One of the biggest problems in the political sphere (esp. recently) is that people assume that just because something is new, we should treat it differently. This article is a prime example. It even went so far as to sugest that our current civic structures are out of date and may need to be replaced. Like Edmund Burke said, we have inherited a tradition. This tradition has acomplished great things in the past and it would be very irresponcible to simply throw it all away on a whim. How arragant would we have to be to think that we could improve anything by starting over? The nature of the world is that it changes through evolution not revolution.
One of the wonders of our political system is that it does not need to be changed to handle every new thing that comes along. Unfortunatly people think that it does. This is why every new medium of expression has to go before the Supreme Court to see if it too is covered by the first amendment. It happened with radio, tv, the internet, and now software. The reason we have so many freedoms in this country (and for those of you who insist we have no freedoms here I sugest you move to China or Libya) is that our constitution spans the life of our nation.
If we want new developments to be treated with equity, we need to stop making exceptions for them. I think we would all perfer that DVDs be handled under conventional copyright law rather than the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. As if authors deserve more compensation in this millenium than in the last one.
While Bush may be in the pocket of the oil companies and firms like Sun or Cisco, Gore is solidly in the pockets of the unions and the media companies. From what I've gathered on this board so far the media companies (AOL, Time Warner, Sony, MPAA, RIAA) are the big scary bad guys that we need to watch out for. Hollywood is Gore's biggest campain donor.
I'm not for bush. I'm still undecided but it is closed mindedness like this, especialy from self titled "prgressives," that scares me away from libral politics.
I cant find a section 53 in the Ohio Revised code anywhere. You can find the ORC here. What copy of the ORC are you using? There is a title 53 but no section 12 and title 53 is about real estate.
This is not a troll. This is a quest for truth.
Re:streaming, downloading, what's the difference?
on
Million E-mail March
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· Score: 2
Well it certainly doesnt hurt any. You cant post computer code on the internet just because you own it. And if people are suing you for doing what you want with stuff that YOU OWN, then it might be usefull for congress to pass a law saying that you are alowed to do what you want with music you own. Then the RIAA has no grounds to sue you on.
I think this is a good move. It's better to have the release date slip then to release to few units. Sony doesnt want them selling on EBAY for 10 grand a pop.
I didn't see an article so I don't know where the answers to any of these questions are. Why are they suing the upc service? What legal grounds do they have? Is there some pattent or something on having a database of UPC entries? Wouldn't every grocery store in America be violating it?
It's important to note that you can't copyright a database. There was a surpreme court case about this (Fiest Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc.) in which one company stole the white pages from another company's phone book. The majority decision (written by Justice O'Conner) stated that copyright does not extend to a logical ordering of information.
Therefore, even if upcdatabase.com STOLE the database from DC, DC would not have any legal recourse.
If they are focused in "categories which don't overlap with anyone else in the business really" and they still cant turn a profit what does that tell you? It tells me that there is no market. No one is buying SGIs stuff because nobody wants SGIs stuff. (yes "stuff" is a technical term) You dont buy a company that is loosing money trying to sell to a market that doesnt exist anymore. Oh wait! SGI did that when it bought Cray.
I like a lot of what SGI has done interms of hardware and software but their business model has always sucked.
Wow spread of 14 and change! Wish I could have heard about this yestarday.
I dont think this is a move to shut cobalt down. Companies usualy pay cahs if they want to do that. This is a big value added play for sun. They tend to make wise business decisions and I dont see how they would benefit from killing someone who isnt a direct competitor. Especialy considering that they had to dilute by $2B to do it.
Sun is one of my favorite companies in the tech sector. No they arnt as smart as microsoft and no they arnt as cool as apple but I think sun is the best of both worlds.
BTW: If you dont know what a spread or dilution is, please read a book on M&A (mergers and aquisitions) before you moderate me down for not making any sense.
Some of those blue laws are still inforced. The 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick Supreem Court case upheld a Georgia anti-sodemy law. The Court ruled that there was nothing unconstitutional about regulating sexual interactions between consenting adults in private. I have two friends who got tickets in Austin for oral sex. This guy was getting a B.J. from his girlfriend in the front seat of his car while parked in a supermarket parking lot. A cop happened to walk by at just that time. He got two tickets, one for indecent exposure and one for oral sex. She got a ticket for oral sex. It is important to note that in the Bowers v. Hardwick case, all three branches had to agree for the charge to hold.
---------------------------------
Im not trolling I brought up sex because it best illustrates my point.
... she should file an amicus brief in the Napster suit. This would be a wise move even if just to say that the artists should be awarded damages directly. Personaly, I would rather she support Napster to get back at the RIAA but Im not sure how likely that is.
First let me say that I agree with other people's comments that this is just a cross compiler.
Also it is intersting to note the simlarities between Sun's argument and Napster's argument. They both "encurage" people to violate copyrights but niether takes responcibility for it. I think the reason we (myself incuded) reacted initialy to the sun news the way we did is because we like free music and we dont like binary only drivers.
Sun has been one of the better companies when it comes to open source software. It would be nice if the porting kit gave the intermediate source code but I dont think this kit violates the letter or the spirit of the GPL.
IANAL but Im pretty sure there is nothing we can do about it. They weren't advertising. They were simply announcing their intention to write a player. They changed their mind. The legal have done nothing wrong. There is no tort, no fraud, and no breach of contract.
My university is privatly funded. So are most of the universities named in the letter (e.g., Harvard). I pay for my bandwidth. I should be able to do with it as I please.
This is a copy of the email I just sent to the president of my university.
President Rupp,
It has recently come to my attention that Columbia has or will shortly receive a letter from Howard E. King, attorney for Metallica and Dr. Dre, regarding the fact that Columbia students can access Napster's servers via the Columbia network. I know there are many qualified people in your office and I'm sure that the University will consult with legal counsel before taking any action. However there are a few things I feel should be considered.
First let me say that I do not support the stealing of intellectual property. Individuals (students included) should be held accountable for their actions. It is important to note, however, that caving to the demands of Mr. King sets a dangerous president. First, it suggests that a third party can regulate what information Columbia provides to its students. Second, it is a restriction on resources (like library materials) provided by the university to students. Thirdly, it gives credit to the claim that Napster (and eventually other file sharing tools) have no significant non-infringing uses. To comply with this demand is like complying with a demand by a publishing company to have all photocopiers removed from the libraries because students use them to photocopy magazines, books, etc.
If you wish to discuss my opinions further, you can reach me at this email address. I am also the student representative from FFSEAS to the University Senate and I sit on the External Relations Committee.
As we all learned in a competitive market price falls to marginal cost of production. MP3s make marginal cost zero and napster creates a competitive market.
I will not buy a DVD player until I can use it in Linux.
This is not a philosophical debate nor a boycot on a matter of principle. My demand for a DVDs is zero until I have a usable player. (usable==runs_in_linux) Therefore the MPAA is costing the DVD industry at least my marketshare worth of sales. Oh and Im willing to bet there are at least a few others like me.
Anyone who has studied micro-economics knows that the incedence of tax is not affected by who actualy pays it. Incedence of tax is determined by the price elasticity of demand. A tax on music that is given to the producers of the music (I use producers to mean all those involved in production) does not affect the consumer at all. You are willing to pay a certain price for music or a device to play it, etc. That money goes to the corperation that produced whatever you are buying. The price you are willing to pay includes the tax. When the govenment adds a tax two things happen. Cost to the consumer goes up and profits for the producer go down. The more you are willing to pay for the product, the more the tax effects the consumer.
This tax ensures distrobution of the profts in a certain manner. It gaurantees that background singers, artists, songwriters, etc. each get a certain percent of the royalties from the device that is being taxed. The people who should really be screaming are people like Sony or RCA. They are losing profits to artists and record companies. And if this tax were as otherpeople have sugested, (i.e., a good is taxed and the tax is given to the producers of the good), nothing at all in the market would change. The price to the consumer would stay the same and the profits for the producer would stay the same.
The DMCA only outlaws circumvention that allows people to circumvent copy protection. I sugest you send Varient a letter back asking under what legal ground they are asking you to stop emmulating them. That is probably your best bet to figure out how to get around it. You cant fight an enemy you cant see.
... what effect if any the attention on ZDNet and slashdot had on the decision to recall the product. You gotta love it when news channels make news as well as report it. Maybe we should push for W2K to be recalled.
I cannot imagine how this pattent could possibly be accepted.
Prior art: I think they would have to show that people were not doing international computer to computer transactions before the inventor came up with this invention.
Obvious: If people are doing "domestic" computer transactions I can't see how anyone could successfully argue that "international" computer transactions are not a logical and obvious next step.
Of course, this is the pattent office and they have approved dumber pattents over the years.
I wonder how small they can make the technology. Imagine if you could mount one of these things on your collar. You could have personal listening without headphones. How 'bout point to point walkie talkies. With a hand held model you just point and talk. I think the truck idea is a really good use. Also, if they could be made small and light enough to mount on a moble platform (like cyberlights do with spotlights) you could move a speaker onto any surface.
Of course the real question is when can I get one?
Well First off let me say that none of this surprises me anymore. I've come to expect this kind of FUD. However, there are a few things to point out.
In the Plaintiffs closing brief in the 2600 trial, they claimed that certain exemptions (e.g., fair use and reverse engineering for compatibility) dont apply because the defendants were not actualy engaged in reverse engineering. How the DVD CCA can then sue people at livid is beyond me.
The plaintiffs in this case (the lawyers really) twist words around so well (as lawyers often do) that it amazes me. All they have to say is that the open source community suports free distribution of software on the internet. Even that sounds bad if you don't really understand the Open Source movement.
Even if we were advocates of piracy, how does that affect the legal issue of whether someone outside of California can be bound to California law or an injunction in a California district court? It doesn't. This is simply trying to tarnish the character of the defendants.
Matt Pavlovich is an individual. The DVD CCA and the MPAA are corporations. That means that they have a buffer of limited liability. By naming individuals as parties to the law suit they are protecting the corporate members of the MPAA and DVD CCA while holding the defendants personaly responcible.
BTW, Im wearing my illegal copyleft T-Shirt right now.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the biggest problems in the political sphere (esp. recently) is that people assume that just because something is new, we should treat it differently. This article is a prime example. It even went so far as to sugest that our current civic structures are out of date and may need to be replaced. Like Edmund Burke said, we have inherited a tradition. This tradition has acomplished great things in the past and it would be very irresponcible to simply throw it all away on a whim. How arragant would we have to be to think that we could improve anything by starting over? The nature of the world is that it changes through evolution not revolution.
One of the wonders of our political system is that it does not need to be changed to handle every new thing that comes along. Unfortunatly people think that it does. This is why every new medium of expression has to go before the Supreme Court to see if it too is covered by the first amendment. It happened with radio, tv, the internet, and now software. The reason we have so many freedoms in this country (and for those of you who insist we have no freedoms here I sugest you move to China or Libya) is that our constitution spans the life of our nation.
If we want new developments to be treated with equity, we need to stop making exceptions for them. I think we would all perfer that DVDs be handled under conventional copyright law rather than the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. As if authors deserve more compensation in this millenium than in the last one.
I'm not for bush. I'm still undecided but it is closed mindedness like this, especialy from self titled "prgressives," that scares me away from libral politics.
This is not a troll. This is a quest for truth.
Well it certainly doesnt hurt any. You cant post computer code on the internet just because you own it. And if people are suing you for doing what you want with stuff that YOU OWN, then it might be usefull for congress to pass a law saying that you are alowed to do what you want with music you own. Then the RIAA has no grounds to sue you on.
I think this is a good move. It's better to have the release date slip then to release to few units. Sony doesnt want them selling on EBAY for 10 grand a pop.
I didn't see an article so I don't know where the answers to any of these questions are. Why are they suing the upc service? What legal grounds do they have? Is there some pattent or something on having a database of UPC entries? Wouldn't every grocery store in America be violating it?
It's important to note that you can't copyright a database. There was a surpreme court case about this (Fiest Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc.) in which one company stole the white pages from another company's phone book. The majority decision (written by Justice O'Conner) stated that copyright does not extend to a logical ordering of information.
Therefore, even if upcdatabase.com STOLE the database from DC, DC would not have any legal recourse.
If they are focused in "categories which don't overlap with anyone else in the business really" and they still cant turn a profit what does that tell you? It tells me that there is no market. No one is buying SGIs stuff because nobody wants SGIs stuff. (yes "stuff" is a technical term) You dont buy a company that is loosing money trying to sell to a market that doesnt exist anymore. Oh wait! SGI did that when it bought Cray.
I like a lot of what SGI has done interms of hardware and software but their business model has always sucked.
Wow spread of 14 and change! Wish I could have heard about this yestarday.
I dont think this is a move to shut cobalt down. Companies usualy pay cahs if they want to do that. This is a big value added play for sun. They tend to make wise business decisions and I dont see how they would benefit from killing someone who isnt a direct competitor. Especialy considering that they had to dilute by $2B to do it.
Sun is one of my favorite companies in the tech sector. No they arnt as smart as microsoft and no they arnt as cool as apple but I think sun is the best of both worlds.
BTW: If you dont know what a spread or dilution is, please read a book on M&A (mergers and aquisitions) before you moderate me down for not making any sense.
Some of those blue laws are still inforced. The 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick Supreem Court case upheld a Georgia anti-sodemy law. The Court ruled that there was nothing unconstitutional about regulating sexual interactions between consenting adults in private. I have two friends who got tickets in Austin for oral sex. This guy was getting a B.J. from his girlfriend in the front seat of his car while parked in a supermarket parking lot. A cop happened to walk by at just that time. He got two tickets, one for indecent exposure and one for oral sex. She got a ticket for oral sex. It is important to note that in the Bowers v. Hardwick case, all three branches had to agree for the charge to hold.
---------------------------------
Im not trolling I brought up sex because it best illustrates my point.
... she should file an amicus brief in the Napster suit. This would be a wise move even if just to say that the artists should be awarded damages directly. Personaly, I would rather she support Napster to get back at the RIAA but Im not sure how likely that is.
First let me say that I agree with other people's comments that this is just a cross compiler.
Also it is intersting to note the simlarities between Sun's argument and Napster's argument. They both "encurage" people to violate copyrights but niether takes responcibility for it. I think the reason we (myself incuded) reacted initialy to the sun news the way we did is because we like free music and we dont like binary only drivers.
Sun has been one of the better companies when it comes to open source software. It would be nice if the porting kit gave the intermediate source code but I dont think this kit violates the letter or the spirit of the GPL.
IANAL but Im pretty sure there is nothing we can do about it. They weren't advertising. They were simply announcing their intention to write a player. They changed their mind. The legal have done nothing wrong. There is no tort, no fraud, and no breach of contract.
done
I think I need a free proof reader.
Sorry.
Free speech.
Free bear.
Free Advertising?
So far, this law suit has been the best thing to happen to Napster.
My university is privatly funded. So are most of the universities named in the letter (e.g., Harvard). I pay for my bandwidth. I should be able to do with it as I please.
I sugest others do likewise
As we all learned in a competitive market price falls to marginal cost of production. MP3s make marginal cost zero and napster creates a competitive market.
Now for the kicker:
I will not buy a DVD player until I can use it in Linux.
This is not a philosophical debate nor a boycot on a matter of principle. My demand for a DVDs is zero until I have a usable player. (usable==runs_in_linux) Therefore the MPAA is costing the DVD industry at least my marketshare worth of sales. Oh and Im willing to bet there are at least a few others like me.
Anyone who has studied micro-economics knows that the incedence of tax is not affected by who actualy pays it. Incedence of tax is determined by the price elasticity of demand. A tax on music that is given to the producers of the music (I use producers to mean all those involved in production) does not affect the consumer at all. You are willing to pay a certain price for music or a device to play it, etc. That money goes to the corperation that produced whatever you are buying. The price you are willing to pay includes the tax. When the govenment adds a tax two things happen. Cost to the consumer goes up and profits for the producer go down. The more you are willing to pay for the product, the more the tax effects the consumer.
This tax ensures distrobution of the profts in a certain manner. It gaurantees that background singers, artists, songwriters, etc. each get a certain percent of the royalties from the device that is being taxed. The people who should really be screaming are people like Sony or RCA. They are losing profits to artists and record companies. And if this tax were as otherpeople have sugested, (i.e., a good is taxed and the tax is given to the producers of the good), nothing at all in the market would change. The price to the consumer would stay the same and the profits for the producer would stay the same.
The DMCA only outlaws circumvention that allows people to circumvent copy protection. I sugest you send Varient a letter back asking under what legal ground they are asking you to stop emmulating them. That is probably your best bet to figure out how to get around it. You cant fight an enemy you cant see.
... what effect if any the attention on ZDNet and slashdot had on the decision to recall the product. You gotta love it when news channels make news as well as report it. Maybe we should push for W2K to be recalled.
Of course, this is the pattent office and they have approved dumber pattents over the years.
I wonder how small they can make the technology. Imagine if you could mount one of these things on your collar. You could have personal listening without headphones. How 'bout point to point walkie talkies. With a hand held model you just point and talk. I think the truck idea is a really good use. Also, if they could be made small and light enough to mount on a moble platform (like cyberlights do with spotlights) you could move a speaker onto any surface.
Of course the real question is when can I get one?
BTW, Im wearing my illegal copyleft T-Shirt right now.