This is not due to any existing law. Microsoft has pressured EBay to remove all auctions related to the sale of their products by TELLING them that it is illegal. EBay knows that it is much easier to simply comply with what Big Brother tells them than to argue about it. Hell, I would probably back down to, if I were them.
There is no definitive legal precedent supporting Microsoft's stance, in any case.
Exactly. As it stands now, for the vast majority of the populace, selecting a leader is like deciding which dishwasher detergent to purchase at the grocery store. You have a couple of brands with big, flashy, colorful boxes, that smell the same, look the same, and are probably manufactured by the same company. Want an alternative brand? Sorry, your store doesn't carry those.
People put about that much effort into their decision, too: which of these two mainstream, functionally identical, overblown, similar looking men should I pick for President? Does it matter? No.
Cases like this are a waste of the legal system's resources
That's what is really, really stupid about your entire argument. Ford brought on the lawsuit; 2600 defended themselves, and yet you blame 2600 for wasting the legal system's resources? How can that possibly make any sense whatsoever? Answer: it can't, and doesn't.
How would you fight it? If you honestly believe that Blizzard owns the Battle.net protocol, then please, provide a link for everyone to see with Blizzard's patent specification for their system. Wait, you mean Battle.net is not patented??
If I make a car with particular wheels, and someone else makes different wheels that work just like mine, I would hope that I had patented my design so that I could start a lawsuit. In Blizzard's case, they did nothing to protect their protocol, and it is the right of anyone else to implement an application which accomplishes the same tasks. Sorry, that's it. There really can be no argument about this. Please take your stupidity elsewhere.
Reverse engineering is legal. Blizzard never patented their protocol. Not patenting = not owning. This is really very simple. No one stole anything from Blizzard. They thought that their Battle.net protocol was too secret for someone else to reproduce, rendering the patent process unnecessary. Whoops. They were wrong. Are you beginning to smell your own ignorance yet?
Let me start by questioning whether you or anyone else can be entirely sure of the intentions of the original writers of the Bill of Rights. As we can not be sure of these intentions, we rely on the Supreme Court to interpret and determine exactly what was meant. If people are dissatisfied with such an interpretation, they will be angry and speak about it. So please, be tired all you want of people "using" the First Amendment to defend things. The rest of us will continue to express what our feelings are on the subject. Your opinion is no more valid than anyone else's.
As for the rest of your argument, I would suggest that the fact that you find particular material distasteful is no reason why such material might be desirable to someone else. I would also suggest that I do believe that such things were meant to be protected by the First Amendment. Because defining what is distasteful (or "trash", as you put it) is so dependant upon societal factors within your local geographic area, the government was never able to reasonably define what obscenity is (a definition exists, but relies on "community standards" to set specifics). If we use the idea of "community standards" to regulate everyone else's Internet, then the only material that could possibly be available on the Internet would be material that is not offensive to anyone, anywhere. Since you have stated that you believe all speech should be protected, this narrows a bit to mean that the Internet only contains pictures and sounds that are not offensive to anyone, anywhere.
Please, anyone chime in if they think that sounds like a good situation. I want to look at what I want to look at. If you can't keep it away from your child, it is not my problem, nor is it the government's. What is "trash" is too subjective for a federal law. Any federal law. End of story.
You will be hard pressed to define obscenity/porn. As it has no concrete definition (i.e. relies on "community standards"), attempting to regulate it on a global network is nothing short of ridiculous.
The internet is not a clean, sterile little playground on which your child can frolic unsupervised at the expense of everyone else. Yes, it does mean that your child needs supervision. There is almost undoubtedly a lab attendant in your child's computer lab, and there are library employees. So no, you do not need to hold your child's hand in the library or computer lab unless you absolutely trust no one.
If my parents hadn't punished me for anything growing up, I would have grown up to be a big jerk with no values. You could say the same about any kid. The government stepping in and eliminating a potential danger to your kid won't accomplish anything if you can't teach your kid right from wrong in the first place. Bad influences are a fact of life that we all have to learn to live with.
Let's be reasonable here. This is an industry group. They are not a company or corporation, or even a government body. That is, they don't have shareholders, and they don't get to take home bonuses if they have a "good year." In fact, the people at the BSA would consider the best year to be one in which they have no work at all.
What do you think? That the BSA is a group of industry insiders who have normal jobs in addition to their roles as license police? I'd like to see you prove that; a more reasonable person would be inclined to believe that they are in fact a separate organization whose financial viability depends on being able to find and prosecute license violators. A good year is one in which they are able to bully several million dollars out of various city organizations, college campuses, and high schools. (Hey, last year must have been a pretty "good year", right?)
Well, I'm not going to flame you over it, but your insinuation that people who don't wish to be audited must have something to hide is not only unfounded and ludicrous, but fascist as well. With your brilliant use of logic, you can join a long line of people with dictatorial aspirations, or a long line of people who lick the boots and kiss the asses of those with dictatorial aspirations. Take your pick. It would be a waste of my time to argue with you about this, but go ahead and try and support that view point if it makes you feel better. Please consider exactly what is involved in an audit and why else that might be undesirable before making stupid, ill thought-out, oversimplified blanket statements like that in the future, please.
The BSA's point of existence is to protect software manufacturers. I cannot disagree with you on that. Their benefit to me personally (or the University involved in this story) is, however, questionable at best.
I think that one store arresting the guy just made a lot of people bitter. It really is just starting to sound like it was a stupid, stupid mistake that went too far.
Re: Seriously, it wasn't a typo
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READ the links. The store confirmed the price as $129 and quoted the $200 savings part. On different occasions.
Re:Buy.com had a similar controversy 3 years ago.
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I was in college for that one. A whole bunch of guys on my floor ordered multiple monitors; I think someone might have even actually got a few. I can almost guaranteee you, though, that the Buy.com incident was NOT a mistake. They took in thousands of dollars in orders they had no intention of shipping, and deliberately took their time about refunding the money. Companies like that deserve to be sued out of existence.
Re: Jumping to conclusions
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Jumping to conclusions is a popular pasttime at Slashdot. The fact that the store confirmed the price to multiple people, and even actually sold the card at that price (supposedly) to a few pretty much eliminates any possibility that this was a typographical error on the website. You could argue that it was a general pricing error that somehow spread to all of the stores AND was posted to the website, but it certainly was not a typo.
I also, however, do not believe that Best Buy is legally obligated to honor any price they posted. It's their store, and it seems to me that they can charge whatever they want at any time. (Whether this is morally right or not is irrelevant)
Actually, the opinion of the/. community is mostly that reverse engineering and competition are legal. It doesn't matter at all how good or bad battle.net works. People discussing this are merely responding to the overused and irrelevant argument that bnetd is not necessary.
As all of your arguments fail to come from any actual, legal standpoint, I think I will cease to argue with you now. Please get out the big book of U.S. law and find the section where it says that products are illegal if they cut into another company's business. Oh wait, it's not there. As for people modifying it and extending it, that is their fault and not the original authors'. You really should try to understand the law; it is clear that you actually believe that Blizzard has some sort of right to make money which supercedes individual rights. You will notice that this is a fallacy. Educate yourself before making any more such ridiculous claims.
I didn't defeat my own argument, and neither did you. Don't jump to conclusions. First of all, you only attempted to discredit one of my THREE examples, and then you proved that you did not read the court case of Sony vs. Connectix, which concerns only the reverse engineering of a product (specifically, that it was legal to do so). Your implication that the case was won because of VGS's copy protection is pure speculation; as the decision of the court upheld it simply because reverse engineering is fair competition.
Please, if you're going to keep using this lame car example, explain exactly in what way bnetd is similar to selling keys to other people's cars. I'll continue to use arguments from the real world, on the other hand.
I have little time for more of this, but please explain yourself a bit better. How is bnetd "stealing" anything from Blizzard? They simply implemented the same protocol. I don't understand how this compares to what you are saying. (because it doesn't.)
Stop trying to evade the issue. The DMV is a government service, doofus, and therefore not even remotely applicable to the discussion we are having. As for giving away something for free which someone else sells for money - hmmm. I believe you'll find plenty of free products out on the 'net that nearly exactly simulate the operations of Microsoft's products. A little program called Wine springs to mind. Clean room implementation; fully protected by copyright law and the principles of capitalism. Connectix VGS - the Playstation emulator - held up in a court of law as FAIR COMPETITION to Sony's console. The law is completely on my side, and your crazy goverment service emulator isn't going to change that, slappy.
The comparison you've made is unfortunately without merit. Bnetd is a server emulator. It can not be used to facilitate harm to the general public. The outlawing of heavy weaponry is justified because the majority of society wants it that way and feels protected by it. Bnetd can only be seen theoretically to harm one company; laws are not made to protect single corporations; rather, it is their own responsibility to insure their financial success.
There are no specific laws outlawing "dangerous tools" as this would be too vague. This is all of course not considering the fact that you continue to state, over and over again, that bnetd has no purpose other than facilitating piracy. This is ignorant and incorrect. Its purpose was to allow small groups of people to simulate the entire experience of Battle.net without logging into Blizzard's servers, which are drastically overused and full of stupid kids. Please stop pretending that it is somehow useless, as this is what it was meant to be used for.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not due to any existing law. Microsoft has pressured EBay to remove all auctions related to the sale of their products by TELLING them that it is illegal. EBay knows that it is much easier to simply comply with what Big Brother tells them than to argue about it. Hell, I would probably back down to, if I were them.
There is no definitive legal precedent supporting Microsoft's stance, in any case.
Clinton signed the DMCA. Take a look again at who supports the entertainment industry most - it ain't the Republicans, buddy.
Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, at least here in the U.S. So what's your point?
What'll I do? Oh boo hoo! Loser.
That's why you can turn off the topic in your preferences, stupid.
Exactly. As it stands now, for the vast majority of the populace, selecting a leader is like deciding which dishwasher detergent to purchase at the grocery store. You have a couple of brands with big, flashy, colorful boxes, that smell the same, look the same, and are probably manufactured by the same company. Want an alternative brand? Sorry, your store doesn't carry those.
People put about that much effort into their decision, too: which of these two mainstream, functionally identical, overblown, similar looking men should I pick for President? Does it matter? No.
That was a joke, son!!
Cases like this are a waste of the legal system's resources
That's what is really, really stupid about your entire argument. Ford brought on the lawsuit; 2600 defended themselves, and yet you blame 2600 for wasting the legal system's resources? How can that possibly make any sense whatsoever? Answer: it can't, and doesn't.
How would you fight it? If you honestly believe that Blizzard owns the Battle.net protocol, then please, provide a link for everyone to see with Blizzard's patent specification for their system. Wait, you mean Battle.net is not patented??
If I make a car with particular wheels, and someone else makes different wheels that work just like mine, I would hope that I had patented my design so that I could start a lawsuit. In Blizzard's case, they did nothing to protect their protocol, and it is the right of anyone else to implement an application which accomplishes the same tasks. Sorry, that's it. There really can be no argument about this. Please take your stupidity elsewhere.
Reverse engineering is legal. Blizzard never patented their protocol. Not patenting = not owning. This is really very simple. No one stole anything from Blizzard. They thought that their Battle.net protocol was too secret for someone else to reproduce, rendering the patent process unnecessary. Whoops. They were wrong. Are you beginning to smell your own ignorance yet?
Let me start by questioning whether you or anyone else can be entirely sure of the intentions of the original writers of the Bill of Rights. As we can not be sure of these intentions, we rely on the Supreme Court to interpret and determine exactly what was meant. If people are dissatisfied with such an interpretation, they will be angry and speak about it. So please, be tired all you want of people "using" the First Amendment to defend things. The rest of us will continue to express what our feelings are on the subject. Your opinion is no more valid than anyone else's.
As for the rest of your argument, I would suggest that the fact that you find particular material distasteful is no reason why such material might be desirable to someone else. I would also suggest that I do believe that such things were meant to be protected by the First Amendment. Because defining what is distasteful (or "trash", as you put it) is so dependant upon societal factors within your local geographic area, the government was never able to reasonably define what obscenity is (a definition exists, but relies on "community standards" to set specifics). If we use the idea of "community standards" to regulate everyone else's Internet, then the only material that could possibly be available on the Internet would be material that is not offensive to anyone, anywhere. Since you have stated that you believe all speech should be protected, this narrows a bit to mean that the Internet only contains pictures and sounds that are not offensive to anyone, anywhere.
Please, anyone chime in if they think that sounds like a good situation. I want to look at what I want to look at. If you can't keep it away from your child, it is not my problem, nor is it the government's. What is "trash" is too subjective for a federal law. Any federal law. End of story.
You will be hard pressed to define obscenity/porn. As it has no concrete definition (i.e. relies on "community standards"), attempting to regulate it on a global network is nothing short of ridiculous.
Please excuse the lateness of this post.
The internet is not a clean, sterile little playground on which your child can frolic unsupervised at the expense of everyone else. Yes, it does mean that your child needs supervision. There is almost undoubtedly a lab attendant in your child's computer lab, and there are library employees. So no, you do not need to hold your child's hand in the library or computer lab unless you absolutely trust no one.
If my parents hadn't punished me for anything growing up, I would have grown up to be a big jerk with no values. You could say the same about any kid. The government stepping in and eliminating a potential danger to your kid won't accomplish anything if you can't teach your kid right from wrong in the first place. Bad influences are a fact of life that we all have to learn to live with.
Let's be reasonable here. This is an industry group. They are not a company or corporation, or even a government body. That is, they don't have shareholders, and they don't get to take home bonuses if they have a "good year." In fact, the people at the BSA would consider the best year to be one in which they have no work at all.
What do you think? That the BSA is a group of industry insiders who have normal jobs in addition to their roles as license police? I'd like to see you prove that; a more reasonable person would be inclined to believe that they are in fact a separate organization whose financial viability depends on being able to find and prosecute license violators. A good year is one in which they are able to bully several million dollars out of various city organizations, college campuses, and high schools. (Hey, last year must have been a pretty "good year", right?)
Well, I'm not going to flame you over it, but your insinuation that people who don't wish to be audited must have something to hide is not only unfounded and ludicrous, but fascist as well. With your brilliant use of logic, you can join a long line of people with dictatorial aspirations, or a long line of people who lick the boots and kiss the asses of those with dictatorial aspirations. Take your pick. It would be a waste of my time to argue with you about this, but go ahead and try and support that view point if it makes you feel better. Please consider exactly what is involved in an audit and why else that might be undesirable before making stupid, ill thought-out, oversimplified blanket statements like that in the future, please.
The BSA's point of existence is to protect software manufacturers. I cannot disagree with you on that. Their benefit to me personally (or the University involved in this story) is, however, questionable at best.
I think that one store arresting the guy just made a lot of people bitter. It really is just starting to sound like it was a stupid, stupid mistake that went too far.
READ the links. The store confirmed the price as $129 and quoted the $200 savings part. On different occasions.
I was in college for that one. A whole bunch of guys on my floor ordered multiple monitors; I think someone might have even actually got a few. I can almost guaranteee you, though, that the Buy.com incident was NOT a mistake. They took in thousands of dollars in orders they had no intention of shipping, and deliberately took their time about refunding the money. Companies like that deserve to be sued out of existence.
Jumping to conclusions is a popular pasttime at Slashdot. The fact that the store confirmed the price to multiple people, and even actually sold the card at that price (supposedly) to a few pretty much eliminates any possibility that this was a typographical error on the website. You could argue that it was a general pricing error that somehow spread to all of the stores AND was posted to the website, but it certainly was not a typo.
I also, however, do not believe that Best Buy is legally obligated to honor any price they posted. It's their store, and it seems to me that they can charge whatever they want at any time. (Whether this is morally right or not is irrelevant)
Actually, the opinion of the /. community is mostly that reverse engineering and competition are legal. It doesn't matter at all how good or bad battle.net works. People discussing this are merely responding to the overused and irrelevant argument that bnetd is not necessary.
As all of your arguments fail to come from any actual, legal standpoint, I think I will cease to argue with you now. Please get out the big book of U.S. law and find the section where it says that products are illegal if they cut into another company's business. Oh wait, it's not there. As for people modifying it and extending it, that is their fault and not the original authors'. You really should try to understand the law; it is clear that you actually believe that Blizzard has some sort of right to make money which supercedes individual rights. You will notice that this is a fallacy. Educate yourself before making any more such ridiculous claims.
I didn't defeat my own argument, and neither did you. Don't jump to conclusions. First of all, you only attempted to discredit one of my THREE examples, and then you proved that you did not read the court case of Sony vs. Connectix, which concerns only the reverse engineering of a product (specifically, that it was legal to do so). Your implication that the case was won because of VGS's copy protection is pure speculation; as the decision of the court upheld it simply because reverse engineering is fair competition.
Please, if you're going to keep using this lame car example, explain exactly in what way bnetd is similar to selling keys to other people's cars. I'll continue to use arguments from the real world, on the other hand.
I have little time for more of this, but please explain yourself a bit better. How is bnetd "stealing" anything from Blizzard? They simply implemented the same protocol. I don't understand how this compares to what you are saying. (because it doesn't.)
Please explain how bnetd produces CD-Keys. I'm dying to know.
Stop trying to evade the issue. The DMV is a government service, doofus, and therefore not even remotely applicable to the discussion we are having. As for giving away something for free which someone else sells for money - hmmm. I believe you'll find plenty of free products out on the 'net that nearly exactly simulate the operations of Microsoft's products. A little program called Wine springs to mind. Clean room implementation; fully protected by copyright law and the principles of capitalism. Connectix VGS - the Playstation emulator - held up in a court of law as FAIR COMPETITION to Sony's console. The law is completely on my side, and your crazy goverment service emulator isn't going to change that, slappy.
The comparison you've made is unfortunately without merit. Bnetd is a server emulator. It can not be used to facilitate harm to the general public. The outlawing of heavy weaponry is justified because the majority of society wants it that way and feels protected by it. Bnetd can only be seen theoretically to harm one company; laws are not made to protect single corporations; rather, it is their own responsibility to insure their financial success.
There are no specific laws outlawing "dangerous tools" as this would be too vague. This is all of course not considering the fact that you continue to state, over and over again, that bnetd has no purpose other than facilitating piracy. This is ignorant and incorrect. Its purpose was to allow small groups of people to simulate the entire experience of Battle.net without logging into Blizzard's servers, which are drastically overused and full of stupid kids. Please stop pretending that it is somehow useless, as this is what it was meant to be used for.