Sorry, but is this really a Ask Slashdot-worthy story? Better placed to ask on any of a dozen different travel forums, or to raise it in mobile phone forums (of which I hear the kids these days have quite a few).
To be fair, it's not exactly easy to find a legit free AV programme. Downloading my poinson of choice, AVG, for example, requires you to navigate through the website, locate the tiny "free version" link on a series of pages, and wind through and around a whole lot of annoying screens designed to baffle/frustrate/bully you into buy a pay version.
And worse, you then have to go through this whole process again every six months when they release a new version that isn't covered by the auto updater.
I definitely consider the behaviour of companies like AVG to be partially responsible for people getting confused, frustrated, and resorting to less legitimate means.
It's not a part of the contract of sale, which is an agreement between you and the retailer. It's a component of a separate contract which you enter into with Microsoft. That contract is governed by the terms of the SLA/EULA. That contract is accepted via act by using the product. If you don't want to accept the terms of the licence contract as listed by the SLA/EULA, you have to make a counter-offer in an appropriate manner (many SLA/EULA contain a "No Counter-Offers" clause, which is not uncommon or necessarily illegal).
As has been discussed EXHAUSTIVELY, you are not purchasing a good. You are purchasing a licence to use a good. Fundamental difference.
Don't like it? Change the law.
IAAL, but I am not your lawyer. None of this is proper legal advice. Cheers.
(I am a lawyer but I am not an immigration lawyer)
Immigration law "airside" is complex. You are right to say that you are not yet on USA soil. However, that doesn't mean that the agents are entitled to act without limit. Their actions can still be reviewed by a court, and they cannot act beyond the powers given to them. For example, they are undoubtedly empowered to detain a person where necessary to determine their immigration status (for example, they suspect a US passport may be forged). However, the power to detain is also going to have limits. For example, an agent who detained an individual because they were wearing a hat from a rival baseball team may well be exceeding their powers, and that decision could be found illegal on review.
So, as the above poster mentioned, if they had a "hunch" that the person was entering illegally, then they may well be allowed to detain them. But this hunch seems based on the idea that the person might be involved with a criminal activity. Are the Border Patrol entitled to decline entry/detain a US citizen suspected of crime? I don't know. And what empowered US Army representatives to speak to the man? Again, I'm unclear. If Border Patrol were done with him, and they detained him to enable Army reps to speak to him, they would, possibly be using their powers for a purpose not authorised by the empowering instruments.
I would be very interested to hear exactly what grounds the individual was detained under, and whether it was within the scope of the empowering instrument. I suspect that this may have been pushing the boundaries, but without knowing the laws I can't possibly say for sure.
I look forward to being corrected by anyone with more knowledge than me.
To be clear, I'm not a criminal lawyer. Crime is far, far away from my specialism. I am also not your lawyer. This is not a researched opinion. Cheers.
This would absolutely (in my opinion) be a criminal offence in the jurisdiction.
Common assault - includes any non-consensual contact or the causing of non-consensual contact through another object. This could easily be analogised to the cases involving leaving a trap or poking with a stick.
Much more serious:
Sexual assault - SOA 2003 s(3) - AFAIK this includes touching through another object, so the offense would be available
Infliction of GBH with intent - GBH requires common assault (see above) and the rupturing of membranes, which lice do when they suck blood (this potentially hold a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, and is an extraordinarily serious offence in the UK)
The Crown Prosecution Service generally charges less than the most serious crime chargeable, but it is quite feasible to imagine an assault or sexual assault charge being made if this were used. Also, the site owners are doubtless on the hook for all sorts of conspiracy and assistance offences, but I know little to nothing about them. Also, this may well come under the remit of Operation Sapphire (the London police operation on rape and sexual offences. I know some of the outstanding officers involved, they're like dogs with a bone once they get a suspect in their sights.) or could be viewed as domestic violence, which elevates sentencing in the courts (and opens up the possibility of elevation to Crown Court sentencing).
All sorts of wonderful civil options even if the CPS didn't prosecute, with trespass against the person and negligence high on the list.
Assume this lie-detector is right 80% of the time, and that its success/failures are randomly distributed (e.g. not associated with socio-economic background). Assume also that false conviction rates are at 21% (so only 79% of convictions are correct), and that there is substantial evidence that this is not evenly distributed (e.g. that false convictions are associated with low socio-economic status).
Would you be willing to entirely replace the system of jury trials with trial by lie detector?
Releasing the one-before-last as freeware seems a pretty sensible move for anyone marketing a franchise (yes, I know that MS aren't the ones pushing the new MW to market, but this is still relevant).
Releasing Bioshock 3? Put Bioshock 1 out as freeware. You're not going to lose any money, the people who were going to buy it won't wait 3 years just to get it free (especially when you've already released 2). All you do is potentially pull more people into the game who will take a look at it and think "hmm, if I like this one that's 3 years old, maybe I'll like the one they're about to release".
Developers are starting to talk about not wanting to release demos, and instead going with payware. This would allow multiple tiers of demo-type experience for the consumer. For example, with Mass Effect 3, it could work like this:
Tier 1: Freeware of ME1, released onto BitTorrent or equivalent to minimize distribution cost Tier 2: Payware demo from the current release (perhaps including a full-access version of ME 2) Tier 3: Full-cost version of ME3
This may be the way forward. I might be okay with losing demos, if I'm going to be able to see previous versions of the game in freeware form.
The story itself might not seem particularly geek/news/thought-worthy until you start thinking about it.
Hospital Procedure: What procedures are there to protect property in hospitals? Having worked in an ER, it was often "get a hospital volunteer to put clothes in a brown paper bag and write illegibly what is in there". Surely we could find better and more secure ways of doing this. We're talking about property, wallets, rings etc of a person who may be unconscious and is definitely vulnerable. Can't we do better than a brown bag?
Property Rights: This goes to questions over tissue rights over removed organs (always a confusing area of law), who is responsible for the property of an unconscious person, and who is responsible for property attached to removed tissue (or a removed arm for that matter).
I'd say it's sufficiently geeky, if you think about it.
I used to work in a genetics lab, and this is a terrifying thought. Imagine 20 lab techs working with chemicals in the same room, easily enough to set off the "low levels indicating danger and not a drill" alarm. Assuming that this is set to detect chemicals that are not yet at dangerous levels, merely anomalous levels, how do they propose to avoid raiding GlaxoSmithKline on a daily basis?
This is obviously absurd, as pointed out by plenty of the above posters. What I'm more concerned about, is why this got posted to the Slashdot front page. We have the Digital Economy Bill about to be passed without debate in the UK, various stories on the LHC's full power experiments, all sorts of lunacy in the US with patents, and we get a "hey guys, what about this idea" from a random slashdotter.
If this were coming from a noted astronomer, a major figure in disaster relief, or GWB, then it would be Slashdot-worthy. But seriously, what value did this Ask Slashdot add?
Also, the previous story on the sun-chandelier was such a non-story as to be shocking.
This is exactly what we need to jump-start serious commercial investment from companies like Dow Chemicals in space exploration. They'll never give more than token amounts to a project which is for the "betterment of mankind and improvement of human knowledge".
But...if they think that they can make products superior to their competitors (or even better, products which are unique) then you can bet they'll be very interested in setting up orbital refineries and finding economical ways of doing it.
This is the first really hopeful news about a continued human presence in space that I've heard in quite some time (Virgin's space gimmicks notwithstanding).
I tried to find the L'Oreal case, but no luck. Sounds interesting, and I'd love to read it if you happen to know the citation.
From what you said, though, this is a different scenario. In the L'Oreal case, it sounds as though the company was no longer able to access (in the sense of retrieve the 1s and 0s) their files. I suggest that is distinct from being able to interpret and decode (in the sense of converting machine-readable to human-readable) files.
On that analysis, the Microsoft subscription wouldn't be affected. When your subscription expires, the files you've created, and your ability to "access" them is unaffected. All that is affected is your ability to interpret/decode them.
I'd like to know exactly what the law is on this. Consider the following scenario:
I rent an English-Albanian dictionary and then translate a document from English to Albanian.
The rental expires on the dictionary, and I return it.
I can now not access my data despite being in possession of the file.
Is the owner of the dictionary under a legal obligation to allow me to use it to recover my data? Seems doubtful.
In the same way, if you're renting this software from Microsoft, and then the rental expires in accordance with your contract, I find it hard to imagine that they would be under a duty to enable you to use their product to access your files.
But I could be wrong; my knowledge of Canadian law is limited to its overlap with the UK. Please point me in the direction of legislation/case law if this isn't a correct analysis for Canada.
Actually, let's just think about this for a second.
You currently pay $300 for the standard Microsoft Office 2007.
If all they're doing is spreading out the payment over 3-4 years, with a small premium thrown in, that's not such a bad deal. I'd happily pay a $25-50 premium on software like Office in order to receive constant updates. So if what they want is $115 annually instead of 300 at once, that's fine by me. These products don't usually have more than a 3-4 year life-cycle anyway, and this way instead of being stuck with a single version, you get something which improves over time.
Obviously, the question of how they implement it, what they charge, and how good the "free upgrades" really are will determine uptake of this product. But if you take off your microsoft-bashing hat for a second, this isn't as stupid as it looks.
Actually, that's a fairly interesting question. If Yahoo and Microsoft have pursued distinct privacy policies, e.g. with respect to email accounts, whose privacy policy will prevail in the new structure? Is it practical to maintain one policy for Yahoo Mail users and another for Hotmail, or will the new merged entity share information within itself to such an extent that behind the scenes there won't be any border between Yahoo information and Hotmail information, meaning that the company could effectively only have a single privacy policy.
You're bringing up some really interesting points, so I'll address them one at a time.
Re: The Chainsaw
X buys a chainsaw from Y subject to the disclaimer I accept all risks associated with using this chainsaw and will indemnify Y.
(A) While using the chainsaw, X is injured. Generally, X will be unable to sue Y (unless the accident was caused by a certain type of negligence or malicious activity by Y.
(B) While using the chainsaw, Z is injured due to Y's use of cheap materials in the chainsaw, and then X disappears. Z will have a claim against Y, since the disclaimer is an agreement between X and Y, and will not affect the ability of Z to reclaim damages. Y will need to pursue its own claim against X (once it finds X) to recoup their losses and enforce the disclaimer.
The case with Blizzard falls under the category of (B). The programmer is Y, the end-users are X, Blizzard is Z, and the chainsaw is the program. Since the end users have effectively disappeared (e.g. they are untraceable), Blizzard can go after their supplier.
Re: Modification to Copyrighted Work
(Note: I'm not a copyright specialist, so I'm working off memory here) If you modify a copyrighted work and present it as the original work, or sell it so that others can present it as the original work, the copyright holder is entitled to your profits (unjust enrichment) and any damages you cause (tortious conversion?). Here, the programmer has written a program which enables people to present a modified version of WoW as the original version, thus triggering the cause of action.
You also suggest that this is a modification to something that people have a right to modify. I'm not so sure that the end-users of WoW have been given a right to modify the program. (Not having looked through the EULA) But I suspect that they do not have that right under their game use contract.
Suing for damages is an expression. It is an abbreviation for "suing for tortious punitive damages".
If you're suggesting that they sue in tort, then perhaps you can suggest which tort would be appropriate here. Personally, I think the copyright claim that they're making is the one most likely to be successful, but I'm open to other approaches.
I'm genuinely curious to hear how you would suggest that the disclaimer protects him against an action by Blizzard. They aren't party to the disclaimer, so how can it bind them or affect their remedies in any way? Saying "this is a knock-off Garfield doll" doesn't exempt you from copyright infringement. How would this be any different?
So Mr. Expertguy, are you a lawyer?
Funnily enough, I am. Recently qualified honors LLB, valedictorian, my school's mooting champion, with a signed 5-year contract. I've spent three years of my life learning how the law works, and I'm sick of Slashdot pseudo-lawyers throwing around legal terms that they don't understand.
Non-lawyers need to stop acting like lawyers on Slashdot.
Sue for damages? Sure. Copyright? No. Trademark? No.
Stop. You are not a lawyer. Have a seat on the side of the kiddie pool for a moment, mmkay?
You don't sue "for damages". The fact that someone has done something which means that you're no longer making as much money as you used to does not entitle you to sue them. You have to show that what they did was unlawful (usually through showing the commission of a tort or breach of contract). So Blizzard can't just "sue for damages". They have to explain why they lost money due to the unlawful or tortious act of another person. In this case, the unlawful act alleged is copyright breach. So, unless you have another cause of action that they can use against this programmer, sit down, be quiet, and stay at the children's table.
The guy has disclaimers on his site about using MMOglider that pretty much state "Blizzard doesn't like this", so no, Blizzard can't really do a lot about it.
Here's a note for all you budding entrepeneurs: DISCLAIMERS DON'T ALWAYS EXCLUDE YOU FROM LIABILITY. In fact, a disclaimer accepted by party A will almost never exempt you from liability to party B (except in very special circumstances usually involving authorized agents, which doesn't apply here). Those disclaimers on his website, if they have any affect at all, will only indemnify him as against users of his program.
"Mr. Smith, we have here your travel records. Why did you exit the tube at [x] station last Thursday? We only ask because there was a crime comitted nearby..."
They can ask the question, but they can't compel the answer. That's the point. It's actually very hard for law enforcement to compel an answer to a question. They can use deception and confusion to make you think that you have to answer it, or that you have to go with them, or give your fingerprints, or allow them to search your bag, etc. But if you ever find yourself in that situation, ask them, point blank, "Am I legally compelled to allow you to conduct this search? Am I entitled to decline to answer this question?" And then demand a "Yes or No" answer, supported by the regulation/law which authorizes the compulsion. You'll find yourself surprised at how toothless the average law enforcement person is.
Look, I'm all for privacy. Seriously, I'm a big fan. But help me out here...how will access to the Oyster card database enable them to "harass political opposition".
This gives the police/security service NO additional powers to detain/charge individuals. There's a big difference between having access to information and being given new ways of acting on the information. This doesn't give them access to any information which isn't already discoverable in the public domain. I could hire a PI to follow you around and accumulate a log of all your rail usage which would be identical to your Oyster log. It's not something you're doing in private, so why should it be protected?
Let's focus on privacy and the rights of individuals. But let's do it by restricting the powers of police/security services to intervene in our lives, and to discover what we do in our own home.
Besides, there's almost no chance that they'll discover anything useful in the mass of white noise of the Oyster network.
if I leave my car doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, and a big sign saying "take me for a joyride" I can complain if someone does, infact, take my car, but the police will laugh at me in all likelihood when I report it.
(Note, this post is based on UK law)
Actually, you can't complain. Consent, reasonable belief in consent, or reasonable belief in obtaining consent are all defences to charges of theft or criminal damage. A sign saying "take me for a joyride" could certainly give rise to a reasonable belief in consent. Ergo, no crime. Also, you would have no claim in tort as consent operates as a defense there too.
The argument that could be advanced if MobiTV tried to claim theft against someone who visited the URL is that presenting an unencrypted link on the WWW indicates the consent of the posting party for people to access that link. The question is whether that is an irrebuttable assumption. I suspect that it is not, as it is standard practice for sites to include Terms and Conditions which seek to constrain the ways in which users access unencrypted sites, and courts would likely be reluctant to rule that one cannot limit access except via encryption.
If bandwidth speed (along with encode/decode time on your local machine) were trivial, we could be doing things like centralized video processing. Instead of buying video cards for each computer, we buy a central video processor, and have everything routed through that. 100 computers on a LAN running graphic design programs rendering at full-tilt could chew up that bandwidth really quickly. And would save the company money on having to buy good graphics processors for each system.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but is this really a Ask Slashdot-worthy story? Better placed to ask on any of a dozen different travel forums, or to raise it in mobile phone forums (of which I hear the kids these days have quite a few).
A quick LMGTFY link to help wrap up the conversation
To be fair, it's not exactly easy to find a legit free AV programme. Downloading my poinson of choice, AVG, for example, requires you to navigate through the website, locate the tiny "free version" link on a series of pages, and wind through and around a whole lot of annoying screens designed to baffle/frustrate/bully you into buy a pay version.
And worse, you then have to go through this whole process again every six months when they release a new version that isn't covered by the auto updater.
I definitely consider the behaviour of companies like AVG to be partially responsible for people getting confused, frustrated, and resorting to less legitimate means.
It's not a part of the contract of sale, which is an agreement between you and the retailer. It's a component of a separate contract which you enter into with Microsoft. That contract is governed by the terms of the SLA/EULA. That contract is accepted via act by using the product. If you don't want to accept the terms of the licence contract as listed by the SLA/EULA, you have to make a counter-offer in an appropriate manner (many SLA/EULA contain a "No Counter-Offers" clause, which is not uncommon or necessarily illegal).
As has been discussed EXHAUSTIVELY, you are not purchasing a good. You are purchasing a licence to use a good. Fundamental difference.
Don't like it? Change the law.
IAAL, but I am not your lawyer. None of this is proper legal advice. Cheers.
(I am a lawyer but I am not an immigration lawyer)
Immigration law "airside" is complex. You are right to say that you are not yet on USA soil. However, that doesn't mean that the agents are entitled to act without limit. Their actions can still be reviewed by a court, and they cannot act beyond the powers given to them. For example, they are undoubtedly empowered to detain a person where necessary to determine their immigration status (for example, they suspect a US passport may be forged). However, the power to detain is also going to have limits. For example, an agent who detained an individual because they were wearing a hat from a rival baseball team may well be exceeding their powers, and that decision could be found illegal on review.
So, as the above poster mentioned, if they had a "hunch" that the person was entering illegally, then they may well be allowed to detain them. But this hunch seems based on the idea that the person might be involved with a criminal activity. Are the Border Patrol entitled to decline entry/detain a US citizen suspected of crime? I don't know. And what empowered US Army representatives to speak to the man? Again, I'm unclear. If Border Patrol were done with him, and they detained him to enable Army reps to speak to him, they would, possibly be using their powers for a purpose not authorised by the empowering instruments.
I would be very interested to hear exactly what grounds the individual was detained under, and whether it was within the scope of the empowering instrument. I suspect that this may have been pushing the boundaries, but without knowing the laws I can't possibly say for sure.
I look forward to being corrected by anyone with more knowledge than me.
Exactly. A cool hack? Yes. Some impressive engineering nous for a kid? Sure. Invention? Nope.
To be clear, I'm not a criminal lawyer. Crime is far, far away from my specialism. I am also not your lawyer. This is not a researched opinion. Cheers.
This would absolutely (in my opinion) be a criminal offence in the jurisdiction.
Common assault - includes any non-consensual contact or the causing of non-consensual contact through another object. This could easily be analogised to the cases involving leaving a trap or poking with a stick.
Much more serious:
Sexual assault - SOA 2003 s(3) - AFAIK this includes touching through another object, so the offense would be available
Infliction of GBH with intent - GBH requires common assault (see above) and the rupturing of membranes, which lice do when they suck blood (this potentially hold a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, and is an extraordinarily serious offence in the UK)
The Crown Prosecution Service generally charges less than the most serious crime chargeable, but it is quite feasible to imagine an assault or sexual assault charge being made if this were used. Also, the site owners are doubtless on the hook for all sorts of conspiracy and assistance offences, but I know little to nothing about them. Also, this may well come under the remit of Operation Sapphire (the London police operation on rape and sexual offences. I know some of the outstanding officers involved, they're like dogs with a bone once they get a suspect in their sights.) or could be viewed as domestic violence, which elevates sentencing in the courts (and opens up the possibility of elevation to Crown Court sentencing).
All sorts of wonderful civil options even if the CPS didn't prosecute, with trespass against the person and negligence high on the list.
Here is the interesting hypothetical:
Assume this lie-detector is right 80% of the time, and that its success/failures are randomly distributed (e.g. not associated with socio-economic background).
Assume also that false conviction rates are at 21% (so only 79% of convictions are correct), and that there is substantial evidence that this is not evenly distributed (e.g. that false convictions are associated with low socio-economic status).
Would you be willing to entirely replace the system of jury trials with trial by lie detector?
Releasing the one-before-last as freeware seems a pretty sensible move for anyone marketing a franchise (yes, I know that MS aren't the ones pushing the new MW to market, but this is still relevant).
Releasing Bioshock 3? Put Bioshock 1 out as freeware. You're not going to lose any money, the people who were going to buy it won't wait 3 years just to get it free (especially when you've already released 2). All you do is potentially pull more people into the game who will take a look at it and think "hmm, if I like this one that's 3 years old, maybe I'll like the one they're about to release".
Developers are starting to talk about not wanting to release demos, and instead going with payware. This would allow multiple tiers of demo-type experience for the consumer. For example, with Mass Effect 3, it could work like this:
Tier 1: Freeware of ME1, released onto BitTorrent or equivalent to minimize distribution cost
Tier 2: Payware demo from the current release (perhaps including a full-access version of ME 2)
Tier 3: Full-cost version of ME3
This may be the way forward. I might be okay with losing demos, if I'm going to be able to see previous versions of the game in freeware form.
The story itself might not seem particularly geek/news/thought-worthy until you start thinking about it.
Hospital Procedure:
What procedures are there to protect property in hospitals? Having worked in an ER, it was often "get a hospital volunteer to put clothes in a brown paper bag and write illegibly what is in there". Surely we could find better and more secure ways of doing this. We're talking about property, wallets, rings etc of a person who may be unconscious and is definitely vulnerable. Can't we do better than a brown bag?
Property Rights:
This goes to questions over tissue rights over removed organs (always a confusing area of law), who is responsible for the property of an unconscious person, and who is responsible for property attached to removed tissue (or a removed arm for that matter).
I'd say it's sufficiently geeky, if you think about it.
I used to work in a genetics lab, and this is a terrifying thought. Imagine 20 lab techs working with chemicals in the same room, easily enough to set off the "low levels indicating danger and not a drill" alarm. Assuming that this is set to detect chemicals that are not yet at dangerous levels, merely anomalous levels, how do they propose to avoid raiding GlaxoSmithKline on a daily basis?
This is obviously absurd, as pointed out by plenty of the above posters. What I'm more concerned about, is why this got posted to the Slashdot front page. We have the Digital Economy Bill about to be passed without debate in the UK, various stories on the LHC's full power experiments, all sorts of lunacy in the US with patents, and we get a "hey guys, what about this idea" from a random slashdotter.
If this were coming from a noted astronomer, a major figure in disaster relief, or GWB, then it would be Slashdot-worthy. But seriously, what value did this Ask Slashdot add?
Also, the previous story on the sun-chandelier was such a non-story as to be shocking.
I've now started tagging stories: ohnoitskdawson
This is exactly what we need to jump-start serious commercial investment from companies like Dow Chemicals in space exploration. They'll never give more than token amounts to a project which is for the "betterment of mankind and improvement of human knowledge".
But...if they think that they can make products superior to their competitors (or even better, products which are unique) then you can bet they'll be very interested in setting up orbital refineries and finding economical ways of doing it.
This is the first really hopeful news about a continued human presence in space that I've heard in quite some time (Virgin's space gimmicks notwithstanding).
I tried to find the L'Oreal case, but no luck. Sounds interesting, and I'd love to read it if you happen to know the citation.
From what you said, though, this is a different scenario. In the L'Oreal case, it sounds as though the company was no longer able to access (in the sense of retrieve the 1s and 0s) their files. I suggest that is distinct from being able to interpret and decode (in the sense of converting machine-readable to human-readable) files.
On that analysis, the Microsoft subscription wouldn't be affected. When your subscription expires, the files you've created, and your ability to "access" them is unaffected. All that is affected is your ability to interpret/decode them.
I'd like to know exactly what the law is on this. Consider the following scenario:
I rent an English-Albanian dictionary and then translate a document from English to Albanian.
The rental expires on the dictionary, and I return it.
I can now not access my data despite being in possession of the file.
Is the owner of the dictionary under a legal obligation to allow me to use it to recover my data? Seems doubtful.
In the same way, if you're renting this software from Microsoft, and then the rental expires in accordance with your contract, I find it hard to imagine that they would be under a duty to enable you to use their product to access your files.
But I could be wrong; my knowledge of Canadian law is limited to its overlap with the UK. Please point me in the direction of legislation/case law if this isn't a correct analysis for Canada.
Actually, let's just think about this for a second.
You currently pay $300 for the standard Microsoft Office 2007.
If all they're doing is spreading out the payment over 3-4 years, with a small premium thrown in, that's not such a bad deal. I'd happily pay a $25-50 premium on software like Office in order to receive constant updates. So if what they want is $115 annually instead of 300 at once, that's fine by me. These products don't usually have more than a 3-4 year life-cycle anyway, and this way instead of being stuck with a single version, you get something which improves over time.
Obviously, the question of how they implement it, what they charge, and how good the "free upgrades" really are will determine uptake of this product. But if you take off your microsoft-bashing hat for a second, this isn't as stupid as it looks.
It'd be great if we could get some more of these codes. If you could, can you drop one off to me at fire.10.BadgerRevenge@spamgourmet.com ?
Actually, that's a fairly interesting question. If Yahoo and Microsoft have pursued distinct privacy policies, e.g. with respect to email accounts, whose privacy policy will prevail in the new structure? Is it practical to maintain one policy for Yahoo Mail users and another for Hotmail, or will the new merged entity share information within itself to such an extent that behind the scenes there won't be any border between Yahoo information and Hotmail information, meaning that the company could effectively only have a single privacy policy.
You're bringing up some really interesting points, so I'll address them one at a time.
Re: The Chainsaw
X buys a chainsaw from Y subject to the disclaimer I accept all risks associated with using this chainsaw and will indemnify Y.
(A) While using the chainsaw, X is injured. Generally, X will be unable to sue Y (unless the accident was caused by a certain type of negligence or malicious activity by Y.
(B) While using the chainsaw, Z is injured due to Y's use of cheap materials in the chainsaw, and then X disappears. Z will have a claim against Y, since the disclaimer is an agreement between X and Y, and will not affect the ability of Z to reclaim damages. Y will need to pursue its own claim against X (once it finds X) to recoup their losses and enforce the disclaimer.
The case with Blizzard falls under the category of (B). The programmer is Y, the end-users are X, Blizzard is Z, and the chainsaw is the program. Since the end users have effectively disappeared (e.g. they are untraceable), Blizzard can go after their supplier.
Re: Modification to Copyrighted Work
(Note: I'm not a copyright specialist, so I'm working off memory here) If you modify a copyrighted work and present it as the original work, or sell it so that others can present it as the original work, the copyright holder is entitled to your profits (unjust enrichment) and any damages you cause (tortious conversion?). Here, the programmer has written a program which enables people to present a modified version of WoW as the original version, thus triggering the cause of action.
You also suggest that this is a modification to something that people have a right to modify. I'm not so sure that the end-users of WoW have been given a right to modify the program. (Not having looked through the EULA) But I suspect that they do not have that right under their game use contract.
Suing for damages is an expression. It is an abbreviation for "suing for tortious punitive damages".
If you're suggesting that they sue in tort, then perhaps you can suggest which tort would be appropriate here. Personally, I think the copyright claim that they're making is the one most likely to be successful, but I'm open to other approaches.
I'm genuinely curious to hear how you would suggest that the disclaimer protects him against an action by Blizzard. They aren't party to the disclaimer, so how can it bind them or affect their remedies in any way? Saying "this is a knock-off Garfield doll" doesn't exempt you from copyright infringement. How would this be any different?
So Mr. Expertguy, are you a lawyer?
Funnily enough, I am. Recently qualified honors LLB, valedictorian, my school's mooting champion, with a signed 5-year contract. I've spent three years of my life learning how the law works, and I'm sick of Slashdot pseudo-lawyers throwing around legal terms that they don't understand.
Non-lawyers need to stop acting like lawyers on Slashdot.
Sue for damages? Sure. Copyright? No. Trademark? No.
Stop. You are not a lawyer. Have a seat on the side of the kiddie pool for a moment, mmkay?
You don't sue "for damages". The fact that someone has done something which means that you're no longer making as much money as you used to does not entitle you to sue them. You have to show that what they did was unlawful (usually through showing the commission of a tort or breach of contract). So Blizzard can't just "sue for damages". They have to explain why they lost money due to the unlawful or tortious act of another person. In this case, the unlawful act alleged is copyright breach. So, unless you have another cause of action that they can use against this programmer, sit down, be quiet, and stay at the children's table.
The guy has disclaimers on his site about using MMOglider that pretty much state "Blizzard doesn't like this", so no, Blizzard can't really do a lot about it.
Here's a note for all you budding entrepeneurs: DISCLAIMERS DON'T ALWAYS EXCLUDE YOU FROM LIABILITY. In fact, a disclaimer accepted by party A will almost never exempt you from liability to party B (except in very special circumstances usually involving authorized agents, which doesn't apply here). Those disclaimers on his website, if they have any affect at all, will only indemnify him as against users of his program.
"Mr. Smith, we have here your travel records. Why did you exit the tube at [x] station last Thursday? We only ask because there was a crime comitted nearby..."
They can ask the question, but they can't compel the answer. That's the point. It's actually very hard for law enforcement to compel an answer to a question. They can use deception and confusion to make you think that you have to answer it, or that you have to go with them, or give your fingerprints, or allow them to search your bag, etc. But if you ever find yourself in that situation, ask them, point blank, "Am I legally compelled to allow you to conduct this search? Am I entitled to decline to answer this question?" And then demand a "Yes or No" answer, supported by the regulation/law which authorizes the compulsion. You'll find yourself surprised at how toothless the average law enforcement person is.
IANAL, but I am a law student.
Look, I'm all for privacy. Seriously, I'm a big fan. But help me out here...how will access to the Oyster card database enable them to "harass political opposition".
This gives the police/security service NO additional powers to detain/charge individuals. There's a big difference between having access to information and being given new ways of acting on the information. This doesn't give them access to any information which isn't already discoverable in the public domain. I could hire a PI to follow you around and accumulate a log of all your rail usage which would be identical to your Oyster log. It's not something you're doing in private, so why should it be protected?
Let's focus on privacy and the rights of individuals. But let's do it by restricting the powers of police/security services to intervene in our lives, and to discover what we do in our own home.
Besides, there's almost no chance that they'll discover anything useful in the mass of white noise of the Oyster network.
if I leave my car doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, and a big sign saying "take me for a joyride" I can complain if someone does, infact, take my car, but the police will laugh at me in all likelihood when I report it.
(Note, this post is based on UK law)
Actually, you can't complain. Consent, reasonable belief in consent, or reasonable belief in obtaining consent are all defences to charges of theft or criminal damage. A sign saying "take me for a joyride" could certainly give rise to a reasonable belief in consent. Ergo, no crime. Also, you would have no claim in tort as consent operates as a defense there too.
The argument that could be advanced if MobiTV tried to claim theft against someone who visited the URL is that presenting an unencrypted link on the WWW indicates the consent of the posting party for people to access that link. The question is whether that is an irrebuttable assumption. I suspect that it is not, as it is standard practice for sites to include Terms and Conditions which seek to constrain the ways in which users access unencrypted sites, and courts would likely be reluctant to rule that one cannot limit access except via encryption.
IANAL (but I am a law student)
[i]I was hoping that someday we would see PnP actually go online, but I'm having my doubts.[/i]
Yeah, I wonder if that'll ever happen. We'd need forums and bulletin boards,
If only there were forums or chat rooms where we could play.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=342
http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Chat_Rooms_And_IRC/
Of course, we'd need online dice-rolling programs to do it. Wonder where I could find those?
http://invisiblecastle.com/
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/
But that wouldn't be as good as having an electronic online game table sanctioned and run by the publishers themselves.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905805
You're right. We'll never see PnP go online. But it's nice to dream.
If bandwidth speed (along with encode/decode time on your local machine) were trivial, we could be doing things like centralized video processing. Instead of buying video cards for each computer, we buy a central video processor, and have everything routed through that. 100 computers on a LAN running graphic design programs rendering at full-tilt could chew up that bandwidth really quickly. And would save the company money on having to buy good graphics processors for each system.