Don't look now, but in the US and Europe, the recording and motion picture industries already get a cut of all blank media that could be used for fair-use^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpirating or by independent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpinko commie production companies. This means that even if a wholly independent system were to be developed, the RIAA, the MPAA, and their European counterparts would get money for every Tape/Video/CD/DVD produced without their help.
Maybe Michael is an idiot, but Imation or whoever actually invented Zip's non-evil twin technology, the LS-120 SuperDisk, managed to do so while maintaining backward compatibility with DD and HD floppies. I still can't figure out why the LS-120 has failed to take off, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised (CP/M vs DOS, etc., etc.).
Slight problem: you forgot the fact that the USPTO's research process is essentially that they check previously-filed patent applications, both granted and otherwise. They do not make any substantial effort find prior art that was not patented or submitted for patent approval. The thinking behind this is, "Who would be stupid enough to create a patentable invention and not apply for a patent?"
Your suggested approach will create a situation in which the original inventor gets to choose either a) stop using his or her own invention or b) hold up an armored car (or several) for the millions it will cost to prove prior art in any way meaningful to the patent bar. The judge, keep in mind, will be a former patent attorney, who may not react well to being told that the reason no patent application was filed in the first place was that the inventor basically thinks the Patent Bar is a protection racket.
IBM and Compaq are also among the biggest boosters of Linux as an alternative to Windows. That's because IBM and Compaq don't want to be standing next to the Wintel duopoly if/when it crashes. The fact that both of these companies have reasonably healthy existing markets that don't rely on either Windows or Intel may be what makes them bolder on these points than Dell. If you were in a position to choose (which apparently Dell isn't), would you want the entire future of your company to rest on the success of Windows XP and Pentium 4?
ps - Dinsdale!
Mr. and Mrs. A.O. Luser don't buy enough computers to keep Intel afloat. Corporate customers are where the real money is. Contrary to popular belief among Slashdotters, most corporations think before spending hundreds of thousands, or millions, on anything. If they think that spending all that money will get them a mere 0.5% - 3.5% real performance gain (just on the computers, mind you, the people won't be working any faster, just waiting less), they will either a) buy something else or b) wait until an upgrade worth doing comes along. If enough of them come to this conclusion, things could be very bad indeed for Intel.
Being based on the Internet and composed of developers from around the world, the Kompany has most likely already thought of this. The close association between the Kompany and the KDE community also suggests that internationalization issues have been a concern from the beginning; the KDE community are very proud of their support for some pretty obscure (globally) language and national communities.
If there is no i18n support currently, it will have to be offered relatively soon in order to satisfy the core values of the KDE project. There is also the fact that lack of decent i18n will make Kapital's closed-source license a real problem, both for the Kompany and for the KDE.
Given all of this, I think you're probably mistaken when you say that only big, all-closed-source-all-the-time US-based software companies can support non-US currencies in their financial products. Not everyone outside the US has internalized US-centrism to the extent some Canadians have.
Non-RIAA record label? And I suppose actors who disagree with the MPAA should work for non-MPAA movie studios. Why don't you just suggest that they volunteer? HELLO! The RIAA and MPAA are basically distributed monopolies with an almost total stranglehold on their industries. Suggesting that the artists should just go across the street to the non-evil recording/movie studio shows your total ignorance of realities in the recording and motion picture industries.
I hope for your sake that you are never forced to choose between starving to death, quitting the career you love, and signing an evil contract prepared by a cynical corporation that knows you don't have any other choices.
You are right to be outraged at this blatant abuse of the god-like power that control of Slashdot's story queue has bestowed on the editors of this site. Fight the man! Perhaps you should get together with others who have been similarly wronged to mount a class-action suit for all your emotional suffering.
I seem to remember a study done in which they found out how much time the typical member of a given society spent doing "work". Modern hunter-gatherer societies such as the Bushmen were found to spend little time "working" compared to members of modern agricultural and industrial societies. Maybe our techniques of hunting and gathering have gotten that much better, but I think it more likely your assumption that technology and/or societal development increase leisure time is faulty.
I think the point of the argument that for every "rich" person there must be an army of "poor" people is that part of what makes a person feel "rich" is the ability to boss around others and generally be waited on hand and foot. "Rich" means relatively more powerful than others in this context. Seen from this viewpoint, "richness" is inherently limited to a small part of society, because if it is not, it will not be recognized as such.
Who is it in your dream world that makes the air conditioners, fax machines, computers, and telephones, not to mention laying cable for the same? The idle rich, in their copious spare time, whiling the hours away in a quaint factory or rustic outdoor setting, just for the taste of it?
Uh, New York is *not* in New England, which consists of six states, CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, and VT. Counting New York as part of New England would be like saying Scotland was part of England; New Englanders generally hate New Yorkers with a white-hot passion, which is returned in kind whenever New Yorkers remember that New Englanders exist, which is infrequently.
It is a Good Thing that the civil rights leaders in the sixties did something, true. However, the something that they did was not launching a letter-writing campaign or lobbying Congress. You were on the right track when you said "in the streets carrying signs protesting." That is what it takes. Something outside the political arena, something in the streets, in the homes, minds, and lives of society.
The government represents the powers-that-be and until the powers-that-be are convinced that they will not be able to retain their power without sharing it somewhat, be it with the consumer of HDTV or with non-whites, women, etc., they will not give any part of that power up. The situation with the elected government is that they are not taking orders from their old bosses, the people, but from their new bosses, Big Business. Even if we do vote legislators out for the evil things they do for their superiors, they just get replaced with more drones who do the same thing.
All I'm saying is that I don't think writing your legislator is a worthwhile thing to do. If it makes you feel better that's fine, but don't hold your breath waiting for results. I also admit I don't really have the energy right now for the in the streets thing. So I'm trying to figure out how best to contribute to an increase in the store of public domain books, music, etc. I guess it makes me feel better to try to do something positive that affects everyday people in their homes, minds, and lives than it does to chastise a corrupt politician for doing his or her corrupt little job.
Tell that to all the women in rural areas who are unable to get an abortion (even if their brother or father or uncle raped them) because the doctors who used to perform abortions are out of the business for fear of their lives. I hate to say it, but the anti-choice movement has found a very effective way to prevent access to abortion: threaten to kill the providers of abortions, and then actually kill a few of them. The same technique has worked in Colombia to prevent the conviction of drug lords by the courts. It's a well-known fact that most people don't want to die and are unwilling to do things that they think might get them killed.
Your belief in civil disobedience is quaint. Your unwillingness to see the value of more forceful methods is potentially dangerous. Such attitudes would have served the British well during the Revolutionary War, or for that matter, served the Axis powers well during WWII. The fact is that sometimes, words are not enough.
Bullshit. All of the whining and writing and such like will have exactly zero effect on our legislature, which is now effectively a massive Chamber of Commerce for the US, dedicated to rigging the system for the advancement of business interests.
The same is true of the voting public; the fact is that most of them (_who_vote_) are stockholders and vote for what they think will make their stocks rise in value. Unless you can argue persuasively that policy X will be bad for business, you might as well be talking to yourself. That is, unless you have revenues in excess of 10 or so billion dollars a year to spread around as bribe money.
To think that lawmakers give a shit about things like "the rights of consumers" is incredibly naive. They may say they care, but look at Al Gore's real record on the environment for an example of how far you can trust what a politician says. The only difference between the two parties is their choice of lies. The Republican lie usually goes something like, "These policies will not hurt you." The Democrats prefer, "I'm fighting these harmful policies."
People who talk about how all we need to do to fight creeping corporatism is to lobby Congress are totally unclear on the rules of the game. It's like saying to your Little League team, "Yeah, we're gonna go down there to Yankee stadium and kick us some Major League butt." The only way we'll have any effect on these issues is if we mobilize civil (or less-than-civil) disobedience on such a massive scale that society grinds to a halt. Considering the government reaction to the protests in Seattle last year, even that is probably a non-starter.
Otherwise, we should just quietly ignore any medium that is overly restricted, and let the sheep be herded into whatever slaughterhouse the powers-that-be choose. At the same time, we should tend the garden of the public domain to ensure that there is _something_ to read/watch/listen to that isn't controlled by corporate interests.
Maybe you're right, maybe the preferences were destroyed after the registration process. If that's the case, though, eBay is lying about it, because they say in the email that the error occurred during the registration process. I guess we get a choice of lies: either they lied when they offered the users the opt-out choice, or they're lying now about the reason for which they've reset the users' preferences to "Spam Lover".
Your "let-them-hit-delete" attitude totally misses the point. Not everyone is just exactly like you, you know. Many people, including most Europeans, pay per-minute or per-byte for Internet access. If I were one of these people, it would enrage me to have to buy additional connect time or transfer bandwidth just to get the headers of all the spam to delete it.
There, I repeated myself. I guess that's what happens when we take risks.
Your "let-them-hit-delete" attitude totally misses the point. Not everyone is just exactly like you, you know. Many people, including most Europeans, pay per-minute or per-byte for Internet access. If I were one of these people, it would enrage me to have to buy additional connect time or transfer bandwidth just to get the headers of all the spam to delete it.
Who cares about eBay's source of revenue? Is that my problem? Even if the ads were their only source of revenue (which it isn't), your argument amounts to corporate welfare.
Imagine this: I offer you a free ice cream cone. As part of the offer, I give you the option to choose whether you want to give me your car. Like any sane individual, you say "No, you can't have my car, not for a stupid ice cream cone." I then decide I really need the money from selling your car, so I just take it.
According to your logic, you should accept this treatment because stealing your car is my only source of revenue. The point I'm trying to make is twofold: First, a company's business plan and revenue model are not the customer's responsibility. Second, a customer's personal information is something of value. If a company says they are not going to sell your personal information, but then does it anyway, they have stolen something from you. You can tolerate it if you want to, but the rest of us have every right to complain if we don't like it.
Right, loser pays attorney's fees for the other side, that's a good one. Imagine yourself as the scrappy webmaster of an independent fan site unfortunate enough to find yourself in litigation with a worldwide media empire. You scrape together all the money you can spare to make the $1000 retainer and $150/hour for a competent local attorney. The media empire hires a team of three dozen lawyers, each of whom requires a $10000 retainer and costs $500/hour.
I can tell you the thought of paying your attorney's fees will not frighten the media empire nearly as much as paying the corporation's lawyers' fees should scare you. This is especially true considering that your one low-rent lawyer's chances of beating a team of lawyers who are all smarter and better educated, not to mention better supported by staff back at the firm, are slightly lower than your chances of talking Natalie Portman into pouring hot grits down your pants.
Really, you should be taken out and shot (with less-than-lethal ammo, of course) for suggesting something so stupid.
Re:There is a case for supporting them, you know.
on
Fandom vs. Fandom.com
·
· Score: 1
You're absolutely right. I hereby claim that I need the trademark on ".com" to pay my bills. That should be good enough reason, according to your logic, to allow me to sue anyone who uses ".com" in their domain name, advertising, or, for that matter, idle conversation. Come to think of it, I could live a lot more comfortably if I held the trademark on the word "the", and complementary trademarks on the translations thereof into all languages with more than three speakers. Russians and speakers of other languages without the definite article will be charged for constructions requiring or benefiting from the use of the definite article when translated into English. Thank you for helping me solve my financial problems, and watch your mailbox for the first of many harassing lawyerletters(tm).
Pantone has not "patented color", but they do own the IP embodied by their system of numbering colors and specifying the basic colors mixed to produce a given color. Now don't go all crazy complaining they have patented what every kindergartner knows, that yellow and blue make green; they haven't. They have created a standard set of basic colors and recipes for thousands of other colors that can be made by combining those basic colors, so that printers (I mean ink-covered skilled laborers, not beige-colored electronic appliances) everywhere can produce the same color, given its Pantone number. You would be within your rights to devise a different system and then try to get the printing industry to adopt it, but you can't use the Pantone system without paying them for the right.
It may not be a joke, but you will have to back your statement up if you want anyone to believe you. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how long people had to work in the environments being tested. I know that when I first start working with a program, I get things done quicker using the mouse, but once I've been using it for a while, keyboard shortcuts are much faster.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't look now, but in the US and Europe, the recording and motion picture industries already get a cut of all blank media that could be used for fair-use^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpirating or by independent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpinko commie production companies. This means that even if a wholly independent system were to be developed, the RIAA, the MPAA, and their European counterparts would get money for every Tape/Video/CD/DVD produced without their help.
Maybe Michael is an idiot, but Imation or whoever actually invented Zip's non-evil twin technology, the LS-120 SuperDisk, managed to do so while maintaining backward compatibility with DD and HD floppies. I still can't figure out why the LS-120 has failed to take off, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised (CP/M vs DOS, etc., etc.).
Slight problem: you forgot the fact that the USPTO's research process is essentially that they check previously-filed patent applications, both granted and otherwise. They do not make any substantial effort find prior art that was not patented or submitted for patent approval. The thinking behind this is, "Who would be stupid enough to create a patentable invention and not apply for a patent?"
Your suggested approach will create a situation in which the original inventor gets to choose either a) stop using his or her own invention or b) hold up an armored car (or several) for the millions it will cost to prove prior art in any way meaningful to the patent bar. The judge, keep in mind, will be a former patent attorney, who may not react well to being told that the reason no patent application was filed in the first place was that the inventor basically thinks the Patent Bar is a protection racket.
IBM and Compaq are also among the biggest boosters of Linux as an alternative to Windows. That's because IBM and Compaq don't want to be standing next to the Wintel duopoly if/when it crashes. The fact that both of these companies have reasonably healthy existing markets that don't rely on either Windows or Intel may be what makes them bolder on these points than Dell. If you were in a position to choose (which apparently Dell isn't), would you want the entire future of your company to rest on the success of Windows XP and Pentium 4? ps - Dinsdale!
Mr. and Mrs. A.O. Luser don't buy enough computers to keep Intel afloat. Corporate customers are where the real money is. Contrary to popular belief among Slashdotters, most corporations think before spending hundreds of thousands, or millions, on anything. If they think that spending all that money will get them a mere 0.5% - 3.5% real performance gain (just on the computers, mind you, the people won't be working any faster, just waiting less), they will either a) buy something else or b) wait until an upgrade worth doing comes along. If enough of them come to this conclusion, things could be very bad indeed for Intel.
Being based on the Internet and composed of developers from around the world, the Kompany has most likely already thought of this. The close association between the Kompany and the KDE community also suggests that internationalization issues have been a concern from the beginning; the KDE community are very proud of their support for some pretty obscure (globally) language and national communities.
If there is no i18n support currently, it will have to be offered relatively soon in order to satisfy the core values of the KDE project. There is also the fact that lack of decent i18n will make Kapital's closed-source license a real problem, both for the Kompany and for the KDE.
Given all of this, I think you're probably mistaken when you say that only big, all-closed-source-all-the-time US-based software companies can support non-US currencies in their financial products. Not everyone outside the US has internalized US-centrism to the extent some Canadians have.
Gee, gyou gnow, gyou're gright. Gthose gkde gtypes gjust gdon't ghave gmuch gcreativity gwhen git gcomes gto gnaming gtheir gapplications. Glet's gpoint gthat gout gat gevery gopportunity. Goh, gand gby gthe gway, gwould gyou glike gto gbuy ga gmonkey gtshirt?
Non-RIAA record label? And I suppose actors who disagree with the MPAA should work for non-MPAA movie studios. Why don't you just suggest that they volunteer? HELLO! The RIAA and MPAA are basically distributed monopolies with an almost total stranglehold on their industries. Suggesting that the artists should just go across the street to the non-evil recording/movie studio shows your total ignorance of realities in the recording and motion picture industries.
I hope for your sake that you are never forced to choose between starving to death, quitting the career you love, and signing an evil contract prepared by a cynical corporation that knows you don't have any other choices.
Whoever modded this down as offtopic is full of shit.
You are right to be outraged at this blatant abuse of the god-like power that control of Slashdot's story queue has bestowed on the editors of this site. Fight the man! Perhaps you should get together with others who have been similarly wronged to mount a class-action suit for all your emotional suffering.
I seem to remember a study done in which they found out how much time the typical member of a given society spent doing "work". Modern hunter-gatherer societies such as the Bushmen were found to spend little time "working" compared to members of modern agricultural and industrial societies. Maybe our techniques of hunting and gathering have gotten that much better, but I think it more likely your assumption that technology and/or societal development increase leisure time is faulty.
I think the point of the argument that for every "rich" person there must be an army of "poor" people is that part of what makes a person feel "rich" is the ability to boss around others and generally be waited on hand and foot. "Rich" means relatively more powerful than others in this context. Seen from this viewpoint, "richness" is inherently limited to a small part of society, because if it is not, it will not be recognized as such.
Who is it in your dream world that makes the air conditioners, fax machines, computers, and telephones, not to mention laying cable for the same? The idle rich, in their copious spare time, whiling the hours away in a quaint factory or rustic outdoor setting, just for the taste of it?
Just curious...
Uh, New York is *not* in New England, which consists of six states, CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, and VT. Counting New York as part of New England would be like saying Scotland was part of England; New Englanders generally hate New Yorkers with a white-hot passion, which is returned in kind whenever New Yorkers remember that New Englanders exist, which is infrequently.
It is a Good Thing that the civil rights leaders in the sixties did something, true. However, the something that they did was not launching a letter-writing campaign or lobbying Congress. You were on the right track when you said "in the streets carrying signs protesting." That is what it takes. Something outside the political arena, something in the streets, in the homes, minds, and lives of society.
The government represents the powers-that-be and until the powers-that-be are convinced that they will not be able to retain their power without sharing it somewhat, be it with the consumer of HDTV or with non-whites, women, etc., they will not give any part of that power up. The situation with the elected government is that they are not taking orders from their old bosses, the people, but from their new bosses, Big Business. Even if we do vote legislators out for the evil things they do for their superiors, they just get replaced with more drones who do the same thing.
All I'm saying is that I don't think writing your legislator is a worthwhile thing to do. If it makes you feel better that's fine, but don't hold your breath waiting for results. I also admit I don't really have the energy right now for the in the streets thing. So I'm trying to figure out how best to contribute to an increase in the store of public domain books, music, etc. I guess it makes me feel better to try to do something positive that affects everyday people in their homes, minds, and lives than it does to chastise a corrupt politician for doing his or her corrupt little job.
Tell that to all the women in rural areas who are unable to get an abortion (even if their brother or father or uncle raped them) because the doctors who used to perform abortions are out of the business for fear of their lives. I hate to say it, but the anti-choice movement has found a very effective way to prevent access to abortion: threaten to kill the providers of abortions, and then actually kill a few of them. The same technique has worked in Colombia to prevent the conviction of drug lords by the courts. It's a well-known fact that most people don't want to die and are unwilling to do things that they think might get them killed.
Your belief in civil disobedience is quaint. Your unwillingness to see the value of more forceful methods is potentially dangerous. Such attitudes would have served the British well during the Revolutionary War, or for that matter, served the Axis powers well during WWII. The fact is that sometimes, words are not enough.
Bullshit. All of the whining and writing and such like will have exactly zero effect on our legislature, which is now effectively a massive Chamber of Commerce for the US, dedicated to rigging the system for the advancement of business interests.
The same is true of the voting public; the fact is that most of them (_who_vote_) are stockholders and vote for what they think will make their stocks rise in value. Unless you can argue persuasively that policy X will be bad for business, you might as well be talking to yourself. That is, unless you have revenues in excess of 10 or so billion dollars a year to spread around as bribe money.
To think that lawmakers give a shit about things like "the rights of consumers" is incredibly naive. They may say they care, but look at Al Gore's real record on the environment for an example of how far you can trust what a politician says. The only difference between the two parties is their choice of lies. The Republican lie usually goes something like, "These policies will not hurt you." The Democrats prefer, "I'm fighting these harmful policies."
People who talk about how all we need to do to fight creeping corporatism is to lobby Congress are totally unclear on the rules of the game. It's like saying to your Little League team, "Yeah, we're gonna go down there to Yankee stadium and kick us some Major League butt." The only way we'll have any effect on these issues is if we mobilize civil (or less-than-civil) disobedience on such a massive scale that society grinds to a halt. Considering the government reaction to the protests in Seattle last year, even that is probably a non-starter.
Otherwise, we should just quietly ignore any medium that is overly restricted, and let the sheep be herded into whatever slaughterhouse the powers-that-be choose. At the same time, we should tend the garden of the public domain to ensure that there is _something_ to read/watch/listen to that isn't controlled by corporate interests.
What the fsck are you talking about? Did I say information wants to be free? Have you found postings to that effect on my user page? Idiot.
Maybe you're right, maybe the preferences were destroyed after the registration process. If that's the case, though, eBay is lying about it, because they say in the email that the error occurred during the registration process. I guess we get a choice of lies: either they lied when they offered the users the opt-out choice, or they're lying now about the reason for which they've reset the users' preferences to "Spam Lover".
At the risk of repeating myself, here goes:
Your "let-them-hit-delete" attitude totally misses the point. Not everyone is just exactly like you, you know. Many people, including most Europeans, pay per-minute or per-byte for Internet access. If I were one of these people, it would enrage me to have to buy additional connect time or transfer bandwidth just to get the headers of all the spam to delete it.
There, I repeated myself. I guess that's what happens when we take risks.
Your "let-them-hit-delete" attitude totally misses the point. Not everyone is just exactly like you, you know. Many people, including most Europeans, pay per-minute or per-byte for Internet access. If I were one of these people, it would enrage me to have to buy additional connect time or transfer bandwidth just to get the headers of all the spam to delete it.
Who cares about eBay's source of revenue? Is that my problem? Even if the ads were their only source of revenue (which it isn't), your argument amounts to corporate welfare.
Imagine this: I offer you a free ice cream cone. As part of the offer, I give you the option to choose whether you want to give me your car. Like any sane individual, you say "No, you can't have my car, not for a stupid ice cream cone." I then decide I really need the money from selling your car, so I just take it.
According to your logic, you should accept this treatment because stealing your car is my only source of revenue. The point I'm trying to make is twofold: First, a company's business plan and revenue model are not the customer's responsibility. Second, a customer's personal information is something of value. If a company says they are not going to sell your personal information, but then does it anyway, they have stolen something from you. You can tolerate it if you want to, but the rest of us have every right to complain if we don't like it.
my $0.02 (US, or about $0.025 Canadian)
Right, loser pays attorney's fees for the other side, that's a good one. Imagine yourself as the scrappy webmaster of an independent fan site unfortunate enough to find yourself in litigation with a worldwide media empire. You scrape together all the money you can spare to make the $1000 retainer and $150/hour for a competent local attorney. The media empire hires a team of three dozen lawyers, each of whom requires a $10000 retainer and costs $500/hour.
I can tell you the thought of paying your attorney's fees will not frighten the media empire nearly as much as paying the corporation's lawyers' fees should scare you. This is especially true considering that your one low-rent lawyer's chances of beating a team of lawyers who are all smarter and better educated, not to mention better supported by staff back at the firm, are slightly lower than your chances of talking Natalie Portman into pouring hot grits down your pants.
Really, you should be taken out and shot (with less-than-lethal ammo, of course) for suggesting something so stupid.
You're absolutely right. I hereby claim that I need the trademark on ".com" to pay my bills. That should be good enough reason, according to your logic, to allow me to sue anyone who uses ".com" in their domain name, advertising, or, for that matter, idle conversation. Come to think of it, I could live a lot more comfortably if I held the trademark on the word "the", and complementary trademarks on the translations thereof into all languages with more than three speakers. Russians and speakers of other languages without the definite article will be charged for constructions requiring or benefiting from the use of the definite article when translated into English. Thank you for helping me solve my financial problems, and watch your mailbox for the first of many harassing lawyerletters(tm).
Pantone has not "patented color", but they do own the IP embodied by their system of numbering colors and specifying the basic colors mixed to produce a given color. Now don't go all crazy complaining they have patented what every kindergartner knows, that yellow and blue make green; they haven't. They have created a standard set of basic colors and recipes for thousands of other colors that can be made by combining those basic colors, so that printers (I mean ink-covered skilled laborers, not beige-colored electronic appliances) everywhere can produce the same color, given its Pantone number. You would be within your rights to devise a different system and then try to get the printing industry to adopt it, but you can't use the Pantone system without paying them for the right.
It may not be a joke, but you will have to back your statement up if you want anyone to believe you. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how long people had to work in the environments being tested. I know that when I first start working with a program, I get things done quicker using the mouse, but once I've been using it for a while, keyboard shortcuts are much faster.