I doubt it. If Bill Gates and a homeless guy were equally responsible for a car accident, do you think the victim could be accused of extortion because they decided not to try suing the homeless guy?
No, but this is about letting the homeless guy keep on running over them afterwards.
In which case maybe Gates can argue down the damages because if being runover was so bad, how come they let the other guy carry on doing it...
Since IE is (unfortunately) the defacto standard browser, others (if they infringe at all) will follow the lead, and Microsoft will take all the pain of getting web developers to change to cope with the changes.
The Eolas guy is annoyed because MS routed around his toll bridge, and now everyone else will see the way to go round too, and all his future revenues just evaporated.
Remember, XP dates from 2001 (and win 2k is earlier), for a PC to be non-XP-capable it would probably be >5yrs old. Consumer PCs that old are not going to be "potentially used for years" unless you are doing a lot of work fixing and just finding rare spare parts. Most charities (at least here in the uk) simply won't take systems that old.
Sure, you _can_ run Linux on older systems. The last one I threw away (since non of the charities would take it) was a 486 with 16M, ran Slackware up to about 1.2 quite happily - but upgrading to Redhat 2.x was always a regret as it slowed it down so much (glibc, elf binaries, pic shared libs - vs. the old lean-mean a.out jumptable stuff). Good luck with getting any uptodate apps to run, even if you could get it to build, I suspect just a modern browser (ie. Firefox) would kill that system, let alone something like OpenOffice.
Worried about EOL ?
MS still support win 2k (from, um 2000). Try finding patches for Linux vendors from that era. Redhat have EOL'd everything up to RHL9 (2003) - and even fedora "legacy" supports only from 7.3 (2002 vintage).
Not "unless you want to break the law or you live in a country with restrictive copyright law".
I think you mean non-restrictive copyright law (so not a Berne signatory I guess ?) - or it doesn't make sense. Either way, the OP could have been correct in their jurisidction, and you correct in yours.
So we conclude that the OP shouldn't have made blanket statements about the law, since it varies...
OK, "DRM restricts your rights no less than copyright law does...oops. Blanket statement about the law...
Any counter-example proves that false. Consider a DRM which allows one backup copy, vs, a copyright law which contains no such allowance (eg. UK, if content is not computer program). Such a DRM would clearly be both restrictive, and less restrictive than the law.
At the very least an open-source implementation of a DRM-enabled viewer is impossible in practice
Why should it be impossible ? Or more to the point, why should it be possible to do closed source but not open ? Are you claiming "security by obscurity" ?
so you can't use an open-source viewer to view DRM-protected files even if you are legally entitled to view those files.
Which of your rights this infringe ? My VCR won't play my (legally purchased) DVDs, which of my rights does this infringe ?
Are you claiming you have a universal transcoding right - can you cite the law, I'd be interested to see it ?
In other words, the percentage of people who don't get coronary bypass in the US as a result of our strange capitalist leaning, but not capitalist health care system is better than all of the socialist systems.
Read the figures again. They are for waiting for more than three months, not "don't get".
In the US, if you can afford to pay you get it straight away, otherwise you don't get it. Nobody waits, but plenty of people don't get.
In the UK, if you can afford to pay you get it straight away (yep, we still have for-pay medical care, and insurance schemes to cover it, if you want to pay for it), if you can't, you wait, for up to six months. Plenty of people wait, nobody doesn't get.
Erm, if your computer is properly secured you will never know that Sony's DRM is on the disc, because your computer won't be looking for files on an audio CD.
Exactly (I think ?). If it doesn't look for files, doesn't auto-run them etc. (ie. it is properly secured), then no files from the CD can possibly be executed. So... the DRM has no effect on my computer.
If the CD doesn't play on a conforming player as an audio CD then that is because it is not a conforming audio CD, whether that is a pressing fault or DRM. If I have the right format (DRM-CD) player then I can play it, if not, then I can't - just the same as a CD will not play in a cassette player.
A DRM-CD might stop me copying the content to real-CD to play in a real CD player. A real CD will not stop me copying the content to cassette to play in my car.
So, DRM has limited my legal activities, right ? Wrong - it has only stopped me doing something which is actually illegal (both cases above), and has always been illegal (although we might have become accustomed to doing it). Maybe if DRM wakes people up to the fact that the law is silly we'll get the laws changed.
DRM can be used to restrict you further than the laws do.
Agreed. In fact that is what I said. The statement I disagreed with was:
DRM restricts your rights more than copyright law does
"can be used to" vs. does.
That is a whole world of difference.
IMO we should on principle _not_ be attacking _technologies_ simply because they "can be used" to do something we don't like.
When RIAA attacked P2P there were many here saying they were luddites, that they should attack the "bad" uses of the technology, not the technology itself (because that is an easier target) - because that had legitimate uses. I'm sticking with that principle.
It's legal for me to rip a CD whether it's protected by Sony's DRM or not.
Lucky you. In many places it is not, regardless of DRM. In some places, the act of circumventing the DRM makes it illegal. The GP didn't specify a jurisdiction.
It's legal for me to make a copy of a video, or create a new work of art based on its content.
Lucky you. I'd need the copyright holder's permission.
It's legal for me to copy and modify any work that is in my posession.
Lucky you. Not here.
What's illegal is redistributing it without authorization except as is allowed under fair use.
Erm, nope, not here. Here, "copying" is infringement, and "issue of copies" is also. Separate clauses in law, but both infringement.
If the creator wants me to play the work [...] but that doesn't make it illegal for me to use it in other ways.
Here, creators have "performance rights". They certainly do have the right to restrict how you play the work (although probably not to the extent of your example), and going beyond that is illegal.
DRM restricts your rights more than copyright law does
It could - but then so could other laws, or contracts etc. Or, on the other hand it could restrict you less, or about the same.
DRM is a technology (or more a loose collection of technologies), and there is nothing whatsoever in that technology that inherently restricts you more than the law (except, possibly, if you have no copyright law at all).
Like most technologies, it can be used in "good" and "bad" ways.
Your argument seems to come down to:
"DRMed content is more of a restriction / burden than non-DRMed content, so DRM is bad".
s/DRM/encryption/
Yippee, lets ban encryption too. After all, terrorists use it, must be bad.
I attacked your summary because it was misleading and gave the reasons why. You claimed that the clause was "narrowly defined" and that its effect was to ban a manufacturer that sells hardware and ships signed gpl software [...etc...]. Both statements may be accurate on their own, but taken together they are an entirely misleading, because the remit of the GPL clause is much wider than hardware mfr. that also ships software.
Example:
The drink drive laws are narrowly defined.
It is illegal to drive after drinking ten pints of lager.
Entirely correct statements, but totally misleading summary of the law (implies driving after five pints would be ok).
If DRM'd hardware is the "recommended or principal context of use", then you apparently do have to distribute your private key.
It is worse than that, context of use says nothing about limiting to hardware - ie. it could be software - and nothing about DRM - it could be (say) a trusted software update application.
In fact, in general terms, the "recommended or principal context of use" for a signed binary can only be a context in which a signed (with the right key) binary will behave differently to an unsigned one. That is the entire reason for signing the binary in the first place.
The goal is very clear, as the recipient of a GPLv3 binary I must also be able to get the source and rebuild it (possibly modified) such that its "functioning in all circumstances is identical" to the one I received. That means if it is signed, either I have to be able to give it the same signature (ie. they have to send the key), or that signature is not checked or acted on.
Now, if the binary was a redhat auto-update package that means either redhat has to send out their key, or the auto-update process (the context) must not treat redhat signed packages any differently to unsigned ones.
There is no third option of "but you can change your system to trust your key" (as some say) - because that merely changes your particular context, not the "recommended or principal", your update will not be treated the same on other machines. Nor would be ok if the code would still install / run unsigned if the user clicked to approve it in some way - because now the functioning is not identical.
The FSF has in turn claimed that Linus has "misread" the license,
Yes, but in other places they are quoted as saying that:
GPLv3 would not require Linux developers to publish the private keys that they use to sign Linux source versions to show they are authentic.
Which is in fact fully consistent with Linus, because the GPLv3 bans / subverts binary signing. The FSF are specific about source signing being OK, and silent about binary - because actually binary signing is not OK by GPLv3.
I don't think this clause can be "fixed" because the fault is fundamental - the GPL as a copyright on a piece of software (note, it is not a EULA) cannot control the context in which that software runs. It cannot affect what it, eg. TIVO hardware, does with a signed (or not) binary. The only thing the GPL can do to affect that is ban (or subvert) the signing of the binary in the first place.
It is inevitable that banning the signing technology bans the good uses as well as the "bad", because the uses are outside the scope of GPL.
1. A manufacturer who takes GPL'd code, signs it, and then sells hardware that only runs code signed with their key, which they don't redistribute, is in violation of the license. This is relatively narrowly defined, despite Torvalds throwing a hissy fit about this part of the license a few weeks ago, thinking it outlawed all forms of DRM (it doesn't.)
Perhaps, for those who haven't read it, you could quote the clause which refers to "hardware", or "manufacturer" or that the software distributer also has to be the hardware manufacturer to have to release signing keys.
Or maybe you can explain how you think it is "narrowly defined" in this way when the words "hardware" and "manufacturer" are not present anywhere in the (draft) license (a document you should perhaps read, or at least grep, before commenting on).
Actually entirely unlike I've not been proven a murder yet.
That is because I haven't been proven to have killed anyone yet (murdr or otherwise), which is rather a large difference.
If you really want a murder analogy, Google's position is like that of an admitted killer who is claiming self defence. [ No one disputes they are copying (and thumbnailing) images, without explicit permission of copyright holder ].
With the prelim injunction against them, they are also in the position of the judge having ruled they must start their murder sentence because their defense is unlikely to succeed in the full trial.
That is why Google is entirely likley to appeal that ruling immediately, ie. before they've been found guilty of anything in the full trial.
There are some differences. Google isn't a contributory, vicarious, or inducing infringer
You mean hasn't been found to be, yet.
Since perfect 10 has just got a preliminary injunction, at least one court thinks they have a good probability of being found guilty of infringement when it comes to trial.
And that's what he will be remembered for, not his thesis (if he wrote one) or his grades...and of course with a good prof [ Tannenbaum ], Linux would have got Linus a "fail" grade at college.
The side-effect of making computers unstable and hackable was not the intent of sony
Yes, but there was also:
Making it difficult / impossible to uninstall
Using rootkit tech _at all_ (to hide the driver files, to stop you uninstalling)
Making it install even when the user clicks no / cancel
All those were clearly deliberate intent - and dubious legality in some places (particularly installing, irreversibly, when the user explicitly denies permission).
The XP Media Center Edition limitation is interesting - I have seen some places now shipping that as the standard OS for home/games PCs. Flash lives on its market penetration - if MCE gains market (on PCs) and Flash can't be used on it... then Flash has a problem.
Anyone know if the standard flash install detects MCE and refuses to install (cos most joe users aren't going to read the eula) ?
It is true that many people who pirate things can't afford to buy what they pirated, and thus if they could not pirate, they would not have bought it anyway.
Indeed, most piracy these days is in the more deprived parts of the world, Africa (esp. Somalia) for a start. Of course being too poor to afford the cargo in no way excuses taking it by force and killing or kidnapping/ransoming crews.
But this is not the scenario we are talking about!
Yeah I thought we were talking about copyright infringement too - must have been watching too much Peter Pan with my kids.
If we just had different words for different things then we'd all know what we were talking about. Oh, wait, we do:
Theft: depriving owner of item
Piracy: siezing of ship by force
Copyright infringment: copying of item without permission of copyright holder
Simple, clear, not confusing - that's why we have different words for different things, so why not use them ?
It's bad because you have stolen the VALUE of that thing from them.
Except that by definition stealing applies to property, not value. Deprivation of value is not stealing (stealing implies deprivation of value, but the converse does not follow - simple logic).
I climb in your window and take your cash (lets say $1000) from your house.
I take a key and damage your car paintwork, repairs cost you $1000.
I convince you to invest $1000 in my pyramid scheme which then collapses.
I publish an article saying that your $10 viagra pills are fake (when I know they aren't), next day 100 orders are cancelled.
I threaten to publish your previous history as a fake-viagra-seller unless you pay me $1000.
I get you to pay me $1000 to "protect" your warehouse at night because there's been a few fires lately and it only takes a kid with a petrol can and a fire would really hurt your business right now and...
I burn down your warehouse (fortunately you rented it and only had $1000 in stock)
I take your dog and return it only after you've paid $1000 ransom.
I board a ship and seize the cargo, which happends to include a $1000 tv you are shipping.
I make 2000 copies of a CD on which you get $1 royalty per sale, half the people I give those copies too would have bought the CD.
In every case I deprive you of the value of $1000, in each case illegally, but what did I _do_ ?
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
Answer: because they are all _different_ so we use different words.
Sounds to me more like the good guy is making a really smart play. Note that it looks like he sort of slipped this in as an aside, since he was really giving evidence about "holding terrorist suspects without charge". Talk about pushing all the right buttons on the govt. machine.
If you are an opponent of TCG / TPM / DRM it is really quite beautiful. As far as I can see it is something like:
"Hey Mr. Government Committee, while you're asking me about terrorist suspects you might want to note that this new TPM / DRM stuff coming real soon from MS/**AA now will make it virtually impossible for you to get info off suspects' PCs. Oh, and the PCs are setup that way by default so no chance of using that fact against suspect. Also, you know that law you fought so hard for where you can jail people for not handing over encryption keys ? - well with this new stuff the key's in hardware and the suspect never has it. If you're worried by this, then maybe you should speak to these guys about crippling the tech..."
Aim big nasty government machine at big nasty corporate machine, stand well back...
Then they will use this as proof they need laws making it a crime to forget your encryption password
They already did that. RIPA. I think the final law got watered down a little, but the basic premise is still there, you have to hand over your keys and if you claim you forgot then that can be used against you.
Trouble is the penalty for not handing over (or forgetting) keys is not as high as they would like (2yrs vs. maybe 10+ for terrorism / chilporn / etc.) so some of them view it as not enough of a deterrent. They have a point - particularly if they get one guy for 2yrs rather than a whole cell for 10+ - however the alternative is life-imprisonment for forgetting your password, which isn't very palatable either.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt it. If Bill Gates and a homeless guy were equally responsible for a car accident, do you think the victim could be accused of extortion because they decided not to try suing the homeless guy?
No, but this is about letting the homeless guy keep on running over them afterwards.
In which case maybe Gates can argue down the damages because if being runover was so bad, how come they let the other guy carry on doing it...
It isn't just the microsoft fee.
Since IE is (unfortunately) the defacto standard browser, others (if they infringe at all) will follow the lead, and Microsoft will take all the pain of getting web developers to change to cope with the changes.
The Eolas guy is annoyed because MS routed around his toll bridge, and now everyone else will see the way to go round too, and all his future revenues just evaporated.
0. Are they powerful enough to run XP / 2K?
/ sysreqs.mspx http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/#s n-hardware-reqs.
If not, then how well do you think 98 will fare over time (when is it EOL'd?)
If they can't run 2k / XP they won't run a modern Linux dist either. Recommended specs are near enough the same - eg. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation
Remember, XP dates from 2001 (and win 2k is earlier), for a PC to be non-XP-capable it would probably be >5yrs old. Consumer PCs that old are not going to be "potentially used for years" unless you are doing a lot of work fixing and just finding rare spare parts. Most charities (at least here in the uk) simply won't take systems that old.
Sure, you _can_ run Linux on older systems. The last one I threw away (since non of the charities would take it) was a 486 with 16M, ran Slackware up to about 1.2 quite happily - but upgrading to Redhat 2.x was always a regret as it slowed it down so much (glibc, elf binaries, pic shared libs - vs. the old lean-mean a.out jumptable stuff). Good luck with getting any uptodate apps to run, even if you could get it to build, I suspect just a modern browser (ie. Firefox) would kill that system, let alone something like OpenOffice.
Worried about EOL ?
MS still support win 2k (from, um 2000). Try finding patches for Linux vendors from that era. Redhat have EOL'd everything up to RHL9 (2003) - and even fedora "legacy" supports only from 7.3 (2002 vintage).
I haver never understood why there isn't an XXX html tag
That would be PICS - http://www.w3.org/PICS/
Only invented about a decade ago.
The "tag" is there - just that hardly anyone uses it.
No need to worry there. Been there, done that, got the source code.
0 4/09-19OfficeGSPPR.mspx
See eg. reference to the UK in http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/sep
This was the first result on google for uk government windows source license
Not "unless you want to break the law or you live in a country with restrictive copyright law".
I think you mean non-restrictive copyright law (so not a Berne signatory I guess ?) - or it doesn't make sense. Either way, the OP could have been correct in their jurisidction, and you correct in yours.
So we conclude that the OP shouldn't have made blanket statements about the law, since it varies...
OK, "DRM restricts your rights no less than copyright law does
Any counter-example proves that false. Consider a DRM which allows one backup copy, vs, a copyright law which contains no such allowance (eg. UK, if content is not computer program). Such a DRM would clearly be both restrictive, and less restrictive than the law.
At the very least an open-source implementation of a DRM-enabled viewer is impossible in practice
Why should it be impossible ? Or more to the point, why should it be possible to do closed source but not open ? Are you claiming "security by obscurity" ?
so you can't use an open-source viewer to view DRM-protected files even if you are legally entitled to view those files.
Which of your rights this infringe ? My VCR won't play my (legally purchased) DVDs, which of my rights does this infringe ?
Are you claiming you have a universal transcoding right - can you cite the law, I'd be interested to see it ?
In other words, the percentage of people who don't get coronary bypass in the US as a result of our strange capitalist leaning, but not capitalist health care system is better than all of the socialist systems.
Read the figures again. They are for waiting for more than three months, not "don't get".
In the US, if you can afford to pay you get it straight away, otherwise you don't get it. Nobody waits, but plenty of people don't get.
In the UK, if you can afford to pay you get it straight away (yep, we still have for-pay medical care, and insurance schemes to cover it, if you want to pay for it), if you can't, you wait, for up to six months. Plenty of people wait, nobody doesn't get.
Erm, if your computer is properly secured you will never know that Sony's DRM is on the disc, because your computer won't be looking for files on an audio CD.
Exactly (I think ?). If it doesn't look for files, doesn't auto-run them etc. (ie. it is properly secured), then no files from the CD can possibly be executed. So... the DRM has no effect on my computer.
If the CD doesn't play on a conforming player as an audio CD then that is because it is not a conforming audio CD, whether that is a pressing fault or DRM. If I have the right format (DRM-CD) player then I can play it, if not, then I can't - just the same as a CD will not play in a cassette player.
A DRM-CD might stop me copying the content to real-CD to play in a real CD player. A real CD will not stop me copying the content to cassette to play in my car.
So, DRM has limited my legal activities, right ? Wrong - it has only stopped me doing something which is actually illegal (both cases above), and has always been illegal (although we might have become accustomed to doing it). Maybe if DRM wakes people up to the fact that the law is silly we'll get the laws changed.
DRM can be used to restrict you further than the laws do.
Agreed. In fact that is what I said. The statement I disagreed with was:
DRM restricts your rights more than copyright law does
"can be used to" vs. does.
That is a whole world of difference.
IMO we should on principle _not_ be attacking _technologies_ simply because they "can be used" to do something we don't like.
When RIAA attacked P2P there were many here saying they were luddites, that they should attack the "bad" uses of the technology, not the technology itself (because that is an easier target) - because that had legitimate uses. I'm sticking with that principle.
It's legal for me to rip a CD whether it's protected by Sony's DRM or not.
Lucky you. In many places it is not, regardless of DRM. In some places, the act of circumventing the DRM makes it illegal. The GP didn't specify a jurisdiction.
It's legal for me to make a copy of a video, or create a new work of art based on its content.
Lucky you. I'd need the copyright holder's permission.
It's legal for me to copy and modify any work that is in my posession.
Lucky you. Not here.
What's illegal is redistributing it without authorization except as is allowed under fair use.
Erm, nope, not here. Here, "copying" is infringement, and "issue of copies" is also. Separate clauses in law, but both infringement.
If the creator wants me to play the work [...] but that doesn't make it illegal for me to use it in other ways.
Here, creators have "performance rights". They certainly do have the right to restrict how you play the work (although probably not to the extent of your example), and going beyond that is illegal.
DRM restricts your rights more than copyright law does
It could - but then so could other laws, or contracts etc. Or, on the other hand it could restrict you less, or about the same.
DRM is a technology (or more a loose collection of technologies), and there is nothing whatsoever in that technology that inherently restricts you more than the law (except, possibly, if you have no copyright law at all).
Like most technologies, it can be used in "good" and "bad" ways.
Your argument seems to come down to:
"DRMed content is more of a restriction / burden than non-DRMed content, so DRM is bad".
s/DRM/encryption/
Yippee, lets ban encryption too. After all, terrorists use it, must be bad.
No, no, no - that's _quail_.
Shooting a quail is just like shooting a man.
I attacked your summary because it was misleading and gave the reasons why. You claimed that the clause was "narrowly defined" and that its effect was to ban a manufacturer that sells hardware and ships signed gpl software [...etc...]. Both statements may be accurate on their own, but taken together they are an entirely misleading, because the remit of the GPL clause is much wider than hardware mfr. that also ships software.
d =14817632
d =14821945
Example:
The drink drive laws are narrowly defined.
It is illegal to drive after drinking ten pints of lager.
Entirely correct statements, but totally misleading summary of the law (implies driving after five pints would be ok).
For GPL examples, see for instance:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=178766&ci
(and parent / children).
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=178766&ci
and probably numerous other comments on this topic.
If DRM'd hardware is the "recommended or principal context of use", then you apparently do have to distribute your private key.
It is worse than that, context of use says nothing about limiting to hardware - ie. it could be software - and nothing about DRM - it could be (say) a trusted software update application.
In fact, in general terms, the "recommended or principal context of use" for a signed binary can only be a context in which a signed (with the right key) binary will behave differently to an unsigned one. That is the entire reason for signing the binary in the first place.
The goal is very clear, as the recipient of a GPLv3 binary I must also be able to get the source and rebuild it (possibly modified) such that its "functioning in all circumstances is identical" to the one I received. That means if it is signed, either I have to be able to give it the same signature (ie. they have to send the key), or that signature is not checked or acted on.
Now, if the binary was a redhat auto-update package that means either redhat has to send out their key, or the auto-update process (the context) must not treat redhat signed packages any differently to unsigned ones.
There is no third option of "but you can change your system to trust your key" (as some say) - because that merely changes your particular context, not the "recommended or principal", your update will not be treated the same on other machines. Nor would be ok if the code would still install / run unsigned if the user clicked to approve it in some way - because now the functioning is not identical.
The FSF has in turn claimed that Linus has "misread" the license,
Yes, but in other places they are quoted as saying that:
Which is in fact fully consistent with Linus, because the GPLv3 bans / subverts binary signing. The FSF are specific about source signing being OK, and silent about binary - because actually binary signing is not OK by GPLv3.
I don't think this clause can be "fixed" because the fault is fundamental -
the GPL as a copyright on a piece of software (note, it is not a EULA) cannot control the context in which that software runs. It cannot affect what it, eg. TIVO hardware, does with a signed (or not) binary. The only thing the GPL can do to affect that is ban (or subvert) the signing of the binary in the first place.
It is inevitable that banning the signing technology bans the good uses as well as the "bad", because the uses are outside the scope of GPL.
1. A manufacturer who takes GPL'd code, signs it, and then sells hardware that only runs code signed with their key, which they don't redistribute, is in violation of the license. This is relatively narrowly defined, despite Torvalds throwing a hissy fit about this part of the license a few weeks ago, thinking it outlawed all forms of DRM (it doesn't.)
Perhaps, for those who haven't read it, you could quote the clause which refers to "hardware", or "manufacturer" or that the software distributer also has to be the hardware manufacturer to have to release signing keys.
Or maybe you can explain how you think it is "narrowly defined" in this way when the words "hardware" and "manufacturer" are not present anywhere in the (draft) license (a document you should perhaps read, or at least grep, before commenting on).
Actually entirely unlike I've not been proven a murder yet.
That is because I haven't been proven to have killed anyone yet (murdr or otherwise), which is rather a large difference.
If you really want a murder analogy, Google's position is like that of an admitted killer who is claiming self defence. [ No one disputes they are copying (and thumbnailing) images, without explicit permission of copyright holder ].
With the prelim injunction against them, they are also in the position of the judge having ruled they must start their murder sentence because their defense is unlikely to succeed in the full trial.
That is why Google is entirely likley to appeal that ruling immediately, ie. before they've been found guilty of anything in the full trial.
There are some differences. Google isn't a contributory, vicarious, or inducing infringer
You mean hasn't been found to be, yet.
Since perfect 10 has just got a preliminary injunction, at least one court thinks they have a good probability of being found guilty of infringement when it comes to trial.
And that's what he will be remembered for, not his thesis (if he wrote one) or his grades ...and of course with a good prof [ Tannenbaum ], Linux would have got Linus a "fail" grade at college.
The side-effect of making computers unstable and hackable was not the intent of sony
Yes, but there was also:
Making it difficult / impossible to uninstall
Using rootkit tech _at all_ (to hide the driver files, to stop you uninstalling)
Making it install even when the user clicks no / cancel
All those were clearly deliberate intent - and dubious legality in some places (particularly installing, irreversibly, when the user explicitly denies permission).
The XP Media Center Edition limitation is interesting - I have seen some places now shipping that as the standard OS for home/games PCs. Flash lives on its market penetration - if MCE gains market (on PCs) and Flash can't be used on it... then Flash has a problem.
Anyone know if the standard flash install detects MCE and refuses to install (cos most joe users aren't going to read the eula) ?
It is true that many people who pirate things can't afford to buy what they pirated, and thus if they could not pirate, they would not have bought it anyway.
Indeed, most piracy these days is in the more deprived parts of the world, Africa (esp. Somalia) for a start. Of course being too poor to afford the cargo in no way excuses taking it by force and killing or kidnapping/ransoming crews.
But this is not the scenario we are talking about!
Yeah I thought we were talking about copyright infringement too - must have been watching too much Peter Pan with my kids.
If we just had different words for different things then we'd all know what we were talking about. Oh, wait, we do:
Theft: depriving owner of item
Piracy: siezing of ship by force
Copyright infringment: copying of item without permission of copyright holder
Simple, clear, not confusing - that's why we have different words for different things, so why not use them ?
It's bad because you have stolen the VALUE of that thing from them.
Except that by definition stealing applies to property, not value. Deprivation of value is not stealing (stealing implies deprivation of value, but the converse does not follow - simple logic).
I climb in your window and take your cash (lets say $1000) from your house.
I take a key and damage your car paintwork, repairs cost you $1000.
I convince you to invest $1000 in my pyramid scheme which then collapses.
I publish an article saying that your $10 viagra pills are fake (when I know they aren't), next day 100 orders are cancelled.
I threaten to publish your previous history as a fake-viagra-seller unless you pay me $1000.
I get you to pay me $1000 to "protect" your warehouse at night because there's been a few fires lately and it only takes a kid with a petrol can and a fire would really hurt your business right now and...
I burn down your warehouse (fortunately you rented it and only had $1000 in stock)
I take your dog and return it only after you've paid $1000 ransom.
I board a ship and seize the cargo, which happends to include a $1000 tv you are shipping.
I make 2000 copies of a CD on which you get $1 royalty per sale, half the people I give those copies too would have bought the CD.
In every case I deprive you of the value of $1000, in each case illegally, but what did I _do_ ?
Theft (stealing), vandalism, fraud, libel, blackmail, extortion, arson, kidnapping, piracy, copyright infringement.
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
Answer: because they are all _different_ so we use different words.
Maybe that because it is different
Yeah, exactly. The person quoted actually proves their point by demonstrating that general education in IP law is sorely needed.
The government has the RIP Act
Yep, and TPM blows a hole in it, as this expert is pointing out the to govt. - to quote the article:
"This means that by default your hard disk is encrypted by using a key that you cannot physically get at... "
So, the govt. is now convinced that DRM is a tool for terrorists - sweet.
Nope, double jeopardy - they already tried you for forgetting _that_ key.
They could of course ask for a different key...
[oh, and I think they got rid of protection from double jeopardy as well recently... ]
Forgive me, but I would have expected more from one of the UK's top two universities.
That's probably because it is a smart move by smart people that you (and a lot of others) just don't get, rather than a dumb move by smart people.
See eg. the responses to http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=177490&ci
Sounds to me more like the good guy is making a really smart play. Note that it looks like he sort of slipped this in as an aside, since he was really giving evidence about "holding terrorist suspects without charge". Talk about pushing all the right buttons on the govt. machine.
If you are an opponent of TCG / TPM / DRM it is really quite beautiful. As far as I can see it is something like:
"Hey Mr. Government Committee, while you're asking me about terrorist suspects you might want to note that this new TPM / DRM stuff coming real soon from MS/**AA now will make it virtually impossible for you to get info off suspects' PCs. Oh, and the PCs are setup that way by default so no chance of using that fact against suspect. Also, you know that law you fought so hard for where you can jail people for not handing over encryption keys ? - well with this new stuff the key's in hardware and the suspect never has it. If you're worried by this, then maybe you should speak to these guys about crippling the tech..."
Aim big nasty government machine at big nasty corporate machine, stand well back...
Sweet.
Then they will use this as proof they need laws making it a crime to forget your encryption password
They already did that. RIPA. I think the final law got watered down a little, but the basic premise is still there, you have to hand over your keys and if you claim you forgot then that can be used against you.
Trouble is the penalty for not handing over (or forgetting) keys is not as high as they would like (2yrs vs. maybe 10+ for terrorism / chilporn / etc.) so some of them view it as not enough of a deterrent. They have a point - particularly if they get one guy for 2yrs rather than a whole cell for 10+ - however the alternative is life-imprisonment for forgetting your password, which isn't very palatable either.