I thank you for replying with a cut-and-paste summary of Canadian law. Please continue; I will look forward to your summaries of the UK law, and the Australian law, and the other "Commonwealth Countries" I wrote of in my post, along with your learned experiences as to what, exactly, one can expect by way of assessments and pre-sentence reports.
I've been to many a case where the Crown proceeded by Summary Conviction. Pre-sentence reports, psychiatric assessments, and the like are common. Only last week a person who is charged with a relatively minor offense, proceeding by Summary Conviction, was remanded for a Psychiatric Report, because he acted crazy in a public place; he tried to set himself on fire in an insurance office.
Your post may be interesting to some, and I thank you for it. Perhaps you might mention that the courts in Canada are under provincial jurisdiction, and practices and typical sentences vary from province to province, sometimes significantly.
But, I'm sure you've spent time in court in every province in the nation. Please tell me about traveling courts in the Yukon, where a single van or airplane often carries the judge, prosecutor, clerks, bailiff, and defense council for extended travel to remote areas. Someone such as yourself must surely wonder what they talk about. Or did you not know about that either?
"... Same as plea bargaining anywhere else...."
Clearly not, but thanks for finally, in the last line, getting back on topic to my post.
You, sir, have no experience with accused in most situations in the US, obviously. Please tell me of the time someone in Canada was charged with a rape offense carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and ended up being sentenced, after a plea bargain based on a guilty plea, to misdemeanor sexual assault, a $750 fine, no record. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/20/nyregion/prosecutor-defends-plea-bargain-in-rape-case.html
I've always been struck by the system of justice in the US where, if you plead guilty, you "save the state the cost of a trial".
In most countries where the law is based on English Common Law (Canada, UK, Australia, etc) there is always a trial, to establish the facts of the case, to establish the exact culpability of the accused, to determine the extenuating circumstances. There is always a pre-sentence report, often a psychological assessment, etc. There is no procedural difference between a case where the defendant pleads guilty and where he pleads not guilty, and the defendant can change his plea at almost any stage of the trial. Occasionally, a judge will refuse to accept a Guilty plea from the defendant, insisting he wait until the evidence has been presented.
There are no misdemeanor options to fall back on; everything is the equivalent of a felony (precisely, they are all Criminal convictions, which the US considers equivalent to Felony convictions when assessing the seriousness of a record for a potential visitor, immigrant, etc). A conviction of the charge of theft of a single CD is a Criminal Code conviction; there are no other options.
The only times when you can plead guilty and avoid a trial is when the charge truly is a misdemeanor; eg traffic court.
This eliminates the incentive to create a system of law as exists in the US, with one or more applicable charges that carry huge penalties, along with a cascade of ever lesser charges and classes of charges, with corresponding lesser maximum penalties, which are then used (as you point out) to elicit guilty pleas.
It also insures that you have an opportunity to defend yourself without onerous implications should you not prevail, for whatever reason.
The truly innocent are placed in a very difficult position under the standard practices of US law (and standard procedures of prosecutors to elicit convictions).
"... Toyota made it, and they received their profit for it when it was sold, including the money that they put aside for future warranty claims. They're not any more out of pocket if someone else swipes it then brings it in for service. This is not at all the same scenario as someone using a copy of software that was never paid for...."
Zombies/doppelgangers that are not of this Earth do not buy cars from Toyota. They arrive here, in cars they duplicated in the other worlds, having paid nothing for them, and wreck havoc.
It's somewhat akin to a scenario where every fourth, or tenth, or whatever, Toyota Camry is driven not by some citizen trying to get to work, drop the kids off at school, or buy groceries, but by a zombie/doppelganger that looks like Beetlejuice and generally causes the kind of havoc anyone with imagination could muse about.
Steals you wallet at the gas station; teaches your kids swear words while you are distracted at Wall-Mart, drives into your house, knocking out the big-screen tv, stumbling out of the car boozed up and taking liberties with the women. Can't be arrested... he's not of this Earth. It just happens.
Now, if that were the case, Toyota would have a PR problem on their hands, and if there was something to to about it, you can be damn sure they would do something about it.
Ah, but there is a difference with Microsoft.
Microsoft is a de-facto monopoly; in China, India, Brazil, Turkey even more so than the US, (where it's still qualifies, handily).
So, the only kind of car there is are Toyota Camry's. Now, you can blame the zombies, and do nothing.
You are absolutely correct if the goal is the public good.
Corporations, on the other hand, are not about the public good.
t would be nice if Microsoft cared, but Microsoft is a corporation. A publicly traded corporation, no less; publicly traded corporations are required, by law, to be self-serving and to maximize profit over other considerations. If they don't, they can be sued by shareholders for not doing it.
So, nice as it would be, unless you can come up with a way to convince Microsoft to convince Microsoft shareholders that the goodwill would turn into profits that exceed the profit available with the current, selfish strategy, I think it's not so likely to happen.
"... Psystar's response: 'Copying a computer program into RAM as a result of installing and running that program is precisely the copying that Section 117 provides does not constitute copyright infringement for an owner of a computer program. As the Ninth Circuit explained, permitting copies like this was Section 117's purpose.'..."
I'm sure Apple's lawyers have a reason for the claim, but you probably would have to actually BE a lawyer to be familiar enough with the Section 117 and relevant case law to know why the claim was included.
I did see something in Psystar's response, though... at " does not constitute copyright infringement for an owner of a computer program".
Is it possible Apple's claim centers around Psystar not being the owner (ie the customer, presumably is the owner) or that other unauthorized use claims negate the protection offered the owner, since the upheld claims would make Psystar's ownership invalid? Does Psystar play any legal games regarding who installs what and on whose behalf? If so, could that come back and bite them with this particular claim by Apple?
Is the actual Section 117 language different than Psystar's response (it would not be the first time language in a lawsuit was cleverly phrased to suit the spokesman's client)? Does 117 say things like "authorized user", etc where Psystar says "owner"? Apple's claim may be dependent on other claims making Psystar's use unauthorized or deeming Psystar is not the "owner" under the meaning of 117.
I'm not a lawyer. Real lawyers welcome to chime in, as well as anyone familiar with 117 itself.
Apple is not going to sell the OS by itself. I don't know why this has to even be repeated, but Apple is a hardware company and to sell boxed copies of OSX than ran on generic hardware would simply be shooting themselves in the foot.
None, of all those who arise Phoenix-like every few months or years, lamenting the state of the OS world they find themselves in, you may notice, wants to buy the Apple hardware to run OSX on. Apparently, the natural conclusion goes right over their heads... they are not Apple customers.
They seem to think that paying for a retail copy of OSX would make them Apple customers. They are wrong; that would make them Microsoft customers, because Microsoft is the vendor that uses sales of stand-alone OS's as it's business model. Go buy it; there's a snappy new version out right now, I hear.
People buy Apple hardware because of the software. This is not by accident, it's not a secret, and it's been going on three decades now. You would think it would sink in at some point.
Now, for those who get OSX to run on whatever hardware they manage to get it to run on, why the uproar over the Atom? Aren't you guys supposed to be hackers?
Go hack. Half the fun, (for some all the fun) isn't running the software, it is figuring out how to get the software to do what you want.
If they're not hackers, but they want a pre-made boxed solution to their own pet OSX on x86 project, I suppose I understand all the whining.
It's all they know how to contribute to the whole project. Good luck with that.
Certainly I can't argue with anything in the parent post: the youth of today are, often amazingly, and always re-assuredly, listening to music and learning about music that is "not of their direct experience" (which is, admittedly, a clumsy construct... I'm not sure I really know how to describe what I mean by that; I'm hoping most people just get it).
I remember going to the "record store" when I was a young pup. Here I was, amongst a seemingly limitless array of music, and I was, I thought, emperor of all that was before me. All I needed was $9.98 and I was there. It was much better than a library, and much more interesting than a class.
Today, you need much less than ten bucks. You can sample what it took my money, or a friend's money, or an older brother's money, or a hip station to throw out there, today it costs what could be essentially described as "nothing but time". And time invested is not without cost, by any means.
I sense a hint of failure, or resignation: something along the lines of "I invested all that and kids get it today by investing much less."
But, that's what I enjoyed too, and so did the author of the parent. It's how he came about to know enough to write the book in the first place, a book his older brothers or his parents probably could not have written.
And the kids still need you; they still help to find what they enjoy in a similar way. What's different is they listen to what their parents like, whereas I thought my parents were musically bankrupt. They value the music, and from that they put a higher value on the investment in time to explore the music, whereas we still had to figure in a larger investment in earnings balanced by that time.
It is, in so many words, and example of what limited distribution cost us all; what the RIAA cost us by it's business model of days gone by, and what the music industry needs to learn to exploit, if it's to survive, rather than rail against.
"... Military bases are US soil, just like say Texas or Ohio is US soil...."
Military bases overseas are treated like US soil, by treaty or lease, but are not US soil by any means (usually... each treaty or lease differs somewhat). When push comes to shove, the host country retains the right to eminent domain.
More importantly, there is nothing in US law that says a base is US soil (it would be pointless; it would be extra-terrestrial legislation, which can be ignored by the foreign host). That's the legal framework that Copyright Legislation must work within.
"... Gotta remember in Canada the CRTC would jump all over that. Demand 40-50% Canadian content, that money go into a giant slush fund for "canadian" producers and all you would hear is a giant sucking noise as everything went bad.:p..."
Perhaps. But, so far, the CRTC has publicly stated they are staying out of, and away from, broadcast-like content delivered over the internet, and have admitted, that it would be pointless.
"... What was the last innovative thing MS did, where you got order-of-magnitude coolness for upgrading? 3.11 to Win95?..."
I would think that the last "innovative thing" with an "order-of-magnitude coolness" that Microsoft did was Windows XP. At it's introduction, Xp was a very good OS. As it evolved, it got better. That it became, after SP1 in particular and SP2/3, a very, very good OS is testament to Redmond's power and it's ability to deliver products people want and need.
Where Microsoft failed with XP was not doing a complete rewrite, killing the legacy code, saying goodbye to compatibility with legacy apps, and building an XP that effectively stopped the Windows franchise's biggest issue: security. In fairness, at the time, it was seen as too big a leap for Microsoft, or perhaps more precisely, Microsoft's customers. It would have meant forcing new applications on almost everybody, but it would have faced the issue head-on.
In retrospect, Apple did it with OSX, and managed it cleverly to boot: you could run legacy apps, but in the end, after a short time, nobody really wanted to. But back around the turn of the century, that was considered too big a risk, to long a jump, for Microsoft to leap.
Much of what the article itself addresses, if not in so many words, is the reluctance of Microsoft under Balmer to look forward enough to take those kind of chances. You could argue Apple had nothing to lose; you could argue that Google had nothing to lose, you could argue Amazon had nothing to lose. You could get many to agree you are right on that point.
But, I think the story of Microsoft's first decade of the 21st century can broadly be summed up in those terms, and I think it's an underlying theme of the parent's Newsweek article cited.
The "failure" of Vista can be painted with the same brush; they are still trying, piece-meal, to fix the problem XP should have fixed in the first place. And they are doing it by repeating the same mistakes; they are not jumping far enough.
I think the Newsweek article is, if not spot-on, at least pointing the right fingers in the right places. Had Microsoft "done XP right", the article would not have been written. In combination with the admittedly impressive corporate sales numbers, a truly killer XP would have insured Microsoft's dominant place would have continued well into the 21st century.
I mean, everybody bought a copy. What, then, if it actually worked the way it should have?
While I really appreciate the parent's bringing up the matter of Wednesday's X-Prize competition, I was somewhat less impressed by all the links in the parent post going to the winner's own accounts of the event, particularly when the contest is somewhat mired in controversy.
You have to give a few points for including the one link to the New Scientist news report. But: "... in level two of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Wednesday. Flying a brand new vehicle..."... seems like a pretty good place to include a link to the x-prize dot org site, no?
"... When connected to a USB 3.0 port, the external hard drive was about 5 -- 6x faster versus connecting over USB 2.0, with total throughput in excess of 130MB/sec. On the other hand, benchmarks with Seagate's new Barracuda XT SATA 6G drive show little performance difference but a burst rate that is off the charts...."
So, the USB 3 will be attractive to consumers, with big, impressive numbers written large on boxes in stores everywhere, and the SATA 6G will be attractive to content creators (high end video production, etc). USB 3 will be cheap, and SATA 6G will be not-so-cheap.
About 99 out of 100 moderately clued in techies could have guessed the outcome of this one.
[Fudges around in toy box under desk... pulls out crystal ball... can barely discern "hippy type art school grad" reading AmandTech article dated Feb 2010...]
"Yeah, but wait... it says here that if you load up the USB 3 with more than one device, they both really slow down, but my film lab's SATA 3G just keeps on truckin' when you daisy-chain them..."
... Whatever country you live in. Trust me, it's part of the plan.
Rights are complex. They can be, essentially, broken up into infinite pieces. I can sell you the right to be the first to broadcast something, and sell the rights to subsequent broadcasts to someone else. That's what "all rights reserved" means... if I don't specifically say they're included, they 're not included.
Sometimes companies screw up when they sell rights, failing to anticipate some technology, and finding out they are prevented from taking advantage of that technology because the rights they sold were too broad in scope.
They can be anything; I could create a contract selling the rights to broadcast in any year the Yankees did not win the World Series, or the rights to broadcast only on tuesdays in Upper Volta and only if the date is an odd number on the Gregorian Calendar. Whatever.
Hulu has to prove to the content creators that they are capable of enforcing the rights they buy from the creators, who (we assume, because it's US made content streamed to US viewers) are the rights holders. Hulu very much wants to stream to every country in the world, but before it can do that, it has to show it's capable of enforcing the rights it buys and limiting the scope of it's stream to those it has the right to stream to, and no-one else.
If Hulu fails, the content creators will just shit-can them and get someone else. Hulu has a lot at stake here, and they can't afford to screw up. So, they're going to limit streams to US residents, because that's the only viewers they have a right to stream to.
Later, if they pull this off, they'll set up elsewhere by negotiating with rights holders elsewhere.
Chances are when they get around to 'elsewhere' they are not the same people they buy the rights from for the US streams; the content creators are in the business of selling rights to others, and those rights probably cover what Hulu is doing. So, Hulu needs to negotiate with those people, not the original content creators.
Ads are irrelevant... that's purely Hulu's business and revenue model, and has nothing to do with whether you can view the stream wherever you are. Content creators and rights holders don't care how Hulu makes it's money as long as they get paid themselves.
If they are physically in Japan, they rights to the broadcast belong to a Japanese firm, or to no-one (meaning it can't be legally broadcast there). Hulu doesn't have the right to broadcast to anyone physically sitting in front of a TV/monitor in Japan, military base or no.
If they did, you would be able to watch it, no VPN required.
Hulu needs to negotiate with the rights holders in each country it intends to send it's stream to. Hulu's agreements with the holders of the US copyrights only apply if you are viewing the stream on a TV/monitor physically located on US soil.
Since the owners of US-made shows probably are the ones Hulu has an agreement with for the US streaming rights, and since these rights owners want to sell broadcast rights in (for example) Japan to a Japanese firm that actually has a working TV network there, they risk not being able to get further content even for US broadcasts. If the value of the Japanese rights are diluted by a Hulu stream, the content creators will be pissed and may not sell them any more content.
This is really about Hulu proving it can do what it almost certainly promised the rights holders it would do; insure it's stream does not dilute the value of non-US broadcast rights owned by the content creators that they hope to sell to foreign networks. If Hulu does not take this seriously, they will fail in the US as well as elsewhere; the content will dry up.
I don't believe there are any requirements that the programs be dubbed in EU states (but I'm willing to look at any evidence to the contrary).
The whole idea of dubbing limits stems from a law in France that stated, essentially, that you have to hire a French firm (as in a firm based in the country of France, not a French language company from anywhere the language is spoken) to do the dubs if you do dub to the French language.
I'm pretty sure it only applied (or might still apply) to movies shown in theaters, though.
Hulu's nationwide limits are trivially easy to figure out. The copyrights need to be cleared in each country before you can legally show the content in that country. Ignoring the fact that these things are widely ignored, the point being that Hulu thinks it has something to lose if it doesn't obey copyrights and probably fears a suit.
Going to reasonable lengths to prevent viewing in the non-cleared countries is enough to get them off the hook; they do all they can so it's not their fault if people try to circumvent things from time to time.
The whole clearing thing is also misunderstood; some people think it's tied to the program, as in "The Simpsons" are on TV in [name your country outside the US] so it's obviously already cleared". But, using 'The Simpsons' as an example, Fox doesn't own the broadcast rights in [named country].
They sold them to someone else, in all likelihood a firm based in [named country]. Had they not, 'The Simpsons' would not be on TV at all there.
The clearing in that case would have to be between Hulu and that firm, not Fox.
Copyrights are stubbornly national; and again ignoring what actually goes on to a certain extent (if it's widespread, it will attract enforcement; otherwise, not so much) a DVD of 'The Simpsons' made in the USA with cleared copyrights is not supposed to be sold in the UK, for example. Someone else owns the right to make DVDs of 'The Simpsons' in the UK.
The rights may also be open; no-one has bought them in [named country] yet. Fox, in that case, would still own the remaining worldwide rights it had not yet sold. In that case, Fox would be reluctant to allow broadcast in [named country] because it would dilute the value of the rights it hopes to sell to a broadcaster there. "First Rights", in this case the right to be the first to broadcast 'The Simpsons' in [named country], are always the most valuable.
Get an inexpensive drawing tablet, turn on Ink in OSX (10.5 and up; at: System Preferences: but note that the preference pane will not show unless you have a graphics tablet plugged in). Write the formulas on the tablet.
You can take screenshots (Command-Option-3 full screen; Command-Option-4 select an area to capture) to save what you write/draw and use Ink's character recognition to convert it to formulas with a check via the saved screenshots to make sure it didn't make errors. You can turn the character recognition off or on anytime via the Ink preference pane. You will want to enable the Character Palette (at: System Preferences: Keyboard & Mouse) so you have quick access to the mathematical symbols in your chosen fonts for your saved notes.
"... We did indeed, quietly. ship a shipload of uranium out of Iraq...."
Uranium, by itself, is more more a WMD than a lump of aluminum is a fighter jet.
Your source reveals a supply of yellowcake was found in Iraq. It's one of the most common elements on Earth, and there are traces of it in the dirt around your yard. You can't make a bomb out of yellowcake, in fact you can't even use it as reactor fuel, without a whole lot of elaborate, expensive, and time-consuming processing. After you do that, then you can start to think about more elaborate work to turn it into an WMD.
"... And you know, he's not saying that he's being burned for 400% of his sales. You're projecting. Read the article again...."
"... I sympathize with his frustration, but I can't buy the logic that says he's being burned for 400% of his sales...."
HE didn't say he's being burned for 400% of his sales, other/. posters have. The TFA talks about how the game is pirated, and I quoted some of it. But, you won't find anything in my post that says he said that himself in his blog; I'm not "projecting" anything.
Sometimes, when you post on a topic, your post relates to the discussion.
I read TFA, and this is what I learned: You need a jailbroken iPhone to pirate the game. Then you need to download Cydia. From Wikipedia: "... Cydia is installed via jailbreaking. It is included in Pwnage Tool exclusively for Mac users and redsn0w for Mac and Windows users or QuickPwn for Mac and Windows users running pre-3.1 devices...." Then you download a hacked version of the app from "somewhere".
So, either 80% of iPhones are jailbroken and have some "Pwnage" tools installed, or this guy's numbers are out of whack.
Could it just be that, amongst those that hack their phones, a little less respect for software might exist? Naaaaaah.
Is it just possible, that hackers just download games, because they can? Whoa, there, buddy, you're not listening.
He's got some sales amongst those who play by the rules. I would expect that there is the real, viable and bankable penetration level for his game. I sympathize with his frustration, but I can't buy the logic that says he's being burned for 400% of his sales.
He's being burned for some sales, but that number is his sales/normal iPhones x jailbroken phones; and even that is assuming that in every case people jailbreak because they have to, not because they want to, not because they somehow "acquired" an iPhone from the back of a truck, and not because non-sophisticated "script kiddie" level hackers are attracted to non-sophisticated "script kiddie" level hacks and "getting away with stuff".
Hacked iPhones do not, by any stretch, outnumber regular iPhones by a 4-to-1 margin. There is a jump somewhere here that would make Evil Knievel proud, perhaps?
"... Rogers purchased CNCP's infrastructure but did it with private money, so it's a stretch to say it's taxpayer money...."
And it's quite a stretch to include CNCP in this at all; although CN was a public company for a while, it was formed from a series of bankrupt private railways, and then eventually returned to the private sector.
CNCP was a joint venture between CN Rail and CP Rail (which is, and always has been, a private company) to amalgamate their telegraph business... you know, Morse Code. Telegraph morphed into Teletype, and that operated via sat channels and ground stations (think "big dish").
CNCP itself was never a Crown; CP eventually purchased CNs stake before selling a minority to Rogers (40%). To say Rogers evolved from CNCP is also incorrect; Ted Rogers sold the company around the time the IBM 286 was the only desktop you could buy, to AT&T (US). The first web browser would arrive a decade later.
What does forming a company and selling it to private investors who, unless they are idiots, value it for what it is, have to do with subsidies?
Subsidies are collected from the public and paid to the private. If you are a Crown, you are not a private company, anymore than NASA is a private company.
But, if after a firm becomes privately owned, whether closely held or trading on a public stock market, you then give it cash collected from the taxpayer, that's a subsidy.
All of your examples, by the way, were private firms long before there was an internet.
Slashdotters see a "Net Neutrality" debate, which is a borrowed phrase that encompasses a lot more than "can an ISP use packet analysis to throttle BitTorrent", which is what Bell, Rogers, etc, customers see this as.
What this ruling is about, however, goes back to how smaller ISPs were created in the first place in Canada. Basically, the CRTC said, about 20 years ago, something that might be summed up as:
Because you (the Telecos) enjoy a Utility status you have to, at the same price it costs you to transmit data across your lines, sell connectivity to smaller ISPs across those same lines, and do so in a manner that doesn't discriminate against them to your competitive advantage. You can't offer your own customers access to a pipe that you don't also offer these independents. You cannot say no to an ISP who wants to set up shop and needs what is on your poles and cables. We are making you do this because we made it easy for you to build those poles across public and private land a long time ago, so there is a public interest in that infrastructure. We do this because we think competition amongst a large number of providers is better than handing you the whole shebang to screw with like you did the phone system for about a hundred years.
Come around 2007 or so, and these independent ISPs complain that the telecos are throttling the lines they sell to these independent ISPs by the use of packet sniffing technology hunting for P2P data, and they go to the CRTC, who sets these rules, and complain that the telecos are not living up to the bargain outlined above. What they wanted was for the CRTC to say the teleco can do whatever it wants to their own customers, but the pipe to the indy ISPs must be as fat and unencumbered as ever.
The telecos respond saying "we have to, or our network will be overwhelmed".
The indy ISPs did not get what they wanted... a ban on traffic shaping of any kind.
They did, however get what they were promised a few decades ago (see above). A lot of the noise over this last ruling comes from people who have accounts with ISPs and wanted a ruling saying "you can't throttle my BitTorrent traffic".
The fundamental issue, however, was addressed: This ruling says telecos cannot throttle anything they sell to these indy ISPs that they don't throttle to their own customers. They leave it up to the telecos to manage their network, but let it be known they won't tolerate the telecos doing something to the indy ISPs unless they also do it to themselves in exactly the same way and under exactly the same circumstances.
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I thank you for replying with a cut-and-paste summary of Canadian law. Please continue; I will look forward to your summaries of the UK law, and the Australian law, and the other "Commonwealth Countries" I wrote of in my post, along with your learned experiences as to what, exactly, one can expect by way of assessments and pre-sentence reports.
I've been to many a case where the Crown proceeded by Summary Conviction. Pre-sentence reports, psychiatric assessments, and the like are common. Only last week a person who is charged with a relatively minor offense, proceeding by Summary Conviction, was remanded for a Psychiatric Report, because he acted crazy in a public place; he tried to set himself on fire in an insurance office.
Your post may be interesting to some, and I thank you for it. Perhaps you might mention that the courts in Canada are under provincial jurisdiction, and practices and typical sentences vary from province to province, sometimes significantly.
But, I'm sure you've spent time in court in every province in the nation. Please tell me about traveling courts in the Yukon, where a single van or airplane often carries the judge, prosecutor, clerks, bailiff, and defense council for extended travel to remote areas. Someone such as yourself must surely wonder what they talk about. Or did you not know about that either?
" ... Same as plea bargaining anywhere else. ..."
Clearly not, but thanks for finally, in the last line, getting back on topic to my post.
You, sir, have no experience with accused in most situations in the US, obviously. Please tell me of the time someone in Canada was charged with a rape offense carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and ended up being sentenced, after a plea bargain based on a guilty plea, to misdemeanor sexual assault, a $750 fine, no record.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/20/nyregion/prosecutor-defends-plea-bargain-in-rape-case.html
Oh, and that was just the first Google hit.
I've always been struck by the system of justice in the US where, if you plead guilty, you "save the state the cost of a trial".
In most countries where the law is based on English Common Law (Canada, UK, Australia, etc) there is always a trial, to establish the facts of the case, to establish the exact culpability of the accused, to determine the extenuating circumstances. There is always a pre-sentence report, often a psychological assessment, etc. There is no procedural difference between a case where the defendant pleads guilty and where he pleads not guilty, and the defendant can change his plea at almost any stage of the trial. Occasionally, a judge will refuse to accept a Guilty plea from the defendant, insisting he wait until the evidence has been presented.
There are no misdemeanor options to fall back on; everything is the equivalent of a felony (precisely, they are all Criminal convictions, which the US considers equivalent to Felony convictions when assessing the seriousness of a record for a potential visitor, immigrant, etc). A conviction of the charge of theft of a single CD is a Criminal Code conviction; there are no other options.
The only times when you can plead guilty and avoid a trial is when the charge truly is a misdemeanor; eg traffic court.
This eliminates the incentive to create a system of law as exists in the US, with one or more applicable charges that carry huge penalties, along with a cascade of ever lesser charges and classes of charges, with corresponding lesser maximum penalties, which are then used (as you point out) to elicit guilty pleas.
It also insures that you have an opportunity to defend yourself without onerous implications should you not prevail, for whatever reason.
The truly innocent are placed in a very difficult position under the standard practices of US law (and standard procedures of prosecutors to elicit convictions).
" ... Toyota made it, and they received their profit for it when it was sold, including the money that they put aside for future warranty claims. They're not any more out of pocket if someone else swipes it then brings it in for service. This is not at all the same scenario as someone using a copy of software that was never paid for. ..."
Zombies/doppelgangers that are not of this Earth do not buy cars from Toyota. They arrive here, in cars they duplicated in the other worlds, having paid nothing for them, and wreck havoc.
Get it?
It's somewhat akin to a scenario where every fourth, or tenth, or whatever, Toyota Camry is driven not by some citizen trying to get to work, drop the kids off at school, or buy groceries, but by a zombie/doppelganger that looks like Beetlejuice and generally causes the kind of havoc anyone with imagination could muse about.
Steals you wallet at the gas station; teaches your kids swear words while you are distracted at Wall-Mart, drives into your house, knocking out the big-screen tv, stumbling out of the car boozed up and taking liberties with the women. Can't be arrested ... he's not of this Earth. It just happens.
Now, if that were the case, Toyota would have a PR problem on their hands, and if there was something to to about it, you can be damn sure they would do something about it.
Ah, but there is a difference with Microsoft.
Microsoft is a de-facto monopoly; in China, India, Brazil, Turkey even more so than the US, (where it's still qualifies, handily).
So, the only kind of car there is are Toyota Camry's. Now, you can blame the zombies, and do nothing.
You are absolutely correct if the goal is the public good.
Corporations, on the other hand, are not about the public good.
t would be nice if Microsoft cared, but Microsoft is a corporation. A publicly traded corporation, no less; publicly traded corporations are required, by law, to be self-serving and to maximize profit over other considerations. If they don't, they can be sued by shareholders for not doing it.
So, nice as it would be, unless you can come up with a way to convince Microsoft to convince Microsoft shareholders that the goodwill would turn into profits that exceed the profit available with the current, selfish strategy, I think it's not so likely to happen.
" ... Psystar's response: 'Copying a computer program into RAM as a result of installing and running that program is precisely the copying that Section 117 provides does not constitute copyright infringement for an owner of a computer program. As the Ninth Circuit explained, permitting copies like this was Section 117's purpose.' ..."
I'm sure Apple's lawyers have a reason for the claim, but you probably would have to actually BE a lawyer to be familiar enough with the Section 117 and relevant case law to know why the claim was included.
I did see something in Psystar's response, though ... at " does not constitute copyright infringement for an owner of a computer program".
Is it possible Apple's claim centers around Psystar not being the owner (ie the customer, presumably is the owner) or that other unauthorized use claims negate the protection offered the owner, since the upheld claims would make Psystar's ownership invalid? Does Psystar play any legal games regarding who installs what and on whose behalf? If so, could that come back and bite them with this particular claim by Apple?
Is the actual Section 117 language different than Psystar's response (it would not be the first time language in a lawsuit was cleverly phrased to suit the spokesman's client)? Does 117 say things like "authorized user", etc where Psystar says "owner"? Apple's claim may be dependent on other claims making Psystar's use unauthorized or deeming Psystar is not the "owner" under the meaning of 117.
I'm not a lawyer. Real lawyers welcome to chime in, as well as anyone familiar with 117 itself.
Apple is not going to sell the OS by itself. I don't know why this has to even be repeated, but Apple is a hardware company and to sell boxed copies of OSX than ran on generic hardware would simply be shooting themselves in the foot.
None, of all those who arise Phoenix-like every few months or years, lamenting the state of the OS world they find themselves in, you may notice, wants to buy the Apple hardware to run OSX on. Apparently, the natural conclusion goes right over their heads ... they are not Apple customers.
They seem to think that paying for a retail copy of OSX would make them Apple customers. They are wrong; that would make them Microsoft customers, because Microsoft is the vendor that uses sales of stand-alone OS's as it's business model. Go buy it; there's a snappy new version out right now, I hear.
People buy Apple hardware because of the software. This is not by accident, it's not a secret, and it's been going on three decades now. You would think it would sink in at some point.
Now, for those who get OSX to run on whatever hardware they manage to get it to run on, why the uproar over the Atom? Aren't you guys supposed to be hackers?
Go hack. Half the fun, (for some all the fun) isn't running the software, it is figuring out how to get the software to do what you want.
If they're not hackers, but they want a pre-made boxed solution to their own pet OSX on x86 project, I suppose I understand all the whining.
It's all they know how to contribute to the whole project. Good luck with that.
Certainly I can't argue with anything in the parent post: the youth of today are, often amazingly, and always re-assuredly, listening to music and learning about music that is "not of their direct experience" (which is, admittedly, a clumsy construct ... I'm not sure I really know how to describe what I mean by that; I'm hoping most people just get it).
I remember going to the "record store" when I was a young pup. Here I was, amongst a seemingly limitless array of music, and I was, I thought, emperor of all that was before me. All I needed was $9.98 and I was there. It was much better than a library, and much more interesting than a class.
Today, you need much less than ten bucks. You can sample what it took my money, or a friend's money, or an older brother's money, or a hip station to throw out there, today it costs what could be essentially described as "nothing but time". And time invested is not without cost, by any means.
I sense a hint of failure, or resignation: something along the lines of "I invested all that and kids get it today by investing much less."
But, that's what I enjoyed too, and so did the author of the parent. It's how he came about to know enough to write the book in the first place, a book his older brothers or his parents probably could not have written.
And the kids still need you; they still help to find what they enjoy in a similar way. What's different is they listen to what their parents like, whereas I thought my parents were musically bankrupt. They value the music, and from that they put a higher value on the investment in time to explore the music, whereas we still had to figure in a larger investment in earnings balanced by that time.
It is, in so many words, and example of what limited distribution cost us all; what the RIAA cost us by it's business model of days gone by, and what the music industry needs to learn to exploit, if it's to survive, rather than rail against.
It's a good thing.
" ... Military bases are US soil, just like say Texas or Ohio is US soil. ..."
Military bases overseas are treated like US soil, by treaty or lease, but are not US soil by any means (usually ... each treaty or lease differs somewhat). When push comes to shove, the host country retains the right to eminent domain.
I will give just one, of many possible, examples; in this case specific to the parent, who is stationed in Japan and wants Hulu:
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/16/world/fg-okinawa16
More importantly, there is nothing in US law that says a base is US soil (it would be pointless; it would be extra-terrestrial legislation, which can be ignored by the foreign host). That's the legal framework that Copyright Legislation must work within.
" ... Gotta remember in Canada the CRTC would jump all over that. Demand 40-50% Canadian content, that money go into a giant slush fund for "canadian" producers and all you would hear is a giant sucking noise as everything went bad. :p ..."
Perhaps. But, so far, the CRTC has publicly stated they are staying out of, and away from, broadcast-like content delivered over the internet, and have admitted, that it would be pointless.
" ... What was the last innovative thing MS did, where you got order-of-magnitude coolness for upgrading? 3.11 to Win95? ..."
I would think that the last "innovative thing" with an "order-of-magnitude coolness" that Microsoft did was Windows XP.
At it's introduction, Xp was a very good OS. As it evolved, it got better. That it became, after SP1 in particular and SP2/3, a very, very good OS is testament to Redmond's power and it's ability to deliver products people want and need.
Where Microsoft failed with XP was not doing a complete rewrite, killing the legacy code, saying goodbye to compatibility with legacy apps, and building an XP that effectively stopped the Windows franchise's biggest issue: security.
In fairness, at the time, it was seen as too big a leap for Microsoft, or perhaps more precisely, Microsoft's customers.
It would have meant forcing new applications on almost everybody, but it would have faced the issue head-on.
In retrospect, Apple did it with OSX, and managed it cleverly to boot: you could run legacy apps, but in the end, after a short time, nobody really wanted to.
But back around the turn of the century, that was considered too big a risk, to long a jump, for Microsoft to leap.
Much of what the article itself addresses, if not in so many words, is the reluctance of Microsoft under Balmer to look forward enough to take those kind of chances.
You could argue Apple had nothing to lose; you could argue that Google had nothing to lose, you could argue Amazon had nothing to lose. You could get many to agree you are right on that point.
But, I think the story of Microsoft's first decade of the 21st century can broadly be summed up in those terms, and I think it's an underlying theme of the parent's Newsweek article cited.
The "failure" of Vista can be painted with the same brush; they are still trying, piece-meal, to fix the problem XP should have fixed in the first place. And they are doing it by repeating the same mistakes; they are not jumping far enough.
I think the Newsweek article is, if not spot-on, at least pointing the right fingers in the right places. Had Microsoft "done XP right", the article would not have been written. In combination with the admittedly impressive corporate sales numbers, a truly killer XP would have insured Microsoft's dominant place would have continued well into the 21st century.
I mean, everybody bought a copy. What, then, if it actually worked the way it should have?
While I really appreciate the parent's bringing up the matter of Wednesday's X-Prize competition, I was somewhat less impressed by all the links in the parent post going to the winner's own accounts of the event, particularly when the contest is somewhat mired in controversy.
You have to give a few points for including the one link to the New Scientist news report. But: ..." ... seems like a pretty good place to include a link to the x-prize dot org site, no?
"... in level two of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Wednesday. Flying a brand new vehicle
http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge/
" ... Half the things you listed are malware themselves. ..."
Actually, every one is malware. He was trying to make a point ... or a joke ... or both.
" ... my film lab's SATA 3G just keeps on truckin' ..."
Or 6G. The crystal ball is a bit fuzzy sometimes ...
" ... When connected to a USB 3.0 port, the external hard drive was about 5 -- 6x faster versus connecting over USB 2.0, with total throughput in excess of 130MB/sec. On the other hand, benchmarks with Seagate's new Barracuda XT SATA 6G drive show little performance difference but a burst rate that is off the charts. ..."
So, the USB 3 will be attractive to consumers, with big, impressive numbers written large on boxes in stores everywhere, and the SATA 6G will be attractive to content creators (high end video production, etc). USB 3 will be cheap, and SATA 6G will be not-so-cheap.
About 99 out of 100 moderately clued in techies could have guessed the outcome of this one.
[Fudges around in toy box under desk ... pulls out crystal ball ... can barely discern "hippy type art school grad" reading AmandTech article dated Feb 2010 ...]
"Yeah, but wait ... it says here that if you load up the USB 3 with more than one device, they both really slow down, but my film lab's SATA 3G just keeps on truckin' when you daisy-chain them ..."
Yawn.
Rights are complex. They can be, essentially, broken up into infinite pieces. I can sell you the right to be the first to broadcast something, and sell the rights to subsequent broadcasts to someone else. That's what "all rights reserved" means ... if I don't specifically say they're included, they 're not included.
Sometimes companies screw up when they sell rights, failing to anticipate some technology, and finding out they are prevented from taking advantage of that technology because the rights they sold were too broad in scope.
They can be anything; I could create a contract selling the rights to broadcast in any year the Yankees did not win the World Series, or the rights to broadcast only on tuesdays in Upper Volta and only if the date is an odd number on the Gregorian Calendar. Whatever.
Hulu has to prove to the content creators that they are capable of enforcing the rights they buy from the creators, who (we assume, because it's US made content streamed to US viewers) are the rights holders. Hulu very much wants to stream to every country in the world, but before it can do that, it has to show it's capable of enforcing the rights it buys and limiting the scope of it's stream to those it has the right to stream to, and no-one else.
If Hulu fails, the content creators will just shit-can them and get someone else. Hulu has a lot at stake here, and they can't afford to screw up. So, they're going to limit streams to US residents, because that's the only viewers they have a right to stream to.
Later, if they pull this off, they'll set up elsewhere by negotiating with rights holders elsewhere.
Chances are when they get around to 'elsewhere' they are not the same people they buy the rights from for the US streams; the content creators are in the business of selling rights to others, and those rights probably cover what Hulu is doing. So, Hulu needs to negotiate with those people, not the original content creators.
Ads are irrelevant ... that's purely Hulu's business and revenue model, and has nothing to do with whether you can view the stream wherever you are. Content creators and rights holders don't care how Hulu makes it's money as long as they get paid themselves.
If they are physically in Japan, they rights to the broadcast belong to a Japanese firm, or to no-one (meaning it can't be legally broadcast there). Hulu doesn't have the right to broadcast to anyone physically sitting in front of a TV/monitor in Japan, military base or no.
If they did, you would be able to watch it, no VPN required.
Hulu needs to negotiate with the rights holders in each country it intends to send it's stream to. Hulu's agreements with the holders of the US copyrights only apply if you are viewing the stream on a TV/monitor physically located on US soil.
Since the owners of US-made shows probably are the ones Hulu has an agreement with for the US streaming rights, and since these rights owners want to sell broadcast rights in (for example) Japan to a Japanese firm that actually has a working TV network there, they risk not being able to get further content even for US broadcasts. If the value of the Japanese rights are diluted by a Hulu stream, the content creators will be pissed and may not sell them any more content.
This is really about Hulu proving it can do what it almost certainly promised the rights holders it would do; insure it's stream does not dilute the value of non-US broadcast rights owned by the content creators that they hope to sell to foreign networks. If Hulu does not take this seriously, they will fail in the US as well as elsewhere; the content will dry up.
I don't believe there are any requirements that the programs be dubbed in EU states (but I'm willing to look at any evidence to the contrary).
The whole idea of dubbing limits stems from a law in France that stated, essentially, that you have to hire a French firm (as in a firm based in the country of France, not a French language company from anywhere the language is spoken) to do the dubs if you do dub to the French language.
I'm pretty sure it only applied (or might still apply) to movies shown in theaters, though.
Hulu's nationwide limits are trivially easy to figure out. The copyrights need to be cleared in each country before you can legally show the content in that country. Ignoring the fact that these things are widely ignored, the point being that Hulu thinks it has something to lose if it doesn't obey copyrights and probably fears a suit.
Going to reasonable lengths to prevent viewing in the non-cleared countries is enough to get them off the hook; they do all they can so it's not their fault if people try to circumvent things from time to time.
The whole clearing thing is also misunderstood; some people think it's tied to the program, as in "The Simpsons" are on TV in [name your country outside the US] so it's obviously already cleared". But, using 'The Simpsons' as an example, Fox doesn't own the broadcast rights in [named country].
They sold them to someone else, in all likelihood a firm based in [named country]. Had they not, 'The Simpsons' would not be on TV at all there.
The clearing in that case would have to be between Hulu and that firm, not Fox.
Copyrights are stubbornly national; and again ignoring what actually goes on to a certain extent (if it's widespread, it will attract enforcement; otherwise, not so much) a DVD of 'The Simpsons' made in the USA with cleared copyrights is not supposed to be sold in the UK, for example. Someone else owns the right to make DVDs of 'The Simpsons' in the UK.
The rights may also be open; no-one has bought them in [named country] yet. Fox, in that case, would still own the remaining worldwide rights it had not yet sold. In that case, Fox would be reluctant to allow broadcast in [named country] because it would dilute the value of the rights it hopes to sell to a broadcaster there. "First Rights", in this case the right to be the first to broadcast 'The Simpsons' in [named country], are always the most valuable.
Get an inexpensive drawing tablet, turn on Ink in OSX (10.5 and up; at: System Preferences: but note that the preference pane will not show unless you have a graphics tablet plugged in). Write the formulas on the tablet.
You can take screenshots (Command-Option-3 full screen; Command-Option-4 select an area to capture) to save what you write/draw and use Ink's character recognition to convert it to formulas with a check via the saved screenshots to make sure it didn't make errors. You can turn the character recognition off or on anytime via the Ink preference pane.
You will want to enable the Character Palette (at: System Preferences: Keyboard & Mouse) so you have quick access to the mathematical symbols in your chosen fonts for your saved notes.
" ... We did indeed, quietly. ship a shipload of uranium out of Iraq. ..."
Uranium, by itself, is more more a WMD than a lump of aluminum is a fighter jet.
Your source reveals a supply of yellowcake was found in Iraq. It's one of the most common elements on Earth, and there are traces of it in the dirt around your yard.
You can't make a bomb out of yellowcake, in fact you can't even use it as reactor fuel, without a whole lot of elaborate, expensive, and time-consuming processing. After you do that, then you can start to think about more elaborate work to turn it into an WMD.
" ... And you know, he's not saying that he's being burned for 400% of his sales. You're projecting. Read the article again. ..."
" ... I sympathize with his frustration, but I can't buy the logic that says he's being burned for 400% of his sales. ..."
HE didn't say he's being burned for 400% of his sales, other /. posters have. The TFA talks about how the game is pirated, and I quoted some of it. But, you won't find anything in my post that says he said that himself in his blog; I'm not "projecting" anything.
Sometimes, when you post on a topic, your post relates to the discussion.
I read TFA, and this is what I learned: ... Cydia is installed via jailbreaking. It is included in Pwnage Tool exclusively for Mac users and redsn0w for Mac and Windows users or QuickPwn for Mac and Windows users running pre-3.1 devices. ..."
You need a jailbroken iPhone to pirate the game. Then you need to download Cydia. From Wikipedia:
"
Then you download a hacked version of the app from "somewhere".
So, either 80% of iPhones are jailbroken and have some "Pwnage" tools installed, or this guy's numbers are out of whack.
Could it just be that, amongst those that hack their phones, a little less respect for software might exist? Naaaaaah.
Is it just possible, that hackers just download games, because they can? Whoa, there, buddy, you're not listening.
He's got some sales amongst those who play by the rules. I would expect that there is the real, viable and bankable penetration level for his game. I sympathize with his frustration, but I can't buy the logic that says he's being burned for 400% of his sales.
He's being burned for some sales, but that number is his sales/normal iPhones x jailbroken phones; and even that is assuming that in every case people jailbreak because they have to, not because they want to, not because they somehow "acquired" an iPhone from the back of a truck, and not because non-sophisticated "script kiddie" level hackers are attracted to non-sophisticated "script kiddie" level hacks and "getting away with stuff".
Hacked iPhones do not, by any stretch, outnumber regular iPhones by a 4-to-1 margin. There is a jump somewhere here that would make Evil Knievel proud, perhaps?
" ... Rogers purchased CNCP's infrastructure but did it with private money, so it's a stretch to say it's taxpayer money. ..."
And it's quite a stretch to include CNCP in this at all; although CN was a public company for a while, it was formed from a series of bankrupt private railways, and then eventually returned to the private sector.
CNCP was a joint venture between CN Rail and CP Rail (which is, and always has been, a private company) to amalgamate their telegraph business ... you know, Morse Code. Telegraph morphed into Teletype, and that operated via sat channels and ground stations (think "big dish").
CNCP itself was never a Crown; CP eventually purchased CNs stake before selling a minority to Rogers (40%). To say Rogers evolved from CNCP is also incorrect; Ted Rogers sold the company around the time the IBM 286 was the only desktop you could buy, to AT&T (US). The first web browser would arrive a decade later.
What does forming a company and selling it to private investors who, unless they are idiots, value it for what it is, have to do with subsidies?
Subsidies are collected from the public and paid to the private. If you are a Crown, you are not a private company, anymore than NASA is a private company.
But, if after a firm becomes privately owned, whether closely held or trading on a public stock market, you then give it cash collected from the taxpayer, that's a subsidy.
All of your examples, by the way, were private firms long before there was an internet.
Slashdotters see a "Net Neutrality" debate, which is a borrowed phrase that encompasses a lot more than "can an ISP use packet analysis to throttle BitTorrent", which is what Bell, Rogers, etc, customers see this as.
What this ruling is about, however, goes back to how smaller ISPs were created in the first place in Canada. Basically, the CRTC said, about 20 years ago, something that might be summed up as:
Because you (the Telecos) enjoy a Utility status you have to, at the same price it costs you to transmit data across your lines, sell connectivity to smaller ISPs across those same lines, and do so in a manner that doesn't discriminate against them to your competitive advantage.
You can't offer your own customers access to a pipe that you don't also offer these independents.
You cannot say no to an ISP who wants to set up shop and needs what is on your poles and cables.
We are making you do this because we made it easy for you to build those poles across public and private land a long time ago, so there is a public interest in that infrastructure.
We do this because we think competition amongst a large number of providers is better than handing you the whole shebang to screw with like you did the phone system for about a hundred years.
Come around 2007 or so, and these independent ISPs complain that the telecos are throttling the lines they sell to these independent ISPs by the use of packet sniffing technology hunting for P2P data, and they go to the CRTC, who sets these rules, and complain that the telecos are not living up to the bargain outlined above. What they wanted was for the CRTC to say the teleco can do whatever it wants to their own customers, but the pipe to the indy ISPs must be as fat and unencumbered as ever.
The telecos respond saying "we have to, or our network will be overwhelmed".
The indy ISPs did not get what they wanted ... a ban on traffic shaping of any kind.
They did, however get what they were promised a few decades ago (see above). A lot of the noise over this last ruling comes from people who have accounts with ISPs and wanted a ruling saying "you can't throttle my BitTorrent traffic".
The fundamental issue, however, was addressed: This ruling says telecos cannot throttle anything they sell to these indy ISPs that they don't throttle to their own customers. They leave it up to the telecos to manage their network, but let it be known they won't tolerate the telecos doing something to the indy ISPs unless they also do it to themselves in exactly the same way and under exactly the same circumstances.