As a number of people have already pointed out, a trademark need not be already officially registered to be valid.
See http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/bas ic_facts.html
Maybe we should learn a lesson from this--when making a new software product, resist the temptation to name it with a cute variation on the original product's name.
This seems to be a simple trademark question. If you can market an instant-messaging product called GAIM, can you also market a new soft drink and call it Coca-Colax? A new Web site called Slash-dots?
Gaim's developers should have thought of this when they named the product. Now, they should swallow their pride and rename the thing.
What are Slashdot's guiding principles on intellectual property rights? Here Hemos defends a decision in favor of strong intellectual property rights on the part of the creator of a work (i.e. freelance writers), but Slashdot has also argued against strong intellectual property rights (Napster et al.) These two positions are not necessarily contradictory, but what are the guiding principles behind these positions? Or is Slashdot just against "big media" (publishers)?
The Supreme Court has ruled that some forms of parody are protected speech, but has never said that any and all parody is protected. Furthermore, just claiming something is parody does not make it parody, let alone a protected form of parody.
I find it hard to believe this kid is using an Apple II because it's the only computer he can afford. Think about how many working Pentium 100s or Mac LC IIs there must be out there and how many of their owners are waiting to give them away or even pay people to take them away.
Could be that the kid just doesn't have any way of connecting with the people who are trying to get rid of their old computers, but then how is it that he has a modem and ISP service? And cable TV, for that matter.
In the main, you're right. However, one of the reasons efficiency doesn't matter to purchasers of vehicles is that fuel prices are distorted so that incentives toward buying them are low. Government should use taxation to encourage purchases of efficient vehicles and marketing/development of same. What government should NOT do is work to artificially depress the price of gasoline so as to remove market mechanisms that would otherwise drive people toward more efficient vehicles. However, some people seem to believe that gasoline that costs $1.99 a gallon (in nominal, non-inflation-adjusted terms) is sacred, and they seem to have the ear of the government.
Your argument, then, is that only market forces should drive innovation? Clearly, an anti-missile shield, a moonshot, or an ocean carbonation project would not ever come to fruition if only market forces were allowed to come into play (i.e., no government-funded research or subsidies).
Your objection also ignores the social costs not captured by the market ("negative externalities," in economics terminology)--in this case, global warming, a cost which is not included when a consumer pays for an air conditioner, but which is eventually borne by society. [ Incidentally, a project like a missile shield also involves market imperfection--missile defense is a "public good"--which is why it would never come about through market forces alone. ]
Imagine, on the other hand, that the government spends the money it intends to spend on its Rube Goldberg projects and instead diverts that spending to, say, energy-efficiency research or industry tax credits that encourage air conditioner manufacturers to build more efficient models.
Why don't we devote our unparalleled technical prowess toward conservation and energy efficiency? I have trouble believing we can land a man on the moon, carbonate the ocean, and build a magical shield to stop nuclear missiles, but we can't build more efficient cars and air conditioners.
This suggestion for how to modify the scoring index would be better than the original suggested index, but it is still somewhat arbitrary. How does the basic idea of platinum certifications x years translate into "staying power"? It doesn't. Newer artists (even if they do, in reality, have strong "staying power") are disadvantaged by this scoring scheme. The data we have on their careers is cut off at the present day, so it is not appropriate to compare their careers with those of bands that have had longer careers (and who have had more years to accumulate points).
This is not really what I would call a strong piece of data analysis. The author came up with a somewhat arbitrary ranking index, then cherry-picks within his data set to find individual bands that confirm his hypothesis. He then uses that confirmation to support his explanation of the mechanism for the phenomenon.
The ranking index the author uses to measure long-term selling ability (millions sold x years aon the market) would weight an album that sold 1 million copies 5 years ago (and none in subsequent years) the same in long-term selling power as one that sold 2.5 million copies last year, 2.5 million copies this year, and will go on selling 2.5 million copies every year from now.
Whether you agree with the conclusion or not, this is shoddy analysis.
If I make an animated film, and Disney cribs it and makes a summer blockbuster, or if I write a programmable text editor, and Microsoft incorporates it into a multimillion dollar program, I better get more than "a few bucks" in royalties.
Also, the comparison with the GPL is not completely valid. People who release works under the GPL are voluntarily agreeing that their work will be used in derivative works. People who create animated films and issue copyright notices with them are usually expecting that their films will not be ripped off by major entertainment companies.
The comparison was pretty convincing. Based on that, it seems the anime film's creators have a strong case... but in the past, Slashdot has been pretty vehemently opposed to strong intellectual property protection. You can't have it both ways. Which is it--should the rights of the original owner of a work be protected, or should information be free and unfettered?
Are you implying that Suck and Feed offered the "real journalism" that mass media lack?
Suck didn't suit me, but I enjoyed reading Feed. But the idea that either was an outlet for hard-hitting journalism is laughable. Suck was all self-referential twenty-something angst, and Feed, though intelligent and a great read, was hardly useful as a source of news or analysis of actual relevant events--think about how much effort they spent analyzig the latest TV show or the latest video games.
Like I said, I liked Feed, and there is a place for its kind of writing, but for "real journalism," give me Time and CNN anyday.
Slashdot readers should not be too quick to mark the Hague Convention as another step toward dominance of society by powerful corporations. The Hague Convention is not unequivocally pro-business; for example, it would introduce an additional burden on a business that wants to sell its products overseas (the business would have to research and comply with laws in multiple jursidictions instead of just its home jurisdiction). Check out the article in this week's issue of The Economist.
This is a dumb idea, and not just because of the privacy intrusion.
How much can you really tell about a person by the fact that they watch 60 Minutes, Star Trek, and Boston Public every week, and Entertainment Tonight only occasionally? Advertisers and advertising purchasers wish targeted advertising would work, but its efficacy is questionable. Make the wrong assumptions about your audience, and you end up erroneously skipping potential customers. Add to that the enormous variation in individual behavior and preferences.
Remember when advertising targeted in this way was supposed to the killer app of Internet marketing? It turned out that advertising based on content (e.g. advertising hosting companies on Slashdot) is still more popular than trying to target individuals based on their surfing habits.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me, but since it's being done by corporations, it must be bad. Corporations are all evil. It's true--I read it on Slashdot®.
You're confusing the issue; the analogy is not flawed. The previous comment was noting that price discrimination (the technical term for this practice) can in some cases be economically efficient, such as in the case where it allows business travelers to subsidize vacation travelers' prices.
It is true that business travelers are paying a premium for the "flexibility" they get with their more expensive tickets. But from the airline's point of view, it costs exactly the same amount to provide a seat to a business traveler as it does to provide the same seat to the vacation traveler--that extra "flexibility" doesn't cost the airline anything to provide. The restrictions the airlines place on vacation travelers are, for the most part, merely a mechanism by which to effect this discrimination between business travelers and vacation travelers.
The HTTP and HTML specs only provide for ASCII content in the most basic form data (by default, the data is sent back using enctype=x-www-form-urlencoded, which officially only supports ASCII.
I'm not the best person to be able to tell you, but if you're building a form that is likely to contain a lot of non-ASCII data, I think the most effective solution is to use enctype=multipart/form-data which does take a charset parameter.
See this portion of the HTML spec for more detail.
Would it be possible to invoke antitrust law against the music industry for attempting to boost sales of CDs by making legitimate CD copying impossible?
Where's that lawyer guy that Slashdot interviewed earlier today?
A helpful article, but keep in mind that (as stated in the disclaimer at the top of the article) these are the opinions of one lawyer. His opinions are not the law. Other lawyers--or a court--could have completely different interpretations of the law on some issues, and could come to different conclusions.
Slashdot Mirror
As a number of people have already pointed out, a trademark need not be already officially registered to be valid. See http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/bas ic_facts.html
Maybe we should learn a lesson from this--when making a new software product, resist the temptation to name it with a cute variation on the original product's name.
This seems to be a simple trademark question. If you can market an instant-messaging product called GAIM, can you also market a new soft drink and call it Coca-Colax? A new Web site called Slash-dots? Gaim's developers should have thought of this when they named the product. Now, they should swallow their pride and rename the thing.
What are Slashdot's guiding principles on intellectual property rights? Here Hemos defends a decision in favor of strong intellectual property rights on the part of the creator of a work (i.e. freelance writers), but Slashdot has also argued against strong intellectual property rights (Napster et al.) These two positions are not necessarily contradictory, but what are the guiding principles behind these positions? Or is Slashdot just against "big media" (publishers)?
The Supreme Court has ruled that some forms of parody are protected speech, but has never said that any and all parody is protected. Furthermore, just claiming something is parody does not make it parody, let alone a protected form of parody.
I find it hard to believe this kid is using an Apple II because it's the only computer he can afford. Think about how many working Pentium 100s or Mac LC IIs there must be out there and how many of their owners are waiting to give them away or even pay people to take them away. Could be that the kid just doesn't have any way of connecting with the people who are trying to get rid of their old computers, but then how is it that he has a modem and ISP service? And cable TV, for that matter.
In the main, you're right. However, one of the reasons efficiency doesn't matter to purchasers of vehicles is that fuel prices are distorted so that incentives toward buying them are low. Government should use taxation to encourage purchases of efficient vehicles and marketing/development of same. What government should NOT do is work to artificially depress the price of gasoline so as to remove market mechanisms that would otherwise drive people toward more efficient vehicles. However, some people seem to believe that gasoline that costs $1.99 a gallon (in nominal, non-inflation-adjusted terms) is sacred, and they seem to have the ear of the government.
Your argument, then, is that only market forces should drive innovation? Clearly, an anti-missile shield, a moonshot, or an ocean carbonation project would not ever come to fruition if only market forces were allowed to come into play (i.e., no government-funded research or subsidies). Your objection also ignores the social costs not captured by the market ("negative externalities," in economics terminology)--in this case, global warming, a cost which is not included when a consumer pays for an air conditioner, but which is eventually borne by society. [ Incidentally, a project like a missile shield also involves market imperfection--missile defense is a "public good"--which is why it would never come about through market forces alone. ] Imagine, on the other hand, that the government spends the money it intends to spend on its Rube Goldberg projects and instead diverts that spending to, say, energy-efficiency research or industry tax credits that encourage air conditioner manufacturers to build more efficient models.
Why don't we devote our unparalleled technical prowess toward conservation and energy efficiency? I have trouble believing we can land a man on the moon, carbonate the ocean, and build a magical shield to stop nuclear missiles, but we can't build more efficient cars and air conditioners.
Sorry, here's the link http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=558
If international sources are eligible, how about tehelka.com's expose of corruption in the Indian government? See this link, for example.
This suggestion for how to modify the scoring index would be better than the original suggested index, but it is still somewhat arbitrary. How does the basic idea of platinum certifications x years translate into "staying power"? It doesn't. Newer artists (even if they do, in reality, have strong "staying power") are disadvantaged by this scoring scheme. The data we have on their careers is cut off at the present day, so it is not appropriate to compare their careers with those of bands that have had longer careers (and who have had more years to accumulate points).
The ranking index the author uses to measure long-term selling ability (millions sold x years aon the market) would weight an album that sold 1 million copies 5 years ago (and none in subsequent years) the same in long-term selling power as one that sold 2.5 million copies last year, 2.5 million copies this year, and will go on selling 2.5 million copies every year from now. Whether you agree with the conclusion or not, this is shoddy analysis.
If I make an animated film, and Disney cribs it and makes a summer blockbuster, or if I write a programmable text editor, and Microsoft incorporates it into a multimillion dollar program, I better get more than "a few bucks" in royalties. Also, the comparison with the GPL is not completely valid. People who release works under the GPL are voluntarily agreeing that their work will be used in derivative works. People who create animated films and issue copyright notices with them are usually expecting that their films will not be ripped off by major entertainment companies.
The comparison was pretty convincing. Based on that, it seems the anime film's creators have a strong case ... but in the past, Slashdot has been pretty vehemently opposed to strong intellectual property protection. You can't have it both ways. Which is it--should the rights of the original owner of a work be protected, or should information be free and unfettered?
Are you implying that Suck and Feed offered the "real journalism" that mass media lack? Suck didn't suit me, but I enjoyed reading Feed. But the idea that either was an outlet for hard-hitting journalism is laughable. Suck was all self-referential twenty-something angst, and Feed, though intelligent and a great read, was hardly useful as a source of news or analysis of actual relevant events--think about how much effort they spent analyzig the latest TV show or the latest video games. Like I said, I liked Feed, and there is a place for its kind of writing, but for "real journalism," give me Time and CNN anyday.
Slashdot readers should not be too quick to mark the Hague Convention as another step toward dominance of society by powerful corporations. The Hague Convention is not unequivocally pro-business; for example, it would introduce an additional burden on a business that wants to sell its products overseas (the business would have to research and comply with laws in multiple jursidictions instead of just its home jurisdiction). Check out the article in this week's issue of The Economist.
This is a dumb idea, and not just because of the privacy intrusion. How much can you really tell about a person by the fact that they watch 60 Minutes, Star Trek, and Boston Public every week, and Entertainment Tonight only occasionally? Advertisers and advertising purchasers wish targeted advertising would work, but its efficacy is questionable. Make the wrong assumptions about your audience, and you end up erroneously skipping potential customers. Add to that the enormous variation in individual behavior and preferences. Remember when advertising targeted in this way was supposed to the killer app of Internet marketing? It turned out that advertising based on content (e.g. advertising hosting companies on Slashdot) is still more popular than trying to target individuals based on their surfing habits.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me, but since it's being done by corporations, it must be bad. Corporations are all evil. It's true--I read it on Slashdot®.
You're confusing the issue; the analogy is not flawed. The previous comment was noting that price discrimination (the technical term for this practice) can in some cases be economically efficient, such as in the case where it allows business travelers to subsidize vacation travelers' prices. It is true that business travelers are paying a premium for the "flexibility" they get with their more expensive tickets. But from the airline's point of view, it costs exactly the same amount to provide a seat to a business traveler as it does to provide the same seat to the vacation traveler--that extra "flexibility" doesn't cost the airline anything to provide. The restrictions the airlines place on vacation travelers are, for the most part, merely a mechanism by which to effect this discrimination between business travelers and vacation travelers.
Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Stanford Law School, not Berkeley.
Lessig's Web site
I'm not the best person to be able to tell you, but if you're building a form that is likely to contain a lot of non-ASCII data, I think the most effective solution is to use enctype=multipart/form-data which does take a charset parameter. See this portion of the HTML spec for more detail.
I think the NBCi software only let you click on certain words. That is, you couldn't click on any word.
Would it be possible to invoke antitrust law against the music industry for attempting to boost sales of CDs by making legitimate CD copying impossible? Where's that lawyer guy that Slashdot interviewed earlier today?
A helpful article, but keep in mind that (as stated in the disclaimer at the top of the article) these are the opinions of one lawyer. His opinions are not the law. Other lawyers--or a court--could have completely different interpretations of the law on some issues, and could come to different conclusions.