I can't give a really good answer for this (executive material I am not.) This is what I do know. The subscriber base is audited by a third party organization and the audit only allows for a certain amount of discounted or give-away subscriptions. When I was in circulation you could always tell when the rules changed because they'd cut or increase the galley so employees at the distribution centers would get a free paper or not.
You use this number to set your advertising rates and advertisers want to know your actual readership. It's a different kind of industry than direct mail and (I'm assuming now) advertisers want a more reliable metric that their ads are reaching people than just giving the paper away.
For myself, it's more interesting to see the technology behind the advertising. Newspapers are getting to a point where you can target ads by household instead of by zone (a geographic area.) There's also stuff like insertion of product samples. I know of a paper in Arizona who years ago inserted sample cans of Coke for advertising.
Sorry I couldn't give you a complete answer to your question.
Just regarding the mag issue and skipping the rest.
That's ok. I'm sure they can make an ad free version of National Geographic for you at ~$50US an issue. And no, I'm not kidding about that price one bit. I work in the IT department for a newspaper and without ads the cost of a daily newspaper would go from 75 cents to nearly 20 dollars iirc. Ads really do make that big of a difference in the profit of a publication. Ford probably paid a premium for that spot.
As for myself, when I was in your position I used to love having the ads in those places. I could then remove the map/article/whatever and not damage any additional content within the publication. Personally, I don't know what you are bitching about. You got the map for a song. Not all advertising is bad.
Hey, loser pays would be great! Eric Corley and the EFF could then cough up an additional 13+ million dollars to pay out to the MPAA. You know, out of the money all of us/.s and free speech advocates chipped in to support the cause.
(IANAL) Or get together and pay the fee to have the patent re-reviewed. iirc, this is between $15-50K but from what I've read if a patent survives re-review it is much stronger in court. A group of major players, including IBM, did that for the Y2K windowing patent.
btw, anybody know what happened with that issue? I haven't anything about the windowing patent for quite some time.
Hey that'd be cool. I'd be more than happy to roust a mob in the movie theater to string you up and vivisect you into a human kite using some fanboy's toy lightsabre. Be a fitting example for all the other 14 year olds out there.
But don't worry more than likely what I'd really do is complain, get you kicked out and get a couple of free passes to go watch another show later on. Done that to the babies who don't know how to use a laser pointer and would have no problem doing it to you.
Thus, circumventing use restriction is not unlawful, but in order to protect the rights of copyright owners while maintaining fair use, Congress banned trafficking in devices that are primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing any technological measure that "effectively protects a right of a copyright owner," or that have limited commercially significant purposes other than circumventing use restrictions, or that are marked for use in circumventing the use restrictions.
So what we've got here is, if you can program it yourself, exercise your fair use rights as much as you wish but try and pass your tool to others and watch out. You're in violation.
Because that's exactly what's it will be. Give me an example of any program that will not be a violation of 1201(b). We've already been told by the courts and the copyright office that developing a tool to view DVDs under linux isn't protected. One says the affected population is too small and the other says the copyright owners don't have to cater to every Tom, Dick and Harry out there. Under this interpretation the only ones who will have fair use will be the technologically savy.
However, I will say this. His discussion of what is fair use is concise, and understandable. Unfortunately, he brings up a telling point.
Id. There is no bright line test for determining whether any particular use is a "fair use" or is instead an act of copyright infringement, and each use requires a case-by-case determination. See Harper & Row,Publishers v. nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539,549(1985).
Which, in my cynical mind, means big companies get to sue, sue, and sue some more while the little guy can only hope that some organization like the EFF will back them lest they go broke defending themselves. Eh, time will tell.
True. But there is a big difference between being nagged about "are you sure you don't want to use our product" and "I don't care if you want to use PlayerX you're going to be using our Player."
In one instance, I can always find a different product that doesn't irritate me and at least tries to dwim. In the other, I'm not given any choice at all. Tack on the fact that choice is being eliminated by a convicted monopolist and actually it is much worse.
I can't control a handful of unknown miscreants and prevent them from writing malware. I can use platforms which aren't susceptible to these form of attacks when I'm allowed and do a variety of other things, like not opening unknown executables and running a virus checker, to lower the chance that I get infected.
I know it is unreasonable but as I do it I expect others to keep their virtual backyard tidy. Run Windows? Buy a virus checker and use it. Read email using Outlook? Lock it down. Because if you don't take care of it you might wind up screwing with my backyard.
Two days ago I was out buying flowers for my garden, planting them (two rose bushes, Ink Spots to be exact, some Salvia; pansies and way too many Coleus fwiw), spending time with my son, and talking with my parents. Didn't check/. all weekend.
Thank you Timothy for reposting an interesting story that I would have missed in the churn of new postings over the weekend and giving those of us who are just finding out about the story a fresh forum to express our opinions in. The one from Saturday has over 420 posts.
Re:how about for non-comic viewers?
on
Review: Spiderman
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· Score: 2, Funny
More like the generation that heard Mary Jane and thought doobie instead of Peter Parker's gf.
And remember folks...
Don't bogart that joint my friend. Pass it over to me....
I would like to see OSS obtain some patents and fight fire with fire. But it won't happen. No-one in the OSS world is prepared to put development effort into a product which involves patented technology, because of the stigma the community has attached to patents.
And where is the OSS community going to get the continual funding to churn these patents out and enforce them? How much money are you willing to personally invest to file a counter-suit when MS or Novell or AT&T comes knocking on some unknown developer's door so we can enter a cross licensing deal to let that guy's project move on? What happens when that company sues another developer over the same patent and we have to do this dance again?
When we're finally entrenched into the system and OSS isn't fun to do anymore because we're more busy talking to lawyers and getting suggestions on replacing a comma with a semicolon in sentence X so a patent passes than writing software where do we go?
Where do we go in areas where the patents are already littered like a minefield? Last month I had a chance to hear Radia Perlman talk and meet with her. She talked about how she had an interest in doing research in a particuliar field but saw the patent issues she would have to deal with and decided to skip it. One of the finest minds in the field and it isn't worth her time to contribute because it would be more time sidestepping every frivilous patent claim out there.
Btw, RSA's real protection came from their stance that the copyright on the code was more important than the patent. This was how they made sure MIT didn't see a friggin dime for giving RSA stewardship over the patent. So much for the Bayh-Dole Act helping universities. And compare usage of RSA here in the US as compared to Europe. Europe which had no software patents got a lot more milage out of RSA than we did in the States.
So in this case, I will be a fanatic and opinionated (I'm entitled. I'm 36:) I don't care if it took a thousand man years to create and someone spent a billion dollars on it. Software patents are bogus under the US patent system and I'd rather throw this baby anti-christ out with the bathwater than try to fix it. Software is a field of ideas and ideas should not be patented under any circumstance. Tangibles yes. Make a better material for the soaker hose I water my roses with and I'm all for giving you a patent. Not to mention the US allows broad patents and does not require that a patent advance the field and the system becomes an idea killer instaed of an idea distributor.
The easiest way to fix software patents is to have no software patents.
That's why there are copyright laws. By restricting the distribution rights to the copyright owner scarcity is created. Piracy then becomes a non-zero sum situation and the copyright owner is being deprived of his proper compensation.
Now someone might not agree with this legal fiction but it is legally enforcable. If someone wants the law changed then I suggest they blantantly break the law and take the jail time like any other good protester would.
It has enough value for someone to violate the copyright owner's distribution rights and make an illegal copy of the software. Now our hypothetical pirate may say "but I wouldn't have bought it for $X anyway" HOWEVER if the copyright owner had the resources to collect on the illegal copy they would get $X.
The only reason our pirate isn't getting hauled into court is because it is fiscally prohibative for the copyright owner to do so over a single copy. The pirate is getting value out of the product while the producer is not being compensated. Call it what you want, spin it as a cardinal sin or as a mere faus pax, but it is an act which is wrong and illegal.
Whether the pirate would have bought the copy or not is irrelevent. He doesn't dictate the value of the software. The copyright owner does. Now I may question how they arrive at their numbers but I won't deny the fact that an illegal copy is for all intents and purposes a lost sale. As others have said before me, if you don't like the price don't use the product.
And in the end, hugging my Aibo would still be a hollow experience. Everytime I read about Aibos replacing pets I'm reminded of Harlow's experiments with cloth mothers and wire mothers for monkeys.
Dress it up in synthetic fur, add some heating elements and rig it up with some tubing so you can imitate a pulse and an Aibo still isn't a pet. It isn't a companion. My cat is. Even knowing that when he rubs his face on my leg when I come home is because he's reapplying his scent doesn't make it any less of a comforting greeting.
And yeah, cleaning out the litter box on a regular basis and picking up the occassional hairball is sometimes a hassle. It isn't always fun brushing his fur and sometimes it is annoying moving him away from my food when I'm eating. He isn't cheap when I have to take him to the vet and over the past 10 years he's cost me over $2K. Not once has he taken my blood pressure or done my taxes.
And for all that meager gain for so much money I wouldn't replace him for an Abio ever. After he dies and I've finished crying I'd buy another cat without hesitation never once considering some robot. Why? Because through all the responsibility and "hassle" having a pet is rewarding and it was because it took some effort and was something I couldn't just turn off and put it away when I was bored that makes having a pet even more rewarding.
Hell, owning fish requires more commitment from a person than an Aibo. And it is that investment which will forever make an Aibo a toy and nothing more imho.
The parent's point (which is a damn good one) is that to implement the spec you will violate a MS patent. So if you develop in the US or maybe even if you have a developer in the US (guessing IANAL)MS can sue you. Reverse engineering will not save you from infringing on a patent. Depending on how broad the patent is I doubt a programmer could come up with an alternate and compatable method.
IMO, the licensing agreement can be gotten around. What's going to kill Free software in the States is patents.
What does it matter if he can back up his claims or not? To get the chance he has to pay upwards of $50,000 to get his day in court! With no guarantee that he will get lawyers costs paid for if he wins. Take a moment to envision yourself in that situation and then tell me what you'd do.
$50,000 is a year's worth of mortage payments, car payments, savings for my son's college fund, investing in my retirement plan, food, utility bills, and still includes enough left over to actually do stuff for my three weeks of vacation, have a cushion for unplanned expensives and actually have some fun every now and then. This doesn't included the emotional costs involved in a protracted legal dispute either.
That's why people are settling imnsho.
Re:My wife uses KDE and likes it..
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 2
fwiw, Gnome has already had one usability study done which, iirc, was funded by Sun.
KDE also has a site here but after a quick look I don't see a formal study done. Maybe somebody closer to the project can provide more info?
Re:Your "o p i n i o n" but I'll reply anyway...
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
Not childish at all. At the time KDE was first created the Qt license wasn't Free software and it was restricive enough that it wasn't even close to being Free software. If I felt like being pedantic about it, which I don't, I would argue that it still isn't Free software.
Note, in the above I never once said OSS. RMS had every right to call for development of a Free alternative to KDE. Just because some people took him up on it wasn't a bad thing whether you agree with RMS' politics or not. IMO, the competition has been a good thing and will continue to be a good thing.
Oh, btw, the different technology was CORBA at the time not.Net.
Your "o p i n i o n" but I'll reply anyway...
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 1
Nah, there will always be those of us who have no interest in KDE and will continue to use Gnome. Sorry, but just like I will use 2 but not 5 different browsers to surf the web I don't have much inclination to putz with another desktop environment. Add to the fact that if I really want to I can run KDE apps while still running Gnome and there is even less reason for me to consider switching.
Don't get me wrong though. I am happy for everyone who uses KDE and the developers deserve high praise but it hardly signals the death of Gnome.
Oh, btw, when did trying to get a desktop on linux become a war? Did the KDE League sign a declaration? Did Sun pony up for some small arms for the Gnome Foundation? Inquiring minds want to know!
Has one banner ad that occassionally flashes a ton of graphics like a scene out of Pokemon. And since the placement of the ad cuts off the url window, imo it isn't a small banner.
I get Mozilla for free and upgrades for free. And if I feel it has too much bloat I can always go Galeon. I barely remember the days I paid for products like CyberJack. I'm not going to pay $20+ for Opera.
o p i n i o n. The more I use Mozilla the more I've been giving up on Opera.
Slashdot Mirror
You use this number to set your advertising rates and advertisers want to know your actual readership. It's a different kind of industry than direct mail and (I'm assuming now) advertisers want a more reliable metric that their ads are reaching people than just giving the paper away.
For myself, it's more interesting to see the technology behind the advertising. Newspapers are getting to a point where you can target ads by household instead of by zone (a geographic area.) There's also stuff like insertion of product samples. I know of a paper in Arizona who years ago inserted sample cans of Coke for advertising.
Sorry I couldn't give you a complete answer to your question.
That's ok. I'm sure they can make an ad free version of National Geographic for you at ~$50US an issue. And no, I'm not kidding about that price one bit. I work in the IT department for a newspaper and without ads the cost of a daily newspaper would go from 75 cents to nearly 20 dollars iirc. Ads really do make that big of a difference in the profit of a publication. Ford probably paid a premium for that spot.
As for myself, when I was in your position I used to love having the ads in those places. I could then remove the map/article/whatever and not damage any additional content within the publication. Personally, I don't know what you are bitching about. You got the map for a song. Not all advertising is bad.
Hey, loser pays would be great! Eric Corley and the EFF could then cough up an additional 13+ million dollars to pay out to the MPAA. You know, out of the money all of us /.s and free speech advocates chipped in to support the cause.
They can name it something like 'Patch Lola Patch.'
They do. It's called a MUSH. (I'm only slightly kidding here.)
btw, anybody know what happened with that issue? I haven't anything about the windowing patent for quite some time.
But don't worry more than likely what I'd really do is complain, get you kicked out and get a couple of free passes to go watch another show later on. Done that to the babies who don't know how to use a laser pointer and would have no problem doing it to you.
It's like a click and a half on a Mac except you do it twice as fast.
So what we've got here is, if you can program it yourself, exercise your fair use rights as much as you wish but try and pass your tool to others and watch out. You're in violation.
Because that's exactly what's it will be. Give me an example of any program that will not be a violation of 1201(b). We've already been told by the courts and the copyright office that developing a tool to view DVDs under linux isn't protected. One says the affected population is too small and the other says the copyright owners don't have to cater to every Tom, Dick and Harry out there. Under this interpretation the only ones who will have fair use will be the technologically savy.
However, I will say this. His discussion of what is fair use is concise, and understandable. Unfortunately, he brings up a telling point.
Which, in my cynical mind, means big companies get to sue, sue, and sue some more while the little guy can only hope that some organization like the EFF will back them lest they go broke defending themselves. Eh, time will tell.
In one instance, I can always find a different product that doesn't irritate me and at least tries to dwim. In the other, I'm not given any choice at all. Tack on the fact that choice is being eliminated by a convicted monopolist and actually it is much worse.
I can't control a handful of unknown miscreants and prevent them from writing malware. I can use platforms which aren't susceptible to these form of attacks when I'm allowed and do a variety of other things, like not opening unknown executables and running a virus checker, to lower the chance that I get infected.
I know it is unreasonable but as I do it I expect others to keep their virtual backyard tidy. Run Windows? Buy a virus checker and use it. Read email using Outlook? Lock it down. Because if you don't take care of it you might wind up screwing with my backyard.
Thank you Timothy for reposting an interesting story that I would have missed in the churn of new postings over the weekend and giving those of us who are just finding out about the story a fresh forum to express our opinions in. The one from Saturday has over 420 posts.
And remember folks...
And where is the OSS community going to get the continual funding to churn these patents out and enforce them? How much money are you willing to personally invest to file a counter-suit when MS or Novell or AT&T comes knocking on some unknown developer's door so we can enter a cross licensing deal to let that guy's project move on? What happens when that company sues another developer over the same patent and we have to do this dance again?
When we're finally entrenched into the system and OSS isn't fun to do anymore because we're more busy talking to lawyers and getting suggestions on replacing a comma with a semicolon in sentence X so a patent passes than writing software where do we go?
Where do we go in areas where the patents are already littered like a minefield? Last month I had a chance to hear Radia Perlman talk and meet with her. She talked about how she had an interest in doing research in a particuliar field but saw the patent issues she would have to deal with and decided to skip it. One of the finest minds in the field and it isn't worth her time to contribute because it would be more time sidestepping every frivilous patent claim out there.
Btw, RSA's real protection came from their stance that the copyright on the code was more important than the patent. This was how they made sure MIT didn't see a friggin dime for giving RSA stewardship over the patent. So much for the Bayh-Dole Act helping universities. And compare usage of RSA here in the US as compared to Europe. Europe which had no software patents got a lot more milage out of RSA than we did in the States.
So in this case, I will be a fanatic and opinionated (I'm entitled. I'm 36 :) I don't care if it took a thousand man years to create and someone spent a billion dollars on it. Software patents are bogus under the US patent system and I'd rather throw this baby anti-christ out with the bathwater than try to fix it. Software is a field of ideas and ideas should not be patented under any circumstance. Tangibles yes. Make a better material for the soaker hose I water my roses with and I'm all for giving you a patent. Not to mention the US allows broad patents and does not require that a patent advance the field and the system becomes an idea killer instaed of an idea distributor.
The easiest way to fix software patents is to have no software patents.
Now someone might not agree with this legal fiction but it is legally enforcable. If someone wants the law changed then I suggest they blantantly break the law and take the jail time like any other good protester would.
The only reason our pirate isn't getting hauled into court is because it is fiscally prohibative for the copyright owner to do so over a single copy. The pirate is getting value out of the product while the producer is not being compensated. Call it what you want, spin it as a cardinal sin or as a mere faus pax, but it is an act which is wrong and illegal.
Whether the pirate would have bought the copy or not is irrelevent. He doesn't dictate the value of the software. The copyright owner does. Now I may question how they arrive at their numbers but I won't deny the fact that an illegal copy is for all intents and purposes a lost sale. As others have said before me, if you don't like the price don't use the product.
That lottery analogy is just plain wrong.
Hey now! That's re-use not recycling and is still environmentally friendly. We should be giving them a tax break. :)
Dress it up in synthetic fur, add some heating elements and rig it up with some tubing so you can imitate a pulse and an Aibo still isn't a pet. It isn't a companion. My cat is. Even knowing that when he rubs his face on my leg when I come home is because he's reapplying his scent doesn't make it any less of a comforting greeting.
And yeah, cleaning out the litter box on a regular basis and picking up the occassional hairball is sometimes a hassle. It isn't always fun brushing his fur and sometimes it is annoying moving him away from my food when I'm eating. He isn't cheap when I have to take him to the vet and over the past 10 years he's cost me over $2K. Not once has he taken my blood pressure or done my taxes.
And for all that meager gain for so much money I wouldn't replace him for an Abio ever. After he dies and I've finished crying I'd buy another cat without hesitation never once considering some robot. Why? Because through all the responsibility and "hassle" having a pet is rewarding and it was because it took some effort and was something I couldn't just turn off and put it away when I was bored that makes having a pet even more rewarding.
Hell, owning fish requires more commitment from a person than an Aibo. And it is that investment which will forever make an Aibo a toy and nothing more imho.
IMO, the licensing agreement can be gotten around. What's going to kill Free software in the States is patents.
$50,000 is a year's worth of mortage payments, car payments, savings for my son's college fund, investing in my retirement plan, food, utility bills, and still includes enough left over to actually do stuff for my three weeks of vacation, have a cushion for unplanned expensives and actually have some fun every now and then. This doesn't included the emotional costs involved in a protracted legal dispute either.
That's why people are settling imnsho.
KDE also has a site here but after a quick look I don't see a formal study done. Maybe somebody closer to the project can provide more info?
Note, in the above I never once said OSS. RMS had every right to call for development of a Free alternative to KDE. Just because some people took him up on it wasn't a bad thing whether you agree with RMS' politics or not. IMO, the competition has been a good thing and will continue to be a good thing.
Oh, btw, the different technology was CORBA at the time not .Net.
Don't get me wrong though. I am happy for everyone who uses KDE and the developers deserve high praise but it hardly signals the death of Gnome.
Oh, btw, when did trying to get a desktop on linux become a war? Did the KDE League sign a declaration? Did Sun pony up for some small arms for the Gnome Foundation? Inquiring minds want to know!
nt