>In the same paragraph: >>and (4) increase penalties for IP violations that endanger public health and safety.
Wouldn't be more reasonable to have some law that have penalties in general for something that endager public health and safety? Regardless of if it involves some IP violation or not! Or shall it be more OK to endager public health and safety as long as you do it with an original than with an illegal copy? This seems to not be related to IP at all (regardless of what you include in IP).
> You may very well be right, but the article says they > download the file themselves and run it through a >"fingerprinting" software to see if it matches a song > they hold a copyright to.
Out of curiosity, what if they found out through the fingerprinting that it was NOT a song they hold the copyright to, do they then report themselves for copyright infringement? And how large is the fractions of files they download something they don't hold the copyright to? 1%? 50%? Something else?
>What is far more likely is that if they have you tagged >for some other problem this will mean they can then have >your iPod checked over for possible infringing material.
How can material be infringing? The act of for example copying it can be infringment. A copy stored on a device can itself not be infringing (especially if it is not accesible by the public). It is whatever someone do with it that can be infringing. Hence it won't help looking at for example an mp3 player since there is no way to tell HOW the copy was created (in an infringing way or not). If you want to check at the boarder it is even harder since you have to consider the exact law in the country it was made in.
>So no, you could not make a 1:1 copy using a >regular DVD burner.
But the issue is not if you can make a copy of the complete DVD. What is protected by copyright is the work, the movie. So the questions is, is the work, the movie, copy protected. You can copy the complete movie without any problem. What the protection do is that you can't access/play the movie in certain players that in addition to the movie also wants a key in specific places. So the protection does not stop copying at all, it stops the playback/access.
>It is NOT illegal to download a file, and it >never was!
When downloading, you are creating a copy on your computer. Creation of copies are covered by copyright law and typically require either the permission from the copyright holder or the permision by the copyright law (usually allowing it only in very specific cases). In most countries such downloading would be copyright infringement.
>The ODF spec says that, > >"An implementation shall be accompanied by a document that defines all implementation-defined and locale-specific >characteristics and all extensions." > >(emphasis mine)
Could you direct me to were one can find that specific text in the spec? I tried to search for it but could not find it. I looked at the spec here:
On the other hand, that applies to many laws and cases. There is always greyzones and situations that aren't covered completely by the law itself or circumstances that might affect the outcome. Ultimately the courts will set the lines and define the boundaries of what applies when and so on.
Yes, but for there to be a contract, there need to be an agreement. That is the normal way contracts works in most countries. If both agree, the contract is binding. If there is no agreement, it is not binding to any one.
>MS previously agreed to return the refund price should you decide not to accept the EULA.
What agreement would that be? For sure it wasn't the EULA since we are talking about a situation were there is NO agreement over the EULA.
>No, there is EULA, if you dont agree to it it says that it can be returned for a refund.
If you don't agree to it, it would not matter what it says since there is no agreement. For you to apply what is in the agreement, you first need to agree to it.
>Seriously though, this was intended as a US system, though >it could be equally applied in any country which wished to, >just modify based on the local currency and its value.
Yes, I understand that it was intended as a US system, however, the question, although perhaps not spelled out to well, was, how would it apply to other countries? For example, would everyone in every other country suddenly have to go pay this US fee to get copyright in US? Would everyone in US now also have to go around to each and every other country in the world figuring out what if anything needs to be done and/or paid for in each and every other country in the world?
>As it stands, copyrights are on a per country basis, with some trading going on.
Which works since you automatically get protection in all other countries as well without having to do do anything extra. If you suddenly have to start do special things in different countries that system brek down.
>The initial copyright lasts 10 years and costs >$100.
Cool, is that for the whole world or per country?
>The next 5 years costs $1,000, the next 5 years >$100,000, and the next 5 costs $10,000,000 and >so on.
Same queston, per country or for the whole world? Do you think you can get other countries to actually join in and keep same prices or will there be a price competition in that it is chpear in some countries and so on?
>Whilst I agree with much of what you wrote, this part is wrong. >Being able to leave money for your children and grandchildren is >a great incentive. And at least for authors, this is the time >where their experience is most valuable.
I suppose they can do like anyone else, leave money they have earned until they die. Why should then in ADDITION be able to leave a copyright to children and in what way does that fullfill the goals of copyright? I have never seen anyone claim copyright has as one of the purposes the possibility to give children a way to make money by restricting others use of a work.
>You own the copy, the copyright holder owns the music/movie.
Not really, the copyright holder has the copyright to the music. You can't own the intangible "music". POssibly you can say they own the copyright to the music if you like to have an "own" in there. Holdung the copyright to something is NOT the same as owning it, not even close. It envolves quite different rights and restrictions.
So, "You own a copy of the music, the copyright holder owns a copyright to the music".
>75% of the P members voted in favor of the standard. This is 58% of the entire P group.
At least one memeber of the P group did not vote at all, so the 58% is not completely accurate.
>New O members who voted all joined specifically to vote against it.
The only O members that voted "Not Approved" were Brazil and Cuba. Were they both new? In any case, they were hardly that many. There were on the other hand 37 O members that voted "Approve". Are you saying none of them joined recently?
>As PJ pointed out over on Groklaw, MS are giving a "Promise" >not to sue but this is very very far from a license.
Some (hypothetical?) questions:
What would happen if those patents in some way was transfered to someone else?
Despite the promise, are you still actually infringing the patent? Just with an assurance of the current patent holder that he won't do anything?
If so, what would happen if it becomes criminal to break a patent (it was quite close to be part of an EU directive not so long ago)? Together with such suggestions one have also seen sugestions that police should be allowed (and required?) to act on those crimes even without a filing from someone suffering infringment. How would that apply to a situation with such a promise?
>Most EULAs state that you can return the software >to the place of purchase if you don't agree with the EULA.
But if you don't agree to it, there is no agreement and what is said in the EULA is irrellevant. The only way for it to apply and to be binding is for you to agree to it, in which case it is irrelevant hwat happens if you did not agree to it.
Yes, it was about Swedish law since that was the topic. The contributory/aid/abet/attempt/whatever is part of the criminal law and are general provisions that applies to basically any crime without there needing to be any special paragraph, text or such for each crime. There are restrictions as to what crimes one can apply it (can't be on to minor crimes, certain requirements has to be fullfilled and so on) but otherwise it applies generally. Thus it includes the copyright infringement that is considered as criminal.
Another requirement is that there is an actual crime commited as well and usually you need to have a sentence for it although there is some rare cases with someone having been convited for a contributory crime whilne no one was ever convicted for the crime itself. This requirement is important in the Pirate Bay case (the criminal one) since they prosecutor needs to prove a crime has been commited and which should not have been commited without the aid he is accusing the persons from Pirate bay for.
This is all regulated in kap 23 of the "brottsbalk" (the law handling criminal law) and it applies only to criminal cases, not civil ones.
>They can at most sue them for some sort of grey area >"contributory copyright infringement"...
That is part of criminal law (in Sweden). You can't sue in a civil case for "contributory something" you have to sue for the main illegal act which would be suing the people actually uploading and downloading.
>Yes. If you are tried for a crime and found not guilty you can still be sued >for the same actions in civil court and have a settlement against you.
The "problem" here (for the web sherif) is that they are not charaged with any crime itself in the crimial case, they are charged with aiding (or is abet the proper word?). That is a concept in the criminal law only, not in civil law. You can't sue in a civil case for aiding/abeting. So they would need to show an actual infringment by the persons at Pirate Bay which is probably not so easy since if it was, it would for sure have been part of the original criminal case.
Exactly WHAT in my post are you commenting on? Were do you think I am wrong?
>what copyright law protects is the right of the copyright >owner to control the manufacture and distribution of copies >of the copyrighted material.
Exactly what copyright protects vary som between countries. The above is not a complete description of everything that is protected. It excludes for example various forms of public performance and transfering a work to the public. I don't think we disagree what copyright protects and does or doesn't allow though.
>Case: where Pirate Bay et.al. is off base is that they are deliberately >indexing material they know to be copyright protected and illegally distributed >and in doing this they are facilitating an illegal activity*. Google et.al. >does no such thing: they index material that copyright owners have intentionally >published to the web.
Indexing is not a copyright violation (at least not in most countries of the world, and especially not in Denmark). They index anything that people send in information about (regardless of their illegalness or not), it is an automatic process. They also don't even link to the actual material but rather to a tracker were one in turn can find others that has the material. It is as inderect it can be.
Google similary index anything it finds on the net, regardless of if it is has been put there by the copyright holder or not. Everything on the net is NOT put there by the copyright holder, yet google will index it. Google directly link to the material. In many cases google even download it and make it in turn available from their own servers as a cache. So not only do google link more directly, they even copy and allow people to get it directly from the.
I don't see any difference in the directness nor in the "on purpose". You also seem to believe that google in some magical way only index sites were all material is put out by the copyright holder while ignoring the others. You also seems to think that google somehow doesn't link directly to any site (lets disregard their own cache here) while the pirate bay never actually link to any material at all. They do link to a tracker were people exists that might have the work. So yes, there is a difference but it is google that is linking more directly. Neother is more "on purpose" than the other.
>They do not directly and on purpose have links to infringing material.
Ehh, what do you mean by "directly"? Why do you claim it is directly in one case but not the other? How do you get to the "on purpose"? In one case the site is automatically going arround looking for files and index them if they find them (one have to actually take specific actions to op-out). In the other case, the ones with the files has to tell the site to index it. (Yes I know one can go to google and tell them as well.) The only thing ending up there is what others put there. That is the main difference.
>Oh, btw, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom has >gotten charge of about $200'000 in fines and of two years jail.
No, you can't get both a fine and jail in Sweden, you get one or the other. The $200,000 is a pacyback of what the prosecutor claim is the sum they gained on the crime. The "two year in jail" is also just the maximum possible listed sentence for the crime. It is not what they have been "charged" with. Since the trial has not started, the prosecutor has actually not said anything about what sentence he will ask from the court. It can be jail (of varying time) but it can also be a fine. We don't know yet.
>The prosecutor is asking for extremely harsh punishment, the reasoning is that >TPB has big advertisement income.
So no, he is not asking for anything extreme at all. He hasn't even asked anything at all. The sum of money is what he claims is their gain (I know it is not the proper word but can't figure out a better one) which he claim he can prove. it is not a punishment or sentence though.
> The prosecutor is asking for extremely harsh punishment, the reasoning is that TPB has big advertisement income.
>We have a lot of victimless crimes in the US, though, so a lot of >criminal trials have no "complaintant
We have some as well. Speeding while driving a car would be such an example.
>The gist I'm getting is that the legal system in Sweden is driven more >by those who are wronged (or believe they have been wronged) than law >enforcement and prosecutors.
Probably true although I don't know about, for example, the US system good enough.
Slashdot Mirror
>In the same paragraph:
>>and (4) increase penalties for IP violations that endanger public health and safety.
Wouldn't be more reasonable to have some law that have penalties in general for something that endager public health and safety? Regardless of if it involves some IP violation or not! Or shall it be more OK to endager public health and safety as long as you do it with an original than with an illegal copy? This seems to not be related to IP at all (regardless of what you include in IP).
> You may very well be right, but the article says they
> download the file themselves and run it through a
>"fingerprinting" software to see if it matches a song
> they hold a copyright to.
Out of curiosity, what if they found out through the fingerprinting that it was NOT a song they hold the copyright to, do they then report themselves for copyright infringement? And how large is the fractions of files they download something they don't hold the copyright to? 1%? 50%? Something else?
>Downloading is not forbidden by current law in the U.S.
But creating a copy is in many cases.
>The act of downloading is not distribution,...
It does normally includes creating a copy of what you download on your computer. Hence it can, and often is, a copyright infringement.
So as a user, which developer do you think I choose?
>What is far more likely is that if they have you tagged
>for some other problem this will mean they can then have
>your iPod checked over for possible infringing material.
How can material be infringing? The act of for example copying it can be infringment. A copy stored on a device can itself not be infringing (especially if it is not accesible by the public). It is whatever someone do with it that can be infringing. Hence it won't help looking at for example an mp3 player since there is no way to tell HOW the copy was created (in an infringing way or not). If you want to check at the boarder it is even harder since you have to consider the exact law in the country it was made in.
>So no, you could not make a 1:1 copy using a
>regular DVD burner.
But the issue is not if you can make a copy of the complete DVD. What is protected by copyright is the work, the movie. So the questions is, is the work, the movie, copy protected. You can copy the complete movie without any problem. What the protection do is that you can't access/play the movie in certain players that in addition to the movie also wants a key in specific places. So the protection does not stop copying at all, it stops the playback/access.
>It is NOT illegal to download a file, and it
>never was!
When downloading, you are creating a copy on your computer. Creation of copies are covered by copyright law and typically require either the permission from the copyright holder or the permision by the copyright law (usually allowing it only in very specific cases). In most countries such downloading would be copyright infringement.
>The ODF spec says that,
>
>"An implementation shall be accompanied by a document that defines all implementation-defined and locale-specific
>characteristics and all extensions."
>
>(emphasis mine)
Could you direct me to were one can find that specific text in the spec? I tried to search for it but could not find it. I looked at the spec here:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v1.1-html/OpenDocument-v1.1.html
Do I need to look elsewere to find it?
On the other hand, that applies to many laws and cases. There is always greyzones and situations that aren't covered completely by the law itself or circumstances that might affect the outcome. Ultimately the courts will set the lines and define the boundaries of what applies when and so on.
>Who decides what is a "tie-in" and what is simply a component of a whole product ?
The court based on the laws?
>There are two parties involved in the EULA.
Yes, but for there to be a contract, there need to be an agreement. That is the normal way contracts works in most countries. If both agree, the contract is binding. If there is no agreement, it is not binding to any one.
>MS previously agreed to return the refund price should you decide not to accept the EULA.
What agreement would that be? For sure it wasn't the EULA since we are talking about a situation were there is NO agreement over the EULA.
>No, there is EULA, if you dont agree to it it says that it can be returned for a refund.
If you don't agree to it, it would not matter what it says since there is no agreement. For you to apply what is in the agreement, you first need to agree to it.
>Seriously though, this was intended as a US system, though
>it could be equally applied in any country which wished to,
>just modify based on the local currency and its value.
Yes, I understand that it was intended as a US system, however, the question, although perhaps not spelled out to well, was, how would it apply to other countries? For example, would everyone in every other country suddenly have to go pay this US fee to get copyright in US? Would everyone in US now also have to go around to each and every other country in the world figuring out what if anything needs to be done and/or paid for in each and every other country in the world?
>As it stands, copyrights are on a per country basis, with some trading going on.
Which works since you automatically get protection in all other countries as well without having to do do anything extra. If you suddenly have to start do special things in different countries that system brek down.
>The initial copyright lasts 10 years and costs
>$100.
Cool, is that for the whole world or per country?
>The next 5 years costs $1,000, the next 5 years
>$100,000, and the next 5 costs $10,000,000 and
>so on.
Same queston, per country or for the whole world? Do you think you can get other countries to actually join in and keep same prices or will there be a price competition in that it is chpear in some countries and so on?
>Whilst I agree with much of what you wrote, this part is wrong.
>Being able to leave money for your children and grandchildren is
>a great incentive. And at least for authors, this is the time
>where their experience is most valuable.
I suppose they can do like anyone else, leave money they have earned until they die. Why should then in ADDITION be able to leave a copyright to children and in what way does that fullfill the goals of copyright? I have never seen anyone claim copyright has as one of the purposes the possibility to give children a way to make money by restricting others use of a work.
>You own the copy, the copyright holder owns the music/movie.
Not really, the copyright holder has the copyright to the music. You can't own the intangible "music". POssibly you can say they own the copyright to the music if you like to have an "own" in there. Holdung the copyright to something is NOT the same as owning it, not even close. It envolves quite different rights and restrictions.
So, "You own a copy of the music, the copyright holder owns a copyright to the music".
>75% of the P members voted in favor of the standard. This is 58% of the entire P group.
At least one memeber of the P group did not vote at all, so the 58% is not completely accurate.
>New O members who voted all joined specifically to vote against it.
The only O members that voted "Not Approved" were Brazil and Cuba. Were they both new? In any case, they were hardly that many. There were on the other hand 37 O members that voted "Approve". Are you saying none of them joined recently?
>As PJ pointed out over on Groklaw, MS are giving a "Promise"
>not to sue but this is very very far from a license.
Some (hypothetical?) questions:
What would happen if those patents in some way was transfered to someone else?
Despite the promise, are you still actually infringing the patent? Just with an assurance of the current patent holder that he won't do anything?
If so, what would happen if it becomes criminal to break a patent (it was quite close to be part of an EU directive not so long ago)? Together with such suggestions one have also seen sugestions that police should be allowed (and required?) to act on those crimes even without a filing from someone suffering infringment. How would that apply to a situation with such a promise?
>Most EULAs state that you can return the software
>to the place of purchase if you don't agree with the EULA.
But if you don't agree to it, there is no agreement and what is said in the EULA is irrellevant. The only way for it to apply and to be binding is for you to agree to it, in which case it is irrelevant hwat happens if you did not agree to it.
Yes, it was about Swedish law since that was the topic. The contributory/aid/abet/attempt/whatever is part of the criminal law and are general provisions that applies to basically any crime without there needing to be any special paragraph, text or such for each crime. There are restrictions as to what crimes one can apply it (can't be on to minor crimes, certain requirements has to be fullfilled and so on) but otherwise it applies generally. Thus it includes the copyright infringement that is considered as criminal.
Another requirement is that there is an actual crime commited as well and usually you need to have a sentence for it although there is some rare cases with someone having been convited for a contributory crime whilne no one was ever convicted for the crime itself. This requirement is important in the Pirate Bay case (the criminal one) since they prosecutor needs to prove a crime has been commited and which should not have been commited without the aid he is accusing the persons from Pirate bay for.
This is all regulated in kap 23 of the "brottsbalk" (the law handling criminal law) and it applies only to criminal cases, not civil ones.
>They can at most sue them for some sort of grey area
>"contributory copyright infringement"...
That is part of criminal law (in Sweden). You can't sue in a civil case for "contributory something" you have to sue for the main illegal act which would be suing the people actually uploading and downloading.
>Yes. If you are tried for a crime and found not guilty you can still be sued
>for the same actions in civil court and have a settlement against you.
The "problem" here (for the web sherif) is that they are not charaged with any crime itself in the crimial case, they are charged with aiding (or is abet the proper word?). That is a concept in the criminal law only, not in civil law. You can't sue in a civil case for aiding/abeting. So they would need to show an actual infringment by the persons at Pirate Bay which is probably not so easy since if it was, it would for sure have been part of the original criminal case.
Exactly WHAT in my post are you commenting on? Were do you think I am wrong?
>what copyright law protects is the right of the copyright
>owner to control the manufacture and distribution of copies
>of the copyrighted material.
Exactly what copyright protects vary som between countries. The above is not a complete description of everything that is protected. It excludes for example various forms of public performance and transfering a work to the public. I don't think we disagree what copyright protects and does or doesn't allow though.
>Case: where Pirate Bay et.al. is off base is that they are deliberately
>indexing material they know to be copyright protected and illegally distributed
>and in doing this they are facilitating an illegal activity*. Google et.al.
>does no such thing: they index material that copyright owners have intentionally
>published to the web.
Indexing is not a copyright violation (at least not in most countries of the world, and especially not in Denmark). They index anything that people send in information about (regardless of their illegalness or not), it is an automatic process. They also don't even link to the actual material but rather to a tracker were one in turn can find others that has the material. It is as inderect it can be.
Google similary index anything it finds on the net, regardless of if it is has been put there by the copyright holder or not. Everything on the net is NOT put there by the copyright holder, yet google will index it. Google directly link to the material. In many cases google even download it and make it in turn available from their own servers as a cache. So not only do google link more directly, they even copy and allow people to get it directly from the.
I don't see any difference in the directness nor in the "on purpose". You also seem to believe that google in some magical way only index sites were all material is put out by the copyright holder while ignoring the others. You also seems to think that google somehow doesn't link directly to any site (lets disregard their own cache here) while the pirate bay never actually link to any material at all. They do link to a tracker were people exists that might have the work. So yes, there is a difference but it is google that is linking more directly. Neother is more "on purpose" than the other.
>They do not directly and on purpose have links to infringing material.
Ehh, what do you mean by "directly"? Why do you claim it is directly in one case but not the other? How do you get to the "on purpose"? In one case the site is automatically going arround looking for files and index them if they find them (one have to actually take specific actions to op-out). In the other case, the ones with the files has to tell the site to index it. (Yes I know one can go to google and tell them as well.) The only thing ending up there is what others put there. That is the main difference.
>Oh, btw, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom has
>gotten charge of about $200'000 in fines and of two years jail.
No, you can't get both a fine and jail in Sweden, you get one or the other. The $200,000 is a pacyback of what the prosecutor claim is the sum they gained on the crime. The "two year in jail" is also just the maximum possible listed sentence for the crime. It is not what they have been "charged" with. Since the trial has not started, the prosecutor has actually not said anything about what sentence he will ask from the court. It can be jail (of varying time) but it can also be a fine. We don't know yet.
>The prosecutor is asking for extremely harsh punishment, the reasoning is that
>TPB has big advertisement income.
So no, he is not asking for anything extreme at all. He hasn't even asked anything at all. The sum of money is what he claims is their gain (I know it is not the proper word but can't figure out a better one) which he claim he can prove. it is not a punishment or sentence though.
> The prosecutor is asking for extremely harsh punishment, the reasoning is that TPB has big advertisement income.
>We have a lot of victimless crimes in the US, though, so a lot of
>criminal trials have no "complaintant
We have some as well. Speeding while driving a car would be such an example.
>The gist I'm getting is that the legal system in Sweden is driven more
>by those who are wronged (or believe they have been wronged) than law
>enforcement and prosecutors.
Probably true although I don't know about, for example, the US system good enough.