And some of our communities have the good sense to hold all elections in conjunction with federal elections, so we don't have this silly voting-in-off-years nonsense.
I beg to differ. I used Graffiti for about six months after I first got my Handspring Visor and got reasonably good with it, but I still wasn't satisfied--even with six months' experience, there were quite a few errors. I looked around and found this stylus-tap keyboard. I much prefer it--there are fewer errors, and I find it faster than using Graffiti.
You're absolutely right that you have to be looking at it in order to use it, unlike Graffiti, but for me that's a minor inconvenience, rather than the major issue it is for you. It's pretty rare that I'm trying to write in the dark, or write when I'm talking to someone, but if I do the keyboard can be turned off with a single tap and I can revert to Graffiti. I can see that Graffiti might be better if you frequently use it in those conditions where you don't want to be looking at the screen, but that's not the case with me.
Well, I certainly can't blame you for that, especially considering that I'm just some anonymous poster who claims he knows something about copyright law.
But if you're planning on actually copying books and selling them, I'd recommend you take neither my word nor that of the publishing executive, and check with a laywer first.
Actually they do exist, hence the need for DMCA to turn them back. About a decade ago, a publishing executive told me they had never prosecuted people who photocopy books because lawyers had adviced them that property rights in the US likely allowed you to do so, and even to sell those copies so long as you didn't profit.
Not very likely. Although whether one is profiting from copying does have some bearing on whether copying falls into the "fair use" exception to copyright, it is not the only thing considered. Copying entire books and selling them is almost certainly not fair use and thus illegal (if the book is copyrighted and you do not have permission of the copyright owner) even if you do not profit from it.
There could be a number of other reasons why the publisher doesn't sue--most likely, because someone making and selling a handful of copies doesn't dent the publisher's profits enough to make it worth the cost of sending lawyers after the person doing the copying. If some organization were making and selling thousands of unauthorized copies--even if they were doing it without profit--you can bet the legitimate publisher would go after them, and the publisher would win, too.
Also, keep in mind that unlike trademarks, copyrights can be selectively enforced without diluting the copyright--if they choose not to prosecute some copyright violations, it does not affect their copyright.
IANAIPLBIDWWTOARB. (I am not an intellectual property lawyer but I do work with them on a regular basis.)
They probably don't have categories such as "gay" "Korean" etc. at all. More likely it correlates your preferences with the preferences of other TiVo users. e.g., you recorded X, a lot of other people who recorded X also recorded Y, so it will recommend Y for you. (The actual statistical algorithm is probably more complex, but that's the basic idea.) No explicit categories necessary at all.
Because for Web technology, the extra costs of making your site accessible are trivial, and have lots of additional benefits, like making it accessible to sighted people browsing from PDAs, cellphones and WebTV.
That's a very good answer to the question, "why should I make my website accessible?"
Unfortunately, that's not the question tmark was asking, which is "why should the government force me to make my website accessible?"
IANAL, but my understanding is that breach of contract is a civil matter, not criminal, so there could not be a "charge" associated with breach of contract.
Now, if the employee signed an NDA, he could potentially be up against both criminal charges for theft and a civil suit for breach of contract, but only the former would involve the police & prosecuting attorneys.
If copyright infringement is stealing, then this is embezzlement,
It's worse than that, even. The person is accused not of making a copy of the movie, but of actually stealing physical material. Regardless of the varying views of intellectual property law found here, I think most/.ers still agree that taking physical items without permission is theft.
"the GPL essentially says that a piece of software is completely, freely available, except to those who wish to wrap it in their own proprietary works." [Emphasis mine]
That last part is the key. If you could eliminate that last part, and simply say, "The GPL says that a piece of software is completely, freely available," period, then you would be correct to say that the GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright.
It's the derivative works portion of the GPL that requires copyright to make it work. If I take a GPL'ed work, modify it by adding my own code, and release it, the GPL requires that I release the source code of my modified work.
Without copyright, I could legally take GPL'ed code, modify it, compile it, and release the executable without releasing the new source code.
It has to be done through the courts. It's possible to sue to have a patent invalidated, even if the patent holder hasn't sued you for infringement. Unfortunately, this is probably just as expensive as defending yourself against an infringement lawsuit, although there are some advantages for the person initiating the suit (for example, the person suing can choose what jurisdiction the suit is filed in).
It's not worth doing a patent search. Most of the larger companies do not.
Well, I don't know what "most of the larger companies" do, but I can say that I work for a Fortune 500 company and we always do very intensive prior art searches. Why? Read on:
Worst case, the patent office tells you about some prior art & you adjust your application to take it into account
No, the worst case is that the patent office doesn't find the relevant prior art in its search either and grants your patent. (And we all know what a good job the patent office does on prior art searches, huh?) Your competitor does find the prior art, takes it to court and has your patent invalidated. When this happens, there's no refund on your thousands of dollars in filing fees. Your patent is then one very expensive piece of paper which confers absolutely no legal rights.
The lava question in the interview above was shortened a bit from the original question. In that, MrIcee notes that they leave holes for the steam to vent (because one time when they didn't, it exploded). Given that, hanwen's conclusion is correct.
No. Perhaps he's happy the way he is. Perhaps ALS is what has defined him as he is today... would you risk losing him? Perhaps, without ALS, he'd be flipping burgers.
Maybe. Or maybe he'd be an even greater genius than he already is.
Killing a butterfly in your garden may start a hurricane next year. It may prevent one.
We can choose to take one of two lessons from either of these cases:
We can't possibly predict what the long-term effects will be, so we shouldn't mess with it.
We can't possibly predict what the long-term effects will be, so we should do what seems best in the short term.
I, for one, will take #2. Not messing with nature is just as likely (given our current knowledge) to produce harmful long-term effects as messing with it.
And of course, as yoda points out in Episode I "Clouded is the Dark Side, etc." Meaning, since he's an incredibly powerful sith lord, he can conceal his presence, even across the room.
So you're saying he has the power to Cloud Men's Minds? Yet another mythos we're borrowing from...
Beyond that, I find the trotting out of the 3/5 rule to be inflammatory unless it is very specifically relevant.
Oh, well then I'll promise never to mention it again!! I'll pretend that era of American history never happened! Will that make you happy?
Also, please send a list of topics that you, or any/. reader, finds inflammatory, so that I can make a point of never bringing them up.
You aren't that new to slashdot!
And what conceivable relevance does that have? First you try to judge my argument in this thread by my previous posts, and then by how new I am or am not to slashdot?
Slashdot is populated with trolls, rambling freaks, people with inscrutable agendas, and ones who can't put together a rational train of though to save their lives.
Because I'm not a troll or rambling freak most of the time, I must not be a troll or rambling freak now? Because I'm capable of putting together a rational argument, all of my posts must be rational? You have a lot to learn about the world.
How, exactly, is the consistency of the US government relevant to the parallel I drew?
The assumption being made is that, if the patent office declares "partly human" to be unpatentable on the grounds that "partly human" is "human," then "partly human" will mean "human" in other areas of the law as well. I am merely pointing out that one should not assume that, just because "partly human=human" in one area of the law, "partly human=human" holds in all areas of the law.
And what are you trying to prove by dragging out the old 3/5 rule?
Merely a demonstration that there is not necessarily any logical consistency in U.S. law. No more, no less. (A slave was 3/5 of a person for some purposes; a slave was not a person at all for other purposes. A sentient robot, or a humouse, may be human for some legal purposes, and not for other legal purposes.)
I've read some of your other posts, and you seem to be a rational person, but you have me stumped.
While I'm flattered that you find me rational based on my previous posts, what relevance does that have here? If I "stumped" you because I didn't make my point clearly, then I apologize; but if this post was unclear, it matters little whether posts I've made in the past were clear or not.
Specifically, petitioning the system to get "partly not human" declared not human, with the hopes of losing, to set a precedent that "partly human" is legally human.
You are making the unwarranted assumption that U.S. laws must be logically consistent. I think it much more likely that "partly human" would be considered "human" for patent purposes, and "not human" for civil rights purposes.
Don't forget, you're talking about the country where a slave used to count as 3/5 of a person for determining a state's representation in the House of Representatives, and also as 3/5 of a person for determining each state's tax burden to the federal government, but not a person for the purpose of basic civil rights.
Tell them that by allow you to open-source it, they will no longer be dependent on you for maintenance; they can hire anybody to do any revisions.
Can't they do that anyway? The small business owner will get the source code regardless of whether or not it's open-sourced, won't he?
Remind them that without this move, the IP will still be yours
No, unless the contract explicitly says that the coder retains copyright, the copyright on the code will belong to the small business owner. When a work is commissioned--a "work for hire"--the copyright belongs to the person or organization commissioning the work, not the creator.
(Not to mention the fact that if the IP did still belong to the coder, as you suggest, he would not need the business owner's permission to open-source it.)
Slashdot Mirror
And some of our communities have the good sense to hold all elections in conjunction with federal elections, so we don't have this silly voting-in-off-years nonsense.
I beg to differ. I used Graffiti for about six months after I first got my Handspring Visor and got reasonably good with it, but I still wasn't satisfied--even with six months' experience, there were quite a few errors. I looked around and found this stylus-tap keyboard. I much prefer it--there are fewer errors, and I find it faster than using Graffiti.
You're absolutely right that you have to be looking at it in order to use it, unlike Graffiti, but for me that's a minor inconvenience, rather than the major issue it is for you. It's pretty rare that I'm trying to write in the dark, or write when I'm talking to someone, but if I do the keyboard can be turned off with a single tap and I can revert to Graffiti. I can see that Graffiti might be better if you frequently use it in those conditions where you don't want to be looking at the screen, but that's not the case with me.
Well, I certainly can't blame you for that, especially considering that I'm just some anonymous poster who claims he knows something about copyright law.
But if you're planning on actually copying books and selling them, I'd recommend you take neither my word nor that of the publishing executive, and check with a laywer first.
Actually they do exist, hence the need for DMCA to turn them back. About a decade ago, a publishing executive told me they had never prosecuted people who photocopy books because lawyers had adviced them that property rights in the US likely allowed you to do so, and even to sell those copies so long as you didn't profit.
Not very likely. Although whether one is profiting from copying does have some bearing on whether copying falls into the "fair use" exception to copyright, it is not the only thing considered. Copying entire books and selling them is almost certainly not fair use and thus illegal (if the book is copyrighted and you do not have permission of the copyright owner) even if you do not profit from it.
There could be a number of other reasons why the publisher doesn't sue--most likely, because someone making and selling a handful of copies doesn't dent the publisher's profits enough to make it worth the cost of sending lawyers after the person doing the copying. If some organization were making and selling thousands of unauthorized copies--even if they were doing it without profit--you can bet the legitimate publisher would go after them, and the publisher would win, too.
Also, keep in mind that unlike trademarks, copyrights can be selectively enforced without diluting the copyright--if they choose not to prosecute some copyright violations, it does not affect their copyright.
IANAIPLBIDWWTOARB. (I am not an intellectual property lawyer but I do work with them on a regular basis.)
They probably don't have categories such as "gay" "Korean" etc. at all. More likely it correlates your preferences with the preferences of other TiVo users. e.g., you recorded X, a lot of other people who recorded X also recorded Y, so it will recommend Y for you. (The actual statistical algorithm is probably more complex, but that's the basic idea.) No explicit categories necessary at all.
As this poster has pointed out, over 40% of searches are done using search engines other than Google.
Hardly the "monopoly" you claim them to be.
Because for Web technology, the extra costs of making your site accessible are trivial, and have lots of additional benefits, like making it accessible to sighted people browsing from PDAs, cellphones and WebTV.
That's a very good answer to the question, "why should I make my website accessible?"
Unfortunately, that's not the question tmark was asking, which is "why should the government force me to make my website accessible?"
IANAL, but my understanding is that breach of contract is a civil matter, not criminal, so there could not be a "charge" associated with breach of contract.
Now, if the employee signed an NDA, he could potentially be up against both criminal charges for theft and a civil suit for breach of contract, but only the former would involve the police & prosecuting attorneys.
If copyright infringement is stealing, then this is embezzlement,
/.ers still agree that taking physical items without permission is theft.
It's worse than that, even. The person is accused not of making a copy of the movie, but of actually stealing physical material. Regardless of the varying views of intellectual property law found here, I think most
"the GPL essentially says that a piece of software is completely, freely available, except to those who wish to wrap it in their own proprietary works." [Emphasis mine]
That last part is the key. If you could eliminate that last part, and simply say, "The GPL says that a piece of software is completely, freely available," period, then you would be correct to say that the GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright.
It's the derivative works portion of the GPL that requires copyright to make it work. If I take a GPL'ed work, modify it by adding my own code, and release it, the GPL requires that I release the source code of my modified work.
Without copyright, I could legally take GPL'ed code, modify it, compile it, and release the executable without releasing the new source code.
It has to be done through the courts. It's possible to sue to have a patent invalidated, even if the patent holder hasn't sued you for infringement. Unfortunately, this is probably just as expensive as defending yourself against an infringement lawsuit, although there are some advantages for the person initiating the suit (for example, the person suing can choose what jurisdiction the suit is filed in).
It's not worth doing a patent search. Most of the larger companies do not.
Well, I don't know what "most of the larger companies" do, but I can say that I work for a Fortune 500 company and we always do very intensive prior art searches. Why? Read on:
Worst case, the patent office tells you about some prior art & you adjust your application to take it into account
No, the worst case is that the patent office doesn't find the relevant prior art in its search either and grants your patent. (And we all know what a good job the patent office does on prior art searches, huh?) Your competitor does find the prior art, takes it to court and has your patent invalidated. When this happens, there's no refund on your thousands of dollars in filing fees. Your patent is then one very expensive piece of paper which confers absolutely no legal rights.
Oops, the original question was in fact quoted in full, here. Didn't read it carefully enough. Mea culpa.
The lava question in the interview above was shortened a bit from the original question. In that, MrIcee notes that they leave holes for the steam to vent (because one time when they didn't, it exploded). Given that, hanwen's conclusion is correct.
Patents expire in 20 years with an option to renew
You're thinking of copyright, or possibly trademark. There's no option to renew patents.
You're right. I honestly don't think we'll run out of oil in my lifetime. Therefore, I shouldn't do anything about it. Apres moi, le deluge.
Maybe. Or maybe he'd be an even greater genius than he already is.
Killing a butterfly in your garden may start a hurricane next year. It may prevent one.
We can choose to take one of two lessons from either of these cases:
I, for one, will take #2. Not messing with nature is just as likely (given our current knowledge) to produce harmful long-term effects as messing with it.
So you're saying he has the power to Cloud Men's Minds? Yet another mythos we're borrowing from...
Alright, I concede. Saw AOTC last night (opening day, still!) in a theater which was less than half full.
Clones starts off slow, and it takes half the movie to really start get going.
Maybe so (I haven't seen it myself yet), but that's true of A New Hope as well.
Oh, well then I'll promise never to mention it again!! I'll pretend that era of American history never happened! Will that make you happy?
Also, please send a list of topics that you, or any /. reader, finds inflammatory, so that I can make a point of never bringing them up.
You aren't that new to slashdot!
And what conceivable relevance does that have? First you try to judge my argument in this thread by my previous posts, and then by how new I am or am not to slashdot?
Slashdot is populated with trolls, rambling freaks, people with inscrutable agendas, and ones who can't put together a rational train of though to save their lives.
Because I'm not a troll or rambling freak most of the time, I must not be a troll or rambling freak now? Because I'm capable of putting together a rational argument, all of my posts must be rational? You have a lot to learn about the world.
The assumption being made is that, if the patent office declares "partly human" to be unpatentable on the grounds that "partly human" is "human," then "partly human" will mean "human" in other areas of the law as well. I am merely pointing out that one should not assume that, just because "partly human=human" in one area of the law, "partly human=human" holds in all areas of the law.
And what are you trying to prove by dragging out the old 3/5 rule?
Merely a demonstration that there is not necessarily any logical consistency in U.S. law. No more, no less. (A slave was 3/5 of a person for some purposes; a slave was not a person at all for other purposes. A sentient robot, or a humouse, may be human for some legal purposes, and not for other legal purposes.)
I've read some of your other posts, and you seem to be a rational person, but you have me stumped.
While I'm flattered that you find me rational based on my previous posts, what relevance does that have here? If I "stumped" you because I didn't make my point clearly, then I apologize; but if this post was unclear, it matters little whether posts I've made in the past were clear or not.
You are making the unwarranted assumption that U.S. laws must be logically consistent. I think it much more likely that "partly human" would be considered "human" for patent purposes, and "not human" for civil rights purposes.
Don't forget, you're talking about the country where a slave used to count as 3/5 of a person for determining a state's representation in the House of Representatives, and also as 3/5 of a person for determining each state's tax burden to the federal government, but not a person for the purpose of basic civil rights.
Can't they do that anyway? The small business owner will get the source code regardless of whether or not it's open-sourced, won't he?
Remind them that without this move, the IP will still be yours
No, unless the contract explicitly says that the coder retains copyright, the copyright on the code will belong to the small business owner. When a work is commissioned--a "work for hire"--the copyright belongs to the person or organization commissioning the work, not the creator.
(Not to mention the fact that if the IP did still belong to the coder, as you suggest, he would not need the business owner's permission to open-source it.)
Yes, but Ep2 is opening on a Thursday, giving its "opening weekend" one more day than Spiderman's.
I wasn't aware that Spiderman opened on more screens than AOTC will. I have to admit that surprised me.