...the entire foundation of legal philosophy ( at least in the USA ) is based on the assumption that people have inherent rights that exist with or without government. these are naturally observable and measurable independent of the opinions of those who have power. to secure these rights people often organize in the form of government, and create laws, but the government does not give rights in the slightest. governments can secure rights, and acknowledge them, but rights exist outside of government...
You may be correct on the general philosophy behind US law, but if you're suggesting that copyright protection is considered to be one of these natural "rights" you're entirely wrong (in the US).
Under US law, the "limited" monopoly on duplication given to an artist (or inventor) is actually a restriction on everyone's natural right to otherwise freely copy works of art (or technology) that is "temporarily" granted to an artist (or inventor) only to provide incentive for innovation. The notion of copyright protection as an inherent "right" is completely against the foundations of US law and the documented intentions of the founding fathers. Some countries do recognize an artist's control of their published work as a natural right but the US is not one of them (at least according to the constitution).
Perhaps it would be more accurate to start using the term "copyright" to mean that the public has the natural right to freely copy a work or idea, while the traditional sense of the term could more accurately be restated as a "restriction or denial of copyright".
In fact, I challenge those who believe in the US constitution to stop fighting against "copyright" and start declaring "I believe in copyright - the right of the people to freely develop and distribute ideas - and I am against overzealous restrictions or outright denials of this natural right!"
Yeah, the theory of relativity has a lot of meaning to the world at large. That lead to the invention of the.. oh, wait. It didn't lead to jack shit.
In addition to the rather obvious example of nuclear technology, the theory of relativity is necessary for the functionality of satellites and therefore essential to our modern communications infrastructure, GPS systems, and the many derivative technologies that depend on these systems.
Along with the discovery, development, and application of quantum mechanics, the application of Einstein's theories play an important role in the economy. I've seen studies (I really wish I had the references handy) that estimate the percentage of the US economy dependent on Quantum Mechanics and Relativity at anywhere from 30% to 75% of GDP. The higher percentages probably include indirect benefits from semiconductors, communications, as well as applications that led from derivative research.
As previously mentioned, the only reason it wouldn't have been included directly was that the list celebrates ideas since Forbes magazine began 85 years ago, not from the turn of the century when the basis for these ideas were first established.
Good theory, except apparently this movie isn't being driven by your aptly described tripe (read: Movie Execs). If anything it seems to be just the opposite.
According to Coming Attractions, after trying to revive Mad Max for some time, creator/director George Miller was able to win back the rights back to his franchise from Warner (who wanted to produce an updated, clean-cut "tripe" version, probably to make money selling toys) in exchange for handing "Contact" over to Robert Zemeckis. Since then he's been devoting a lot of his effort to developing this relatively risky movie and shopping around for a studio willing to produce and distribute it.
Now I'm sure he's hoping to make a bundle, but with the whole series combined earning well under the budget of this film, if profit was the only motive he'd still be milking the critical and popular success of "Babe" and producing completely mainstream star-of-the-week movies or maybe a direct to video "Babe IX" by now, not an expensive but bleak post-apocalyptic film that will have to be outstanding in order to favourably stand up to the originals and to deflect the sentiment (from fans, critics, and the general public) that they're just doing it for the money.
Maybe they can released on mass to eat left over genetically modified Canola oil seeds. And unlike your usual introduced species (like mongooses) they will soon self-destruct from cancer.
Talk about your non-realistic slipperly slope arguments. "Your honor, this home user ignored the vegan license so all licenses must be invalid." Why just open licenses?
First, my main argument is that open source licenses could be ignored (in practice) if they are confused with these very difficult to enforce licenses that are based on the GPL. IA(Ob)NAL but if most non-commercially controlled licenses are routinely ignored by the user because most are unenforcable "guidelines" only, the user might have a good case to ignore similar licenses like the GPL by assuming they are not an enforceable EULA or license either. Maybe not a strong case, but enough people already question the legality of commercial EULA's so I don't think it's out of the question.
These already exist. Ever see free for home, but not free for business use? Its called being selective, not "evil."
I said "evil" not evil, for a reason since it's mostly in the eyes of the beholder. Here I'm just wondering about the opposite scenario from my first point. The proposed license represents a restriction on free speech, but for an arguably good cause. Slashdot sees plenty of stories about existing license provision that probably go too far but are usually shrugged off as being unenforcable. If the proposed new licenses were successfully defended, I would assume it would create precedent for many of these other scary existing clauses and we would start to see many more restrictions.
The creator of any work should have the right to distribute it as he or she feels especially within the confines of the law.
Absolutely, that's why I made it very clear in my post that I'm supportive of a free market of licensing options. I'm only suggesting that this option is not a very attractive one (and possibly harmful if widely adopted) because (if it's widely adopted) you become damned if it works, damned if it doesn't for the above reasons. But I'll leave that up to the market to decide.
Although I'm all for the freedom to create and choose licenses, this will create problems if this type of thing becomes common.
Obviously it will be much harder to enforce the provisions of such an end-use restricted agreement. Ineffective licenses based on this approach could further dilute the mostly untested effectiveness of the other, non-corporately defended licenses. If these new licenses become routinely ignored, so will the GPL, possibly to the point of all open source licenses losing legal strength as well as practical credibility.
Even if such licenses were somehow successfully enforced and they gain popularity (and build legal precendents) I worry that "evil" licenses will also become legally binding and increasingly common; only allowing corporate use, forbidding any political use, certain speech restrictions, etc. Even if most of these were thrown out in court it could make things pretty sticky for challengers.
This may be well-intentioned, but I don't think it will or should be adopted for the above reasons. Ironically, I imagine the ACLU and similar groups would agree, even though the authors are trying to defend freedom of speech and expression.
Re:what on earth are you talking about?
on
Equilibrium
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· Score: 2
Both super cops, both betrayed by their perfect systems, both out for justice and go against the system.
Wash rinse repeat. Same crap different title.
Both have a protagonist (man), both have a source of conflict (society), both try to make a plot out of it by providing an interesting backstory for both that provides irony and a certain amount of surprise (authority figure waking up and rebelling against the authoritarian society he defends).
Man versus... Man, Nature, Society, or Self. Sounds like you've limited yourself to enjoying about four movies (if you're lucky) before they start repeating themselves.
Since Disney doesn't hold the copyright on the public domain Beauty and the Beast, they can't claim infringement if a work is derived from it...
...if you used some of Disney's dialogue-- not stuff from the public domain version, but stuff that Disney created independently-- you're going to get a nasty letter.
True, but except for digital copying, most copyright lawsuits aren't over identical works. Even if you had never seen their version, if you were to create a Beauty and the Beast movie or musical directly from the original work I'd bet you would end up using plenty of look and feel elements (and even some dialogue) that Disney would claim under their copyright.
There are multiple forces contributing to the dwindling intellectual commons. Combined with the increasing length of copyright is the increasely broad application and interpretation of copyrights. For example, in the 1920's Disney probably couldn't have been successfully sued for blatently ripping off Buster Keaton for Steamship Willie, but today I'm sure that someone could get successfully sued for a book or a movie about a boy wizard at wizard school, even if every other single element was different from Harry Potter.
These two forces work together to make the available public intellectual and creative commons increasingly smaller and therefore make it harder to legitimately express new ideas or re-interpret public domain works without fear of legal threats and actual liability. This is where copyright really becomes a free speech issue - even though you can only theoretically copyright the expression of an idea and not the idea itself, broad copyright can cover most or all expressions of an idea, and long copyrights can limit and repress an idea even when others can and do independently come up with it.
I would also be concerned about the DRM measures. I've often thought about variations on this idea and wonder what restrictions copyright holders would try to place on your "memories".
If everything I see or hear is perfectly copied and recorded for playback will they try to place restrictions on what is recorded, on what is played back, or even on what I can see or hear? What if I start to rely on the digital memories or they even become somehow melded with my own biological brain? Where will they draw between a digital copy and my own thoughts? Will songs and movies and such be blacked out or made fuzzy? Who owns and controls (and polices) the copyright on the items in an augmented mind?
And what are the implications for advertising and product placement? Perhaps to waive costs, companies will mark items or use intelligent software to change or update ads or brands stored in your digital memory database (the billboards, commercials, and products you've driven by, seen, or used and recorded to "memory") or worse, they may try to insert ads in your video memories that never existed ("Buy Widgets Now" plastered on the wall of your dining room).
By necessity, such scenarios would either be outlawed, cause the end of copyright as we know it, or create the beginning of the thought police era.
Here's part of the relevant post by the founder of DVDtalk that shut down the thread. The quote is apparently from a lawyer representing Target:
"...This is a notification pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
I am an attorney representing Target Corporation and its Target Stores division ("Target). I am duly authorized to act on Target's behalf in this matter.
This is a notice of Target's belief that posting of Target information as part of the "Black Friday" thread at http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showth...250539in frin ges infringes Target's copyright in a newspaper-insert advertising circular intended to be distributed on Thanksgiving Day, 2002. It is Target's good faith belief that the use of Target's copyrighted material in the "Black Friday" posting is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by operation of the law.
The information in this notification is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of Target Corporation, the owner of the copyright in the material at issue.
Please confirm by return e-mail as soon as possible that you have removed the Target information from the "Black Friday" posting..."
It appears from the excerpt above that they are objecting to the release of trade secrets, which is not really copyright infringement. Does this in any way fall under the DMCA or are they just using it to evoke fear?
And if they are knowingly abusing the law can Target be sued for using SLAPP tactics (for instance) and can the lawyer be disciplined for making legally unjustified claims/threats?
I also wonder if marketing is even aware of these threats or if this is another case of lawyers acting in the "best interest of their clients" (and charging top dollar for it) even if it creates a backlash amongst consumers.
He's also known for cheesy made-for-TV christmas specials.
(Funny, I envision an archeologist or historian from the future recovering archives of Slashdot and figuring out that, although they did some interesting side projects that were watched well into the future, people like George Lucas and William Shatner were actually best known during their time for Saturday morning cartoons and T.J. Hooker.)
Even the Seg is too big and fast for a crowded sidewalk. "Just like being hit by a pedestrian" doesn't begin to convey the kinetic energy behind a 320 lb lump hitting you at 12 mph. Roll right over most people.
I believe the same active control system used to balance the Segway is also used to cushion any impact with other objects/people/Segways. They've demonstrated this a few times on TV with Segways bumping into people or into each other at speed. The Segway(s) stop on a dime (or even deflect/bounce off) without upsetting the balance of either party. They also have soft tires for similar safety reasons.
So the comment "just like being hit by a pedestrian" is proportedly accurate as long as the contact isn't due to system failure or the wheels leaving the ground (in which case the effective kinetic energy would suddenly become as described). This is actually one of the major features of the device - it probably wouldn't have been produced if this wasn't true.
IEEE Spectrum magazine has a similar article actually written by O'Keefe. One thing that concerns me with both of these articles is the lack of any mention of NASA's often forgotten role as the AERONAUTICS and Space Administration.
NASA's rather underfunded work with the SATS program has the potential to completely revolutionize air travel and even population distributions (better access to flights and less reliance on the few major hubs could mean more industry for smaller communities and some officials even predict a trend away from cities and suburbia to one of the 10,000 smaller and even rural centres with decent airports).
NASA's aeronautic programs have also recently supported the development of innovations like the Eclipse 500 low-cost microjet, which, if successfully introduced, could be one of the biggest technology stories of the last few years, with the potential to have a massive impact on society. (As an interesting aside, the Eclipse is heavily funded and managed by big players in the computer and software industries, the CEO is the former head of Symantec and the Paul Allen Group, and Bill Gates apparently owns a significant percentage - insert windows crash joke here).
Space is cool, but basic and applied research in aviation is at least as important and no one else really covers this mandate in the way NASA can and sometimes does. It would be a real pity if NASA simply becomes the National Space Agency (I guess they couldn't use the acronym though).
Great points, just one addition -- I wonder if offering "n billion $" for something creates legal precedent for "reasonable terms" such that the reasonable terms are so high they could legally shut out anyone else, not just open source (which would still be their main target).
Beyond issues of mandatory bouncing and bad reply-to addresses, there are more than just technical problems with her goal of "barring ISPs from collecting e-mail sent to delinquent accounts and of forcing them to notify e-mail senders when an account they have tried to reach is inactive."
It also means that ISP's wouldn't be allowed to recycle e-mail addresses and might even create privacy issues (ironic because she originally filed her complaint with the Federal privacy commissioner). For instance, the CNET article mentions how AOL sends out different notifications to members and non-members, as though this is a bad thing. I think the intention of this type of policy is to prevent outside users from being able to determine between an account that is nonexistent, cancelled, inactive, full, blocking certain addresses, or just temporarily unavailable. Changing these policies could make things even easier for spammers to build accurate lists and to track the status and behavior of individual user accounts.
She raises some valid issues with the reliability of e-mail in general, and some that might even have solutions, but overly dramatic or poorly thought out "solutions" might also create issues far worse than the existing problems. I hope the judge or jury will understand this, even if they side with her individual case.
As usual, they don't guarantee to offer any service at all. Surely that puts them in the clear here?
Except, perhaps, that her ongoing lack of service was due to an explicit suspension after an accounting mistake, and was not due to an inadvertent or accidently dropped e-mail, temporary outage, or virus.
Parking lots typically post disclaimers indemnifying them from any responsibility for stolen or damaged property, but that shouldn't protect them if their own attendents start smashing the windows of parked cars or even if they turn a blind eye to blatant abuse.
Also, her actual complaint has more to do with what happened after she tried to cancel her account (they left her mailbox active and didn't bouce incoming mail) than with her temporary lack of service.
I don't think her case is necessarily that strong or that it falls under these terms and conditions, but even if it did I don't think that such waivers would necessarily put the ISP in the clear.
How long has this reputation existed? I'd be interested to know if it's related to the high penetration of broadband in Canada (primarily Sympatico DSL and Rogers cable). If so, it's more than just disappointing that entire countries are being penalized for adopting high speed access and we should expect to see more of this (both script kiddie problems and overzealous blocking) as broadband is more widely adopted.
I suppose problems like this contribute to the growing list of ISP policies and practice against power users, static IP addresses, domain hosting, bandwidth limits, etc. To protect networks from being abused and banned, might we expect to see even stricter ISP controls (and decreased privacy) in the future, such as expanding the current lack of support for Linux to actually banning the use of Linux and other unsupported systems?
The costs of supporting the other 10% of users just inst worth it. I've done the numbers for projects, you simply don't count. Seriously.
Except when Linux and Mac users represent a greater percentage of the initial target market, in this case, early technology adopters who spend more disponsable income on new technology (Linux) and multi-media types with higher disposable income in total (Mac), many of whom are likely to have the video capability and bandwidth to enjoy these films.
To top it off, if you can prove that the security works with the Linux types and test the media features with the Mac group, you're more likely to have a solid product and if there are any screw-ups or major changes you'll only burn bridges with a smaller and more forgivable bunch than the mass market. Convincing early adopters alone does not a market make, but winning over important niche markets can be an important, less risky, and cost-effective way to get things started.
Ignoring these smaller markets might make sense if you're offering a non-revolutionary commodity service (e.g. ISP services) but not when you're trying to change the whole culture. This was a major failing of many dot-coms - they did the math and focused on the big markets only. The numbers were there in theory but they burnt through millions without making a dent. Many successful companies with new models, like Wal-Mart for instance, established themselves in smaller niche markets before focusing on the other 90%.
Why limit it there? You should interpret your patent really broadly (and retroactively) so you can wave it around like PanIP start threatening every karma whore and since slashdot started despite the fact that their very existance is prior art.
Oh, and FYI just in case anyone's bored of googlewhacking and has lots of money to burn, the word "whoring" has never appeared in the history of the USPTO (although "whore" has a number times, mostly as a typo for "where" and never in combination with "karma" - which itself has appeared 57 times, mostly as the name of a plant).
Yes, I actually obsessively looked that up - that's why I'm posting this with a "No Score +1 Bonus" and turning off the computer, although I do reserve IP rights on the method and the term "patentwhacking".
I believe they will use high speed networks of Linux based Beowulf clusters (actually clusters of clusters of clusters). Ontario has already established SHARCNET between a number of Universities with a total of over 500 COMPAQ Alphas (mostly four-processor, 833Mhz, Alpha SMPs) and some Pentiums, all running Linux. A press release from last year gives a good overview of the project, already first in Canada and the 11th most powerful academic computing system in North America. I believe the Canada wide project will essentially form a cluster of these cluster of clusters.
SHARCNET has been up and running for a while and last year accounted for about 27% of supercomputing power in Canada (half of all supercomputing power in Canadian universities), with three sites on the Top 500 list and total power exceeding institutions like Cambridge, Princeton, Cornell and Caltech. There's loads of information available about the hardware and software used at each facility, as well as CPU load and usage statistics at members sites like these status charts from the most powerful individual site, at the University of Western Ontario. As for applications, a number of researchers are already using the system for a variety of projects across science, engineering, and economics.
If I am an independent musician, can't I just make a deal with a local webcaster at a rate that we negotiate?
IANAWYNTBTKTFS (I am not a whatever you need to be to know this for sure), but I think you're always free to do this as an independent, or even through your label. The issue here is the mandatory licensing terms which allow broadcasters (and webcasters) to play songs without explicit permission as long as they pay the royalty fees set out in the law. Otherwise, stations would have to negiotiate individually with each and every copyright holder in order to buy permission to play songs. Now I might be somewhat wrong in that stations may need to pay the RIAA no matter what (even if they only play independent music) just because it was the easiest way to set this up in the olden days.
Similar mechanisms have been proposed to allow anyone to manufacture life saving drugs or use old software patents as long as they pay a set royalty rate. The rates would presumably be higher than what you might be able to get if you negiotiated your own terms and higher than what the original company would normally charge.
Sorry to reply to my own comment, but I feel like I gave this guy way too much credit.
An even better analogy to the description he uses in his own press release is that of a car thief that specializes in stealing and stripping Hondas announcing that he's one of Honda's few competitors, and that he has the right to sue Honda if they improve their alarms and anti-theft devices.
The trick will be to get this Slashdot article to be ranked just one higher so perhaps a few of the people dumb enough to think about paying this leach will Google him first and find out what a scam it is. Of course anyone with half a brain who reads this guys very own press release should be able to figure it out:
"In August 2002, PR Ad Network began placing text ads for businesses on web sites with a high PageRank from Google, thereby becoming one of very few competitors to Google's advertising service."
Right. That's like saying an autobody shop competes with Ford and then has the right to sue when Ford switches from sheet metal to plastic or that a used Ford dealer is a competitor to Ford that can sue Ford if they starts discounting new cars or discontinuing models. What an idiot.
Still, as a principal, it is a bit silly to disallow a text describing the change but allow the source which IS the change. Stupid law.
I agree. The DMCA should be updated to disallow any patching of security holes what-so-ever.
It doesn't matter if the law will totally discourage effective security measures by outlawing any discussion or implementation of flaws or improvements. As long as we have the DMCA to protect us, any attempted security measure is good enough even if it's just some text on a screen that say "don't look here under penalty of the DMCA". Of course we'll need to gouge out your eyes as potential copyright circumvention devices, but that's a small price to pay to guarantee our security, our safety, and our liberty.
Slashdot Mirror
...the entire foundation of legal philosophy ( at least in the USA ) is based on the assumption that people have inherent rights that exist with or without government. these are naturally observable and measurable independent of the opinions of those who have power. to secure these rights people often organize in the form of government, and create laws, but the government does not give rights in the slightest. governments can secure rights, and acknowledge them, but rights exist outside of government...
You may be correct on the general philosophy behind US law, but if you're suggesting that copyright protection is considered to be one of these natural "rights" you're entirely wrong (in the US).
Under US law, the "limited" monopoly on duplication given to an artist (or inventor) is actually a restriction on everyone's natural right to otherwise freely copy works of art (or technology) that is "temporarily" granted to an artist (or inventor) only to provide incentive for innovation. The notion of copyright protection as an inherent "right" is completely against the foundations of US law and the documented intentions of the founding fathers. Some countries do recognize an artist's control of their published work as a natural right but the US is not one of them (at least according to the constitution).
Perhaps it would be more accurate to start using the term "copyright" to mean that the public has the natural right to freely copy a work or idea, while the traditional sense of the term could more accurately be restated as a "restriction or denial of copyright".
In fact, I challenge those who believe in the US constitution to stop fighting against "copyright" and start declaring "I believe in copyright - the right of the people to freely develop and distribute ideas - and I am against overzealous restrictions or outright denials of this natural right!"
Yeah, the theory of relativity has a lot of meaning to the world at large. That lead to the invention of the.. oh, wait. It didn't lead to jack shit.
In addition to the rather obvious example of nuclear technology, the theory of relativity is necessary for the functionality of satellites and therefore essential to our modern communications infrastructure, GPS systems, and the many derivative technologies that depend on these systems.
Along with the discovery, development, and application of quantum mechanics, the application of Einstein's theories play an important role in the economy. I've seen studies (I really wish I had the references handy) that estimate the percentage of the US economy dependent on Quantum Mechanics and Relativity at anywhere from 30% to 75% of GDP. The higher percentages probably include indirect benefits from semiconductors, communications, as well as applications that led from derivative research.
As previously mentioned, the only reason it wouldn't have been included directly was that the list celebrates ideas since Forbes magazine began 85 years ago, not from the turn of the century when the basis for these ideas were first established.
Good theory, except apparently this movie isn't being driven by your aptly described tripe (read: Movie Execs). If anything it seems to be just the opposite.
According to Coming Attractions, after trying to revive Mad Max for some time, creator/director George Miller was able to win back the rights back to his franchise from Warner (who wanted to produce an updated, clean-cut "tripe" version, probably to make money selling toys) in exchange for handing "Contact" over to Robert Zemeckis. Since then he's been devoting a lot of his effort to developing this relatively risky movie and shopping around for a studio willing to produce and distribute it.
Now I'm sure he's hoping to make a bundle, but with the whole series combined earning well under the budget of this film, if profit was the only motive he'd still be milking the critical and popular success of "Babe" and producing completely mainstream star-of-the-week movies or maybe a direct to video "Babe IX" by now, not an expensive but bleak post-apocalyptic film that will have to be outstanding in order to favourably stand up to the originals and to deflect the sentiment (from fans, critics, and the general public) that they're just doing it for the money.
Maybe they can released on mass to eat left over genetically modified Canola oil seeds. And unlike your usual introduced species (like mongooses) they will soon self-destruct from cancer.
Talk about your non-realistic slipperly slope arguments. "Your honor, this home user ignored the vegan license so all licenses must be invalid." Why just open licenses?
First, my main argument is that open source licenses could be ignored (in practice) if they are confused with these very difficult to enforce licenses that are based on the GPL. IA(Ob)NAL but if most non-commercially controlled licenses are routinely ignored by the user because most are unenforcable "guidelines" only, the user might have a good case to ignore similar licenses like the GPL by assuming they are not an enforceable EULA or license either. Maybe not a strong case, but enough people already question the legality of commercial EULA's so I don't think it's out of the question.
These already exist. Ever see free for home, but not free for business use? Its called being selective, not "evil."
I said "evil" not evil, for a reason since it's mostly in the eyes of the beholder. Here I'm just wondering about the opposite scenario from my first point. The proposed license represents a restriction on free speech, but for an arguably good cause. Slashdot sees plenty of stories about existing license provision that probably go too far but are usually shrugged off as being unenforcable. If the proposed new licenses were successfully defended, I would assume it would create precedent for many of these other scary existing clauses and we would start to see many more restrictions.
The creator of any work should have the right to distribute it as he or she feels especially within the confines of the law.
Absolutely, that's why I made it very clear in my post that I'm supportive of a free market of licensing options. I'm only suggesting that this option is not a very attractive one (and possibly harmful if widely adopted) because (if it's widely adopted) you become damned if it works, damned if it doesn't for the above reasons. But I'll leave that up to the market to decide.
Although I'm all for the freedom to create and choose licenses, this will create problems if this type of thing becomes common.
Obviously it will be much harder to enforce the provisions of such an end-use restricted agreement. Ineffective licenses based on this approach could further dilute the mostly untested effectiveness of the other, non-corporately defended licenses. If these new licenses become routinely ignored, so will the GPL, possibly to the point of all open source licenses losing legal strength as well as practical credibility.
Even if such licenses were somehow successfully enforced and they gain popularity (and build legal precendents) I worry that "evil" licenses will also become legally binding and increasingly common; only allowing corporate use, forbidding any political use, certain speech restrictions, etc. Even if most of these were thrown out in court it could make things pretty sticky for challengers.
This may be well-intentioned, but I don't think it will or should be adopted for the above reasons. Ironically, I imagine the ACLU and similar groups would agree, even though the authors are trying to defend freedom of speech and expression.
Both super cops, both betrayed by their perfect systems, both out for justice and go against the system.
Wash rinse repeat. Same crap different title.
Both have a protagonist (man), both have a source of conflict (society), both try to make a plot out of it by providing an interesting backstory for both that provides irony and a certain amount of surprise (authority figure waking up and rebelling against the authoritarian society he defends).
Man versus... Man, Nature, Society, or Self. Sounds like you've limited yourself to enjoying about four movies (if you're lucky) before they start repeating themselves.
Since Disney doesn't hold the copyright on the public domain Beauty and the Beast, they can't claim infringement if a work is derived from it...
...if you used some of Disney's dialogue-- not stuff from the public domain version, but stuff that Disney created independently-- you're going to get a nasty letter.
True, but except for digital copying, most copyright lawsuits aren't over identical works. Even if you had never seen their version, if you were to create a Beauty and the Beast movie or musical directly from the original work I'd bet you would end up using plenty of look and feel elements (and even some dialogue) that Disney would claim under their copyright.
There are multiple forces contributing to the dwindling intellectual commons. Combined with the increasing length of copyright is the increasely broad application and interpretation of copyrights. For example, in the 1920's Disney probably couldn't have been successfully sued for blatently ripping off Buster Keaton for Steamship Willie, but today I'm sure that someone could get successfully sued for a book or a movie about a boy wizard at wizard school, even if every other single element was different from Harry Potter.
These two forces work together to make the available public intellectual and creative commons increasingly smaller and therefore make it harder to legitimately express new ideas or re-interpret public domain works without fear of legal threats and actual liability. This is where copyright really becomes a free speech issue - even though you can only theoretically copyright the expression of an idea and not the idea itself, broad copyright can cover most or all expressions of an idea, and long copyrights can limit and repress an idea even when others can and do independently come up with it.
I would also be concerned about the DRM measures. I've often thought about variations on this idea and wonder what restrictions copyright holders would try to place on your "memories".
If everything I see or hear is perfectly copied and recorded for playback will they try to place restrictions on what is recorded, on what is played back, or even on what I can see or hear? What if I start to rely on the digital memories or they even become somehow melded with my own biological brain? Where will they draw between a digital copy and my own thoughts? Will songs and movies and such be blacked out or made fuzzy? Who owns and controls (and polices) the copyright on the items in an augmented mind?
And what are the implications for advertising and product placement? Perhaps to waive costs, companies will mark items or use intelligent software to change or update ads or brands stored in your digital memory database (the billboards, commercials, and products you've driven by, seen, or used and recorded to "memory") or worse, they may try to insert ads in your video memories that never existed ("Buy Widgets Now" plastered on the wall of your dining room).
By necessity, such scenarios would either be outlawed, cause the end of copyright as we know it, or create the beginning of the thought police era.
Here's part of the relevant post by the founder of DVDtalk that shut down the thread. The quote is apparently from a lawyer representing Target:
n frin ges
"...This is a notification pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
I am an attorney representing Target Corporation and its Target Stores
division ("Target). I am duly authorized to act on Target's behalf in this
matter.
This is a notice of Target's belief that posting of Target information as
part of the "Black Friday" thread at
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showth...250539i
infringes Target's copyright in a newspaper-insert advertising circular
intended to be distributed on Thanksgiving Day, 2002. It is Target's good
faith belief that the use of Target's copyrighted material in the "Black
Friday" posting is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by
operation of the law.
The information in this notification is accurate, and, under penalty of
perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of Target Corporation, the owner
of the copyright in the material at issue.
Please confirm by return e-mail as soon as possible that you have removed
the Target information from the "Black Friday" posting..."
It appears from the excerpt above that they are objecting to the release of trade secrets, which is not really copyright infringement. Does this in any way fall under the DMCA or are they just using it to evoke fear?
And if they are knowingly abusing the law can Target be sued for using SLAPP tactics (for instance) and can the lawyer be disciplined for making legally unjustified claims/threats?
I also wonder if marketing is even aware of these threats or if this is another case of lawyers acting in the "best interest of their clients" (and charging top dollar for it) even if it creates a backlash amongst consumers.
He's also known for cheesy made-for-TV christmas specials.
(Funny, I envision an archeologist or historian from the future recovering archives of Slashdot and figuring out that, although they did some interesting side projects that were watched well into the future, people like George Lucas and William Shatner were actually best known during their time for Saturday morning cartoons and T.J. Hooker.)
Even the Seg is too big and fast for a crowded sidewalk. "Just like being hit by a pedestrian" doesn't begin to convey the kinetic energy behind a 320 lb lump hitting you at 12 mph. Roll right over most people.
I believe the same active control system used to balance the Segway is also used to cushion any impact with other objects/people/Segways. They've demonstrated this a few times on TV with Segways bumping into people or into each other at speed. The Segway(s) stop on a dime (or even deflect/bounce off) without upsetting the balance of either party. They also have soft tires for similar safety reasons.
So the comment "just like being hit by a pedestrian" is proportedly accurate as long as the contact isn't due to system failure or the wheels leaving the ground (in which case the effective kinetic energy would suddenly become as described). This is actually one of the major features of the device - it probably wouldn't have been produced if this wasn't true.
IEEE Spectrum magazine has a similar article actually written by O'Keefe. One thing that concerns me with both of these articles is the lack of any mention of NASA's often forgotten role as the AERONAUTICS and Space Administration.
NASA's rather underfunded work with the SATS program has the potential to completely revolutionize air travel and even population distributions (better access to flights and less reliance on the few major hubs could mean more industry for smaller communities and some officials even predict a trend away from cities and suburbia to one of the 10,000 smaller and even rural centres with decent airports).
NASA's aeronautic programs have also recently supported the development of innovations like the Eclipse 500 low-cost microjet, which, if successfully introduced, could be one of the biggest technology stories of the last few years, with the potential to have a massive impact on society. (As an interesting aside, the Eclipse is heavily funded and managed by big players in the computer and software industries, the CEO is the former head of Symantec and the Paul Allen Group, and Bill Gates apparently owns a significant percentage - insert windows crash joke here).
Space is cool, but basic and applied research in aviation is at least as important and no one else really covers this mandate in the way NASA can and sometimes does. It would be a real pity if NASA simply becomes the National Space Agency (I guess they couldn't use the acronym though).
Great points, just one addition -- I wonder if offering "n billion $" for something creates legal precedent for "reasonable terms" such that the reasonable terms are so high they could legally shut out anyone else, not just open source (which would still be their main target).
Yeah, it's also a whole new twist on "Free the Mouse." [Stanley Mouse - who made this up?]
Beyond issues of mandatory bouncing and bad reply-to addresses, there are more than just technical problems with her goal of "barring ISPs from collecting e-mail sent to delinquent accounts and of forcing them to notify e-mail senders when an account they have tried to reach is inactive."
It also means that ISP's wouldn't be allowed to recycle e-mail addresses and might even create privacy issues (ironic because she originally filed her complaint with the Federal privacy commissioner). For instance, the CNET article mentions how AOL sends out different notifications to members and non-members, as though this is a bad thing. I think the intention of this type of policy is to prevent outside users from being able to determine between an account that is nonexistent, cancelled, inactive, full, blocking certain addresses, or just temporarily unavailable. Changing these policies could make things even easier for spammers to build accurate lists and to track the status and behavior of individual user accounts.
She raises some valid issues with the reliability of e-mail in general, and some that might even have solutions, but overly dramatic or poorly thought out "solutions" might also create issues far worse than the existing problems. I hope the judge or jury will understand this, even if they side with her individual case.
As usual, they don't guarantee to offer any service at all. Surely that puts them in the clear here?
Except, perhaps, that her ongoing lack of service was due to an explicit suspension after an accounting mistake, and was not due to an inadvertent or accidently dropped e-mail, temporary outage, or virus.
Parking lots typically post disclaimers indemnifying them from any responsibility for stolen or damaged property, but that shouldn't protect them if their own attendents start smashing the windows of parked cars or even if they turn a blind eye to blatant abuse.
Also, her actual complaint has more to do with what happened after she tried to cancel her account (they left her mailbox active and didn't bouce incoming mail) than with her temporary lack of service.
I don't think her case is necessarily that strong or that it falls under these terms and conditions, but even if it did I don't think that such waivers would necessarily put the ISP in the clear.
How long has this reputation existed? I'd be interested to know if it's related to the high penetration of broadband in Canada (primarily Sympatico DSL and Rogers cable). If so, it's more than just disappointing that entire countries are being penalized for adopting high speed access and we should expect to see more of this (both script kiddie problems and overzealous blocking) as broadband is more widely adopted.
I suppose problems like this contribute to the growing list of ISP policies and practice against power users, static IP addresses, domain hosting, bandwidth limits, etc. To protect networks from being abused and banned, might we expect to see even stricter ISP controls (and decreased privacy) in the future, such as expanding the current lack of support for Linux to actually banning the use of Linux and other unsupported systems?
The costs of supporting the other 10% of users just inst worth it. I've done the numbers for projects, you simply don't count. Seriously.
Except when Linux and Mac users represent a greater percentage of the initial target market, in this case, early technology adopters who spend more disponsable income on new technology (Linux) and multi-media types with higher disposable income in total (Mac), many of whom are likely to have the video capability and bandwidth to enjoy these films.
To top it off, if you can prove that the security works with the Linux types and test the media features with the Mac group, you're more likely to have a solid product and if there are any screw-ups or major changes you'll only burn bridges with a smaller and more forgivable bunch than the mass market. Convincing early adopters alone does not a market make, but winning over important niche markets can be an important, less risky, and cost-effective way to get things started.
Ignoring these smaller markets might make sense if you're offering a non-revolutionary commodity service (e.g. ISP services) but not when you're trying to change the whole culture. This was a major failing of many dot-coms - they did the math and focused on the big markets only. The numbers were there in theory but they burnt through millions without making a dent. Many successful companies with new models, like Wal-Mart for instance, established themselves in smaller niche markets before focusing on the other 90%.
Why limit it there? You should interpret your patent really broadly (and retroactively) so you can wave it around like PanIP start threatening every karma whore and since slashdot started despite the fact that their very existance is prior art.
Oh, and FYI just in case anyone's bored of googlewhacking and has lots of money to burn, the word "whoring" has never appeared in the history of the USPTO (although "whore" has a number times, mostly as a typo for "where" and never in combination with "karma" - which itself has appeared 57 times, mostly as the name of a plant).
Yes, I actually obsessively looked that up - that's why I'm posting this with a "No Score +1 Bonus" and turning off the computer, although I do reserve IP rights on the method and the term "patentwhacking".
I believe they will use high speed networks of Linux based Beowulf clusters (actually clusters of clusters of clusters). Ontario has already established SHARCNET between a number of Universities with a total of over 500 COMPAQ Alphas (mostly four-processor, 833Mhz, Alpha SMPs) and some Pentiums, all running Linux. A press release from last year gives a good overview of the project, already first in Canada and the 11th most powerful academic computing system in North America. I believe the Canada wide project will essentially form a cluster of these cluster of clusters.
SHARCNET has been up and running for a while and last year accounted for about 27% of supercomputing power in Canada (half of all supercomputing power in Canadian universities), with three sites on the Top 500 list and total power exceeding institutions like Cambridge, Princeton, Cornell and Caltech. There's loads of information available about the hardware and software used at each facility, as well as CPU load and usage statistics at members sites like these status charts from the most powerful individual site, at the University of Western Ontario. As for applications, a number of researchers are already using the system for a variety of projects across science, engineering, and economics.
If I am an independent musician, can't I just make a deal with a local webcaster at a rate that we negotiate?
IANAWYNTBTKTFS (I am not a whatever you need to be to know this for sure), but I think you're always free to do this as an independent, or even through your label. The issue here is the mandatory licensing terms which allow broadcasters (and webcasters) to play songs without explicit permission as long as they pay the royalty fees set out in the law. Otherwise, stations would have to negiotiate individually with each and every copyright holder in order to buy permission to play songs. Now I might be somewhat wrong in that stations may need to pay the RIAA no matter what (even if they only play independent music) just because it was the easiest way to set this up in the olden days.
Similar mechanisms have been proposed to allow anyone to manufacture life saving drugs or use old software patents as long as they pay a set royalty rate. The rates would presumably be higher than what you might be able to get if you negiotiated your own terms and higher than what the original company would normally charge.
Sorry to reply to my own comment, but I feel like I gave this guy way too much credit.
An even better analogy to the description he uses in his own press release is that of a car thief that specializes in stealing and stripping Hondas announcing that he's one of Honda's few competitors, and that he has the right to sue Honda if they improve their alarms and anti-theft devices.
The trick will be to get this Slashdot article to be ranked just one higher so perhaps a few of the people dumb enough to think about paying this leach will Google him first and find out what a scam it is. Of course anyone with half a brain who reads this guys very own press release should be able to figure it out:
"In August 2002, PR Ad Network began placing text ads for businesses on web sites with a high PageRank from Google, thereby becoming one of very few competitors to Google's advertising service."
Right. That's like saying an autobody shop competes with Ford and then has the right to sue when Ford switches from sheet metal to plastic or that a used Ford dealer is a competitor to Ford that can sue Ford if they starts discounting new cars or discontinuing models. What an idiot.
Still, as a principal, it is a bit silly to disallow a text describing the change but allow the source which IS the change. Stupid law.
I agree. The DMCA should be updated to disallow any patching of security holes what-so-ever.
It doesn't matter if the law will totally discourage effective security measures by outlawing any discussion or implementation of flaws or improvements. As long as we have the DMCA to protect us, any attempted security measure is good enough even if it's just some text on a screen that say "don't look here under penalty of the DMCA". Of course we'll need to gouge out your eyes as potential copyright circumvention devices, but that's a small price to pay to guarantee our security, our safety, and our liberty.