Balancing the economic incentive to invest in research and development of new drugs with financially accessible pharmaceuticals, is more important license-free drugs or license-free Milli Vanilli.
Thank you for the reference. I've read the proposed amendments. However, I have not found any reference to the threat you are speaking of. Could you please refer to (or quote) a section in the proposed amendments that would require you to label your blog as advertisement and require reporting to the NYS bar?
If those rules go into effect, both of my blogs, Recording Industry vs. The People, and Ohio Election Fraud (formerly "Fairness"), along with my web sites, info.riaalawsuits.us and Ohio Election 2004 would be taken down, as it would be far too costly and time consuming to comply with the new rules. See my collection of articles on New York's rules and the impact they would have on lawyer blogs herej.
That aside, though, this reeks more of the NY bar just wanting some money. If this actually happens, we'll have to see how it pans out.
The New York State bar is run by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division. They are constitutionally guaranteed pay to uphold their impartiality and independence. They cannot profit, or even have income, and any such notion would fundamentally contradict the constitution that defines the entire judicial branch of US government.
Re. advertisement: The rules of professional conduct are very broad, and have no absurd limitations to existing mediums. Once a lawyer, you are a lawyer everywhere, forever. Even online, in a blog. A misleading publication constituting an inappropriate advertisement being online, or on an otherwise novel or obscure or previously unknown medium, is absolutely not a defense to professional misconduct.
IIANYL, and this strikes me as a red herring. I've read through this, and the gist of the amendments have to deal with solicitations and advertisements as applied to modern technology. I can't read the arguments on the second link, but there are two things that were immediately clear from reading the amendments. First, they are narrowly construed to apply only to solicitation and advertisement, not publications in general. Second, it is in large part a technological amendment, to deal with new methods of advertisements like pop-up advertisements.
The first is the relevant part. I don't, on the face of it, see how this would preclude blogging. It would prevent blogging as a form of advertisement, but that's the very point of the restrictions on professional attorney and counselor publications. Advertisements for lawyers are permitted insofar, but only insofar, as the advertisement aids the public's ability to make an informed decision. Extensions of that are generally barred as being potentially misleading.
The second comment is relevant because it shows that they are technologically savvy. This gives some hope that even if this comes into force and causes problems, they will be conscious of the problems it creates and amend it appropriately. Incidentally, before this amendment, by interpretation, there appears to be some technical requirement to have every partner's name in the law firm's domain name.
Again, though, I haven't read the criticisms, and I've only given it a once-over. I don't pretend to be defending the NY bar; I don't know the arguments against it. I've just read through it and this is all I could come up with. If there is something there that unduly inhibits an attorney or counselor-at-law's ability to publish online, I would be interested in seeing that amended before it goes into force. If someone points a good argument out to me, I'll be sure to send along my comments, as a member of the bar.
The only criticism I could see was an extraterritorial clause which makes the law apply to out-of-NY lawyers who solicit or advertise their services in NY. But that seems reasonable, given the nexus between the out-of-NY lawyers and their purported NY services, and is totally unrelated to this slashdot article.
25. Small Arms Trafficking -- See the second amendment.
That's circular. If the second amendment was the right to own slaves, would that alone justify it? Of course not. But there are a lot of arguments there; I can see why you left it short.
1. Marijuana -- The State says what you can put into your body (doing no crime to no one else), probably funded by the big medical business
You left out the part where big tobacco still gets to peddle its poison, and alcohol is free and clear of any future prohibition. Now, the counter argument I subscribe to for some of these illicit substances is that they are mind-altering and encourage violent behaviour. Oxycontin, for example, is a horrid example of a drug that can cause a huge rise in crime.
I spoke with a well respected authority about it once, in passing, and in a city of 250,000 people, one doctor who trades sex for oxycontin (as happened in one of his cities) could cause a 10 fold increase in petty but violent crime once that doctor is removed. Pharmacies were targeted not for the money, but for the drugs.
It's telling. There is a reason to prohibit some drugs from mainstream use and abuse. Their prevalence would cause enormous deleterious effects throughout society. I hear from a historical perspective, opium in China and East Asia in general serves as a good example.
It's my son's first birthday on Tuesday and I'll be singing Happy Birthday to him. That's a copyrighted song, with royalties payable on public performance I believe.
Would be a nice touch to put that one into the public domain.
I completely disagree. There is no better spokesperson for the absurdity of our copyright laws than example, and this is the best example of absurdity that I can imagine.
When you tell someone they are infringing on copyright and have to pay royalties for singing Happy Birthday, they clue into the ridiculous laws that have been imposed on them. This awareness is the first step to creating momentum for reform.
The more absurd examples we can provide that the general public understands, the better armed activists are to achieve reform.
You've really hit something on the mark there. I remember Boland Turbo C++ 3.0. Boy was that polished. That text interface grew on me like nothing until I got hardcore into Vi. (Maybe I've just lost all credibility with you, right there haha). But I went to Visual C++ and all those, and they were fancy, but boy did they lack the same polish. Things just took longer to do, and it was slower, bloated, less organized, less intuitive, and more puffery, and more complexity.
I've left those days behind, but the distinction still stands, and you've described it well. You can hit the polish without the eye candy, and you can hit the eye candy without any of the polish. An end user will prefer polish any-day.
An analogy comes to mind. Star Wars, The Phantom Menace had all the eye candy, but none of the polish that Star Wars, A New Hope had, which went without any of that eye candy (mind you, in its day of course, A New Hope was all about the eye candy - but it didn't sacrifice the polish).
Trademarks are a form of consumer protection. They allow you to buy Kellogg's Corn Flakes and get the product you are expecting, from the maker you presume to make it. The only real corporate protection is relatively incidental, being that it prevents competing and equivalent products from imitating the genuine article. So you have two purposes at work: consumer protection from confusion, and corporate protection from unfair competition arising from imitation.
Does SPAM referring to "unsolicited email" confuse consumers, or misrepresent the corporate's product to unfairly compete? In this case the SPAM trademark applies to a canned meat product. The term is also in general use to refer to unsolicited email. They are separate industries, and consumers are unlikely to confuse unsolicited email with a canned meat product. Similarly, there are no concerns over unfair competition by imitation. Thus there is little harm to the consumer, nor a real concern to the corporation.
Further, the SPAM trademark owners let the term become diluted over the years to the point where it is commonly accepted; had they intervened a decade ago, their arguments would have been stronger. They are likely statutorily obligated to actively protect their trademark rights. Even if not a statutory obligation, failing to protect their rights is prejudicial in the eyes of most courts.
Comity is a fundamental component of international (and interstate) enforcement, quite common, and not particularly different, even with legal systems as varying in substance as the US and South Korea, as seen in Sung Hwan.
If you have an interest in the case, get a lawyer and file arguments as an intervenor or other non-party participant. Public openness and participation is a hallmark of Western legal system.
If you don't have a lawyer in that jurisdiction, consider getting a local one who can find a proxy there.
In any event, protect your interests. If you don't, you may lose them; the law tends not to protect those who sit on their rights.
This arguement is dependent on whether the EULA is considered to be a valid contract. They certainly go way beyond copyright law and restrictions. Whether you go against the wishes of the copyright owner is completely irrelevant. The issue is whether you have violated their legal rights or your contractual obligations. AFAIK, in Australia there is no legal requirement for me to even read a "license agreement" to a legally produced copy of a copyright work that I have already purchased, and clicking "I Agree" doesn't legally bind me to a contract.
The ProCD case in the US back in the 1980's made the precedent that has been pretty closely followed since: the license is binding because the alternative is absurd. The argument in ProCD was for business certainty, and it's a solid argument. In gist, licenses give authors the incentive to create and distribute in the way the author feels is financially best. This is the incentive behind copyright. For example, distributing under the GNU GPL happens with the expectation that the work not be lifted; authors may be less hesitant to produce and distribute without the certainty of "freedom" as it applies to GPL'd works. It's essentially the same with commercial licenses.
Good catch, and it's an interesting point. I'm not clear on it, but I can speculate. A typical copyright act will state something likeso:
For the purposes of this Act, "copyright", in relation to a work, means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public
Where "use" or "installation" of the software may be considered a "performance" and without permission, you are in violation of copyright law. Installing the software seems to be the relevant point of "copying". If you fail to agree and adhere to the license at that point, you will have violated the copyright owner's rights. Legally speaking, entitling you to continued use and possession of the software after violating the license and against the wishes of the copyright owner is absurd, of course.
Thus, the point of copying would seem to be the installation. Mind you, any discrepencies in copyright license from the original media prior to that are unlikely to waive you from responsibility, especially if you are willfully blind to the origin or have in some way participated in the copyright license violation.
So, in other words, MS has every right to revoke your license for whatever reason they desire? Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?
Incidentally, that's part of the definitions of a license - revokability. Property rights in software arise through copyright and patent law, and you have a license to use the software even though the owner has an absolute property right in copyright or patent law.
Thus, Microsoft's right to revoke your license is a termination of their permission to use their copyright and patents in spite of their otherwise absolute right to exclusivity. While rather scary given Microsoft's monopoly and the potential denial of utility to your computers and access to your existing works, this isn't fundamentally any different from any other sort of property license.
There are some interesting facts that are relevant. Most companies that outsource offshore actually raise the environmental and labour standards in the country where they set up shop, for two reasons. First, there is bad publicity and very adverse consequences to exploitation of labour, as we've seen many times with Nike and Apple, for example. Second, both bilateral and multilateral trade treaties often include environmental protection clauses. For example, the US bars harvesting shrimp where it threatens endangered sea turtles.
Again, with the equitable distribution of wealth in the USA, that is largely a result of domestic laws, not globalization. I cannot emphasize enough how often this has been proven, historically and recently.
Imagine trade barriers between states within the USA. How much of an economic power do you think the USA would be with artificial barriers to trade between New York and New Jersey? There is a very, very good reason why the Commerce Clause, which prevents discriminatory economics, is the most cited, influential and powerful in the US Constitution. Imagining a world without globalization is to imagine one with no Cell phones, no bananas, no Playstations, American-only cars, no potatoes, no coffee, no Chinese food, no Ikea, no refrigerators, no universities. These all came to us through globalization at one point or another, and while they could arguably have arisen on their own, their early introduction has benefitted us in an inconceivable number of ways.
Globalization is founded on two concepts, from the GATT/WTO: National treatment and most favoured nation. National treatment is treating imports and domestic production the same; in other words, imports are treated the same way as national production. Most favoured nation means you must treat all nations alike. That's it.
This unarguably creates wealth. While you are noticing problems with labour, healthcare, housing, and transportation, that they have occured contemporaneously with globalization does not mean that globalization is to blame. You cannot prove that globalization was the cause, nor that they would have not happened in the absence of globalization. In fact, evidence and precedent suggest the opposite, that failure to engage in globalization would worsen these problems.
You may note that the USA has begun the process of isolationism (anti-globalization) with its anti-terrorist tactics. This hurts the economy in ways that have been previously unimagined, precisely because it prevents globalization. Freedom of passage is a prerequisite to economic growth.
You complain about healthcare, as an example. Perhaps the predominant cost of healthcare in the USA is pharmaceuticals, where they are the most expensive in the world. This is because of artificial trade barriers; these same drugs cost a fraction in Canada for no other reason that the USA doesn't let them be imported. Mind you, the USA-pharma problem is more complex than, but in gist if the USA let in foreign drugs, instead of paying 10% of your income into pharma, you'd only pay 2%, thereby increasing the wealth of every American.
I strongly recommend Jeffery Sach's "The End of Poverty". It will definitely clear up these myths, and much better than I can off the top if my head. Reading Oxfam's discussion on globalization will enlighten you to the benefits to everyone, as well. You have a lot of energy on the topic, but it's misinformed and counterproductive.
you mean small businesses want to isolate domestic markets.. this now gives huge multinationals a completely unfair edge, and anyone without the resources to go multinational will die off.. leaving an oligopoly behind to squeeze us for even more money. It has less to do with domestics promoting stagnation and more with multinational beheamoths leveraging an unfair advantage at the expense of the small and medium businesses and especially the middle class.
I'm sure that's not what I mean, and I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say. Do you have a reference for your assertion?
What you are describing are economies of scale, whether natural or through economic verticals. However, large corporations producing things through natural economies of scale is a good thing - I prefer to fly airplanes from corporations with the skill to design, engineer and manufacture airplanes, not a mom-and-pop airplane store. Economic verticals require monopolies on production through distribution, which is harder to control in the international marketplace than a domestic marketplace for two reasons: (1) the international marketplace is bigger, and (2) controlling production and distribution in every country requires intricate knowledge and influence on every single nation. In any event, where economies of scale are natural they are generally warranted and beneficial, and on the other hand where they are artifical they become difficult to maintain when you have to compete in the international landscape.
more efficient redistribution of wealth is not necessarily a laudible goal.. and no it's not off base to say the elite are getting a disproportionate piece of this pie.. just look at the rising gulf between the super rich and the middle class.. it used to be 40 times the income around the 70's.. now it's 400 times the income and still rising.
The word "equitable" may be substituted for "efficient", there. Nevertheless, the response is both myopic and self-centered. First, you are confusing globalization with domestic legislation: The skewed redistribution of wealth in the USA is a result of short-sighted tax reform. Second, the USA (which I presume you are talking about) is still the nation where you are most likely to become rich, even in spite of all this globalization. Third, globalization has brought millions of people out of absolute poverty, providing them with political stability, education, a future. The USA is only a fraction of the population on the planet, and its long trend of post-colonial exploitation is not something one should accept, encourage, or expect to last. Globalization is giving equitable trading rights to the exploited, which of course the USA doesn't want. However, in the long run, when these other nations reach a critical economic-mass they will become trading partners for US exports, and their economic stability makes them less likely to succumb to political juntas.
What you are saying sounds like unfounded, complete FUD to me -- overly cynical and undereducated, nigh a brainwashed stooge of the very corporations you purport to chastize. Grab a copy of The Economist and find out what's going on in the world.
The entire movement of "globalization" is advocated solely by huge corporate interests who are seeking ways to circumvent national sovreignty, specifically the imposition of wage and labor standards.
They realize that by doing this they will be able to squeeze more profit from the exploitable masses.
Nonsense. If anything, corporations are the ones creating the air of "globalization is evil". Why? Because domestic corporations want to isolate domestic markets. Look at the history where, without exception, isolationism has killed virtually every economic empire: China in the 1500's, Japan in the 1700's, the USA inviting the Great Depression with artificial trade barriers.
Not only does globalization bring economic wealth to the rich nations, it brings economic stability, and earned-equalization to countries without. So your argument that it is the big corporations who benefit is flawed in this respect: The wealthy nations get goods for cheaper than they can produce it, wealth is retained for longer periods of time and less is wasted during geo-political stability (unless you're a warmonger), and poorer countries quickly become wealthier trading partners with demand for your services and products.
The idea that the big corporations want globalization is also fundamentally flawed. Corporations very much enjoy their petty domestic monopolies, it gives them profits and permits them stagnation. God forbid they be forced to compete with the rest of the world. No, corporations hate globalization - the cost of competition is by definition higher than the benefit of reduced recurring costs out of the same global labour pool. You may note that in all likelihood, the reason you don't like globalization is because of the very well attuned campaigns they have had against it.
To wit: The irony of this competition is that it encourages a more efficient redistribution of wealth. Your concerns with redistribution of wealth predominantly to the existing elite is off base. Redistribution of wealth occurs with competition, and globalization spurs (indeed, often creates) competition. In the absence of globalization, national companies need not innovate, compete, or even operate efficiently: they form oligopolies or monopolies. Ultimately they rent-seek: change legislation to solidify their position. When forced to compete in the international marketplace, on the other hand, they must innovate, compete, and operate efficiently, to prevent the competition from pushing them out of the marketplace. Hence, domestic corporations loath globalization and knowing the political schema in the USA, for example, they have gone to great lengths to stem any competition from foreigners by swaying public opinion against something clearly in the interest of the greater good. This may be considered a form of negative rent seeking.
Consider the interesting and informative read: Jeffery Sachs, The End of Poverty.
So we can do nothing if China sends ships on the open seas to spy on us? And 'it is a violation on the freedom of other nations and a violation of the neutrality of' open seas if we demand them to go away?
Funny topic, the oceans. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which virtually all states are members, extends exclusive national customs enforcement to 28 nautical miles. There is a 200nm exclusive economic zone, but it's not really relevant to national security concerns (in my humble opinion).
Within that 28 miles of customs enforcement, spying would likely be enforceable by domestic security. Beyond that, it would be difficult to enforce it. Now, in times of war, the treaty is thought to not apply, as a matter of customary practice. However, a declaration of war to alleviate spying would be biting the hand to spite the face.
I've oversimplified a bit, but the gist would be that the open seas, like outer space, are not subject to extraterritorial enforcement of domestic laws, even if it has ramifications such as permitting spying. The choice latin legal phrase oft cited in these cases is:
Extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur: "he who administers justice outside of his territory is disobeyed with impunity."
Oh, and to answer your question, on point: You can demand anyone to go away. It's enforcing that demand outside your jurisdiction (i.e. on the oceans) that gets you into trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
Balancing the economic incentive to invest in research and development of new drugs with financially accessible pharmaceuticals, is more important license-free drugs or license-free Milli Vanilli.
Well said.
It's worth my very billable time to say so. (better paragraphization would be good (topic sentences and all))
Thank you for the reference. I've read the proposed amendments. However, I have not found any reference to the threat you are speaking of. Could you please refer to (or quote) a section in the proposed amendments that would require you to label your blog as advertisement and require reporting to the NYS bar?
Sorry if I was unclear. If I am to send my comments to the NYS bar, to which rule would I refer to as imposing this requirement, please?
If those rules go into effect, both of my blogs, Recording Industry vs. The People, and Ohio Election Fraud (formerly "Fairness"), along with my web sites, info.riaalawsuits.us and Ohio Election 2004 would be taken down, as it would be far too costly and time consuming to comply with the new rules. See my collection of articles on New York's rules and the impact they would have on lawyer blogs herej.
Which rules would you be violating?
That aside, though, this reeks more of the NY bar just wanting some money. If this actually happens, we'll have to see how it pans out.
The New York State bar is run by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division. They are constitutionally guaranteed pay to uphold their impartiality and independence. They cannot profit, or even have income, and any such notion would fundamentally contradict the constitution that defines the entire judicial branch of US government.
Re. advertisement: The rules of professional conduct are very broad, and have no absurd limitations to existing mediums. Once a lawyer, you are a lawyer everywhere, forever. Even online, in a blog. A misleading publication constituting an inappropriate advertisement being online, or on an otherwise novel or obscure or previously unknown medium, is absolutely not a defense to professional misconduct.
IIANYL, and this strikes me as a red herring. I've read through this, and the gist of the amendments have to deal with solicitations and advertisements as applied to modern technology. I can't read the arguments on the second link, but there are two things that were immediately clear from reading the amendments. First, they are narrowly construed to apply only to solicitation and advertisement, not publications in general. Second, it is in large part a technological amendment, to deal with new methods of advertisements like pop-up advertisements.
The first is the relevant part. I don't, on the face of it, see how this would preclude blogging. It would prevent blogging as a form of advertisement, but that's the very point of the restrictions on professional attorney and counselor publications. Advertisements for lawyers are permitted insofar, but only insofar, as the advertisement aids the public's ability to make an informed decision. Extensions of that are generally barred as being potentially misleading.
The second comment is relevant because it shows that they are technologically savvy. This gives some hope that even if this comes into force and causes problems, they will be conscious of the problems it creates and amend it appropriately. Incidentally, before this amendment, by interpretation, there appears to be some technical requirement to have every partner's name in the law firm's domain name.
Again, though, I haven't read the criticisms, and I've only given it a once-over. I don't pretend to be defending the NY bar; I don't know the arguments against it. I've just read through it and this is all I could come up with. If there is something there that unduly inhibits an attorney or counselor-at-law's ability to publish online, I would be interested in seeing that amended before it goes into force. If someone points a good argument out to me, I'll be sure to send along my comments, as a member of the bar.
The only criticism I could see was an extraterritorial clause which makes the law apply to out-of-NY lawyers who solicit or advertise their services in NY. But that seems reasonable, given the nexus between the out-of-NY lawyers and their purported NY services, and is totally unrelated to this slashdot article.
That's circular. If the second amendment was the right to own slaves, would that alone justify it? Of course not. But there are a lot of arguments there; I can see why you left it short.
You left out the part where big tobacco still gets to peddle its poison, and alcohol is free and clear of any future prohibition. Now, the counter argument I subscribe to for some of these illicit substances is that they are mind-altering and encourage violent behaviour. Oxycontin, for example, is a horrid example of a drug that can cause a huge rise in crime.
I spoke with a well respected authority about it once, in passing, and in a city of 250,000 people, one doctor who trades sex for oxycontin (as happened in one of his cities) could cause a 10 fold increase in petty but violent crime once that doctor is removed. Pharmacies were targeted not for the money, but for the drugs.
It's telling. There is a reason to prohibit some drugs from mainstream use and abuse. Their prevalence would cause enormous deleterious effects throughout society. I hear from a historical perspective, opium in China and East Asia in general serves as a good example.
Why is mozilla complaining about bandwidth, and yet not offering a bittorrent link? Surely this is the ideal candidate for a bittorrent release?
Amazing release, mind you. Great work, to all the contributers, in all the many ways they contributed to bringing Firefox to this quality of project.
It's my son's first birthday on Tuesday and I'll be singing Happy Birthday to him. That's a copyrighted song, with royalties payable on public performance I believe.
Would be a nice touch to put that one into the public domain.
I completely disagree. There is no better spokesperson for the absurdity of our copyright laws than example, and this is the best example of absurdity that I can imagine.
When you tell someone they are infringing on copyright and have to pay royalties for singing Happy Birthday, they clue into the ridiculous laws that have been imposed on them. This awareness is the first step to creating momentum for reform.
The more absurd examples we can provide that the general public understands, the better armed activists are to achieve reform.
You've really hit something on the mark there. I remember Boland Turbo C++ 3.0. Boy was that polished. That text interface grew on me like nothing until I got hardcore into Vi. (Maybe I've just lost all credibility with you, right there haha). But I went to Visual C++ and all those, and they were fancy, but boy did they lack the same polish. Things just took longer to do, and it was slower, bloated, less organized, less intuitive, and more puffery, and more complexity.
I've left those days behind, but the distinction still stands, and you've described it well. You can hit the polish without the eye candy, and you can hit the eye candy without any of the polish. An end user will prefer polish any-day.
An analogy comes to mind. Star Wars, The Phantom Menace had all the eye candy, but none of the polish that Star Wars, A New Hope had, which went without any of that eye candy (mind you, in its day of course, A New Hope was all about the eye candy - but it didn't sacrifice the polish).
WoW players would comment, but they're too busy at the moment.
No we're ssssssssssssss ssssssssss ssssssssddddddddddd dddddddddddddddddddd dddddddddddddddd dddddddd
12@#!W23123444444444$$
Does anyone have any pictures?? What's it look like? What would we see?
But if the data is NOT a copyrighted work, (its filled with garbage data), then how can they sue you for that?
Attempted [crime]. Mind you, that's where it's a crime, not MPAA civil litigation.
By default, build in functionality to hunt down every little extension that covers all that extra functionality.
Trademarks are a form of consumer protection. They allow you to buy Kellogg's Corn Flakes and get the product you are expecting, from the maker you presume to make it. The only real corporate protection is relatively incidental, being that it prevents competing and equivalent products from imitating the genuine article. So you have two purposes at work: consumer protection from confusion, and corporate protection from unfair competition arising from imitation.
Does SPAM referring to "unsolicited email" confuse consumers, or misrepresent the corporate's product to unfairly compete? In this case the SPAM trademark applies to a canned meat product. The term is also in general use to refer to unsolicited email. They are separate industries, and consumers are unlikely to confuse unsolicited email with a canned meat product. Similarly, there are no concerns over unfair competition by imitation. Thus there is little harm to the consumer, nor a real concern to the corporation.
Further, the SPAM trademark owners let the term become diluted over the years to the point where it is commonly accepted; had they intervened a decade ago, their arguments would have been stronger. They are likely statutorily obligated to actively protect their trademark rights. Even if not a statutory obligation, failing to protect their rights is prejudicial in the eyes of most courts.
International enforcement is not that difficult. E.g. Comity. See Loucks v. Standard Oil , 224 N.Y. 99 (1918), or more recently, Sung Hwan Co., Ltd. v. Rite Aid Corp. , 7 N.Y.3d 78 (6 June 2006).
Comity is a fundamental component of international (and interstate) enforcement, quite common, and not particularly different, even with legal systems as varying in substance as the US and South Korea, as seen in Sung Hwan.
If you have an interest in the case, get a lawyer and file arguments as an intervenor or other non-party participant. Public openness and participation is a hallmark of Western legal system.
If you don't have a lawyer in that jurisdiction, consider getting a local one who can find a proxy there.
In any event, protect your interests. If you don't, you may lose them; the law tends not to protect those who sit on their rights.
The ProCD case in the US back in the 1980's made the precedent that has been pretty closely followed since: the license is binding because the alternative is absurd. The argument in ProCD was for business certainty, and it's a solid argument. In gist, licenses give authors the incentive to create and distribute in the way the author feels is financially best. This is the incentive behind copyright. For example, distributing under the GNU GPL happens with the expectation that the work not be lifted; authors may be less hesitant to produce and distribute without the certainty of "freedom" as it applies to GPL'd works. It's essentially the same with commercial licenses.
Good catch, and it's an interesting point. I'm not clear on it, but I can speculate. A typical copyright act will state something likeso:
For the purposes of this Act, "copyright", in relation to a work, means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public
Where "use" or "installation" of the software may be considered a "performance" and without permission, you are in violation of copyright law. Installing the software seems to be the relevant point of "copying". If you fail to agree and adhere to the license at that point, you will have violated the copyright owner's rights. Legally speaking, entitling you to continued use and possession of the software after violating the license and against the wishes of the copyright owner is absurd, of course.
Thus, the point of copying would seem to be the installation. Mind you, any discrepencies in copyright license from the original media prior to that are unlikely to waive you from responsibility, especially if you are willfully blind to the origin or have in some way participated in the copyright license violation.
Incidentally, that's part of the definitions of a license - revokability. Property rights in software arise through copyright and patent law, and you have a license to use the software even though the owner has an absolute property right in copyright or patent law.
Thus, Microsoft's right to revoke your license is a termination of their permission to use their copyright and patents in spite of their otherwise absolute right to exclusivity. While rather scary given Microsoft's monopoly and the potential denial of utility to your computers and access to your existing works, this isn't fundamentally any different from any other sort of property license.
There are some interesting facts that are relevant. Most companies that outsource offshore actually raise the environmental and labour standards in the country where they set up shop, for two reasons. First, there is bad publicity and very adverse consequences to exploitation of labour, as we've seen many times with Nike and Apple, for example. Second, both bilateral and multilateral trade treaties often include environmental protection clauses. For example, the US bars harvesting shrimp where it threatens endangered sea turtles.
Again, with the equitable distribution of wealth in the USA, that is largely a result of domestic laws, not globalization. I cannot emphasize enough how often this has been proven, historically and recently.
Imagine trade barriers between states within the USA. How much of an economic power do you think the USA would be with artificial barriers to trade between New York and New Jersey? There is a very, very good reason why the Commerce Clause, which prevents discriminatory economics, is the most cited, influential and powerful in the US Constitution. Imagining a world without globalization is to imagine one with no Cell phones, no bananas, no Playstations, American-only cars, no potatoes, no coffee, no Chinese food, no Ikea, no refrigerators, no universities. These all came to us through globalization at one point or another, and while they could arguably have arisen on their own, their early introduction has benefitted us in an inconceivable number of ways.
Globalization is founded on two concepts, from the GATT/WTO: National treatment and most favoured nation. National treatment is treating imports and domestic production the same; in other words, imports are treated the same way as national production. Most favoured nation means you must treat all nations alike. That's it.
This unarguably creates wealth. While you are noticing problems with labour, healthcare, housing, and transportation, that they have occured contemporaneously with globalization does not mean that globalization is to blame. You cannot prove that globalization was the cause, nor that they would have not happened in the absence of globalization. In fact, evidence and precedent suggest the opposite, that failure to engage in globalization would worsen these problems.
You may note that the USA has begun the process of isolationism (anti-globalization) with its anti-terrorist tactics. This hurts the economy in ways that have been previously unimagined, precisely because it prevents globalization. Freedom of passage is a prerequisite to economic growth.
You complain about healthcare, as an example. Perhaps the predominant cost of healthcare in the USA is pharmaceuticals, where they are the most expensive in the world. This is because of artificial trade barriers; these same drugs cost a fraction in Canada for no other reason that the USA doesn't let them be imported. Mind you, the USA-pharma problem is more complex than, but in gist if the USA let in foreign drugs, instead of paying 10% of your income into pharma, you'd only pay 2%, thereby increasing the wealth of every American.
I strongly recommend Jeffery Sach's "The End of Poverty". It will definitely clear up these myths, and much better than I can off the top if my head. Reading Oxfam's discussion on globalization will enlighten you to the benefits to everyone, as well. You have a lot of energy on the topic, but it's misinformed and counterproductive.
I'm sure that's not what I mean, and I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say. Do you have a reference for your assertion?
What you are describing are economies of scale, whether natural or through economic verticals. However, large corporations producing things through natural economies of scale is a good thing - I prefer to fly airplanes from corporations with the skill to design, engineer and manufacture airplanes, not a mom-and-pop airplane store. Economic verticals require monopolies on production through distribution, which is harder to control in the international marketplace than a domestic marketplace for two reasons: (1) the international marketplace is bigger, and (2) controlling production and distribution in every country requires intricate knowledge and influence on every single nation. In any event, where economies of scale are natural they are generally warranted and beneficial, and on the other hand where they are artifical they become difficult to maintain when you have to compete in the international landscape.
The word "equitable" may be substituted for "efficient", there. Nevertheless, the response is both myopic and self-centered. First, you are confusing globalization with domestic legislation: The skewed redistribution of wealth in the USA is a result of short-sighted tax reform. Second, the USA (which I presume you are talking about) is still the nation where you are most likely to become rich, even in spite of all this globalization. Third, globalization has brought millions of people out of absolute poverty, providing them with political stability, education, a future. The USA is only a fraction of the population on the planet, and its long trend of post-colonial exploitation is not something one should accept, encourage, or expect to last. Globalization is giving equitable trading rights to the exploited, which of course the USA doesn't want. However, in the long run, when these other nations reach a critical economic-mass they will become trading partners for US exports, and their economic stability makes them less likely to succumb to political juntas.
What you are saying sounds like unfounded, complete FUD to me -- overly cynical and undereducated, nigh a brainwashed stooge of the very corporations you purport to chastize. Grab a copy of The Economist and find out what's going on in the world.
Nonsense. If anything, corporations are the ones creating the air of "globalization is evil". Why? Because domestic corporations want to isolate domestic markets. Look at the history where, without exception, isolationism has killed virtually every economic empire: China in the 1500's, Japan in the 1700's, the USA inviting the Great Depression with artificial trade barriers.
Not only does globalization bring economic wealth to the rich nations, it brings economic stability, and earned-equalization to countries without. So your argument that it is the big corporations who benefit is flawed in this respect: The wealthy nations get goods for cheaper than they can produce it, wealth is retained for longer periods of time and less is wasted during geo-political stability (unless you're a warmonger), and poorer countries quickly become wealthier trading partners with demand for your services and products.
The idea that the big corporations want globalization is also fundamentally flawed. Corporations very much enjoy their petty domestic monopolies, it gives them profits and permits them stagnation. God forbid they be forced to compete with the rest of the world. No, corporations hate globalization - the cost of competition is by definition higher than the benefit of reduced recurring costs out of the same global labour pool. You may note that in all likelihood, the reason you don't like globalization is because of the very well attuned campaigns they have had against it.
To wit: The irony of this competition is that it encourages a more efficient redistribution of wealth. Your concerns with redistribution of wealth predominantly to the existing elite is off base. Redistribution of wealth occurs with competition, and globalization spurs (indeed, often creates) competition. In the absence of globalization, national companies need not innovate, compete, or even operate efficiently: they form oligopolies or monopolies. Ultimately they rent-seek: change legislation to solidify their position. When forced to compete in the international marketplace, on the other hand, they must innovate, compete, and operate efficiently, to prevent the competition from pushing them out of the marketplace. Hence, domestic corporations loath globalization and knowing the political schema in the USA, for example, they have gone to great lengths to stem any competition from foreigners by swaying public opinion against something clearly in the interest of the greater good. This may be considered a form of negative rent seeking.
Consider the interesting and informative read: Jeffery Sachs, The End of Poverty.
Funny topic, the oceans. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which virtually all states are members, extends exclusive national customs enforcement to 28 nautical miles. There is a 200nm exclusive economic zone, but it's not really relevant to national security concerns (in my humble opinion).
Within that 28 miles of customs enforcement, spying would likely be enforceable by domestic security. Beyond that, it would be difficult to enforce it. Now, in times of war, the treaty is thought to not apply, as a matter of customary practice. However, a declaration of war to alleviate spying would be biting the hand to spite the face.
I've oversimplified a bit, but the gist would be that the open seas, like outer space, are not subject to extraterritorial enforcement of domestic laws, even if it has ramifications such as permitting spying. The choice latin legal phrase oft cited in these cases is:
Extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur: "he who administers justice outside of his territory is disobeyed with impunity."
Oh, and to answer your question, on point: You can demand anyone to go away. It's enforcing that demand outside your jurisdiction (i.e. on the oceans) that gets you into trouble.