I don't buy that Microsoft is forking over $135 million simply so that that "two companies will work together on developing and testing products for Microsoft's.Net platform, which lets customers "rent" software over the Internet."
Microsoft has invested in companies, albeit few, with some type of Linux presence. I am curious what role, if any, the prospect of breaking up Microsoft into two companies has had in Microsoft making such investments.
Well, with Corel now in Microsoft's bag, the only other competitive office suite is Sun's StarOffice. I bet Sun is licking their fingers over this story. If the playing field wasn't completely clear before, it is now.
Let's see... Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his:
The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided. ... The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar). ... The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant. ... The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges. ... In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control. ... Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.
Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).
What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same. Any opinions? Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.
Oops, I forgot to give credit for the interactive carnivore. At the bottom of the Flash it says, "Source: FBI."
Ummmm... I am learning more and more about this country as each day passes.
The list of IIT labs reads like a bioweaponary proving ground. Moreover, the list of available jobs further sheds some light that maybe IIT has some defense department ties?
Understanding that MIT and University of California, San Diego "turned down the Justice Department's review request earlier this month, saying they were being asked to rubber stamp the Carnivore system," I am disturbed by a CNN article in which the senior vice president at IITRI and manager of the advanced technology group, said "he was unaware of the concerns expressed by other academic institutions."
I don't buy IIT's statements suggesting that they don't know what Carnivore is. Unfortunately, I doubt most of the populous will care or understand the extent of abuse by Carnivore or an apparent conspiracy with selecting IIT as the reviewer.
Granted, Bungie has some cool products coming down the pipeline. And, agreed, Gates' acquisition is 'troubling.' However, there seems to be an assumption that Bungie is truly a significant and unique company. Could the world simply do without Bungie? Yes. Would Microsoft attempt to be as competitive without the Bungie acquisition? Yes, although this may have sped things up.
I guess what I am trying to point out is that there is much more out there than Bungie and there seems to truly be thousands of programmers as/more talented and innovative than the Bungie people. I'm sure everyone knows this. Just a little reminder.
Why worry? Someone will do it better. Part of the reason Bungie was innovative was that it could be creative because of its very nature, size and entrepreneurialship. Now its nature has changed and it has lost its ability to innovate; it is now part of a mega corporation.
Others out there will quickly fill this spot and excel.
Does the information concerning Darwin for x86 remind anyone else of BeOS? Too bad Sun Office has not been ported to BeOS and Be has concentrated all their resources on BeIA, it seemed for awhile there (about 1 1/2 years ago?) BeOS had a chance and could have been up to speed with Linux.
I'm curious about the Be communities "feelings" about Darwin.
Even with robots.txt utilizing:
User-agent: *
Disallow:/
I continue to receive spidering from companies such as NetCurrents and Cyvelliance because it is easy to ignore robots.txt. Rude, yes -- but easy. It is also easy for me to deny access via Apache, but bots from companies such as the above mentioned continue aggressive spidering.
It seems that standards (such as those for robots.txt) are useless, particularly for companies who spider the Net in search of copyright/trademark violations.
Granted, some companies have an interest in policing their products, but when do they go too far? Wouldn't deliberate/aggressive spidering into areas of my site which I have instituted restrictions/blocking constitute some sort of invasion of privacy? If a government entity is doing the spidering, wouldn't a search warrant be required?
During a good size lag or installing software, I usually get out a credit card and run it between the keys (horizontal and vertical). Upon reaching the end of a key or keys in a row, the crap comes up from the bottom of the keyboard. I then grab it and put it into a pile accumulated in front of the monitor. I do this every 3 days or so.
Hopefully this will be helpful advice for someone:). It seems that a credit card is a good solution for many problems.
More importantly, thou, is what to call that crap. I'm sure there was a Ren & Stimpy episode about keyboard crap? Maybe it should be called keyapp? Any suggestions?
I was a techie before law school and was sickened by the amount of arrogance and pompous attitudes in the system. Sure, I was on review and worked for a federal judge. It wasn't worth it. I returned to tech because I couldn't put up with the slime. Your attitude is a perfect example:
"Look, kids. Lawyers are the highest paid employees in the country (don't bother me with talk about stock options; that's not real money). Law is the most prestigious job in the country. It's a capitalist economy. Of course lawyers are the smartest people around, on average."
-- Excuse me while I vomit and worship the toilet. First-hand experience: attorneys are at the bottom and work in one of the least prestigious positions in the country. Capitalist economy? I never saw a socialist and totalitarian system in the U.S. until I saw the workings of firms. Moreover, attorneys generally entered the profession for the passion of "making money," not, like in the tech world, a passion for the work (your message provides this example). Generally, how long do attorneys remain to practice law? Finally, the vast number of attorneys I worked with are far from intelligent. Look kiddie using Yahoo for email, just how many briefs to a federal court have you analyzed? Sure, generally all attorneys (if they actually wrote the briefs themselves) make citation errors, but the majority do not spell well and use poor grammar. As far as an understanding of the use of technology by attorneys? None. The very reason I returned to tech. The legal community is the very segment of the population that keeps this nation's "not able to program the VCR" populous so high.
I would argue you that you are glorifying the legal community much more than what it is worth -- are you considering a change in your career? Cannot find another position you would qualify for because you only have a legal background? Attempting to fool yourself that law is "not that bad?" Wishing you could go back in time to pick up a MIS degree instead of a JD?
I need to stop. Your time isn't worth mine.
I have been pronouncing it as O S "ex."
However, I guess it could also be pronounced as O S "ten."
I really prefer the pronounciation of X as in the alphabetic letter over the roman numeral of X. It is cool and rolls easier. Any thoughts? How do you pronounce OS X? What pronounciation does Jobs (or even Woz) give?
Ironic... if the government fairs so poorly for its own security, then wouldn't it be logical that their own tech for monitoring/big brothering the Net sucks? Perhaps there are assumptions that carnivore 'works.' Granted, it would help to see the code to determine this, but wouldn't the odds be strong that carnivore does not work as well as the claims? Do we really have anything to fear?
Maybe they talk the talk but don't code the code...
Goddamn, excuse me, but I'm getting sick of governmental and legal crap (er, the Net being exempt from all legal precedent) screwing up the Net. Anyone working on something better out there? Should we go back to dialing up local BBSs?
I can't think of any technology out there that has ever been the subject of more legal exceptions and privacy 'concerns.'
Now I'm sad:(. BTW, I am not at all impressed with Cerf: "he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet." Sounds like one of the turds who told the world about the Net to begin with. Argh... where's my time machine?
AMZN is not the only one doing this. Personally, I do not have a problem with it -- done in the bricks and mortar world more than most people realize. However, I am interested in the tech. NetPerceptions is arguably the market leader with their GroupLens technology. ZDNet has a good explanation/review of this technology and here is an ABCNews video (realvideo) reporting the technology. Essentially the application learns your likes/dislikes of products/services (my profile) so that products/services based on these likes/dislikes are recommended to you. Moreover, and this is the part I find fascinating, information is pulled from demographic data/others who have similar likes/dislikes of the same products/services I purchase and very different products/services are recommended. For instance, maybe The Godfather is my favorite movie and, therefore, there is a 90% likelihood that I would like cigars. The site would actively present the sale of cigars to me. AMZN actively pricing its product based on a specific user and his/her profile is part of this technology --- your profile also dictates prices (higher or lower). Incidentially, other companies with such technology/recommendation engines include: BroadVision, Art Technology Group (ATG), Vignette...
I did not look at the linked site to see the similarities/differences between it and Linux.com (although I noticed that it is an Aggie's site (cough)).
While copyright is a common contention in many of these cases, trade dress is a more appropriate claim IMO. I am unsure if trade dress has been applied to the net/web design. rant Although trade dress is a well founded area of law, many established areas of precedent IMO mystically alter/disappear when court's apply the law to the net./rant
Trade dress is this: the total image of a product or service. For instance, McDonald's would likely claim trade dress for the design, look and feel of its stores (exterior and interior separately). If a party's trade dress is inherently distinctive or has acquired secondary meaning and the defendant's trade dress, taken as a whole, is sufficiently similar to cause a likelihood of consumer confusion about an origin, sponsorship or affiliation of a parties' goods, services or business, then trade dress infringement is likely. What is key is that trade dress features are examined as a whole rather than some differences in detail. So, I would imagine that application of trade dress to a web site would include the entire look and feel of a site -- images, colors, layout... GUI. Trade dress is part of unfair competition law, found in the Lanham Act/Trademark law. Therefore, many attributes for examining trade dress law are borrowed from trademark law (i.e.: evidence of likely confusion, sophistication of potential customers, blah blah blah...).
Again, I have not compared these two sites and given the history of the legal system's attitudes/misconceptions/illiteracy of the Net I doubt trade dress applied to the Net would be actionable. Just passing on some general info about trade dress law.
Napster and DeCSS are merely tools for copying material. Much like a copy machine is a tool for copying material. Historically, how a tool is used has never been anyone's business, copyright law provides for fair use, and suits have been filed against alleged infrigers of copyrighted material -- those who allegedly actually made a copy and distributed it.
However, with the net, the tool itself is attacked as an article for infringing a copyright. There is no precedent for these recent cases or arguments. If these arguments had merit then the copy machine, that purple crap back in the '70s to copy things at home, VCR, the disk drive, the camera... would all be prohibited.
IMO, there is absolutely an absence of an understanding of technology or the law, or both by the legal community. It amazes me that the MPAA devotes their resources to prohibiting DeCSS when the MPAA does not pursue the thousands of individuals who post or sell first run movies on the Net. Filing suit against those who truly infringe copyright material would be consistent with the application of law to other subject matters and precedent.
Unfortunately, IMO, the law is erroneously applied to the net and new laws are adopted to deal with net-related material in special manners.
How could the legal community become tech-literate? Why is the Internet treated in such a special manner by the system? Is there a conspiracy at work here?
Here is a listing of pending federal suits involving Microsoft. 18 pages, 352 cases. This is pretty typical for corporations -- I think what is interesting are the number of cases filed by Microsoft. Browsing through the cases, Microsoft primarily files copyright infringement suits. Just thought this was interesting info to post considering that many responses here exclaim that Microsoft is sued too much. What goes around comes around. Not just $$$ for attorneys, but it keeps the attorneys at Microsoft employed. If they could just figure out how to operate windows and the damn VCR...
Dude, reread my message. See:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1 005-200-340454.html?tag=
I did not state whether or not domains are property. Merely that the system is clueless. If you disagree, then what is your opinion of these comments:
"The value of a domain name is that it's a storefront," said Rich Gray, an attorney with
Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady & Gray."
"What the court is saying is unremarkable: A party seeking to get its attorney fees back can try to [tap] the assets of [the defendants] and these domains names are just like a building or property," he added.
According to Morrison & Foerster attorney Jonathan Band, "It strikes me that it's an obvious ruling, but one that would need to made."
I think this is yet another example of the legal system not understanding technology, mainly the net (OMG, its a new and scary thing). For some odd reason, the system continually treats anything Internet related differently than if a law was to be applied to any other subject matter.
Courts just don't get it. For instance, a court ruled in 1999 that domain names are property.
What to do? I graduated law school, worked for a federal judge and became extremely frustrated -- I returned to tech. A significant number of attorneys continue to utilize WordPerfect for DOS. Most judges do not know how to use a computer. The vast number of 'high-tech' lawyers are in it for the $ and are clueless.
It is interesting that a system which is suppose to apply precedent to all legal matters has, with the Internet, not applied precedent. Rather, new rules have been written for application to anything Net-related. This is great material for conspiracy theorists. However, is it simply a problem of techies unable to communicate to the legal community (i.e.: "Open Source = Anti-copyright")? Even if it was, how could techies communicate with the legal sector? Free luncheon conferences? Campaign donations? ABA and state bar advertisements? Frustrating.
Comparing the public's interest in space exploration now with the '60s, it seems that the public does not care. Possibly the public embraced space exploration during the '60s as a means of 'hoping for better things.' During war, corruption and the cold war, space exploration was a 'happy thing', something that people could get excited about. Now, we are busier with our lives, no cold war worries and, sure, corruption is still around. What would motivate the U.S. and other nations to have a renewed interest in space exploration? I have never heard the issue raised during the presidential-race. The public generally does not care? No mission to mars? Alpha-centauri?
Am I crazy? Should I lead an isolated life and join one of Joe Firmage's funky organizations?
Jobs' presentation provided a Photoshop (TM) shootout between a dual-processor 500 MHz Power Mac G4 and a single processor 1 GHz Pentium. As expected, the PowerPC finished the test in about half the time it took the PC.
I haven't had an Apple since//e. With Power Mac's current performance and the 'coolness' of OS X, I really might get a new toy soon. However, I recently browsed a Goodwill ComputerWorks store for the heck of it and found it to mainly be a graveyard of Apples (original Macs $3).
The site of the eventual fate of most Macs was scary, but I just don't see a dual-processor 500 MHz Power Mac G4 being out-dated any time soon (?).
From nic.us:
Domain names cannot be of the form.us or..us.
You can apply for a delegation of a locality (third-level) name or an fourth-level name, but you should not apply for the delegation for a specific host or function (such as "www").
The domain name for an organization, company, or individual should only be of the form...us.
Although the site states that an individual or business can register a name, it looks like a pain in the butt (unless you are a local government, school or museum) and too restrictive to allow for a business or individual to get a domain name.
Governments have overwhelmingly opened up their.xx for use by the public/corporations. But, not.us -- as far as I know,.us remains under government control, right? Sure, people in the U.S. can use.com,.org, etc. But so does everyone else.
This seems 'unusual' for the U.S. government. What's up?
Understanding that OS X is essentially the 'next' Nextstep and I'm impressed by OS X features, I wonder what the probability is of Apple porting it to Intel? I guess slim, if I have a desire of actually purchasing an Apple (would be first since//e) to enjoy this fine looking OS. I guess thats what they want, more Mac purchases.
But, if Apple would port it...
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a listing provided by Microsoft of Microsoft investments and acquisitions. It was last updated on 9/18/00 with the acquistion of Pacific Microsonics.
I don't buy that Microsoft is forking over $135 million simply so that that "two companies will work together on developing and testing products for Microsoft's .Net platform, which lets customers "rent" software over the Internet."
Microsoft has invested in companies, albeit few, with some type of Linux presence. I am curious what role, if any, the prospect of breaking up Microsoft into two companies has had in Microsoft making such investments.
Well, with Corel now in Microsoft's bag, the only other competitive office suite is Sun's StarOffice. I bet Sun is licking their fingers over this story. If the playing field wasn't completely clear before, it is now.
Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.
Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).
What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.
Oops, I forgot to give credit for the interactive carnivore. At the bottom of the Flash it says, "Source: FBI."
Ummmm...
I am learning more and more about this country as each day passes.
Here is an interesting Flash by CNN demonstrating how Carnivore works... All non-suspect and non-relevant data is purged. Well, great, I feel so much better.
The list of IIT labs reads like a bioweaponary proving ground. Moreover, the list of available jobs further sheds some light that maybe IIT has some defense department ties?
Understanding that MIT and University of California, San Diego "turned down the Justice Department's review request earlier this month, saying they were being asked to rubber stamp the Carnivore system," I am disturbed by a CNN article in which the senior vice president at IITRI and manager of the advanced technology group, said "he was unaware of the concerns expressed by other academic institutions."
I don't buy IIT's statements suggesting that they don't know what Carnivore is. Unfortunately, I doubt most of the populous will care or understand the extent of abuse by Carnivore or an apparent conspiracy with selecting IIT as the reviewer.
Granted, Bungie has some cool products coming down the pipeline. And, agreed, Gates' acquisition is 'troubling.' However, there seems to be an assumption that Bungie is truly a significant and unique company.
Could the world simply do without Bungie? Yes.
Would Microsoft attempt to be as competitive without the Bungie acquisition? Yes, although this may have sped things up.
I guess what I am trying to point out is that there is much more out there than Bungie and there seems to truly be thousands of programmers as/more talented and innovative than the Bungie people. I'm sure everyone knows this. Just a little reminder.
Why worry? Someone will do it better.
Part of the reason Bungie was innovative was that it could be creative because of its very nature, size and entrepreneurialship. Now its nature has changed and it has lost its ability to innovate; it is now part of a mega corporation.
Others out there will quickly fill this spot and excel.
Does the information concerning Darwin for x86 remind anyone else of BeOS? Too bad Sun Office has not been ported to BeOS and Be has concentrated all their resources on BeIA, it seemed for awhile there (about 1 1/2 years ago?) BeOS had a chance and could have been up to speed with Linux.
I'm curious about the Be communities "feelings" about Darwin.
Even with robots.txt utilizing: /
User-agent: *
Disallow:
I continue to receive spidering from companies such as NetCurrents and Cyvelliance because it is easy to ignore robots.txt. Rude, yes -- but easy. It is also easy for me to deny access via Apache, but bots from companies such as the above mentioned continue aggressive spidering.
It seems that standards (such as those for robots.txt) are useless, particularly for companies who spider the Net in search of copyright/trademark violations.
Granted, some companies have an interest in policing their products, but when do they go too far? Wouldn't deliberate/aggressive spidering into areas of my site which I have instituted restrictions/blocking constitute some sort of invasion of privacy? If a government entity is doing the spidering, wouldn't a search warrant be required?
During a good size lag or installing software, I usually get out a credit card and run it between the keys (horizontal and vertical). Upon reaching the end of a key or keys in a row, the crap comes up from the bottom of the keyboard. I then grab it and put it into a pile accumulated in front of the monitor. I do this every 3 days or so. Hopefully this will be helpful advice for someone :). It seems that a credit card is a good solution for many problems.
More importantly, thou, is what to call that crap. I'm sure there was a Ren & Stimpy episode about keyboard crap? Maybe it should be called keyapp? Any suggestions?
I was a techie before law school and was sickened by the amount of arrogance and pompous attitudes in the system. Sure, I was on review and worked for a federal judge. It wasn't worth it. I returned to tech because I couldn't put up with the slime. Your attitude is a perfect example:
"Look, kids. Lawyers are the highest paid employees in the country (don't bother me with talk about stock options; that's not real money). Law is the most prestigious job in the country. It's a capitalist economy. Of course lawyers are the smartest people around, on average."
-- Excuse me while I vomit and worship the toilet. First-hand experience: attorneys are at the bottom and work in one of the least prestigious positions in the country. Capitalist economy? I never saw a socialist and totalitarian system in the U.S. until I saw the workings of firms. Moreover, attorneys generally entered the profession for the passion of "making money," not, like in the tech world, a passion for the work (your message provides this example). Generally, how long do attorneys remain to practice law? Finally, the vast number of attorneys I worked with are far from intelligent. Look kiddie using Yahoo for email, just how many briefs to a federal court have you analyzed? Sure, generally all attorneys (if they actually wrote the briefs themselves) make citation errors, but the majority do not spell well and use poor grammar. As far as an understanding of the use of technology by attorneys? None. The very reason I returned to tech. The legal community is the very segment of the population that keeps this nation's "not able to program the VCR" populous so high.
I would argue you that you are glorifying the legal community much more than what it is worth -- are you considering a change in your career? Cannot find another position you would qualify for because you only have a legal background? Attempting to fool yourself that law is "not that bad?" Wishing you could go back in time to pick up a MIS degree instead of a JD?
I need to stop. Your time isn't worth mine.
I have been pronouncing it as O S "ex." However, I guess it could also be pronounced as O S "ten." I really prefer the pronounciation of X as in the alphabetic letter over the roman numeral of X. It is cool and rolls easier. Any thoughts? How do you pronounce OS X? What pronounciation does Jobs (or even Woz) give?
Ironic... if the government fairs so poorly for its own security, then wouldn't it be logical that their own tech for monitoring/big brothering the Net sucks? Perhaps there are assumptions that carnivore 'works.' Granted, it would help to see the code to determine this, but wouldn't the odds be strong that carnivore does not work as well as the claims? Do we really have anything to fear?
Maybe they talk the talk but don't code the code...
Goddamn, excuse me, but I'm getting sick of governmental and legal crap (er, the Net being exempt from all legal precedent) screwing up the Net. Anyone working on something better out there? Should we go back to dialing up local BBSs? I can't think of any technology out there that has ever been the subject of more legal exceptions and privacy 'concerns.' Now I'm sad :(. BTW, I am not at all impressed with Cerf: "he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet." Sounds like one of the turds who told the world about the Net to begin with. Argh... where's my time machine?
AMZN is not the only one doing this. Personally, I do not have a problem with it -- done in the bricks and mortar world more than most people realize. However, I am interested in the tech. NetPerceptions is arguably the market leader with their GroupLens technology. ZDNet has a good explanation/review of this technology and here is an ABCNews video (realvideo) reporting the technology. Essentially the application learns your likes/dislikes of products/services (my profile) so that products/services based on these likes/dislikes are recommended to you. Moreover, and this is the part I find fascinating, information is pulled from demographic data/others who have similar likes/dislikes of the same products/services I purchase and very different products/services are recommended. For instance, maybe The Godfather is my favorite movie and, therefore, there is a 90% likelihood that I would like cigars. The site would actively present the sale of cigars to me.
AMZN actively pricing its product based on a specific user and his/her profile is part of this technology --- your profile also dictates prices (higher or lower). Incidentially, other companies with such technology/recommendation engines include: BroadVision, Art Technology Group (ATG), Vignette...
I did not look at the linked site to see the similarities/differences between it and Linux.com (although I noticed that it is an Aggie's site (cough)). While copyright is a common contention in many of these cases, trade dress is a more appropriate claim IMO. I am unsure if trade dress has been applied to the net/web design. rant Although trade dress is a well founded area of law, many established areas of precedent IMO mystically alter/disappear when court's apply the law to the net. /rant
Trade dress is this: the total image of a product or service. For instance, McDonald's would likely claim trade dress for the design, look and feel of its stores (exterior and interior separately). If a party's trade dress is inherently distinctive or has acquired secondary meaning and the defendant's trade dress, taken as a whole, is sufficiently similar to cause a likelihood of consumer confusion about an origin, sponsorship or affiliation of a parties' goods, services or business, then trade dress infringement is likely. What is key is that trade dress features are examined as a whole rather than some differences in detail. So, I would imagine that application of trade dress to a web site would include the entire look and feel of a site -- images, colors, layout... GUI. Trade dress is part of unfair competition law, found in the Lanham Act/Trademark law. Therefore, many attributes for examining trade dress law are borrowed from trademark law (i.e.: evidence of likely confusion, sophistication of potential customers, blah blah blah...).
Again, I have not compared these two sites and given the history of the legal system's attitudes/misconceptions/illiteracy of the Net I doubt trade dress applied to the Net would be actionable. Just passing on some general info about trade dress law.
Napster and DeCSS are merely tools for copying material. Much like a copy machine is a tool for copying material. Historically, how a tool is used has never been anyone's business, copyright law provides for fair use, and suits have been filed against alleged infrigers of copyrighted material -- those who allegedly actually made a copy and distributed it. However, with the net, the tool itself is attacked as an article for infringing a copyright. There is no precedent for these recent cases or arguments. If these arguments had merit then the copy machine, that purple crap back in the '70s to copy things at home, VCR, the disk drive, the camera... would all be prohibited. IMO, there is absolutely an absence of an understanding of technology or the law, or both by the legal community. It amazes me that the MPAA devotes their resources to prohibiting DeCSS when the MPAA does not pursue the thousands of individuals who post or sell first run movies on the Net. Filing suit against those who truly infringe copyright material would be consistent with the application of law to other subject matters and precedent. Unfortunately, IMO, the law is erroneously applied to the net and new laws are adopted to deal with net-related material in special manners. How could the legal community become tech-literate? Why is the Internet treated in such a special manner by the system? Is there a conspiracy at work here?
Here is a listing of pending federal suits involving Microsoft. 18 pages, 352 cases. This is pretty typical for corporations -- I think what is interesting are the number of cases filed by Microsoft. Browsing through the cases, Microsoft primarily files copyright infringement suits. Just thought this was interesting info to post considering that many responses here exclaim that Microsoft is sued too much. What goes around comes around. Not just $$$ for attorneys, but it keeps the attorneys at Microsoft employed. If they could just figure out how to operate windows and the damn VCR...
Dude, reread my message. See: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1 005-200-340454.html?tag= I did not state whether or not domains are property. Merely that the system is clueless. If you disagree, then what is your opinion of these comments: "The value of a domain name is that it's a storefront," said Rich Gray, an attorney with Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady & Gray." "What the court is saying is unremarkable: A party seeking to get its attorney fees back can try to [tap] the assets of [the defendants] and these domains names are just like a building or property," he added. According to Morrison & Foerster attorney Jonathan Band, "It strikes me that it's an obvious ruling, but one that would need to made."
I think this is yet another example of the legal system not understanding technology, mainly the net (OMG, its a new and scary thing). For some odd reason, the system continually treats anything Internet related differently than if a law was to be applied to any other subject matter. Courts just don't get it. For instance, a court ruled in 1999 that domain names are property. What to do? I graduated law school, worked for a federal judge and became extremely frustrated -- I returned to tech. A significant number of attorneys continue to utilize WordPerfect for DOS. Most judges do not know how to use a computer. The vast number of 'high-tech' lawyers are in it for the $ and are clueless. It is interesting that a system which is suppose to apply precedent to all legal matters has, with the Internet, not applied precedent. Rather, new rules have been written for application to anything Net-related. This is great material for conspiracy theorists. However, is it simply a problem of techies unable to communicate to the legal community (i.e.: "Open Source = Anti-copyright")? Even if it was, how could techies communicate with the legal sector? Free luncheon conferences? Campaign donations? ABA and state bar advertisements? Frustrating.
Comparing the public's interest in space exploration now with the '60s, it seems that the public does not care. Possibly the public embraced space exploration during the '60s as a means of 'hoping for better things.' During war, corruption and the cold war, space exploration was a 'happy thing', something that people could get excited about. Now, we are busier with our lives, no cold war worries and, sure, corruption is still around. What would motivate the U.S. and other nations to have a renewed interest in space exploration? I have never heard the issue raised during the presidential-race. The public generally does not care? No mission to mars? Alpha-centauri? Am I crazy? Should I lead an isolated life and join one of Joe Firmage's funky organizations?
Jobs' presentation provided a Photoshop (TM) shootout between a dual-processor 500 MHz Power Mac G4 and a single processor 1 GHz Pentium. As expected, the PowerPC finished the test in about half the time it took the PC. I haven't had an Apple since //e. With Power Mac's current performance and the 'coolness' of OS X, I really might get a new toy soon. However, I recently browsed a Goodwill ComputerWorks store for the heck of it and found it to mainly be a graveyard of Apples (original Macs $3).
The site of the eventual fate of most Macs was scary, but I just don't see a dual-processor 500 MHz Power Mac G4 being out-dated any time soon (?).
From nic.us: Domain names cannot be of the form .us or ..us.
You can apply for a delegation of a locality (third-level) name or an fourth-level name, but you should not apply for the delegation for a specific host or function (such as "www").
The domain name for an organization, company, or individual should only be of the form ...us.
Although the site states that an individual or business can register a name, it looks like a pain in the butt (unless you are a local government, school or museum) and too restrictive to allow for a business or individual to get a domain name.
Governments have overwhelmingly opened up their .xx for use by the public/corporations. But, not .us -- as far as I know, .us remains under government control, right? Sure, people in the U.S. can use .com, .org, etc. But so does everyone else.
This seems 'unusual' for the U.S. government. What's up?
Understanding that OS X is essentially the 'next' Nextstep and I'm impressed by OS X features, I wonder what the probability is of Apple porting it to Intel? I guess slim, if I have a desire of actually purchasing an Apple (would be first since //e) to enjoy this fine looking OS. I guess thats what they want, more Mac purchases.
But, if Apple would port it...