" it is only a restriction on government, so it has nothing to do with a civil suit free speech and responsible speech are not the same thing..."
Wrong. Use of the courts is a GOVERNMENT function. A court MUST respect a defendant's Constitutional and other legal rights.
What you are thinking of is that a corporation isn't bound by the 1st amendment with respect to your employment, etc (ie, they can fire you for saying something they don't like). That is a different issue from using the government to punish someone for what they said. IMO, it shouldn't happen, except in cases of libel and slander.
BTW, it used to be virtually impossible to prove slander of a corporate entity, but now that we have has a decade of new court appointees coming from corporate lawfirms... Well, do the math.
"On the one hand you claim we need government intervention, on the other you claim the market can straighten it out!"
I want both to happen. The government has a moral and legal obligation to protect the rights of users of proprietary software, just as it does users of other products.
GM or Ford couldn't escape liability for a design defect in their trucks that causes them to explode, taking with it a company's assets. They would be FULLY liable not only for the actual damages, but for compensatory damages.
This liability tends to discourage such horrific defects.
There is no such liability in software. You can EULA away all responsibility, even if you KNOW the product is defective. A company's data can be totally screwed by a defective software product, and the software company be totally non-liable.
The market SHOULD decide that OSS software is less expensive, less legally risky, and more secure, but this is not going to happen overnight. I believe in the long run that it will. This is why the proprietary IP cartel is pushing such new laws as the SSSCA that would essentially make it a felony to produce an open system.
" The other big issue is the DRM software Microsoft, or its partners/subsidiaries, will install. Even with prompting, if you don't upgrade, then you have no access to a content provider's new media. All in all, this sounds like a giant headache for everyone that isn't Microsoft."
The only winning move is not to play. Media that requires or uses "DRM" should be vociferously boycotted and allowed to rot unsold on the shelves just like what was done to Divx.
If DRM enabled media sells, we will be stcuk with it. The DMCA makes it easy for IP cartel jackboots to squash those who try to undo DRM, and the SSSCA will make it equally illegal to essentially make a system that give true "root" access to the system owner.
" Several readers were also worried that Microsoft's broad assertion of its right to access their computers would force their companies into noncompliance with government security guidelines and various privacy laws. This concern was exacerbated by additional PUR language in the same Windows XP section. In terms of "Security Updates," users grant Microsoft the right to download updates to Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology to protect the intellectual property rights of "Secured Content" providers. It says Microsoft may "download onto your computer such security updates that a secure content owner has requested that MS, Microsoft Corporation, or their subsidiaries distribute." In other words, it would seem Microsoft's idea of a security update is one that protects the property rights of vendors, not the security of customers' systems."
What Microsoft is preparing us for is the next step: No root access to a machine.
This is scary ass stuff. Note that MS's EULA gives them the right to change these license terms on a whim. Your license with MS is one sided, MS can change anything they like, and you have no rights other than those MS chooses to grant you.
Running a business on such a system to me would see m an unwarranted risk, especially given MS's pathetic record when it comes to security related bugs and holes.
What MS is saying is that they have "root" access to your machine and can read anything or install anything at will.
This is clearly over the line. NO OTHER industry in the USA can sell a product and attatch the kinds of "strings" to it's use, while disclaiming any and all liability for defects as the software industry.
MS and other proprietary software vendors have had it totally their way for too damn long. We need some sort of law limiting what can be in a EULA, restoring the "first sale" doctrine, and at the very least, a right to "opt out" of new license changes made AFTER the sale.
The best solution is to use Linux or other OSS software. Sooner or later, Microsoft and their goons will go a step too far, and the business world will realize the danger of allowing such meglomaniacs THAT kind of control over their information system arteries.
" Running OSS won't stop them. Running obviously non-intel hardware won't stop them. They don't care, and due to the wonderful aegis of the 'anonymous tipster,' they don't need a legitimate reason."
Running OSS software is the ONLY solution.
The BSA's teeth is provided by the byzantine EULA's that you agree to by using most proprietary software. The EULA's usually force YOU to agree to BSA "audits" at YOUR expense.
You are agreeing to private police.
The only way you can legally tell the BSA to "fuck off" is to not play the proprietary software game.
Didn't Infoseek originally have "pay for search" services, back in 1995?
I don't think that worked then, nor will this work now. Yahoo, instead of advancing the technology of their search engine, or marketing the integrity of their category listings (you get less hits but the sites that you find from Yahoo were quality ones), they are trying to suck every cent out of what they have.
Google has FAR passed them by. Their search algorhythm seems to be able to offer the best of both worlds, automated indexing AND good quality results.
Yahoo needs to either find a better form of that (which would greatly reduce their labor costs), or else BUY Google.
Already, their pay for listing has destroyed the integrity of their category listings. Pay for search will just eat up what little respectibility they have left.
Re:Er, lots of added value over free services
on
Review of Pay Napster
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· Score: 1, Redundant
" They will last just long enough to spend all the venture money. Nobody will sign up. The major labels have no reason to deal with em, since they hate Napster already, and have already started up their own services with identical (doomed) business model. So it will never be the 'jukebox in the sky' which is the only model that even has a shot at competing with free."
The only pay service I ever see working would be one that charged a monthly fee ($20 or so), and gave you unlimited access (within reason) and used standard formats.
The only model that will succeed is to treat it like a giant radio station. The provider collects the subs, and then parcels out to the rightsholder s agencies, a percentage (ASCAP, BMI, etc). Those agencies then pay the royalties to the artists.
The thing preventing that from happening is that the RIAA record labels wants to bypass ASCAP/BMI and collect the dosh for themselves.
The model I described would eventually lead to the demise of the record labels. Artists wouldn't need them, they'd just have to produce their music, license ASCAP or BMI to collect their royalties for them, upload them somewhere, and collect their share of the money if their stuff is popular (downloaded).
I believe that this would lead to MORE money, not less, being made by artists. Think about it... $20 is on average just a little more than the price of one new CD. Artists, on average, get less than $1 PER CD sold. $20 per subscriber would add up to more money being paid to artists as a result of that spend than if that person bought 5-6 CD's in that month, if we assume that this pay service split the money 50/50 with artists.
" I amazed that organisations like the RIAA don't go after the companies that create CDR/RW drives.
This is a nice blow to those record companies trying to stop us from "stealing" music."
Two reasons. Some of them are RIAA members, and it'd be difficult to make a case against SOME and not all of them.
But the main reason: money. A company like Phillips, or Hewlett-Packard have the money and the lobbyists to be able to counter the RIAA in all respects.
By going after Phillips, the RIAA/MPAA would be writing checks with their mouths that their asses can't cash.
This is why they've exclusively gone after individuals (Jon Johansen), and by smaller companies (Napster).
"UCITA is interesting in that it is being pushed as state legislation. Even though the US has all sorts of strange federal laws passed through using the commerece clause to overrule the 10th ammendment.
It's also hard to see how you can have a law which will legalise shrinkwrap contracts, which won't also legalise "envelope opening" contracts."
A uniform multi-state law should be considered a federal law by the courts. It won't be, but I could see where the 10th Amendment can apply.
" Anyway (edging ever farther from the topic), a two-party (or even multiple party) system isn't the problem, the problem is that the two parties are pretty much identical.:)"
That was my point. When it comes to giving the IP cartel what it wants, BOTH parties are quick to put their hands out and give their vote.
The DMCA passed 536-0 (House, Senate, and President), by a voice vote, with no floor debate.
" You touched upon the apparent real reason the MPAA is pushing so hard for these types of laws: they don't care if the work is copied, they just want to have absolute control over its distribution. It would be nice if the courts started looking more closely at region encoding."
It would be nice if the DOJ and the courts would start looking at industry groups like the MPAA and RIAA as monopoly cartels, and a violation of the Sherman antitrust act.
"Even where these are specifically spelled out they can't rewrite regular statute and case law. Indeed the legal status of shrink/click-wrap contracts was unclear enough to prompt the invention of UCITA."
The UCITA also hasn't been established as Constitutional. There is a chance that blind, shrinkwrap contracts will be found to be a violation of civil rights.
" For what it's worth, it has NEVER been legally upheld that there is ANY sort of license on a DVD. Saying that there is one is total bullshit. The argument against DeCSS is that it's primary use is circumvention. This was mainly pushed through with FUD and by smearing the defense."
This also comes from only ONE single case (the 2600 case), by one district judge (the lowest on the food chain), who was clearly biased (his previous lawfirm worked for Time Warner), the evidence is in his own demonstrable prejustice towards the defence.
He also made the narrowest, most EXTREME interpretation of the DMCA, favoring clauses that favored the MPAA case, and ignoring ones that would seem to permit DeCSS's use in making a Linux DVD player...
IMO, in the long run, so-called "judge" Kaplan's ruling will be the death blow to the DMCA. By demonstrating the EVIL of the law in full force in the first test, he gave those who oppose it a POWERFUL argument...
" Nice to see there's a business case out there now against profiling Internet users for ads. Too bad it will most likely be looked at as a fluke failure ("oh they charged too much, we'll charge less") "
Advertising doesn't offend me. What does offend me, however, are ads that manipulate, or take over my browser (pop ups, pop under/overs, interstitials, scrollers). Most offensive of all are tracker ads that track my movements OFF the site that has the ad.
And it offended enough people for whole browsers (Mozilla, Konqueror) to be written with features specifically designed to halt this, if the user so chose.
As I said, I don't mind ads as a way to pay for content on a site, any more than I mind ads on TV and radio. But TV and radio advertisers learn NOTHING personally about me just for my action of watching/listening to any given show. They get my info only if I choose to give it, by responding to their ad.
Really, the whole internet advertising business killed itself by doing this. By collecting such information and making it available to their advertisers, it created the illusion that internet ads are LESS effective than any other form.
What I think is that this let the cat of truth out of the marketer's bag, that really ALL forms of advertising are routinuely ignored by a public that is increasingly bombarded and increasingly resistant. It's just that on TV and radio, the advertiser has no DIRECT, perfect statistics to back this up as they do with internet ads.
I believe once internet ads return to the same philospohy of TV, print, and radio ads, to make impressions and build recognition, rather than as a "buy me NOW!" button, they will be much more effective.
"I agree, but I'll just point out that employee loyalty is on the serious decline."
It goes both ways. Employer loyalty to employees is at an all time low right now as well. The fact that major corps like IBM, who aren't doing badly at all (in fact, they are making more money) take advantage of a recession to have layoffs and forced paycuts, simply because their workers can't move on right now CAUSES this sort of feeling.
In my own personal situation, I always show as much loyalty to my employer as I'm shown. I appreciate opportunity, and when in a job and situation I love, I'll take less and put up with more to stay there. But when the employer doesn't reciprocate, ie, dumps on employees at the first sign of trouble, then they have no reasonable expectation of loyalty in return.
Our government today is almost totally owned by the corps. To the point that VERY unpopular, and illegal (If you believe at all in interpreting the Constitution as written) law like the DMCA can sail on to passage with no debate to a unanimous voice vote.
Corps don't like to be badmouthed. It used to be that courts by and large threw out almost ALL slander/libel suits brought by corporations, because libel and slander law by and large apply to PERSONS, not quasi-entities like a corp.
In these days of out of control litigation, those who can afford legal teams (like corps) can pretty much deny civil liberties to anyone who can't (like a laid off worker). This is because today, NO ONE has any rights unless cleared in a court...
" yup, I agree, but then again, isn't that what capitalism is all about? You act as if there is something immoral about this strategy."
I'm all for capitalism. It's the only form of economy that is democratic. However, when you have a monopoly, or a company that controls so much marketsare as to be able to stifle ALL competition which Microsoft is, that isn't capitalism.
MS's business model basically leverages it's control of one market to take over the next. It involves entering compeditor's markets to cut off their oxygen supply to keep them out of MS's markets.
The only reason why Linux and OSS have been able to make inroads against MS is that by and large, they don't depend on the "classic" corporate business model. OSS can't be bought and shut down. Microsoft could never own Linux even if they bought every Linux company in existance, nor would Linux die if all Linux businesses went under. It's almost as if "evolution" created by necessity the only possible "animal" that can survive Microsoft.
Though this machine looks like more of a PDA than a portable game machine, it certainly has outstanding capabilities in that area. It's a nice little machine. I'm certain, now that they've made the plunge into the game console market, that handhelds will be next.
However, I'm betting this particular product is meant to help reverse MS's to date failure to crush Palm based PDA's dominence.
Though this device appears to be more of a PDA than a game machine, it makes sense from MS's pov to come out with sich a thing.
I'm betting a version of this, configured more as a game handheld will follow.
Microsoft's domination of the software industry depends on their being able to cut off the "air supply" of compeditors. Leaving the handheld market to Nintendo gives them revenue that they can use to fund their competition (game cube) to the MS X Box.
It's just an application of MS's playbook in the PC industry. This is why MS makes Mac apps, since people DO use Macs, they MUST have them using MS Office, not another app that might end up ported to `Doze and compete.
This is why MS is fighting Linux tooth and nail. They can't afford it getting too large, so that it's a big enough market to fund non-MS app software development.
"Just for correctness, the college in question is not state-funded. Cornell is broken up into several colleges, three of which are state funded (significantly lower tuition). The College of Engineering however, is a private institution and has the typical 36k tuition bill."
That makes no difference. If the taxpayers fund part of it, they are helping to fund all of it.
Not only that, but they are funding it in the fact that their non-"public" colleges are tax exempt.
" So you are saying that "especially [...] state-funded schools" should basically give away their research to Big Business? Hey, that's giving tax money to Big Business."
No, state funded schools should have to give away their research to TAXPAYERS. Last time I checked big business also pays taxes.
If a state funded school doesn't like that, well the choice is simple. Give up all taxpayer subsidy and exist as a privately funded, taxpaying institution. Just like any corporation's R&D department is.
Don't take from the taxpayer with one hand, and with the other deny them the return on their investment.
"A patent holder can block the use of a technology for 20 years, period. It's not like copyright protection where you can reverse engineer the functionality, because the function itself is monopolized and not just one single implementation of it.
That, by the way, is partly why allowing patents on software is such a big mistake."
Yep. Because what this does is allow works that should only be allowed copyright protection to get the much stronger patent protection.
In reality, this sort of thing (done more or less by bureaucratic fiat, not really in law) is a bigger triumph for the IP cartels than even the DMCA.
Had we our current IP law/patent climate back in the 1970's, when the computer revolution really took off, VisiCalc, WordStar, et all, would have been PATENTED, and there would have been no competition allowed to them until the mid-late 90's at the earliest..
Or would it have? Every time someone adds a new icon or button or any other function to a program it's a new "original" work. Which is another reason why software patents shouldn't exist, and are WAY outside the scope of patent law as expressed in the Constitution.
Patenting software is as ridiculous as allowing patents on books. Imagine authors getting sued for infringement because entire GENRES are patented?
"My favorite quote: Larry Smarr, a professor of computer science at U.C. San Diego, said, "I don't think universities should be in the moneymaking business. They ought to be in the changing-the-world business, and open source is a great vehicle for changing the world."
Wrong. Universities should be in the TEACHING business, not the "change the world" business.
This is one thing that has gone VERY wrong with academia in the past 30 years. Instead of teaching facts, and critical thinking skills, schools, colleges, universities by and large teach WHAT to think.
If a university sets out to "change the world", who's ideas and what world is the blueprint? I think you see my point.
I believe that taxpayer funded educational institutions should be required to release ALL their research into the public domain. After all, as taxpayers, we're ALL helping to subsidize it in some way.
There should be no restriction on who can use their research, be it fortune 500 or mom and pop shop. The purpose of a university is to educate students, and to improve knowledge through research. That knowledge should be public domain.
Otherwise, universities are taxpayer funded and subsidized R&D departments producing proprietary, corporate only IP.
In the corporate world, IP is owned by that which funds the institution (the business), not the inventor. The same principle should apply to public universities. I don't feel that a university has any more right to exclusive rights to profit from it's IP than the Joe Schmo who invents something in an IBM lab does.
"Well, maybe. Consider this though: China is the world's 3rd largest market for new PCs (2000~2001, final quarter results not in). China also has 37million home PCs connected to the internet (USA about 55 million). Seems like a pretty fair market to me."
Yes, but when you consider that the US market exceeds those figures, and is only 280 million people (instead of well over 1 billion), you see my point.
Relatively few people as a percentage of China's population can afford to buy anything of any significance. Otherwise those numbers would be FAR in excess of the USA. The people of China don't purchase PC's and connect to the internet at the rate they do in the US, not because the products aren't available, it's that they don't have the money to.
Ergo, this great "untapped" market of over a billion really doesn't exist. China is a third world country largely still living in the fifth century, with an overclass of party elites at the top.
Slashdot Mirror
" it is only a restriction on government, so it has nothing to do with a civil suit free speech and responsible speech are not the same thing..."
Wrong. Use of the courts is a GOVERNMENT function. A court MUST respect a defendant's Constitutional and other legal rights.
What you are thinking of is that a corporation isn't bound by the 1st amendment with respect to your employment, etc (ie, they can fire you for saying something they don't like). That is a different issue from using the government to punish someone for what they said. IMO, it shouldn't happen, except in cases of libel and slander.
BTW, it used to be virtually impossible to prove slander of a corporate entity, but now that we have has a decade of new court appointees coming from corporate lawfirms... Well, do the math.
Wal-Mart is selling PCs without OS's
./ 2 weeks ago. Rejected. This is a major example of how Wal-Mart could hurt MS.
I submitted this as an article to
"On the one hand you claim we need government intervention, on the other you claim the market can straighten it out!"
I want both to happen. The government has a moral and legal obligation to protect the rights of users of proprietary software, just as it does users of other products.
GM or Ford couldn't escape liability for a design defect in their trucks that causes them to explode, taking with it a company's assets. They would be FULLY liable not only for the actual damages, but for compensatory damages.
This liability tends to discourage such horrific defects.
There is no such liability in software. You can EULA away all responsibility, even if you KNOW the product is defective. A company's data can be totally screwed by a defective software product, and the software company be totally non-liable.
The market SHOULD decide that OSS software is less expensive, less legally risky, and more secure, but this is not going to happen overnight. I believe in the long run that it will. This is why the proprietary IP cartel is pushing such new laws as the SSSCA that would essentially make it a felony to produce an open system.
" The other big issue is the DRM software Microsoft, or its partners/subsidiaries, will install. Even with prompting, if you don't upgrade, then you have no access to a content provider's new media. All in all, this sounds like a giant headache for everyone that isn't Microsoft."
The only winning move is not to play. Media that requires or uses "DRM" should be vociferously boycotted and allowed to rot unsold on the shelves just like what was done to Divx.
If DRM enabled media sells, we will be stcuk with it. The DMCA makes it easy for IP cartel jackboots to squash those who try to undo DRM, and the SSSCA will make it equally illegal to essentially make a system that give true "root" access to the system owner.
" Several readers were also worried that Microsoft's broad assertion of its right to access their computers would force their companies into noncompliance with government security guidelines and various privacy laws. This concern was exacerbated by additional PUR language in the same Windows XP section. In terms of "Security Updates," users grant Microsoft the right to download updates to Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology to protect the intellectual property rights of "Secured Content" providers. It says Microsoft may "download onto your computer such security updates that a secure content owner has requested that MS, Microsoft Corporation, or their subsidiaries distribute." In other words, it would seem Microsoft's idea of a security update is one that protects the property rights of vendors, not the security of customers' systems."
What Microsoft is preparing us for is the next step: No root access to a machine.
This is scary ass stuff. Note that MS's EULA gives them the right to change these license terms on a whim. Your license with MS is one sided, MS can change anything they like, and you have no rights other than those MS chooses to grant you.
Running a business on such a system to me would see m an unwarranted risk, especially given MS's pathetic record when it comes to security related bugs and holes.
What MS is saying is that they have "root" access to your machine and can read anything or install anything at will.
This is clearly over the line. NO OTHER industry in the USA can sell a product and attatch the kinds of "strings" to it's use, while disclaiming any and all liability for defects as the software industry.
MS and other proprietary software vendors have had it totally their way for too damn long. We need some sort of law limiting what can be in a EULA, restoring the "first sale" doctrine, and at the very least, a right to "opt out" of new license changes made AFTER the sale.
The best solution is to use Linux or other OSS software. Sooner or later, Microsoft and their goons will go a step too far, and the business world will realize the danger of allowing such meglomaniacs THAT kind of control over their information system arteries.
If this little nugget isn't it, WHAT will be?
" Running OSS won't stop them. Running obviously non-intel hardware won't stop them. They don't care, and due to the wonderful aegis of the 'anonymous tipster,' they don't need a legitimate reason."
Running OSS software is the ONLY solution.
The BSA's teeth is provided by the byzantine EULA's that you agree to by using most proprietary software. The EULA's usually force YOU to agree to BSA "audits" at YOUR expense.
You are agreeing to private police.
The only way you can legally tell the BSA to "fuck off" is to not play the proprietary software game.
Didn't Infoseek originally have "pay for search" services, back in 1995?
I don't think that worked then, nor will this work now. Yahoo, instead of advancing the technology of their search engine, or marketing the integrity of their category listings (you get less hits but the sites that you find from Yahoo were quality ones), they are trying to suck every cent out of what they have.
Google has FAR passed them by. Their search algorhythm seems to be able to offer the best of both worlds, automated indexing AND good quality results.
Yahoo needs to either find a better form of that (which would greatly reduce their labor costs), or else BUY Google.
Already, their pay for listing has destroyed the integrity of their category listings. Pay for search will just eat up what little respectibility they have left.
" They will last just long enough to spend all the venture money. Nobody will sign up. The major labels have no reason to deal with em, since they hate Napster already, and have already started up their own services with identical (doomed) business model. So it will never be the 'jukebox in the sky' which is the only model that even has a shot at competing with free."
The only pay service I ever see working would be one that charged a monthly fee ($20 or so), and gave you unlimited access (within reason) and used standard formats.
The only model that will succeed is to treat it like a giant radio station. The provider collects the subs, and then parcels out to the rightsholder s agencies, a percentage (ASCAP, BMI, etc). Those agencies then pay the royalties to the artists.
The thing preventing that from happening is that the RIAA record labels wants to bypass ASCAP/BMI and collect the dosh for themselves.
The model I described would eventually lead to the demise of the record labels. Artists wouldn't need them, they'd just have to produce their music, license ASCAP or BMI to collect their royalties for them, upload them somewhere, and collect their share of the money if their stuff is popular (downloaded).
I believe that this would lead to MORE money, not less, being made by artists. Think about it... $20 is on average just a little more than the price of one new CD. Artists, on average, get less than $1 PER CD sold. $20 per subscriber would add up to more money being paid to artists as a result of that spend than if that person bought 5-6 CD's in that month, if we assume that this pay service split the money 50/50 with artists.
" I amazed that organisations like the RIAA don't go after the companies that create CDR/RW drives.
This is a nice blow to those record companies trying to stop us from "stealing" music."
Two reasons. Some of them are RIAA members, and it'd be difficult to make a case against SOME and not all of them.
But the main reason: money. A company like Phillips, or Hewlett-Packard have the money and the lobbyists to be able to counter the RIAA in all respects.
By going after Phillips, the RIAA/MPAA would be writing checks with their mouths that their asses can't cash.
This is why they've exclusively gone after individuals (Jon Johansen), and by smaller companies (Napster).
"UCITA is interesting in that it is being pushed as state legislation. Even though the US has all sorts of strange federal laws passed through using the commerece clause to overrule the 10th ammendment.
It's also hard to see how you can have a law which will legalise shrinkwrap contracts, which won't also legalise "envelope opening" contracts."
A uniform multi-state law should be considered a federal law by the courts. It won't be, but I could see where the 10th Amendment can apply.
" Anyway (edging ever farther from the topic), a two-party (or even multiple party) system isn't the problem, the problem is that the two parties are pretty much identical. :)"
That was my point. When it comes to giving the IP cartel what it wants, BOTH parties are quick to put their hands out and give their vote.
The DMCA passed 536-0 (House, Senate, and President), by a voice vote, with no floor debate.
That's says it all, really.
"That would be great, but after the DoJ's wishy-washy handling of Microsoft I don't expect it to happen within my lifetime."
We are all fooling ourselves if we think any meaningful reform will EVER happen unless we quit voting for our 2 party one party system...
When it comes to business interests vs. cilil liberty, guess what loses, every time, regardless of the party in power?
" You touched upon the apparent real reason the MPAA is pushing so hard for these types of laws: they don't care if the work is copied, they just want to have absolute control over its distribution. It would be nice if the courts started looking more closely at region encoding."
It would be nice if the DOJ and the courts would start looking at industry groups like the MPAA and RIAA as monopoly cartels, and a violation of the Sherman antitrust act.
"Even where these are specifically spelled out they can't rewrite regular statute and case law. Indeed the legal status of shrink/click-wrap contracts was unclear enough to prompt the invention of UCITA."
The UCITA also hasn't been established as Constitutional. There is a chance that blind, shrinkwrap contracts will be found to be a violation of civil rights.
" For what it's worth, it has NEVER been legally upheld that there is ANY sort of license on a DVD. Saying that there is one is total bullshit. The argument against DeCSS is that it's primary use is circumvention. This was mainly pushed through with FUD and by smearing the defense."
This also comes from only ONE single case (the 2600 case), by one district judge (the lowest on the food chain), who was clearly biased (his previous lawfirm worked for Time Warner), the evidence is in his own demonstrable prejustice towards the defence.
He also made the narrowest, most EXTREME interpretation of the DMCA, favoring clauses that favored the MPAA case, and ignoring ones that would seem to permit DeCSS's use in making a Linux DVD player...
IMO, in the long run, so-called "judge" Kaplan's ruling will be the death blow to the DMCA. By demonstrating the EVIL of the law in full force in the first test, he gave those who oppose it a POWERFUL argument...
" Nice to see there's a business case out there now against profiling Internet users for ads. Too bad it will most likely be looked at as a fluke failure ("oh they charged too much, we'll charge less") "
Advertising doesn't offend me. What does offend me, however, are ads that manipulate, or take over my browser (pop ups, pop under/overs, interstitials, scrollers). Most offensive of all are tracker ads that track my movements OFF the site that has the ad.
And it offended enough people for whole browsers (Mozilla, Konqueror) to be written with features specifically designed to halt this, if the user so chose.
As I said, I don't mind ads as a way to pay for content on a site, any more than I mind ads on TV and radio. But TV and radio advertisers learn NOTHING personally about me just for my action of watching/listening to any given show. They get my info only if I choose to give it, by responding to their ad.
Really, the whole internet advertising business killed itself by doing this. By collecting such information and making it available to their advertisers, it created the illusion that internet ads are LESS effective than any other form.
What I think is that this let the cat of truth out of the marketer's bag, that really ALL forms of advertising are routinuely ignored by a public that is increasingly bombarded and increasingly resistant. It's just that on TV and radio, the advertiser has no DIRECT, perfect statistics to back this up as they do with internet ads.
I believe once internet ads return to the same philospohy of TV, print, and radio ads, to make impressions and build recognition, rather than as a "buy me NOW!" button, they will be much more effective.
"I agree, but I'll just point out that employee loyalty is on the serious decline."
It goes both ways. Employer loyalty to employees is at an all time low right now as well. The fact that major corps like IBM, who aren't doing badly at all (in fact, they are making more money) take advantage of a recession to have layoffs and forced paycuts, simply because their workers can't move on right now CAUSES this sort of feeling.
In my own personal situation, I always show as much loyalty to my employer as I'm shown. I appreciate opportunity, and when in a job and situation I love, I'll take less and put up with more to stay there. But when the employer doesn't reciprocate, ie, dumps on employees at the first sign of trouble, then they have no reasonable expectation of loyalty in return.
"Do un to others" works.
Our government today is almost totally owned by the corps. To the point that VERY unpopular, and illegal (If you believe at all in interpreting the Constitution as written) law like the DMCA can sail on to passage with no debate to a unanimous voice vote.
Corps don't like to be badmouthed. It used to be that courts by and large threw out almost ALL slander/libel suits brought by corporations, because libel and slander law by and large apply to PERSONS, not quasi-entities like a corp.
In these days of out of control litigation, those who can afford legal teams (like corps) can pretty much deny civil liberties to anyone who can't (like a laid off worker). This is because today, NO ONE has any rights unless cleared in a court...
" yup, I agree, but then again, isn't that what capitalism is all about? You act as if there is something immoral about this strategy."
I'm all for capitalism. It's the only form of economy that is democratic. However, when you have a monopoly, or a company that controls so much marketsare as to be able to stifle ALL competition which Microsoft is, that isn't capitalism.
MS's business model basically leverages it's control of one market to take over the next. It involves entering compeditor's markets to cut off their oxygen supply to keep them out of MS's markets.
The only reason why Linux and OSS have been able to make inroads against MS is that by and large, they don't depend on the "classic" corporate business model. OSS can't be bought and shut down. Microsoft could never own Linux even if they bought every Linux company in existance, nor would Linux die if all Linux businesses went under. It's almost as if "evolution" created by necessity the only possible "animal" that can survive Microsoft.
Though this machine looks like more of a PDA than a portable game machine, it certainly has outstanding capabilities in that area. It's a nice little machine. I'm certain, now that they've made the plunge into the game console market, that handhelds will be next.
However, I'm betting this particular product is meant to help reverse MS's to date failure to crush Palm based PDA's dominence.
Though this device appears to be more of a PDA than a game machine, it makes sense from MS's pov to come out with sich a thing.
I'm betting a version of this, configured more as a game handheld will follow.
Microsoft's domination of the software industry depends on their being able to cut off the "air supply" of compeditors. Leaving the handheld market to Nintendo gives them revenue that they can use to fund their competition (game cube) to the MS X Box.
It's just an application of MS's playbook in the PC industry. This is why MS makes Mac apps, since people DO use Macs, they MUST have them using MS Office, not another app that might end up ported to `Doze and compete.
This is why MS is fighting Linux tooth and nail. They can't afford it getting too large, so that it's a big enough market to fund non-MS app software development.
"Just for correctness, the college in question is not state-funded. Cornell is broken up into several colleges, three of which are state funded (significantly lower tuition). The College of Engineering however, is a private institution and has the typical 36k tuition bill."
That makes no difference. If the taxpayers fund part of it, they are helping to fund all of it.
Not only that, but they are funding it in the fact that their non-"public" colleges are tax exempt.
" So you are saying that "especially [...] state-funded schools" should basically give away their research to Big Business? Hey, that's giving tax money to Big Business."
No, state funded schools should have to give away their research to TAXPAYERS. Last time I checked big business also pays taxes.
If a state funded school doesn't like that, well the choice is simple. Give up all taxpayer subsidy and exist as a privately funded, taxpaying institution. Just like any corporation's R&D department is.
Don't take from the taxpayer with one hand, and with the other deny them the return on their investment.
"A patent holder can block the use of a technology for 20 years, period. It's not like copyright protection where you can reverse engineer the functionality, because the function itself is monopolized and not just one single implementation of it.
That, by the way, is partly why allowing patents on software is such a big mistake."
Yep. Because what this does is allow works that should only be allowed copyright protection to get the much stronger patent protection.
In reality, this sort of thing (done more or less by bureaucratic fiat, not really in law) is a bigger triumph for the IP cartels than even the DMCA.
Had we our current IP law/patent climate back in the 1970's, when the computer revolution really took off, VisiCalc, WordStar, et all, would have been PATENTED, and there would have been no competition allowed to them until the mid-late 90's at the earliest..
Or would it have? Every time someone adds a new icon or button or any other function to a program it's a new "original" work. Which is another reason why software patents shouldn't exist, and are WAY outside the scope of patent law as expressed in the Constitution.
Patenting software is as ridiculous as allowing patents on books. Imagine authors getting sued for infringement because entire GENRES are patented?
"My favorite quote: Larry Smarr, a professor of computer science at U.C. San Diego, said, "I don't think universities should be in the moneymaking business. They ought to be in the changing-the-world business, and open source is a great vehicle for changing the world."
Wrong. Universities should be in the TEACHING business, not the "change the world" business.
This is one thing that has gone VERY wrong with academia in the past 30 years. Instead of teaching facts, and critical thinking skills, schools, colleges, universities by and large teach WHAT to think.
If a university sets out to "change the world", who's ideas and what world is the blueprint? I think you see my point.
I believe that taxpayer funded educational institutions should be required to release ALL their research into the public domain. After all, as taxpayers, we're ALL helping to subsidize it in some way.
There should be no restriction on who can use their research, be it fortune 500 or mom and pop shop. The purpose of a university is to educate students, and to improve knowledge through research. That knowledge should be public domain.
Otherwise, universities are taxpayer funded and subsidized R&D departments producing proprietary, corporate only IP.
In the corporate world, IP is owned by that which funds the institution (the business), not the inventor. The same principle should apply to public universities. I don't feel that a university has any more right to exclusive rights to profit from it's IP than the Joe Schmo who invents something in an IBM lab does.
"Well, maybe. Consider this though: China is the world's 3rd largest market for new PCs (2000~2001, final quarter results not in). China also has 37million home PCs connected to the internet (USA about 55 million). Seems like a pretty fair market to me."
Yes, but when you consider that the US market exceeds those figures, and is only 280 million people (instead of well over 1 billion), you see my point.
Relatively few people as a percentage of China's population can afford to buy anything of any significance. Otherwise those numbers would be FAR in excess of the USA. The people of China don't purchase PC's and connect to the internet at the rate they do in the US, not because the products aren't available, it's that they don't have the money to.
Ergo, this great "untapped" market of over a billion really doesn't exist. China is a third world country largely still living in the fifth century, with an overclass of party elites at the top.