I know Fluke! I even know their tools generally use dark body, yellowish outline. I was completely unaware that this was actually protected by a trade dress, though. Did you? (Before you read this story, that is.)
What about Voltcraft? Theirs are generally a dark body with a light grey outline (though they - like Fluke - have plenty of variations) Is that protected by a trade dress? No, don't go googling. Tell me, off the top of your head, yes or no?
And if it is.. where would you find that? That appears to have been one of the problems to begin with - even finding that that such a trade dress exists given the apparently difficult to use IP search tools.
In the end, this isn't really about Fluke and their trade dress. SparkFun appears to be fine with the fact that Fluke has it and will simply change to red (which I think would be more in line with their branding anyway). This is more about the fact that it's difficult to find (if you even realize that this is something that you need to worry about; multimeters have used yellow since forever and grey body with yellow outline isn't exactly unique to Fluke either except in a few markets) and which, once you have been found in violation, is extremely difficult to resolve in a manner that doesn't involve just writing off the costs and letting perfectly good (yeah yeah, 'chinese crap') material be destroyed.
Ignorance isn't an excuse, and an IP-lawyer would probably have dug this 'gotcha' up, but that doesn't make the resolution any less stupendous. Hopefully SparkFun can find an alternate destination to send them to (where Fluke's trade dress doesn't apply and which doesn't have exorbitant import fees) so that they'll still find good use somewhere, somehow.
Obviously, not an issue for phones, but annoying as hell on PCs
I bought the Flightradar24 app. Cost a pretty penny back then, too. Half a year later, it got so bloated (new HD graphics included in the package even though it's not an HD device, developer can't be bothered to make 2 separate packages) that it wouldn't even install on my lowly device anymore. I'd have no choice but to clean out some other apps to make room.
Not much later, the version of Android (2.3) was just completely not supported anymore; as in cannot download. Which would have sucked considering you can't download the older version either.
Thankfully, Android - so I had an app backup and can still use the Flightradar24 app in its older form just fine.
Here's an app you paid for, but unless you managed to keep an old copy around yourself, you're now SOL. Sure, you could buy a new phone.. doesn't mean it's 'not an issue' or not 'annoying as hell'.
As an aside, I have stopped using Flightradar24 almost entirely. Their website's gone to sh*t and development of features has come to a standstill ever since they realized they can make plenty of money on the site and apps as they are, and can trickle in new features to keep things fresh and have people laud them for. Unfortunately, most alternatives are even worse, thanks in great part to most signal feeders only feeding to Flightradar24.
While I agree that the extension of copyright terms is a huge problem in terms of things like remixes/rehashes/reimaginings of existing content (not that this has actually stopped people from Rule 34'ing every Disney Princess in a multitude of ways), for most "zomg piracy, our copyrights!" discussions it is not a factor; the vast majority of 'piracy' is of recent things with a very clear drop-off as you go further back in time.
In the case of Sons of Anarchy, season 1 of that series hasn't even passed some of the original copyright terms. ( Getting there, though, just another year or so ), so even if one were to argue that copyright duration terms should be limited to what they were way back when (5/7 years), he'd still be voicing his concern.
I think you're mixing up two things - although the end-result to the user is largely the same.
Region locking would mean that if you tried to 'import a song/movie' from the U.S., you can't play it back on your European music player. See e.g. the region locks on DVDs and computer games.
What you're referring to though is market segmentation/differentiation. E.g. releasing of a title in one market, but not in the other, or under different terms - be that release date difference or price difference, etc.)
While it's certainly unfortunate that iTunes doesn't carry all material, does that also mean that alternate stores don't carry said material? If they do, then what is the barrier in buying from them? If they don't, how does that reduce all options to "I will just pirate it" versus "I will just not get it".
( Note that for music especially chances are good that you will be able to find it on YouTube - even if you're in Germany and GEMA blocks most of the results there's practically always an alternate - and Google tends to have the appropriate licensing in place. I do say 'tends' because there's plenty of YouTube videos of content that certainly isn't covered by a blanket license:) )
Import taxes are something you really should take up with your government - especially when it's over just a $2 comic book. ( I can understand why some import taxes exist, and generally don't mind paying them - but I'd contest a charge like that on principle. )
Preface: I think copyright should be abolished, and distribution rights more strictly enforced. There, that out of the way...
I'm happy to fork over $$ to any service that lets me watch the latest episodes of my favourite TV show or a movie that has recently been released.
Good on ye, mate!
No stupid region codes, no stupid staggered releases to other parts of the world (yes, I am in YURP), just a reasonable price for access to the latest contest.
Sounds good to me!
Netflix goes a long way,
It sure does!
but
Oh for pete's sake. We knew it was coming. It's always coming. Okay, fine, let's hear your arguments.
generally has older content (which, I guess, is easier to license).
Well, yes, yes it is. As soon as we try to license more recent content, prices go up. Our prices go up, your prices go up. All of a sudden, we run afoul your whole "reasonable price" thing. I know, we should blame the content providers for charging more for something recent for which there is greater demand than there is for the old stuff, supply & demand shouldn't apply here because supply is infinite and all that. Unfortunately, reality doesn't work that way, but let's continue.
I feel that I have no other option but piracy,
Why do you have that feeling? Is that a feeling imposed on you by outside influences (is the industry bombarding you with so much advertising that it has instilled a psychological need, like an addiction), or a feeling that is entirely self-created?
I.e. if Netflix does not offer you Movie X that was recently released, why do you feel that your only option is to download it (be that legally, as in The Netherlands, or illegally) - rather than going out to see it (if still playing in theaters), renting it (physical or pay per view), buying it, or... I know, odd suggestion...not seeing it?
and if a legitimate alternative would be available, I'd use it.
So do you use Netflix?
See, on the one hand, Netflix is a legitimate alternative to downloading "older content". That would suggest that you should be using it for that older content. But there's that "but". So I don't know if you do or do not use Netflix. If you don't, and the reason for this hinges upon that "but", then where would you put the bar - and are you willing to make this bar immovable?
You see, I come across people saying "oh I would totally pay for X if they'd just offer Y", but then once that becomes available they slowly add on the entire rest of the alphabet.
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap" $0.99/song iTunes.
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap and DRM free" DRM-free iTunes
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free and played anywhere" DRM-free MP3s at iTunes
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free, played anywhere, and I didn't have to store it" iTunes Radio
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free, played anywhere, I didn't have to store it, and came as uncompromised quality without lossless encoding". Well we haven't reached that bar yet, and it might not end up being that bar, but we all know that bar is going to move; if not in features, then in exactly what defines 'cheap'. Streaming music services have already moved the bar on that - $0.99/song is considered rather expensive now.
So when you consider an answer to the "where would you put the bar", make sure you aim as high as you're truly comfortable with. Then put yourself in the shoes of a company that is supposed to make this happen, and contemplate whether you can think of a way that this could be made to happen, and be sustainable. If you find that it can be - good god, m
He's stuck in Russia, away from friends and family, probably not exactly having the best time of his life.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
By your statement regarding facing consequences, I would think that you believe there should be no such thing as witness protection programs.
Though I think the basic issue with the premise of the question is that it's a false dichotomy. I don't think Snowden is a hero. I also don't think he's a traitor. At least not wholly on either. Getting people to label him as one or the other is populist journalism. Of course, this is Rolling Stone.. while held in higher regard than the usual tabloids, it is what it is.
If you just mean the look&feel / 'touch interface'-friendliness, then no, it's not hard at all.
If you mean having it play nice in the Metro/Modern UI interface (the tiles thing, full-screen apps optionally with sidebar, live updates, notifications, all that)... apparently that's a bit harder. Just ask the VLC people.
Of course there's not much of a reason to even use that on desktop Windows anyway, but it would have been a pretty good step toward also providing FireFox for Windows RT / ARM-based devices like the Surface (not to be confused with the Surface Pro) and Windows Phone.
Yes, it still works just fine as a desktop app. This is just about making a special version that plays nice in the Metro/Modern UI 'tiles' environment. You can already just drop a shortcut to the FireFox desktop app on there if you think it's a nice launcher, of course.
why bother when the desktop version is free? What does the metro version really get you?
I asked that question elsewhere, and the response I got was - after I explicitly said people shouldn't start talking about 'touch interface', considering you can slap a touch interface on a desktop app just fine and you would never be able to tell - 'touch interface'.
Aside from that, though.. Windows RT devices - since you can only install out of the app store on those, and that means you have to develop for that.
Do RT users really matter?
Maybe. Apparently there are some people enthusiastic about the Surface that wouldn't consider just getting a Surface Pro. Of course, an RT version is exactly what hasn't happened. Maybe developing the app for x86 first is easier and then porting to RT should be a breeze - I don't know. But there's certainly no good reason whatsoever to be using the Metro ('modern', whatever they want to call it) version of VLC on a desktop/laptop, with or without a touchscreen, especially when you keep in mind that this version is quite buggy and incomplete.
That's the meat of the verdict - since that's not given in the summary.
The FAA alleged that since Pirker was using the aircraft for profit, he ran afoul of regulations requiring commercial operators of "Unmanned Aircraft Systems" -- sometimes called UAS or drones -- to obtain FAA authorization.
But a judge on Thursday agreed with Pirker that the FAA overreached by applying regulations for aircraft to model aircraft, and said no FAA rule prohibited Pirker's radio-controlled flight.
You have to set aside first whether or not this is Satoshi Nakamoto. Assume it was the victim of a terrible crime, or assume it was the perpetrator of that terrible crime. If you start saying it's okay for one to be outed, but not the other, you're already on shaky grounds of having to somehow define which is which in what case. You can argue "we can decide that on a case-by-case scenario", but then you'll inevitably overstep the boundaries. Doing a mea culpa and saying you're moving the boundary a bit is great for the future, but doesn't negate the overstepping that has already occurred.
So, that out of the way.. I think at the heart of it are two things:
1. The author's suggestion that this information is already public; and, given that she did indeed find the name through public records and went from there, one could argue that if it's already public, it doesn't matter that she published it all conveniently in one place.
Or does it? Considering the information was indeed public, but nobody bothered with it until this article, and considering the response it has gotten (overwhelmingly: great journalism in finding the person, questionable journalism at best in publishing the details), clearly it does matter when you start aggregating all of those bits and pieces into a single document; doxxing.
Some countries even have laws against doing that, fully acknowledging that the individual bits and pieces may well be public, but that aggregating them is not allowed.
2. Whether or not these details added anything to the story besides sensationalism. I.e. the photo of the house which included house number; would the story have been worse, or less believable, etc. if that had been blurred out? While the internet sleuthing machine would undoubtedly have found the address without that bit of information eventually, it would certainly have taken substantially longer. Imagine next that there were no picture of the house, merely a description that the person lived in just an ordinary house. Now the internet sleuthing machine (and that includes other media) have a monumental task ahead of them; it could be any house in the city mentioned. Would you have taken the author's word for it, though? The evidence that they had found the person they were after would have to be a lot stronger to lend weight to words than does a picture - human nature tends to do that.
Think of interviewees who agree upon the interview as long as they are not identified and are made unrecognizable (silhouette shots at best, voice warbled). This could be anybody making up any sort of story. The reason we often trust these interviews anyway is because what facts said can be verified, and because we tend to trust the interviewer based on their reputation. We generally don't say "well unless I can see the person's face and hear what they sound like, I'm going to dismiss this interview".
You have to think to yourself how low the trust in the author of this piece has to be, and how shaky the facts on the actual subject material ("is this person Satoshi Nakamoto?") , that they saw no other recourse than to release personal details that could be verified instead ("we don't know truly if this is Satoshi Nakamoto, but it is 'A Guy', and 'A Guy' can be found here, go ahead and look him up for proof that it is 'A Guy'").
Reputable investigative journalists usually allow people who don't want to be found to remain 'not found', no matter how much bits and pieces of public information end up pointing to them; be that victims or perpetrators of terrible crimes. Without that, they're just the next doxxing TMZ, chasing people downs streets with cameras and pummeling them with leading questions.
Note that I'm just as opposed to doxxing of the author in question. While it seems like just deserts, it's really just perpetuating the problem. Rather than attacking the author, it would be more interesting to get an in-depth interview with her on her motives, thoughts (before/during/after), etc.
That wasn't the question though, was it? The question was whether releasing the information that has been released was unethical.
The only way in which I can interpret your reply as being an answer to that question, is "if your name is on public record, everything is fair game, and not unethical to publish".
I don't think it is unethical to uncover, but it may be unethical to reveal as much detail as has been revealed. But that depends on one's level of ethics.
Consider the ubiquitous example of a lottery winner. You win $100M, you probably do not want that plastered all over the internet, and choose to remain anonymous.
Some journalist figures out it's you anyway, and they want to just do an interview and ask you how you feel, how the $100M has changed your life, your relationships, etc.
The journalist then goes ahead and publishes that story, with proof that they found the winner (probably have the official notifications, etc.), the content of interview, but with identifying things removed. There you go, the anonymous lottery winner has been proven to be uncovered, they get their article, and the reader gets their juicy little piece on what it's like to win a huge prize lottery.
That's one scenario. In the other scenario, you decline the interview, and before you come back you get some cops over because you don't want to deal with the journalist. Next thing you know, your name, address (indirect as it may be, it took all of 2 minutes to piece together), picture, details of your life, details of your family members, etc. is plastered all over the front page of the paper.
I'm sure the resulting controversy wouldn't hurt the journalist and paper very much, but your question was whether that is unethical. I guess you'd have to ask yourself - and maybe get back to us.
Based on what, though? The trademark policy - not that this isn't a license - states:
By not charging, we mean the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be subject to a fee, or tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service, or the collection of personal information.
As I understand it, the emphasized parts are where Dell possibly runs afoul; They 1. tie the distribution of FireFox to the service of installing it - but I'm not sure if 'service' is to be interpreted in that manner here, and 2. collect personal information as part of their sale - though if I'm selling Linux distribution DVDs for $2, list FireFox as one of the things as part of the distribution, and obviously collect physical mailing addresses in order to send to them and keep them around in case of a shipping mishap.. I may also be running afoul. Thanks, legalese.
1. The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute).
Sounds about right. You can't say you're including FireFox without literally saying 'FireFox'.
2. The user only uses as much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol).
It's just the name.
3. The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags.
This one's more problematic. As you mention:
if I saw this I'd assume that Dell had some kind of deal with Mozilla
However, that's a matter of interpretation. When I first read the story subject I thought "Why wouldn't they be?". When I read the summary I thought "well that's ridiculously expensive (it's just an option in a dropdown, even at the back-end that instructs the builds which image to use), but surely they can charge whatever they want." Consider if this option was for free. Would you still think that there was 'some kind of deal'? What if it actually went the other way around, and choosing FireFox dropped the price by 16 quid? (That's when I'd expect some sort of deal, similar to deals with the usual shovelware.)
Even after reading TFA.. I can see what Mozilla is getting at, and it's undeniably damaging when a user goes "it costs me 16 quid to get FireFox!?", but I'm not so sure their legal recourse is through trademark law.
IANAL, though. Should it go to court (which I suspect it won't - plenty of options to avoid that scenario), it will be interesting to see what judgment this results in.
Which accomplishes nothing, as you'd be logging in as you - unless you're using somebody else's credentials. That seems to be the main weakness, at least in the NL (Ziggo) case; people intercepting login data or the public wifi being easily hacked to grant access to the internet (not to the internal network), etc.
So, yes, you could certainly access your own modem as John Doe using John Doe's credentials, and they would come knocking on John Doe's door. Best make sure John Doe is somebody who would plausibly make use of your router, of course, otherwise "yeah I was at work 50 miles from that router, tyvm" becomes a bit of an alibi and pushes the investigation into checking MAC address (don't forget to fake that), doing some surveillance on when it's getting accessed with John Doe's credentials and triangulating the signal source, etc.
Either which way, it doesn't work as an added excuse for things that happen out of your private network:)
Some people have privacy and security concerns, even though Comcast insists the public and private Wi-Fi networks are entirely separate and shielded from each other. Others worry that the public network will affect the private network's performance. Comcast says this isn't so.
In NL, some ISPs are doing the same. It's even a different public-facing IP address.
Of course, you can also turn it off. Though turning it off on your modem means you don't get to use it yourself on others' modems.
I know I am lending a lot to the ethics and morals of Walmart as a company when is say this, but if they are not going to be entering the truck building and selling business, they should patent-unencumber every last inch of their design, and publish every last schematic - Open Source it. It doesn't sound like they have anything to lose by doing so
Competitive edge. If they can have their goods moved for a lower price than Target, Sears, Big Lots! etc., then Wal Mart can use that in a number of ways to beat the competition (even further); and all they'd have to do is only license out relevant patents and designs to those logistics companies willing to sign an exclusive agreement. Though commissioning truck builds and leasing those out would certainly also be an option.. just not one that would readily fit into Wal Mart's core business.
In Europe, they'd just make sure to have patents on some part of the cartridges - same as Samsung's approach on their printer cartridges; http://www.therecycler.com/pos...
( I don't think we have Keurig coffee makers here in NL unless you import them - I think the most popular ones are the Senseo and the Nespresso, both of which have plenty of third party cups/pads so at least they're not trying to lock that down very much. )
As I can't mod you up - have a "Thank You" comment. I have to admit that a lot of the google search results are very unclear on whether there's any fallback on delivery failure (recipient not using iMessage) and whether or not that is the same as a fallback on send failure (sender has no data connectivity, say).
If it falls back on delivery automatically, then I don't know why this is an issue either; again, that would be transparent. Except in the case you mention.. which I can certainly imagine being a bit confusing but hopefully easily detected (though how much would it suck if you're on a short vacation and left your iPad at home, quietly collecting the iMessages until its battery runs out, and you not getting those messages. It's interesting to know how edge cases are handled. )
They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do?
Because they originally turned iMessage on.
Did they? I thought iMessage defaulted to on with the introduction of its feature as part of the standard messaging app in iOS 5? Or is the act of upgrading / buying it new equivalent to 'turning it on'?
That as an aside (albeit an important one), you didn't really answer the (rhetorical, I might add) question. Why would it seem like a logical thing to have todo. Of course it's logical to turn it off if you're aware of the mess you're going to be in if you don't. But is it logical to have to and not have any other suitable solution in case you did indeed forget, or simply can't (without Apple Customer care intervention).
It seems to work like this. You go to the messaging app. This is the default messaging app. It does text messages (SMS), and it does iMessages. So far so good.
You enter a number or directly a contact. It checks if that contact is believed to use iMessage by way of the phone number. If it believes the contact uses iMessage, it will send it as an iMessage, otherwise it will send it as a text message.
Still so far so good.
Now that contact stops using iMessage - the example given being that they switch devices, keeping the same number. They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do? Especially if, say, they switched devices because their iPhone died; in which case, they can't turn it off (or can they? Oh yes, they can contact Apple Support; http://support.apple.com/kb/TS... ).
Now you send them a message. The iMessage app is clueless and sends an iMessage because hey, nobody ever told it that the contact is no longer using iMessage. iMessage will eventually come back and say that it failed, and you as the sender either send again or shrug it off, but it might not occur to you to send as a text message instead. If you even can. Yes, if it already failed, you can hold the text and force that to send as text message. But the very next one you send is going to be an iMessage again. Of course, you can disable iMessage on your end, but that disables sending iMessage to all of your contacts. Short of deleting pre-existing iMessages for a given contact, it doesn't seem there's a way to just flip the "this contact uses iMessage" bit.
But here's the rub.. they shouldn't have to explicitly set anything at all. A. Receive iMessage from contact -> set iMessage bit on contact. B. Receive text message from contact -> clear iMessage bit on contact if present. C. Failed iMessage -> re-send. Failed again? -> re-send as text. Delivered? (if supported by the networks) -> clear iMessage bit. Otherwise, see A/B. D. User enables / disables iMessage explicitly -> set state in central registry (Apple ID is involved, right?). E. Every once in a while, send as an iMessage anyway if the central registry suggests that the user really should have iMessage because they never turned it off. Worst case: the send ends up with situation C said 'every once in a while', which would be transparent to them. Best case: after a few of those, even the central registry could get a clue and disable the iMessage bit on their end, allowing it to propagate. Having the onus of 'iMessage bit' state at the sender's side be solely on the end of the recipient is stupid.
I wouldn't say that it is a case of lock-in, though. Just a suboptimal approach. (And yes, I realize there's potential issues with A-E above as well). The bit that makes it peculiar, to say the least, is that this problem has been complained about since at least the end of 2011. Just not by enough people for it to be "an actual story", I guess.
Correct me if any of the above is wrong - I'm certainly not an iPhone user so I've only got the most basic of google search results as my sources.
Slashdot Mirror
And, really, who wouldn't want a bronze and cyan DMM?
http://i.imgur.com/YOVlnbx.jpg
Which one?
Kastar: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Kast...
Steren: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ster...
ETEK: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Digi...
LANG: http://www.walmart.com/ip/A-E-...
Klein Tools: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Klei...
TM Atlantic: http://www.walmart.com/ip/TM-A...
Ideal: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Idea...
Universal Enterprises: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Univ...
Morris Products: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Morr...
or
ROLLS: http://www.walmart.com/ip/ROLL...
?
I know Fluke! I even know their tools generally use dark body, yellowish outline. I was completely unaware that this was actually protected by a trade dress, though. Did you? (Before you read this story, that is.)
What about Voltcraft? Theirs are generally a dark body with a light grey outline (though they - like Fluke - have plenty of variations) Is that protected by a trade dress? No, don't go googling. Tell me, off the top of your head, yes or no?
And if it is.. where would you find that? That appears to have been one of the problems to begin with - even finding that that such a trade dress exists given the apparently difficult to use IP search tools.
In the end, this isn't really about Fluke and their trade dress. SparkFun appears to be fine with the fact that Fluke has it and will simply change to red (which I think would be more in line with their branding anyway). This is more about the fact that it's difficult to find (if you even realize that this is something that you need to worry about; multimeters have used yellow since forever and grey body with yellow outline isn't exactly unique to Fluke either except in a few markets) and which, once you have been found in violation, is extremely difficult to resolve in a manner that doesn't involve just writing off the costs and letting perfectly good (yeah yeah, 'chinese crap') material be destroyed.
Ignorance isn't an excuse, and an IP-lawyer would probably have dug this 'gotcha' up, but that doesn't make the resolution any less stupendous.
Hopefully SparkFun can find an alternate destination to send them to (where Fluke's trade dress doesn't apply and which doesn't have exorbitant import fees) so that they'll still find good use somewhere, somehow.
I bought the Flightradar24 app. Cost a pretty penny back then, too. Half a year later, it got so bloated (new HD graphics included in the package even though it's not an HD device, developer can't be bothered to make 2 separate packages) that it wouldn't even install on my lowly device anymore. I'd have no choice but to clean out some other apps to make room.
Not much later, the version of Android (2.3) was just completely not supported anymore; as in cannot download. Which would have sucked considering you can't download the older version either.
Thankfully, Android - so I had an app backup and can still use the Flightradar24 app in its older form just fine.
Here's an app you paid for, but unless you managed to keep an old copy around yourself, you're now SOL. Sure, you could buy a new phone.. doesn't mean it's 'not an issue' or not 'annoying as hell'.
As an aside, I have stopped using Flightradar24 almost entirely. Their website's gone to sh*t and development of features has come to a standstill ever since they realized they can make plenty of money on the site and apps as they are, and can trickle in new features to keep things fresh and have people laud them for. Unfortunately, most alternatives are even worse, thanks in great part to most signal feeders only feeding to Flightradar24.
While I agree that the extension of copyright terms is a huge problem in terms of things like remixes/rehashes/reimaginings of existing content (not that this has actually stopped people from Rule 34'ing every Disney Princess in a multitude of ways), for most "zomg piracy, our copyrights!" discussions it is not a factor; the vast majority of 'piracy' is of recent things with a very clear drop-off as you go further back in time.
In the case of Sons of Anarchy, season 1 of that series hasn't even passed some of the original copyright terms. ( Getting there, though, just another year or so ), so even if one were to argue that copyright duration terms should be limited to what they were way back when (5/7 years), he'd still be voicing his concern.
http://slashdot.org/submission...
It's just that yesterday (or the day before) they actually unveiled some new imagery showing what it looks like.
I think you're mixing up two things - although the end-result to the user is largely the same.
Region locking would mean that if you tried to 'import a song/movie' from the U.S., you can't play it back on your European music player. See e.g. the region locks on DVDs and computer games.
What you're referring to though is market segmentation/differentiation. E.g. releasing of a title in one market, but not in the other, or under different terms - be that release date difference or price difference, etc.)
While it's certainly unfortunate that iTunes doesn't carry all material, does that also mean that alternate stores don't carry said material?
If they do, then what is the barrier in buying from them?
If they don't, how does that reduce all options to "I will just pirate it" versus "I will just not get it".
( Note that for music especially chances are good that you will be able to find it on YouTube - even if you're in Germany and GEMA blocks most of the results there's practically always an alternate - and Google tends to have the appropriate licensing in place. I do say 'tends' because there's plenty of YouTube videos of content that certainly isn't covered by a blanket license :) )
Import taxes are something you really should take up with your government - especially when it's over just a $2 comic book.
( I can understand why some import taxes exist, and generally don't mind paying them - but I'd contest a charge like that on principle. )
Preface: I think copyright should be abolished, and distribution rights more strictly enforced. There, that out of the way...
Good on ye, mate!
Sounds good to me!
It sure does!
Oh for pete's sake. We knew it was coming. It's always coming. Okay, fine, let's hear your arguments.
Well, yes, yes it is. As soon as we try to license more recent content, prices go up. Our prices go up, your prices go up. All of a sudden, we run afoul your whole "reasonable price" thing. I know, we should blame the content providers for charging more for something recent for which there is greater demand than there is for the old stuff, supply & demand shouldn't apply here because supply is infinite and all that. Unfortunately, reality doesn't work that way, but let's continue.
Why do you have that feeling? Is that a feeling imposed on you by outside influences (is the industry bombarding you with so much advertising that it has instilled a psychological need, like an addiction), or a feeling that is entirely self-created?
I.e. if Netflix does not offer you Movie X that was recently released, why do you feel that your only option is to download it (be that legally, as in The Netherlands, or illegally) - rather than going out to see it (if still playing in theaters), renting it (physical or pay per view), buying it, or... I know, odd suggestion ...not seeing it?
So do you use Netflix?
See, on the one hand, Netflix is a legitimate alternative to downloading "older content". That would suggest that you should be using it for that older content. But there's that "but". So I don't know if you do or do not use Netflix.
If you don't, and the reason for this hinges upon that "but", then where would you put the bar - and are you willing to make this bar immovable?
You see, I come across people saying "oh I would totally pay for X if they'd just offer Y", but then once that becomes available they slowly add on the entire rest of the alphabet.
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap"
$0.99/song iTunes.
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap and DRM free"
DRM-free iTunes
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free and played anywhere"
DRM-free MP3s at iTunes
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free, played anywhere, and I didn't have to store it"
iTunes Radio
"I would totally pay for music if it were cheap, DRM free, played anywhere, I didn't have to store it, and came as uncompromised quality without lossless encoding".
Well we haven't reached that bar yet, and it might not end up being that bar, but we all know that bar is going to move; if not in features, then in exactly what defines 'cheap'. Streaming music services have already moved the bar on that - $0.99/song is considered rather expensive now.
So when you consider an answer to the "where would you put the bar", make sure you aim as high as you're truly comfortable with. Then put yourself in the shoes of a company that is supposed to make this happen, and contemplate whether you can think of a way that this could be made to happen, and be sustainable.
If you find that it can be - good god, m
He's stuck in Russia, away from friends and family, probably not exactly having the best time of his life.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
By your statement regarding facing consequences, I would think that you believe there should be no such thing as witness protection programs.
Though I think the basic issue with the premise of the question is that it's a false dichotomy. I don't think Snowden is a hero. I also don't think he's a traitor. At least not wholly on either. Getting people to label him as one or the other is populist journalism. Of course, this is Rolling Stone.. while held in higher regard than the usual tabloids, it is what it is.
Define 'a Metro interface'.
If you just mean the look&feel / 'touch interface'-friendliness, then no, it's not hard at all.
If you mean having it play nice in the Metro/Modern UI interface (the tiles thing, full-screen apps optionally with sidebar, live updates, notifications, all that)... apparently that's a bit harder. Just ask the VLC people.
Of course there's not much of a reason to even use that on desktop Windows anyway, but it would have been a pretty good step toward also providing FireFox for Windows RT / ARM-based devices like the Surface (not to be confused with the Surface Pro) and Windows Phone.
Yes, it still works just fine as a desktop app. This is just about making a special version that plays nice in the Metro/Modern UI 'tiles' environment. You can already just drop a shortcut to the FireFox desktop app on there if you think it's a nice launcher, of course.
To add to your but, I give you:
But...
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
I asked that question elsewhere, and the response I got was - after I explicitly said people shouldn't start talking about 'touch interface', considering you can slap a touch interface on a desktop app just fine and you would never be able to tell - 'touch interface'.
Aside from that, though.. Windows RT devices - since you can only install out of the app store on those, and that means you have to develop for that.
Maybe. Apparently there are some people enthusiastic about the Surface that wouldn't consider just getting a Surface Pro. Of course, an RT version is exactly what hasn't happened. Maybe developing the app for x86 first is easier and then porting to RT should be a breeze - I don't know. But there's certainly no good reason whatsoever to be using the Metro ('modern', whatever they want to call it) version of VLC on a desktop/laptop, with or without a touchscreen, especially when you keep in mind that this version is quite buggy and incomplete.
That's the meat of the verdict - since that's not given in the summary.
You have to set aside first whether or not this is Satoshi Nakamoto. Assume it was the victim of a terrible crime, or assume it was the perpetrator of that terrible crime. If you start saying it's okay for one to be outed, but not the other, you're already on shaky grounds of having to somehow define which is which in what case. You can argue "we can decide that on a case-by-case scenario", but then you'll inevitably overstep the boundaries. Doing a mea culpa and saying you're moving the boundary a bit is great for the future, but doesn't negate the overstepping that has already occurred.
So, that out of the way.. I think at the heart of it are two things:
1. The author's suggestion that this information is already public; and, given that she did indeed find the name through public records and went from there, one could argue that if it's already public, it doesn't matter that she published it all conveniently in one place.
Or does it? Considering the information was indeed public, but nobody bothered with it until this article, and considering the response it has gotten (overwhelmingly: great journalism in finding the person, questionable journalism at best in publishing the details), clearly it does matter when you start aggregating all of those bits and pieces into a single document; doxxing.
Some countries even have laws against doing that, fully acknowledging that the individual bits and pieces may well be public, but that aggregating them is not allowed.
2. Whether or not these details added anything to the story besides sensationalism. I.e. the photo of the house which included house number; would the story have been worse, or less believable, etc. if that had been blurred out? While the internet sleuthing machine would undoubtedly have found the address without that bit of information eventually, it would certainly have taken substantially longer. Imagine next that there were no picture of the house, merely a description that the person lived in just an ordinary house. Now the internet sleuthing machine (and that includes other media) have a monumental task ahead of them; it could be any house in the city mentioned. Would you have taken the author's word for it, though? The evidence that they had found the person they were after would have to be a lot stronger to lend weight to words than does a picture - human nature tends to do that.
Think of interviewees who agree upon the interview as long as they are not identified and are made unrecognizable (silhouette shots at best, voice warbled). This could be anybody making up any sort of story. The reason we often trust these interviews anyway is because what facts said can be verified, and because we tend to trust the interviewer based on their reputation.
We generally don't say "well unless I can see the person's face and hear what they sound like, I'm going to dismiss this interview".
You have to think to yourself how low the trust in the author of this piece has to be, and how shaky the facts on the actual subject material ("is this person Satoshi Nakamoto?") , that they saw no other recourse than to release personal details that could be verified instead ("we don't know truly if this is Satoshi Nakamoto, but it is 'A Guy', and 'A Guy' can be found here, go ahead and look him up for proof that it is 'A Guy'").
Reputable investigative journalists usually allow people who don't want to be found to remain 'not found', no matter how much bits and pieces of public information end up pointing to them; be that victims or perpetrators of terrible crimes. Without that, they're just the next doxxing TMZ, chasing people downs streets with cameras and pummeling them with leading questions.
Note that I'm just as opposed to doxxing of the author in question. While it seems like just deserts, it's really just perpetuating the problem. Rather than attacking the author, it would be more interesting to get an in-depth interview with her on her motives, thoughts (before/during/after), etc.
That wasn't the question though, was it? The question was whether releasing the information that has been released was unethical.
The only way in which I can interpret your reply as being an answer to that question, is "if your name is on public record, everything is fair game, and not unethical to publish".
I don't think it is unethical to uncover, but it may be unethical to reveal as much detail as has been revealed. But that depends on one's level of ethics.
Consider the ubiquitous example of a lottery winner. You win $100M, you probably do not want that plastered all over the internet, and choose to remain anonymous.
Some journalist figures out it's you anyway, and they want to just do an interview and ask you how you feel, how the $100M has changed your life, your relationships, etc.
The journalist then goes ahead and publishes that story, with proof that they found the winner (probably have the official notifications, etc.), the content of interview, but with identifying things removed.
There you go, the anonymous lottery winner has been proven to be uncovered, they get their article, and the reader gets their juicy little piece on what it's like to win a huge prize lottery.
That's one scenario. In the other scenario, you decline the interview, and before you come back you get some cops over because you don't want to deal with the journalist.
Next thing you know, your name, address (indirect as it may be, it took all of 2 minutes to piece together), picture, details of your life, details of your family members, etc. is plastered all over the front page of the paper.
I'm sure the resulting controversy wouldn't hurt the journalist and paper very much, but your question was whether that is unethical. I guess you'd have to ask yourself - and maybe get back to us.
Based on what, though? The trademark policy - not that this isn't a license - states:
As I understand it, the emphasized parts are where Dell possibly runs afoul; They 1. tie the distribution of FireFox to the service of installing it - but I'm not sure if 'service' is to be interpreted in that manner here, and 2. collect personal information as part of their sale - though if I'm selling Linux distribution DVDs for $2, list FireFox as one of the things as part of the distribution, and obviously collect physical mailing addresses in order to send to them and keep them around in case of a shipping mishap.. I may also be running afoul. Thanks, legalese.
But, what legal standing does the trademark policy have?
'Nominative fair use' may apply; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Sounds about right. You can't say you're including FireFox without literally saying 'FireFox'.
It's just the name.
This one's more problematic. As you mention:
However, that's a matter of interpretation. When I first read the story subject I thought "Why wouldn't they be?". When I read the summary I thought "well that's ridiculously expensive (it's just an option in a dropdown, even at the back-end that instructs the builds which image to use), but surely they can charge whatever they want."
Consider if this option was for free. Would you still think that there was 'some kind of deal'? What if it actually went the other way around, and choosing FireFox dropped the price by 16 quid? (That's when I'd expect some sort of deal, similar to deals with the usual shovelware.)
Even after reading TFA.. I can see what Mozilla is getting at, and it's undeniably damaging when a user goes "it costs me 16 quid to get FireFox!?", but I'm not so sure their legal recourse is through trademark law.
IANAL, though. Should it go to court (which I suspect it won't - plenty of options to avoid that scenario), it will be interesting to see what judgment this results in.
Which accomplishes nothing, as you'd be logging in as you - unless you're using somebody else's credentials. That seems to be the main weakness, at least in the NL (Ziggo) case; people intercepting login data or the public wifi being easily hacked to grant access to the internet (not to the internal network), etc.
So, yes, you could certainly access your own modem as John Doe using John Doe's credentials, and they would come knocking on John Doe's door. Best make sure John Doe is somebody who would plausibly make use of your router, of course, otherwise "yeah I was at work 50 miles from that router, tyvm" becomes a bit of an alibi and pushes the investigation into checking MAC address (don't forget to fake that), doing some surveillance on when it's getting accessed with John Doe's credentials and triangulating the signal source, etc.
Either which way, it doesn't work as an added excuse for things that happen out of your private network :)
You don't have to believe them, you have a few other options:
Try to hack it to get to the internal network. I'm sure there's a big bounty for succeeding (be that by Comcast or on the black market).
Disable it. You also don't get to use the feature.
In case you don't trust that disabling it actually disables it, buy a different modem. Don't complain if you get zero support :)
Except that it isn't...
In NL, some ISPs are doing the same. It's even a different public-facing IP address.
Of course, you can also turn it off. Though turning it off on your modem means you don't get to use it yourself on others' modems.
Competitive edge. If they can have their goods moved for a lower price than Target, Sears, Big Lots! etc., then Wal Mart can use that in a number of ways to beat the competition (even further); and all they'd have to do is only license out relevant patents and designs to those logistics companies willing to sign an exclusive agreement. Though commissioning truck builds and leasing those out would certainly also be an option.. just not one that would readily fit into Wal Mart's core business.
In Europe, they'd just make sure to have patents on some part of the cartridges - same as Samsung's approach on their printer cartridges;
http://www.therecycler.com/pos...
http://tonernews.com/forums/to...
( I don't think we have Keurig coffee makers here in NL unless you import them - I think the most popular ones are the Senseo and the Nespresso, both of which have plenty of third party cups/pads so at least they're not trying to lock that down very much. )
As I can't mod you up - have a "Thank You" comment. I have to admit that a lot of the google search results are very unclear on whether there's any fallback on delivery failure (recipient not using iMessage) and whether or not that is the same as a fallback on send failure (sender has no data connectivity, say).
If it falls back on delivery automatically, then I don't know why this is an issue either; again, that would be transparent. Except in the case you mention.. which I can certainly imagine being a bit confusing but hopefully easily detected (though how much would it suck if you're on a short vacation and left your iPad at home, quietly collecting the iMessages until its battery runs out, and you not getting those messages. It's interesting to know how edge cases are handled. )
Did they? I thought iMessage defaulted to on with the introduction of its feature as part of the standard messaging app in iOS 5? Or is the act of upgrading / buying it new equivalent to 'turning it on'?
That as an aside (albeit an important one), you didn't really answer the (rhetorical, I might add) question. Why would it seem like a logical thing to have todo. Of course it's logical to turn it off if you're aware of the mess you're going to be in if you don't. But is it logical to have to and not have any other suitable solution in case you did indeed forget, or simply can't (without Apple Customer care intervention).
Good. Please explain how it does work.
Per this old article:
http://asia.cnet.com/faq-whats...
It seems to work like this.
You go to the messaging app. This is the default messaging app. It does text messages (SMS), and it does iMessages. So far so good.
You enter a number or directly a contact. It checks if that contact is believed to use iMessage by way of the phone number. If it believes the contact uses iMessage, it will send it as an iMessage, otherwise it will send it as a text message.
Still so far so good.
Now that contact stops using iMessage - the example given being that they switch devices, keeping the same number. They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do? Especially if, say, they switched devices because their iPhone died; in which case, they can't turn it off (or can they? Oh yes, they can contact Apple Support; http://support.apple.com/kb/TS... ).
Now you send them a message. The iMessage app is clueless and sends an iMessage because hey, nobody ever told it that the contact is no longer using iMessage. iMessage will eventually come back and say that it failed, and you as the sender either send again or shrug it off, but it might not occur to you to send as a text message instead. If you even can. Yes, if it already failed, you can hold the text and force that to send as text message. But the very next one you send is going to be an iMessage again. Of course, you can disable iMessage on your end, but that disables sending iMessage to all of your contacts. Short of deleting pre-existing iMessages for a given contact, it doesn't seem there's a way to just flip the "this contact uses iMessage" bit.
But here's the rub.. they shouldn't have to explicitly set anything at all.
A. Receive iMessage from contact -> set iMessage bit on contact.
B. Receive text message from contact -> clear iMessage bit on contact if present.
C. Failed iMessage -> re-send. Failed again? -> re-send as text. Delivered? (if supported by the networks) -> clear iMessage bit. Otherwise, see A/B.
D. User enables / disables iMessage explicitly -> set state in central registry (Apple ID is involved, right?).
E. Every once in a while, send as an iMessage anyway if the central registry suggests that the user really should have iMessage because they never turned it off. Worst case: the send ends up with situation C said 'every once in a while', which would be transparent to them. Best case: after a few of those, even the central registry could get a clue and disable the iMessage bit on their end, allowing it to propagate.
Having the onus of 'iMessage bit' state at the sender's side be solely on the end of the recipient is stupid.
I wouldn't say that it is a case of lock-in, though. Just a suboptimal approach. (And yes, I realize there's potential issues with A-E above as well). The bit that makes it peculiar, to say the least, is that this problem has been complained about since at least the end of 2011. Just not by enough people for it to be "an actual story", I guess.
Correct me if any of the above is wrong - I'm certainly not an iPhone user so I've only got the most basic of google search results as my sources.