Umm, what was wrong with SoverNet, since you said they do still exist? Do they lack DSL? Any ISP that does not have DSL capability in any reasonably sized metropolitan area is going to be in trouble, because they are not providing a service that many people need, want, and expect.
No one with a choice will use dialup if DSL is available. (i.e. if DSL is available and affordable to the customer)
You still might want the user to see the message. For example to differentiate between the ISP terminating the page, and the following: "The user has died and as a result has had their account terminated. The page you are looking for is gone for good". Or, "This page was full of BS, and I decided to stop inflicting its ramblings upon the Internet." (Of course, pages full of BS comprise most of the web).
Yeah, but if I drive by with my windows open and my car stereo turned all the way up, and a recording of a 300 baud modem sending a patch in my cassette deck, that might work better.;)
1. Have the web browser render correct pages correctly, as the #1 priority.
2. Have the web browser try to compensate as well as possible for mistakes, as long as doing so doesn't interfere with #1, above.
I.e. follow the Internet maxim, "be conservative in what you do, and liberal in what you accept"
3. Issue a web page quality feedback to the user so if a site has bad HTML, the user knows, so she can fix the site if it is hers, let the web master know if someone else is responsible for the site, know that a company can't do web pages right (great if you are browsing a web page design company's site!;) or at least know that the reason the page looks bad is because of the web page being poorly done, and not a browser issue.
A good implementation would be, for example, an icon which shows quality, and when clicked shows any errors in the page. E.g. if the page is good there would be a smiley face and a tool tip would say "No errors - high quality page", and if the page was bad there would be a frown face and when you clicked it you'd get a window opening with a list of the errors in it. A really good implemenation would have a whole site of icons for perfect, good, ok, bad, and horrid HTML. Of course, the lower the quality, the more likely there are to be problems rendering the page...
IAAL... When I sign contracts I take this into account - I ignore, and anticipate breaking, all of those that are legally unreasonable.
Still sounds dangerous. Even if you are legally right, and you know it, and you don't need to pay for a lawyer, since you are one, you can still lose if you get a corrupt or misguided judge. (remember the DeCSS fiasco?)
The court systems never cared about what is moral, but lately, they don't even care about what is legal... (e.g. the complete discounting of fair use in the DeCSS trial in spite of the law)
I know my examples are of something different than what is being discussed here, but the principle still applies. You can be legally right and LOSE even if you do fight it.
No, the DMCA disallows fair use if the content provider made it technically "difficult" (not impossible, since making access impossible is well, impossible - circumvention, which is illegal under the DMCA is defined as doing anything to go around technical obstacles - heck, sometimes it isn't even difficult - see the CueCat 1 byte XOR [the value is 0x43 hex, 67 decimal - oops, did I just break a law?!])
Oh wait, the DMCA is overriden by fair use, the Constitution requires it and the DMCA SAYS it doesn't affect fair use.
Wait again, since the corps have bought at least one judge (with Internet prosecutions and lawsuits - since your action is "everywhere", they can prosecute you ANYWHERE - i.e. jurisdiction shopping. You have no choice, and thus lose) to say the DMCA outlaws fair use whenever the corps don't like it, I guess fair use is still dead. Maybe we can see libraries shut down with the RICO laws and the people running them and working there get 20 year prison sentences.
The USSR became free, and we are losing (already lost much of) our freedom. How ironic.
Umm if you get fired from work because your phone line was busy then your job sucked anyway. If your job has a rule you must be contactable at all times, without even a delay due to a busy phone, then you are a slave, not an employee.
And since it is against the agreement to reverse-engineer the software, you are not allowed to even try to find out just WHAT it may be doing (above and beyond what they tell you). And if you do, they'll probably invoke the DMCA just like in that filtering software (sorry I forgot which company) vs reverse-engineer legal fiasco that happened in the not too distant past.
Is that the same "judge" Kaplan that ignored the few protections of the DMCA, the rest of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the US Code), and the Constitution (which he was SWORN to uphold) by rendering judgement against the DeCSS defendants?
In this way the record companies are even WORSE than the software companies. Most software companies will allow the purchase of X number of licenses, and you can copy the media and install it on as many different computers under your control as long as you don't distribute it, or have more copies installed than you own licenses to. At least that is the way many corporate software licenses are.
Piracy means that some great software just doesn't reach you.
If good software isn't made without a very strong direct (i.e. the money is made directly off the sale of the content) monetary incentive, then how do you explain the existence of Linux?
Read the article more closely. With MiniDisc the author could not make copies of HIS recording of a wedding. Even though HE owned the copyrights to it.
If he were to circumvent the protections, would he be violating the DMCA. Maybe not, since the circumvention would be "with the authority of the copyright owner".
If he made a tool to do it, would that be a violation? Maybe, maybe not?
If he were to distribute that tool, intending it to be used only to allow use by a copyright owner to circumvent protections to their own content? Likely to be treated as a violation since it could be used for bad purposes, in spite of the exemption for use with "authority of the copy right holder". THe judge would likely assume the intent was not for a legal purpose. Look at Judge Kaplan in the DeCSS lawsuit - he ruled against the defendants, saying that the intent of DeCSS was bad, and even if it was good he STILL would have ruled against them, saying it would STILL be a DMCA violation.
If he were to distribute it, intenting it be used for any "fair use" reason, the would very likely be a DMCA violation. Heck, even if he crippled his tool in such a way that it COULD only be used for a "fair use" reason, it would still be likely to be illegal. Judge Kaplan would rule it so, for example. We will see what happens to an open source LiViD DVD player for Linux without copy ability, whether it is ruled illegal. If Kaplan gets the case, it will be. Then people can see that exercising "fair use" rights is illegal.
Maybe the best we can hope for is things get bad enough, fast enough to wake people up and make them fight back. Throw a frog in boiling water and it jumps right out. Put it in cold water and heat it and it will stay until it dies. People and their rights are like that too. Take rights away slow enough and they won't notice until it is too late. It seems fast to us, but it is slow enough to trick the public.
Perhaps Bush, unlike Clinton, will be so aggressive and fast at "protecting" industry, and so inept at doing it and making it look good, that the people will notice.
Anyway, anyone care to comment on which of my scenarios above would be safe, which ones would get one sued, but one would win, and which ones would get one sued and where one would LOSE? Any coments on what we can do? Anything an independant content producer should know or do to protect their right to release unprotected content?
A license has to go with the CD you get with the PC. (Otherwise people would be buying a CD which they don't have the right to use - i.e. warez).
So here is the solution. They turn over the CD and the license which comes with it. The recipient of the license destroys the CD, makes a copy of a "normal" windows CD and uses it with the license they obtained.
Would that be legal? If you have a Windows license, then wouldn't the duplicated CD be legal since it has a license? Note: Big companies often get one copy of media, a bunch of licenses, and duplicate the media or load it multiple times over a network, and it is legal (and standard, sanctioned practice by the vendors and the corporate customers). It works out if there are sufficient licenses.
The question is, does a license from Windows off a restoration CD allow you to make and use a copy of Windows from a "normal" Windows CD? Microsoft will say no, but what is the law? If ti is not legal, then essentially Microsoft has to aruge, and the courts have to accept and declare, that the copy of Windows with a "restoration" CD is different than off a "normal" CD. I.E. it is not real Windows.
That could have a marketing impact and even be seen as abuse of monopoly status. I.E. we won't even give you a proper copy of the OS we forced down your throat. If your system doesn't work with all the other junk on the CD, or your system dies, you are hosed. Buy a new PC from an MS friendly OEM, or go pay the (outrageous) $200 for a full Windows 98 CD, which is well above what the OEMs are charged for it, as long as they play that stupid "restore CD" game with the consumers to protect MS at the expense of the computer purchasers.
Could they get damages assessed for use after the patent was granted but before they were notified of infringment? Isn't the responsibility of any possible infringing party to monitor and know what patents have been issued to avoid infringement? Just as one is legally responsible for knowing every law ("ignorance of the law is no excuse")?
Doesn't sound logical, but law is not necessarily logical.
Weird! (if true). CD-R's have worse reflectivity than CD, but CD-RW is even worse. More often one sees CD and CD-R working and CD-RW not working. CD-R is close enough to normal CD to usually work.
Get something with Multi-Read (I think that is what it is called - I am not sure if that only applies to computers) and it should read everything.
As for piracy, some independent artists use CD-Rs. So stopping CD-Rs from working would hurt legitimate users too. I know that hasn't stopped the MPAA, but the consumer electronics companies are better (not because they are nice out of the goodness of their hearts - but because it is, due to market conditions, profitable for them to be nice - it which case almost any corp would be on our side - they don't fight us when they think being on our side will make them money). Sony is in both camps at once (they own Sony pictures and they make MP3 players, go figure;)- so the economic incentives apply in both directions. Guess it depends on what side of the house makes the most money/is most susceptable to market influence/is closer to the command structure of the corp (CEO, etc).
You aren't just saying those with clean records should be given some preference, you are saying those with anything in their record should be unemployable, here is a quote:
If there are enough people who didn't do such a thing when they were young to pick from, why take even a minimal risk with somebody who did?
Maybe you are right. Don't give someone who is reformed a second chance. Deny them all employment. Then they can go and make their money by robbing you. Not because they wanted to go back to their old ways, but because society would not let them live according to its ways, ever again.
And that makes a good self-fulfulling prophecy, if you make it so former criminals can't get legit employment and they become criminals again (to survive), you can always say you don't hire criminals because they re-offend. Meanwhile you are conveniently ignoring your part in this cycle. This is a very big part of the crime problem in the US.
The issue isn't so much as that data is available (technology is very hard to control - so stopping it there is very difficult), but that it can be used to discriminate.
Make it a felony to deny employment or credit for something that does not reasonable bear on the worthyness of the applicant or the prudentness of extending a loan, employment, or a security clearance.
People will get their hands on data, but if the penalty of misusing it to discriminate is strong enough, it won't be as much of a problem.
For example, denying employment or a loan for anything done before the age of 18 should be a felony.
If we don't trust 18 year olds to vote because they aren't responsible for their actions, then we shouldn't deny them benefits later on in life for actions committed at that age. Either a 17 year old is responsible for their actions (then let them vote) or is not (then don't discriminate on them later in life for actions committed at that age).
There is also a separate law that takes care of goofing off at work.
Law?! I thought it was more along the lines of you could get fired for that. I've got images in my mind of Virginia posters to Slashdot getting sent to prison.;)
Unfunny aside, people have gotten into serious legal trouble in Virginia for incredibly BAD reasons... Such is the legal climate there...
Well if the stock market recovers (yesterday was a GOOD day) and Bush sees the NASDAQ (which includes most consumer electronics companies) climb perhaps Bush will listen to THAT groups lobbyists. Republicans usually like to be seen as pro-growth. The consumer electronics industry can and most likely will grow a heck of a lot faster than Hollywood can.
The corporations aren't taking our rights. The government is. Granted, they are doing it at the behest of the corporations. But without the abuse of power by the government, the corporations would not be the threat they are today. When a company takes legal action against you, no one from the corporation locks you in a cell, forcibly takes money and assets from you, or shoots you if you resist. The government is what does. THEY are the ones that decide to levy charges and judgements against you. THEY are the ones that enforce it, at the point of a gun, or with a bullet to the head if necessary. The corporations only suggest to the government and bribe the government into taking those actions.
Stop the government and you've stopped the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
No one with a choice will use dialup if DSL is available. (i.e. if DSL is available and affordable to the customer)
You still might want the user to see the message. For example to differentiate between the ISP terminating the page, and the following: "The user has died and as a result has had their account terminated. The page you are looking for is gone for good". Or, "This page was full of BS, and I decided to stop inflicting its ramblings upon the Internet." (Of course, pages full of BS comprise most of the web).
Yeah, but if I drive by with my windows open and my car stereo turned all the way up, and a recording of a 300 baud modem sending a patch in my cassette deck, that might work better. ;)
1. Have the web browser render correct pages correctly, as the #1 priority.
;) or at least know that the reason the page looks bad is because of the web page being poorly done, and not a browser issue.
2. Have the web browser try to compensate as well as possible for mistakes, as long as doing so doesn't interfere with #1, above.
I.e. follow the Internet maxim, "be conservative in what you do, and liberal in what you accept"
3. Issue a web page quality feedback to the user so if a site has bad HTML, the user knows, so she can fix the site if it is hers, let the web master know if someone else is responsible for the site, know that a company can't do web pages right (great if you are browsing a web page design company's site!
A good implementation would be, for example, an icon which shows quality, and when clicked shows any errors in the page. E.g. if the page is good there would be a smiley face and a tool tip would say "No errors - high quality page", and if the page was bad there would be a frown face and when you clicked it you'd get a window opening with a list of the errors in it. A really good implemenation would have a whole site of icons for perfect, good, ok, bad, and horrid HTML. Of course, the lower the quality, the more likely there are to be problems rendering the page...
I think it is in the US, but not in the UK. I may be wrong. And I don't know what it is like in other countries.
Still sounds dangerous. Even if you are legally right, and you know it, and you don't need to pay for a lawyer, since you are one, you can still lose if you get a corrupt or misguided judge. (remember the DeCSS fiasco?)
The court systems never cared about what is moral, but lately, they don't even care about what is legal... (e.g. the complete discounting of fair use in the DeCSS trial in spite of the law)
I know my examples are of something different than what is being discussed here, but the principle still applies. You can be legally right and LOSE even if you do fight it.
Oh wait, the DMCA is overriden by fair use, the Constitution requires it and the DMCA SAYS it doesn't affect fair use.
Wait again, since the corps have bought at least one judge (with Internet prosecutions and lawsuits - since your action is "everywhere", they can prosecute you ANYWHERE - i.e. jurisdiction shopping. You have no choice, and thus lose) to say the DMCA outlaws fair use whenever the corps don't like it, I guess fair use is still dead. Maybe we can see libraries shut down with the RICO laws and the people running them and working there get 20 year prison sentences.
The USSR became free, and we are losing (already lost much of) our freedom. How ironic.
Well a woman sued because she put contraceptive jelly on her toast and it did not work. Lawyers run the world.
Umm if you get fired from work because your phone line was busy then your job sucked anyway. If your job has a rule you must be contactable at all times, without even a delay due to a busy phone, then you are a slave, not an employee.
And since it is against the agreement to reverse-engineer the software, you are not allowed to even try to find out just WHAT it may be doing (above and beyond what they tell you). And if you do, they'll probably invoke the DMCA just like in that filtering software (sorry I forgot which company) vs reverse-engineer legal fiasco that happened in the not too distant past.
Is that the same "judge" Kaplan that ignored the few protections of the DMCA, the rest of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the US Code), and the Constitution (which he was SWORN to uphold) by rendering judgement against the DeCSS defendants?
Even if it were real it would NOT belong under Patents, but rather the Justice System icon or a Trademarks icon (which I don't know if Slashdot has).
In this way the record companies are even WORSE than the software companies. Most software companies will allow the purchase of X number of licenses, and you can copy the media and install it on as many different computers under your control as long as you don't distribute it, or have more copies installed than you own licenses to. At least that is the way many corporate software licenses are.
If good software isn't made without a very strong direct (i.e. the money is made directly off the sale of the content) monetary incentive, then how do you explain the existence of Linux?
Wouldn't it be simpler for the EFF to get a "declaratory judgement" by a court that it is legal, rather than having a whole suit?
Read the article more closely. With MiniDisc the author could not make copies of HIS recording of a wedding. Even though HE owned the copyrights to it.
If he were to circumvent the protections, would he be violating the DMCA. Maybe not, since the circumvention would be "with the authority of the copyright owner".
If he made a tool to do it, would that be a violation? Maybe, maybe not?
If he were to distribute that tool, intending it to be used only to allow use by a copyright owner to circumvent protections to their own content? Likely to be treated as a violation since it could be used for bad purposes, in spite of the exemption for use with "authority of the copy right holder". THe judge would likely assume the intent was not for a legal purpose. Look at Judge Kaplan in the DeCSS lawsuit - he ruled against the defendants, saying that the intent of DeCSS was bad, and even if it was good he STILL would have ruled against them, saying it would STILL be a DMCA violation.
If he were to distribute it, intenting it be used for any "fair use" reason, the would very likely be a DMCA violation. Heck, even if he crippled his tool in such a way that it COULD only be used for a "fair use" reason, it would still be likely to be illegal. Judge Kaplan would rule it so, for example. We will see what happens to an open source LiViD DVD player for Linux without copy ability, whether it is ruled illegal. If Kaplan gets the case, it will be. Then people can see that exercising "fair use" rights is illegal.
Maybe the best we can hope for is things get bad enough, fast enough to wake people up and make them fight back. Throw a frog in boiling water and it jumps right out. Put it in cold water and heat it and it will stay until it dies. People and their rights are like that too. Take rights away slow enough and they won't notice until it is too late. It seems fast to us, but it is slow enough to trick the public.
Perhaps Bush, unlike Clinton, will be so aggressive and fast at "protecting" industry, and so inept at doing it and making it look good, that the people will notice.
Anyway, anyone care to comment on which of my scenarios above would be safe, which ones would get one sued, but one would win, and which ones would get one sued and where one would LOSE? Any coments on what we can do? Anything an independant content producer should know or do to protect their right to release unprotected content?
Does that matter?
A license has to go with the CD you get with the PC. (Otherwise people would be buying a CD which they don't have the right to use - i.e. warez).
So here is the solution. They turn over the CD and the license which comes with it. The recipient of the license destroys the CD, makes a copy of a "normal" windows CD and uses it with the license they obtained.
Would that be legal? If you have a Windows license, then wouldn't the duplicated CD be legal since it has a license? Note: Big companies often get one copy of media, a bunch of licenses, and duplicate the media or load it multiple times over a network, and it is legal (and standard, sanctioned practice by the vendors and the corporate customers). It works out if there are sufficient licenses.
The question is, does a license from Windows off a restoration CD allow you to make and use a copy of Windows from a "normal" Windows CD? Microsoft will say no, but what is the law? If ti is not legal, then essentially Microsoft has to aruge, and the courts have to accept and declare, that the copy of Windows with a "restoration" CD is different than off a "normal" CD. I.E. it is not real Windows.
That could have a marketing impact and even be seen as abuse of monopoly status. I.E. we won't even give you a proper copy of the OS we forced down your throat. If your system doesn't work with all the other junk on the CD, or your system dies, you are hosed. Buy a new PC from an MS friendly OEM, or go pay the (outrageous) $200 for a full Windows 98 CD, which is well above what the OEMs are charged for it, as long as they play that stupid "restore CD" game with the consumers to protect MS at the expense of the computer purchasers.
Doesn't sound logical, but law is not necessarily logical.
Get something with Multi-Read (I think that is what it is called - I am not sure if that only applies to computers) and it should read everything.
As for piracy, some independent artists use CD-Rs. So stopping CD-Rs from working would hurt legitimate users too. I know that hasn't stopped the MPAA, but the consumer electronics companies are better (not because they are nice out of the goodness of their hearts - but because it is, due to market conditions, profitable for them to be nice - it which case almost any corp would be on our side - they don't fight us when they think being on our side will make them money). Sony is in both camps at once (they own Sony pictures and they make MP3 players, go figure ;)- so the economic incentives apply in both directions. Guess it depends on what side of the house makes the most money/is most susceptable to market influence/is closer to the command structure of the corp (CEO, etc).
1 aM t43 N3W Pr351d3N7 oF 7h3 Un173D 57a73S!
Y00 4aV3 B33N 0wn3d!
Y00 mU57 b0w b3f0r3 m3 b3cAu53 1 aM 50 31337!
;)
If there are enough people who didn't do such a thing when they were young to pick from, why take even a minimal risk with somebody who did?
Maybe you are right. Don't give someone who is reformed a second chance. Deny them all employment. Then they can go and make their money by robbing you. Not because they wanted to go back to their old ways, but because society would not let them live according to its ways, ever again.
And that makes a good self-fulfulling prophecy, if you make it so former criminals can't get legit employment and they become criminals again (to survive), you can always say you don't hire criminals because they re-offend. Meanwhile you are conveniently ignoring your part in this cycle. This is a very big part of the crime problem in the US.
Make it a felony to deny employment or credit for something that does not reasonable bear on the worthyness of the applicant or the prudentness of extending a loan, employment, or a security clearance.
People will get their hands on data, but if the penalty of misusing it to discriminate is strong enough, it won't be as much of a problem.
For example, denying employment or a loan for anything done before the age of 18 should be a felony.
If we don't trust 18 year olds to vote because they aren't responsible for their actions, then we shouldn't deny them benefits later on in life for actions committed at that age. Either a 17 year old is responsible for their actions (then let them vote) or is not (then don't discriminate on them later in life for actions committed at that age).
Law?! I thought it was more along the lines of you could get fired for that. I've got images in my mind of Virginia posters to Slashdot getting sent to prison. ;)
Unfunny aside, people have gotten into serious legal trouble in Virginia for incredibly BAD reasons... Such is the legal climate there...
Well if the stock market recovers (yesterday was a GOOD day) and Bush sees the NASDAQ (which includes most consumer electronics companies) climb perhaps Bush will listen to THAT groups lobbyists. Republicans usually like to be seen as pro-growth. The consumer electronics industry can and most likely will grow a heck of a lot faster than Hollywood can.
The corporations aren't taking our rights. The government is. Granted, they are doing it at the behest of the corporations. But without the abuse of power by the government, the corporations would not be the threat they are today. When a company takes legal action against you, no one from the corporation locks you in a cell, forcibly takes money and assets from you, or shoots you if you resist. The government is what does. THEY are the ones that decide to levy charges and judgements against you. THEY are the ones that enforce it, at the point of a gun, or with a bullet to the head if necessary. The corporations only suggest to the government and bribe the government into taking those actions.
Stop the government and you've stopped the problem.