When my SO got a bit stupid and left her jacket containing her wallet and keys unattended for several hours in a bar, resulting in theft of said jacket with keys and ID (letting thief know exactly where the keys would work) it would have been nice if all the locks on the house and car changed automatically and the credit cards automatically changed their account numbers making them unusable by the thief but not interupting our own use.
But we live in this universe, with these laws of physics.
Yes, a computer can make some of these things more automagic, but I'd like to see how the average Joe reacts to having his network "fail" every month or so until he resets his password.
Ultimatly we are, and shall remain, responsible for taking care of ourselves.
You could put it that way, yes. The issue is inertia. The function of the suspesion system is to move as freely as possible so that the wheels follow the uneven contours of the road leaving the chassis stable and keeping the tires in full contact with the surface for optimum traction.
As the weight of the wheel goes up so does its inertia. It starts to resist movement more and more. This is a Bad Thing. When you hit the right bump at the right speed the wheel hops off the ground rather than moving the suspension up with the irregularity, upsetting the entire car and losing traction at that corner. The sprung to unsprung mass ratio becomes important because with heavy wheels and a light chassis the mass of the wheel reacts more strongly on the mass of the chassis. The suspension can't move with the bump but the chassis does. A loaded bus chassis is much more massive compared to the wheels than a loaded car is.
The people in the car experience this as ride harshness.
Active suspension systems are ones that use sensors and mechanical actuators to move the suspension ( as opposed to springs). They can "anticipate" the movement needed and partially compensate for the added mass, but only partially.
I can'na change the laws of physics.
A heavier wheel rim also takes more energy to accelerate, more so than the same mass on the chassis does, and increases gyroscopic effects.
This is why the solid spoked wheel gave way to the tensioned wire spoked wheel, than the pressed steel wheel and ultimately the "mag" ( which is really only a mag if it's actually made of magnesium. The aluminum wheels you get in the dress up stores are actually often heavier than the cheaper steel wheels they are purchased to replace). The lighter the wheel the higher the ultimate performance of the vehicle in every catagory (this is why bicyclists are absolutely rabid about wheel weight).
Is this system feasable for a car? Oh, absolutely. But you have to be careful to at least keep the motors as low weight and compact as possible. The GM Sunracer managed to contain them within something that looked very much like a standard bicycle hub, although rather heavier. Copper and magnets aren't light.
The electric motor in the wheel hub was also the basis of the GM Sunracer that won the solar car race across Australia, although that one obviously wasn't a diesel hybrid.
I've been promoting this system quietly for the past 30 years and built a few prototypes. The only real hold up has been the computing power to make it work up to its true potential.
The primary downside is the increase in unsprung weight. That much mass in the wheels is an issue for vehicles smaller than a bus. This can be partially offset by the fact that the same computing power used to replace the driveline and provide traction control (not to mention regenerative braking which becomes part of the ABS) can also handle active suspension systems.
The photographs which national geographic publishes are usually of outstanding quality and some of their photographers go to the ends of the world (literally and metaphorically) to get the results they want.
Indeed. I've crawled on my belly through a tropical rainforest to get a shot. Crawling through a Coral Snake infested priest hole at the ruins of Monte Alban was worse though. I was younger and stupider at the time.
My mother is not so young and far more traveled than myself. She has photographed on all seven continents and had some close scrapes. For instance, she was at Chernobyl doing a piece for the Russian tourism dept. when the bloody thing went screwy.
We use her for a nightlight now.
Can't say I like the idea of mechanical royalties. It would mean that a top notch photo that risked a life to obtain would be worth no more than the snapshot some kid took for the school paper.
I prefer shorter copyright terms. I've got 20 or 30 years to make my money on a shot, then it's open season.
Sorry, I play games to have fun and maybe let off a little steam. I just don't see the point of playing a game that makes me do the sort of mindless and repetitive chores I have to do in real life all day.
Ah, well, to answer that would take a thousand pages or so and the citation of hundreds of cases.
All to arrive at the conclusion, "Maybe, but quite possibly not."
The Picasso heirs alone have generated a mountain of case on this issue in just about every jurisdiction imaginable. They're quite rapacious about making a living off their famous, dead ancestor.
Key factors are that this is a private dwelling, not a public space, the photographs are being taken for commercial gain, the art is an original and not itself a copy and a general assumption that the room is specifically being photographed to display it with its furnishings.
"Yes, this is the room with the Picasso."
In some sense they are taking a photograph of my photograph. If they aren't, since this is a formal shoot, as opposed to informal incidental shoot, they could simply take it down if they didn't wish it specifically to be there.
If you were simply taking a photo to send to your folks to show them your living room, then yes, the Berne Convention exclusion for incidental reproduction would certainly apply.
In the end it really all comes down to the opinion of a judge reviewing a specific case.
I do not, typically, sell photographs for publication. I sell signed and numbered hand produced original prints. Each one is thus a unique orginal work of art. They cannot be copied in the sense that a digital photo can be copied. Anyone who seeks to copy them and does not do so at noticebly degraded quality with lettering across the face labeling them as a copy actually runs the risk of being guilty of art forgery, which is criminal fraud.
I'm also a working musician (yes, I do a lot of different things). I sell live performances. These cannot be copied. I've been known to distribute recordings, sometimes for money, but I mainly consider them as promotional items for my live performances.
If people can copy what you sell, sell 'em what they can't copy. It really doesn't take a super genius to figure that out.
What that says about Jack Valenti and Cary Sherman I leave up to you.
Since my own livelyhood, and that of my family, depends in part on these very issues, I'm hardly unaware of them.
However, I don't choose to warp my point of view on the logical and legal issues involved based simply on how they might effect my livelyhood.
Copyright is the right to copy. You have that right or you don't. The ease with which you might make these copies is completely irrelevant to the issue of ownership and rights.
If I write a haiku for publication in my local arts paper the fact that anyone with a piece of paper and ballpoint pen can violate my copyright in a matter of seconds does not in any way effect the rights to copy I have assigned to the paper.
Who have every right, and should, print their copies as fast and easily as technology will allow them.
Similarly if I sell that same haiku for publication to Salon.com for publication in their net magazine the fact that anyone else can cut and paste it does not effect the rights of Salon.com. Anyone who does violates my copyright, but they are the infringer, not Salon.com.
Photography is inherently a copy medium. It is never any more difficult to make a copy of a photograph than it was to make the original in the first place. Usually less so. It goes with the territory. Such issues are inherent in choosing the field as a way to generate personal profit.
There's always plumbing. If you can't make a living selling something that can be copied make a living selling something that can't. Nothing, not even copyright law, grants you the inherent right to make a living at a particular pursuit.
What, you think they should call the plumber or something?
I'm the general technology and science guy in my family. My formal education is in physics, so I get all the questions about black holes and stuff. I'm the computer guy, so I get to maintain everyone's computers and answer all related questions. I've worked as an automotive engineer, mananged a dealership and owned an R/C racetrack, so I get all the car questions.
Guess what, I'm not surprised by any of this in the least. I would hardly expect them to ask, say, my 16 year old neice whose knowledge is largely limited to nail polish and Justin Timberlake.
If you're really that uptight about being valuable to your own family they just might think all that much about you either.
Solve the issue by removing yourself from the situation.
That's a good question, and it depends on the customer. In my case, since I primarily do art photography, I usually sell the photograph as a physical object but not a license.
That means that if an architecural magazine takes a picture of a living room with one of my photos hanging in it they have to arrange a license with me to publish their own photograph.
Interesting, no?
But the principle of first sale applies to the physical photograph. The person I sold it to owns it. I don't have any control as the artist over what the owner does with it. They can use magic markers to draw mustaches and beards on all the women, cut it up and back together again rearranged. . . or resell it to someone else, all without asking me or giving me any more money.
So long as they don't make an illegal copy of it, having purchased no license to do so.
In the case of my mother ( or in those odd cases where I sell directly for publication) it is really only a license to publish that is being sold (although obviously some copy must change hands to make this possible).
Obviously this involves a license contract, but terms of that contract may be limited by law, copyright being an form of artificial property entirely dependant on such law.
Magazines and newspapers, because of their inherent nature as somewhat emphemeral collections of the works of dozens, or even hundreds, of contributors, works to somewhat different commercial standards than other print media, such as books by a single ( or a few ) contributors.
The key factor is that it is the magazine that owns the copyright to the finished publicly distributed work. The collection. Everyone knows the rules to the game here. No one objects. It works. It's profitable. For everybody. You sell a photo or an article to the New York Times, you get your check. If they reprint the story you don't get more money.
If they print a new story and wish to use your photograph to illustrate it they need to pay you again because that is a new overall work for which they must establish their own new copyright.
The photographers in this case were trying to argue that publication to the CD established the need for a new publishers copyright. Frankly, they just wanted more money for work they were already legitimately payed for.
The argument, as the court confirms, is flawed. The publisher has already established the right to copy the original article. It doesn't matter if they Xerox it, photo engrave it, carve it to a rock or trace it in crayon. The inclusion of an index (or searchability) doesn't imply the orginal work has been altered and neither does the mere media of publication.
So long as it remains an obvious copy of the orginal work they have the right to make that copy, and sell it.
Just as in the old days (when you had to actually register to be granted a copyright) you didn't have to file seperate copyright applications for a sound recording that was released on tape and vinyl. One copyright on the work covered all the various media.
Copyright covers the work as a logical construct, not the physical means of transmiting that work.
You want to know what really scares the piss out of professional print photographers though?
I'm a third generation photographer. I do mostly art photography in B&W, but my mother is a travel photographer who specializes in just the sort of cutural/anthroplogical images that are likely to appear in NG (although that's one place she hasn't actually been published).
I think this a good ruling. New technologies don't inherently create new copywrite issues at law. A CD republication is just a republication and the current trend to get all weird about it being a digital republication is a bit daft.
We like taking pictures. We sell them. We're perfectly willing to make more money by selling new photographs. The right to publish and republish is the thing the magazine publishers gives us money for. It's a fair deal.
And the added profits obtainable by republication makes the purchase of such photographs more of a viable commercial venture for the publisher in the first place.
On the whole I think a client base with loose purse strings is preferable to one who resents opening it up.
Not to mention the fact that it makes a better deal for the consumer as well, which can only help everyone in the long run.
I actually researched the idea of building my own house. In Southern California, where virtually all of the buildable land is already developed on, the whole process is fraught with peril and pitfalls.
In that sort of enviroment, then yes, you may be constrained to purchasing and mortgaging if you wish to remain in that area.
I would not, however, recommend Oklahoma to anybody, even those already living there and thinking they're happy about it.
If you do as "everyone" else does you will achieve the same results. If you wish to do better you'll have to do something different.
There are alternatives. You may choose to eschew those alternatives for whatever reasons of your own, but this does not negate the fact that they exist.
Plumbers, electricians and lawyers have you by the balls just about anywhere. This amounts to about 10% of the cost of the house. Which you'd need to have for a downpayment anyway.
I live in the northeast. I know lots of people who did it the build it yourself way. I'm related to some of them.
It can be done. It does save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of a mortagage.
(Yeah, more debt there but what can one do about that?).
Save longer. Build it yourself as you can afford it. It can be done. It isn't the current traditional model but it can certainly be done. Most or our ancestors did and many do today.
Pick up a copy of Rex Roberts' "Your Engineered House." Memorize it. You won't regret it.
Like when the sun goes all red giant on us? How about a supernova or getting nailed by a decent sized black hole? What about gravitional collapse of the universe into a primeval atom?
Man knows some pretty awesome and irresistable forces, chief among them, in terms of data persistence, is Rose Mary Woods.
Slashdot Mirror
When my SO got a bit stupid and left her jacket containing her wallet and keys unattended for several hours in a bar, resulting in theft of said jacket with keys and ID (letting thief know exactly where the keys would work) it would have been nice if all the locks on the house and car changed automatically and the credit cards automatically changed their account numbers making them unusable by the thief but not interupting our own use.
But we live in this universe, with these laws of physics.
Yes, a computer can make some of these things more automagic, but I'd like to see how the average Joe reacts to having his network "fail" every month or so until he resets his password.
Ultimatly we are, and shall remain, responsible for taking care of ourselves.
KFG
You could put it that way, yes. The issue is inertia. The function of the suspesion system is to move as freely as possible so that the wheels follow the uneven contours of the road leaving the chassis stable and keeping the tires in full contact with the surface for optimum traction.
As the weight of the wheel goes up so does its inertia. It starts to resist movement more and more. This is a Bad Thing. When you hit the right bump at the right speed the wheel hops off the ground rather than moving the suspension up with the irregularity, upsetting the entire car and losing traction at that corner. The sprung to unsprung mass ratio becomes important because with heavy wheels and a light chassis the mass of the wheel reacts more strongly on the mass of the chassis. The suspension can't move with the bump but the chassis does. A loaded bus chassis is much more massive compared to the wheels than a loaded car is.
The people in the car experience this as ride harshness.
Active suspension systems are ones that use sensors and mechanical actuators to move the suspension ( as opposed to springs). They can "anticipate" the movement needed and partially compensate for the added mass, but only partially.
I can'na change the laws of physics.
A heavier wheel rim also takes more energy to accelerate, more so than the same mass on the chassis does, and increases gyroscopic effects.
This is why the solid spoked wheel gave way to the tensioned wire spoked wheel, than the pressed steel wheel and ultimately the "mag" ( which is really only a mag if it's actually made of magnesium. The aluminum wheels you get in the dress up stores are actually often heavier than the cheaper steel wheels they are purchased to replace). The lighter the wheel the higher the ultimate performance of the vehicle in every catagory (this is why bicyclists are absolutely rabid about wheel weight).
Is this system feasable for a car? Oh, absolutely. But you have to be careful to at least keep the motors as low weight and compact as possible. The GM Sunracer managed to contain them within something that looked very much like a standard bicycle hub, although rather heavier. Copper and magnets aren't light.
KFG
. . . I hope they all get filthy rich from it :).
As do I. As I said, I'm in favor of this system.
KFG
The electric motor in the wheel hub was also the basis of the GM Sunracer that won the solar car race across Australia, although that one obviously wasn't a diesel hybrid.
I've been promoting this system quietly for the past 30 years and built a few prototypes. The only real hold up has been the computing power to make it work up to its true potential.
The primary downside is the increase in unsprung weight. That much mass in the wheels is an issue for vehicles smaller than a bus. This can be partially offset by the fact that the same computing power used to replace the driveline and provide traction control (not to mention regenerative braking which becomes part of the ABS) can also handle active suspension systems.
KFG
The photographs which national geographic publishes are usually of outstanding quality and some of their photographers go to the ends of the world (literally and metaphorically) to get the results they want.
Indeed. I've crawled on my belly through a tropical rainforest to get a shot. Crawling through a Coral Snake infested priest hole at the ruins of Monte Alban was worse though. I was younger and stupider at the time.
My mother is not so young and far more traveled than myself. She has photographed on all seven continents and had some close scrapes. For instance, she was at Chernobyl doing a piece for the Russian tourism dept. when the bloody thing went screwy.
We use her for a nightlight now.
Can't say I like the idea of mechanical royalties. It would mean that a top notch photo that risked a life to obtain would be worth no more than the snapshot some kid took for the school paper.
I prefer shorter copyright terms. I've got 20 or 30 years to make my money on a shot, then it's open season.
KFG
Sorry, I play games to have fun and maybe let off a little steam. I just don't see the point of playing a game that makes me do the sort of mindless and repetitive chores I have to do in real life all day.
KFG
conduct interviews and generate original copy. These people are called reporters.
The people who take this copy off the wire and paraphrase it for publication in the local paper are called copy writers.
This software will reduce the number of copy writers needed, not reporters.
This is certainly an issue to the copy writers and their families, but overall it's really just a blue collar worker being replaced by a robot issue.
The idea of a 'style dial' I find a bit more disturbing.
KFG
I can see the future of hot rodding now:
"Yeah, I've made some really neat modifications to my Corvette. You should see how fast it compiles a kernel."
KFG
Ah, well, to answer that would take a thousand pages or so and the citation of hundreds of cases.
All to arrive at the conclusion, "Maybe, but quite possibly not."
The Picasso heirs alone have generated a mountain of case on this issue in just about every jurisdiction imaginable. They're quite rapacious about making a living off their famous, dead ancestor.
Key factors are that this is a private dwelling, not a public space, the photographs are being taken for commercial gain, the art is an original and not itself a copy and a general assumption that the room is specifically being photographed to display it with its furnishings.
"Yes, this is the room with the Picasso."
In some sense they are taking a photograph of my photograph. If they aren't, since this is a formal shoot, as opposed to informal incidental shoot, they could simply take it down if they didn't wish it specifically to be there.
If you were simply taking a photo to send to your folks to show them your living room, then yes, the Berne Convention exclusion for incidental reproduction would certainly apply.
In the end it really all comes down to the opinion of a judge reviewing a specific case.
KFG
I do not, typically, sell photographs for publication. I sell signed and numbered hand produced original prints. Each one is thus a unique orginal work of art. They cannot be copied in the sense that a digital photo can be copied. Anyone who seeks to copy them and does not do so at noticebly degraded quality with lettering across the face labeling them as a copy actually runs the risk of being guilty of art forgery, which is criminal fraud.
I'm also a working musician (yes, I do a lot of different things). I sell live performances. These cannot be copied. I've been known to distribute recordings, sometimes for money, but I mainly consider them as promotional items for my live performances.
If people can copy what you sell, sell 'em what they can't copy. It really doesn't take a super genius to figure that out.
What that says about Jack Valenti and Cary Sherman I leave up to you.
KFG
Since my own livelyhood, and that of my family, depends in part on these very issues, I'm hardly unaware of them.
However, I don't choose to warp my point of view on the logical and legal issues involved based simply on how they might effect my livelyhood.
Copyright is the right to copy. You have that right or you don't. The ease with which you might make these copies is completely irrelevant to the issue of ownership and rights.
If I write a haiku for publication in my local arts paper the fact that anyone with a piece of paper and ballpoint pen can violate my copyright in a matter of seconds does not in any way effect the rights to copy I have assigned to the paper.
Who have every right, and should, print their copies as fast and easily as technology will allow them.
Similarly if I sell that same haiku for publication to Salon.com for publication in their net magazine the fact that anyone else can cut and paste it does not effect the rights of Salon.com. Anyone who does violates my copyright, but they are the infringer, not Salon.com.
Photography is inherently a copy medium. It is never any more difficult to make a copy of a photograph than it was to make the original in the first place. Usually less so. It goes with the territory. Such issues are inherent in choosing the field as a way to generate personal profit.
There's always plumbing. If you can't make a living selling something that can be copied make a living selling something that can't. Nothing, not even copyright law, grants you the inherent right to make a living at a particular pursuit.
KFG
What, you think they should call the plumber or something?
I'm the general technology and science guy in my family. My formal education is in physics, so I get all the questions about black holes and stuff. I'm the computer guy, so I get to maintain everyone's computers and answer all related questions. I've worked as an automotive engineer, mananged a dealership and owned an R/C racetrack, so I get all the car questions.
Guess what, I'm not surprised by any of this in the least. I would hardly expect them to ask, say, my 16 year old neice whose knowledge is largely limited to nail polish and Justin Timberlake.
If you're really that uptight about being valuable to your own family they just might think all that much about you either.
Solve the issue by removing yourself from the situation.
KFG
That's a good question, and it depends on the customer. In my case, since I primarily do art photography, I usually sell the photograph as a physical object but not a license.
That means that if an architecural magazine takes a picture of a living room with one of my photos hanging in it they have to arrange a license with me to publish their own photograph.
Interesting, no?
But the principle of first sale applies to the physical photograph. The person I sold it to owns it. I don't have any control as the artist over what the owner does with it. They can use magic markers to draw mustaches and beards on all the women, cut it up and back together again rearranged. . . or resell it to someone else, all without asking me or giving me any more money.
So long as they don't make an illegal copy of it, having purchased no license to do so.
In the case of my mother ( or in those odd cases where I sell directly for publication) it is really only a license to publish that is being sold (although obviously some copy must change hands to make this possible).
Obviously this involves a license contract, but terms of that contract may be limited by law, copyright being an form of artificial property entirely dependant on such law.
KFG
Magazines and newspapers, because of their inherent nature as somewhat emphemeral collections of the works of dozens, or even hundreds, of contributors, works to somewhat different commercial standards than other print media, such as books by a single ( or a few ) contributors.
.
The key factor is that it is the magazine that owns the copyright to the finished publicly distributed work. The collection. Everyone knows the rules to the game here. No one objects. It works. It's profitable. For everybody. You sell a photo or an article to the New York Times, you get your check. If they reprint the story you don't get more money.
If they print a new story and wish to use your photograph to illustrate it they need to pay you again because that is a new overall work for which they must establish their own new copyright.
The photographers in this case were trying to argue that publication to the CD established the need for a new publishers copyright. Frankly, they just wanted more money for work they were already legitimately payed for.
The argument, as the court confirms, is flawed. The publisher has already established the right to copy the original article. It doesn't matter if they Xerox it, photo engrave it, carve it to a rock or trace it in crayon. The inclusion of an index (or searchability) doesn't imply the orginal work has been altered and neither does the mere media of publication.
So long as it remains an obvious copy of the orginal work they have the right to make that copy, and sell it.
Just as in the old days (when you had to actually register to be granted a copyright) you didn't have to file seperate copyright applications for a sound recording that was released on tape and vinyl. One copyright on the work covered all the various media.
Copyright covers the work as a logical construct, not the physical means of transmiting that work.
You want to know what really scares the piss out of professional print photographers though?
Right click-Save Image as. .
KFG
I'm a third generation photographer. I do mostly art photography in B&W, but my mother is a travel photographer who specializes in just the sort of cutural/anthroplogical images that are likely to appear in NG (although that's one place she hasn't actually been published).
I think this a good ruling. New technologies don't inherently create new copywrite issues at law. A CD republication is just a republication and the current trend to get all weird about it being a digital republication is a bit daft.
We like taking pictures. We sell them. We're perfectly willing to make more money by selling new photographs. The right to publish and republish is the thing the magazine publishers gives us money for. It's a fair deal.
And the added profits obtainable by republication makes the purchase of such photographs more of a viable commercial venture for the publisher in the first place.
On the whole I think a client base with loose purse strings is preferable to one who resents opening it up.
Not to mention the fact that it makes a better deal for the consumer as well, which can only help everyone in the long run.
KFG
Well I don't understand why a software vendor might think it reasonable to charge to correct inherent design flaws in their product.
We're not talking upgrades here, more like a recall.
There are aspects of the software industry that would be considered just plain daft, or even criminal, in any other.
KFG
I actually researched the idea of building my own house. In Southern California, where virtually all of the buildable land is already developed on, the whole process is fraught with peril and pitfalls.
In that sort of enviroment, then yes, you may be constrained to purchasing and mortgaging if you wish to remain in that area.
I would not, however, recommend Oklahoma to anybody, even those already living there and thinking they're happy about it.
KFG
If you do as "everyone" else does you will achieve the same results. If you wish to do better you'll have to do something different.
There are alternatives. You may choose to eschew those alternatives for whatever reasons of your own, but this does not negate the fact that they exist.
KFG
Plumbers, electricians and lawyers have you by the balls just about anywhere. This amounts to about 10% of the cost of the house. Which you'd need to have for a downpayment anyway.
I live in the northeast. I know lots of people who did it the build it yourself way. I'm related to some of them.
It can be done. It does save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of a mortagage.
Buy the book.
KFG
". . . and having writ, confiscated."
KFG
(Yeah, more debt there but what can one do about that?).
Save longer. Build it yourself as you can afford it. It can be done. It isn't the current traditional model but it can certainly be done. Most or our ancestors did and many do today.
Pick up a copy of Rex Roberts' "Your Engineered House." Memorize it. You won't regret it.
KFG
http://www.smpstech.com/tutorial/t01int.htm#SMPSDE F
Please note the inclusion of transformers as a componant of ac/dc switch mode power supplies.
KFG
"The solution to this is called lawyers."
In the same sense that the solution to a stubbed toe is amputating the foot. . . at the neck.
KFG
How about biological infection?
I thought I covered that with Rose Mary Woods.
KFG
Like when the sun goes all red giant on us? How about a supernova or getting nailed by a decent sized black hole? What about gravitional collapse of the universe into a primeval atom?
Man knows some pretty awesome and irresistable forces, chief among them, in terms of data persistence, is Rose Mary Woods.
KFG