I read today that you are propounding the idea that "copyright owners" should be given legal permission to destroy private property, without going through the Courts and following due process. I'm no United States Senator, but my understanding of the Constitution is that "in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." Granted, that's only the seventh amendment to the Constitution, not one of the more famous ones like the fifth (which states you cannot be deprived of property without due process) or the fourteenth (which states that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States).
Again, I'm no US Senator, but it sure seems to me that your position is about as unconstitutional as they come. I respectfully submit you should rethink your position, Senator Hatch.
I seem to recall scenes where they were pumping the water they so desperately needed back into the ocean. So water was the key, it was the food.
And don't forget, the Visitors were carnivores. Any carnivore intelligence is going to think of solutions to food problems differently than omnivores like us would. We see "not enough food" and think "grow more", they see "not enough food" and think "catch more."
Along the same lines, it seems like radio stations are getting away with a lot more nowadays when they're owned by big companies. Clear Channel (everyone's favorite group of oligarchs) owns many of the stations here in LA, including Star98.7, the one I listen to the most. Their morning show, Jamie and Danny (starring Danny Partridge), is getting worse and worse about calling people "assholes" on the air. Personally, I don't care. But you just know there's some little old lady in Pasadena, having a conniption everytime Jamie yells "asshole" like she's suffering from Touret's.
"So, briefly, when Qwest promised to sell me DSL service which included 8 static IP addresses for $43.90 per month, and then after installing the DSL told me that the 8 static IP addresses would cost an additional $14.95 per month, they were in breach of contract and had committed fraud?"
Sounds like it. Did you contact your state's public utility commision, or equivilant?
"Same with DeCSS -- you can use it to facilitate illegal copying, or you can use it for legitimate purposes, like creating backups, viewing the media on devices lacking a built-in DeCSS equivalent, copy short excerpts you are entitled to for journalistic or educational purposes under fair use, or exercising your public right to copy the works once the copyrights expire."
The problem with this is that it can be argued you don't need DeCSS do any of this. Let's look at each one, one a time.
Creating backups: The MPAA and DVD publishers can argue that you do not have the right to make "backups", which are really just copies of their content. You can't make a "backup" of a book, same thing with a movie or TV show.
Viewing on non-CSS compliant devices: It can be argued that these devices are not properly licensed, therefore viewing DVDs on them is illegale according to the terms of the contract you have with the DVD publisher (see my previous comment).
Fair use copying by journalists or students: Most providers will provide at no or little cost (usually just the shipping cost) excerpts of their content for editorial purposes. It may not be as convenient to write to a publisher for excerpts, but since they provide an alternative this use doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.
Copying works after copyright expires: Haa-ha-ha-ha! Copyrights expire?? Yeah, right. <wipes tears of laughter from eyes> Seriously, though, when the copyright on a work expires, the previous holder of that copyright is under no legal, or moral, compulsion to make it easy, or even possible, for you to make copies of the work.
You might think DeCSS is a harmless tool that only allows people who have legimately purchased content to view that content, and I'm even inclined to agree with that, but the truth is there's no way you can spin it to win in court. Every "legimate" use of DeCSS can be too easily countered in front of the judge.
Actually, all a contract needs is an agreement by two parties. For a good overview of contract law, see the Cornell Law Library's overview.
Briefly, a contract is a legally enforcable promise between two people. The terms of the contract can be pretty much anything, all it takes is both parties' agreement to the terms. If a DVD publisher sells you a DVD with the promise you can play it for your own personal use, with the provisions that you not gain financially by it and that you only play it on previously approved devices, that's fine. Your agreement to those terms is sealed when you promise to pay $20 for that DVD, and then do so.
It seems like the focus of the new games section is going to only be computer games. What about the latest news from Games Workshop, or TSR, or Wizkids? Surprisingly, some of us enjoy playing games that require a little more imagination and/or artistic ability than just killing your best friend with an Uzi (not that that isn't fun itself, mind you).
"Of course, I havn't purchased Band-Aid brand adhesive strips in a while, but I do have a five year old vat of Vasaline brand petrolium jelly (got married just under five years ago)."
Totally offtopic, but was I the only one who read that and said "What the fuck?", then thought about it and said "Eeewwww!!!"
People, if you insist on submitting stories from The NY Times, replace 'www' with 'archive'. This isn't rocket science. Hell, it doesn't even count as computer science.
"The US could have a good go, but im sorry the sum of every other Nation out there DOES outweigh the US"
I'm sorry, when you say the "US", you mean the United States, right? Not some other country? Because according to the CIA's World Fact Book (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos ), the military spending of the United States is $60 billion more than the combined spending of Great Britain, France, Russia, China (the other four permanent members of the Security Council), and Japan, Germany, Canada, and Italy (the other members of the G8). So, if the difference between how much we spend on our military, and how much all of those "great" countries spend on theirs is greater than the next largest spender (China, between $20 and $60 billion, depending on how you count it), who, exactly, do you think can stand up to us?
Oh, and those are 2002 figures. From what I understand, 2003 is gonna be a bumper year for military spending in the States.
Actually, maybe not. I'm a sysadmin in the Navy (IT2, that's SGT to you, ground pounder), and with BAQ, BHA, BAS, completely free medical, per diem, 30 days vacation a year, and so forth and so on, I'm making roughly the equilivant of about $50,000 a year. There are some sysad jobs out there now making far less than that, and my last civilian job didn't pay much more.
Of course, being in a hostile fire zone (read: no taxes) helps some.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"...because by looking to the past, we can truly predict the future."
Only if we fail to learn from it.
And where's what I wrote:
Sir-
I read today that you are propounding the idea that "copyright owners" should be given legal permission to destroy private property, without going through the Courts and following due process. I'm no United States Senator, but my understanding of the Constitution is that "in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." Granted, that's only the seventh amendment to the Constitution, not one of the more famous ones like the fifth (which states you cannot be deprived of property without due process) or the fourteenth (which states that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States).
Again, I'm no US Senator, but it sure seems to me that your position is about as unconstitutional as they come. I respectfully submit you should rethink your position, Senator Hatch.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
I seem to recall scenes where they were pumping the water they so desperately needed back into the ocean. So water was the key, it was the food.
And don't forget, the Visitors were carnivores. Any carnivore intelligence is going to think of solutions to food problems differently than omnivores like us would. We see "not enough food" and think "grow more", they see "not enough food" and think "catch more."
"I want to know what kind of wine goes best with human."
Why, a nice Chianti, of course!
"As the other fellow said, who replied Al-J and these "other" news sites were not blocked on a national level.
Oh, no, they were just really slow all over the world for no good reason. "
You must be new here. This is called the "Slashdot effect." Most likely, more people were trying to go to Al Jazeera's servers than they could handle.
"I work in a mixed Perl and Java shop...There's a distrust of public-domain software here...."
What's there that doesn't make any sense??
Your company doesn't trust "public-domain software", but codes in Perl??
Along the same lines, it seems like radio stations are getting away with a lot more nowadays when they're owned by big companies. Clear Channel (everyone's favorite group of oligarchs) owns many of the stations here in LA, including Star98.7, the one I listen to the most. Their morning show, Jamie and Danny (starring Danny Partridge), is getting worse and worse about calling people "assholes" on the air. Personally, I don't care. But you just know there's some little old lady in Pasadena, having a conniption everytime Jamie yells "asshole" like she's suffering from Touret's.
"Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?"
Apparently not you, as it should be "...to whom will you speak it?"
"So, briefly, when Qwest promised to sell me DSL service which included 8 static IP addresses for $43.90 per month, and then after installing the DSL told me that the 8 static IP addresses would cost an additional $14.95 per month, they were in breach of contract and had committed fraud?"
Sounds like it. Did you contact your state's public utility commision, or equivilant?
"Same with DeCSS -- you can use it to facilitate illegal copying, or you can use it for legitimate purposes, like creating backups, viewing the media on devices lacking a built-in DeCSS equivalent, copy short excerpts you are entitled to for journalistic or educational purposes under fair use, or exercising your public right to copy the works once the copyrights expire."
The problem with this is that it can be argued you don't need DeCSS do any of this. Let's look at each one, one a time.
Creating backups: The MPAA and DVD publishers can argue that you do not have the right to make "backups", which are really just copies of their content. You can't make a "backup" of a book, same thing with a movie or TV show.
Viewing on non-CSS compliant devices: It can be argued that these devices are not properly licensed, therefore viewing DVDs on them is illegale according to the terms of the contract you have with the DVD publisher (see my previous comment).
Fair use copying by journalists or students: Most providers will provide at no or little cost (usually just the shipping cost) excerpts of their content for editorial purposes. It may not be as convenient to write to a publisher for excerpts, but since they provide an alternative this use doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.
Copying works after copyright expires: Haa-ha-ha-ha! Copyrights expire?? Yeah, right. <wipes tears of laughter from eyes> Seriously, though, when the copyright on a work expires, the previous holder of that copyright is under no legal, or moral, compulsion to make it easy, or even possible, for you to make copies of the work.
You might think DeCSS is a harmless tool that only allows people who have legimately purchased content to view that content, and I'm even inclined to agree with that, but the truth is there's no way you can spin it to win in court. Every "legimate" use of DeCSS can be too easily countered in front of the judge.
Actually, all a contract needs is an agreement by two parties. For a good overview of contract law, see the Cornell Law Library's overview.
Briefly, a contract is a legally enforcable promise between two people. The terms of the contract can be pretty much anything, all it takes is both parties' agreement to the terms. If a DVD publisher sells you a DVD with the promise you can play it for your own personal use, with the provisions that you not gain financially by it and that you only play it on previously approved devices, that's fine. Your agreement to those terms is sealed when you promise to pay $20 for that DVD, and then do so.
I'm not sure which is funnier, your comment, or the fact that your comment was modded "Insightful".
Yeah, I thought scientists had switched to lawyers by now. Afterall, there are some things even a rat wouldn't do.
"Why do you think we're so damn good at hockey?"
;)
I thought it was because you were a nation of really mean drunks?
It seems like the focus of the new games section is going to only be computer games. What about the latest news from Games Workshop, or TSR, or Wizkids? Surprisingly, some of us enjoy playing games that require a little more imagination and/or artistic ability than just killing your best friend with an Uzi (not that that isn't fun itself, mind you).
"Of course, I havn't purchased Band-Aid brand adhesive strips in a while, but I do have a five year old vat of Vasaline brand petrolium jelly (got married just under five years ago)."
Totally offtopic, but was I the only one who read that and said "What the fuck?", then thought about it and said "Eeewwww!!!"
Like so
"The US could have a good go, but im sorry the sum of every other Nation out there DOES outweigh the US"
s ), the military spending of the United States is $60 billion more than the combined spending of Great Britain, France, Russia, China (the other four permanent members of the Security Council), and Japan, Germany, Canada, and Italy (the other members of the G8). So, if the difference between how much we spend on our military, and how much all of those "great" countries spend on theirs is greater than the next largest spender (China, between $20 and $60 billion, depending on how you count it), who, exactly, do you think can stand up to us?
I'm sorry, when you say the "US", you mean the United States, right? Not some other country? Because according to the CIA's World Fact Book (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Oh, and those are 2002 figures. From what I understand, 2003 is gonna be a bumper year for military spending in the States.
I think it's safe to say that those of us who are unconcerned about Mr. Hawash's predicament have not, nor will ever, donate to Greenpeace.
"Let me start with my "qualifications": I have four kids, aged one to five. While I cannot claim to know everything..."
Including, apparently, how to avoid getting your wife pregnant.
It would seem an engine made from sponge cake, rubber bands, and tea would be more, er, probable.
Actually, maybe not. I'm a sysadmin in the Navy (IT2, that's SGT to you, ground pounder), and with BAQ, BHA, BAS, completely free medical, per diem, 30 days vacation a year, and so forth and so on, I'm making roughly the equilivant of about $50,000 a year. There are some sysad jobs out there now making far less than that, and my last civilian job didn't pay much more.
:)
Of course, being in a hostile fire zone (read: no taxes) helps some.
"Then submit a story about it to slashdot. Then submit the story half a dozen more times."
Why? It's not they'd post the same story six times, right?
Near the Netherlands? I thought you said "nice climate"?
You don't mean Sealand, do you?
"If this is a crime it is like prostitution then."
But not nearly as much fun.