Perhaps many businesses do this, but I smell a lawsuit. If I recall correctly, some electric generator manufacturers got slapped big time for this. Seems there was a big storm somewhere, knocked out a lot of power, and a lot of people needed generators. But since there wasn't an emergengy declaration it was illegal to pull units out of the delivery channels for customers who already had their order in and redirect those units to customers in the storm-affected areas.
Like I said, I smell a lawsuit, or at least some bad publicity.
It occurs to me that there are (at least) two solutions to this problem;
Solution 1 involves finding a large number of like-minded people who think privacy is important, who think a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet is important, who are willing to spend $250 a piece on an 802.11b AP, and who are willing to set aside their differences long enough to organize a nationwide mesh of interconnected base stations. These people can, over a period of years, build their own wireless hub and give (perhaps low-data rate) Internet access to everyone.
Solution 2 involves finding a rather less large number of like-minded people who think privacy is important, who think a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet is important, who are willing to cast their vote, and who are willing to set aside their differences long enough to organize a nationwide effort to put laws in-place guaranteeing a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet like we already have for voice service. This would give everyone who wants it as much data rate as they have today. Oh, and this model has already been proven to work.
In this case, getting the law re-written just might be the easier route.
I read the aticle, but perhaps my point was a bit too subtle.
I've never (in EU or America) seen a really workable definition for drawing a line between 'usage' and 'copyright infringment'. The publishing interests seem to want to reserve the power to declare any particular usage as illegal just as soon as they identify a model which (they believe) is costing them money. So, if I take a photo of my SO standing next to some costumed Episode I character, that's okay. But as soon as the studio thinks they could have charged me a half quid for the photo, it becomes an illegal activity (even if, had they offered the photo for half a quid, there would have been no takers.)
This law seems to do nothing more (or less) than raise the stakes, does nothing to change behavior or offer guidance or clarify acceptable behavior.
Sure, it's aimed at stopping the warez sites today, just like DMCA is aimed at stopping people from pirating DVD's. But that didn't stop Lexmark from using the law to kill the low-cost replacement toner competition, and I suspect it won't be long before we see some industry defining their competition's behavior as infringment and criminalizing them out of business.
There's a business across the street from mine with a bunch of (copyrighted) movie posters clearly visible through their front window, making it possible for any bloke with a camera to walk up and snap an infringing photo.
I'm going to be calling my local MP to have him shut down and locked up, just as soon as I finish taking down my own movie posters.
A former senior manager once asked me (in a room which held a Windows support tech, a Linux zealot, and myself) what soft of computer he should buy for a relation of his. I answered the question with two of my own:
Who is going to be responsible for supporting this computer?
"Me, of course." he answered.
Are you going to be paid for the support you offer?
"Of course not." he replied, wondering why I even had to ask that question.
"Then," I replied, "Simple choice: Get a Macintosh. If things change, and you find you will no longer be required to support it, suggest Linux for the power, flexibility, and reduced cost. On the other hand, if things change and you will still be supporting it, but find you will be paid for the support, recommend Windows."
This Director soon became responsible for Information Technology Support at our site, and recommended a cutover to an all-Windows environment. Fortunately, he allowed some of us to run Linux, under "no support offered" terms.
one big generator...is much more efficient than thousands of little ones
Only for the first half of it's life.
Then it becomes an 'older technology" generator which costs too-much to throw-out and replace.
There's a direct correlation here to the telephone companies; It's so much more efficient to have all network and routing done by one central switch than to put some sort of router in each home...
These guys who use solar power in their homes, and sell the surplus to the power company, could also use the surplus to create hydogen fuel for their cars.
Perhaps you would care to do the calculation for us? Let's see: take your average daily home energy use (converted to BTU's) add in your average daily automotive use (you burn how many gallons per day?) converted to BTU's, add in the amount extra you want to have available to sell to power companies: that's your total daily energy requirements. Multiply by a factor of 3.5 to account for the inefficiency of solar conversion, then again by a factor of 1.5 to 5 (depending on the part of the country/climate you live in.) then once more by 2.5 (to account for the fact that the sun only shines usably for 40% of a day) to get your total solar requirements.
One more quick comnversion to square feet and you'll be able to tell me how many acres of solar panels this New York City apartment dweller will have to install to do his part.
Not a realistic solution, but it sure seems great for "buy one today" marketers.
Converting a 2-ton gasoline guzzling SUV into a 2-ton hydrogen guzzling SUV doesn't actually save you anything.
You don't find hydrogen lying around in the same way you find oil. Instead, you usually get hydrogen by adding energy to water. (In this respect, hydrogen acts as a carrier for the energy.) But the energy still has to come from somewhere; and the way our economy is currently rigged, that means burning oil.
There are opportunities for savings: you can insist that any plant which burns oil to make hydrogen must re-capture the carbon; that will have an impact on greenhouse gasses, and it is easier to build/maintain/police that equipment than similar equipment built into every automobile, but it also means that the price of hydrogen will be raised by that much.
But there will also be costs: think for a moment the cost of converting all gasoline engines to hydrogen ones, the cost of the infrastructure (fuel stations, repair facilities, industry skillset retraining) changeover, etc.
What's to stop you from converting the document later? It's not like this format stops YOU from copying and pasting a document that YOU created and have the permissions for.
Silly poster, He thinks he owns his documents...
It seems like you are just fear mongering without any actual facts or guesses about what might actually happen in the future.
Quoth Tim Berners-Lee: "The Paranoids are always the first to suspect..."
I don't have them either, but that doesn't mean I can't call your bluff.
I wish someone would call my bluff and prove me wrong, but I don't see it happening.
If you have a document "YOU created and have the permissions for" in a proprietary Microsoft format, you will continue to be able to access YOUR information, but you'll be forced to use a Microsoft tool to do it. This means you'll continue to have access to it only so long as you remain a Microsoft subscriber in good standing. It's kinda like allowing somebody to erect a tollbooth on your driveway, no?
There's no legal requirement for Microsoft to provide tools which would allow you to extract your intellectual property from the file. There's no law mandating an "Export..." menu item, and nothing regulating how well it works. And there's no financial incentive for Microsoft to provide that function, either. If you're looking to stop being their customer, and stop sending them money, why would they provide you with a set of tools to allow you to do this?
Remember that the important content of a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file includes not only the textual information, but also things like the font and stylesheet definitions, the tab settings, table layouts, document change history, etc.
Currently, some of the proprietary Microsoft file formats have been reverse-engineered enough to allow other applications (StarOffice, for example) to import the data and allow you to manipulate it with varying degrees of success. The specific editing features and rendering capability vary by application. Your results may vary. Presumably, if it were important enough to you, you could buy (or write) an application which would give you the editing and rendering capability you desire. (That can be done, for a price.) However, doing so requires that you understand Microsoft's proprietary file format used to store the file. (That information is unavailable at any price.)
But once your document has been "converted" into the new "content managed" file format, you lose even that *for a price* option. DMCA makes it a crime to develop technology which would allow you to bypass the access controls and access the content, even if you are otherwise authorized to access the content. (Think about the DeCSS precedent; It doesn't matter that you own the DVD and are authorized to watch the movie in a licensed DVD player, it's still illegal for anyone to develop or offer for sale the technology which would allow you to access the content in an unauthorized fashion.) So you won't see a future StarOffice advertising (or even posessing) the ability to read "protected" documents, because doing so would be illegal.
The legal construction is that by offering a program which can read these files, they are selling you a way to bypass the protections I put into place to protect my copyrighted content. The fact that you want to use it to access your own copyrighted content holds no sway.
Try this little experiment: Take any reasonably-complex document, export[1] it from a Microsoft app, re-import it back into the same app, and see if the results are comparable. Try simple tasks with the re-imported document, like fixing a spelling error, changing the size of an image. (This experiment tests the export capability of the application while controlling for the rendering and editing functions; a flawed import function could skew results.)
[1] export defined here as saving to a non-proprietary, unencrypted, non password-protected file format which *could* be read and understood by another application.
I wonder how corporations in the future are going to account for this? I can't imagine a CFO maintaining a straight face as he says "I put a huge amount of our corporate capital property into a trust we can never withdraw from..." but will we see CIO's saying "I put a huge ammount of our corporate intellectual property into a format we can never extract it from..."? All those marketing brochures, all those design documents, all those powerpoint charts....
But this sort of DRM is on your side - as in, people can't break into your files.
No, what you mean is "people other than Microsoft, or those who figure out what Microsoft know" can't break into your files. I'll bet my next paycheck you can't offer anything like proof that Office 11 doesn't have a { back door | bug } { they | office of homeland security | some ingenious cracker } can use to get the info. Remember: DMCA does not make developing/using such a hack illegal, only the act of { selling | sharing | tellingr someone else where to download it } is prohibited.
This is a warning to all of you who have Important Data inside a Microsoft file format: This is your last chance to get the information out of a proprietary format and into a format you can control.
Once this hits the market, anyone trying to sell software which can bypass the access control mechanisms of Word to read copyrighted information (it's all copyrighted) from within a protected document will be strung-up as a DMCA criminal.
This feature will not be offered as a part of Open Office.
It's kinda like those "Last gas for 50 miles" signs you see outside the overpriced gas station in the middle of the desert. Here's your chance. Miss it, and there's no turning back.
Nothing sad about it. Now you know why IBM was so restrained during the Settlement phase.
Q1. If you own a mongo-hardware server and you need 50 more virtual machines running Windows, how many copies of Windows do you have to push through Purchasing before they come on-line?
A1. 50.
Q2. If you own a mongo-hardware server and you need 50 more virtual machines running Linux, do you even have to let Purchasing know?
A2. No.
Extra Credit: According to the Settlement, how much of a discount can Microsoft offer you for the second, third, etc license for Windows?
maybe we can BEG vmware to release a version for OS X?
You misunderstand. VMware is an IA-32 virtualization application, which means is forms an application barrier around (and therefore requires) a real x86 processor. Its free-software counterpart is plex86. You'll never see a versaion of VMware for OS X until you first see OS X running on the IA-32 (x86) platform.
Connetix VirtualPC is an IA-32 emulator, meaning it emulates in software the functions of x86 hardware. Its free-software counterpart is bochs, which is available for OS X today.
There's a certain { amount of spectrum | number of machines } which neither you (the comsumer) nor I (the government) can easily use.
Let's make a deal: I'll recommend that you be allowed to use { that spectrum | those machines } as long as you { agree to abandon it | give me the root password } whenever I demand it. Sounds like a good deal to you?
While it may seem like a good way to get more spectrum for "unlicensed" (i.e.: first come, first served) uses, what this really amounts to is trading the limited "level-playing-field" spectrum for a bit more spectrum which can be shut down by military (or other governmental) interests at any time.
So before you jump on the "this is great" bandwagon, think carefully; what will be the checks and balances to prevent a shutdown by the military for non-military reasons? Will access to the this spectrum be considered a guaranteed right (ala Free Speech) of a privlege granted at the pleasure of whatever administration happens to be in power at the moment?
Imagine my suprise when just around 100 years later we're coming back around to the same type of corporations that dominated the late 19th century.
You might be interested in a book called The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. The premise of the book (part of a series) is that American society is dominated by 4 archetypical generations, each with it's own focus on political, cultural, and spiritual life formed by the conditions of the nation when they were growing up. This leads to a (4 x ~25 year) cycle in each of these realms.
So, what surprises you (the growing tide of monopolies today similar to the growing tide of monopolies 100 years ago) actually falls into a predictable pattern (would it surprise you to learn that 100 years before Teddy Roosevelt's time our young country experienced a similar peak in institutionalized business power? Would it surprise you to learn that the American Revolution itself was the child of a revolt against institutionalized business power about a hundred years prior to that?) with astonishing accuracy.
The Fourth Turning is three quarters "History of America from the perspective of Today" and one quarter "History of America from the perspective of twenty-five years from now." Check out the Author's commentary concerning the events of September 11'th.
Nope. I got this wrong, and hereby retract my question regarding Reuters. Apparently they got it right.
According to the associated court papers, the RIAA is claiming the right (as the copyright holder) to subpoena the identity of internet users from ISP's under the theory that downloading a copy of a copyrighted file is an act of copyright infringment. Apparently, demonstrating that the downloaded file was re-published is not necessary. Apparently the Court is agreeing.
So how long will it be before someone ties their/var/log/httpd/access_log into a perl script which automatically forwards a subpoena to the appropriate ISP demanding the identity of every visitor to a web site? I'm sure glad they all registered for Passport, it makes my job so simple.
After all, all of the files on my web server are copyrighted, and I am the copyright owner, and I know the IP address of the host which requested the file...
Can I get the caching proxy owners this way as well?
We need to combat this FUD. We need to keep our terminology straight.
The MPAA is (rightly, IMHO) upset about people publishing MPAA.mp3 files on the internet.
There is no law which makes it illegal to share.mp3 files on the internet. RIAA.mp3 files are a sub class.
There is no law which makes it illegal to share other kinds of files on the internet. Again, RIAA.mp3 files are a sub class.
It irks me when the MPAA tries to tag anyone who shares files, or even specifically.mp3 files as a "pirate". To me, that's at least overly broad and at most libelous. Now we hear that CD-R's (which we admit can be used to save "files") must therefore be taxes because of the possibility that some of those files will be.mp3 files, and some of those.mp3 files will be RIAA.mp3 files, and some of those RIAA.mp3 files will be RIAA.mp3 files which are unauthorized copies.
Don't give in to their FUD.
Of course, if everyone disables sharing, there won't be anything to download, but I guess that's the point of the exercise.
No. That's what the RIAA want's you to think is the point of the exercise. But what we really need to do is just make sure that none of the 600 files we downloaded (and shared) last night are being published in violation of applicable copyright laws.
If you want to mount an effective boycott of the MPAA then hit them where it will hurt. Share lots and lots of (.mp3 and other kinds of) files; make p2p a vibrant community, but boycott MPAA files: don't download them and don't share them.
Did Reuters get this wrong, or have I misread something?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered Verizon Communications Tuesday to turn over the name of a
customer suspected of downloading songs over the Internet, handing a victory to recording companies in their fight against online piracy.
According to what I read in the complaint, the DMCA authorizes a publisher to subpoena the identity of an alleged copyright infringer. "...RIAA believed a computer on Verizon's internet service was distributing to the public for download unauthorized copies of hundreds of copyrighted sound recordings..."
Was the verizon subscriber targeted because he was downloading RIAA music files, or because he was publishing (offering for download) RIAA music files?
Enquiring minds want to know? I expect a retraction (or a re-write) of the Reuters quote any time now. I suspect the RIAA FUD campaign is working too well, inadvertently causing some journalist with average integrity to because a part of their FUD engine. Can a publisher assert copyright infringment charges against a posessor (rather than a publisher) of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work?
You're supposed to be surprised when Apple reports a profit two quarters in a row. Reporting a back-to-back loss is just another line in the standard "they'll be backrupt before Windows 3.0 even ships..." joke.
If you're going to use asymmetric crypto for legal purposes, to sign stuff, for instance, then the secret cannot be easily changed...
Not really. Clearly I can have any number of cryptographic signatures which are valid for me. I could change them daily, if I'm willing to bear the transaction cost of ensuring each new signature is accepted as valid. A one-year time frame seems about right to me.
And if I'm using a new signature, I'll certaintly want to ensure that no one accepts any of my old signatures as valid. So we add an expiration date to the signature: Valid only until...
Anyone asking for my signature will want to ensure the signature provided has neither expired not been revoked, as part of their own due dilligence. Anyone attempting to prove my signature against my repudiation would be well served by showing not only my valid signature, but proof that the signature was made while it was still valid. (That's why, even in a non-cryptographic and non-digital world, it is common to have important signed documents (such as deeds of trust) recorded promptly with a fair arbiter.) Then, if I later claim compromise of my signature, it becomes my burden to prove that my signature was compromised at the time (and within the historical context of) the signature was known to have occurred.
For example, I am willing to copy stuff that is 40 or more years old...
That's copying, as opposed to publishing. Despite the name, copyright is aimed more toward allowing the author to control the publication of a work. The term "copy right" stems from the available technology at the time: only those in the business of publishing has the capability to make copies.
It's only recently I've heard of publishers getting uppitty about people making copies for their own use. For the most part, if you're making a copy for yourself no one will caer, even if the work you're copying was just recently released.
Publication is where copyright has its effefct. If you make a copy of some 40-year-old (or even 60-year-old) recording and try to sell it you are open to charges of copyright infringment. The same applies if you were to make a recording of your own performand of some copyrighted work. No one is going to get on your back for singing "Happy Birthday" to your kids, but if anyone tried to publish (sell) a copy of your performance, there would be royalties to pay to the "Happy Birthday" copyright owner.
Had the copyright term not been extended, your performance of "Happy Birthday" would no longer be encumbered by copyright, and you would be free to publish your own performance as you see fit.
It's only recently that "normal people" were brainwashed into believing that making a personal copy of something under 20 years old was a no-no. It's not. Fair Use gives you that right.
Congress has made a mess. Congress needs to clean it up.
Is sharing on p2p networks a better way to procede?
Not if you mean ignoring copyright law, it isn't. It's not your job to clean-up the mess Congress has made: it's your job to hold their feet to the fire until they've cleaned it up themselves. Otherwise they'll never understand the mess they've made, and never learn how to avoid making a similar mess in the future.
(Sometimes evem I'm surprised how much being a parent has taught me...)
In my mind, Mickey Mouse is an asset owned by Disney, so why should it expire?
First, it's not really Mickey Mouse, as you know it. The copyright extension under discussion extends (as an example) Disney's copyright to "Steam Boat Willie", which is the first cartoon short featuring a character called "Mickey Mouse". Their copyright prevents you from making a derivative work of that character.
And why should it expire? Disney offers an excellent example themselves; If the copyright for certain works had not expired, you would be unable to enjoy the Disney version of (for example) Jungle Book (which was originally published by Rudyard Kipling).
I'm interested in your counter argument; Why do you propose that an original idea (such as a cartoon mouse, or a story about a boy raised by wolves) should indefinitely remain the property of the first person to write about it, or of whatever corporation happens to purchase it?
This is not about Mickey Mouse, it's about the price your children and grandchildren will be paying, a price you only had to pay a portion of. Remember: the value of those theoretical "billions of dollars" a reverse decision would have cost Disney (and other authors) is a value which Congress transferred (taxed) from the public domain and handed to Disney (and other authors) on a silver platter. And if you don't think those were real dollars you've just been taxed, wait until you hear how loud Disney (and other authors) complain about "taking of future revenue" the first time (it has never been seriously proposed) someone suggests reducing the copyright term. Expect the Supreme Court to be fielding a question like: "Does Eminent Domain extend to Intellectual Property as well?"
The Supreme Court has spoken. You'll get nowhere beating up on them now. Any change has to come from Congress. We need to rephrase this debate as a Public Domain Tax being granted primarily as Corporate Welfare but I don't know how well an idea like this will fly under a Republican dominated administration.
That works both ways, and as such, goes the wrong direction.
The author proposes support for the concept of "no right without responsibility", a noble gesture at least. But that also means "no responsibility without right". He inadvertently offers me (as a malicious hacker) absolute indemnity from responsibility simply by abdicating my rights to the process. This would, for example, allow me to SPAM with impunity, and if anyone ever called me on it, I could just say "well, it's not my process, go ahead and kill it if you want to..."
How does an assaulted system owner know if the remote assult is coming from unauthorized worm-spawn or from an approved process actively trying to assault a remote system?
Wouldn't it be better to hold system owners responsible for the actions their system takes, with the presumption that any activity a host undertakes is either actively authorized or passively authorized through complicity?
My personal opinion, which I don't expect to carry much weight: I accept full responsibility for any action my system undertakes. You will never catch one of my systems granting a request to act as the base for a remote attack. If you do, you are welcome to ask my system to kill the process, and since I accept all responsibility for any actions my system undertakes, you can assume that my machine would not grant your request to kill the process unless it had my authorization to do so.
Nevertheless, it could be instructive to consider the implications of how this could be accomplished. In doing so, we could establish a baseline and get a sense of things to look for if an exploit of this type were to be produced in reality.
Here is how I would create such a system, with an effort to address the many problematic areas pointed out by other readers. I invite all criticism.
1) A system can be created, using p2p protocols, to build a database of known infringing hosts. You simply ask p2p hosts for copyrighted files and make a note of what you get.
2) At a specific time, trigger a latent feature of software on the infringing hosts to expose personally identifiable information tying the infringing host to an infringing user for prosecution. This could be triggered by something as innocent as a remote system requesting an otherwise non-existant file with a special "trigger" filename.
3) The exposing feature would only be triggered on those hosts which have already been proven to be serving infringing material, only on those hosts which are within the requisite jurisdiction, and only after the proper warrants (authorizing the search) were secured. The information would simply not be requested from non-infringing hosts, or from hosts where the proper legal access could not be obtained. This should addresses any "illegal search" concerns.
4) It would be legal for a p2p client manufacturer to willingly include such a latent feature within their pre-compiled binary. This represents an "infection vector" which would not be detected by any virus scanning, or by looking for modifications to executables. Other infection vectors, such as the proposed MPAA "worm" would be technically possible, but likely untenable in a legal sense. The "infection vector" need not even be associated with the p2p application, a 3rd party DLL or service pack could provide an infection vector even on systems which use "historical" (existing prior to the development of this system) or open-source p2p client applications.
5) Since no "out of the ordinary" information would be sent until the moment the feature was triggered, network analysis would not detect the latent vulnerability. The only hint of a system compromise in this fashion would be the analysis of the date sent in response to a request for this non-existant file. Encryption could be used to obfuscate even that.
6) Since the p2p client has already been proven to be capable of sharing files with remote systems, no possible configuration of firewalling (or similar technology) would prevent the transfer of the requested personally identifiable data to a remote requesting system, provided the requesting system masqueraded as a simple p2p client requesting a willingly shared file..
7) The latent feature would be technically capable of performing any action the owning user is allowed to perform, inclusing relaying personally identifying information, compiling a list of all files on the system (or just those which are being illegally published), or any other action. In actuality, I suspect the latent feature would be only a stub allowing a more specific payload to be downloaded. This would allow the eventual exploit to collect only that information for which legal authorization to collect exists. This also allows the exploit to be developed for a specific hardware/os configuration. Most importantly, the development need not be done before this system is set up. Specific development could be performed up until the instant when the exploit needs to be delivered.
Such a system would, I believe, meet all the criteria of respecting user privacy, and acting within existing legal framework, while providing the access vectors which the proposed "MPAA worm" claims to offer.
No, I'm not really happy about what I've just written. Please shoot me down.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps many businesses do this, but I smell a lawsuit. If I recall correctly, some electric generator manufacturers got slapped big time for this. Seems there was a big storm somewhere, knocked out a lot of power, and a lot of people needed generators. But since there wasn't an emergengy declaration it was illegal to pull units out of the delivery channels for customers who already had their order in and redirect those units to customers in the storm-affected areas.
Like I said, I smell a lawsuit, or at least some bad publicity.
Solution 1 involves finding a large number of like-minded people who think privacy is important, who think a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet is important, who are willing to spend $250 a piece on an 802.11b AP, and who are willing to set aside their differences long enough to organize a nationwide mesh of interconnected base stations. These people can, over a period of years, build their own wireless hub and give (perhaps low-data rate) Internet access to everyone.
Solution 2 involves finding a rather less large number of like-minded people who think privacy is important, who think a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet is important, who are willing to cast their vote, and who are willing to set aside their differences long enough to organize a nationwide effort to put laws in-place guaranteeing a free and open and non-corporation-controlled Internet like we already have for voice service. This would give everyone who wants it as much data rate as they have today. Oh, and this model has already been proven to work.
In this case, getting the law re-written just might be the easier route.
I read the aticle, but perhaps my point was a bit too subtle.
I've never (in EU or America) seen a really workable definition for drawing a line between 'usage' and 'copyright infringment'. The publishing interests seem to want to reserve the power to declare any particular usage as illegal just as soon as they identify a model which (they believe) is costing them money. So, if I take a photo of my SO standing next to some costumed Episode I character, that's okay. But as soon as the studio thinks they could have charged me a half quid for the photo, it becomes an illegal activity (even if, had they offered the photo for half a quid, there would have been no takers.)
This law seems to do nothing more (or less) than raise the stakes, does nothing to change behavior or offer guidance or clarify acceptable behavior.
Sure, it's aimed at stopping the warez sites today, just like DMCA is aimed at stopping people from pirating DVD's. But that didn't stop Lexmark from using the law to kill the low-cost replacement toner competition, and I suspect it won't be long before we see some industry defining their competition's behavior as infringment and criminalizing them out of business.
I'm going to be calling my local MP to have him shut down and locked up, just as soon as I finish taking down my own movie posters.
Who is going to be responsible for supporting this computer?
"Me, of course." he answered.
Are you going to be paid for the support you offer?
"Of course not." he replied, wondering why I even had to ask that question.
"Then," I replied, "Simple choice: Get a Macintosh. If things change, and you find you will no longer be required to support it, suggest Linux for the power, flexibility, and reduced cost. On the other hand, if things change and you will still be supporting it, but find you will be paid for the support, recommend Windows."
This Director soon became responsible for Information Technology Support at our site, and recommended a cutover to an all-Windows environment. Fortunately, he allowed some of us to run Linux, under "no support offered" terms.
Just a story, of course. ;-)
Only for the first half of it's life.
Then it becomes an 'older technology" generator which costs too-much to throw-out and replace.
There's a direct correlation here to the telephone companies; It's so much more efficient to have all network and routing done by one central switch than to put some sort of router in each home...
Perhaps you would care to do the calculation for us? Let's see: take your average daily home energy use (converted to BTU's) add in your average daily automotive use (you burn how many gallons per day?) converted to BTU's, add in the amount extra you want to have available to sell to power companies: that's your total daily energy requirements. Multiply by a factor of 3.5 to account for the inefficiency of solar conversion, then again by a factor of 1.5 to 5 (depending on the part of the country/climate you live in.) then once more by 2.5 (to account for the fact that the sun only shines usably for 40% of a day) to get your total solar requirements.
One more quick comnversion to square feet and you'll be able to tell me how many acres of solar panels this New York City apartment dweller will have to install to do his part.
Not a realistic solution, but it sure seems great for "buy one today" marketers.
Converting a 2-ton gasoline guzzling SUV into a 2-ton hydrogen guzzling SUV doesn't actually save you anything.
You don't find hydrogen lying around in the same way you find oil. Instead, you usually get hydrogen by adding energy to water. (In this respect, hydrogen acts as a carrier for the energy.) But the energy still has to come from somewhere; and the way our economy is currently rigged, that means burning oil.
There are opportunities for savings: you can insist that any plant which burns oil to make hydrogen must re-capture the carbon; that will have an impact on greenhouse gasses, and it is easier to build/maintain/police that equipment than similar equipment built into every automobile, but it also means that the price of hydrogen will be raised by that much.
But there will also be costs: think for a moment the cost of converting all gasoline engines to hydrogen ones, the cost of the infrastructure (fuel stations, repair facilities, industry skillset retraining) changeover, etc.
Silly poster, He thinks he owns his documents...
Quoth Tim Berners-Lee: "The Paranoids are always the first to suspect..."
I wish someone would call my bluff and prove me wrong, but I don't see it happening.
If you have a document "YOU created and have the permissions for" in a proprietary Microsoft format, you will continue to be able to access YOUR information, but you'll be forced to use a Microsoft tool to do it. This means you'll continue to have access to it only so long as you remain a Microsoft subscriber in good standing. It's kinda like allowing somebody to erect a tollbooth on your driveway, no?
There's no legal requirement for Microsoft to provide tools which would allow you to extract your intellectual property from the file. There's no law mandating an "Export..." menu item, and nothing regulating how well it works. And there's no financial incentive for Microsoft to provide that function, either. If you're looking to stop being their customer, and stop sending them money, why would they provide you with a set of tools to allow you to do this?
Remember that the important content of a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file includes not only the textual information, but also things like the font and stylesheet definitions, the tab settings, table layouts, document change history, etc.
Currently, some of the proprietary Microsoft file formats have been reverse-engineered enough to allow other applications (StarOffice, for example) to import the data and allow you to manipulate it with varying degrees of success. The specific editing features and rendering capability vary by application. Your results may vary. Presumably, if it were important enough to you, you could buy (or write) an application which would give you the editing and rendering capability you desire. (That can be done, for a price.) However, doing so requires that you understand Microsoft's proprietary file format used to store the file. (That information is unavailable at any price.)
But once your document has been "converted" into the new "content managed" file format, you lose even that *for a price* option. DMCA makes it a crime to develop technology which would allow you to bypass the access controls and access the content, even if you are otherwise authorized to access the content. (Think about the DeCSS precedent; It doesn't matter that you own the DVD and are authorized to watch the movie in a licensed DVD player, it's still illegal for anyone to develop or offer for sale the technology which would allow you to access the content in an unauthorized fashion.) So you won't see a future StarOffice advertising (or even posessing) the ability to read "protected" documents, because doing so would be illegal.
The legal construction is that by offering a program which can read these files, they are selling you a way to bypass the protections I put into place to protect my copyrighted content. The fact that you want to use it to access your own copyrighted content holds no sway.
Try this little experiment: Take any reasonably-complex document, export[1] it from a Microsoft app, re-import it back into the same app, and see if the results are comparable. Try simple tasks with the re-imported document, like fixing a spelling error, changing the size of an image. (This experiment tests the export capability of the application while controlling for the rendering and editing functions; a flawed import function could skew results.)
[1] export defined here as saving to a non-proprietary, unencrypted, non password-protected file format which *could* be read and understood by another application.
I wonder how corporations in the future are going to account for this? I can't imagine a CFO maintaining a straight face as he says "I put a huge amount of our corporate capital property into a trust we can never withdraw from..." but will we see CIO's saying "I put a huge ammount of our corporate intellectual property into a format we can never extract it from..."? All those marketing brochures, all those design documents, all those powerpoint charts....
No, what you mean is "people other than Microsoft, or those who figure out what Microsoft know" can't break into your files. I'll bet my next paycheck you can't offer anything like proof that Office 11 doesn't have a { back door | bug } { they | office of homeland security | some ingenious cracker } can use to get the info. Remember: DMCA does not make developing/using such a hack illegal, only the act of { selling | sharing | tellingr someone else where to download it } is prohibited.
Once this hits the market, anyone trying to sell software which can bypass the access control mechanisms of Word to read copyrighted information (it's all copyrighted) from within a protected document will be strung-up as a DMCA criminal.
This feature will not be offered as a part of Open Office.
It's kinda like those "Last gas for 50 miles" signs you see outside the overpriced gas station in the middle of the desert. Here's your chance. Miss it, and there's no turning back.
Nothing sad about it. Now you know why IBM was so restrained during the Settlement phase.
Q1. If you own a mongo-hardware server and you need 50 more virtual machines running Windows, how many copies of Windows do you have to push through Purchasing before they come on-line?
A1. 50.
Q2. If you own a mongo-hardware server and you need 50 more virtual machines running Linux, do you even have to let Purchasing know?
A2. No.
Extra Credit: According to the Settlement, how much of a discount can Microsoft offer you for the second, third, etc license for Windows?
EC: zilcho.
You misunderstand. VMware is an IA-32 virtualization application, which means is forms an application barrier around (and therefore requires) a real x86 processor. Its free-software counterpart is plex86. You'll never see a versaion of VMware for OS X until you first see OS X running on the IA-32 (x86) platform.
Connetix VirtualPC is an IA-32 emulator, meaning it emulates in software the functions of x86 hardware. Its free-software counterpart is bochs, which is available for OS X today.
Let's make a deal: I'll recommend that you be allowed to use { that spectrum | those machines } as long as you { agree to abandon it | give me the root password } whenever I demand it. Sounds like a good deal to you?
While it may seem like a good way to get more spectrum for "unlicensed" (i.e.: first come, first served) uses, what this really amounts to is trading the limited "level-playing-field" spectrum for a bit more spectrum which can be shut down by military (or other governmental) interests at any time.
So before you jump on the "this is great" bandwagon, think carefully; what will be the checks and balances to prevent a shutdown by the military for non-military reasons? Will access to the this spectrum be considered a guaranteed right (ala Free Speech) of a privlege granted at the pleasure of whatever administration happens to be in power at the moment?
You might be interested in a book called The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. The premise of the book (part of a series) is that American society is dominated by 4 archetypical generations, each with it's own focus on political, cultural, and spiritual life formed by the conditions of the nation when they were growing up. This leads to a (4 x ~25 year) cycle in each of these realms.
So, what surprises you (the growing tide of monopolies today similar to the growing tide of monopolies 100 years ago) actually falls into a predictable pattern (would it surprise you to learn that 100 years before Teddy Roosevelt's time our young country experienced a similar peak in institutionalized business power? Would it surprise you to learn that the American Revolution itself was the child of a revolt against institutionalized business power about a hundred years prior to that?) with astonishing accuracy.
The Fourth Turning is three quarters "History of America from the perspective of Today" and one quarter "History of America from the perspective of twenty-five years from now." Check out the Author's commentary concerning the events of September 11'th.
According to the associated court papers, the RIAA is claiming the right (as the copyright holder) to subpoena the identity of internet users from ISP's under the theory that downloading a copy of a copyrighted file is an act of copyright infringment. Apparently, demonstrating that the downloaded file was re-published is not necessary. Apparently the Court is agreeing.
So how long will it be before someone ties their /var/log/httpd/access_log into a perl script which automatically forwards a subpoena to the appropriate ISP demanding the identity of every visitor to a web site? I'm sure glad they all registered for Passport, it makes my job so simple.
After all, all of the files on my web server are copyrighted, and I am the copyright owner, and I know the IP address of the host which requested the file...
Can I get the caching proxy owners this way as well?
- The MPAA is (rightly, IMHO) upset about people publishing MPAA
.mp3 files on the internet.
- There is no law which makes it illegal to share
.mp3 files on the internet. RIAA .mp3 files are a sub class.
- There is no law which makes it illegal to share other kinds of files on the internet. Again, RIAA
.mp3 files are a sub class.
It irks me when the MPAA tries to tag anyone who shares files, or even specificallyDon't give in to their FUD.
No. That's what the RIAA want's you to think is the point of the exercise. But what we really need to do is just make sure that none of the 600 files we downloaded (and shared) last night are being published in violation of applicable copyright laws.
If you want to mount an effective boycott of the MPAA then hit them where it will hurt. Share lots and lots of (.mp3 and other kinds of) files; make p2p a vibrant community, but boycott MPAA files: don't download them and don't share them.
According to what I read in the complaint, the DMCA authorizes a publisher to subpoena the identity of an alleged copyright infringer. "...RIAA believed a computer on Verizon's internet service was distributing to the public for download unauthorized copies of hundreds of copyrighted sound recordings..."
Was the verizon subscriber targeted because he was downloading RIAA music files, or because he was publishing (offering for download) RIAA music files?
Enquiring minds want to know? I expect a retraction (or a re-write) of the Reuters quote any time now. I suspect the RIAA FUD campaign is working too well, inadvertently causing some journalist with average integrity to because a part of their FUD engine. Can a publisher assert copyright infringment charges against a posessor (rather than a publisher) of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work?
Not really. Clearly I can have any number of cryptographic signatures which are valid for me. I could change them daily, if I'm willing to bear the transaction cost of ensuring each new signature is accepted as valid. A one-year time frame seems about right to me.
And if I'm using a new signature, I'll certaintly want to ensure that no one accepts any of my old signatures as valid. So we add an expiration date to the signature: Valid only until...
Anyone asking for my signature will want to ensure the signature provided has neither expired not been revoked, as part of their own due dilligence. Anyone attempting to prove my signature against my repudiation would be well served by showing not only my valid signature, but proof that the signature was made while it was still valid. (That's why, even in a non-cryptographic and non-digital world, it is common to have important signed documents (such as deeds of trust) recorded promptly with a fair arbiter.) Then, if I later claim compromise of my signature, it becomes my burden to prove that my signature was compromised at the time (and within the historical context of) the signature was known to have occurred.
That's copying, as opposed to publishing. Despite the name, copyright is aimed more toward allowing the author to control the publication of a work. The term "copy right" stems from the available technology at the time: only those in the business of publishing has the capability to make copies.
It's only recently I've heard of publishers getting uppitty about people making copies for their own use. For the most part, if you're making a copy for yourself no one will caer, even if the work you're copying was just recently released.
Publication is where copyright has its effefct. If you make a copy of some 40-year-old (or even 60-year-old) recording and try to sell it you are open to charges of copyright infringment. The same applies if you were to make a recording of your own performand of some copyrighted work. No one is going to get on your back for singing "Happy Birthday" to your kids, but if anyone tried to publish (sell) a copy of your performance, there would be royalties to pay to the "Happy Birthday" copyright owner.
Had the copyright term not been extended, your performance of "Happy Birthday" would no longer be encumbered by copyright, and you would be free to publish your own performance as you see fit.
It's only recently that "normal people" were brainwashed into believing that making a personal copy of something under 20 years old was a no-no. It's not. Fair Use gives you that right.
Congress has made a mess. Congress needs to clean it up.
Not if you mean ignoring copyright law, it isn't. It's not your job to clean-up the mess Congress has made: it's your job to hold their feet to the fire until they've cleaned it up themselves. Otherwise they'll never understand the mess they've made, and never learn how to avoid making a similar mess in the future.
(Sometimes evem I'm surprised how much being a parent has taught me...)
First, it's not really Mickey Mouse, as you know it. The copyright extension under discussion extends (as an example) Disney's copyright to "Steam Boat Willie", which is the first cartoon short featuring a character called "Mickey Mouse". Their copyright prevents you from making a derivative work of that character.
And why should it expire? Disney offers an excellent example themselves; If the copyright for certain works had not expired, you would be unable to enjoy the Disney version of (for example) Jungle Book (which was originally published by Rudyard Kipling).
I'm interested in your counter argument; Why do you propose that an original idea (such as a cartoon mouse, or a story about a boy raised by wolves) should indefinitely remain the property of the first person to write about it, or of whatever corporation happens to purchase it?
This is not about Mickey Mouse, it's about the price your children and grandchildren will be paying, a price you only had to pay a portion of. Remember: the value of those theoretical "billions of dollars" a reverse decision would have cost Disney (and other authors) is a value which Congress transferred (taxed) from the public domain and handed to Disney (and other authors) on a silver platter. And if you don't think those were real dollars you've just been taxed, wait until you hear how loud Disney (and other authors) complain about "taking of future revenue" the first time (it has never been seriously proposed) someone suggests reducing the copyright term. Expect the Supreme Court to be fielding a question like: "Does Eminent Domain extend to Intellectual Property as well?"
The Supreme Court has spoken. You'll get nowhere beating up on them now. Any change has to come from Congress. We need to rephrase this debate as a Public Domain Tax being granted primarily as Corporate Welfare but I don't know how well an idea like this will fly under a Republican dominated administration.
The author proposes support for the concept of "no right without responsibility", a noble gesture at least. But that also means "no responsibility without right". He inadvertently offers me (as a malicious hacker) absolute indemnity from responsibility simply by abdicating my rights to the process. This would, for example, allow me to SPAM with impunity, and if anyone ever called me on it, I could just say "well, it's not my process, go ahead and kill it if you want to..."
How does an assaulted system owner know if the remote assult is coming from unauthorized worm-spawn or from an approved process actively trying to assault a remote system?
Wouldn't it be better to hold system owners responsible for the actions their system takes, with the presumption that any activity a host undertakes is either actively authorized or passively authorized through complicity?
My personal opinion, which I don't expect to carry much weight: I accept full responsibility for any action my system undertakes. You will never catch one of my systems granting a request to act as the base for a remote attack. If you do, you are welcome to ask my system to kill the process, and since I accept all responsibility for any actions my system undertakes, you can assume that my machine would not grant your request to kill the process unless it had my authorization to do so.
Clearly this is a contrived hoax.
Nevertheless, it could be instructive to consider the implications of how this could be accomplished. In doing so, we could establish a baseline and get a sense of things to look for if an exploit of this type were to be produced in reality.
Here is how I would create such a system, with an effort to address the many problematic areas pointed out by other readers. I invite all criticism.
1) A system can be created, using p2p protocols, to build a database of known infringing hosts. You simply ask p2p hosts for copyrighted files and make a note of what you get.
2) At a specific time, trigger a latent feature of software on the infringing hosts to expose personally identifiable information tying the infringing host to an infringing user for prosecution. This could be triggered by something as innocent as a remote system requesting an otherwise non-existant file with a special "trigger" filename.
3) The exposing feature would only be triggered on those hosts which have already been proven to be serving infringing material, only on those hosts which are within the requisite jurisdiction, and only after the proper warrants (authorizing the search) were secured. The information would simply not be requested from non-infringing hosts, or from hosts where the proper legal access could not be obtained. This should addresses any "illegal search" concerns.
4) It would be legal for a p2p client manufacturer to willingly include such a latent feature within their pre-compiled binary. This represents an "infection vector" which would not be detected by any virus scanning, or by looking for modifications to executables. Other infection vectors, such as the proposed MPAA "worm" would be technically possible, but likely untenable in a legal sense. The "infection vector" need not even be associated with the p2p application, a 3rd party DLL or service pack could provide an infection vector even on systems which use "historical" (existing prior to the development of this system) or open-source p2p client applications.
5) Since no "out of the ordinary" information would be sent until the moment the feature was triggered, network analysis would not detect the latent vulnerability. The only hint of a system compromise in this fashion would be the analysis of the date sent in response to a request for this non-existant file. Encryption could be used to obfuscate even that.
6) Since the p2p client has already been proven to be capable of sharing files with remote systems, no possible configuration of firewalling (or similar technology) would prevent the transfer of the requested personally identifiable data to a remote requesting system, provided the requesting system masqueraded as a simple p2p client requesting a willingly shared file..
7) The latent feature would be technically capable of performing any action the owning user is allowed to perform, inclusing relaying personally identifying information, compiling a list of all files on the system (or just those which are being illegally published), or any other action. In actuality, I suspect the latent feature would be only a stub allowing a more specific payload to be downloaded. This would allow the eventual exploit to collect only that information for which legal authorization to collect exists. This also allows the exploit to be developed for a specific hardware/os configuration. Most importantly, the development need not be done before this system is set up. Specific development could be performed up until the instant when the exploit needs to be delivered.
Such a system would, I believe, meet all the criteria of respecting user privacy, and acting within existing legal framework, while providing the access vectors which the proposed "MPAA worm" claims to offer.
No, I'm not really happy about what I've just written. Please shoot me down.