Dude. The "Help nominate William Shatner for Governor General of Canada" Facebook group has over 40,000 votes.
There's a difference between clicking a link on Facebook (which a person was logged into anyway) and going out of your way to visit a petition site.
From the comments I've read and speaking to people, the CRTC really *is* that hated. I wouldn't doubt that a paper petition would collect even more signatures if put in the right hands.
And looking at the recent GG's we've had, I dare say we could do much worse than Shatner (not that I would sign the petition, or join Facebook for that matter).
What are you talking about? The CRTC nearly always sides with Bell. They allowed them to throttle their resellers and imposed a 60 Gb cap on their resellers (which will take effect once Bell discontinues all their unlimited contracts). The CRTC seems determined to put the Bell resellers out of business but for some reason I can't fathom decided to throw them a bone in this case. Maybe this has something to do with just how unpopular the CRTC is among Canadians, with an online petition that has over 10,000 signatures.
Let's repeat this again: Copyright infringement is NOT theft!
With left, the victim actually loses something. With copyright infringement, the loss is limited to a theoretical opportunity cost, since the lost copy costs the copyright owner $0.
For anybody found guilty of *downloading*, the maximum damages awarded should be the retail cost of one *copy* of the copyrighted material. In this case, that would be the cost of a DVD of the "Hurt Locker'. This is in contrast to *uploading*, where the guilty party is actually *distributing* the work. Even then, the argument is that the downloaded copy represents an opportunity cost sale, which is flimsy at best since there's no proof the guilty downloader *would have* purchased the DVD is downloading via p2p wasn't an option.
And, no, this is not like stealing a DVD from a store. Copyright infringement is not a criminal matter, it's a civil matter.
How would you enforce the law banning Linux? I'm sure somebody would build a utility to "spoof" the OS as Windows or Mac on the web, and you'd have to search every single Linux user's house to find what's installed on their computer. You'd also have to block every single site that offers Linux ISOs, because I doubt every single country that has internet would pass such laws. Besides, almost every Fortune 500 company runs Linux servers. They wouldn't dare enforce the ban on them, and how would distinguish easily between home and office use?
Well, if this happens, people who never before even considered running Linux will start installing it en masse on their PCs or Macs. People who never before would have made the effort to learn how to install it will become quite proficient at doing so.
I'm guessing nobody will bother writing such software for Linux. Even then, how do you ensure it's installed with every single distro? What are they going to do? Ban Linux? They'd have to either shut down or block every single site that offers a Linux ISO.
Flash isn't on the iPhone/iPad because Adobe can't be trusted to deliver an acceptably performing solution for non-Windows users. The Mac and Linux versions of Flash are CPU-hogging abominations because Flash is spaghetti C++ code that's been optimized solely for Windows. Apple doesn't want Flash off to protect its App Store profits because there are none. The App Store is a breakeven or slight profit making business.
If Adobe can't be trusted to provide a decently performing version of Flash on Mac and Linux after 10 years of trying, what in God's name makes you think they can do it for the iPhone or iPad, let alone Android or any other OS they've "promised" to support?
Apple wants to provide the best user experience for its mobile users as possible. It can take full responsibility for the performance of its various apps, including how well websites perform on Mobile Safari. It has no control over the Flash experience, and if Flash were on the iPhone, Adobe would most certainly drop the ball, but Apple would take the blame for it.
I worked for a Fortune 500 company that migrated from IE 6 to IE 7 about a year and a half ago. The migration was done in a very heavy-handed way, and most internal sites were fixed to work with IE 7. Some sites still have problems with IE 7, but oddly work with Firefox which is the other supported browser.
I also worked recently for a medium-sized Canadian bank that was very conservative with technology but was still slowly moving toward IE 7, installing it on any workstation optionally for any developer who wasn't doing web development for their important intranet sites.
So, in my experience, companies that are conservative but still well run are able to see the writing on the wall with regard to IE 6. IE still seems to be the corporate browser of choice because Microsoft is the browser vendor that's apparently most sensitive to enterprise needs (not sure if this is true, but that's the explanation).
I'm a Java developer with 10 years of experience developing enterprise grade server applications. We use Java, like the majority of Fortune 500 companies, because a Java app can be maintained with a development team greater than 1 coder, common memory coding errors and behaviours is avoided, a large API library prevents us from having to re-invent the wheel constantly, and the JVM is battle-tested in large deployments.
But, no, I guess I'm just a kid who doesn't know how to code.
I'm going to get modded down for saying this, but screw it! I've got mod points to burn.
Very few Slashdotters have mentioned this, but Apple *wants* to license Nokia's patents, but under reasonable and anti-discriminatory terms. Nokia refused to offer Apple their standard patent licensing deals that they gave to everybody else in the industry, and wants to cross-license some of Apple's GUI patents or charge them three times as much. Naturally, Apple didn't go for the deal.
If Nokia offered to license its patents under non-discriminatory terms according to the ITC, then there would be no issue.
Nokia is desperate because of the market share they're losing in the cell phone business, at least in North America (I know they're still strong in Europe).
From what I've seen, multilateral treaties are difficult to pass. That's not to say that they're impossible to pass, but the fact that you have N number of countries with N number of political calculations to make (even if they're not democracies) makes it difficult to come to a solid agreement. That's why the FTAA seems to have failed. There was just too much disagreement.
Exceptions are whatever copyright treaty got passed, WTO, etc)
(BTW, slightly off topic, I saw a Blu-Ray movie with the FBI copyright warning in French, which I had never seen before on any DVD. That was a little creepy and funny at the same time.)
The U.S. has been much more successful by pushing its agenda through bilateral (U.S.-Canada free trade agreement) or trilateral agreements (NAFTA).
My guess is that instead of the ACTA passing, there will instead be a series of bilateral and trilateral agreements with various countries, such as how the U.S. pushed Singapore to adopt DMCA-like laws in a "free trade agreement".
It shouldn't matter whether you copy a pre-patched copy of OS X onto the new machine, or whether you copy an identical copy first and then patch it. It shouldn't matter whether you sell the original copy of OS X to the customer and then patch it for him, or whether you sell him a copy that's already been patched and also give him the original. But apparently it does matter, and that's stupid.
Your argument is preposterous. Nevermind physical goods. What legal precedent says that I can take a piece of software, modify it, and sell that modification? Furthermore, why would anybody expect to be allowed to do so? Have you heard of anybody getting away with modding a game or other software and selling it? It just doesn't happen.
And how do wholesale modifications count as "patches" ? They're not. It's a derivative work and any precedent regarding copyright law says that this is strictly forbidden.
I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers. If you modded it on your own they wouldn't care. Apple doesn't care about Hackintoshes. They care about people selling competing products by appropriating their IP.
Please explain how Psystar is justified in creating an altered derivative work of Apple's copyrighted operating system.
Re:They've almost died on PC sales several times
on
Psystar Crushed In Court
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· Score: 2, Informative
The Mac division is very profitable, and it is growing. I'd estimate the installed base (not market share) of Macs in North America at about 20%. Take a look at any Apple quarterly earnings report to see it for yourself.
Not first-sale doctrine: Psystar altered OS X
on
Psystar Crushed In Court
·
· Score: 5, Informative
All this goes to show is that, contrary to the statements of some Slashdotters, Psystar did not re-install OS X as-is. They replaced key segments, including the bootloader and kernel extensions, in order to get it to install on commodity hardware. That makes Psystar the distributors of a derivative work, thereby violating copyright laws. This is not about the EULA:
"Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X," the ruling reads. "Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions."
I fail to understand how Psystar is even within light years of being right on this issue.
Wasn't this settled in the 1980's Betamax Supreme Court judgment? I thought that movie rental shops had the right of first sale and don't need approval from studios to rent movies, or am I missing something here?
There's really only one reason for this legislation. The RIAA and MPAA want to start going after filesharers like they tried to in the U.S. with AT&T before the courts didn't let them.
And, oh yeah, they don't particularly care about collateral damage from false positives. That's the part that's really scary. If my IP address gets accidentally linked with somebody who was torrenting a movie ten minutes ago, suddenly, I'll be forced to pay legal fees to defend myself.
Let's wait until the end of the year to declare Android dead. After all, there are (as far as I know) only three Android phones being sold in the U.S. right now, with far more announced for sale before the end of the year:
From what I read, it wasn't a *huge* deal, but enough of a concern that the DoJ had to work with Oracle instead of simply approving the merger right away.
----- Further Chevron Texaco is responsible for about half the price premiums on todayâ(TM)s hybrids. They charge $1,200/kWh for the battery when it could be $150. How well do they control NiMH technology? Well every NiMH battery has to be licensed from a company - Cobasys, wholly owned by Chevron. Manufacturing is limited to consumer electronics size batteries. This explains why Tesla Motors is using thousands of small consumer-grade batteries in its electric vehicle. -----
A friend of mine said once that the global corporations, by nature of the vast resources they control, actually formulate government policy and the elected politicians are the ones tasked with selling those policies to the public. There are minor exceptions such as privatizing Social Security in Bush II's second term in which public opposition is too strong to put through the policy, but these are few and far between.
In the case of the DMCA, this couldn't be closer to the truth. The problem is that the politicians have had difficulty selling the idea to Canadians at large, and prioritizing it in a minority government.
With the comment submission process, the elites can make the already formulated policies more palatable to Canadians. Perhaps there will be a few minor compromises. But in the end, they'll get what they want once they find the right "marketing" formula.
Personally, I find the idea that my internet access could be cut off after three false accusations of piracy to be frightening. I don't pirate anything, but the methodology for associating individuals with IP addresses is rife with errors and false positives.
I'm in the same situation as you (well, ok, I just got engaged this weekend:) ) and I transfer money to my fiancee every month to pay my share of the monthly expenses. My bank, the CIBC, allows me to do a free email money transfer to her. All I need to do is click the link, fill in a question and answer, and click submit. She gets an email, answers the question correctly, and clicks submit to accept the transfer. Of course, it's a Canadian bank operating in Canada, but from what I understand, all the large Canadian banks allow you to do this free of charge. It saves me the cost of getting a new checkbook.
Processing paper is expensive. Banks realize this, which is why they've been promoting ATMs, online banking, reducing hours for brick and mortar branches and reducing the availability of human bank tellers.
Unfortunately for the banks, many individuals and businesses still do business via paper checks. This is one means for the destination bank to save paper processing costs at their end. It's interesting that they've decided to do this by means of an iPhone app.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude. The "Help nominate William Shatner for Governor General of Canada" Facebook group has over 40,000 votes.
There's a difference between clicking a link on Facebook (which a person was logged into anyway) and going out of your way to visit a petition site.
From the comments I've read and speaking to people, the CRTC really *is* that hated. I wouldn't doubt that a paper petition would collect even more signatures if put in the right hands.
And looking at the recent GG's we've had, I dare say we could do much worse than Shatner (not that I would sign the petition, or join Facebook for that matter).
What are you talking about? The CRTC nearly always sides with Bell. They allowed them to throttle their resellers and imposed a 60 Gb cap on their resellers (which will take effect once Bell discontinues all their unlimited contracts). The CRTC seems determined to put the Bell resellers out of business but for some reason I can't fathom decided to throw them a bone in this case. Maybe this has something to do with just how unpopular the CRTC is among Canadians, with an online petition that has over 10,000 signatures.
Let's repeat this again: Copyright infringement is NOT theft!
With left, the victim actually loses something. With copyright infringement, the loss is limited to a theoretical opportunity cost, since the lost copy costs the copyright owner $0.
For anybody found guilty of *downloading*, the maximum damages awarded should be the retail cost of one *copy* of the copyrighted material. In this case, that would be the cost of a DVD of the "Hurt Locker'. This is in contrast to *uploading*, where the guilty party is actually *distributing* the work. Even then, the argument is that the downloaded copy represents an opportunity cost sale, which is flimsy at best since there's no proof the guilty downloader *would have* purchased the DVD is downloading via p2p wasn't an option.
And, no, this is not like stealing a DVD from a store. Copyright infringement is not a criminal matter, it's a civil matter.
Greedy bastards!
How would you enforce the law banning Linux? I'm sure somebody would build a utility to "spoof" the OS as Windows or Mac on the web, and you'd have to search every single Linux user's house to find what's installed on their computer. You'd also have to block every single site that offers Linux ISOs, because I doubt every single country that has internet would pass such laws. Besides, almost every Fortune 500 company runs Linux servers. They wouldn't dare enforce the ban on them, and how would distinguish easily between home and office use?
Well, if this happens, people who never before even considered running Linux will start installing it en masse on their PCs or Macs. People who never before would have made the effort to learn how to install it will become quite proficient at doing so.
I'm guessing nobody will bother writing such software for Linux. Even then, how do you ensure it's installed with every single distro? What are they going to do? Ban Linux? They'd have to either shut down or block every single site that offers a Linux ISO.
One way or another, this isn't going to fly.
Flash isn't on the iPhone/iPad because Adobe can't be trusted to deliver an acceptably performing solution for non-Windows users. The Mac and Linux versions of Flash are CPU-hogging abominations because Flash is spaghetti C++ code that's been optimized solely for Windows. Apple doesn't want Flash off to protect its App Store profits because there are none. The App Store is a breakeven or slight profit making business.
If Adobe can't be trusted to provide a decently performing version of Flash on Mac and Linux after 10 years of trying, what in God's name makes you think they can do it for the iPhone or iPad, let alone Android or any other OS they've "promised" to support?
Apple wants to provide the best user experience for its mobile users as possible. It can take full responsibility for the performance of its various apps, including how well websites perform on Mobile Safari. It has no control over the Flash experience, and if Flash were on the iPhone, Adobe would most certainly drop the ball, but Apple would take the blame for it.
I worked for a Fortune 500 company that migrated from IE 6 to IE 7 about a year and a half ago. The migration was done in a very heavy-handed way, and most internal sites were fixed to work with IE 7. Some sites still have problems with IE 7, but oddly work with Firefox which is the other supported browser.
I also worked recently for a medium-sized Canadian bank that was very conservative with technology but was still slowly moving toward IE 7, installing it on any workstation optionally for any developer who wasn't doing web development for their important intranet sites.
So, in my experience, companies that are conservative but still well run are able to see the writing on the wall with regard to IE 6. IE still seems to be the corporate browser of choice because Microsoft is the browser vendor that's apparently most sensitive to enterprise needs (not sure if this is true, but that's the explanation).
I'm a Java developer with 10 years of experience developing enterprise grade server applications. We use Java, like the majority of Fortune 500 companies, because a Java app can be maintained with a development team greater than 1 coder, common memory coding errors and behaviours is avoided, a large API library prevents us from having to re-invent the wheel constantly, and the JVM is battle-tested in large deployments.
But, no, I guess I'm just a kid who doesn't know how to code.
I'm going to get modded down for saying this, but screw it! I've got mod points to burn.
Very few Slashdotters have mentioned this, but Apple *wants* to license Nokia's patents, but under reasonable and anti-discriminatory terms. Nokia refused to offer Apple their standard patent licensing deals that they gave to everybody else in the industry, and wants to cross-license some of Apple's GUI patents or charge them three times as much. Naturally, Apple didn't go for the deal.
If Nokia offered to license its patents under non-discriminatory terms according to the ITC, then there would be no issue.
Nokia is desperate because of the market share they're losing in the cell phone business, at least in North America (I know they're still strong in Europe).
From what I've seen, multilateral treaties are difficult to pass. That's not to say that they're impossible to pass, but the fact that you have N number of countries with N number of political calculations to make (even if they're not democracies) makes it difficult to come to a solid agreement. That's why the FTAA seems to have failed. There was just too much disagreement.
Exceptions are whatever copyright treaty got passed, WTO, etc)
(BTW, slightly off topic, I saw a Blu-Ray movie with the FBI copyright warning in French, which I had never seen before on any DVD. That was a little creepy and funny at the same time.)
The U.S. has been much more successful by pushing its agenda through bilateral (U.S.-Canada free trade agreement) or trilateral agreements (NAFTA).
My guess is that instead of the ACTA passing, there will instead be a series of bilateral and trilateral agreements with various countries, such as how the U.S. pushed Singapore to adopt DMCA-like laws in a "free trade agreement".
It shouldn't matter whether you copy a pre-patched copy of OS X onto the new machine, or whether you copy an identical copy first and then patch it. It shouldn't matter whether you sell the original copy of OS X to the customer and then patch it for him, or whether you sell him a copy that's already been patched and also give him the original. But apparently it does matter, and that's stupid.
Your argument is preposterous. Nevermind physical goods. What legal precedent says that I can take a piece of software, modify it, and sell that modification? Furthermore, why would anybody expect to be allowed to do so? Have you heard of anybody getting away with modding a game or other software and selling it? It just doesn't happen.
And how do wholesale modifications count as "patches" ? They're not. It's a derivative work and any precedent regarding copyright law says that this is strictly forbidden.
I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers. If you modded it on your own they wouldn't care. Apple doesn't care about Hackintoshes. They care about people selling competing products by appropriating their IP.
Please explain how Psystar is justified in creating an altered derivative work of Apple's copyrighted operating system.
The Mac division is very profitable, and it is growing. I'd estimate the installed base (not market share) of Macs in North America at about 20%. Take a look at any Apple quarterly earnings report to see it for yourself.
All this goes to show is that, contrary to the statements of some Slashdotters, Psystar did not re-install OS X as-is. They replaced key segments, including the bootloader and kernel extensions, in order to get it to install on commodity hardware. That makes Psystar the distributors of a derivative work, thereby violating copyright laws. This is not about the EULA:
"Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X," the ruling reads. "Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions."
I fail to understand how Psystar is even within light years of being right on this issue.
Wasn't this settled in the 1980's Betamax Supreme Court judgment? I thought that movie rental shops had the right of first sale and don't need approval from studios to rent movies, or am I missing something here?
There's really only one reason for this legislation. The RIAA and MPAA want to start going after filesharers like they tried to in the U.S. with AT&T before the courts didn't let them.
And, oh yeah, they don't particularly care about collateral damage from false positives. That's the part that's really scary. If my IP address gets accidentally linked with somebody who was torrenting a movie ten minutes ago, suddenly, I'll be forced to pay legal fees to defend myself.
Unbelievable!
Let's wait until the end of the year to declare Android dead. After all, there are (as far as I know) only three Android phones being sold in the U.S. right now, with far more announced for sale before the end of the year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_android#Forthcoming
Also, the U.S. isn't the only market for mobile phones. There's also Europe and the Far East.
HTC, the seller of 80% of Windows Mobile phones, was the first provider to start selling Android phones.
What's likely to happen is that, since it's free, Android will supplant Windows Mobile, which Microsoft charges for.
Oracle's middleware business basically runs on Java. Why would they abandon it?
For those wondering why the merger wasn't simply rubber stamped, it has to do with the licensing of Java:
http://www.jroller.com/scolebourne/entry/no_java_7_us_doj
From what I read, it wasn't a *huge* deal, but enough of a concern that the DoJ had to work with Oracle instead of simply approving the merger right away.
The EU probably has similar concerns.
http://www.daxdesai.com/2007/12/21/who-killed-the-electric-battery/
Very informative article. Here's the best part:
-----
Further Chevron Texaco is responsible for about half the price premiums on todayâ(TM)s hybrids. They charge $1,200/kWh for the battery when it could be $150. How well do they control NiMH technology? Well every NiMH battery has to be licensed from a company - Cobasys, wholly owned by Chevron. Manufacturing is limited to consumer electronics size batteries. This explains why Tesla Motors is using thousands of small consumer-grade batteries in its electric vehicle.
-----
A friend of mine said once that the global corporations, by nature of the vast resources they control, actually formulate government policy and the elected politicians are the ones tasked with selling those policies to the public. There are minor exceptions such as privatizing Social Security in Bush II's second term in which public opposition is too strong to put through the policy, but these are few and far between.
In the case of the DMCA, this couldn't be closer to the truth. The problem is that the politicians have had difficulty selling the idea to Canadians at large, and prioritizing it in a minority government.
With the comment submission process, the elites can make the already formulated policies more palatable to Canadians. Perhaps there will be a few minor compromises. But in the end, they'll get what they want once they find the right "marketing" formula.
Personally, I find the idea that my internet access could be cut off after three false accusations of piracy to be frightening. I don't pirate anything, but the methodology for associating individuals with IP addresses is rife with errors and false positives.
I'm in the same situation as you (well, ok, I just got engaged this weekend :) ) and I transfer money to my fiancee every month to pay my share of the monthly expenses. My bank, the CIBC, allows me to do a free email money transfer to her. All I need to do is click the link, fill in a question and answer, and click submit. She gets an email, answers the question correctly, and clicks submit to accept the transfer. Of course, it's a Canadian bank operating in Canada, but from what I understand, all the large Canadian banks allow you to do this free of charge. It saves me the cost of getting a new checkbook.
Processing paper is expensive. Banks realize this, which is why they've been promoting ATMs, online banking, reducing hours for brick and mortar branches and reducing the availability of human bank tellers.
Unfortunately for the banks, many individuals and businesses still do business via paper checks. This is one means for the destination bank to save paper processing costs at their end. It's interesting that they've decided to do this by means of an iPhone app.