You're operating off of hearsay, and it's not completely correct. Check Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 15.50(a) -- there is no requirement to call out specific competitors, only specific activities.
Ummm... non-compete agreements are perfectly enforceable in Texas so long as certain requirements are met (agreed-upon timeframe, agreed-upon geographical location, agreed-upon activities). There's some degree of latitude in what those requirements are, depending on the type of job the non-compete is attached to -- I've had lawyers confirm that "worldwide" is likely sufficient qualification to meet the "geographical location" criteria in certain circumstances.
And that's ignoring that, with sufficient compensation, the "at-will" nature of employment can actually be transcended. In layman's terms, if they pay you enough, then you can agree to almost anything, and it will be legally binding. It's guaranteed not to be an issue for most people, but it can make a difference once you're playing at the "executive in a large company" level.
Well, Perritt cites constitutional text as the key basis for claiming copyright can't apply to public information, but his specific interpretation isn't necessarily the only one possible.
Hmmm... case law....
I don't know enough about precedent to know whether the post-settlement vacation of the case nullifies the court opinion; however, in Georgia v. Harrison Co. (548 F. Supp. 110, 114 (N.D. Ga. 1982)), the court entered an opinion reading: "a state's 'ownership' of its statutes does not preclude anyone from publishing those statutes.... The public must have free access to state laws, unhampered by any claim of copyright, whether that claim be made by an individual or the state itself." This opinion was entered as the reason for denying a preliminary injunction in the case.
It's also worth noting that the US Copyright Office has an opinion on the topic, published in an internal document titled "Compendium II: Copyright Office Practices". While this specific text doesn't have force of law, one would think that the US Copyright Office has at least cursory knowledge of the state of copyright law. The relevant excerpt, from section 206.01 of that document, reads:
"Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments."
It's not that cut and dried. Law professor Henry Perritt, Jr. summarizes the situation fairly well in this article:
[W]hen the authors in question are legally obligated to perform their creative effort, the Patents and Copyright Clause does not authorize a copyright. This is exactly the situation that exists for the work product of public officials. As long as they are not acting ultra vires, they are performing public duties when collecting and assembling information. Even if some of their selection and arrangement would seem to qualify under the Feist originality test, the creative component of their selection and arrangement does not stem from the economic incentive provided by the copyright law because it is legally mandated and therefore fails to qualify under Feist. Whenever a public duty is the cause of the expression, the incentive justification under the copyrights and patent laws is absent, and any construction of the Copyright Act to protect such official work product would be unconstitutional." -- Henry H. Perritt, Jr., J.D. (1995) "Sources of Rights to Access Public Information" 4 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 179
So, while the states can own copyright in certain works, the scope of those works is strictly limited. It cannot include those works compelled by public duty. Laws fall squarely in this category.
"This way of handling websites with expired... certificates is bound to scare away a lot of inexperienced users, no matter how legitimate the website is."
Can someone explain how the intersection of "websites with expired certificates" and "legitimate websites" is anything other than the null set?
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I've dealt with them a *lot* on various aspects of IPR law, employment law, and the way they interact with each other -- at least, in the US.
For copyright, no, you don't need sign anything. If I pay you to create a work, it is legally considered a work for hire, and I automatically own copyright. This relationship is implicit in any employment arrangement (even absent any paperwork).
I believe this generally applies to other IPR (patentable inventions, trademarks), although I'm less sure of this fact. I do know that it is standard practice at just about all US companies who develop IPR as part of their business model to require employees to sign statements explicitly assigning such rights -- but this is (as far as I understand) not required for the employer to rightfully claim ownership over any IPR developed by employees.
These agreements almost always include confidentiality clauses; posting of IPR online -- especially to thwart patent filings -- would clearly be in violation of such clauses. You're generally going to have a legal injunction thrown on you very quickly, followed by a civil case with damage running likely into the millions of dollars for which you would be personally liable.
Even without such explicit agreements, certain levels of confidentiality are expected in certain employment arrangements, and courts have been known to enforce these implicit expectations of confidentiality. I believe this varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (even within the US) -- so check with a lawyer before you do something that might leave you fired, unemployable in your field, and without any money.
Don't get me wrong -- I think the current patent situation is really badly messed up. But the existing legal system views it as legitimate, and will enforce a variety of both explicit and implicit rules that relate to it. If you want to throw yourself as a wrench into this particular machine as an act of civil disobedience, more power to you. But I encourage you to read up on bankruptcy law in your particular state so that you understand what your life will likely look like when all the chips have finished falling into place.
My guess is that the original poster is trying to talk about Texas penal code 9.42. The only language involving "criminal mischief" excludes criminal responsibility for using deadly force only when necessary to prevent or terminate trespass (e.g., other means of ending trespass must be tried first, such as asking the trespasser to leave), and when such deadly force is necessary to prevent "criminal mischief during the nighttime" (note the key word "criminal" -- commission of a crime must be active or imminent).
Those are actually some pretty high bars to clear; and, frankly, the only other real options are allowing people to trespass on your property and cause arbitrary and continuous property damage with no recourse other than waiting for the police to show up (which may take hours, depending on where you are).
I second this advice. I've played around with the diNovo at long distances, and have managed to control my machine from over 100 feet away. It it also one of the very few wireless keyboards with a number keypad (albeit as a separate unit).
For the mouse, I keep two sets of rechargeable batteries on hand and an external charger -- they need to be swapped every few days. The keyboard gets 4 to 8 hours of pretty solid use every day, and needs new batteries every 6 to 8 weeks.
Or, at least, that's what you *think*. Certainly Diebold has figured this out already, and realized they can save a ton of money on actual programming by just collecting election results from search engine statistics.;-)
...extreme taxation for socialist programs we don't approve of...
I don't think you could possibly find anyone, out of all 300 million Americans, who agrees with all of the programs the US Government spends taxes on. I could slot in over a dozen adjectives in the place of "socialist" in your rant and cast aspersions on both the left and the right, depending on which adjective I chose.
Once you get more than two people in a room, you're going to start having arguments about how money is best spent, and how much of it is prudent to spend. We have several hundred people doing this in Washington, and hundreds of millions of people eager to pick out the specific decisions they wouldn't have made themselves so that they can bitch about something.
But guess what? That's what democracy is all about. You're not going to be perfectly happy about what the government is doing. I'm not going to be perfectly happy about what the government is doing. None of the other 300 million people are going to be happy about it either. In fact, there's only one system of government that has a fairly high chance of making someone completely happy with the way decisions are made: dictatorship. Unfortunately, that particular means of happiness doesn't scale well. Democracy has the advantage that you end up with a lot of people who are a little unhappy (e.g., bitching about the fact that some of their money is spent, against their will, keeping fellow citizens from living under bridges and dying of hunger), instead of almost everyone being extremely unhappy ("the government killed everyone in my family and I've been living in hiding and fear of my life for the past eight months"). I think I know which I prefer.
But the key to this is: what you consider misguided spending, I may consider a key role of government. And what you consider critically important government functions may well be something I think is a colossal waste of public funds. So I'm willing to live with my money spent on stupid shit, because at least some of what it gets spent on is utterly worthwhile.
I also use Sunbird, but I can't leave it running. Every few minutes or so, it pegs the CPU and leaves it there for a minute or two (which is presumably the same problem you're describing). I really wish there were something else decent cross-platform. For now, I'll probably have to upgrade to OS X 10.5 and use the caldav-enabled iCal stuff. Too bad, really -- iCal is probably the most poorly written application to come out of Cupertino in the past two decades.
And it runs around free! Wreaking havoc! Smashing in windows and stealing car stereos! Eating whole bags of Cheetos and vomiting them up into your dress shoes! I'll tell you -- there's nothing worse than a case that has been loosed upon the world. Those things are wild.
I agree! It's the exact same set of problems caused by brakes. People become dependent on them, causing otherwise normal downshift-and-dodge skills to atrophy, and setting up for an accident if (when) the system malfunctions.
I bow before your encyclopedic knowledge. (Well, really, I was just kind of sloppy, since the Wikipedia article gets into this bit of naming history...)
Slashdot Mirror
You're operating off of hearsay, and it's not completely correct. Check Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 15.50(a) -- there is no requirement to call out specific competitors, only specific activities.
Ummm... non-compete agreements are perfectly enforceable in Texas so long as certain requirements are met (agreed-upon timeframe, agreed-upon geographical location, agreed-upon activities). There's some degree of latitude in what those requirements are, depending on the type of job the non-compete is attached to -- I've had lawyers confirm that "worldwide" is likely sufficient qualification to meet the "geographical location" criteria in certain circumstances.
And that's ignoring that, with sufficient compensation, the "at-will" nature of employment can actually be transcended. In layman's terms, if they pay you enough, then you can agree to almost anything, and it will be legally binding. It's guaranteed not to be an issue for most people, but it can make a difference once you're playing at the "executive in a large company" level.
We seem to have killed the article. Google still has a cached copy of it, at least for the time being.
Well, Perritt cites constitutional text as the key basis for claiming copyright can't apply to public information, but his specific interpretation isn't necessarily the only one possible.
Hmmm... case law....
I don't know enough about precedent to know whether the post-settlement vacation of the case nullifies the court opinion; however, in Georgia v. Harrison Co. (548 F. Supp. 110, 114 (N.D. Ga. 1982)), the court entered an opinion reading: "a state's 'ownership' of its statutes does not preclude anyone from publishing those statutes.... The public must have free access to state laws, unhampered by any claim of copyright, whether that claim be made by an individual or the state itself." This opinion was entered as the reason for denying a preliminary injunction in the case.
It's also worth noting that the US Copyright Office has an opinion on the topic, published in an internal document titled "Compendium II: Copyright Office Practices". While this specific text doesn't have force of law, one would think that the US Copyright Office has at least cursory knowledge of the state of copyright law. The relevant excerpt, from section 206.01 of that document, reads:
(emphasis added, of course)
It's not that cut and dried. Law professor Henry Perritt, Jr. summarizes the situation fairly well in this article:
So, while the states can own copyright in certain works, the scope of those works is strictly limited. It cannot include those works compelled by public duty. Laws fall squarely in this category.
There? Where?!?
You believe his right to do what?
Can someone explain how the intersection of "websites with expired certificates" and "legitimate websites" is anything other than the null set?
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I've dealt with them a *lot* on various aspects of IPR law, employment law, and the way they interact with each other -- at least, in the US.
For copyright, no, you don't need sign anything. If I pay you to create a work, it is legally considered a work for hire, and I automatically own copyright. This relationship is implicit in any employment arrangement (even absent any paperwork).
I believe this generally applies to other IPR (patentable inventions, trademarks), although I'm less sure of this fact. I do know that it is standard practice at just about all US companies who develop IPR as part of their business model to require employees to sign statements explicitly assigning such rights -- but this is (as far as I understand) not required for the employer to rightfully claim ownership over any IPR developed by employees.
These agreements almost always include confidentiality clauses; posting of IPR online -- especially to thwart patent filings -- would clearly be in violation of such clauses. You're generally going to have a legal injunction thrown on you very quickly, followed by a civil case with damage running likely into the millions of dollars for which you would be personally liable.
Even without such explicit agreements, certain levels of confidentiality are expected in certain employment arrangements, and courts have been known to enforce these implicit expectations of confidentiality. I believe this varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (even within the US) -- so check with a lawyer before you do something that might leave you fired, unemployable in your field, and without any money.
Don't get me wrong -- I think the current patent situation is really badly messed up. But the existing legal system views it as legitimate, and will enforce a variety of both explicit and implicit rules that relate to it. If you want to throw yourself as a wrench into this particular machine as an act of civil disobedience, more power to you. But I encourage you to read up on bankruptcy law in your particular state so that you understand what your life will likely look like when all the chips have finished falling into place.
There. Fixed that for ya.
And there is in the law, too.
My guess is that the original poster is trying to talk about Texas penal code 9.42. The only language involving "criminal mischief" excludes criminal responsibility for using deadly force only when necessary to prevent or terminate trespass (e.g., other means of ending trespass must be tried first, such as asking the trespasser to leave), and when such deadly force is necessary to prevent "criminal mischief during the nighttime" (note the key word "criminal" -- commission of a crime must be active or imminent).
Those are actually some pretty high bars to clear; and, frankly, the only other real options are allowing people to trespass on your property and cause arbitrary and continuous property damage with no recourse other than waiting for the police to show up (which may take hours, depending on where you are).
I second this advice. I've played around with the diNovo at long distances, and have managed to control my machine from over 100 feet away. It it also one of the very few wireless keyboards with a number keypad (albeit as a separate unit).
For the mouse, I keep two sets of rechargeable batteries on hand and an external charger -- they need to be swapped every few days. The keyboard gets 4 to 8 hours of pretty solid use every day, and needs new batteries every 6 to 8 weeks.
Or, at least, that's what you *think*. Certainly Diebold has figured this out already, and realized they can save a ton of money on actual programming by just collecting election results from search engine statistics. ;-)
I don't think you could possibly find anyone, out of all 300 million Americans, who agrees with all of the programs the US Government spends taxes on. I could slot in over a dozen adjectives in the place of "socialist" in your rant and cast aspersions on both the left and the right, depending on which adjective I chose.
Once you get more than two people in a room, you're going to start having arguments about how money is best spent, and how much of it is prudent to spend. We have several hundred people doing this in Washington, and hundreds of millions of people eager to pick out the specific decisions they wouldn't have made themselves so that they can bitch about something.
But guess what? That's what democracy is all about. You're not going to be perfectly happy about what the government is doing. I'm not going to be perfectly happy about what the government is doing. None of the other 300 million people are going to be happy about it either. In fact, there's only one system of government that has a fairly high chance of making someone completely happy with the way decisions are made: dictatorship. Unfortunately, that particular means of happiness doesn't scale well. Democracy has the advantage that you end up with a lot of people who are a little unhappy (e.g., bitching about the fact that some of their money is spent, against their will, keeping fellow citizens from living under bridges and dying of hunger), instead of almost everyone being extremely unhappy ("the government killed everyone in my family and I've been living in hiding and fear of my life for the past eight months"). I think I know which I prefer.
But the key to this is: what you consider misguided spending, I may consider a key role of government. And what you consider critically important government functions may well be something I think is a colossal waste of public funds. So I'm willing to live with my money spent on stupid shit, because at least some of what it gets spent on is utterly worthwhile.
Ummm... what? Oh, you must have missed the announcement.
In June.
Of 2005.
I've got a big surprise for you. Open up the next new Apple you buy and read the name on the CPU.
In terms of the cost of disposal: all you're looking at as a consumer is running to the nearest Ikea and dropping them off. For free.
Why are you taking out a 25-year loan on $7,500 worth of solar panel?
Did you take out a 50-year loan on your car?
I also use Sunbird, but I can't leave it running. Every few minutes or so, it pegs the CPU and leaves it there for a minute or two (which is presumably the same problem you're describing). I really wish there were something else decent cross-platform. For now, I'll probably have to upgrade to OS X 10.5 and use the caldav-enabled iCal stuff. Too bad, really -- iCal is probably the most poorly written application to come out of Cupertino in the past two decades.
Use them, or loose your case.
And it runs around free! Wreaking havoc! Smashing in windows and stealing car stereos! Eating whole bags of Cheetos and vomiting them up into your dress shoes! I'll tell you -- there's nothing worse than a case that has been loosed upon the world. Those things are wild.
Does it play DVD movies?
Yes.
I get by with almost exclusively Quicksilver and Terminal. Finder has too many limitations to be all that useful.
;-)
In fact, it's almost as bad as Nautilus.
Murder, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
I agree! It's the exact same set of problems caused by brakes. People become dependent on them, causing otherwise normal downshift-and-dodge skills to atrophy, and setting up for an accident if (when) the system malfunctions.
I bow before your encyclopedic knowledge. (Well, really, I was just kind of sloppy, since the Wikipedia article gets into this bit of naming history...)