No, as I mentioned earlier, technically 'sans-serif' is a font STYLE (as you correctly point out - without the 'serifs' on the end of characters, but 'Sans Serif' is a type FAMILY (not just a font - there's a big difference).
Although in the case of displaying a font in a browser, everything else you say is spot on (where it checks specific fonts, then degrades to any available sans system font)....carry on, nothing to see here...
I don't want to argue semantics because it appears this is a case of the same terminology being used in multiple ways - to define style s- serif, cursive, san serif, etc; as well as the traditional family of fonts - Arial, Helvetica, etc.
That, IMHO, is why using the same terminology to describe different aspects of a field of endeavor, or any other related set of things / activities, is a bad idea.
In reality ALL fonts are copyrighted and it's up to the individual typehouse or, er, individual, to set the license terms for use (whether it's a free open source font, use for commercial work etc), just as all other creative works.
Not in the US at least - the names typically are trademarked but the font design itself is not copyrightable.
Why should that even matter? Facebook didn't create those fonts.
If they made a font from scratch and studiVZ stole that, then they might have a claim. As I am seeing it, the two sites really don't look similar. At least no more similar than a million other sites do.
This is clearly a frivolous claim on Facebook's part.
In the US, unless the law has changed, font names are trademarkable but the actual font appearance is not. That may only hold true for traditional black line fonts, not ones that are elaborate works of art themselves (such as say letters created from animals posing), but IANAL. Not sure about Germany or how the Bern convention impacts German treatment of a US company's claim.
That's why you see fonts that are identical or nearly identical but with different names - Helvetica (Linotype's TM and MS San Serif, for example.
Finally, further complicating matters is the manner in which the font is rendered or created by a program can be copyrighted or patented, meaning you can display the font but not using the same algorithms, for example, to render it.
Oh, and get this. They don't even use the same font. They both use the same font family (sans serif), but that's only a fallback. If you have the necessary fonts installed, then Facebook will use "lucida grande", while the German site will use tahoma. Granted, if you don't have lucida grande, then they will both fallback to the same list, tahoma, verdana, arial, and then sans serif.
So, if you have "lucida grande" installed, then you will see two different, although quite similar, fonts on the two pages.
Technically, sans serif is not a font family but a style (without serifs, those embellishments at the end of the letters (the little hooks or balls) of a font. They are used to make a printed page look better; but are hard to effectively display on many monitors it is the desired style for fonts. There still is a font family associated with it, whether its Tahoma, Arial, etc. The font family defines the font's characteristics - i.e. how to draw an A - that appear on screen.
In the case of style sheets, it's selecting Tahoma sans serif, Veranda sans serif, etc. Finally there may be a system default if it finds none of the others, and it displays that font in a sans serif style.
The larger issue for Viacom is the youtube usage points out a hole in their thinking. Viacom is not making their material available in a medium of people's choosing. If they did so, they would get viewers and could sell advertising. Viacom is attempting to squelch use in general. Same ol same old. Use it the way we intended or don't use it at all. That is the problem with all media today. They are not satisfying their customer's needs.
While I agree with you; it's still their content to use as stupidly as they want. If I were advising them I'd say cut a deal with Youtube et.el. since it is better to get a slice of the pie than try to scrape all the filling out and put it back in the can.
The problem they have is how to get a revenue stream that exceeds what they'd lose if they made material available that people would buy on DVD.
Sites that aggregate user supplied material may find that they are held to a higher standard of care simply because of their business model. It should have become apparent that some percentage of users upload copyrighted material and that it is done on a routine basis; so to try to hide behind safe harbor provisions is disingenuous.
Specifically, the DMCA provides safe harbor if, among other things, the OSP:
# not be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent (512(c)(1)(A)(2)).
Given the nature of many files and having received takedown notices the companies should be aware that such activity occurs and have ways to recognize that it is occurring; for example filenames of popular TV shows or sports clips.
# not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity
Given that they get significant ad revenue from the site; and that it depends on material people want to see, I'd say it is not a stretch to say they are profiting from the infringement.
For them to claim that they are innocent is a bit of a stretch. They need to work out an agreement with copyright owners to stay in business; can you say revenue sharing?
The OpticBook scanners don't appear to be on the list of scanners Vuescan supports.:(
You could try it - there's a free trial and it looks like it might work since he uses Plustek's drivers apparently. You could always drop Ed H a line - he responds very quickly.
I agree it's not a scam, but a 5 year warranty on an item with no moving parts?
One is born every minute, especially since you could buy 2 for less than this one and have a spare if teh first ever fails after a year.
Why would I need a warranty on an item I got free?
In theory, the warranty is to avoid replacement costs - ensuring you a fixed cost of ownership over the warranty life.
If you could get the item for free every time (which you really aren't when you pay for the 5 year warranty) then buying a warranty would be stupid. Then again, $88 for a warranty when you can get two for less than half of that is rather dumb as well; as I pointed out above.
So, the question is, what is the best way to capture all the information in old magazines in digital format? Does anyone have a home-built rig taking after the angled-pair-of-scanners setup that Project Gutenburg uses?
If all you want is an image, use a photo copying stand. It's basically a camera holder with a pair of lights to reduce glare and light things evenly. Once you've focused and set-up the lights (a lot easier with digital than film), you simply keep turning pages and shooting. With a camera connected to a PC you can easily preview images and control the shots.
See my earlier post about Vuescan http://www.hamrick.com/ - I really like it and it's stable, supports a lot of scanners and has great technical support. The support alone is worth the $40 I paid - especially since Nikon has orphaned their film scanners such as my 5000.
The easiest tool I found for the photos is Adobe Photoshop CS (a bit expensive, but worth every penny - you could download a trial version from Adobe.)
Checkout Vuescan http://www.hamrick.com/ - a very flexible tool for scanning; it supports Mac and Windows as well as wide range of scanners. Outstanding technical support as well.
I second the Nikon Scanner - I have a 5000 that I really like.
It depends. The competing rights are relatively fuzzy. BTW, the right to take pictures of everything in public view does not exist everywhere. The Eiffel tower nighttime illumination is copyrighted, for example. Even though it's there for everyone to see, the French law does not give you the right to photograph it.
Actually, the copyright on the lighting prevents commercial use; photographing for private use is ok.
The "free" digital TV box gimmick is not necessarily a scam. Comparing a box with a 5 year warranty to one with a 1 year warranty is not a fair comparison. It's gimmicky pricing to make people think they're getting a great deal. A scam, on the other hand, requires deception to secure an unfair or unlawful gain. In this case, the user is getting a 5 year warranty rather than the typical 1 year warranty, so it is understandable the overall cost should be higher, meaning it's not an unfair or unlawful gain.
(It could be argued that warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on. If a warranty is not workable, that's the part you can call a scam, not the gimmicky pricing.)
I agree it's not a scam, but a 5 year warranty on an item with no moving parts?
One is born every minute, especially since you could buy 2 for less than this one and have a spare if teh first ever fails after a year.
We have been telling plaintiffs all along that the defendant is innocent of any infringement. Unmindful of their duties as officers of the Court, they nevertheless persisted. Now that the time has come to pay the piper, they seek to scurry away, rather than face the music.
Don't they own the music?
(I trust Mr. Beckermann will accept my quote as fair use...)
While I find the number rather high, and odd that it hasn't been discussed before, my anecdotal evidence with cell phones makes it at least plausible.
I lost a car charger at a small airport (MEM) and went to the car rental place. They pulled out a big bin of cell phones and accessories, and said take your pick. They also said take a phone if you want. When I asked, they said it was a week or two's haul.
I felt a bit cheap trying to track down my $5 charger, and unfortunately they didn't have one that worked with my phone.
they can afford a vacation home, but can't afford internet for it?
Additionally, if it's in another country, and that country is in western europe or the pacific rim, they could probably get broadband there for half the current price of AOL.
Either way, they're paying a "tax" for that level of stupidity.
That really depends on where they are and how they use it. Broadband is neat but not portable, so AOL gives the ability to connect at a far greater number of places.
So they are paying for portability; although there are US ISPs that offer dialup for a lot less than AOL.
I use my cell phone and tether for the same reason.
Google's Blog claims that they started taking steps to anonymize their logs a year ago, keeping "only" 18 months worth of identifiable data, to be implemented "within a year's time".
It seems likely that this wouldn't have been soon enough for any of this material to have been anonymized before Viacom's suit, since it was filed the same month they made this announcement.
Not only that, but it might be illegal to do so. As I understand it, once something is relevant to legal proceedings it is illegal to destroy "evidence." Not sure as IANAL, if that is only true in criminal, not civil cases.
We once raced to a state border to avoid being served with lawsuit papers so we could destroy all our working papers and then allowed ourselves to be served once that was done.
IANAL, but the order required turning over copies of the video's and log's. Google apparently could comply by providing thousands of VHS tapes and reams of printouts of the log information,(all in nice 8pt font).
Compliance, at least according to the lawyer at my last company, does not mean we have to make it easy to find the needle in the haystack.
Well now it'll be every year that people consider whether to 'invest' in Microsoft Office, rather than every few years and generally with a new computer purchase.
Essentially then, the decision making surface area is increased, giving more chance for OpenOffice to gain traction, and more incentive for potential licensee's to pursue other options.
I think they shot themselves in the foot with this one, but then I'm not the marketing genius that came up with it.
The problem is retail distribution - CC et. al. get paid to push MS; and getting nothing for OO or NeoOffice. Guess what they will do?
While we here are familiar with OSS alternatives (and I use NeoOffice as well as GIMP); most people have no idea what OSS is, let alone how to get it and set it up.
Take NeoOffice on the Mac - when I set it up it defaulted to saving file sin its format; which Office couldn't open. I *knew* what the problem was and fixed it; but the average user will only see that Aunt Sally couldn't open the Christmas Letter ( a blessing in disguise) and blame NeoOffice.
I like OSs; but it isn't going to catch on because it is free. It needs visibility and a compelling argument why it is better than the paid alternatives. So who will do that? My guess is the ISP's - mine already provides me with McAfee's suite as part of my subscription; adding NeoOffice or OO (perhaps even branding the splash screen with their logo) seems like a logical next step. They could partner with Sun to make it easy to install and upgrade automatically so the process is transparent to the average user. As for marketing; you're saving $70/year - and the stores can push a money making item (internet signup) with the purchase of a PC.
The question is will MS still sell boxed versions of Office? I can get the student version for $90 - $100 on sale; a far better deal than $70/year. For most of the users that the subscription targets any of the last 3 versions is more than enough for their use so a subscription makes no sense unless you want the AV service.
What I think is happening, as the article states, is MS realizes it's reached a plateau in the revenue from it's core products and users will more and more decide not to upgrade or upgrade only when machines get replaced since the current version meets there needs (my company has not yet gone to Vista or the latest Office suite - only new machines have them) which threatens their revenue stream and stock price.
Profit maximization, as long as their isn't collusion, is not illegal.
Every company in the same industry jacking up their prices for similar services in lock-step is collusion, even when there are no smoky, back-room meetings taking place.
Even if you call it collusion (which I don't; I consider collusion overt actions taken in agreement to affect the marketplace); it's not illegal if it's done independently.
Signaling competitive intentions (raising or dropping prices, for example) is a perfectly legal and ethical practice.
They all do the same thing, knowing that if they all do it, they all reap the rewards.
That's how competition works - I decide if I am better of following my competitors lead or if I'll make more money do something else. Airlines do this all the time with fares and charges, some stick, some don't.
This is how the cell industry has always worked because there are only a handful of players with an extremely high barrier to entry
Actually, given the number of cell phone companies I'd say the barriers aren't as high as many people think. You don't need to set up towers and hang antennas; all you need is a marketing arm and bulk lease of airtime to resell from the big 3. Cricket, MetroPCS, Virgin, Boost, et.al. do that, as did Earthlink until they bailed out.
and a regulatory agency that's as good as on their payroll.
Unfortunately, regulation no matter how well intentioned ultimately benefits the regulated by limiting competition.
even after I told them it was fraud and the charges were disputed.
So phone your card company, explain the situation and have them hit the airline with a chargeback. The majors all have anti-fraud divisions that will investigate the situation and reverse charges when the evidence is in favor of the customer, particularly if you were prompt in reporting the fraudulent activity.
First thing I did; since my card statement online shows the passenger name, flight and ticket # I tried to let the airlines know so they could take action before the ticket was used. In one case the outbound but not the return was used; I'd love for them to strand the thief in a foreign country or have them arrested.
Slashdot Mirror
No, as I mentioned earlier, technically 'sans-serif' is a font STYLE (as you correctly point out - without the 'serifs' on the end of characters, but 'Sans Serif' is a type FAMILY (not just a font - there's a big difference).
Although in the case of displaying a font in a browser, everything else you say is spot on (where it checks specific fonts, then degrades to any available sans system font). ...carry on, nothing to see here...
I don't want to argue semantics because it appears this is a case of the same terminology being used in multiple ways - to define style s- serif, cursive, san serif, etc; as well as the traditional family of fonts - Arial, Helvetica, etc.
That, IMHO, is why using the same terminology to describe different aspects of a field of endeavor, or any other related set of things / activities, is a bad idea.
In reality ALL fonts are copyrighted and it's up to the individual typehouse or, er, individual, to set the license terms for use (whether it's a free open source font, use for commercial work etc), just as all other creative works.
Not in the US at least - the names typically are trademarked but the font design itself is not copyrightable.
Why should that even matter? Facebook didn't create those fonts.
If they made a font from scratch and studiVZ stole that, then they might have a claim. As I am seeing it, the two sites really don't look similar. At least no more similar than a million other sites do.
This is clearly a frivolous claim on Facebook's part.
In the US, unless the law has changed, font names are trademarkable but the actual font appearance is not. That may only hold true for traditional black line fonts, not ones that are elaborate works of art themselves (such as say letters created from animals posing), but IANAL. Not sure about Germany or how the Bern convention impacts German treatment of a US company's claim.
That's why you see fonts that are identical or nearly identical but with different names - Helvetica (Linotype's TM and MS San Serif, for example.
Finally, further complicating matters is the manner in which the font is rendered or created by a program can be copyrighted or patented, meaning you can display the font but not using the same algorithms, for example, to render it.
Oh, and get this. They don't even use the same font. They both use the same font family (sans serif), but that's only a fallback. If you have the necessary fonts installed, then Facebook will use "lucida grande", while the German site will use tahoma. Granted, if you don't have lucida grande, then they will both fallback to the same list, tahoma, verdana, arial, and then sans serif.
So, if you have "lucida grande" installed, then you will see two different, although quite similar, fonts on the two pages.
Technically, sans serif is not a font family but a style (without serifs, those embellishments at the end of the letters (the little hooks or balls) of a font. They are used to make a printed page look better; but are hard to effectively display on many monitors it is the desired style for fonts. There still is a font family associated with it, whether its Tahoma, Arial, etc. The font family defines the font's characteristics - i.e. how to draw an A - that appear on screen.
In the case of style sheets, it's selecting Tahoma sans serif, Veranda sans serif, etc. Finally there may be a system default if it finds none of the others, and it displays that font in a sans serif style.
The larger issue for Viacom is the youtube usage points out a hole in their thinking. Viacom is not making their material available in a medium of people's choosing. If they did so, they would get viewers and could sell advertising. Viacom is attempting to squelch use in general. Same ol same old. Use it the way we intended or don't use it at all. That is the problem with all media today. They are not satisfying their customer's needs.
While I agree with you; it's still their content to use as stupidly as they want. If I were advising them I'd say cut a deal with Youtube et.el. since it is better to get a slice of the pie than try to scrape all the filling out and put it back in the can.
The problem they have is how to get a revenue stream that exceeds what they'd lose if they made material available that people would buy on DVD.
Sites that aggregate user supplied material may find that they are held to a higher standard of care simply because of their business model. It should have become apparent that some percentage of users upload copyrighted material and that it is done on a routine basis; so to try to hide behind safe harbor provisions is disingenuous.
Specifically, the DMCA provides safe harbor if, among other things, the OSP:
# not be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent (512(c)(1)(A)(2)).
Given the nature of many files and having received takedown notices the companies should be aware that such activity occurs and have ways to recognize that it is occurring; for example filenames of popular TV shows or sports clips.
# not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity
Given that they get significant ad revenue from the site; and that it depends on material people want to see, I'd say it is not a stretch to say they are profiting from the infringement.
For them to claim that they are innocent is a bit of a stretch. They need to work out an agreement with copyright owners to stay in business; can you say revenue sharing?
The OpticBook scanners don't appear to be on the list of scanners Vuescan supports. :(
You could try it - there's a free trial and it looks like it might work since he uses Plustek's drivers apparently. You could always drop Ed H a line - he responds very quickly.
I agree it's not a scam, but a 5 year warranty on an item with no moving parts?
One is born every minute, especially since you could buy 2 for less than this one and have a spare if teh first ever fails after a year.
Why would I need a warranty on an item I got free?
In theory, the warranty is to avoid replacement costs - ensuring you a fixed cost of ownership over the warranty life.
If you could get the item for free every time (which you really aren't when you pay for the 5 year warranty) then buying a warranty would be stupid. Then again, $88 for a warranty when you can get two for less than half of that is rather dumb as well; as I pointed out above.
So, the question is, what is the best way to capture all the information in old magazines in digital format? Does anyone have a home-built rig taking after the angled-pair-of-scanners setup that Project Gutenburg uses?
If all you want is an image, use a photo copying stand. It's basically a camera holder with a pair of lights to reduce glare and light things evenly. Once you've focused and set-up the lights (a lot easier with digital than film), you simply keep turning pages and shooting. With a camera connected to a PC you can easily preview images and control the shots.
See my earlier post about Vuescan http://www.hamrick.com/ - I really like it and it's stable, supports a lot of scanners and has great technical support. The support alone is worth the $40 I paid - especially since Nikon has orphaned their film scanners such as my 5000.
The easiest tool I found for the photos is Adobe Photoshop CS (a bit expensive, but worth every penny - you could download a trial version from Adobe.)
Checkout Vuescan http://www.hamrick.com/ - a very flexible tool for scanning; it supports Mac and Windows as well as wide range of scanners. Outstanding technical support as well.
I second the Nikon Scanner - I have a 5000 that I really like.
It depends. The competing rights are relatively fuzzy. BTW, the right to take pictures of everything in public view does not exist everywhere. The Eiffel tower nighttime illumination is copyrighted, for example. Even though it's there for everyone to see, the French law does not give you the right to photograph it.
Actually, the copyright on the lighting prevents commercial use; photographing for private use is ok.
The "free" digital TV box gimmick is not necessarily a scam. Comparing a box with a 5 year warranty to one with a 1 year warranty is not a fair comparison. It's gimmicky pricing to make people think they're getting a great deal. A scam, on the other hand, requires deception to secure an unfair or unlawful gain. In this case, the user is getting a 5 year warranty rather than the typical 1 year warranty, so it is understandable the overall cost should be higher, meaning it's not an unfair or unlawful gain.
(It could be argued that warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on. If a warranty is not workable, that's the part you can call a scam, not the gimmicky pricing.)
I agree it's not a scam, but a 5 year warranty on an item with no moving parts?
One is born every minute, especially since you could buy 2 for less than this one and have a spare if teh first ever fails after a year.
Once you are out of contract, they are required by law to unlock your phone for use on any carrier
I'm sorry, what law is this?
/. law; similar to the /. girlfriend and laws of economics; otherwise known as "what color is the sky in your world, anyway?"
We have been telling plaintiffs all along that the defendant is innocent of any
infringement. Unmindful of their duties as officers of the Court, they nevertheless persisted. Now
that the time has come to pay the piper, they seek to scurry away, rather than face the music.
Don't they own the music?
(I trust Mr. Beckermann will accept my quote as fair use...)
While I find the number rather high, and odd that it hasn't been discussed before, my anecdotal evidence with cell phones makes it at least plausible.
I lost a car charger at a small airport (MEM) and went to the car rental place. They pulled out a big bin of cell phones and accessories, and said take your pick. They also said take a phone if you want. When I asked, they said it was a week or two's haul.
I felt a bit cheap trying to track down my $5 charger, and unfortunately they didn't have one that worked with my phone.
they can afford a vacation home, but can't afford internet for it?
Additionally, if it's in another country, and that country is in western europe or the pacific rim, they could probably get broadband there for half the current price of AOL.
Either way, they're paying a "tax" for that level of stupidity.
That really depends on where they are and how they use it. Broadband is neat but not portable, so AOL gives the ability to connect at a far greater number of places.
So they are paying for portability; although there are US ISPs that offer dialup for a lot less than AOL.
I use my cell phone and tether for the same reason.
as they descend in AOHell; desperate grabs at revenue are being made. It was tough to cancel before; no you can't do it on weekends or holidays.
After creating eternal September they are sliding to obscurity.
If I am an European user, can I sue the judge in the International court of justice for offering my private data to Viacom?
Probably not, as the data resided in the US as such would be subject to US laws.
Google's Blog claims that they started taking steps to anonymize their logs a year ago, keeping "only" 18 months worth of identifiable data, to be implemented "within a year's time".
It seems likely that this wouldn't have been soon enough for any of this material to have been anonymized before Viacom's suit, since it was filed the same month they made this announcement.
Not only that, but it might be illegal to do so. As I understand it, once something is relevant to legal proceedings it is illegal to destroy "evidence." Not sure as IANAL, if that is only true in criminal, not civil cases.
We once raced to a state border to avoid being served with lawsuit papers so we could destroy all our working papers and then allowed ourselves to be served once that was done.
IANAL, but the order required turning over copies of the video's and log's. Google apparently could comply by providing thousands of VHS tapes and reams of printouts of the log information,(all in nice 8pt font).
Compliance, at least according to the lawyer at my last company, does not mean we have to make it easy to find the needle in the haystack.
Who pays for anti-virus anymore when there are plenty of great, free options for home use?
I'd say a lot of people given that Symantec, McAfee, CA et.al. are still in business.
Well now it'll be every year that people consider whether to 'invest' in Microsoft Office, rather than every few years and generally with a new computer purchase.
Essentially then, the decision making surface area is increased, giving more chance for OpenOffice to gain traction, and more incentive for potential licensee's to pursue other options.
I think they shot themselves in the foot with this one, but then I'm not the marketing genius that came up with it.
The problem is retail distribution - CC et. al. get paid to push MS; and getting nothing for OO or NeoOffice. Guess what they will do?
While we here are familiar with OSS alternatives (and I use NeoOffice as well as GIMP); most people have no idea what OSS is, let alone how to get it and set it up.
Take NeoOffice on the Mac - when I set it up it defaulted to saving file sin its format; which Office couldn't open. I *knew* what the problem was and fixed it; but the average user will only see that Aunt Sally couldn't open the Christmas Letter ( a blessing in disguise) and blame NeoOffice.
I like OSs; but it isn't going to catch on because it is free. It needs visibility and a compelling argument why it is better than the paid alternatives. So who will do that? My guess is the ISP's - mine already provides me with McAfee's suite as part of my subscription; adding NeoOffice or OO (perhaps even branding the splash screen with their logo) seems like a logical next step. They could partner with Sun to make it easy to install and upgrade automatically so the process is transparent to the average user. As for marketing; you're saving $70/year - and the stores can push a money making item (internet signup) with the purchase of a PC.
The question is will MS still sell boxed versions of Office? I can get the student version for $90 - $100 on sale; a far better deal than $70/year. For most of the users that the subscription targets any of the last 3 versions is more than enough for their use so a subscription makes no sense unless you want the AV service.
What I think is happening, as the article states, is MS realizes it's reached a plateau in the revenue from it's core products and users will more and more decide not to upgrade or upgrade only when machines get replaced since the current version meets there needs (my company has not yet gone to Vista or the latest Office suite - only new machines have them) which threatens their revenue stream and stock price.
Profit maximization, as long as their isn't collusion, is not illegal.
Every company in the same industry jacking up their prices for similar services in lock-step is collusion, even when there are no smoky, back-room meetings taking place.
Even if you call it collusion (which I don't; I consider collusion overt actions taken in agreement to affect the marketplace); it's not illegal if it's done independently.
Signaling competitive intentions (raising or dropping prices, for example) is a perfectly legal and ethical practice.
They all do the same thing, knowing that if they all do it, they all reap the rewards.
That's how competition works - I decide if I am better of following my competitors lead or if I'll make more money do something else. Airlines do this all the time with fares and charges, some stick, some don't.
This is how the cell industry has always worked because there are only a handful of players with an extremely high barrier to entry
Actually, given the number of cell phone companies I'd say the barriers aren't as high as many people think. You don't need to set up towers and hang antennas; all you need is a marketing arm and bulk lease of airtime to resell from the big 3. Cricket, MetroPCS, Virgin, Boost, et.al. do that, as did Earthlink until they bailed out.
and a regulatory agency that's as good as on their payroll.
Unfortunately, regulation no matter how well intentioned ultimately benefits the regulated by limiting competition.
even after I told them it was fraud and the charges were disputed.
So phone your card company, explain the situation and have them hit the airline with a chargeback. The majors all have anti-fraud divisions that will investigate the situation and reverse charges when the evidence is in favor of the customer, particularly if you were prompt in reporting the fraudulent activity.
First thing I did; since my card statement online shows the passenger name, flight and ticket # I tried to let the airlines know so they could take action before the ticket was used. In one case the outbound but not the return was used; I'd love for them to strand the thief in a foreign country or have them arrested.