silencing dissent. Even given these interconnections, do you seriously think that the government is waiting for you to buy snacks and liquor so that it will create the perfect conditions for them to snatch and grab you from a party full of your closest friends?
Not as such, no. (By which I mean no, I don't think there's Snack Gestapo standing outside my local 7-11.)
What I suspect we'll see is discrediting people by presenting "evidence" out of context. We already get that, of course - but as the cost of gathering that data is lowered, it becomes more cost-effective to dig up dirt on people who won't shut up. (And as the saying goes, everyone's guilty of *something*.)
And then try reminding these businesses that by law they have to offer another way around it. By law, the only people you are supposed to give out your SSN to is the government for Social Security and tax purposes. No one else is supposed to have access to it. The credit system is broken and required by just about everyone these days.
And don't forget that even though they may have to give you "another way", they are free to make it as unappealing as possible.
Friend of mine tried to get on a monthly cell plan years ago (before the prepaid stuff became available). Doesn't have a credit card, and asked about deposit. The amount of the deposit was hundred of dollars - it was justified as the price of the phone + a year's "average use". It was jaw-dropping, astoundingly, stupidly expensive. It was obvious that they never intended on selling a plan that way - but it was still a legal "alternative".
He bought a calling card instead.
But data mining needs enormous amounts of data to process, with that amount of data member #5534289 is no longer important, only the aggregate of millions of users. The actual user is obscured through density, even if his trends are somewhat maintained by the mining operation.
Only until Bob Q Public (aka 5534289) becomes a Person Of Interest (maybe he's been arrested, maybe he's running for office, maybe he just honked off someone who has access to the database). Then suddenly all those obscured details come into clarity.
I honestly don't see how knowing what groceries you bought last week makes you any easier a target for the black helicopters vs. all the critical information that the IRS already has like where you live, work, if you're married and to whom, etc.
The problem is the interconnections.
Take your basic grocery loyalty card. The offer seems simple: let us track your grocery buying habits, we give you a discount.
The problem is what else they can connect that data to - without talking to everyone else, they know not only what you buy, but when you buy it, and how you pay. And that's enough to start making inferences - do you pay by debit at the beginning of the month, and credit at the end? That suggests you're having trouble making ends meet.
Now, scale up to the multi-vendor cards, like Air Miles. Now we can start drawing connections about your habits, and with a bit of modern GPS work, they can start inferring where and how you travel, plus some details about your lifestyle. (Snacks at grocery store + liquor = probable party.)
Add in employment and banking records, and you're off to the races. (I fuel my car on Fridays, around 4:45pm. If you know where that gas station is, and where I work, pretty easy to guess what my hours are.)
The big issue that disturbs me is that it's not remotely reciprocal - I can't find out that level of detail about any of these companies. Heck, I can't even find out what they've decided this all means about me.
Does anyone here go a single day without using Google a dozen times at least? Can even the technically-adept people here get along easily without it? How about the other 95% of web users?
Well, I use Google quite extensively (lemme think, Gmail, Maps, Reader, Calendar, Documents, and general search). If I decided today that Google was Teh Evil, could I get away? Let's see:
Gmail: easy - I use it mainly as an aggregator for my "real" accounts (almost nothing comes addressed to the gmail account), and because of the nice web interface. Turn off the forwarding, pick everything up in PortableApps-Thunderbird. (Or I could use my host's inferior webmail, as a backup plan).
Maps/Earth: I'd miss these ones (again, because they work), but MapQuest or Bing Maps will work as well.
Reader: heck, any RSS reader will replace this. I think Thunderbird does RSS feeds (if we want to keep portable).
Calendar: I think there's a PortableApps for this - looks like Mozilla Sunbird. (Again, I'd miss some of the features, but it's totally doable.)
Documents: OpenOffice. (Again, also in PortableApps form). I don't use Docs for anything serious anyways.
general search: Pick whatever you like.
So, could I get away from Google Apps? Yep - PortableApps + USB key gives me pretty much the same portability and flexability (and gets me off the cloud). Now, it could be said that I'm trading one Overlord for another, but I imagine if I dug around a bit I'd find other alternatives as well.
That's the one advantage Microsoft has over Google - it's a lot harder to replace your operating system than your search provider.
It can be claimed that FOSS users in "Syria, Sudan, Iran, N. Korea and Cuba" already own access to the code and are in point of fact not importing the code.
Which leads into the question I have - if I'm in Canada, and I use SF to host my files (I presume SF doesn't claim any ownership), am I suddenly under US export controls? And would I have to prevent US citizens from contributing to my code to avoid becoming "tainted"?
SF should have added a third option just to make a point:
1. Not under export controls, everyone can see.
2. Under US export controls, owned by a US citizen (keep the "evil people" out)
3. Would be under US export control, but not owned by a US citizen (keep US out)
Agreed. I'd add that saying "you can't legally do anything with the information" isn't a justification for collecting it. (To extend the original example, you probably won't let me tape your sex acts, just because the law says I can't post it all over the internets).
And to go to the original issue (newborn screening), (a) faced with an expensive claim, you bet your ASCII that insurance companies will pay to get that newborn screening (a.k.a. "proof of pre-existing condition"), and (b) parents of newborns are pretty much the textbook definition of "not of sound mind"...
If not then when nature says you're time here is done then it's done.
You would make a wonderful example to others. All you need to do is contract one of the uglier diseases out there, and live out your few remaining days filled with pain, but resolute that since you can't afford that life-saving treatment, you deserve to die.
I salute you.
Well, if you want to stop at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, I suppose that's up to you. Personally, I'd like to live in a world where my every action and movement isn't sold to the highest bidder.
I agree with you on 1 (recording equipment and studio space is getting cheaper all the time) and 3 (ease of entry means bands can "discover" themselves), the studios still hold an advantage on 2 and 4. An independent band will have far more trouble getting radio play, not to mention shelf space at the HMV or Walmart.
Digital distribution is eroding that advantage, but it's still there.
Well, I've got no issues about the two-hour limit. The "no warning shutdown" strikes me as a bit of an asshat move, though. Seems like a good way to annoy the hell out of some people.
(I've purchased my copy of Win7, just waiting for Amazon to deliver.)
Can't say that's necessarily a bad thing - if you're not interested in it, and don't need it, why take a hit to your GPA?
I dropped high school Chemistry the moment I found out that Calculus counted as a science for university admissions. Why? Because I (a) sucked at Chemistry, having a tendency to drop/spill things, (b) was very good at math, and (c) had no need to know chemistry (and haven't needed it since). Why take a course I don't like and won't do well at when I don't need it?
And just to defuse the inevitable "state tells your kids what to think", while I can't speak for Germany's laws, the required curriculum for Canada was amazingly lax, and I'd be concerned at any parent who didn't want their kids learning it. It was literally the pure basics. Reading (and not *what*, just that they *can*). Writing. Math. I'm not even positive there was a social studies, history, or science component. GED-level stuff.
While I feel for the family, I also think that if there's families out there who deserved asylum more. You know, in countries where they get shot at, maybe?