As I read it, basically the judge said, "I'm not saying you can reverse-engineer, and I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying that we can't decide if you are breaking the law until you actually go and do it."
Most broadcast (like movies, sit-coms, and music)
is copyrighted. With the exception of music
(strangely?), they even say so at the end. I
think the FBI warning at the beginning of VHS
tapes, et. al., was a fallout from the Betamax
case that made VCRs legal to use.
You are allowed to time- or space-shift
broadcast, but not to redistribute it. Indeed,
if you pay attention, at the end of Major League
Baseball games, they state that you can't even
tell your friends what the final score was.
Consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit
against the MPAA claiming that prices of retail
DVDs are inflated due to repeated frivolous
lawsuits and the expense of lobbying to Congress.
The MPAA responded, saying that the lawsuit is
``absurd,'' and that they will be filing a
counter-suit shortly.
Meanwhile, Congress is expected to vote on a
federal sales tax bill in which will collect a
10% sales tax on all goods capable of storing
digital information. If passed, the money raised
from this Act -- an estimated $3 billion anually
-- will be used to prop up the floundering movie
industry.
The fact that the cable company does
not press charges is what should be amazing
here.
The cable companies actually make
money off of this scam, since people (presumably)
wouldn't have ordered the PPVs if they hadn't
thought they were getting them free.
I'm not at all sure that wouldn't
make a viable commercial model today. Sell what
amounts to a "super demo" for a nominal fee to
cover costs, say ten bucks, and get as many
copies out there as you could, and then sell
extended content for twenty five bucks to those
who found the game worth it.
Isn't this not unlike the EverQuest business
model? It seemed to do rather well.
As it is, due to a realtively recent change in
the law, new patents are now "published" on the
Patent Office web site well before they
are allowed.
How about a Slashbox or something that
randomly picks a recent patent from this
published list? If it looks suspicious, the user
could flag it as such. If the patent gets enough
clicks, it goes into a recurring YRO
digest/story.
I would imagine that if the patent office
could quickly deny a patent, they'd be happy to
do so. This saves them time and therefore saves
(makes) them money. A friendly letter from
Slashdot might be all they need.
The article states that the lawsuit is to argue that software vendors
have exercised a loophole in sales practices that makes it possible to
enforce a contract never agreed upon by the consumer.
As I read it, the lawsuit claims that manufacturers (e.g. Microsoft)
conspired with retailers (e.g. CompUSA) to create the EULA mess. It will
be nearly impossible to prove this short of leaked memos.
I doubt there was really a conspiracy in the first place. After all,
CompUSA knows it's bad business to let people return software, licensed or
not. Microsoft knows this too. They simply use this to there advantage
when writing the licenses.
In the end, both sides (manufacturers and retailers) can just point
their fingers at each other. Until and unless some conspiracy is revealed
(can't you just hear the paper shredders now?), big business lawyers will
have no trouble winning this case. I'd put even money on it getting
dismissed.
In reality, there's just no point in suing Microsoft anymore. We've
"won" the whole anti-trust thing already. Nothing has changed. Nothing
is going to change -- not in the courts. We have to fight money with
money. Standing in the checkout line reading your EULA is a great way to
do that.
I just loaded up msn.com on the latest Opera 6
build, and it looks
fine. MS just hasn't updated their browser
detection to let Opera 7
use the standard/IE6 stylesheet.
MS goes out of it's way to display maintain
compatibility with it's
competitors browser, and on/. it's a
conspiracy theory about how MS
is trying to crush the competition.
If Opera 6 is broken, then MS should have
matched "Opera 6", not "Opera". That's why we
give software version numbers in the first place.
As long as Microsoft is going "out of its way,"
it could go a couple characters farther.
. . . And it is every ISP's right to simply refuse connections from
misbehaving machines. Problem: The networking scheme of the Internet was
designed with (or, if you prefer, has evolved on) the basis of trust
between hosts, without much worry for security.
Yup, Microsoft really sold me with that article. As soon as I send this post I'm going to format over my Linux partitions without making a backup at all. Then Monday I'll go buy a retail copy of Windows NT. Maybe I'll buy a backup copy too, in case I lose or damage the first one. I'll go ahead and pick up a new motherboard and a couple sticks of memory while I'm at it; I've only been putting that off anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
. . . end users would only need to download a software driver to update their 802.11g cars with the new standard.
I didn't realize that the automobile industry was so cutting-edge. I dont know if I want a software driver, though.
As I read it, basically the judge said, "I'm not
saying you can reverse-engineer, and I'm not
saying you can't. I'm saying that we can't
decide if you are breaking the law until you
actually go and do it."
Most broadcast (like movies, sit-coms, and music) is copyrighted. With the exception of music (strangely?), they even say so at the end. I think the FBI warning at the beginning of VHS tapes, et. al., was a fallout from the Betamax case that made VCRs legal to use.
You are allowed to time- or space-shift broadcast, but not to redistribute it. Indeed, if you pay attention, at the end of Major League Baseball games, they state that you can't even tell your friends what the final score was.
Consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the MPAA claiming that prices of retail DVDs are inflated due to repeated frivolous lawsuits and the expense of lobbying to Congress. The MPAA responded, saying that the lawsuit is ``absurd,'' and that they will be filing a counter-suit shortly.
Meanwhile, Congress is expected to vote on a federal sales tax bill in which will collect a 10% sales tax on all goods capable of storing digital information. If passed, the money raised from this Act -- an estimated $3 billion anually -- will be used to prop up the floundering movie industry.
The cable companies actually make money off of this scam, since people (presumably) wouldn't have ordered the PPVs if they hadn't thought they were getting them free.
Isn't this not unlike the EverQuest business model? It seemed to do rather well.
I'd settle for just a phone call around 3:00 a.m. his time. (It'd put my phone to some useful purpose anyway.)
Who says it's not?
Granted, I don't get very many phone calls . . .
How about a Slashbox or something that randomly picks a recent patent from this published list? If it looks suspicious, the user could flag it as such. If the patent gets enough clicks, it goes into a recurring YRO digest/story.
I would imagine that if the patent office could quickly deny a patent, they'd be happy to do so. This saves them time and therefore saves (makes) them money. A friendly letter from Slashdot might be all they need.
I hope Interwoven sues me soon for using revision
control on my webpages. I've been violating their
new patent for years now.
As I read it, the lawsuit claims that manufacturers (e.g. Microsoft) conspired with retailers (e.g. CompUSA) to create the EULA mess. It will be nearly impossible to prove this short of leaked memos.
I doubt there was really a conspiracy in the first place. After all, CompUSA knows it's bad business to let people return software, licensed or not. Microsoft knows this too. They simply use this to there advantage when writing the licenses.
In the end, both sides (manufacturers and retailers) can just point their fingers at each other. Until and unless some conspiracy is revealed (can't you just hear the paper shredders now?), big business lawyers will have no trouble winning this case. I'd put even money on it getting dismissed.
In reality, there's just no point in suing Microsoft anymore. We've "won" the whole anti-trust thing already. Nothing has changed. Nothing is going to change -- not in the courts. We have to fight money with money. Standing in the checkout line reading your EULA is a great way to do that.
If Opera 6 is broken, then MS should have matched "Opera 6", not "Opera". That's why we give software version numbers in the first place. As long as Microsoft is going "out of its way," it could go a couple characters farther.
. . . And it is every ISP's right to simply refuse connections from misbehaving machines. Problem: The networking scheme of the Internet was designed with (or, if you prefer, has evolved on) the basis of trust between hosts, without much worry for security.
LP^>