I think a good approch is the "show us the code" approch. Not the "you must be an idiot smoking crack" approch.
Now this is exactly what we should stay at. They claim "linux" stole their code? Well, when anybody makes a difficult to believe affirmation, the only sensible answer is "I may believe you, but only if I see a proof". And considering they took their position publicly, the proof must also be shown publicly: No NDA stuff or so. The german ruling is perfect here, stating "Show the offending code or shut up until you're in a courtroom". This is the exact sentence they should get served at every attempt to speak about the case.
In "2001 a space odissey" i've once red "Earth is man's craddle, but you don't stay in a craddle forever" (sorry if it's badly translated, i red it in french). A very true idea... We need this thing, among many other uses, to build spacecrafts in orbit. If it becomes technically possible, it should be made. How many conventionnal rockets, space shuttles comprised, have crashed ? Did it stop us from using them ? How much cars did kill people ? did we all revert to walking ?
I'm somewhat symetric to you: For years, I always thought the US were THE country of freedom. Years ago, I had the dream to settle there later 'cause I felt excessive state control in old Europe and specially in France. But in the last few years I became more and more disappointed about all kinds of new US laws and regulations. Beside this, the EU construction is way too slow, but still a very interesting process to follow from the inside. So if I finally go to the states, which I still hope to visit, it will only be for a short holiday...
I think it refers to the fact that Alain Souchon's music is not really everybody's taste. And for people not natively french speaking, the texts may sometimes prove difficult to understand: He does not really use what we could call "basic french".
Yes, in France you can legally make copies of music, or movies, for your personal use. You can't redistribute of course, even for free, except to your near relatives. Given that right, a tax is perceived on blank CDs/DVDs by the SACEM (french artists association) to compensate the artists for the private copies of their works being made. Problem 1: The recording industry may not be required to let the users do ! Except that if they don't, why should the tax be paid ? Problem 2: If (when) EUCD gets translated in french law, defeating the protection will become illegal, so we could end up being forced to pay for a copy we are prevented to make. That's wy these lawsuits are important, in the end they may induce reflexions on changes in the implementation of EUCD in France.
Here we have exactly this done by France telecom. The (aging) minitel system allows the purchase of all sorts of goods, most often virtual goods (software, pr0n etc...) sometimes even smal hardware goods delivered by mail. All of it was put by the telco on one's phone bill, then got totalized merchant by merchant. Once a month or so, each shop got it's money from the telco. It runs surprinsingly well since decades, and I'm always surprised it did not catch in other countries.
Re:Why so many different standards?
on
Cashless Society
·
· Score: 1
I'm also french, and I actually have this available as a supplement to my current credit card. And I'll certainly never use it. First, there are few shops accepting it, and second, I would have to pay for it if I use it. I'll certainly NOT pay to get hold of my own money : Cash is free, Moneo isn't ! I see this only as a mean for banks to have again more control over my money, while asking me to pay for it, and then asking the shopkeepers to pay also. Greed, greed, greed...
In other languages it is even more frequent, probably 'cause less people learned them. I once bought a set of imperial-size nut keys. It had a sticker translated in french saying "jeu de clés à Couilles" instead of "Jeu de clés à Douilles". Maybe this was not a simple typo, in french nuts can be translated as "écrou", but also (slang) as "couille", so I ended up with a toolset for working on... Bollocks! By the way I love to buy computer components and read the french explanations: I often get a fair amount of laughing. Then, i read the english instruction to get usable info about the thing.
As a total foreigner I would say we ferquently have our army bringing help in fields where they are "the guys who know how to handle the case". In the last decades and until today, the army has always been very carefull not to violate citizen's rights, so why deprive ourselves of a useful resource ?
I loaded RC2 a week ago. Installed fine and straightforward on 2 PCs (dual boot with XP on a Duron 1GHz, and dual with w98 on an Athlon 700) It lokks great an until today it is, I did not change a single setting since the install and everything works, including CD burner. Also tried Unreal 2003, it went seamless but of course needed a Nvidia driver from their website. The RC2 for me is so good I'll wait for the release of the standard package in french to buy it.
Re:Unenforceable, not illegal
on
Shrinkwrapped Books
·
· Score: 2, Informative
At least here (France) that case would be clear. It has been many times stated in court that if any item is received unsollicited by mail, the recipient may at will: - refuse any kind of payment - refuse to return the object even if he gets payment for the postage from the sender - keep the article & pretend he has received nothing - drop the object in the waste So how would they know if I opened the shrinkwrap ? they can't yet come in my bedroom to look if I did, and hence, no license binds me even if I open it. So everyone can send me a gift, but of course its for free and *I* become the owner of it.
Had the same kind of experience. You know what ? Went inside again and *stole* the CD. BTW this was not stealing anyway, just getting what i'd paid for. And after all I had a paid invoice in my pocket, in case somebody had catched me. I'm generally a honest guy, but I'll never silently accept to get screwed!
Re:Did anyone notice the correction?
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 1
As long as the correction is justified (ie there was a threat of lawsuit, no actual legal action happened) I see no objection to the correction, be it surprisingly quick.
Wonder how is the billing in Finland ? In France they could not use the second method : While they redirect a number, THEY would have to pay for the redirection and so there would be no benefit for the spammer.
If their HDTV prevents me from anything except what they want, they most certainly will have to keep it. I'm simply not ready to pay good money for buggy stuff, and a TV I can't record (no matter for which reason) is definitively buggy. The plus brought by the fact it's HD is not sufficient to balance the inconvenience. So now imagine many people simply staying with conventional analog TV like I'll do : The TV stations live on advertising. Advertisers go where the public is. If the public stays on ol'analog TV, so do the commercials : Digital TV would largely fail to take off...
Nice drawing, but why comes it doesn't make me laugh ?
I'm afraid it's true one day we'll all have to fight to get rid of all that "IP" shit, or we will end up paying for every word we talk because each and every word will be copyrighted
>You speak as if you're voice is one with the >rest of Europe, is it possible there are >citizens there who disagree?! You speak for "the >people of Europe"?
Of course he doesn't. I'm an European too, and I do disagree with ANY limitation in freedom of speech. This means that I'm not satisfied with a growing part of my own countrys laws. And I know for sure I'm not the only one...
A good part of ruling is now gone towards Brussels and the EU institutions, so now for example we have just received our own copy of the DMCA, even a bit improved (this should read "worse"), and so I think more and more that we miss some equivalent of the ACLU here.
I live here...
It's at least on the way to be one country. As a resident seeing this kind of shitt I'm increasingly questionning if its such a good thing. (a question wich since years I never asked myself)
Of course it lacks a constitution. It lacks even democracy. The situation now is you elect some politician, which then says you "I'ts Europe that wants this" everytime something like this text gets "voted" (notice it's not even voted by the parliament : a true dictature)
Slashdot Mirror
I think a good approch is the "show us the code" approch. Not the "you must be an idiot smoking crack" approch.
Now this is exactly what we should stay at. They claim "linux" stole their code? Well, when anybody makes a difficult to believe affirmation, the only sensible answer is "I may believe you, but only if I see a proof". And considering they took their position publicly, the proof must also be shown publicly: No NDA stuff or so. The german ruling is perfect here, stating "Show the offending code or shut up until you're in a courtroom". This is the exact sentence they should get served at every attempt to speak about the case.
In "2001 a space odissey" i've once red "Earth is man's craddle, but you don't stay in a craddle forever" (sorry if it's badly translated, i red it in french). A very true idea...
We need this thing, among many other uses, to build spacecrafts in orbit. If it becomes technically possible, it should be made. How many conventionnal rockets, space shuttles comprised, have crashed ? Did it stop us from using them ? How much cars did kill people ? did we all revert to walking ?
I'm somewhat symetric to you: For years, I always thought the US were THE country of freedom. Years ago, I had the dream to settle there later 'cause I felt excessive state control in old Europe and specially in France. But in the last few years I became more and more disappointed about all kinds of new US laws and regulations. Beside this, the EU construction is way too slow, but still a very interesting process to follow from the inside. So if I finally go to the states, which I still hope to visit, it will only be for a short holiday...
I think it refers to the fact that Alain Souchon's music is not really everybody's taste. And for people not natively french speaking, the texts may sometimes prove difficult to understand: He does not really use what we could call "basic french".
Yes, in France you can legally make copies of music, or movies, for your personal use. You can't redistribute of course, even for free, except to your near relatives.
Given that right, a tax is perceived on blank CDs/DVDs by the SACEM (french artists association) to compensate the artists for the private copies of their works being made.
Problem 1: The recording industry may not be required to let the users do ! Except that if they don't, why should the tax be paid ?
Problem 2: If (when) EUCD gets translated in french law, defeating the protection will become illegal, so we could end up being forced to pay for a copy we are prevented to make.
That's wy these lawsuits are important, in the end they may induce reflexions on changes in the implementation of EUCD in France.
Yes, it is a written warning to stop some behaviour or face judicial action, so I would say "cease and desist" is a good translation
Is the US trade deficit so bad they now plan to charge foreign credit card holders :-)
Here we have exactly this done by France telecom. The (aging) minitel system allows the purchase of all sorts of goods, most often virtual goods (software, pr0n etc...) sometimes even smal hardware goods delivered by mail. All of it was put by the telco on one's phone bill, then got totalized merchant by merchant. Once a month or so, each shop got it's money from the telco.
It runs surprinsingly well since decades, and I'm always surprised it did not catch in other countries.
I'm also french, and I actually have this available as a supplement to my current credit card. And I'll certainly never use it. First, there are few shops accepting it, and second, I would have to pay for it if I use it. I'll certainly NOT pay to get hold of my own money : Cash is free, Moneo isn't !
I see this only as a mean for banks to have again more control over my money, while asking me to pay for it, and then asking the shopkeepers to pay also. Greed, greed, greed...
In other languages it is even more frequent, probably 'cause less people learned them. I once bought a set of imperial-size nut keys. It had a sticker translated in french saying "jeu de clés à Couilles" instead of "Jeu de clés à Douilles". Maybe this was not a simple typo, in french nuts can be translated as "écrou", but also (slang) as "couille", so I ended up with a toolset for working on... Bollocks!
By the way I love to buy computer components and read the french explanations: I often get a fair amount of laughing. Then, i read the english instruction to get usable info about the thing.
AFAIK, Norway refused to enter the EU, so why do you feel concerned about EU directives? they are not relevant there.
As a total foreigner I would say we ferquently have our army bringing help in fields where they are "the guys who know how to handle the case". In the last decades and until today, the army has always been very carefull not to violate citizen's rights, so why deprive ourselves of a useful resource ?
Just to say, from here (Paris) I have fast and responsive connection to them, so maybe the bottleneck isn't at theirs ...
I loaded RC2 a week ago. Installed fine and straightforward on 2 PCs (dual boot with XP on a Duron 1GHz, and dual with w98 on an Athlon 700)
It lokks great an until today it is, I did not change a single setting since the install and everything works, including CD burner. Also tried Unreal 2003, it went seamless but of course needed a Nvidia driver from their website. The RC2 for me is so good I'll wait for the release of the standard package in french to buy it.
At least here (France) that case would be clear. It has been many times stated in court that if any item is received unsollicited by mail, the recipient may at will:
- refuse any kind of payment
- refuse to return the object even if he gets payment for the postage from the sender
- keep the article & pretend he has received nothing
- drop the object in the waste
So how would they know if I opened the shrinkwrap ? they can't yet come in my bedroom to look if I did, and hence, no license binds me even if I open it.
So everyone can send me a gift, but of course its for free and *I* become the owner of it.
Had the same kind of experience. You know what ? Went inside again and *stole* the CD. BTW this was not stealing anyway, just getting what i'd paid for. And after all I had a paid invoice in my pocket, in case somebody had catched me.
I'm generally a honest guy, but I'll never silently accept to get screwed!
As long as the correction is justified (ie there was a threat of lawsuit, no actual legal action happened) I see no objection to the correction, be it surprisingly quick.
Wonder how is the billing in Finland ? In France they could not use the second method : While they redirect a number, THEY would have to pay for the redirection and so there would be no benefit for the spammer.
If their HDTV prevents me from anything except what they want, they most certainly will have to keep it. I'm simply not ready to pay good money for buggy stuff, and a TV I can't record (no matter for which reason) is definitively buggy. The plus brought by the fact it's HD is not sufficient to balance the inconvenience.
So now imagine many people simply staying with conventional analog TV like I'll do : The TV stations live on advertising. Advertisers go where the public is. If the public stays on ol'analog TV, so do the commercials : Digital TV would largely fail to take off...
Nice drawing, but why comes it doesn't make me laugh ? I'm afraid it's true one day we'll all have to fight to get rid of all that "IP" shit, or we will end up paying for every word we talk because each and every word will be copyrighted
>You speak as if you're voice is one with the >rest of Europe, is it possible there are >citizens there who disagree?! You speak for "the >people of Europe"? Of course he doesn't. I'm an European too, and I do disagree with ANY limitation in freedom of speech. This means that I'm not satisfied with a growing part of my own countrys laws. And I know for sure I'm not the only one... A good part of ruling is now gone towards Brussels and the EU institutions, so now for example we have just received our own copy of the DMCA, even a bit improved (this should read "worse"), and so I think more and more that we miss some equivalent of the ACLU here.
I live here... It's at least on the way to be one country. As a resident seeing this kind of shitt I'm increasingly questionning if its such a good thing. (a question wich since years I never asked myself) Of course it lacks a constitution. It lacks even democracy. The situation now is you elect some politician, which then says you "I'ts Europe that wants this" everytime something like this text gets "voted" (notice it's not even voted by the parliament : a true dictature)