If you read any of my posts you would see that I think it is ridiculous that copyrights extend past death or even close to what they are now.
I'm an advocate for shorter copyrights, but extending past death is well within reason as far as I'm concerned. When it comes to business, consistency is generally better than randomness - A company shouldn't have to worry about the copyright of it's works if a random popular author gets hit by a bus tomorrow.
I'll use Robert Jordan as an example. As he was writing his last book it was well known that he was dying(cardiac amyloidosis). Ergo, lacking any reasonable copyright term no publisher would have paid for his last works, depriving him of income and justification to write.
Thus I'd vote for something along the lines of 'death or 20 years, whichever is longer'. Heck, I'd prefer a flat 20, extendable to 40, from the time of 'first commercial publication'. IE copyright doesn't start as long as it's part of the 'slush drawer'(but is still protected), but once it's released the timer starts. Actual rules would probably fill a book - what happens to a creator's slush drawer when he or she dies and the heirs start 'finishing' stuff and releasing it?
In the end, I actually have dozens of ideas on how to handle copyright/patents, each with it's own positives/negatives. Most I feel would be better than the current system.
What in the world are you basing that on? It's a basic tenant of economics. You have something to sell, people will either pay the price or consider it too expensive and go without/find an alternative.
It's the 'find an alternative' part. If you're charging as much as you can and you're sufficiently over your costs a competitor will enter the market and undercut you.
A monopoly changes the equation because 'find an alternate' isn't an option.
As for IBM Australia, how many individual customers do they have today? IBM Australia is going to be selling software/services to businesses, not individuals, and the market there can be quite complicated.
I'm thinking about companies like Microsoft, Blizzard, Square, EA, etc...
They are unlikely to be able to build a rocket that is hardened enough to survive launch
As cusco mentioned, they've already done it long ago. Guided artillery, gun launched nukes, etc... You have to harden the system to survive it as I mentioned, but it's relatively known engineering.
It's simply the price the market is willing to pay.
Economics fail. You only get 'price the market is willing to pay' with monopolies. Which even with copyright isn't the case in the USA. In general, at least. It's complicated.
Not when they're flying to the USA to pick up Adobe products and doing things like renting VPNs to pay US prices. Sure, the USA is about a third cheaper. On the other hand, software in Australia seems to run 100% more expensive.
Are you really saying IBM software is more expensive in Aus because it has to be imported? When I could buy a copy online and have it shipped for cheaper?
I think you didn't get what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that software tends to be more expensive in your country because of import restrictions. It's the way that the laws are set up that's the problem. You take imported software and slap VAT on it, import duties, and force an exclusive contract with a AU company that's willing to charge what the market will bear and it sucks.
Importing the software for your own individual use, without paying the VAT and such is probably a violation somewhere, but a bit like speeding - you're unlikely to be caught unless you're egregious or excessive about it.
Just because you can't put astronauts or unhardened electronic/mechanical bits up with it doesn't really reduce it's value.
If it can reduce launch costs for the stuff it can launch to around $100/pound vs $2k, it changes the dynamics even if it's just launching oxygen, water, and such to the station.
"One true solution" arguments (it doesn't replace every use so it's useless!) don't help solve problems.
A company can sell products at whatever price they want. At the end of the day, stuff costs more in Australia because people were willing to pay more. The companies are not doing anything illegal, they are selling software at the price the market is willing to pay.
Actually, the Australian people's willingness to pay more comes with serious limitations. It appears that the spread of digital distribution and the resulting penetration into far more heads of the idea that *YES* Australian prices are a huge rip off has spurred this investigation.
Australians *might* be willing to pay more, but not that much more, and it's been their very laws that help encourage it. Ways to help: 1. End protection of importing companies 2. End import tariffs and taxes 3. Especially end their home-brew standards board for things like video games
As I understand it, in order to get software legally into the country and into the distribution system, they essentially have to sign an exclusive contract with an importing company - so while a company might deal with several distributors(steam for online, one for supplying walmart, kmart, and the ilk, another for gamestop type stores, etc...), to get into Australia they have to agree that X has the sole pricing power for stuff in the country - and the contract states that Steam can't sell it for less.
Isn't this because of one of the import restrictions essentially placing the final retail price in the hands of some Australian company, and it actually being illegal to sell for less than what they set the price at?
That would explain the ripoff site's 'top list' looking to be mostly A rated games that have been price dropped/are on special. Steam is normally pretty agile on pricing.
This reminds me of the CDC's Zombie preparedness memo.
Some people bitched about the 'waste of funds' and such. The CDC pointed out that from their metrics it was viewed OVER 100X as much as their normal releases, for approximately equal preparation cost. Plus, well, if you're prepared for zombies, you're prepared about as well as you can be for many natural and unnatural disasters. The advice in the release was still standard disease/disaster prep stuff.
I'll disagree somewhat. We have constant campaigns against 'Fraud, Waste, and Abuse'. An earmark that actually results in a bridge(that will be used) being built would be Abuse, not waste.
Fraud: Selling/buying counterfeit Chinese parts rather than the real ones that will actually last through use. Waste: Contracting construction of a building, screwing up the work document such that they end up tearing it down due to safety concerns. Abuse: Claiming porn/alcohol/pay per view on your travel voucher.
I wouldn't say that Apple makes the only safe chargers out there, otherwise there would be piles of dead Android users and lots of litigation due to that.
I'll note that the quote is 'avoid counterfeit chargers', not 'second/third party chargers'. So I should be suspicious of a Apple charger that's being sold for 1/4 of list price, but buying a 'Rosewill' with ETL and UL certifications should still be good.
It's current that kills you, not voltage, and it doesn't take much. Even a cheap USB cable will transfer more than enough power to kill you if you're unlucky.
If it's thick enough for 500mA(minimum USB standard), it's enough to kill you, as it only takes 100-200mA. Matter of fact, it says that 100-200mA is actually more dangerous than above 200mA if the victim can get prompt attention.
Given what I know about porn viewing rates and the probable likelihood of semi-regularly hitting the filters if you don't tend to browse within a specific sandbox area(mainstream news, facebook, youtube, etc...), I'd imagine that people will start overcoming their laziness the moment the filter inconveniences them.
Not to mention moving people to vote against them, which would be bad for them.
Though I think it'd be hilarious if they actually get the filters forced out and adoption goes under even the V-Chip levels...
Even if the problem is 'criminal outlook', and it's not that simple, it's still possible to 'fix' criminal outlook with the proper rehab. By this I look at the recidivism rates of various countries - criminal systems that concentrate on rehab, while not 100% successful, largely succeed in preventing their tenants from committing further criminal acts upon release. Jails and prisons that don't spend any effort on reform are largely revolving doors - the criminals don't stop coming back until they're dead.
I question how we, as a society, can afford to have non-reforming prisons. If you can confine somebody in a reforming prison for 1/3rd the time with 1/3rd the expectation they'll come back afterwards as a non-reform prison where they often come out WORSE than they went in, as a libertarian and fiscal conservative* I can't help but become upset. Sure, a reform prison is a touch more expensive per year. But running it properly results in smaller government - fewer prisons, fewer court cases, etc...
Heck, I remember reading that in the USA several of the founding fathers ran rather progressive criminal reform systems. In one case each inmate was assigned a 'counselor' who basically had full control over the inmate's progression through the system. Recidivism was under 10% afterwards, however the program eventually ended due to cost/complexity. It was tough finding qualified counselors and expensive to keep them, as each counselor only had 1 inmate to care about and the position part time.
*IE balanced budget, low taxes, programs have to be able to justify their cost.
I agree. It's more a matter of degree. For that matter, I figure there's far more non-criminal psychopaths out there than criminal ones. I figure that 'most' end up figuring that even though they don't actually care about their fellow humans, it's too much hassle to kill them. It takes somebody broken in yet another way to become a serial killer.
It could be a bit like some cancers that take multiple mutations to become really dangerous. Mutation A isn't deadly by itself, nor is B, but add them together and they're greater than the sum of their parts.
Funny...that's exactly what happened after we reduced the tax burden from the rich down from 90%.
Only because during the time that the tax rate was 90% there was not only far more exemptions, so nobody actually paid 90%, but we were effectively a closed economy - You couldn't just move somewhere else and maintain(most) of your wealth.
With the development of alternate economies, globalization, etc... Moving your wealth is easier than ever, so reducing the tax rates works to slow the bleed, if not completely stop it.
Personally, I'd settle for a flat tax system. With the current tax system the ultra-rich($10M+) end up paying a lower percentage than the upper middle class (~$100k), thus at high levels our tax system is actually regressive. My fix would be simple: Make some rules about leveling capital gains, and tax progressively using the same scale we use for earned income.
"may result" in injury? That's a rather loose definition isn't it? I know I speak American, not English, but the two are still close enough. There's plenty of stuff out there that "may" result in injury but said injuries would tend to be rare and/or minor.
I'm back to my libertarian stance - Why the heck are they bothering, lacking any actual scientific evidence that 'extreme porn' actually causes problems? Besides, kids with porn? They're tougher than people think. In the end, this stuff isn't right/left, it's statism - IE since your primary tool as a MP is 'government', you seek to use government to answer all your problems(when all you have is a hammer...).
Sure, offer a porn filter if people want it. Ask-in, not Opt out. Run some studies. But don't go banning stuff unless there's an overriding concern, such as with real child porn.
I think that the results would be as disappointing to the MP as the "V-Chip" was here in the USA. Mandated since 1999, I don't even know how to activate it on my TV(sole adult), where adoption by parents is only 12%.
Any content that gets rated by the BBFC, regardless of rating given, is exempt from the law.
Interesting. Though I can certainly see it. There's a difference between exhibiting an 'extreme rape' simulation for the purpose of exhibiting an 'extreme rape', and doing so as part of a wider story - sending the villain over the moral event horizon so relatively nobody sympathizes with him, or providing 'sufficient' justification for your main character to go vigilante(Death Wish series).
Personal thought - You take a movie like 'Clockwork Orange'. Now while I'm sure there are those that will argue, I'll say that the movie has serious artistic merit, even though it does cover some very adult themes that might get it banned without the exemption.
One can even argue that 'entertainment' movies like Death Wish, even if they potentially have messages in them, aren't 'artistic' or not appealing to prurient interests or whatever wording they're trying to use.
Plus let us consider how many of those 30,000+ people are not analysts or anything of the sort.
Indeed. While I'd expect the NSA to generally have it's stuff together, everybody needs to realize that large organizations can have varying levels of competence(and incompetence) in varying areas and tasks.
For the NSA, the lion's share of it's resources goes towards providing security and exploiting security holes. It has multiple 'defensive'(not in the news much) and 'offensive'(been in the news much more) cells, and they tend to not talk to each other. You have the mentioned admin people, but they're mostly afterthoughts.
Even the government is not stupid enough to run multiple Exchange servers within the same intranet.
*snerk* You have more faith in government than I do. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple exchange servers set up, heck, I KNOW there has to be multiple networks, at least 4, probably a lot more. Thus the 'find the individual' comment, so you can find the appropriate network(s), the appropriate servers, to do the search.
That's the thing about copyrights; you're not allowed to copy somebody's story, but even though somebody else has written a detective novel doesn't mean that you can't.
Looking at your two code fragments, I see two implementations that are different enough to have been come up by two different coders given the same problem. Sure, they're very much alike, but it's for a really simple function. Consider how similar two horseshoes are probably going to be for the same horse(and tasking for said horse). Same with hammers used for the same purpose.
However, are you going to go through the entire code base for a major program and change stuff like this? Remember, it's still a copyright violation if you take something and simply change the names(to protect the innocent). Your work has to be substantially different lest the opposing party convince the judge.
Besides, something very similar was ruled legal way back in the day concerning BIOS. They duplicated the BIOS by essentially testing the existing one through all it's functions, generating a massive spec book, then having their programmers build a duplicate based on the spec book. Even improved performance in many ways.
My phone company allows you to not have a phone, but the phone+dsl bundle is equal to just DSL. I still save money by not having to pay all the fees - 911, remote service surcharge(to to give me service, but to give service to people in the boonies), taxes, etc...
Not touching the cable company with a 10ft pole - they have download limits and charge for extra bandwidth at rates that it's cheaper for me to go with DSL despite the lower overall speeds.
I have a two part thought on this: Start with that Software is already protected under copyright law. This prevents others from simply copying your code and calling it their own. Ergo, a software patent would need to be more generic, protecting a process, not a implementation.
Take something like bittorrent. The application itself would be copyrighted, it would be the idea of peer to peer sharing that would be the patent. Well, at least if you want to get overly generic about it. More specific would be the idea that you utilize a 'seed' file that contains initial information about the sharing, files, hashes and whatnot to make the system somewhat secure.
But bittorrent is something that, while they benefit from the copyright, they actually increase their own share by making the protocol open via helping 'bittorrent' win over other file sharing methods because people aren't locking into one application.
I agree with the op on the whole - software patents are a bad idea and cost the economy/people more than it benefits them.
Oh, I agree it's not the only factor, but one of the things being noted was that the big cities turned into hotbeds of violent crime; now they've dropped back so that cities, large and small, have about the same amount of crime given other socio-economic factors.
In other words, it's for the big spike in crime centered on the '70s, not remaining amounts of crime. At least for the most part.
Then there's the issue that there are people calling for massive lead abatement efforts along the lines of asbestos removal, but I'm a little more cautious - inhalation is notorious for getting things into the body that wouldn't otherwise be able to penetrate, and solid elemental lead, even when in the body(bullet fragments, for example), biological uptake is limited. So I'm not sure that replacing lead window frames would do much. Lead paint, due to the consumption factor, is a bit bigger of a risk.
Thing is, both planes share significant amounts of engineering. Who's to say that the F-35 wouldn't suffer from the same issue due to them cribbing life support systems off the F-22 program?
You don't need to have the overhead be that significant. The trick is to realize that you need to test the students occasionally* to measure their progression as individuals anyways, you simply piggyback any teacher metrics off that. You DON'T give the students any tests to specifically rate the teacher.
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If you read any of my posts you would see that I think it is ridiculous that copyrights extend past death or even close to what they are now.
I'm an advocate for shorter copyrights, but extending past death is well within reason as far as I'm concerned. When it comes to business, consistency is generally better than randomness - A company shouldn't have to worry about the copyright of it's works if a random popular author gets hit by a bus tomorrow.
I'll use Robert Jordan as an example. As he was writing his last book it was well known that he was dying(cardiac amyloidosis). Ergo, lacking any reasonable copyright term no publisher would have paid for his last works, depriving him of income and justification to write.
Thus I'd vote for something along the lines of 'death or 20 years, whichever is longer'. Heck, I'd prefer a flat 20, extendable to 40, from the time of 'first commercial publication'. IE copyright doesn't start as long as it's part of the 'slush drawer'(but is still protected), but once it's released the timer starts. Actual rules would probably fill a book - what happens to a creator's slush drawer when he or she dies and the heirs start 'finishing' stuff and releasing it?
In the end, I actually have dozens of ideas on how to handle copyright/patents, each with it's own positives/negatives. Most I feel would be better than the current system.
What in the world are you basing that on? It's a basic tenant of economics. You have something to sell, people will either pay the price or consider it too expensive and go without/find an alternative.
It's the 'find an alternative' part. If you're charging as much as you can and you're sufficiently over your costs a competitor will enter the market and undercut you.
A monopoly changes the equation because 'find an alternate' isn't an option.
As for IBM Australia, how many individual customers do they have today? IBM Australia is going to be selling software/services to businesses, not individuals, and the market there can be quite complicated.
I'm thinking about companies like Microsoft, Blizzard, Square, EA, etc...
They are unlikely to be able to build a rocket that is hardened enough to survive launch
As cusco mentioned, they've already done it long ago. Guided artillery, gun launched nukes, etc... You have to harden the system to survive it as I mentioned, but it's relatively known engineering.
It's simply the price the market is willing to pay.
Economics fail. You only get 'price the market is willing to pay' with monopolies. Which even with copyright isn't the case in the USA. In general, at least. It's complicated.
Not when they're flying to the USA to pick up Adobe products and doing things like renting VPNs to pay US prices. Sure, the USA is about a third cheaper. On the other hand, software in Australia seems to run 100% more expensive.
Are you really saying IBM software is more expensive in Aus because it has to be imported? When I could buy a copy online and have it shipped for cheaper?
I think you didn't get what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that software tends to be more expensive in your country because of import restrictions. It's the way that the laws are set up that's the problem. You take imported software and slap VAT on it, import duties, and force an exclusive contract with a AU company that's willing to charge what the market will bear and it sucks.
Importing the software for your own individual use, without paying the VAT and such is probably a violation somewhere, but a bit like speeding - you're unlikely to be caught unless you're egregious or excessive about it.
Just because you can't put astronauts or unhardened electronic/mechanical bits up with it doesn't really reduce it's value.
If it can reduce launch costs for the stuff it can launch to around $100/pound vs $2k, it changes the dynamics even if it's just launching oxygen, water, and such to the station.
"One true solution" arguments (it doesn't replace every use so it's useless!) don't help solve problems.
A company can sell products at whatever price they want. At the end of the day, stuff costs more in Australia because people were willing to pay more. The companies are not doing anything illegal, they are selling software at the price the market is willing to pay.
Actually, the Australian people's willingness to pay more comes with serious limitations. It appears that the spread of digital distribution and the resulting penetration into far more heads of the idea that *YES* Australian prices are a huge rip off has spurred this investigation.
Australians *might* be willing to pay more, but not that much more, and it's been their very laws that help encourage it.
Ways to help:
1. End protection of importing companies
2. End import tariffs and taxes
3. Especially end their home-brew standards board for things like video games
As I understand it, in order to get software legally into the country and into the distribution system, they essentially have to sign an exclusive contract with an importing company - so while a company might deal with several distributors(steam for online, one for supplying walmart, kmart, and the ilk, another for gamestop type stores, etc...), to get into Australia they have to agree that X has the sole pricing power for stuff in the country - and the contract states that Steam can't sell it for less.
Isn't this because of one of the import restrictions essentially placing the final retail price in the hands of some Australian company, and it actually being illegal to sell for less than what they set the price at?
That would explain the ripoff site's 'top list' looking to be mostly A rated games that have been price dropped/are on special. Steam is normally pretty agile on pricing.
This reminds me of the CDC's Zombie preparedness memo.
Some people bitched about the 'waste of funds' and such. The CDC pointed out that from their metrics it was viewed OVER 100X as much as their normal releases, for approximately equal preparation cost. Plus, well, if you're prepared for zombies, you're prepared about as well as you can be for many natural and unnatural disasters. The advice in the release was still standard disease/disaster prep stuff.
I'll disagree somewhat. We have constant campaigns against 'Fraud, Waste, and Abuse'. An earmark that actually results in a bridge(that will be used) being built would be Abuse, not waste.
Fraud: Selling/buying counterfeit Chinese parts rather than the real ones that will actually last through use.
Waste: Contracting construction of a building, screwing up the work document such that they end up tearing it down due to safety concerns.
Abuse: Claiming porn/alcohol/pay per view on your travel voucher.
I wouldn't say that Apple makes the only safe chargers out there, otherwise there would be piles of dead Android users and lots of litigation due to that.
I'll note that the quote is 'avoid counterfeit chargers', not 'second/third party chargers'. So I should be suspicious of a Apple charger that's being sold for 1/4 of list price, but buying a 'Rosewill' with ETL and UL certifications should still be good.
It's current that kills you, not voltage, and it doesn't take much. Even a cheap USB cable will transfer more than enough power to kill you if you're unlucky.
If it's thick enough for 500mA(minimum USB standard), it's enough to kill you, as it only takes 100-200mA. Matter of fact, it says that 100-200mA is actually more dangerous than above 200mA if the victim can get prompt attention.
Given what I know about porn viewing rates and the probable likelihood of semi-regularly hitting the filters if you don't tend to browse within a specific sandbox area(mainstream news, facebook, youtube, etc...), I'd imagine that people will start overcoming their laziness the moment the filter inconveniences them.
Not to mention moving people to vote against them, which would be bad for them.
Though I think it'd be hilarious if they actually get the filters forced out and adoption goes under even the V-Chip levels...
I'd say a better example would be this guy, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, in a picture you should all recognize.
Besides this incident, Loan was known as a non-corrupt officer that advocated for hospitals, had 5 kids, ran a pizza shop after the war, etc...
Even if the problem is 'criminal outlook', and it's not that simple, it's still possible to 'fix' criminal outlook with the proper rehab. By this I look at the recidivism rates of various countries - criminal systems that concentrate on rehab, while not 100% successful, largely succeed in preventing their tenants from committing further criminal acts upon release. Jails and prisons that don't spend any effort on reform are largely revolving doors - the criminals don't stop coming back until they're dead.
I question how we, as a society, can afford to have non-reforming prisons. If you can confine somebody in a reforming prison for 1/3rd the time with 1/3rd the expectation they'll come back afterwards as a non-reform prison where they often come out WORSE than they went in, as a libertarian and fiscal conservative* I can't help but become upset. Sure, a reform prison is a touch more expensive per year. But running it properly results in smaller government - fewer prisons, fewer court cases, etc...
Heck, I remember reading that in the USA several of the founding fathers ran rather progressive criminal reform systems. In one case each inmate was assigned a 'counselor' who basically had full control over the inmate's progression through the system. Recidivism was under 10% afterwards, however the program eventually ended due to cost/complexity. It was tough finding qualified counselors and expensive to keep them, as each counselor only had 1 inmate to care about and the position part time.
*IE balanced budget, low taxes, programs have to be able to justify their cost.
I agree. It's more a matter of degree. For that matter, I figure there's far more non-criminal psychopaths out there than criminal ones. I figure that 'most' end up figuring that even though they don't actually care about their fellow humans, it's too much hassle to kill them. It takes somebody broken in yet another way to become a serial killer.
It could be a bit like some cancers that take multiple mutations to become really dangerous. Mutation A isn't deadly by itself, nor is B, but add them together and they're greater than the sum of their parts.
Funny...that's exactly what happened after we reduced the tax burden from the rich down from 90%.
Only because during the time that the tax rate was 90% there was not only far more exemptions, so nobody actually paid 90%, but we were effectively a closed economy - You couldn't just move somewhere else and maintain(most) of your wealth.
With the development of alternate economies, globalization, etc... Moving your wealth is easier than ever, so reducing the tax rates works to slow the bleed, if not completely stop it.
Personally, I'd settle for a flat tax system. With the current tax system the ultra-rich($10M+) end up paying a lower percentage than the upper middle class (~$100k), thus at high levels our tax system is actually regressive. My fix would be simple: Make some rules about leveling capital gains, and tax progressively using the same scale we use for earned income.
"may result" in injury? That's a rather loose definition isn't it? I know I speak American, not English, but the two are still close enough. There's plenty of stuff out there that "may" result in injury but said injuries would tend to be rare and/or minor.
I'm back to my libertarian stance - Why the heck are they bothering, lacking any actual scientific evidence that 'extreme porn' actually causes problems? Besides, kids with porn? They're tougher than people think. In the end, this stuff isn't right/left, it's statism - IE since your primary tool as a MP is 'government', you seek to use government to answer all your problems(when all you have is a hammer...).
Sure, offer a porn filter if people want it. Ask-in, not Opt out. Run some studies. But don't go banning stuff unless there's an overriding concern, such as with real child porn.
I think that the results would be as disappointing to the MP as the "V-Chip" was here in the USA. Mandated since 1999, I don't even know how to activate it on my TV(sole adult), where adoption by parents is only 12%.
Any content that gets rated by the BBFC, regardless of rating given, is exempt from the law.
Interesting. Though I can certainly see it. There's a difference between exhibiting an 'extreme rape' simulation for the purpose of exhibiting an 'extreme rape', and doing so as part of a wider story - sending the villain over the moral event horizon so relatively nobody sympathizes with him, or providing 'sufficient' justification for your main character to go vigilante(Death Wish series).
Personal thought - You take a movie like 'Clockwork Orange'. Now while I'm sure there are those that will argue, I'll say that the movie has serious artistic merit, even though it does cover some very adult themes that might get it banned without the exemption.
One can even argue that 'entertainment' movies like Death Wish, even if they potentially have messages in them, aren't 'artistic' or not appealing to prurient interests or whatever wording they're trying to use.
Plus let us consider how many of those 30,000+ people are not analysts or anything of the sort.
Indeed. While I'd expect the NSA to generally have it's stuff together, everybody needs to realize that large organizations can have varying levels of competence(and incompetence) in varying areas and tasks.
For the NSA, the lion's share of it's resources goes towards providing security and exploiting security holes. It has multiple 'defensive'(not in the news much) and 'offensive'(been in the news much more) cells, and they tend to not talk to each other. You have the mentioned admin people, but they're mostly afterthoughts.
Even the government is not stupid enough to run multiple Exchange servers within the same intranet.
*snerk* You have more faith in government than I do. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple exchange servers set up, heck, I KNOW there has to be multiple networks, at least 4, probably a lot more. Thus the 'find the individual' comment, so you can find the appropriate network(s), the appropriate servers, to do the search.
That's the thing about copyrights; you're not allowed to copy somebody's story, but even though somebody else has written a detective novel doesn't mean that you can't.
Looking at your two code fragments, I see two implementations that are different enough to have been come up by two different coders given the same problem. Sure, they're very much alike, but it's for a really simple function. Consider how similar two horseshoes are probably going to be for the same horse(and tasking for said horse). Same with hammers used for the same purpose.
However, are you going to go through the entire code base for a major program and change stuff like this? Remember, it's still a copyright violation if you take something and simply change the names(to protect the innocent). Your work has to be substantially different lest the opposing party convince the judge.
Besides, something very similar was ruled legal way back in the day concerning BIOS. They duplicated the BIOS by essentially testing the existing one through all it's functions, generating a massive spec book, then having their programmers build a duplicate based on the spec book. Even improved performance in many ways.
My phone company allows you to not have a phone, but the phone+dsl bundle is equal to just DSL. I still save money by not having to pay all the fees - 911, remote service surcharge(to to give me service, but to give service to people in the boonies), taxes, etc...
Not touching the cable company with a 10ft pole - they have download limits and charge for extra bandwidth at rates that it's cheaper for me to go with DSL despite the lower overall speeds.
I have a two part thought on this:
Start with that Software is already protected under copyright law. This prevents others from simply copying your code and calling it their own. Ergo, a software patent would need to be more generic, protecting a process, not a implementation.
Take something like bittorrent. The application itself would be copyrighted, it would be the idea of peer to peer sharing that would be the patent. Well, at least if you want to get overly generic about it. More specific would be the idea that you utilize a 'seed' file that contains initial information about the sharing, files, hashes and whatnot to make the system somewhat secure.
But bittorrent is something that, while they benefit from the copyright, they actually increase their own share by making the protocol open via helping 'bittorrent' win over other file sharing methods because people aren't locking into one application.
I agree with the op on the whole - software patents are a bad idea and cost the economy/people more than it benefits them.
Oh, I agree it's not the only factor, but one of the things being noted was that the big cities turned into hotbeds of violent crime; now they've dropped back so that cities, large and small, have about the same amount of crime given other socio-economic factors.
In other words, it's for the big spike in crime centered on the '70s, not remaining amounts of crime. At least for the most part.
Then there's the issue that there are people calling for massive lead abatement efforts along the lines of asbestos removal, but I'm a little more cautious - inhalation is notorious for getting things into the body that wouldn't otherwise be able to penetrate, and solid elemental lead, even when in the body(bullet fragments, for example), biological uptake is limited. So I'm not sure that replacing lead window frames would do much. Lead paint, due to the consumption factor, is a bit bigger of a risk.
Thing is, both planes share significant amounts of engineering. Who's to say that the F-35 wouldn't suffer from the same issue due to them cribbing life support systems off the F-22 program?
You don't need to have the overhead be that significant. The trick is to realize that you need to test the students occasionally* to measure their progression as individuals anyways, you simply piggyback any teacher metrics off that. You DON'T give the students any tests to specifically rate the teacher.
It's part of the whole balance thing.
*Annual should be good enough.