Agreed. The license changes don't apply retroactively. The point is that the two licenses are identical. The second is more clear, which legally doesn't mean much except it would probably make it easier to get punitive damages. A license gives you permission to do things. Absense of permission to do something means you can't do it.
I would think modifications for personal use would considered fair use. Consider buying a painting, and then spraypainting curse words all over it. I don't see how the owner of the copyright of the painting could restrict that.
Because I own a corporation and the only "permission" I had to get was to sign up. Read the rules in Delaware. You don't even need to tell them who the directors or owners are, when you create the corporation.
I wouldn't call that permission, I'd call that registration, which is much less burdensome, and makes a lot of sense (you don't want two corporations with the same name, for example).
First of all, I don't agree that any wishes of the author must be followed. That's EULA crap, and if you want to have an EULA, you should not be using the GPL. From what I've seen, credit was given, and this is not a case of plagiarism.
The main program (not the dlls) clearly violate the GPL. The question is whether or not the GPL applies. Must you get permission from the author of a product to dynamically link to required libraries copyrighted in part by that author. I'm going to ignore the argument that they're not required. They obviously are. But should Microsoft have the right to claim that Windows software is a derivitive work of Windows? Perhaps they should, but to do so would be to abuse their monopoly. In any case, chances are SloMedia will lose, get an injunction, and pay punitive damages. But I don't like this part of the law. Copyright is one thing. Owning the rights to all future compatible products is another. Just because the GPL doesn't work without this "feature" of copyright law, doesn't mean that it is a good thing. The GPL likewise doesn't work for server software (essentially works like a BSD licence, since you don't have to distribute the source). I don't want the law to start enforcing EULAs on usage just to close that hole either.
What the GPL states about what is a derivitive work is meaningless. I could write a license that says that everything ever made is a derivitive work, but that doesn't make it so. It would be quite a precedent set to say that Vidomi's software is not a derivitive work (and in my opinion a positive one), but that doesn't mean that it's impossible.
From the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License"
Indeed, the GPL does not even need to be mentioned in this case, because it does not apply. The act in question is the creation of a derivative work. It is illegal to create a derivative work without permission. The GPL does not cover the creation of a derivative work, if that work is not a modification, which in this case, it is not.
1) Use VirtuaDub and release thier software under a GPL compatible license.
From the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License"
So in reality, the GPL does not apply at all in this case, unless Vidomi wants to claim that their work is a modification, in which case it is clear that it must be GPLed. The question is a simple one. Is Vidomi's product a derivitive work?
If it is a derivitive work, then Vidomi must get a license to create that derivitive work.
If it is not a derivitive work, then the GPL does not apply.
Well, it depends if the work was released under a specific version of the GPL, or not. If it was not released under a specific version, the FSF could theoretically change the terms of the license out from under Avery. Which is why you should always specify a specific version when GPLing something.
If what they were doing were really that simple, I don't see the big deal. Basically, if they haven't done any real work, why is it so important that we see their source code?
You can do whatever you want with a GPL'd program as long as it doesn't violate copyright law. You don't even have to agree to the license.
The question at hand is whether or not you can create a program which requires GPLed code to work. Actually, the other question is whether or not Vidomi's program *does* require GPLed code to work, but let's assume that it does. Let's also assume that Vidomi is not distributing that GPLed code at all, because it would be perfectly possible for them to simply upload the code somewhere and never touch it again.
Now it becomes a napster-like issue. Vidomi isn't doing any direct harm, it is only really the end-users that are. Indeed, this case might work best as a case of contributory copyright infringement.
The GPL says that any derivitive work is covered by the GPL. Whether or not dynamic linking is considered a derivitive work is not the decision of RMS, it is a decision of the courts. In fact, if dynamic linking is not a derivitive work, there is indeed nothing RMS or anyone can do, because the modifications and distributions (except potentially distributing both together) are perfectly in sync with the GPL.
Assuming the GPL itself stands up, this is a win-win situation for free software. If dynamic linking is allowed, it will be legal for free software to link to proprietary software dlls, as long as the end-user herself is responsible for the actual obtaining of those proprietary dlls. Just think what this could do in terms of WINE.
Personally, I'm in favor of less strict copyright laws, not more. I'd prefer for the GPL to lose this one.
Actually, Robinson-Patman exists to stop business to business price discrimination, because this is a form of collusion (or alternatively, can be used to create monopolies). That it even applies to consumers is merely a side-effect. As for fairness, I agree that it would be more fair, in a perfect system, but there is simply no way to find out each person's individual demand curves, because each person has incentive to lie about it. Of course, the internet and sites like EBay and half.com are changing this to some extent. For durable commodities, the secondary market tends to fill in the gap for those who have lower price points, and theoretically at least, it raises the prices of the commodity when new (since it has a resale value). DVDs are a good example, they are much more than video, but they have a fairly large resale market on half.com, and the size of that market I expect to only grow.
All this will do is measure the listening habbits of people who will do what they are told in exchanges for some shiny bits which I guess is just the people that Nelson and clan care about.
Of course Nielson is much more accurate than that in the long term, since it is a self-fufilling prophesy. Nielson says the show is the top rated, and everyone starts watching it (complaining about how stupid popular television is all the way).
There are folks who would like to live their whole lives in public, if they could.
I think I'd go for this. Sure, all the things I regret doing would be public, but I'd have the advantage of no one ever calling me a liar when I'm not, at least with regard to things I say about the past.
If all my friends agreed to do this too, I'd hesitate even less. I know I do stupid things, but you know what, so does everyone else.
You're right. It is price gouging. It is illegal. I just never realized there were such stupid laws. As for ethics, I don't really see anything unethical about it. So you have to pay a little (a lot) extra, what's the big deal? Maybe you'll be smarter the next time, and will get what you need ahead of time. It's only money.
What would you suggest as an alternative? If 2000 people want a bottle of water at $1/bottle, and there are only 1000 bottles of water, how would you suggest to solve the problem, flip a coin? Have an application for the right to water? Give it to women and children first?
Free market economists propose the solution to charge the price at which you limit the demand to that which you have. The extra money goes to the people who saved up extra bottled water in case of such an emergency. If these hurricanes happen so often, maybe you should buy a few extra bottles of water and save them for such a situation. Ever think of that? These "evil store owners" did, and that's why they get to profit from it.
They charge $5, so it's unavailable (at your price). Movie theatres are different, but like you said, it is a monopoly, on two levels. The movie theatre has a monopoly on the soda and food in the theatre, but it can only accomplish this because it also has a state sponsored monopoly on the public display of the movie. Capitalism fails in this instance because of the state sponsored monopoly which we call copyright.
Two issues. First of all, the five different stores, collectively, are a monopoly. Also, if they collude on price, this is illegal.
What you generally see is merely a result of higher demand causing higher prices. There is a limited supply of snow shovels in any given area over any given time period. If there are only 1000 snow shovels in your area, and there are 1200 people who want to buy them at that price, the price goes up. This is how economics works. It is only gouging if supply is artificially limited. And if the 5 stores are not colluding, it makes no sense for them to limit supply.
Again, it's your own fault, for not buying a shovel or plywood ahead of time, when the price was lower. You have a choice. Buy ahead of time, and take the risk that you won't need the shovel, or wait until the last minute, and pay a higher price. The store takes a risk by holding those shovels in stock, storage space, shipping costs, etc. If there is no storm, you don't see the stores crying about how they have all these shovels lying around that no one wants, do you?
Greyhound *used* to do this. For instance a ticket from "insert rich town name" to "major city 2" was more expensive than two tickets, one from "insert rich town name" to "major city 1", and another from "major city 1" to "major city 2".
I used to always insist on buying two separate tickets, but I doubt many people did this, because I always had to go through a big explanation whenever I did it. I also threatened to sue them for price discrimination under the Robinson-Patman Act, but they changed their pricing schemes by the time I had the guts to actually follow through with it.
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Agreed. The license changes don't apply retroactively. The point is that the two licenses are identical. The second is more clear, which legally doesn't mean much except it would probably make it easier to get punitive damages. A license gives you permission to do things. Absense of permission to do something means you can't do it.
I would think modifications for personal use would considered fair use. Consider buying a painting, and then spraypainting curse words all over it. I don't see how the owner of the copyright of the painting could restrict that.
Unless you advertised "while supplies last".
Or it could just be that diesel tends to be used for trucks with set schedules, who have a more inelastic demand curve.
Of course, you can't buy a TDI Golf in California, because of the emissions regulations.
Because I own a corporation and the only "permission" I had to get was to sign up. Read the rules in Delaware. You don't even need to tell them who the directors or owners are, when you create the corporation.
I wouldn't call that permission, I'd call that registration, which is much less burdensome, and makes a lot of sense (you don't want two corporations with the same name, for example).
If this happened in the USA I think I'd actually move to another country. It's that bad of an idea.
First of all, I don't agree that any wishes of the author must be followed. That's EULA crap, and if you want to have an EULA, you should not be using the GPL. From what I've seen, credit was given, and this is not a case of plagiarism.
The main program (not the dlls) clearly violate the GPL. The question is whether or not the GPL applies. Must you get permission from the author of a product to dynamically link to required libraries copyrighted in part by that author. I'm going to ignore the argument that they're not required. They obviously are. But should Microsoft have the right to claim that Windows software is a derivitive work of Windows? Perhaps they should, but to do so would be to abuse their monopoly. In any case, chances are SloMedia will lose, get an injunction, and pay punitive damages. But I don't like this part of the law. Copyright is one thing. Owning the rights to all future compatible products is another. Just because the GPL doesn't work without this "feature" of copyright law, doesn't mean that it is a good thing. The GPL likewise doesn't work for server software (essentially works like a BSD licence, since you don't have to distribute the source). I don't want the law to start enforcing EULAs on usage just to close that hole either.
What the GPL states about what is a derivitive work is meaningless. I could write a license that says that everything ever made is a derivitive work, but that doesn't make it so. It would be quite a precedent set to say that Vidomi's software is not a derivitive work (and in my opinion a positive one), but that doesn't mean that it's impossible.
From the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License"
Indeed, the GPL does not even need to be mentioned in this case, because it does not apply. The act in question is the creation of a derivative work. It is illegal to create a derivative work without permission. The GPL does not cover the creation of a derivative work, if that work is not a modification, which in this case, it is not.
1) Use VirtuaDub and release thier software under a GPL compatible license.
From the GPL: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License"
So in reality, the GPL does not apply at all in this case, unless Vidomi wants to claim that their work is a modification, in which case it is clear that it must be GPLed. The question is a simple one. Is Vidomi's product a derivitive work?
If it is a derivitive work, then Vidomi must get a license to create that derivitive work.
If it is not a derivitive work, then the GPL does not apply.
Well, it depends if the work was released under a specific version of the GPL, or not. If it was not released under a specific version, the FSF could theoretically change the terms of the license out from under Avery. Which is why you should always specify a specific version when GPLing something.
If what they were doing were really that simple, I don't see the big deal. Basically, if they haven't done any real work, why is it so important that we see their source code?
You can do whatever you want with a GPL'd program as long as it doesn't violate copyright law. You don't even have to agree to the license.
The question at hand is whether or not you can create a program which requires GPLed code to work. Actually, the other question is whether or not Vidomi's program *does* require GPLed code to work, but let's assume that it does. Let's also assume that Vidomi is not distributing that GPLed code at all, because it would be perfectly possible for them to simply upload the code somewhere and never touch it again.
Now it becomes a napster-like issue. Vidomi isn't doing any direct harm, it is only really the end-users that are. Indeed, this case might work best as a case of contributory copyright infringement.
The GPL says that any derivitive work is covered by the GPL. Whether or not dynamic linking is considered a derivitive work is not the decision of RMS, it is a decision of the courts. In fact, if dynamic linking is not a derivitive work, there is indeed nothing RMS or anyone can do, because the modifications and distributions (except potentially distributing both together) are perfectly in sync with the GPL.
Assuming the GPL itself stands up, this is a win-win situation for free software. If dynamic linking is allowed, it will be legal for free software to link to proprietary software dlls, as long as the end-user herself is responsible for the actual obtaining of those proprietary dlls. Just think what this could do in terms of WINE.
Personally, I'm in favor of less strict copyright laws, not more. I'd prefer for the GPL to lose this one.
By "can happen", I mean that people will actually buy the stuff. If there isn't a monopoly, people will just go somewhere else.
Actually, Robinson-Patman exists to stop business to business price discrimination, because this is a form of collusion (or alternatively, can be used to create monopolies). That it even applies to consumers is merely a side-effect. As for fairness, I agree that it would be more fair, in a perfect system, but there is simply no way to find out each person's individual demand curves, because each person has incentive to lie about it. Of course, the internet and sites like EBay and half.com are changing this to some extent. For durable commodities, the secondary market tends to fill in the gap for those who have lower price points, and theoretically at least, it raises the prices of the commodity when new (since it has a resale value). DVDs are a good example, they are much more than video, but they have a fairly large resale market on half.com, and the size of that market I expect to only grow.
All this will do is measure the listening habbits of people who will do what they are told in exchanges for some shiny bits which I guess is just the people that Nelson and clan care about.
Of course Nielson is much more accurate than that in the long term, since it is a self-fufilling prophesy. Nielson says the show is the top rated, and everyone starts watching it (complaining about how stupid popular television is all the way).
There are folks who would like to live their whole lives in public, if they could.
I think I'd go for this. Sure, all the things I regret doing would be public, but I'd have the advantage of no one ever calling me a liar when I'm not, at least with regard to things I say about the past.
If all my friends agreed to do this too, I'd hesitate even less. I know I do stupid things, but you know what, so does everyone else.
You're right. It is price gouging. It is illegal. I just never realized there were such stupid laws. As for ethics, I don't really see anything unethical about it. So you have to pay a little (a lot) extra, what's the big deal? Maybe you'll be smarter the next time, and will get what you need ahead of time. It's only money.
What would you suggest as an alternative? If 2000 people want a bottle of water at $1/bottle, and there are only 1000 bottles of water, how would you suggest to solve the problem, flip a coin? Have an application for the right to water? Give it to women and children first?
Free market economists propose the solution to charge the price at which you limit the demand to that which you have. The extra money goes to the people who saved up extra bottled water in case of such an emergency. If these hurricanes happen so often, maybe you should buy a few extra bottles of water and save them for such a situation. Ever think of that? These "evil store owners" did, and that's why they get to profit from it.
They charge $5, so it's unavailable (at your price). Movie theatres are different, but like you said, it is a monopoly, on two levels. The movie theatre has a monopoly on the soda and food in the theatre, but it can only accomplish this because it also has a state sponsored monopoly on the public display of the movie. Capitalism fails in this instance because of the state sponsored monopoly which we call copyright.
Yes, but Robinson-Patman is a U.S. specific law, so it wouldn't apply.
Two issues. First of all, the five different stores, collectively, are a monopoly. Also, if they collude on price, this is illegal.
What you generally see is merely a result of higher demand causing higher prices. There is a limited supply of snow shovels in any given area over any given time period. If there are only 1000 snow shovels in your area, and there are 1200 people who want to buy them at that price, the price goes up. This is how economics works. It is only gouging if supply is artificially limited. And if the 5 stores are not colluding, it makes no sense for them to limit supply.
Again, it's your own fault, for not buying a shovel or plywood ahead of time, when the price was lower. You have a choice. Buy ahead of time, and take the risk that you won't need the shovel, or wait until the last minute, and pay a higher price. The store takes a risk by holding those shovels in stock, storage space, shipping costs, etc. If there is no storm, you don't see the stores crying about how they have all these shovels lying around that no one wants, do you?
Greyhound *used* to do this. For instance a ticket from "insert rich town name" to "major city 2" was more expensive than two tickets, one from "insert rich town name" to "major city 1", and another from "major city 1" to "major city 2".
I used to always insist on buying two separate tickets, but I doubt many people did this, because I always had to go through a big explanation whenever I did it. I also threatened to sue them for price discrimination under the Robinson-Patman Act, but they changed their pricing schemes by the time I had the guts to actually follow through with it.