Note how John Allsup turns someone saying something into a right without question or debate. Google is not your personal slave John, they are a company that offers a service under certain terms. As long as those terms do not violate the laws of a country, they are free to have whatever terms they wish.
Google's right to set the terms under which it provides its services is not in dispute, but the fact that Google has the right to do what it's doing doesn't mean its actions are therefore beyond legitimate criticism. In a world increasingly dominated by corporate interests, having corporations behave in a manner consistent with the ideals of a free society is far better than the alternative.
Pardon my ignorance, but where in Thomas Lund's proposed standard does it introduce a volume limit on "songs downloaded from the cloud", or indeed on any kind of song at all? A cursory glance suggests the document concerns a means of measuring loudness rather than a means of regulating it.
Also, by definition, state laws legislated by state legislatures cannot be unconstitutional. IIRC, the constitution says Congress can't make laws the place any restrictions on interstate commerce. The states are free to do whatever the fuck they want.
No. The US constitution says exactly the opposite: only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce.
You most certainly did. Amazon pays taxes wherever it has a business presence, meaning that its use of fire and police services is legally justified.
Furthermore, you're wrong in your assumption that by not collecting sales tax Amazon is evading taxation. Sales tax is paid by the customer. Businesses that collect sales tax are nothing more than convenient intermediaries.
So if I steal someone's camera and take photos on it, can I legally require that they return the photos to me once they reclaim their camera?
No.
can I stop them publishing the photos even though I took them on their camera?
Possibly. It depends on whether or not it's considered fair use for somebody to publish pictures a thief took with their camera. One thing's for sure, though: the owner of the camera would not hold the copyrights to the pictures you took.
"Some monkeys in Indonesia... took some photos of themselves. [People on Techdirt noted] that the monkeys had the best claim, and certainly not the photographer."
But the monkeys are the photographers! They're the ones who "framed" the picture and snapped the photo, with the former being essential to asserting copyright on pictures of natural objects and environments. Unless the photographer cropped the pictures in question in order to improve upon them, I'd say the credit goes to the monkeys and nobody else but the monkeys.
Isn't the DMCA supposed to protect such services against these kinds of lawsuits? So long as the operators of these websites respond to DMCA takedown requests on a timely manner, they really should not be held responsible for their users' actions. To make the operators of these services liable for their users' actions would no doubt harm those who seek to use them for legitimate purposes such as distributing their own original content.
The problem with these kinds of filtering schemes is the fact that they rely on allegations of illegality rather than on judgments which establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the website's operators are doing something illegal according to local or international law. The latter calls for the government to make its case against the website's operators in a proper venue, allowing the website's operators to mount a proper defense. At that point the government may as well seek to shutdown the website altogether, which shouldn't be a problem if those accused are truly engaging in illegal (and unethical) behavior.
I'm already annoyed by those phone menus whose obvious purpose is to let the company act like it's providing support while at the same time making it so difficult for customers to seek human assistance that the company won't have to hire many (or perhaps any) customer support people. I fear this Watson system may lead to more of the same thing (except more widespread, as this is supposed to be better than phone menus).
If you actually read the lawsuit filing [sbnation.com], you would gave understood the Apple is filing for patents (specifically design patents), trade dress, and trademarks. ALso trademarks are related to but are not trade dress. And the trademark elements Apple alleges is specifically for icons.
Trade dress and trademark protection both derive from trademark law (see Lanham Act), so I fail to see your point. Contrary to your earlier claim that Apple's lawsuit is all about "design patents", trademark law is a very significant factor in Apple's lawsuit against Samsung. I don't know who you think you're fooling by arguing otherwise. Perhaps yourself?
"Apple’s lawsuit claims that the look and feel of Samsung’s products, as well as the packaging that they come in, infringe upon Apple’s 'trade dress.' Trade dress is a term that has its origins in older cases in which judges referred to the wrapping that a package came in as its dress. Nowadays, the term refers more broadly to product packaging and to the look and feel of the product itself. Apple’s lawsuit makes both types of trade dress claims. It claims that Samsung has copied so many features of the iPhone and iPad that a consumer seeing a Samsung product would actually believe them to be made by, or affiliated with, Apple. But it also claims that the packaging that Samsung employes mimics several details of Apple’s well-known method of packaging its product line." -- Copyright & Trademark Blog
How so? The name of Samsung's phone is "Galaxy", not "iPhone", and the phone itself is clearly and prominently branded as "Samsung" rather than "Apple".
I think if you copied the Coca-Cola bottle or the VW Beelte, both companies' lawyers would like to have a word with you. After both have limited function when it comes to design. If you think that neither of them deserves protection, then Apple does not either. If you do then Apple deserves their day in court. Whether they win is up for a court to decide.
I've posted this before, but what the hell. Everyone with common sense can see Samsung was imitating the iPhone was recent releases.
Imitation is a necessary aspect of fair competition. Without it competitors would be forced to engage in conscious avoidance of competing designs, which I generally see as an overly burdensome thing. I think our IP-centric culture has blinded us to the fact that human progress owes a great deal to people imitating and even duplicating what others have done in the past.
Trade dress, as I understand it, can only be protected in consumer electronics for those elements that are not "functional", but merely cosmetic.
Exactly. GUI's are largely functional in nature and therefore for the most part not worthy of protection.
A simple button or icon is not protected, but the color, placement, and shape of those can be protected under trade dress. The background graphics clearly fall under trade dress, as do the color and shading of various UI widgets. Obviously, much of the physical design falls under trade dress.
From a usability standpoint, button placement may be crucial and therefore cannot be dismissed as being merely "cosmetic" in nature. The shape of the buttons is rectangular, which is hardly unique to Apple's iPhone. Background graphics other than simple colors and gradients would be covered by copyright, but those that aren't (e.g. solid black) may be too generic to be worthy of trademark protection.
All in all, most of what constitutes a GUI is, in my view, not worthy of trademark protection.
As to the first one, there are many, many companies that pour tons of research and money in designs and they think those designs should be protected. Without these design patents, any car company can copy the look of the VW Beetle, any soda company can copy the red and white designs of Coca-Cola. Do you think these companies should be able to protect their designs?
"Look and feel" isn't a design patent issue, but rather a "trade dress" (trademark) issue. The red and white design of the Coca-Cola can is an example of trade dress, but I don't think that's quite the same thing as claiming exclusive rights over a GUI's design. Unlike soda can logos, GUIs and their layouts are largely functional in nature and should therefore not be subject to trademark protection. Icons used as part of a GUI may be subject to copyright protection, but similar-looking icons should be perfectly legal (e.g. a calendar icon can only look so much different from another calendar icon). What remains of a GUI's look and feel beyond all that should not, in my opinion, be protected by "look and feel" trademarks.
"Also, note that Apple is only suing Samsung for producing a device that looks a lot like the iPhone in many more ways than just a rectangular icon grid."
Apple isn't suing Google over the Android UI, just Samsung for making the Android UI look more like the iPhone UI than other Android phones.
Which particular aspects of the iPhone UI do you think should be owned exclusively by Apple? If Apple were to sell its UI as a product (just the UI, not the operating system), what would the sales brochure look like?
If only Apple would withdraw it's lawsuit against Samsung over the same ridiculous "look and feel" claim. Why should either Samsung or Apple have exclusive rights over what's ultimately a rectangular grid of icons? It would be like giving the company that released the first touch-tone phone exclusive rights over the layout and appearance of the touch-tone keypad.
Let them compete on an equal footing with the locals, and each will win their fair market share based on price, product, and service.
How is having to deal with all of the different states (each with their own particular tax rates and regulations) competing on an equal footing with local retailers who only have to deal with the rates and regulations of their local jurisdiction?
Slashdot Mirror
Google's right to set the terms under which it provides its services is not in dispute, but the fact that Google has the right to do what it's doing doesn't mean its actions are therefore beyond legitimate criticism. In a world increasingly dominated by corporate interests, having corporations behave in a manner consistent with the ideals of a free society is far better than the alternative.
"Rapid account suspension" as opposed to more deliberative approaches to account suspension? What could possibly go wrong?
Pardon my ignorance, but where in Thomas Lund's proposed standard does it introduce a volume limit on "songs downloaded from the cloud", or indeed on any kind of song at all? A cursory glance suggests the document concerns a means of measuring loudness rather than a means of regulating it.
No. The US constitution says exactly the opposite: only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce.
You most certainly did. Amazon pays taxes wherever it has a business presence, meaning that its use of fire and police services is legally justified.
Furthermore, you're wrong in your assumption that by not collecting sales tax Amazon is evading taxation. Sales tax is paid by the customer. Businesses that collect sales tax are nothing more than convenient intermediaries.
No kidding. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters will produce some variation upon Finnegan's Wake.
No.
Possibly. It depends on whether or not it's considered fair use for somebody to publish pictures a thief took with their camera. One thing's for sure, though: the owner of the camera would not hold the copyrights to the pictures you took.
"Some monkeys in Indonesia ... took some photos of themselves. [People on Techdirt noted] that the monkeys had the best claim, and certainly not the photographer."
But the monkeys are the photographers! They're the ones who "framed" the picture and snapped the photo, with the former being essential to asserting copyright on pictures of natural objects and environments. Unless the photographer cropped the pictures in question in order to improve upon them, I'd say the credit goes to the monkeys and nobody else but the monkeys.
Isn't the DMCA supposed to protect such services against these kinds of lawsuits? So long as the operators of these websites respond to DMCA takedown requests on a timely manner, they really should not be held responsible for their users' actions. To make the operators of these services liable for their users' actions would no doubt harm those who seek to use them for legitimate purposes such as distributing their own original content.
The problem with these kinds of filtering schemes is the fact that they rely on allegations of illegality rather than on judgments which establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the website's operators are doing something illegal according to local or international law. The latter calls for the government to make its case against the website's operators in a proper venue, allowing the website's operators to mount a proper defense. At that point the government may as well seek to shutdown the website altogether, which shouldn't be a problem if those accused are truly engaging in illegal (and unethical) behavior.
In fact, SCMS is required by law, via the Audio Home Recording Act.
I'm already annoyed by those phone menus whose obvious purpose is to let the company act like it's providing support while at the same time making it so difficult for customers to seek human assistance that the company won't have to hire many (or perhaps any) customer support people. I fear this Watson system may lead to more of the same thing (except more widespread, as this is supposed to be better than phone menus).
That's no landspeeder!
Nah. Just that often what looks like copying isn't copying at all.
Trade dress and trademark protection both derive from trademark law (see Lanham Act), so I fail to see your point. Contrary to your earlier claim that Apple's lawsuit is all about "design patents", trademark law is a very significant factor in Apple's lawsuit against Samsung. I don't know who you think you're fooling by arguing otherwise. Perhaps yourself?
I know.
Wrong:
"Apple’s lawsuit claims that the look and feel of Samsung’s products, as well as the packaging that they come in, infringe upon Apple’s 'trade dress.' Trade dress is a term that has its origins in older cases in which judges referred to the wrapping that a package came in as its dress. Nowadays, the term refers more broadly to product packaging and to the look and feel of the product itself. Apple’s lawsuit makes both types of trade dress claims. It claims that Samsung has copied so many features of the iPhone and iPad that a consumer seeing a Samsung product would actually believe them to be made by, or affiliated with, Apple. But it also claims that the packaging that Samsung employes mimics several details of Apple’s well-known method of packaging its product line." -- Copyright & Trademark Blog
Did Samsung copy Apple's code? No. Did they otherwise engage in copyright infringement? No. Is their Galaxy phone an exact copy of the iPhone? No.
What Samsung did qualifies as imitation. The question is whether or not it should be legal under trademark law. I think it should be.
How so? The name of Samsung's phone is "Galaxy", not "iPhone", and the phone itself is clearly and prominently branded as "Samsung" rather than "Apple".
Try reading my post next time.
Imitation is a necessary aspect of fair competition. Without it competitors would be forced to engage in conscious avoidance of competing designs, which I generally see as an overly burdensome thing. I think our IP-centric culture has blinded us to the fact that human progress owes a great deal to people imitating and even duplicating what others have done in the past.
Exactly. GUI's are largely functional in nature and therefore for the most part not worthy of protection.
From a usability standpoint, button placement may be crucial and therefore cannot be dismissed as being merely "cosmetic" in nature. The shape of the buttons is rectangular, which is hardly unique to Apple's iPhone. Background graphics other than simple colors and gradients would be covered by copyright, but those that aren't (e.g. solid black) may be too generic to be worthy of trademark protection.
All in all, most of what constitutes a GUI is, in my view, not worthy of trademark protection.
"Look and feel" isn't a design patent issue, but rather a "trade dress" (trademark) issue. The red and white design of the Coca-Cola can is an example of trade dress, but I don't think that's quite the same thing as claiming exclusive rights over a GUI's design. Unlike soda can logos, GUIs and their layouts are largely functional in nature and should therefore not be subject to trademark protection. Icons used as part of a GUI may be subject to copyright protection, but similar-looking icons should be perfectly legal (e.g. a calendar icon can only look so much different from another calendar icon). What remains of a GUI's look and feel beyond all that should not, in my opinion, be protected by "look and feel" trademarks.
Such as, say, the phone's shape?
Which particular aspects of the iPhone UI do you think should be owned exclusively by Apple? If Apple were to sell its UI as a product (just the UI, not the operating system), what would the sales brochure look like?
If only Apple would withdraw it's lawsuit against Samsung over the same ridiculous "look and feel" claim. Why should either Samsung or Apple have exclusive rights over what's ultimately a rectangular grid of icons? It would be like giving the company that released the first touch-tone phone exclusive rights over the layout and appearance of the touch-tone keypad.
How is having to deal with all of the different states (each with their own particular tax rates and regulations) competing on an equal footing with local retailers who only have to deal with the rates and regulations of their local jurisdiction?