I've had a number, mainly due to a bad CD drive that did annoying things when presented with SafeDisc copy protection (ironic, isn't it?) My copy of dungeon keeper 2 is now useless and I'll have to buy a new one at some point. My Diablo 2 CD has a nasty scratch right in the middle of d2music.mpq, resulting in all kinds of problems. The rest of my games I have made backup copies of, and I also download noCD cracks for them so I can leave the original CDs alone - a fully legitimate usage of noCD cracks, yet they are a violation of the DMCA.
It's even more improper for him to make a blanket ruling that games are not protected speech based on these games - this smells to me like he has his own agenda. He wants to be able to regulate these games, but doesn't think he can if they are speech, so he simply sidesteps any first amendment issue by declaring that ALL games are not speech. I have an amazingly hard time believing that a case about the free speech protection of video games in general had only 4 games introduced as evidence, and all of them notoriously violent. I wonder if they tried to submit more, but weren't permitted (perhaps because other games weren't relevant).
The LSU School of Law might be just such an organisation. lsulaw.com is a domain some people might want on their business cards as opposed to law.lsu.edu.
Tough nookies. The idea that you somehow have a claim to every domain name in every TLD that's similiar to your organizations name and/or initials is an abomination and needs to be beaten out of peoples skulls. They're a.edu - not a.com, and not a.org. If they want a.com or.org address, they need to register those just like normal people, and if the ones they want are already taken, they have to settle for something else, just like normal people.
this is one of the many reasons why software patents are bogus - it's not a patent on an invention - that is, a new product that does something new, or something old in a new way. It's a patent on a concept, not an implementation. After playing with Photoshop for 20 minutes I know enough about these tabbed palletes to invent my own that would infringe the patent - yet the actual code I write would bear little similarity to Adobes, the binary I generate would be almost totally different - in other words, I would have invented a new way of doing something old (display tabbed palettes). This is like me seeing someones veggie chopper, deciding that I can make something that would do the same thing, and creating one that, while it does chop veggies, does it in a totally different way than his does. Thats not patent infringement, but in software it is? Please.
After posting, I'm wondering if he was referring to things like log viewers and other system components that try to fire notepad to show you logs or other config files. Although now that I think of it, I can't think of any WINDOWS systems that still do this, only third party ones.
You're worrying about people stealing YOUR credit card number, and the people stealing want A credit card number (actually, lots of them). It's a waste of time to randomly tap phones, and the old writing them down from your retail job works but has alot of potential risk involved. Sitting in a parking lot for a couple hours with a laptop is practically risk-free (just need to find a Best Buy next to a McDonalads or something) and will let you gather LOTS of numbers. Therefore, while someone wanting your specific card isn't any better off, the odds of your card being stolen this way, and used in a way that will cause you a huge mess, is higher.
This has nothing to do with ownership. Nobody is saying that they don't own their content. What we are saying is that when you make your content available, you don't have the right to bitch when I take advantage of that. They have the right to distribute it in whatever form they want, but by choosing to post it on the web, they are choosing to accept the limitations of a web based format. If they don't like that, they should stick with print. It is, as many people have posted, similiar to someone giving you a book, but telling you that you can't read the first chapter, even though it's right there in the book and theres nothing preventing you. If they want to restrict content, then it's up to them to enforce that restriction, not other people (note: using legal means to force other people to implement your restrictions for you falls under the second category, not the first).
You could quite likely argue that a table of contents isn't copyrightable, for the same reason that phone books aren't (the layout/presentation is, not the content). A compiled list of information isn't considered a creative work and hence isn't protected by copyright.
Amazingly, they do have that right. They choose not to use it. Linking has nothing to do with copyright - you don't alter or reinterpert content, so you aren't creating a derivative work. You certainly aren't duplicating it. Copyright does not, and cannot, apply. Thats just basic sense. If they want to enforce a certain style of presentation, let them do so - it's like printing a book, but claiming you can force people to read it backwards. You can't, if you want people to read it backwards, you print it backwards. If you don't want people linking to content, make it impossible to do. This can be done trivially by not posting it on the web.
I believe, and it's been a long time since I had to care about his, that driving "faster than the posted speed limit" is in and of itself a violation - the common "speeding ticket". This is why you can get ticked for going 60 in a 55 on a clear, dry day with perfect visibililty and no traffic on the road - in other words, perfectly safe under the conditions.
Reckless/Unsafe driving is ALSO considered a violation, and thats why you can get pulled over and ticketed for driving within the speed limit but too fast for conditions.
I believe the white signs (speed limit signs) are the ones with legal force, yellow signs (as in, 25 MPH curve ahead) are advisory. It's illegal to drive faster than the white sign, but only illegal to drive faster than the yellow sign if it's unsafe.
The Singapore police actually created a special department to deal specifically with RL crimes inspired by net stuff. There's some MMORPG there where the company running it had to hire special paramilitary security, because there were so many attempted breakins. Now, this has nothing to do with the idea that video violence desensitizes (It can, in the right circumstances, but normal game playing is not indoctrination), but it does say something about how caught up in games people can get.
oddly, radio free virgin is mentioned in the Wired article. I would assume that radio free virgin, being part of Virgin Megastores, would be an RIAA parter? Although the installer for it is a hoot and a half, and I give them mad kudos for it ("The Radio Free Virgin Player likes puppies, long walks in the rain, and getting saved in a temporary directory of your hard drive." is just one example).
The old testament, in my opinion, generally implies the existence of other gods - it's not that they don't exist, but they aren't the gods of Israel, and thus Israelites shouldn't worship them (note that the old testatment is very insular and elitist - it doesn't care about people who aren't Jews). The New Testament is more of the "I am the one, true, and only God" type thing.
it's also a legally tenous distinction, in that there's legal precedent that anything that looks and feels like a sale is, in fact, a sale, legal gymnastics aside.
Not a few artists have done just that after getting famous and finally having some pull. However, rememeber that the labels also own the distribution houses, have handshake agreements with the major radio stations, etc, etc. Just because you start your own label doesn't mean you can break in.
You ain't gonna like it if you're into mainstream music. But they have alot of obsucre stuff there, and you can get some more mainstream stuff in various compilation albums they have. If nothing else, get the 100 free downloads and check them out.
Tough diggity, my EULA states that people owe me money for reading posts. But I can't enforce that anymore than they can. I can (and occasionaly do) dissasemble or edit installers to remove or alter the EULA. Therefore, since I don't agree to the EULA, and in fact was never presented with the EULA, I'm not bound by it, only by normal copyright law. Fair use entitles me to make copies of the software for my own use, including copies in RAM.
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In a word, no, at least not with these particular games.
I've had a number, mainly due to a bad CD drive that did annoying things when presented with SafeDisc copy protection (ironic, isn't it?) My copy of dungeon keeper 2 is now useless and I'll have to buy a new one at some point. My Diablo 2 CD has a nasty scratch right in the middle of d2music.mpq, resulting in all kinds of problems. The rest of my games I have made backup copies of, and I also download noCD cracks for them so I can leave the original CDs alone - a fully legitimate usage of noCD cracks, yet they are a violation of the DMCA.
They just need to click the "I do not a agree" button on all the installers, thus entitling them to a refund as per the EULA.
It's even more improper for him to make a blanket ruling that games are not protected speech based on these games - this smells to me like he has his own agenda. He wants to be able to regulate these games, but doesn't think he can if they are speech, so he simply sidesteps any first amendment issue by declaring that ALL games are not speech. I have an amazingly hard time believing that a case about the free speech protection of video games in general had only 4 games introduced as evidence, and all of them notoriously violent. I wonder if they tried to submit more, but weren't permitted (perhaps because other games weren't relevant).
Tough nookies. The idea that you somehow have a claim to every domain name in every TLD that's similiar to your organizations name and/or initials is an abomination and needs to be beaten out of peoples skulls. They're a .edu - not a .com, and not a .org. If they want a .com or .org address, they need to register those just like normal people, and if the ones they want are already taken, they have to settle for something else, just like normal people.
this is one of the many reasons why software patents are bogus - it's not a patent on an invention - that is, a new product that does something new, or something old in a new way. It's a patent on a concept, not an implementation. After playing with Photoshop for 20 minutes I know enough about these tabbed palletes to invent my own that would infringe the patent - yet the actual code I write would bear little similarity to Adobes, the binary I generate would be almost totally different - in other words, I would have invented a new way of doing something old (display tabbed palettes). This is like me seeing someones veggie chopper, deciding that I can make something that would do the same thing, and creating one that, while it does chop veggies, does it in a totally different way than his does. Thats not patent infringement, but in software it is? Please.
After posting, I'm wondering if he was referring to things like log viewers and other system components that try to fire notepad to show you logs or other config files. Although now that I think of it, I can't think of any WINDOWS systems that still do this, only third party ones.
The "inter"-dependence is probably in the open and save dialog boxes, which are explorer components and therefore tied to IE.
An IT professor who was called to testify about operating systems who doesn't even know what one is? No, I think he's an idiot.
You're worrying about people stealing YOUR credit card number, and the people stealing want A credit card number (actually, lots of them). It's a waste of time to randomly tap phones, and the old writing them down from your retail job works but has alot of potential risk involved. Sitting in a parking lot for a couple hours with a laptop is practically risk-free (just need to find a Best Buy next to a McDonalads or something) and will let you gather LOTS of numbers. Therefore, while someone wanting your specific card isn't any better off, the odds of your card being stolen this way, and used in a way that will cause you a huge mess, is higher.
This has nothing to do with ownership. Nobody is saying that they don't own their content. What we are saying is that when you make your content available, you don't have the right to bitch when I take advantage of that. They have the right to distribute it in whatever form they want, but by choosing to post it on the web, they are choosing to accept the limitations of a web based format. If they don't like that, they should stick with print. It is, as many people have posted, similiar to someone giving you a book, but telling you that you can't read the first chapter, even though it's right there in the book and theres nothing preventing you. If they want to restrict content, then it's up to them to enforce that restriction, not other people (note: using legal means to force other people to implement your restrictions for you falls under the second category, not the first).
You could quite likely argue that a table of contents isn't copyrightable, for the same reason that phone books aren't (the layout/presentation is, not the content). A compiled list of information isn't considered a creative work and hence isn't protected by copyright.
Interestingly, it'd be perfectly legal for a newstand to rearrange the order of all thier magazines. Funny how you are so completely wrong, isn't it?
Amazingly, they do have that right. They choose not to use it. Linking has nothing to do with copyright - you don't alter or reinterpert content, so you aren't creating a derivative work. You certainly aren't duplicating it. Copyright does not, and cannot, apply. Thats just basic sense. If they want to enforce a certain style of presentation, let them do so - it's like printing a book, but claiming you can force people to read it backwards. You can't, if you want people to read it backwards, you print it backwards. If you don't want people linking to content, make it impossible to do. This can be done trivially by not posting it on the web.
Reckless/Unsafe driving is ALSO considered a violation, and thats why you can get pulled over and ticketed for driving within the speed limit but too fast for conditions.
I believe the white signs (speed limit signs) are the ones with legal force, yellow signs (as in, 25 MPH curve ahead) are advisory. It's illegal to drive faster than the white sign, but only illegal to drive faster than the yellow sign if it's unsafe.
Your last point is also totally correct :)
The Singapore police actually created a special department to deal specifically with RL crimes inspired by net stuff. There's some MMORPG there where the company running it had to hire special paramilitary security, because there were so many attempted breakins. Now, this has nothing to do with the idea that video violence desensitizes (It can, in the right circumstances, but normal game playing is not indoctrination), but it does say something about how caught up in games people can get.
oddly, radio free virgin is mentioned in the Wired article. I would assume that radio free virgin, being part of Virgin Megastores, would be an RIAA parter? Although the installer for it is a hoot and a half, and I give them mad kudos for it ("The Radio Free Virgin Player likes puppies, long walks in the rain, and getting saved in a temporary directory of your hard drive." is just one example).
The old testament, in my opinion, generally implies the existence of other gods - it's not that they don't exist, but they aren't the gods of Israel, and thus Israelites shouldn't worship them (note that the old testatment is very insular and elitist - it doesn't care about people who aren't Jews). The New Testament is more of the "I am the one, true, and only God" type thing.
if you had to use a key or a card or something, then that would be truly secure - something you are, something you have, and something you know.
Well, if you kill someone and chop his hands off, he's not going to be calling and canceling the account anytime soon.
it's also a legally tenous distinction, in that there's legal precedent that anything that looks and feels like a sale is, in fact, a sale, legal gymnastics aside.
Not a few artists have done just that after getting famous and finally having some pull. However, rememeber that the labels also own the distribution houses, have handshake agreements with the major radio stations, etc, etc. Just because you start your own label doesn't mean you can break in.
You ain't gonna like it if you're into mainstream music. But they have alot of obsucre stuff there, and you can get some more mainstream stuff in various compilation albums they have. If nothing else, get the 100 free downloads and check them out.
Tough diggity, my EULA states that people owe me money for reading posts. But I can't enforce that anymore than they can. I can (and occasionaly do) dissasemble or edit installers to remove or alter the EULA. Therefore, since I don't agree to the EULA, and in fact was never presented with the EULA, I'm not bound by it, only by normal copyright law. Fair use entitles me to make copies of the software for my own use, including copies in RAM.
Be aware that Ad-aware will hit on the new cydoor stub - don't let ad-aware remove it or your new, fixed, kazaa won't work.