Within a couple of years, non-democratic governments will have a copy of the source code of Windows, and some governments, that have been cooperating with local companies to do industrial espionage, will also have it.
Expand a little bit further. I am not sure what MS' source code license says in this case but, how can Microsoft enforce the agreement?
1. Russia is, obviously, a huge country with huge political power. Why can't they, one day, break their license agreement and, say, release their own version of Windows and sell it in Russia? Or sell or release source code to others? What remedy does MS have, other than UN and some meaningless treaties?
2. What happens if or when political power shifts within Russia? In a lot of these cases, new government may bail out, or simply ignore some of their previous agreements. And I don't think they will promptly erase all the source code that was provided to them.
3. How long until at least some of the code is leaked, and what can MS do in that case?
Save this article for the next time MS brings in National Security when courts ask them to show some of their source code.
4. Novell Zenworks will require an NT server or a Novell server, and the version that I used put all the files in NDS.
Why would it require Netware or NT server? It would require an NDS login but this could be done by a Linux server also. On the other hand, if the guy doesn't already have NDS, is currently using some other DS, or he has no plans of using or supporting a DS, then having/changing and maintaining one would add significantly to his costs.
It would be more helpful if he gave these details about his network.
Not so. All inventions and works of art belong to the creators. If they choose not to share them with us, that is their unalienable right, an the public has no right to demand that these inventions be shared.
In the context of this discussion it is assumed that inventions or creations are being shared and/or distributed for profit (or other reasons). I didn't see a reason for stating the obvious. On the other hand, I did make a mistake of calling these people "owners" rather than "inventors" and "creators" as you corrected. They are creators and inventors, public are the the final owners. Thank you for the correction.
That is exactly the message from the linked Lessig's blog:
It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme Court. Some feminists say it would have been better to lose Roe, because that would have built a movement in response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat. I'm not yet convinced it's possible. But if there is any good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme Court has said Congress has. When the Free Software Foundation, Intel, Phillis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Kenneth Arrow, Brewster Kahle, and hundreds of creators and innovators all stand on one side saying, "this makes no sense," then it makes no sense. Let that be enough to move people to do something about it. Our courts will not.
This is a call to civil disobedience. Public has been betrayed by their own servants. Supreme Court has given a go-ahead to a string of events that will never place anything into the public domain again. Your post rightfully says that all inventions belong to public, on loan to owners, not the other way around!
I can't believe people think that this is good for Java! As an enterprise developer, this absolutely sucks.
I guess it depends. If you are looking to stick to old technology and standards polluted by MS and abide by them for the next 5-10 years, then you may not like change or improvements.
What takes so long in software development? TESTING, and in java testing different versions of the VM. Up until this point, enterprises have been able to enforce a VM version on enterprise clients, and the developers can count on that version being on the client desktops.
1. I don't think Sun's JVM will be a required or an un-installable "feature" like IE, but it may be an option chosen by default. Anyway, enterprises should still be in control of their desktops.
2. Testing is what you should do with your client-server apps, and this has to be part of decision-making when you decide to use particular technology to implement any functionality; especially if you are not in control of the client runtime environment. What if Microsoft released updated compliant Java VMs like they were supposed to? And included updates in their service packs in all their Windows versions? Did every developer or decision maker that decided on Java disregard such a possibility even though that was Microsoft's committment at the time? No shit you have to test!
3. From an outsider point of view, and in general, by same or similar logic all developers should implement and support standards that are set by Microsoft only. Even if Microsoft takes specs like Java, HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, etc. and rigs them completely in favor of their monopolistic (and many cases illegal) strategy and actions, all developers should still disregard the owner of the standard and become a slave to Microsoft. If anything, ruling such as this should teach many developers and IT departments in general to recognize the importance of real standards, owners of specs and technology versus what's being fed to them by some marketing machine.
In addition, if anyone is still righting java applets for the internet, how does this help? What percentage of users are going to have XP SP2 in the next 12-24 months?
1. I think it's good for Java applets on public websites. There has been a lot of progress in Java since MS released its half-broken, half-Windows version. I am looking forward to new features being widely used and more developed.
2. I also hope developers stop using Windows-specific calls in Microsoft Virtual Machine and respect the real standard. This way, Java will be closer to its "write once, run anywhere" promise which MS has tried to break so hard.
3. Read above about standards. I believe it will be good for standards in general.
This solves none of the Java VM version issues. This was Sun saying "wah wah" in court and getting a sympathetic judge.
Last time I checked everyone - yes, even Microsoft - has to obey by the contracts he/she/they sign. Failing that, other party or parties to the contract will be free to take a legal action in court to make the breaching party comply.
Sun needs to hand over Java to the JCP and stop using it as a weapon in its fight against MS.
1. That's up to them to decide; it's their technology, they'll do whatever they want with it.
2. I would use any good tool, technology, or method against a monopolist who tries to illegally take over my product line and market share. Wouldn't you?
3. I thought you were complaining about TESTING between different distributors, versions, and releases.
This reads even more discouraging in the Yahoo article:
Lobbyists for some of the nation's largest technology companies will use the new agreement to oppose efforts in Congress to broaden the rights of consumers, such as explicitly permitting viewers to make backup copies of DVDs for personal use or to copy songs onto handheld listening devices.
This again makes congress look like a bunch of puppets with a lot of make-up. What gets them elected is a big shiny megaphone that they receive as a gift from BSA, RIAA, or other "special interest" groups. I guess all they have to do for the next election is scream "terrorists... terrorists... terrorists..." through it and they'll get the pass from the crowd. Democracy my @$$! That word, along with Freedom and Rights have lost their respective meanings. Welcome to the era of Security (DMCA), Privacy (DRM), and Patriotism (USPA).
Difference in opinion may land you in jail for federal crime(s).
When the player is exploited, a few things happen. First, all p2p-serving software on the machine is infected, which will allow it to infect other hosts on the p2p network.
Doesn't sound too believable to me. My MP3 player is in no way linked, knows about, or has any rights to the P2P software on my machine. This looks like either RIAA scare tactics, or this guy playing games. If so, he or they better revise their fairy tale to make it more realistic.
Safari weighs in at 7.2 megs, Mozilla is 38.3 megs.
How in the hell did this get modded insightful? Seeing past that none of these figures are correct, i.e. Safari is NOT 7.2MB but closer to 3MB and Mozilla is nowhere near 38.3MB, it actually compares two completely different applications. This guy might as well have compared both of these figures to OpenOffice or Microsoft Office.
Besides all the replies that have mentioned that obviously Mozilla not only contains the Gecko engine, provides an e-mail client, newsreader, chat client, addressbook, authoring tool, numerous debuggers, its own full graphical user interface, feedback agent, it should also be mentioned that it provides a platform for application development that can be used not only for above tasks but for virtually anything else. Take all of these applications, put them in one package, and you are guaranteed to have an 11-15MB install at least (which is Mozilla's actual size).
A more fair comparison would have been one between Gecko and KHTML (just like Apple did). But even then it doesn't do complete justice. Why? Because it depends on the use. KHTML is designed for and is good at rendering (X)HTML, CSS and Javascript. Beyond and above this, Gecko does client-side XML/XSLT rendering, XUL rendering, and so much more. And, does all of the above in a more standards-compliant way than KHTML.
I don't mean to bash KHTML but I don't believe there's any reason to take shots at Mozilla or Gecko, like many posts already did. Apple didn't mean it that way in their e-mail. If you read it (rather than the ZDcrap article) you will see that they meant to praise KHTML and describe how well suited it was to their specific needs.
Not really if you consider that most of the times you would like to preserve high frequencies as they appear in the original audio; SBR will not sound like the original recording.
As for AAC or Vorbis sounding better, it really depends on the AAC implementation and the data rate. There is a point of "good enough" where all codecs sound just fine.
Well, and there is a point where all codecs sound very bad. There have been several blind tests, some of them referred to here on/. as well, that resulted with Vorbis on top of all MP3, AAC, and MP3 Pro at different bitrates, AAC coming in the shameful last (sorry, don't have URLs). I'd like to see a blind test of Vorbis and AAC-SBR at different bitrates. Remember though, these tests usually answer the question of "which sample sounds closer to the original", rather than which one sounds "cooler". Still, I imagine AAC-SBR would beat Vorbis at very low bitrates.
The interesting and hard area is sub 96 Kbps over lossy networks.
I would say 20-50 Kbps for broadcasting; above 90Kbps you can already store the audio at a somewhat reasonable quality. Depends largely on use.
XM Radio uses this, and are able to do nearly CD quality at 48 Kbps. By nearly, I mean casual listeners don't notice artifacts, although it certainly isn't mathematically identical to the original. Better than FM.
I don't have any public samples I can distribute, but I've heard it myself, and it sounds darn cool.
Essentially, AAC-SBR bolts on the Spectral Band Replication features of MP3 Pro, but uses the much more efficient AAC to encode the base frequencies instead of MP3. It's really pretty straightforward, with big payoffs.
I agree, it sounds cool; you can actually get some samples from Digital Radio Mondiale's website.
I am no professional in this, but as far as I understand, the SBR algorithm, most of which is contained in the decoder itself, bases its foundation upon the belief that in most cases there are significant dependencies between the lower and the higher frequencies in the audio signal. By transmitting the lower frequencies, then SBR algorithm is able to guess and reconstruct the higher frequencies on the decoder.
If I got the gist of this right, then it seems to me that this technique is being optimized solely for the low-bitrate audio transmission, e.g. from 20-40Kbps. While this method does provide audio that sounds "cool", it definitely does not provide anything that will sound like an original high quality recording.
I just wanted to clarify this, since you said AAC-SBR provides "nearly CD quality" at low bitrates, and said Ogg Vorbis was "not as efficient" as AAC-SBR. Vorbis still sounds better than MP3 and AAC in listening tests; SBR is just an addition to the latter two to reconstruct high frequencies at low bitrates when only low(er) frequencies are encoded.
According to the analysis article, SearchKing is requesting $20 (basically a donation) for you to get access to view the filed documents of the suit on their site (same ones as hosted in the article).
Actually, after you pay $20 you will also get answers to some questions that they posed on their site. Not to worry, I have meditated and posted the answers below:
DID GOOGLE DO IT INTENTIONALLY? Yes. CAN GOOGLE DO IT TO YOU? Yes. WHAT CAN YOU DO IF THEY DO? Sue. HOW IMPORTANT IS PAGE RANK TO PLACEMENT? Extremely. ARE THEY WORRIED ABOUT OTHER LAWSUITS? Yes.
Especially at the bottom of the page the paragraph that reads:
RIGHTS TO USE CONTENT OR REPRODUCE This site and all information contained within it are the sole property of SearchKing, Inc. and may not be reprinted, republished or used in any way, in part or in it's entirety, without the express permission of SearchKing, Inc. Violation of these terms, especially taking remarks out of context to support your own opinions, will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law.
SearchKing, Inc. believes that if I take a remark from their website and form or support my own opinions is somehow a serious violation of the law, and "will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law". What law do they speak of I wonder? What law is there that will restrict me from reading their publicly available content, taking some remarks and forming opinions on them?
I thought I was impartial when I tried to access their site, but after reading this crap, I think they are bunch of morons.
A certificate is just a piece of paper that reflects a persons reputation. It does not reflect knowledge or skill.
What reputation? A certificate is simply a piece of paper stating that someone attended or completed some half-assed course he took at who-knows what establishment that makes money giving out these pieces of paper.
I don't think legally requiring some certification to repair Joe Sixpack's PC is (a) feasible, or (b) will improve anything, including responsibility. If anything, it will make simple PC repairs more expensive, and they'll make you sign off your firstborn when you take in the PC for a repair. For businesses, it makes sense to have service agreements with companies that are, e.g., Sun certified, or HP certified, etc. Private sector handles it fine. However, for mass market there are no benefits, and most of all, no incentive.
Comparing this to plumbing (like many posts do) is a disaster. Obviously, it's not well thought through. Realize that in any kind of construction, real estate job, there are many more interests involved. These are - land owners, banks and credit institutions, architects, one or more construction companies, property management companies, the city, lessors, lessees... all this is big business and a lot of liability. Legally required certification in these cases provide for defined responsibilities, reduce risk (or at least expose risk), lower deviation in prices, and create a plain field for somewhat competitive market, among other things. In a simple scenario, if a plumber screws up and ends up damaging your property, not only have you suffered, but potentially your neighbors, your property management company, the city, and the bank who gave you the mortgage. If banks cannot rely on, or know the risk and liability of property repairs (e.g. electrician burns down the whole house), they would have to incorporate that risk in their services.
No such interests exist when repairing Joe Sixpack's PC. Usually what you are dealing with is a $600 (or less) computer and a more or less simple problem. The data on the computer consists of few mp3s, couple of documents, some e-mails, and a lot of porn. In other words, nothing remotely close to a multi-billion dollar business. Therefore, no support for legislation.
Dude, if you are bleeding, stop using keyboard and patch that wound, whoever or whatever inflicted it on you.
A user interface which is slow, designed by computer geeks for what *we* like, rather than designed by marketing departments for what *the public* likes, and usually ships, by default, with color schemes which are somehow even more garish and offensive than Windows XP.
User interfaces (KDE and Gnome) are just as fast as XP. Very good number of interface engineers are working on those interfaces, but you don't seem to differentiate - you just refer to everyone as "geeks". MS also has user interface engineers that work on XP's presentation and interface design. The worst people to put in charge of user interface design is, of course, marketing department. Lastly, who knows what color schemes you are referring to - but it's nice to use it as a kicker at the end, I guess.
Inconsistent support. If Joe Sixpack were to look for support on a Linux program, usually there's no 1-900 number. If he were to dig up the mailing list info and send in a question, how long would it be before someone says "RTFM!"? What's he gonna do when TFM is half-written or poorly translated from some strange Tibetan dialect?
Yeah because Joe Sixpack is usually on telephone support 8 hours a day when Windows, or Word, or Outlook crashes, or he gets latest worms because he previewed his message in Outlook Express, etc. After any of those and many more, Joe Sixpack hits the telephone and dials up Microsoft's number, pays $150 per support call (or whatever it is) and tries to resolve the issue. Keep dreaming. If something doesnt' work Joe Sixpack uses something else.
Poor applications. Quoting an e-mail I received: "But a lot of it - and mainly the GUI stuff - is still lagging behind, being a slower and buggier version of a half-decent program on Windows. And priorities are wonderful - when we build a GUI application, the most important thing is that it's skinnable. Bugs? Features? Competition? Who cares?! It's skinnable!"... blah... blah...
Whoa! Make your point - either GUI staff is slow and lagging, or you can't find functionality. Either way you are wrong - OpenOffice or any other spreadsheet can easily calculate your loan payments, or any other simple arithmetical calculations. Rest of the story - move to recycle bin.
Good stability and core networking and filesystems. (Joe Sixpack really seems to care about this, after all, he's still running Windows 98 with FAT32. But he's happy, 'cause it's 98SE.)
Yep. If a filesystem is 30% faster, and 100% safer, then yes they do; because that's where they have their pictures, music, porn, who knows what.
You're paying people to surf the 'Net and try to figure out why OpenOffice Calc won't do the polynomial regression that Excel 95 and up will do in two mouseclicks.
Because, after all, Joe Sixpack does polynomial regressions 5 times daily. This tool needs to be readily accessible to all Sixpacks - Joe, Jane, and Grandma.
You're paying people to wait 1/2 hour as KDE parses a directory full of JPG images of the latest marketing brochures.
XP does the same. Feature can be turned on and off in both cases.
An ordeal every time someone sends you a Microsoft Office file. These are basically standard in the business world, and while you expect this to be a problem with an alternative desktop, it's incredible how pervasive the damned things are. Are you gonna tell a potential employer to re-send his offer of employment in HTML because you can't read a Word file properly? Wouldn't it be even worse if you were a large company dealing with clients who sent you stuff in XLS, PPT, DOC?
This is important. And, yes, most of these documents will show just fine under OpenOffice.
Suddenly, the $200 or whatever Microsoft is currently charging for Windows is pretty unimportant.
Hah! And another $300 or whatever they charge for MS Office. I believe Office XP Pro was going for $550 last I checked. That's substantial money you are talking about. Joe Sixpack could buy a lot of stuff with that. Ahh but... but, those polynomial regressions, can't do without those in OpenOffice Calc, better shell out $1,000 to MS!
Most people are actually fine playing their music, browsing web, and checking their e-mail. That amounts to 99% of computer use and can be and is done well (if not better) under Linux. And yes, MS Office does run through Crossover plugin (with support), and no, Joe Sixpack doesn't call MS support every time Word messes up bullets when you type something 3 pages away; or when Outlook allows yet another WSH VB script get access to the whole operating system and any file on the hard drive; or when Internet Explorer suddenly crashes and asks user to send some obscure error to Microsoft.
The GPL doesn't allow the author to encumber licenced software with restrictions, such as limiting the reuse of patent-encumbered code to web use only.
It wouldn't allow anyone not paying royalties to the patent owner to implement the functionality for non-web use, whether the license is GPL, BSD, or any of your own proprietary licenses.
Therefor the GPL zealots want these patents to be released for use in any application.
Ahh, from now on, stylesheets are patented by company A, Javascript is patented by company B, DHTML is patented by company C. You can't write e-mails using any of those unless you pay a royalty of 2 cents per line of code per message to each company, plus their annual fee of $5,000.
It is true that GPL deals with patents in a certain way; but, this is irrelevant, since the issue affects all software implementing patented functionality, no matter under which license.
In summary, The FSF has a problem with their own licence, the GPL, blocking them from using technologies that are being made freely available for use on the web.
Finally, your point seems to be - yay, trash GPL! - yay, trash GPL! Instead of discussing and arguing for or against the argument made in the original story.
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
I repeat:
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
This is not about GPL, any specific license, etc. This is about standards that have been defined by W3C being patentable in non-web use.
A simple example, as I understand would be - W3C adopts a method for special content delivery patented by company A as a standard - W3C policy states that this standard is now freely implementable by anyone for use via web (item 3) only - W3C isn't involved in non-web delivery; - Hence, company A is free to claim its patent rights for implementation and distribution of its patented delivery method via e-mail, file sharing client, instant messenger, etc.
Now, you may agree or disagree with the submitter or the FSF, but taking a shot at GPL isn't warranted because that's not what is at stake. You have completely missed the point.
First of all, the product or service comparison between McDonalds and software in this case is not relevant. Software is not a disposable product like Big Mac. Anyway, this was not the point.
I think the point that Emmett was trying to make is that the idea of a corporation being for-profit and at the same time asking for people's donations does not sit well with many people. The very idea of offering products and services as a for-profit corporation is that by selling those you create a distinct product in the market that generates revenue and in the longer run gives you some income. If you cannot sustain such process, or convince investors that in the long-run you will earn profit, it's no surprise that your "business" is dead.
1. Why not set up a donation fund for each product? E.g. you would have a "Donate to Ogg Tarkin", "Donate to Ogg Vorbis", etc. and in Traffic provide brief estimates and updates as to how much time and money may be needed for initial release, specific feature, etc. This way, people will actually know what their money goes into, and what becomes of it. I think Namesys is doing something similar, but not quite the same. Theirs is more like if you need a feature that is not planned, pay us and we'll implement it.
2. Just like with Vorbis, keep everything GPL until stable 1.0 production release is reached. Then switch to BSD license. Distribute development releases under GPL only.
I believe if people know exactly where their money is going they will be more likely to support the cause. Why a lot of people are disgusted with Mandrake is because they cannot associate their support, e.g. buying products, subscribing for services into the profitable and benefitial end result. Hence, since the talk is about millions of dollars spent in relatively short period of time (I believe they are asking for $4 mil now for short term cash) almost nobody associates with them.
I am by no means comparing Xiph.org to Mandrake, but I do believe that same principle applies of how people view their support by donation. Ogg Vorbis is by far the best lossy compression format available today. Can't wait for Tarkin.
It is full of existing prior art, I fail to see anything new. The first claim is the multiple shopping cart functionality. This is hardly anything new. A lot of retailers currently allow users to save their multiple shopping carts, or other types of lists of items for purchase fully or in part at a later (or any) point.
One of the main claims of the patent is the "plurality of electronic commerce contexts" for a user. Look at this for vagueness:
7. A method in a computer system for conducting electronic commerce, the method comprising; providing a plurality of electronic commerce contexts for a user, each electronic commerce context having information relating to electronic commerce conducted while in that electronic commerce context; receiving from the user a selection of one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts; after receiving the selection of the one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, conducting electronic commerce with the user; and associating, with the selected electronic commerce context, information relating to the electronic commerce conducted with the user so that when the user subsequently selects that selected electronic commerce context from the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, the associated information is available for conducting subsequent electronic commerce.
Whoa! Could they have jammed more phrases containing "electronic commerce context" in this paragraph without explaining a damn thing? The above paragraph basically vaguely states that user has several identities; when a user clicks on one of the several identities, the information from that identity is retrieved and user is switched to that identity. And this is innovative, not obvious, specific, how?
To jumpstart their highly cooperative effort, and in an attempt to appease to many geeks, both Sony and Matsushita submitted news stories to Slashdot.org, a geek terrorist hangout.
After both stories made the front page of the outlaw website, Sony and Matsushita expressed doubts about the level of cooperation.
"If we can't get this right, how are we going to resolve more complex issues?" said Matsushita representative.
Sony representative made a similar point, adding that the two companies will go back to being fierce rivals again.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website will now offer their online shopping cart through amazon.com.
"It's a wonderful development," said the USPTO spokesperson, "we sell all our related law, patent, and trademark texts online. This invaluable partnership will allow our customers to order any of our texts with only 1-click(tm) on amazon.com. And, coming soon, our customers will even be able to send these out as gifts and get their products when their delivery address is not complete! Really, it's an amazing technology!"
Others speculate that USPTO will start out as one of the zShops on amazon.com and move up to the partnership level when their orders reach an adequate number.
Meanwhile, several consumer unions, groups of hackers, mostlyterrorists, are crying foul. They allege the patent system in the U.S. has been abused and needs review. These outlaws are somehow trying to link this story with the old and outdated argument that USPTO is too loose on how they grant patents.
In that discussion in a televised interview few years back, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, while agreeing that USPTO should be reviewed was seen winking his eye to a patent officer in the audience. The intent from Jeff Bezos was apparently to calm down and feed to the hacker crowd that is known to frequently visit slashdot.org website, now under heavy surveillance from both FBI and the Office of Homeland Security.
I was afraid of the headline "Because Only Criminals and Terrorists Block Popup Ads to Avoid Detection".
Oh well, thank god the article clarified that. The article states that the FBI will basically putting up wanted posters as ads to help find the criminal they're after. That, I don't have a problem with.
OK, next issue:
Because if you block [pop-up] banner ads, you are supporting terrorists.
On another note, I would think Terra Lycos would get a cut from the reward money if the guy is caught from a tip submitted through clicking one of the ads.
As far as copyright, the creator does initially own the copyright. He usually turns it over to the publisher/record company for some sort of compensation package.
This is extremely understated. Usually, in the entertainment business, artists turn their lives over to the record companies. Most contracts that I am aware of have clauses stating that company will be the sole owner of any past, current, and future works of the artist even if it's done as a hobby, on a free time; i.e. it's not like employment. Also, it's worth considering that record companies usually do not compete in the field, rather they operate as a cartel.
Copyright these days extends to more than just copying for obvious reasons. Otherwise, I could rent a DVD and charge people a buck a piece to see it on my home theater system without compensating the creator.
I am disappointed that you refer to the above example as "obvious". It's anything but. From your example, it will also be illegal to get together with your friends to watch a pay-per-view event and split the cost, since you would be charging your friends a fee for watching a copyrighted content on your property. You would have to obtain a special written permission from boxing fight promoters and pay them extra. It would also be illegal for roommates to rent 3-4 movies from a video rental store and split the cost; the more fair solution, according to the logic you refer to as "obvious", would be that either all roommates each pay full fee for watching the content, or they obtain a special "group rate" license from copyright holder.
This will also be an excellent opportunity to offer cable TV service per viewer. E.g. 1 person in household - $40/mo, 2 people in household - $80, 3 people - $120, and so on. Remember, anytime you have your friends over, if you haven't paid for group rate, or more people are watching the TV than authorized and paid for - you are a pirate and you are stealing!
Of course, anything I stated above is just crap. Copyright was never intended for this. Copyright law does not state that copyright holders will dominate the world forever. But it sure looks like they are beginning to interpret it that way.
"Thank you for purchasing Big Mac(R) Meal(R) from McDonald's(R). By breaking the seal on this box you agree to the license agreement enclosed inside."
After opening the wrapper:
"The contents of this box are the property of McDonald's(R) Corporation(R). McDonald's(R) hereby grants you a limited, non-transferrable license to orally consume the contents of this box provided you agree to the following conditions: - you agree to be the sole party to consume the content; - you agree to consume the content within 10 (ten) miles of original purchase; - you agree to consume the content within 60 (sixty) minutes of original purchase;
Any other use, reproduction, reheating, sharing, or any use not explicitly granted by this license is strictly prohibited. You are encouraged to report any abuse of McDonald's(R) property to the store near you or just call (800)YOU-MORON. Remember, any such abuse will amount to stealing the content that is McDonald's(R) property and is punishable by law."
Latest update of the situation: Due to pressure from France, Russia and China, the country formerly known as Finland temporarily agreed to a "music-for-oil-program" while inspectors determine exact locations and magnitude of copyright violations.
Meanwhile, the U.N. security council is considering amending its resolution on Iraq to include copyright violations alongside biological, chemical, and long range ballistic missiles. The spokesperson clearly pointed out to the press that "copyright violations rank in the same area, if not higher than any of the weapons stuff."
While these discussions continue, the inspectors are hard at work, and will soon be equipped with the new "piracy detectors" jointly manufactured by the country formerly known as Finland and the RIAA.
Slashdot Mirror
Within a couple of years, non-democratic governments will have a copy of the source code of Windows, and some governments, that have been cooperating with local companies to do industrial espionage, will also have it.
Expand a little bit further. I am not sure what MS' source code license says in this case but, how can Microsoft enforce the agreement?
1. Russia is, obviously, a huge country with huge political power. Why can't they, one day, break their license agreement and, say, release their own version of Windows and sell it in Russia? Or sell or release source code to others? What remedy does MS have, other than UN and some meaningless treaties?
2. What happens if or when political power shifts within Russia? In a lot of these cases, new government may bail out, or simply ignore some of their previous agreements. And I don't think they will promptly erase all the source code that was provided to them.
3. How long until at least some of the code is leaked, and what can MS do in that case?
Save this article for the next time MS brings in National Security when courts ask them to show some of their source code.
4. Novell Zenworks will require an NT server or a Novell server, and the version that I used put all the files in NDS.
Why would it require Netware or NT server? It would require an NDS login but this could be done by a Linux server also. On the other hand, if the guy doesn't already have NDS, is currently using some other DS, or he has no plans of using or supporting a DS, then having/changing and maintaining one would add significantly to his costs.
It would be more helpful if he gave these details about his network.
Not so. All inventions and works of art belong to the creators. If they choose not to share them with us, that is their unalienable right, an the public has no right to demand that these inventions be shared.
In the context of this discussion it is assumed that inventions or creations are being shared and/or distributed for profit (or other reasons). I didn't see a reason for stating the obvious. On the other hand, I did make a mistake of calling these people "owners" rather than "inventors" and "creators" as you corrected. They are creators and inventors, public are the the final owners. Thank you for the correction.
That is exactly the message from the linked Lessig's blog:
It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme Court. Some feminists say it would have been better to lose Roe, because that would have built a movement in response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat. I'm not yet convinced it's possible. But if there is any good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme Court has said Congress has. When the Free Software Foundation, Intel, Phillis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Kenneth Arrow, Brewster Kahle, and hundreds of creators and innovators all stand on one side saying, "this makes no sense," then it makes no sense. Let that be enough to move people to do something about it. Our courts will not.
This is a call to civil disobedience. Public has been betrayed by their own servants. Supreme Court has given a go-ahead to a string of events that will never place anything into the public domain again. Your post rightfully says that all inventions belong to public, on loan to owners, not the other way around!
I can't believe people think that this is good for Java! As an enterprise developer, this absolutely sucks.
I guess it depends. If you are looking to stick to old technology and standards polluted by MS and abide by them for the next 5-10 years, then you may not like change or improvements.
What takes so long in software development? TESTING, and in java testing different versions of the VM. Up until this point, enterprises have been able to enforce a VM version on enterprise clients, and the developers can count on that version being on the client desktops.
1. I don't think Sun's JVM will be a required or an un-installable "feature" like IE, but it may be an option chosen by default. Anyway, enterprises should still be in control of their desktops.
2. Testing is what you should do with your client-server apps, and this has to be part of decision-making when you decide to use particular technology to implement any functionality; especially if you are not in control of the client runtime environment. What if Microsoft released updated compliant Java VMs like they were supposed to? And included updates in their service packs in all their Windows versions? Did every developer or decision maker that decided on Java disregard such a possibility even though that was Microsoft's committment at the time? No shit you have to test!
3. From an outsider point of view, and in general, by same or similar logic all developers should implement and support standards that are set by Microsoft only. Even if Microsoft takes specs like Java, HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, etc. and rigs them completely in favor of their monopolistic (and many cases illegal) strategy and actions, all developers should still disregard the owner of the standard and become a slave to Microsoft. If anything, ruling such as this should teach many developers and IT departments in general to recognize the importance of real standards, owners of specs and technology versus what's being fed to them by some marketing machine.
In addition, if anyone is still righting java applets for the internet, how does this help? What percentage of users are going to have XP SP2 in the next 12-24 months?
1. I think it's good for Java applets on public websites. There has been a lot of progress in Java since MS released its half-broken, half-Windows version. I am looking forward to new features being widely used and more developed.
2. I also hope developers stop using Windows-specific calls in Microsoft Virtual Machine and respect the real standard. This way, Java will be closer to its "write once, run anywhere" promise which MS has tried to break so hard.
3. Read above about standards. I believe it will be good for standards in general.
This solves none of the Java VM version issues. This was Sun saying "wah wah" in court and getting a sympathetic judge.
Last time I checked everyone - yes, even Microsoft - has to obey by the contracts he/she/they sign. Failing that, other party or parties to the contract will be free to take a legal action in court to make the breaching party comply.
Sun needs to hand over Java to the JCP and stop using it as a weapon in its fight against MS.
1. That's up to them to decide; it's their technology, they'll do whatever they want with it.
2. I would use any good tool, technology, or method against a monopolist who tries to illegally take over my product line and market share. Wouldn't you?
3. I thought you were complaining about TESTING between different distributors, versions, and releases.
They are comparing the size of the application. Not the size of the download archive.
It's nice that you can account for such things as the size of the installer and the archiving method, etc.
But you obviously forgot to account for dis-similarities between applications themselves which was my point.
This reads even more discouraging in the Yahoo article:
Lobbyists for some of the nation's largest technology companies will use the new agreement to oppose efforts in Congress to broaden the rights of consumers, such as explicitly permitting viewers to make backup copies of DVDs for personal use or to copy songs onto handheld listening devices.
This again makes congress look like a bunch of puppets with a lot of make-up. What gets them elected is a big shiny megaphone that they receive as a gift from BSA, RIAA, or other "special interest" groups. I guess all they have to do for the next election is scream "terrorists... terrorists... terrorists..." through it and they'll get the pass from the crowd. Democracy my @$$! That word, along with Freedom and Rights have lost their respective meanings. Welcome to the era of Security (DMCA), Privacy (DRM), and Patriotism (USPA).
Difference in opinion may land you in jail for federal crime(s).
When the player is exploited, a few things happen. First, all p2p-serving software on the machine is infected, which will allow it to infect other hosts on the p2p network.
Doesn't sound too believable to me. My MP3 player is in no way linked, knows about, or has any rights to the P2P software on my machine. This looks like either RIAA scare tactics, or this guy playing games. If so, he or they better revise their fairy tale to make it more realistic.
Safari weighs in at 7.2 megs, Mozilla is 38.3 megs.
How in the hell did this get modded insightful? Seeing past that none of these figures are correct, i.e. Safari is NOT 7.2MB but closer to 3MB and Mozilla is nowhere near 38.3MB, it actually compares two completely different applications. This guy might as well have compared both of these figures to OpenOffice or Microsoft Office.
Besides all the replies that have mentioned that obviously Mozilla not only contains the Gecko engine, provides an e-mail client, newsreader, chat client, addressbook, authoring tool, numerous debuggers, its own full graphical user interface, feedback agent, it should also be mentioned that it provides a platform for application development that can be used not only for above tasks but for virtually anything else. Take all of these applications, put them in one package, and you are guaranteed to have an 11-15MB install at least (which is Mozilla's actual size).
A more fair comparison would have been one between Gecko and KHTML (just like Apple did). But even then it doesn't do complete justice. Why? Because it depends on the use. KHTML is designed for and is good at rendering (X)HTML, CSS and Javascript. Beyond and above this, Gecko does client-side XML/XSLT rendering, XUL rendering, and so much more. And, does all of the above in a more standards-compliant way than KHTML.
I don't mean to bash KHTML but I don't believe there's any reason to take shots at Mozilla or Gecko, like many posts already did. Apple didn't mean it that way in their e-mail. If you read it (rather than the ZDcrap article) you will see that they meant to praise KHTML and describe how well suited it was to their specific needs.
Well, that's a pretty big "just"
/. as well, that resulted with Vorbis on top of all MP3, AAC, and MP3 Pro at different bitrates, AAC coming in the shameful last (sorry, don't have URLs). I'd like to see a blind test of Vorbis and AAC-SBR at different bitrates. Remember though, these tests usually answer the question of "which sample sounds closer to the original", rather than which one sounds "cooler". Still, I imagine AAC-SBR would beat Vorbis at very low bitrates.
Not really if you consider that most of the times you would like to preserve high frequencies as they appear in the original audio; SBR will not sound like the original recording.
As for AAC or Vorbis sounding better, it really depends on the AAC implementation and the data rate. There is a point of "good enough" where all codecs sound just fine.
Well, and there is a point where all codecs sound very bad. There have been several blind tests, some of them referred to here on
The interesting and hard area is sub 96 Kbps over lossy networks.
I would say 20-50 Kbps for broadcasting; above 90Kbps you can already store the audio at a somewhat reasonable quality. Depends largely on use.
XM Radio uses this, and are able to do nearly CD quality at 48 Kbps. By nearly, I mean casual listeners don't notice artifacts, although it certainly isn't mathematically identical to the original. Better than FM.
I don't have any public samples I can distribute, but I've heard it myself, and it sounds darn cool.
Essentially, AAC-SBR bolts on the Spectral Band Replication features of MP3 Pro, but uses the much more efficient AAC to encode the base frequencies instead of MP3. It's really pretty straightforward, with big payoffs.
I agree, it sounds cool; you can actually get some samples from Digital Radio Mondiale's website.
I am no professional in this, but as far as I understand, the SBR algorithm, most of which is contained in the decoder itself, bases its foundation upon the belief that in most cases there are significant dependencies between the lower and the higher frequencies in the audio signal. By transmitting the lower frequencies, then SBR algorithm is able to guess and reconstruct the higher frequencies on the decoder.
If I got the gist of this right, then it seems to me that this technique is being optimized solely for the low-bitrate audio transmission, e.g. from 20-40Kbps. While this method does provide audio that sounds "cool", it definitely does not provide anything that will sound like an original high quality recording.
I just wanted to clarify this, since you said AAC-SBR provides "nearly CD quality" at low bitrates, and said Ogg Vorbis was "not as efficient" as AAC-SBR. Vorbis still sounds better than MP3 and AAC in listening tests; SBR is just an addition to the latter two to reconstruct high frequencies at low bitrates when only low(er) frequencies are encoded.
According to the analysis article, SearchKing is requesting $20 (basically a donation) for you to get access to view the filed documents of the suit on their site (same ones as hosted in the article).
Actually, after you pay $20 you will also get answers to some questions that they posed on their site. Not to worry, I have meditated and posted the answers below:
DID GOOGLE DO IT INTENTIONALLY?
Yes.
CAN GOOGLE DO IT TO YOU?
Yes.
WHAT CAN YOU DO IF THEY DO?
Sue.
HOW IMPORTANT IS PAGE RANK TO PLACEMENT?
Extremely.
ARE THEY WORRIED ABOUT OTHER LAWSUITS?
Yes.
$20 please.
Especially at the bottom of the page the paragraph that reads:
RIGHTS TO USE CONTENT OR REPRODUCE
This site and all information contained within it are the sole property of SearchKing, Inc. and may not be reprinted, republished or used in any way, in part or in it's entirety, without the express permission of SearchKing, Inc. Violation of these terms, especially taking remarks out of context to support your own opinions, will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law.
SearchKing, Inc. believes that if I take a remark from their website and form or support my own opinions is somehow a serious violation of the law, and "will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law". What law do they speak of I wonder? What law is there that will restrict me from reading their publicly available content, taking some remarks and forming opinions on them?
I thought I was impartial when I tried to access their site, but after reading this crap, I think they are bunch of morons.
Oops, this may land me in court now.
A certificate is just a piece of paper that reflects a persons reputation. It does not reflect knowledge or skill.
What reputation? A certificate is simply a piece of paper stating that someone attended or completed some half-assed course he took at who-knows what establishment that makes money giving out these pieces of paper.
I don't think legally requiring some certification to repair Joe Sixpack's PC is (a) feasible, or (b) will improve anything, including responsibility. If anything, it will make simple PC repairs more expensive, and they'll make you sign off your firstborn when you take in the PC for a repair. For businesses, it makes sense to have service agreements with companies that are, e.g., Sun certified, or HP certified, etc. Private sector handles it fine. However, for mass market there are no benefits, and most of all, no incentive.
Comparing this to plumbing (like many posts do) is a disaster. Obviously, it's not well thought through. Realize that in any kind of construction, real estate job, there are many more interests involved. These are - land owners, banks and credit institutions, architects, one or more construction companies, property management companies, the city, lessors, lessees... all this is big business and a lot of liability. Legally required certification in these cases provide for defined responsibilities, reduce risk (or at least expose risk), lower deviation in prices, and create a plain field for somewhat competitive market, among other things. In a simple scenario, if a plumber screws up and ends up damaging your property, not only have you suffered, but potentially your neighbors, your property management company, the city, and the bank who gave you the mortgage. If banks cannot rely on, or know the risk and liability of property repairs (e.g. electrician burns down the whole house), they would have to incorporate that risk in their services.
No such interests exist when repairing Joe Sixpack's PC. Usually what you are dealing with is a $600 (or less) computer and a more or less simple problem. The data on the computer consists of few mp3s, couple of documents, some e-mails, and a lot of porn. In other words, nothing remotely close to a multi-billion dollar business. Therefore, no support for legislation.
Dude, if you are bleeding, stop using keyboard and patch that wound, whoever or whatever inflicted it on you.
... blah ... blah ...
A user interface which is slow, designed by computer geeks for what *we* like, rather than designed by marketing departments for what *the public* likes, and usually ships, by default, with color schemes which are somehow even more garish and offensive than Windows XP.
User interfaces (KDE and Gnome) are just as fast as XP. Very good number of interface engineers are working on those interfaces, but you don't seem to differentiate - you just refer to everyone as "geeks". MS also has user interface engineers that work on XP's presentation and interface design. The worst people to put in charge of user interface design is, of course, marketing department. Lastly, who knows what color schemes you are referring to - but it's nice to use it as a kicker at the end, I guess.
Inconsistent support. If Joe Sixpack were to look for support on a Linux program, usually there's no 1-900 number. If he were to dig up the mailing list info and send in a question, how long would it be before someone says "RTFM!"? What's he gonna do when TFM is half-written or poorly translated from some strange Tibetan dialect?
Yeah because Joe Sixpack is usually on telephone support 8 hours a day when Windows, or Word, or Outlook crashes, or he gets latest worms because he previewed his message in Outlook Express, etc. After any of those and many more, Joe Sixpack hits the telephone and dials up Microsoft's number, pays $150 per support call (or whatever it is) and tries to resolve the issue. Keep dreaming. If something doesnt' work Joe Sixpack uses something else.
Poor applications. Quoting an e-mail I received: "But a lot of it - and mainly the GUI stuff - is still lagging behind, being a slower and buggier version of a half-decent program on Windows. And priorities are wonderful - when we build a GUI application, the most important thing is that it's skinnable. Bugs? Features? Competition? Who cares?! It's skinnable!"
Whoa! Make your point - either GUI staff is slow and lagging, or you can't find functionality. Either way you are wrong - OpenOffice or any other spreadsheet can easily calculate your loan payments, or any other simple arithmetical calculations. Rest of the story - move to recycle bin.
Good stability and core networking and filesystems. (Joe Sixpack really seems to care about this, after all, he's still running Windows 98 with FAT32. But he's happy, 'cause it's 98SE.)
Yep. If a filesystem is 30% faster, and 100% safer, then yes they do; because that's where they have their pictures, music, porn, who knows what.
You're paying people to surf the 'Net and try to figure out why OpenOffice Calc won't do the polynomial regression that Excel 95 and up will do in two mouseclicks.
Because, after all, Joe Sixpack does polynomial regressions 5 times daily. This tool needs to be readily accessible to all Sixpacks - Joe, Jane, and Grandma.
You're paying people to wait 1/2 hour as KDE parses a directory full of JPG images of the latest marketing brochures.
XP does the same. Feature can be turned on and off in both cases.
An ordeal every time someone sends you a Microsoft Office file. These are basically standard in the business world, and while you expect this to be a problem with an alternative desktop, it's incredible how pervasive the damned things are. Are you gonna tell a potential employer to re-send his offer of employment in HTML because you can't read a Word file properly? Wouldn't it be even worse if you were a large company dealing with clients who sent you stuff in XLS, PPT, DOC?
This is important. And, yes, most of these documents will show just fine under OpenOffice.
Suddenly, the $200 or whatever Microsoft is currently charging for Windows is pretty unimportant.
Hah! And another $300 or whatever they charge for MS Office. I believe Office XP Pro was going for $550 last I checked. That's substantial money you are talking about. Joe Sixpack could buy a lot of stuff with that. Ahh but... but, those polynomial regressions, can't do without those in OpenOffice Calc, better shell out $1,000 to MS!
Most people are actually fine playing their music, browsing web, and checking their e-mail. That amounts to 99% of computer use and can be and is done well (if not better) under Linux. And yes, MS Office does run through Crossover plugin (with support), and no, Joe Sixpack doesn't call MS support every time Word messes up bullets when you type something 3 pages away; or when Outlook allows yet another WSH VB script get access to the whole operating system and any file on the hard drive; or when Internet Explorer suddenly crashes and asks user to send some obscure error to Microsoft.
The GPL doesn't allow the author to encumber licenced software with restrictions, such as limiting the reuse of patent-encumbered code to web use only.
It wouldn't allow anyone not paying royalties to the patent owner to implement the functionality for non-web use, whether the license is GPL, BSD, or any of your own proprietary licenses.
Therefor the GPL zealots want these patents to be released for use in any application.
Ahh, from now on, stylesheets are patented by company A, Javascript is patented by company B, DHTML is patented by company C. You can't write e-mails using any of those unless you pay a royalty of 2 cents per line of code per message to each company, plus their annual fee of $5,000.
It is true that GPL deals with patents in a certain way; but, this is irrelevant, since the issue affects all software implementing patented functionality, no matter under which license.
In summary, The FSF has a problem with their own licence, the GPL, blocking them from using technologies that are being made freely available for use on the web.
Finally, your point seems to be - yay, trash GPL! - yay, trash GPL! Instead of discussing and arguing for or against the argument made in the original story.
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
I repeat:
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
This is not about GPL, any specific license, etc. This is about standards that have been defined by W3C being patentable in non-web use.
A simple example, as I understand would be
- W3C adopts a method for special content delivery patented by company A as a standard
- W3C policy states that this standard is now freely implementable by anyone for use via web (item 3) only
- W3C isn't involved in non-web delivery;
- Hence, company A is free to claim its patent rights for implementation and distribution of its patented delivery method via e-mail, file sharing client, instant messenger, etc.
Now, you may agree or disagree with the submitter or the FSF, but taking a shot at GPL isn't warranted because that's not what is at stake. You have completely missed the point.
And you are missing the point altogether.
First of all, the product or service comparison between McDonalds and software in this case is not relevant. Software is not a disposable product like Big Mac. Anyway, this was not the point.
I think the point that Emmett was trying to make is that the idea of a corporation being for-profit and at the same time asking for people's donations does not sit well with many people. The very idea of offering products and services as a for-profit corporation is that by selling those you create a distinct product in the market that generates revenue and in the longer run gives you some income. If you cannot sustain such process, or convince investors that in the long-run you will earn profit, it's no surprise that your "business" is dead.
I agree, but I do have suggestions.
1. Why not set up a donation fund for each product? E.g. you would have a "Donate to Ogg Tarkin", "Donate to Ogg Vorbis", etc. and in Traffic provide brief estimates and updates as to how much time and money may be needed for initial release, specific feature, etc. This way, people will actually know what their money goes into, and what becomes of it. I think Namesys is doing something similar, but not quite the same. Theirs is more like if you need a feature that is not planned, pay us and we'll implement it.
2. Just like with Vorbis, keep everything GPL until stable 1.0 production release is reached. Then switch to BSD license. Distribute development releases under GPL only.
I believe if people know exactly where their money is going they will be more likely to support the cause. Why a lot of people are disgusted with Mandrake is because they cannot associate their support, e.g. buying products, subscribing for services into the profitable and benefitial end result. Hence, since the talk is about millions of dollars spent in relatively short period of time (I believe they are asking for $4 mil now for short term cash) almost nobody associates with them.
I am by no means comparing Xiph.org to Mandrake, but I do believe that same principle applies of how people view their support by donation. Ogg Vorbis is by far the best lossy compression format available today. Can't wait for Tarkin.
It is full of existing prior art, I fail to see anything new. The first claim is the multiple shopping cart functionality. This is hardly anything new. A lot of retailers currently allow users to save their multiple shopping carts, or other types of lists of items for purchase fully or in part at a later (or any) point.
One of the main claims of the patent is the "plurality of electronic commerce contexts" for a user. Look at this for vagueness:
7. A method in a computer system for conducting electronic commerce, the method comprising; providing a plurality of electronic commerce contexts for a user, each electronic commerce context having information relating to electronic commerce conducted while in that electronic commerce context; receiving from the user a selection of one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts; after receiving the selection of the one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, conducting electronic commerce with the user; and associating, with the selected electronic commerce context, information relating to the electronic commerce conducted with the user so that when the user subsequently selects that selected electronic commerce context from the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, the associated information is available for conducting subsequent electronic commerce.
Whoa! Could they have jammed more phrases containing "electronic commerce context" in this paragraph without explaining a damn thing? The above paragraph basically vaguely states that user has several identities; when a user clicks on one of the several identities, the information from that identity is retrieved and user is switched to that identity. And this is innovative, not obvious, specific, how?
Patent denied! Next in line please!
To jumpstart their highly cooperative effort, and in an attempt to appease to many geeks, both Sony and Matsushita submitted news stories to Slashdot.org, a geek terrorist hangout.
After both stories made the front page of the outlaw website, Sony and Matsushita expressed doubts about the level of cooperation.
"If we can't get this right, how are we going to resolve more complex issues?" said Matsushita representative.
Sony representative made a similar point, adding that the two companies will go back to being fierce rivals again.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website will now offer their online shopping cart through amazon.com.
"It's a wonderful development," said the USPTO spokesperson, "we sell all our related law, patent, and trademark texts online. This invaluable partnership will allow our customers to order any of our texts with only 1-click(tm) on amazon.com. And, coming soon, our customers will even be able to send these out as gifts and get their products when their delivery address is not complete! Really, it's an amazing technology!"
Others speculate that USPTO will start out as one of the zShops on amazon.com and move up to the partnership level when their orders reach an adequate number.
Meanwhile, several consumer unions, groups of hackers, mostly terrorists, are crying foul. They allege the patent system in the U.S. has been abused and needs review. These outlaws are somehow trying to link this story with the old and outdated argument that USPTO is too loose on how they grant patents.
In that discussion in a televised interview few years back, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, while agreeing that USPTO should be reviewed was seen winking his eye to a patent officer in the audience. The intent from Jeff Bezos was apparently to calm down and feed to the hacker crowd that is known to frequently visit slashdot.org website, now under heavy surveillance from both FBI and the Office of Homeland Security.
I was afraid of the headline "Because Only Criminals and Terrorists Block Popup Ads to Avoid Detection".
Oh well, thank god the article clarified that. The article states that the FBI will basically putting up wanted posters as ads to help find the criminal they're after. That, I don't have a problem with.
OK, next issue:
Because if you block [pop-up] banner ads, you are supporting terrorists.
On another note, I would think Terra Lycos would get a cut from the reward money if the guy is caught from a tip submitted through clicking one of the ads.
As far as copyright, the creator does initially own the copyright. He usually turns it over to the publisher/record company for some sort of compensation package.
This is extremely understated. Usually, in the entertainment business, artists turn their lives over to the record companies. Most contracts that I am aware of have clauses stating that company will be the sole owner of any past, current, and future works of the artist even if it's done as a hobby, on a free time; i.e. it's not like employment. Also, it's worth considering that record companies usually do not compete in the field, rather they operate as a cartel.
Copyright these days extends to more than just copying for obvious reasons. Otherwise, I could rent a DVD and charge people a buck a piece to see it on my home theater system without compensating the creator.
I am disappointed that you refer to the above example as "obvious". It's anything but. From your example, it will also be illegal to get together with your friends to watch a pay-per-view event and split the cost, since you would be charging your friends a fee for watching a copyrighted content on your property. You would have to obtain a special written permission from boxing fight promoters and pay them extra. It would also be illegal for roommates to rent 3-4 movies from a video rental store and split the cost; the more fair solution, according to the logic you refer to as "obvious", would be that either all roommates each pay full fee for watching the content, or they obtain a special "group rate" license from copyright holder.
This will also be an excellent opportunity to offer cable TV service per viewer. E.g. 1 person in household - $40/mo, 2 people in household - $80, 3 people - $120, and so on. Remember, anytime you have your friends over, if you haven't paid for group rate, or more people are watching the TV than authorized and paid for - you are a pirate and you are stealing!
Of course, anything I stated above is just crap. Copyright was never intended for this. Copyright law does not state that copyright holders will dominate the world forever. But it sure looks like they are beginning to interpret it that way.
"Thank you for purchasing Big Mac(R) Meal(R) from McDonald's(R). By breaking the seal on this box you agree to the license agreement enclosed inside."
After opening the wrapper:
"The contents of this box are the property of McDonald's(R) Corporation(R). McDonald's(R) hereby grants you a limited, non-transferrable license to orally consume the contents of this box provided you agree to the following conditions:
- you agree to be the sole party to consume the content;
- you agree to consume the content within 10 (ten) miles of original purchase;
- you agree to consume the content within 60 (sixty) minutes of original purchase;
Any other use, reproduction, reheating, sharing, or any use not explicitly granted by this license is strictly prohibited. You are encouraged to report any abuse of McDonald's(R) property to the store near you or just call (800)YOU-MORON. Remember, any such abuse will amount to stealing the content that is McDonald's(R) property and is punishable by law."
There is your copyright!
Latest update of the situation: Due to pressure from France, Russia and China, the country formerly known as Finland temporarily agreed to a "music-for-oil-program" while inspectors determine exact locations and magnitude of copyright violations.
Meanwhile, the U.N. security council is considering amending its resolution on Iraq to include copyright violations alongside biological, chemical, and long range ballistic missiles. The spokesperson clearly pointed out to the press that "copyright violations rank in the same area, if not higher than any of the weapons stuff."
While these discussions continue, the inspectors are hard at work, and will soon be equipped with the new "piracy detectors" jointly manufactured by the country formerly known as Finland and the RIAA.