So, first of all, you have a contract with the shop who sold you the item, not with some manufacturer in China. If the shop sends it back to the manufacturer, fine. But if the manufacturer thinks it's not covered, the shop needs to cover warranty issues anyway. Not that they don't often try to hide bihind this, but legally, they shouldn't.
Note that any manufacturer's warranty/service insurance is additional the statutory obligations on the retailer to not sell substandard goods. If they do the customer is entitled to either a refund or replacement. N.B. they are not in any way obliged to accept a repair or a "credit note". Indeed doing so may weaken their position if they continue to have problems. Though if the customer agrees to a repair and the retailer either dosn't carry it out or takes an excessive amount of time then it becomes a matter of "breach of contract" by the retailer.
Secondly, you may expect items you buy to have a "nominal lifetime". For things like fridges you should expect it to last at least 10 years. If it breaks after 8, you share the repair costs with the shop 80/20. After a while though, you have to PROVE it was a hidden defect all along, and not something caused by normal use.
For "durable goods", in the UK, up to six months it's the retailers responsibility to prove that it wasn't faulty. Unless there's applicable case law stating otherwise. IIRC most case law actually extends the retailers period of responsibility.
It's a good idea, but the Dixons Sales Group (DSG), of which PC World is a member (along with Currys, Dixons/Currys Digital, The Link and Pixmania) have the worst Customer Service department ever
Has this been actually tested? There is very stiff competition when it comes to having poor "customer service" departments.
two notes on this reply: 1. the linux installation may very well void the warranty, true, but for a different reason. they say that the system needs to be in the same state that it has left the factory, with the installation of the original os still on the hard drive. that's why some people take the preinstall of windows, shrink the partition down to about 5GB, and leave it in emergency cases like this.
If this were the actuall condition then even running the Windows install would violate the warentee. Especially installing software or running Windows update, etc.
The only way to deal with UK retailers like this is - you pull a recorder on the table and ask for the statement to be recorded for "Trading Standards purposes". No threats, not screams, no arguments. This is enough to get them into sane mode. Same for phone calls and similar for email. While I have not had that with PC World I have had similar dealings with Misco and others and the magic TS words usually works.
Note that the law in the UK is that all goods offered for sale must be of "satisfactory quality". Within 6 months of purchase the onus is generally on the retailer to prove that this was the case. After 6 months the onus tends to be on the customer.
Overall, while IMO the laptop should be warrantied against such failure, specifically in the Linux case the warranty may indeed be void.
And if that led to terrorists succeeding and killing some people, you'd say it was worthwhile.
What these hyperthetical terrorists were overlooked because there was a lack of proper warrants. Leading to so many wire-taps that there was so much "noise" that the "signal" was lost. Whereas if there had been oversight the people doing the wire-tapping would have been kept more "on task". Including the likes of a judge being able to say "Why havn't you asked for a warrant for these people?"...
Chaining everybody up in their homes in straightjackets all day probably helps against terrorist plots too
Except for the slight problem that if you tried this you'd still have plenty of people running around free. Given that people can't chain themselves up:)
This isn't a Hollywood movie, satellites don't have hang time.
Actualky you could do this by having a highly elliptical orbit. The problem is that orbital mechanics means that your satellite would be moving fastest when closest to the Earth (the best point to do observations) and slowest when furthest away. There's also the complexity of the Earth rotating thus your orbital period needs to be such that you can observe the same point on the surface as frequently as possible.
There's a number of useful things you can know about a satellite, just knowing it's orbit.
You might also be able to get clues by looking at it, both optically and by radar. It's also rather hard to hide a launch especially if you have your own satellites, AFAIK the "stealth rocket" is yet to be invented.
We don't actively deny anything. We simply say, "Here's a list of all satellites known to us. If it's not on the list, as far as we know, it doesn't exist."
In which case maybe any satellites not on the list should be considered "pirate satellites". Free for anyone to use as target practice for ASAT weapons. Or maybe arrange for them to acidentally on purpose impact with deorbited satellites/expired boosters.
This reminds me of an issue we have at work. At work, we run OpenOffice now, it gave us flexibility and yet fully functional... except for one guy, the Editor. He installed it, and the next day went to me "Frankly, it sucks. I won't use it." So, we have this one Office 07 guy out there, and he keeps getting angry when he can't read any documents we send him,
IIRC Sun brought out an addon for MS Office which enables it to read OASIS formats.
or we can't read his documents, yet it's our fault because we won't pay for Office '07 when everyone else is happy with Open Office.
Since he's the one making the fuss maybe he should be paying for both the software and any retraining required.
I know this guy, he just went home, installed it, looked, went "this doesn't look like Office 07" and left it at that. Until we can woo this kind of person, however, I fear that OO, and any open standard wp for that matter, will never truely break into mainstream,
Interestingly to this kind of mentality the fact that Microsoft constantly tinker with user interfaces dosn't appear to be an issue...
If the police leave something in your car like that, do you now legally own them?
Since they deliberatly installed the device in your car you could probably consider it a gift. Even if legally it was "unsolicited goods" you could probably charge "rent" for it, especially if it was hooked up to the vehicle electrical system.
If a burglar breaks into your house and leaves his jacket, I'm pretty sure he can't ask for it back.
Their leaving if there could be "accidental" plus the police would probably want it as evidence. Whereas if you have possible evidence of police wrongdoing the last people you want to handle it are the main suspects.
Of course this is ridiculous because the only people that will be effected by it are innocent people. Criminals and (gasp) terrorists will simply find other ways of communicating.
Assuming they havn't already worked out ways of communicating which are unaffected by third party evesdropping. Actually this may well have an effect on criminals, the information gathered is potentially very valuable to criminals. Most obviously identity theft and blackmail.
The cafe owners will lose business, and innocent folks will suffer a completely useless invasion of privacy so the government can say they are doing something without actually doing something that makes any difference.
That's the best case senario. The problem with such "security theater" is that it is quite capable of weakening actual security.
Besides, this isn't about ELIMINATING exterior lighting, it is about designing lighting solutions to minimize wasted light that pollutes the sky.
Wasted light is wasted energy. There is no drawback to this idea.
You still need to consider the issue of how well the light actually illuminates whatever it is you are trying to illuminate in the first place.
It's called "security theater," and that's all most airports provide. All those metal detectors at government buildings, courts and so on only prevent two things: stupid criminals and honest people from going about their business without let or hindrance.
The problem with "security theater" is that it is at best useless. At worst it decreases actual security, either by taking resources away from (less obvious) security measures which actually are effective or by introducing risks which didn't exist before. The original article gives the example of "criminal friendly lighting".
Or just drop the DRM, use a codec that's supported cross-platform, install a BitTorrent tracker and stick links to torrents on the website. No 'iPlayer' needed. Job done. Seriously, I'm paying for this. I think that's how it should be done. If 'content providers' don't like the lack of DRM, stop using them. Don't tell me that I won't be able to watch SomeGreatProgramme. Make your own programmes.
The DRM is very much a political requirement. Especially given that these programmes will only become available after broadcast. Plenty of the BBC's material is already available "by other means" sometimes as soon as minutes after broadcast. (No need for "post production" to remove commercial breaks.) With this being DRM free very much cross platform. Offering a service which is inferior to "pirating". Will both encourage people to pirate BBC content and encourage people to make BBC content available via regular bittorrent.
My tax dollars go to pay for hundreds of roads I'll never drive on, ambulances I'll never ride in, police officers who will never lend me a hand, defense attorneys I'll never need, garbage dumps I'll never put so much as a scrap of paper in, water systems I'll never take a drink from.
Charging on a "per use" basis could easily wind up more expensive. Since you have the overhead of working out how much to charge people, sending out bills, dealing with people who havn't paid, people who have actually paid but have had their record of payment lost, etc. etc.
Again from his post, he says: "The journal is therefore SELLING MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AGAINST THE TERMS OF THE LICENCE (NO COMMERCIAL USE)"
Distributing someone else's copyrighted work without their permission is simply against the law. The copyright holder can take legal actions to both stop the "pirate" doing this and recover damages from them. If they are doing so as a commercial enterprise the damages which can be claimed tend to be greater...
And again, I must ask... why wasn't anyone ARRESTED for this? If an individual had created and distributed such a program, he would be imprisoned for years and the 6 o'clock news would run a half a dozen segments along the lines of "Special Report : OMG TEH HACKERS CAN STEAL YOUR HARD DRIVE!". Why doesn't anyone care when a corporation does it?
There is a distinct lack of prisons for "corporate people". Indeed the whole "corporations are people" meme just falls apart when it comes to criminal (as opposed to civil) law. It also dosn't help when the concept of "limited liability", something which was only intended to be relevent to a bankrupt company, is instead treated as a shield for the activities of what amount to criminal gangs.
We filed our DMCA counter-notification and are awaiting the mandatory ten day time period.
Interestingly they put up "This content has been removed at the request of copyright agent Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America." but omit to mention if counter notification has been filed. I wasn't aware that there was a requirement to publically name the source of the original takedown notice. This could generate a lot of complaints to both parties...
My understanding of the DMCA is that there is little accountability for such false accusations, and I see that as one of the big problems. There's no penalty for wrongly jerking someone around unless they choose to come after you in court.
The only other possibility would be if it were possible to use a DMCA takedown notice against these troublemakers.
Heck, if we were talking about parking, it's like handing out a ticket to every car on the street *regardless* of whether the meter has expired or not, or if they are parked in their own driveway.
A closer analogy would be something more like towing all the cars in a street, impounding then, then destroying them if they stay in the pound for more than 10 days. A parking ticket does not immediatly deprive someone of their car...
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So, first of all, you have a contract with the shop who sold you the item, not with some manufacturer in China. If the shop sends it back to the manufacturer, fine. But if the manufacturer thinks it's not covered, the shop needs to cover warranty issues anyway. Not that they don't often try to hide bihind this, but legally, they shouldn't.
Note that any manufacturer's warranty/service insurance is additional the statutory obligations on the retailer to not sell substandard goods. If they do the customer is entitled to either a refund or replacement. N.B. they are not in any way obliged to accept a repair or a "credit note". Indeed doing so may weaken their position if they continue to have problems. Though if the customer agrees to a repair and the retailer either dosn't carry it out or takes an excessive amount of time then it becomes a matter of "breach of contract" by the retailer.
Secondly, you may expect items you buy to have a "nominal lifetime". For things like fridges you should expect it to last at least 10 years. If it breaks after 8, you share the repair costs with the shop 80/20. After a while though, you have to PROVE it was a hidden defect all along, and not something caused by normal use.
For "durable goods", in the UK, up to six months it's the retailers responsibility to prove that it wasn't faulty. Unless there's applicable case law stating otherwise. IIRC most case law actually extends the retailers period of responsibility.
It's a good idea, but the Dixons Sales Group (DSG), of which PC World is a member (along with Currys, Dixons/Currys Digital, The Link and Pixmania) have the worst Customer Service department ever
Has this been actually tested? There is very stiff competition when it comes to having poor "customer service" departments.
two notes on this reply: 1. the linux installation may very well void the warranty, true, but for a different reason. they say that the system needs to be in the same state that it has left the factory, with the installation of the original os still on the hard drive. that's why some people take the preinstall of windows, shrink the partition down to about 5GB, and leave it in emergency cases like this.
If this were the actuall condition then even running the Windows install would violate the warentee. Especially installing software or running Windows update, etc.
The only way to deal with UK retailers like this is - you pull a recorder on the table and ask for the statement to be recorded for "Trading Standards purposes". No threats, not screams, no arguments. This is enough to get them into sane mode. Same for phone calls and similar for email. While I have not had that with PC World I have had similar dealings with Misco and others and the magic TS words usually works.
Note that the law in the UK is that all goods offered for sale must be of "satisfactory quality". Within 6 months of purchase the onus is generally on the retailer to prove that this was the case. After 6 months the onus tends to be on the customer.
Overall, while IMO the laptop should be warrantied against such failure, specifically in the Linux case the warranty may indeed be void.
Statutory rights trump warentees.
And if that led to terrorists succeeding and killing some people, you'd say it was worthwhile.
What these hyperthetical terrorists were overlooked because there was a lack of proper warrants. Leading to so many wire-taps that there was so much "noise" that the "signal" was lost.
Whereas if there had been oversight the people doing the wire-tapping would have been kept more "on task". Including the likes of a judge being able to say "Why havn't you asked for a warrant for these people?"...
Chaining everybody up in their homes in straightjackets all day probably helps against terrorist plots too
:)
Except for the slight problem that if you tried this you'd still have plenty of people running around free. Given that people can't chain themselves up
Same thing here, RIAA cant bring a lawsuit for copyright infringement for songs they don't own the copyright to, 'most probably' wont cut it in court.
It could also get them slapped with "contempt of court" charges.
This isn't a Hollywood movie, satellites don't have hang time.
Actualky you could do this by having a highly elliptical orbit. The problem is that orbital mechanics means that your satellite would be moving fastest when closest to the Earth (the best point to do observations) and slowest when furthest away. There's also the complexity of the Earth rotating thus your orbital period needs to be such that you can observe the same point on the surface as frequently as possible.
There's a number of useful things you can know about a satellite, just knowing it's orbit.
You might also be able to get clues by looking at it, both optically and by radar. It's also rather hard to hide a launch especially if you have your own satellites, AFAIK the "stealth rocket" is yet to be invented.
Cuz if I were going to put a spy satellite up, I'd totally put a flag on it so they knew whose spy satellite it was.
You might want to put a flag on it, just not your flag on it. If you really wanted to confuse people you'd use the flag of somewhere like Zimbabwe.
We don't actively deny anything. We simply say, "Here's a list of all satellites known to us. If it's not on the list, as far as we know, it doesn't exist."
In which case maybe any satellites not on the list should be considered "pirate satellites". Free for anyone to use as target practice for ASAT weapons. Or maybe arrange for them to acidentally on purpose impact with deorbited satellites/expired boosters.
This reminds me of an issue we have at work. At work, we run OpenOffice now, it gave us flexibility and yet fully functional... except for one guy, the Editor. He installed it, and the next day went to me "Frankly, it sucks. I won't use it." So, we have this one Office 07 guy out there, and he keeps getting angry when he can't read any documents we send him,
IIRC Sun brought out an addon for MS Office which enables it to read OASIS formats.
or we can't read his documents, yet it's our fault because we won't pay for Office '07 when everyone else is happy with Open Office.
Since he's the one making the fuss maybe he should be paying for both the software and any retraining required.
I know this guy, he just went home, installed it, looked, went "this doesn't look like Office 07" and left it at that. Until we can woo this kind of person, however, I fear that OO, and any open standard wp for that matter, will never truely break into mainstream,
Interestingly to this kind of mentality the fact that Microsoft constantly tinker with user interfaces dosn't appear to be an issue...
Or even better, put each of them into separate packages, mail one to China and one to America. Would love to see the police phone bill after that ^_^
The US dosn't tend to have that much GSM and what does exist might not be on the right frequency.
If the police leave something in your car like that, do you now legally own them?
Since they deliberatly installed the device in your car you could probably consider it a gift. Even if legally it was "unsolicited goods" you could probably charge "rent" for it, especially if it was hooked up to the vehicle electrical system.
If a burglar breaks into your house and leaves his jacket, I'm pretty sure he can't ask for it back.
Their leaving if there could be "accidental" plus the police would probably want it as evidence. Whereas if you have possible evidence of police wrongdoing the last people you want to handle it are the main suspects.
Of course this is ridiculous because the only people that will be effected by it are innocent people. Criminals and (gasp) terrorists will simply find other ways of communicating.
Assuming they havn't already worked out ways of communicating which are unaffected by third party evesdropping. Actually this may well have an effect on criminals, the information gathered is potentially very valuable to criminals. Most obviously identity theft and blackmail.
The cafe owners will lose business, and innocent folks will suffer a completely useless invasion of privacy so the government can say they are doing something without actually doing something that makes any difference.
That's the best case senario. The problem with such "security theater" is that it is quite capable of weakening actual security.
Besides, this isn't about ELIMINATING exterior lighting, it is about designing lighting solutions to minimize wasted light that pollutes the sky.
Wasted light is wasted energy. There is no drawback to this idea.
You still need to consider the issue of how well the light actually illuminates whatever it is you are trying to illuminate in the first place.
It's called "security theater," and that's all most airports provide. All those metal detectors at government buildings, courts and so on only prevent two things: stupid criminals and honest people from going about their business without let or hindrance.
The problem with "security theater" is that it is at best useless. At worst it decreases actual security, either by taking resources away from (less obvious) security measures which actually are effective or by introducing risks which didn't exist before. The original article gives the example of "criminal friendly lighting".
Or just drop the DRM, use a codec that's supported cross-platform, install a BitTorrent tracker and stick links to torrents on the website. No 'iPlayer' needed. Job done. Seriously, I'm paying for this. I think that's how it should be done. If 'content providers' don't like the lack of DRM, stop using them. Don't tell me that I won't be able to watch SomeGreatProgramme. Make your own programmes.
The DRM is very much a political requirement. Especially given that these programmes will only become available after broadcast. Plenty of the BBC's material is already available "by other means" sometimes as soon as minutes after broadcast. (No need for "post production" to remove commercial breaks.) With this being DRM free very much cross platform.
Offering a service which is inferior to "pirating". Will both encourage people to pirate BBC content and encourage people to make BBC content available via regular bittorrent.
My tax dollars go to pay for hundreds of roads I'll never drive on, ambulances I'll never ride in, police officers who will never lend me a hand, defense attorneys I'll never need, garbage dumps I'll never put so much as a scrap of paper in, water systems I'll never take a drink from.
Charging on a "per use" basis could easily wind up more expensive. Since you have the overhead of working out how much to charge people, sending out bills, dealing with people who havn't paid, people who have actually paid but have had their record of payment lost, etc. etc.
Again from his post, he says: "The journal is therefore SELLING MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AGAINST THE TERMS OF THE LICENCE (NO COMMERCIAL USE)"
Distributing someone else's copyrighted work without their permission is simply against the law. The copyright holder can take legal actions to both stop the "pirate" doing this and recover damages from them. If they are doing so as a commercial enterprise the damages which can be claimed tend to be greater...
And again, I must ask... why wasn't anyone ARRESTED for this? If an individual had created and distributed such a program, he would be imprisoned for years and the 6 o'clock news would run a half a dozen segments along the lines of "Special Report : OMG TEH HACKERS CAN STEAL YOUR HARD DRIVE!". Why doesn't anyone care when a corporation does it?
There is a distinct lack of prisons for "corporate people". Indeed the whole "corporations are people" meme just falls apart when it comes to criminal (as opposed to civil) law.
It also dosn't help when the concept of "limited liability", something which was only intended to be relevent to a bankrupt company, is instead treated as a shield for the activities of what amount to criminal gangs.
Maybe their coming excuse.. their computer's AI took over and sent out the notices itself.
:)
With the I part of AI being most definitly fiction
We filed our DMCA counter-notification and are awaiting the mandatory ten day time period.
Interestingly they put up "This content has been removed at the request of copyright agent Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America." but omit to mention if counter notification has been filed. I wasn't aware that there was a requirement to publically name the source of the original takedown notice. This could generate a lot of complaints to both parties...
My understanding of the DMCA is that there is little accountability for such false accusations, and I see that as one of the big problems. There's no penalty for wrongly jerking someone around unless they choose to come after you in court.
The only other possibility would be if it were possible to use a DMCA takedown notice against these troublemakers.
Heck, if we were talking about parking, it's like handing out a ticket to every car on the street *regardless* of whether the meter has expired or not, or if they are parked in their own driveway.
A closer analogy would be something more like towing all the cars in a street, impounding then, then destroying them if they stay in the pound for more than 10 days. A parking ticket does not immediatly deprive someone of their car...