doesn't fair use override many of the provisions of their license? aren't people are explicitly allowed to use trademarked/copyrighted material in (for example) a critique or review of the product? clearly, this cannot be limited only to positive remarks...
in other news...today microsoft announced that the microsoft name and all associated brands are trademarked, and may only be used in positive reviews of their products...
I would certainly somewhat agree with the fact that paying 16 bucks for a CD is probably, you know, pushing too much. But, it's the marketplace that dictates that, not me. And people who live in the United States live in a Western capitalist society, where most of these things become about marketplace and about fair competitionin the marketplace, and that's what ultimately dictates these prices. That does not soldify that my only other option is to steal is it. My other option is to not buy it
ok, i agree that the price of something being too high is a poor reason to steal that item, but there is clearly NOT competition in the marketplace (only 1 company makes metallica cd's, so they can set the price to whatever they please)! perhaps some competition in the music industry would eliminate this buy/steal issue...
Clearly, this patent stuff is getting out of hand. A patent on fresh-cut-grass-smell? So are you in violation if you mow your lawn? What's next, a patent on BO? I know plenty of people who are going to get sued if that one goes through. Come on, when will this maddness stop?
Ok, let's see a show of hands... Who owns stock? Keep 'em up if you own tech stock If you're unlucky enough to own M$ stock, why don't you stand up
Now, all of you who have your hands up, prepare to lose big money if M$ breaks up. If you're standing...good luck to you!
Hutring M$ will hurt the economy. Yes, M$ needs to be punnished and have its monopoly taken away, but do not take out all your anger on it. yes, i dislike M$ and in an ideal world, M$ would not exist. However, that is not the world that we live in. This punnishment that M$ gets should be enough to scare it, but not enough to make it lame. For the current hi-tech economy to do well, M$ must exist. So, indirectly, hurting M$ is shooting yourself in the foot.
i agree that a horizontal split is the way to go. however, to assure that the baby bills actually do compete with each other, they would not be able to interact on particular levels. this would lead to windows (and other stuff, too) forking (imagine that!). then you'd have customers locked into a version on windows that wasn't compatible with the other 2 versions and there again the customer wouldn't really be able to switch from one to the other and again there would be no real competition.
Thats like saying "the sky is blue, therefore everything that is blue is the sky".
not to beat this one to death (or troll or flame), but... I would argue that it is more like saying "the sky is blue, so that means that the sky is blue under all circumstances." Unfortunately, that is not a particularly good analogy because the sky is sometimes obsured by clouds, dark, or turned pretty colors by the sunset. Basically, deep linking to a site that provides illegal things is still deep linking. And as many other threads have pointed out, it isn't illegal to tell somebody where to get something illegal.
If you are behind a firewall, it is possible that it blocks 2600. i know that is a fairly common practice because lots of companies/organizations are none too fond of 2600...
I'm not sure that we are talking about the same thing here. The 'deep linking' is where you point to some page, or image, or something, thats inside my website, and allow people to surf to/view it (Thereby bypassing any obnoxious advertising, etc) . The injunction against 2600 is for linking to a certain page (deCSS) that the MPAA thinks is illegal.
The MPAA certainly doesn't like the page that they are linking to. No dispute there. However, that is deep linking, isn't it? Linking to a page owned by somebody else is (basically) what deep linking is, so why wouldn't this fall into that category?
Re:DeCSS & CPHack aren't illegal until October!
on
'Battling Censorware'
·
· Score: 1
Since users require an external tool (made by those vicious hackers-child pornographers-credit card stealing-misguided geniuses ) to circumvent the access control, it *is* effective.
i don't think that effectiveness is necessarily determined by the tools required to overcome the control. if it required a large beowulf cluster to decode the list, that would be a different story, but clearly, if the tools are readily available (or createable) then such controls will be ineffective. perhaps the controls were intended to be effective, but i don't think that such an intent will get you very far. perhaps, however, all this reasoning is just too logical, because most of our laws are completely illogical and misguided.
Frankly what we need to protect the morals of our children are parents that actually spend time with their kids, not plop them down infront of a TV or computer as an e-babysitter. If we take the time to teach our children right from wrong in the first place, such big-brother-esque software as CyberPatrol would not be neccessary.
i absolutely agree! parenting responsibilities should rest on the actual parents, not software or the v-chip. if you don't want your kids to look at porn sites, then supervise them when they use the internet. the internet is a potentially dangerous place. many people are under the misconception that the internet is fundamentally different from the "real world" and that children don't need to be supervised. well, you wouldn't let your kids go play in a dark alley with broken glass and used needles, why let them get themselves into situations they shouldn't be in online? with all our new technology, we need to look back to the way things used to be. i'm not saying that technology is bad, but you can't use it to raise a family. no matter how good software becomes, it is never going to be a substitute for family values and good parenting.
Re:DeCSS & CPHack aren't illegal until October!
on
'Battling Censorware'
·
· Score: 1
I wonder if one could counter this in court by saying "Hey, I broke it; it was cake. It wasn't effectively controlling access!"
Good point. Clearly, if the protection measures were effective, they would not have fallen so easily. is this a viable interpretation of effective? Does effective mean "is supposed to keep people from getting the encrypted information" or "actually does keep people from the encrypted information"?
Re:DeCSS & CPHack aren't illegal until October!
on
'Battling Censorware'
·
· Score: 1
this must be a stupid question, or things wouldn't be in the situation they are now.
HOW THE HELL is software being outlawed by a law that hasn't even gone into effect yet? i must be missing something here...
Tien said he does not believe the DMCA's direct prohibition of anti-circumvention activity -- the provision that goes into effect later this year -- would bar an individual with a licensed copy of the King text from extracting the text from the encrypted file. "Circumvention, of course, is only prohibited if it's not authorized by the copyright owner," Tien said. "Certainly you're authorized to access the 'plaintext' of the King story unless there's some contractual bar," he said, explaining that, "That's what you're buying, access to the story, as by using the reader."
Maybe it's just me, but i don't see the difference between the rights that a user has to the plaintext encoded in an eBook and the rights that a user has to the video encoded on a DVD. The opinion of this lawyer on the DVD fiasco seems to be that the MPAA was right, but that eBooks are somehow different than DVD. This is completely insane and only goes to show the impracticality of this law. How in the world could it be legal to limit a consumer's access to property that he has paid (quite well) for? The more this law is analyzed, the more people will realize its flaws, and it will eventually fall.
we need s'more good cyberpunk movies! Stupid sci-fi like Mission to Mars just make the entire genre look bad. Plus, cyberpunk is the coolest! Maybe now they'll start making some of Gibson's stuff into movies...
Just about every kid loves Leggo, so taking advantage of that in the educational arena is a perfect idea! Not only can kids learn about computers and CAD (and computer animation??) but they get to do it in a way that they will like. I think that applications like this will eventually help to eliminate alot of the apathy that is present in our education system (both in the students and the faculty) today. Getting kids excited about learning is the wave of the future!
I've always been a bit put-off by electronic books. i'm not sure, but i think that lots of people feel the same way. having to have a "device" to read a book on just seems kinda clunky. books (the paper kind) are perfect the way they are...they don't need electricity, they can't break, and you can even drop them in the bathtub by accident and they still work (basically) just fine! try doing that with an ebook device or your computer. sure, electronic books may be cheaper and easier to get than paper ones, but i don't think that paper will ever be completely replaced. beyone that, electronic books will make for even more piracy issues, since it will be very easy to email somebody a copy of a book...
The judge ruled that the law is "unduly restrictive and burdensome"?! Since when is having to truthfully represent yourself restrictive? Using fake headers or return addresses or domain names or inacurrate subject lines is forgery or illegal impersonation or misrepresentation. If i opened up a brick & mortar business and misrepresented myself in a similar way, i'm sure i would be subject to legal action. when somebody does the same thing via email, they should also be subject to legal action. having to be truthful is certainly not "unduly restrictive and burdensome"; rather it is just the opposite. this law is nothing but constitutional!
there are certainly some good arguments here, but i think the point is being missed. simply because people are growing up in a culture where breaking the law (copying copyrited music for example) is common and "no big deal" doesn't mean that the illegal activity should be legalized. sure, it is way easier to burn a copy of my friend's new cd than to buy it at the record store. sure it is easier to download a new album from somebody on napster than to pay for it. however, simply because these actions are easy doesn't make them right. not everything in life is (or should be) free. if you want to own a particular cd, you should have to pay for that cd. don't get me wrong, napster and the like should be completely legal; there is plenty of public domain digital music out there that can be traded. however, stealing, no matter how you dress it up, should never be legal.
True, the government will want to get a big piece of the "ecommerce pie", but that might not even be practical. Since many traditional catalog-type mail order companies have moved online as well, how do you distinguish between traditional mail order and online transactions? will customers ordering online from L.L. Bean (for example) pay a different ammount than those ordering by phone or mail? Also, what if you order from a company that has traditional stores in your state and you have to pay state sales tax? do you pay tax twice on your purchase? this isn't only a bad idea because online ordering isn't fundamentally different from traditional catalog ordering, but it would also be a horrible nightmare to manage and collect such taxes. there are too many possibilities; ordering from foreign companies, multiple-taxation, taxing downloads or intellectual property. where do the lines get drawn and who draws them and has to manage and enforce them? this isn't a can of worms that the government really should open...
While it scares me to death that things like the DeCSS fiasco and content blocking are going on, it is far scarier that so many people either don't know or don't care. My friends think I'm weird for not going to the movies (for $8), and they don't get it when I try to explain why DeCSS is important. We live in a world where we depend more and more on technology but a growing number of people (the vast majority) understand that technology less and less every day. With this sort of apathy, we cannot hope to beat the big corporations in these legal battles. We are all up in arms (and VERY rightly so), but that doesn't matter. We need to get John "What's a computer?" Doe to care.
the standard of proof in a civil case is a preponderance of evidance (i think that's the technical name). the plaintif must provide more evidence of the defendant's negligance (or financial responsibility or whatever) than the defendant can provide otherwise. in this case, it seems that nintendo doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Slashdot Mirror
doesn't fair use override many of the provisions of their license? aren't people are explicitly allowed to use trademarked/copyrighted material in (for example) a critique or review of the product? clearly, this cannot be limited only to positive remarks...
in other news...today microsoft announced that the microsoft name and all associated brands are trademarked, and may only be used in positive reviews of their products...
ok, i agree that the price of something being too high is a poor reason to steal that item, but there is clearly NOT competition in the marketplace (only 1 company makes metallica cd's, so they can set the price to whatever they please)! perhaps some competition in the music industry would eliminate this buy/steal issue...
Clearly, this patent stuff is getting out of hand. A patent on fresh-cut-grass-smell? So are you in violation if you mow your lawn? What's next, a patent on BO? I know plenty of people who are going to get sued if that one goes through. Come on, when will this maddness stop?
Ok, let's see a show of hands...
Who owns stock?
Keep 'em up if you own tech stock
If you're unlucky enough to own M$ stock, why don't you stand up
Now, all of you who have your hands up, prepare to lose big money if M$ breaks up. If you're standing...good luck to you!
Hutring M$ will hurt the economy. Yes, M$ needs to be punnished and have its monopoly taken away, but do not take out all your anger on it. yes, i dislike M$ and in an ideal world, M$ would not exist. However, that is not the world that we live in. This punnishment that M$ gets should be enough to scare it, but not enough to make it lame. For the current hi-tech economy to do well, M$ must exist. So, indirectly, hurting M$ is shooting yourself in the foot.
i agree that a horizontal split is the way to go. however, to assure that the baby bills actually do compete with each other, they would not be able to interact on particular levels. this would lead to windows (and other stuff, too) forking (imagine that!). then you'd have customers locked into a version on windows that wasn't compatible with the other 2 versions and there again the customer wouldn't really be able to switch from one to the other and again there would be no real competition.
Perhaps they can team up with MasterCard: Price of Internet Explorer: $0 Look on your face when Internet Explorer GPF's: priceless
I would argue that it is more like saying "the sky is blue, so that means that the sky is blue under all circumstances." Unfortunately, that is not a particularly good analogy because the sky is sometimes obsured by clouds, dark, or turned pretty colors by the sunset. Basically, deep linking to a site that provides illegal things is still deep linking. And as many other threads have pointed out, it isn't illegal to tell somebody where to get something illegal.
If you are behind a firewall, it is possible that it blocks 2600. i know that is a fairly common practice because lots of companies/organizations are none too fond of 2600...
Good point. Clearly, if the protection measures were effective, they would not have fallen so easily. is this a viable interpretation of effective? Does effective mean "is supposed to keep people from getting the encrypted information" or "actually does keep people from the encrypted information"?
this must be a stupid question, or things wouldn't be in the situation they are now.
HOW THE HELL is software being outlawed by a law that hasn't even gone into effect yet? i must be missing something here...
Maybe it's just me, but i don't see the difference between the rights that a user has to the plaintext encoded in an eBook and the rights that a user has to the video encoded on a DVD. The opinion of this lawyer on the DVD fiasco seems to be that the MPAA was right, but that eBooks are somehow different than DVD. This is completely insane and only goes to show the impracticality of this law. How in the world could it be legal to limit a consumer's access to property that he has paid (quite well) for? The more this law is analyzed, the more people will realize its flaws, and it will eventually fall.
we need s'more good cyberpunk movies! Stupid sci-fi like Mission to Mars just make the entire genre look bad. Plus, cyberpunk is the coolest! Maybe now they'll start making some of Gibson's stuff into movies...
I seem to remember seeing a Leggo machine gun on /. a few months ago. Perhaps this will aid in more development of leggo mischief...
Just about every kid loves Leggo, so taking advantage of that in the educational arena is a perfect idea! Not only can kids learn about computers and CAD (and computer animation??) but they get to do it in a way that they will like. I think that applications like this will eventually help to eliminate alot of the apathy that is present in our education system (both in the students and the faculty) today. Getting kids excited about learning is the wave of the future!
I've always been a bit put-off by electronic books. i'm not sure, but i think that lots of people feel the same way. having to have a "device" to read a book on just seems kinda clunky. books (the paper kind) are perfect the way they are...they don't need electricity, they can't break, and you can even drop them in the bathtub by accident and they still work (basically) just fine! try doing that with an ebook device or your computer. sure, electronic books may be cheaper and easier to get than paper ones, but i don't think that paper will ever be completely replaced. beyone that, electronic books will make for even more piracy issues, since it will be very easy to email somebody a copy of a book...
The judge ruled that the law is "unduly restrictive and burdensome"?! Since when is having to truthfully represent yourself restrictive? Using fake headers or return addresses or domain names or inacurrate subject lines is forgery or illegal impersonation or misrepresentation. If i opened up a brick & mortar business and misrepresented myself in a similar way, i'm sure i would be subject to legal action. when somebody does the same thing via email, they should also be subject to legal action. having to be truthful is certainly not "unduly restrictive and burdensome"; rather it is just the opposite. this law is nothing but constitutional!
there are certainly some good arguments here, but i think the point is being missed. simply because people are growing up in a culture where breaking the law (copying copyrited music for example) is common and "no big deal" doesn't mean that the illegal activity should be legalized. sure, it is way easier to burn a copy of my friend's new cd than to buy it at the record store. sure it is easier to download a new album from somebody on napster than to pay for it. however, simply because these actions are easy doesn't make them right. not everything in life is (or should be) free. if you want to own a particular cd, you should have to pay for that cd. don't get me wrong, napster and the like should be completely legal; there is plenty of public domain digital music out there that can be traded. however, stealing, no matter how you dress it up, should never be legal.
True, the government will want to get a big piece of the "ecommerce pie", but that might not even be practical. Since many traditional catalog-type mail order companies have moved online as well, how do you distinguish between traditional mail order and online transactions? will customers ordering online from L.L. Bean (for example) pay a different ammount than those ordering by phone or mail? Also, what if you order from a company that has traditional stores in your state and you have to pay state sales tax? do you pay tax twice on your purchase? this isn't only a bad idea because online ordering isn't fundamentally different from traditional catalog ordering, but it would also be a horrible nightmare to manage and collect such taxes. there are too many possibilities; ordering from foreign companies, multiple-taxation, taxing downloads or intellectual property. where do the lines get drawn and who draws them and has to manage and enforce them? this isn't a can of worms that the government really should open...
Terms Of Service
While it scares me to death that things like the DeCSS fiasco and content blocking are going on, it is far scarier that so many people either don't know or don't care. My friends think I'm weird for not going to the movies (for $8), and they don't get it when I try to explain why DeCSS is important. We live in a world where we depend more and more on technology but a growing number of people (the vast majority) understand that technology less and less every day. With this sort of apathy, we cannot hope to beat the big corporations in these legal battles. We are all up in arms (and VERY rightly so), but that doesn't matter. We need to get John "What's a computer?" Doe to care.
...just my $0.02...
the standard of proof in a civil case is a preponderance of evidance (i think that's the technical name). the plaintif must provide more evidence of the defendant's negligance (or financial responsibility or whatever) than the defendant can provide otherwise. in this case, it seems that nintendo doesn't have a leg to stand on.