Professors, and the institutions, are asserting an intellectual property right to a student's notes on the content of lectures. They're dreaming. No such right exists.
Intellectual property rights only apply to ideas that have been reduced to fixed form. Fixed form means "written down" or "recorded"--only the fixed form of an idea is protected by copyright, the idea itself is not. Until the idea is reduced to fixed form it is just so much hot air.
For example, suppose I get up on stage and present a hilarious, moving expression--in rap--of the tribal customs of my ancestors (Scots) entitled "Getting Naked and Painting My Body Blue". If I have written those rap lyrics down beforehand, I can assert an intellectual property right. If you copy them down and repeat them, I can sue. But if I just start shouting extemporaneously, I have no rights--the words have not been reduced to fixed form.
An excellent example of this was Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Consider how many times you have heard that speech. Now ask yourself--why don't Dr. King's children collect royalties on that speech? They can't--King spoke extemporaneously. The written copies of the speech were made from film footage of the event.
In the case of classroom notes the situation is made even easier--the written notes reflect the creative work of the note-taker. Suppose that you and I attend a lecture by Prof. Chris Berman at the University of Bristol. My notes might include lots of information about what Berman wore, what the lecture hall looked like, whether he looked smaller or larger than he appears on TV, and what the general reaction of the audience was. Your notes might indicate what Berman actually said. The difference between my notes and yours is the creative content that you and I add. And what each of us reduces to fixed form is our intellectual property.
But wait, there's more... The university isn't just wrong in asserting that it owns the rights to the notes--it is wrong to assert in its code of conduct that students do not. Unless a student surrenders his intellectual property rights to all creative work when he enrolls, the university is infringing upon his rights to dispense with his property (his creative work) for however much he can make.
An artless society that lives on theft and dissrespect is not who I desire to write and perform music for.I find the napsterites to be just another symptom of a society that no longer values personal responsibility or creativity.
When people expect a handout or as the old pick-pockets of old used to say a light fingered touch to be the source of compensation then eventually the theif will get what he or she deserves for the oft' picked pocket soon is empty.
Just because something can be stolen does not mean that there always be something there to steal. As a musician I am becoming less and less interested in offering myself and my work: yes my intelectual property up to the wolves.
If the theives would try to create they would have less time to steal and that would be good for all of us and maybe the value of creativity would not be dinigrated as it is now.
What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Bush: I believe all minorities has a place in our churches. In the great state of Texas, we've introduced legislation that ensures that our children won't be discriminated upon in their respective religions.
Gore: Well, Electric, there's a reader in this forum right now, Booker, user ID 6173. Booker spent most of his childhood being humiliated for his homosexual tendencies and his pronounced limp. When Booker began practicing Shinto, he was further ostracized from his community. I think it's a travesty that a person like Booker can't exercise his right to practice the religion of his choice without fear of persecution from other Slashbots. That's why the very first religion bill I will send to Congress will make it illegal to call him nasty names on the Web.
I really don't see what you guys are getting so excited about. What sets QNX apart from all the other commercial RTOSes out there? It's a commercial endeavour! Yes, you can download a demo disk. But you don't get full source and you're not allowed to use it for any real work. Sounds pretty much like VxWorks or any one of the dozens of other competitors to me. Call them, they'll send you a free demo too!
Read the FAQ. Their opinions are stated in plain view:
Q: Why doesn't QNX provide source to the kernel and other core OS modules?
A: Because QNX developers don't need kernel source to extend the OS.
Anyone who's ever done serious work in embedded systems know the kernel source is absolutely essential for debugging, not only the application but also the kernel. All OSes contain kernel bugs. They're a pain to find and fix without source, and those of us who've been there are not going back lightheartedly. You all know this, that's why we're embracing open source. How come so many of you are now eager to jump back into the dark hole that is proprietary software?
For embedded work, there's ECOS already. It's Free Software and runs on a dozen different CPUs, with new ports coming all the time. If you want the 3D acceleration, anti-aliases graphics and macromedia player, you're probably not looking for embedded stuff in the first place.
Sure, QNX is fun. Play away. But it isn't the future.
I just looked through your recent comments, and I have some advice. If you're going to post such nonsense, you need to develop thicker skin, like me. Just admit you're a troll & live with the consequences. It's not a bad lifestyle. You're almost there, anyway, because you post from your account, instead of as an AC.
In the future, patents might be a way to protect protocol freedom. GNU is opposed to software patents, but a protocol itself really isn't software, and I see no reason why they could not create a patent version of the GPL. Just as GNU uses copyright law, in the form of the GPL, to protect software freedom, they might be able to use patent law to protect the freedom of protocols.
Kids who are fourteen years old right now will be eligible to vote in the 2004 election. Their generation has never know a time when there was no Web. To them, surfing the Net is as normal as having a phone conversation - maybe more. They will be the driving force in the next political shift.
A simple IP-level auto-negotiating protocol would be enough to stop all passive sniffers, while a few people exchanging their keys using an external channel (physically or maybe via encrypted email) could detect any MITM attack (since a MITM relies in being able to change the keys being used, and it would be easy to check if they don't match). It could protect any protocol, including UDP-based protocols, unlike TLS which can only be used with TCP-based protocols.
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Professors, and the institutions, are asserting an intellectual property right to a student's notes on the content of lectures. They're dreaming. No such right exists.
Intellectual property rights only apply to ideas that have been reduced to fixed form. Fixed form means "written down" or "recorded"--only the fixed form of an idea is protected by copyright, the idea itself is not. Until the idea is reduced to fixed form it is just so much hot air.
For example, suppose I get up on stage and present a hilarious, moving expression--in rap--of the tribal customs of my ancestors (Scots) entitled "Getting Naked and Painting My Body Blue". If I have written those rap lyrics down beforehand, I can assert an intellectual property right. If you copy them down and repeat them, I can sue. But if I just start shouting extemporaneously, I have no rights--the words have not been reduced to fixed form.
An excellent example of this was Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Consider how many times you have heard that speech. Now ask yourself--why don't Dr. King's children collect royalties on that speech? They can't--King spoke extemporaneously. The written copies of the speech were made from film footage of the event.
In the case of classroom notes the situation is made even easier--the written notes reflect the creative work of the note-taker. Suppose that you and I attend a lecture by Prof. Chris Berman at the University of Bristol. My notes might include lots of information about what Berman wore, what the lecture hall looked like, whether he looked smaller or larger than he appears on TV, and what the general reaction of the audience was. Your notes might indicate what Berman actually said. The difference between my notes and yours is the creative content that you and I add. And what each of us reduces to fixed form is our intellectual property.
But wait, there's more...
The university isn't just wrong in asserting that it owns the rights to the notes--it is wrong to assert in its code of conduct that students do not. Unless a student surrenders his intellectual property rights to all creative work when he enrolls, the university is infringing upon his rights to dispense with his property (his creative work) for however much he can make.
The university is blowing smoke.
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It was a legitimate question.
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As you might have guessed, I didn't actually read the article ; )
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Read the comments. You are the exception, not the rule.
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When people expect a handout or as the old pick-pockets of old used to say a light fingered touch to be the source of compensation then eventually the theif will get what he or she deserves for the oft' picked pocket soon is empty.
Just because something can be stolen does not mean that there always be something there to steal. As a musician I am becoming less and less interested in offering myself and my work: yes my intelectual property up to the wolves.
If the theives would try to create they would have less time to steal and that would be good for all of us and maybe the value of creativity would not be dinigrated as it is now.
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Bush: I believe all minorities has a place in our churches. In the great state of Texas, we've introduced legislation that ensures that our children won't be discriminated upon in their respective religions.
Gore: Well, Electric, there's a reader in this forum right now, Booker, user ID 6173. Booker spent most of his childhood being humiliated for his homosexual tendencies and his pronounced limp. When Booker began practicing Shinto, he was further ostracized from his community. I think it's a travesty that a person like Booker can't exercise his right to practice the religion of his choice without fear of persecution from other Slashbots. That's why the very first religion bill I will send to Congress will make it illegal to call him nasty names on the Web.
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Read the FAQ. Their opinions are stated in plain view:
Q: Why doesn't QNX provide source to the kernel and other core OS modules?
A: Because QNX developers don't need kernel source to extend the OS.
Anyone who's ever done serious work in embedded systems know the kernel source is absolutely essential for debugging, not only the application but also the kernel. All OSes contain kernel bugs. They're a pain to find and fix without source, and those of us who've been there are not going back lightheartedly. You all know this, that's why we're embracing open source. How come so many of you are now eager to jump back into the dark hole that is proprietary software?
For embedded work, there's ECOS already. It's Free Software and runs on a dozen different CPUs, with new ports coming all the time. If you want the 3D acceleration, anti-aliases graphics and macromedia player, you're probably not looking for embedded stuff in the first place.
Sure, QNX is fun. Play away. But it isn't the future.
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Your Al Gore-like hyperbole only serves to discount the message you're trying to convey.
As far as your personal attack on me (I'm assuming that's not your sig), go fuck yourself. I was attempting to be helpful.
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This hack only works for vector-based games.
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If Ellison violates the legal agreement he made by using the software, then he should be prepared to suffer the consequences.
Nobody forced him to accept the terms of Microsoft's licensing agreement.
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Kids who are fourteen years old right now will be eligible to vote in the 2004 election. Their generation has never know a time when there was no Web. To them, surfing the Net is as normal as having a phone conversation - maybe more. They will be the driving force in the next political shift.
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OTOH, the Karma Cap makes any positive moderation irrelevant, at least for a week or two, when his Karma is depleted.
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The vast majority of calls to tech support are from people too stupid to comprehend the fucking manual even if they bothered to read it.
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