There's nothing you can do. There are huge sums of money at play in our existing patent system. The big corporations like IBM that pull in thousands of patents a year love the existing system. They see patents as power. The Patent Office loves it because the more patents they grant the more money they make. Besides the Patent Office is run by Patent Lawyers who are happy to see thousands of Patent cases litigated.
Corporations love it, Lawyers love it, Politicians love it and it all generates tons of money for the powerful. And you want to know what a little guy with no money can do? I'd say you can only keep your head down and tough out the next few years. Nothing will change until there is a huge public outcry and that won't happen for a long time, if ever. Welcome to Corporate America!
The worst thing about the proliferation of easy patents and the Patent Office's philosophy of "let the courts sort it out" is the enormous barrier it erects to small businesses.
Large Corporations can afford the patent wars, they can afford patent lawyers, they have the resources to cross-license patents with other large corporations.
But the vast web of software and business-method patents will eventually lock out many small businesses. Anything they want to do will be covered by somebody's patent and they won't be able to afford the enormous costs of litigation.
Every aspect of our society is increasingly dominated by large corporations. We are no longer a Republic of 50 States - we are now a Republic of the Fortune 500.
Not necessarily true anymore. Top executives at big corporations and their cronies in the banking and legal fields have become increasingly adept at transfering corporate wealth into their own pockets.
Everquest by all accounts is a crappy out-dated game.
Why not try Asheron's Call 2. It is new and has some flaws but it's actually a lot of fun. And Turbine (the developers) seem to be making a big effort to communicate with and listen to the players.
Also there are major monthly updates that add content. These are included as part of your monthly fee.
If you get outside the big cities and the college and tech industry towns people are very unlikely to have as many choices as you have listed.
In the suburbs where most people live they will be lucky to have one choice in broadband. Many people still can't get broadband at all.
Soon the typical user will be presented with the illiusion of choice in the form of multiple-tiers of service. This is designed to maximize revenue not to offer any meaningful choice.
The myth of the "bandwidth hog" serves the same purpose. It creates a rationale for higher prices. Most areas of the country are swimming in unused bandwidth.
Yes, Free Market Competition would be a very nice thing to have. It would eliminate the problems this article describes very nicely.
The problem is there is little competition and soon there will be less. The vast majority of broadband suppliers have an effective monopoly in their area of service. And the consolidation is continuing.
Sure would be nice if we actually had a competitive free market rather than a few giant companies buying monopolies for themselves.
The most frightening thing about all of this is how the corporate copyright holders are redefining the definitions used in the laws.
It's obvious that these laws were passed with the intent of punishing people who copy and sell copyrighted material for financial gain, meaning money. But they are so scared by Peer to Peer sharing that they have simply redefined "financial gain" to cover any exchange of anything by anybody.
People have a deep urge to share. "I'll give you a copy of mine if you give me a copy of yours" is not motivated by financial gain.
But now a law that was designed to prosecute the guy who runs off a 1000 copies of Photoshop and sells them through the mail is being used to make a criminal out of me, my kids and virtually everybody I know.
No, the same wonderful ACLU that helps ensure that we can go to the library and actually be able to browse Slashdot, the Register, various political party sites, sites giving information on birth control and aides and various other legitimate sites that would otherwise be blocked by dysfunctional filtering programs.
The whole concept behind broadband was that we, the user, would have high bandwidth to do with as we like. But now this idea is completely lost.
Since the broadband provider in a given area is usually an effective monopoly they have figured out that they can jack prices on those who want and need broadband.
It's only incidental that this helps the RIAA. It's really about huge corporations lobbying the government in order to preserve their monopoly and then turning around and putting the screws to the end user.
The dream of cheap broadband for the masses has died on the altar of the holy corporation.
The basic concept of Linux does not mix well with the concept of per seat licenses. Businesses often turn to Linux partly because they don't have to mess with licenses and license counts.
Hasn't Caldera been losing buckets of money since they switched to a per seat licensing scheme?
This whole concept of United Linux reeks of desperation. These four companies are going to collaborate on United Linux while continuing to put out their own distros? What a muddle.
Reading about United Linux has done nothing except make me decide to go check out Red Hat again.
You may be right when it comes to workers employed by small businesses. But I think it's more complex when it comes to large corporations.
Yes, benefits provided by the employer are voluntary. But it's illegal to provide benefits to high paid employees and not to low paid employees. In other words, if a business provides basic benefits it must provide them to all employees. Shifting large numbers of workers to permanent "temp" status lets a business circumvent this.
It's also illegal to fire workers for attempting to organize a union or for complaining about working conditions or for getting hurt on the job. But with temps a company can just "end their assignment". It's OK because he was just a "temp". Never mind that another "temp" was brought in immediately to continue doing the full-time job!
In general the courts have consistently found that workers can seek redress for arbitrary or capricious firings. But with "temps" like these it's not even clear who employs them. They may have been working for years for HP by any reasonable standard. But their checks say Manpower and Manpower is really something else. So who you gonna sue?
Oh yes, their are definately laws that limit big corporations freedom to fire "at will". But if it's just a "temp" they can pretty much get away with anything.
I don't understand how corporations get away with the permanent use of temporary workers. These assembly line jobs are full time, long term jobs. Sure, people can be laid off in a downturn. But as long as the factory runs assembly line workers are needed.
I was under the, perhaps foolish, impression that it was illegal to keep temporary workers for long periods as a way to circumvent labor laws.
And that's what's happening here. By using permanent or semi-permanent workers management can release people on a whim, head off any attempt to organize, avoid paying benefits and other wise abuse their power.
Google is wonderful. But I'm left wondering where they get their financing and what their long term goals are.
The Google site features minimal advertising. So they are most likely funded with VC money. This means that they must have a plan for making money at some point. What is it and when will it kick in?
I don't believe that the advertising model has necessarily failed.
I do think that the model of bloated ad revenues leading to bloated websites has failed.
Brittanica.com just announced that they laid off 68 of 220 staff. What in the hell do 220 people do for a single website of this size?
Ad revenue may still support lean well-run websites. But it probably will never again support sites with a staff of 200 or 400.
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There's nothing you can do. There are huge sums of money at play in our existing patent system. The big corporations like IBM that pull in thousands of patents a year love the existing system. They see patents as power. The Patent Office loves it because the more patents they grant the more money they make. Besides the Patent Office is run by Patent Lawyers who are happy to see thousands of Patent cases litigated.
Corporations love it, Lawyers love it, Politicians love it and it all generates tons of money for the powerful. And you want to know what a little guy with no money can do? I'd say you can only keep your head down and tough out the next few years. Nothing will change until there is a huge public outcry and that won't happen for a long time, if ever. Welcome to Corporate America!
The worst thing about the proliferation of easy patents and the Patent Office's philosophy of "let the courts sort it out" is the enormous barrier it erects to small businesses.
Large Corporations can afford the patent wars, they can afford patent lawyers, they have the resources to cross-license patents with other large corporations.
But the vast web of software and business-method patents will eventually lock out many small businesses. Anything they want to do will be covered by somebody's patent and they won't be able to afford the enormous costs of litigation.
Every aspect of our society is increasingly dominated by large corporations. We are no longer a Republic of 50 States - we are now a Republic of the Fortune 500.
Not necessarily true anymore. Top executives at big corporations and their cronies in the banking and legal fields have become increasingly adept at transfering corporate wealth into their own pockets.
Everquest by all accounts is a crappy out-dated game.
Why not try Asheron's Call 2. It is new and has some flaws but it's actually a lot of fun. And Turbine (the developers) seem to be making a big effort to communicate with and listen to the players.
Also there are major monthly updates that add content. These are included as part of your monthly fee.
If you get outside the big cities and the college and tech industry towns people are very unlikely to have as many choices as you have listed.
In the suburbs where most people live they will be lucky to have one choice in broadband. Many people still can't get broadband at all.
Soon the typical user will be presented with the illiusion of choice in the form of multiple-tiers of service. This is designed to maximize revenue not to offer any meaningful choice.
The myth of the "bandwidth hog" serves the same purpose. It creates a rationale for higher prices. Most areas of the country are swimming in unused bandwidth.
Yes, Free Market Competition would be a very nice thing to have. It would eliminate the problems this article describes very nicely.
The problem is there is little competition and soon there will be less. The vast majority of broadband suppliers have an effective monopoly in their area of service. And the consolidation is continuing.
Sure would be nice if we actually had a competitive free market rather than a few giant companies buying monopolies for themselves.
The most frightening thing about all of this is how the corporate copyright holders are redefining the definitions used in the laws.
It's obvious that these laws were passed with the intent of punishing people who copy and sell copyrighted material for financial gain, meaning money. But they are so scared by Peer to Peer sharing that they have simply redefined "financial gain" to cover any exchange of anything by anybody.
People have a deep urge to share. "I'll give you a copy of mine if you give me a copy of yours" is not motivated by financial gain.
But now a law that was designed to prosecute the guy who runs off a 1000 copies of Photoshop and sells them through the mail is being used to make a criminal out of me, my kids and virtually everybody I know.
No, the same wonderful ACLU that helps ensure that we can go to the library and actually be able to browse Slashdot, the Register, various political party sites, sites giving information on birth control and aides and various other legitimate sites that would otherwise be blocked by dysfunctional filtering programs.
The whole concept behind broadband was that we, the user, would have high bandwidth to do with as we like. But now this idea is completely lost.
Since the broadband provider in a given area is usually an effective monopoly they have figured out that they can jack prices on those who want and need broadband.
It's only incidental that this helps the RIAA. It's really about huge corporations lobbying the government in order to preserve their monopoly and then turning around and putting the screws to the end user.
The dream of cheap broadband for the masses has died on the altar of the holy corporation.
The basic concept of Linux does not mix well with the concept of per seat licenses. Businesses often turn to Linux partly because they don't have to mess with licenses and license counts.
Hasn't Caldera been losing buckets of money since they switched to a per seat licensing scheme?
This whole concept of United Linux reeks of desperation. These four companies are going to collaborate on United Linux while continuing to put out their own distros? What a muddle.
Reading about United Linux has done nothing except make me decide to go check out Red Hat again.
You may be right when it comes to workers employed by small businesses. But I think it's more complex when it comes to large corporations.
Yes, benefits provided by the employer are voluntary. But it's illegal to provide benefits to high paid employees and not to low paid employees. In other words, if a business provides basic benefits it must provide them to all employees. Shifting large numbers of workers to permanent "temp" status lets a business circumvent this.
It's also illegal to fire workers for attempting to organize a union or for complaining about working conditions or for getting hurt on the job. But with temps a company can just "end their assignment". It's OK because he was just a "temp". Never mind that another "temp" was brought in immediately to continue doing the full-time job!
In general the courts have consistently found that workers can seek redress for arbitrary or capricious firings. But with "temps" like these it's not even clear who employs them. They may have been working for years for HP by any reasonable standard. But their checks say Manpower and Manpower is really something else. So who you gonna sue?
Oh yes, their are definately laws that limit big corporations freedom to fire "at will". But if it's just a "temp" they can pretty much get away with anything.
I don't understand how corporations get away with the permanent use of temporary workers. These assembly line jobs are full time, long term jobs. Sure, people can be laid off in a downturn. But as long as the factory runs assembly line workers are needed.
I was under the, perhaps foolish, impression that it was illegal to keep temporary workers for long periods as a way to circumvent labor laws.
And that's what's happening here. By using permanent or semi-permanent workers management can release people on a whim, head off any attempt to organize, avoid paying benefits and other wise abuse their power.
I thought this was illegal. Was I wrong?
Google is wonderful. But I'm left wondering where they get their financing and what their long term goals are.
The Google site features minimal advertising. So they are most likely funded with VC money. This means that they must have a plan for making money at some point. What is it and when will it kick in?
I don't believe that the advertising model has necessarily failed. I do think that the model of bloated ad revenues leading to bloated websites has failed. Brittanica.com just announced that they laid off 68 of 220 staff. What in the hell do 220 people do for a single website of this size? Ad revenue may still support lean well-run websites. But it probably will never again support sites with a staff of 200 or 400.