Re:How can the average person protect his/her doma
on
The Saga of Katie.com
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· Score: 2, Informative
You automatically get trademark protection through use. Registering a trademark just makes it easier to enforce. The problem, though is that trademark protection is restricted to similar areas of business and overlapping geographic areas for the most part. The former clearly does not apply here, and wouldn't have even if the trademark had been registered. However trademark law isn't what they should be looking at here.
Anyone want to bet that if I wrote a story about sexual abuse and published it under a title that happened to include Penguin's lawyers phone numbers or e-mail addresses, I'd get instantly sued?
The bullshit about trademarks is just an attempt to confuse the issue.
In British English groups that are treated as a single entity can be treated both as plural and singular, though you should stick to one of them in the same sentence. It is also more common to use singular than plural when treating the group as an impersonal unit, and more common to use plural than singular when talking about something that would be done by individual members of the group.
"Practical English Usage, New Edition, Oxford University Press, 1997" specifically lists the BBC as an example of a group that can be referred to with both plural and singular.
"The BBC are reporting" would possibly indicate a more personal approach - this is something that is reported by the individuals making up the BBC - while "the BBC is reporting" is more official: The BBC as a unit is issuing a press release or a news story.
To me "the BBC is reporting" sounds more natural in this case.
See, they probably won't phase out the AlphaServer until they've moved all their VAX customers over to it. That way they get to sell their customers new hardware twice.
And in most of those countries there are people being jailed for refusing because they consider it an infringement of their human rights to be forced into an organisation that can order them to take up arms.
You'll also find that in most of these countries there is no such thing as "general conscription". It may be so in name, but most countries don't have the resources to operate a military that large, and in most cases only men are included to start with.
In Norway, for instance, only about 40% of men complete their "compulsory" military service.
What it boils down to is an arbitrary draft where whether or not you end up serving depends entirely on whether or not you put in an effort to stay out, whether or not you're ready to go to jail to stay out of the military (in some countries this isn't a particularly nice option - in Norway it often is, as unless you get the shortest duty period you're guaranteed to spend less time in prison than in the military, and in a "comfy" minimum security prison with possibility of leave and spending your time studying instead of working), or whether the officers at the camp you're directed to have a bad day or not the day you're ordered to report.
Then, once you're enrolled, it is fairly arbitrary whether you'll stay beyond the first week or so depending on whether you happen to have a bad time and the mood of the officers again.
In recent years, both Norway and many other countries who pretend to have general conscription have steadily decreased service periods. In Norway it used to be 12 months mandatory, 15 for the navy. Now it's quite common to get 6 months.
They're also steadily easing up on people who refuse. During the 70's Norway had lots of people in jail for refusing, but due to the Vietnam war lots of youth started refusing stating Norway's membership in NATO as the reason and Amnesty started making a stink about political oppression, with the result that they now on the second refusal to turn up for the draft "take away your right to serve" to avoid having to try to draft you again.
That was followed in the 80's by introducing opposition to the spread and use of nuclear weapons as a legal way of refusing the draft (you'll still have to serve a 16 month "civil" service period, usually working in kindergartens, nursery homes etc. as cheap labor) - it was a thinly veiled way of giving people who couldn't get away with using pacifism as their reason (which has been a legal excuse for ages, provided you can manage to convince a police interviewer that it's a serious conviction).
Personally I think general conscription is a joke. There are bad sides to a career military, and I fully support encouraging people to serve. I don't even mind them taking the approach that you're by default being called in and have to refuse. I do mind being forced to take part in something where it is highly likely that I sometimes in the future might be ordered under threat of a military court martial to do something my convictions won't let me do.
I'm not talking about a blanket refusal to take part in a military operation - I don't consider myself a pacifist though I have a strong aversion to violence - but a blanket refusal to put myself under the command of someone who might very well decide to send people to participate in the next illegal occupation force the US decides to put together, for instance.
For my part I've made a very clear decision to refuse to serve on those grounds, NOT on one of the legal grounds (though I could perfectly well use the nuclear weapons excuse I mentioned earlier - it's sole purpose is to avoid having people like me make Amnesty complain about Norway after all), but it would be dishonest.
I started out refusing by demanding to be exempted. You can't do that, and the Norwegian DOJ doesn't understand the concept, so the Department of Justice called me in to a police interview (with an officer that lacked the most basic understanding of Norwegian grammar, I was so tempted to refuse to
A quote often attributed to Richard Branson is perhaps the best known variation. I don't know if it's true, but supposedly he was once asked how to become a millionaire and replied something along the lines of "begin as a billionaire and start an airline". Given the amounts he lost on Virgin Atlantic in the beginning it's a fairly plausible quote...
How is a small car or motor bike a much better bet for urban transport? The Segway can achieve a higher speed than the average speed of cars going through the centre of London. It takes up less space on the road, and can reasonably be used on sidewalks if they aren't too crowded. A small car or motor bike might be a better bet in some cities, but for London that would probably be primarily if you define "better" as "spends more time in queues".
I don't drive a car (never bothered getting a license even - a result of always having lived close enough to well working public transport alternatives to never having felt it was worth the effort), and have no intension of getting one.
Neither do I drive a motor scooter - I'd be a lunatic to want to drive one in London traffic, same for a bike. But I'd love a Segway. Why? Because it would effectively extend the range I'd go without relying on public transport easily and conveniently, while taking up less space and being better suited for small spaces than bikes and scooters.
Just as the bike and cars were essentially considered useless novelties when they were first invented, it's no wonder Segways get the same treatment.
I won't buy one while they're as expensive as they are now, but when the price comes down I'll likely buy one. I live too far from work for using it for commuting, but for trips to the grocery store etc. it would be great and make it even less of a hassle to not have a car.
The difference being that the Segway extends the range beyond what a lot of people would want to walk, while making for a more seamless experience than a bike, and with access to many place where a car or bus would require you to stop, herd the tour group out and back in again afterwards for what might be just a few minutes.
Bikes are nothing new either. That doesn't mean that can't do a better job facilitating some types of tours than the alternatives can.
Try getting a group together to do the same maneuvers on a bike, a scooter or on rollerblades and see how many of them manage to avoid falling a few times. I think it could be very painful and injure-prone to use one of those on a street as it is intended.
That doesn't mean that they have to be particularly dangerous if you ride normally instead of racing around swinging a large mallet in various directions.
My impression too. I tried searching for a couple of the document titles listed on Google for instance, and the ones I searched for where all available on the web and marked clearly "Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited".
1 GB "actually equals" whatever people consider it to equal. So far the only people I've seen trying to use 1GB = 10^9 bytes are pedantic revisionist twits and hard drive manufacturers.
What you're seeing is just people that have registered nameserver entries with "google" in them and have absolutely no effect on Google's DNS. Try doing a whois on Microsoft and you'll see exactly the same.
You forgot both Norway and Finland... Of course you do realise that the only reason Santa wears the colors of your national flag is because of Coca Cola corporation and their marketing, don't you? So I guess that would give Coca Cola a claim too:)
It's parents and family friends that are the primary risks for children in any case, not stumbling onto child porn or pervs on the net. The NSPCC (UK organisation - the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) published a study a few years back that showed that more than 75% of all sexual abuse of children was done by close relatives or family friends, not strangers.
To 1.: This would make a significant amount of news reports illegal.
To 2.: ANYONE distributing porn in the US need to either hold a model release form and copy of photo id documenting consent (the model release) and age (the photo id), or alternatively they need to have the contact details of whoever is the "custodian of records" for the pictures.
There isn't really any need for something more than that: If the documentation isn't available you're breaking the law by publishing the pics - it's as simple as that.
Many countries have similar rules (don't know about the UK), and it would do a lot to make enforcement simpler without inconveniencing legitimate sites much.
Re:But what about Paul Simon?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
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· Score: 5, Informative
UN sanctions, yes, but not US sanctions. UN sanctions don't automatically have the force of law. Graceland entered the Billboard Top Album chart on September 8th 1985. On September 26th, Reagan vetoed the bill intended to start US sanctions. On October 3rd the veto was overriden by the Senate... So it was close, and he got some flack for it, though it was largerly silenced because of the focus on black South African music, but he didn't violate US law.
This is completely wrong. It says that SCO's complaints will not be dealt with by the court until the IBM and Redhat suits are over, with two tiny exceptions:
If SCO are sure they can show irreparable harm (that is, Autozone is continuing to do "something" that causes SCO to lose "something" that can't be compensated by monetary damages) they can do limited discovery specifically for a motion for a preliminary injunction. Nothing more. The judged specifically made a point that this is not a fishing license.
Further, there will be a review of the case every 90 days where the parties get to argue over whether the stay is still relevant - actions in the IBM or Redhat cases may make the stay moot before those cases are over, for instance.
Also, you say "nor a firm concurance with AutoZone's agreement with SCO's own request that the case be delayed until IBM v. SCO is settled". What are you even trying to say? SCO has fought AGAINST a stay. AutoZone wants a stay, not SCO, and AutoZone got what they wanted.
It would be very surprising if the judge hadn't asked for status reports, as he has no control over whether the other two lawsuits drags on for ages after any aspects relevant to the AutoZone case has already been decided, for instance by summary judgements of parts of the claims.
It's also fair of him to allow the possibility for a preliminary injunction, as IF SCO actually is suffering irreparable harm (yeah, right...) the stay would cause them additional losses. Allowing that is the judges way of saying "put up or shut up": If they don't go for a preliminary injunction, or go for one and can't prove irreparable harm, they have essentially said that approving the stay doesn't hurt them enough for the stay to be a problem.
If they against all odds do get a preliminary injunction for.. something, it's quite possible AutoZone wouldn't want to keep the case stayed.
But if SCO try to get a preliminary injunction they'll have a very tough job, in particularly in convincing the judge that there is something reasonable they can stop AutoZone from doing when they apparently don't think they suffer any irreparable harm from Redhat or Novell continuing to distribute Linux (if so, where are the motions for preliminary injunctions?)
The assessment boils down to filling out a form and saying you know what you're talking about, though. I used to have a options and margin enabled account before I switched brokers (haven't bothered asking from the new one, as I haven't had any need), and all I had to do to get it was tick a few boxes.
There are a few key things to look out for to get an account option trading enabled: You should state that you have a reasonable amount of liquid assets. Your investment goal should be growth/aggressive growth/speculation or similar. And it's an advantage if you state that you have experience with trading option.
People that would have to lie on any of the above to have a chance should have a long hard think about whether they actually understand options trading well enough not to risk losing their money, though. (And even more so if applying for a margin account, since it's an easy way to bankrupt yourself...)
Their accountant recommended the change and restatement. We don't know how "strongly" they recommended it. In any case at that point it would have been extremely stupid not to do it as soon as possible since any delay would give people purchasing shares between when they found out and when they published the information ammunition for lawsuits.
That's normal for class action lawsuits. If the lawsuit gets class action status in the, then you can get treble damages, of which typically 1/3 goes to the lawyers, 1/3 goes to the lead plaintiffs and 1/3 goes to the rest of the class. So consider the press release an ad to find someone who bought Redhat shares in the period that have a somewhat plausible claim to having lost money, and in return will get 1/3 of any settlement or judgement.
It is supposed to help the shareholders that bought during the period when the financial irregularities occurred, presumably arguing that these shareholders either bought at a price inflated due to the irregularities, or bought because they thought the reports seemed better than the restated numbers will be.
These lawsuits are very common, as class action lawsuits in the US can be insanely lucrative for the lawyers if they win. You can be awarded triple damaged, and the lawyers get a third of the awarded damages. Imagine for a moment (this is purely hypothetical and quite unlikely) the lawyers manage to successfully argue that the actual damage was $5 per share, relatively close to the drop in share price after the announcement. Now damages could then possibly be awarded at $15 per share for trades during the entire period of misstated earnings reports (2001-2004). It could wipe out the company, and net the lawyers tens or even hundreds of millions.
That said, these lawsuits are notoriously hard to win, and it's much more likely that it'll either be settled for relatively small amount or that if they do go to court and win that they'll get significantly less.
Think of it as a lottery ticket... With the kind of prices you can win people are willing to bet even when the chances are almost non-existant.
It doesn't work that way. Even if a court decided that the license grant in itself was not legally binding on you, you would be prevented by a legal principle called "estoppel" from suing someone for doing something you have previously claimed they had a right to do.
Even if the license might in theory legally binding on you, it would be highly improbably that any court would find that a claim by you to have licensed the code under certain terms would not consistute estoppel if you claimed as truth that people could distribute the software under the terms of the GPL.
In fact, it goes further than that. If you assert that your software is licensed under the GPL, and that by placing the software under the GPL you're allowing people to do Foo with it, then you will be prevented from later suing people for violating the GPL even if Foo is a violation of the license.
This principle is meant to provide safety that you can rely on statements from someone without needing to have every little detail agreed in writing.
(The term "estoppel" came to English from French, btw.)
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone want to bet that if I wrote a story about sexual abuse and published it under a title that happened to include Penguin's lawyers phone numbers or e-mail addresses, I'd get instantly sued?
The bullshit about trademarks is just an attempt to confuse the issue.
"Practical English Usage, New Edition, Oxford University Press, 1997" specifically lists the BBC as an example of a group that can be referred to with both plural and singular.
"The BBC are reporting" would possibly indicate a more personal approach - this is something that is reported by the individuals making up the BBC - while "the BBC is reporting" is more official: The BBC as a unit is issuing a press release or a news story.
To me "the BBC is reporting" sounds more natural in this case.
See, they probably won't phase out the AlphaServer until they've moved all their VAX customers over to it. That way they get to sell their customers new hardware twice.
You must be incredibly bad in bed if you have that effect on women...
You'll also find that in most of these countries there is no such thing as "general conscription". It may be so in name, but most countries don't have the resources to operate a military that large, and in most cases only men are included to start with.
In Norway, for instance, only about 40% of men complete their "compulsory" military service.
What it boils down to is an arbitrary draft where whether or not you end up serving depends entirely on whether or not you put in an effort to stay out, whether or not you're ready to go to jail to stay out of the military (in some countries this isn't a particularly nice option - in Norway it often is, as unless you get the shortest duty period you're guaranteed to spend less time in prison than in the military, and in a "comfy" minimum security prison with possibility of leave and spending your time studying instead of working), or whether the officers at the camp you're directed to have a bad day or not the day you're ordered to report.
Then, once you're enrolled, it is fairly arbitrary whether you'll stay beyond the first week or so depending on whether you happen to have a bad time and the mood of the officers again.
In recent years, both Norway and many other countries who pretend to have general conscription have steadily decreased service periods. In Norway it used to be 12 months mandatory, 15 for the navy. Now it's quite common to get 6 months.
They're also steadily easing up on people who refuse. During the 70's Norway had lots of people in jail for refusing, but due to the Vietnam war lots of youth started refusing stating Norway's membership in NATO as the reason and Amnesty started making a stink about political oppression, with the result that they now on the second refusal to turn up for the draft "take away your right to serve" to avoid having to try to draft you again.
That was followed in the 80's by introducing opposition to the spread and use of nuclear weapons as a legal way of refusing the draft (you'll still have to serve a 16 month "civil" service period, usually working in kindergartens, nursery homes etc. as cheap labor) - it was a thinly veiled way of giving people who couldn't get away with using pacifism as their reason (which has been a legal excuse for ages, provided you can manage to convince a police interviewer that it's a serious conviction).
Personally I think general conscription is a joke. There are bad sides to a career military, and I fully support encouraging people to serve. I don't even mind them taking the approach that you're by default being called in and have to refuse. I do mind being forced to take part in something where it is highly likely that I sometimes in the future might be ordered under threat of a military court martial to do something my convictions won't let me do.
I'm not talking about a blanket refusal to take part in a military operation - I don't consider myself a pacifist though I have a strong aversion to violence - but a blanket refusal to put myself under the command of someone who might very well decide to send people to participate in the next illegal occupation force the US decides to put together, for instance.
For my part I've made a very clear decision to refuse to serve on those grounds, NOT on one of the legal grounds (though I could perfectly well use the nuclear weapons excuse I mentioned earlier - it's sole purpose is to avoid having people like me make Amnesty complain about Norway after all), but it would be dishonest.
I started out refusing by demanding to be exempted. You can't do that, and the Norwegian DOJ doesn't understand the concept, so the Department of Justice called me in to a police interview (with an officer that lacked the most basic understanding of Norwegian grammar, I was so tempted to refuse to
A quote often attributed to Richard Branson is perhaps the best known variation. I don't know if it's true, but supposedly he was once asked how to become a millionaire and replied something along the lines of "begin as a billionaire and start an airline". Given the amounts he lost on Virgin Atlantic in the beginning it's a fairly plausible quote...
How is a small car or motor bike a much better bet for urban transport? The Segway can achieve a higher speed than the average speed of cars going through the centre of London. It takes up less space on the road, and can reasonably be used on sidewalks if they aren't too crowded. A small car or motor bike might be a better bet in some cities, but for London that would probably be primarily if you define "better" as "spends more time in queues".
Neither do I drive a motor scooter - I'd be a lunatic to want to drive one in London traffic, same for a bike. But I'd love a Segway. Why? Because it would effectively extend the range I'd go without relying on public transport easily and conveniently, while taking up less space and being better suited for small spaces than bikes and scooters.
Just as the bike and cars were essentially considered useless novelties when they were first invented, it's no wonder Segways get the same treatment.
I won't buy one while they're as expensive as they are now, but when the price comes down I'll likely buy one. I live too far from work for using it for commuting, but for trips to the grocery store etc. it would be great and make it even less of a hassle to not have a car.
Bikes are nothing new either. That doesn't mean that can't do a better job facilitating some types of tours than the alternatives can.
I'd expect the batteries to last long enough to let you drive the ball much further than if you used clubs :)
That doesn't mean that they have to be particularly dangerous if you ride normally instead of racing around swinging a large mallet in various directions.
So what was your point again>
My impression too. I tried searching for a couple of the document titles listed on Google for instance, and the ones I searched for where all available on the web and marked clearly "Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited".
1 GB "actually equals" whatever people consider it to equal. So far the only people I've seen trying to use 1GB = 10^9 bytes are pedantic revisionist twits and hard drive manufacturers.
This has been going on for years.
You forgot both Norway and Finland... Of course you do realise that the only reason Santa wears the colors of your national flag is because of Coca Cola corporation and their marketing, don't you? So I guess that would give Coca Cola a claim too :)
It's parents and family friends that are the primary risks for children in any case, not stumbling onto child porn or pervs on the net. The NSPCC (UK organisation - the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) published a study a few years back that showed that more than 75% of all sexual abuse of children was done by close relatives or family friends, not strangers.
To 2.: ANYONE distributing porn in the US need to either hold a model release form and copy of photo id documenting consent (the model release) and age (the photo id), or alternatively they need to have the contact details of whoever is the "custodian of records" for the pictures.
There isn't really any need for something more than that: If the documentation isn't available you're breaking the law by publishing the pics - it's as simple as that.
Many countries have similar rules (don't know about the UK), and it would do a lot to make enforcement simpler without inconveniencing legitimate sites much.
UN sanctions, yes, but not US sanctions. UN sanctions don't automatically have the force of law. Graceland entered the Billboard Top Album chart on September 8th 1985. On September 26th, Reagan vetoed the bill intended to start US sanctions. On October 3rd the veto was overriden by the Senate... So it was close, and he got some flack for it, though it was largerly silenced because of the focus on black South African music, but he didn't violate US law.
If SCO are sure they can show irreparable harm (that is, Autozone is continuing to do "something" that causes SCO to lose "something" that can't be compensated by monetary damages) they can do limited discovery specifically for a motion for a preliminary injunction. Nothing more. The judged specifically made a point that this is not a fishing license.
Further, there will be a review of the case every 90 days where the parties get to argue over whether the stay is still relevant - actions in the IBM or Redhat cases may make the stay moot before those cases are over, for instance.
Also, you say "nor a firm concurance with AutoZone's agreement with SCO's own request that the case be delayed until IBM v. SCO is settled". What are you even trying to say? SCO has fought AGAINST a stay. AutoZone wants a stay, not SCO, and AutoZone got what they wanted.
It would be very surprising if the judge hadn't asked for status reports, as he has no control over whether the other two lawsuits drags on for ages after any aspects relevant to the AutoZone case has already been decided, for instance by summary judgements of parts of the claims.
It's also fair of him to allow the possibility for a preliminary injunction, as IF SCO actually is suffering irreparable harm (yeah, right...) the stay would cause them additional losses. Allowing that is the judges way of saying "put up or shut up": If they don't go for a preliminary injunction, or go for one and can't prove irreparable harm, they have essentially said that approving the stay doesn't hurt them enough for the stay to be a problem.
If they against all odds do get a preliminary injunction for .. something, it's quite possible AutoZone wouldn't want to keep the case stayed.
But if SCO try to get a preliminary injunction they'll have a very tough job, in particularly in convincing the judge that there is something reasonable they can stop AutoZone from doing when they apparently don't think they suffer any irreparable harm from Redhat or Novell continuing to distribute Linux (if so, where are the motions for preliminary injunctions?)
There are a few key things to look out for to get an account option trading enabled: You should state that you have a reasonable amount of liquid assets. Your investment goal should be growth/aggressive growth/speculation or similar. And it's an advantage if you state that you have experience with trading option.
People that would have to lie on any of the above to have a chance should have a long hard think about whether they actually understand options trading well enough not to risk losing their money, though. (And even more so if applying for a margin account, since it's an easy way to bankrupt yourself...)
Their accountant recommended the change and restatement. We don't know how "strongly" they recommended it. In any case at that point it would have been extremely stupid not to do it as soon as possible since any delay would give people purchasing shares between when they found out and when they published the information ammunition for lawsuits.
That's normal for class action lawsuits. If the lawsuit gets class action status in the, then you can get treble damages, of which typically 1/3 goes to the lawyers, 1/3 goes to the lead plaintiffs and 1/3 goes to the rest of the class. So consider the press release an ad to find someone who bought Redhat shares in the period that have a somewhat plausible claim to having lost money, and in return will get 1/3 of any settlement or judgement.
These lawsuits are very common, as class action lawsuits in the US can be insanely lucrative for the lawyers if they win. You can be awarded triple damaged, and the lawyers get a third of the awarded damages. Imagine for a moment (this is purely hypothetical and quite unlikely) the lawyers manage to successfully argue that the actual damage was $5 per share, relatively close to the drop in share price after the announcement. Now damages could then possibly be awarded at $15 per share for trades during the entire period of misstated earnings reports (2001-2004). It could wipe out the company, and net the lawyers tens or even hundreds of millions.
That said, these lawsuits are notoriously hard to win, and it's much more likely that it'll either be settled for relatively small amount or that if they do go to court and win that they'll get significantly less.
Think of it as a lottery ticket... With the kind of prices you can win people are willing to bet even when the chances are almost non-existant.
No 666 comes straight from the bible
Even if the license might in theory legally binding on you, it would be highly improbably that any court would find that a claim by you to have licensed the code under certain terms would not consistute estoppel if you claimed as truth that people could distribute the software under the terms of the GPL.
In fact, it goes further than that. If you assert that your software is licensed under the GPL, and that by placing the software under the GPL you're allowing people to do Foo with it, then you will be prevented from later suing people for violating the GPL even if Foo is a violation of the license.
This principle is meant to provide safety that you can rely on statements from someone without needing to have every little detail agreed in writing.
(The term "estoppel" came to English from French, btw.)
ObDisclaimer: IANAL