We have a law to deal with this kind of organized criminal activity, it's called RICO. I fail to see any legal reason that the federal government can not apply RICO laws to spam. It's an organized illegal activity, and the people who pay spammers to send it are just as guilty and in my view just and culpable as the spammer who sends it.
RICO is not intended to be used this way. It was created to allow vertical destruction of a criminal organization, where the people at top insulated themselves from the crimes committed by the rank-and-file. This isn't quite the same. It's also rather hard to compare spammers to the Mafia- Alan Ralsky and Ronnie Scelson are shitbags, but until we find the RBL creators dismembered in the trunk of a Cadillac, spammers are still just petty crooks.
Just draft a basis antispam law at the federal level -- make Ashcroft earn his money enforcing it. Tip...Tell him most spam is pronographic in nature, he spent most of his career in Missouri hassling libraries and adult film/book stores.
We have this troubling little thing called "The Constitution", which makes it difficult to pass a sweeping federal law like that. Ashcroft is currently busy trying to destroy the Constitution, but I see no reason to assist him.
Get it through your head - the government can not help you here. Besides, do you really want our Congress micromanaging the way the Internet or technology in general is uses? That sort of mentality is what led to obscenities like the DMCA and the library filtering act. I'd rather keep bombing the spammers with catalogs.
I would say that you really don't know what you're talking about if you are using the US as an example of the separation of church and state. Really.
Them's big words coming from someone who lives in Finland. I'm a US citizen, I'm an atheist, and I've been studying these issues for years - including reading dozens of books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject. I think I know what I'm talking about. Snotty Europeans (and quite a few Americans) seem to forget that our establishment clause does not prohibit religious people from serving in government, or prevent religion from informing their political beliefs. Our Constitution does not try to banish religion from all sectors of public life, only to minimize its interference with government and vice-versa. George Bush is not prohibited from holding White House prayer meetings, and I'm not prohibited from torching a Bible. Everyone wins.
Most of us, in fact, are perfectly comfortable with religion, as long as we're not told what to think. It's imperfect, but it usually does a good job of protecting everyone's religious rights - better than quite a few European nations that have a very vague understanding of the concept of "pluralism".
Not that I won't be subjected to another 3 months (more, really, considering RotK is coming in Dec) of my girlfriend saying, "Isn't he dreamy?...I love Legolas!...He's so handsome, won't you learn Elvish, honey?"
I feel your pain.
When I went to see TTT on the first midnight showing, most of the people in the audience were in their twenties. One of the previews was for "Pirates of the Carribean", and when Orlando Bloom's name came up there were distinct shrieks. When Legolas jumped onto the moving horse, I swear I could feel the estrogen surge. I thought girls were going to start flinging panties at the screen. One woman posted online that when she saw this scene for the first time, "I think I got pregnant."
On the bright side, if you're not entirely joking, it's now officially studly to have learned Elvish, although the thought of bespectacled Tolkein geeks trying to pick up girls by quoting Legolas is more than a little disturbing.
Most brands of Christianity that survive today have learned to cope with modernity in all its varied forms. I do not particularly care for the Christian Right, but they are generally reconciled to a technologically advanced, pluralistic society. Their odd hangups about gay people and school prayer are actually exceptions to this rule. The only groups that explicitly reject modern life are small sects like the Amish and (to a lesser degree) the Jehovah's Witnesses, neither of which can be considered a viable political or social force in any country. (The Amish don't even proslytize - they just keep to themselves, and can't be compared to radical Islamists.)
The more virulent brands of Islam, however, most certainly do prefer a less sophisticated society. The Taliban seriously did drive Afghanistan further into the Stone Age than the Russians managed to. Banning television, eliminating women's education, blowing up its cultural heritage - it's not cultural chauvinism to call this "uncivilized". Turkey has shown (imperfectly) that it's possible to form a large Western democracy from a Muslim population, but they did this by explicitly rejecting Islamic influences on government.
This is the key point: no thriving, modern democracy that I can think of has been able to advance as long as its government is tied to religious leaders. The only first-world nation whose identity is bound to a particular sect is Israel, and I'd argue that Israel is a little more complicated (they don't evangelize either, for one). I realize it's fashionable to compare Bush and the Religious Right to the Nazis or the Catholic Inquisition, but the influence of religious leaders on US government is many orders of magnitude less than in, say, Saudi Arabia. Unless you equate abortions with civilization, it's hard to see what your complaint is.
(A side point: what this means is probably that we will never see another country that joins a thriving, evangelical religion with a modern, pluralistic, technically advanced society. The only way to have both is to completely separate them as in the US (most of the time), which then limits the extent to which religion can influcence the development of the nation and culture. The only sect I can think of that might prove this wrong is the Mormons.)
Oh, I agree entirely. Plenty of great ideas start out on paper. My point is that what really makes a difference is motive. Unfortunately, this is a spectacularly poor way for the PTO to discriminate among inventors - I'd prefer not to have the government become arbiter of the moral worth of an invention.
If I come up with the idea for some nifty new device, and can decribe it in sufficient detail to get a patent (assuming a non-rectocranially inverted patent office) then there is nothing wrong with me deciding whether to build it myself or license the idea to someone else to develop.
Aha, but these people are specifically coming up with an idea that they are certain will soon be duplicated by a company with deep pockets. They're not trying to license "their idea", they just want to use the patent to fuck with companies trying to implement *their own* idea. Legally, there's very little distinction. Morally, there's a huge difference.
For example, let's say I came up with an idea to make electric trains stay firmly on the track. Why should I have to start a toy company and compete with Tyco when I could just sell or license the patent to them? They have the infrastructure and the market already, and can put the idea to good use at reasonable expense. It's a win-win-win situation for both of inventor, licensor and the market.
Let's say Tyco has been working on advancing toy train technology for years, and you have been reading up on them and thinking up good patents. You patent your track-adhesion system, and then take it to Tyco, who has probably thought of it already. They now have to shell out money to you in order to go ahead with their plans. This money gets passed along to the consumer. Tyco loses, market loses, "inventor" spends the next decade banging movie starlets.
How do you think the republican party gets votes? They appeal to fuckwads.
As opposed to the Democratic Party, which spends more time pandering to left-wing nuts like Al Sharpton and Kate Michelman than actually doing something to prevent the frutier aspects GOP agenda from being made law? Get a grip on reality: no major political party gets ahead by standing on principle. If the Democrats had any backbone whatsoever, they'd have ditched the loathesome Terry McAuliffe a while ago. That their agenda is (to you and me, at least) usually more sensible than the Republicans' does not diminish the fact that they're a pathetic bunch of career politicians more concerned with their jobs than with the future of America.
The way patents are meant to help the common man (Horatio Alger version): lone genius working out of an attic in Pittsburgh invents new UltraWidget. He gets a patent for it, then takes it around to the major widget manufacturers and offers to sell them his invention. WidgetWorks, Inc. realizes that this is the next stage in the evolution of the widget, and lone genius retires to Key West.
The way patents are abused: lone sleazo lawyer in Menlo Park looks through industry rags for future trends in widgets. He patents rough concepts for UltraWidgets, TurboWidgets, Widget64, and WidgetXP. WidgetWorks, Inc., which is busy actually fucking innovating and employs engineers rather than lawyers, is working on their own next-generation widget. As soon as it appears that WidgetWorks is going to corner the market, lawyer shoves his patents up their ass. WidgetWorks pays up, lawyer now has hot tub full of Benjamins.
This is not the way patents are supposed to work. Patents are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and protect inventions. Technology will advance without these fuckwads filing preemptive patents, and the effect of their activities is actually to slow innovation down. Companies have to waste precious resources covering their ass lest some IP law firm take them from behind. Hell, the lawyers in the article even admit that they're using patents explicitly as a competitive tool, rather than to protect their own investment and hard work.
Blame for this pathetic state of affairs can partly be laid at the feet of IBM, since they pretty much pioneered the use of patents to pre-emptively squash a competitor.
I think the fact that no GPL violation case has ever made it into a courtroom speaks volumes!
Eben Moglen claims to have successfully enforced it many times over the past decade. The fact that the GPL depends on the existence of copyright means that virtually no company would be willing to go to court to fight it. It's just not considered a good business decision to make a case against intellectual property law. Microsoft can rant against the GPL all it wants, but its statements agaisnt the GPL actually *depend* on it being enforceable - can you seriously imagine Microsoft legally challenging a software license?
What this really means is that companies which have violated the GPL in the past probably did so casually and without considering the license at all - the fact that the code is freely available online probably leads to a lot of sloppiness. When confronted, they probably folded pretty quickly in the face of obvious violations.
I'd like to see some kind of penalty for filing frivolous/nuisance/totally-without-merit suits
What you refer to is called "barratry", and it is in fact a crime in many areas, though I'm not sure where. Tort reform encompasses this and a variety of other problems. At the very least someone found to have engaged in this sort of behavior might be forced to pay his/her opponents' legal fees. New York does have an anti-SLAPP law, which could easily be used against Novak, but it probably won't be useful for much now that he's filing bankruptcy (but a judgement could at least limit the damage from future actions on his part).
This still isn't as stupid as the lawyers' fees in the tobacco settlement.
Yeah, it's been a miserable weekend hacking away at web pages and watching the last of my creativity shrivel up as I'm forced to apply myself to yet another bullshit project in order to pay the rent, but news like this still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Thanks, Slashdot. You've just replaced Jack Daniels and Xanax.
Very funny, but all of the Slashbots who talk about "sharing" music or software with their anonymous "friends" on the Internet are just as guilty of doublespeak.
Regardless, SCO has to actually prove some violation before they can get royalties from any company with a legal department. The quote is actually sort of funny if you think about it: it's not about wrath, it's about greed. Wrong deadly sin, guys. I think she would have sounded a little better if she'd said it was about "protecting intellectual property rights".
To me the disappointing result was the Napster result. I would have thought that things like the Betamax case would have provided a good base to win this one. I do not at all agree with the idea that a particular technology should be blamed for the way it is used.
No, Napster deserved exactly what it got. The defense that it's not necessarily a copyright infringement tool didn't hold much water because the company execs were so obviously interested in it for exactly this purpose. Music piracy was what was driving the tremendous growth in the user base, and they never had any intention of using it as an alternate distribution method for legal music. This is very well documented, and it's disturbing to see people continue to try to defend the company.
This was always much different from the DeCSS case, where developers were being sued for the tool itself, not just the use, or from the Betamax case. In the latter, the product hadn't truly caught on yet at the time of the lawsuit, and it was a preemptive strike at a threatening technology (which the movie studios eventually adopted and made a great deal of money from). Napster had already proven its utility for piracy and very little else. (Additionally, Sony won because much of what the MPAA wanted to stop was ruled to be fair use, unlike what Napster was mostly used for.)
one would expect that the 'Independent analysts would have checked that
The first independent analyst we heard from was not even a programmer, and she specialized in Microsoft products. I wouldn't expect her to have ever used Linux before, let alone be able to detect the lineage of the code. So far, there's no indication that these people are remotely qualified to determine who, if anyone, is ripping off whom. I'm willing to take their word for it that the code is substantially the same, but given that Linux and BSD source has always been freely available and most of Unix hasn't, the burden of proof remains on SCO.
These analysts are just a useful source of sound bites, and they're positioning themselves to be the first in line for giving advice to all the pointy-haired bosses who will freak out if this mess goes any further. Do not take anything they say at face value.
I could bring up M$ as an example of the USA's failure to stop companies acting unethically.
No one is claiming that our government has ever been the ideal tool for harnessing the unethical behavior of companies - though it's done a decent job at times, this sort of economic micromanagement is very difficult to pull off and many think it's a bad idea. However, the point that you missed is that maximization of profit is not usually considered a reasonable motive for morally bankrupt behavior. Yes, Nike and Microsoft are unethical, but they've never tried to give the excuse of "maximizing value for our shareholders". It's always some bullshit about innovation or emerging markets instead.
The problem with this argument is that everyone has a different perception of what "corporate ethics" should be, and while pretty much everyone agrees that the Enron execs acted unethically, people have a much wider range of views on Microsoft.
I'm wondering if James Clavell got it wrong. In "Shogun" (the book - haven't seen the miniseries), which at least gives the impression of being meticulously researched, the second usually lops off the other guy's head before he can start the ritual. That is, as the samurai reaches for his short sword he's quickly killed. This allows for everyone to maintain the pretense without having to go through a potentially embarassing ritual that could result in even greater dishonor. (A few characters in the book do it the hard way, which is viewed with great awe. Actually cutting yourself open seems to have been the mark of a true badass.)
Is Clavell full of shit, or did the tradition change over time?
Actually, that sounds quite a bit like shrink-wrap software EULAs, where you only get to see the license after you've already bought and opened the package.
What is ILM's fault about the story content on the films they work on.
You're forgetting that ILM is essentially Lucas's baby. I don't mean to pick on them in particular, but many recent movies that involved heavy use of effects have involved extremely close collaboration between the computer animators and the movie people, to the point that they're really indistinguishable. Final Fantasy, LOTR, Matrix Reloaded, any Pixar film depends on the geeks being just as artistic as everyone else. I realize that ILM mostly does contract work but in this case I think they're really just an extension of Lucas.
As far as computers as tools - you're right, but my point is that high-tech effects are not necessarily better. Aardman's movies are deliberately cartoonish but work well in spite of this. Lucas tried to use computer effects in place of live scene and plot, and failed. He's no longer using effects in the service of narrative advancement - now they're just supposed to impress us with ILM's technical wizardry. The Matrix movies do this too, but their eye-candy scenes are (in my opinion) actually impressive and more innovative.
I guess a better comparison would be to the original movies, where spaceship models and painted-in laser beams got the job done far better than ILM's computer people did in TPM and AOTC.
I'm sorry the Mario^H^H^H^H^H Foundry scene was just the most childish insult to the audience I'd ever seen.
One reviewer compared it (unfavorably) to the pie-machine scene in Chicken Run. A good example of how effects can't make up for plot - Aardman does more with clay than ILM can with thousands of computers.
I haven't the faintest desire to spend a dime on anything involved with Star Wars anymore
I'll go for the groovy special effects, and nothing else. I thought Attack of the Clones was really cool when I saw it in theaters three times, cool enough to buy on DVD. Oops. I don't go to the movies drunk any more.
Many of us _hate_ you? Whatever gave you that idea?
Gee, I don't know. . . maybe all of the snotty Europeans posting about how we deserved the WTC attack? Or the ones who feel the need to remind us about American imperialism in every other thread (conveniently ignoring the far worse effects of European imperialism)? Or the ones who like to tell me I'm living in a police state? The level of contempt I see is appalling. I've known and worked with a number of Europeans, and even though they'd come to the US to do research they still hated the place and never missed a chance to remind me, even as they took advantage of our low gas prices and omnipresent pop culture.
It is certainly true many Europeans are not major fans of your current leadership, but frankly most of us hope you will eventually regain your senses and vote someone more sensible into the white house.
Unlike, say, the Germans, who just re-elected Schroeder.
I didn't realize American perception of Europe can be so wrong. What do you think of when someone mentions Europe?
Pretty much all we hear out of Europe nowadays is how much we suck, so this shouldn't be such a shock to you. Perhaps if you spent less time patronizing us you'd make a better impression. And from my experience, among educated people the European perception of America is generally far worse.
Having actually been to Europe a couple of times, and having had friends from Europe, I have no particular antipathy towards Europeans. There are parts of it I'd quite like to live in. I do suspect, however, that in certain countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.) I would be constantly asked if I'd moved to get away from my fellow Americans, and treated like the village idiot.
If I were to move, I'd live in one of the former Russian colonies (Czech Republic would be nice), where they haven't been free long enough to become arrogant, and where American pop culture hasn't penetrated very far.
Slashdot Mirror
We have a law to deal with this kind of organized criminal activity, it's called RICO. I fail to see any legal reason that the federal government can not apply RICO laws to spam. It's an organized illegal activity, and the people who pay spammers to send it are just as guilty and in my view just and culpable as the spammer who sends it.
...Tell him most spam is pronographic in nature, he spent most of his career in Missouri hassling libraries and adult film/book stores.
RICO is not intended to be used this way. It was created to allow vertical destruction of a criminal organization, where the people at top insulated themselves from the crimes committed by the rank-and-file. This isn't quite the same. It's also rather hard to compare spammers to the Mafia- Alan Ralsky and Ronnie Scelson are shitbags, but until we find the RBL creators dismembered in the trunk of a Cadillac, spammers are still just petty crooks.
Just draft a basis antispam law at the federal level -- make Ashcroft earn his money enforcing it. Tip
We have this troubling little thing called "The Constitution", which makes it difficult to pass a sweeping federal law like that. Ashcroft is currently busy trying to destroy the Constitution, but I see no reason to assist him.
Get it through your head - the government can not help you here. Besides, do you really want our Congress micromanaging the way the Internet or technology in general is uses? That sort of mentality is what led to obscenities like the DMCA and the library filtering act. I'd rather keep bombing the spammers with catalogs.
I would say that you really don't know what you're talking about if you are using the US as an example of the separation of church and state. Really.
Them's big words coming from someone who lives in Finland. I'm a US citizen, I'm an atheist, and I've been studying these issues for years - including reading dozens of books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject. I think I know what I'm talking about. Snotty Europeans (and quite a few Americans) seem to forget that our establishment clause does not prohibit religious people from serving in government, or prevent religion from informing their political beliefs. Our Constitution does not try to banish religion from all sectors of public life, only to minimize its interference with government and vice-versa. George Bush is not prohibited from holding White House prayer meetings, and I'm not prohibited from torching a Bible. Everyone wins.
Most of us, in fact, are perfectly comfortable with religion, as long as we're not told what to think. It's imperfect, but it usually does a good job of protecting everyone's religious rights - better than quite a few European nations that have a very vague understanding of the concept of "pluralism".
Not that I won't be subjected to another 3 months (more, really, considering RotK is coming in Dec) of my girlfriend saying, "Isn't he dreamy?...I love Legolas!...He's so handsome, won't you learn Elvish, honey?"
I feel your pain.
When I went to see TTT on the first midnight showing, most of the people in the audience were in their twenties. One of the previews was for "Pirates of the Carribean", and when Orlando Bloom's name came up there were distinct shrieks. When Legolas jumped onto the moving horse, I swear I could feel the estrogen surge. I thought girls were going to start flinging panties at the screen. One woman posted online that when she saw this scene for the first time, "I think I got pregnant."
On the bright side, if you're not entirely joking, it's now officially studly to have learned Elvish, although the thought of bespectacled Tolkein geeks trying to pick up girls by quoting Legolas is more than a little disturbing.
Most brands of Christianity that survive today have learned to cope with modernity in all its varied forms. I do not particularly care for the Christian Right, but they are generally reconciled to a technologically advanced, pluralistic society. Their odd hangups about gay people and school prayer are actually exceptions to this rule. The only groups that explicitly reject modern life are small sects like the Amish and (to a lesser degree) the Jehovah's Witnesses, neither of which can be considered a viable political or social force in any country. (The Amish don't even proslytize - they just keep to themselves, and can't be compared to radical Islamists.)
The more virulent brands of Islam, however, most certainly do prefer a less sophisticated society. The Taliban seriously did drive Afghanistan further into the Stone Age than the Russians managed to. Banning television, eliminating women's education, blowing up its cultural heritage - it's not cultural chauvinism to call this "uncivilized". Turkey has shown (imperfectly) that it's possible to form a large Western democracy from a Muslim population, but they did this by explicitly rejecting Islamic influences on government.
This is the key point: no thriving, modern democracy that I can think of has been able to advance as long as its government is tied to religious leaders. The only first-world nation whose identity is bound to a particular sect is Israel, and I'd argue that Israel is a little more complicated (they don't evangelize either, for one). I realize it's fashionable to compare Bush and the Religious Right to the Nazis or the Catholic Inquisition, but the influence of religious leaders on US government is many orders of magnitude less than in, say, Saudi Arabia. Unless you equate abortions with civilization, it's hard to see what your complaint is.
(A side point: what this means is probably that we will never see another country that joins a thriving, evangelical religion with a modern, pluralistic, technically advanced society. The only way to have both is to completely separate them as in the US (most of the time), which then limits the extent to which religion can influcence the development of the nation and culture. The only sect I can think of that might prove this wrong is the Mormons.)
Funny you should mention this, because it quotes the same Laura DiDio who evaluated SCO's claims recently. Best line:
Heh. Well, you could start by ripping out most of the memory, and rig the power cord to fall out every few days. . .
Oh, I agree entirely. Plenty of great ideas start out on paper. My point is that what really makes a difference is motive. Unfortunately, this is a spectacularly poor way for the PTO to discriminate among inventors - I'd prefer not to have the government become arbiter of the moral worth of an invention.
If I come up with the idea for some nifty new device, and can decribe it in sufficient detail to get a patent (assuming a non-rectocranially inverted patent office) then there is nothing wrong with me deciding whether to build it myself or license the idea to someone else to develop.
Aha, but these people are specifically coming up with an idea that they are certain will soon be duplicated by a company with deep pockets. They're not trying to license "their idea", they just want to use the patent to fuck with companies trying to implement *their own* idea. Legally, there's very little distinction. Morally, there's a huge difference.
For example, let's say I came up with an idea to make electric trains stay firmly on the track. Why should I have to start a toy company and compete with Tyco when I could just sell or license the patent to them? They have the infrastructure and the market already, and can put the idea to good use at reasonable expense. It's a win-win-win situation for both of inventor, licensor and the market.
Let's say Tyco has been working on advancing toy train technology for years, and you have been reading up on them and thinking up good patents. You patent your track-adhesion system, and then take it to Tyco, who has probably thought of it already. They now have to shell out money to you in order to go ahead with their plans. This money gets passed along to the consumer. Tyco loses, market loses, "inventor" spends the next decade banging movie starlets.
How do you think the republican party gets votes? They appeal to fuckwads.
As opposed to the Democratic Party, which spends more time pandering to left-wing nuts like Al Sharpton and Kate Michelman than actually doing something to prevent the frutier aspects GOP agenda from being made law? Get a grip on reality: no major political party gets ahead by standing on principle. If the Democrats had any backbone whatsoever, they'd have ditched the loathesome Terry McAuliffe a while ago. That their agenda is (to you and me, at least) usually more sensible than the Republicans' does not diminish the fact that they're a pathetic bunch of career politicians more concerned with their jobs than with the future of America.
What's wrong with that?
The way patents are meant to help the common man (Horatio Alger version): lone genius working out of an attic in Pittsburgh invents new UltraWidget. He gets a patent for it, then takes it around to the major widget manufacturers and offers to sell them his invention. WidgetWorks, Inc. realizes that this is the next stage in the evolution of the widget, and lone genius retires to Key West.
The way patents are abused: lone sleazo lawyer in Menlo Park looks through industry rags for future trends in widgets. He patents rough concepts for UltraWidgets, TurboWidgets, Widget64, and WidgetXP. WidgetWorks, Inc., which is busy actually fucking innovating and employs engineers rather than lawyers, is working on their own next-generation widget. As soon as it appears that WidgetWorks is going to corner the market, lawyer shoves his patents up their ass. WidgetWorks pays up, lawyer now has hot tub full of Benjamins.
This is not the way patents are supposed to work. Patents are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and protect inventions. Technology will advance without these fuckwads filing preemptive patents, and the effect of their activities is actually to slow innovation down. Companies have to waste precious resources covering their ass lest some IP law firm take them from behind. Hell, the lawyers in the article even admit that they're using patents explicitly as a competitive tool, rather than to protect their own investment and hard work.
Blame for this pathetic state of affairs can partly be laid at the feet of IBM, since they pretty much pioneered the use of patents to pre-emptively squash a competitor.
I think the fact that no GPL violation case has ever made it into a courtroom speaks volumes!
Eben Moglen claims to have successfully enforced it many times over the past decade. The fact that the GPL depends on the existence of copyright means that virtually no company would be willing to go to court to fight it. It's just not considered a good business decision to make a case against intellectual property law. Microsoft can rant against the GPL all it wants, but its statements agaisnt the GPL actually *depend* on it being enforceable - can you seriously imagine Microsoft legally challenging a software license?
What this really means is that companies which have violated the GPL in the past probably did so casually and without considering the license at all - the fact that the code is freely available online probably leads to a lot of sloppiness. When confronted, they probably folded pretty quickly in the face of obvious violations.
It's not clear to me why Mr. Novak can't just go out and buy his domain back on the open market.
Maybe because it's being sold in Alabama?
unless we can get him to stop showing up on Crossfire every other night.
Oooooooh. I get a tingly feeling just thinking about it. After that, we'll go after Michael Savage.
I'd like to see some kind of penalty for filing frivolous/nuisance/totally-without-merit suits
What you refer to is called "barratry", and it is in fact a crime in many areas, though I'm not sure where. Tort reform encompasses this and a variety of other problems. At the very least someone found to have engaged in this sort of behavior might be forced to pay his/her opponents' legal fees. New York does have an anti-SLAPP law, which could easily be used against Novak, but it probably won't be useful for much now that he's filing bankruptcy (but a judgement could at least limit the damage from future actions on his part).
This still isn't as stupid as the lawyers' fees in the tobacco settlement.
Yeah, it's been a miserable weekend hacking away at web pages and watching the last of my creativity shrivel up as I'm forced to apply myself to yet another bullshit project in order to pay the rent, but news like this still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Thanks, Slashdot. You've just replaced Jack Daniels and Xanax.
Very funny, but all of the Slashbots who talk about "sharing" music or software with their anonymous "friends" on the Internet are just as guilty of doublespeak.
Regardless, SCO has to actually prove some violation before they can get royalties from any company with a legal department. The quote is actually sort of funny if you think about it: it's not about wrath, it's about greed. Wrong deadly sin, guys. I think she would have sounded a little better if she'd said it was about "protecting intellectual property rights".
To me the disappointing result was the Napster result. I would have thought that things like the Betamax case would have provided a good base to win this one. I do not at all agree with the idea that a particular technology should be blamed for the way it is used.
No, Napster deserved exactly what it got. The defense that it's not necessarily a copyright infringement tool didn't hold much water because the company execs were so obviously interested in it for exactly this purpose. Music piracy was what was driving the tremendous growth in the user base, and they never had any intention of using it as an alternate distribution method for legal music. This is very well documented, and it's disturbing to see people continue to try to defend the company.
This was always much different from the DeCSS case, where developers were being sued for the tool itself, not just the use, or from the Betamax case. In the latter, the product hadn't truly caught on yet at the time of the lawsuit, and it was a preemptive strike at a threatening technology (which the movie studios eventually adopted and made a great deal of money from). Napster had already proven its utility for piracy and very little else. (Additionally, Sony won because much of what the MPAA wanted to stop was ruled to be fair use, unlike what Napster was mostly used for.)
one would expect that the 'Independent analysts would have checked that
The first independent analyst we heard from was not even a programmer, and she specialized in Microsoft products. I wouldn't expect her to have ever used Linux before, let alone be able to detect the lineage of the code. So far, there's no indication that these people are remotely qualified to determine who, if anyone, is ripping off whom. I'm willing to take their word for it that the code is substantially the same, but given that Linux and BSD source has always been freely available and most of Unix hasn't, the burden of proof remains on SCO.
These analysts are just a useful source of sound bites, and they're positioning themselves to be the first in line for giving advice to all the pointy-haired bosses who will freak out if this mess goes any further. Do not take anything they say at face value.
I could bring up M$ as an example of the USA's failure to stop companies acting unethically.
No one is claiming that our government has ever been the ideal tool for harnessing the unethical behavior of companies - though it's done a decent job at times, this sort of economic micromanagement is very difficult to pull off and many think it's a bad idea. However, the point that you missed is that maximization of profit is not usually considered a reasonable motive for morally bankrupt behavior. Yes, Nike and Microsoft are unethical, but they've never tried to give the excuse of "maximizing value for our shareholders". It's always some bullshit about innovation or emerging markets instead.
The problem with this argument is that everyone has a different perception of what "corporate ethics" should be, and while pretty much everyone agrees that the Enron execs acted unethically, people have a much wider range of views on Microsoft.
I'm wondering if James Clavell got it wrong. In "Shogun" (the book - haven't seen the miniseries), which at least gives the impression of being meticulously researched, the second usually lops off the other guy's head before he can start the ritual. That is, as the samurai reaches for his short sword he's quickly killed. This allows for everyone to maintain the pretense without having to go through a potentially embarassing ritual that could result in even greater dishonor. (A few characters in the book do it the hard way, which is viewed with great awe. Actually cutting yourself open seems to have been the mark of a true badass.)
Is Clavell full of shit, or did the tradition change over time?
Actually, that sounds quite a bit like shrink-wrap software EULAs, where you only get to see the license after you've already bought and opened the package.
Percent of marching band members in my college who were female: 50%
Percent of CS majors in my college who were female: about 5%
Any questions?
What is ILM's fault about the story content on the films they work on.
You're forgetting that ILM is essentially Lucas's baby. I don't mean to pick on them in particular, but many recent movies that involved heavy use of effects have involved extremely close collaboration between the computer animators and the movie people, to the point that they're really indistinguishable. Final Fantasy, LOTR, Matrix Reloaded, any Pixar film depends on the geeks being just as artistic as everyone else. I realize that ILM mostly does contract work but in this case I think they're really just an extension of Lucas.
As far as computers as tools - you're right, but my point is that high-tech effects are not necessarily better. Aardman's movies are deliberately cartoonish but work well in spite of this. Lucas tried to use computer effects in place of live scene and plot, and failed. He's no longer using effects in the service of narrative advancement - now they're just supposed to impress us with ILM's technical wizardry. The Matrix movies do this too, but their eye-candy scenes are (in my opinion) actually impressive and more innovative.
I guess a better comparison would be to the original movies, where spaceship models and painted-in laser beams got the job done far better than ILM's computer people did in TPM and AOTC.
I'm sorry the Mario^H^H^H^H^H Foundry scene was just the most childish insult to the audience I'd ever seen.
One reviewer compared it (unfavorably) to the pie-machine scene in Chicken Run. A good example of how effects can't make up for plot - Aardman does more with clay than ILM can with thousands of computers.
I haven't the faintest desire to spend a dime on anything involved with Star Wars anymore
I'll go for the groovy special effects, and nothing else. I thought Attack of the Clones was really cool when I saw it in theaters three times, cool enough to buy on DVD. Oops. I don't go to the movies drunk any more.
Many of us _hate_ you? Whatever gave you that idea?
Gee, I don't know. . . maybe all of the snotty Europeans posting about how we deserved the WTC attack? Or the ones who feel the need to remind us about American imperialism in every other thread (conveniently ignoring the far worse effects of European imperialism)? Or the ones who like to tell me I'm living in a police state? The level of contempt I see is appalling. I've known and worked with a number of Europeans, and even though they'd come to the US to do research they still hated the place and never missed a chance to remind me, even as they took advantage of our low gas prices and omnipresent pop culture.
It is certainly true many Europeans are not major fans of your current leadership, but frankly most of us hope you will eventually regain your senses and vote someone more sensible into the white house.
Unlike, say, the Germans, who just re-elected Schroeder.
I didn't realize American perception of Europe can be so wrong. What do you think of when someone mentions Europe?
Pretty much all we hear out of Europe nowadays is how much we suck, so this shouldn't be such a shock to you. Perhaps if you spent less time patronizing us you'd make a better impression. And from my experience, among educated people the European perception of America is generally far worse.
Having actually been to Europe a couple of times, and having had friends from Europe, I have no particular antipathy towards Europeans. There are parts of it I'd quite like to live in. I do suspect, however, that in certain countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.) I would be constantly asked if I'd moved to get away from my fellow Americans, and treated like the village idiot.
If I were to move, I'd live in one of the former Russian colonies (Czech Republic would be nice), where they haven't been free long enough to become arrogant, and where American pop culture hasn't penetrated very far.