*waits for the slashdot editors to take a week's vacation*
Actually, I wonder if something like this (maybe not to slashdot, but some other site) might not happen now. Find a valuable (for you at least) domain name that isn't locked, and send a small check to the company with the memo domain name. Since at least some companies cash checks automatically, you would have a canceled check back soon. Now wait until the contact goes on vacation, or the day before a long weekend (such as Thanksgiving in the US) and do a domain transfer request.
If it goes through, you've got the domain. The check is your insurance policy. IANAL, but the canceled check could be argued to be a proof of sale. You have an offer (the check), and acceptance/consideration (cashing the check). All the basic requirements of a contract/sale. Would weaken the case of the person trying to get the domain back in front of an arbitrator/court considerably.
...Huh? The only protocol mentioned in what you quoted was CIFS,...
I think the GGP (great grand parent) was refering to the legal issues of signing a licensing agreement with M$ that the Samba team raised, not the specific protocols. If you sign a licensing agreement with M$, there may be legal liabilities that come with any patches you create involving ANY of the protocols covered by said licensing agreement.
This whole licensing scheme may simply be a submarine attack on OSS. Shrink the pool of available developers, and/or create legal issues for various OSS projects which M$ can then exploit.
...if students want to use the university's connection/bandwidth, they have to install certain sofware (AV stuff mostly)...
I wonder if they had any students using *nix (likely Linux or *BSD) who obviously would have a problem with the AV stuff and how they handled that. I wonder how they enforced that policy. Turning off the AV is not too difficult.
...If the intention was to stop the spamming, the fine would have been higher, the AG would have forced the spammer to give up the mortgage brokers who are paying the spammer affiliate commissions for the leads, and the AG would have revoked the licenses of the mortgage brokers. But the mortgage brokers have friends in high places, and well placed campaign donations...
Somehow, I wonder if this wouldn't work for him as much as against him. Face it, there are lots of mortgage brokers out there. Pull some licenses and you cut down on the competion. Those left after a series of such cuts would be in a stronger position both financially and morally (good for PR). They would likely view the AG in a favorable light. Afterall, he just killed lots of competitors who were giving their industry a bad name.
Besides, if you just got shut down and fined, would you really have lots of cash laying around to donate to his opponent?
Distributing copyrighted works without permission, especially unpublished copyrighted works straight out of a camera, can result in severe statutory damages.
IANAL, but to the best of my knowledge, in the US, statutory damages only kick in if the works are registered with the government. Since these were found in a memory card, it's doubtful they are registered, so damages become only actual, and in this case I very much doubt that would be much above 0. The pictures are hardly professional quality.
This is not to say I think the guy posting this is doing anything ethical. He's not and it is wrong. Of course, maybe this card wasn't really lost by the owner...
an on-demand water heater. They're a little more expensive than normal water heaters, but they have a few key benefits: [snip] 2. Never runs out of hot water...
I've seen those claims. However, my parents have one for their house (no traditional water heater). It does run out of hot water. True, not for very long, but it does make taking showers there, oh, so much fun. Warm one minute, freezing the next. And if you play with the water because you don't want to wait for it to kick in again (or whatever it's doing), then you get burned too.
...You know, the police can't be everywhere, and they're not going to take responsibility for every crime that they could not prevent...
Most people (esp. many anti-gun people) don't realize that the police have no legal requirement to come to your aid (at least in the US; probably elsewhere too).
Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived.
When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981).]
...AFAIK landlords cannot include a prohibition on private 802.11 networks in a lease, and if they do, that prohibition will not be upheld by a court...
And there is the key, "upheld by a court". How many students could afford to fight this in court? How many that tried would find they suddenly had trouble registering for classes (more than usual), their grades and course credits got lost, and their courses were graded very harshly all of a sudden?
Re:Raising fees for patents is a BAD idea
on
More Microsoft Patents
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...This could result in patents being filed by the lowest paid person involved in the process (like the janitor.) Any ideas about avoiding that problem?
Assuming the plan *COULD* work (it would never be imposed), simply add a rule that if the patent is filed in the janitor's name, then the janitor owns it, not the company. If the company lays claim to the patent (via a w"e own everything you do" employment contract), then the company owns the patent not the janitor even though he filed it.
The problem isn't so much the penalties, it's that patent applications don't seem to be denied even when they obviously should be. The USPTO needs to start denying applications.
...Your response seems to indicate that you think the recipient of these letters has standing to sue the sender, but you are wrong, and so your argument is taken in the wrong direction...
My response here assumes there are no infringing files, as is the case in the parent article.
Well, let's see, possible slander (or libel; I forget which one is print and which is spoken), plus if the web host takes down first (common), the time it takes to restore the site (perhaps even the cost of moving to a new ISP because the old one drops you as a customer), plus loss income from the time it was down (even with a counter notice letter, the ISP can wait 10 days to restore it, *AFTER* receiving the counter letter). All due to the negligence of the company sending the letter (most/.er's could figure out it was not an infriging file in 3 minutes [the slow ones] or less in the case above and many other cases). I'd say that was cause for damages.
From the 512:
(f) Misrepresentations. — Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
Now admittedly, the knowingly part could be a big stumbling block for counter suing. IANAL, but does gross negligence count as knowingly? Could you convince a judge/jury of that? Personally, I hope the answer is yes.
... They will, after the first time they lose a counterclaim over defamation and damages. Is it their fault nobody chooses to stand up to them?...
Standing up to them will take money. They can drag out the court case for a long time, running up the legal bills to the point where the other side has to quit. Juridistiction issues alone could take quite a while (and you know whereever you file, they will claim it's the wrong place).
OTOH, they might just try to settle quickly to avoid a legal precedent.
There's nothing wrong with buying CD's in and of itself. Just don't buy from the RIAA members. There are lots of indie's out there who sell CD's. Using the irate client, I've found a couple that aren't bad, and I haven't used the client very much (mostly due to the fact I run KDE and it uses gtk, which doesn't like being a child of artsdsp).
Simple. Civil suits. You can sue anyone at any time for any reason.
And a partial answer to that is loser pays winners costs. Bet that would cut down on suits and encourage some of those who might otherwise settle to fight.
...Having been in a situation with an employeer who wanted to do something decidedly dodgy I had no qualms about saying no. Did I get fired ? Strangely no...
Similar thing happened to me. Except in my case I tried to give my boss a way out (Me: "Isn't that illegal?", him: "Yes, but do it anyway."). I didn't get fired, but there was retaliation. Training got canceled. I had to check in with him on coming to work, taking lunch, and leaving, at the time spent waiting for him to get off the phone didn't count as work time (and boy could he talk; this was normal for him however), etc. It wasn't long before I was laid off. But, I didn't get fired.
One of my co-workers he gave similar orders too still regrets saying yes. He eventually did turn "state-evidence" and had me as a backup witness, but no charges were ever pressed. Both of us are now in other professions. If I had to do it over again, I would have gotten a wire real quick and recorded him incriminating himself.
...The question is whether this kind of pollution is better than the carbon dioxide/refrigerant chemicals/coal power plant pollution. It is likely the answer is "yes".
As with any change, there will be winner and losers. In this case, I think the extra heat could make far more winners than losers.
I used to work at a coal fired power plant, the outflow channel (where we dumped warm (but clean!) water) was a haven for fish. Everytime I went past the channel outside the plant, there were always people fishing. Employees could fish closer to the outlet and they would. I watched them and most didn't even bother baiting the hook there were so many fish! Large fish for that area of the bay.
Are you sure about that? [regarding tricking a user to click yes] That security hole won't be fixed until Firefox 1.0.
I haven't tested it in Firefox, but with Mozilla 1.7 both demos bring up a box saying they are denied universal xpc connect privleges. Interesting attack ideas though.
Slashdot Mirror
*waits for the slashdot editors to take a week's vacation*
Actually, I wonder if something like this (maybe not to slashdot, but some other site) might not happen now. Find a valuable (for you at least) domain name that isn't locked, and send a small check to the company with the memo domain name. Since at least some companies cash checks automatically, you would have a canceled check back soon. Now wait until the contact goes on vacation, or the day before a long weekend (such as Thanksgiving in the US) and do a domain transfer request.
If it goes through, you've got the domain. The check is your insurance policy. IANAL, but the canceled check could be argued to be a proof of sale. You have an offer (the check), and acceptance/consideration (cashing the check). All the basic requirements of a contract/sale. Would weaken the case of the person trying to get the domain back in front of an arbitrator/court considerably.
I think the GGP (great grand parent) was refering to the legal issues of signing a licensing agreement with M$ that the Samba team raised, not the specific protocols. If you sign a licensing agreement with M$, there may be legal liabilities that come with any patches you create involving ANY of the protocols covered by said licensing agreement.
This whole licensing scheme may simply be a submarine attack on OSS. Shrink the pool of available developers, and/or create legal issues for various OSS projects which M$ can then exploit.
I wonder if they had any students using *nix (likely Linux or *BSD) who obviously would have a problem with the AV stuff and how they handled that. I wonder how they enforced that policy. Turning off the AV is not too difficult.
Somehow, I wonder if this wouldn't work for him as much as against him. Face it, there are lots of mortgage brokers out there. Pull some licenses and you cut down on the competion. Those left after a series of such cuts would be in a stronger position both financially and morally (good for PR). They would likely view the AG in a favorable light. Afterall, he just killed lots of competitors who were giving their industry a bad name.
Besides, if you just got shut down and fined, would you really have lots of cash laying around to donate to his opponent?
Quality, convenience, and, something most politicians and lawyers lack, ethics.
Does throwing a wig on an altar boy count? ;^)
Sadly, their's heater is fairly new. It was installed about 2002.
Distributing copyrighted works without permission, especially unpublished copyrighted works straight out of a camera, can result in severe statutory damages.
IANAL, but to the best of my knowledge, in the US, statutory damages only kick in if the works are registered with the government. Since these were found in a memory card, it's doubtful they are registered, so damages become only actual, and in this case I very much doubt that would be much above 0. The pictures are hardly professional quality.
This is not to say I think the guy posting this is doing anything ethical. He's not and it is wrong. Of course, maybe this card wasn't really lost by the owner...
an on-demand water heater. They're a little more expensive than normal water heaters, but they have a few key benefits: [snip] 2. Never runs out of hot water...
I've seen those claims. However, my parents have one for their house (no traditional water heater). It does run out of hot water. True, not for very long, but it does make taking showers there, oh, so much fun. Warm one minute, freezing the next. And if you play with the water because you don't want to wait for it to kick in again (or whatever it's doing), then you get burned too.
Perhaps the $750 million payoff had something to do with it.
Most people (esp. many anti-gun people) don't realize that the police have no legal requirement to come to your aid (at least in the US; probably elsewhere too).
Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived.
When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981).]
And there is the key, "upheld by a court". How many students could afford to fight this in court? How many that tried would find they suddenly had trouble registering for classes (more than usual), their grades and course credits got lost, and their courses were graded very harshly all of a sudden?
Assuming the plan *COULD* work (it would never be imposed), simply add a rule that if the patent is filed in the janitor's name, then the janitor owns it, not the company. If the company lays claim to the patent (via a w"e own everything you do" employment contract), then the company owns the patent not the janitor even though he filed it.
The problem isn't so much the penalties, it's that patent applications don't seem to be denied even when they obviously should be. The USPTO needs to start denying applications.
Microsoft follows standards like fish follow migrating caribou.
My response here assumes there are no infringing files, as is the case in the parent article.
Well, let's see, possible slander (or libel; I forget which one is print and which is spoken), plus if the web host takes down first (common), the time it takes to restore the site (perhaps even the cost of moving to a new ISP because the old one drops you as a customer), plus loss income from the time it was down (even with a counter notice letter, the ISP can wait 10 days to restore it, *AFTER* receiving the counter letter). All due to the negligence of the company sending the letter (most /.er's could figure out it was not an infriging file in 3 minutes [the slow ones] or less in the case above and many other cases). I'd say that was cause for damages.
From the 512:
Now admittedly, the knowingly part could be a big stumbling block for counter suing. IANAL, but does gross negligence count as knowingly? Could you convince a judge/jury of that? Personally, I hope the answer is yes.
BTW, a sample counter notice letter is available at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter .html.
Standing up to them will take money. They can drag out the court case for a long time, running up the legal bills to the point where the other side has to quit. Juridistiction issues alone could take quite a while (and you know whereever you file, they will claim it's the wrong place).
OTOH, they might just try to settle quickly to avoid a legal precedent.
Still, I would love to see such a suit.
There's nothing wrong with buying CD's in and of itself. Just don't buy from the RIAA members. There are lots of indie's out there who sell CD's. Using the irate client, I've found a couple that aren't bad, and I haven't used the client very much (mostly due to the fact I run KDE and it uses gtk, which doesn't like being a child of artsdsp).
For the more militant among us, there are always the sticker campaign (see http://www.downhillbattle.org/riaa/index.html ) too.
He may beat the rap, but I doubt he'll beat the ride. In fact, it's questionable whether he will get his ride back in good shape, if at all.
Simple. Civil suits. You can sue anyone at any time for any reason.
And a partial answer to that is loser pays winners costs. Bet that would cut down on suits and encourage some of those who might otherwise settle to fight.
Good luck without hard evidence. Even then your chances aren't that great. I know. I've been there personally.
Actually, you can only collect unemployment if you get unemployed through no direct fault of your own. Resigning doesn't count.
Similar thing happened to me. Except in my case I tried to give my boss a way out (Me: "Isn't that illegal?", him: "Yes, but do it anyway."). I didn't get fired, but there was retaliation. Training got canceled. I had to check in with him on coming to work, taking lunch, and leaving, at the time spent waiting for him to get off the phone didn't count as work time (and boy could he talk; this was normal for him however), etc. It wasn't long before I was laid off. But, I didn't get fired.
One of my co-workers he gave similar orders too still regrets saying yes. He eventually did turn "state-evidence" and had me as a backup witness, but no charges were ever pressed. Both of us are now in other professions. If I had to do it over again, I would have gotten a wire real quick and recorded him incriminating himself.
As with any change, there will be winner and losers. In this case, I think the extra heat could make far more winners than losers.
I used to work at a coal fired power plant, the outflow channel (where we dumped warm (but clean!) water) was a haven for fish. Everytime I went past the channel outside the plant, there were always people fishing. Employees could fish closer to the outlet and they would. I watched them and most didn't even bother baiting the hook there were so many fish! Large fish for that area of the bay.
Most whitebox makers I know make far less than a hundred bucks on a single box. They actually make more selling parts and service than computers.
Are you sure about that? [regarding tricking a user to click yes] That security hole won't be fixed until Firefox 1.0.
I haven't tested it in Firefox, but with Mozilla 1.7 both demos bring up a box saying they are denied universal xpc connect privleges. Interesting attack ideas though.