1 - tax treaties. If there are tax treaties between the US Govt and the country you are paying taxes to, often the taxes you paid, or a portion of them, are deductable from what you pay in the us. Almost ALL countries on earth work this way.
2 - exemption for non residents. If you are a US citizen but are not considered a resident of the US (in this context, resident has nothing to do wiht your right to live there, only whether or not you do live there), then you have your first $75,000 foreign income as tax exempt. So.. if you move to some little island and you only make $75,000, and you don't keep a house/car/wife/kids in the US, and don't spend too much time in the US a year, you pay no taxes to the us. When you DO pay taxes, you pay federal ones only, not state.
US Taxation is still based on citizenship. Every other country on earth taxes based on residency. A Canadian citizen living abroad does not pay tax to Canada on income not earned in Canada. Same for the UK, Sweden, Japan, and so on.
What do you think, you are American, therefore any compay in the world can just hire you, no questions asked? That you are somehow exempt from the immigration laws that affect the other few billion people on the planet?
Of COURSE you can't just "go work" for a company in India.. and if India has enough programmers to fill the jobs, they should not be accepting foreigners.
Just as, say, a Canadian like me can't just go get hired at any American company... there are things like Work Visas and whatnot you have to apply for.
If the company in question doesn't have a problem filling it's positions locally, why would it want to go to all the extra expense and paperwork of hiring foreign nationals?
The fact that he did it in order to tell them they had security problems in the first place, very vocally, indicates he DID know he was not supposed to be there.. that was the whole point of what he did.
The "service" was providing you the selection and selling you the bits.
Just like a record store is there to sell you records... they are not the record label, and they don't really care what you do with the CD after you buy it from them... their business with you is concluded the moment you walk out the door.
Nobody claimed "Your contract with the DVD is that you are not allowed to copy it."
They used the DMCA to say that the technology that could be used to exercise what would have been normally allowed under copyright law, was illegal.
They did not say that "Exercising your fair use rights" was illegal.. only that, under the letter of a different law, the software someone dveloped that could be used that way was illegal.
Apple is not telling you what you can and cannot do, they are politely not getting involved. They were up front and clear about what they sold you, and didn't make you agree to any certain behavior.
Now, when someone comes out with something that strips the protection off of ITMS downloads, or some other mechanism comes out to allow the transfer of ITMS music... and Apple launches a DMCA suit against them, THEN I will stand with everyone else and say "Apple is doing soemthing wrong". But at this point, they are 100% correct.
This is just like, say, software... you bought software that is locked to your machine. That was in the purchase agreement... now you want to sell it.. but you can't.. how is this any different?
If a bookstore didn't let you take books out of the store, they wouldn't be selling books.
In this case, apple is not TELLING you what you can do.. apple is selling you a digital media, that by DESIGN, and they told you this up front, only works under certain conditions. They are in no way saying "Reselling this is illegal".
Just because you want to sell something is no guarantee it can be sold.
Apple would not be "legally required" to make it possible for users to resell things. Just as "fair use" rights do not mean DVD companies HAVE to make it possible for you to copy their discs..... it's a technical stumbling block, not a legal one.
First sale was about not being able to contractually olblige you not to resell something.. something that is sold is no longer the property of the seller.
This is a TOTALY different matter, despite the fact that it looks the same initially.
Apple sold you some data, that works a certain way, in a certain player.. and they were up front about that fact. If you find another way to use it, apple isn't saying you can't. If you find a way to transfer it to someone else, Apple isnt' saying you can't. They are just saying it's NOT their problem.
No shit... what's that got to do with the current situation? Apple isn't claiming ANYTHING about what the contract allows, or saying you can't do something... and neither am I.
This isn't about an EULA that does something illegal.. it's about a technical measure, a technical description of what you were sold... not about what you are allowed to do. If you find a way to do what you want wiht their stuff, to get around their DRM, and THEN they complain, you might have a case of them restricting trade.. but as it stands, Apple is not preventing you from doing anything with what you were sold, contractually.
The doctrine of first sale doesn't apply just to copyright.. it applies to everything. You can only sell something once.. then it's not yours anymore.. the same goes for a book.
Apple isn't weaseling out of anything.. they are merely showing that something is not their problem to solve.. they were up front about what you were paying them for. The rest is up to you.
It needs clarifying, perhaps.. but it's not Apple's problem to clarify. As far as they are concerned, their business was delivering that file to you, in the format they designed. Everyone is expecting apple to do something wrong here.. but they haven't yet. If it's inconvenient for you to sell that file to someone else.. it's not their problem.
And I think Apple and others know this... ultimately, it will be all about service... not "songs". You will pay someone because they provide you the music you want, when you want.. and that is that. It will be so convenient to let htem do this, you won't bother hoarding a collection.
Or something.
Apple is being quite clear.. they got into this to sell some tunes online.. and it worked, they made some money, and paid for the cost of rolling out ITMS. If it goes under, it's not like they'll end up a billion dollars in debt..... and that's kind of the point. Anyone can do a service like this.. they were just in a good position to try it.
Just as a bookseller in no way has to help you sell the book when you are done with it.
How the song you bought would be delivered, and waht mechanisms apple provided for you to do things with it were CLEARLY spelled out by Apple beforehand, as this is a logical question to anyone who wants to download stuff.
Apple is entirely right.. they are not getting in the middle of it.. why should they? They were clear about what they offered, and what it cost.. and you took it.
No. And nobody is trying to. They are after the people who were sharing the music, offering it for download, and lots of music, for a long time. They are hardly unaware of the laws they are breaking.
I don't want to purchase access to a few services on someone's ineternet connection. I want to be ON the internet.
So.... if there are two choices; one who filters everything but what they think I should use, and one who just gives me raw IP... guess where my business will go.
The idea of an embedded system is one that seems to be badly distorted nowadays.. . A small, but otherwise fully functional PC in a strange case is not an embedded system.
The computer that handles your car's internals is an embedded.
Your tivo is kind of an embedded system... not sure on that one.
But a full on PC inside something weird certainly isn't.
As it was once described to me.. an embedded system is a computer inside something that isn't a computer. A case doesn't count.
Those little boards the size of a dimm slice with a processor, ram, i/o, and other stuff on them are good for embedded work.
It's not about what version of linux runs, or what OS, or even what it does.. but a PC in a disguise is still a PC, not embedded.
Perhaps google felt it would make a better point if, knowing they aren't infringing anyway, they just
a) Removed the links, causing quite a ruckus and b) Posted the complaint, which includes the links, and causing more of a ruckus.
If the kazaa lawyers got really picky about posting the links, google can always say they really don't have to comply in teh first place.
Sometimes, it's better to let your enemy advance...
How is google, who has billions of links, and the most successful business model on the net, "spineless" for playing little legal games? All this involves for them is removing a couple links... it's EASY.... not a lot of work.
It's not about what is legal or not, it's about complying with a DMCA request.
Google will remove what they need to in order to avoid a DMCA dispute, the path of least resistance. Any other removals would constitute more work on their end.
You can say the same about just about any law... but there are rasons we have those laws in the first place, and it's not for one or two people to decide that the law is unjust.
LEt's say you scanned my system, and I had an open proxy. You could have screwed stuff up; you had no reason to be there... you don't KNOW what I run.. you don't know what damage you may have caused. That's why the network was PRIVATE, and you weren't supposed to be using it.
I agree not all illegal things are wrong, but in this case, it WAS wrong.
What part of this law is unjust? The part where you aren't allowed to use my systems without my permission? He ACTIVELY broke in.. it doesn't matter if it was for a greater good. I could go around breaking into houses in the neighborhood, and cleaning them all, to try to prevent disease.. does that mean I'm not doing anything wrong, becaues my cause was noble? Hell no.. I'll still get in shit.
Is this guy a felon? No.. but how you can pretend he did nothing wrong boggles the mind.
it's fairly clear that NO damage was done whatsoever, and could not have been.
Furthermore, it is up to the owner whether or not to charge him.. he COULD have been charged with trespass. Of course, it could be argued he didn't knwo if the door was supposed to be open or not, and went to check if anyone is okay.. a store is a semi-public place. This is different than using an open proxy to surf an internal network..
Oh yeah. It's not your CC#, it's the credit card issuer's, and they are responsible for it's misuse, not you. Look at the card, it will say so plainly on the back.
Any transaction that cannot be PROVEN to be authorized by you, you don't have to pay for. If your credit card company has a problem with this, find another one.
The issuer will respond with sanctions against amazon if they leak too many numbers, higher fees, etc, or perhaps having their merchant license revoked.
That's WHY you use a credit card.. because you get protection.
and if the hacker looked at the garbage outside the building, that's debatable....
but the investigative reporter didn't find an unlocked door and walk into the building into an area where he knew he was not allowed to be, and then go tell people how easy it was to get in. He would end up charged with trespassing, and unlawful entry, or whatever.
You don't get to disobey the law just so you can prove a point.
Everyone is drawing up all kinds of analogies... but let's be serious.
Did he knowingly access computing resources he knew he had no permission to use, and that he suspected the organisations in question thought were secure and not for public use - Yes, he admittedly did this.
That, sorry, is illegal.
You can go on and on about how he didn't hurt anything, how it was insecure anyway, how his intentions were noble.. but it was still against the law, and he KNEW, or should have known it was against the law, he just banked on not getting charged.
Do I think he should be in jail? Heck no.. but neither should we pretend he did nothing wrong... we drew a line, made some laws that say you can't go poking around in other people's computers without authorisation, and we expect people to follow them.
This isn't a civil rights issue. This isn't a good-guys-vs-bad-corporation issue. This is a guy who knew the risks, and did it anyway.
Accessing someone elses system is irresponsible, despite noble intentions. You don't know what damage your actions will cause, even if you are intelligent, and know the technologies you are using. You don't know what customised systems they may have that your intrustion will interfere with... they have a right to expect you not to be there.
But they are restricted in what they can do. This would give them a lot of stuff previously only available if you took the small amount of time needed to learn code.
that he knew he did not have permission to access, by his own admission.
Any way you slice it, that breaks the letter of the law.
If you want to test the secrurity of my network without getting charged if you break in, then I suggest you obtain myh persmission to do so in the first place.
Analogy: You find a guy walked in your front door cause it was open, snooped around your house, your bedroom, your closet... then told you "You shouldn't leave that box of money in your closet, and you should leave your door locked". Is he guilty of trespass / unlawful entry? Damn straight. Would you feel violated? Damn straight.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite.
There are two factors you didn't include.
1 - tax treaties. If there are tax treaties between the US Govt and the country you are paying taxes to, often the taxes you paid, or a portion of them, are deductable from what you pay in the us. Almost ALL countries on earth work this way.
2 - exemption for non residents. If you are a US citizen but are not considered a resident of the US (in this context, resident has nothing to do wiht your right to live there, only whether or not you do live there), then you have your first $75,000 foreign income as tax exempt. So.. if you move to some little island and you only make $75,000, and you don't keep a house/car/wife/kids in the US, and don't spend too much time in the US a year, you pay no taxes to the us. When you DO pay taxes, you pay federal ones only, not state.
US Taxation is still based on citizenship. Every other country on earth taxes based on residency. A Canadian citizen living abroad does not pay tax to Canada on income not earned in Canada. Same for the UK, Sweden, Japan, and so on.
What do you think, you are American, therefore any compay in the world can just hire you, no questions asked? That you are somehow exempt from the immigration laws that affect the other few billion people on the planet?
Of COURSE you can't just "go work" for a company in India.. and if India has enough programmers to fill the jobs, they should not be accepting foreigners.
Just as, say, a Canadian like me can't just go get hired at any American company... there are things like Work Visas and whatnot you have to apply for.
If the company in question doesn't have a problem filling it's positions locally, why would it want to go to all the extra expense and paperwork of hiring foreign nationals?
The fact that he did it in order to tell them they had security problems in the first place, very vocally, indicates he DID know he was not supposed to be there.. that was the whole point of what he did.
The "service" was providing you the selection and selling you the bits.
Just like a record store is there to sell you records... they are not the record label, and they don't really care what you do with the CD after you buy it from them... their business with you is concluded the moment you walk out the door.
We're saying the same thing I guess.
The DeCSS debacle was about the DMCA.
Nobody claimed "Your contract with the DVD is that you are not allowed to copy it."
They used the DMCA to say that the technology that could be used to exercise what would have been normally allowed under copyright law, was illegal.
They did not say that "Exercising your fair use rights" was illegal.. only that, under the letter of a different law, the software someone dveloped that could be used that way was illegal.
Apple is not telling you what you can and cannot do, they are politely not getting involved. They were up front and clear about what they sold you, and didn't make you agree to any certain behavior.
Now, when someone comes out with something that strips the protection off of ITMS downloads, or some other mechanism comes out to allow the transfer of ITMS music... and Apple launches a DMCA suit against them, THEN I will stand with everyone else and say "Apple is doing soemthing wrong". But at this point, they are 100% correct.
This is just like, say, software... you bought software that is locked to your machine. That was in the purchase agreement... now you want to sell it.. but you can't.. how is this any different?
If a bookstore didn't let you take books out of the store, they wouldn't be selling books.
In this case, apple is not TELLING you what you can do.. apple is selling you a digital media, that by DESIGN, and they told you this up front, only works under certain conditions. They are in no way saying "Reselling this is illegal".
Just because you want to sell something is no guarantee it can be sold.
Apple would not be "legally required" to make it possible for users to resell things. Just as "fair use" rights do not mean DVD companies HAVE to make it possible for you to copy their discs..... it's a technical stumbling block, not a legal one.
First sale was about not being able to contractually olblige you not to resell something.. something that is sold is no longer the property of the seller.
This is a TOTALY different matter, despite the fact that it looks the same initially.
Apple sold you some data, that works a certain way, in a certain player.. and they were up front about that fact. If you find another way to use it, apple isn't saying you can't. If you find a way to transfer it to someone else, Apple isnt' saying you can't. They are just saying it's NOT their problem.
No shit... what's that got to do with the current situation? Apple isn't claiming ANYTHING about what the contract allows, or saying you can't do something... and neither am I.
This isn't about an EULA that does something illegal.. it's about a technical measure, a technical description of what you were sold... not about what you are allowed to do. If you find a way to do what you want wiht their stuff, to get around their DRM, and THEN they complain, you might have a case of them restricting trade.. but as it stands, Apple is not preventing you from doing anything with what you were sold, contractually.
Please show the court the object you purchased.
The doctrine of first sale doesn't apply just to copyright.. it applies to everything. You can only sell something once.. then it's not yours anymore.. the same goes for a book.
Apple isn't weaseling out of anything.. they are merely showing that something is not their problem to solve.. they were up front about what you were paying them for. The rest is up to you.
It needs clarifying, perhaps.. but it's not Apple's problem to clarify. As far as they are concerned, their business was delivering that file to you, in the format they designed. Everyone is expecting apple to do something wrong here.. but they haven't yet. If it's inconvenient for you to sell that file to someone else.. it's not their problem.
And I think Apple and others know this... ultimately, it will be all about service... not "songs".
You will pay someone because they provide you the music you want, when you want.. and that is that. It will be so convenient to let htem do this, you won't bother hoarding a collection.
Or something.
Apple is being quite clear.. they got into this to sell some tunes online.. and it worked, they made some money, and paid for the cost of rolling out ITMS. If it goes under, it's not like they'll end up a billion dollars in debt..... and that's kind of the point. Anyone can do a service like this.. they were just in a good position to try it.
And they are entirely right.
Just as a bookseller in no way has to help you sell the book when you are done with it.
How the song you bought would be delivered, and waht mechanisms apple provided for you to do things with it were CLEARLY spelled out by Apple beforehand, as this is a logical question to anyone who wants to download stuff.
Apple is entirely right.. they are not getting in the middle of it.. why should they? They were clear about what they offered, and what it cost.. and you took it.
No. And nobody is trying to. They are after the people who were sharing the music, offering it for download, and lots of music, for a long time. They are hardly unaware of the laws they are breaking.
I don't want to purchase access to a few services on someone's ineternet connection. I want to be ON the internet.
So.... if there are two choices; one who filters everything but what they think I should use, and one who just gives me raw IP... guess where my business will go.
The idea of an embedded system is one that seems to be badly distorted nowadays..
.
A small, but otherwise fully functional PC in a strange case is not an embedded system.
The computer that handles your car's internals is an embedded.
Your tivo is kind of an embedded system... not sure on that one.
But a full on PC inside something weird certainly isn't.
As it was once described to me.. an embedded system is a computer inside something that isn't a computer. A case doesn't count.
Those little boards the size of a dimm slice with a processor, ram, i/o, and other stuff on them are good for embedded work.
It's not about what version of linux runs, or what OS, or even what it does.. but a PC in a disguise is still a PC, not embedded.
A silencer will silence the initial noise of the weapon, but a supersonic round is going to make a nice loud crack as it goes by...
Perhaps google felt it would make a better point if, knowing they aren't infringing anyway, they just
a) Removed the links, causing quite a ruckus
and
b) Posted the complaint, which includes the links, and causing more of a ruckus.
If the kazaa lawyers got really picky about posting the links, google can always say they really don't have to comply in teh first place.
Sometimes, it's better to let your enemy advance...
How is google, who has billions of links, and the most successful business model on the net, "spineless" for playing little legal games? All this involves for them is removing a couple links... it's EASY.... not a lot of work.
It's not about what is legal or not, it's about complying with a DMCA request.
Google will remove what they need to in order to avoid a DMCA dispute, the path of least resistance. Any other removals would constitute more work on their end.
You can say the same about just about any law... but there are rasons we have those laws in the first place, and it's not for one or two people to decide that the law is unjust.
LEt's say you scanned my system, and I had an open proxy. You could have screwed stuff up; you had no reason to be there... you don't KNOW what I run.. you don't know what damage you may have caused. That's why the network was PRIVATE, and you weren't supposed to be using it.
I agree not all illegal things are wrong, but in this case, it WAS wrong.
What part of this law is unjust? The part where you aren't allowed to use my systems without my permission? He ACTIVELY broke in.. it doesn't matter if it was for a greater good. I could go around breaking into houses in the neighborhood, and cleaning them all, to try to prevent disease.. does that mean I'm not doing anything wrong, becaues my cause was noble? Hell no.. I'll still get in shit.
Is this guy a felon? No.. but how you can pretend he did nothing wrong boggles the mind.
it's fairly clear that NO damage was done whatsoever, and could not have been.
Furthermore, it is up to the owner whether or not to charge him.. he COULD have been charged with trespass.
Of course, it could be argued he didn't knwo if the door was supposed to be open or not, and went to check if anyone is okay.. a store is a semi-public place. This is different than using an open proxy to surf an internal network..
Oh yeah. It's not your CC#, it's the credit card issuer's, and they are responsible for it's misuse, not you. Look at the card, it will say so plainly on the back.
Any transaction that cannot be PROVEN to be authorized by you, you don't have to pay for. If your credit card company has a problem with this, find another one.
The issuer will respond with sanctions against amazon if they leak too many numbers, higher fees, etc, or perhaps having their merchant license revoked.
That's WHY you use a credit card.. because you get protection.
and if the hacker looked at the garbage outside the building, that's debatable....
but the investigative reporter didn't find an unlocked door and walk into the building into an area where he knew he was not allowed to be, and then go tell people how easy it was to get in. He would end up charged with trespassing, and unlawful entry, or whatever.
You don't get to disobey the law just so you can prove a point.
Everyone is drawing up all kinds of analogies... but let's be serious.
Did he knowingly access computing resources he knew he had no permission to use, and that he suspected the organisations in question thought were secure and not for public use - Yes, he admittedly did this.
That, sorry, is illegal.
You can go on and on about how he didn't hurt anything, how it was insecure anyway, how his intentions were noble.. but it was still against the law, and he KNEW, or should have known it was against the law, he just banked on not getting charged.
Do I think he should be in jail? Heck no.. but neither should we pretend he did nothing wrong... we drew a line, made some laws that say you can't go poking around in other people's computers without authorisation, and we expect people to follow them.
This isn't a civil rights issue. This isn't a good-guys-vs-bad-corporation issue. This is a guy who knew the risks, and did it anyway.
Accessing someone elses system is irresponsible, despite noble intentions. You don't know what damage your actions will cause, even if you are intelligent, and know the technologies you are using. You don't know what customised systems they may have that your intrustion will interfere with... they have a right to expect you not to be there.
Right...
But they are restricted in what they can do.
This would give them a lot of stuff previously only available if you took the small amount of time needed to learn code.
that he knew he did not have permission to access, by his own admission.
Any way you slice it, that breaks the letter of the law.
If you want to test the secrurity of my network without getting charged if you break in, then I suggest you obtain myh persmission to do so in the first place.
Analogy: You find a guy walked in your front door cause it was open, snooped around your house, your bedroom, your closet... then told you "You shouldn't leave that box of money in your closet, and you should leave your door locked".
Is he guilty of trespass / unlawful entry? Damn straight. Would you feel violated? Damn straight.
What would be better is if they turned around and fined DirecTV severely for filing the bogus suit in the first place without enough evidence.