SCO claims hundreds of thousands! Who do I believe?
Simple, how about the one that provides proof to back up their claims?
Legally, SCO MUST show the alleged infringing code, otherwise they have no case. The fact that they refuse to detail how they have been wronged proves that they have not been wronged.
If someone was hurting you, you must ask them to stop. If you refuse to tell them what it is they're doing that's causing you damage, then you will get laughed out of court. It really is that simple.
I am just saying that their case is strengthening.
Actually, their case is weakening, not strenghtening.
In the (still) unlikely event that there is SCO-owned code in Linux, they can only claim damages from the date they make the offending party aware. Since any potentially offending code has been removed before they've made the details available, their case is severely weakened.
Just before the dot-com boom, my boss asked me "how can we make money with the internet?"
I told him - any time someone asks me that, or brings something like that up, I ask them to repeat their question, only replace the word "internet" with "telephone".
Now, the same thing here.
In the question "what do we need the internet for?", replace the word "internet" with the word "telephone."
Now, how stupid does that question sound?
The internet is a communication medium - that's all. It simply allows people to communicate.
Human beings are social creatures - and to any social creature, communication is probably the second most important need we have (behind air, possibly behind water.)
Yes, communication is more important than food (and possibly water) because we require communication to get food - without communication, we wouldn't be the dominant species on the planet - think about what separates us from the rest of the animals on the planet, and you'll find it's our ability for complex communication. (Some may say that it's our intelligence, but the counter to that is that the intelligence evolved from the need to communicate - although the reverse could also be true, causation isn't necessarily important to this discussion, but correleation is, and there is a definite correlation.)
To ask "do we really need the internet" is like asking "do we really need tools to communicate" - and if you have to ask that, then you haven't thought much about it.
The one-child policy led to a very suspicious decrease in the number of baby girls, so we now have a lot of young men with no way to get a wife.
Interesting - you should read "The Gate to Women's Country" by Sherri Tepper.. she (breifly) covers a logical outcome of such a society.
Basically it results in inbreeding and intolerance, and the society degrades to the point at which women become basically property, and an outside injection of (non-inbred) women causes civil disruption, as all of the men fight for the source of new genetic material to give to their sons.
I think that the question is - when a file is transferred, who is making the copy?
I'd say that the receiver is making the copy, because it doesn't exist until it's on his HD. (A 'copy' is something that's "fixed in a tangible form" - by definition, it can't be fixed until it arrives at the destination.)
The poster says he's run it by his law professor - but does this professor truly understand computers, or does he have the same understanding as the writers of ST:Voyager?
The levy exists to allow the industries to recover some of what they (arguably correctly) anticipate are inevitable losses; it does not exist to grant the consumer any further rights.
The first part is technically correct, but your conclusions are in error.
The levy exists as part of a law to allow the recording labels to recover 'losses' - however that same law exists to explicitly grant the consumer further rights.
The act of borrowing a friend's CD and copying that CD onto a blank that you described would only be legal if you you gave the blank to your friend when you returned his CD.
Wrong. You can (and in fact must) keep the copy, but you may not make further copies of it, nor may you lend or give it to anyone - including the friend from whom you borrowed the original.
the activity would be considered distribution, and unauthorized distribution is very much illegal.
No, actually, it's covered under "Fair Dealings". Because you're not giving the copy away, it's not distribution. In fact, giving the copy to your friend along with the original would be considered distribution, which would be illegal.
Remember that this is a law that has never been challenged - the interpretations of it (and the semantic differences of what is allowed and what is not) has never actually been tested by the courts.
The.mp3 files on my hard drive are NOT the "originals," by any interpretation. They are copies.
True enough - but what about a CD-jukebox, which the P2P software automatically encodes the songs to MP3 (or even OGG) on the fly?
That would certainly be legal.
Of course, all it takes is one lawsuit - it wouldn't be hard for a lawyer to argue that because sharing pre-ripped files is only semantically different, that it would be covered by the law.
In any case, I don't see the music labels challenging this in the courts, as it would be a big gamble for them.
P2P files are not CDs! Even if they come from a CD, they aren't on a CD when you copy them, and so you're not covered by the levy.
Whether they are covered by the levy or not is irrelevant. The levy is a separate provision of the Act, added to appease the music labels. It doesn't matter if the target media is covered by the levy or not.
understand that every single person in Canada pays a tax which goes in a fund for the labels
Ah - wrong. As others have pointed out, it's a levy, not a tax. Subtle difference.
And it's not "every single person in canada" - it's "every single person who buys blank audio CDs and tapes in Canada" BIG difference.
it has been suggested that we adopt something similar here
I think you'll note that it has not only been suggested, but it's been implemented as well, as part of the 1991 Audio Home Recording Act. (Of course, in this case, it actually is a tax.)
I've been doing this for ages - there is a hallway at work where the light switch is at the far end of the hall.. in winter, the hall is completely dark after 4PM or so.
making clicks with your tongue or other brief sounds
Actually, I just use my footfalls - I've got extremely sensitive hearing (I always know where our cat is because I can hear his footfalls on the carpet - which freaked out my wife for the first few years:o) so I don't need to make 'extra' sounds..
Slashdot Mirror
SCO claims hundreds of thousands! Who do I believe?
Simple, how about the one that provides proof to back up their claims?
Legally, SCO MUST show the alleged infringing code, otherwise they have no case. The fact that they refuse to detail how they have been wronged proves that they have not been wronged.
If someone was hurting you, you must ask them to stop. If you refuse to tell them what it is they're doing that's causing you damage, then you will get laughed out of court. It really is that simple.
I am just saying that their case is strengthening.
Actually, their case is weakening, not strenghtening.
In the (still) unlikely event that there is SCO-owned code in Linux, they can only claim damages from the date they make the offending party aware. Since any potentially offending code has been removed before they've made the details available, their case is severely weakened.
Do some reading on the Doctrine of Laches.
Just before the dot-com boom, my boss asked me "how can we make money with the internet?"
I told him - any time someone asks me that, or brings something like that up, I ask them to repeat their question, only replace the word "internet" with "telephone".
Now, the same thing here.
In the question "what do we need the internet for?", replace the word "internet" with the word "telephone."
Now, how stupid does that question sound?
The internet is a communication medium - that's all. It simply allows people to communicate.
Human beings are social creatures - and to any social creature, communication is probably the second most important need we have (behind air, possibly behind water.)
Yes, communication is more important than food (and possibly water) because we require communication to get food - without communication, we wouldn't be the dominant species on the planet - think about what separates us from the rest of the animals on the planet, and you'll find it's our ability for complex communication. (Some may say that it's our intelligence, but the counter to that is that the intelligence evolved from the need to communicate - although the reverse could also be true, causation isn't necessarily important to this discussion, but correleation is, and there is a definite correlation.)
To ask "do we really need the internet" is like asking "do we really need tools to communicate" - and if you have to ask that, then you haven't thought much about it.
(1) The search capabilities are horrible; Google is much better.
/. :o)
(2) The "news" story titles are misleading and the stories are frequently repeated over the course of a week
I think you just described
the arrogance of the Tzar and the mess being created by the Tzarina
Not to mention all the problems caused by their Tzardines.
*rimshot*
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
The one-child policy led to a very suspicious decrease in the number of baby girls, so we now have a lot of young men with no way to get a wife.
Interesting - you should read "The Gate to Women's Country" by Sherri Tepper.. she (breifly) covers a logical outcome of such a society.
Basically it results in inbreeding and intolerance, and the society degrades to the point at which women become basically property, and an outside injection of (non-inbred) women causes civil disruption, as all of the men fight for the source of new genetic material to give to their sons.
A great minor evil. That's a new one on me.
:o)
Not really - it's less than 21 years old, so it would still (legally) be considered a minor
Yes, but not "Linux-traditional".
Yes, "Linux-traditional"
Since the Linux startup grew from BSD-style Unix startup, Slackware IS the most "Linux-traditional".
This is obvious to anyone who knows the roots of Linux.
If it ever did work that way then ordinary websurfing would make everyone guilty of infringment.
It's funny that you brought this up.
At the Canadian copyright reform hearings last year, one of the speakers noted that before the copyright law was amended, this was indeed the case.
So, it seems like the Canadian and US laws are indeed very different.
What we've done is go from SPAM is a nuisance to SPAM is illegal
No, actually, what we've done is go from spam in a nuisance to spam is legal, provided you send to corporate email.
It explicitly allows spammers to spam, which is a bad thing.
I had to kill off my SSH servers yesterday waiting for the Sun patch....
:o)
And now BAM ! Sendmail exploit and I can't ssh to my goddam servers to shut it off..
If you're so concerned with it, why don't use use the sendmail hole to get root access?
If you copy it for THEM though, that's illegal.
I think that the question is - when a file is transferred, who is making the copy?
I'd say that the receiver is making the copy, because it doesn't exist until it's on his HD. (A 'copy' is something that's "fixed in a tangible form" - by definition, it can't be fixed until it arrives at the destination.)
The poster says he's run it by his law professor - but does this professor truly understand computers, or does he have the same understanding as the writers of ST:Voyager?
Reminds me of when Catbert decided to implement flex-time..
"All salaried employees can now work whichever hours they want, as long as they are here from 9AM to 5PM."
"Isn't that technically called 'unpaid overtime'?"
there's a very simple way to fix this problem.
Yes, and if someone wanted to move Mount Rushmore to Washington, DC, that same way would have to be used.
And spam - there is a very simple way to stop spam - all the ISP's just have to stop allowing people to do it!
I think you're stretching the definition of the word 'simple'.
the allegations of infringement
Translation: We have no proof.
Sorry, that's wrong
No, it isn't. Your analysis is.
The levy exists to allow the industries to recover some of what they (arguably correctly) anticipate are inevitable losses; it does not exist to grant the consumer any further rights.
The first part is technically correct, but your conclusions are in error.
The levy exists as part of a law to allow the recording labels to recover 'losses' - however that same law exists to explicitly grant the consumer further rights.
The act of borrowing a friend's CD and copying that CD onto a blank that you described would only be legal if you you gave the blank to your friend when you returned his CD.
Wrong. You can (and in fact must) keep the copy, but you may not make further copies of it, nor may you lend or give it to anyone - including the friend from whom you borrowed the original.
the activity would be considered distribution, and unauthorized distribution is very much illegal.
No, actually, it's covered under "Fair Dealings". Because you're not giving the copy away, it's not distribution. In fact, giving the copy to your friend along with the original would be considered distribution, which would be illegal.
Remember that this is a law that has never been challenged - the interpretations of it (and the semantic differences of what is allowed and what is not) has never actually been tested by the courts.
.mp3 files on my hard drive are NOT the "originals," by any interpretation. They are copies.
The
True enough - but what about a CD-jukebox, which the P2P software automatically encodes the songs to MP3 (or even OGG) on the fly?
That would certainly be legal.
Of course, all it takes is one lawsuit - it wouldn't be hard for a lawyer to argue that because sharing pre-ripped files is only semantically different, that it would be covered by the law.
In any case, I don't see the music labels challenging this in the courts, as it would be a big gamble for them.
P2P files are not CDs! Even if they come from a CD, they aren't on a CD when you copy them, and so you're not covered by the levy.
Whether they are covered by the levy or not is irrelevant. The levy is a separate provision of the Act, added to appease the music labels. It doesn't matter if the target media is covered by the levy or not.
understand that every single person in Canada pays a tax which goes in a fund for the labels
Ah - wrong. As others have pointed out, it's a levy, not a tax. Subtle difference.
And it's not "every single person in canada" - it's "every single person who buys blank audio CDs and tapes in Canada" BIG difference.
it has been suggested that we adopt something similar here
I think you'll note that it has not only been suggested, but it's been implemented as well, as part of the 1991 Audio Home Recording Act. (Of course, in this case, it actually is a tax.)
What is your favourite mis-interpretation of MCSE?
:o)
Well, I'd say "Must Consult Someone Experienced", but that's usually not a mis-interpretation
Even better:
"Hmm, that box in the corner is beeping. That doesn't sound good - I think I'll turn it off."
The box was a UPS.
The music industry has an accounting system where albums and singles never actually show a profit
The movie industry is the same way.
Forrest Gump?
Cost: $55M to make.
Box office Gross: $673M.
Net result: studio claims it lost money.
I've been doing this for ages - there is a hallway at work where the light switch is at the far end of the hall.. in winter, the hall is completely dark after 4PM or so.
:o) so I don't need to make 'extra' sounds..
making clicks with your tongue or other brief sounds
Actually, I just use my footfalls - I've got extremely sensitive hearing (I always know where our cat is because I can hear his footfalls on the carpet - which freaked out my wife for the first few years
any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals.
Funny, when I read that, the first thing that popped into my head is that this is a perfect description of "cigarette"
So, when is he gonna throw everybody who works for a cigarette company (as well as 7-11 clerks and owners) in jail?
One only has to look at the Internet adult entertainment industry to see that micropayments are already a working solution
Really? Which sites offer micropayments? I see lots that have subscription services, but none that use micropayments.
Perhaps you should read his article?
People will pay for content if it's something they actually want.
Again, read the article - he's not saying that "nobody will pay" - he's talking about how they'll pay.
I think the discussion in the article is entirely skewed because the author looks only at conventional content
I think your comment is entirely skewed, because you haven't read (or if you have, you haven't understood) Clay's article.
Adult websites typically charge a flat fee for access - as in you pay $X, and get to see everything the site has.
Clay isn't talking about that - he's talking about paying $X, and getting to see 100 or 1000 articles.
Really. Read his article (especially the part about mental transaction costs), and try to understand what he's saying.