First sale rule stops this. It's not copying. Once you buy something, in the United States, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it (except make a derivative work or copy it or anything else their license or copyright law prohibits).
If you have a problem with statutory damages, you need to talk to Congress. I imagine if these cases did go to trial and the defendant had a decent lawyer, they could convince the judge to exercise their discretion and award a much lower award than asked for.
You always ask for more in a lawsuit than actually think you get. That way you have room to negotiate.
Besides, the IRS is more than capable of taking most of it without your help. Mr. Burns: Smithers, why haven't I heard of this "The Leader"? He's as rich and wicked as I, but he seems to enjoy tax exempt status! Smithers: Actually, sir, with our creative book-keeping and corporate loop holes we only pay three dollars a year. Mr. Burns: You're right, we're getting screwed!
What are you talking about? "Aspostrophic" is not a word. "Apostrophic" is, but that would be the wrong part of speech for the parent's usage of the word. He spelled "apostrophe" correctly.
And these are the kinds of jackasses we ELECT to have power over us.
Most City Managers are not elected by the people. They handle the "administrative" tasks of government and are appoointed by the city council. So this particular "jackass" was not elected.
To clarify this a little bit, plugging in your vonage router and plugging a phone into it DOES NOT automatically enable 911 calling. You have to actually go enable it online (or I'm sure you could do it over the phone). All you have to do is click one button and put in your correct address.
IIRC, the package I received came with detailed instructions on how to enable 911 dialing, along with numerous disclaimers and warnings. If he didn't do that, it's not Vonage's fault. I suspect they added this extra step so as to make sure they have the correct address. Imagine if it was automatic and you had your unit shipped to work. While you lay on the floor in your living dying of a heart attack, the ambulance is 30 miles away at your office trying to find you.
That's the way it sounds to me. I researched Vonage's 911 capabilities before signing up and if you give them your correct address and have it enabled properly, it will automatically route 911 calls to the appropriate location and send your address and information along with the call. If he did get Vonage instead of 911, either the capability isn't available in his area yet, or he messed with some default settings.
"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing".
In a few of our classes at law school we have students with special needs and so the university provides a court reporter for them who transcribes the entire class. Those court reporters can barely keep up with the professor half the time and they're using machine shorthand probably pushing 200 wpm.
As a law student myself, I've tried both ways and mainly the reason I use my laptop in class is because there is no way I could keep track of all of the notes I took the night before if I had them on paper. Also, into my second year I've had a couple of classes that involved a little more lecture than socratic method and I'm able to take much better notes by typing.
I also have a difficult time deciphering anything I handwrite when I am in a moderate hurry.
It's more of an organizational benefit for me than anything else. It is also an incredible distraction. Not just the person sitting in front of me chatting with every person they ever knew in high school, but the temptation to quickly pull up Slashdot or whatever and browse a little when the professor goes off on some philosophical tangent that isn't particularly interesting.
Professors do have the option to "disable" wireless Internet access for their students during classtime, but since we figured out they do this with MAC address filtering it hasn't stopped everyone.
Pros: I can review notes I made the night before when reading; look up stuff on Westlaw; stay 500% better organized; type 120 wpm; Cons: The Internet. The incessant noise of people who treat their laptop keyboard like an old IBM Model M keyboard.
Just a note that the law does have an exception for people who immediately delete child pornography after viewing or immediately report it to law enforcement.
I read the actual text of the statute, and it is pretty well drafted to try to fit within Constitutional requirements. They basical use the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity and work from there. The standard for restrictions on obscene speech is much less than that for non-obscene speech. The text of the statute seems quite likely to be able to pass constitutional muster. The problem will come in its enforcement and law enforcement's interpretation of the statute.
Ever heard of Coca-Cola? They've been incredibly successful using trade secrets to protect their most important IP: their formulas. If they had patented it, they would have lost the exclusive rights to it already.
Trade secret protection lasts indefinitely, but cannot be exploited in the same way patent protection can.
You don't have to vote in every race in an election. Look at the poll results sometime and you'll see that there will be many more total votes for President in a particular district than for the local school board candidates.
or the dozen or so patents haven't expired yet for a community to develop and release an improved version without bugs.
Patents encourage innovation in multiple ways.
1. People develop new things to get that government-granted monopoly. 2. Other people have to find new ways to do things that the people in #1 did so they can make money too.
Lately it seems that the people in the 2nd group have decided it easier to whine and complain about the people in the first group than it is to come up with something new on their own.
To repeat what I said earlier just to clarify this, the city did not bring in more money, they actually brought in less money this year than the previous year. The home values are determined, then the city figures out what they need to tax in order to meet their costs.
The $8 million overage is actually an $8 million shortage, because if the mistake had not been made, they would have had that $8 million. Since they thought this home was more valuable than it really was, everyone elses taxes were lowered by a collective $8 million.
Read the story, they didn't add the amount to their budget, they used the figure to determine what tax rates needed to be to raise enough money to meet their budget. So the problem was that as a result of thinking they were getting all of this money, they were able to lower taxes all around and still raise the same amount of money.
In the end though, what they did was lower taxes and raise less money because the house wasn't worth what they thought it was.
The assessments come in first, then they determine what the tax rate needs to be in order to meet their needs and then collect the money.
Note from the text that this law doesn't actually change anything. It's just the Senate coming out saying "We think these reforms should be done," but doesn't compel them to actually do them.
First of all, the section dealing with patent reform actually doesn't change anything. It would just say that the Senate thinks Congress should enact legislation to make such changes.
However, I bring your attention to Sec. 321 (3) (A):
"Congress should implement comprehensive patent reforms that-- (A) establishes a first-inventor-to-file system"
While this would make the patent office's job easier (prior art is restricted to everything filed with them), it means that prior art that is not filed is no longer a defense.
First to file is not good. The research exception would be insignificant next to this change.
I'll have to take a look at some of these later (I'm sitting in Copyright law at a law school not too far from you at the moment). I'd be curious to see how easy it is to follow a course at law school through an audio feed as opposed to a regular "lecture" class. Not to mention that most professors assume you have already read and understand fairly well all of the material that will be covered in the class before you arrive.
I guess it comes down to how well the "law school" version of the Socratic method (a la Christopher Langdell) translates into a recorded audio session. Is there much value to these outside of someone who has read the material prior to entering the class?
I'm also curious as to the details of your fair use argument. There also might be an argument to be made that there is no copyright in a professor's lecture, because there is no "fixation".
Do what I did, ditch WoW for Civ IV. You save money in the long run; and you don't feel like you're always chasing to keep up with an unreachable goal.
The rule against perpetuities should probably stop this in most states. The point of it is to keep property from being tied up and being useless for long periods of time. I think it's probably a moot point until they actually manage to unthaw someone and then keep them alive for more than a second or two.
Slashdot Mirror
First sale rule stops this. It's not copying. Once you buy something, in the United States, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it (except make a derivative work or copy it or anything else their license or copyright law prohibits).
If you have a problem with statutory damages, you need to talk to Congress. I imagine if these cases did go to trial and the defendant had a decent lawyer, they could convince the judge to exercise their discretion and award a much lower award than asked for.
You always ask for more in a lawsuit than actually think you get. That way you have room to negotiate.
Around the block should be 2,112 feet (644 meters). Unless they don't make blocks like they used to.
Who drives in New York City other than cabbies?
Besides, the IRS is more than capable of taking most of it without your help.
Mr. Burns: Smithers, why haven't I heard of this "The Leader"? He's as rich and wicked as I, but he seems to enjoy tax exempt status!
Smithers: Actually, sir, with our creative book-keeping and corporate loop holes we only pay three dollars a year.
Mr. Burns: You're right, we're getting screwed!
Oh, the subject line. Who reads those?
What are you talking about? "Aspostrophic" is not a word. "Apostrophic" is, but that would be the wrong part of speech for the parent's usage of the word. He spelled "apostrophe" correctly.
And these are the kinds of jackasses we ELECT to have power over us.
Most City Managers are not elected by the people. They handle the "administrative" tasks of government and are appoointed by the city council. So this particular "jackass" was not elected.
To clarify this a little bit, plugging in your vonage router and plugging a phone into it DOES NOT automatically enable 911 calling. You have to actually go enable it online (or I'm sure you could do it over the phone). All you have to do is click one button and put in your correct address.
IIRC, the package I received came with detailed instructions on how to enable 911 dialing, along with numerous disclaimers and warnings. If he didn't do that, it's not Vonage's fault. I suspect they added this extra step so as to make sure they have the correct address. Imagine if it was automatic and you had your unit shipped to work. While you lay on the floor in your living dying of a heart attack, the ambulance is 30 miles away at your office trying to find you.
That's the way it sounds to me. I researched Vonage's 911 capabilities before signing up and if you give them your correct address and have it enabled properly, it will automatically route 911 calls to the appropriate location and send your address and information along with the call. If he did get Vonage instead of 911, either the capability isn't available in his area yet, or he messed with some default settings.
"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing".
In a few of our classes at law school we have students with special needs and so the university provides a court reporter for them who transcribes the entire class. Those court reporters can barely keep up with the professor half the time and they're using machine shorthand probably pushing 200 wpm.
As a law student myself, I've tried both ways and mainly the reason I use my laptop in class is because there is no way I could keep track of all of the notes I took the night before if I had them on paper. Also, into my second year I've had a couple of classes that involved a little more lecture than socratic method and I'm able to take much better notes by typing.
I also have a difficult time deciphering anything I handwrite when I am in a moderate hurry.
It's more of an organizational benefit for me than anything else. It is also an incredible distraction. Not just the person sitting in front of me chatting with every person they ever knew in high school, but the temptation to quickly pull up Slashdot or whatever and browse a little when the professor goes off on some philosophical tangent that isn't particularly interesting.
Professors do have the option to "disable" wireless Internet access for their students during classtime, but since we figured out they do this with MAC address filtering it hasn't stopped everyone.
Pros: I can review notes I made the night before when reading; look up stuff on Westlaw; stay 500% better organized; type 120 wpm;
Cons: The Internet. The incessant noise of people who treat their laptop keyboard like an old IBM Model M keyboard.
Just a note that the law does have an exception for people who immediately delete child pornography after viewing or immediately report it to law enforcement.
I read the actual text of the statute, and it is pretty well drafted to try to fit within Constitutional requirements. They basical use the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity and work from there. The standard for restrictions on obscene speech is much less than that for non-obscene speech. The text of the statute seems quite likely to be able to pass constitutional muster. The problem will come in its enforcement and law enforcement's interpretation of the statute.
In case it hasn't been linked elsewhere: the text of the law.
Ever heard of Coca-Cola? They've been incredibly successful using trade secrets to protect their most important IP: their formulas. If they had patented it, they would have lost the exclusive rights to it already.
Trade secret protection lasts indefinitely, but cannot be exploited in the same way patent protection can.
Is there anyway to vote for "None of the above"?
You don't have to vote in every race in an election. Look at the poll results sometime and you'll see that there will be many more total votes for President in a particular district than for the local school board candidates.
So basically you're inferring that the machines setup and run by Democrats illegally gave votes to Bush right?
Would that include those DIEBOLD machines whose company president just happened to promise to "deliver the state of Ohio to Bush in 2004"?
or the dozen or so patents haven't expired yet for a community to develop and release an improved version without bugs.
Patents encourage innovation in multiple ways.
1. People develop new things to get that government-granted monopoly.
2. Other people have to find new ways to do things that the people in #1 did so they can make money too.
Lately it seems that the people in the 2nd group have decided it easier to whine and complain about the people in the first group than it is to come up with something new on their own.
To repeat what I said earlier just to clarify this, the city did not bring in more money, they actually brought in less money this year than the previous year. The home values are determined, then the city figures out what they need to tax in order to meet their costs.
The $8 million overage is actually an $8 million shortage, because if the mistake had not been made, they would have had that $8 million. Since they thought this home was more valuable than it really was, everyone elses taxes were lowered by a collective $8 million.
There was no "windfall".
Read the story, they didn't add the amount to their budget, they used the figure to determine what tax rates needed to be to raise enough money to meet their budget. So the problem was that as a result of thinking they were getting all of this money, they were able to lower taxes all around and still raise the same amount of money.
In the end though, what they did was lower taxes and raise less money because the house wasn't worth what they thought it was.
The assessments come in first, then they determine what the tax rate needs to be in order to meet their needs and then collect the money.
Note from the text that this law doesn't actually change anything. It's just the Senate coming out saying "We think these reforms should be done," but doesn't compel them to actually do them.
First of all, the section dealing with patent reform actually doesn't change anything. It would just say that the Senate thinks Congress should enact legislation to make such changes.
However, I bring your attention to Sec. 321 (3) (A):
"Congress should implement comprehensive patent reforms that--
(A) establishes a first-inventor-to-file system"
While this would make the patent office's job easier (prior art is restricted to everything filed with them), it means that prior art that is not filed is no longer a defense.
First to file is not good. The research exception would be insignificant next to this change.
I'll have to take a look at some of these later (I'm sitting in Copyright law at a law school not too far from you at the moment). I'd be curious to see how easy it is to follow a course at law school through an audio feed as opposed to a regular "lecture" class. Not to mention that most professors assume you have already read and understand fairly well all of the material that will be covered in the class before you arrive.
I guess it comes down to how well the "law school" version of the Socratic method (a la Christopher Langdell) translates into a recorded audio session. Is there much value to these outside of someone who has read the material prior to entering the class?
I'm also curious as to the details of your fair use argument. There also might be an argument to be made that there is no copyright in a professor's lecture, because there is no "fixation".
Do what I did, ditch WoW for Civ IV. You save money in the long run; and you don't feel like you're always chasing to keep up with an unreachable goal.
The rule against perpetuities should probably stop this in most states. The point of it is to keep property from being tied up and being useless for long periods of time. I think it's probably a moot point until they actually manage to unthaw someone and then keep them alive for more than a second or two.