My mother suffers from Alzheimer's and some other conditions. She recently spent about a month in a skilled nursing facility, doing physical rehab and strengthening before returning to live with me. About the time she was admitted, I purchased an HP touchpad for her as a gift. I think that the device was great for her, but not in the ways I expected. She used it almost daily. I was able to load it up with a lot of music, which she enjoyed greatly, And the slideshow function also received rave reviews from her.
However, the touchscreen interface (though seeming simple to me), was not ideal. First of all, it proved difficult for her to master the touch interface because of problems applying enough pressure on the screen, or too much. Those of us without arthritis, and who do not have as much difficulty with manual dexterity, perhaps do not always anticipate what a challenge it can be to master the making of gestures to interact with a touch interface. Second, learning the GUI itself proved hard, and her preferred approach became to call me on the telephone to have me make sure that the programs she preferred were running. She was pleased to have music play on on a preset or shuffled playlist, but with a month to try, it did not seem that she managed to master how to select particular songs off of the playlist. Switching between programs was a task on which she would make progress with coaching, but repeating this skill on her own was a real challenge.
I've also let her work with my iPad, and similar difficulties are present.
Your grandmother may do much better, and may not necessarily find it quite such a challenge. But there's also a good possibility that she will find efforts to operate it without the assistance of others, rather frustrating. I recommend spending time together in person, and augmenting that quality time by using the device as a conversation piece, something to talk about and an activity to share together. Perhaps there are other devices that are more suitable, but I do not recommend touchpads generally, except for use as a common activity to enjoy together.
Good old-fashioned books, with pages to turn, on the other hand, are a killer app for all ages. My mom cannot get enough of them. And I personally believe the stimulation is very important for maintaining cognitive function as long as possible.
Did you think about what you were doing before you posted that? I'm so glad I'm not in the place you seem to be in. Please don't try to take us with you.
Tons of completely free programs are available for the Zaurus already, and the pool of free software is expanding rapidly! Take a look at this page, to get a taste of what you can install.
A few days' rental for the crushing machine; a used computer you were going to throw away^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdonate to charity, anyway; the webcam and video camera you probably have lying around; the OS is free (unless you really WANT to pay for an OS license;-) . ..), and the only work you do is find or write a little bit of code for a countdown timer and manufacture a paragraph or two of gobledygoog to explain to non-technologists what it "says" about the Internet to belong in a museum.
Hell, the museum curator will probably even set up the machine and the crusher for you if you're busy sipping champagne and cannot be bothered to turn the screws on the monitor cable.
And they get paid at the rates major galleries pay for art! Yeah, its not as big a boondoggle as when SAIC created Network Solutions and then called in some favors from the NSF to secure a 4-year monopopy to charge $70.00 a pop for Internet domain names. That was sublime. But these artists at least get credit for genius.
Northern Light has discontinued the indexing of 'Web pages. In other words, it is not really a "search engine" anymore. Now, it seeeks to compete with Lexis-Nexis and Dow Jones, as a pay-per article database of things that (mostly) were originally published in magazines and newspapers.
So, technically, it is something of a non-sequitur to mention Northern Light in this posting.
It is also worth mentioning that Northern Light has been sued by several thousand members of the national writers' union for ripping off freelance writers, and violating their copyrights on an industrial scale. Its lawyers filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting the (losing) position of the New York Times in the NYT v. Tasini case, which was the case in which the Supreme Court ultimately re-affirmed the rights of freelance writers to be compensaqted fairly for their work.
No stranger to irony, Northern Light Technology (now owned by Divine) has also hypocritically attempted to abuse its so-called "intellectual property" rights, as a sword and not as a shield, in an attempt to hijack the Internet Domain Name NorthernLights.com from its rightful owner (who owned NorthernLights.com almost a YEAR in advance of the launch of the now-defunct Northern Light "search engine"). "Northern Light," incidentally, is the name of an 1860 sailing vessel. The "search engine" was not named after the Aurora Borealis. Just because the CEO of Northern Light picked a really stupid name, and manufactured confusion because his brand name was knowingly proximate to a common dictionary word, certainly does not give him any more right to hijack his neighbor's address than the brand name "biznes (tm)" would give one the right to hijack "business.com" from its rightful owner.
For more information about the hypocrisy of this company (which still continues to drag the trademark dispute through the courts, even though it has discontinued its "search engine"), see
Just recently, this same St. Louis judge struck down on First Amendment grounds a federal law prohibiting some kinds of Fax-SPAM. In that case, he concluded that unsolicted commercial faxes ARE protected speech and are entitled to heightened constitutional protection (for lawyers: he held that the "Central Hudson" test applied and that the government failed to meet that standard).
Several other courts have addressed the same Fax-SPAM issue, and have uniformly held in the opposite direction.
Needless to say, there are a lot of lawyers looking at this Limbaugh guy's output, and scratching our heads, and wondering where (aside from Federalist Society conventions perhaps) he gets those wacky ideas of his.
The Sherman Antitrust Act applies to Microsoft customers just as much as it does (perhaps moreso, under the Bu$h anminstration) to Microsoft itself. And the Sherman Act prohibits unlawful exercise of Monopsony power (collusive exercise of market power among purchasers) just as much as it prohibits unlawful conduct by Monoploies and Oligopolies (individual sellers or collusive cartels).
So the purchasing cartel you propose is potentially problematic.
This is not to say that Microsoft necessarily wins if it files an antitrust suit against Dell/Gateway/Compaq, et al., in the event of such a collusive project -- but how would you like to be one of the companies on the receiving end of such a suit by the "injured" Microsoft?
Section one of the Sherman Act states:
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
Simply put, Gateway. Compaq, Dell, and others are prohibited from knowingly colluding to dictate prices and terms to suppliers. I cannot answer definitively as to whether the "get together" you propose violates the Sherman Act, but I can say that Microsoft will not be tosed out of court on its ear if it were to sue to prohibit the course of action you propose.
Eric C. Grimm CyberBrief, PLC 320 South Main Street Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
A couple of people have mentioned that the 11-page ruling posted on the Courthouse Website on 20 December was "only" a "preliminary injunction ruling" -- and then these commenters gone on to suggest that there is still "a trial" in the works.
There was a *** Second Ruling ***, however, in the 2600 case, bearing the same date, which John Young now has up on the Cryptome Website.
Bottom line is that 2600 has REALLY WON BIG!!!! Judge threw out the whole lawsuit.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
734.332.4900
fax 734.332.4901
Well, gillbates -- I have to hand it to you because your argument shows you are a very smart and innovative thinker. I am even more impressed if it turns out that you are not a lawyer. You have made an argument very similar to the one that Ford's lawyers made.
It helps to read the papers that were actually filed with the court -- especially this one.
As you will see, we [in other words, my clients 2600 and Corley, and me, the lawyer who represented them in the case] have already fully adressed your argument. We have already explained -- with considerable legal authority to back up our argument -- exactly why FORD's position was completely wrong on this score, as a matter of law. And Judge Cleland (who has hardly expressed any eagerness to be a "friend of 2600" squarely agreed with 2600's argument.
That said, you are in the company of some very smart an creative people. The lawyer who argued the case for FORD, and who came up with the same argument you did, is named Tom Lee. He is a former law clerk to Hon. Clarence Thomas and teaches law (IMHO, teaches it wrong, but that's what he does) at a school out in Utah. He was also a law clerk on the Fourth Circuit (the most "conservative" of the United States Courts of Appeals).
Tom Lee has been very active for many years in the Federalist Society -- an organization that is dedicated to packing the Federal bench with ideological "conservatives." Spencer Abraham (former Senator from Michigan) -- the sponsor of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act -- was one of the founding members of the Federalist Society, and made sure that Greg Phillips, Tom Lee's law partner, was invited to testify in favor of the ACPA. Ted Olsen (the guy who argued the Bush v. Gore case for Bush) is also a big Federalist Society member and booster.
And, through Alberto Gonzalez -- who plays a big role in the Bush White House, the Federalist Society looks poised to do a lot more damage to the federal bench in years to come.
Please do your part to get the word out on some of the hypocrisy that the Federalist Society is pushing through the legislative process, and which hypocrisy the EFF is helping to expose.
Remember what Professor Lessig said just a couple of days ago -- "Sometimes when I read Slashdot debates, I wonder whether you guys get this connection either. . . . [T]hese debates about freedom get bogged down on these pages. And this leads me to the greatest pessimism: If you guys don't get the importance of neutral and open platforms to innovation and creativity; if you get bogged down in 20th century debates about libertarianism and property rights; if you can't see how the.commons was critical to the.com revolution, then what do expect from judges?
You guys . . . built an architecture of value. Until you can begin to talk about those values, and translate them for others, courts and policy makers generally will never get it. . . .
We need translators. We need to translate the values of the network into terms that nontechnical people get. And we need to watch for changes in the architecture or mix of technologies layered into the network, and raise warnings about how those changes will alter the environment for innovation and creativity. As one of my heroes in the law, James Boyle, puts it, we need an environmentalism for the Internet. You are the environmental experts. You can credibly show the world how changes in the ecology of the Internet will destroy the environment for creativity, innovation, and freedom that it produced.
Will you do that? Again, I am skeptical. Rather than trying to focus this debate, or agree on ways to make others understand, you guys immediately turn these questions into irrelevant bickerings. When someone reported that I had written a book described as the "Silent Spring" of the Internet, that opened up a thread about whether in fact DDT had harmed the environment. Someday, when freedom is gone, and all we've got is the right to whisper our thoughts to those closest to us, our children will look back and ask, why did we think we had the luxury to quibble?
But if you don't want to become translators, if you don't want to write environmental impact statements, if you don't want to try to convince the North in California that if it gets taken over by the South, freedom and innovation ends, then you could do as Torvalds has recommended: give money to those who are fighting the battle, in particular, EFF. I'm on the board of EFF, so blissfully biased about to whom. But whether EFF or someone else, follow Torvalds and the other christ-figures in history: Tithe. Take the cost of Internet access (whether you pay it or not) for one year; send 10% to an organization fighting for your freedom."
I am a little concerned ablut some of the non-lawyers holding forth with their personal opinions about how they think that software purchasers abroad are somehow immune from UCITA.
Forum selection and choice-of-law clauses in tend to be enforced in contracts, even if the parties have no power to negotiate. See Carnial Cruise Lines v. Schute, 499 U.S. 585 (1990); The Bremen v. Zapata Offshore, 407 U.S. 1 (1972).
Presumably, most vendors will include such clauses in their contracts, seeking to channel disputes into jurisdictions where UCITA has pased (California and Washington will be big battle-states, Virginia has already passed it, subject to an implementation delay). The really smart vendors will set up an industry-favorable arbitration forum and insert a clause that says "all disputes will be arbitrated before [Industry Forum] under the law of [pick a UCITA state].
Hate to rain on your parade, but just because you are in England (or Canada, or Indonesia) does not mean you get to avoid this statute. Just ask all the Names from the United States who had to litigate their claims against Lloyd's of London in English courts.
Forum selection and choice-of-law clauses tend to be enforced in contracts, even if the parties have no power to negotiate. See Carnial Cruise Lines v. Schute, 499 U.S. 585 (1990); The Bremen v. Zapata Offshore, 407 U.S. 1 (1972).
Presumably, most vendors will include such clauses in their contracts, seeking to channel disputes into jurisdictions where UCITA has pased (California and Virginia will be big battle-states). The really smart vendors will set up an industry-favorable arbitration forum and insert a clause that says "all disputes will be arbitrated before [Industry Forum] under the law of [pick a UCITA state].
Hate to rain on your parade, but just because you are in England does not mean you get to avoid this statute. Just ask all the Names from the United States who had to litigate their claims against Lloyd's of London in English courts.
What the Hell do you think you are doing, Silverhammer? As great as/. is for theoretical discussions of other peoples' dilemmas, this is emphatically not the first place to go for advice (especially -- in this case -- legal advice) about your own issues (or even worse -- your employer's issues). In some cases, once you have sought private guidance, it may be appropriate to formulate a way of approaching a public forum like/., but at present you have no idea who is going to read your public post.
Moreover, this is not the kind of strategy that can be formulated by ad-hoc consensus on Slashdot.
Please read all the/. responses. Perhaps someone will point out an issue you haven't considered. But before you take any action (and be sure not to let the domain name expire by accident while you are making up your mind and formulating a strategy), you need to talk to a lawyer. Specifically, you need to talk to a lawyer who knows something about the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
I will not prompote my own practice, but if you want a referral to one or more smart lawyers who practice this kind of law, call me right away.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
P.O. Box 7341
734.332.4900
Fax: 734.332.4901
ericgrimm@CyberBrief.net
In the meantime, DO NOT do anything hasty, and DO NOT screw this up.
A few weeks ago (MLK day, I think), NPR's "Talk of the Nation" Show did a call-in program on the legacy of Martin Luther King and how his estate is handling intellectual property issues (copyright issues mostly, but some right of pubilcity issues arose as well).
According to the guests on the show, MLK's estate is asking Congress for $20 million before they are willing to transfer his collected papers and writings to the Library of Congress.
At present, the "I Have a Dream" speech is not commonly reprinted in textbooks and the like because -- as has happened with the few books that DO publish King works -- the copyright license fees increase the price of each book by $10 to $20.
Obviously, the King family suffered a terrible tragedy and loss, and certainly everyone sympathizes with their natural desire at least to assuage some of that pain by managing his legacy and estate as they have.
But I'm wondering whether everyone (the King estate included) might not be better off if the King estate were to look to the computer software industry for licensing ideas. Perhaps the licensing terms could be changed to something like shareware or even the GPL: So, for example, "Anyone can republish the I have a dream speech so long as (1) the speech is published in its entirety, (2) the terms of the license accompany the speech, and (3) following the speech, the publisher must also publish a paragraph discussing the tragedy of King's assassination and an address to which readers who find the speech inspirational can send donations to the King estate."
I think this might reverse the incentives -- essentially by creating an incentive for everyone to broadcast the MLK message as widely as possible, instead of an incentive for the estate to exclude others from free access to the MLK legacy.
Haven't asked them whether they are willing to consider this option. But is anyone else interested in starting a petition drive or something similar for the purpose of encouraging Dr. King's family to "Copy-left the MLK Legacy?"
Perhaps you did not read my post carefully enough. As you know, EPIC and EFF are both (to a greater or lesser degree) engaged in discussions about HOW the government should help solve this problem. Your problem is that you make the mistake of thinking of the "government" in monolithic terms.
The argument I made is a little more subtle. There are two different approaches to the issue. The one I criticize involves an administrative agency serving as policeman. In other words, if you want a remedy from a merchant, then you have to ask the FTC and the FTC gets to decide whether you get any remedy (in other words, they can tell you they are too busy).
The reason I suggest calling Congress is that there is a *second* Governmet solution that works better (especially when COUPLED with technology). The *second* approach involves tha passage of a law that empowers *every single consumer* to act as his or her own "mini-FTC" and to go directly after a merchant. If the merchant doesn't satisfy the customer, then the customer has a right to go to court -- no need to ask the FTC for *permission* first.
Get it? There is a difference if you think about it. Now, please re-read the earlier post.
Patents expire after a limited term of years, so I'm not sure that is the model we want. Patents can also be bought and sold (and even auctioned to the highest bidder), so I'm not sure, keefer, what you are really trying to argue here.
I, too, think there have been problems (Dennis Toeppen's registration of Panavision, for example) with the domain name system. I'm more than willing to hear your views about what, precisely, the "problem" is and how, precisely, you propose to "correct" it.
At the same time, I am skeptical about whether the new statute makes things better or worse. There is still an active marketplace in domain names (and I'm not persuaded yet that an active marketplace is a bad thing -- you need to make a more presuasive argument before you can convince me that the existence of a market is a problem), so the statute has not stopped that.
However, I CAN give you a concrete example -- "famous personal names" are not trademarks and have never traditionally had any federal trademark rights. The statute says it is okay to register a "famous personal name," even if that name is not your own, IF you are doing so to create a bona fide website. Now, let's say the celebrity comes along before the website is posted and says "thanks for being a good fan, but I'd like the name instead and I will pay you $100,000 for it." Guess what -- under the statute you cannot sell the domain name without violating the law. Then again, I would say one could make a fair argument (I'm not completely sure I will adopt it, but I like it nonetheless) that famous celebrities should ALWAYS be prohibited from owning their own names as domain names. Instead, how about a rule to promote diversity of Internet speech, that says whoever owns a celebrity domain name has an affirmative legal duty to share it with other fans, so everyone can express themselves at the website. It really depends on your politics and your worldview whether you prefer THAT hypothetical world, as opposed to a hypothetical world in which a "famous personal name" celebrity gets an automatic monopoly over all [celeb].com, [celeb].net and [celeb].org domain names on the Internet and gets to EXCLUDE everyone else from it, or charge RENT for the privilege of publishing there. If I had to choose one or the other, I suppose I would prefer an Internet where every fan has the right to publish, but the celebrities have to play by the same rules as everyone else. There's a lot of rhetoric inside the Beltway about the wisdom of keeping the hands of government off the Internet. Well, in this case, the Laisez-faire Republicans disregarded their own advice, and the result (the so-called "Cybersquatting Act")is a confusing patchwork of random ideas thrown together at the last minute. As I said before, the statute makes things worse and creates more problems than it allegedly solves. We would be better off just going back to the way the rules were before the statute was passed.
The government is too busy (and ineffectual) to protect individuals' privacy. The alternative most often mentioned in Inside-the-Beltway debates is "industry self-regulation." What this REALLY means is that there are no rules for Commerce to play by and government will just look the other way so long as consumers don't get too upset. It is a recipe for abuse of individual rights on an industrial scale.
Is there any alternative to these two options? You bet there is. The alternative is to empower individuals to police their own privacy. People shouldn't have to rely on the Federal Trade Commission or any bureaucratic agency to make sure their privacy is safe. This means making sure that every man, woman, and child has an ENFORCEABLE right to make sure their personal information is not used in a way they have not authorized. It also means making sure that all individuals have swift and certain REMEDIES against any business that (by negligence or deliberately) misuses personal data or fails to protect it.
This proposal would not be bad for business. To the contrary, it s essential to the viability of the new economy. Protection for individual privacy just provides a better incentive for business to be truly responsive to customer wants and needs.
Pipe dream? Not if enough people demand the rights they should already be able to enjoy. But the deal is ALREADY being cut in Washington next month to prevent YOU from exercisng the rights you should have.
Look at the list of panelists on what the Federal Trade Commission calls a "balanced" committee to examine how to protect consumer information. See http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/01/asrev.htm -- aside from one or two "token" privacy advocates, the whole panel is dominated by comercial internests -- such as representatives of the Direct Marketing Association AND the law firm that represented it (Piper & Marbury) AND several of its member companies.
So what can you do? Call your Member of Congress and both of your Senators. If you're really ambitious, call your state government representatives, too. For each office, get the name of the staffer who handles "Internet Privacy and Medical Privacy" issues. Tell that person that you are a constitutent, that you vote, and that it is important to you for Congress to empower individuals to protect their own privacy on the Internet. Ask if your Congressperson or Senator has a position on this issue, and if so, what that position is.
Then point out how you are upset by how the FTC has composed its Advisory Panel principally of industry representatives. Tell your elected officials that you do not feel safe when government agencies puts representatives of the Wolves in charge of writing the rules for protection of the Sheep.
If you learn anything particularly interesting on the subject, post it here on/.
Other contacts (who may have good ideas on how to get involved in making sure lawmakers make good rules) are Diedre Mulligan at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Mark Rotenberg at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Several Other Comments ask whether another Goliath vs. David lawsuit is just around the corner. Well, truth is that several Goliath vs. David reverse domain name piracy lawsuits are already pending in the courts and just haven't received any Press yet. (Reverse Domain Name Piracy means the use or threat of lawsuits and big $$ in legal bills to extort the little guy to give up his domain name).
I'm still waiting for jamie (/. regular) to publish something about the Superbowl of Domain Name Disputes (need to trademark that title:) !! ) -- the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball are all going after a company called FlairMail (www.FlairMail.com) that makes vanity email addresses (like HotMail addresses, but you get to have [myname]@goyankees.com or [myname]@bulls1.net, instead of advertising for a Bill Gates subsidiary) available for FREE to subscribers. All of the sports vanity names are DIFFERENT from the team names, by adding "go" or "1," and several non-sports names are also available. FlairMail has NEVER claimed to be endorsed, sponsored, or approved by the sports leagues (and it doesn't have to be -- the law does not require the approval of the sports leagues).
Some fans who buy hats and clothing or who subscribe for vanity email addresses may perfer to pay extra for the knowledge that they have the "official" product. Other customers may not prefer to pay extra. The bottom line (and there are quite a few court cases to prove it) is that THAT CHOICE BELONGS WITH THE CUSTOMERS. The sports leagues do not have the right to make that choice for them. But that doesn't stop sports licensing organizations from trying. For example, a couple of months ago, Collegiate Licensing went after a father and son in Ohio for selling "Beat Michigan" sweatshirts. Collegiate Licensing claimed it violated U of Michigan's trademarks. I live in Ann Arbor and I graduated from Michigan law school, and no matter how big a Michigan fan I am, I am still upset and embarrassed by the greed of Collegiate Licensing.
There are lots of other Goliath v. David lawsuits pending or that have been resolved by the courts. Here is a sample (less than a third of the examples I know about):
Avery-Dennison vs. Sumpton -- Vanity Email Business had to go through trial and appeal before "little guy" won on appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Appeals court told the trial court to consider awarding attorneys' fees to deter the big company from doing the same thing again.
Hasbro vs. Clue Computing -- It only cost Eric Robison, a Colorado computer consultant, $100,000 and his marriage to defend himself after toy giant Hasbro decided it wanted to take over the domain name www.clue.com . Robison ultimately "won" in the sense that the court said he could keep his domain name. But did he really "Win?"
Northern Light Technology vs. NorthernLights.com A search engine was not happy enough with its own domain name and the roughly 300+ additional domain names that NLT registered. So the search engine (which is named after a clipper ship) sued one of its neighbors (which uses the domain name NorthernLights.com -- a reference to the Aurora Borealis), in an effort to take over that domain name, too. The defendant (NorthernLights.com) was using the domain name almost an entire year before the search engine website was launched. The case is still pending in Boston federal court. The judge has suppressed the expressive activity of the little guy by ordering a black "jump page" to be posted in front of his website. (I confess I have a personal interest in this one and the "Superbowl" case.) See http://www.NorthernLights.com/new/
HealthNet.org -- this website belongs to a charitible group of international physicians. However, there is an insurance comapny in California that already owns HealthNet.com and HealthNet.net. As you can imagine, the Insurance company sent a threatening letter to the physicians' organization, who had to file a lawsuit to defend themselves in Boston.
There are many more examples, but I'm tired of typing.
And Congress isn't helping to fix things. Some members of Congress are actually trying to make things WORSE! Congress is making things worse by passing laws that encourage more of these kinds of lawsuits. Senator Abraham of Michigan (who is up for re-election this year), along with Senators McCain and Hatch (who also needed campaign $$ this year), were the original sponsors of S 1255 -- the original so-called "Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act."
The "Cybersquatting Act" did not need to be passed -- existing trademark law already provided adequate remedies in cases of REAL cybersquatting. Remember, Dennis Toeppen lost all his lawsuits, even without the passage of the law. What the law REALLY does is that it allows Hasbro to threaten Eric Robison with $100,000 in punitive damages if Robison doesn't give up and settle. The law lets Health Net the big insurance company threaten the charity HealthNet.org with $100,000 in punitive damages if the charity does not cave.
Some of the "Internet-smartest" law professors, like Johnathan Zittrain of Harvard, signed onto a letter by the Association for Computing Machinery opposing the "Cybersquatting Bill," but Congress ignored the advice of people who know something about the Internet. The Clinton Administrration was on record as opposing the bill (but remember the line-item veto was struck down as Unconstitutional).
To make a long story short, at 4:00 in the morning on the day the Omnibus Appropriations Act (essentially the budget for the Whole Government) was up for a vote, Senator Trent Lott, Congressman James Rogan, Senator Abraham, and Congressman Howard Coble slipped the so-called "Cybersquatting Bill" into the Appropriations Act. The "Cybersqatting Bill" could not have passed Congress any other way. Which leaves nonprofits, small businesses, artists, and others (like ETOY) at the mercy of big commercial enterprises (like eToys).
So what do you do about it? I have in mind what I call an "Open Source Democracy Project" to help communicate to Senator Abraham and others that decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done in the open -- subject to public scrutiny and with input from the Internet community. Decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done with the interests of the entire community in mind and not just a few big-$$ campaign contributors.
If any/. readers are interested in helping to use Open Source methods of collaboration and cooperation in order to achieve political ends -- to communicate effectively with elected representitives, the I urge you to contact me at your earliest convenience. Specific skills that are needed are (1) factual research (fact gathering), (2) writing, (3) high-quality website design, (4) fact-checking (we need to be absolutely accurate), and (5) publicity. If the project is a community project, it will be FAR MORE EFFECTIVE than a single person's efforts ever could be.
Slashdot Mirror
My mother suffers from Alzheimer's and some other conditions. She recently spent about a month in a skilled nursing facility, doing physical rehab and strengthening before returning to live with me. About the time she was admitted, I purchased an HP touchpad for her as a gift. I think that the device was great for her, but not in the ways I expected. She used it almost daily. I was able to load it up with a lot of music, which she enjoyed greatly, And the slideshow function also received rave reviews from her.
However, the touchscreen interface (though seeming simple to me), was not ideal. First of all, it proved difficult for her to master the touch interface because of problems applying enough pressure on the screen, or too much. Those of us without arthritis, and who do not have as much difficulty with manual dexterity, perhaps do not always anticipate what a challenge it can be to master the making of gestures to interact with a touch interface. Second, learning the GUI itself proved hard, and her preferred approach became to call me on the telephone to have me make sure that the programs she preferred were running. She was pleased to have music play on on a preset or shuffled playlist, but with a month to try, it did not seem that she managed to master how to select particular songs off of the playlist. Switching between programs was a task on which she would make progress with coaching, but repeating this skill on her own was a real challenge.
I've also let her work with my iPad, and similar difficulties are present.
Your grandmother may do much better, and may not necessarily find it quite such a challenge. But there's also a good possibility that she will find efforts to operate it without the assistance of others, rather frustrating. I recommend spending time together in person, and augmenting that quality time by using the device as a conversation piece, something to talk about and an activity to share together. Perhaps there are other devices that are more suitable, but I do not recommend touchpads generally, except for use as a common activity to enjoy together.
Good old-fashioned books, with pages to turn, on the other hand, are a killer app for all ages. My mom cannot get enough of them. And I personally believe the stimulation is very important for maintaining cognitive function as long as possible.
Hope that helps.
Did you think about what you were doing before you posted that? I'm so glad I'm not in the place you seem to be in. Please don't try to take us with you.
Tons of completely free programs are available for the Zaurus already, and the pool of free software is expanding rapidly! Take a look at this page, to get a taste of what you can install.
Hell, the museum curator will probably even set up the machine and the crusher for you if you're busy sipping champagne and cannot be bothered to turn the screws on the monitor cable.
And they get paid at the rates major galleries pay for art! Yeah, its not as big a boondoggle as when SAIC created Network Solutions and then called in some favors from the NSF to secure a 4-year monopopy to charge $70.00 a pop for Internet domain names. That was sublime. But these artists at least get credit for genius.
So, technically, it is something of a non-sequitur to mention Northern Light in this posting.
It is also worth mentioning that Northern Light has been sued by several thousand members of the national writers' union for ripping off freelance writers, and violating their copyrights on an industrial scale. Its lawyers filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting the (losing) position of the New York Times in the NYT v. Tasini case, which was the case in which the Supreme Court ultimately re-affirmed the rights of freelance writers to be compensaqted fairly for their work.
No stranger to irony, Northern Light Technology (now owned by Divine) has also hypocritically attempted to abuse its so-called "intellectual property" rights, as a sword and not as a shield, in an attempt to hijack the Internet Domain Name NorthernLights.com from its rightful owner (who owned NorthernLights.com almost a YEAR in advance of the launch of the now-defunct Northern Light "search engine"). "Northern Light," incidentally, is the name of an 1860 sailing vessel. The "search engine" was not named after the Aurora Borealis. Just because the CEO of Northern Light picked a really stupid name, and manufactured confusion because his brand name was knowingly proximate to a common dictionary word, certainly does not give him any more right to hijack his neighbor's address than the brand name "biznes (tm)" would give one the right to hijack "business.com" from its rightful owner.
For more information about the hypocrisy of this company (which still continues to drag the trademark dispute through the courts, even though it has discontinued its "search engine"), see
Several other courts have addressed the same Fax-SPAM issue, and have uniformly held in the opposite direction.
Needless to say, there are a lot of lawyers looking at this Limbaugh guy's output, and scratching our heads, and wondering where (aside from Federalist Society conventions perhaps) he gets those wacky ideas of his.
The Sherman Antitrust Act applies to Microsoft customers just as much as it does (perhaps moreso, under the Bu$h anminstration) to Microsoft itself. And the Sherman Act prohibits unlawful exercise of Monopsony power (collusive exercise of market power among purchasers) just as much as it prohibits unlawful conduct by Monoploies and Oligopolies (individual sellers or collusive cartels).
So the purchasing cartel you propose is potentially problematic.
This is not to say that Microsoft necessarily wins if it files an antitrust suit against Dell/Gateway/Compaq, et al., in the event of such a collusive project -- but how would you like to be one of the companies on the receiving end of such a suit by the "injured" Microsoft?
Section one of the Sherman Act states:
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
Simply put, Gateway. Compaq, Dell, and others are prohibited from knowingly colluding to dictate prices and terms to suppliers. I cannot answer definitively as to whether the "get together" you propose violates the Sherman Act, but I can say that Microsoft will not be tosed out of court on its ear if it were to sue to prohibit the course of action you propose.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
Typo correction:
. . . these commenters HAVE gone on . . .
There was a *** Second Ruling ***, however, in the 2600 case, bearing the same date, which John Young now has up on the Cryptome Website.
Bottom line is that 2600 has REALLY WON BIG!!!! Judge threw out the whole lawsuit.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
734.332.4900
fax 734.332.4901
Well, gillbates -- I have to hand it to you because your argument shows you are a very smart and innovative thinker. I am even more impressed if it turns out that you are not a lawyer. You have made an argument very similar to the one that Ford's lawyers made.
.commons was critical to the .com revolution, then what do expect from judges?
It helps to read the papers that were actually filed with the court -- especially this one.
As you will see, we [in other words, my clients 2600 and Corley, and me, the lawyer who represented them in the case] have already fully adressed your argument. We have already explained -- with considerable legal authority to back up our argument -- exactly why FORD's position was completely wrong on this score, as a matter of law. And Judge Cleland (who has hardly expressed any eagerness to be a "friend of 2600" squarely agreed with 2600's argument.
That said, you are in the company of some very smart an creative people. The lawyer who argued the case for FORD, and who came up with the same argument you did, is named Tom Lee. He is a former law clerk to Hon. Clarence Thomas and teaches law (IMHO, teaches it wrong, but that's what he does) at a school out in Utah. He was also a law clerk on the Fourth Circuit (the most "conservative" of the United States Courts of Appeals).
Tom Lee has been very active for many years in the Federalist Society -- an organization that is dedicated to packing the Federal bench with ideological "conservatives." Spencer Abraham (former Senator from Michigan) -- the sponsor of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act -- was one of the founding members of the Federalist Society, and made sure that Greg Phillips, Tom Lee's law partner, was invited to testify in favor of the ACPA. Ted Olsen (the guy who argued the Bush v. Gore case for Bush) is also a big Federalist Society member and booster.
And, through Alberto Gonzalez -- who plays a big role in the Bush White House, the Federalist Society looks poised to do a lot more damage to the federal bench in years to come.
Please do your part to get the word out on some of the hypocrisy that the Federalist Society is pushing through the legislative process, and which hypocrisy the EFF is helping to expose.
Remember what Professor Lessig said just a couple of days ago -- "Sometimes when I read Slashdot debates, I wonder whether you guys get this connection either. . . . [T]hese debates about freedom get bogged down on these pages. And this leads me to the greatest pessimism: If you guys don't get the importance of neutral and open platforms to innovation and creativity; if you get bogged down in 20th century debates about libertarianism and property rights; if you can't see how the
You guys . . . built an architecture of value. Until you can begin to talk about those values, and translate them for others, courts and policy makers generally will never get it. . . .
We need translators. We need to translate the values of the network into terms that nontechnical people get. And we need to watch for changes in the architecture or mix of technologies layered into the network, and raise warnings about how those changes will alter the environment for innovation and creativity. As one of my heroes in the law, James Boyle, puts it, we need an environmentalism for the Internet. You are the environmental experts. You can credibly show the world how changes in the ecology of the Internet will destroy the environment for creativity, innovation, and freedom that it produced.
Will you do that? Again, I am skeptical. Rather than trying to focus this debate, or agree on ways to make others understand, you guys immediately turn these questions into irrelevant bickerings. When someone reported that I had written a book described as the "Silent Spring" of the Internet, that opened up a thread about whether in fact DDT had harmed the environment. Someday, when freedom is gone, and all we've got is the right to whisper our thoughts to those closest to us, our children will look back and ask, why did we think we had the luxury to quibble?
But if you don't want to become translators, if you don't want to write environmental impact statements, if you don't want to try to convince the North in California that if it gets taken over by the South, freedom and innovation ends, then you could do as Torvalds has recommended: give money to those who are fighting the battle, in particular, EFF. I'm on the board of EFF, so blissfully biased about to whom. But whether EFF or someone else, follow Torvalds and the other christ-figures in history: Tithe. Take the cost of Internet access (whether you pay it or not) for one year; send 10% to an organization fighting for your freedom."
Thanks for your attention.
Forum selection and choice-of-law clauses in tend to be enforced in contracts, even if the parties have no power to negotiate. See Carnial Cruise Lines v. Schute, 499 U.S. 585 (1990); The Bremen v. Zapata Offshore, 407 U.S. 1 (1972).
Presumably, most vendors will include such clauses in their contracts, seeking to channel disputes into jurisdictions where UCITA has pased (California and Washington will be big battle-states, Virginia has already passed it, subject to an implementation delay). The really smart vendors will set up an industry-favorable arbitration forum and insert a clause that says "all disputes will be arbitrated before [Industry Forum] under the law of [pick a UCITA state].
Hate to rain on your parade, but just because you are in England (or Canada, or Indonesia) does not mean you get to avoid this statute. Just ask all the Names from the United States who had to litigate their claims against Lloyd's of London in English courts.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
Ann Arbor. Michigan
Eric.Grimm@CyberBrief.net
Presumably, most vendors will include such clauses in their contracts, seeking to channel disputes into jurisdictions where UCITA has pased (California and Virginia will be big battle-states). The really smart vendors will set up an industry-favorable arbitration forum and insert a clause that says "all disputes will be arbitrated before [Industry Forum] under the law of [pick a UCITA state].
Hate to rain on your parade, but just because you are in England does not mean you get to avoid this statute. Just ask all the Names from the United States who had to litigate their claims against Lloyd's of London in English courts.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
Ann Arbor. Michigan
Eric.Grimm@CyberBrief.net
Moreover, this is not the kind of strategy that can be formulated by ad-hoc consensus on Slashdot.
Please read all the /. responses. Perhaps someone will point out an issue you haven't considered. But before you take any action (and be sure not to let the domain name expire by accident while you are making up your mind and formulating a strategy), you need to talk to a lawyer. Specifically, you need to talk to a lawyer who knows something about the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
I will not prompote my own practice, but if you want a referral to one or more smart lawyers who practice this kind of law, call me right away.
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
P.O. Box 7341
734.332.4900
Fax: 734.332.4901
ericgrimm@CyberBrief.net
In the meantime, DO NOT do anything hasty, and DO NOT screw this up.
According to the guests on the show, MLK's estate is asking Congress for $20 million before they are willing to transfer his collected papers and writings to the Library of Congress.
At present, the "I Have a Dream" speech is not commonly reprinted in textbooks and the like because -- as has happened with the few books that DO publish King works -- the copyright license fees increase the price of each book by $10 to $20.
Obviously, the King family suffered a terrible tragedy and loss, and certainly everyone sympathizes with their natural desire at least to assuage some of that pain by managing his legacy and estate as they have.
But I'm wondering whether everyone (the King estate included) might not be better off if the King estate were to look to the computer software industry for licensing ideas. Perhaps the licensing terms could be changed to something like shareware or even the GPL: So, for example, "Anyone can republish the I have a dream speech so long as (1) the speech is published in its entirety, (2) the terms of the license accompany the speech, and (3) following the speech, the publisher must also publish a paragraph discussing the tragedy of King's assassination and an address to which readers who find the speech inspirational can send donations to the King estate."
I think this might reverse the incentives -- essentially by creating an incentive for everyone to broadcast the MLK message as widely as possible, instead of an incentive for the estate to exclude others from free access to the MLK legacy.
Haven't asked them whether they are willing to consider this option. But is anyone else interested in starting a petition drive or something similar for the purpose of encouraging Dr. King's family to "Copy-left the MLK Legacy?"
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
734.332.4900
The argument I made is a little more subtle. There are two different approaches to the issue. The one I criticize involves an administrative agency serving as policeman. In other words, if you want a remedy from a merchant, then you have to ask the FTC and the FTC gets to decide whether you get any remedy (in other words, they can tell you they are too busy).
The reason I suggest calling Congress is that there is a *second* Governmet solution that works better (especially when COUPLED with technology). The *second* approach involves tha passage of a law that empowers *every single consumer* to act as his or her own "mini-FTC" and to go directly after a merchant. If the merchant doesn't satisfy the customer, then the customer has a right to go to court -- no need to ask the FTC for *permission* first.
Get it? There is a difference if you think about it. Now, please re-read the earlier post.
I, too, think there have been problems (Dennis Toeppen's registration of Panavision, for example) with the domain name system. I'm more than willing to hear your views about what, precisely, the "problem" is and how, precisely, you propose to "correct" it.
At the same time, I am skeptical about whether the new statute makes things better or worse. There is still an active marketplace in domain names (and I'm not persuaded yet that an active marketplace is a bad thing -- you need to make a more presuasive argument before you can convince me that the existence of a market is a problem), so the statute has not stopped that.
However, I CAN give you a concrete example -- "famous personal names" are not trademarks and have never traditionally had any federal trademark rights. The statute says it is okay to register a "famous personal name," even if that name is not your own, IF you are doing so to create a bona fide website. Now, let's say the celebrity comes along before the website is posted and says "thanks for being a good fan, but I'd like the name instead and I will pay you $100,000 for it." Guess what -- under the statute you cannot sell the domain name without violating the law. Then again, I would say one could make a fair argument (I'm not completely sure I will adopt it, but I like it nonetheless) that famous celebrities should ALWAYS be prohibited from owning their own names as domain names. Instead, how about a rule to promote diversity of Internet speech, that says whoever owns a celebrity domain name has an affirmative legal duty to share it with other fans, so everyone can express themselves at the website. It really depends on your politics and your worldview whether you prefer THAT hypothetical world, as opposed to a hypothetical world in which a "famous personal name" celebrity gets an automatic monopoly over all [celeb].com, [celeb].net and [celeb].org domain names on the Internet and gets to EXCLUDE everyone else from it, or charge RENT for the privilege of publishing there. If I had to choose one or the other, I suppose I would prefer an Internet where every fan has the right to publish, but the celebrities have to play by the same rules as everyone else. There's a lot of rhetoric inside the Beltway about the wisdom of keeping the hands of government off the Internet. Well, in this case, the Laisez-faire Republicans disregarded their own advice, and the result (the so-called "Cybersquatting Act")is a confusing patchwork of random ideas thrown together at the last minute. As I said before, the statute makes things worse and creates more problems than it allegedly solves. We would be better off just going back to the way the rules were before the statute was passed.
Is there any alternative to these two options? You bet there is. The alternative is to empower individuals to police their own privacy. People shouldn't have to rely on the Federal Trade Commission or any bureaucratic agency to make sure their privacy is safe. This means making sure that every man, woman, and child has an ENFORCEABLE right to make sure their personal information is not used in a way they have not authorized. It also means making sure that all individuals have swift and certain REMEDIES against any business that (by negligence or deliberately) misuses personal data or fails to protect it.
This proposal would not be bad for business. To the contrary, it s essential to the viability of the new economy. Protection for individual privacy just provides a better incentive for business to be truly responsive to customer wants and needs.
Pipe dream? Not if enough people demand the rights they should already be able to enjoy. But the deal is ALREADY being cut in Washington next month to prevent YOU from exercisng the rights you should have.
Look at the list of panelists on what the Federal Trade Commission calls a "balanced" committee to examine how to protect consumer information. See http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/01/asrev.htm -- aside from one or two "token" privacy advocates, the whole panel is dominated by comercial internests -- such as representatives of the Direct Marketing Association AND the law firm that represented it (Piper & Marbury) AND several of its member companies.
So what can you do? Call your Member of Congress and both of your Senators. If you're really ambitious, call your state government representatives, too. For each office, get the name of the staffer who handles "Internet Privacy and Medical Privacy" issues. Tell that person that you are a constitutent, that you vote, and that it is important to you for Congress to empower individuals to protect their own privacy on the Internet. Ask if your Congressperson or Senator has a position on this issue, and if so, what that position is.
Then point out how you are upset by how the FTC has composed its Advisory Panel principally of industry representatives. Tell your elected officials that you do not feel safe when government agencies puts representatives of the Wolves in charge of writing the rules for protection of the Sheep.
If you learn anything particularly interesting on the subject, post it here on /.
Other contacts (who may have good ideas on how to get involved in making sure lawmakers make good rules) are Diedre Mulligan at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Mark Rotenberg at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
I'm still waiting for jamie (/. regular) to publish something about the Superbowl of Domain Name Disputes (need to trademark that title :) !! ) -- the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball are all going after a company called FlairMail (www.FlairMail.com) that makes vanity email addresses (like HotMail addresses, but you get to have [myname]@goyankees.com or [myname]@bulls1.net, instead of advertising for a Bill Gates subsidiary) available for FREE to subscribers. All of the sports vanity names are DIFFERENT from the team names, by adding "go" or "1," and several non-sports names are also available. FlairMail has NEVER claimed to be endorsed, sponsored, or approved by the sports leagues (and it doesn't have to be -- the law does not require the approval of the sports leagues).
Some fans who buy hats and clothing or who subscribe for vanity email addresses may perfer to pay extra for the knowledge that they have the "official" product. Other customers may not prefer to pay extra. The bottom line (and there are quite a few court cases to prove it) is that THAT CHOICE BELONGS WITH THE CUSTOMERS. The sports leagues do not have the right to make that choice for them. But that doesn't stop sports licensing organizations from trying. For example, a couple of months ago, Collegiate Licensing went after a father and son in Ohio for selling "Beat Michigan" sweatshirts. Collegiate Licensing claimed it violated U of Michigan's trademarks. I live in Ann Arbor and I graduated from Michigan law school, and no matter how big a Michigan fan I am, I am still upset and embarrassed by the greed of Collegiate Licensing.
There are lots of other Goliath v. David lawsuits pending or that have been resolved by the courts. Here is a sample (less than a third of the examples I know about):
Avery-Dennison vs. Sumpton -- Vanity Email Business had to go through trial and appeal before "little guy" won on appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Appeals court told the trial court to consider awarding attorneys' fees to deter the big company from doing the same thing again.
Hasbro vs. Clue Computing -- It only cost Eric Robison, a Colorado computer consultant, $100,000 and his marriage to defend himself after toy giant Hasbro decided it wanted to take over the domain name www.clue.com . Robison ultimately "won" in the sense that the court said he could keep his domain name. But did he really "Win?"
Northern Light Technology vs. NorthernLights.com A search engine was not happy enough with its own domain name and the roughly 300+ additional domain names that NLT registered. So the search engine (which is named after a clipper ship) sued one of its neighbors (which uses the domain name NorthernLights.com -- a reference to the Aurora Borealis), in an effort to take over that domain name, too. The defendant (NorthernLights.com) was using the domain name almost an entire year before the search engine website was launched. The case is still pending in Boston federal court. The judge has suppressed the expressive activity of the little guy by ordering a black "jump page" to be posted in front of his website. (I confess I have a personal interest in this one and the "Superbowl" case.) See http://www.NorthernLights.com/new/
HealthNet.org -- this website belongs to a charitible group of international physicians. However, there is an insurance comapny in California that already owns HealthNet.com and HealthNet.net. As you can imagine, the Insurance company sent a threatening letter to the physicians' organization, who had to file a lawsuit to defend themselves in Boston.
There are many more examples, but I'm tired of typing.
And Congress isn't helping to fix things. Some members of Congress are actually trying to make things WORSE! Congress is making things worse by passing laws that encourage more of these kinds of lawsuits. Senator Abraham of Michigan (who is up for re-election this year), along with Senators McCain and Hatch (who also needed campaign $$ this year), were the original sponsors of S 1255 -- the original so-called "Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act."
The "Cybersquatting Act" did not need to be passed -- existing trademark law already provided adequate remedies in cases of REAL cybersquatting. Remember, Dennis Toeppen lost all his lawsuits, even without the passage of the law. What the law REALLY does is that it allows Hasbro to threaten Eric Robison with $100,000 in punitive damages if Robison doesn't give up and settle. The law lets Health Net the big insurance company threaten the charity HealthNet.org with $100,000 in punitive damages if the charity does not cave.
Some of the "Internet-smartest" law professors, like Johnathan Zittrain of Harvard, signed onto a letter by the Association for Computing Machinery opposing the "Cybersquatting Bill," but Congress ignored the advice of people who know something about the Internet. The Clinton Administrration was on record as opposing the bill (but remember the line-item veto was struck down as Unconstitutional).
To make a long story short, at 4:00 in the morning on the day the Omnibus Appropriations Act (essentially the budget for the Whole Government) was up for a vote, Senator Trent Lott, Congressman James Rogan, Senator Abraham, and Congressman Howard Coble slipped the so-called "Cybersquatting Bill" into the Appropriations Act. The "Cybersqatting Bill" could not have passed Congress any other way. Which leaves nonprofits, small businesses, artists, and others (like ETOY) at the mercy of big commercial enterprises (like eToys).
So what do you do about it? I have in mind what I call an "Open Source Democracy Project" to help communicate to Senator Abraham and others that decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done in the open -- subject to public scrutiny and with input from the Internet community. Decisionmaking about the Internet needs to be done with the interests of the entire community in mind and not just a few big-$$ campaign contributors.
If any /. readers are interested in helping to use Open Source methods of collaboration and cooperation in order to achieve political ends -- to communicate effectively with elected representitives, the I urge you to contact me at your earliest convenience. Specific skills that are needed are (1) factual research (fact gathering), (2) writing, (3) high-quality website design, (4) fact-checking (we need to be absolutely accurate), and (5) publicity. If the project is a community project, it will be FAR MORE EFFECTIVE than a single person's efforts ever could be.
Eric C. Grimm
Attorney at Law
CyberBrief, PLC
Ann Arbor, Michigan
eric.grimm@CyberBrief.net