This article has a major fact wrong. John Conyers chairs the Judiciary Committee. John Dingell (also from Michigan) chairs the Energy and Commerce committee. While Conyers has indeed backed Hollywood's positions on copyright, Dingell has not - at least, not as strongly.
I'll differ here. I feel that computer code (particularly source code) contains expressive content. The ruling today even said so, with the caveat that it would only be expressive to "cryptography enthusiasts". However, the court seemed to find that this was too small a group to balance the corporate interests involved.
I'd have called it differently. IMHO, the DeCSS algorithm is expressive, and thus protected. However, the cryptographic key that the code contains is not. That's just a number...it's not speech. And if you classify posting someone else's crypto key as protected speech, I don't think you'd like the results...they'd blow a hole in all the privacy protections for personal data.
The SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS to which SCO grants rights under this Agreement are restricted to the following UNIX Operating Systems, including SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEMs, that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System with specific exclusion of UNIX System V and successor operating systems:
What strikes me as suspicious is how all three manufacturers announced the same change at the same time. Isn't it against monopoly law (at least in the US) for competitors to coordinate a change like this?
The article says that the star's closest approach to the whole was 17 light hours, and that the event horizon was 2100 times smaller than that. Crunching some numbers, I get an estimate of 5.4M miles, or about 12 times the size of the Sun.
Thoughts, and a letter to Creative labs
on
DRM: How To Boil A Frog
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It seems to me that the best way to combat DRM is to politely but firmly let the companies that include it know that we will not purchase their products. Those of us here have (comparitively) a lot of influence on purchasing decisions for hardware and software, both through friends that come to us for advice, and because many of us hold IT positions in our companies. In this case, we need to identity which sound cards have DRM, publicize that fact in any reviews/recommendations we do, and encourage people to buy hardware without such restrictions. So, to get the ball rolling, would anyone like to reply to this post with a recommendation for a good sound card that does not have DRM, and preferably has open source drivers?
To make my position clear, I just sent the following letter to Creative Labs:
--- I am currently the owner of a SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold, and have been very happy with its performance. I am in the process of purchasing a new computer, and am trying to decide what sound card to get. I just read the story at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27232.html, which states that the SoundBlaster Live and Audigy series have built in Digital Rights Management (DRM), which will disable the digital output of the sound card if the card believes that the audio signal is copy-protected. Can you confirm or deny the presence of such restrictions in your cards?
If your cards do contain DRM, I would like to express my distaste that you have included such restrictions without clearly notifying the consumer of their presence, and state that I will no longer purchase your products as a result, and will recommend that my friends do the same. ---
Why not take a few minutes to send a similar letter? I sent mine to sales@soundblaster.com, but I have no idea whether its valid or not - they don't list many email addresses on their website. Perhaps a followup poster can find a more appropriate address?
If you set Mozilla to warn you about cookies, and remember the decisions on a per-site basis, it will ask you the first time a site tries to set a cookie, and if you say 'No', you'll never see it again. That's good enough site-based control for me.
I think you've forgotten about all the other shareholders of MS that might not like Bill sending their share values to zero. He'd find himself rather quickly kicked off their Board of Directors and out of a job. And in any case, he'd be hurting himself worse than anyone...almost all his wealth is in MS stock.
No...this is far from a new trial. Jackson's findings of fact remain intact and unaltered, unless the Supreme Court steps in (very unlikely). A good number of his conclusions of law remain as well. The new court just has to resolve one count of illegal tying, and then decide on a sentence.
Slashdot Mirror
...and now the BusinessWeek article appears to have itself been pulled; I'm currently getting a 404.
This article has a major fact wrong. John Conyers chairs the Judiciary Committee. John Dingell (also from Michigan) chairs the Energy and Commerce committee. While Conyers has indeed backed Hollywood's positions on copyright, Dingell has not - at least, not as strongly.
I'll differ here. I feel that computer code (particularly source code) contains expressive content. The ruling today even said so, with the caveat that it would only be expressive to "cryptography enthusiasts". However, the court seemed to find that this was too small a group to balance the corporate interests involved.
I'd have called it differently. IMHO, the DeCSS algorithm is expressive, and thus protected. However, the cryptographic key that the code contains is not. That's just a number...it's not speech. And if you classify posting someone else's crypto key as protected speech, I don't think you'd like the results...they'd blow a hole in all the privacy protections for personal data.
The "ancient_unix_license" release isn't likely to help fight the suit; it doesn't cover the version they're suing about.
. com/offers/ancient_unix_license.txt
From: http://web.archive.org/web/20000115142514/www.sco
--
3. LICENSED SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS
The SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS to which SCO grants rights under this
Agreement are restricted to the following UNIX Operating Systems,
including SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEMs, that operate on the 16-Bit
PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System
with specific exclusion of UNIX System V and successor operating
systems:
16-Bit UNIX Editions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
32-bit 32V
--
I hate it when the cut+paste misses. Try here instead.
...is here
What strikes me as suspicious is how all three manufacturers announced the same change at the same time. Isn't it against monopoly law (at least in the US) for competitors to coordinate a change like this?
The article says that the star's closest approach to the whole was 17 light hours, and that the event horizon was 2100 times smaller than that. Crunching some numbers, I get an estimate of 5.4M miles, or about 12 times the size of the Sun.
It seems to me that the best way to combat DRM is to politely but firmly let the companies that include it know that we will not purchase their products. Those of us here have (comparitively) a lot of influence on purchasing decisions for hardware and software, both through friends that come to us for advice, and because many of us hold IT positions in our companies. In this case, we need to identity which sound cards have DRM, publicize that fact in any reviews/recommendations we do, and encourage people to buy hardware without such restrictions. So, to get the ball rolling, would anyone like to reply to this post with a recommendation for a good sound card that does not have DRM, and preferably has open source drivers?
, which states that the SoundBlaster Live and Audigy series have built in Digital Rights Management (DRM), which will disable the digital output of the sound card if the card believes that the audio signal is copy-protected. Can you confirm or deny the presence of such restrictions in your cards?
To make my position clear, I just sent the following letter to Creative Labs:
---
I am currently the owner of a SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold, and have been very happy with its performance. I am in the process of purchasing a new computer, and am trying to decide what sound card to get. I just read the story at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27232.html
If your cards do contain DRM, I would like to express my distaste that you have included such restrictions without clearly notifying the consumer of their presence, and state that I will no longer purchase your products as a result, and will recommend that my friends do the same.
---
Why not take a few minutes to send a similar letter? I sent mine to sales@soundblaster.com, but I have no idea whether its valid or not - they don't list many email addresses on their website. Perhaps a followup poster can find a more appropriate address?
> * Copyright expires upon the death of the copyright holder.
Umm....wouldn't this create an potential incentive for homicide?
Yes it will; somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of Mozilla's code is shared across all platforms. Any leaks fixed there will benefit everyone.
If you set Mozilla to warn you about cookies, and remember the decisions on a per-site basis, it will ask you the first time a site tries to set a cookie, and if you say 'No', you'll never see it again. That's good enough site-based control for me.
I think you've forgotten about all the other shareholders of MS that might not like Bill sending their share values to zero. He'd find himself rather quickly kicked off their Board of Directors and out of a job. And in any case, he'd be hurting himself worse than anyone...almost all his wealth is in MS stock.
No...this is far from a new trial. Jackson's findings of fact remain intact and unaltered, unless the Supreme Court steps in (very unlikely). A good number of his conclusions of law remain as well. The new court just has to resolve one count of illegal tying, and then decide on a sentence.
They ruled that it would get sent back to the lower court in a week. Today is when it actually happened.