for a news orginization that promotes open source, there would be some sort of mentality that information should be free, to everyone, at the same same time, in the same context, etc.
I don't think so - free to everyone, in the same context, perhaps (if you wanted to go down that road,) but I don't think that "at the same time" is necessary.
When I write a GPL'ed program (say, a module for my favourite web server) I'll frequently post it to a specific mailing list, for comments and feedback, before I put it live on my website. I don't see much of a difference in this.
We're talking about a difference of 30 minutes. I don't subscribe now, and although I see this as a real benefit to subscriptions (finally), I probably still won't be subscribing.
what are the implications for karma whoring... how long before we have subscribers getting all of the karma(mirroring and other methods), and the non-subscribers all being modded redundant.
With all due respect, if you're worried about/. karma, you need to get a life.:o)
If everyone just stopped giving spammers their money then the problem would be solved overnight
Yes, and if everyone just stopped giving money to muggers, then crime would be solved overnight, too.
Spammers don't make money by selling products, they make money by spamming. They find someone stupid enough to pay them to send their "brochure" to millions of "opt-in" addresses.
The simple fact of the matter is that enough people are interested in penis enlargements to keep spammers in business
the antibiotic resistant form of staph infection occuring naturally in rock pools.
So does this mean that if you don't want to get this type of staph infection, you just don't go to rock pools?.. oh.. wait, don't tell me - it was discovered by a man with a wooden leg named Bob, right?
Putting aside the legal and moral implications of this, my question is: how is a university supposed to know which material is infringing, and which isn't?
As much as the entertainment industries hate it, file sharing (whether via P2P, http, ftp, or whatever) isn't (and shouldn't be) illegal. Sharing files that you don't have rights to is illegal, but there's nothing wrong with sharing files to which you own the copyright, or have the permission of the copyright holder.
So, how exactly are the schools supposed to know which files the students have rights to, and which they don't? Are they expecting the schools to monitor every file, find they copyright holder, and ask them if the file is legal or not?
every show that focus's on him have been some of the very best of the series
Agreed..
Xander gets laid was great
Was that the one where he beds Faith, then turns to the camera and says "Hey, I just got laid!"?
and it's hard to beat two xanders episode.
I think my all time favourite episode was the one where all the girls in town fall in love with him.. The scene where he walks down the corridor in slow motion was hilarious..
It wasn't until reruns that I started watching it - I saw the first few episodes and couldn't stand it.. but Adrian Paul's acting did improve dramatically over the course of the show, and the swordfights were reasonably well coreographed..
I wish shows I liked were Canadian.
Maybe you do, and you just don't know it:o)
Andromeda and Stargate SG1 are a couple that get mentioned in a positive light here on occasion.. (and are similar Genre as other shows you mentioned.)
This is the stuff that pisses me off- they cancel Firefly, Odyssey 5 and Birds of Prey after a single season and there were 5 series of Highlander? What the hell is the world coming to?
Well, I (for one) actually liked Highlander. I'm sure that other people did, too.
That aside, there are other reasons that Highlander stayed around so long (even after it became stale.)
Highlander is (mostly) a Canadian TV show. (The first few seasons were filmed in Vancouver, but even when it moved to Paris, it was still being produced by a Canadian company.)
Canadian TV shows enjoy a special place in the world of TV - Canadian TV producers get subsidies from the government to produce these shows, and filming in Canada is cheaper than filming in Hollywood (which makes the shows much cheaper for the networks to buy), and the (Canadian) networks have incentive to play them because of CRTC can-con rules (something like 1/3 of your shows have to be Canadian in origin, the 'Canadian-ness' of which is based on some obscure formula - you get partial credit based on where it's shot, where the production is based, etc..)
It all adds up to making the Canadian networks (which usally own the production companies) reluctant to get rid of these shows - they're cheap, and it keeps the CRTC off their backs.
It's illegal to sell them (and I'm not even sure that's true).
This is true.
It's not illegal to own mod chips
True. However -
Under the DMCA, it's illegal to make modchips - 1201 (2) `(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
So, it's (apparently) legal to own them, but it's not legal to make them or to import them, and it's illegal for someone to sell or give one to you.
So it makes ownership pretty pointless, as there's no legal way for you to obtain one.
If you could cook up your own mod chip, for your own use, you'd be all set.
I'm just wondering if the patent being granted is someone hinged on Interwoven's claim to be the first to do version control for 'web assets' (ie, HTML, images) as opposed to source code.
Even if they got the patent for this, it's still nothing new. Roxen has been doing this since (at least) 1997.
even if you had an SMTP server running on a dialup line, and routed all your mail directly to your printer
Actually, a mistake - it's not necessary to route the mail to your printer, the simple fact that it can produce a hard-copy is enough.
it's still quite a stretch to say that everyone who sends you an email is knowingly sending to "a telephone facsimile machine"
Read the statute - it doesn't say anything about knowingly sending - just sending..
And knowledge has never been a prerequisite for prosecution in any other case - if you think that it is, try it on the judge next time you're in traffic court.
Read the site. Sears has declined their right to appeal, and has already sent him a cheque.
They sent an email message to an SMTP server, which stored it in Mark's mailbox.
That's certainly one way to look at it, however another interpretation is this: they didn't send it to an SMTP server - they sent it through an SMTP server, which stored it until it reached it's final destination (Mark's computer.)
Using his fax modem to dial his ISP and retrieve the message was Mark's choice. Printing it out was Mark's choice.
It is entirely possible to run your own SMTP server on a dialup line, and have it route all mail to/dev/lpr.
And while that would also be a choice, it's only semantically different from this case, and (even with your interpretation) would still legally fullfill all of the requirements of the statute.
Proof please? (And no, none of this "lots of people do it, so they must make money, otherwise they wouldn't do it" crap.) Real proof.
The only spam "success stories" I've ever seen are people like Alan Ralsky or Monsterhut - they don't actually make money selling spam services to people who belive (as you apparently do) that "spam works".
Musicians sign contracts that they do not understand because the A&R agent makes a limited time offer that expires once the agent walks out the door.
Almost, but not quite.
A&R don't get the band to sign a contract, they get them to sign a consideration note. (The offer of which exires once the A&R guy leaves.) Basically, a consideration note says "the label agrees to sign the band, and the band won't sign with any other label until the consideration note expires."
Which sounds really great (and is why the bands sign them) - except that consideration notes never expire. The band either signs with that label, on the label's terms, or they don't sign with anyone.
In this case, each band member got 0.476% of the total gross of the sales of the album they worked on.
Yes, and this hypothetical band is in the top 0.426% of their industry. Which means that the other 99.574% of artists make a hell of a lot less (if anything at all.)
At my job, I get approximately 0.307% of the total gross of the sales of the software I work on.
You're telling us you get paid on commission? Are your sales in the top 0.426% of the software industry?
What happens if the software is never released (say because marketing decides that nobody wants to buy it)? Are you forced to keep working for free until your salary is repaid?
And what if the software is released, but it doesn't make any money? Are you (again) forced to keep working for free until it's paid off?
I spent 21 years in school working to get my job (which wasn't cheap)
21 years!?!?!?! I call bullshit - if you include preschool, elementary, and high-school, then maybe, but you didn't pay for that ("it wasn't cheap") and everybody does that anyway, so you can't honestly say you did it "to get your job". (Hint: you did elementary and high school to get a job - and so did the hypothetical band.)
I'm not saying they're not getting screwed, but I do want to try to keep things in perspective
If you want to keep things in perspective, then don't try to distort your position.
There is fairly good circumstantial proof that it was intentional because of examples like:
Actually, these examples all seem like proof that it was unintentional.
Think about it. You want to fork a project, one of the first things you do is change the name. The simplest way to do that is with "s/OpenBSD/MicroBSD/g" - but oops, you forgot that this would also change all of the copyright notices.
This would explain every single one of your examples (case-sensitivity in the web and email addresses, and it wouldn't change any graphics, but it would change the alt-tag.)
It certainly seems unintentional to me. If they really had intended to breach copyright, wouldn't they have changed every text instance, and deleted stuff they couldn't change easily (like the OpenBSD logo)?
Slashdot Mirror
for a news orginization that promotes open source, there would be some sort of mentality that information should be free, to everyone, at the same same time, in the same context, etc.
/. karma, you need to get a life. :o)
I don't think so - free to everyone, in the same context, perhaps (if you wanted to go down that road,) but I don't think that "at the same time" is necessary.
When I write a GPL'ed program (say, a module for my favourite web server) I'll frequently post it to a specific mailing list, for comments and feedback, before I put it live on my website. I don't see much of a difference in this.
We're talking about a difference of 30 minutes. I don't subscribe now, and although I see this as a real benefit to subscriptions (finally), I probably still won't be subscribing.
what are the implications for karma whoring... how long before we have subscribers getting all of the karma(mirroring and other methods), and the non-subscribers all being modded redundant.
With all due respect, if you're worried about
Sad thing is, probably over half the people here don't remember that
I remember! David Naughton was my hero when I was 7!
If they ever get 16 qubits entangled, that would certainly be an interesting basis for future research. Anything less is kind of a toy.
16??!?! Jeebus, but every sunday-school student knows that Noah's ark was 40-qubits, and that was thousands of years ago!
You'd think that modern science would be getting better at this, not worse.
If everyone just stopped giving spammers their money then the problem would be solved overnight
Yes, and if everyone just stopped giving money to muggers, then crime would be solved overnight, too.
Spammers don't make money by selling products, they make money by spamming. They find someone stupid enough to pay them to send their "brochure" to millions of "opt-in" addresses.
The simple fact of the matter is that enough people are interested in penis enlargements to keep spammers in business
Got any sales figures to back that up?
But KDE and Gnome also copy dialogs,
You mean the same way that Windows copied Mac dialogs?
start menus,
The "start menu" appeared on the Mac in 1994, way before MS copied it.
taskbars,
Like the way MS copied those from the Amiga?
Sorry, I thought you mentioned something about innovation.
I frequently register software under the name Nonna Urbixness.
:o)
My fave is "Nunya Bidnes" for pretty much the same reason
the antibiotic resistant form of staph infection occuring naturally in rock pools.
.. oh.. wait, don't tell me - it was discovered by a man with a wooden leg named Bob, right?
So does this mean that if you don't want to get this type of staph infection, you just don't go to rock pools?
Putting aside the legal and moral implications of this, my question is: how is a university supposed to know which material is infringing, and which isn't?
As much as the entertainment industries hate it, file sharing (whether via P2P, http, ftp, or whatever) isn't (and shouldn't be) illegal. Sharing files that you don't have rights to is illegal, but there's nothing wrong with sharing files to which you own the copyright, or have the permission of the copyright holder.
So, how exactly are the schools supposed to know which files the students have rights to, and which they don't? Are they expecting the schools to monitor every file, find they copyright holder, and ask them if the file is legal or not?
This is just absurd.
every show that focus's on him have been some of the very best of the series
Agreed..
Xander gets laid was great
Was that the one where he beds Faith, then turns to the camera and says "Hey, I just got laid!"?
and it's hard to beat two xanders episode.
I think my all time favourite episode was the one where all the girls in town fall in love with him.. The scene where he walks down the corridor in slow motion was hilarious..
if you like Highlander, good for you-
:o)
It wasn't until reruns that I started watching it - I saw the first few episodes and couldn't stand it.. but Adrian Paul's acting did improve dramatically over the course of the show, and the swordfights were reasonably well coreographed..
I wish shows I liked were Canadian.
Maybe you do, and you just don't know it
Andromeda and Stargate SG1 are a couple that get mentioned in a positive light here on occasion.. (and are similar Genre as other shows you mentioned.)
This is the stuff that pisses me off- they cancel Firefly, Odyssey 5 and Birds of Prey after a single season and there were 5 series of Highlander? What the hell is the world coming to?
Well, I (for one) actually liked Highlander. I'm sure that other people did, too.
That aside, there are other reasons that Highlander stayed around so long (even after it became stale.)
Highlander is (mostly) a Canadian TV show. (The first few seasons were filmed in Vancouver, but even when it moved to Paris, it was still being produced by a Canadian company.)
Canadian TV shows enjoy a special place in the world of TV - Canadian TV producers get subsidies from the government to produce these shows, and filming in Canada is cheaper than filming in Hollywood (which makes the shows much cheaper for the networks to buy), and the (Canadian) networks have incentive to play them because of CRTC can-con rules (something like 1/3 of your shows have to be Canadian in origin, the 'Canadian-ness' of which is based on some obscure formula - you get partial credit based on where it's shot, where the production is based, etc..)
It all adds up to making the Canadian networks (which usally own the production companies) reluctant to get rid of these shows - they're cheap, and it keeps the CRTC off their backs.
It's illegal to sell them (and I'm not even sure that's true).
This is true.
It's not illegal to own mod chips
True. However -
Under the DMCA, it's illegal to make modchips - 1201 (2) `(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
So, it's (apparently) legal to own them, but it's not legal to make them or to import them, and it's illegal for someone to sell or give one to you.
So it makes ownership pretty pointless, as there's no legal way for you to obtain one.
If you could cook up your own mod chip, for your own use, you'd be all set.
Nope. As I mentioned above, that's illegal too.
I thought that was patents that you had to defend?
/me ducks :o)
No, that's copyrights!
I'm just wondering if the patent being granted is someone hinged on Interwoven's claim to be the first to do version control for 'web assets' (ie, HTML, images) as opposed to source code.
Even if they got the patent for this, it's still nothing new. Roxen has been doing this since (at least) 1997.
(they send a person to your room with virus software if one's detected)
Yikes!
Wouldn't anti-virus software be a better solution?
even if you had an SMTP server running on a dialup line, and routed all your mail directly to your printer
Actually, a mistake - it's not necessary to route the mail to your printer, the simple fact that it can produce a hard-copy is enough.
it's still quite a stretch to say that everyone who sends you an email is knowingly sending to "a telephone facsimile machine"
Read the statute - it doesn't say anything about knowingly sending - just sending..
And knowledge has never been a prerequisite for prosecution in any other case - if you think that it is, try it on the judge next time you're in traffic court.
this will likely be reversed on appeal
/dev/lpr.
Read the site. Sears has declined their right to appeal, and has already sent him a cheque.
They sent an email message to an SMTP server, which stored it in Mark's mailbox.
That's certainly one way to look at it, however another interpretation is this: they didn't send it to an SMTP server - they sent it through an SMTP server, which stored it until it reached it's final destination (Mark's computer.)
Using his fax modem to dial his ISP and retrieve the message was Mark's choice. Printing it out was Mark's choice.
It is entirely possible to run your own SMTP server on a dialup line, and have it route all mail to
And while that would also be a choice, it's only semantically different from this case, and (even with your interpretation) would still legally fullfill all of the requirements of the statute.
I get an unsolicited marketing call (...), then transcribe the call onto my computer
Are you claiming that you're part of the computer?
spam works... that's the root of the problem.
Proof please? (And no, none of this "lots of people do it, so they must make money, otherwise they wouldn't do it" crap.) Real proof.
The only spam "success stories" I've ever seen are people like Alan Ralsky or Monsterhut - they don't actually make money selling spam services to people who belive (as you apparently do) that "spam works".
Their lawyer should also have negotiated that the royalty was on the retail gross, rather than any sort of net.
And exactly how is their lawyer supposed to do that?
If you believe that an unsigned band is in any way able to negotiate terms, you need to learn more about how the industry operates.
By the time a band is "negotiating" a contract, they have already signed a note of consideration, which means that they're have two options:
1. Accept whatever terms the label demands, or
2. break up.
You should read the Steve Albini article (posted in various places throughout this discussion), or the Courtney love one (basically the same thing.)
Musicians sign contracts that they do not understand because the A&R agent makes a limited time offer that expires once the agent walks out the door.
Almost, but not quite.
A&R don't get the band to sign a contract, they get them to sign a consideration note. (The offer of which exires once the A&R guy leaves.) Basically, a consideration note says "the label agrees to sign the band, and the band won't sign with any other label until the consideration note expires."
Which sounds really great (and is why the bands sign them) - except that consideration notes never expire. The band either signs with that label, on the label's terms, or they don't sign with anyone.
In this case, each band member got 0.476% of the total gross of the sales of the album they worked on.
Yes, and this hypothetical band is in the top 0.426% of their industry. Which means that the other 99.574% of artists make a hell of a lot less (if anything at all.)
At my job, I get approximately 0.307% of the total gross of the sales of the software I work on.
You're telling us you get paid on commission? Are your sales in the top 0.426% of the software industry?
What happens if the software is never released (say because marketing decides that nobody wants to buy it)? Are you forced to keep working for free until your salary is repaid?
And what if the software is released, but it doesn't make any money? Are you (again) forced to keep working for free until it's paid off?
I spent 21 years in school working to get my job (which wasn't cheap)
21 years!?!?!?! I call bullshit - if you include preschool, elementary, and high-school, then maybe, but you didn't pay for that ("it wasn't cheap") and everybody does that anyway, so you can't honestly say you did it "to get your job". (Hint: you did elementary and high school to get a job - and so did the hypothetical band.)
I'm not saying they're not getting screwed, but I do want to try to keep things in perspective
If you want to keep things in perspective, then don't try to distort your position.
Right after that quote is probably the largest piece of FUD I've ever seen:
Before using open-source software, tech companies must sign a license in which they promise to give away innovations they build on top of it.
WTF?!?!
I've been using open-source software for years, and I've never signed anything like this.
I heard if an atom reaches absolute zero, its electrons will fall off
That happened to a friend of mine, after he fell through into the lake on an ice-fishing trip.
There is fairly good circumstantial proof that it was intentional because of examples like:
Actually, these examples all seem like proof that it was unintentional.
Think about it. You want to fork a project, one of the first things you do is change the name. The simplest way to do that is with "s/OpenBSD/MicroBSD/g" - but oops, you forgot that this would also change all of the copyright notices.
This would explain every single one of your examples (case-sensitivity in the web and email addresses, and it wouldn't change any graphics, but it would change the alt-tag.)
It certainly seems unintentional to me. If they really had intended to breach copyright, wouldn't they have changed every text instance, and deleted stuff they couldn't change easily (like the OpenBSD logo)?