Regardless of the ability to bind third parties, you certainly can create a liability for yourself to party A via an agreement with party B. That's basically what an EULA is about, both ways around, unless you buy directly from the copyright holder.
I question whether Google is into any of those things, and indeed whether anyone trying to abuse their system to collect complete electronic copies of numerous works would be so.
Remember, you're talking about a commercial organisation here. They don't have some sort of special exemption under the law or status as a public service like a library. They're in it for the money, not for the good of mankind. Or are you going to tell me that the whole service will be provided completely free of charge, free of advertisements, free of commissioned links to booksellers, and indeed free of any other type of revenue generation, in the spirit of good will and universal learning?
I'd be interested to see your views on that case; having read Easterbrook's comments on that particular case, the judgement seems well-reasoned and balanced to my non-lawyer's mind. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the normal podcast data where I am now; would you care to post a quick summary of your arguments against the reversal?
Now, IANAL, but I've got plenty of experience dealing with CC companies (including handling chargebacks) through previous jobs I've had, and this is pretty basic contract law anyway. Contracts are between two parties; if you've got a contract that you're trying to apply to a third party but that they haven't signed, it's meaningless.
Alas, contract law isn't always so simple. Ask any law student about getting their head around "promissory estoppel", for example.
I'm only going to reply once more to an AC in this thread, so read this properly.
I did not write that the US has no provision for fair use. I wrote that I haven't yet seen anyone in this thread make a convincing argument for why this case qualifies (though as I write this, several other posters have now made a case for why it doesn't). If you want to have a discussion, argue against what I explicitly wrote, not what you erroneously read into it.
In any case, you are wrong that Google aren't infringing copyright by default under US law, given that they've copied the material without the permission of the copyright holder. Fair use is an affirmative defence in the US, and since lawsuits are now being filed, it will be up to Google to demonstrate that they can avail themselves of that defence. Whether they'll succeed, only a court can tell us, but the burden is definitely on them at this stage.
Now, please stop posting links to kindergarten material most of us here have been familiar with for years as if it made your argument any more valid, and start understanding the material yourself before you waste any more of anyone's time.
Google aren't guilty by default just because they copied.
Actually, yes, they are. And I said that apparently they aren't covered by any exemption. Since no-one yet seems to have made a solid case that they are, I stand by that. Get back to us when you've got an argument to make for why their actions should be considered fair use, instead of trying to duck the interesting question.
First point: what on earth makes you think any politician who goes ahead with an alternative DNS plan will ever suffer for it? Unfortunately, most of the electoral systems in places like the EU are almost as undemocratic as that in the US. If going to war with Iraq despite the protests of literally millions of UK citizens didn't get Blair unelected, how much impact do you think this will have on the career of some EU Commissioner who isn't even directly elected anyway?
Second point: I know the US can't force everyone to let it keep absolute control. Perhaps you missed the first half of my previous post, where I said that? At present, however, it can exert absolute control over ICANN for practical purposes; it just usually doesn't.
Third point: What's your problem with the.xxx domain? It isn't stifling free speech, it's just saying that if you're going to talk about subjects only suitable for adults, you have to be upfront about it. If you have a problem with that, then I have a problem with your idea of what's important about free speech.
Where have you gotten the "apparently without being covered by any exemption" from? Plucked it from thin air?
No, based on the fact that the strongest argument I've seen anyone make in this thread is some tentative claim about "fair use", a concept that is far from uniform across different jurisdictions anyway, without any legal references to back it up even in the US. The burden of proof is clearly on Google here, and even their own publicity for Google Print has steered well clear of this subject so far AFAICS.
Google have been on dubious legal ground for a long time, the Google Cache you mentioned being among the main points of contention. Google Groups and Google Image Search have also come in for criticism before.
What amazes me is that there hasn't yet been a major lawsuit against someone like Google or the Wayback Machine. It's hard to see how it isn't an open-and-shut case - we're not talking about some specially-exempted public interest service run by the government, remember - and some of their activities could cause very real damage to someone if things worked out unfortunately for them.
One potential, legitimate problem is that a small vulnerability in the code could allow lots of people to download lots of complete works before the gap was closed, costing (best case) big publishing houses a bit of profit, or (worst case) small-time authors trying hard to pay the rent their rent for this month.
That is dubious, according to the CIA 15 year report, it will be the EU that will become the next superpower, economically, and militarily.
That's interesting. I'd come to the conclusion that this might happen myself, though I suspect underlying tensions in the EU will mean it's always very much a collection of nations who come together when they have a common interest, rather than some sort of United States of Europe, at least any time in my lifetime.
The US will win because of simple facts. The sheer amount of Tier 1 ISP's as US companies, Akamai is a US company, the ICANN is still in the US. And many major websites are US owned.
<shrugs/> I use exactly one US-based web site with any regularity, and you're reading it. How long do you think it would take for either international subsidiaries of US companies or independents based outside the US to come up with their own Amazon, or eBay, or even Slashdot?
Bush won't backdown. I predeict the US is going to win this battle
The thing is, whether Bush backs down or not is irrelevant. Despite the views apparently held in the White House and among a disturbingly large proportion of US citizens, the US has no authority over anyone outside its own borders. If the rest of the world wants to run its own alternative DNS system, then realistically there is pretty much jack the US can do about it, and if it tries to play the isolation/fragmentation game, it's going to miss the rest of the world a lot more than the rest of the world misses it. The only constructive thing the US administration can do is try to talk/bribe them out of it diplomatically and/or hope they decide that it's not really a good idea after all and drop it.
Personally, I have mixed opinions on this one. On general principles I think the US should be forced to relinquish absolute control, particularly since it has demonstrated a willingness to abuse the position by effectively vetoing the.xxx TLD. However, I maintain a healthy scepticism about the UN, which lots of US-based people seem to assume is the only option on the table here despite at least four serious proposals having come out of the EU already.
Therefore it makes precious little sense to send women to the front lines, in the same way you don't send your university educated males to the front line either.
Except that graduates generally train to become commissioned officers, and front line units are frequently led by a lieutenant...
It's funny how it remains legal almost everywhere to discriminate on gender alone when recruiting front-line military personnel then.
Maybe political correctness isn't the first thing you're concerned about when your unit is coming under fire, one of your guys is hit, and someone else needs to carry them to cover.
Or do you believe in the FUD that closed software is inherently more secure?
Don't be asinine. Security through obscurity is another layer that any threat has to break through. In the case of the defence and national security business, just about everything is obscured as much as possible, hence the cheese phrases "top secret" and "need to know" appearing in every spy movie ever.
Do you really think it would make no difference if the (highly confidential) source code to every defence application were released? Perhaps we should release the names of all the intelligence officers working under cover in diplomatic missions as well? And the list of all the suspected terrorists currently under surveillance by those intelligence officers? And the daily travel plans for each intelligence officer within the next week? Yep, that wouldn't compromise their security at all.
Information that is obscured is more secure than the same information when it's not secured, simply because there's an extra wall a cracker has to break through before they can get the information or do any damage. In this case more than any other, that wall is rather solid and well-guarded, too. Every intelligence service in the world has known this since forever, but I suppose it was hoping a bit much to put OSS-zealot wannabe hackers in the same sentence as the word "intelligence".
Remember, Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales has started his Porn Squad (not to attack only kiddie porn sites, but consenting adult sites as well) in some sort of twisted moral crusade. Well, there is a buttload of porn on the net, isn't there. If we keep control, he can stamp it out...
Yep. It's ironic that so many people here claim that the US is doing a fine job at present, can't meddle with a private company, blah blah blah. AIUI, the US government basically stepped in directly to block the creation of a.xxx domain. Regardless of your approval or otherwise of pornographic material, it's undeniable that the WWW has reached its current state in no small part because of the porn industry, and it's in the interests of both that industry and responsible parents (amongst others) to respect a separation between their material and that intended for more general consumption. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a problem with a nation that is run by the Christian Right and has a demonstrated problem with abusing its power making that kind of decision for the rest of the world, many of whom don't share the Christian Right's views on the subject.
Heh. I dislike Galloway for a number of reasons, but you've got to respect (no pun intended) the way he makes his point and his willingness to stand by what he says and make his case.
I think it was one of our better satirical TV shows that said it best, quipping that in response to voluntarily accepting a grilling by the US Senate over his dealings with Iraq, the best George Galloway could do to defend himself was to speak uninterrupted for 20 minutes without notes, refuting every single allegation made against him by citing detailed, verifiable sources.
Considering that during the last US presidential debates, neither of the candidates could speak coherently even for two-minute stints, instead awkwardly repeating the same transparent sound-bites they had presumably been given by their campaign staff, I'd say that's pretty telling.
I assume the first line was a joke as well, since both sides have publicly refused to disclose what the deal under consideration before the breakdown actually was...
If upper management questions you directly, tell them they can have any two of these options: (A) fast, (B) cheap, (C) good. Chances are, they will understand that a quality implementation takes more time. If they choose (A) and (B) anyway, start resume polishing, the company probably won't be around long anyway.
That's often not true in today's capitalist, commercial world. The fact that good managers realise this, and may make a decision to go with (A) and (B) under some circumstances even though the developers don't like it, is why good managers -- those who make the right call here most of the time -- wind up getting paid a lot more than good developers.:-)
It's also why the industry should probably experience a fundamental change in emphasis, to put a greater weight on producing quality products, since often the money chain (ultimately, the customers) don't know enough to know that they want them (at least, not until after the crackers have been in, cleaned out the company network, and destroyed the business that didn't pay a bit more for a secure product, by which time it's a little late to learn).
Good design and code re-use are there to save time, not to waste it. Take the time doing things right, and it will save you time in the long run.
You must not work in the commercial world.
On the contrary. IME, people/organisations that truly understand the value of good design and best practices are usually very successful in the commercial world. This is precisely because if you take a longer-term view and keep your house in order, even taking a small hit in the short term to do it, then in the long term you will be vastly more productive and your products will be much higher quality. This is why they're "best practices".
It's the people who pretend (or honestly but wrongly believe) that they are following good practices because they read something in a book somewhere who usually cause the problems in the commercial world. They take the short term hit -- and usually it's a bigger hit than it needs to be -- yet fail to realise the longer term gains that should result. This is why not everything that comes with a chunky procedures manual is a best practice; indeed, IME most best practices are remarkably simple things.
Real management would have never... have sent someone to a meeting without ground rules.
Sure, but isn't a basic level of common sense and awareness part of the job any more? Would you expect a manager to have to tell a senior developer before each customer site visit to remember to be polite and turn up well-presented? Of course not. Granted, it's smart management not to make unnecessary assumptions, so you might mention that as a "friendly aside" to the rookie guy the first time, because he's a rookie. It sounds like that might be the case here. But in general, there are some things that anyone competent to be visiting customer sites should know, and that includes that they should ask their delegation's leader first if they don't know exactly what role they're supposed to be playing or how to play it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you misspelled "corporations" there. :-)
Regardless of the ability to bind third parties, you certainly can create a liability for yourself to party A via an agreement with party B. That's basically what an EULA is about, both ways around, unless you buy directly from the copyright holder.
I question whether Google is into any of those things, and indeed whether anyone trying to abuse their system to collect complete electronic copies of numerous works would be so.
Remember, you're talking about a commercial organisation here. They don't have some sort of special exemption under the law or status as a public service like a library. They're in it for the money, not for the good of mankind. Or are you going to tell me that the whole service will be provided completely free of charge, free of advertisements, free of commissioned links to booksellers, and indeed free of any other type of revenue generation, in the spirit of good will and universal learning?
I'd be interested to see your views on that case; having read Easterbrook's comments on that particular case, the judgement seems well-reasoned and balanced to my non-lawyer's mind. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the normal podcast data where I am now; would you care to post a quick summary of your arguments against the reversal?
Alas, contract law isn't always so simple. Ask any law student about getting their head around "promissory estoppel", for example.
I'm only going to reply once more to an AC in this thread, so read this properly.
I did not write that the US has no provision for fair use. I wrote that I haven't yet seen anyone in this thread make a convincing argument for why this case qualifies (though as I write this, several other posters have now made a case for why it doesn't). If you want to have a discussion, argue against what I explicitly wrote, not what you erroneously read into it.
In any case, you are wrong that Google aren't infringing copyright by default under US law, given that they've copied the material without the permission of the copyright holder. Fair use is an affirmative defence in the US, and since lawsuits are now being filed, it will be up to Google to demonstrate that they can avail themselves of that defence. Whether they'll succeed, only a court can tell us, but the burden is definitely on them at this stage.
Now, please stop posting links to kindergarten material most of us here have been familiar with for years as if it made your argument any more valid, and start understanding the material yourself before you waste any more of anyone's time.
Actually, yes, they are. And I said that apparently they aren't covered by any exemption. Since no-one yet seems to have made a solid case that they are, I stand by that. Get back to us when you've got an argument to make for why their actions should be considered fair use, instead of trying to duck the interesting question.
First point: what on earth makes you think any politician who goes ahead with an alternative DNS plan will ever suffer for it? Unfortunately, most of the electoral systems in places like the EU are almost as undemocratic as that in the US. If going to war with Iraq despite the protests of literally millions of UK citizens didn't get Blair unelected, how much impact do you think this will have on the career of some EU Commissioner who isn't even directly elected anyway?
Second point: I know the US can't force everyone to let it keep absolute control. Perhaps you missed the first half of my previous post, where I said that? At present, however, it can exert absolute control over ICANN for practical purposes; it just usually doesn't.
Third point: What's your problem with the .xxx domain? It isn't stifling free speech, it's just saying that if you're going to talk about subjects only suitable for adults, you have to be upfront about it. If you have a problem with that, then I have a problem with your idea of what's important about free speech.
Blockquoth the AC:
No, based on the fact that the strongest argument I've seen anyone make in this thread is some tentative claim about "fair use", a concept that is far from uniform across different jurisdictions anyway, without any legal references to back it up even in the US. The burden of proof is clearly on Google here, and even their own publicity for Google Print has steered well clear of this subject so far AFAICS.
Google have been on dubious legal ground for a long time, the Google Cache you mentioned being among the main points of contention. Google Groups and Google Image Search have also come in for criticism before.
What amazes me is that there hasn't yet been a major lawsuit against someone like Google or the Wayback Machine. It's hard to see how it isn't an open-and-shut case - we're not talking about some specially-exempted public interest service run by the government, remember - and some of their activities could cause very real damage to someone if things worked out unfortunately for them.
Because they're making a copy without the permission of the copyright holder, apparently without being covered by any exemption?
One potential, legitimate problem is that a small vulnerability in the code could allow lots of people to download lots of complete works before the gap was closed, costing (best case) big publishing houses a bit of profit, or (worst case) small-time authors trying hard to pay the rent their rent for this month.
That's interesting. I'd come to the conclusion that this might happen myself, though I suspect underlying tensions in the EU will mean it's always very much a collection of nations who come together when they have a common interest, rather than some sort of United States of Europe, at least any time in my lifetime.
<shrugs/> I use exactly one US-based web site with any regularity, and you're reading it. How long do you think it would take for either international subsidiaries of US companies or independents based outside the US to come up with their own Amazon, or eBay, or even Slashdot?
The thing is, whether Bush backs down or not is irrelevant. Despite the views apparently held in the White House and among a disturbingly large proportion of US citizens, the US has no authority over anyone outside its own borders. If the rest of the world wants to run its own alternative DNS system, then realistically there is pretty much jack the US can do about it, and if it tries to play the isolation/fragmentation game, it's going to miss the rest of the world a lot more than the rest of the world misses it. The only constructive thing the US administration can do is try to talk/bribe them out of it diplomatically and/or hope they decide that it's not really a good idea after all and drop it.
Personally, I have mixed opinions on this one. On general principles I think the US should be forced to relinquish absolute control, particularly since it has demonstrated a willingness to abuse the position by effectively vetoing the .xxx TLD. However, I maintain a healthy scepticism about the UN, which lots of US-based people seem to assume is the only option on the table here despite at least four serious proposals having come out of the EU already.
While the fact that you can't see it as anything but a joke is tragic. To a lot of people on the outside, that's exactly how the US is seen right now.
Except that graduates generally train to become commissioned officers, and front line units are frequently led by a lieutenant...
It's funny how it remains legal almost everywhere to discriminate on gender alone when recruiting front-line military personnel then.
Maybe political correctness isn't the first thing you're concerned about when your unit is coming under fire, one of your guys is hit, and someone else needs to carry them to cover.
<obligatory> Some of them also work on the Games section at Slashdot... allegedly... :-) </obligatory>
Don't be asinine. Security through obscurity is another layer that any threat has to break through. In the case of the defence and national security business, just about everything is obscured as much as possible, hence the cheese phrases "top secret" and "need to know" appearing in every spy movie ever.
Do you really think it would make no difference if the (highly confidential) source code to every defence application were released? Perhaps we should release the names of all the intelligence officers working under cover in diplomatic missions as well? And the list of all the suspected terrorists currently under surveillance by those intelligence officers? And the daily travel plans for each intelligence officer within the next week? Yep, that wouldn't compromise their security at all.
Information that is obscured is more secure than the same information when it's not secured, simply because there's an extra wall a cracker has to break through before they can get the information or do any damage. In this case more than any other, that wall is rather solid and well-guarded, too. Every intelligence service in the world has known this since forever, but I suppose it was hoping a bit much to put OSS-zealot wannabe hackers in the same sentence as the word "intelligence".
Yep. It's ironic that so many people here claim that the US is doing a fine job at present, can't meddle with a private company, blah blah blah. AIUI, the US government basically stepped in directly to block the creation of a .xxx domain. Regardless of your approval or otherwise of pornographic material, it's undeniable that the WWW has reached its current state in no small part because of the porn industry, and it's in the interests of both that industry and responsible parents (amongst others) to respect a separation between their material and that intended for more general consumption. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a problem with a nation that is run by the Christian Right and has a demonstrated problem with abusing its power making that kind of decision for the rest of the world, many of whom don't share the Christian Right's views on the subject.
Heh. I dislike Galloway for a number of reasons, but you've got to respect (no pun intended) the way he makes his point and his willingness to stand by what he says and make his case.
I think it was one of our better satirical TV shows that said it best, quipping that in response to voluntarily accepting a grilling by the US Senate over his dealings with Iraq, the best George Galloway could do to defend himself was to speak uninterrupted for 20 minutes without notes, refuting every single allegation made against him by citing detailed, verifiable sources.
Considering that during the last US presidential debates, neither of the candidates could speak coherently even for two-minute stints, instead awkwardly repeating the same transparent sound-bites they had presumably been given by their campaign staff, I'd say that's pretty telling.
I assume the first line was a joke as well, since both sides have publicly refused to disclose what the deal under consideration before the breakdown actually was...
That's often not true in today's capitalist, commercial world. The fact that good managers realise this, and may make a decision to go with (A) and (B) under some circumstances even though the developers don't like it, is why good managers -- those who make the right call here most of the time -- wind up getting paid a lot more than good developers. :-)
It's also why the industry should probably experience a fundamental change in emphasis, to put a greater weight on producing quality products, since often the money chain (ultimately, the customers) don't know enough to know that they want them (at least, not until after the crackers have been in, cleaned out the company network, and destroyed the business that didn't pay a bit more for a secure product, by which time it's a little late to learn).
On the contrary. IME, people/organisations that truly understand the value of good design and best practices are usually very successful in the commercial world. This is precisely because if you take a longer-term view and keep your house in order, even taking a small hit in the short term to do it, then in the long term you will be vastly more productive and your products will be much higher quality. This is why they're "best practices".
It's the people who pretend (or honestly but wrongly believe) that they are following good practices because they read something in a book somewhere who usually cause the problems in the commercial world. They take the short term hit -- and usually it's a bigger hit than it needs to be -- yet fail to realise the longer term gains that should result. This is why not everything that comes with a chunky procedures manual is a best practice; indeed, IME most best practices are remarkably simple things.
Sure, but isn't a basic level of common sense and awareness part of the job any more? Would you expect a manager to have to tell a senior developer before each customer site visit to remember to be polite and turn up well-presented? Of course not. Granted, it's smart management not to make unnecessary assumptions, so you might mention that as a "friendly aside" to the rookie guy the first time, because he's a rookie. It sounds like that might be the case here. But in general, there are some things that anyone competent to be visiting customer sites should know, and that includes that they should ask their delegation's leader first if they don't know exactly what role they're supposed to be playing or how to play it.