But you can't get rich. You don't license anything, nor do you produce anything. You just have to sue people and make them stop doing things. So, the only way to make money would be by getting penalties for past infringements, then making them stop. They will always fight so you will have to pay a hell of a lot to win these battles.:P
Seriously. If you have a person who's genetically engineered, they contain patented materials. Just as the seed industry (Monsanto?) sues farmers that save seeds for reuse, why not sue people for this? If they pass their genetic immunity to this disease to the next generation (without paying a royalty to the company), how will the poor widdle company make its money back?:P
Yes it is something to get your panties in a knot about. If the USPTO allows bullshit patents like this through, then how many bullshit software patents are there? It costs a million dollars+ to break even one patent. Remember that even if this is a "joke", the owner can sue someone for use of this and they can bankrupt a normal person since a normal person isn't sitting on millions of dollars. This is a perfect example of what's wrong with the patent office granting patents on any old thing.
As another example, should the USPTO be granting patents on some little rinky-dink calculations in CIFS so MS can stop SAMBA from existing? It's the same bullshit anything-goes mentality that gets us patents like that.
I suggest that geeks get together and pool money to get hundreds if not thousands of broad software patents (which are trivial to come up with but expensive to get) and then deny their use to anyone else. Shut down the software industry and let the rest of the world blow by us software patent-free.
Remember, the RIAA was *SHOCKED* a month ago to hear about these things called ".zip files" that let people take an ****ENTIRE CD**** and put it into ONE file and COMPRESS it so it can be sent PEER TO PEER over the INTERNET.
OMFG, IRC??? Are you NUTS? Why would they know that that is? Wait till they hear about "anonymous ftp using a CLI" that lets people steal things WITHOUT EVEN USING A BROWSER OR A GUI! Do you understand? They can steal things without using any pictures. They'll have to learn all of this arcane technology to even realize how badly they're getting ripped off! And the worst thing is that the only people who understand this shit are the very people they want to lock up! They're Scr00d!
It's not sensationalism. It's the truth. It's working through the entire web of implications coming out from what they want to do. All you have to do is start with the bill and play a few "what if" games and you get to scary things right away. I think we would be better off sticking to things that people can understand and care about, like not being able to videotape a wedding because you could record music as a side effect.
Also, boycott Star Wars because this is only one little skirmish, and the companies will want everything forever, and they will keep trying to get everything forever, even if they have to get it in little bits over time. I think getting SW to tank would make a much bigger statement than thousands of letters being sent to Congress.
But you have a situation where something with legitimate uses (like private games) is being destroyed because it has illegal uses that can't be separated from the legal uses. Even making it check CD keys wouldn't work since it's open source anyway, or at best it could be cracked by people who want it cracked. I guess free is a relative term. They do track you and they could use that data against you someday like your video store records can be used against you. That's why I'm not looking forward to a DRM world where everything you see and hear gets approved and recorded someplace for future use.
So again, should clothing makers make sure their clothing can't be used to steal stuff? It isn't possible to do that if it's open source. So, you reach the situation where a thing that has a legitimate use gets destroyed because it can be used to do something illegal.
The problem is that there's no way to separate stopping thieves from stopping me from programming. In truth, all I want is computers so I can sit there and program things that amuse me. Not things that steal things from other people. Not things that hurt other people, and it won't be possible to separate these two things. So, they will be taking away pockets when all I want is something to carry around my change in.
Ok, but this is the same argument that will be used to outlaw computers. Millions of people use computers to steal things. Some don't. I don't, although I did when I was a kid a long time ago. Even if a lot of people are using something to do something bad, it doesn't justify getting rid of it if it has a real use outside of the theft purpose.
Pockets in clothing would likely not have come under fire
IF A LOT OF KIDDIES DID NOT USE THEM TO STEAL CANDY BARS FROM STORES
Especially true now days with the new GoopyGoop bar (which Hershey's is trying VERY hard to keep limited. Not succeeding very well, but they are TRYING hard.)
Hershey's allows A LOT of to happen to their candy bars but. . ..
I think that the solution to this BEFORE HAND was that the parental community, huhrump, should have policed their own.
I totally agree with you on this. That's why I support the Consumer Banning Pockets and Defeating Thieves Act (CBPDTA) which will outlaw purchase-circumvention devices like pockets.
Once this law is passed pockets in clothing will be made illegal because it's clear (even though I know nothing about clothing) that their main purpose is to help people steal things and these pockets really have no legitimate purpose besides that that I can see.
It will be illegal to take new clothing without pockets and sew pockets onto it (even if you think that the clothing industry is selling "crippled" wares and you want to "fix" it to do the things you can do today with clothing), and doing this will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison and 1 million dollars in fines.
It will also be illegal to tell people how to make pockets, as this would be trafficking in Purchase Circumvention Devices.
Also, it will be illegal to wear clothing with pockets in public after a certain grace period where grandfathered clothing with pockets is allowed out while the pockets are removed from everything.
Regardless of whether or not you have become used to pockets in your clothing, you won't have them in the future. The courts and Congress have spoken, and this legal issue is settled: There Will Be No More Pockets In Clothing. Get Over It.
All of this whining about "fair use" and the "right to carry things around without using my hands" is just the bleating of a few leftie college professors and this entire generation of thieves that have grown up thinking that they don't have to pay for anything. Fortunately, it ends here, and you agitators and terrorists who want to keep your little bombs and guns and candy bars in your pockets will just have to move along with the rest of us, or get trampled in the stampede to the future.
Of course, you thieves don't think about more than your own little petty desires and needs. Consumers will benefit because clothing will be cheaper since the manufacturers won't have to put those difficult-to-make pockets on their clothes. Consumers will also benefit more because stores will sell more things since they won't have to worry about shoplifting as much.
The clothing industry will be whining about how the loss of pockets will cause people to start buying their clothing from overseas sweatshops where 8 year-olds work for 3 cents a day instead of buying domestically made clothing with no pockets, but they will just have to adjust to the new legal climate.
The copyright industry is correct that it will have to control and lock down all hardware and software to control copying, but that will destroy freedom.
Example: Let's suppose that you want to videotape your daughter at her wedding dancing with her new husband to their favorite song.
If machines exist that can do this, then machines exist that can record sounds such as the music in the background which is on a CD and copyrighted. If you can record the video and edit it, then you can split the sound from the picture. If you can copy this sound, then you can copy copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose you're reading an book on your laptop as your baby crawls around the floor. Your baby then stands up and starts taking his first steps. He walks in front of the laptop with the copyrigted e-book on it. Should you be able to grab your video camera and record him walking around?
If you have an e-book and you can videotape it, then you can either distribute video stills or use OCR to convert it into text. Either way, if you allow people to be able to take pictures of e-books on a computer, then those e-books can be copied. The only way to stop this is to make machines that can't record when they're pointed at a screen displaying copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose that you're walking around in Times Square with all of the big video screens all around you. Many of them will be displaying copyrighted content. Should you be able to videotape all of the sights in Times Square even though you're copying copyrighted content?
If so, then you can use a camera to copy copyrighted video.
These examples are of people living in a world of content that's constantly coming out of things they own while those people are trying to make their own stuff. If you allow people to make their own content, the same machines and technologies that they will use for themselves can be used to copy copyrighted materials. There is no way to separate these two things.
Once these things are recorded, they will be stored in slightly different formats than the original, so you won't even be able to tell what's copyrighted and what isn't just by comparing files. The industry will be forced to control and inspect all data that goes through any network.
So, the only way to control copyright with technology is to make it illegal for anyone to create anything in any way including using computers, cameras, and microphones.
I wonder how the copyright industry itself will continue to make their content since they will need to have tools for recording that aren't hobbled by the laws they want to inflict on everyone else. I don't think they realize that if they make it illegal to have a machine that can send copies of DVDs over the Internet, they won't be allowed to have computers to send their DVDs over the Internet. After all, they don't own ALL of the copyrighted movies in the world, so if their servers can send MY content over the Internet without my consent, they'll have to be illegal.
Basically, they need to have total control. They have forever to keep trying to get this total control. They will be happy with baby steps because every time they get baby steps laws passed that control things a bit more, they have moved the line of what's acceptable. Since copying cannot be stopped without total control, they can come back and ask for more measures every time the partial measures fail until they have total control.
And, interestingly enough, they will also clamp down on the ability of anyone else to create their own content to compete with the copyright industries, but I am sure that this loss of creative potential is a regrettable but unforseen consequence of the necessity of protecting their IP.
Except for one thing. Will clamping down on all of the kinds of recording and editing machines that people can use to record their own music and movies advance the arts, or hinder them?
I feel that if you have an opportunity where you can use technology to allow everyone to make and distribute art cheaply, you will advance the arts more than a world where the creation and distribution channels are artificially narrowed to serve a few corporate interests. If everyone has the chance to create and to share then arts will be advanced more than if things are controlled by a few.
Since the only way to control copyright is to shut off the creative paths that would have been available to billions to keep thousands employed, I say these kinds of laws protect copyright at the expense of freedom. Since the only reason copyright exists is to advance the arts, and since a law like this will stifle the arts, a law like this cannot be constitutional.
Not only will a law like this stifle:
Progress of the Arts. Since it would have been possible to have a robust society where the ability to create and distribute art is available ot everyone, stopping that robust artistic society from forming will hinder Progress of the Arts, which is antithetical to the entire reason that copyright exists.
The First Amendment, not only fair use, but through limiting how people can express themselves and share those expressions because machines that would facilitate the use of these rights will be destroyed and hindered. If it was ok for the government to hinder technology to keep people from expressing themselves, then they could have said that you cannot have free speech on the radio or a record or a television broadcast. Since the rights of free speect and the press extend to new technologies, removing the technologies that already exist will abridge free speech and freedom of the press.
The Third Amendment right to not have soldiers (or watchers or sentinels) of the government quartered in your house in peacetime. Government-mandated electronic monitors on your house and property are tantamount to forcing people to have government agents in their house at all times.
The Fourth Amendment Right to privacy since they will have to inspect and approve all transmissions you make (since you can split a large piece of content into smaller pieces) and you will not be able to encrypt anything (even if it's for legitimate privacy reasons) or else they won't be able to tell what's in them.
The Fifth Amendment right to use your property since they will have to neuter any and all recording devices so that they don't work within range of content being spewed out. Since that's just about everywhere, the government will be taking away your ability to even use your video cameras and recording equipment. Older recording equipment will have to be confiscated, and since it will be extremely valuable after the laws like this pass, the government will never pay the true worth of the devices it's Taking.
The Sixth Amendment right to a trial for your crimes. The assumption with this law is that we are all criminals. If they want to accuse us of crimes of copying, then get us arrested and send everyone to jail, but don't pass laws that hinder progress in other areas by assuming that everyone's a criminal.
Your Eighth Amendment right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment. Hooking an unprotected computer up to a network or changing a bit in a file on your computer would be punishable by fines and jail time comparable to those for killing someone. There is no way that copying bits can ever be comparable to killing someone.
The Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. Since the copyright industry will need and use the very tools that they will throw other people in jail for having, they are setting themselves up as a protected class that lies outside the law. Everyone owns some copyright. I own copyright because I have written this comment, so whatever the "copyright owners" get, I deserve, and I expect. Anything other than that, and they are treating me as a second-class citizen, and I won't accept that.
No, he'll post here, get modded down as -1 Troll -1 Stupid or -1 NeedsAFuckingLife and he will proceed to sue/. for not letting him get his message across, as well as anyone who mods him down, as well as anyone who posts messages making fun of him for being a Stupid Troll who NeedsALife.
I spend hours a day on these boards posting and trying to get karma. It seems like it's rewarded randomly and at the stupidest times. Does this mean I can sue Slashdot for making an addictive online game experience?
This is a better idea than a lot of the *real* dotcom ideas out there. Getting lots of content created by a large group of people on the cheap isn't that stupid of an idea.
I can't tell if you're serious since you're posting AC...but you should boycott Star Wars and get everyone you know to boycott it, too. Boycotting anything else would just be a blip on their screen, but SW is hardcore geek material.
The Senate today declared war on the Netherlands with the Hon. Fritz Hollings leading the charge. He summed it up like this "It is now clear that the Netherlands has become a haven for pirates, just as the Barbary coast was over 200 years ago when we sent the Marines in to learn 'em a lesson. They have now joined the Axis of Evil since pirates are terrorists, and will pay the ultimate price for their terrorism."
Sen. Hollings was later admitted to the hospital complaining of back pain after attempting to lift a giant sack of money that mysteriously appeared in front of his office door during the vote.
This is not the type of business behavior that should allowed when a company holds a monopoly over an industry.
I think you meant to write
This is the type of business behavior that can only happen when a company holds a monopoly over an industry.
This is no different from Standard Oil forcing rail companies to charge other oil companies extra for shipping their oil if they wanted to ship Standard Oil oil.
I don't really like the term blue print for source code,
But it's such an apt description. After all, the courts have determined that taking a machine with a bunch of switches and flipping some of those switches constitutes making a "new machine" that can be patented. Of course, you can't just flip any old switches and get them patented, but if you give some real world meaning to the switches being flipped, patent away!
Heck, I finally realized that I have been thinking about math all wrong all these years. I used to think that there was no difference between an algorithm and a use of that algorithm with real world numbers, but I must have been wrong. That's because these are two totally different things since you can't patent an algorithm running on a computer if it's just the algorithm itself, but you can patent it if it's somehow related to the real world. That simply blew me away when I finally came to the stunning realization that word problems are different and harder than "math problems". After all, I grew up thinking that word problems were easy since you were just doing the same thing as the regular math problems, except you gave some real-world meaning to the numbers being used, but man was I wrong.
That's where the blueprints come in. If the software running on the computer is somehow related to something in the real world, then it stops being a bunch of ideas and just using a machine, and becomes a Real Thing, a New Machine! And, we all know that if you want to create a complex Real Thing you'd better have some plans, and blueprints are the perfect thing for that!
Yes folks, by the miracle of modern technology, we can take two pure ideas (mathematical algorithm) + (giving real-world meaning to numbers) and obtain (A Real Thing That Can Be Patented).
It's the New Math: (Pure Idea)+(Pure Idea)=(Real Thing).
Can't you see that? So the "blueprints" analogy is just perfect.
You just don't get it and you need to go back to third grade and look at all of your math books again and understand this time that "word problems are really tough because they aren't the same as the pure math problems where the numbers have no real world meaning".
That's the most amazing thing of all. If you have a computer program that will solve some homework problems for you, the computer is just your plain old computer when you're using it to solve the regular math problems. However, the moment that you start to use it to solve a word problem, it becomes a New Machine! Because even though the steps it does are the same, since you gave real world meaning to the inputs and outputs, you have taken two pure ideas and made a Real Thing. Aren't you proud of yourself for building a New Machine just to do your math homework? I know I am.
Slashdot Mirror
But you can't get rich. You don't license anything, nor do you produce anything. You just have to sue people and make them stop doing things. So, the only way to make money would be by getting penalties for past infringements, then making them stop. They will always fight so you will have to pay a hell of a lot to win these battles. :P
Seriously. If you have a person who's genetically engineered, they contain patented materials. Just as the seed industry (Monsanto?) sues farmers that save seeds for reuse, why not sue people for this? If they pass their genetic immunity to this disease to the next generation (without paying a royalty to the company), how will the poor widdle company make its money back? :P
Yes it is something to get your panties in a knot about. If the USPTO allows bullshit patents like this through, then how many bullshit software patents are there? It costs a million dollars+ to break even one patent. Remember that even if this is a "joke", the owner can sue someone for use of this and they can bankrupt a normal person since a normal person isn't sitting on millions of dollars. This is a perfect example of what's wrong with the patent office granting patents on any old thing.
As another example, should the USPTO be granting patents on some little rinky-dink calculations in CIFS so MS can stop SAMBA from existing? It's the same bullshit anything-goes mentality that gets us patents like that.
I suggest that geeks get together and pool money to get hundreds if not thousands of broad software patents (which are trivial to come up with but expensive to get) and then deny their use to anyone else. Shut down the software industry and let the rest of the world blow by us software patent-free.
You get a year to file your patent after it's disclosed (in the US), but overseas patent rights are lost.
Why is this news?
Remember, the RIAA was *SHOCKED* a month ago to hear about these things called ".zip files" that let people take an ****ENTIRE CD**** and put it into ONE file and COMPRESS it so it can be sent PEER TO PEER over the INTERNET.
OMFG, IRC??? Are you NUTS? Why would they know that that is? Wait till they hear about "anonymous ftp using a CLI" that lets people steal things WITHOUT EVEN USING A BROWSER OR A GUI! Do you understand? They can steal things without using any pictures. They'll have to learn all of this arcane technology to even realize how badly they're getting ripped off! And the worst thing is that the only people who understand this shit are the very people they want to lock up! They're Scr00d!
It's not sensationalism. It's the truth. It's working through the entire web of implications coming out from what they want to do. All you have to do is start with the bill and play a few "what if" games and you get to scary things right away. I think we would be better off sticking to things that people can understand and care about, like not being able to videotape a wedding because you could record music as a side effect.
Also, boycott Star Wars because this is only one little skirmish, and the companies will want everything forever, and they will keep trying to get everything forever, even if they have to get it in little bits over time. I think getting SW to tank would make a much bigger statement than thousands of letters being sent to Congress.
But you have a situation where something with legitimate uses (like private games) is being destroyed because it has illegal uses that can't be separated from the legal uses. Even making it check CD keys wouldn't work since it's open source anyway, or at best it could be cracked by people who want it cracked. I guess free is a relative term. They do track you and they could use that data against you someday like your video store records can be used against you. That's why I'm not looking forward to a DRM world where everything you see and hear gets approved and recorded someplace for future use.
So again, should clothing makers make sure their clothing can't be used to steal stuff? It isn't possible to do that if it's open source. So, you reach the situation where a thing that has a legitimate use gets destroyed because it can be used to do something illegal.
The problem is that there's no way to separate stopping thieves from stopping me from programming. In truth, all I want is computers so I can sit there and program things that amuse me. Not things that steal things from other people. Not things that hurt other people, and it won't be possible to separate these two things. So, they will be taking away pockets when all I want is something to carry around my change in.
Ok, but this is the same argument that will be used to outlaw computers. Millions of people use computers to steal things. Some don't. I don't, although I did when I was a kid a long time ago. Even if a lot of people are using something to do something bad, it doesn't justify getting rid of it if it has a real use outside of the theft purpose.
That's why everyone should boycott Star Wars when it comes out. I am steeling myself to do that. It sucks.
Pockets in clothing would likely not have come under fire
.
IF A LOT OF KIDDIES DID NOT USE THEM TO STEAL CANDY BARS FROM STORES
Especially true now days with the new GoopyGoop bar (which Hershey's is trying VERY hard to keep limited. Not succeeding very well, but they are TRYING hard.)
Hershey's allows A LOT of to happen to their candy bars but. . .
I think that the solution to this BEFORE HAND was that the parental community, huhrump, should have policed their own.
I totally agree with you on this. That's why I support the Consumer Banning Pockets and Defeating Thieves Act (CBPDTA) which will outlaw purchase-circumvention devices like pockets.
Once this law is passed pockets in clothing will be made illegal because it's clear (even though I know nothing about clothing) that their main purpose is to help people steal things and these pockets really have no legitimate purpose besides that that I can see.
It will be illegal to take new clothing without pockets and sew pockets onto it (even if you think that the clothing industry is selling "crippled" wares and you want to "fix" it to do the things you can do today with clothing), and doing this will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison and 1 million dollars in fines.
It will also be illegal to tell people how to make pockets, as this would be trafficking in Purchase Circumvention Devices.
Also, it will be illegal to wear clothing with pockets in public after a certain grace period where grandfathered clothing with pockets is allowed out while the pockets are removed from everything.
Regardless of whether or not you have become used to pockets in your clothing, you won't have them in the future. The courts and Congress have spoken, and this legal issue is settled: There Will Be No More Pockets In Clothing. Get Over It.
All of this whining about "fair use" and the "right to carry things around without using my hands" is just the bleating of a few leftie college professors and this entire generation of thieves that have grown up thinking that they don't have to pay for anything. Fortunately, it ends here, and you agitators and terrorists who want to keep your little bombs and guns and candy bars in your pockets will just have to move along with the rest of us, or get trampled in the stampede to the future.
Of course, you thieves don't think about more than your own little petty desires and needs. Consumers will benefit because clothing will be cheaper since the manufacturers won't have to put those difficult-to-make pockets on their clothes. Consumers will also benefit more because stores will sell more things since they won't have to worry about shoplifting as much.
The clothing industry will be whining about how the loss of pockets will cause people to start buying their clothing from overseas sweatshops where 8 year-olds work for 3 cents a day instead of buying domestically made clothing with no pockets, but they will just have to adjust to the new legal climate.
Example: Let's suppose that you want to videotape your daughter at her wedding dancing with her new husband to their favorite song.
If machines exist that can do this, then machines exist that can record sounds such as the music in the background which is on a CD and copyrighted. If you can record the video and edit it, then you can split the sound from the picture. If you can copy this sound, then you can copy copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose you're reading an book on your laptop as your baby crawls around the floor. Your baby then stands up and starts taking his first steps. He walks in front of the laptop with the copyrigted e-book on it. Should you be able to grab your video camera and record him walking around?
If you have an e-book and you can videotape it, then you can either distribute video stills or use OCR to convert it into text. Either way, if you allow people to be able to take pictures of e-books on a computer, then those e-books can be copied. The only way to stop this is to make machines that can't record when they're pointed at a screen displaying copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose that you're walking around in Times Square with all of the big video screens all around you. Many of them will be displaying copyrighted content. Should you be able to videotape all of the sights in Times Square even though you're copying copyrighted content?
If so, then you can use a camera to copy copyrighted video.
These examples are of people living in a world of content that's constantly coming out of things they own while those people are trying to make their own stuff. If you allow people to make their own content, the same machines and technologies that they will use for themselves can be used to copy copyrighted materials. There is no way to separate these two things.
Once these things are recorded, they will be stored in slightly different formats than the original, so you won't even be able to tell what's copyrighted and what isn't just by comparing files. The industry will be forced to control and inspect all data that goes through any network.
So, the only way to control copyright with technology is to make it illegal for anyone to create anything in any way including using computers, cameras, and microphones.
I wonder how the copyright industry itself will continue to make their content since they will need to have tools for recording that aren't hobbled by the laws they want to inflict on everyone else. I don't think they realize that if they make it illegal to have a machine that can send copies of DVDs over the Internet, they won't be allowed to have computers to send their DVDs over the Internet. After all, they don't own ALL of the copyrighted movies in the world, so if their servers can send MY content over the Internet without my consent, they'll have to be illegal.
Basically, they need to have total control. They have forever to keep trying to get this total control. They will be happy with baby steps because every time they get baby steps laws passed that control things a bit more, they have moved the line of what's acceptable. Since copying cannot be stopped without total control, they can come back and ask for more measures every time the partial measures fail until they have total control.
And, interestingly enough, they will also clamp down on the ability of anyone else to create their own content to compete with the copyright industries, but I am sure that this loss of creative potential is a regrettable but unforseen consequence of the necessity of protecting their IP.
Except for one thing. Will clamping down on all of the kinds of recording and editing machines that people can use to record their own music and movies advance the arts, or hinder them?
I feel that if you have an opportunity where you can use technology to allow everyone to make and distribute art cheaply, you will advance the arts more than a world where the creation and distribution channels are artificially narrowed to serve a few corporate interests. If everyone has the chance to create and to share then arts will be advanced more than if things are controlled by a few.
Since the only way to control copyright is to shut off the creative paths that would have been available to billions to keep thousands employed, I say these kinds of laws protect copyright at the expense of freedom. Since the only reason copyright exists is to advance the arts, and since a law like this will stifle the arts, a law like this cannot be constitutional.
Not only will a law like this stifle:
No, he'll post here, get modded down as -1 Troll -1 Stupid or -1 NeedsAFuckingLife and he will proceed to sue /. for not letting him get his message across, as well as anyone who mods him down, as well as anyone who posts messages making fun of him for being a Stupid Troll who NeedsALife.
I spend hours a day on these boards posting and trying to get karma. It seems like it's rewarded randomly and at the stupidest times. Does this mean I can sue Slashdot for making an addictive online game experience?
This is a better idea than a lot of the *real* dotcom ideas out there. Getting lots of content created by a large group of people on the cheap isn't that stupid of an idea.
So now unprotected sex is considered to be circumvention of copy-control measures on copyrighted digital content? :P
I can't tell if you're serious since you're posting AC...but you should boycott Star Wars and get everyone you know to boycott it, too. Boycotting anything else would just be a blip on their screen, but SW is hardcore geek material.
The Senate today declared war on the Netherlands with the Hon. Fritz Hollings leading the charge. He summed it up like this "It is now clear that the Netherlands has become a haven for pirates, just as the Barbary coast was over 200 years ago when we sent the Marines in to learn 'em a lesson. They have now joined the Axis of Evil since pirates are terrorists, and will pay the ultimate price for their terrorism."
Sen. Hollings was later admitted to the hospital complaining of back pain after attempting to lift a giant sack of money that mysteriously appeared in front of his office door during the vote.
Yes, boycott. Boycott Star Wars. It's where we geeks can actually make a difference! There's still time before it comes out!!!
You wrote
This is not the type of business behavior that should allowed when a company holds a monopoly over an industry.
I think you meant to write
This is the type of business behavior that can only happen when a company holds a monopoly over an industry.
This is no different from Standard Oil forcing rail companies to charge other oil companies extra for shipping their oil if they wanted to ship Standard Oil oil.
I don't really like the term blue print for source code,
But it's such an apt description. After all, the courts have determined that taking a machine with a bunch of switches and flipping some of those switches constitutes making a "new machine" that can be patented. Of course, you can't just flip any old switches and get them patented, but if you give some real world meaning to the switches being flipped, patent away!
Heck, I finally realized that I have been thinking about math all wrong all these years. I used to think that there was no difference between an algorithm and a use of that algorithm with real world numbers, but I must have been wrong. That's because these are two totally different things since you can't patent an algorithm running on a computer if it's just the algorithm itself, but you can patent it if it's somehow related to the real world. That simply blew me away when I finally came to the stunning realization that word problems are different and harder than "math problems". After all, I grew up thinking that word problems were easy since you were just doing the same thing as the regular math problems, except you gave some real-world meaning to the numbers being used, but man was I wrong.
That's where the blueprints come in. If the software running on the computer is somehow related to something in the real world, then it stops being a bunch of ideas and just using a machine, and becomes a Real Thing, a New Machine! And, we all know that if you want to create a complex Real Thing you'd better have some plans, and blueprints are the perfect thing for that!
Yes folks, by the miracle of modern technology, we can take two pure ideas (mathematical algorithm) + (giving real-world meaning to numbers) and obtain (A Real Thing That Can Be Patented).
It's the New Math: (Pure Idea)+(Pure Idea)=(Real Thing).
Can't you see that? So the "blueprints" analogy is just perfect.
You just don't get it and you need to go back to third grade and look at all of your math books again and understand this time that "word problems are really tough because they aren't the same as the pure math problems where the numbers have no real world meaning".
That's the most amazing thing of all. If you have a computer program that will solve some homework problems for you, the computer is just your plain old computer when you're using it to solve the regular math problems. However, the moment that you start to use it to solve a word problem, it becomes a New Machine! Because even though the steps it does are the same, since you gave real world meaning to the inputs and outputs, you have taken two pure ideas and made a Real Thing. Aren't you proud of yourself for building a New Machine just to do your math homework? I know I am.
I've said it before and I'll say it again and again.
Boycott Star Wars because the MPAA wants to take away computers. Get everyone you know to do the same thing.
Nope. I'm just whoring for karma with an obvious and peurile joke that I think is about the level of what the average /.er thinks is funny.