The patent seems to indicate that Microsoft is focusing on improving the reliability of its software through analysis of failures in the wild.
Obviously, you are getting this all wrong. Either you have been affected by Microsoft's marketing machine, or... no, no second option.
Microsoft is patenting error reporting and fixing because they can sue and threaten to "cease and desist" others who attempt to do the same. It's one more step in the direction of leveling the field in the security and reliability arena. Microsoft has decided that they cannot raise their level to match their competitors' offerings in this regard, so they are attempting to bring their competitors down to theirs.
Having said that, this patent is ridiculous, like many others. Besides, Netscape's QFA (mentioned in the patent text) that was disregarded because it was "unknown"; besides IBM's prior art of doing what patent describes and doing it more thoroughly; the idea behind the patent that a problem is reported and logged and suitable fix, if present, suggested - is nothing special (and I am overusing the term). I have been reporting problems and getting suggested fixes for all kinds of problems from all kinds of providers - just because this process is handled by software, over a network does not make the same idea patentable; like patenting online payments, online video/audio (other than specific compression methods, but that's a different topic), online shopping, online "bookmarks", etc.
With lack of real world meaningful prior art checking, or virtually disregarding any findings of it, software patents present one more barrier towards healthy competition and free market, but do allow select few to control the market via such illusive "assets" (patented IP) and litigation.
I think you're off base. The difference is in public versus private resources.
If you read carefully, I am only replying to the argument affecting the "free speech" issue. Public vs. private property is not related to my argument; that is a separate issue and may be closer to invasion of privacy, trespassing, etc. My argument concerns the free speech aspect of the issue only.
As far as private vs. public property issue (which is separate from my original argument), while you may argue that your telephone belongs to you and is your property, telcos argue that they are the owners and providers of the telephone service and have discretion to set [at least some] terms thereof. It's a touchy issue, and I agree that it should be regulated; my main concern is that telcos are allowed to sell personal data of their customers without their consent and this needs to be regulated; instead of people now ending up on multiple commercial lists, AND a gov't list now on top of that. That's my opinion anyway.
I already have the constitutional rights to not allow others to protest on my property. I have the right to not allow someone to hand me a brochure on my property. My telephone is my property, if I want a barbed wire fence on it with a no trespassing sign on it (AKA the do not call list), I should be allowed to have it.
I am not disagreeing with your argument. In fact, my point has been as this issue relates to free speech, not to your property. i.e., you want the gov't to stop telemarketers not because you don't like their speech, but because they are trespassing, violating your privacy, etc. That's a valid argument to make, but not the point of my original argument.
I guess one sticky issue that telephone companies would argue is that telephone is your property, but telephone service is provided by the telcos; so, to a certain extent, it's up to them to set the terms of that service. That is why I feel there needs to be a federal legislation regulating the sale of personal information by telephone companies.
I'm not sure I am getting your point, but my TV has never woken me up. Newspapers never made me run up the stairs to read it. No book has ever made me wipe quickly on the toilet. There is a difference.
Yeah, well, I don't blame you for having that initial reaction. I don't think I was clear enough. Nothing that you can say as far as the specifics of delivery of any particular medium should on its own be a reason for outlawing "free speech" over that medium.
Hint: if you'd like to argue trespassing, or violation of privacy go ahead, but leave the free speech alone. It's not a free speech issue. If it was solely a free speech issue, telemarketers should win.
What are we really arguing about here? Are we contemplating whether or not such a list is unconstitutional? Maybe it's whether or not unsolicited phone calls are invasions of privacy? Is all this a debate over whether or not telemarketing is free speach?
You hit it on the head. This should not be a free speech issue. Anyone trying to argue around free speech against telemarketers is going to lose that argument. Everyone has "free speech" rights. But, they don't have the right to trespass, or invade your privacy. Again, not free speech related.
Now the last I checked restraining orders weren't considered unconstitutional. All you need for a restraining order is some shred of evidence that you're being harassed by a person.
As far as your restraining order comparison, however, I don't find it convincing since restraining orders are granted by judges in a specific scenario against a specific person. The situation is different from the do-not-call list altogether.
I want to empower the government on my behalf to prevent them from calling me.
You have to be careful with the reasons you state with such "empowerment" for you may not have that power yourself to grant it to your gov't (unless you change the Constitution). i.e., you don't have a right to "empower" gov't to trump others' free speech rights. But you do have a right to complain about and demand reasonable privacy and trespassing regulations. Again, this is not a free speech issue and any argument based on that, IMO, will and should lose.
Your comparison with the mail box is apples and oranges.. Like the other gentlemen pointed out, your mailbox isn't going to ring and wake your baby up when junk mail is sent to it. BTW, my wife is nurse that sleeps during most of the day.. Now imagine the telemarketers calling YOU in the middle of the night while you are in your normal sleep pattern like they do to her. She can't simply turn off the ringer, as I or her parents might have to call in the event of an emergency.
Your argument about outlawing newspaper inserts, TV, and radio commercials is all moot, as was pointed out earlier, I can easily discern between the junk and what's useful at MY leisure, in MY home, on MY time. With the practice of hiding who is calling, one can't do that. I can get up and not watch the commercials. I am not forced by a call to action to go pay attention to the commercials. The best point the other gentlemen had was the fact that the TV doesn't turn itself on to force feed me commercials.
OK, I understand your point, but I still have to point out that this is not directly relevant to "free speech" argument. What I am pointing out is the delivery method does not make difference as far as speech is concerned (e.g. phone vs. TV). What you are pointing out is specifics of one method of delivery [of speech] vs. another, and then arguing that just because the delivery specifics are different we should outlaw one speech vs. another. Again, this is not related to "speech" per se, but may be handled another way. More on that later. Let me give you another example that I cited in another post - if there is a peaceful demonstration outside of your apartment, but you choose not to listen to their speech; but at the same time you need to keep your windows open so you can get fresh air because it's very hot and you don't have an air conditioner, do your needs then trump the demonstrators' free speech rights? No. You don't have an overriding right not to have to listen that would trump their free speech rights. It's not a free speech issue. It may be a public nuisance, or some city code issue, but not free speech.
It's not free speech, it's plain and simple trespassing in my opinion.
That is exaclty my point as I demonstrated above. Going back to where my argument started from, if you argue only from the free speech perspective, your argument will lose for there is no overriding "right" not to hear others' [expression of] speech which would trump those people's free speech rights. But while those people have free speech rights, they have no rights to trespass on your property, or unreasonably violate your privacy. If you go back and look, that's what I have been arguing. This is not a free speech issue.
I can't disagree with you more. I'm sure I can't name all the reasons; however, you DO need a telephone in this society. Applications for credit are a perfect example of this.... [snip valid reasons why everyone needs telephones]
This is not the argument that was being discussed. The argument was about telephones as a means of expressing a delivering speech and it was being compared to other means (or media) of delivering speech. Going back a little bit, there are multiple ways that anyone can express or be at the receiving end of what is covered and protected as "free speech" by the Constitution. E.g. by going out on the street and talking to people, getting offered a hot dog from a small booth (hey! free pickle!), by browsing web, listening to TV or radio, reading books, newspapers, picking up a telephone, etc.
In other words, if you choose not to hear or listen to anybody's ["unauthorized"] speech (or any expression thereof), you'd better be blind, deaf, and paralyzed because that's not realistic. The challenge comes when you try to limit some forms of expression while justifying others. i.e. outlawing unauthorized commercial e-mails (not just bulk, even individual), or outlawing commercial unauthorized phone calls, etc. If you consider at least some part of this as fully protected "free speech" then simply oulawing that could have a tremendous impact. In that sense, if you look at telephones as one medium of expression covered under "free speech" there's nothing stopping you from outlawing newspaper inserts, TV and radio commercials, junk snail mail, etc.
Look at it this way - your snail mail address is at least as much, and, realistically, more important of a data than your telephone number. IOW, you need your snail mail address, and, if you are not homeless, you have one - you can't get rid of it. Does this mean that you can legislate to only accept "authorized" content delivered to your mailbox? It is unreasonable, IMO.
As I said, if this type of "authorization" scheme were implemented on other types of speech, then the only way to express yourself (other than the "authorized" way) would be to whisper to yourself in your own basement.
Well, let me begin by saying that I don't disagree with most of what you say. But I do have comments.
First, as far as far as constitutionality:
if the argument you are making was valid in all circumstances, then it would be constitutional to outlaw peaceful demonstrations;
Nope, the First Amendment also says "The right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right to petition the government for grievances". Either/both of which can be applied to the right to demonstrate.
That's exactly what I am referring to. On one hand, you could have legislation prohibiting [expression of] speech which you don't want to hear, on the other hand - that same "speech" protected by the Constitution. If these principles were taken together, nobody would be able to talk to anybody without an express permission. And, again, only such permission-based "speech" would be legal; that and, monologues in your basement.
Also, demonstrations happen in public places. You can't go *inside* IBM's building and demonstrate against them, but you *can* demonstrate on the street outside, which is a public place, publicly owned.
Point taken. However, as in your latter example - if you lived in a city and there was a peaceful protest outside your apartment, the absense of your obligation to listen to their [protersters'] speech does not trump their free speech rights (of course, city code, nuisance, are separate issues). This is my main point towards your original argument. If you agree that telephone conversation is a form of speech, then you cannot apply the above argument. If so, then that same argument can apply to protesters and other speech. Again, public vs. private property point taken, but that's not a speech issue; could be related to trespassing, violation of privacy, and number of other issues.
Second, you misunderstood part of my argument. I did not intend to compare newspapers, TV, etc. in their entirety to telephones; obviously they are different; the comparison was to the extent of use of speech over any medium. If you argue that you don't have to read newspapers, books, billboards, etc. and you don't have to listen to TV or radio, then I can argue that you don't need to have a telephone either. Those are all services that you choose to use or not to use for your convenience.
Here's the difference. When my 1-month old son is sleeping, and a telemarketer calls, he wakes up my kid. My kid currently requires something like 16 hours of sleep each day, and that telemarketer is taking it from him. Yaddayadayada....... [snipped all good uses of telephone]
I understand your situation, but the argument you are making here is not related to speech. Besides the suggestions of non-audible "ringing" alternatives - vibrating, or visible alerts for "ringing" telephone, I could come up with literally 100s of reasons why free speech is "bad", but none equal to (taken individually, or combined) why free speech is "good".
The telephone isn't a medium for "speech", it's a medium for "communication". It's not an advertising medium, and that is *not* what I pay for on my telephone.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you but as far as government is concerned, person to person "communication" is speech. I don't see how government can brand person to person communication as NOT being speech in general and try to regulate it.
Last time I checked, it was illegal in some states for the phone companies to sell your information...
That's the problem - some states, sometimes, some cases, etc. Unfortunately, that's not enough since telemarketing (and related privacy violations) is an interstate commerce and needs to be regulated as such, i.e. by federal government. It's ridiculous that I have to be on one commercial list that includes me, and another government list that excludes me to avoid being trapped by telemarketers. How about I don't want to be on any lists without my express permission? Why isn't that the "default"?
First off, I am in no way in support or associated with any phone/e-mail/anything else telemarketing; so here's my opinion.
freedom of speech doesn't mean that *I* have to hear what you have to say. While I agree that you have the right to say it, that doesn't mean I have an obligation to listen. To get back ontopic, that means that if I don't want political solicitation phone calls, then those people can't call me.
This argument has been overused and misapplied. I understand how you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody, but non-existence of such obligation does not on its own trump others' free speech rights. i.e. their rights to speak to you, and to others.
Imagine, now, if the argument you are making was valid in all circumstances, then it would be constitutional to outlaw peaceful demonstrations; it would be constitutional to outlaw a person approaching you on the street and offering you a brochure about a peaceful demonstration. Telephone lines are one of the methods delivering such "speech", like newspapers, TV, books. If strictly enforced, the only "free speech" that could be allowed under such laws would be a whisper in your basement.
Obviously, you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody's speech - you can ignore demonstrators on the street, you can say "no thank you" to a person offering you a brochure and keep walking, and you can simply hang up the phone, or ask to be taken off some list you somehow got on.
If you look carefully, the actual problem of telemarketing does not lie in whether speech over the phone lines is any of government's business, and how they can regulate it. The actual problem lies with your local phone service providers selling your personal information to anyone who requests it without your consent. You rightly mention that some people do not mind, or would like to get some types of calls, others none at all. The solution should be an "opt-in" type of system if you'd like your phone number shared for this purpose; otherwise, it should be illegal for phone service providers to share your information without your consent. It's simple and easy! Yet, it's not popular with big corporate interests, not good for campaign contributions, and, therefore, will never come up!
Let me tell you, there's a big difference between ignorance and what the article claims:
The new information makes it clear that the failure to follow up on the request for outside imagery, the first step in discovering the damage and perhaps mounting a rescue effort, did not simply fall through bureaucratic cracks but was actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers.
You get ignored once, twice, maybe even three times, but when you contact management at least half a dozen times about the same issue it gets acknowledged. In this case, article claims, not only did it get acknowledged but it was acted upon - actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers. Confidence is good, as long as it does not spill over into stupidity.
"If we want to continue to distribute Linux to our existing customers, we can do that because we own the copyrights on that Unix software."
I'm amazed. Let me get this straight. I believe this is part of IBM's original counter-claim also.
Even if, assuming they are right, and they own copyrights to some part of Linux code, they have completely disregarded the software license (GPL) for the rest of the Linux code, and, by continuing to distribute the parts of software they have no copyright claim in, they are knowingly in direct violation of copyright law.
Hell, this case should be easier than downing a burrito. Or, are they now claiming that they own copytights to ALL Linux code?
The difference is that commercial interests that want to fill your snail-mail box with advertising are actually paying the total cost of delivery. Your cost is limited to whatever portion of your property tax is assigned to trash pickup. Conversely, the delivery cost of commerial email is relatively negligible and the recipient typically picks up at least half of that.
If your snail-mail box was full of advertising that was sent "postage due" then you would see politicians jumping on bills to make commerial snail-mail illegal.
I fully understand the argument. However, throwing out statistics like 40% of e-mail traffic is spam, therefore, "we ought to have a law..." is not making any sense on its own. Maybe they should have had a study done on actual cost of incoming spam bandwidth + administrative cost for maintaining spam filters to determine average cost per message or, even better, per day; and then compare that number to a similar calculation for snail mail junk letters. If the former number is way out of line, then that [40%] statistic will have a meaning, otherwise it's just a useless number without any meaning whatsoever.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am totally against unsolicited bulk e-mail and I think it's appropriate to regulate it, at least in the short term. I am merely pointing out that the law is overreaching as I stated before, and also some of the reasoning used to justify it is not researched enough.
Look at the same issue from a different perspective. For example, take a big corporation with multiple office locations. They receive 1000s of snail mail letters each day. They probably have quite a few P.O. boxes for different purposes. They also probably have multiple mail rooms each employing number of people to handle all incoming mail. They sort through all bulk mail (likely throw them away), and deliver all individually addressed letters to appropriate departments. Then, secretaries, and various administrative assistants look at each letter individually, throw away more junk mail, filter out some more until only select letters get to their destination. Now, just because there are all these service and administrative costs associated with handling these mail items does not mean that this type of mail arrives "postage due".
Now, realize that electronic mail delivery uses a different mechanism for handling mail. Instead of P.O. boxes, mail rooms, mail room employees, and administrative personnel, you need an ISP, bandwidth, mail server, mail filters, and a sys admin. This difference between the types of costs associated with handling electronic and snail mail on its own does not justify calling one of them delivered "postage due" and the other for "free". Again, I'd like to see a study done on actual cost comparison of receiving each type of mail.
Again, let me re-emphasize that I am not a spammer, I've never spammed anybody, or assisted anyone to do so; and also I am not planning, thinking or want to become one either. I am strongly against unsolicited bulk e-mail, and, I myself report many such abuse cases to appropriate ISPs. However, in the context of this discussion, I am raising questions about the law being overreaching (as I discussed before) as well as some of the reasons stated behind its existence.
Not true. If you read the article you are referencing, it states clearly about the Q4 2002 sales of portable MP3 players:
US Retail Dollar Market Share for MP3 Players Q4 2002 % APPLE 26.98 RIO 10.13... etc.
The above is as far as dollar amounts. As far as actual units sold in the same quarter:
US Retail Unit Market Share for MP3 Players Q4 2002 % RCA 12.95 RIO 11.27 APPLE 11.23... etc.
So, Apple generated the most revenue during 2002 Q4 among all other competitors in the U.S., but as far as units sold they are behind RCA and RIO.
As far as your figure of 58%, it comes from the following statement:
The latest market share numbers show the Windows version of the iPod is the most popular product, controlling 58 percent of the units sold, compared to 42 percent for the Mac version.
This sentence is somewhat poorly worded (and taken a little out of context as well), but my reading is that out of all iPod sales, Windows version had a share of 58%, and Mac version had a share of 42%. Also as evidenced by the numbers presented, RCA and RIO are actually outselling iPod in terms of units sold. So, assuming those relative trends it would be impossible for iPod to hold 58% market share in unit shipments in the PC market.
Having said that, I would like to see more recent numbers from 2003, and over a longer period of time than just one quarter. If anyone has seen such information or reports, it would be interesting to look at.
As a practical matter, the RIAA will plainly be able to meet the limited burden necessary for the issuance of the subpoenae in question. Having the subpoenae issued within the context of a pending case won't change anything and to suggest that it will is simply wrong.
Again I agree with most of what you say, and I appreciate you discussion, but you also bring up an interesting point, which kind of works against your argument. In fact, if RIAA is forced to file lawsuits before obtaining subpoenas (like everybody else), then they will not be asking for and issuing 1000s of them out of whack, or even worse - generating them automatically by some computer search program they've written, but only those cases which they have promptly investigated and decided to pursue legally. As it works right now, RIAA is free to obtain personal information on anyone they please whether they have a case or not.
Now, I believe you when you say that judges have a very low threshold for issuing a subpoena in most cases, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but a mere requirement in a civil case that you have to have a case against a person to subpoena his or her personal and private information is going to make a big practical difference on how much RIAA will abuse the system and how much of such information they will obtain "erroneously". That is or has to be part of judicial oversight process.
How is it legal for record companies to obtain information on users from the ISP? Are there no privacy laws regarding ISPs? Just curious...
Where have you been all this time? DMCA actually obligates ISPs to disclose subscriber information at RIAA's (or other copyright owners' request). So it would be illegal for ISPs not to supply subscribers' information. RIAA can do this without any judicial oversight, let alone having to file a suit first to obtain a subpoena. RIAA has more power than police or FBI themselves!
I think that you have a point here, but I think that reasonability will kick in -- it's hard to imagine a company that buys what you sell suing you for contacting their purchasing agent, and you could make a good case, I suspect, that by advertising the purchasing agent's email address they've invited salesmen to contact him by email. If you're really worried about the issue, call the company first and ask whether they want information on your products.
Not to mention that no lawyer would be interested in a single $1,000 penalty. The real money will be in class action lawsuits where thousands of users drop a big hammer on some mass spammer, and the money involved will provide an incentive to really dig out who these people actually are and nail them.
You agree with me on the "right" principle, but then say that even though the principle in the law is "wrong", its minor details will prevent people from abusing it. This sounds like DMCA arguments that RIAA is making - i.e., give us all the power, but trust us, we will not abuse it. What if the law gets ammended and the fine becomes $5,000 for the first message, and $10,000 for every other? The principle still stands, details can change.
As a small ISP owner, I purchase things like Co-location services, computer equipment and occasionally software and use it to produce websites and applications. I get calls and emails *constantly* from businesses that take the time to find out my name and contact information and try to sell me things....
The email is worse. I would love to be able to slap these people with fines when they try to peddle their crap to me and waste my time.
I completely disagree. This logic goes similar to: XYZ wastes my time, therefore, it should be illegal. If you are making your e-mail address public (i.e. on the website, or instruct employees to redirect inquiries to you), then it is reasonable to expect that members of public will use that information to contact you. I'm sure you, as well as others, in this case use more than one e-mail address, or telephone number for public, and "private" communication for exactly such purpose. i.e., you cannot legislate who can attempt to contact you and who cannot; that's not reasonable.
Having said that, it is reasonable to enact legislation against bulk mailing totally unrelated spam to millions of e-mail addresses. In fact, that was the point of the discussed legislation. However, I believe it is important to make a distinction between specifically addressed, personal communication vs. bulk mailing messages; those are two totally different types of matters.
Spammers could also claim that I, as the end consumer, should be interested in their widget, just like the business. Unless someone is asking to receive information about Widget A on their site, then I still say its spam.
The difference, again, being that the law does not differentiate between a single "commercial" message that is specifically addressed to another party, and bulk commercial messages addressed to everyone on the list containing millions of records. I think this is a difference between spam and a common and reasonable inquiry. Reasonable inquiries generate more business, spam generates extra costs, loss of efficiency, bandwidth, etc. There's a big difference.
On the local region known as The Internet, it is the custom that it is impermissible to send unsolicited
bulk email, particularly when it is commercial in nature.
[emphasis mine]
If you read the bill, it does not differentiate between bulk and individual e-mail messages. Any commercial e-mail communication without pre-existing business relationship is a crime now. Great!
I am not the parent poster but I read the law and I believe it is narrow-minded and broadly written.
It is fine for gov't to try to regulate spam in the short term before it gets totally out of hand and before a more long-term technical solution is widely adopted. Where this bill lacks in inside understanding is how it defines spam. The bill prohibits anyone in CA (or anyone sending an e-mail to anyone in CA) to send an "Unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement". This is how this term is defined:
(o) "Unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement" means a commercial e-mail advertisement sent to a recipient who meets both of the following criteria:
(1) The recipient has not provided direct consent to receive advertisements from the advertiser.
(2) The recipient does not have a preexisting or current business relationship, as defined in subdivision (l), with the advertiser promoting the lease, sale, rental, gift offer, or other disposition of any property, goods, services, or extension of credit.
This does NOT differentiate between bulk e-mail and regular e-mail. Any e-mail message with any hint of commercial advertizing in it could be included in the above definition, even if it is addressed to a specific person/party with a specific purpose. For example, if you are a business owner producing widget A, and, while searching the web you find a company that buys A widgets to make B widgets, you proceed to look up their contact information, introduce yourself, and request someone get back to you if they are interested - this whole scenario is now illegal.
In fact, there's nothing illegal if you did exactly the same as above but over the phone, or via snail mail. Moreover, the following argument that
(a) Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is comprised of unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements (hereafter spam) and industry experts predict that by the end of 2003 half of all e-mail traffic will be comprised of spam.
is stupid. Roughly 90% of my snail mail box is junk mail. Yet I don't see any politicians jumping on bills like these that would outlaw sending bulk or individual "commercial" letters.
And, to reemphasize the point, the problem lies in bulk commercial e-mail, not individual e-mail correspondence (whether commercial or not). The bill fails to define the problem correctly and overreaches to what otherwise would be completely valid and legitimate means of communication. In this way, it restricts business, and, more importantly, I believe restricts free speech.
It's worth pointing out that at least MP3Pro and HE-AAC from tested codecs use SBR. SBR is a method (mostly post-process) that allows transmission of lower half of audio spectrum, and have the decoder "guess" what the the other part of the spectrum would have been. While this allows for "cool-sounding" audio at low bitrates, the generated part of the spectrum is not actually an encoded original audio, but rather its "guessed" reconstruction. SBR is also patented.
Search for more info on SBR if interested, like this one.
Yes, but imagine that the CD-R industry had redefined the word "ten" to mean "9" because it was convienient to do so; then your analogy would be complete.
I agree that they have redefined it as witnessed by the asterisk. But it's deliberate marketing, to pump up the numbers to sell more; in that sense, it is "convenient". They could very well have stated the real figure on the storage which would have been closer to 1.4GB and not 1.5. But that would not have been as "convenient". That's what the analogy was about.
This reminds me - just today I was looking at Rio portable players and when I checked out newer Nitrus model with "1.5GB" storage, it actually has an asterisk explaining that figure that says:
*1 GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes
I was thinking how can they get away with that outright lie! Imagine this type of advertizing:
New Item! - Buy Ten* CD-R Discs and get 5 more FREE! Low price of $5.00 for 15 CD-R discs!!! *Ten cd-r discs = 9 cd-r discs
And then I see this/. story and a lawsuit. I wonder if multi-media storage manufacturers are next.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously, you are getting this all wrong. Either you have been affected by Microsoft's marketing machine, or
Microsoft is patenting error reporting and fixing because they can sue and threaten to "cease and desist" others who attempt to do the same. It's one more step in the direction of leveling the field in the security and reliability arena. Microsoft has decided that they cannot raise their level to match their competitors' offerings in this regard, so they are attempting to bring their competitors down to theirs.
Having said that, this patent is ridiculous, like many others. Besides, Netscape's QFA (mentioned in the patent text) that was disregarded because it was "unknown"; besides IBM's prior art of doing what patent describes and doing it more thoroughly; the idea behind the patent that a problem is reported and logged and suitable fix, if present, suggested - is nothing special (and I am overusing the term). I have been reporting problems and getting suggested fixes for all kinds of problems from all kinds of providers - just because this process is handled by software, over a network does not make the same idea patentable; like patenting online payments, online video/audio (other than specific compression methods, but that's a different topic), online shopping, online "bookmarks", etc.
With lack of real world meaningful prior art checking, or virtually disregarding any findings of it, software patents present one more barrier towards healthy competition and free market, but do allow select few to control the market via such illusive "assets" (patented IP) and litigation.
If you read carefully, I am only replying to the argument affecting the "free speech" issue. Public vs. private property is not related to my argument; that is a separate issue and may be closer to invasion of privacy, trespassing, etc. My argument concerns the free speech aspect of the issue only.
As far as private vs. public property issue (which is separate from my original argument), while you may argue that your telephone belongs to you and is your property, telcos argue that they are the owners and providers of the telephone service and have discretion to set [at least some] terms thereof. It's a touchy issue, and I agree that it should be regulated; my main concern is that telcos are allowed to sell personal data of their customers without their consent and this needs to be regulated; instead of people now ending up on multiple commercial lists, AND a gov't list now on top of that. That's my opinion anyway.
War is "good" for Boeing too.
I am not disagreeing with your argument. In fact, my point has been as this issue relates to free speech, not to your property. i.e., you want the gov't to stop telemarketers not because you don't like their speech, but because they are trespassing, violating your privacy, etc. That's a valid argument to make, but not the point of my original argument.
I guess one sticky issue that telephone companies would argue is that telephone is your property, but telephone service is provided by the telcos; so, to a certain extent, it's up to them to set the terms of that service. That is why I feel there needs to be a federal legislation regulating the sale of personal information by telephone companies.
Yeah, well, I don't blame you for having that initial reaction. I don't think I was clear enough. Nothing that you can say as far as the specifics of delivery of any particular medium should on its own be a reason for outlawing "free speech" over that medium.
Hint: if you'd like to argue trespassing, or violation of privacy go ahead, but leave the free speech alone. It's not a free speech issue. If it was solely a free speech issue, telemarketers should win.
You hit it on the head. This should not be a free speech issue. Anyone trying to argue around free speech against telemarketers is going to lose that argument. Everyone has "free speech" rights. But, they don't have the right to trespass, or invade your privacy. Again, not free speech related.
As far as your restraining order comparison, however, I don't find it convincing since restraining orders are granted by judges in a specific scenario against a specific person. The situation is different from the do-not-call list altogether.
You have to be careful with the reasons you state with such "empowerment" for you may not have that power yourself to grant it to your gov't (unless you change the Constitution). i.e., you don't have a right to "empower" gov't to trump others' free speech rights. But you do have a right to complain about and demand reasonable privacy and trespassing regulations. Again, this is not a free speech issue and any argument based on that, IMO, will and should lose.
OK, I understand your point, but I still have to point out that this is not directly relevant to "free speech" argument. What I am pointing out is the delivery method does not make difference as far as speech is concerned (e.g. phone vs. TV). What you are pointing out is specifics of one method of delivery [of speech] vs. another, and then arguing that just because the delivery specifics are different we should outlaw one speech vs. another. Again, this is not related to "speech" per se, but may be handled another way. More on that later. Let me give you another example that I cited in another post - if there is a peaceful demonstration outside of your apartment, but you choose not to listen to their speech; but at the same time you need to keep your windows open so you can get fresh air because it's very hot and you don't have an air conditioner, do your needs then trump the demonstrators' free speech rights? No. You don't have an overriding right not to have to listen that would trump their free speech rights. It's not a free speech issue. It may be a public nuisance, or some city code issue, but not free speech.
That is exaclty my point as I demonstrated above. Going back to where my argument started from, if you argue only from the free speech perspective, your argument will lose for there is no overriding "right" not to hear others' [expression of] speech which would trump those people's free speech rights. But while those people have free speech rights, they have no rights to trespass on your property, or unreasonably violate your privacy. If you go back and look, that's what I have been arguing. This is not a free speech issue.
This is not the argument that was being discussed. The argument was about telephones as a means of expressing a delivering speech and it was being compared to other means (or media) of delivering speech. Going back a little bit, there are multiple ways that anyone can express or be at the receiving end of what is covered and protected as "free speech" by the Constitution. E.g. by going out on the street and talking to people, getting offered a hot dog from a small booth (hey! free pickle!), by browsing web, listening to TV or radio, reading books, newspapers, picking up a telephone, etc.
In other words, if you choose not to hear or listen to anybody's ["unauthorized"] speech (or any expression thereof), you'd better be blind, deaf, and paralyzed because that's not realistic. The challenge comes when you try to limit some forms of expression while justifying others. i.e. outlawing unauthorized commercial e-mails (not just bulk, even individual), or outlawing commercial unauthorized phone calls, etc. If you consider at least some part of this as fully protected "free speech" then simply oulawing that could have a tremendous impact. In that sense, if you look at telephones as one medium of expression covered under "free speech" there's nothing stopping you from outlawing newspaper inserts, TV and radio commercials, junk snail mail, etc.
Look at it this way - your snail mail address is at least as much, and, realistically, more important of a data than your telephone number. IOW, you need your snail mail address, and, if you are not homeless, you have one - you can't get rid of it. Does this mean that you can legislate to only accept "authorized" content delivered to your mailbox? It is unreasonable, IMO.
As I said, if this type of "authorization" scheme were implemented on other types of speech, then the only way to express yourself (other than the "authorized" way) would be to whisper to yourself in your own basement.
First, as far as far as constitutionality:
That's exactly what I am referring to. On one hand, you could have legislation prohibiting [expression of] speech which you don't want to hear, on the other hand - that same "speech" protected by the Constitution. If these principles were taken together, nobody would be able to talk to anybody without an express permission. And, again, only such permission-based "speech" would be legal; that and, monologues in your basement.
Point taken. However, as in your latter example - if you lived in a city and there was a peaceful protest outside your apartment, the absense of your obligation to listen to their [protersters'] speech does not trump their free speech rights (of course, city code, nuisance, are separate issues). This is my main point towards your original argument. If you agree that telephone conversation is a form of speech, then you cannot apply the above argument. If so, then that same argument can apply to protesters and other speech. Again, public vs. private property point taken, but that's not a speech issue; could be related to trespassing, violation of privacy, and number of other issues.
Second, you misunderstood part of my argument. I did not intend to compare newspapers, TV, etc. in their entirety to telephones; obviously they are different; the comparison was to the extent of use of speech over any medium. If you argue that you don't have to read newspapers, books, billboards, etc. and you don't have to listen to TV or radio, then I can argue that you don't need to have a telephone either. Those are all services that you choose to use or not to use for your convenience.
I understand your situation, but the argument you are making here is not related to speech. Besides the suggestions of non-audible "ringing" alternatives - vibrating, or visible alerts for "ringing" telephone, I could come up with literally 100s of reasons why free speech is "bad", but none equal to (taken individually, or combined) why free speech is "good".
Maybe I am misunderstanding you but as far as government is concerned, person to person "communication" is speech. I don't see how government can brand person to person communication as NOT being speech in general and try to regulate it.
That's the problem - some states, sometimes, some cases, etc. Unfortunately, that's not enough since telemarketing (and related privacy violations) is an interstate commerce and needs to be regulated as such, i.e. by federal government. It's ridiculous that I have to be on one commercial list that includes me, and another government list that excludes me to avoid being trapped by telemarketers. How about I don't want to be on any lists without my express permission? Why isn't that the "default"?
This argument has been overused and misapplied. I understand how you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody, but non-existence of such obligation does not on its own trump others' free speech rights. i.e. their rights to speak to you, and to others.
Imagine, now, if the argument you are making was valid in all circumstances, then it would be constitutional to outlaw peaceful demonstrations; it would be constitutional to outlaw a person approaching you on the street and offering you a brochure about a peaceful demonstration. Telephone lines are one of the methods delivering such "speech", like newspapers, TV, books. If strictly enforced, the only "free speech" that could be allowed under such laws would be a whisper in your basement.
Obviously, you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody's speech - you can ignore demonstrators on the street, you can say "no thank you" to a person offering you a brochure and keep walking, and you can simply hang up the phone, or ask to be taken off some list you somehow got on.
If you look carefully, the actual problem of telemarketing does not lie in whether speech over the phone lines is any of government's business, and how they can regulate it. The actual problem lies with your local phone service providers selling your personal information to anyone who requests it without your consent. You rightly mention that some people do not mind, or would like to get some types of calls, others none at all. The solution should be an "opt-in" type of system if you'd like your phone number shared for this purpose; otherwise, it should be illegal for phone service providers to share your information without your consent. It's simple and easy! Yet, it's not popular with big corporate interests, not good for campaign contributions, and, therefore, will never come up!
Let me tell you, there's a big difference between ignorance and what the article claims:
The new information makes it clear that the failure to follow up on the request for outside imagery, the first step in discovering the damage and perhaps mounting a rescue effort, did not simply fall through bureaucratic cracks but was actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers.
You get ignored once, twice, maybe even three times, but when you contact management at least half a dozen times about the same issue it gets acknowledged. In this case, article claims, not only did it get acknowledged but it was acted upon - actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers. Confidence is good, as long as it does not spill over into stupidity.
I'm amazed. Let me get this straight. I believe this is part of IBM's original counter-claim also.
Even if, assuming they are right, and they own copyrights to some part of Linux code, they have completely disregarded the software license (GPL) for the rest of the Linux code, and, by continuing to distribute the parts of software they have no copyright claim in, they are knowingly in direct violation of copyright law.
Hell, this case should be easier than downing a burrito. Or, are they now claiming that they own copytights to ALL Linux code?
I fully understand the argument. However, throwing out statistics like 40% of e-mail traffic is spam, therefore, "we ought to have a law
Now, don't get me wrong, I am totally against unsolicited bulk e-mail and I think it's appropriate to regulate it, at least in the short term. I am merely pointing out that the law is overreaching as I stated before, and also some of the reasoning used to justify it is not researched enough.
Look at the same issue from a different perspective. For example, take a big corporation with multiple office locations. They receive 1000s of snail mail letters each day. They probably have quite a few P.O. boxes for different purposes. They also probably have multiple mail rooms each employing number of people to handle all incoming mail. They sort through all bulk mail (likely throw them away), and deliver all individually addressed letters to appropriate departments. Then, secretaries, and various administrative assistants look at each letter individually, throw away more junk mail, filter out some more until only select letters get to their destination. Now, just because there are all these service and administrative costs associated with handling these mail items does not mean that this type of mail arrives "postage due".
Now, realize that electronic mail delivery uses a different mechanism for handling mail. Instead of P.O. boxes, mail rooms, mail room employees, and administrative personnel, you need an ISP, bandwidth, mail server, mail filters, and a sys admin. This difference between the types of costs associated with handling electronic and snail mail on its own does not justify calling one of them delivered "postage due" and the other for "free". Again, I'd like to see a study done on actual cost comparison of receiving each type of mail.
Again, let me re-emphasize that I am not a spammer, I've never spammed anybody, or assisted anyone to do so; and also I am not planning, thinking or want to become one either. I am strongly against unsolicited bulk e-mail, and, I myself report many such abuse cases to appropriate ISPs. However, in the context of this discussion, I am raising questions about the law being overreaching (as I discussed before) as well as some of the reasons stated behind its existence.
Not true. If you read the article you are referencing, it states clearly about the Q4 2002 sales of portable MP3 players:
US Retail Dollar Market Share for MP3 Players Q4 2002 %
APPLE 26.98
RIO 10.13
The above is as far as dollar amounts. As far as actual units sold in the same quarter:
US Retail Unit Market Share for MP3 Players Q4 2002 %
RCA 12.95
RIO 11.27
APPLE 11.23
So, Apple generated the most revenue during 2002 Q4 among all other competitors in the U.S., but as far as units sold they are behind RCA and RIO.
As far as your figure of 58%, it comes from the following statement:
The latest market share numbers show the Windows version of the iPod is the most popular product, controlling 58 percent of the units sold, compared to 42 percent for the Mac version.
This sentence is somewhat poorly worded (and taken a little out of context as well), but my reading is that out of all iPod sales, Windows version had a share of 58%, and Mac version had a share of 42%. Also as evidenced by the numbers presented, RCA and RIO are actually outselling iPod in terms of units sold. So, assuming those relative trends it would be impossible for iPod to hold 58% market share in unit shipments in the PC market.
Having said that, I would like to see more recent numbers from 2003, and over a longer period of time than just one quarter. If anyone has seen such information or reports, it would be interesting to look at.
Again I agree with most of what you say, and I appreciate you discussion, but you also bring up an interesting point, which kind of works against your argument. In fact, if RIAA is forced to file lawsuits before obtaining subpoenas (like everybody else), then they will not be asking for and issuing 1000s of them out of whack, or even worse - generating them automatically by some computer search program they've written, but only those cases which they have promptly investigated and decided to pursue legally. As it works right now, RIAA is free to obtain personal information on anyone they please whether they have a case or not.
Now, I believe you when you say that judges have a very low threshold for issuing a subpoena in most cases, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but a mere requirement in a civil case that you have to have a case against a person to subpoena his or her personal and private information is going to make a big practical difference on how much RIAA will abuse the system and how much of such information they will obtain "erroneously". That is or has to be part of judicial oversight process.
Where have you been all this time? DMCA actually obligates ISPs to disclose subscriber information at RIAA's (or other copyright owners' request). So it would be illegal for ISPs not to supply subscribers' information. RIAA can do this without any judicial oversight, let alone having to file a suit first to obtain a subpoena. RIAA has more power than police or FBI themselves!
I've sold exactly nothing over e-mail... ever! And as far as I can see, I won't be selling anything over e-mail in the future either. Nice try though.
You agree with me on the "right" principle, but then say that even though the principle in the law is "wrong", its minor details will prevent people from abusing it. This sounds like DMCA arguments that RIAA is making - i.e., give us all the power, but trust us, we will not abuse it. What if the law gets ammended and the fine becomes $5,000 for the first message, and $10,000 for every other? The principle still stands, details can change.
I completely disagree. This logic goes similar to: XYZ wastes my time, therefore, it should be illegal. If you are making your e-mail address public (i.e. on the website, or instruct employees to redirect inquiries to you), then it is reasonable to expect that members of public will use that information to contact you. I'm sure you, as well as others, in this case use more than one e-mail address, or telephone number for public, and "private" communication for exactly such purpose. i.e., you cannot legislate who can attempt to contact you and who cannot; that's not reasonable.
Having said that, it is reasonable to enact legislation against bulk mailing totally unrelated spam to millions of e-mail addresses. In fact, that was the point of the discussed legislation. However, I believe it is important to make a distinction between specifically addressed, personal communication vs. bulk mailing messages; those are two totally different types of matters.
The difference, again, being that the law does not differentiate between a single "commercial" message that is specifically addressed to another party, and bulk commercial messages addressed to everyone on the list containing millions of records. I think this is a difference between spam and a common and reasonable inquiry. Reasonable inquiries generate more business, spam generates extra costs, loss of efficiency, bandwidth, etc. There's a big difference.
If you read the bill, it does not differentiate between bulk and individual e-mail messages. Any commercial e-mail communication without pre-existing business relationship is a crime now. Great!
I am not the parent poster but I read the law and I believe it is narrow-minded and broadly written.
It is fine for gov't to try to regulate spam in the short term before it gets totally out of hand and before a more long-term technical solution is widely adopted. Where this bill lacks in inside understanding is how it defines spam. The bill prohibits anyone in CA (or anyone sending an e-mail to anyone in CA) to send an "Unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement". This is how this term is defined:
(o) "Unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement" means a
commercial e-mail advertisement sent to a recipient who meets both of
the following criteria:
(1) The recipient has not provided direct consent to receive
advertisements from the advertiser.
(2) The recipient does not have a preexisting or current business
relationship, as defined in subdivision (l), with the advertiser
promoting the lease, sale, rental, gift offer, or other disposition
of any property, goods, services, or extension of credit.
This does NOT differentiate between bulk e-mail and regular e-mail. Any e-mail message with any hint of commercial advertizing in it could be included in the above definition, even if it is addressed to a specific person/party with a specific purpose. For example, if you are a business owner producing widget A, and, while searching the web you find a company that buys A widgets to make B widgets, you proceed to look up their contact information, introduce yourself, and request someone get back to you if they are interested - this whole scenario is now illegal.
In fact, there's nothing illegal if you did exactly the same as above but over the phone, or via snail mail. Moreover, the following argument that
(a) Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States
is comprised of unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements
(hereafter spam) and industry experts predict that by the end of 2003
half of all e-mail traffic will be comprised of spam.
is stupid. Roughly 90% of my snail mail box is junk mail. Yet I don't see any politicians jumping on bills like these that would outlaw sending bulk or individual "commercial" letters.
And, to reemphasize the point, the problem lies in bulk commercial e-mail, not individual e-mail correspondence (whether commercial or not). The bill fails to define the problem correctly and overreaches to what otherwise would be completely valid and legitimate means of communication. In this way, it restricts business, and, more importantly, I believe restricts free speech.
It's worth pointing out that at least MP3Pro and HE-AAC from tested codecs use SBR. SBR is a method (mostly post-process) that allows transmission of lower half of audio spectrum, and have the decoder "guess" what the the other part of the spectrum would have been. While this allows for "cool-sounding" audio at low bitrates, the generated part of the spectrum is not actually an encoded original audio, but rather its "guessed" reconstruction. SBR is also patented.
Search for more info on SBR if interested, like this one.
I agree that they have redefined it as witnessed by the asterisk. But it's deliberate marketing, to pump up the numbers to sell more; in that sense, it is "convenient". They could very well have stated the real figure on the storage which would have been closer to 1.4GB and not 1.5. But that would not have been as "convenient". That's what the analogy was about.
This reminds me - just today I was looking at Rio portable players and when I checked out newer Nitrus model with "1.5GB" storage, it actually has an asterisk explaining that figure that says:
/. story and a lawsuit. I wonder if multi-media storage manufacturers are next.
*1 GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes
I was thinking how can they get away with that outright lie! Imagine this type of advertizing:
New Item! - Buy Ten* CD-R Discs and get 5 more FREE! Low price of $5.00 for 15 CD-R discs!!!
*Ten cd-r discs = 9 cd-r discs
And then I see this