>If services can be included in the definition of >theft, so can copyright infringement.
I really can't see how, but the question would be, why would you like to include it and what would you gain by doing so? We have laws (not dictionaries) define what actions is theft and what is not and the lagalities of it. Similary, we have (different) laws regulating copyright infringement. Obviously one can't be applied to the other or there would be no need for one set of the laws.
But perhaps we should also include murder into theft, after all, you are "taking" away the life of someone. So please call it theft when you kill someone. Or better yet, call everything that is theft for murder, after all, in both cases you take something. If someone argue that taking apencil from you is not murder, scream that it is both illegal so what is the fuss about, and in addition, in both cases you take something, so obviously it is OK and usefull to call taking a pencil from someone murder. Yeah, that would be a good thing to do and improve the discussion.
>If you resell/trade/give away the >software/movie/music, then you have to destroy >your backups because the original is now being >used by someone else. If you just lost it... >that's why you have a backup.
But if someone steal the original from you......I guess ones head just explode trying to figure out if one has to destroy the backup or not...
>But stealing the DVD could theoretically also >violate some copyright laws, which I assume >would carry a different penalty.
As far as I know, the right to steal a DVD with the work on is not an exclusive right to the copyright holder. So I fail to see what copyright has to do with stealing a DVD.
>So therefore, the only way to instill fear in >the mind of "internet shoplifters" is to up the >possible penalty.
This doesn't bode well. Me, using a pencil and paper copying a poem from a book I have is next to impossible to find out. The chance of getting cought approchaes zero. So the penalty would approach infinity. At the very least the panlty should start in the billions of dollar.
On the other hand it bodes well for my planned bank robbery. I intend to call the police before hand, not use mask and stare into the cameras and so on. Sure, a huge chance of getting cought, but by your reasoning, the penalty would probably not be more than say $10 or so in fines.
>Obviously owning a physical DVD also allows you >to turn it into P2P-friendly files, but that >can't be fined yet since it hasn't happened, >while the downloader already possesses the file.
Speaking of owning, owning in itself is not copyright infringement under US law, now is it? (assuming the copy is one created in an infringing way)
>So when you have illegally downloaded a song, >you have stolen something -- the value of not >only a potential sale to you, but to everyone >who then shares from you.
You can't steal potential sales and such. You can't phone the police and claim someone stole a potential sale. Further, it is not illegal in anyway to make someone lose a sale. For example, me borrowing a book from a friend is also really a potential lost sale, yet it is not illegal. Me sitting down in my friends chair is a potential lost sale since I could have bought a chair of my own for that case instead and so on. What is illegal bout copyright infringement is not the potential lost sale, it is the act of creating a new copy that is in most, but not all, cases illegal, regardless of potential sales lost. So it is really pointless to discuss if an act has a potential lost sale. It is even more poinltes to then try to claim that such a lost sale is "stolen" and then claim that copyright infringement hence is theft.
>Mod parent up. This is exactly what the issue >is. You must take into account both the theft >and the duplication. Stealing the video from the >store does not imply duplication, no matter >how "trivial" it has become to rip the material >from the disc.
And duplicating something does not imply stealing no matter how "trivial" it has become to call it that.
So really, what is compared here is the act of stealing something, with the act of creating a new copy of the same thing (and not stealing it, that is instead ot stealing it). The main difference is really who is possibly affected by the two different acts. In one case the store (and not the copyright holder) and in the other case possibly the copyright holder but not the store.
>Once you've taken the leap from choosing not to >have a copy in your possession to having a copy >you've left the area where you can complain >about the price.
>If you were to attempt to argue that you >shouldn't be held accountable simply because you >wouldn't have 'normally' purchased a copy >anyway, then the logical conclusion is that no >one would need to pay for anything. After all, >why would I pay for something if I could get it >for free? And why would anyone pay me for >anything if THEY could get it for free?
All this is of course pretty irellevant since the laws on theft and copyright infringement really doesn't care about if you would or would not have bought, nor if there was a potential lost sale. It is the act that might or might not be illegal. When it comes to copyright infringement, it is the act of copying that might be illegal. Do note the might. It doesn't matter if someone in the prosess lost a sale or not.
In addition, making someone lose a sale is not illegal in anyway. You can't "steal" a sale either. Nor is having in possession of something you did not pay for. For example, if I lend a book to someone, I also prevented a sale and someone got in their possession a book, still, nothing illegal. I could even seel the person my book instead, still no illegal act has been commited. There are many things in the world you can either pay to get OR get it for free. Getting it for free still doesn't make it illegal in most cases. I don't commit an illegal act if I cut my hair (for free) instead of geting it done by a proffesional for example.
So it is really no point in trying to argue or view the legality of copyright issues based on if someone lose sales, gets something for free or other similar concepts. It is even more pointless to try to claim similarities with stealing based on that you "steal" a sale or other such similar concepts. It turns even worse when some people first find that losing a sale is stealing and then claiming any act, including copying is then illegal since it prevents a sale and that was just found to be stealing which is illegal. That is just turning casuality backwards and that doesn't work.
>I'm pretty sure that regular users can't write >the "C:\program files" directory on Windows XP.
I wonder if the trojan is hard coded for that folder or get the default program forlder from Windows. some localized versions of Windows (for example the swedish one) uses another default folder name for program installation. MOst program handle that but some insist to go for "program files" no matter what.
>So what makes this June Release by one Microsoft >executive more believable than other >announcements?
4 months seems appropriate for the legal department to craft this new über EULA. It will be more than double the size of the ones for WinXP. In addition this time they REALY want to find and fix that legal bug were the shift key get stuck every other paragraph.
>Go tell this to those who were sued by the >RIAA/MPAA and lost.
You are confusing things up. That is about copyright infringement, not because anyone broke some contract or license. RIIA/MPAA would go after you for breaking the copyright law. That is something you don't have to agree to, it always apply.
To me that seems trivial. Wanting to encode some numbers into a text string using whatever base. Just pick the most appropriate one. Seems trivial to me and even more to people with general knowledge in the area. Thus it is not patentable since it is too trivial. Just check the patent law if you want to see that such a thing can't be patentable.
Since computers by their very nature are based on ints and not floating point values, convertion have basically existed as long as computers. Perhaps with different base, but then using a different base is more than trivial and not a patantable thing. That is just silly.
>B) Selling intellectual property that does not >belong to them.
What specifically are you refering too? I suppose the bytes indicating an item is a sword with some magical properties. That is not something you get copyright on. In general, you also don't get copyright on data itself. Also, copyright infringement are a specific set of things you can't do. They involve copying (not happening), distribution of such new copies (old ones typically are OK to redistribute). In any case, that is not happening, it is still in the exact same place as before, on the game companies server. Making it available for the public/public performance, no such things more than what you allready do in the game anyway. So even if it HAD been a copyright situation, no copyright infringement is done. What happens at most is a transfer of an item inside the game bwteen characters, hardly something not allowed, most games have specific such features to do so. Finally, had it actually been copyright infringement, so would it have been you just giving away an item in the game, by your reasoning, it doesn't "belong" to you, so how could you give it away?
>C) Hogging resources and areas and depriving real >customers of what they paid for.
So? They have bought and paid for a copy of the game too, why should they have any less "right" to play it than you?
So, how will this work outside US? Or will they just assume the laws are the same in every country? And if it only applies to US, how do one determine properly if the computer in question IS in the US? I guess they simply implement it for everyone and won't care about laws in different countries.
I routinely stay at hotels in Sweden, Finland, Germany and France (and sometimes in other countries) and never present any sort of identification (nor asked for). Not sure were you have stayed though.
Ahh, writing your own login program to get passwords, what memories. Remember back in the eighties when we had CP/M computers at school. We found the system had very poor security. For example, after someone loged out, his password still existed in clear text in memory!! That way we initially got the teachers password. Later they too found out and started to turn off computer after log out. So we wrote a fake login too.
In addition, with admin status, you could actually see other users passwords, including other admins. Since they usually never changed passwords at the same time, we were home safe.
After a kid, who learned a teachers password, missunderstood what "remove user" meant (he thought it was to log out the user, which was a fun thing doing), it wiped the user completely from the system, all teachers changed passwords simultaneously a few times. Fortunately we had set another students account (who was completely computer illiterate) as admin, and they never noticed, so still no problem. Ohh, what a fun time that was. Don't think we ever did anything malicious though, it was just a fun game to play....
>You're depriving the painter of the possibility >of his work (or even duplicates of it) having >been purchased by taking it upon yourself to >create/obtain duplicates that the creator has >not been paid for, either for yourself, or >others.
Depriving someone of income is neither theft nor illegal in itself. Dependin on what action you take to do it, it can be illegal (the act, not the depriving in itself) or it can be legal.
Similary to not pay for something you create (in this case a copy) is not in itself illegal too, nor does it have anything to do with copyright. Payment is a non issue. It is the actual act of copying that can be compyright infringement. However, there are many cases were making a coppy or geting hold of a copy (with or without paying) that is perfectly legal!!
>You're stealing from him, plain and >simple. "Legally" stealing? Perhaps not.
What are you trying to acomplish by this type of reasoning? If I understand it is is along the lines of: 1) he is deprived of something 2) that is similar to stealing 3) Since some acts of copying is depriving someone of something, any act of copying is too and hence copying is identicval to theft and therefore illegal???
Guess what, the law allready details what type of copying is illegal and what type is not. It is not doing it based on depriving someone income, and it does not use theft to sort it out either, it simply lists when copying (or a few other things like distribution and making it available to the public) is considered illegal and when it is not. On top of that, it has the the termoinology for it too, copyright infringement.
ALso, since there are many, MANY cases were something would be similar to theft and not copyright infringement, it is stupid to try to use analogies of one to prove the other. Actually, to use analogies to prove anything is stupid. Trying to use some reasoning that completely miss the reasoning in copyright law to try to explain whe something is illegal or not also ends up wrong, no matter how you want to twist it by call ing things theft (since your reasoning will lead to a whole bunch of things that is perfectly legal still would be considered "theft" by you).
So why not try to use proper terminology, use the laws for telling what is legal or not and not your own ideas of what should be.
>I don't know. Maybe that "Settings" link right >on the front page might do it?
That requires me to know what "settings" is called in finnish, now wouldn't it? OrR even know that such a thing exists which I didn't since I don't understand finnish at all. Perhaps you do?
And there is no "settings" on the main msn.com page.
Is there a way for it to NOT trying to guess your country and then when failing throwing up a language you don't want (and don't understand) for the interface? Due to the company I work at being finnish I always get thrown to.fi and all in finnish despite being in Sweden. Quite annoying and no obvious way to change it.
>You forget that the box sais "Internet Connection >Required".
Ehh, are you implying that when steam goes down, no internet connection work? I am sure almost all of those people that can't play now have a working internet connection.
Slashdot Mirror
>If services can be included in the definition of
>theft, so can copyright infringement.
I really can't see how, but the question would be, why would you like to include it and what would you gain by doing so? We have laws (not dictionaries) define what actions is theft and what is not and the lagalities of it. Similary, we have (different) laws regulating copyright infringement. Obviously one can't be applied to the other or there would be no need for one set of the laws.
But perhaps we should also include murder into theft, after all, you are "taking" away the life of someone. So please call it theft when you kill someone. Or better yet, call everything that is theft for murder, after all, in both cases you take something. If someone argue that taking apencil from you is not murder, scream that it is both illegal so what is the fuss about, and in addition, in both cases you take something, so obviously it is OK and usefull to call taking a pencil from someone murder. Yeah, that would be a good thing to do and improve the discussion.
>So you're going to commit perjury in an attempt
>to save yourself from copyright infringement?
Are you saying that in US, an accused can commit perjury?
>If you resell/trade/give away the
>software/movie/music, then you have to destroy
>your backups because the original is now being
>used by someone else. If you just lost it...
>that's why you have a backup.
But if someone steal the original from you......I guess ones head just explode trying to figure out if one has to destroy the backup or not...
>But stealing the DVD could theoretically also
>violate some copyright laws, which I assume
>would carry a different penalty.
As far as I know, the right to steal a DVD with the work on is not an exclusive right to the copyright holder. So I fail to see what copyright has to do with stealing a DVD.
>So therefore, the only way to instill fear in
>the mind of "internet shoplifters" is to up the
>possible penalty.
This doesn't bode well. Me, using a pencil and paper copying a poem from a book I have is next to impossible to find out. The chance of getting cought approchaes zero. So the penalty would approach infinity. At the very least the panlty should start in the billions of dollar.
On the other hand it bodes well for my planned bank robbery. I intend to call the police before hand, not use mask and stare into the cameras and so on. Sure, a huge chance of getting cought, but by your reasoning, the penalty would probably not be more than say $10 or so in fines.
Sounds like a good reasoning to me!
>Obviously owning a physical DVD also allows you
>to turn it into P2P-friendly files, but that
>can't be fined yet since it hasn't happened,
>while the downloader already possesses the file.
Speaking of owning, owning in itself is not copyright infringement under US law, now is it? (assuming the copy is one created in an infringing way)
>So when you have illegally downloaded a song,
>you have stolen something -- the value of not
>only a potential sale to you, but to everyone
>who then shares from you.
You can't steal potential sales and such. You can't phone the police and claim someone stole a potential sale. Further, it is not illegal in anyway to make someone lose a sale. For example, me borrowing a book from a friend is also really a potential lost sale, yet it is not illegal. Me sitting down in my friends chair is a potential lost sale since I could have bought a chair of my own for that case instead and so on. What is illegal bout copyright infringement is not the potential lost sale, it is the act of creating a new copy that is in most, but not all, cases illegal, regardless of potential sales lost. So it is really pointless to discuss if an act has a potential lost sale. It is even more poinltes to then try to claim that such a lost sale is "stolen" and then claim that copyright infringement hence is theft.
>Mod parent up. This is exactly what the issue
>is. You must take into account both the theft
>and the duplication. Stealing the video from the
>store does not imply duplication, no matter
>how "trivial" it has become to rip the material
>from the disc.
And duplicating something does not imply stealing no matter how "trivial" it has become to call it that.
So really, what is compared here is the act of stealing something, with the act of creating a new copy of the same thing (and not stealing it, that is instead ot stealing it). The main difference is really who is possibly affected by the two different acts. In one case the store (and not the copyright holder) and in the other case possibly the copyright holder but not the store.
>Once you've taken the leap from choosing not to
>have a copy in your possession to having a copy
>you've left the area where you can complain
>about the price.
>If you were to attempt to argue that you
>shouldn't be held accountable simply because you
>wouldn't have 'normally' purchased a copy
>anyway, then the logical conclusion is that no
>one would need to pay for anything. After all,
>why would I pay for something if I could get it
>for free? And why would anyone pay me for
>anything if THEY could get it for free?
All this is of course pretty irellevant since the laws on theft and copyright infringement really doesn't care about if you would or would not have bought, nor if there was a potential lost sale. It is the act that might or might not be illegal. When it comes to copyright infringement, it is the act of copying that might be illegal. Do note the might. It doesn't matter if someone in the prosess lost a sale or not.
In addition, making someone lose a sale is not illegal in anyway. You can't "steal" a sale either. Nor is having in possession of something you did not pay for. For example, if I lend a book to someone, I also prevented a sale and someone got in their possession a book, still, nothing illegal. I could even seel the person my book instead, still no illegal act has been commited. There are many things in the world you can either pay to get OR get it for free. Getting it for free still doesn't make it illegal in most cases. I don't commit an illegal act if I cut my hair (for free) instead of geting it done by a proffesional for example.
So it is really no point in trying to argue or view the legality of copyright issues based on if someone lose sales, gets something for free or other similar concepts. It is even more pointless to try to claim similarities with stealing based on that you "steal" a sale or other such similar concepts. It turns even worse when some people first find that losing a sale is stealing and then claiming any act, including copying is then illegal since it prevents a sale and that was just found to be stealing which is illegal. That is just turning casuality backwards and that doesn't work.
>C:\Program Files\... can be hardcoded
And you end up geting it all wrong in some localized versions of windows that use a different folder name.
>I'm pretty sure that regular users can't write
>the "C:\program files" directory on Windows XP.
I wonder if the trojan is hard coded for that folder or get the default program forlder from Windows. some localized versions of Windows (for example the swedish one) uses another default folder name for program installation. MOst program handle that but some insist to go for "program files" no matter what.
>So what makes this June Release by one Microsoft
>executive more believable than other
>announcements?
4 months seems appropriate for the legal department to craft this new über EULA. It will be more than double the size of the ones for WinXP. In addition this time they REALY want to find and fix that legal bug were the shift key get stuck every other paragraph.
>This article describes another incidences where
>software shrink-wrap licences have been upheld.
>Even ruling against reverse-engineering!
That case has been appealed so I would hardly say it has been decided yet on that particular case.
>Go tell this to those who were sued by the
>RIAA/MPAA and lost.
You are confusing things up. That is about copyright infringement, not because anyone broke some contract or license. RIIA/MPAA would go after you for breaking the copyright law. That is something you don't have to agree to, it always apply.
To me that seems trivial. Wanting to encode some numbers into a text string using whatever base. Just pick the most appropriate one. Seems trivial to me and even more to people with general knowledge in the area. Thus it is not patentable since it is too trivial. Just check the patent law if you want to see that such a thing can't be patentable.
Since computers by their very nature are based on ints and not floating point values, convertion have basically existed as long as computers. Perhaps with different base, but then using a different base is more than trivial and not a patantable thing. That is just silly.
>B) Selling intellectual property that does not
>belong to them.
What specifically are you refering too? I suppose the bytes indicating an item is a sword with some magical properties. That is not something you get copyright on. In general, you also don't get copyright on data itself. Also, copyright infringement are a specific set of things you can't do. They involve copying (not happening), distribution of such new copies (old ones typically are OK to redistribute). In any case, that is not happening, it is still in the exact same place as before, on the game companies server. Making it available for the public/public performance, no such things more than what you allready do in the game anyway. So even if it HAD been a copyright situation, no copyright infringement is done. What happens at most is a transfer of an item inside the game bwteen characters, hardly something not allowed, most games have specific such features to do so. Finally, had it actually been copyright infringement, so would it have been you just giving away an item in the game, by your reasoning, it doesn't "belong" to you, so how could you give it away?
>C) Hogging resources and areas and depriving real
>customers of what they paid for.
So? They have bought and paid for a copy of the game too, why should they have any less "right" to play it than you?
So, how will this work outside US? Or will they just assume the laws are the same in every country? And if it only applies to US, how do one determine properly if the computer in question IS in the US? I guess they simply implement it for everyone and won't care about laws in different countries.
I routinely stay at hotels in Sweden, Finland, Germany and France (and sometimes in other countries) and never present any sort of identification (nor asked for). Not sure were you have stayed though.
Ahh, writing your own login program to get passwords, what memories. Remember back in the eighties when we had CP/M computers at school. We found the system had very poor security. For example, after someone loged out, his password still existed in clear text in memory!! That way we initially got the teachers password. Later they too found out and started to turn off computer after log out. So we wrote a fake login too.
In addition, with admin status, you could actually see other users passwords, including other admins. Since they usually never changed passwords at the same time, we were home safe.
After a kid, who learned a teachers password, missunderstood what "remove user" meant (he thought it was to log out the user, which was a fun thing doing), it wiped the user completely from the system, all teachers changed passwords simultaneously a few times. Fortunately we had set another students account (who was completely computer illiterate) as admin, and they never noticed, so still no problem. Ohh, what a fun time that was. Don't think we ever did anything malicious though, it was just a fun game to play....
>You're depriving the painter of the possibility
>of his work (or even duplicates of it) having
>been purchased by taking it upon yourself to
>create/obtain duplicates that the creator has
>not been paid for, either for yourself, or
>others.
Depriving someone of income is neither theft nor illegal in itself. Dependin on what action you take to do it, it can be illegal (the act, not the depriving in itself) or it can be legal.
Similary to not pay for something you create (in this case a copy) is not in itself illegal too, nor does it have anything to do with copyright. Payment is a non issue. It is the actual act of copying that can be compyright infringement. However, there are many cases were making a coppy or geting hold of a copy (with or without paying) that is perfectly legal!!
>You're stealing from him, plain and
>simple. "Legally" stealing? Perhaps not.
What are you trying to acomplish by this type of reasoning? If I understand it is is along the lines of: 1) he is deprived of something 2) that is similar to stealing 3) Since some acts of copying is depriving someone of something, any act of copying is too and hence copying is identicval to theft and therefore illegal???
Guess what, the law allready details what type of copying is illegal and what type is not. It is not doing it based on depriving someone income, and it does not use theft to sort it out either, it simply lists when copying (or a few other things like distribution and making it available to the public) is considered illegal and when it is not. On top of that, it has the the termoinology for it too, copyright infringement.
ALso, since there are many, MANY cases were something would be similar to theft and not copyright infringement, it is stupid to try to use analogies of one to prove the other. Actually, to use analogies to prove anything is stupid. Trying to use some reasoning that completely miss the reasoning in copyright law to try to explain whe something is illegal or not also ends up wrong, no matter how you want to twist it by call ing things theft (since your reasoning will lead to a whole bunch of things that is perfectly legal still would be considered "theft" by you).
So why not try to use proper terminology, use the laws for telling what is legal or not and not your own ideas of what should be.
>I don't know. Maybe that "Settings" link right
>on the front page might do it?
That requires me to know what "settings" is called in finnish, now wouldn't it? OrR even know that such a thing exists which I didn't since I don't understand finnish at all. Perhaps you do?
And there is no "settings" on the main msn.com page.
Is there a way for it to NOT trying to guess your country and then when failing throwing up a language you don't want (and don't understand) for the interface? Due to the company I work at being finnish I always get thrown to .fi and all in finnish despite being in Sweden. Quite annoying and no obvious way to change it.
>Obviously, or they wouldn't be on Slashdot
>bitching about it.
Try reading the parent posts so you understand what it is all about.
>You forget that the box sais "Internet Connection
>Required".
Ehh, are you implying that when steam goes down, no internet connection work? I am sure almost all of those people that can't play now have a working internet connection.