I remember reading an article on news.com.com.com.com few days ago about how movielink locked out everyone but Windows/IE users. It was written in a pretty tough stance towards such practices and nailed the point in the head.
Strangely enough, I can't seem to find the article anymore, rather if I search news.com.com on movielink, I get only positive news (read PR and ads) and a sponsored link to the movielink website.
Good job selling out guys! I'll adjust my "trust level" accordingly.
It's nice, but the inkblots could use some work. If you look closely, they all look basically similar in construction, with the only differences being the color and size of the shapes.
You and everyone else are missing the intent of all this. It is obvious that this "inkblot technology" will never be used to develop and remember passwords.
I am pretty sure now that the reason these inkblots look similar is because all of them are derivatives of the upcoming official Longhorn Logo. MS is playing subliminal mind tricks on everyone so they quickly upgrade to their next big Windows release when it comes out.
My intent in using the LGPL is pretty simple: If you want to use my library, go ahead. If you make CHANGES to my library, those have to be released back into the wild, so the library can be improved by everyone's improvements. I'm not a 'Free Software' zealot - I'm an open-source pragmatist.
I have a solution for you. As I have suggested before, it is very reasonable to offer binaries separately under your favorite freeware license, but offer source only under GPL.
This freeware license could be something very simple like: you can use, link to, and distribute this binary package in any way you want as long as you keep it as a whole, don't remove copyright notices, etc. + the standard warranty disclaimer.
In this case, if someone wants to link to and distribute binaries, they are free to do so with no further obligation. If they want to modify source code and re-release their modified binaries they would do so under GPL. Or, in the third case, if they'd like to provide modified binaries under the same freeware license, they would seek your permission.
Do you believe copyright holders should be allowed to legally require suspected violators' personal information from their ISPs without a judge's approval? In the light of this law, do you believe the private industry has more power to conduct their own law enforcement activities than the DOJ?
Keep in mind that these prosecutors don't write the laws. They just enforce them. Your question would be better directed to a member of Congress.
It would be better suited for a lawmaker, but it's not irrelevant here. In fact, it's an excellent question. If you read the "ground rules" provided by the DOJ, they state some of the responsibilities of the respondents:
Other responsibilities include reviewing new policy proposals, legislation, or international agreements related to IP, and providing advice to other government agencies or components of DOJ.
It is a very good question as to what kind of reviews, and advice they give with regard to these new pieces of purchased legislation, and how they believe they help taxpayers and citizens to whom they are ultimately responsible. The follow-ups to this question are also interesting if they give a substantive answer.
Finally, the problem with the "ground rules" that were set by the DOJ is that you cannot ask most types of questions. They are lawyers, you can ask them anything you want... but... you cannot ask them the following:
Ongoing cases and investigations (OK, fair)
Related hypotheticals
Legal advice
Most substantive questions could be discarded as one of the above. What should I ask them? What are their favorite movies? What OS they use at work and at home?
Actually that's what this XM station is all about. People vote for their favorite songs (online or on the phone) and the top 20 are played. Then the votes are counted again and a new playlist is generated.
I thought one of the major complaints about 99% of the radio stations was that they only play top 20 songs and don't give a chance to smaller bands. Hence, stations often get boring, annoying and lack variety while at the same time extinguishing any chance of a healthy competition. Everyone knows this is because of media conglomerates, their consolidation, and ultimately their "commercials" to sell more useless media (CDs) and pass more controlling laws in their favor. Now the author of the original article is proposing that this half-assed marketing plan be written into a "P2P-cast" (new term?) system. This is worse, not better, no matter how much RIAA gets. It's a lose-lose proposition for everyone.
This means RIAA gets upset about theft of their "IP", pressures congress into stricter legislation; public loses out from such legislation; public also loses out as only "top 20" content is available to them through most of the distribution channels. Smaller bands and real artists lose out as their creations get pushed out of market. It's a disaster!
I'd be much happier if webcasters started streaming more of non-RIAA material. People listen to webcasts at work; in the long run, it could be a better proposition for all parties involved other than RIAA.
Do you agree with this argument? If not, what do you disagree with?
I agree with it.
If you agree with my reasoning so far, let's assume for the sake of argument that the downloader could reasonably be expected to know that the material in question was subject to copyright.
That could be a case for contributory infringement.
In that case, how are they in a different situation, either morally or legally, whether they download from a P2P site or from a site they've cracked? How is it that they have made the illegal copy in one case, but, as I understand your claim, the person from whom they downloaded made it in the other and the downloader has no responsibility in that situation?
Well, if you read the robbery case I described it still applies. In the first case, P2P, sharer makes a deliberate and conscious decision to share, make a copy and distribute; in the second case, his property is being broken into, and then being copied. This is a big difference, especially as to the intent of the owner of the copyrighted property.
Even in the case of the robbery - if a thief broke into your premises and made copies of all your DVDs and CDs - it is the thief who is responsible for copyright infringement, not you. On the other hand, if you offer someone to sell them illegally made copies of 50 of your DVDs at $5 a piece, then you are committing a copyright infringement.
If I cracked someone's system and copyright content that they legitimately held on it happened to wind up on my hard disk, would you argue that they had made the copy or that I had? (Clearly someone has, for a copy exists.)
The cracking is irrelevant - in the case of P2P there is no cracking involved - rather, it's a voluntary network that sharers and downloaders (mostly both) participate in. If anybody cracks into your system, they are likely to be committing a criminal act which has, on its own, nothing to do with copyright violations; this is not related to P2P.
Thus I fail to see how whether or not the source of the material voluntarily offered it for copying has any bearing on whether or not the recipient is deemed to have made a copy.
Yes it does. If I offer to sell you an copy of a DVD or a CD that I do not have a right to sell (i.e. my backup copies), then I am voluntarily committing a copyright violation. On the other hand, if you broke into my place and stole my backup DVDs or CDs, then I am not committing a copyright violation - you are committing a robbery. Big difference.
I believe you are mistaken about UK law here. Run a search on Google for "UK law buying stolen goods". While nothing on a government site comes up in the first few links, several sites all basically side with my version. In fact, one of the earlier links deals specifically with your example of innocently buying a second-hand car that has been stolen.
Well, I could be mistaken on the UK law - I never studied any of it. The U.S. law, however, is as I stated.
In the UK, for example, copyright law does not convey certain legal rights that would be present in the US. You don't automatically have the right to make copies of things for personal use (e.g., copying a CD you keep at home onto tape to play in the car). There is very little concept of what US law calls "fair use", though there are a few exemptions. I'm not sure you even have any automatic right to make back-up copies of things, though I doubt anyone has ever been or would ever be successfully prosecuted for using their common sense in this way.
Well, OK, but I don't dispute any of this in UK; and, since most of the lawsuits will be taking place in the U.S. this may be even less relevant. Still, it is the sharer who makes the conscious decision to *share* and make copies to whoever requests the copyrighted material.
The related matter that first came to mind was physical theft, where if you come to possess an item of stolen property, however innocently, you will still have to return it, and to prove that you came to possess it without knowing it was stolen. Obviously the returning part doesn't apply to IP, but the need to prove that you came to have it without realising you shouldn't is directly comparable.
As you rightfully pointed out yourself, stealing a physical item is totally different from copyright infringement. None of the copyright laws that I am aware of, refer to copyright infringement as stealing. Because it's not the same thing - it's not even similar contrary to what RIAA and others want you to believe; but that's another story.
The action of stealing a physical item vs. copyright infringement has been discussed and hammered to the point here on/. - the biggest and most significant difference being that by stealing the thief actually deprives the owner of a physical property; on the other hand, by copyright infringement, nobody is deprived of any property.
Finally, you incorrectly state that "if you come to possess an item of stolen property, however innocently, you will still have to return it". This is absolutely not true. I am sure of this in the U.S. - the common law should be the same in the U.K. that if, e.g, I purchase a car from a used cars salesperson in good faith, and I have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the transaction, and later it turns out that the purchased car was stolen by the dealer, I will not be required to return the car to anyone. In fact, the original owner, the victim will sue and recover damages from the thief dealer, not from me.
Now, you may say that most of this doesn't apply to P2P file sharing since downloader most likely knows that the shared files are likely copied illegally. For example, if you download a file called "Madonna - Like a Virgin.mp3" you probably know it is the song as it states in the filename and it is under active copyright and you'd be requesting an illegally made copy. And that's where the possible contributory infringement comes in. But still, most of the responsibility [for violating copyright] goes to sharer who makes an unauthorized copy and distributes it to whoever makes such a request.
Yes, both morally speaking, and as I understand it legally speaking as well in some jursidictions, that onus is on the downloader. This isn't dissimilar to several other laws on related matters.
Well, I don't know what morals you are talking about, but I am having a problem with "legally speaking... in some jurisdictions" and "several other laws on related matters". This is totally vague. Please elaborate and provide some examples or rulings that downloaders are responsible for such copyright violations. I can't seem to understand the logic.
Copyright laws that I am aware of make it illegal to make copies and distribute copyrighted content without copyright holder's permission. In a P2P system where A asks B for a particular file, it is B (the sharer) who makes a copy and distributes it to A. The most that A could be responsible for is contributory infringement, and that only in some cases.
It never was about money. They're only suing SHARERS, not downloaders. They're deliberately trying to kill P2P. If it was about money, they would sue the DOWNLOADERS.
Besides technical issues of how they can find who downloaded what on P2P (unless they share their stuff themselves), do you mind explaining what is illegal about downloading files? Are downloaders required to verify all copyright and legal issues before downloading anything over the Internet? This would be a harder case to make.
Sharing on P2P, on the other hand, is a more clear case. If you, as a "sharer", have a source music CD and you know (as you should) that it is protected by a copyright, you have no right to make copies of the material with the intent to distribute it to the masses.
NDS for Linux has been available since 2000. I still have the 100 user CD they were sending out for free by just subscribing on their site. It installed without many problems and I was able to create a tree, OUs, objects, users, etc. Although, I did not test any advanced functionality. I believe they had GroupWise server and other products available as well, but those were not free.
So, the solution was there, but it was not very attractive to many, well anybody, actually at that time. Now that SCO case has brought Novell closer to a spotlight (smart move Novell) this stuff will become more noticed and, hopefully, considered and implemented by many. Novell has some excellent enterprise software that gets overshadowed by marketing and hype from other companies.
As far as requiring a Windows client for administration, I don't see how that is/was an issue - especially for enterprise clients.
Linux is for when you're young, poor, and in need of serious computing horsepower. OS X is for when you've got money in the bank and you don't want to have to deal with the Linux hassle.
Will Linux eventually get its usability act together and challenged OS X on its own turf? Maybe, but on its way there, Linux would much more quickly gut Windows dominance and that's a result I can live with.
I'm surprised just how many posts to this story are discussing OS X vs. Linux benefits, differences, etc. I didn't think it was relevant at all. A simple prediction that Linux will pass OS X market share in the near future has nothing to do with OS flamewars. In fact, Linux and OS X are coming from totally different ends of the spectrum and they are not likely to meet soon.
This is not about KDE or Linux eating Apple market share but rather acquiring new markets or taking some away from Windows. I see it as a natural progression and I expect it. Unless Apple does someting drastic with their product (and everything else being relatively the same), e.g. offer it on x86, open-source much of it, etc. I don't see how Apple's market share changing significantly. Linux, on the other hand, is waiting for an explosion. In the near future, it is very likely that many if not most systems in the developing countries will be running Linux. This is bound to have an effect on developed countries also. Linux has many more significant inroads to make (even as it is), as opposed to Apple. So, I it's likely, IMO, that Linux desktop market share will overtake Apple's. Again, this doesn't mean Linux will beat OS X in UI, or functionality, or slickness, or "being cool", etc.
Finally, I'd like to mention that the guy, Alex Salkever, who predicted this in a linked Business Week article, calls Safari "Apple's homegrown" browser and reiterates that it was built completely from scratch in-house. Dude, you are wrong! Get your facts straight before shelling out with your "expert" predictions.
Why should I be scared or offended? If someone's distributing copyrighted materials without permission then I think it's a perfectly fine thing for the copyright holder to pursue legal avenues to get them to stop.
That would be perfectly fine, except that RIAA doesn't need to get court's approval anymore. That's what the Verizon lawsuit was about. RIAA can virtually directly go to ISPs and demand suspected violators' personal information. They have more power than law enforcement itself.
I only get scared and offended when a copyright holder attempts to ban entire technologies, or attempts to bypass the existing and sufficient legal options which are currently in place.
The "legal" option currently in place is the one where RIAA bypasses courts and due process and can directly demand the information out of ISPs. This point has been hammered here already - if you owe me $100 and haven't paid me, can I go directly to your bank and demand your personal information? Can I demand they cancel and close your accounts? Do banks have to comply if I did that? What is the point of having a judicial system?
Do you get scared and offended when the FSF attempts to enforce the GPL when someone violates it? How is this any different?
As far as I know, FSF hasn't used DMCA against anybody to get their personal information directly from their ISPs. If that happened, yes, that would be scary.
I always wondered - so you get in an accident, call these guys, they come over and say "Yup, you hit him!"
Now, maybe it's just me, but I think "Crash Prevention" would be much more desirable than "Crash Detection"
That's true, but if you actually read the MSNBC article, they refer to it as a "crash-warning device", while Honda itself fomrally calls it Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMS).
Slashdot's wonderful article submission badly rephrases this as a "crash detection system", which is not surprising at all. I can imagine if there was another/.-like news service grabbing news from/. the story title would have been rephrased to "Honda introduces 'certified collision' system".
The old way to deal with this was to make the public notices in places where you had to look for -- like the basement cork-board of some oddly-located government building.
You are right - that would be an "old way". Last unneeded complication to add to this would be a "spammer early warning service" for some guy to take those notices and post them on his website, or charge for the service for relaying those notices to individual spammers.
True, but any comparison to some other wrongdoing is irrelevant. This one is wrong, and it should be fought just like the rest.
I wish that was the case, but you know as well as I do that that's not how the government works. First of all, DMCA and USA PATRIOT act are not considered by lawmakers as a "wrongdoing"; because in the black and white picture we know who the real "evildoers" are. Second, if other similar government agencies, and even private industry have such policing powers then there is no case for making an exception for FTC. Hence, the discussion about slippery slope. Third, FTC's recent record doesn't show that they listen to public opinion - just look up the recent media consolidation ruling, or broadband ruling and its reversal (but that's no reason for backing off).
"Secret investigation" powers aside, the commisioners quoted don't seem to get it - spammers shouldn't need to be forced to "honour remove requests" - spammers need to be forced to shut down completely.
If you read the article, that was in reference to e-mail marketers since there is a legal and moral way to simultaneously be an e-mail marketer (e.g. to people who have explicitly or willingly subscribed to receive special offers from specific sources) and not be a spammer.
If I didn't ask to be added, I shouldn't have to ask to be removed.
As another poster already mentioned, the FTC is hardly a "secret government agency." They are not in the habit of doing surveillance. Nor should they get into it. They should need a warrant just like everyone else.
Or at least, like everyone else USED to need... *sigh*
You are right - "used to". If **AA doesn't need a warrant, neither should FTC. Why is it that private industry has more policing power than the government whose job it is to enforce the law?
You are also right that FTC is not in the secret surveillance agency, but they do investigate and help prosecute. Public investigation and legal notices allow spammers ample time to shut down their activities and hide their assets even before the investigation begins.
I don't want to tie DMCA and USA PATRIOT Act into this but that's where the slippery slope started. It seems like what FTC is asking doesn't even come close to those two.
If you use PHP, then you have to use my ActiveLink XML Package.
It's written entirely and purely in PHP, including a parser, a tree-like XML structure, ability to query, modify, and output XML strings or documents. It includes XML, XMLDocument, XMLBranch, XMLLeaf, Tag, RSS, Tree, Branch, Leaf, and File classes. It also comes with very useful class documentation and examples.
Future plans include support and implementation of XPath (started already), DTD, XML-RPC, and other technologies. The package is licensed LGPL so you can include it in your commercial projects without having to have the whole project under GPL.
This idea is not new. I've actually seen such proposals months if not few years back. More on this later on.
Overall, the linked EVLA is more user-oriented - it has demands that are annoying to some end users such as "don't make me click more than once", "don't ask me twice if I want to quit", "ask me to register only once", etc., etc.
Even though it does qualify as funny, it doesn't really address what should be in this kind of "agreement" and definitely doesn't address the terms and conditions that are imposed by most EULAs. These conditions include restrictions on types of use, reverse-engineering, vendors' rights to revoke license at any time, vendors' rights to invade users' homes, users' non-existent rights, etc., etc.
If you would like to look at a more serious document related towards this issue, look at Software Vendor License Agreement that I found before. That would seem more fair to me.
I don't have any further info, other than you may look at mailing list archives; but I wished that they developed something from scratch like Tarkin, rather than take an outdated, and mature (read: stretched to its limits) VP3 and try to improve it and make it compatible with Vorbis.
But, hey, my knowledge is limited, and I cannot make that judgement.
Laura Didio's focus, as her Bios suggest, seems to be Windows and Microsoft products. And in this space, she is sometimes critical. She also comments on some Open Source software with how it competes with the entrenched Microsoft offerings. And she does occasionally comment on Unix and Linux in general. She is cautious towards Open Source and Linux in particular. If she does have a bias against Linux, it does not seem over-the-top (although I don't always agree with her assessments).
I wouldn't say she is cautious towards Open Source and Linux.
From this quote from osopinion article just from last November, in fact she states Linux' TCO is lower than that of Windows:
When I talked to Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio last week, I asked her if she thought Windows had a lower TCO than Linux. Her response? "Total cost of ownership [of Linux] is probably higher than most organizations realize, but it's not ultimately higher than Windows. At the end of the day, the Linux companies or corporations don't have to worry that they'll be socked with license fees."
She is not even biased towards MS. From another osopinion article just last December I found following quotes:
"Microsoft is not going to get away with twisting arms behind the scenes," Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio said.... "Clearly, Microsoft was not going to [include Java] of its own volition," said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio, who feels the court ruling is "great news for Sun, and for the Java third-party community."
Yet more quotes from this article from last October:
Enterprises tend to choose Linux because they must consider the availability of professional service, the IT learning curve, and standards and interoperability, the Yankee Group's Laura DiDio said. ... [Comparing to BSD] Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio agreed, telling NewsFactor that Linux has more applications and more mind share. "We've been hearing about it for four years," she said. "The industry has been primed for Linux."
While I agree that she may not be a programmer, or even an expert in the SCO case; and while someone could suspect a deal to buy her opinion, etc. her opinions from what I've seen in the past don't show her bias or preference towards or against Open Source, Linux, Microsoft, etc.
the gateway plasma monitor is actually a lower resolution at 852 x 480. also i've seen the gateway plasma monitor and it is far from being the best in its class. for a few hundred more you can get a panasonic edtv plasma, currently the best 42" plasma on the market.
Hmm... I've never seen them used as monitors and I'm wondering how the SXGA or UXGA digital scaling works on Plasmas, are they blurry, look awkward, seem slower?
Slashdot Mirror
I remember reading an article on news.com.com.com.com few days ago about how movielink locked out everyone but Windows/IE users. It was written in a pretty tough stance towards such practices and nailed the point in the head.
Strangely enough, I can't seem to find the article anymore, rather if I search news.com.com on movielink, I get only positive news (read PR and ads) and a sponsored link to the movielink website.
Good job selling out guys! I'll adjust my "trust level" accordingly.
I don't use
You and everyone else are missing the intent of all this. It is obvious that this "inkblot technology" will never be used to develop and remember passwords.
I am pretty sure now that the reason these inkblots look similar is because all of them are derivatives of the upcoming official Longhorn Logo. MS is playing subliminal mind tricks on everyone so they quickly upgrade to their next big Windows release when it comes out.
I have a solution for you. As I have suggested before, it is very reasonable to offer binaries separately under your favorite freeware license, but offer source only under GPL.
This freeware license could be something very simple like: you can use, link to, and distribute this binary package in any way you want as long as you keep it as a whole, don't remove copyright notices, etc. + the standard warranty disclaimer.
In this case, if someone wants to link to and distribute binaries, they are free to do so with no further obligation. If they want to modify source code and re-release their modified binaries they would do so under GPL. Or, in the third case, if they'd like to provide modified binaries under the same freeware license, they would seek your permission.
Do you believe copyright holders should be allowed to legally require suspected violators' personal information from their ISPs without a judge's approval? In the light of this law, do you believe the private industry has more power to conduct their own law enforcement activities than the DOJ?
It would be better suited for a lawmaker, but it's not irrelevant here. In fact, it's an excellent question. If you read the "ground rules" provided by the DOJ, they state some of the responsibilities of the respondents:
Other responsibilities include reviewing new policy proposals, legislation, or international agreements related to IP, and providing advice to other government agencies or components of DOJ.
It is a very good question as to what kind of reviews, and advice they give with regard to these new pieces of purchased legislation, and how they believe they help taxpayers and citizens to whom they are ultimately responsible. The follow-ups to this question are also interesting if they give a substantive answer.
Finally, the problem with the "ground rules" that were set by the DOJ is that you cannot ask most types of questions. They are lawyers, you can ask them anything you want... but... you cannot ask them the following:
- Ongoing cases and investigations (OK, fair)
- Related hypotheticals
- Legal advice
Most substantive questions could be discarded as one of the above. What should I ask them? What are their favorite movies? What OS they use at work and at home?I thought one of the major complaints about 99% of the radio stations was that they only play top 20 songs and don't give a chance to smaller bands. Hence, stations often get boring, annoying and lack variety while at the same time extinguishing any chance of a healthy competition. Everyone knows this is because of media conglomerates, their consolidation, and ultimately their "commercials" to sell more useless media (CDs) and pass more controlling laws in their favor. Now the author of the original article is proposing that this half-assed marketing plan be written into a "P2P-cast" (new term?) system. This is worse, not better, no matter how much RIAA gets. It's a lose-lose proposition for everyone.
This means RIAA gets upset about theft of their "IP", pressures congress into stricter legislation; public loses out from such legislation; public also loses out as only "top 20" content is available to them through most of the distribution channels. Smaller bands and real artists lose out as their creations get pushed out of market. It's a disaster!
I'd be much happier if webcasters started streaming more of non-RIAA material. People listen to webcasts at work; in the long run, it could be a better proposition for all parties involved other than RIAA.
I agree with it.
That could be a case for contributory infringement.
Well, if you read the robbery case I described it still applies. In the first case, P2P, sharer makes a deliberate and conscious decision to share, make a copy and distribute; in the second case, his property is being broken into, and then being copied. This is a big difference, especially as to the intent of the owner of the copyrighted property.
Even in the case of the robbery - if a thief broke into your premises and made copies of all your DVDs and CDs - it is the thief who is responsible for copyright infringement, not you. On the other hand, if you offer someone to sell them illegally made copies of 50 of your DVDs at $5 a piece, then you are committing a copyright infringement.
The cracking is irrelevant - in the case of P2P there is no cracking involved - rather, it's a voluntary network that sharers and downloaders (mostly both) participate in. If anybody cracks into your system, they are likely to be committing a criminal act which has, on its own, nothing to do with copyright violations; this is not related to P2P.
Yes it does. If I offer to sell you an copy of a DVD or a CD that I do not have a right to sell (i.e. my backup copies), then I am voluntarily committing a copyright violation. On the other hand, if you broke into my place and stole my backup DVDs or CDs, then I am not committing a copyright violation - you are committing a robbery. Big difference.
Well, I could be mistaken on the UK law - I never studied any of it. The U.S. law, however, is as I stated.
Well, OK, but I don't dispute any of this in UK; and, since most of the lawsuits will be taking place in the U.S. this may be even less relevant. Still, it is the sharer who makes the conscious decision to *share* and make copies to whoever requests the copyrighted material.
As you rightfully pointed out yourself, stealing a physical item is totally different from copyright infringement. None of the copyright laws that I am aware of, refer to copyright infringement as stealing. Because it's not the same thing - it's not even similar contrary to what RIAA and others want you to believe; but that's another story.
The action of stealing a physical item vs. copyright infringement has been discussed and hammered to the point here on
Finally, you incorrectly state that "if you come to possess an item of stolen property, however innocently, you will still have to return it". This is absolutely not true. I am sure of this in the U.S. - the common law should be the same in the U.K. that if, e.g, I purchase a car from a used cars salesperson in good faith, and I have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the transaction, and later it turns out that the purchased car was stolen by the dealer, I will not be required to return the car to anyone. In fact, the original owner, the victim will sue and recover damages from the thief dealer, not from me.
Now, you may say that most of this doesn't apply to P2P file sharing since downloader most likely knows that the shared files are likely copied illegally. For example, if you download a file called "Madonna - Like a Virgin.mp3" you probably know it is the song as it states in the filename and it is under active copyright and you'd be requesting an illegally made copy. And that's where the possible contributory infringement comes in. But still, most of the responsibility [for violating copyright] goes to sharer who makes an unauthorized copy and distributes it to whoever makes such a request.
Well, I don't know what morals you are talking about, but I am having a problem with "legally speaking
Copyright laws that I am aware of make it illegal to make copies and distribute copyrighted content without copyright holder's permission. In a P2P system where A asks B for a particular file, it is B (the sharer) who makes a copy and distributes it to A. The most that A could be responsible for is contributory infringement, and that only in some cases.
Besides technical issues of how they can find who downloaded what on P2P (unless they share their stuff themselves), do you mind explaining what is illegal about downloading files? Are downloaders required to verify all copyright and legal issues before downloading anything over the Internet? This would be a harder case to make.
Sharing on P2P, on the other hand, is a more clear case. If you, as a "sharer", have a source music CD and you know (as you should) that it is protected by a copyright, you have no right to make copies of the material with the intent to distribute it to the masses.
NDS for Linux has been available since 2000. I still have the 100 user CD they were sending out for free by just subscribing on their site. It installed without many problems and I was able to create a tree, OUs, objects, users, etc. Although, I did not test any advanced functionality. I believe they had GroupWise server and other products available as well, but those were not free.
So, the solution was there, but it was not very attractive to many, well anybody, actually at that time. Now that SCO case has brought Novell closer to a spotlight (smart move Novell) this stuff will become more noticed and, hopefully, considered and implemented by many. Novell has some excellent enterprise software that gets overshadowed by marketing and hype from other companies.
As far as requiring a Windows client for administration, I don't see how that is/was an issue - especially for enterprise clients.
I'm surprised just how many posts to this story are discussing OS X vs. Linux benefits, differences, etc. I didn't think it was relevant at all. A simple prediction that Linux will pass OS X market share in the near future has nothing to do with OS flamewars. In fact, Linux and OS X are coming from totally different ends of the spectrum and they are not likely to meet soon.
This is not about KDE or Linux eating Apple market share but rather acquiring new markets or taking some away from Windows. I see it as a natural progression and I expect it. Unless Apple does someting drastic with their product (and everything else being relatively the same), e.g. offer it on x86, open-source much of it, etc. I don't see how Apple's market share changing significantly. Linux, on the other hand, is waiting for an explosion. In the near future, it is very likely that many if not most systems in the developing countries will be running Linux. This is bound to have an effect on developed countries also. Linux has many more significant inroads to make (even as it is), as opposed to Apple. So, I it's likely, IMO, that Linux desktop market share will overtake Apple's. Again, this doesn't mean Linux will beat OS X in UI, or functionality, or slickness, or "being cool", etc.
Finally, I'd like to mention that the guy, Alex Salkever, who predicted this in a linked Business Week article, calls Safari "Apple's homegrown" browser and reiterates that it was built completely from scratch in-house. Dude, you are wrong! Get your facts straight before shelling out with your "expert" predictions.
That would be perfectly fine, except that RIAA doesn't need to get court's approval anymore. That's what the Verizon lawsuit was about. RIAA can virtually directly go to ISPs and demand suspected violators' personal information. They have more power than law enforcement itself.
The "legal" option currently in place is the one where RIAA bypasses courts and due process and can directly demand the information out of ISPs. This point has been hammered here already - if you owe me $100 and haven't paid me, can I go directly to your bank and demand your personal information? Can I demand they cancel and close your accounts? Do banks have to comply if I did that? What is the point of having a judicial system?
As far as I know, FSF hasn't used DMCA against anybody to get their personal information directly from their ISPs. If that happened, yes, that would be scary.
The title reminds me of a body shop near my work.
/.-like news service grabbing news from /. the story title would have been rephrased to "Honda introduces 'certified collision' system".
It was called "Certified Collision"
I always wondered - so you get in an accident, call these guys, they come over and say "Yup, you hit him!"
Now, maybe it's just me, but I think "Crash Prevention" would be much more desirable than "Crash Detection"
That's true, but if you actually read the MSNBC article, they refer to it as a "crash-warning device", while Honda itself fomrally calls it Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMS).
Slashdot's wonderful article submission badly rephrases this as a "crash detection system", which is not surprising at all. I can imagine if there was another
You are right - that would be an "old way". Last unneeded complication to add to this would be a "spammer early warning service" for some guy to take those notices and post them on his website, or charge for the service for relaying those notices to individual spammers.
I wish that was the case, but you know as well as I do that that's not how the government works. First of all, DMCA and USA PATRIOT act are not considered by lawmakers as a "wrongdoing"; because in the black and white picture we know who the real "evildoers" are. Second, if other similar government agencies, and even private industry have such policing powers then there is no case for making an exception for FTC. Hence, the discussion about slippery slope. Third, FTC's recent record doesn't show that they listen to public opinion - just look up the recent media consolidation ruling, or broadband ruling and its reversal (but that's no reason for backing off).
If you read the article, that was in reference to e-mail marketers since there is a legal and moral way to simultaneously be an e-mail marketer (e.g. to people who have explicitly or willingly subscribed to receive special offers from specific sources) and not be a spammer.
Fair point but a different topic altogether.
You are right - "used to". If **AA doesn't need a warrant, neither should FTC. Why is it that private industry has more policing power than the government whose job it is to enforce the law?
You are also right that FTC is not in the secret surveillance agency, but they do investigate and help prosecute. Public investigation and legal notices allow spammers ample time to shut down their activities and hide their assets even before the investigation begins.
I don't want to tie DMCA and USA PATRIOT Act into this but that's where the slippery slope started. It seems like what FTC is asking doesn't even come close to those two.
If you use PHP, then you have to use my ActiveLink XML Package.
It's written entirely and purely in PHP, including a parser, a tree-like XML structure, ability to query, modify, and output XML strings or documents. It includes XML, XMLDocument, XMLBranch, XMLLeaf, Tag, RSS, Tree, Branch, Leaf, and File classes. It also comes with very useful class documentation and examples.
Future plans include support and implementation of XPath (started already), DTD, XML-RPC, and other technologies. The package is licensed LGPL so you can include it in your commercial projects without having to have the whole project under GPL.
Where do I get it you ask?
Get it from the main site at active-link.com;
Sourceforge project;
Freshmeat project;
Other places like hotscripts and phpclasses will also have them.
This idea is not new. I've actually seen such proposals months if not few years back. More on this later on.
Overall, the linked EVLA is more user-oriented - it has demands that are annoying to some end users such as "don't make me click more than once", "don't ask me twice if I want to quit", "ask me to register only once", etc., etc.
Even though it does qualify as funny, it doesn't really address what should be in this kind of "agreement" and definitely doesn't address the terms and conditions that are imposed by most EULAs. These conditions include restrictions on types of use, reverse-engineering, vendors' rights to revoke license at any time, vendors' rights to invade users' homes, users' non-existent rights, etc., etc.
If you would like to look at a more serious document related towards this issue, look at Software Vendor License Agreement that I found before. That would seem more fair to me.
I don't have any further info, other than you may look at mailing list archives; but I wished that they developed something from scratch like Tarkin, rather than take an outdated, and mature (read: stretched to its limits) VP3 and try to improve it and make it compatible with Vorbis.
But, hey, my knowledge is limited, and I cannot make that judgement.
I wouldn't say she is cautious towards Open Source and Linux.
From this quote from osopinion article just from last November, in fact she states Linux' TCO is lower than that of Windows:
When I talked to Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio last week, I asked her if she thought Windows had a lower TCO than Linux. Her response? "Total cost of ownership [of Linux] is probably higher than most organizations realize, but it's not ultimately higher than Windows. At the end of the day, the Linux companies or corporations don't have to worry that they'll be socked with license fees."
She is not even biased towards MS. From another osopinion article just last December I found following quotes:
"Microsoft is not going to get away with twisting arms behind the scenes," Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio said.
"Clearly, Microsoft was not going to [include Java] of its own volition," said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio, who feels the court ruling is "great news for Sun, and for the Java third-party community."
Yet more quotes from this article from last October:
Enterprises tend to choose Linux because they must consider the availability of professional service, the IT learning curve, and standards and interoperability, the Yankee Group's Laura DiDio said.
...
[Comparing to BSD] Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio agreed, telling NewsFactor that Linux has more applications and more mind share. "We've been hearing about it for four years," she said. "The industry has been primed for Linux."
While I agree that she may not be a programmer, or even an expert in the SCO case; and while someone could suspect a deal to buy her opinion, etc. her opinions from what I've seen in the past don't show her bias or preference towards or against Open Source, Linux, Microsoft, etc.
the gateway plasma monitor is actually a lower resolution at 852 x 480. also i've seen the gateway plasma monitor and it is far from being the best in its class. for a few hundred more you can get a panasonic edtv plasma, currently the best 42" plasma on the market.
Hmm... I've never seen them used as monitors and I'm wondering how the SXGA or UXGA digital scaling works on Plasmas, are they blurry, look awkward, seem slower?
At $3100 this 29'' is way overpriced. You'd get a much better deal out of the 42'' Gateway Plasma TV.