So, are you asserting that the following are elements of Scrabble that are protected by copyright: (1) the assignment of letters to point values, and (2) the assignment of letter/word bonuses to individual squares?
There's a problem here. First of all, the assignment of letters to point value is based on frequency-of-use. While you might choose to, say, assign 7 points to J instead of 8, there are only a small number of reasonable ways of doing so. As a result, this is not protected.
You can make a similar case for the assignment of bonuses to individual squares -- the corners should be worth more and the board should be symmetric, for example. But, there are more possibilities, so it's not quite as strong of a case.
It's clearly not an open-and-shut case but, unfortunately, will probably never be decided on its merits.
Yes. There is a serious doubt, at least on one of their claims.
They are raising two basic claims, under trademark law and copyright law. The trademark claim is basically that consumers will be confused into thinking this had something to do with Hasbro. The similarity of the names -- "Scrabble" v. "Scrabulous" doesn't help much. But, changing the name solves that problem.
The harder case for Hasbro is the copyright claim -- games have "thin" copyrights. In general, the only elements that are protected are (a) the text of the instructions and (b) the graphical elements. So, if Scrabulous didn't copy the Scrabble instructions and didn't copy the graphical elements, they should be fine.
Even on the graphical elements, if there are a small number of ways of expressing something, that expression is not protected either. So, for example, you need some way of putting both the point value and letter on each tile. With a small number of ways of doing so, I suspect that the tiles themselves are not protected. It's possible that Scrabulous might be dinged for copying Hasbro's choice of colors for the squares.
I have not played Scrabulous, so I just have no idea how this plays out.
It can do more than that. Let's say that there are only two people who were around a murder victim at the time of the murder, both of whom have motives, but only one of them have a DNA match to residue on the murder weapon.
Sure, it maybe that a handful of other people would come up with a DNA match. But, if none of those other people could have committed the crime, there's a good chance that the one you have did it.
Police departments do not do this: "Get DNA from the crime scene. Get a match from a DNA search. Charge that person." The suspect is usually identified long before the DNA search happens. And then, they usually only do a comparison of that suspect's DNA with the crime scene DNA. Going to court with ONLY DNA evidence is not a winning strategy.
No, he's just another politician, saying things that he thinks will get him elected, even if they don't make any sense.
Take, for example, his push to restrict speculation on oil futures to drive down the cost of gasoline. The very large majority of economists, on both sides of the political spectrum agree that futures speculation has no effect on the price of gasoline today, but does provide useful information about where insiders think the price of gas is going. (See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ).
Here's anther example: opposing NAFTA, while telling the Canadians that he wasn't serious.
Here's another example: every politician in DC is saying that the opposition's energy plans won't do anything in the short term. But, both sides are right -- short of a 1970s-style price setting (with resulting shortages), nothing can be done short-term.
It's not just Obama -- McCain does it to. (But, you weren't defending McCain.) They are all the same.
Also, I don't think Bill Clinton came from a background of family wealth, nor did Reagan or Nixon.
There is a fairly popular theory that boys and girls have the same innate tendencies toward different activities, and that boys favor different activities than girls because of their upbringing, peer pressure and so on.
That theory is a bunch of garbage -- it just doesn't match with real world experience. Ask parents who have had both boys and girls if they believe that there are inherent differences between the two (other than body parts). With a few exceptions, the answer will be a resounding "yes," with many anecdotes. Boy and girls are simply different and have different interests and different aptitudes.
[Not trying to justify centuries when women were kept out of certain professions. Just pointing out that this is 2008, not 1908.]
Under Section 3 of GPL version 2 (still the most common version), you can distribute in executable copies if you also do one of the following:
(1) Distribute the source code with it
(2) Accompany it with an offer, good for 3 years, to provide a copy of the source code
(3) If yours is a non-commercial distribution, you can pass on the offer you received (under #2).
So, you can refer back to the original ONLY IF you are not doing a commercial distribution.
As far as the GPP's question about somebody 15 years ago getting the binary version, you only have to provide it for 3 years after distribution. So, if you stopped distributing a particular version 4 years ago, you no longer have to distribute source code for that version. (See #2 above.)
According to company documents and emails, the V.I.P.'s received better deals than those available to ordinary borrowers. Home-loan customers can reduce their interest rates by paying âoepointsââ"one point equals 1 percent of the loanâ(TM)s value. For V.I.P.'s, Countrywide often waived at least half a point and eliminated fees amounting to hundreds of dollars for underwriting, processing and document preparation. If interest rates fell while a V.I.P. loan was pending, Countrywide provided a free âoefloat-downâ to the lower rate, eschewing its usual charge of half a point. Some V.I.P.'s who bought or refinanced investment properties were often given the lower interest rate associated with primary residences.
Yeah, I'm aware of Stallman's position. And, it may be what he intended. But, I don't think this is the legal result. (Remember one of the rules of contract construction -- a contract is construed against the drafter.)
There are two reasons I think it's wrong. First of all, what I'm distributing doesn't actually contain the library. (Assuming I don't use some huge-ass macro from the header file or something.) It's an odd derivative work, indeed, that doesn't contain any of the original.
Secondly, look at what's happening: the library is making an interface available to other programs. If my use of that interface is enough to make my program a derivative work of that library, then derivative works of software are being created all the time. Among other things, SAMBA would be a derivative work of the Microsoft SMB code.
A derivative work is a recasting, transformation or adaptation of the original. Merely referencing the original, or even including the original in its entirety, is not enough.
It's actually not written in that much legalese, unless you're talking about the all-caps disclaimers toward the end. But, it is not particularly well written -- in GPLv2, for example, the stuff about including the source as part of a compilation is absurdly confusing. Stallman could have used a lot more legal help when he wrote it. GPLv3 is better, but still could stand some serious improvement.
Here's a good example question: Under GPLv2, say you want to distribute a work that uses a GPL'd shared library, but neither contains nor (obviously) modifies it. Does your work have to be distributed under the GPL? Can you cite why or why not?
Busybox is a fairly common thing to include in embedded linux applications. It has the advantage that its copyright is owned by a very small group of people, who have shown some willingness to go after infringers.
This is a central problem with open source software -- only the copyright owner has standing to sue for a breach of the license. But, the copyright ownership of a lot of open source software is widely distributed among the contributors. You don't need each contributor to go along with the suit, but it helps.
Some licenses solve this problem by specifying, in the license, that modifications are owned by the original author.
Correct. And, the bookseller by ripping the covers off but not destroying the books is in breach of that contract.
But, here's the distinction: Suppose the bookseller breaches the contract and sells the books to somebody else ("Bob") without covers. And then when Bob tries to sell the book on ebay, the publisher comes after him. We know that the publisher has a breach-of-contract claim against the original bookseller. Does he also have a copyright infringement claim against Bob for violating the distribution right?
If the publisher's right of distribution was exhausted when he sent the books to the bookseller, then the answer is no.
But, I don't think it was because the publisher exercised control over the books even when they were at the bookseller. In particular, the bookseller restricts the use of the books by requiring unsold copies to be returned or, more commonly, destroyed (as evidenced by the front covers). And, the publisher actively pursues that goal. So, I'd suggest that the distribution right in books is really only exhausted when they're sold (1) to consumers or (2) to book wholesalers without the right of return.
That's an absurd argument -- "McCain says he'll follow the Constitution." "You mean, the same Constitution that President Bush says gives him the right to abuse small farm animals? Why McCain must want to abuse small farm animals too!"
There isn't much question that tapping *international* calls is within the government's power. (At least I haven't heard any major Democrats argue with this). There just isn't enough information in this post to know if this is what McCain is talking about, or if it's domestic surveillance.
You should leave the political hack jobs to the professionals.
It's any mark that you use with the intent to authenticate something. Your signature does not need to be the same every time. For fun, at self-checkout terminals, I occasionally sign with a tic-tac-toe grid, a drawing of an airplane or with my non-dominant hand. Those have exactly the same legal significance as the signature I used to sign my mortgage documents.
On an agreement, the signature is evidence that you agreed to it. But, if somebody wants to say "I didn't sign that," you can look at how he acted at the time. Was there an email saying "I'm faxing over the signed version now"? (Is there a copy in the sender's outbox, or a backup of the outbox?) After faxing it over, did the sender act like there was an agreement?
A signature that looks very similar to another signature is evidence that the same person signed both. But, once you start faxing and copying, the value of that evidence drops.
The bigger problem is when people start accepting faxed signatures for things that they shouldn't without any further checking: "Here's a fax from the president of the company, saying to write me a check for $1M," or "Mr. Rather, here's a scan of a document from when George W. Bush was in the air national guard."
Assuming that Prince didn't get a license (and, I think he could have easily gotten a statutory license), this would have been an unauthorized public performance, making Prince a copyright infringer. He doesn't have to do any further distributions.
Unauthorized recordings of performances are not infringements of federal copyright. See 17 U.S.C. 1101 (violators will be held liable to the same extent as infringers.)
Youtube probably did the safe thing, since they would have been liable under 1101(a)(3), but the DMCA request was meaningless.
A live performance is not subject to federal copyright law until it is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." And, then, generally the person doing the fixing owns the copyright.
Under federal law, it is illegal to create unauthorized fixations of live works (see 17 U.S.C. 1101). But, doing so doesn't make you a copyright infringer (See 1101(a)). Copyright protection in unfixed works is still left to the states.
The distinction is important because the DMCA only applies to copyright infringement (See 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(1)(C)). Prince's DMCA notice was invalid because Prince doesn't hold a copyright.
I'm assuming that when he talked about an "online rental site," he was referring to something like Netflix, which is an online site, but sends out the original disk.
Renting of a validly purchased copy does not impact the replication right.
If not, I'd approach my boss, say "I understand that you want to protect all the data that I have access to. But, I hope to be able to serve this company in the time that I have left and without at least some of that access, I can't do that. Here are the things that I still have in progress: X, Y and Z. If you give me permission to do A, B and C, then I can complete these projects before I leave.
"Others might have given you much less notice, But out of loyalty, I wanted to give you ample time to find my replacement and handle the transition. Would you please consider reinstating the access I need to finish these projects? If you cannot, please tell me how I can serve this company until my departure."
They probably won't give you the access. But, this at least creates a positive impression in their minds. Pulling some of the other stunts suggested here doesn't.
This is completely wrong. The owner of a copy CAN rent that copy without permission of the copyright owner, with two exceptions: software and "phonorecords." See 17 U.S.C. 109.
Here, for example, is a case questioning whether somebody can rent audiobooks, and concluding that doing so does not violate copyright: http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/1141914.
This is exactly the sort of thing you can do under the first sale doctrine. First sale exhausts the distribution right. (except for software and music. See Section 109(b)(1) of the copyright act.) And, renting is distribution.
Your assessment of the current state of email is correct. But, blaming users for using it to fill a need when there is no realistic alternative is silly.
email is ubiquitous and easy. 99.5% of the time, it's nearly instantaneous. Should I really have to get an IM account on google, yahoo, aim, microsoft, etc.... so I can deal with time-critical messages? And, for that matter, should everybody else?
Please don't take this as legal advice... If you want to rely on it, get your own counsel to sort it out -- this is just back-of-the-envelope for me.
I think you are correct. Under federal preemption doctrine, if Congress clearly intends to "occupy the field," even state laws which are generally in agreement with the federal law will be tossed out under the Supremacy Clause.
Section 301 of the Copyright Act specifically says that Congress has occupied the field with regard to works that are fixed. (Unfixed works are left to the states.) Decisions about the penalties for copyright infringement are set forth in the Copyright Act as well. If LA adds additional penalties to that, they are stepping on specific policy decisions that Congress made regarding punishment and remedies for copyright infringement. So, that law would be preempted.
But, let's face it, LA County doesn't really care that their law is unenforceable -- it's a PR campaign.
It doesn't. I just replied to a post that basically said the GPL wasn't impacted by antitrust law by pointing out a conceivable way that a company might violate antitrust law using the GPL.
The idea that the GPL is some sort of per se antitrust violation is absurd.
Yes. It can be done, and a cleanroom is probably the best way of doing it. But, that's not particularly easy. Eventually, the software is going to come out of the cleanroom. At that point, if it behaves differently from how the GPL code behaves, somebody is going to have to look, see why, and fix it. And, in doing that, there's a chance that they may be copying expression from the GPL code.
Slashdot Mirror
So, are you asserting that the following are elements of Scrabble that are protected by copyright: (1) the assignment of letters to point values, and (2) the assignment of letter/word bonuses to individual squares?
There's a problem here. First of all, the assignment of letters to point value is based on frequency-of-use. While you might choose to, say, assign 7 points to J instead of 8, there are only a small number of reasonable ways of doing so. As a result, this is not protected.
You can make a similar case for the assignment of bonuses to individual squares -- the corners should be worth more and the board should be symmetric, for example. But, there are more possibilities, so it's not quite as strong of a case.
It's clearly not an open-and-shut case but, unfortunately, will probably never be decided on its merits.
Yes. There is a serious doubt, at least on one of their claims.
They are raising two basic claims, under trademark law and copyright law. The trademark claim is basically that consumers will be confused into thinking this had something to do with Hasbro. The similarity of the names -- "Scrabble" v. "Scrabulous" doesn't help much. But, changing the name solves that problem.
The harder case for Hasbro is the copyright claim -- games have "thin" copyrights. In general, the only elements that are protected are (a) the text of the instructions and (b) the graphical elements. So, if Scrabulous didn't copy the Scrabble instructions and didn't copy the graphical elements, they should be fine.
Even on the graphical elements, if there are a small number of ways of expressing something, that expression is not protected either. So, for example, you need some way of putting both the point value and letter on each tile. With a small number of ways of doing so, I suspect that the tiles themselves are not protected. It's possible that Scrabulous might be dinged for copying Hasbro's choice of colors for the squares.
I have not played Scrabulous, so I just have no idea how this plays out.
Great blog post at http://www.thelegality.com/archives/11
It can do more than that. Let's say that there are only two people who were around a murder victim at the time of the murder, both of whom have motives, but only one of them have a DNA match to residue on the murder weapon.
Sure, it maybe that a handful of other people would come up with a DNA match. But, if none of those other people could have committed the crime, there's a good chance that the one you have did it.
Police departments do not do this: "Get DNA from the crime scene. Get a match from a DNA search. Charge that person." The suspect is usually identified long before the DNA search happens. And then, they usually only do a comparison of that suspect's DNA with the crime scene DNA. Going to court with ONLY DNA evidence is not a winning strategy.
No, he's just another politician, saying things that he thinks will get him elected, even if they don't make any sense. Take, for example, his push to restrict speculation on oil futures to drive down the cost of gasoline. The very large majority of economists, on both sides of the political spectrum agree that futures speculation has no effect on the price of gasoline today, but does provide useful information about where insiders think the price of gas is going. (See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ). Here's anther example: opposing NAFTA, while telling the Canadians that he wasn't serious. Here's another example: every politician in DC is saying that the opposition's energy plans won't do anything in the short term. But, both sides are right -- short of a 1970s-style price setting (with resulting shortages), nothing can be done short-term. It's not just Obama -- McCain does it to. (But, you weren't defending McCain.) They are all the same. Also, I don't think Bill Clinton came from a background of family wealth, nor did Reagan or Nixon.
There is a fairly popular theory that boys and girls have the same innate tendencies toward different activities, and that boys favor different activities than girls because of their upbringing, peer pressure and so on.
That theory is a bunch of garbage -- it just doesn't match with real world experience. Ask parents who have had both boys and girls if they believe that there are inherent differences between the two (other than body parts). With a few exceptions, the answer will be a resounding "yes," with many anecdotes. Boy and girls are simply different and have different interests and different aptitudes.
[Not trying to justify centuries when women were kept out of certain professions. Just pointing out that this is 2008, not 1908.]
The Bush Administration? That was mainly the work of Carl Levin, a Democrat senator from Michigan.
Under Section 3 of GPL version 2 (still the most common version), you can distribute in executable copies if you also do one of the following: (1) Distribute the source code with it (2) Accompany it with an offer, good for 3 years, to provide a copy of the source code (3) If yours is a non-commercial distribution, you can pass on the offer you received (under #2). So, you can refer back to the original ONLY IF you are not doing a commercial distribution. As far as the GPP's question about somebody 15 years ago getting the binary version, you only have to provide it for 3 years after distribution. So, if you stopped distributing a particular version 4 years ago, you no longer have to distribute source code for that version. (See #2 above.)
Yeah, I'm aware of Stallman's position. And, it may be what he intended. But, I don't think this is the legal result. (Remember one of the rules of contract construction -- a contract is construed against the drafter.)
There are two reasons I think it's wrong. First of all, what I'm distributing doesn't actually contain the library. (Assuming I don't use some huge-ass macro from the header file or something.) It's an odd derivative work, indeed, that doesn't contain any of the original.
Secondly, look at what's happening: the library is making an interface available to other programs. If my use of that interface is enough to make my program a derivative work of that library, then derivative works of software are being created all the time. Among other things, SAMBA would be a derivative work of the Microsoft SMB code.
A derivative work is a recasting, transformation or adaptation of the original. Merely referencing the original, or even including the original in its entirety, is not enough.
It's actually not written in that much legalese, unless you're talking about the all-caps disclaimers toward the end. But, it is not particularly well written -- in GPLv2, for example, the stuff about including the source as part of a compilation is absurdly confusing. Stallman could have used a lot more legal help when he wrote it. GPLv3 is better, but still could stand some serious improvement.
Here's a good example question: Under GPLv2, say you want to distribute a work that uses a GPL'd shared library, but neither contains nor (obviously) modifies it. Does your work have to be distributed under the GPL? Can you cite why or why not?
Busybox is a fairly common thing to include in embedded linux applications. It has the advantage that its copyright is owned by a very small group of people, who have shown some willingness to go after infringers.
This is a central problem with open source software -- only the copyright owner has standing to sue for a breach of the license. But, the copyright ownership of a lot of open source software is widely distributed among the contributors. You don't need each contributor to go along with the suit, but it helps.
Some licenses solve this problem by specifying, in the license, that modifications are owned by the original author.
Correct. And, the bookseller by ripping the covers off but not destroying the books is in breach of that contract.
But, here's the distinction: Suppose the bookseller breaches the contract and sells the books to somebody else ("Bob") without covers. And then when Bob tries to sell the book on ebay, the publisher comes after him. We know that the publisher has a breach-of-contract claim against the original bookseller. Does he also have a copyright infringement claim against Bob for violating the distribution right?
If the publisher's right of distribution was exhausted when he sent the books to the bookseller, then the answer is no.
But, I don't think it was because the publisher exercised control over the books even when they were at the bookseller. In particular, the bookseller restricts the use of the books by requiring unsold copies to be returned or, more commonly, destroyed (as evidenced by the front covers). And, the publisher actively pursues that goal. So, I'd suggest that the distribution right in books is really only exhausted when they're sold (1) to consumers or (2) to book wholesalers without the right of return.
That's an absurd argument -- "McCain says he'll follow the Constitution." "You mean, the same Constitution that President Bush says gives him the right to abuse small farm animals? Why McCain must want to abuse small farm animals too!"
There isn't much question that tapping *international* calls is within the government's power. (At least I haven't heard any major Democrats argue with this). There just isn't enough information in this post to know if this is what McCain is talking about, or if it's domestic surveillance.
You should leave the political hack jobs to the professionals.
It's any mark that you use with the intent to authenticate something. Your signature does not need to be the same every time. For fun, at self-checkout terminals, I occasionally sign with a tic-tac-toe grid, a drawing of an airplane or with my non-dominant hand. Those have exactly the same legal significance as the signature I used to sign my mortgage documents.
On an agreement, the signature is evidence that you agreed to it. But, if somebody wants to say "I didn't sign that," you can look at how he acted at the time. Was there an email saying "I'm faxing over the signed version now"? (Is there a copy in the sender's outbox, or a backup of the outbox?) After faxing it over, did the sender act like there was an agreement?
A signature that looks very similar to another signature is evidence that the same person signed both. But, once you start faxing and copying, the value of that evidence drops.
The bigger problem is when people start accepting faxed signatures for things that they shouldn't without any further checking: "Here's a fax from the president of the company, saying to write me a check for $1M," or "Mr. Rather, here's a scan of a document from when George W. Bush was in the air national guard."
Assuming that Prince didn't get a license (and, I think he could have easily gotten a statutory license), this would have been an unauthorized public performance, making Prince a copyright infringer. He doesn't have to do any further distributions.
Unauthorized recordings of performances are not infringements of federal copyright. See 17 U.S.C. 1101 (violators will be held liable to the same extent as infringers.)
Youtube probably did the safe thing, since they would have been liable under 1101(a)(3), but the DMCA request was meaningless.
A live performance is not subject to federal copyright law until it is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." And, then, generally the person doing the fixing owns the copyright.
Under federal law, it is illegal to create unauthorized fixations of live works (see 17 U.S.C. 1101). But, doing so doesn't make you a copyright infringer (See 1101(a)). Copyright protection in unfixed works is still left to the states.
The distinction is important because the DMCA only applies to copyright infringement (See 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(1)(C)). Prince's DMCA notice was invalid because Prince doesn't hold a copyright.
I'm assuming that when he talked about an "online rental site," he was referring to something like Netflix, which is an online site, but sends out the original disk.
Renting of a validly purchased copy does not impact the replication right.
Are you going to a competitor?
If not, I'd approach my boss, say "I understand that you want to protect all the data that I have access to. But, I hope to be able to serve this company in the time that I have left and without at least some of that access, I can't do that. Here are the things that I still have in progress: X, Y and Z. If you give me permission to do A, B and C, then I can complete these projects before I leave.
"Others might have given you much less notice, But out of loyalty, I wanted to give you ample time to find my replacement and handle the transition. Would you please consider reinstating the access I need to finish these projects? If you cannot, please tell me how I can serve this company until my departure."
They probably won't give you the access. But, this at least creates a positive impression in their minds. Pulling some of the other stunts suggested here doesn't.
This is completely wrong. The owner of a copy CAN rent that copy without permission of the copyright owner, with two exceptions: software and "phonorecords." See 17 U.S.C. 109.
Here, for example, is a case questioning whether somebody can rent audiobooks, and concluding that doing so does not violate copyright: http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/1141914.
Certainly more than a non-event.
The denial means that if Vernon's version of the facts are correct, he wins. The only question is whether his version of the facts are correct.
The case still goes on, but the opinion is good precedent for future cases with similar facts.
Pardon?
This is exactly the sort of thing you can do under the first sale doctrine. First sale exhausts the distribution right. (except for software and music. See Section 109(b)(1) of the copyright act.) And, renting is distribution.
Your assessment of the current state of email is correct. But, blaming users for using it to fill a need when there is no realistic alternative is silly.
email is ubiquitous and easy. 99.5% of the time, it's nearly instantaneous. Should I really have to get an IM account on google, yahoo, aim, microsoft, etc.... so I can deal with time-critical messages? And, for that matter, should everybody else?
Please don't take this as legal advice... If you want to rely on it, get your own counsel to sort it out -- this is just back-of-the-envelope for me.
I think you are correct. Under federal preemption doctrine, if Congress clearly intends to "occupy the field," even state laws which are generally in agreement with the federal law will be tossed out under the Supremacy Clause.
Section 301 of the Copyright Act specifically says that Congress has occupied the field with regard to works that are fixed. (Unfixed works are left to the states.) Decisions about the penalties for copyright infringement are set forth in the Copyright Act as well. If LA adds additional penalties to that, they are stepping on specific policy decisions that Congress made regarding punishment and remedies for copyright infringement. So, that law would be preempted.
But, let's face it, LA County doesn't really care that their law is unenforceable -- it's a PR campaign.
It doesn't. I just replied to a post that basically said the GPL wasn't impacted by antitrust law by pointing out a conceivable way that a company might violate antitrust law using the GPL.
The idea that the GPL is some sort of per se antitrust violation is absurd.
Yes. It can be done, and a cleanroom is probably the best way of doing it. But, that's not particularly easy. Eventually, the software is going to come out of the cleanroom. At that point, if it behaves differently from how the GPL code behaves, somebody is going to have to look, see why, and fix it. And, in doing that, there's a chance that they may be copying expression from the GPL code.