No, smaller companies would not benefit from A La Carte pricing. The smaller channels would by defination have fewer viewers, which already means they get less monoy from advertisers. Under a la carte, since they would have to charge more per viewer to keep their income the same.
If a small channel can currently get by with charging a cable company $.20 per subscriber, and they are only able to get 1 in 20 people to subscribe to that channel, then they would have to charge $4 per subscriber to keep their income level. Then remember something - the single most watched non-premium cable show last week got a 3.5 share. That means only 3.5% of households watched that show.
Since the opportunity cose per subscriber is extremely low (opportunity cost is how much more it would cost to serve an additional subscriber), and the sunk cost is high (the costs you have no matter how many customers you have), the popular channels would be able to charge less while the niche channels would have to charge more to be able to meet their costs.
Unfortunately, your examples don't quite fit together - and the difference is important.
Killfiles and Pop-up blockers: These two are basically the equivalent of changing the channel. They do not edit the content of a work, they simply remove it.
Commerical-skip button on TiVo: This can create an unauthorised derivative work, however this use will most of the time fall under fair use, as it is for personal use and not for redistribution.
Auto-editing DVD players: It is not so much the fact that it is editing the work as it is the method by which it does so. If the DVD player were editing on some sort of algorithim it would likely be ok, but the DVD player in question is editing by a set of instructions laid out on a per-movie basis. Since those instructions have no meaning outside of the context of the movie they are set to edit - those instructions themselves are a derivative work.
The true copyright problem with the auto-censoring DVD player is not that it is used to create derivative works, since that could be covered by fair use, but the fact that it is USING an unauthorised derivative work to edit the movie.
You miss one important distinction between you using the fast forward/skip buttons and the player using a set of instructions to do the same.
Both of these are creating an unauthorized derivative work of the origional. The diference is, if it is you hitting the fast forward buttons, then you are creating that derivative work for personal use, which falls under fair use of the material.
The problem with the player doing it by third party instructions is that those instructions are a derivative work of the movie in question, and that derivative work is being distributed without the authorization of the copyright holder. And it is no longer fair use, because those instructions are not just for personal use.
You are correct about the DMCA not applying, but the old standard copyright code does apply.
1. The shopping networks actually lower the costs for your programming as those chanels pay Dish to have their programming on. If you remove them then Dish would have to raise prices to compensate.
2. There are a grand total of 4 forign language channels in Dish network's standard package.
3. If you are paying ~$60/month - then you have more than just the 120 channel package (given that the 180 channel pachage is $45/month)
And I'm sorry - but bitching about Dish or DirectTV bundling channels is completely moronic given that they do not have a choice but to bundle programming because that is the only way that Viacom/Disney/Time Warner will allow them to sell it.
"Dish and Direct TV both should be forced to carry programming on a RAND basis. Their customers should be able to choose what they want with a finer grained degree than they do now."
And you actually beleive that it is the cable/dish companies who are forcing the bundling?
Wrong, the bundling is being forced on them by the media companies. Given the cost of some of the channels (Like ESPN) the Cable/Dish companies would love to be able to make those channels as seperate a la carte programming - but Disney (the owners of ESPN) will not allow companies to purchase ESPN unless it will be placed in the first general tier of programming (and usually they also require that the company purchase a number of other channels from them as well)
If you want regulation, then you had better start with the content producers, because the Cable/Dish providers do not currently have any other choice.
A method to receive financial gain? OK. Whatever. I'll agree. But what the hell does that have to do with SCO's claim?
The claim in question, that the GPL is unconstitutional because, he claims, it does not have a profit motive. However, since the GPL does receive ''financial gain'' in the form of the expectation of something in return, then McBride's arguement fails to hold water.
The term ''financial gain'' includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.
This states that the recipt of other copyrighted works is an item having value for purposes of what is considered ''financial gain''. Now if receiving a copyrighted work has value, then how can receiving the right to copy a copyrighted work not have value?
Since receiving, or expecting to receive anything of value is considered financial gain, and receiving the right to copy a work does have value, then the GPL does qualify as a method to receive financial gain.
Since SCO is claiming ownership of code that includes GPL'd code - and now are obviously rejecting the terms of that license - therefore they no longer have any rights to distribute that code in any form.
SCO is now in in violation of the copyrights of every person who has code in the kernel.
Actually - the GPL is both a *use* and a *redistribution* license. It explicitly states that the act of running the program is not restricted.(section 0 of the GPL)
If you expressly allowed for conversion of in-game property for real world property then there are I beleive eleven states where the game would be illegal.
For example - the Magic the Gathering:Online service had a method by which if you got a complete set of cards in the game, you could basically cash those virtual cards out for the real world cards. Because of this the EULA basically says that people in a list of states (Arizona - where I live being one of them) are not allowed to sign up for accounts.
As if it will matter...
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Who cares if it can do 150 Mbit?
Nobody is going to run that kind of pipe out to the CO.
If we are worried about them changing the rules 28 years from now then all that needs to be done is place a poison pill into the bill.
Put something in the bill that states that if any part of that section is amended or stricken then all current copyrights are immediately and irrevocably placed into the public domain.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Cyrptonomicon, The Diamond Age) Guy Gavreil Key (The Fionavar Tapestry) Lois McMaster Bujold (the Vorkosigan books) Mercedes Lackey (the Valdemar novels) Michael A. Stackpole (Dragoncrown cycle) Spider Robinson (the early Callahan books)
and a must read: Terry Pratchett (Diskworld novels)
To be a charitable org one has to apply for and receive the charitable status from the IRS (which have nice guidelines like you cannot profit from the business of a charity - the proceeds must all go to the charitable uses)
I know - I used to be on the board of directors for a 501(c)(3) charity.
I beleive you are mistaken as to what the people here actually beleive. The vast majority of the people here are not against the idea of copyright (GPL could not exist without the concept that the creator of a work has the right to say what can be done with their work) - what many of us are against is the current implementation of copyright in perpetuity.
Copyright needs to be a balance between the need of the creators to be able to have the ability to make money off of their works with the needs of the public to have unfettered access to those works - both to keep thous works from being lost and to have the ability to build upon those works.
The fact that some of those works are being lost to us because the owners of those works cannot be found is something I personally find obscene.
If a writer really feels that they need to own their works for long enough that their children will likely be dead (70 years after their death) - If they feel that that is the needed balance point for them to create - then let me speak for the world in saying don't bother.
Not only could you not sell those pictures - but the simple fact that you are in posession of those pictures could get you arrested and jailed for child pornography.(And you could have been hit for the same back when you took them)
Does anyone else find it vaguely stupid that by the laws of this country you can be arrested and jailed for taking a picture of yourself doing something perfectly legal?
This decision in no way takes any power away from the states.
All this ruling does is tell the Florida Supreme court that 1. It did not seem to take into account federal laws that govern presidential elections and 2. the decision was not clear enough to rule of any legality of the Florida decision.
In other words - the U.S. Supreme court is telling the Florida Supreme court to take federal law into account and rethink their decision. The final decision is still with the Florida Supreme court - and if they really want to they can defy the federal "Safe Harbor" law - but the U.S. Supreme court has ADVISED them that if they do, do not be suprised when U.S. Congress challenges their Electors.
>Capital gains certainly isn't money from honest >labor, since it doesn't involve any labor. Right >now capital gains taxes are much lower than taxes for other sorts of income, which seems >quite unfair.
So, a company that does not have a lot of money decided to entice talented workers to work for them with stock options - the stock goes up and those workers get their money... According to you that involves no labor.
Actually the author, in all of the cases you just mentioned, is not talking about reverse engineering.
Changing cosmetic apperance is not reverse engineering, copying a design is not reverse engineering, and going past the limits of a license agreement is not reverse engineering.
So again I ask - how is reverse engineering theft?
One problem there - actual reverse engineering - cycling through all possible inputs and recording the outputs, then creating a clean-room implementation that gives the same outputs - is NOT theft (unless the new implementation infringes on someones patent - which has nothing to do with the reverse engineering process).
To put it plainly - there is no such thing as "full out felonious theft", all theft is unlawfull - reverse engineering is not unlawfull - therefore reverse engineering is NOT theft.
'Theft' by it's very nature implies something illegal.
From Webster:
Main Entry: theft
Pronunciation: 'theft
Function: noun Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thIefth; akin to Old English thEof thief
Date: before 12th century
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
2 obsolete : something stolen
3 : a stolen base in baseball
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No, smaller companies would not benefit from A La Carte pricing. The smaller channels would by defination have fewer viewers, which already means they get less monoy from advertisers. Under a la carte, since they would have to charge more per viewer to keep their income the same.
If a small channel can currently get by with charging a cable company $.20 per subscriber, and they are only able to get 1 in 20 people to subscribe to that channel, then they would have to charge $4 per subscriber to keep their income level. Then remember something - the single most watched non-premium cable show last week got a 3.5 share. That means only 3.5% of households watched that show.
Since the opportunity cose per subscriber is extremely low (opportunity cost is how much more it would cost to serve an additional subscriber), and the sunk cost is high (the costs you have no matter how many customers you have), the popular channels would be able to charge less while the niche channels would have to charge more to be able to meet their costs.
Unfortunately, your examples don't quite fit together - and the difference is important.
Killfiles and Pop-up blockers: These two are basically the equivalent of changing the channel. They do not edit the content of a work, they simply remove it.
Commerical-skip button on TiVo: This can create an unauthorised derivative work, however this use will most of the time fall under fair use, as it is for personal use and not for redistribution.
Auto-editing DVD players: It is not so much the fact that it is editing the work as it is the method by which it does so. If the DVD player were editing on some sort of algorithim it would likely be ok, but the DVD player in question is editing by a set of instructions laid out on a per-movie basis. Since those instructions have no meaning outside of the context of the movie they are set to edit - those instructions themselves are a derivative work.
The true copyright problem with the auto-censoring DVD player is not that it is used to create derivative works, since that could be covered by fair use, but the fact that it is USING an unauthorised derivative work to edit the movie.
You miss one important distinction between you using the fast forward/skip buttons and the player using a set of instructions to do the same.
Both of these are creating an unauthorized derivative work of the origional. The diference is, if it is you hitting the fast forward buttons, then you are creating that derivative work for personal use, which falls under fair use of the material.
The problem with the player doing it by third party instructions is that those instructions are a derivative work of the movie in question, and that derivative work is being distributed without the authorization of the copyright holder. And it is no longer fair use, because those instructions are not just for personal use.
You are correct about the DMCA not applying, but the old standard copyright code does apply.
A couple of points.
1. The shopping networks actually lower the costs for your programming as those chanels pay Dish to have their programming on. If you remove them then Dish would have to raise prices to compensate.
2. There are a grand total of 4 forign language channels in Dish network's standard package.
3. If you are paying ~$60/month - then you have more than just the 120 channel package (given that the 180 channel pachage is $45/month)
And I'm sorry - but bitching about Dish or DirectTV bundling channels is completely moronic given that they do not have a choice but to bundle programming because that is the only way that Viacom/Disney/Time Warner will allow them to sell it.
"Dish and Direct TV both should be forced to carry programming on a RAND basis. Their customers should be able to choose what they want with a finer grained degree than they do now."
And you actually beleive that it is the cable/dish companies who are forcing the bundling?
Wrong, the bundling is being forced on them by the media companies. Given the cost of some of the channels (Like ESPN) the Cable/Dish companies would love to be able to make those channels as seperate a la carte programming - but Disney (the owners of ESPN) will not allow companies to purchase ESPN unless it will be placed in the first general tier of programming (and usually they also require that the company purchase a number of other channels from them as well)
If you want regulation, then you had better start with the content producers, because the Cable/Dish providers do not currently have any other choice.
You bet, the old IBMs or the Northgate Omnikeys.
Luckily there are a few places that are still making quality buckling spring keyboards.
http://www.pckeyboard.com/
A method to receive financial gain? OK. Whatever. I'll agree. But what the hell does that have to do with SCO's claim?
The claim in question, that the GPL is unconstitutional because, he claims, it does not have a profit motive. However, since the GPL does receive ''financial gain'' in the form of the expectation of something in return, then McBride's arguement fails to hold water.
You continue to completely miss the point.
The term ''financial gain'' includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.
This states that the recipt of other copyrighted works is an item having value for purposes of what is considered ''financial gain''. Now if receiving a copyrighted work has value, then how can receiving the right to copy a copyrighted work not have value?
Since receiving, or expecting to receive anything of value is considered financial gain, and receiving the right to copy a work does have value, then the GPL does qualify as a method to receive financial gain.
Cygwin and PuTTY?
You do know that Cygwin has ssh, right?
Since SCO is claiming ownership of code that includes GPL'd code - and now are obviously rejecting the terms of that license - therefore they no longer have any rights to distribute that code in any form.
SCO is now in in violation of the copyrights of every person who has code in the kernel.
Actually - the GPL is both a *use* and a *redistribution* license. It explicitly states that the act of running the program is not restricted.(section 0 of the GPL)
If you expressly allowed for conversion of in-game property for real world property then there are I beleive eleven states where the game would be illegal.
For example - the Magic the Gathering:Online service had a method by which if you got a complete set of cards in the game, you could basically cash those virtual cards out for the real world cards. Because of this the EULA basically says that people in a list of states (Arizona - where I live being one of them) are not allowed to sign up for accounts.
Who cares if it can do 150 Mbit?
Nobody is going to run that kind of pipe out to the CO.
If we are worried about them changing the rules
28 years from now then all that needs to be done is place a poison pill into the bill.
Put something in the bill that states that if any part of that section is amended or stricken then all current copyrights are immediately and irrevocably placed into the public domain.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Cyrptonomicon, The Diamond Age)
:-)
Guy Gavreil Key (The Fionavar Tapestry)
Lois McMaster Bujold (the Vorkosigan books)
Mercedes Lackey (the Valdemar novels)
Michael A. Stackpole (Dragoncrown cycle)
Spider Robinson (the early Callahan books)
and a must read:
Terry Pratchett (Diskworld novels)
Those should keep you busy for a while
No, it won't.
To be a charitable org one has to apply for and receive the charitable status from the IRS (which have nice guidelines like you cannot profit from the business of a charity - the proceeds must all go to the charitable uses)
I know - I used to be on the board of directors for a 501(c)(3) charity.
I beleive you are mistaken as to what the people here actually beleive. The vast majority of the people here are not against the idea of copyright (GPL could not exist without the concept that the creator of a work has the right to say what can be done with their work) - what many of us are against is the current implementation of copyright in perpetuity.
Copyright needs to be a balance between the need of the creators to be able to have the ability to make money off of their works with the needs of the public to have unfettered access to those works - both to keep thous works from being lost and to have the ability to build upon those works.
The fact that some of those works are being lost to us because the owners of those works cannot be found is something I personally find obscene.
If a writer really feels that they need to own their works for long enough that their children will likely be dead (70 years after their death) - If they feel that that is the needed balance point for them to create - then let me speak for the world in saying don't bother.
Not only could you not sell those pictures - but the simple fact that you are in posession of those pictures could get you arrested and jailed for child pornography.(And you could have been hit for the same back when you took them)
Does anyone else find it vaguely stupid that by the laws of this country you can be arrested and jailed for taking a picture of yourself doing something perfectly legal?
...writing this headline?
This decision in no way takes any power away from the states.
All this ruling does is tell the Florida Supreme court that 1. It did not seem to take into account federal laws that govern presidential elections and 2. the decision was not clear enough to rule of any legality of the Florida decision.
In other words - the U.S. Supreme court is telling the Florida Supreme court to take federal law into account and rethink their decision. The final decision is still with the Florida Supreme court - and if they really want to they can defy the federal "Safe Harbor" law - but the U.S. Supreme court has ADVISED them that if they do, do not be suprised when U.S. Congress challenges their Electors.
-Nick
>Capital gains certainly isn't money from honest
>labor, since it doesn't involve any labor. Right
>now capital gains taxes are much lower than
taxes for other sorts of income, which seems
>quite unfair.
So, a company that does not have a lot of
money decided to entice talented workers
to work for them with stock options - the
stock goes up and those workers get their money...
According to you that involves no labor.
Try again.
-Nick
Actually the author, in all of the cases you just mentioned, is not talking about reverse engineering.
Changing cosmetic apperance is not reverse engineering, copying a design is not reverse engineering, and going past the limits of a license agreement is not reverse engineering.
So again I ask - how is reverse engineering theft?
-Nick
Would you mind telling me how reverse engineering can be theft?
-Nick
One problem there - actual reverse engineering - cycling through all possible inputs and recording the outputs, then creating a clean-room implementation that gives the same outputs - is NOT theft (unless the new implementation infringes on someones patent - which has nothing to do with the reverse engineering process).
To put it plainly - there is no such thing as "full out felonious theft", all theft is unlawfull - reverse engineering is not unlawfull - therefore reverse engineering is NOT theft.
-Nick
'Theft' by it's very nature implies something illegal.
From Webster:
Main Entry: theft
Pronunciation: 'theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thIefth; akin to Old English thEof thief
Date: before 12th century
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
2 obsolete : something stolen
3 : a stolen base in baseball
If you don't mean theft THEN DON'T USE THE WORD.
-Nick
>>"No, that is the wrong question. The right question is are Mariah Carey's rights more important than yours or mine? "
>She did the work of recording the music. You did nothing.
So, her right to not have her music illegally distributed is more important than my right to distribute *my* work any way I see fit?
-Nick