The Portugese cork oak plantations are indeed fantastically beautiful, and numerous species of European bird life cannot, in fact, find another business.
.When one looks at the stories that never made it onto the front page when this one did, it is hard not to criticise the editorial judgement being used here. By the way, according to the "lameness filter", this post appears to be ASCII art; is Taco a surrealist?
Subject: Not everything which resembles a c&d letter, is one
One to be filed in the round file, methinks. A cease-and-desist letter worth paying attention to would have said exactly what IP was being infirnged (clue: none is) and used the words "cease", "desist" and "remove". This is just something threatening dire consequences in unspecific terms.
Charitably, one might assume that they are putting a marker down; they don't know whether they might have a problem with flying butt monkeys, but they do know that if they ever need to prosecute in future, they'd better not be found in proof that they knew about this software for a while, but did nothing about it.
Irritating, perhaps, but part of the price we have to pay for a common-law based system. The alternative would be for there to be government-provided coding licenses and prior restraints of what code you can write.
The EQ box is an incomplete product. It requires a service to function. The tying of two products or services together is called bundling, and is generally illegal.
When done by a monopolist. Big caveat.
In any case, if one product requires another to function, then it is not clear that legally, you are looking at two products. Taken strictly, your argument would have the implication that it is illegal to sell guns and bullets, or nuts and bolts, or Suzuki engine spares.
Would you call a movie about two happy-go-lucky US Navy pilots in training, one of whom has an affair with his civilian instructor a derivative work of Top Gun? The courts certainly (disclaimer: legal matters are rarely certain) would, and an "Everquest Emulator" looks to be in the same territory.
With what application or OS is Everquest incompatible, and what steps have been taken by the designers of this emulator to extend its compatibility? These server emulators are IP thefts pure and simple; their aim is to rob the game provider of ownership of the right to control his copyrighted material.
Think about it this way; I download an emulator, fill its content with unpleasant sexual material and advertise "RapeQuest" or "Ultima Paedo Edition". Ought not the creators of the original server application to have some protection against this?
First, you are very clearly NAL; you've managed to confuse patents and copyrights in your third sentence.
Secondly, Everquest is clearly, clearly not a "protocol". It's a software application. Emulating it involves replicating its functionality substantially, and this really could not be done without substantially ripping off its IP. In principle, you could reverse engineer the file formats, then do a "clean room" build of the emulator, but this would basically be the creation of a new online game engine, compatible with Everquest (allowing you to take advantage of the reverse engineering for compatibility loophole in DMCA). But somehow, I don't think that this is what these guys have done.
What they're doing is creating an application, using the Everquest IP, which allows you to play a game very like Everquest without paying fees to Everquest, and which is not in the control of Everquest (what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?).
Here's an analogy; I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source. When the GPL zealots come breathing down my neck, I claim to have "reverse engineered" a slashdot "emulator". Do I have a case? Like hell.
It certainly has been decided, and reverse engineering is legal, if it is directed at producing a compatible application. Reverse engineering aimed at stealing somebody else's intellectual property is not legal, and this case looks to be decidedly an example of the latter.
If you destroy the profitability of the music industry, then you will fundamentally alter the kind of music which is produced. Copyright gives you big companies, lots of investment, high-production values acts, slick video and attracts people into the business who want to be *stars*
No copyright gives you smaller average size of recording company, home recording enthusiasts, people who don't mind looking after the business side for themselves, probably more acoustic music, and people who (for the large part erroneously) believe that they have something important to say to the world.
There were no anti-trust issues in the case, which is why Garbus dropped this line of defense. Whatever the situation regarding antitrust, it would not alter the plaintiff's rights under the DMCA; the law under which the suit was brought.
It seems to me that if it takes a judge 91 pages to make the argument that he should not recuse himself from a case, something is wrong.
Errrrrrrr.... well, pardon my French, but if it "seems to you" this way, then you know fuck-all about the legal system, and your opinions on the matter are of interest only to yourself, your mother, and, bizarrely, five slasdhot moderators.
And, your comment about Judge Kaplan's "colleagues" (here's a clue: Judges Aren't Members of Law Firms) having "designed" the market control scheme is both a lie, and certainly actionable.
The DeCSS case is very certainly damaged by idiotic zealots.
The judgement in the DeCSS case quite clearly, clearly, clearly says that code is speech and as such is protected under the First Amendment. However, it also notes that the First Amendment is consistent with some kinds of content-neutral regulation against types of protected speech which also have other effects. The judge goes on to say that the DMCA is such a regulation.
Xerox PARC was very definitely a closed project owned by the Xerox Corporation, who have always attempted (in a haphazard and half-assed way) to patent their inventions.
What have this gang of people done that isn't a "workalike" for something produced either in academia or in a corporation. I'm asking out of a genuine interest in the answer, by the way; I tend to think that, whatever "many eyes" do, they are the absolute enemy of creativity.
PGP has an alternative commercial use... if you'd read the article, you'd see that the vulnerability would not affect documents already scrambled with PGP, so your example is balls anyway... oh, what's the use? Slashdot wants to believe that the DMCA doesn't say what it says, and mere evidence isn't going to change that.
Re:Free Software = Pompous Bores, discuss
on
Men of Zeal
·
· Score: 2
I'm not talking about entirely new "paradigms" -- just original products. When you take away the free software projects which aren't "Yet Another" this or "Is Not" that, or which aren't attempting to replicate commercial products for Linux, what do you have? Not much. Arguably, PNG and arguably PGP. Not much else. (I can't repeat often enough that neither Napster, Gnutella nor Google are free software. Google even has a patented algorithm, not that you'll hear much about that on Slashdot).
Slashdot Mirror
Trolls eat shit
You are feeding a troll
errr ..... you said it, brother, not me.
yet you intend to keep reading slashdot?
How?
The Portugese cork oak plantations are indeed fantastically beautiful, and numerous species of European bird life cannot, in fact, find another business.
.When one looks at the stories that never made it onto the front page when this one did, it is hard not to criticise the editorial judgement being used here. By the way, according to the "lameness filter", this post appears to be ASCII art; is Taco a surrealist?
*The wine is invariably cheap shit, and you deserve better.
*Plastic corks are driving the Portugese cork farmers out of business, with fairly disastrous results for an impossibly beautiful part of the earth.
Of course, those of us who stayed on for Econ 201 learned that it is by no means as simple as this ....
One to be filed in the round file, methinks. A cease-and-desist letter worth paying attention to would have said exactly what IP was being infirnged (clue: none is) and used the words "cease", "desist" and "remove". This is just something threatening dire consequences in unspecific terms.
Charitably, one might assume that they are putting a marker down; they don't know whether they might have a problem with flying butt monkeys, but they do know that if they ever need to prosecute in future, they'd better not be found in proof that they knew about this software for a while, but did nothing about it.
Irritating, perhaps, but part of the price we have to pay for a common-law based system. The alternative would be for there to be government-provided coding licenses and prior restraints of what code you can write.
Given your email addy, I'd guess you're with amazon.co.uk; under the Data Protection Act, you can ask them to do exactly this.
Well; you're pretty wrong, I'm afraid. "Look and feel" lawsuits are a tricky area, but by no means ruled out of court.
When done by a monopolist. Big caveat.
In any case, if one product requires another to function, then it is not clear that legally, you are looking at two products. Taken strictly, your argument would have the implication that it is illegal to sell guns and bullets, or nuts and bolts, or Suzuki engine spares.
Would you call a movie about two happy-go-lucky US Navy pilots in training, one of whom has an affair with his civilian instructor a derivative work of Top Gun? The courts certainly (disclaimer: legal matters are rarely certain) would, and an "Everquest Emulator" looks to be in the same territory.
Think about it this way; I download an emulator, fill its content with unpleasant sexual material and advertise "RapeQuest" or "Ultima Paedo Edition". Ought not the creators of the original server application to have some protection against this?
Secondly, Everquest is clearly, clearly not a "protocol". It's a software application. Emulating it involves replicating its functionality substantially, and this really could not be done without substantially ripping off its IP. In principle, you could reverse engineer the file formats, then do a "clean room" build of the emulator, but this would basically be the creation of a new online game engine, compatible with Everquest (allowing you to take advantage of the reverse engineering for compatibility loophole in DMCA). But somehow, I don't think that this is what these guys have done.
What they're doing is creating an application, using the Everquest IP, which allows you to play a game very like Everquest without paying fees to Everquest, and which is not in the control of Everquest (what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?).
Here's an analogy; I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source. When the GPL zealots come breathing down my neck, I claim to have "reverse engineered" a slashdot "emulator". Do I have a case? Like hell.
It certainly has been decided, and reverse engineering is legal, if it is directed at producing a compatible application. Reverse engineering aimed at stealing somebody else's intellectual property is not legal, and this case looks to be decidedly an example of the latter.
morally, the first; musically, the second.
big-up to de Eton Wick Massive, and booyakka.
bo!
bo!
bo!
jsm
No copyright gives you smaller average size of recording company, home recording enthusiasts, people who don't mind looking after the business side for themselves, probably more acoustic music, and people who (for the large part erroneously) believe that they have something important to say to the world.
Personally, I think it sucks.
There were no anti-trust issues in the case, which is why Garbus dropped this line of defense. Whatever the situation regarding antitrust, it would not alter the plaintiff's rights under the DMCA; the law under which the suit was brought.
Errrrrrrr .... well, pardon my French, but if it "seems to you" this way, then you know fuck-all about the legal system, and your opinions on the matter are of interest only to yourself, your mother, and, bizarrely, five slasdhot moderators.
And, your comment about Judge Kaplan's "colleagues" (here's a clue: Judges Aren't Members of Law Firms) having "designed" the market control scheme is both a lie, and certainly actionable.
The DeCSS case is very certainly damaged by idiotic zealots.
You're sloving a non-problem here.
Xerox PARC was very definitely a closed project owned by the Xerox Corporation, who have always attempted (in a haphazard and half-assed way) to patent their inventions.
What have this gang of people done that isn't a "workalike" for something produced either in academia or in a corporation. I'm asking out of a genuine interest in the answer, by the way; I tend to think that, whatever "many eyes" do, they are the absolute enemy of creativity.
PGP has an alternative commercial use ... if you'd read the article, you'd see that the vulnerability would not affect documents already scrambled with PGP, so your example is balls anyway ... oh, what's the use? Slashdot wants to believe that the DMCA doesn't say what it says, and mere evidence isn't going to change that.
I'm not talking about entirely new "paradigms" -- just original products. When you take away the free software projects which aren't "Yet Another" this or "Is Not" that, or which aren't attempting to replicate commercial products for Linux, what do you have? Not much. Arguably, PNG and arguably PGP. Not much else. (I can't repeat often enough that neither Napster, Gnutella nor Google are free software. Google even has a patented algorithm, not that you'll hear much about that on Slashdot).