You didn't need to sign any sort of copyright transfer form.
Bzzt. Thanks for playing, please try again: A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.U.S. Copyright law, 17 USC 204 "by operation of law" covers inheritance, seizure of assets for bankruptcy, etc...
Ownership of code should revert to the author too.
It does, if it's not "work for hire". Since "work for hire" normally covers things created by employees in the normal course of their employment, not a lot of old code is going to be revertable, possibly excepting transfers made from one company to another and code written by consultants where the contract didn't have an explicit "work for hire" provision (which is required to make work by non-employees a "work for hire").
From what I can tell from the article, the abandonware sites are possibly legal, despite what the software publishers say. The article also has some significant inaccuracies of law.
The article says: According to copyright law, the creators of intellectual property such as software, books, and music have full ownership of the property. This is wrong (at least as to U.S. law). The creators of a work have a large number of substantial rights, the most absolute of which is when or whether to publish the work. As an incentive to publish ("make public") the work, the government agrees to provide certain limited monopoly rights on the work for a limited time, and back those rights with the power of the state. However, those rights are limited in a number of ways.
Copyright expires - the U.S. Constitution explicitly mandates that copyright last for a "limited time", which Congress has chosen to currently set very, very long.
Copyright rights of the creator do not prohibit "fair use" by anyone else without permisiion of the creator.
Copyright rights of the creator do not prohibit certain types of copying by libraries and public archives. This limitation is very relevant to the discussion of abandonware. More below.
The "first sale" doctrine and section 109 of the law prevent creators from restricting re-selling of a work, or (for most works, with some important restrictions) the lending or renting of the work. (Programs and sound recordings can't be rented commercially.)
There are some incredibly arcane rules that I don't begin to understand allow some re-transmissions of (lawfully) transmitted works.
Composers MUST license their published songs and other music (excluding operas and other "dramatic" musical works) under terms of a compulsory license for making "phonorecords" (sound recordings - tapes, records, CDs, etc.). The rate of payment is fixed by an arbitrator.
Publishers of "phonorecords" must license them for use in commercial jukeboxes, but have the option of trying to negotiate a deal that suits them better than the deal set by the arbitrator.
Owners of a copy of a computer program may make whatever copies of a program are essential to its use, or may make (an unspecified number of) backup copies. Section 117
The copyright on a building or other architectural work doesn't prohibit pictures or other images of the work (as long as it's constructed and in public view).
If the rights or a right to a work have been transfered (sold, licensed, or otherwise) an author or his statutory heirs may terminate (undo) the transfer unilaterally without compensation, within a window of 35 to 40 years after after the transfer. An author may waive this right by contract but cannot do so on behalf of his statutory heirs.
In other words, copyright ain't property like personal property...
But back to "abandonware". Section 108 of the copyright law says that, among other things, libraries and other publicaly available archives may (under section e of the law) make a complete copy of a work that they have determined is otherwise unavailable at a fair price and give it to a library user, provided a) they do not do so for commercial advantage and b) they display a particular notice as specified by the Copyright Office in 37 CFR 201.14 (PDF, scroll down to about page 20). The full text of the section e) reads:
(e) The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section apply to the entire work, or to a substantial part of it, made from the collection of a library or archives where the user makes his or her request or from that of another library or archives, if the library or archives has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that a copy or phonorecord of the copyrighted work cannot be obtained at a fair price, if-
(1) the copy or phonorecord becomes the property of the user, and the library or archives has had no notice that the copy or phonorecord would be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research; and
(2) the library or archives displays prominently, at the place where orders are accepted, and includes on its order form, a warning of copyright in accordance with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation.
Important: other parts of the section and of the law influence the legal interpretation of the above (so consult a lawyer), but the important point is, "abandonware" sites CAN be legal!
Actually, your wrong. All of the suits by Apple against Microsoft were dropped when MS invested 100 million dollars in Apple. All of the suits were going well for Apple...
The "look and feel" lawsuit, which is the one we're discussing, was ended by an adverse decision in court in June of 1993, (had to look it up) see this page. Apple also lost their appeal to the Ninth Circuit in 1994 or 1995, so this case can hardly be said to have been "going well"...
By the time of the $150 million investment in Apple by Microsoft, 1997, Apple had some other patent suits going againsr MS, the Quicktime one was definitely going well for them if memory serves, but the "look and feel" suit was essentially dead and buried.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't record companies get a cut of blank cd sales?
You're wrong (but not totally). Under the law 17 USC 10, section 1003, the manufacturer of "digital audio recording medium" must pay a royalty, defined in section 1004 as "3 percent of the transfer price", the manufacturer's wholesale price. Section 1001 defines "digital audio recording medium" as "any material object in a form commonly distributed for use by individuals, that is primarily marketed or most commonly used by consumers for the purpose of making digital audio copied recordings by use of a digital audio recording device". It specifically exempts media that is primarily used as computer media, and a computer and/or CD burner fail to meet the definition of a "digital audio recording device" (unless they're specially marketed as such).
Last I looked recordable CDs still didn't have to pay royalties, and 3% of 40 cents doesn't have an impact even if that's changed...
Unfortunately, as Apple found out in their suit against Microsoft over Windows 95, you can't sue over "look and feel."
Apple lost that battle primarily because they had licensed part of the Mac OS to Microsoft and it was at least arguable that that license covered the features MS ripped. I can no longer recall if they got a final decision from a court, or settled after they say the trend during the battle, but it wasn't that they couldn't sue for "look and feel" but that they had a license issue that muddied the waters that made the difference.
In the "real world", the "look and feel" of a business, its "trade dress", is protectable. In the case of Taco Cabana vs. Two Pesos, the courts said that one chain's building looked too much like another's, despite the fact that one was bubble-gum pink and the other was a brilliant turquoise. I guess justice is blind, after all.
This notion of "trade dress" applies to any distinctive appearance that serves to identify the source of goods - products or services - which, to come full circle, is how Apple kicked the PC "iMac look-alikes" out of the market.
As far as I understand, the biggest issue is concerning patent rights. If the product is publiicized prior to release, it cannot be patented...
Not quite right, for the U.S. The law, 35 USC 10 102 defines when publication affects the ability to patent. In a nutshell, in the U.S. you lose the patent if:
the claimed invention was known, used, or published (by someone else) prior to the invention by the patent applicant (Duh!)
published (or patented in a foreign country), by anyone, more than a year before the patent was applied for.
The 2nd rule is only a USA rule, which is why RSA was a valid patent in the US but not in (most of) the rest of the world... So in the rest of the world, if a "leak" publicizes a patentable invention, someone could lose a patent, but IMHO most (but not all) product "leaks" don't disclose enough about the invention to potentially void a patent...
I should have said "Federal courts". Some state constitutions provide additional rights, among them California, Massachusetts, Oregon and New Jersey. This article says Minnesota is not one of them.
I don't think ownership matters in something like a mall. If it is open to the public without restrictions, membership or charge, it is still considered a public place.
The courts have consistently ruled that malls aren't public places, to the extent that malls can enforce their own dress codes, prohibit picketing, ban soliciting or pamphleting, prohibit "mall-walkers" (the folk who walk round & round for exercise), etc.
Personally, I've always been bothered by this in the context of free speech rights, but the rise of the 'net has reduced those concerns somewhat...
Then I guess you've never heard of intellectual property? The idea IS property, and it belongs to the person who though of it.
Actually, the term "intellectual property" is a relatively recent term. I'm not sure if this coinage was designed to do so, but the term by itself tends to create a false analogy between "intellectual property" and personal property, which the previous post reflects. Our "law of ideas", patent law, explicitly does NOT make an idea the property of "the person who though[sic] of it", but clearly offers a quid pro quo (that's "something for something" for those of you who forgot your Latin) - Make your idea public - give it to the world - and for 20 years the government won't let anyone make money with your idea without your permission, i.e., they'll grant you a patent.
Try the petroleum industry. Some of them had 500% years recently because of the gas prices we have all seen and heard about on the news.
Bullshit. While a handful of *tiny* operators have big strikes like that every year (while 10 times as many go bankrupt, fold up shop, and start over), the big companies that dominate the industry - Shell, BP Amoco, etc. - never have even close to that type of return, and are somwhat insulated from fluctuations in gas price. You have to realize that most of the big companies are diversified into petro-chemicals - plastics, fertilizers, etc. - and when their profit on gasoline goes up, their profit in other areas goes down. These companies are publicly traded, and if they were returning 500%, you'd be reading headlines about sky-rocketing stock prices. Oh, that's right, it's all part of the media conspiracy to opress us and hide THE TRUTH!!! I forgot...
Copyright law all started with the "The Statute of Anne," the world's first copyright law passed by the British Parliament in 1709. Yet the principle of protecting the rights of artists predates this. It may sound like dry history at first blush, but since there was precedent to establish and rights to protect, much time, effort, and money has been spent in legal battles over the centuries.
I think that's either the most clueless, or the most willful distortion of history I've ever seen.
While it's correct to note that the Statute of Anne was the first modern copyright law, it was introduced as a response to serious problems - an unlimited printer's monopoly combined with oppressive government censorship. Before the Statute of Anne, the right to print (anything!) was a monopoly controlled by a trade guild, the Stationer's Company. This situation arose in part with the support of Crown, particularly Queen Mary, as a means of controlling the political dialogue (and resulted in large numbers of "dissenting" printers setting up in the Netherlands). The Stationer's Company enforced a "perpetual" monopoly on printed works - each printer registered the works he was printing and no other printer could print them. They also enforced import restrictions - primarily designed to dissuade heresy and dissent, but also to enforce the printer's guild's monopoly.
After over a hundred years of this monopoly, the printers were rudely suprised by the Statute of Anne, which allowed anyone (who could afford it) to become a printer, and which, for the first time, gave authors a copyright, for 14 years (renewable for another 14).
Before free speech, before freedom of assembly, before freedom of religion, there was copyright protection in our Constitution. The founding fathers knew copyright protection could improve society by preserving the economic incentive for people to come up with brilliant ideas and inventions.
The founding fathers knew the history when publishers controlled ideas (as a surrogate for governments), and were trying to prevent it from happening, again.
Is this true? I've never met a CD player that didn't like a CD-R, and I've got some OLD players. On the other hand, CD-RWs, obviously, are a different story. I've found that CD-RWs aren't playable in any of my CD players, but my DVD player recognizes it just fine (which, I guess, you would expect.)
CD-Rs burn a dye layer in the disc, and there are a few types of dyes that are used. I've found that the "greenish" dyes used in some CD-Rs, notably TDKs, works very poorly in first generation Macintosh CD drives in the PowerMac 7100s, about 15% of the disks I burned (a production run of 200 CD-Rs) wouldn't read, and another 10-20% had high error rates or other glitches. "Gold" dye CD-Rs worked fine in the same drives. These were all old, old drives, 1x or 2x readers, I think, certainly under 8x, and I've not seen this problem with any modern drives...
Other than that "gotcha", I've always found no performance difference between "burned" CD-Rs and "stamped" CDs.
that one is state sanctioned and the other is not.
Also, there is the perception, true or not, that the various forms of "blessed" gambling - lotteries, horse/dog racing in some states, the futures market, etc. - are more supervised by the state and "cleaner" - alledgedly less prone to fraud, cheating, and other auxilloray criminal activities, than the less regulated illegal gambling. That it's a circular argument is a whole 'nother issue.
Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter";
You were going along so well, until you said "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter". While those are the common grammatical categories of the languages that most/. readers are likely to be familiar with, there are languages with genders not based abstractly on sex, and languages with many more than 3 genders. An example is the Australian Aborigine language Dyirbal, with 4 genders - Bayi, Balan, Balam, and Bala
Bayi: men, kangaroos, possums, bats, most snakes, most fishes, some birds, most insects, the moon, storms, rainbows, boomerangs, some spears, etc. Balan: women, anything connected with water or fire, bandicoots, dogs, platypus, echidna, some snakes, some fishes, most birds, fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the stars, shields, some spears, some trees, etc. Balam: all edible fruit and the plants that bear them, tubers, ferns, honey, cigarettes, wine, cake. Bala: parts of the body, meat, bees, wind, yamsticks, some spears, most trees, grass, mud, stones, noises, language, etc.
Off-hand, I know there's at least one language that had 8 genders, I don't know what the maximum known is...
Not copyright. Trademark. Very big, very important differences. Not least of which is that, for most trademarks (i.e. marks that are not "famous" and are not-generic terms like "United" or "Garden"), more than one person can use the identical trademark, provided they're in different businesses.
And why wouldn't the supreme court take this case? How could this not be considered unimportant?
Some "legal scholars" are thinking that The Supreme Court will decline the case so they can let the Appeals Court "develop the record", in other words thrash out what's important and what's not. If there's some flagrant trial court error, it might never need to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court generally tries to limit the amount of work it takes on...
If this were a "normal" Supreme Court case, I'd figure the "legal scholars" were right with that analysis, but between the national importance of the case, and the fact that anti-trust cases are fundamentally different from most other types of civil cases, I wouldn't bet either way myself (though I'd prefer a fasttrack resolution to this, I'm getting tired of explaining why M$ is being sued to my non-geek friends and relatives...)
The reason it exists is that marketing/advertising departments are slaves to Adobe, much more so than IT departments are to Microsoft.
I'd disagree. While most graphic designers (who do the design work for marketing/advertising) are dependent on Adobe tools (and Macs), the reason they go with PDF format is that they can control *exactly* what you see, nothing else gives them that control. Of course, PDF is less usable for the consumer, but marketeers value control more than they value what the consumer really wants...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't patents only apply for 17 years after they are granted? 2000-1980 = 20 > 17.
Glad to correct you.
It used to be that patents lasted 17 years after they were issued. Some time ago, the U.S. changed the law so that patents lasted for 20 years after filing (the change so that filers were discouraged from slowing down the process and thereby financially benefiting from the maturation of the technology by others).
For those patents "in process" when the law changed, it was the later of the 2 terms. Elsewhere, someone noted that this patent falls in that transition zone, so that its expiration is 17 years after issuance - 1989 +17 = 2006.
However, it's still not a patent on web-style hyperlinking.
How can a contract between two parties exist when one side is profoundly, metaphysically ignorant of the existence of the other?
I appreciate your point, but the parties don't need to know who each other is specifically, only generally. "Anybody with the software CD and receipt" is good enough.
Consider tickets of many sorts (not including traffic tickets). They often create contracts where one or more parties don't know who the other is. For example, at a state fair the purchase of the an amusement ride ticket contracts the ride operator to give a ride to the ticket holder or his assignee, but neither of them know who the other is, beyond "hey you". Or consider a lottery ticket, which creates a contract between the issuer and someone truly anonymous, until he presents himself to collect...
In the old thrashing on the topic of USENET and copyright, many legal analysts decided that the act of posting created an implicit license for everybody else to do "standard USENET things" with the post, despite copyright, despite not knowing specifically who was being licensed. The parties identify themselves through offer and acceptance. With a EULA, it's (alledgedly) the same way, one party offers the software license and the other party accepts. Of course, MY beef with shrinkwrap license is that the software is presented to the customer as if it's "goods" for sale rather than a "license", the consideration (money) is accepted, and THEN then terms of the license contract is sprung on the customer.
Even with a contract as vague as "by entering this store you agree to X", store personnel can identify even an anonymous patron as "that guy in aisle B" who has agreed to X by simply being there in the store. It's my understanding that most states don't consider this type of "contract" to be binding, for public policy reasons, but I'm not any kind of knowledgable there...
Segue Software, Inc. has some notable provisions in their license. (FYI, I don't believe the software is available in distribution channels, but only from the manufacturer. Nonetheless, the license was presented in classic "shrinkwrap" style, i.e. on the standard "open this package to accept this license" white envolope containing the CD.)
The mere exchange of money between you and licensor creates no contractual relationship. This in a more or less standard paragraph saying that opening the package consitutes agreeing to the license.
You agree to at all time (sic) maintain records specifically identifying the Software and the location of the copy thereof. Such records shall be subject to inspection by Licensor [or his rep] during regular business hours upon reasonable advance notice for the purpose of enforcement of the terms and conditions of this License Agreement. This particular software package is moderatley high dollar and only used by a QA department, so it's not a big burden.
Standard ban on reverse engineering.
You agree that you will not assign, sublicense, transfer, pledge, lease, rent or share your rights under this License Agreement. So much for "first sale doctrine".
If any action is brought by either party to this License Agreement against the other party regarding the subject matter hereof, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover, in addition to any other relief granted, reasonable attorniey fees and expenses of litigation.
And a bunch of more or less standard stuff - liability limitation, severability, failure to enforce is not a permanent waiver, etc. As EULAs go, not too bad overall...
How can a contract hold up in court without a signature by both parties?
In general, legally a "contract" is not a piece of paper, with or without signatures, but rather "a meeting of the minds", an agreement between 2 or more parties that is "special" only in the sense that somone can sue for breach of that agreement. The piece of paper isn't the contract (which is intangible, being an agreement), it's the memorialization of the contract, so that both sides can know what they agreed to.
Oral contracts are legal (sometimes) and enforceable.
There are some laws that say certain types of contracts must be in writing and some laws that require certain special contracts to include certains terms or provisions, and it's a hell of a lot easier to enforce a written contract, but it doesn't (necessarily) have to be written, much less signed...
There are some interesting and relevant provisions of copyright law pertaining to distribution of out-of-print works by non-profit libraries and archives. The relevant bit of law is Title 17, Section 108, particularly paragraph e. In a nutshell, a library can make whole copies of out-of-print works and give them to patrons, when the work is not otherwise available at a reasonable price.
This of course doesn't say anything about formats, but it seems to *POTENTIALLY* cover the net-libraries of ROM images, IMHO. However, this law also has some specific requirements the library has to follow to avoid infringing, and the one ROM archive I've seen wasn't following those rules. A library trying to set itself up to use this defense should get an attorney, 'cause I ain't one...
I thought patents were protected for 17 years from date of grant, or 19 years from date of filing, whichever expires.. first?
Close.
There was a change in law; new patents expire 20 years after filing. Old (pre-change) patents expire either 20 years after filing or 17 years after date of grant, whichever is later. The RSA patent is one such where the 17 year rule applies...
Slashdot Mirror
Bzzt. Thanks for playing, please try again:
A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. U.S. Copyright law, 17 USC 204
"by operation of law" covers inheritance, seizure of assets for bankruptcy, etc...
It does, if it's not "work for hire". Since "work for hire" normally covers things created by employees in the normal course of their employment, not a lot of old code is going to be revertable, possibly excepting transfers made from one company to another and code written by consultants where the contract didn't have an explicit "work for hire" provision (which is required to make work by non-employees a "work for hire").
The article says: According to copyright law, the creators of intellectual property such as software, books, and music have full ownership of the property. This is wrong (at least as to U.S. law). The creators of a work have a large number of substantial rights, the most absolute of which is when or whether to publish the work. As an incentive to publish ("make public") the work, the government agrees to provide certain limited monopoly rights on the work for a limited time, and back those rights with the power of the state. However, those rights are limited in a number of ways.
- Copyright expires - the U.S. Constitution explicitly mandates that copyright last for a "limited time", which Congress has chosen to currently set very, very long.
- Copyright rights of the creator do not prohibit "fair use" by anyone else without permisiion of the creator.
- Copyright rights of the creator do not prohibit certain types of copying by libraries and public archives. This limitation is very relevant to the discussion of abandonware. More below.
- The "first sale" doctrine and section 109 of the law prevent creators from restricting re-selling of a work, or (for most works, with some important restrictions) the lending or renting of the work. (Programs and sound recordings can't be rented commercially.)
- Creators may not restrict or prohibit certain non-profit/educational performances or displays (e.g. a girlscout camp can sing copyrighted songs without paying a royalty).
- There are some incredibly arcane rules that I don't begin to understand allow some re-transmissions of (lawfully) transmitted works.
- Composers MUST license their published songs and other music (excluding operas and other "dramatic" musical works) under terms of a compulsory license for making "phonorecords" (sound recordings - tapes, records, CDs, etc.). The rate of payment is fixed by an arbitrator.
- Publishers of "phonorecords" must license them for use in commercial jukeboxes, but have the option of trying to negotiate a deal that suits them better than the deal set by the arbitrator.
- Owners of a copy of a computer program may make whatever copies of a program are essential to its use, or may make (an unspecified number of) backup copies. Section 117
- The copyright on a building or other architectural work doesn't prohibit pictures or other images of the work (as long as it's constructed and in public view).
- Copyright owners can't prohibit taping for the blind, under certain circumstances.
- If the rights or a right to a work have been transfered (sold, licensed, or otherwise) an author or his statutory heirs may terminate (undo) the transfer unilaterally without compensation, within a window of 35 to 40 years after after the transfer. An author may waive this right by contract but cannot do so on behalf of his statutory heirs.
In other words, copyright ain't property like personal property...But back to "abandonware". Section 108 of the copyright law says that, among other things, libraries and other publicaly available archives may (under section e of the law) make a complete copy of a work that they have determined is otherwise unavailable at a fair price and give it to a library user, provided a) they do not do so for commercial advantage and b) they display a particular notice as specified by the Copyright Office in 37 CFR 201.14 (PDF, scroll down to about page 20). The full text of the section e) reads:
(e) The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section apply to the entire work, or to a substantial part of it, made from the collection of a library or archives where the user makes his or her request or from that of another library or archives, if the library or archives has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that a copy or phonorecord of the copyrighted work cannot be obtained at a fair price, if-
(1) the copy or phonorecord becomes the property of the user, and the library or archives has had no notice that the copy or phonorecord would be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research; and
(2) the library or archives displays prominently, at the place where orders are accepted, and includes on its order form, a warning of copyright in accordance with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation.
Important: other parts of the section and of the law influence the legal interpretation of the above (so consult a lawyer), but the important point is, "abandonware" sites CAN be legal!
The "look and feel" lawsuit, which is the one we're discussing, was ended by an adverse decision in court in June of 1993, (had to look it up) see this page. Apple also lost their appeal to the Ninth Circuit in 1994 or 1995, so this case can hardly be said to have been "going well"...
By the time of the $150 million investment in Apple by Microsoft, 1997, Apple had some other patent suits going againsr MS, the Quicktime one was definitely going well for them if memory serves, but the "look and feel" suit was essentially dead and buried.
It's been a lot more than a year...
This is also the country where people take out 100-year mortgages so they can get a tiny condo.
You're wrong (but not totally). Under the law 17 USC 10, section 1003, the manufacturer of "digital audio recording medium" must pay a royalty, defined in section 1004 as "3 percent of the transfer price", the manufacturer's wholesale price. Section 1001 defines "digital audio recording medium" as "any material object in a form commonly distributed for use by individuals, that is primarily marketed or most commonly used by consumers for the purpose of making digital audio copied recordings by use of a digital audio recording device". It specifically exempts media that is primarily used as computer media, and a computer and/or CD burner fail to meet the definition of a "digital audio recording device" (unless they're specially marketed as such).
Last I looked recordable CDs still didn't have to pay royalties, and 3% of 40 cents doesn't have an impact even if that's changed...
Apple lost that battle primarily because they had licensed part of the Mac OS to Microsoft and it was at least arguable that that license covered the features MS ripped. I can no longer recall if they got a final decision from a court, or settled after they say the trend during the battle, but it wasn't that they couldn't sue for "look and feel" but that they had a license issue that muddied the waters that made the difference.
In the "real world", the "look and feel" of a business, its "trade dress", is protectable. In the case of Taco Cabana vs. Two Pesos, the courts said that one chain's building looked too much like another's, despite the fact that one was bubble-gum pink and the other was a brilliant turquoise. I guess justice is blind, after all.
This notion of "trade dress" applies to any distinctive appearance that serves to identify the source of goods - products or services - which, to come full circle, is how Apple kicked the PC "iMac look-alikes" out of the market.
Not quite right, for the U.S. The law, 35 USC 10 102 defines when publication affects the ability to patent. In a nutshell, in the U.S. you lose the patent if:
The 2nd rule is only a USA rule, which is why RSA was a valid patent in the US but not in (most of) the rest of the world... So in the rest of the world, if a "leak" publicizes a patentable invention, someone could lose a patent, but IMHO most (but not all) product "leaks" don't disclose enough about the invention to potentially void a patent...
I should have said "Federal courts". Some state constitutions provide additional rights, among them California, Massachusetts, Oregon and New Jersey. This article says Minnesota is not one of them.
The courts have consistently ruled that malls aren't public places, to the extent that malls can enforce their own dress codes, prohibit picketing, ban soliciting or pamphleting, prohibit "mall-walkers" (the folk who walk round & round for exercise), etc.
Personally, I've always been bothered by this in the context of free speech rights, but the rise of the 'net has reduced those concerns somewhat...
Actually, the term "intellectual property" is a relatively recent term. I'm not sure if this coinage was designed to do so, but the term by itself tends to create a false analogy between "intellectual property" and personal property, which the previous post reflects. Our "law of ideas", patent law, explicitly does NOT make an idea the property of "the person who though[sic] of it", but clearly offers a quid pro quo (that's "something for something" for those of you who forgot your Latin) - Make your idea public - give it to the world - and for 20 years the government won't let anyone make money with your idea without your permission, i.e., they'll grant you a patent.
A patent is property, an idea is not.
Bullshit. While a handful of *tiny* operators have big strikes like that every year (while 10 times as many go bankrupt, fold up shop, and start over), the big companies that dominate the industry - Shell, BP Amoco, etc. - never have even close to that type of return, and are somwhat insulated from fluctuations in gas price. You have to realize that most of the big companies are diversified into petro-chemicals - plastics, fertilizers, etc. - and when their profit on gasoline goes up, their profit in other areas goes down. These companies are publicly traded, and if they were returning 500%, you'd be reading headlines about sky-rocketing stock prices. Oh, that's right, it's all part of the media conspiracy to opress us and hide THE TRUTH!!! I forgot...
I think that's either the most clueless, or the most willful distortion of history I've ever seen.
While it's correct to note that the Statute of Anne was the first modern copyright law, it was introduced as a response to serious problems - an unlimited printer's monopoly combined with oppressive government censorship. Before the Statute of Anne, the right to print (anything!) was a monopoly controlled by a trade guild, the Stationer's Company. This situation arose in part with the support of Crown, particularly Queen Mary, as a means of controlling the political dialogue (and resulted in large numbers of "dissenting" printers setting up in the Netherlands). The Stationer's Company enforced a "perpetual" monopoly on printed works - each printer registered the works he was printing and no other printer could print them. They also enforced import restrictions - primarily designed to dissuade heresy and dissent, but also to enforce the printer's guild's monopoly.
After over a hundred years of this monopoly, the printers were rudely suprised by the Statute of Anne, which allowed anyone (who could afford it) to become a printer, and which, for the first time, gave authors a copyright, for 14 years (renewable for another 14).
Before free speech, before freedom of assembly, before freedom of religion, there was copyright protection in our Constitution. The founding fathers knew copyright protection could improve society by preserving the economic incentive for people to come up with brilliant ideas and inventions.
The founding fathers knew the history when publishers controlled ideas (as a surrogate for governments), and were trying to prevent it from happening, again.
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Is this true? I've never met a CD player that didn't like a CD-R, and I've got some OLD players. On the other hand, CD-RWs, obviously, are a different story. I've found that CD-RWs aren't playable in any of my CD players, but my DVD player recognizes it just fine (which, I guess, you would expect.)
CD-Rs burn a dye layer in the disc, and there are a few types of dyes that are used. I've found that the "greenish" dyes used in some CD-Rs, notably TDKs, works very poorly in first generation Macintosh CD drives in the PowerMac 7100s, about 15% of the disks I burned (a production run of 200 CD-Rs) wouldn't read, and another 10-20% had high error rates or other glitches. "Gold" dye CD-Rs worked fine in the same drives. These were all old, old drives, 1x or 2x readers, I think, certainly under 8x, and I've not seen this problem with any modern drives...
Other than that "gotcha", I've always found no performance difference between "burned" CD-Rs and "stamped" CDs.
Also, there is the perception, true or not, that the various forms of "blessed" gambling - lotteries, horse/dog racing in some states, the futures market, etc. - are more supervised by the state and "cleaner" - alledgedly less prone to fraud, cheating, and other auxilloray criminal activities, than the less regulated illegal gambling. That it's a circular argument is a whole 'nother issue.
You were going along so well, until you said "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter". While those are the common grammatical categories of the languages that most /. readers are likely to be familiar with, there are languages with genders not based abstractly on sex, and languages with many more than 3 genders. An example is the Australian Aborigine language Dyirbal, with 4 genders - Bayi, Balan, Balam, and Bala
Bayi: men, kangaroos, possums, bats, most snakes, most fishes, some birds, most insects, the moon, storms, rainbows, boomerangs, some spears, etc.
Balan: women, anything connected with water or fire, bandicoots, dogs, platypus, echidna, some snakes, some fishes, most birds, fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the stars, shields, some spears, some trees, etc.
Balam: all edible fruit and the plants that bear them, tubers, ferns, honey, cigarettes, wine, cake.
Bala: parts of the body, meat, bees, wind, yamsticks, some spears, most trees, grass, mud, stones, noises, language, etc.
Off-hand, I know there's at least one language that had 8 genders, I don't know what the maximum known is...
Not copyright. Trademark. Very big, very important differences. Not least of which is that, for most trademarks (i.e. marks that are not "famous" and are not-generic terms like "United" or "Garden"), more than one person can use the identical trademark, provided they're in different businesses.
Some "legal scholars" are thinking that The Supreme Court will decline the case so they can let the Appeals Court "develop the record", in other words thrash out what's important and what's not. If there's some flagrant trial court error, it might never need to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court generally tries to limit the amount of work it takes on...
If this were a "normal" Supreme Court case, I'd figure the "legal scholars" were right with that analysis, but between the national importance of the case, and the fact that anti-trust cases are fundamentally different from most other types of civil cases, I wouldn't bet either way myself (though I'd prefer a fasttrack resolution to this, I'm getting tired of explaining why M$ is being sued to my non-geek friends and relatives...)
I'd disagree. While most graphic designers (who do the design work for marketing/advertising) are dependent on Adobe tools (and Macs), the reason they go with PDF format is that they can control *exactly* what you see, nothing else gives them that control. Of course, PDF is less usable for the consumer, but marketeers value control more than they value what the consumer really wants...
Glad to correct you.
It used to be that patents lasted 17 years after they were issued. Some time ago, the U.S. changed the law so that patents lasted for 20 years after filing (the change so that filers were discouraged from slowing down the process and thereby financially benefiting from the maturation of the technology by others).
For those patents "in process" when the law changed, it was the later of the 2 terms. Elsewhere, someone noted that this patent falls in that transition zone, so that its expiration is 17 years after issuance - 1989 +17 = 2006.
However, it's still not a patent on web-style hyperlinking.
I appreciate your point, but the parties don't need to know who each other is specifically, only generally. "Anybody with the software CD and receipt" is good enough.
Consider tickets of many sorts (not including traffic tickets). They often create contracts where one or more parties don't know who the other is. For example, at a state fair the purchase of the an amusement ride ticket contracts the ride operator to give a ride to the ticket holder or his assignee, but neither of them know who the other is, beyond "hey you". Or consider a lottery ticket, which creates a contract between the issuer and someone truly anonymous, until he presents himself to collect...
In the old thrashing on the topic of USENET and copyright, many legal analysts decided that the act of posting created an implicit license for everybody else to do "standard USENET things" with the post, despite copyright, despite not knowing specifically who was being licensed. The parties identify themselves through offer and acceptance. With a EULA, it's (alledgedly) the same way, one party offers the software license and the other party accepts. Of course, MY beef with shrinkwrap license is that the software is presented to the customer as if it's "goods" for sale rather than a "license", the consideration (money) is accepted, and THEN then terms of the license contract is sprung on the customer.
Even with a contract as vague as "by entering this store you agree to X", store personnel can identify even an anonymous patron as "that guy in aisle B" who has agreed to X by simply being there in the store. It's my understanding that most states don't consider this type of "contract" to be binding, for public policy reasons, but I'm not any kind of knowledgable there...
The mere exchange of money between you and licensor creates no contractual relationship.
This in a more or less standard paragraph saying that opening the package consitutes agreeing to the license.
You agree to at all time (sic) maintain records specifically identifying the Software and the location of the copy thereof. Such records shall be subject to inspection by Licensor [or his rep] during regular business hours upon reasonable advance notice for the purpose of enforcement of the terms and conditions of this License Agreement.
This particular software package is moderatley high dollar and only used by a QA department, so it's not a big burden.
Standard ban on reverse engineering.
You agree that you will not assign, sublicense, transfer, pledge, lease, rent or share your rights under this License Agreement.
So much for "first sale doctrine".
If any action is brought by either party to this License Agreement against the other party regarding the subject matter hereof, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover, in addition to any other relief granted, reasonable attorniey fees and expenses of litigation.
And a bunch of more or less standard stuff - liability limitation, severability, failure to enforce is not a permanent waiver, etc. As EULAs go, not too bad overall...
In general, legally a "contract" is not a piece of paper, with or without signatures, but rather "a meeting of the minds", an agreement between 2 or more parties that is "special" only in the sense that somone can sue for breach of that agreement. The piece of paper isn't the contract (which is intangible, being an agreement), it's the memorialization of the contract, so that both sides can know what they agreed to.
Oral contracts are legal (sometimes) and enforceable.
There are some laws that say certain types of contracts must be in writing and some laws that require certain special contracts to include certains terms or provisions, and it's a hell of a lot easier to enforce a written contract, but it doesn't (necessarily) have to be written, much less signed...
This of course doesn't say anything about formats, but it seems to *POTENTIALLY* cover the net-libraries of ROM images, IMHO. However, this law also has some specific requirements the library has to follow to avoid infringing, and the one ROM archive I've seen wasn't following those rules. A library trying to set itself up to use this defense should get an attorney, 'cause I ain't one...
Close.
There was a change in law; new patents expire 20 years after filing. Old (pre-change) patents expire either 20 years after filing or 17 years after date of grant, whichever is later. The RSA patent is one such where the 17 year rule applies...