"Mandrake is an excellent distro, especially for beginners who are looking for something less scattered than RedHat. Mandrake has continued to set the standard for ease of use and functionality. I hope they stay around for the sake of the linux community."
I agree. Mandrake is by far the best distro for ease of installation and use. And at the moment, it is a better desktop OS than Red Hat, without losing compatibility with Red Hat...
The best of both worlds.
This is why I use Mandrake 8.0 on my desktop, and Red Hat 7.1 on my server, though Mandrake 8.0 has some VERY interesting, and easy GUI based setups for several of the server apps that is making me consider trying it out as a server.
This is what I do: I ALWAYS go buy a copy of the latest Red Hat or Mandrake (Have since 6.2 and 7.0 respectively). Why? Because I feel I should give something to the people who are giving me this software that costs FAR less than it's worth. $30-40 for a Linux distro is a far better deal than `Doze.
"The net, just as government, should follow the Principle of the Least Rrestrictive. this means you block only the service causing the problem. Their tyrannical policy of refusing to say just how or why a given company, service or address is antithetical to their alleged goal."
I totally agree with you! Well said!
I think I can explain WHY MAPS refuses to justify their decisions with an explanation:
To do so would be to get sued. Why? because they'd have to BACK UP every word.
So, they operate clandestinly, hiding behind the vague "we have the right to block any traffic coming through our network" BS.
Sooner or later, MAPS is going to piss off someone too big to defend against the lawsuit...
Why Macromedia?
I can name THESE sites that SPAM you FAR worse than Macromedia (ie, have "opt out" systems when registering software or signing up for services)... Think MAPS will block THEM anytime soon?
Real Networks
Microsoft
Doubleclick and most other ad servers (sick of all those "cursor upgrades" that pop up and install automatically when using `Doze, one reason why I do all net surfing under Mandrake now).
Or does "who" you are matter more to MAPS than how offensive your tactics are?
Operating the way they do, in refusing comment or to justify their actions AT ALL, MAPS is setting themselves up to be "avove ALL question".
NOTHING offends me more than that attitude! There is NOTHING... NOTHING that is above ALL question!
"If an ISP or backbone is legislated to carry arbitrary traffic, that level of service becomes a standard, and a whole host of other Internet standards could (not will) fall under government control (not necessarily yours) and that would not be a Good Thing."
Agreed. But, a closed PRIVATE organization, operating in secret, and even refusing to comment (justify) their actions is just as bad, if not worse.
You see, if the US Government did it (I'm not advocating that they do, only playing devil's advocate), the CONSTITUTION would limit what they can do.
But, in practice, the US Government rarely, if ever these days, pays more than lip service to the Bill of Rights these days, ESPECIALLY with respect to international communications, which is what the Internet could be (and is) called for the purposes of letting the FBI/CIA/SS/NSA do things that they are not allowed to do to domestic communications.
Also, when the 1-2 broadband providers (1 cable 1 DSL, as it's ending up to be) BOTH start using the RBL, what choice do you have?
I'm all for stopping SPAM, but I'm increasingly becoming more disgusted with the way MAPS operates. I have little more respect for them than I do the Nazi's at Cyber Patrol (who blocked THE REGISTER recently).
What MAPS does, while noble on the surface, is a system that is ripe for corruption and abuse, in fact, is probably irresistibly so.
"I think private companies can carry or drop whatever internet traffic they want to for any reason they want. "
And I think that if my ISP starts blocking off access without my permission, or without notifying me, they are breaching their contract with me and stealing my money.
"I used to sorta like the RBL as an idea. But it looks like Vixie is just going WAY to far now. SPAM email is one thing, but blocking all IP traffic just because you can is neither moral nor likely to be legal."
IANAL, but it also could be illegal breach of contract, by your ISP if they prevent you from viewing a site you want to because they subscribe to the RBL.
But then, most ISP's "TOS" are so draconian today, they probably are covered.
I agree that the RBL was once a good idea carried one step too far. "Stealth blocking" (blocking a site in such a way as it appears to be down, with no explanation) is no more ethically defensible than is SPAM, and in fact, may be worse, as they are deliberately lying and DOS'ing the end user.
If a site is RBL'ed, MAPS should at least redirect the request to a page that explains WHY the site is blocked. But then, that might open them up to lawsuits...
I suspect that MAPS themselves are on the verge of provoking a class action against themselves by ISP subscibers. I pay for my connectivity, thank you, and unless I install some lobotomized "cyber nanny" on my PC (which I'd never do), I don't want my ISP or ANYONE ELSE deciding what sites I can and cannot view.
" while Joe Sixpack may find his computer complex and doesn't find it odd that it crashes every once in a while, he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes. ("What the..? Piece of shit..""
I think you've hit on it. Users wont' accept the typical Doze instability in a game console. Fuck, I can't REMEMBER my Atari 2600 ever crashing! (though that may be memory distorted from the Good Old Days). I definately never recally my Sega Genesis ever crashing (that was the last game console ever owned).
I think M$ has their work cut out for them in the game market. For one thing, this is the ULTIMATE arena that REQUIRES innovation, not the "Princess Bride" esque buzzword "Innovation" Microsoft uses every 4th word when slamming the GPL or the DOJ.
Games require innovation. How many Richard Garriots, Sid Meiers or Ken and Roberta Williams have or could come out of Microsoft?
The X-Box (the very name insults me, as I'm a Gen X'er, and when I think of "X" and my computer I think of X Windoes), will likely be a "Mee TOO" game console, imitating hit games from OTHER consoles after they've been released.
" So, once you cancel this contract you're still bound by it? I can understand their restricting exclusive use to their server of their approved apps, but I don't understand how any of these provisions apply to someone who terminated their license."
I don't see how an expired contract could have validity past it's expiration point.
The only thing I could see legitimately surviving the termination of a contract is some sort of "non disclosure"(ie: you received some inside info that could damage the party you were in contract with).
I dont' see how a court could uphold a contract like the one Gracenote thinks they have, which both "expires" yet prevents the other party from EVER using a competing product.
The implications and potential for abuse of that method of contract is scary to say the least.
Remember what time we live in... 2001 America, where the courts function only for the corporations and the wealthy. Fortunately, Roxio has more money than Gracenote, and will likely win.
But what happens when the truly mammoth megacorps "Microsoft (cough)" start employing Gracenote and RAMBUST's strategy?
Microsoft could conceivably dump this clause into their 3-year limited enterprise "EULA":
"You may not use any competing product ever after accepting this license"
"Nice troll, you don't supply any proof that scientology is the favorite religion of the far left, in fact, that's bullshit."
Really? John Travolta, Tom Cruise, the poster children for $cientology are of WHICH side of the aisle?
They are confirmed left wingers. I've yet to hear of any conservatives or libertarians mentioned as $cientologists. The anti-freedom, "secret torah" nature of it would seem to preclude the individualists, whom mostly are from the ranks of libertarians (which is what I am) and conservatives from being interested.
$cientology is the dominant religion (such as it is) of Hollyood, and Hollywood is also dominated by leftists.
"Except for the fact that you're ignoring the accepted protocol for excluding search engines. Your proposal is as legally weak as putting a statement like "This site may be indexed by search engines at a fee of $50 per listing." at the bottom of the page. You'd get laughed out of court."
Not necessarily, if any ridimentary "copy protection" was attempted, because of the DMCA...
I agree with you, such a suit would be STUPID, and should be laughed out of court. And it's something I'd never do. However, the fact that the DMCA, as passed, as argued and ruled on by "judge" Kaplan in the 2600 case (particularly his no-link to DeCSS extension) would seem to make such a suit possible. I only provided this example to once again show why the DMCA is bad law.
Maybe a court would laugh me away if I sued a pay-per-search Google for "circumventing" my no-list, no link copyright notice (by circumventing my not having descriptive meta tags). But do you think that these courts would laugh away such a suit being brought against Google by Time Warner (who for sake of argument, started their own pay-per-search engine and wants all their content ONLY listed on it)? I don't think so...
"That grand defender of civil liberties? Where was it, when your precious 1st amendment rights are being abused by Scientology?
Or do you just fight the fights you know will get you the best publicity or a sure win?"
The ACLU, which does at times do some great things, IS a liberal group. Scientology is the favorite "religion" of the far left, so it's quite likely there are many of them in the ACLU, and that many ACLU contributors are $cientologists.
However, there are a number of Conservative legal organizations, like Judicial Watch, and the Landmark Legal Foundation that should have stepped in as well. However, THEY might not have done so out of ignorance.
All I can say is, that if Keith Henson's newsgroup posts were terroristic threats against a religion, then why isn't Ted Turner behind bars for his MANY slanderous and threatening statements about Catholics?
"A perfect defence in this case would be to take quotes out of context out of the bible (or, barring that, various world leaders, the procecuting DA, the Judge himself, fairy tales, whatever) and ask if they sound like "terrorist words" then reveal the souce is "Mother Goose" or whatever... "
ROFLMAO! Yep. But apparently his attorney wasn't Clarence Darrow... However, they'd likely not have gotten away with it. Judges are very egotistical these days, most of them seem to suffer delusions of "Napoleonic Complex" and likely BOTH he and his attorney would have been jailed for contempt.
Judges have a practially unlimited power to jail for contempt anyone in their courtroom (and this is a MUCH abused power that should be taken away).
The judge in the Scopes Monkey Trial, though heavily biased towards Williams Jennings Bryan who was arguing the state's case against Scopes, had enough honor and decency to give the lightest possible punishment to the teacher after Darrow's stunt.
I don't think many judges of today are as principled. For one thing, judges are FAR more powerful today than 50 years ago. 50 years ago, judges INTERPRETED law, and didn't make law.
Today they make law all the time. Such as "Kaplan's Law" extending the DMCA to outlaw links.
"Maybe, but without user submissions, Gracenote would have no data. How could Google charge for a search service if it didn't have any web pages to search?"
Exactly, and as the operator of several websites, Google charging for services (in effect making money off my strictly non-commercial, paid for out of my own pocket sites), I'd refuse to let them list my site.
But then, as the author of my websites, I clearly own the original content contained there. Fuck, under the DMCA, if I were to remove the meta tags (used by search engines) and put in a DMCA copyright notice granting NO ONE the right to list my site in a search engine, I could probably sue Google for "circvumventing" my "protection scheme" (weak as it would be) under the DMCA, if they by-passed it by manually listing it, describing the site, etc, instead of using the (not there) meta tags.
Whether users punching in CD tracklists/titles "owned" that information is debatable. However, what is NOT debatable is that they owned the LABOR they gave to type it all in. IMO, IANAL for Gracenote to make "ownership" even of their database stick, they'd have to dump the user entered one and re-create it on their dime...
But, as I said on another thread, Gracenote's suit against Roxio is groundless, UNTIL they sue FreeDB and establish that FreeDB is an illegal service. Roxio is in effect, a user of a service that is legal.
Why do they not do this? Mostly because they know they'd lose to FreeDB, as the have no grounds to sue them either. Even though they later patented their interface, the interface that FreeDB uses was GPL'ed. Once GPL'ed it can't be taken back...
The court should not only dismiss Gracenote's suit, they should do so "with prejustice" which means that it cannot be re filed in it's current form. This suit is nothing more than using the courts as a form of extortion. In effect, "putting out a hit" on a business that is simply going for the best deal.
"It's a darned interesting business-plan. To simply sue everyone who decided they didn't want to be your customer, and chose a competing product!"
Yep, interesting. And STUPID. Just look at hwo far that got RAMBUS... RAMBUS (that fradulent IP Lawfirm) has made enemies of the whole RAM industry, which means their company long term life expectancy wasn't good even IF they'd clubbed Infineon.
Gracenote is doing the same thing. By swinging a club at Roxio they are alienating ANY AND ALL of their paying customers. Gracenote should instead be making their service SUPERIOR to FreeDB (faster servers, more accurate data, etc) which might induce tbe larger companies like Adaptec derived Roxio to choose them.
But this is 2001, improving your product so it suceeds on MERIT is NOT AN OPTION, suing is...
You are right about this...
Any court (that has integrity) would toss this suit as inappropriate, as Roxio isn't infringing on anything Gracenote might claim as IP...
Until and unless they sue FreeDB, and establish their service as illegal, any lawsuits against USERS of FreeDB (which is what Roxio is) are inappropriate and should be dismissed.
Until that "fact" is established, this suit is as stupid as Pepsi suing Joe Bob's hot dog stand because he switched to Coke after his contract with Pepsi exired, because Coke chose to GIVE AWAY their product to Joe Bob to get his business.
However, remember, this generation of egotistical judges (Kaplan.. cough cough) suck. So don't be shocked if...
"What in the hell was this judge doing disallowing every defense that was going to be presented? Is he in the pocket of $cientology or what?"
This case seems very reminiscent of the Scopes "Monkey Trial", where Clarence Darrow, the lawyer defending the teacher being prosecuted for teaching evolution, was FORBIDDEN by the judge from presenting ANY of Darwin's theries as evidence. However, Darrow ended up pointing out inconsistencies in the Bible (which was allowed to be entered as evidence), that the case ended up being such a farce, that the embarassed judge fined the teacher only a token amount of money.
Judges are supposed to play the role of an impartial, unbiased "referee". But just as the NBA refs have the unwritten "Jordan Rules" etc that give preferrential treatment to certain superstars, today's crop of judges seem to do the same with their personal biases... A good judge, like a good referee, should be invisible, only calling attention to himself when someone steps out of line...
But then California has some wacky courts. This week, a Federal circuit court judge there basically gave Clear Channel Communications complete ownership of the word "Kiss".
I think it's sad that he had to flee to Canada. But I have my doubts that he will get asylum, as the US DOJ will likely lean on Canada hard. As someone else pointed out, he should have gone to a country more anti-Scientology, like Germany.
Is to get inovations out in the public so that they can be studied... But since the whole patent system has been so twisted and corrupted over the years from what is written into the Constitution, I'm becoming of the opinion that they are no longer of any benefit to society.
"But corporations will no longer have any reason to fun research" opponents will say.
Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.
And if patents don't actually make the invention any more available to the public (such as the patented "golden rice" that could feed the starving third world countries), what the hell good is their research anyway?
Maybe if that corporation made it possible for more people not to starve by releasing that IP, perhaps those people will later be able to BUY more of their other products...
Since we are subsidizing by force of government, corporate monopolies by granting patents, with little or no discernable benefits, then, I argue, patents should be abolished.
The coolest thing about Astronomy, is that we "KNOW" very little. What we have are mostly very brilliantly reasoned "guesses" that presumably get more accurate as more minds refine and build on the therories pioneered by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
Just in my own lifetime, the picture of our Solar System has changed drastically, with the information the Pioneers and the Voyagers returned and still return (Pioneer 10 was launched close to the very day I was born!)
In fact, with the recent confirmation of the existance of other solar systems with planets, our theroies on what is "normal" for solar systems are already in question...
Is there any doubt that those four little spacecraft, of our WHOLE space program, delivered the MOST bang for the buck? And that we should be sending more advanced versions of them out?
Could be that scientists have underestimated the power of gravity, and as such, the planets, and Sol have stronger influence than thought, and thus, the probes may be closer to the limit of Solar gravity escape velocity than originally calculated.
Could even be that their paths are actually a parabola... That once they reach their apogee, may actually fall back into a very distant Solar orbit...
Why would an intelligent species want to slow down our probes, but not stop them, or capture them?
About the only theroy I've got is maybe there is a dark "brown dwarf" star companion of Sol orbiting out there. Could that explain it?
Don't know, but I suspect that small mass pseudo-stars like Brown Dwarfs will be found to be among the most common objects in the universe (as it's known that the sim, low mass, long lived Red Dwarf stars are by FAR the most common stars).
A brown dwarf in the Oort Cloud may be dark enough to be obscured by the comet-like matter there, yet have enough influence to affect the outer solar system (like sending the odd new comet towards the Sun every now and then).
But then, I'm only a curious amateur in Astronomy;)
"RTFA. You can read it for free by going to the library"
But how do you excercise your Constitutional Right of petition, and your 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech to get this law CHANGED by informing your fellow CITIZENS of it, with explanations of why you think it is wrong, if you can't PUBLISH THE LAW in your literature?
As we are all supposed to be EQUAL before the law, the law should be EQUAL before us. In other words, the law belongs to ME as much as the next guy.
Back in the days of the Founders, most protests of this kind were done via printed leaflets. There is no conceptual difference between that an a web page.
"The legal system is becoming ever more for the ones who can afford it (much like medical care)."
Actually, much worse than medical care....
In the USA, if you show up to the emergency room, they HAVE to treat you, whether you can pay or not.
That is NOT the case in a court of "law". You are entitled to a "free" (loser who can't get paid) attorney only in criminal cases where you are a defendant. And such bad representation you might as well plead guilty. If you are sued civilly, there is no such right.
Now that we've become a hyperlitigious society (sponsored by those Dem contrinbuting "American Trial Lawyers", almost everyone is at risk of being sued.
Hillary Clinton once proposed that there be a "cap" on the number of doctors who could be graduated from medical schools as a means to control health care costs. How come she (a lawyer) never proposed doing the same thing to the law schools?
"there is a bunch of stupid crap going on right now, mostly due to tons of liberal and/or stupid judicial appointments recently, but this will swing back into the rational spectrum in the next few years. That is the real beauty of the US, stupid decisions usually don't last very long, especially when it starts impacting on the public in general"
Will we? Or will the last great "Empire" of Western Civilization, United States collapse at last?
History points towards collapse. No country with the form of government we have, which made the honest attempt to preserve equality before the law to every citizen, lasts much beyond 200 years. In fact, ours has lasted the longest of all such governments.
I see our "citizens" less educated (in civics) than ever. I see more apathy (gimme the new Britney album and let me watch "reality TV" Survivor) type sheepizens than real CITIZENS.
The true weakness of a Republic is in it's dependance on the responsibility of it's citizens. Ever since 1933 (FDR), the citizens of this country have been ever more tolerent of an ever more powerful, invasive, and restrictive Federal Government, so long as it provides more and more "bread and circuses".
We may be past the point where the USA CAN be saved.
Want a great example?
Ask anyone whether they are in favor of eliminating "social(ist) security" for example... And you will be called an EXTREMIST for merely suggesting that. Even though all the evidence in the world proves that doing ANYTHING with that social(ist) security tax OTHER than contributing it to a non-interest accruing government ponsi scheme (that would be illegal for anyone else to engage in) would result in MANY TIMES more money when you retire!
Re:Not that different from what we have now
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Is Law Copyrighted?
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"Perhaps juries should review the law to see if it is comprehensible"
Actually, Juries have that power. In fact, Juries have ABSOLUTE POWER in a case!
While Judges are bound to the law, the Constitution above all, Juries are not. They are empowered to judge even the LAW. It's called "jury nullification". A jury may find someone not guilty because they feel the LAW unjust.
This is one reason why prosecutors and defense attorneys alike try to pack juries with morons who do not know this. Want to get dismissed from Jury duty? Declare your belief in the principle of "Jury Nullification"
I'll admit that it DOES sound extreme to accuse these judges of Treason, but think of it this way...
What way greater to betray the United States than to betray the Constitution, by failing to apply it to statutory (copyright) law when it threatens Constitutional freedoms?
As far as taking up arms against the government, I hope that it never happens, but ultimately, the final and ONLY check on the power of a Federal Government is the threat of a betrayed Citizenry overthowing it by force of arms.
"I beg to differ. In fact, I would say that it is the very fact that we are a Republic that is causing these problems. What we suffer is not "mob rule." Instead, the majority is repressed by their so called representatives who owe allegiance only to the coporate dollar."
Absolute rule by the majority *IS* Mob Rule... Which is Democracy.
A Republic is rule by representative Democracy, that restricts the MOB by being forced to be restricted by LAW (Constitution).
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"Mandrake is an excellent distro, especially for beginners who are looking for something less scattered than RedHat. Mandrake has continued to set the standard for ease of use and functionality. I hope they stay around for the sake of the linux community."
I agree. Mandrake is by far the best distro for ease of installation and use. And at the moment, it is a better desktop OS than Red Hat, without losing compatibility with Red Hat...
The best of both worlds.
This is why I use Mandrake 8.0 on my desktop, and Red Hat 7.1 on my server, though Mandrake 8.0 has some VERY interesting, and easy GUI based setups for several of the server apps that is making me consider trying it out as a server.
This is what I do: I ALWAYS go buy a copy of the latest Red Hat or Mandrake (Have since 6.2 and 7.0 respectively). Why? Because I feel I should give something to the people who are giving me this software that costs FAR less than it's worth. $30-40 for a Linux distro is a far better deal than `Doze.
"The net, just as government, should follow the Principle of the Least Rrestrictive. this means you block only the service causing the problem. Their tyrannical policy of refusing to say just how or why a given company, service or address is antithetical to their alleged goal."
I totally agree with you! Well said!
I think I can explain WHY MAPS refuses to justify their decisions with an explanation:
To do so would be to get sued. Why? because they'd have to BACK UP every word.
So, they operate clandestinly, hiding behind the vague "we have the right to block any traffic coming through our network" BS.
Sooner or later, MAPS is going to piss off someone too big to defend against the lawsuit...
Why Macromedia?
I can name THESE sites that SPAM you FAR worse than Macromedia (ie, have "opt out" systems when registering software or signing up for services)... Think MAPS will block THEM anytime soon?
Real Networks
Microsoft
Doubleclick and most other ad servers (sick of all those "cursor upgrades" that pop up and install automatically when using `Doze, one reason why I do all net surfing under Mandrake now).
Or does "who" you are matter more to MAPS than how offensive your tactics are?
Operating the way they do, in refusing comment or to justify their actions AT ALL, MAPS is setting themselves up to be "avove ALL question".
NOTHING offends me more than that attitude! There is NOTHING... NOTHING that is above ALL question!
"If an ISP or backbone is legislated to carry arbitrary traffic, that level of service becomes a standard, and a whole host of other Internet standards could (not will) fall under government control (not necessarily yours) and that would not be a Good Thing."
Agreed. But, a closed PRIVATE organization, operating in secret, and even refusing to comment (justify) their actions is just as bad, if not worse.
You see, if the US Government did it (I'm not advocating that they do, only playing devil's advocate), the CONSTITUTION would limit what they can do.
But, in practice, the US Government rarely, if ever these days, pays more than lip service to the Bill of Rights these days, ESPECIALLY with respect to international communications, which is what the Internet could be (and is) called for the purposes of letting the FBI/CIA/SS/NSA do things that they are not allowed to do to domestic communications.
Also, when the 1-2 broadband providers (1 cable 1 DSL, as it's ending up to be) BOTH start using the RBL, what choice do you have?
I'm all for stopping SPAM, but I'm increasingly becoming more disgusted with the way MAPS operates. I have little more respect for them than I do the Nazi's at Cyber Patrol (who blocked THE REGISTER recently).
What MAPS does, while noble on the surface, is a system that is ripe for corruption and abuse, in fact, is probably irresistibly so.
"I think private companies can carry or drop whatever internet traffic they want to for any reason they want. "
And I think that if my ISP starts blocking off access without my permission, or without notifying me, they are breaching their contract with me and stealing my money.
"I used to sorta like the RBL as an idea. But it looks like Vixie is just going WAY to far now. SPAM email is one thing, but blocking all IP traffic just because you can is neither moral nor likely to be legal."
IANAL, but it also could be illegal breach of contract, by your ISP if they prevent you from viewing a site you want to because they subscribe to the RBL.
But then, most ISP's "TOS" are so draconian today, they probably are covered.
I agree that the RBL was once a good idea carried one step too far. "Stealth blocking" (blocking a site in such a way as it appears to be down, with no explanation) is no more ethically defensible than is SPAM, and in fact, may be worse, as they are deliberately lying and DOS'ing the end user.
If a site is RBL'ed, MAPS should at least redirect the request to a page that explains WHY the site is blocked. But then, that might open them up to lawsuits...
I suspect that MAPS themselves are on the verge of provoking a class action against themselves by ISP subscibers. I pay for my connectivity, thank you, and unless I install some lobotomized "cyber nanny" on my PC (which I'd never do), I don't want my ISP or ANYONE ELSE deciding what sites I can and cannot view.
" while Joe Sixpack may find his computer complex and doesn't find it odd that it crashes every once in a while, he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes. ("What the..? Piece of shit..""
I think you've hit on it. Users wont' accept the typical Doze instability in a game console. Fuck, I can't REMEMBER my Atari 2600 ever crashing! (though that may be memory distorted from the Good Old Days). I definately never recally my Sega Genesis ever crashing (that was the last game console ever owned).
I think M$ has their work cut out for them in the game market. For one thing, this is the ULTIMATE arena that REQUIRES innovation, not the "Princess Bride" esque buzzword "Innovation" Microsoft uses every 4th word when slamming the GPL or the DOJ.
Games require innovation. How many Richard Garriots, Sid Meiers or Ken and Roberta Williams have or could come out of Microsoft?
The X-Box (the very name insults me, as I'm a Gen X'er, and when I think of "X" and my computer I think of X Windoes), will likely be a "Mee TOO" game console, imitating hit games from OTHER consoles after they've been released.
" So, once you cancel this contract you're still bound by it? I can understand their restricting exclusive use to their server of their approved apps, but I don't understand how any of these provisions apply to someone who terminated their license."
I don't see how an expired contract could have validity past it's expiration point.
The only thing I could see legitimately surviving the termination of a contract is some sort of "non disclosure"(ie: you received some inside info that could damage the party you were in contract with).
I dont' see how a court could uphold a contract like the one Gracenote thinks they have, which both "expires" yet prevents the other party from EVER using a competing product.
The implications and potential for abuse of that method of contract is scary to say the least.
Remember what time we live in... 2001 America, where the courts function only for the corporations and the wealthy. Fortunately, Roxio has more money than Gracenote, and will likely win.
But what happens when the truly mammoth megacorps "Microsoft (cough)" start employing Gracenote and RAMBUST's strategy?
Microsoft could conceivably dump this clause into their 3-year limited enterprise "EULA":
"You may not use any competing product ever after accepting this license"
Trust me, MS is thinking of doing this...
"Nice troll, you don't supply any proof that scientology is the favorite religion of the far left, in fact, that's bullshit."
Really? John Travolta, Tom Cruise, the poster children for $cientology are of WHICH side of the aisle?
They are confirmed left wingers. I've yet to hear of any conservatives or libertarians mentioned as $cientologists. The anti-freedom, "secret torah" nature of it would seem to preclude the individualists, whom mostly are from the ranks of libertarians (which is what I am) and conservatives from being interested.
$cientology is the dominant religion (such as it is) of Hollyood, and Hollywood is also dominated by leftists.
"Except for the fact that you're ignoring the accepted protocol for excluding search engines. Your proposal is as legally weak as putting a statement like "This site may be indexed by search engines at a fee of $50 per listing." at the bottom of the page. You'd get laughed out of court."
Not necessarily, if any ridimentary "copy protection" was attempted, because of the DMCA...
I agree with you, such a suit would be STUPID, and should be laughed out of court. And it's something I'd never do. However, the fact that the DMCA, as passed, as argued and ruled on by "judge" Kaplan in the 2600 case (particularly his no-link to DeCSS extension) would seem to make such a suit possible. I only provided this example to once again show why the DMCA is bad law.
Maybe a court would laugh me away if I sued a pay-per-search Google for "circumventing" my no-list, no link copyright notice (by circumventing my not having descriptive meta tags). But do you think that these courts would laugh away such a suit being brought against Google by Time Warner (who for sake of argument, started their own pay-per-search engine and wants all their content ONLY listed on it)? I don't think so...
"That grand defender of civil liberties? Where was it, when your precious 1st amendment rights are being abused by Scientology?
Or do you just fight the fights you know will get you the best publicity or a sure win?"
The ACLU, which does at times do some great things, IS a liberal group. Scientology is the favorite "religion" of the far left, so it's quite likely there are many of them in the ACLU, and that many ACLU contributors are $cientologists.
However, there are a number of Conservative legal organizations, like Judicial Watch, and the Landmark Legal Foundation that should have stepped in as well. However, THEY might not have done so out of ignorance.
All I can say is, that if Keith Henson's newsgroup posts were terroristic threats against a religion, then why isn't Ted Turner behind bars for his MANY slanderous and threatening statements about Catholics?
"A perfect defence in this case would be to take quotes out of context out of the bible (or, barring that, various world leaders, the procecuting DA, the Judge himself, fairy tales, whatever) and ask if they sound like "terrorist words" then reveal the souce is "Mother Goose" or whatever... "
ROFLMAO! Yep. But apparently his attorney wasn't Clarence Darrow... However, they'd likely not have gotten away with it. Judges are very egotistical these days, most of them seem to suffer delusions of "Napoleonic Complex" and likely BOTH he and his attorney would have been jailed for contempt.
Judges have a practially unlimited power to jail for contempt anyone in their courtroom (and this is a MUCH abused power that should be taken away).
The judge in the Scopes Monkey Trial, though heavily biased towards Williams Jennings Bryan who was arguing the state's case against Scopes, had enough honor and decency to give the lightest possible punishment to the teacher after Darrow's stunt.
I don't think many judges of today are as principled. For one thing, judges are FAR more powerful today than 50 years ago. 50 years ago, judges INTERPRETED law, and didn't make law.
Today they make law all the time. Such as "Kaplan's Law" extending the DMCA to outlaw links.
"Maybe, but without user submissions, Gracenote would have no data. How could Google charge for a search service if it didn't have any web pages to search?"
Exactly, and as the operator of several websites, Google charging for services (in effect making money off my strictly non-commercial, paid for out of my own pocket sites), I'd refuse to let them list my site.
But then, as the author of my websites, I clearly own the original content contained there. Fuck, under the DMCA, if I were to remove the meta tags (used by search engines) and put in a DMCA copyright notice granting NO ONE the right to list my site in a search engine, I could probably sue Google for "circvumventing" my "protection scheme" (weak as it would be) under the DMCA, if they by-passed it by manually listing it, describing the site, etc, instead of using the (not there) meta tags.
Whether users punching in CD tracklists/titles "owned" that information is debatable. However, what is NOT debatable is that they owned the LABOR they gave to type it all in. IMO, IANAL for Gracenote to make "ownership" even of their database stick, they'd have to dump the user entered one and re-create it on their dime...
But, as I said on another thread, Gracenote's suit against Roxio is groundless, UNTIL they sue FreeDB and establish that FreeDB is an illegal service. Roxio is in effect, a user of a service that is legal.
Why do they not do this? Mostly because they know they'd lose to FreeDB, as the have no grounds to sue them either. Even though they later patented their interface, the interface that FreeDB uses was GPL'ed. Once GPL'ed it can't be taken back...
The court should not only dismiss Gracenote's suit, they should do so "with prejustice" which means that it cannot be re filed in it's current form. This suit is nothing more than using the courts as a form of extortion. In effect, "putting out a hit" on a business that is simply going for the best deal.
"It's a darned interesting business-plan. To simply sue everyone who decided they didn't want to be your customer, and chose a competing product!"
Yep, interesting. And STUPID. Just look at hwo far that got RAMBUS... RAMBUS (that fradulent IP Lawfirm) has made enemies of the whole RAM industry, which means their company long term life expectancy wasn't good even IF they'd clubbed Infineon.
Gracenote is doing the same thing. By swinging a club at Roxio they are alienating ANY AND ALL of their paying customers. Gracenote should instead be making their service SUPERIOR to FreeDB (faster servers, more accurate data, etc) which might induce tbe larger companies like Adaptec derived Roxio to choose them.
But this is 2001, improving your product so it suceeds on MERIT is NOT AN OPTION, suing is...
Go figure.
You are right about this... Any court (that has integrity) would toss this suit as inappropriate, as Roxio isn't infringing on anything Gracenote might claim as IP... Until and unless they sue FreeDB, and establish their service as illegal, any lawsuits against USERS of FreeDB (which is what Roxio is) are inappropriate and should be dismissed. Until that "fact" is established, this suit is as stupid as Pepsi suing Joe Bob's hot dog stand because he switched to Coke after his contract with Pepsi exired, because Coke chose to GIVE AWAY their product to Joe Bob to get his business. However, remember, this generation of egotistical judges (Kaplan.. cough cough) suck. So don't be shocked if...
"What in the hell was this judge doing disallowing every defense that was going to be presented? Is he in the pocket of $cientology or what?"
This case seems very reminiscent of the Scopes "Monkey Trial", where Clarence Darrow, the lawyer defending the teacher being prosecuted for teaching evolution, was FORBIDDEN by the judge from presenting ANY of Darwin's theries as evidence. However, Darrow ended up pointing out inconsistencies in the Bible (which was allowed to be entered as evidence), that the case ended up being such a farce, that the embarassed judge fined the teacher only a token amount of money.
Judges are supposed to play the role of an impartial, unbiased "referee". But just as the NBA refs have the unwritten "Jordan Rules" etc that give preferrential treatment to certain superstars, today's crop of judges seem to do the same with their personal biases... A good judge, like a good referee, should be invisible, only calling attention to himself when someone steps out of line...
But then California has some wacky courts. This week, a Federal circuit court judge there basically gave Clear Channel Communications complete ownership of the word "Kiss".
I think it's sad that he had to flee to Canada. But I have my doubts that he will get asylum, as the US DOJ will likely lean on Canada hard. As someone else pointed out, he should have gone to a country more anti-Scientology, like Germany.
Is to get inovations out in the public so that they can be studied... But since the whole patent system has been so twisted and corrupted over the years from what is written into the Constitution, I'm becoming of the opinion that they are no longer of any benefit to society.
"But corporations will no longer have any reason to fun research" opponents will say.
Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.
And if patents don't actually make the invention any more available to the public (such as the patented "golden rice" that could feed the starving third world countries), what the hell good is their research anyway?
Maybe if that corporation made it possible for more people not to starve by releasing that IP, perhaps those people will later be able to BUY more of their other products...
Since we are subsidizing by force of government, corporate monopolies by granting patents, with little or no discernable benefits, then, I argue, patents should be abolished.
The coolest thing about Astronomy, is that we "KNOW" very little. What we have are mostly very brilliantly reasoned "guesses" that presumably get more accurate as more minds refine and build on the therories pioneered by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
Just in my own lifetime, the picture of our Solar System has changed drastically, with the information the Pioneers and the Voyagers returned and still return (Pioneer 10 was launched close to the very day I was born!)
In fact, with the recent confirmation of the existance of other solar systems with planets, our theroies on what is "normal" for solar systems are already in question...
Is there any doubt that those four little spacecraft, of our WHOLE space program, delivered the MOST bang for the buck? And that we should be sending more advanced versions of them out?
Could be that scientists have underestimated the power of gravity, and as such, the planets, and Sol have stronger influence than thought, and thus, the probes may be closer to the limit of Solar gravity escape velocity than originally calculated.
Could even be that their paths are actually a parabola... That once they reach their apogee, may actually fall back into a very distant Solar orbit...
Why would an intelligent species want to slow down our probes, but not stop them, or capture them?
;)
About the only theroy I've got is maybe there is a dark "brown dwarf" star companion of Sol orbiting out there. Could that explain it?
Don't know, but I suspect that small mass pseudo-stars like Brown Dwarfs will be found to be among the most common objects in the universe (as it's known that the sim, low mass, long lived Red Dwarf stars are by FAR the most common stars).
A brown dwarf in the Oort Cloud may be dark enough to be obscured by the comet-like matter there, yet have enough influence to affect the outer solar system (like sending the odd new comet towards the Sun every now and then).
But then, I'm only a curious amateur in Astronomy
"RTFA. You can read it for free by going to the library"
But how do you excercise your Constitutional Right of petition, and your 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech to get this law CHANGED by informing your fellow CITIZENS of it, with explanations of why you think it is wrong, if you can't PUBLISH THE LAW in your literature?
As we are all supposed to be EQUAL before the law, the law should be EQUAL before us. In other words, the law belongs to ME as much as the next guy.
Back in the days of the Founders, most protests of this kind were done via printed leaflets. There is no conceptual difference between that an a web page.
"The legal system is becoming ever more for the ones who can afford it (much like medical care)."
Actually, much worse than medical care....
In the USA, if you show up to the emergency room, they HAVE to treat you, whether you can pay or not.
That is NOT the case in a court of "law". You are entitled to a "free" (loser who can't get paid) attorney only in criminal cases where you are a defendant. And such bad representation you might as well plead guilty. If you are sued civilly, there is no such right.
Now that we've become a hyperlitigious society (sponsored by those Dem contrinbuting "American Trial Lawyers", almost everyone is at risk of being sued.
Hillary Clinton once proposed that there be a "cap" on the number of doctors who could be graduated from medical schools as a means to control health care costs. How come she (a lawyer) never proposed doing the same thing to the law schools?
"there is a bunch of stupid crap going on right now, mostly due to tons of liberal and/or stupid judicial appointments recently, but this will swing back into the rational spectrum in the next few years. That is the real beauty of the US, stupid decisions usually don't last very long, especially when it starts impacting on the public in general"
Will we? Or will the last great "Empire" of Western Civilization, United States collapse at last?
History points towards collapse. No country with the form of government we have, which made the honest attempt to preserve equality before the law to every citizen, lasts much beyond 200 years. In fact, ours has lasted the longest of all such governments.
I see our "citizens" less educated (in civics) than ever. I see more apathy (gimme the new Britney album and let me watch "reality TV" Survivor) type sheepizens than real CITIZENS.
The true weakness of a Republic is in it's dependance on the responsibility of it's citizens. Ever since 1933 (FDR), the citizens of this country have been ever more tolerent of an ever more powerful, invasive, and restrictive Federal Government, so long as it provides more and more "bread and circuses".
We may be past the point where the USA CAN be saved.
Want a great example?
Ask anyone whether they are in favor of eliminating "social(ist) security" for example... And you will be called an EXTREMIST for merely suggesting that. Even though all the evidence in the world proves that doing ANYTHING with that social(ist) security tax OTHER than contributing it to a non-interest accruing government ponsi scheme (that would be illegal for anyone else to engage in) would result in MANY TIMES more money when you retire!
"Perhaps juries should review the law to see if it is comprehensible"
Actually, Juries have that power. In fact, Juries have ABSOLUTE POWER in a case!
While Judges are bound to the law, the Constitution above all, Juries are not. They are empowered to judge even the LAW. It's called "jury nullification". A jury may find someone not guilty because they feel the LAW unjust.
This is one reason why prosecutors and defense attorneys alike try to pack juries with morons who do not know this. Want to get dismissed from Jury duty? Declare your belief in the principle of "Jury Nullification"
I'll admit that it DOES sound extreme to accuse these judges of Treason, but think of it this way...
What way greater to betray the United States than to betray the Constitution, by failing to apply it to statutory (copyright) law when it threatens Constitutional freedoms?
As far as taking up arms against the government, I hope that it never happens, but ultimately, the final and ONLY check on the power of a Federal Government is the threat of a betrayed Citizenry overthowing it by force of arms.
"I beg to differ. In fact, I would say that it is the very fact that we are a Republic that is causing these problems. What we suffer is not "mob rule." Instead, the majority is repressed by their so called representatives who owe allegiance only to the coporate dollar."
Absolute rule by the majority *IS* Mob Rule... Which is Democracy.
A Republic is rule by representative Democracy, that restricts the MOB by being forced to be restricted by LAW (Constitution).