Does emailing someone your personal information act as an implicit waiver of your right to privacy? I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, no.
Interesting question. Would people be reacting differently if the respondents had responded by snail mail, and the prankster had then scanned and posted the mail?
now when do I get one to stick ontop of the trunk of my time travelling Delorean?
Actually, you'd need ten of these to generate the 1.21 GW necessary to power the flux capacitor. For now, it looks like you'll have to stick with stealing plutonium from terrorists.
My guess is that he got the machine thirty years ago, it did what he needed, and he never felt a need to replace it.
I still have a Macintosh SE that I dust off and use every now and then. I played around a bit with MusicWorks back in 1988. Sure, there are much better applications these days, but they don't read MusicWorks files, and converting those files to MIDI is a major pain in the ass that I haven't gotten around to yet. MusicWorks doesn't run on modern systems, so when I want to play with one of those little ditties my friends and I created almost twenty years ago, I use my almost twenty-year-old machine to do it.
You have to laugh at death, or else you're just going to feel like shit all the time.
Exactly. And it's important not to feel like shit, because if you feel like shit, then other people aren't going to be able to criticize you for not feeling like shit and pat themselves on the back for being superior. So, for their sakes, laugh.
his death is probably a good lesson to leave nature alone, and that's one of the best environmental messages one can give.
When Tasmanian tigers -- to name just one of many examples of this phenomenon -- killed livestock, the ranchers didn't take that as a message to leave the tigers alone. They took it as a message to hunt the tigers to extinction.
I can burgle your home, steal your stereo, "sell" it to myself, make up a little receipt or contract with a non-existent seller showing that I bought it, and then, even when caught with your stereo in my possession, I get to keep it unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm the guy who actually removed it from your home?
Good Lord, they're redirecting people to their search page... at the DNS level?! Is that even legal? It certainly shouldn't be.
If I want to respond to NXDOMAIN by going to a search page, great. There's software that will let me do that. If you want to help me, point me to the software. (Or to the options in the software that I'm already using, as the case may be.) Let me decide.
If you take the decision out of my hands by hiding the NXDOMAIN response and forcing upon me the decision patronize a site that is profitable to EarthLink and tell me you're doing it to help me out... you're a worse liar than my girlfriend's kid!
Worse yet, a downstream DNS server is going to cache your bullshit response, preventing users behind such a server from reaching the erstwhile nonexistent domain even when it does come online! Of course, you see that as a good thing, because you're sure they're rather be going to your site than the domain they actually typed into their browser, right?
Many web browsers, including Firefox, IE and Safari, already allow users to do this manually.
Mr Ahmed said at the time of its release: "Although it's possible to delete history folders and empty cache with existing internet browsers, the majority of internet users worldwide don't have the time or expertise to do this.
In Safari, all one has to do is select "Private Browsing" from the "Safari" menu. Why don't all browsers have that?
on the off chance this was a bomb, the bomb squad interrogator was right
The very, very, very, very, very off chance.
There's always a finite chance that anything could be a bomb. Does it follow that anybody who has anything should be regarded as a potential bomber and that according such a person any rights places the public in jeopardy?
Um, honestly, that's not a rhetorical question. I'm not sure what the official position on that question is these days.
I don't think this was just a fear-induced overreaction. When a kid dropping his iPod in a toilet leads to him being interrogated by law enforcement about his sexual desires, I think we can state with confidence that at least some of these officials were not performing their duties in good faith.
I don't know what motivated this whole fiasco, but it doesn't seem that it can all be explained as a legitimate effort to protect public safety, or even slavish following of regulations.
You know Congress would pass some über-DMCA about this that would make it illegal for anyone other than the patent holder to know how to build it or to own or distrubute anything that could possibly be used to build it.
Still, somebody, somewhere, maybe not in the U.S., is going to start building their own machines. And once you have machines that put out more energy than they take in, and use that energy to build and power more such machines, the amount of energy you can produce becomes unlimited. One shmuck in a basement could produce a bang that would destroy the planet.
Regardless, the patent for that machine would expire 20 years from its filing date and would then become public domain.
Quite clearly, it would not. The owner of the patent would be richer than God, and could easily bribe Congress to extend the patent indefinitely.
Regardless, it doesn't work, and I don't have to RTFA.
Hundreds of thousands of people over the years have claimed to have invented free-engery machines. Zero of them have stood up to scrutnity. By contrast, the laws of physics that say it's impossible have proven quite reliable.
Yet another claim of a free energy machine. *Yawn.* How is this news? Why is it on the front page of Slashdot?
Does it matter? An EULA is a contract. Vendors like Microsoft assert the right to unilaterally change an existing contract. The very notion is offensive.
The good news is that I'm pretty sure that the new EULA is legally unenforceable. It's a well-established principle in law that you can't do that. Congress seems to believe that anything that content producers do is legal and anything that consumers do is not, but I can't imagine that courts would find any merit at all in that position.
They could easily thwart black-hat hackers while protecting users' rights by implementing a system that would require physical access to the box to install software signed by someone else (such as the user).
You're telling me that they magically figured out a way to do this without copying the DVD, and they were merely reselling an altered disc?
Of course not. It is a different physical disc, because the original disc is not physically rewritable. But you're emphasizing an irrelevant logistical detail and ignoring the purpose and essence of the act. The logistics are a little different than ripping pages out of a book, but the effect is the same. In no way does society benefit from emphasizing such logistical details and ignoring the essence and effect of an action, nor does it benefit from allowing the studios to eliminate fair use rights through technical means that ensure that the only way to "rip pages out" is to transfer the copy to a different physical medium. In no way does this interpretation of copyright law "promote the progress of science and the useful arts"; quite the contrary, it erects barriers to such progress.
If that were the case, it wouldn't have ended up in court in the first place.
The court ruling doesn't emphasize the physicality of the medium so much as some presumed fundamental right of the copyright holder "to protect its creation in the form in which it was created."
The court argues by analogy that "a person who dislikes Michelangelo's statue of David" does not have "a right to take a sledgehammer to it, or, as may be more aptly said in this case, to put a fig leaf on it to make it more acceptable for viewing by parents with young children."
Of course somebody who dislikes the statue doesn't have a right to take a sledgehammer to the original, but if I purchase a replica of the statue, I have every right to take a sledgehammer to it or to put a fig leaf on it. And if I don't have a sledgehammer or the means by which to affix a marble fig leaf to the statue, I have every right to pay a vendor to do it for me. The court's own analogy doesn't support the ruling; it undermines it.
Finally, the court rules to award the summary judgement to the studios because the redaction causes "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies. There is a public interest in providing such protection." Yet nowhere does it articulate what this interest is, let alone make a convincing argument that the judgement advances that interest.
The whole ruling is full of such nonsense. It's an utter piece of crap.
It was absolutely fair use. Since the court ruling, it's not Fair Use, but it is fair use. What they were doing was the hi-tech equivalent of ripping pages out of a book because the customer didn't want those pages and could not possess the means by which to rip those pages out himself. The ruling, based on a vague notion of "artistic integrity," is utterly absurd.
Yeah, they were distributing movies. That's perfectly legal when you purchase legitimate copies; you're entitled to resell them. However, they were editing those copies as requested by the consumer, so that the consumer could use the copyrighted work as the consumer wished. The industry managed have this ruled "illegitimate" based on an absurd argument about protecting the integrity of the artistic vision. The fact that this was obviously not the intent of the copyright clause is apparently irrelevant.
Voting with your dollars is one thing. Stealing quite another.
Pirating music/movies/software/ebooks isn't stealing. It's freeloading. There is a significant difference. It's amazing how effectively the industry has bamboozled the public into believing that there isn't.
just drop their DRM demand, thereby cutting their own throats. Or they can stop selling through iTMS, and watch that revenue stream dry up, their artists leave
I wonder how long it will be before major artists start selling their music directly through their own websites and say, "F*ck the record labels."
No, I take that back.
I wonder how long it will be before the record labels successfully lobby Congress for legislation that effectively prohibits artists from doing an end run around the labels.
The IDF failed in 18 years of trying to rid the Lebanon of Hezbollah. What makes them think they can do it now?
Because, with rockets raining down on Haifa, the gloves are... well, if not off, they're at least starting to work on the laces. Of course, the other guy in the ring has been bare-knuckled all along.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting question. Would people be reacting differently if the respondents had responded by snail mail, and the prankster had then scanned and posted the mail?
Actually, you'd need ten of these to generate the 1.21 GW necessary to power the flux capacitor. For now, it looks like you'll have to stick with stealing plutonium from terrorists.
Why? Um, why not?
My guess is that he got the machine thirty years ago, it did what he needed, and he never felt a need to replace it.
I still have a Macintosh SE that I dust off and use every now and then. I played around a bit with MusicWorks back in 1988. Sure, there are much better applications these days, but they don't read MusicWorks files, and converting those files to MIDI is a major pain in the ass that I haven't gotten around to yet. MusicWorks doesn't run on modern systems, so when I want to play with one of those little ditties my friends and I created almost twenty years ago, I use my almost twenty-year-old machine to do it.
Exactly. And it's important not to feel like shit, because if you feel like shit, then other people aren't going to be able to criticize you for not feeling like shit and pat themselves on the back for being superior. So, for their sakes, laugh.
his death is probably a good lesson to leave nature alone, and that's one of the best environmental messages one can give.
When Tasmanian tigers -- to name just one of many examples of this phenomenon -- killed livestock, the ranchers didn't take that as a message to leave the tigers alone. They took it as a message to hunt the tigers to extinction.
Let me get this straight...
I can burgle your home, steal your stereo, "sell" it to myself, make up a little receipt or contract with a non-existent seller showing that I bought it, and then, even when caught with your stereo in my possession, I get to keep it unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm the guy who actually removed it from your home?
Good Lord, they're redirecting people to their search page... at the DNS level?! Is that even legal? It certainly shouldn't be.
If I want to respond to NXDOMAIN by going to a search page, great. There's software that will let me do that. If you want to help me, point me to the software. (Or to the options in the software that I'm already using, as the case may be.) Let me decide.
If you take the decision out of my hands by hiding the NXDOMAIN response and forcing upon me the decision patronize a site that is profitable to EarthLink and tell me you're doing it to help me out... you're a worse liar than my girlfriend's kid!
Worse yet, a downstream DNS server is going to cache your bullshit response, preventing users behind such a server from reaching the erstwhile nonexistent domain even when it does come online! Of course, you see that as a good thing, because you're sure they're rather be going to your site than the domain they actually typed into their browser, right?
In Safari, all one has to do is select "Private Browsing" from the "Safari" menu. Why don't all browsers have that?
on the off chance this was a bomb, the bomb squad interrogator was right
The very, very, very, very, very off chance.
There's always a finite chance that anything could be a bomb. Does it follow that anybody who has anything should be regarded as a potential bomber and that according such a person any rights places the public in jeopardy?
Um, honestly, that's not a rhetorical question. I'm not sure what the official position on that question is these days.
I don't think this was just a fear-induced overreaction. When a kid dropping his iPod in a toilet leads to him being interrogated by law enforcement about his sexual desires, I think we can state with confidence that at least some of these officials were not performing their duties in good faith.
I don't know what motivated this whole fiasco, but it doesn't seem that it can all be explained as a legitimate effort to protect public safety, or even slavish following of regulations.
Man, if it's true, how awesome would that BE?!
Not very.
You know Congress would pass some über-DMCA about this that would make it illegal for anyone other than the patent holder to know how to build it or to own or distrubute anything that could possibly be used to build it.
Still, somebody, somewhere, maybe not in the U.S., is going to start building their own machines. And once you have machines that put out more energy than they take in, and use that energy to build and power more such machines, the amount of energy you can produce becomes unlimited. One shmuck in a basement could produce a bang that would destroy the planet.
Regardless, the patent for that machine would expire 20 years from its filing date and would then become public domain.
Quite clearly, it would not. The owner of the patent would be richer than God, and could easily bribe Congress to extend the patent indefinitely.
Regardless, it doesn't work, and I don't have to RTFA.
Hundreds of thousands of people over the years have claimed to have invented free-engery machines. Zero of them have stood up to scrutnity. By contrast, the laws of physics that say it's impossible have proven quite reliable.
Yet another claim of a free energy machine. *Yawn.* How is this news? Why is it on the front page of Slashdot?
Does it matter? An EULA is a contract. Vendors like Microsoft assert the right to unilaterally change an existing contract. The very notion is offensive.
The good news is that I'm pretty sure that the new EULA is legally unenforceable. It's a well-established principle in law that you can't do that. Congress seems to believe that anything that content producers do is legal and anything that consumers do is not, but I can't imagine that courts would find any merit at all in that position.
Apple's too entrenched in the audio-player market.
Yeah, about as entrenched as Netscape once was in the browser market. It took Microsoft about five minutes to kill them.
I find that I rarely need Expose do to its efficiency.
It's hard to beat Expose for efficiency if you have a Mighty Mouse. Getting to any non-hidden window is just squeeze, point, squeeze.
They could easily thwart black-hat hackers while protecting users' rights by implementing a system that would require physical access to the box to install software signed by someone else (such as the user).
You're telling me that they magically figured out a way to do this without copying the DVD, and they were merely reselling an altered disc?
Of course not. It is a different physical disc, because the original disc is not physically rewritable. But you're emphasizing an irrelevant logistical detail and ignoring the purpose and essence of the act. The logistics are a little different than ripping pages out of a book, but the effect is the same. In no way does society benefit from emphasizing such logistical details and ignoring the essence and effect of an action, nor does it benefit from allowing the studios to eliminate fair use rights through technical means that ensure that the only way to "rip pages out" is to transfer the copy to a different physical medium. In no way does this interpretation of copyright law "promote the progress of science and the useful arts"; quite the contrary, it erects barriers to such progress.
If that were the case, it wouldn't have ended up in court in the first place.
The court ruling doesn't emphasize the physicality of the medium so much as some presumed fundamental right of the copyright holder "to protect its creation in the form in which it was created."
The court argues by analogy that "a person who dislikes Michelangelo's statue of David" does not have "a right to take a sledgehammer to it, or, as may be more aptly said in this case, to put a fig leaf on it to make it more acceptable for viewing by parents with young children."
Of course somebody who dislikes the statue doesn't have a right to take a sledgehammer to the original, but if I purchase a replica of the statue, I have every right to take a sledgehammer to it or to put a fig leaf on it. And if I don't have a sledgehammer or the means by which to affix a marble fig leaf to the statue, I have every right to pay a vendor to do it for me. The court's own analogy doesn't support the ruling; it undermines it.
Finally, the court rules to award the summary judgement to the studios because the redaction causes "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies. There is a public interest in providing such protection." Yet nowhere does it articulate what this interest is, let alone make a convincing argument that the judgement advances that interest.
The whole ruling is full of such nonsense. It's an utter piece of crap.
It was absolutely fair use. Since the court ruling, it's not Fair Use, but it is fair use. What they were doing was the hi-tech equivalent of ripping pages out of a book because the customer didn't want those pages and could not possess the means by which to rip those pages out himself. The ruling, based on a vague notion of "artistic integrity," is utterly absurd.
Yeah, they were distributing movies. That's perfectly legal when you purchase legitimate copies; you're entitled to resell them. However, they were editing those copies as requested by the consumer, so that the consumer could use the copyrighted work as the consumer wished. The industry managed have this ruled "illegitimate" based on an absurd argument about protecting the integrity of the artistic vision. The fact that this was obviously not the intent of the copyright clause is apparently irrelevant.
they'll have a heck of a time working around the constitution's copyright clause to do such a thing.
Constitution? How quaint!
Voting with your dollars is one thing. Stealing quite another.
Pirating music/movies/software/ebooks isn't stealing. It's freeloading. There is a significant difference. It's amazing how effectively the industry has bamboozled the public into believing that there isn't.
just drop their DRM demand, thereby cutting their own throats. Or they can stop selling through iTMS, and watch that revenue stream dry up, their artists leave
I wonder how long it will be before major artists start selling their music directly through their own websites and say, "F*ck the record labels."
No, I take that back.
I wonder how long it will be before the record labels successfully lobby Congress for legislation that effectively prohibits artists from doing an end run around the labels.
The copyright holder can not restrict use
Tell it to CleanFlicks.
The IDF failed in 18 years of trying to rid the Lebanon of Hezbollah. What makes them think they can do it now?
Because, with rockets raining down on Haifa, the gloves are... well, if not off, they're at least starting to work on the laces. Of course, the other guy in the ring has been bare-knuckled all along.
So if the 9/11 hijackers had warned us they were going to destroy the WTC, it would have been OK?
If the WTC had been a legitimate military target, yes.