The fact that you can implement their patent in 5 different programming languages doesn't really mean anything. If they've written the patent correctly, then anybody skilled in the art ought to be able to look at it and implement it.
The thing that's being patented isn't the idea of doing it -- it's the way they do it. And, if I read the patent right, their way is language-independent.
The problem that I think you're trying to get at is obviousness -- the method for doing this is so obvious that it shouldn't be patentable. The standard argument to that is: "If it's so obvious, why hasn't anybody done it yet." There are two decent answers to this: (1) It's a dumb thing to do -- it doesn't solve any long-felt need that people have had; and (2) because you, Microsoft, practically have a monopoly on word-processing software, when we thought about doing it, we weren't able to get into the guts of MS word and implement it.
It seems to me that an easy way to fight this would be to show some documentation (aka "prior art") on people doing an emacs reg-ex search for [0-9]+ before the time that the patent was applied for. Some versions of emacs, at least, hilight the text that you're searching for.
[Note: I'm not trying to defend the patent. the USPTO does not do a very good job of filtering out bad patents, instead relying on post ante lawsuits to clarify their validity.]
My point was that your complaint about the secondary market for textbooks applies to just about every market. How are textbooks different than, say, children's clothes, toys, music, popular books, video games, movies or golf clubs? Except for consumables, every product competes with its own secondary market.
Every industry thinks that they're different somehow and that they therefore need special rules. In reality, there are very few industries that actually need separate rules -- those that might endanger public health come to mind.
As full disclosure, a member of my family works for a car manufacturer. I don't speak for anyone or any company. I just speak for my own opinionated self.
There is no doubt that the cost of cars is completely unreasonable. While the auto industry has to take its share of the blame for that, the car companies have several difficult problems to get around when trying to make a profit selling intangible information.
. . .
Second are used car distributors. Car dealers expect a lot of support for these expensive cars. They need display vehicles, service manuals, web site support, parts, etcetera. The car manfacturer has to support the car in use, even if the consumers are buying used cars. The used car dealer provides NONE OF THIS. They only value they add is storing the car when nobody wants it and helping to get it to the next customer.
So for a car model that comes out once every three to five years, the manufacturer has ONE CHANCE to make a profit - the first all-new run of the model. Everything else (warranties, service networks, etc...) is a rearguard action to try to stay afloat until the next model comes out.
You see, the value in the car isn't in the part that the used car dealer sells. He's selling cars that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all. The used car industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of car manufacturers.
If there were NO used car industry, or if there were some sort of royalty paid for each resale, most cars could be almost as cheap as motorcycles.
Also, publishers don't like classified car ads, but don't mind them nearly as much. Because drivers sell to each other and there much less exam copy corruption. (I don't know what that is, so I can't think of the valid car analogy.)
. . .
Car manufacturers definitely need to step it up and figure out a way to make a better, cheaper product. They are a very old and traditional industry. (some might say hidebound) But they are generally good people trying to do good work. They will eventually adapt, engineers will get paid, and prices will go down, one way or the other.
"He's selling information that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all."
The original publisher bought the right to publish from an author -- the publisher didn't produce any information either.
In any case, there's only one monopoly profit to be made on the work: Publishers can already extract their full profit out of the original price. Think about it: As a student, the value of a book to me is (a) the value I receive from using the book plus (b) what I receive by selling the book when I'm done with it. So, the publisher can charge me (a) + (b). For me, (b) is set by (a') whatever value the next guy gets out of the book plus (b') whatever he can resell it for. For him, b' = a'' + b'' and so on. Eventually, the book will be worn out or become obsolete and worth 0. Effectively, this means that on the first sale, the publisher is able to charge a + a' + a'' +.... + 0, which is the value of the book to me and all subsequent users.
Publishers could thus do better by creating textbooks that last longer and become obsolete slower. This would increase the value of their textbooks and allow them to charge more.
It hasn't happened yet. However, textbook publishers have long tried to eliminate the used book market -- that's a huge reason that they come out with new editions of textbooks every few years, despite a lack of demand from professors. (How much has freshman physics or calculus changed over the past 20 years?)
The concern is not with the current scenario where the hardcopy books are still available, but with where it's going -- the publishers are going to try to push more to DRM'd e-books. If they're successful, then the first sale doctrine will go out the window.
I have bought most of my books for the upcoming semester used from amazon.com & half.com. At the end of the semester, I will re-sell them. My net cost will be around $10 a book. The "e-book" version (assuming the same discount as in the article) would cost me ~ $60 per book. If and when the hard-copies disappear, the extra $50/book will be a direct raid on my wallet by the publishers, costing me $1500 over 3 years.
I'm in law school right now and laptops are a must for most classes. Here are some indications of when they'll be useful:
1. There are not many diagrams, drawings, formulas or charts put on the board. While I can type much faster than I can write, I cannot use computer drawing tools as easily as I can draw by hand.
2. You need to shuffle a lot of papers. In Law School, you read thousands of court cases. While these are generally edited and aggregated into casebooks, professors often supplement the casebooks with additional cases, articles, &c. Because all the cases are available electronically, I have found it much easier to download them in PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to write them up virtually.
3. You need to search. Face it, pouring through 100 pages of hand-written notes for something does not work well in class. Computers excel at this.
4. You're disciplined. There are a million times more distractions on a computer than there ever were on paper. When I was an undergrad (86-90), there were a few people who read the newspaper in the back of class, but that was about it. Now, then can be playing poker, IM'ing each other, reading the news, writing e-mails, etc.... If you're not disciplined enough to keep your use of these things down, then the laptop may be a problem.
5. Lousy handwriting. Not being about to read your own handwriting makes reviewing hand-written very difficult. The only way that's going to be bad on a laptop is if you're a horrible typist or you use a bad font.
That's not even remotely economically sound. DSL is a product, not a market unto itself.
Nobody actually wants to buy DSL service -- they want to buy internet service. DSL and cable modems are competitors and are thus in the same market.
A good test of whether you have the market definition right is to assume that there was only one provider of all the goods in the market. If that provider was able to set the price whereever it wanted, then you probably have the right market definition.
DSL service does not do that -- if a DSL provider priced its service at much over the price charged by the cable company for cable modem service, then nobody would buy it. In effect, the DSL provider has to accept the market price and does not have the ability to dictate it himself.
I'll admit that this breaks down in communities where there is no cable modem (or other broadband) service. But, DSL availability is generally much more tightly linked to the physical distance from the Telco office than is Cable Modem service. So, I doubt that there are many situations (in the US) where DSL is available and cable modem isn't.
Your cable bill has tripled? Are you getting more channels than you used to? Why don't you switch to satellite if you're unhappy? Or, wait a couple of years for the telephone company to start providing TV.
The Savings and Loan crash was mainly because the federal government wasn't charging enough for the FSLIC insurance -- normally you pay more for insurance on high-risk activities.
The old airlines have been in trouble because they're having trouble competing in a deregulated environment. Southwest, among others, is doing pretty well. The reason that they're bailed out is that the Congress is too lilly-livered to actually allow competition to work and let the weak players die off. If the business model is so bad, why are there so many new players?
Deregulation does cause upheaval, no doubt about it. But, markets work better than regulators do.
The FCC already classifies cable-modem service as an 'information service' under the telecom act. (See the recent Brand-X decision from the US Supreme Court.) If cable modem service is an information service, then I see no reason that DSL isn't -- they carry exactly the same thing.
The real problem here is that there's not a whole lot of in-between: either you're an information service and barely regulated, or you're a telecommunications service and heavily regulated. To me, the scariest thing about the 'information service' classification is that it allows the carrier to decide what to carry and how to do it.
For example, your cable company starts offering a VoIP service -- what's to keep it from degrading Vonage's VoIP service? What about when they degrade IP video feeds that compete with their own pay-per-view services?
Antitrust law can take care of some of this problem, but it's a hard case to make.
Like it or not, there is a public argument about Intelligent Design and Evolution. All Bush was saying is that if you want kids to understand what's going on in the public square, you ought to acquaint them with the issues.
One thing that frustrates the pro-ID folks is that evolution is still a *theory*, but is being taught as fact. That's not a surprising bias, considering that it explains an awful lot (but not all) about how life came to be as it is. And, it's an observable phenomenon. But, there are other theories, ID probably being the most prominent that other people believe.
The problem is: how do you teach this? Evolution is an important enough phenomenon all by itself, even if it wasn't the sole mechanism behind life, to be taught in science (and maybe math, anthropology and social studies) class. Beyond that, anything that says "this is how life began" should be taught with a healthy amount of skepticism, because we just don't know for sure.
Get your facts right: (1) It's only state Do-Not-Call lists that are at issue here, not the federal one. (2) The FCC used its regulatory powers to enact the Federal Do-Not-Call list -- it was not enacted by Congress. (3) The issue is whether the FCC's instituting a national Do-Not-Call list precludes the states from enacting their own. (4) "It's" = "It is." The possessive of "it" is "its".
I don't know the answer to #3, but since Congress gave broad discretion to regulate telecomm to the FCC, I suspect that it can preempt State Do-Not-Call lists.
Judging by your description, there's absolutely no "renegotiation" going on at all.
There are a number of reasons that a contract will be thrown out. You should talk to a lawyer familiar with Florida employment law. Ask him how Florida Statute 542.335 affects things. The extent to which these things are enforceable varies state-to-state.
I'd want to know "If every business would make me sign the same thing, why didn't you make me sign it when I joined. Weren't you a business then?"
There is, of course, the question of whether it's actually a "contract" at all -- what are they giving you that you don't already have? You already have a job. A contract has to be supported by consideration, and it's not clear what they're giving you -- they could presumably still fire you the instant after you signed it. (IANAL. Do not depend on this.)
It probably is in "legal speak," but if you can read, you can probably get a decent understanding of most of what they're trying to do. That "legal speak" can be legally binding.
A bit of anti-spamware that (1) detects when a piece of incoming e-mail is SPAM and (2) downloads the page and submits forms with bogus information.
The spammer would then only get as many hits as SPAM messages he sent out. And, he can't complain about a DDOS attack, as he solicited every single response.
A big chunk of the NTSC analog space is going to be turned over to first-responders so they can do their job better. Do you want them not to be able to do their stuff when that hurricane hits?
Yours is a very limited problem -- Rabbit ears don't work particularly well in most places, and where they do work, most people have cable.
Plus, how are people sitting in the dark going to get POWER for their TVs? And how many people are going to keep a set of rabbit ears around for the occasional hurricane?
But, your underlying point is still good -- as we become more dependant on technology, we become more susceptible in emergencies. My phone connection goes through my internet service over my cable TV connection. And I have a cell-phone. If the power goes out and the tower blows down, I'm sunk -- traditional telephone still works even when the power goes out.
First, switching to DTV will free a bunch of analog spectrum. This spectrum is expected to be auctioned off, raising around $100B. The discussion is whether to use a portion of that $100B to subsidize set-top boxes for the 16% of American consumers who get over-the-air TV. So, it's coming out of your taxes, at least not directly.
The reason that this is being pushed is that the freed spectrum has characteristics that make it valuable for stuff like emergency responders and WIMAX-type services.
The other problem with your complaint is that there is something of a chicken-and-egg problem between DTV sets and DTV transmissions. The government is trying to push that along.
Cable-TV and Satellite TV will be unaffected for a good while. Cable because they'll convert to analog on the head-end, and Satellite because your satellite box already does the conversion.
An educated lower-class person will not remain that way very long.
There is no such thing as a "classless" society of any sufficiently large size unless you define that term tightly, in which case the US is probably classless. Ex: define a 'class' within a society as centered around a local maximum on the country's population/income distribution. A country where there are a lot of poor people and a lot of rich people, but nothing in between, would thus have two classes. The US, on the other hand, would only have one.
Don't know why the original poster was posting US law in regard to a Canadian claim.
In the US....
"Publication" is the distribution of copies . . . to the public. 17 U.S.C. 101.
Distributing books to bookstores does not constitute publication.
In any case, this is superfluous -- the right to publish is not at issue. What is at issue is the disclosure of information in the published work, which is not copyrightable material. You copyright the expression, not the idea. Copying Rowling's words is generally barred, but saying that she kills off character XXX is just factual and thus not copyrightable.
However, a court would probably view this as a trade secret, and disclosure of a trade secret can be enjoined.
Again, that's under US law. This happened in Canada, so who knows.
You can successfully convince a majority of these billions that it is in their own best interest to give up their own ability to decide what to read or say.
Huh? You think those people are giving this up willingly? Do you think that they could have said "No. we prefer our internet to remain uncensored, thank you" and they would not have been hauled off to prison camps and then used as slave labor?
Do you even remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre? It's the thugs in power in Red China who want this, not the people.
If you're talking about bombs being dropped from planes, we tried extraordinarily hard to only hit real targets -- there was no carpet-bombing of Baghdad, for example. There were some accidents, of course, but nothing approaching wholesale destruction. If you recall, shortly after the invasion, the Iraqi people were jubilant.
If you're talking about things like roadside bombs, marketplace bombs and the like, then your question is correct, but directed at the wrong side. If your theory is right then the Iraqi people will be opposing the terrorists, not joining them.
We are working to try to rebuild Iraq, not only from the destruction of the war, but also from the destruction caused by Saddam Hussein and from the destruction caused by the terrorists. The large majority of the people fighting us are foreigners, not Iraqis.
Regardless, the best thing that we can do now is to get the country stabilized, rebuild its infrastructure and then get out of the way.
One of the drivers is that Arab civilization used to be the pinnacle of education and knowledge, the center of the entire world -- heck, they're called the 'arabic' numbers. But, the center of gravity has shifted west and they've been left out of it. So, there's some sense that their rightful place in the world has been taken from them. This frustration will be magnified whenever the West does something that they disagree with. That probably includes the "retaliation" you're talking about, but probably also a lot more (maybe even including 'existing').
(Note: not claiming that all Arabs are terrorists or vice-versa.)
Well, actually, I don't think this is a great example of your point -- you seem to be making a logical fallacy:
we see no copyright -> publication
and I think you're asserting
publication -> no copyright
(ie if these are being published, they must not be under copyright).
You have to ask the question "If the original creators hadn't let their copyright expire, would they be publishing these things now?" I think the answer probably has to be yes -- the only difference is in who gets the marginal profits.
THe big counter-example to what I have is that you don't see the big media companies publishing their low-value works, or at least not at these price ranges.
The President has 100% of the presidency and his party has a majority of the Senate. To the winner go the spoils. It may not be 90/10, but they clearly have the lion's share of the power and should thus obtain the lion's share of the benefit in any agreement with the minority party. That's how our Constitution is set up.
Using your logic, a 42-41 victory in the Superbowl would entitle the losing team to almost half the trophy.
All you're arguing is that the price should go down as the cost of publishing and the cost of distribution drop. The cost of duplication is nearing $0, NOT the cost of creation.
"Typing something up" is not the hard part of authorship -- read The DaVinci Code and ask yourself how much of the writing process was just typing.
Let's say I have a choice between getting paid $100,000 at some job or writing a book. If I write the book, my 'cost of creation' is $100,000.
Copyright is necessary to encourage people to create works of authorship by granting them a limited monopoly to their creation. Without copyright, there would be far fewer works created.
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The fact that you can implement their patent in 5 different programming languages doesn't really mean anything. If they've written the patent correctly, then anybody skilled in the art ought to be able to look at it and implement it.
The thing that's being patented isn't the idea of doing it -- it's the way they do it. And, if I read the patent right, their way is language-independent.
The problem that I think you're trying to get at is obviousness -- the method for doing this is so obvious that it shouldn't be patentable. The standard argument to that is: "If it's so obvious, why hasn't anybody done it yet." There are two decent answers to this: (1) It's a dumb thing to do -- it doesn't solve any long-felt need that people have had; and (2) because you, Microsoft, practically have a monopoly on word-processing software, when we thought about doing it, we weren't able to get into the guts of MS word and implement it.
It seems to me that an easy way to fight this would be to show some documentation (aka "prior art") on people doing an emacs reg-ex search for [0-9]+ before the time that the patent was applied for. Some versions of emacs, at least, hilight the text that you're searching for.
[Note: I'm not trying to defend the patent. the USPTO does not do a very good job of filtering out bad patents, instead relying on post ante lawsuits to clarify their validity.]
My point was that your complaint about the secondary market for textbooks applies to just about every market. How are textbooks different than, say, children's clothes, toys, music, popular books, video games, movies or golf clubs? Except for consumables, every product competes with its own secondary market.
Every industry thinks that they're different somehow and that they therefore need special rules. In reality, there are very few industries that actually need separate rules -- those that might endanger public health come to mind.
As full disclosure, a member of my family works for a car manufacturer. I don't speak for anyone or any company. I just speak for my own opinionated self.
There is no doubt that the cost of cars is completely unreasonable. While the auto industry has to take its share of the blame for that, the car companies have several difficult problems to get around when trying to make a profit selling intangible information.
. . .
Second are used car distributors. Car dealers expect a lot of support for these expensive cars. They need display vehicles, service manuals, web site support, parts, etcetera. The car manfacturer has to support the car in use, even if the consumers are buying used cars. The used car dealer provides NONE OF THIS. They only value they add is storing the car when nobody wants it and helping to get it to the next customer.
So for a car model that comes out once every three to five years, the manufacturer has ONE CHANCE to make a profit - the first all-new run of the model. Everything else (warranties, service networks, etc...) is a rearguard action to try to stay afloat until the next model comes out.
You see, the value in the car isn't in the part that the used car dealer sells. He's selling cars that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all. The used car industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of car manufacturers.
If there were NO used car industry, or if there were some sort of royalty paid for each resale, most cars could be almost as cheap as motorcycles.
Also, publishers don't like classified car ads, but don't mind them nearly as much. Because drivers sell to each other and there much less exam copy corruption. (I don't know what that is, so I can't think of the valid car analogy.)
. . .
Car manufacturers definitely need to step it up and figure out a way to make a better, cheaper product. They are a very old and traditional industry. (some might say hidebound) But they are generally good people trying to do good work. They will eventually adapt, engineers will get paid, and prices will go down, one way or the other.
"He's selling information that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all."
.... + 0, which is the value of the book to me and all subsequent users.
The original publisher bought the right to publish from an author -- the publisher didn't produce any information either.
In any case, there's only one monopoly profit to be made on the work: Publishers can already extract their full profit out of the original price. Think about it: As a student, the value of a book to me is (a) the value I receive from using the book plus (b) what I receive by selling the book when I'm done with it. So, the publisher can charge me (a) + (b). For me, (b) is set by (a') whatever value the next guy gets out of the book plus (b') whatever he can resell it for. For him, b' = a'' + b'' and so on. Eventually, the book will be worn out or become obsolete and worth 0. Effectively, this means that on the first sale, the publisher is able to charge a + a' + a'' +
Publishers could thus do better by creating textbooks that last longer and become obsolete slower. This would increase the value of their textbooks and allow them to charge more.
It hasn't happened yet. However, textbook publishers have long tried to eliminate the used book market -- that's a huge reason that they come out with new editions of textbooks every few years, despite a lack of demand from professors. (How much has freshman physics or calculus changed over the past 20 years?)
The concern is not with the current scenario where the hardcopy books are still available, but with where it's going -- the publishers are going to try to push more to DRM'd e-books. If they're successful, then the first sale doctrine will go out the window.
I have bought most of my books for the upcoming semester used from amazon.com & half.com. At the end of the semester, I will re-sell them. My net cost will be around $10 a book. The "e-book" version (assuming the same discount as in the article) would cost me ~ $60 per book. If and when the hard-copies disappear, the extra $50/book will be a direct raid on my wallet by the publishers, costing me $1500 over 3 years.
I'm in law school right now and laptops are a must for most classes. Here are some indications of when they'll be useful:
1. There are not many diagrams, drawings, formulas or charts put on the board. While I can type much faster than I can write, I cannot use computer drawing tools as easily as I can draw by hand.
2. You need to shuffle a lot of papers. In Law School, you read thousands of court cases. While these are generally edited and aggregated into casebooks, professors often supplement the casebooks with additional cases, articles, &c. Because all the cases are available electronically, I have found it much easier to download them in PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to write them up virtually.
3. You need to search. Face it, pouring through 100 pages of hand-written notes for something does not work well in class. Computers excel at this.
4. You're disciplined. There are a million times more distractions on a computer than there ever were on paper. When I was an undergrad (86-90), there were a few people who read the newspaper in the back of class, but that was about it. Now, then can be playing poker, IM'ing each other, reading the news, writing e-mails, etc.... If you're not disciplined enough to keep your use of these things down, then the laptop may be a problem.
5. Lousy handwriting. Not being about to read your own handwriting makes reviewing hand-written very difficult. The only way that's going to be bad on a laptop is if you're a horrible typist or you use a bad font.
That's not even remotely economically sound. DSL is a product, not a market unto itself.
Nobody actually wants to buy DSL service -- they want to buy internet service. DSL and cable modems are competitors and are thus in the same market.
A good test of whether you have the market definition right is to assume that there was only one provider of all the goods in the market. If that provider was able to set the price whereever it wanted, then you probably have the right market definition.
DSL service does not do that -- if a DSL provider priced its service at much over the price charged by the cable company for cable modem service, then nobody would buy it. In effect, the DSL provider has to accept the market price and does not have the ability to dictate it himself.
I'll admit that this breaks down in communities where there is no cable modem (or other broadband) service. But, DSL availability is generally much more tightly linked to the physical distance from the Telco office than is Cable Modem service. So, I doubt that there are many situations (in the US) where DSL is available and cable modem isn't.
Phooey.
Your cable bill has tripled? Are you getting more channels than you used to? Why don't you switch to satellite if you're unhappy? Or, wait a couple of years for the telephone company to start providing TV.
The Savings and Loan crash was mainly because the federal government wasn't charging enough for the FSLIC insurance -- normally you pay more for insurance on high-risk activities.
The old airlines have been in trouble because they're having trouble competing in a deregulated environment. Southwest, among others, is doing pretty well. The reason that they're bailed out is that the Congress is too lilly-livered to actually allow competition to work and let the weak players die off. If the business model is so bad, why are there so many new players?
Deregulation does cause upheaval, no doubt about it. But, markets work better than regulators do.
The FCC already classifies cable-modem service as an 'information service' under the telecom act. (See the recent Brand-X decision from the US Supreme Court.) If cable modem service is an information service, then I see no reason that DSL isn't -- they carry exactly the same thing.
The real problem here is that there's not a whole lot of in-between: either you're an information service and barely regulated, or you're a telecommunications service and heavily regulated. To me, the scariest thing about the 'information service' classification is that it allows the carrier to decide what to carry and how to do it.
For example, your cable company starts offering a VoIP service -- what's to keep it from degrading Vonage's VoIP service? What about when they degrade IP video feeds that compete with their own pay-per-view services?
Antitrust law can take care of some of this problem, but it's a hard case to make.
Like it or not, there is a public argument about Intelligent Design and Evolution. All Bush was saying is that if you want kids to understand what's going on in the public square, you ought to acquaint them with the issues.
One thing that frustrates the pro-ID folks is that evolution is still a *theory*, but is being taught as fact. That's not a surprising bias, considering that it explains an awful lot (but not all) about how life came to be as it is. And, it's an observable phenomenon. But, there are other theories, ID probably being the most prominent that other people believe.
The problem is: how do you teach this? Evolution is an important enough phenomenon all by itself, even if it wasn't the sole mechanism behind life, to be taught in science (and maybe math, anthropology and social studies) class. Beyond that, anything that says "this is how life began" should be taught with a healthy amount of skepticism, because we just don't know for sure.
Get your facts right: (1) It's only state Do-Not-Call lists that are at issue here, not the federal one. (2) The FCC used its regulatory powers to enact the Federal Do-Not-Call list -- it was not enacted by Congress. (3) The issue is whether the FCC's instituting a national Do-Not-Call list precludes the states from enacting their own. (4) "It's" = "It is." The possessive of "it" is "its".
I don't know the answer to #3, but since Congress gave broad discretion to regulate telecomm to the FCC, I suspect that it can preempt State Do-Not-Call lists.
Judging by your description, there's absolutely no "renegotiation" going on at all.
There are a number of reasons that a contract will be thrown out. You should talk to a lawyer familiar with Florida employment law. Ask him how Florida Statute 542.335 affects things. The extent to which these things are enforceable varies state-to-state.
I'd want to know "If every business would make me sign the same thing, why didn't you make me sign it when I joined. Weren't you a business then?"
There is, of course, the question of whether it's actually a "contract" at all -- what are they giving you that you don't already have? You already have a job. A contract has to be supported by consideration, and it's not clear what they're giving you -- they could presumably still fire you the instant after you signed it. (IANAL. Do not depend on this.)
It probably is in "legal speak," but if you can read, you can probably get a decent understanding of most of what they're trying to do. That "legal speak" can be legally binding.
How about this:
A bit of anti-spamware that (1) detects when a piece of incoming e-mail is SPAM and (2) downloads the page and submits forms with bogus information.
The spammer would then only get as many hits as SPAM messages he sent out. And, he can't complain about a DDOS attack, as he solicited every single response.
Horrible idea.
A big chunk of the NTSC analog space is going to be turned over to first-responders so they can do their job better. Do you want them not to be able to do their stuff when that hurricane hits?
Yours is a very limited problem -- Rabbit ears don't work particularly well in most places, and where they do work, most people have cable.
Plus, how are people sitting in the dark going to get POWER for their TVs? And how many people are going to keep a set of rabbit ears around for the occasional hurricane?
But, your underlying point is still good -- as we become more dependant on technology, we become more susceptible in emergencies. My phone connection goes through my internet service over my cable TV connection. And I have a cell-phone. If the power goes out and the tower blows down, I'm sunk -- traditional telephone still works even when the power goes out.
First, switching to DTV will free a bunch of analog spectrum. This spectrum is expected to be auctioned off, raising around $100B. The discussion is whether to use a portion of that $100B to subsidize set-top boxes for the 16% of American consumers who get over-the-air TV. So, it's coming out of your taxes, at least not directly.
The reason that this is being pushed is that the freed spectrum has characteristics that make it valuable for stuff like emergency responders and WIMAX-type services.
The other problem with your complaint is that there is something of a chicken-and-egg problem between DTV sets and DTV transmissions. The government is trying to push that along.
Cable-TV and Satellite TV will be unaffected for a good while. Cable because they'll convert to analog on the head-end, and Satellite because your satellite box already does the conversion.
An educated lower-class person will not remain that way very long.
There is no such thing as a "classless" society of any sufficiently large size unless you define that term tightly, in which case the US is probably classless. Ex: define a 'class' within a society as centered around a local maximum on the country's population/income distribution. A country where there are a lot of poor people and a lot of rich people, but nothing in between, would thus have two classes. The US, on the other hand, would only have one.
IANAL.
Don't know why the original poster was posting US law in regard to a Canadian claim.
In the US....
"Publication" is the distribution of copies . . . to the public. 17 U.S.C. 101.
Distributing books to bookstores does not constitute publication.
In any case, this is superfluous -- the right to publish is not at issue. What is at issue is the disclosure of information in the published work, which is not copyrightable material. You copyright the expression, not the idea. Copying Rowling's words is generally barred, but saying that she kills off character XXX is just factual and thus not copyrightable.
However, a court would probably view this as a trade secret, and disclosure of a trade secret can be enjoined.
Again, that's under US law. This happened in Canada, so who knows.
You can successfully convince a majority of these billions that it is in their own best interest to give up their own ability to decide what to read or say.
Huh? You think those people are giving this up willingly? Do you think that they could have said "No. we prefer our internet to remain uncensored, thank you" and they would not have been hauled off to prison camps and then used as slave labor?
Do you even remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre? It's the thugs in power in Red China who want this, not the people.
Donating experienced personnel to the local job market.
If you're talking about bombs being dropped from planes, we tried extraordinarily hard to only hit real targets -- there was no carpet-bombing of Baghdad, for example. There were some accidents, of course, but nothing approaching wholesale destruction. If you recall, shortly after the invasion, the Iraqi people were jubilant.
If you're talking about things like roadside bombs, marketplace bombs and the like, then your question is correct, but directed at the wrong side. If your theory is right then the Iraqi people will be opposing the terrorists, not joining them.
We are working to try to rebuild Iraq, not only from the destruction of the war, but also from the destruction caused by Saddam Hussein and from the destruction caused by the terrorists. The large majority of the people fighting us are foreigners, not Iraqis.
Regardless, the best thing that we can do now is to get the country stabilized, rebuild its infrastructure and then get out of the way.
Well, if that's true, how did it start?
One of the drivers is that Arab civilization used to be the pinnacle of education and knowledge, the center of the entire world -- heck, they're called the 'arabic' numbers. But, the center of gravity has shifted west and they've been left out of it. So, there's some sense that their rightful place in the world has been taken from them. This frustration will be magnified whenever the West does something that they disagree with. That probably includes the "retaliation" you're talking about, but probably also a lot more (maybe even including 'existing').
(Note: not claiming that all Arabs are terrorists or vice-versa.)
No it's not, at least no more so than "Duck!" The subject is implied.
Well, actually, I don't think this is a great example of your point -- you seem to be making a logical fallacy:
we see
no copyright -> publication
and I think you're asserting
publication -> no copyright
(ie if these are being published, they must not be under copyright).
You have to ask the question "If the original creators hadn't let their copyright expire, would they be publishing these things now?" I think the answer probably has to be yes -- the only difference is in who gets the marginal profits.
THe big counter-example to what I have is that you don't see the big media companies publishing their low-value works, or at least not at these price ranges.
The President has 100% of the presidency and his party has a majority of the Senate. To the winner go the spoils. It may not be 90/10, but they clearly have the lion's share of the power and should thus obtain the lion's share of the benefit in any agreement with the minority party. That's how our Constitution is set up.
Using your logic, a 42-41 victory in the Superbowl would entitle the losing team to almost half the trophy.
All you're arguing is that the price should go down as the cost of publishing and the cost of distribution drop. The cost of duplication is nearing $0, NOT the cost of creation.
"Typing something up" is not the hard part of authorship -- read The DaVinci Code and ask yourself how much of the writing process was just typing.
Let's say I have a choice between getting paid $100,000 at some job or writing a book. If I write the book, my 'cost of creation' is $100,000.
Copyright is necessary to encourage people to create works of authorship by granting them a limited monopoly to their creation. Without copyright, there would be far fewer works created.