PS - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Woodman for quite a lot of "Tin Men" in folklore, and other fiction. Any holders of a "Tin Man" trademark would have it struck out if they tried to enforce it in general. It would be like Disney trying to prevent anyone else from using "Snow White". They protect their version, not any other based on the old story.
Incorrect. Words and phrases can be trademarked as well. If you create anything and call it a 'Tin Man' - you violate the trademark.
If it's a word you made up you might, otherwise you can't just hijack words that were in use beforehand. You can trademark a specific Tin Man, his costume, a logo; but not prevent anyone from making any other Tin Man based on the book.
AA Milne created Winnie the Pooh, and his family claims they own the rights to said characters. Disney owns the rights to their trademarked versions of Winnie the Pooh, but last time I checked Disney went one step further and claimed since their version was more well-known, thusly they should own all rights to the character.
Like most people, my idea of Winnie the Pooh was based on the Disney cartoons. Recently I bought a copy of The House at Pooh Corner, by AA Milne, to read to my daughter. It was a revelation. The writing is beautiful, funny and clever, but still suitable for children. Compare that with any of the dozens (hundreds?) of Disney-derived books and cartoons - they're pap. The Disney movie version have their charm, but it's criminal how the original books have been sidelined by the derivative marketing tie-in crap.
knowing some of the reasons why the UK chose to do this
I think the wording refers to unauthorised access to a computer network. Written long before WiFi was something every laptop came with turned on and automatically seeking for access. No doubt intended for the cliched evil hacker in his basement trying to hack into WOPR or transfer billions of dollars to the Caymans. Not Joe Sixpack checking his Hotmail while sitting in the street as it is being applied now.
Imagine if you left your bike outside, unlocked, and someone took it while you were gone at work.
The difference is if someone "borrowed" my bike like that I'd beat them up. No one touches my bike. This demonstrates the flaw in all the "it's like [physical object]" analogies.
If someone connected to my open WiFi, I don't really care. I steal my neighbour's WiFi when mine isn't turned on.
In TFA "The 39-year-old man was seen sitting on a wall outside a home in Chiswick, west London, by two community support officers."
That seems to me to be his real offence. The "community support officers" (wtf are they?) wanted to warn him off, perhaps the home owner was intimidated by his presence.
Since they're not going to be faithful to the original books anyway, why not do a more modern sequel, Like PJ Farmer's A Barnstormer in Oz (See pjfarmer.com for info), about Dorothy's son who flies his biplane into Oz and has his own series of adventures, rather more adult. Farmer has done many stories reimagining pulp heroes like Tarzan, Doc Savage, etc.
Just because the text (which is under copyright) are public domain does not mean the characters (which are under trademark) are.
A specific version and depiction of the characters could be trademarked -- as the Tin Man's costume. But not a Tin Man you designed just referencing the book and your own imagination.
L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books, died in 1919 -- 78 years ago. Even under the current copyright regime in the US, copyright expires 70 years after the author's death. Thus all his books are OUT OF COPYRIGHT. TFA says "Warner purchased the rights to Oz from Ted Turner." That can only refer to the 1939 movie. If you are referring to unique elements of that (costumes, dialogue, songs); sure you need to get some rights from him. But if you make a new version based ONLY on the books, you don't need anyone's permission.
Offering (your words) "freedom to have sex all night long" is not the same as providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news and information, and I find it hard to believe that you are equating them.
Sorry, but in many respects they are. In both cases, the sender (aka "spammer") imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering. In both cases, only a small percentage do, and most of the rest are just annoyed or even angered by the unsolicited offers of how to improve their intellectual/sex lives.
And as I think you know, the spam would not really be "providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news", despite its intentions. It would in fact do the reverse, provoking a tightening of restrictions. Good intentions do not ensure success, as GWB has found in Iraq.
That's the qualitative difference between viagra spam and help in bypassing censorship. The latter is offering greater freedom. The former does not.
Spoken like an evangelical spammer. "My viagra offers freedom to have sex all night long."
My point, and many others', not just my lonely anecdotal self, is that the proposal would not "offer greater freedom". It would annoy, and possibly frighten, many recipients. If any started to act on it, it would very quickly become a focus of attention for the authorities, who would simply add it to their blocklist, and track any attmpots to use them.
Nor do we know what the reaction of the Chinese people would be if uncensored media were available
It really is available for those who want it. But I'm just an anecdotal person who happens to live in China, so what would I know compared to you, who no doubt have a vast body of study to draw upon in making your prescriptions on how they should run their lives. Or possibly, just voicing prejudices that went out of date in the 50s.
A free, uncensored media offers greater choice...
I'm not arguing against freedonm of inquiry, expression, etc. I'm saying this proposal would be actually counterproductive in achieving this. Under the current regime, a great deal of freedom in personal life and business is possible, but any attempt to directly challenge the governemnt is still met with harsh retribution. People who want to can quietly route around the censorship while not broadcasting the fact are not harassed. Those who make a crusade of it are.
I'm not at all in favour of the regime, I'm just trying to explain how it actually works.
As regards your 99% of Chinese do not want to get round the censorship - 1. How would you know they don't want it? 2. How would you know that those that do can easily find it? 3. If you've been subject to censorship all your life, might not you be unaware of the benefits of bypassing it?
I live in Hong Kong. I have a little more knowledge of the subject than most people pontificating here.
apparently, the thought never crossed his mind to cast the whole thing and then simply modify the duplicate.
It was already a copy. What would a copy of a copy be worth? A few hundred dollars at most. It has no rarity value, you can search online and buy them to order. The cost is just a reflection of the amount of work it takes to finish it nicely.
From Wikipedia: "Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or "works". These include poems, theses, plays, and other literary works, movies, choreographic works (dances, ballets, etc.), musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances, and, in some jurisdictions, industrial designs. Designs or industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions. Copyright is one of the laws covered by the umbrella term intellectual property."
Basically, copyright was designed to protect creative works. Not forms whose wording is functional and virtually identical to millions of other forms. They probably (legally) reused the text from other forms decades old. If ever copyright existed, it doesn't belong to Coupons.com.
(This, of course, won't work if the printed coupons have a different serial number on them)
Yes. That's what his "hack" does, removes the cookies, etc, that record the serial number so he can apply for a new one. Thay do track duplicates, as in TFA.
If I say you can make a maximum of N copies of something I've written, that's my prerogative as copyright holder.
Copyright is designed to protect artistic and scholarly works. Not coupons. A few generic phrases used in millions of similar forms would not be protected by copyright. Possibly if there was some elaborate artwork included in the background that might be copyright. But damages would be difficult to assess, if any.
I think it's an abuse of process. If he's guilty of anything, it's fraud, and they should try to make that stick instead of using a law that was never designed to apply in this situation.
. With the China "spam" idea, it is trying to provide something that the recipient is not free to find for themselves. In other words, it's increasing the recipients freedom of choice. There's also a difference that what is contained in the "spam" is something that is useful, as opposed to the amount of viagra adverts I receive.
No, it IS almost exactly like Viagra spam. The spammer in both cases claims that it's something the recipient needs, and doesn't know where to find. And in both cases they're wrong. 99% of Chinese on the net don't care about censorship (except perhaps of porn) and the 1% who do are perfectly capable of finding proxies without the help of some American crusader, who is just going to stir up the authorities like an evangelical Christian in Afghanistan.
If you do happen to want either viagra or a proxy server, the last and least trustworthy way to find it safely is from spam.
Hasn't China, in the past, executed people who were convicted of intentionally bypassing the Great Firewall
Where did you hear this? On talk radio perhaps? Please cite something authoritative (a news agency, or even a human rights group) to support this allegation.
China can be pretty oppressive, but this is far beyond anything I've ever heard -- and I live in Hong Kong, which is not censored, but we do hear a lot of what goes on in the mainland.
Anyway, as to TFA's suggested spam to tell people about proxies: What an idiotic idea. Anyone in China with the ability and desire to use a proxy can find it for themselves easily, without some naive dogooder sending lists of sites out that will just alert the authorities which sites to block.
# Ships falling out of orbit when they lose power.
Sometimes, even our satellites do this. It really depends on your orbit, distance from the planet, mass of the ship, etc.
If they're in low orbit, 100 miles or so, atmosperic drag will slow them down and eventually they'll crash. But Trekky ships are usually shown well above that. In any case it takes months or years, not hours as in Trek.
This one is unlikely, but who's to say what alien DNA is like?
It won't be identical with human DNA, Thus no interbreeding. (For God's sake, Vulcans have copper-based blood, and Spock was supposedly half-human!?) But "aliens" in Trek universe are all just humans with bumps on their foreheads. I don't really want to hear any retcon of that, it might give me an aneurism.
I call bullshit on this. Name anything in Star Trek that blatantly violates the principles of physics
Noise in vacuum. (Explosions, ships whooshing.) Don't tell me it's some audio feedback.
New chemical elements. I've watched my share of ST, and I can't count the number of times they've come to some random planet or asteroid where there is a "___ium mine" and the locals are making a living selling it because of its amazing properties. Did you study chemistry? Heard of the table of the elements? Hydrogen (1) to Uranium (92). Transuranics are very heavy and radioactive and not found lying about in a mine. There are NO new elements to be found anywhere on any planet. (That includes dilithium.)
Ships falling out of orbit when they lose power.
Ships colliding at warp speed and just getting a few dents.
Actually, Star Trek should be given more due than that. They spent a lot of time considering real physics
Complete bullshit.
Lots of sad fans have tried to rationalise ST "physics" after the fact, but the writers obviously could not care a fig about science. Just the way they invent new chemical elements every other episode to suit plot purposes really grates on me, for instance. TOS did use real SF writers for a while, but since then it's just hack TV writers who dropped science as soon as they could in high school and whose knowledge of science is derived from comic books and other scifi TV shows -- i.e. exactly the problem pointed out in TFA is being carried forward to new generations as those writing the stuff are now two steps remioved from real science.
Warp drive functions by bunching space up...
Please, this is hardly an original concept to Trek. "Warp drive" is a concept used since the 1940s or earlier in Space Opera.
Slashdot Mirror
PS - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Woodman for quite a lot of "Tin Men" in folklore, and other fiction. Any holders of a "Tin Man" trademark would have it struck out if they tried to enforce it in general. It would be like Disney trying to prevent anyone else from using "Snow White". They protect their version, not any other based on the old story.
If it's a word you made up you might, otherwise you can't just hijack words that were in use beforehand. You can trademark a specific Tin Man, his costume, a logo; but not prevent anyone from making any other Tin Man based on the book.
Obviously, he did, implicitly at least.
Like most people, my idea of Winnie the Pooh was based on the Disney cartoons. Recently I bought a copy of The House at Pooh Corner, by AA Milne, to read to my daughter. It was a revelation. The writing is beautiful, funny and clever, but still suitable for children. Compare that with any of the dozens (hundreds?) of Disney-derived books and cartoons - they're pap. The Disney movie version have their charm, but it's criminal how the original books have been sidelined by the derivative marketing tie-in crap.
I think the wording refers to unauthorised access to a computer network. Written long before WiFi was something every laptop came with turned on and automatically seeking for access. No doubt intended for the cliched evil hacker in his basement trying to hack into WOPR or transfer billions of dollars to the Caymans. Not Joe Sixpack checking his Hotmail while sitting in the street as it is being applied now.
The difference is if someone "borrowed" my bike like that I'd beat them up. No one touches my bike. This demonstrates the flaw in all the "it's like [physical object]" analogies.
If someone connected to my open WiFi, I don't really care. I steal my neighbour's WiFi when mine isn't turned on.
WiFi routers all have settings to govern access (permission). This was set to give permission to anyone who asked.
Anyway, this hasn't been to court, if he contests it rather than copping a plea he might well get off if his lawyer used this argument.
That seems to me to be his real offence. The "community support officers" (wtf are they?) wanted to warn him off, perhaps the home owner was intimidated by his presence.
Since they're not going to be faithful to the original books anyway, why not do a more modern sequel, Like PJ Farmer's A Barnstormer in Oz (See pjfarmer.com for info), about Dorothy's son who flies his biplane into Oz and has his own series of adventures, rather more adult. Farmer has done many stories reimagining pulp heroes like Tarzan, Doc Savage, etc.
A specific version and depiction of the characters could be trademarked -- as the Tin Man's costume. But not a Tin Man you designed just referencing the book and your own imagination.
L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books, died in 1919 -- 78 years ago. Even under the current copyright regime in the US, copyright expires 70 years after the author's death. Thus all his books are OUT OF COPYRIGHT. TFA says "Warner purchased the rights to Oz from Ted Turner." That can only refer to the 1939 movie. If you are referring to unique elements of that (costumes, dialogue, songs); sure you need to get some rights from him. But if you make a new version based ONLY on the books, you don't need anyone's permission.
Sorry, but in many respects they are. In both cases, the sender (aka "spammer") imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering. In both cases, only a small percentage do, and most of the rest are just annoyed or even angered by the unsolicited offers of how to improve their intellectual/sex lives.
And as I think you know, the spam would not really be "providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news", despite its intentions. It would in fact do the reverse, provoking a tightening of restrictions. Good intentions do not ensure success, as GWB has found in Iraq.
Spoken like an evangelical spammer. "My viagra offers freedom to have sex all night long."
My point, and many others', not just my lonely anecdotal self, is that the proposal would not "offer greater freedom". It would annoy, and possibly frighten, many recipients. If any started to act on it, it would very quickly become a focus of attention for the authorities, who would simply add it to their blocklist, and track any attmpots to use them.
Nor do we know what the reaction of the Chinese people would be if uncensored media were available
It really is available for those who want it. But I'm just an anecdotal person who happens to live in China, so what would I know compared to you, who no doubt have a vast body of study to draw upon in making your prescriptions on how they should run their lives. Or possibly, just voicing prejudices that went out of date in the 50s.
A free, uncensored media offers greater choice...
I'm not arguing against freedonm of inquiry, expression, etc. I'm saying this proposal would be actually counterproductive in achieving this. Under the current regime, a great deal of freedom in personal life and business is possible, but any attempt to directly challenge the governemnt is still met with harsh retribution. People who want to can quietly route around the censorship while not broadcasting the fact are not harassed. Those who make a crusade of it are.
I'm not at all in favour of the regime, I'm just trying to explain how it actually works.
I live in Hong Kong. I have a little more knowledge of the subject than most people pontificating here.
Okay, the pictures are probably copyrightable (though not the text). I've never seen one of these coupons. I assumed it would be more utilitarian.
It was already a copy. What would a copy of a copy be worth? A few hundred dollars at most. It has no rarity value, you can search online and buy them to order. The cost is just a reflection of the amount of work it takes to finish it nicely.
From Wikipedia: "Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or "works". These include poems, theses, plays, and other literary works, movies, choreographic works (dances, ballets, etc.), musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances, and, in some jurisdictions, industrial designs. Designs or industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions. Copyright is one of the laws covered by the umbrella term intellectual property."
Basically, copyright was designed to protect creative works. Not forms whose wording is functional and virtually identical to millions of other forms. They probably (legally) reused the text from other forms decades old. If ever copyright existed, it doesn't belong to Coupons.com.
Yes. That's what his "hack" does, removes the cookies, etc, that record the serial number so he can apply for a new one. Thay do track duplicates, as in TFA.
Copyright is designed to protect artistic and scholarly works. Not coupons. A few generic phrases used in millions of similar forms would not be protected by copyright. Possibly if there was some elaborate artwork included in the background that might be copyright. But damages would be difficult to assess, if any.
I think it's an abuse of process. If he's guilty of anything, it's fraud, and they should try to make that stick instead of using a law that was never designed to apply in this situation.
Punish, execute, all the same really. Why bother to differentiate?
No, it IS almost exactly like Viagra spam. The spammer in both cases claims that it's something the recipient needs, and doesn't know where to find. And in both cases they're wrong. 99% of Chinese on the net don't care about censorship (except perhaps of porn) and the 1% who do are perfectly capable of finding proxies without the help of some American crusader, who is just going to stir up the authorities like an evangelical Christian in Afghanistan.
If you do happen to want either viagra or a proxy server, the last and least trustworthy way to find it safely is from spam.
Where did you hear this? On talk radio perhaps? Please cite something authoritative (a news agency, or even a human rights group) to support this allegation.
China can be pretty oppressive, but this is far beyond anything I've ever heard -- and I live in Hong Kong, which is not censored, but we do hear a lot of what goes on in the mainland.
Anyway, as to TFA's suggested spam to tell people about proxies: What an idiotic idea. Anyone in China with the ability and desire to use a proxy can find it for themselves easily, without some naive dogooder sending lists of sites out that will just alert the authorities which sites to block.
Sometimes, even our satellites do this. It really depends on your orbit, distance from the planet, mass of the ship, etc.
If they're in low orbit, 100 miles or so, atmosperic drag will slow them down and eventually they'll crash. But Trekky ships are usually shown well above that. In any case it takes months or years, not hours as in Trek.
This one is unlikely, but who's to say what alien DNA is like?
It won't be identical with human DNA, Thus no interbreeding. (For God's sake, Vulcans have copper-based blood, and Spock was supposedly half-human!?) But "aliens" in Trek universe are all just humans with bumps on their foreheads. I don't really want to hear any retcon of that, it might give me an aneurism.
Complete bullshit.
Lots of sad fans have tried to rationalise ST "physics" after the fact, but the writers obviously could not care a fig about science. Just the way they invent new chemical elements every other episode to suit plot purposes really grates on me, for instance. TOS did use real SF writers for a while, but since then it's just hack TV writers who dropped science as soon as they could in high school and whose knowledge of science is derived from comic books and other scifi TV shows -- i.e. exactly the problem pointed out in TFA is being carried forward to new generations as those writing the stuff are now two steps remioved from real science.
Warp drive functions by bunching space up...
Please, this is hardly an original concept to Trek. "Warp drive" is a concept used since the 1940s or earlier in Space Opera.