Now, if I said "F*ck the F*cking F*ckers!" over and over again to an angry beat, no court in the nation would question my "Song"'s expressive value, even if all that is being expressed is inchoate rage.
Lots of people have been giving examples, which I admire and agree with, pointing the beauty or mathematical foundations of code. But why do we have to even defend the expressive value of code???
I'm serious! Why do we have to defend the expressive value of code? It can be written down/stored and read by a large group of other (independent) humans who can gather meaning from it. What more is there???
Conversely, if the courts want to be strict about expressiveness, the copyrights to 'N Sync should be nullified!
Revolutions are a way of life in the computer industry. That's why Microsoft is proud to announce IntelliMatter(TM)--the smart choice in custom-built scalable nanoscale scaled implementations in scale invariant microscaled Innnovations, bringing microscopic Total Cost of Ownership to your revolutionary heterogenous infospace!
Everyone who posts to/. either is or is not a lawyer. Most of us are not. Therefore, IANAL should be the default assumption.
Also, those few posters who really ARE lawyers inevitably say, "This is not legal advice, laws vary by region, yada, yada, yada."
Finally, the caveats seem to be designed to do three things: 1) convey information as to the posters education and qualifications--and therefore credibility 2) warn others not to try using the posters comments in court as evidence/legal interpretion. 3) avoid liability if someone violates 2).
Imagine this: "But your honor, some guy on the internet named fLaMMiNg_HeX0rRz said that I could do [whatever]! And he said he was a lawyer!"
No wonder it thinks anything with 'on a computer' is non-obvious!
"The USPTO is not yet equipped to handle general email correspondence. General inquiries should be directed by telephone to 800.786.9199 (800.PTO.9199) or 703.308.4357"
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:15-17 (KJV)
Regardless of your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) it is interesting to consider that this has been thought of before--as a method of totalitarian control. I don't have the link, but the police stopped a searched a woman for drugs, and gave as probable cause that she paid cash!
To PROMOTE the PROGRESS of Science and useful Arts, by securing for LIMITED TIMES to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; (EMPHASIS ADDED)
The intent of the Framers was to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", NOT to make inventors and authors rich. If they do become rich, that's great, but the intent of copyright and patent law (originally) was to improve society.
I think it would be more than fair to add a clause to the UCITA, DMCA, etc. which, in exchange for the other goodies the corporations get, adds the RESPONSIBILITY to support and maintain their software. If the holder of the IP chooses not to do so, the software reverts to the public domain 3 years after the last copy of the software was manufactured. This would fit nicely with the original syntax of the Constitution and return more of the value of IP to society, the way the Framers, and early Congresses, intended.
With the "Mickey Mouse" extension of copyright to something like 10^18 years after the death of the author, we've drifted away from the original (and I think, good) balance between creators and the public. Part of the problem businesses are having now is that they've grabbed too much, and large minorties of the public feel no qualms about enforcing the "limited time" clause on their own.
I love reading slashdot. It combines links to interesting, newsworthy articles WITH commentary. But I don't read all 500 posts about.NET, or DeCSS, or whatever. I read the highest scores first, because my time is valuable.
If Publius is to be effective, ie. getting me to read it as part of my routine, it NEEDS indexing, searching and moderating. The most valuable resource in the 21st century is going to be the attention of humans, specifically wealthy and educated humans. Think about it, that is what advertisers pay Billions of dollars a year for.
How is Publius going to attract and keep attention?
The link to this article says "controversy", but the article itself holds that this ruling will be bad for consumers. I'm not so sure. If a business is willing to spend the money on coders, servers, reviewers, etc to design a really good system to help you find what you need, it could be driven out of business when everyone uses it's search and review functions to find out what they want, and then go to to a crawler or shopbot to actually buy the good or service. And notice that by saying that crawling a site is trespassing, sites can decide who to "invite" in, including search engines. On the whole it seems like a good ruling for now. It can, and will be, revisited anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, if I said "F*ck the F*cking F*ckers!" over and over again to an angry beat, no court in the nation would question my "Song"'s expressive value, even if all that is being expressed is inchoate rage.
Lots of people have been giving examples, which I admire and agree with, pointing the beauty or mathematical foundations of code. But why do we have to even defend the expressive value of code???
I'm serious! Why do we have to defend the expressive value of code? It can be written down/stored and read by a large group of other (independent) humans who can gather meaning from it. What more is there???
Conversely, if the courts want to be strict about expressiveness, the copyrights to 'N Sync should be nullified!
Revolutions are a way of life in the computer industry. That's why Microsoft is proud to announce IntelliMatter(TM)--the smart choice in custom-built scalable nanoscale scaled implementations in scale invariant microscaled Innnovations, bringing microscopic Total Cost of Ownership to your revolutionary heterogenous infospace!
No problem--that's what QA is for!
Everyone who posts to /. either is or is not a lawyer. Most of us are not. Therefore, IANAL should be the default assumption.
Also, those few posters who really ARE lawyers inevitably say, "This is not legal advice, laws vary by region, yada, yada, yada."
Finally, the caveats seem to be designed to do three things: 1) convey information as to the posters education and qualifications--and therefore credibility 2) warn others not to try using the posters comments in court as evidence/legal interpretion. 3) avoid liability if someone violates 2).
Imagine this: "But your honor, some guy on the internet named fLaMMiNg_HeX0rRz said that I could do [whatever]! And he said he was a lawyer!"
So, let's all save some bits--quit saying IANAL!
That's all, and thank you for your support
No wonder it thinks anything with 'on a computer' is non-obvious!
"The USPTO is not yet equipped to handle general email correspondence. General inquiries should be directed by telephone to 800.786.9199 (800.PTO.9199) or 703.308.4357"
Imagine if King George was never given the Declaration of Indepence, because his secretary 'filtered' it.
"But it was signed by some porn star named John Hanc*ck! I nearly fainted when I read it! His name violated my civil rights!"
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:15-17 (KJV)
Regardless of your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) it is interesting to consider that this has been thought of before--as a method of totalitarian control. I don't have the link, but the police stopped a searched a woman for drugs, and gave as probable cause that she paid cash!
People, this is scary.
Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
To PROMOTE the PROGRESS of Science and useful Arts, by securing for LIMITED TIMES to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; (EMPHASIS ADDED)
The intent of the Framers was to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", NOT to make inventors and authors rich. If they do become rich, that's great, but the intent of copyright and patent law (originally) was to improve society.
I think it would be more than fair to add a clause to the UCITA, DMCA, etc. which, in exchange for the other goodies the corporations get, adds the RESPONSIBILITY to support and maintain their software. If the holder of the IP chooses not to do so, the software reverts to the public domain 3 years after the last copy of the software was manufactured. This would fit nicely with the original syntax of the Constitution and return more of the value of IP to society, the way the Framers, and early Congresses, intended.
With the "Mickey Mouse" extension of copyright to something like 10^18 years after the death of the author, we've drifted away from the original (and I think, good) balance between creators and the public. Part of the problem businesses are having now is that they've grabbed too much, and large minorties of the public feel no qualms about enforcing the "limited time" clause on their own.
I love reading slashdot. It combines links to interesting, newsworthy articles WITH commentary. But I don't read all 500 posts about .NET, or DeCSS, or whatever. I read the highest scores first, because my time is valuable.
If Publius is to be effective, ie. getting me to read it as part of my routine, it NEEDS indexing, searching and moderating. The most valuable resource in the 21st century is going to be the attention of humans, specifically wealthy and educated humans. Think about it, that is what advertisers pay Billions of dollars a year for.
How is Publius going to attract and keep attention?
The link to this article says "controversy", but the article itself holds that this ruling will be bad for consumers. I'm not so sure. If a business is willing to spend the money on coders, servers, reviewers, etc to design a really good system to help you find what you need, it could be driven out of business when everyone uses it's search and review functions to find out what they want, and then go to to a crawler or shopbot to actually buy the good or service. And notice that by saying that crawling a site is trespassing, sites can decide who to "invite" in, including search engines. On the whole it seems like a good ruling for now. It can, and will be, revisited anyway.