So, don't rely on Microsoft? Man, just changed my whole world outlook.
Last I checked, Microsoft sold software you buy, then you own, and run the software on your
own computers, or a service providers' computers.
Not a monthly service you run your software on, that they have the right to shut off at any time.
How can you as a developer choose to rely on a third party organization for your livelihood,
AND fail to choose to get a signed SLA, contract period, and guarantee of renewal
for a certain period at price $X, before agreeing to start purchasing from a service provider?
You are shooting yourself in the foot. Don't bet your livelihood on a vendor, you
don't have a solid agreement with.
Don't buy from a vendor, if their going away will have significant cost, unless you protect
yourself against that cost.... either by insuring against it, or having a signed contract, that
the Vendor will have to repay you the cost.
This is barely any different from buying a house on interest-only loan, in anticipation of being able to flip it a few years later for a huge profit,
after the skyrocketing home values lead to increase in equity.
So i'm puzzled then, why they wouldn't vote in proposals that favor the minors...
E.g. by proposing instead of progressively halving their take, until 0.... keep it at least positive, so their mining efforts continue to be rewarded...
After looking into it further, I realized... part of the exclusive deal is delayed until 2016.
However, Netflix immediately gets access to old movies, so there is a mixture of some delayed
gratification, and some more immediate gratification.
Sure, and if the material they are alleging infringes their copyright is a newspaper review of their movie; then the copyright to the review is actually owned by the newspaper.
That will just mean that their allegation is incorrect, not that they are guilty, because that's not the right they will allege is infringed -- they will be alleging that the URL infringes upon their movie.
So they won't be committing perjury, as long as they have the right to act on behalf of the copyright holder of the rights related to the movie that they in good faith allege is infringed, because they have a belief it is infringing.
That's eons away in the context of consumer electronics. By that time, they might be the last one switching to online streaming.
It is.... but this might be good strategically. This is a sign Netflix may be able to ink a deal that applies in the nearer future.
If Disney was willing to sign for 2016, perhaps another deal/option/provision is around the corner that will come to effect sooner?
Possibly Starz will be willing to reconsider, their current refusal to make any kind of deal with netflix,
as they will become irrelevent.
If you are on salary, they are still required by law to pay you no less than amount that
corresponds to the minimum wage for the total number hours you worked.
Typically, employees are expected and paid to act competently.
Actually, they are typically expected be competent in the field in general; and to be to become expert in some special areas, that will be their job.
There will be things they develop at both levels, that are not obvious to just any person competent in the field.
Merely competent is a pretty low bar to meet.
You still claim complete ownership of the hole and its function?
If I developed a special hole-digging procedure on my own property on my own time, using my own hardware, and then repeated it to dig the company's hole, using my special hardware, then I would say that I owned the exact procedure and special hardware used; if it were a patentable invention, I should retain ownership of those patents, despite having practiced my invention in a way that benefitted my employer: my practicing of it for them, should not assign them a right to copy my special procedure, or to my specially invented hardware, BECAUSE I spent blood, sweat, energy, and time of my own, to develop the practice of it, I should benefit from that, AND when the special procedure is to be reused or sold to a third party, I should be the one to profit from the procedure that I spent my own time and resources to develop.
The exception would be if I reached an understanding with the employer in advance, and they gave me fair compensation, for my extra work,
AND the expected profitability of reselling my privately developed methods, that they would not otherwise have had access to.
How would you feel if you were paying that guy's salary.
I would feel that he owes EITHER the invention OR the entire salary back, together, with the cost
of all the company's resources he had use of that were spent towards developing the product.
A potential way around this is to "share the spare time inventions"; instead of a creation of your own on your own time -- have it a creation made
between two or three close friends; make a LLC, and make the work owned by the LLC you three share, under specific terms --- each of you signed
an agreement with the LLC, to confer rights to that LLC, AND you signed that agreement prior to contracting with your current employer.
The employer can't claim a right to be assigned the work under the copyright assignment clause, because you only did a portion of the work; two of your friends did work, and none of you alone has credit or an ability to register the work as an individual. You have another company that you are employed by that owns the work, and your friends' work, AND you signed the contract with your own company first.
So the company wouldn't be able to steal anything without a legal battle, for 1/3 or 1/4th of the interest in the work.
In the event they were successful, your LLC would in effect still retain a 2/3 share in the work -- and you retain a 1/3 ownership interest in the LLC,
resulting in you retaining a 20% interest in your own work, instead of a 33% interest, both of which are better than a 0% interest.
And you have a plausible reason for questioning the assignment provision of any contract with a future employer.
You can legitimately inform them, that this clause may conflict with a previous employer's requirements, that they have a right to patenatble inventions for X years.
This is like the "My cat clicked on the EULA" defense.
It doesn't matter which hand you signed with, and you can sign any name on the document that you are legally
allowed to use. In essence, whatever you "signed" is by definition your signature.
You have the right to modify an employment contract before you sign it. I've specifically modified the company's right to ownership clause for my last three jobs and haven't had any issues.
Hm.. I wonder if it's possible to print out a new contract with minor changes, and sign it, without them noticing the content of the changes,
or that anything was changed...... how closely do big corps' HR staff inspect the documents signed by new hires?
So it doesn't really matter in the long run what laws we pass unless we make it illegal for employers to ask for certain concessions.
It matters, if by law, we specify a minimum amount of consideration that can be paid for that right.
E.g. A minimum of $10/hour work on spent on your own time developing the invention, total compensation for all material costs required in creating the work, to be able to claim any rights to it, payment for the labor and resources of any third parties that were involved, and a statutory minimum fee for the purchase from an inventor/creator for any invention -- E.g. Minimum $10000 compenation, for the transfer by contract of any patentable work,
and a minimum of $100 per page or $1 per line of code for any copyrightable work.
I would suggest keeping track of the amount of your own time you spent on it.
Make sure that it is so many hours, that if your employer wants to claim it, you will be able to show you
worked some 10000 hours, without being paid... in violation of labor laws
You're killing american jobs, you know that, right? If we don't approve this, they'll be forced to take the jobs overseas, where such protections will be easier to obtain.
I would recommend the US law being revised, so in the case of a work made overseas; the natural person who created the work will always own the copyright, and not any employer, unless the creator of the work specifically registered it in the US, and and signs a paper IN PERSON at the copyright office, notarized, and also witnessed by their legal counsel and two US copyright officials officials, designating an official transfer of rights, AND no contract or document signed by the officer of a corporation or its counsel, and no mailed or faxed document, is allowed to be used in place of that.
If an employer commissions you to make a work of art, they OWN that art. They can do whatever they want with it.
The point is, they should own that painting or sculpture, the PHYSICAL creation I made for them by default, with the right to resell the physical piece or do with it as they please, but the right to copy my creative expression that physical thing embodies and make more of them remains with me, unless I negotiated with the commissioner to productize and resell it.
Otherwise, when they want to productize/resell it, they should have to come back to me, and negotiate terms for that, that we mutually understand, and agree to -- E.g. we BOTH get fair compensation for the further profiteering against my creative work.
What you are saying is kind of like "Yeah I'll build this chair for you, but you can't resell"
No... what i'm saying is like "Yeah, i'll build this chair for you."
But I retain the rights to build more chairs of this specific design (unless you designed it to), and you don't automatically get the rights to my design for the chair, unless we explicitly negotiated that you would have the right to prototype this chair and and build/sell more identical chairs, without further involvement or from or payment to me, AND I was compensated for the exchange of that right separately and in itself from the work in constructing 1 specific copy of my design.
I'm looking forward to the Microsoft car, which will have a bicycle seat and controls.
That's only what you get when you first step in. You can pull the big red button that says "Do not push"; and
you will immediately have your traditional dashboard and steering wheel back
The only thing missing will be the PRNDL and turn indicators. Which will now be replaced with a blank space on the steering wheel.
To access those, you will need to push the new "Home" button, which will bring up the old controls
Just be careful about using it while in motion, as your entire dashboard will be temporarily obscured by the full dash 'command menu'
until you choose the action
you want to take
If you are actively trying to start an application, why wouldn't you?
Because you are multitasking, and watching an open window for any changes, while you go open a command
prompt to start another continuous ping running to something.
Now, if you create a work specifically commissioned by your employer, the employer should own the right to
use your creation, but not to make a product out of it, and resell it, unless you were hired and have in writing communication
that the work was specifically for that purpose
E.g. if you are hired to write custom software for an organization, by default that work should belong to you.
If on the other hand, you were hired to build a custom software product, then by default, the work on that
specific product, that you submit for that product, should belong to your hirer, as part of the understanding
that you are doing product development work for them (versus just work for the benefit of their infrastructure).
Development of a product (giving ownership of your creative work for purposes of resale) should come with expectations of greater compensation,
because you are handing over not just your hours of work -- but an opportunity to profit as well, from the resale of the work.
Whereas, development of software to meet an internal process, should come with an expectation that it is taylored to the needs of your employer's
specific business, and you both retain rights to that.
To prevent uncontrolled energy dissipation you can use a fuse.
You can also use a resistor. Any battery will have an internal resistance, and most Lithium polymer and Lithium ion batteries will already have a safety circuit,
to prevent an excessive rate of discharge.
Also, the small wires from the battery act as a resistor -- they cannot deliver unlimited watts of power or amps of current.
Slashdot Mirror
So, don't rely on Microsoft? Man, just changed my whole world outlook.
Last I checked, Microsoft sold software you buy, then you own, and run the software on your own computers, or a service providers' computers. Not a monthly service you run your software on, that they have the right to shut off at any time.
How can you as a developer choose to rely on a third party organization for your livelihood, AND fail to choose to get a signed SLA, contract period, and guarantee of renewal for a certain period at price $X, before agreeing to start purchasing from a service provider?
You are shooting yourself in the foot. Don't bet your livelihood on a vendor, you don't have a solid agreement with.
Don't buy from a vendor, if their going away will have significant cost, unless you protect yourself against that cost.... either by insuring against it, or having a signed contract, that the Vendor will have to repay you the cost.
Any market for a 3rd party middleware that can be used with other services?
Anyone got API docs, or want to reverse-engineer the Gamespy middleware?
Perhaps a couple gamedevs could concentrate on that instead of rewriting their game :-)
This is barely any different from buying a house on interest-only loan, in anticipation of being able to flip it a few years later for a huge profit, after the skyrocketing home values lead to increase in equity.
So i'm puzzled then, why they wouldn't vote in proposals that favor the minors... E.g. by proposing instead of progressively halving their take, until 0.... keep it at least positive, so their mining efforts continue to be rewarded...
After looking into it further, I realized... part of the exclusive deal is delayed until 2016. However, Netflix immediately gets access to old movies, so there is a mixture of some delayed gratification, and some more immediate gratification.
Sure, and if the material they are alleging infringes their copyright is a newspaper review of their movie; then the copyright to the review is actually owned by the newspaper.
That will just mean that their allegation is incorrect, not that they are guilty, because that's not the right they will allege is infringed -- they will be alleging that the URL infringes upon their movie.
So they won't be committing perjury, as long as they have the right to act on behalf of the copyright holder of the rights related to the movie that they in good faith allege is infringed, because they have a belief it is infringing.
That's eons away in the context of consumer electronics. By that time, they might be the last one switching to online streaming.
It is.... but this might be good strategically. This is a sign Netflix may be able to ink a deal that applies in the nearer future. If Disney was willing to sign for 2016, perhaps another deal/option/provision is around the corner that will come to effect sooner?
Possibly Starz will be willing to reconsider, their current refusal to make any kind of deal with netflix, as they will become irrelevent.
The statement that has to be made under penalty of perjury is claim of right to act on behalf of the holder of a copyright alleged to be infringed
If you are on salary, they are still required by law to pay you no less than amount that corresponds to the minimum wage for the total number hours you worked.
Typically, employees are expected and paid to act competently.
Actually, they are typically expected be competent in the field in general; and to be to become expert in some special areas, that will be their job. There will be things they develop at both levels, that are not obvious to just any person competent in the field. Merely competent is a pretty low bar to meet.
You still claim complete ownership of the hole and its function?
If I developed a special hole-digging procedure on my own property on my own time, using my own hardware, and then repeated it to dig the company's hole, using my special hardware, then I would say that I owned the exact procedure and special hardware used; if it were a patentable invention, I should retain ownership of those patents, despite having practiced my invention in a way that benefitted my employer: my practicing of it for them, should not assign them a right to copy my special procedure, or to my specially invented hardware, BECAUSE I spent blood, sweat, energy, and time of my own, to develop the practice of it, I should benefit from that, AND when the special procedure is to be reused or sold to a third party, I should be the one to profit from the procedure that I spent my own time and resources to develop.
The exception would be if I reached an understanding with the employer in advance, and they gave me fair compensation, for my extra work, AND the expected profitability of reselling my privately developed methods, that they would not otherwise have had access to.
How would you feel if you were paying that guy's salary.
I would feel that he owes EITHER the invention OR the entire salary back, together, with the cost of all the company's resources he had use of that were spent towards developing the product.
A potential way around this is to "share the spare time inventions"; instead of a creation of your own on your own time -- have it a creation made between two or three close friends; make a LLC, and make the work owned by the LLC you three share, under specific terms --- each of you signed an agreement with the LLC, to confer rights to that LLC, AND you signed that agreement prior to contracting with your current employer.
The employer can't claim a right to be assigned the work under the copyright assignment clause, because you only did a portion of the work; two of your friends did work, and none of you alone has credit or an ability to register the work as an individual. You have another company that you are employed by that owns the work, and your friends' work, AND you signed the contract with your own company first.
So the company wouldn't be able to steal anything without a legal battle, for 1/3 or 1/4th of the interest in the work.
In the event they were successful, your LLC would in effect still retain a 2/3 share in the work -- and you retain a 1/3 ownership interest in the LLC, resulting in you retaining a 20% interest in your own work, instead of a 33% interest, both of which are better than a 0% interest.
And you have a plausible reason for questioning the assignment provision of any contract with a future employer. You can legitimately inform them, that this clause may conflict with a previous employer's requirements, that they have a right to patenatble inventions for X years.
This is like the "My cat clicked on the EULA" defense. It doesn't matter which hand you signed with, and you can sign any name on the document that you are legally allowed to use. In essence, whatever you "signed" is by definition your signature.
You have the right to modify an employment contract before you sign it. I've specifically modified the company's right to ownership clause for my last three jobs and haven't had any issues.
Hm.. I wonder if it's possible to print out a new contract with minor changes, and sign it, without them noticing the content of the changes, or that anything was changed...... how closely do big corps' HR staff inspect the documents signed by new hires?
So it doesn't really matter in the long run what laws we pass unless we make it illegal for employers to ask for certain concessions.
It matters, if by law, we specify a minimum amount of consideration that can be paid for that right.
E.g. A minimum of $10/hour work on spent on your own time developing the invention, total compensation for all material costs required in creating the work, to be able to claim any rights to it, payment for the labor and resources of any third parties that were involved, and a statutory minimum fee for the purchase from an inventor/creator for any invention -- E.g. Minimum $10000 compenation, for the transfer by contract of any patentable work, and a minimum of $100 per page or $1 per line of code for any copyrightable work.
I would suggest keeping track of the amount of your own time you spent on it. Make sure that it is so many hours, that if your employer wants to claim it, you will be able to show you worked some 10000 hours, without being paid... in violation of labor laws
You're killing american jobs, you know that, right? If we don't approve this, they'll be forced to take the jobs overseas, where such protections will be easier to obtain.
I would recommend the US law being revised, so in the case of a work made overseas; the natural person who created the work will always own the copyright, and not any employer, unless the creator of the work specifically registered it in the US, and and signs a paper IN PERSON at the copyright office, notarized, and also witnessed by their legal counsel and two US copyright officials officials, designating an official transfer of rights, AND no contract or document signed by the officer of a corporation or its counsel, and no mailed or faxed document, is allowed to be used in place of that.
If an employer commissions you to make a work of art, they OWN that art. They can do whatever they want with it.
The point is, they should own that painting or sculpture, the PHYSICAL creation I made for them by default, with the right to resell the physical piece or do with it as they please, but the right to copy my creative expression that physical thing embodies and make more of them remains with me, unless I negotiated with the commissioner to productize and resell it. Otherwise, when they want to productize/resell it, they should have to come back to me, and negotiate terms for that, that we mutually understand, and agree to -- E.g. we BOTH get fair compensation for the further profiteering against my creative work.
What you are saying is kind of like "Yeah I'll build this chair for you, but you can't resell"
No... what i'm saying is like "Yeah, i'll build this chair for you." But I retain the rights to build more chairs of this specific design (unless you designed it to), and you don't automatically get the rights to my design for the chair, unless we explicitly negotiated that you would have the right to prototype this chair and and build/sell more identical chairs, without further involvement or from or payment to me, AND I was compensated for the exchange of that right separately and in itself from the work in constructing 1 specific copy of my design.
This is Slashdot. If you can't replace OS in your sleep, fucking LEARN.
It costs money to switch to an earlier (or newer) WinOS, unless you have a Pro VL or Retail license of Windows 8 with downgrade rights.
You can't take a Windows 8 Home OEM license, and downgrade that to Windows 7, without an additional Windows 7 license, not legally anyways.
So yeah, it matters
I'm looking forward to the Microsoft car, which will have a bicycle seat and controls.
That's only what you get when you first step in. You can pull the big red button that says "Do not push"; and you will immediately have your traditional dashboard and steering wheel back
The only thing missing will be the PRNDL and turn indicators. Which will now be replaced with a blank space on the steering wheel. To access those, you will need to push the new "Home" button, which will bring up the old controls
Just be careful about using it while in motion, as your entire dashboard will be temporarily obscured by the full dash 'command menu' until you choose the action you want to take
If you are actively trying to start an application, why wouldn't you?
Because you are multitasking, and watching an open window for any changes, while you go open a command prompt to start another continuous ping running to something.
More should be borrowed from the patent doctrine.
Now, if you create a work specifically commissioned by your employer, the employer should own the right to use your creation, but not to make a product out of it, and resell it, unless you were hired and have in writing communication that the work was specifically for that purpose
E.g. if you are hired to write custom software for an organization, by default that work should belong to you. If on the other hand, you were hired to build a custom software product, then by default, the work on that specific product, that you submit for that product, should belong to your hirer, as part of the understanding that you are doing product development work for them (versus just work for the benefit of their infrastructure).
Development of a product (giving ownership of your creative work for purposes of resale) should come with expectations of greater compensation, because you are handing over not just your hours of work -- but an opportunity to profit as well, from the resale of the work.
Whereas, development of software to meet an internal process, should come with an expectation that it is taylored to the needs of your employer's specific business, and you both retain rights to that.
To prevent uncontrolled energy dissipation you can use a fuse.
You can also use a resistor. Any battery will have an internal resistance, and most Lithium polymer and Lithium ion batteries will already have a safety circuit, to prevent an excessive rate of discharge.
Also, the small wires from the battery act as a resistor -- they cannot deliver unlimited watts of power or amps of current.