You cant file a suit against a "jon doe" in many cases. You need at least a name.
What makes you think so? John Doe suits are fairly common. There is such a thing as pre-service discovery so as to facilitate serving process on the right person when you don't know their identity at the commencement of the suit.
Honestly, it makes sense. If you can discover who injured you, why should we have an artificial barrier that impairs your ability to seek redress for your injury just because the culprit hid himself a bit?
I disagree. I think that copyright infringement should be decriminalized and that law enforcement should not enforce copyrights sua sponte.
Instead, if it's entirely a civil matter, then businesses will have to decide for themselves whether they want to enforce their rights, and will have to bear their own costs when doing so. My taxes won't subsidize them then. This also frees up law enforcement resources for serious matters.
I strongly doubt it. Lawyers don't get disbarred lightly. He's basically just been a world-class asshole. That's not bad enough to merit such a harsh punishment.
Eh, I like the second Romana, but the first was just annoying. Rose is okay, and I liked Liz and Ace. Peri was good, but the Sixth Doctor could make anything crappy.
At any rate, so long as we don't have the annoying companions, e.g. Adric, Sarah Jane, Victoria, and K9, I'm happy. (And yes, I know about what they're doing in the next season)
Trademark fair use permits parties other than the trademark holder to use the mark, so long as they are using it in a descriptive or nominative sense, and there is a lack of confusion.
So if I write a piece of software that is, in fact, designed for Windows, then I don't have to say something stupid like 'designed for the major OS by a large software company in the Seattle area.' I can just say that it is designed for Windows. I have to make sure that customers won't be confused into thinking that it falls within MS's certification program, but that's hardly impossible.
You might still get sued, but that doesn't mean you'd lose. (Incidentally, MS doesn't seem to care much about their program -- the DESIGNED FOR WINDOWS mark isn't even federally registered)
The Doctor has had multiple companions in the past, and it's not that unusual. In fact, I think that only the 6th and 8th Doctors have not, and the latter can be excused as he only appeared once.
Sort of. There is a doctrine of trademark fair use, but as is to be expected given the differing policies and natures of copyright and trademark, it's not quite an equivalent.
Still, I think that simply using the phrase, if not done in a manner that confused customers as to whether or not it had Apple's imprimatur, would be a trademark fair use.
Phrases are uncopyrightable. There is a trademark registration pending, but it'll be a while before it's actually registered. While the logo is likely off bounds, I strongly doubt that the phrase would be. Seems like a trademark fair use to me.
Also, wouldn't a certification mark be more appropriate? Or is Apple planning on avoiding naked licensing issues?
Why not? I mean, I doubt these things are compatable with much else. It seems to be truthful, and isn't inherently confusing. I don't see a problem vis a vis trademark law.
1. That it's a redefinition of the word "marriage" to mean something it never meant before. It's true. Marriage always meant something involving a man and a woman. Anything else is an extension of the meaning. Now you may argue that it's a logical extension, and that it doesn't do anyone any harm, and we can even aggree on that. But an extension it is.
And marriage also always meant between the same race, of proper social standing or caste, between the same religion, etc., until it changed. There is no platonic ideal of marriage, no fixed definition.
Or do you think that if aliens landed today, that no one could marry them simply because all marriages in the past were human-only? (Certainly no one is up in arms about numerous human-nonhuman marriages in popular fiction, so I guess tradition doesn't really count for much)
Marriage is ultimately a certain form of union between people. That doesn't tell us anything about the races, prior marital status, religions, social positions, genders, consanguity or anything else about the people.
We might have a good reason for imposing some limits with regards to some of these attributes, but we can't just do so arbitrarily.
2. That you did have the exact same rights as heterosexual people, including, yes, the right to a heterosexual marriage. It may not be the kind of right you wanted, but technically you had the same rights. (Same as technically if homosexual marriage is allowed, heterosexuals have that right too. They might not want to exert that right, but they have it.) What you wanted was a _new_ right, that noone else had. Again, it may be a logical one, or one that doesn't harm anyone, and we can even aggree there, but it _is_ a new one.
This an old argument, and an incorrect one. In the 60's, segregationist states used it to argue that while interracial marriages were illegal, both blacks and whites had the equal right to marry intraracially. This was nevertheless unconstitutional, because equal application of the law does not mean that it is not discriminatory.
3. Passing laws and granting new rights is a privilege of congress, not of a judge legislating from the bench. The courts of law are the branch that should apply the existing laws, not the ones that make new ones as they see fit. Separation of powers in the state is there for a reason, and let's keep it that way.
Also wrong.
First, in the United States, and most other countries related to England, the courts do have the right to make law. Judicially created law is what the common law is. The courts can create it and alter it as they see fit. The common law includes the majority of contract, property, and tort law. This isn't really relevant in this context, but you're wrong about how the seperation of powers actually works.
Second, the Due Process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments prohibit federal or state governments from denying any right of liberty without due process. Such due process must be both procedural (i.e. the denial must have come about through the proper means) and substantive (i.e. in order for there to be a denial, the reason for the denial must be commensurate with the right at stake). There are similar provisions in state constitutions.
The courts have recognized that there is a fundamental right to marry. Therefore, in order for this to be denied, there must be a sufficiently important reason for doing so. Maintaining segregation, for example, was not a sufficiently good enough reason for denying interracial marriage, resulting in that ban being unconstitutional. So far, no one has been able to come up with a sufficiently good enough reason for maintaining the ban on same-sex marriage.
Thus, no new right has been judicially created. Rather, a legislative denial of that right has been overturned. And this is proper, since civil rights, such as the right to marry, are meant to be protected against the whims of the majority. Our liberties are not subject to vote.
Copyright presently applies to works regardless of whether they were published or not.
However, we can deal with the situation at hand fairly easily, so long as we're considering reforms.
Require publication and deposit as copyright formalities (as has traditionally been the case). Expand the scope of publication to include all sorts of public release, including performance. Expand the requirements for deposit to include such supplementary information as the Copyright Office believes is reasonably necessary to ensure that the work is useful to the public when it enters the public domain. In the case of software, this would require that you deposit copies of well-commented source code in order to get a copyright even on just the binaries. That the source is disclosed doesn't mean that people can copy it at will. It's still copyrighted. But people can learn from it, and we can rely on it being around when the software enters the public domain.
Finally, reduce the term of copyright for software to something reasonable. I think that 5 years ought to be enough.
Not all regulation of interstate commerce by states is unconstitutional, and enough intrastate commerce involves interstate commerce (e.g. by operating over interstate telecommunications systems, even if only within a state) that it's considered interstate commerce.
There is no irony. Lingua franca was a real language, if a pidgin, and it wasn't French.
The reason for the name is because a lot of Franks traveled widely (in no small part because of the Crusades), and so many people outside of western Europe used it as a generic term for people from there. The French also get their name from the Franks.
Congress passes law (for example, majority oppressing minority), Judicial branch slaps it down = not judicial activism.
Of course, they can't just do that. There needs to be a dispute in order for the courts to act. Once they've ruled, stare decisis indicates that the court will rule the same way if presented with essentially the same case. Binding precedent requires lower courts to do likewise.
Thus, if one couple sues a state for denying them the right to marry, and wins, this means that there's no point in the state fighting this further because they'll always lose, and that's a waste of time and taxpayer money.
Bussing was similar, in that the courts did originally try to let school districts desegregate on their own, and they wouldn't, so the courts had to make sure that they complied with the rulings in the civil rights cases.
What judicial activism _really_ is, is simple bitching by the people who lost, and who more often than not, hate the idea of a fair and free society for everyone, instead of just themselves.
Sure, there's the occassional judge who oversteps his bounds, but merely ruling on a controversal case opposite to the way you think it should have come out is not activism.
I mean, just think of how labor intensive it must be to anesthetize the mosquitos, put each one down under a magnifying glass, and with a very steady hand, snip off the relevant bits.
No, a chef is not allowed to patent a recipe or a method of cooking
First, there is a difference between a recipe and a method of cooking (the former is a process for making a specific food, the latter is a process that can be applied to any kind of food).
Second, recipies are entirely patentable as processes. Ditto for methods of cooking, which may involve patentable apparatuses which would be separately patentable as machines. Foods, meanwhile, are patentable, however prepared, as a composition of matter or article of manufacture. Of course, in all cases, the various requirements for patentability must be satisfied.
At any rate, check out US Patent 6,682,765, which is a bread recipe. 6,565,910 is a recipe for making sauces. There's a whole bunch of things like this if you search through the PTO database.
Your problem is that a) you don't seem to have checked with a patent lawyer, and/or b) your recipes aren't novel enough, or nonobvious enough to meet the standard for patentability. If you're clever enough, however, it's entirely possible.
If a chef/company _was_ allowed to patent a method of preparing a certain recipe, the restaurant industry would be a WHOLE different beast.
No, because the recipe would have to be for something new. Cesar Cardini might have been able to patent the Cesar Salad, back in the 1920's. It can't be patented now though, partly because it is too late, and partly because only the inventor can patent it. Since restaurants all basically serve traditional recipes, not much would happen.
(I work for the largest fortune 500 casual restaurant company)
You work for McDonald's? Sorry if I'm not impressed, but many other pimply teenagers do too.
Pure mathematical algorithms are _not_ allowed to be patented
That's right. Applied algorithims are patentable, however, and that's basically what software is. Your whole argument lost in court ages ago.
The courts do not make laws; they only interpret the laws drafted by congress.
Yeah, and the broad language dates to the 1952 Patent Act. The courts didn't come around until the 80's and 90's, however. Don't underestimate their role.
I guess Amazon doesn't have copyright _and_ a patent on their "one-click" "IP" crap.
They have a patent on the method by which it works. They have a copyright on a specific implementation of it. But the patent doesn't cover specific implementations (save to the extent that they use their method), and the copyright doesn't cover the method.
Copyrights and patents don't overlap as to what they protect, but I never said that you couldn't have one thing where the separate relevant parts are protected.
Yes, _ALL_ patents are "beneficial". It just comes down to exactly WHO they are beneficial to.
Whether a patent is beneficial or not depends on whether it is beneficial to the public. No one else matters.
Is a chef allowed to patent his/her method of preparation of a recipe?
Yes, if they meet the various requirements for patentability. Ditto for your other "counterexamples."
Sadly big business has once again bribed our "representatives" into allowing laws to protect their business methods.
Nope. Software and business method patentability basically derive from the courts. The language in the Patent Act is very broad, and the courts eventually came around to interpreting it such that anything under the sun, made by man, is patentable, provided the various requirements of the statute are met.
I don't have an objection to the entire concept of software or business method patents, myself. Rather, I object to them on pragmatic grounds. Those fields are so active that they don't need any additional encouragement for invention. Additionally, the costs of patent compliance are likely to result in an overall reduction of incentive, and a reduction of the net public benefit below what we'd get if there were no patents in those fields at all. Perhaps when and if they slow down, patents would make more sense. Right now, though, it's a bad idea.
Copyrights deal with specific expressions of ideas, but not ideas themselves. The expressions are somewhat broad, since it'd be silly to say that infringement was only if you copied all of a work (what if you left out just a bit) or if you changed it only slightly (e.g. changing a few names here and there). Still, there comes a point where copying is ok, because you cannot copyright beyond the limits of the original expression.
Patents are significantly different, in that they protect inventions, which while not raw ideas, are much closer to them than copyrightable expressions are. There are also other differences, such as patents requiring novelty, nonobviousness, and utility, while copyrights don't require any of those things.
While some given object might embody both an invention and a creative work (e.g. a ROM chip contains software, and the chip itself is an invention), copyrights and patents cover different, non-overlapping aspects of the object.
We could decide that only one aspect should be protected, rather than both, but you can't use one form of protection to cover both aspects.
First, copyright does not protect idea at all. Second, working prototypes are not always practical; they can be expensive, thus making life needlessly difficult for inventors that don't have deep pockets.
And even then, neither should apply to generic ideas - there should be some specificity requirement.
Slashdot Mirror
You cant file a suit against a "jon doe" in many cases. You need at least a name.
What makes you think so? John Doe suits are fairly common. There is such a thing as pre-service discovery so as to facilitate serving process on the right person when you don't know their identity at the commencement of the suit.
Honestly, it makes sense. If you can discover who injured you, why should we have an artificial barrier that impairs your ability to seek redress for your injury just because the culprit hid himself a bit?
I disagree. I think that copyright infringement should be decriminalized and that law enforcement should not enforce copyrights sua sponte.
Instead, if it's entirely a civil matter, then businesses will have to decide for themselves whether they want to enforce their rights, and will have to bear their own costs when doing so. My taxes won't subsidize them then. This also frees up law enforcement resources for serious matters.
I strongly doubt it. Lawyers don't get disbarred lightly. He's basically just been a world-class asshole. That's not bad enough to merit such a harsh punishment.
Ok, how about an LBD?
Got me. Back in the Canon Cat days, instant was defined as 7 seconds, and I would've expected this number to decrease, not increase.
Eh, I like the second Romana, but the first was just annoying. Rose is okay, and I liked Liz and Ace. Peri was good, but the Sixth Doctor could make anything crappy.
At any rate, so long as we don't have the annoying companions, e.g. Adric, Sarah Jane, Victoria, and K9, I'm happy. (And yes, I know about what they're doing in the next season)
Trademark fair use permits parties other than the trademark holder to use the mark, so long as they are using it in a descriptive or nominative sense, and there is a lack of confusion.
So if I write a piece of software that is, in fact, designed for Windows, then I don't have to say something stupid like 'designed for the major OS by a large software company in the Seattle area.' I can just say that it is designed for Windows. I have to make sure that customers won't be confused into thinking that it falls within MS's certification program, but that's hardly impossible.
You might still get sued, but that doesn't mean you'd lose. (Incidentally, MS doesn't seem to care much about their program -- the DESIGNED FOR WINDOWS mark isn't even federally registered)
The Doctor has had multiple companions in the past, and it's not that unusual. In fact, I think that only the 6th and 8th Doctors have not, and the latter can be excused as he only appeared once.
Sort of. There is a doctrine of trademark fair use, but as is to be expected given the differing policies and natures of copyright and trademark, it's not quite an equivalent.
Still, I think that simply using the phrase, if not done in a manner that confused customers as to whether or not it had Apple's imprimatur, would be a trademark fair use.
Phrases are uncopyrightable. There is a trademark registration pending, but it'll be a while before it's actually registered. While the logo is likely off bounds, I strongly doubt that the phrase would be. Seems like a trademark fair use to me.
Also, wouldn't a certification mark be more appropriate? Or is Apple planning on avoiding naked licensing issues?
Why not? I mean, I doubt these things are compatable with much else. It seems to be truthful, and isn't inherently confusing. I don't see a problem vis a vis trademark law.
And he played a rapper in GTA:VC.
Of course he was also a mutant kangaroo in Tank Girl, so I don't think he's all that good at picking out roles.
Also, IIRC, the transparent plates on checkout scanners are made out of sapphire.
No, just useful arts, actually. Science is the subject matter of copyright.
1. That it's a redefinition of the word "marriage" to mean something it never meant before. It's true. Marriage always meant something involving a man and a woman. Anything else is an extension of the meaning. Now you may argue that it's a logical extension, and that it doesn't do anyone any harm, and we can even aggree on that. But an extension it is.
And marriage also always meant between the same race, of proper social standing or caste, between the same religion, etc., until it changed. There is no platonic ideal of marriage, no fixed definition.
Or do you think that if aliens landed today, that no one could marry them simply because all marriages in the past were human-only? (Certainly no one is up in arms about numerous human-nonhuman marriages in popular fiction, so I guess tradition doesn't really count for much)
Marriage is ultimately a certain form of union between people. That doesn't tell us anything about the races, prior marital status, religions, social positions, genders, consanguity or anything else about the people.
We might have a good reason for imposing some limits with regards to some of these attributes, but we can't just do so arbitrarily.
2. That you did have the exact same rights as heterosexual people, including, yes, the right to a heterosexual marriage. It may not be the kind of right you wanted, but technically you had the same rights. (Same as technically if homosexual marriage is allowed, heterosexuals have that right too. They might not want to exert that right, but they have it.) What you wanted was a _new_ right, that noone else had. Again, it may be a logical one, or one that doesn't harm anyone, and we can even aggree there, but it _is_ a new one.
This an old argument, and an incorrect one. In the 60's, segregationist states used it to argue that while interracial marriages were illegal, both blacks and whites had the equal right to marry intraracially. This was nevertheless unconstitutional, because equal application of the law does not mean that it is not discriminatory.
3. Passing laws and granting new rights is a privilege of congress, not of a judge legislating from the bench. The courts of law are the branch that should apply the existing laws, not the ones that make new ones as they see fit. Separation of powers in the state is there for a reason, and let's keep it that way.
Also wrong.
First, in the United States, and most other countries related to England, the courts do have the right to make law. Judicially created law is what the common law is. The courts can create it and alter it as they see fit. The common law includes the majority of contract, property, and tort law. This isn't really relevant in this context, but you're wrong about how the seperation of powers actually works.
Second, the Due Process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments prohibit federal or state governments from denying any right of liberty without due process. Such due process must be both procedural (i.e. the denial must have come about through the proper means) and substantive (i.e. in order for there to be a denial, the reason for the denial must be commensurate with the right at stake). There are similar provisions in state constitutions.
The courts have recognized that there is a fundamental right to marry. Therefore, in order for this to be denied, there must be a sufficiently important reason for doing so. Maintaining segregation, for example, was not a sufficiently good enough reason for denying interracial marriage, resulting in that ban being unconstitutional. So far, no one has been able to come up with a sufficiently good enough reason for maintaining the ban on same-sex marriage.
Thus, no new right has been judicially created. Rather, a legislative denial of that right has been overturned. And this is proper, since civil rights, such as the right to marry, are meant to be protected against the whims of the majority. Our liberties are not subject to vote.
Third, what does Congr
Copyright presently applies to works regardless of whether they were published or not.
However, we can deal with the situation at hand fairly easily, so long as we're considering reforms.
Require publication and deposit as copyright formalities (as has traditionally been the case). Expand the scope of publication to include all sorts of public release, including performance. Expand the requirements for deposit to include such supplementary information as the Copyright Office believes is reasonably necessary to ensure that the work is useful to the public when it enters the public domain. In the case of software, this would require that you deposit copies of well-commented source code in order to get a copyright even on just the binaries. That the source is disclosed doesn't mean that people can copy it at will. It's still copyrighted. But people can learn from it, and we can rely on it being around when the software enters the public domain.
Finally, reduce the term of copyright for software to something reasonable. I think that 5 years ought to be enough.
Well, I think it ought to be 13211321322112.
However, shouldn't it really go: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221, 1113213211, etc.? I'm not sure how you're getting from 1 to 12.
Not all regulation of interstate commerce by states is unconstitutional, and enough intrastate commerce involves interstate commerce (e.g. by operating over interstate telecommunications systems, even if only within a state) that it's considered interstate commerce.
There is no irony. Lingua franca was a real language, if a pidgin, and it wasn't French.
The reason for the name is because a lot of Franks traveled widely (in no small part because of the Crusades), and so many people outside of western Europe used it as a generic term for people from there. The French also get their name from the Franks.
Congress passes law (for example, majority oppressing minority), Judicial branch slaps it down = not judicial activism.
Of course, they can't just do that. There needs to be a dispute in order for the courts to act. Once they've ruled, stare decisis indicates that the court will rule the same way if presented with essentially the same case. Binding precedent requires lower courts to do likewise.
Thus, if one couple sues a state for denying them the right to marry, and wins, this means that there's no point in the state fighting this further because they'll always lose, and that's a waste of time and taxpayer money.
Bussing was similar, in that the courts did originally try to let school districts desegregate on their own, and they wouldn't, so the courts had to make sure that they complied with the rulings in the civil rights cases.
What judicial activism _really_ is, is simple bitching by the people who lost, and who more often than not, hate the idea of a fair and free society for everyone, instead of just themselves.
Sure, there's the occassional judge who oversteps his bounds, but merely ruling on a controversal case opposite to the way you think it should have come out is not activism.
I mean, just think of how labor intensive it must be to anesthetize the mosquitos, put each one down under a magnifying glass, and with a very steady hand, snip off the relevant bits.
No, a chef is not allowed to patent a recipe or a method of cooking
First, there is a difference between a recipe and a method of cooking (the former is a process for making a specific food, the latter is a process that can be applied to any kind of food).
Second, recipies are entirely patentable as processes. Ditto for methods of cooking, which may involve patentable apparatuses which would be separately patentable as machines. Foods, meanwhile, are patentable, however prepared, as a composition of matter or article of manufacture. Of course, in all cases, the various requirements for patentability must be satisfied.
At any rate, check out US Patent 6,682,765, which is a bread recipe. 6,565,910 is a recipe for making sauces. There's a whole bunch of things like this if you search through the PTO database.
Your problem is that a) you don't seem to have checked with a patent lawyer, and/or b) your recipes aren't novel enough, or nonobvious enough to meet the standard for patentability. If you're clever enough, however, it's entirely possible.
If a chef/company _was_ allowed to patent a method of preparing a certain recipe, the restaurant industry would be a WHOLE different beast.
No, because the recipe would have to be for something new. Cesar Cardini might have been able to patent the Cesar Salad, back in the 1920's. It can't be patented now though, partly because it is too late, and partly because only the inventor can patent it. Since restaurants all basically serve traditional recipes, not much would happen.
(I work for the largest fortune 500 casual restaurant company)
You work for McDonald's? Sorry if I'm not impressed, but many other pimply teenagers do too.
Pure mathematical algorithms are _not_ allowed to be patented
That's right. Applied algorithims are patentable, however, and that's basically what software is. Your whole argument lost in court ages ago.
The courts do not make laws; they only interpret the laws drafted by congress.
Yeah, and the broad language dates to the 1952 Patent Act. The courts didn't come around until the 80's and 90's, however. Don't underestimate their role.
I guess Amazon doesn't have copyright _and_ a patent on their "one-click" "IP" crap.
They have a patent on the method by which it works. They have a copyright on a specific implementation of it. But the patent doesn't cover specific implementations (save to the extent that they use their method), and the copyright doesn't cover the method.
Copyrights and patents don't overlap as to what they protect, but I never said that you couldn't have one thing where the separate relevant parts are protected.
Yes, _ALL_ patents are "beneficial". It just comes down to exactly WHO they are beneficial to.
Whether a patent is beneficial or not depends on whether it is beneficial to the public. No one else matters.
Is a chef allowed to patent his/her method of preparation of a recipe?
Yes, if they meet the various requirements for patentability. Ditto for your other "counterexamples."
Sadly big business has once again bribed our "representatives" into allowing laws to protect their business methods.
Nope. Software and business method patentability basically derive from the courts. The language in the Patent Act is very broad, and the courts eventually came around to interpreting it such that anything under the sun, made by man, is patentable, provided the various requirements of the statute are met.
I don't have an objection to the entire concept of software or business method patents, myself. Rather, I object to them on pragmatic grounds. Those fields are so active that they don't need any additional encouragement for invention. Additionally, the costs of patent compliance are likely to result in an overall reduction of incentive, and a reduction of the net public benefit below what we'd get if there were no patents in those fields at all. Perhaps when and if they slow down, patents would make more sense. Right now, though, it's a bad idea.
Copyrights deal with specific expressions of ideas, but not ideas themselves. The expressions are somewhat broad, since it'd be silly to say that infringement was only if you copied all of a work (what if you left out just a bit) or if you changed it only slightly (e.g. changing a few names here and there). Still, there comes a point where copying is ok, because you cannot copyright beyond the limits of the original expression.
Patents are significantly different, in that they protect inventions, which while not raw ideas, are much closer to them than copyrightable expressions are. There are also other differences, such as patents requiring novelty, nonobviousness, and utility, while copyrights don't require any of those things.
While some given object might embody both an invention and a creative work (e.g. a ROM chip contains software, and the chip itself is an invention), copyrights and patents cover different, non-overlapping aspects of the object.
We could decide that only one aspect should be protected, rather than both, but you can't use one form of protection to cover both aspects.
First, copyright does not protect idea at all. Second, working prototypes are not always practical; they can be expensive, thus making life needlessly difficult for inventors that don't have deep pockets.
And even then, neither should apply to generic ideas - there should be some specificity requirement.
What the hell are you even talking about?