I'd be shocked, though, to find a state in which wandering off with the goodies is legal . ..
What about just refusing to return borrowed equipment (such as a home use computer) until your salary was paid? It seems like that would be breach of contract, not theft. Sure you might get sued in civil court, but at least you protect yourself from the companies executives disappearing and never being heard from again. IANAL, so this is completely speculation.
The people that do this are just untrustworthy thieves and the company should have done a better background check to begin with.
Likewise, the employees should have done a background check on the company before doing work without getting paid first. By working in that manner, you're granting the company credit, so you better check its credit rating.
Likewise, if you went to Staples and bought 500 RedHat CDs, you could sell those 500 RedHat CDs to whomever you wanted (first sale doctrine).
What if Red Hat goes out of business? Do I have to distribute source, or can I just pass on the written offer from Red Hat? What if Red Hat goes out of business without ever distributing the source code? Are the binaries still legal to (re)distribute under first sale? How are you going to sue a nonexistant company?
You have that backwards. You can produce as many copies or derivitive works as you like and wouldn't be in violation of anything. It is only when you try and distribute something that you run into problems with the law.
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights [...] to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work. [emphasis mine]
If you did buy something (say a CD containing GPL programs), you have the right to resell that cd.
Yep, and you can resell that CD without distributing the source code. So if the author can't be found, and the source code can't be found, that doesn't stop you from selling the binary.
You cannot buy a Stephen King book, add a chapter, and then sell a million copies.
No, but if Stephen King gives Person A permission to create a derivitive work of his book on the stipulation that Person A gives the rough draft for the chapter with every distribution, then Person B buys a copy of the book from Person A, first sale allows Person B to redistribute the book to Person C without giving the rough draft to him/her.
(5) (A) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;
It's kind of hard to hack hotmail without transmitting a program, information, code, or command. Theoretically this seems like it could even pertain to merely hitting reload 10,000 times (transmission of information which intentionally causes damage without authorization). This looks like it has a lot of potential for abuse, as proposed.
Your right though, does interstate or foreign commerce or communication;potentially include hacking Hotmail?
Oh absolutely. That clause is just in there to protect the bill from being deemed unconstitutional. I hate the fucking interstate commerce clause of the constitution. I swear it is the most abused clause of the entire constitution.
The FBI will arrest America's best and brightest, crippling high-tech innovation.
No they won't. They'll only arrest those of the best and brightest who bother them. Others of the best and brightest will be threatened arrest and forced to help the government. And then the best of the best and brightest of the brightest won't break the law (or at least won't get caught) in the first place.
But there are laws against *selling* drugs and *possessing* drugs, both on a federal and on a state level.
I'm pretty sure there aren't laws against possessing drugs on a federal level. That would be unconstitutional. As for state laws on possessing drugs, some states have very light non-criminal penalties, and in some states possession is even legal upon a doctor's recommendation. The only marijuana laws that are in effect throughout the country are those on distribution (if it affects interstate commerce), and transportation between states/countries.
When the DEA or local law enforcement finally busts the "Relaxation Service" all they need to do is subpoena their Visa records and you can be identified.
So? There is no federal law against purchasing drugs (since such a law would be unconstitutional). I don't know of any state or local law against purchasing drugs, although such a law would be constitutional. In any case, as long as the company ran a real business in addition to the drug business, there would be no way to separate the drug purchases from the legitimate purchases. Prostitution companies run as exotic dancing companies all the time, they're in the yellow pages, and they take credit cards. I've never heard of someone getting busted for using them.
Think I can't buy (with cash) id that will get me on a plane to anywhere in the country? Think I can't buy a passport that will get me international?
Not legally.
I hate to sound like a Heston, but this is another way to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens while not doing too much about the problem.
Simple question. What rights? What rights which we have not already given up? The only one I see is the right to not be fingerprinted, and for that reason I would be against Ellison's proposal. Get rid of the fingerprinting part, and I don't see any right being restricted, at least not one which we haven't already given up.
While a ZIP code tends to provide semi-random demographics, your phone number provides stores with your address.
That's (one of the reasons) why my cell phone is my only phone. The bigger reason being that I can sue companies when they call me on it with a telephone solicitation.
If you're talking about simply letting a browser run any code on a computer simply by going to a page, then it's fairly obvious why this is a terrible idea
In _many_ areas, there isn't any competition for broadband.
Sure there is. Anyone who wants to can pay to colocate equipment in the CO and then lease a DSL line from the phone company. These fees are regulated by the government, and you can do anything you want (which is legal) over those lines.
why don't you show us a real one instead of bringing up all this irrelevant bullshit?
I'll start with a hypothetical situation, and ask you your opinion on the legal status of each party.
Person A creates tax preparation software. That software has no printing facility. It is distributed under the GPL.
Person B creates an API for printing tax forms. The API is such that the main program calls a plugin and passes the line entries from the forms. The plugin then prints those forms. Person B only creates the API.
Person C modifies the tax preparation software to allow a plugin for printing under the API mentioned above.
Person D creates a binary plugin which does the printing. It shares no code with any of the previously described software. It follows the API presented by Person B.
Person E purchases 1 million copies of that binary plugin from person D and resells them.
Person F downloads the tax preparation software from Person C's website, and purchases a copy of the plugin from Person E.
Persons B,C,D,E and F have no interest in defending the GPL.
Who can Person A sue, and under what legal basis?
To present one quick strawman, even if the binary plugin created by Person D is a derivitive work of the program created by Person C, it in no way even uses the API of the program created by Person A. Further, because it merely accepts line items and then prints out tax forms, it certainly does not rely on the particular tax preparation software created by either Person A or Person C.
Perhaps you will argue that I set up the specific situation to be beneficial. I can only say that the reason I picked tax preparation software and printing is because it happens to be what I am currently working on at the moment. Feel free to present to me a different case where someone would want to add a significant enhancement to a GPLed product without GPLing the enhancement.
What law are you relying on? Are you saying that this is contributory copyright infringement? Because there is no law restricting the redistribution of a derivitive work, only the preparation of a derivitive work. The redistribution is only protected to the extent that it infringes on the original work. Further the first sale doctrine allows the redistribution of a work without permission of the copyright holder. The anonymous author may have only licensed the derivitive work to you under the GPL, but that doesn't stop you from ignoring the GPL and invoking your rights under the first sale doctrine. Further still the copyright on the derivitive work is owned by the anonymous author, and extends to all parts of the work which are new material. In the case of a carefully written library, that is the entire work. The list goes on and on. Copyright law simply is not powerful enough to do what the FSF wants it to do.
They might be able to use the GPLed software on their systems, but if they distribute it then the GPL catches them.
They can distribute GPLed software as long as they do not simultaneously distribute their operating system. They can offer GPLed software for instance on their web sites. Not that any of that matters, anyway, because they need only write and release the GPLed software which makes system calls to their binary kernel.
The first of these facts is that pretty much the entire commercial software industry would be in favor of the FSF interpretation.
I'm certainly not overlooking that fact. I believe that is the number one reason why no major software company has taken the GPL to court. It simply wouldn't be in their interests to do so for the miniscule gain they'd get out of it.
This means that the FSF can pick and choose who they want to prosecute.
I have serious doubts that the FSF would let any major software company get away with a GPL violation without prosecuting them (if they didn't back down). Do you really think they would? Besides, as I said before, I don't think it's in the best interests of a major software company to fight the GPL in the first place.
As for your assumption that a layer of anonymity would make it possible to defeat the GPL, well that's just absurd. If someone hands me a manuscript that they claim to have written and I publish it under a pseudonym and it turns out to be a Steven King novel I will get sued.
That is a completely different issue, because Steven King has not given up any of his redistribution rights. GPLed software, on the other hand, may be obtained for free, and once you have obtained a physical copy of software you have the legal right under the first sale doctrine to redistribute that copy to anyone. If you "buy" 1 million copies of Red Hat, you have a legal right under the first sale doctrine to sell those 1 million copies without regard to the source code (because you never had to agree to the GPL in the first place).
As far as things go the actual license part of the GPL is fairly straightforward. RMS certainly knows what it means, and it certainly isn't "full of loopholes." You simply misunderstand how copyright works. For more information see here [columbia.edu] and here [columbia.edu].
What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).
And all of them, from Apple to Microsoft, have complied rather than pressed their luck in court.
Both Apple and Microsoft were faced with a lose-lose situation with exploiting the holes in the GPL. As software companies, their interests are in keeping copyright law as covering as much as possible, and they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to argue that copyright law simply does not cover some of the restrictions which the GPL attempts to cover.
It's funny that you use Microsoft and Apple as examples, because they can certainly do just about anything they want with GPLed code which runs on their operating system.
However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
It is also illegal to make a derivative of a copyrighted work and distribute it.
The entire foundation of the GPL relies on the legal definition of what consitutes a derivitive work with regard to software. Further, to my knowledge it has never been ruled that a work is even considered a derivitive work if there is no claim of copyright on that work. Even in the unlikely case that the legal issues do pan out, a derivitive work can be prepared anonymously, and there are no legal protections against the distribution of a derivitive work, only the production of such a work. A third party who obtains a derivitive work does not have to agree to the GPL, and therefore can redistribute binaries without redistributing the derivitive work. These last two points assume that the derivitive work does not contain any code from the original work (they could be dynamically linked libraries).
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And exactly how are you going to get caught making derivitive works unless you try to distribute them?
My point was that distributing derivitive works which you have not produced is not in and of itself direct copyright infringement.
I'd be shocked, though, to find a state in which wandering off with the goodies is legal . . .
What about just refusing to return borrowed equipment (such as a home use computer) until your salary was paid? It seems like that would be breach of contract, not theft. Sure you might get sued in civil court, but at least you protect yourself from the companies executives disappearing and never being heard from again. IANAL, so this is completely speculation.
The people that do this are just untrustworthy thieves and the company should have done a better background check to begin with.
Likewise, the employees should have done a background check on the company before doing work without getting paid first. By working in that manner, you're granting the company credit, so you better check its credit rating.
Likewise, if you went to Staples and bought 500 RedHat CDs, you could sell those 500 RedHat CDs to whomever you wanted (first sale doctrine).
What if Red Hat goes out of business? Do I have to distribute source, or can I just pass on the written offer from Red Hat? What if Red Hat goes out of business without ever distributing the source code? Are the binaries still legal to (re)distribute under first sale? How are you going to sue a nonexistant company?
You have that backwards. You can produce as many copies or derivitive works as you like and wouldn't be in violation of anything. It is only when you try and distribute something that you run into problems with the law.
If you did buy something (say a CD containing GPL programs), you have the right to resell that cd.
Yep, and you can resell that CD without distributing the source code. So if the author can't be found, and the source code can't be found, that doesn't stop you from selling the binary.
You cannot buy a Stephen King book, add a chapter, and then sell a million copies.
No, but if Stephen King gives Person A permission to create a derivitive work of his book on the stipulation that Person A gives the rough draft for the chapter with every distribution, then Person B buys a copy of the book from Person A, first sale allows Person B to redistribute the book to Person C without giving the rough draft to him/her.
Your right though, does interstate or foreign commerce or communication;potentially include hacking Hotmail?
Oh absolutely. That clause is just in there to protect the bill from being deemed unconstitutional. I hate the fucking interstate commerce clause of the constitution. I swear it is the most abused clause of the entire constitution.
The FBI will arrest America's best and brightest, crippling high-tech innovation.
No they won't. They'll only arrest those of the best and brightest who bother them. Others of the best and brightest will be threatened arrest and forced to help the government. And then the best of the best and brightest of the brightest won't break the law (or at least won't get caught) in the first place.
How about growing marijuana?
It's not illegal, and you certainly can't get life in jail for it, at least not in any state I know of.
But there are laws against *selling* drugs and *possessing* drugs, both on a federal and on a state level.
I'm pretty sure there aren't laws against possessing drugs on a federal level. That would be unconstitutional. As for state laws on possessing drugs, some states have very light non-criminal penalties, and in some states possession is even legal upon a doctor's recommendation. The only marijuana laws that are in effect throughout the country are those on distribution (if it affects interstate commerce), and transportation between states/countries.
When the DEA or local law enforcement finally busts the "Relaxation Service" all they need to do is subpoena their Visa records and you can be identified.
So? There is no federal law against purchasing drugs (since such a law would be unconstitutional). I don't know of any state or local law against purchasing drugs, although such a law would be constitutional. In any case, as long as the company ran a real business in addition to the drug business, there would be no way to separate the drug purchases from the legitimate purchases. Prostitution companies run as exotic dancing companies all the time, they're in the yellow pages, and they take credit cards. I've never heard of someone getting busted for using them.
"as the inventor of PGP, I was 'overwhelmed with feelings of guilt'." - Phillip Zimmerman
Think I can't buy (with cash) id that will get me on a plane to anywhere in the country? Think I can't buy a passport that will get me international?
Not legally.
I hate to sound like a Heston, but this is another way to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens while not doing too much about the problem.
Simple question. What rights? What rights which we have not already given up? The only one I see is the right to not be fingerprinted, and for that reason I would be against Ellison's proposal. Get rid of the fingerprinting part, and I don't see any right being restricted, at least not one which we haven't already given up.
While a ZIP code tends to provide semi-random demographics, your phone number provides stores with your address.
That's (one of the reasons) why my cell phone is my only phone. The bigger reason being that I can sue companies when they call me on it with a telephone solicitation.
They'll get your SSN as soon as they order a credit report on you based on your name/address/phone #, etc.
Does anyone know if this is possible? I always thought you had to have an SSN in order to order a credit report.
I just wonder, all those people who advocate suing Microsoft for the SirCam virus, should we now sue the makers of WINE as well?
thats why java has an OS independent sandbox.
Java doesn't have an OS independent sandbox, java is an OS.
If you're talking about simply letting a browser run any code on a computer simply by going to a page, then it's fairly obvious why this is a terrible idea
That terrible idea is called ActiveX.
how do you sandbox the implementation?
If you're running FreeBSD, jail. I don't think linux has a decent jail system call, though, and chroot wouldn't really be effective enough.
In _many_ areas, there isn't any competition for broadband.
Sure there is. Anyone who wants to can pay to colocate equipment in the CO and then lease a DSL line from the phone company. These fees are regulated by the government, and you can do anything you want (which is legal) over those lines.
why don't you show us a real one instead of bringing up all this irrelevant bullshit?
I'll start with a hypothetical situation, and ask you your opinion on the legal status of each party.
Person A creates tax preparation software. That software has no printing facility. It is distributed under the GPL.
Person B creates an API for printing tax forms. The API is such that the main program calls a plugin and passes the line entries from the forms. The plugin then prints those forms. Person B only creates the API.
Person C modifies the tax preparation software to allow a plugin for printing under the API mentioned above.
Person D creates a binary plugin which does the printing. It shares no code with any of the previously described software. It follows the API presented by Person B.
Person E purchases 1 million copies of that binary plugin from person D and resells them.
Person F downloads the tax preparation software from Person C's website, and purchases a copy of the plugin from Person E.
Persons B,C,D,E and F have no interest in defending the GPL.
Who can Person A sue, and under what legal basis?
To present one quick strawman, even if the binary plugin created by Person D is a derivitive work of the program created by Person C, it in no way even uses the API of the program created by Person A. Further, because it merely accepts line items and then prints out tax forms, it certainly does not rely on the particular tax preparation software created by either Person A or Person C.
Perhaps you will argue that I set up the specific situation to be beneficial. I can only say that the reason I picked tax preparation software and printing is because it happens to be what I am currently working on at the moment. Feel free to present to me a different case where someone would want to add a significant enhancement to a GPLed product without GPLing the enhancement.
What law are you relying on? Are you saying that this is contributory copyright infringement? Because there is no law restricting the redistribution of a derivitive work, only the preparation of a derivitive work. The redistribution is only protected to the extent that it infringes on the original work. Further the first sale doctrine allows the redistribution of a work without permission of the copyright holder. The anonymous author may have only licensed the derivitive work to you under the GPL, but that doesn't stop you from ignoring the GPL and invoking your rights under the first sale doctrine. Further still the copyright on the derivitive work is owned by the anonymous author, and extends to all parts of the work which are new material. In the case of a carefully written library, that is the entire work. The list goes on and on. Copyright law simply is not powerful enough to do what the FSF wants it to do.
They might be able to use the GPLed software on their systems, but if they distribute it then the GPL catches them.
They can distribute GPLed software as long as they do not simultaneously distribute their operating system. They can offer GPLed software for instance on their web sites. Not that any of that matters, anyway, because they need only write and release the GPLed software which makes system calls to their binary kernel.
The first of these facts is that pretty much the entire commercial software industry would be in favor of the FSF interpretation.
I'm certainly not overlooking that fact. I believe that is the number one reason why no major software company has taken the GPL to court. It simply wouldn't be in their interests to do so for the miniscule gain they'd get out of it.
This means that the FSF can pick and choose who they want to prosecute.
I have serious doubts that the FSF would let any major software company get away with a GPL violation without prosecuting them (if they didn't back down). Do you really think they would? Besides, as I said before, I don't think it's in the best interests of a major software company to fight the GPL in the first place.
As for your assumption that a layer of anonymity would make it possible to defeat the GPL, well that's just absurd. If someone hands me a manuscript that they claim to have written and I publish it under a pseudonym and it turns out to be a Steven King novel I will get sued.
That is a completely different issue, because Steven King has not given up any of his redistribution rights. GPLed software, on the other hand, may be obtained for free, and once you have obtained a physical copy of software you have the legal right under the first sale doctrine to redistribute that copy to anyone. If you "buy" 1 million copies of Red Hat, you have a legal right under the first sale doctrine to sell those 1 million copies without regard to the source code (because you never had to agree to the GPL in the first place).
By distributing any derivitive work, you would still be in violation of the original copyright.
You failed to read my very next sentence.
As far as things go the actual license part of the GPL is fairly straightforward. RMS certainly knows what it means, and it certainly isn't "full of loopholes." You simply misunderstand how copyright works. For more information see here [columbia.edu] and here [columbia.edu].
From Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL:
And all of them, from Apple to Microsoft, have complied rather than pressed their luck in court.
Both Apple and Microsoft were faced with a lose-lose situation with exploiting the holes in the GPL. As software companies, their interests are in keeping copyright law as covering as much as possible, and they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to argue that copyright law simply does not cover some of the restrictions which the GPL attempts to cover.
It's funny that you use Microsoft and Apple as examples, because they can certainly do just about anything they want with GPLed code which runs on their operating system.
It is also illegal to make a derivative of a copyrighted work and distribute it.
The entire foundation of the GPL relies on the legal definition of what consitutes a derivitive work with regard to software. Further, to my knowledge it has never been ruled that a work is even considered a derivitive work if there is no claim of copyright on that work. Even in the unlikely case that the legal issues do pan out, a derivitive work can be prepared anonymously, and there are no legal protections against the distribution of a derivitive work, only the production of such a work. A third party who obtains a derivitive work does not have to agree to the GPL, and therefore can redistribute binaries without redistributing the derivitive work. These last two points assume that the derivitive work does not contain any code from the original work (they could be dynamically linked libraries).