I did this to a co-worker on april fools. Altered his hosts file so pr0n came up instead of google. He yelled, "someone hacked google for april fools, this is crazy!"
you can donate/sell/do whatever you want with your vouchers. So the choice is to claim the voucher for yourself, for a school, or let 1/3 of unclaimed voucher go to schools.
If you really want to help schools, not claiming a voucher is not the way to do it. Claiming it, and giving it to a school however is!
Because the $521 is due to past infringment and not a settlement or negotiation offer for future use. That is like saying a murderer has free reign to commit murders once they are released out of prison. If MS does not have a license and can't invalidate the patent, then their future infringement would cause just as much liability (if not more, considering they are def on notice) than the past.
As someone else mentioned, Bowers v. Baystreet is a Federal Case that affirms EULA and is being challenged in the SCOTUS.
But on point to here, UCITA is not the law of the land. It was a proposed addition to the Uniform Commercial Code, but the group tasked with changes to that document recently gave up realizing it is too controversial. However, Maryland and Virginia have passed similar versions of UCITA (it is required to be passed on a state level), so it is the law of the land there.
And that is sort of my point. What better pay-off to cost game is there than a lotto ticket that may potentially pay $250M (i.e. powerball) for $1 cost. The odds are crap (no pun intended), but the pay-off is much better than sports books.
As far as roulette, I have never played outside of the states, and always see it as the worst odds games that is not a machine or some cheesy card game.
Then please explain why people play slot machines or roullete in casinos or those stupid card games such as let it ride and carribean stud. Those games all have worse player odds than black jack and craps (which i believe is the best player odds), yet you cant walk into a casino and hear the ching ching ching of losers and the money being parted on slots.
Lotteries will still well because they easy and cost a buck or two, so it seems harmless if you lose. However sport betting means you should know something about the sport and the players and then watch the game. Sure, that is great for a lot of people, but not neccesarily the majority, and not those who will impulse purchase a lottery ticket or two.
I don't think that would be a violation as it is not a network accessible to the public, only a private network.
HOWEVER, more scary, this means any unsecure WAP would be considered felonious if you have any copyrighted works on a computer inside that network that others can access. Then it is accessible to the public who drives by and gets on.
A plain reading of this legislation shows that this makes it a felony to have a public wireless network, even if the user does not know about the secuirty risk and is not trying to share files.
How bout if all the geeks out there configured their apache servers to block the MSNbot. Sure this may be self defeating in that you lose mind-share among the users who will only use MSNsearch, but at the same time, most users will not switch from google if the alternative doesn't get them what they want.
I guess the only flaw is if they force their search on all new users or those who can't realize that there are other alternatives to searching, those users are lost viewers to web sites who take this approach.
No i suppose I would label you a troll for commenting on an opinion you have not even read. The thing is damn readable for a non-lawyer and then you could actually speak intelligently on the issue.
Or would you just prefer comments like, linux will never be mainstream because there is no compatibility and it is hard to install. Some may say otherwise, but all the mainstream sites and mags I read say its a pain in the ass. Of course, I never bothered trying to install linux or use it, but that's what i read.
If you had so much time back then, why did you not read the actual opinion and form one of your own about the opinion instead of regurgitating other peoples' opinions?
Of course the Justices were concerned with how they were viewed; they did not want the case, but they really had no other option but to take it. No matter how the decision came out, there would be uproar over it being partisan. Even today, as you prove, there is still criticism, even though every post-recount analysis shows that Bush still would have won the vote given the rules Al Gore wanted to play by (limited recounts in selected counties)
And while the SC has a prime function in determining if laws are consistent with the Constitution that is not there only function. i.e. they take death row appeals, patent appeals and many other cases that are statutory and procedural questions. In this case, it was a constitutional issue, but I don't see how "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. " can be interpretted in any way but the legislature creating the rules for how electors (members of the electoral college) can be chosen.
But hey, what do I know, I am just a closed minded fox news fan (which is funny as I can't stand that channel or just about any cable news).
Why i am getting in a Bush v. Gore debate on/. is beyond me, and I should have just used my mod points to label this as a troll, but oh well.
The decision could be seen as a positive for state's rights and state legislatures. The Constitution gives the State legislatures the power to control elections, not the courts. What the SCOTUS did was not intervene to override the will of the state but actually to enforce it. The Fl S.C. overruled the clear rules that the State legislature had created on how elections are dealt with; this was not an apporpriate power for the State Supreme Court to excercise and was overstepping their bounds. Why is it lost on everyone that the Fl SC acted in a much more political way then the SCOTUS did? The SCOTUS gave the Fl SC the instructions (in an opinion that carried more than 5 justices) to follow the Legislatures dictates in how to handle the recount. It was not until the Fl SC ignored this instruction and issued a second, almost identical ruling, that we had the "controversial" decision from the SCOTUS that basically ordered the recount to be done in a way that was consistent with Florida law on elections as created by the Flordia legislature (the only body that had the Consititutional authority to do so) rather then the Florida Courts, a body that was overstepping its bounds to craft a decision that would ensure victory. One side had to win the State of Florida, the question is under what rules were the votes to be counted: the established rules that had long existed and been fashioned appropriate to the Constitution of the US or a vague standard that would have had each county create rules on the fly for counting votes that would be consistent with the partisan heads of each voting borad, have no precedence from anything and crafted by a state court which did not have any constitutional power to do so.
The ruling preserved the Constitutional requirements. Conservatives may be pro-state rights, bit they, as any Justice, have an overriding duty to the Constituition, and this was the only outcome that would be consistent with the demands of the Constitution.
The anti-trust laws pertaining to pricing only apply to monopolies, i.e. if your pricing can have anti-competitive effects on the marketplace based on your position in the marketplace. Red Hat giving away their product is not anti-competitive b/c they are not in a position to cause competitive harm to the market. Microsoft is. This is simple monopoly maintenance. Fortunatly for MS, they realize the DoJ aint coming after them again for a while, so it matters not at all to them whether they break the law or not. It's like the paradox, if a company breaks a law in a country where they have bought off the enforcement agency, have they broken a law?
Why do you need a static ip to run a server? As one commenter intelligently pointed out, if your box or router conencted to the modem does not reboot, the IP is likely to stay the same.
But even better, you can always get a dyndns (or comparable) service to associate your ever changing ip with a fixed name. It is relatively painless to use zoneedit to associate the dyndns name to a registered domain. And this is all free, no need to pay the ISP extra to give you a fixed IP.
Yeah, i know, it is not truly a fixed IP, but hey it works fairly well. You can even get a script for your OS of choice to auto update dyndns and do it all in the background.
I thought the record label apple (of beatles' albums) had a legal issue with apple computers using the apple name, but it was decided b/c they were two seperate markets, there would not be confusion. So if Apple (computers) starts selling music, will this get them in trouble with the Apple music publishing company?
Actually it is strictly 20 years from filing for any patent filed now. A few years ago, Congress changed the terms from 17 years after grant to 20 years after application, but grandfathered the older patents in, so they would not all of a sudden receive less protection (that would be if the patent was granted more than 3 years after its application. Otherwise, people who were expecting a protection of 17 years after the patent was granted would not all of a sudden get 20 years minus the pendancy time, and in a lot of cases, a patents pendancy (time for the application to issue) can be more than 3 years, though the PTO is trying to keep pendancy times lower than that).
This was done over 3 yrs ago, so for any new patent application, the term of protection is 20 yrs from application.
ummm...not really. Where do you think Hollywood gives its money to disproportianatley? Republicans or Dems? Seriously, it is the Dems (with some exceptions, Zoe Lofgren, Rick Boucher) who are in the pockets of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. How many prominant republicans are there in Hollywood (Tom Selleck, Charleton Heston, Ben Stein, Arnold Schwarzeneger, who else????). Hollywood gives money to dems, and dems respond to their bidding. Even Lieberman changed his tune on the morality of Hollywood when selected as the VP nominee for fear of offending one of the biggest Dem constituent $$ groups (the other two being trial lawyers and unions). Hilary Rosen's partner? Why that would be the head of the Human Rights Coalition, the both of them were the first to host Gore after his concession (the tenth one I believe it was, but the final one). So why be shocked that Republicans would stand up to Hollywood, who else would?
As an IP professor at the law school (prominant DC based) I attend said, "I hate it. I am a lifelong democrat and they are selling us out on IP issues." To which I responded, "I hear you, I feel the same way about republicans and civil liberties."
Yes, both parties take cash and have policies that favor certain interests, so don't turn this into, well republicans are bad cuz they are in the pockets of X,Y, and Z. The point is Dems will not stand up against Hollywood (with the notable exceptions mentioned), and the only ones who are left to are those who have been critical of Hollywood (for right or wrong), republicans. Hmm, could this be part of why Jesse Helms final legislative act was a big "screw you" to the RIAA and their webcasting bill? (but I thought he was an evil republican, how can that be????)
If you are a lawyer, than certainly you know that the Fed Govt has the power to enforce Constitutional rights when it interferes with Interstate commerce such as the civil rights cases (Hearts of Atlanta, or something with that name. Prohibbited discrimination at motels as that would affect interstate commerce). So while not applicable in this particular instance, the Constitution can be applied to private parties, and has succesfully (with the 14th amend).
Does this mean that MS software is viral in that its licensing terms attach to your property in a viral like manner and you are not free to use your property in the proprietary interest you see fit?
Oh wait, that is only for free software, excuse me.
Don't be so quick to dismiss Ass't Sec. Mehlman. He is a very sharp guy, and has a good background in tech.
I was not at this event, but I was told that he made the case that the content folks are going way overboard, specifically bringing up the example of amazing DVD sales for Monster's Inc when this movie has been floating on the Internet since its theatrical release. These are the types of comments we need from our government officials. So if he said that, I assume it is as a rhetorical device and not a legal construction (keep in mind, an action can be fair use or piracy depending on the context). That Monsters Inc. example is great, very similar to the Dear Colleague Letter (letters members of Congress send around to all other offices) deploring the record piracy of spider man before the theatrical release, and leaving out the crucial fact of how it broke ALL box office records.
The pro-consumer community can rattle this off all day long, but when we start hearing it from our government, it lets the RIAA/MPAA know that they do not have a free pass to spread their rhetorical nonsense (or if you prefer...bald faced lies).
Damn, now by commenting, I forfeit all rights to mod this discussion, what a stupid policy!
Although not referring specifically to the Mallinson case, he added it may be necessary to "weed out" employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.
sounds to me like she should be promoted under this standard! Is the MS code of behavior NOT to misinform, spread FUD, and do it all costs...business ethics and truth be damned? Or is it a new policy that will see Ballmer and Gates weeded out as well?
This is correct (and those later posts that say the Appeals Court prohibbited break-up are wrong, the Court said that procedurally the break-up was not appropriate b/c of Jackson's ex parte comments and lack of hearings on remedies. In fact, the Court issued a later ruling spelling out quite clearly, in a two sentance order, that no remedy was off the table!)
However, the DoJ, chose on their own, to take break-up off the table. They took away their best bargaining chip for reasons people can feel free to speculate on. In their later seperate action, the hold-out States also chose not to pursue break-up and instead wanted full unbundlin, port of office and IE to rival browsers inc. Linux, and a crown jewell provision to open up source code for future violations.
The gist is this, Judge CKK is not going to impose a break-up that no one is asking for. It will probably be a remedy that is stronger than the DoJ sell-out but less stringent than the State's proposal. Expect MS to appeal again, expect this not to end soon, or expect the unexpected.
I spoke to an MPAA lobbyist before the P2P hearing in Congress a couple weeks ago. I asked, half-jokingly, "so I guess you guys support this bill" (this bill being the "berman" bill). He said, generally, yes, but we have some problems with it--it does not go far enough! We want to have the ability to go after USENET and irc as well as P2P servers.
So they want to do it, it is not below their radar, and expect that legislation will be proposed to give them this ability...that is a prediction you can bank on (at least the pols who do the MPAA's bidding already banked on it).
Basically, because Senator Leahy is holding up several judicial nominees, the Republican have fired back and put holds on several Democrat nominees, including Jonathan Adelstein, a staffer for Senate Majority leader Daschle and the current nominee for the 5th FCC spot.
Traditionally, the FCC is filled with 5 commissioners, the majority and minority leader of the House and Senate choosing one each, and the President choosing the Chair.
This is actually a big mess right now and causing some to observe they have not seen this type of rancor EVER in the Senate (and that is saying a lot).
Meanwhile a gripe about the moderation system. I think it is ridiculous I can't mod any posts under this article now that I have chosen to add something to it. I comment on articles I am interested in, and I mod in threads I am interested, but I can't do both...that sucks (and yes, I understand the reasons to do so. But given the choice, I would rather comment than mod, but the best is to be able to do both).
Slashdot Mirror
Sue the base shell? Darl, stop posting as AC!
I did this to a co-worker on april fools. Altered his hosts file so pr0n came up instead of google. He yelled, "someone hacked google for april fools, this is crazy!"
you can donate/sell/do whatever you want with your vouchers. So the choice is to claim the voucher for yourself, for a school, or let 1/3 of unclaimed voucher go to schools.
If you really want to help schools, not claiming a voucher is not the way to do it. Claiming it, and giving it to a school however is!
Because the $521 is due to past infringment and not a settlement or negotiation offer for future use. That is like saying a murderer has free reign to commit murders once they are released out of prison. If MS does not have a license and can't invalidate the patent, then their future infringement would cause just as much liability (if not more, considering they are def on notice) than the past.
This is an awsome stat. I recall during the tobacco debates bumper stickers that said "More people smoke than voted for the President."
We need to create our own bumper stickers with a similar slogan "more people share MP3s than voted for the President!"
As someone else mentioned, Bowers v. Baystreet is a Federal Case that affirms EULA and is being challenged in the SCOTUS.
But on point to here, UCITA is not the law of the land. It was a proposed addition to the Uniform Commercial Code, but the group tasked with changes to that document recently gave up realizing it is too controversial. However, Maryland and Virginia have passed similar versions of UCITA (it is required to be passed on a state level), so it is the law of the land there.
And that is sort of my point. What better pay-off to cost game is there than a lotto ticket that may potentially pay $250M (i.e. powerball) for $1 cost. The odds are crap (no pun intended), but the pay-off is much better than sports books.
As far as roulette, I have never played outside of the states, and always see it as the worst odds games that is not a machine or some cheesy card game.
Then please explain why people play slot machines or roullete in casinos or those stupid card games such as let it ride and carribean stud. Those games all have worse player odds than black jack and craps (which i believe is the best player odds), yet you cant walk into a casino and hear the ching ching ching of losers and the money being parted on slots.
Lotteries will still well because they easy and cost a buck or two, so it seems harmless if you lose. However sport betting means you should know something about the sport and the players and then watch the game. Sure, that is great for a lot of people, but not neccesarily the majority, and not those who will impulse purchase a lottery ticket or two.
I don't think that would be a violation as it is not a network accessible to the public, only a private network.
HOWEVER, more scary, this means any unsecure WAP would be considered felonious if you have any copyrighted works on a computer inside that network that others can access. Then it is accessible to the public who drives by and gets on.
A plain reading of this legislation shows that this makes it a felony to have a public wireless network, even if the user does not know about the secuirty risk and is not trying to share files.
Computer & Communications Industry Association also filed an amicus brief in this case both at the district level and now at the appealate level arguing that this is the exact type of activity allowed under DMCA's exceptions and that SCC is not violating the DMCA. Press release can be found here.
How bout if all the geeks out there configured their apache servers to block the MSNbot. Sure this may be self defeating in that you lose mind-share among the users who will only use MSNsearch, but at the same time, most users will not switch from google if the alternative doesn't get them what they want.
I guess the only flaw is if they force their search on all new users or those who can't realize that there are other alternatives to searching, those users are lost viewers to web sites who take this approach.
No i suppose I would label you a troll for commenting on an opinion you have not even read. The thing is damn readable for a non-lawyer and then you could actually speak intelligently on the issue.
Or would you just prefer comments like, linux will never be mainstream because there is no compatibility and it is hard to install. Some may say otherwise, but all the mainstream sites and mags I read say its a pain in the ass. Of course, I never bothered trying to install linux or use it, but that's what i read.
If you had so much time back then, why did you not read the actual opinion and form one of your own about the opinion instead of regurgitating other peoples' opinions?
Of course the Justices were concerned with how they were viewed; they did not want the case, but they really had no other option but to take it. No matter how the decision came out, there would be uproar over it being partisan. Even today, as you prove, there is still criticism, even though every post-recount analysis shows that Bush still would have won the vote given the rules Al Gore wanted to play by (limited recounts in selected counties)
And while the SC has a prime function in determining if laws are consistent with the Constitution that is not there only function. i.e. they take death row appeals, patent appeals and many other cases that are statutory and procedural questions. In this case, it was a constitutional issue, but I don't see how "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. " can be interpretted in any way but the legislature creating the rules for how electors (members of the electoral college) can be chosen.
But hey, what do I know, I am just a closed minded fox news fan (which is funny as I can't stand that channel or just about any cable news).
Why i am getting in a Bush v. Gore debate on /. is beyond me, and I should have just used my mod points to label this as a troll, but oh well.
The decision could be seen as a positive for state's rights and state legislatures. The Constitution gives the State legislatures the power to control elections, not the courts. What the SCOTUS did was not intervene to override the will of the state but actually to enforce it. The Fl S.C. overruled the clear rules that the State legislature had created on how elections are dealt with; this was not an apporpriate power for the State Supreme Court to excercise and was overstepping their bounds. Why is it lost on everyone that the Fl SC acted in a much more political way then the SCOTUS did? The SCOTUS gave the Fl SC the instructions (in an opinion that carried more than 5 justices) to follow the Legislatures dictates in how to handle the recount. It was not until the Fl SC ignored this instruction and issued a second, almost identical ruling, that we had the "controversial" decision from the SCOTUS that basically ordered the recount to be done in a way that was consistent with Florida law on elections as created by the Flordia legislature (the only body that had the Consititutional authority to do so) rather then the Florida Courts, a body that was overstepping its bounds to craft a decision that would ensure victory. One side had to win the State of Florida, the question is under what rules were the votes to be counted: the established rules that had long existed and been fashioned appropriate to the Constitution of the US or a vague standard that would have had each county create rules on the fly for counting votes that would be consistent with the partisan heads of each voting borad, have no precedence from anything and crafted by a state court which did not have any constitutional power to do so.
The ruling preserved the Constitutional requirements. Conservatives may be pro-state rights, bit they, as any Justice, have an overriding duty to the Constituition, and this was the only outcome that would be consistent with the demands of the Constitution.
The anti-trust laws pertaining to pricing only apply to monopolies, i.e. if your pricing can have anti-competitive effects on the marketplace based on your position in the marketplace. Red Hat giving away their product is not anti-competitive b/c they are not in a position to cause competitive harm to the market. Microsoft is. This is simple monopoly maintenance. Fortunatly for MS, they realize the DoJ aint coming after them again for a while, so it matters not at all to them whether they break the law or not. It's like the paradox, if a company breaks a law in a country where they have bought off the enforcement agency, have they broken a law?
Why do you need a static ip to run a server? As one commenter intelligently pointed out, if your box or router conencted to the modem does not reboot, the IP is likely to stay the same.
But even better, you can always get a dyndns (or comparable) service to associate your ever changing ip with a fixed name. It is relatively painless to use zoneedit to associate the dyndns name to a registered domain. And this is all free, no need to pay the ISP extra to give you a fixed IP.
Yeah, i know, it is not truly a fixed IP, but hey it works fairly well. You can even get a script for your OS of choice to auto update dyndns and do it all in the background.
I thought the record label apple (of beatles' albums) had a legal issue with apple computers using the apple name, but it was decided b/c they were two seperate markets, there would not be confusion. So if Apple (computers) starts selling music, will this get them in trouble with the Apple music publishing company?
Actually it is strictly 20 years from filing for any patent filed now. A few years ago, Congress changed the terms from 17 years after grant to 20 years after application, but grandfathered the older patents in, so they would not all of a sudden receive less protection (that would be if the patent was granted more than 3 years after its application. Otherwise, people who were expecting a protection of 17 years after the patent was granted would not all of a sudden get 20 years minus the pendancy time, and in a lot of cases, a patents pendancy (time for the application to issue) can be more than 3 years, though the PTO is trying to keep pendancy times lower than that).
This was done over 3 yrs ago, so for any new patent application, the term of protection is 20 yrs from application.
ummm...not really. Where do you think Hollywood gives its money to disproportianatley? Republicans or Dems? Seriously, it is the Dems (with some exceptions, Zoe Lofgren, Rick Boucher) who are in the pockets of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. How many prominant republicans are there in Hollywood (Tom Selleck, Charleton Heston, Ben Stein, Arnold Schwarzeneger, who else????). Hollywood gives money to dems, and dems respond to their bidding. Even Lieberman changed his tune on the morality of Hollywood when selected as the VP nominee for fear of offending one of the biggest Dem constituent $$ groups (the other two being trial lawyers and unions). Hilary Rosen's partner? Why that would be the head of the Human Rights Coalition, the both of them were the first to host Gore after his concession (the tenth one I believe it was, but the final one). So why be shocked that Republicans would stand up to Hollywood, who else would?
As an IP professor at the law school (prominant DC based) I attend said, "I hate it. I am a lifelong democrat and they are selling us out on IP issues." To which I responded, "I hear you, I feel the same way about republicans and civil liberties."
Yes, both parties take cash and have policies that favor certain interests, so don't turn this into, well republicans are bad cuz they are in the pockets of X,Y, and Z. The point is Dems will not stand up against Hollywood (with the notable exceptions mentioned), and the only ones who are left to are those who have been critical of Hollywood (for right or wrong), republicans. Hmm, could this be part of why Jesse Helms final legislative act was a big "screw you" to the RIAA and their webcasting bill? (but I thought he was an evil republican, how can that be????)
If you are a lawyer, than certainly you know that the Fed Govt has the power to enforce Constitutional rights when it interferes with Interstate commerce such as the civil rights cases (Hearts of Atlanta, or something with that name. Prohibbited discrimination at motels as that would affect interstate commerce). So while not applicable in this particular instance, the Constitution can be applied to private parties, and has succesfully (with the 14th amend).
Does this mean that MS software is viral in that its licensing terms attach to your property in a viral like manner and you are not free to use your property in the proprietary interest you see fit?
Oh wait, that is only for free software, excuse me.
Don't be so quick to dismiss Ass't Sec. Mehlman. He is a very sharp guy, and has a good background in tech.
I was not at this event, but I was told that he made the case that the content folks are going way overboard, specifically bringing up the example of amazing DVD sales for Monster's Inc when this movie has been floating on the Internet since its theatrical release. These are the types of comments we need from our government officials. So if he said that, I assume it is as a rhetorical device and not a legal construction (keep in mind, an action can be fair use or piracy depending on the context). That Monsters Inc. example is great, very similar to the Dear Colleague Letter (letters members of Congress send around to all other offices) deploring the record piracy of spider man before the theatrical release, and leaving out the crucial fact of how it broke ALL box office records.
The pro-consumer community can rattle this off all day long, but when we start hearing it from our government, it lets the RIAA/MPAA know that they do not have a free pass to spread their rhetorical nonsense (or if you prefer...bald faced lies).
Damn, now by commenting, I forfeit all rights to mod this discussion, what a stupid policy!
Although not referring specifically to the Mallinson case, he added it may be necessary to "weed out" employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.
sounds to me like she should be promoted under this standard! Is the MS code of behavior NOT to misinform, spread FUD, and do it all costs...business ethics and truth be damned? Or is it a new policy that will see Ballmer and Gates weeded out as well?
This is correct (and those later posts that say the Appeals Court prohibbited break-up are wrong, the Court said that procedurally the break-up was not appropriate b/c of Jackson's ex parte comments and lack of hearings on remedies. In fact, the Court issued a later ruling spelling out quite clearly, in a two sentance order, that no remedy was off the table!)
However, the DoJ, chose on their own, to take break-up off the table. They took away their best bargaining chip for reasons people can feel free to speculate on. In their later seperate action, the hold-out States also chose not to pursue break-up and instead wanted full unbundlin, port of office and IE to rival browsers inc. Linux, and a crown jewell provision to open up source code for future violations.
The gist is this, Judge CKK is not going to impose a break-up that no one is asking for. It will probably be a remedy that is stronger than the DoJ sell-out but less stringent than the State's proposal. Expect MS to appeal again, expect this not to end soon, or expect the unexpected.
I spoke to an MPAA lobbyist before the P2P hearing in Congress a couple weeks ago. I asked, half-jokingly, "so I guess you guys support this bill" (this bill being the "berman" bill). He said, generally, yes, but we have some problems with it--it does not go far enough! We want to have the ability to go after USENET and irc as well as P2P servers.
So they want to do it, it is not below their radar, and expect that legislation will be proposed to give them this ability...that is a prediction you can bank on (at least the pols who do the MPAA's bidding already banked on it).
This is a very timely question. It is answered in this article and this op-ed.
Basically, because Senator Leahy is holding up several judicial nominees, the Republican have fired back and put holds on several Democrat nominees, including Jonathan Adelstein, a staffer for Senate Majority leader Daschle and the current nominee for the 5th FCC spot.
Traditionally, the FCC is filled with 5 commissioners, the majority and minority leader of the House and Senate choosing one each, and the President choosing the Chair.
This is actually a big mess right now and causing some to observe they have not seen this type of rancor EVER in the Senate (and that is saying a lot).
Meanwhile a gripe about the moderation system. I think it is ridiculous I can't mod any posts under this article now that I have chosen to add something to it. I comment on articles I am interested in, and I mod in threads I am interested, but I can't do both...that sucks (and yes, I understand the reasons to do so. But given the choice, I would rather comment than mod, but the best is to be able to do both).