Just what exactly gives you the right to use the software?
Lawful posession.
Like if you lawfully buy a pack of gum -- or are given one for free -- you can use it. There's nothing magical about creative works.
It's the same thing. Just like how the owner of a book (as opposed to the holder of the copyright pertaining to the work embodied within the book) has the right to read it by virtue of his ownership of it.
Meh. These laws were passed because the pro-oppressive-copyright interests were greedy. They're being broken because the pro-reformed-copyright interests are greedy.
Seems reasonable. Hell, the ultimate purpose of copyright is to satiate the greed of the public for public domain works. So I don't see greed as a problem in and of itself; it's what it's directed towards that's the issue.
Working hard doesn't entitle you to make a living. If you decide to buy some land, plant crops and charge people for the oxygen they give off, you're going be SOL.
You need to come up with a better justification for this sort of thing. Sweat of the brow has NEVER been a justification for copyright, and it's been specifically thrown out by the courts before. The purpose behind copyright is in fact, much, much different.
If I was cited for my movie downloads, I would just pay the fine as I am guilty of copyright infringement. (Assuming I keep the movie, and all other provisions, etc.)
Well, that's big of you, but most of us don't have $150,000 per movie lying around -- and incidentally, you don't have to have kept the movie to have broken the law.
What exactly is wrong with the MPAA not wanting people to film movies?
Because, while I have no doubt that they might find it in their best interests to not want such things to happen, that doesn't mean that strong, expansive copyrights are in everyone's best interests. The MPAA argument is basically the old 'what's good for General Motors is good for the country' routine, but that's not necessarily so.
It is entirely within the realm of possibility that at least some activities currently considered to be infringing are, in fact, beneficial to society as a whole.
[It is] immoral to a degree.
No, not really. Copyright, it seems to me, is pretty much amoral. Generally, it's neither morally good or bad to establish or to infringe copyrights. This isn't unusual; there's nothing immoral about jaywalking, typical parking or moving violations, zoning laws, etc. Not all laws are based in morality.
If morality is involved in any degree, I would say that morals are typically in favor of those that create, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, whether legally or illegally.
No, the point of a patent is to ensure that the invention enters the public domain, is well known, and generally promotes the progress of the useful arts. Patents are intended to result in public benefits.
The _method_ of doing this is to provide a reward for the inventor. But that's not the actual purpose.
Your misconception is like saying that rewards for criminals are offered so that money can be given to informers, when the real point is to apprehend criminals.
I agree that there are amazingly huge problems with the system, though. But we'd probably have better luck fixing things if people carefully bore in mind that they're not supposed to specially benefit private individuals.
Look, it's simple: If you don't like the restrictions, DON'T BUY IT. That means if you don't like the Microsoft EULA's then DON'T BUY THEM.
Yes, but that's a less than optimal solution. It's far better to express our dislike for such restrictions by getting the law changed so that such restrictions become impossible.
Voting with your wallet sure as hell isn't the _only_ way of voting, you know.
IIRC, there's always one point in each of the games where Guybrush can die: when he's underwater. Yes, as we all know, he can hold his breath for ten minutes, but if you're patient, you can drown him.
OTOH, bear in mind that as things stand now, if the PTO has the prior art in hand -- typically because it's an earlier patent -- then once the to-be-challenged patent is granted, such prior art cannot be used against it. This is because the PTO is assumed to have done their job and would've already considered it, even if in fact they did not.
This, and the high burden of pursuasion (clear and convincing evidence) are two things that seriously need to be reformed in favor of challengers; more than implementing a prior art database, IMO.
Actually, nothing special needs to be done to cause something to qualify as prior art. So far as published materials go, basically if it's available to the public somewhere, it qualifies already. There are a lot of problems with the patent system, but what counts as prior art isn't really one of them.
I would suspect that even they have some discretion. For example, if they could only arrest one person due to, e.g. time constraints (the other one would get away), they'd probably opt for the worse offender. It seems similar to prosecutorial discretion, wherein the government doesn't have to try to make every possible criminal case, due in no small part to their inability to do so. Instead they can pick the cases they want to prosecute.
There generally is not a magical moral duty in the US. Unless you have done something specific such that a duty might arise, you don't need to report crimes or potential crimes (as distinguished from withholding information in an investigation), or do anything to help save people. While it may be morally reprehensible to sit back and watch someone die due to something you aren't responsible for, when you could've easily saved them, you generally are not legally required to help. This isn't just for crimes, it's also for torts.
As for lawyers, while ethical codes vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the ABA Model Rules are good as rules of thumb at the very least. Rule 1.6(b) states that:
A lawyer may reveal [confidential information] to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes is necessary to prevent the client from committing a criminal act that the lawyer believes is likely to result in imminent death....
Note the use of 'may.' That means it's at the lawyer's discretion. It is not the same as 'shall,' where the lawyer has no choice in the matter. The preamble and official comments make clear that a decision to not break confidentiality isn't a breach of ethics and isn't punishable.
IIRC, some jurisdictions don't permit a breach at all. Though failure to disclose information is of course never the same thing as rendering active assistance in illegal activities, which is forbidden. And after-the-fact knowledge is definately subject to confidentiality rules.
This all can weigh pretty heavily on criminal defenders. It's not entirely uncommon for a defender to know for a fact that their client is guilty, to know where the bodies are buried literally, and to not only be unable to do anything about that, but to still have to work to get their client off the hook.
Fair use is not limited to any particular sort of use. Those are just _likely_ fair uses. In fact, you can have a parody or whatever that isn't a fair use. To be a fair use, each particular use has to be examined with a four factor test; the particular circumstances of the use are critical, and preclude blanket statements.
Personal copies also can be fair uses, as we see with regards to some time shifting and space shifting copies (see the Sony and Diamond cases, respectively). SOME personal copies are permitted by the AHRA, but not very many. Similarly some copies are permitted by 17 USC 117, but again, not very many. Those are both limited exceptions. They may at times overlap with fair use, but they aren't coextensive with it.
Well firstly, moral rights do not exist in movies.
Secondly, moral rights is the biggest crock of bullshit ever, and don't exist _period_. The fact that there's a law means little, when the law is outright wrong.
Copyright is utilitarian from beginning to end. There's nothing else to it.
Much as I agree that art shouldn't be censored, I have no problems with people refraining from viewing art that they personally find distasteful -- whether that restraint is in whole or in part.
It's good that uncensored art is available so that people cannot take the choice to see the whole thing away from others. But it's just as good for people who want to see bowdlerized versions to be able to do so _for themselves_.
As for the copyright issue, it's a nonstarter. It is essential to not permit the derivative right to expand this far, lest it harm derivative works which are art in their own right; including this one. Artists are not the end all be all of art. The audience is just as, perhaps more important than the artist, for art can't exist in a void. It's useless without someone to appreciate it, or not, as they will. People should not be prevented from having whatever reaction they like.
Meh. I liked those pucks. A lot depended on how you held them. I found the best way was to make a sort of cage with your fingertips around the mouse, and to move it from the edges.
As for a suggestion, I'd like to put the scrollwheel on the side so that it's controllable with the thumb, and make it a jog wheel so that there's no need to give it a whirl, move the controlling digit back into place, and repeat.
The Macintosh keyboard had NO Apple symbol at all.
I stand corrected, though I admit, I could've sworn that one had crept in there by the time the Mac Plus keyboard had shown up.
(The IIgs keyboard was never actually sold with Macs, was it? I remember it having a fairly unique design that matched the styling of the GS)
Well... at least by the time I was in the business of selling Macs, none of them but Performas and laptops came with any kind of keyboard. You had to seperately buy whichever sort you liked, which pissed off customers to no end, let me tell you. They weren't cheap at all.
However, the IIgs design was basically the same sort as used in the Mac SE and Mac II that appeared the next year. The IIgs keyboard doesn't really clash or anything. The main differences are 1) the shape of the keycaps, 2) the grooves in the space between keyboard and keypad, 3) the upper area of the keyboard above the number row, 4) the small frame around the keys, 5) the positions of the control and caps lock keys. These don't really stand out unless you know what you're looking for.
The IIc was somewhat more primative in design than the IIgs (not a value judgment; it was just an earlier step) but there's clearly a close connection.
I suggest the book AppleDesign for more on this.
I'm actually puzzled why Apple put the "Apple" on the later command keys, since the symbol is not used in any of their software to denote keyboard shortcuts. The purists among us bristle at references to "apple-q to quit". Bah! It's "command-q".:)
I'm more puzzled as to why they used the symbols they did for Shift, Option, and Control, when none of those were on (domestic) keyboards for a long time. Likewise, naming the button command does little when it's nowhere evident to users that that's what it's called.
I think that symbols _and_ localized names would've been better, for all metakeys.
Of course, I also love the Lisa keyboard pull out help cards, but then, I seem to be much fonder of sensible things than Apple is.
So... does the caps lock key lock mechanically, the way the old Apple keyboards did? Or is it another one of those useless pieces of crap that just have an LED and nothing more to indicate what's going on with it.
Ah yes, the open- and closed-apple keys. Introduced on the Apple IIe
Ah! I'm shocked that people would forget that the apple keys were introduced on the Apple III. The IIe came later.
Morphed into Command and Option on the Apple IIgs
This is _sort_ of correct, but skims over some things.
The option key was introduced on the Apple Lisa (which had a closed apple key as well). The Macintosh then kept the option key, but since Steve was concerned that the apple symbol was seen too often (it was used in Lisa menus to denote shortcuts) the apple key became the command key, with its distinctive glyph (_and_ the apple glyph).
However, the Lisa and Macintosh keyboards both had closed apple symbols. It wasn't until the ADB keyboards came along that the apple changed to an open-apple. This was basically due the new industrial design that Apple adopted at the time, and which could be seen in the IIc, IIgs, Mac SE, and Mac II. So as you say, and IIRC, the IIgs was the first to have both an open apple and option key, but it was in no small part due to the fact that the open apple symbol looked better to Cupertino.
Of course, an annoying side effect was that the positions of the two apple keys on the IIgs were reversed. Since a lot of games expected them to be as they had been before (open closed, l to r) this was very annoying.
And arguably it's constitutional in nature. Certainly it's flown in the face of the various statutes that have been on the books for well over a hundred years, and traditionally you don't expect that out of common law.
Slashdot Mirror
Just what exactly gives you the right to use the software?
Lawful posession.
Like if you lawfully buy a pack of gum -- or are given one for free -- you can use it. There's nothing magical about creative works.
It's the same thing. Just like how the owner of a book (as opposed to the holder of the copyright pertaining to the work embodied within the book) has the right to read it by virtue of his ownership of it.
Under copyright law you have *no* rights to begin with, beyond fair use.
This is totally incorrect. Your conception of copyright law is backwards, and you don't understand the nature of Fair Use.
Why do people think blatant piracy is acceptable?
I'm not sure. But let me ask you: what's unacceptable about blatant piracy?
Meh. These laws were passed because the pro-oppressive-copyright interests were greedy. They're being broken because the pro-reformed-copyright interests are greedy.
Seems reasonable. Hell, the ultimate purpose of copyright is to satiate the greed of the public for public domain works. So I don't see greed as a problem in and of itself; it's what it's directed towards that's the issue.
Working hard doesn't entitle you to make a living. If you decide to buy some land, plant crops and charge people for the oxygen they give off, you're going be SOL.
You need to come up with a better justification for this sort of thing. Sweat of the brow has NEVER been a justification for copyright, and it's been specifically thrown out by the courts before. The purpose behind copyright is in fact, much, much different.
If I was cited for my movie downloads, I would just pay the fine as I am guilty of copyright infringement. (Assuming I keep the movie, and all other provisions, etc.)
Well, that's big of you, but most of us don't have $150,000 per movie lying around -- and incidentally, you don't have to have kept the movie to have broken the law.
What exactly is wrong with the MPAA not wanting people to film movies?
Because, while I have no doubt that they might find it in their best interests to not want such things to happen, that doesn't mean that strong, expansive copyrights are in everyone's best interests. The MPAA argument is basically the old 'what's good for General Motors is good for the country' routine, but that's not necessarily so.
It is entirely within the realm of possibility that at least some activities currently considered to be infringing are, in fact, beneficial to society as a whole.
[It is] immoral to a degree.
No, not really. Copyright, it seems to me, is pretty much amoral. Generally, it's neither morally good or bad to establish or to infringe copyrights. This isn't unusual; there's nothing immoral about jaywalking, typical parking or moving violations, zoning laws, etc. Not all laws are based in morality.
If morality is involved in any degree, I would say that morals are typically in favor of those that create, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, whether legally or illegally.
No, the point of a patent is to ensure that the invention enters the public domain, is well known, and generally promotes the progress of the useful arts. Patents are intended to result in public benefits.
The _method_ of doing this is to provide a reward for the inventor. But that's not the actual purpose.
Your misconception is like saying that rewards for criminals are offered so that money can be given to informers, when the real point is to apprehend criminals.
I agree that there are amazingly huge problems with the system, though. But we'd probably have better luck fixing things if people carefully bore in mind that they're not supposed to specially benefit private individuals.
Look, it's simple: If you don't like the restrictions, DON'T BUY IT. That means if you don't like the Microsoft EULA's then DON'T BUY THEM.
Yes, but that's a less than optimal solution. It's far better to express our dislike for such restrictions by getting the law changed so that such restrictions become impossible.
Voting with your wallet sure as hell isn't the _only_ way of voting, you know.
I liked the Neverending Soda.
Ah, ZorkShell... I see no song.wav here.
IIRC, there's always one point in each of the games where Guybrush can die: when he's underwater. Yes, as we all know, he can hold his breath for ten minutes, but if you're patient, you can drown him.
OTOH, bear in mind that as things stand now, if the PTO has the prior art in hand -- typically because it's an earlier patent -- then once the to-be-challenged patent is granted, such prior art cannot be used against it. This is because the PTO is assumed to have done their job and would've already considered it, even if in fact they did not.
This, and the high burden of pursuasion (clear and convincing evidence) are two things that seriously need to be reformed in favor of challengers; more than implementing a prior art database, IMO.
Actually, nothing special needs to be done to cause something to qualify as prior art. So far as published materials go, basically if it's available to the public somewhere, it qualifies already. There are a lot of problems with the patent system, but what counts as prior art isn't really one of them.
I would suspect that even they have some discretion. For example, if they could only arrest one person due to, e.g. time constraints (the other one would get away), they'd probably opt for the worse offender. It seems similar to prosecutorial discretion, wherein the government doesn't have to try to make every possible criminal case, due in no small part to their inability to do so. Instead they can pick the cases they want to prosecute.
AFAIK, you are incorrect.
There generally is not a magical moral duty in the US. Unless you have done something specific such that a duty might arise, you don't need to report crimes or potential crimes (as distinguished from withholding information in an investigation), or do anything to help save people. While it may be morally reprehensible to sit back and watch someone die due to something you aren't responsible for, when you could've easily saved them, you generally are not legally required to help. This isn't just for crimes, it's also for torts.
As for lawyers, while ethical codes vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the ABA Model Rules are good as rules of thumb at the very least. Rule 1.6(b) states that:
A lawyer may reveal [confidential information] to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes is necessary to prevent the client from committing a criminal act that the lawyer believes is likely to result in imminent death....
Note the use of 'may.' That means it's at the lawyer's discretion. It is not the same as 'shall,' where the lawyer has no choice in the matter. The preamble and official comments make clear that a decision to not break confidentiality isn't a breach of ethics and isn't punishable.
IIRC, some jurisdictions don't permit a breach at all. Though failure to disclose information is of course never the same thing as rendering active assistance in illegal activities, which is forbidden. And after-the-fact knowledge is definately subject to confidentiality rules.
This all can weigh pretty heavily on criminal defenders. It's not entirely uncommon for a defender to know for a fact that their client is guilty, to know where the bodies are buried literally, and to not only be unable to do anything about that, but to still have to work to get their client off the hook.
Fair use is not limited to any particular sort of use. Those are just _likely_ fair uses. In fact, you can have a parody or whatever that isn't a fair use. To be a fair use, each particular use has to be examined with a four factor test; the particular circumstances of the use are critical, and preclude blanket statements.
Personal copies also can be fair uses, as we see with regards to some time shifting and space shifting copies (see the Sony and Diamond cases, respectively). SOME personal copies are permitted by the AHRA, but not very many. Similarly some copies are permitted by 17 USC 117, but again, not very many. Those are both limited exceptions. They may at times overlap with fair use, but they aren't coextensive with it.
Well firstly, moral rights do not exist in movies.
Secondly, moral rights is the biggest crock of bullshit ever, and don't exist _period_. The fact that there's a law means little, when the law is outright wrong.
Copyright is utilitarian from beginning to end. There's nothing else to it.
Much as I agree that art shouldn't be censored, I have no problems with people refraining from viewing art that they personally find distasteful -- whether that restraint is in whole or in part.
It's good that uncensored art is available so that people cannot take the choice to see the whole thing away from others. But it's just as good for people who want to see bowdlerized versions to be able to do so _for themselves_.
As for the copyright issue, it's a nonstarter. It is essential to not permit the derivative right to expand this far, lest it harm derivative works which are art in their own right; including this one. Artists are not the end all be all of art. The audience is just as, perhaps more important than the artist, for art can't exist in a void. It's useless without someone to appreciate it, or not, as they will. People should not be prevented from having whatever reaction they like.
Meh. I liked those pucks. A lot depended on how you held them. I found the best way was to make a sort of cage with your fingertips around the mouse, and to move it from the edges.
As for a suggestion, I'd like to put the scrollwheel on the side so that it's controllable with the thumb, and make it a jog wheel so that there's no need to give it a whirl, move the controlling digit back into place, and repeat.
The Macintosh keyboard had NO Apple symbol at all.
:)
I stand corrected, though I admit, I could've sworn that one had crept in there by the time the Mac Plus keyboard had shown up.
(The IIgs keyboard was never actually sold with Macs, was it? I remember it having a fairly unique design that matched the styling of the GS)
Well... at least by the time I was in the business of selling Macs, none of them but Performas and laptops came with any kind of keyboard. You had to seperately buy whichever sort you liked, which pissed off customers to no end, let me tell you. They weren't cheap at all.
However, the IIgs design was basically the same sort as used in the Mac SE and Mac II that appeared the next year. The IIgs keyboard doesn't really clash or anything. The main differences are 1) the shape of the keycaps, 2) the grooves in the space between keyboard and keypad, 3) the upper area of the keyboard above the number row, 4) the small frame around the keys, 5) the positions of the control and caps lock keys. These don't really stand out unless you know what you're looking for.
The IIc was somewhat more primative in design than the IIgs (not a value judgment; it was just an earlier step) but there's clearly a close connection.
I suggest the book AppleDesign for more on this.
I'm actually puzzled why Apple put the "Apple" on the later command keys, since the symbol is not used in any of their software to denote keyboard shortcuts. The purists among us bristle at references to "apple-q to quit". Bah! It's "command-q".
I'm more puzzled as to why they used the symbols they did for Shift, Option, and Control, when none of those were on (domestic) keyboards for a long time. Likewise, naming the button command does little when it's nowhere evident to users that that's what it's called.
I think that symbols _and_ localized names would've been better, for all metakeys.
Of course, I also love the Lisa keyboard pull out help cards, but then, I seem to be much fonder of sensible things than Apple is.
So... does the caps lock key lock mechanically, the way the old Apple keyboards did? Or is it another one of those useless pieces of crap that just have an LED and nothing more to indicate what's going on with it.
having used every Mac keyboard dating back to that of the original Mac 128k
Even the MacXL keyboard? I'm impressed.
Ah yes, the open- and closed-apple keys. Introduced on the Apple IIe
Ah! I'm shocked that people would forget that the apple keys were introduced on the Apple III. The IIe came later.
Morphed into Command and Option on the Apple IIgs
This is _sort_ of correct, but skims over some things.
The option key was introduced on the Apple Lisa (which had a closed apple key as well). The Macintosh then kept the option key, but since Steve was concerned that the apple symbol was seen too often (it was used in Lisa menus to denote shortcuts) the apple key became the command key, with its distinctive glyph (_and_ the apple glyph).
However, the Lisa and Macintosh keyboards both had closed apple symbols. It wasn't until the ADB keyboards came along that the apple changed to an open-apple. This was basically due the new industrial design that Apple adopted at the time, and which could be seen in the IIc, IIgs, Mac SE, and Mac II. So as you say, and IIRC, the IIgs was the first to have both an open apple and option key, but it was in no small part due to the fact that the open apple symbol looked better to Cupertino.
Of course, an annoying side effect was that the positions of the two apple keys on the IIgs were reversed. Since a lot of games expected them to be as they had been before (open closed, l to r) this was very annoying.
And arguably it's constitutional in nature. Certainly it's flown in the face of the various statutes that have been on the books for well over a hundred years, and traditionally you don't expect that out of common law.
I don't really see the difference, myself. If I can't easily use a piece of software, it's pretty useless to me, whatever it does.