Regardless of how you feel about filesharing - this is far worse. I don't think anybody on Slashdot likes when somebody's work is taken and they aren't at least given credit for creating the work. I don't think anybody here is downloading Britney Spears and then selling it as their own.
It would still depend on what format the books are in. It doesn't say in the article. Just because your MBA programs used a format that could be copied doesn't mean that these documents can be.
And that doesn't address the real question. A teacher who suspects plagiarism would have the same resources to search upon. Teachers are pretty good at telling when a writing style doesn't match the student and they could search on a phrase and find out if they copied it.
Why would this increase plagiarism in any way? I am sure the files are locked PDF's so cutting and pasting are out of the question. Teachers will still be able to easily tell when a student copies from a work as they do now.
Microsoft won the first was against WordPerfect (well I think 95% market share is winning). OpenOffice and Star Office were not even competitors at the time. If they start competiting now (and that is a BIG if) then a new war would start. Sort of like how there was two World Wars but both involved Germany.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that google's pockets are not deeper than any competitor of AXA. A quick search shows that the industry average is around $1 Billion in revenue with some around $100 Billion. Google is not yet public so their financials are not available but I think it is a safe be they aren't in that league.
The best way to end the spyware threat is education. We send out periodic email reminders and we make very clear that installing applications on your machine is a fireable offense as mentioned in the employee handbook. We also list out the types of applications that contain spyware and remind them to never hit yes or ok to a pop-up in their browser. It is not perfect but the number of people installing this crap has greatly reduced.
What are you talking about? How are their trademarks diluted? When I go to buy bandages I don't even think about it. I go straight for Band-Aid brand. I don't call that diluted. I call that reinforced.
Trademarks are essential to commerce. They are the only IP that benefits both the consumer and the manufacturer. The consumer benefits because they can be sure that when they by Brand A widgets that they are getting THE Brand A widgets and not a cheap knock-off. Sort of like Rolex vs the Rollex you get on the street. The company benefits because they get exclusive right to the name and can build an image around that name.
Saying that trademarks are over-rated is really ridiculous.
I can't believe you would dare post an argument using WikiPedia. Amateur opinions have no place in an argument. There is absolutely no corresponding law that agrees with "genericized" trademarks. Do a search on that and you will only find the same article on a dozen different sites. From the law itself:
"A registered mark shall not be deemed to be the generic name of goods or services solely because such mark is also used as a name of or to identify a unique product or service."
Amazing how many arm-chair lawyers there are on slashdot who have no clue what they are talking about. A trademark holder only has to protect its trademark from being used by other companies in commerce. They don't have to try and stop people from using their brand name to refer to the generic term. There are dozens of examples of company's that make no effort to discourage use and they have not lost their trademark - Band-Aid, Vasoline, and Kleenex are just a few.
That is patently untrue. Trademark holders need only defend their trademark if another company tries to use it in the commerce. They do not lose it because people mistakingly use their brand name in place of the generic term.
You joke but there are three things I would like to see fines for:
1) Two women talking side by side and walking at a snails pace forcing people to either walk in the street or crawl behind them (never seen men do this so I not being sexist).
2) Smoking while walking. There is nothing worse then getting stuck walking behind a smoker and having their smoke in your face until you can pass them. Luckily most smokers can't walk very fast.
3) Using umbrellas under scaffolding. I don't know how people avoid getting their eyes poked out with all the umbrella jockeying going on.
Walking in Manhattan is alright an art form and introducing segways would just make it a worse nightmare. As it is we enough asshole rollerbladers and bikers who think that it is ok to use the sidewalk from time to time.
They are the different faces but as a law student you know that small distinctions mean everything. To give a clearer example:
Band-Aid is commonly used when referring to bandages. Just the other day we referred to a small system change as a band aid. J&J does not need to worry about that common use. They don't have to go out of their way to make sure that band aid is not used in things like TV shows, articles, etc. in order to protect their trademark. Their trademark is safe even though everybody uses it.
If Nexcare or some other bandage company comes along and starts calling their product Band-Aids instead of bandages THEN J&J has to go after them. They have to police to make sure nobody is breaking the rules.
Yes policing does protect your trademark but protecting is not just policing. It is that old man evolved from monkeys but monkeys didn't evolve from man thing.
I would think that as a law student you would already be going nuts with these tiny logistic arguments. As an accountant with a strong business law background I know it very well.
Protecting your trademark and policing it are two different things. You don't lose your trademark just by your name being common place. You don't have to actively attack people who use your name to protect it. Policing it means not allowing other companies to use it in the course of business.
Protect in this instance means - to maintain the status or integrity of
While police in this case means - detect and prosecute violations of rules and regulations
Do you understand the distinction?
A joke can never be construed as being used in commerce. You are not selling the joke. If the comedian took the joke and wrote it down and called it a "MasterCard joke" and sold it then it would be using it is commerce and even then it might not be infringement because MasterCard doesn't hold a trademark on jokes.
If MasterCard and AmEx have registered trademarks, they need to assert trademark infringement as much as they would need to assert copyright infringement related to the style and structure of the ads.
Now that seems to me like you said that they have to pursue copyright infringers in order to keep their copyright much like they have to with Trademarks. This is not true. A copyright never loses his copyright even if he never sues anybody.
This case has absolutely no weight and arguing about it is silly. You will never see this case even get close to court. It was a C&D letter to cover their ass in case of fallout of being associated with a joke told in bad taste.
Perhaps the fact that no one has a picture of God is a measure of the ferocity with which God defends himself from photographers.
Point being - absence of proof is not proof in itself.
Companies must defend their trademarks when other companies use them and it must be in a fair manner. The idea is that McDonald's can't let Wendy's get away with selling a Big Mac and then sue Burger King for doing the same (without licensing the name of course). Once you let one company get away with using it in their business then you have to let everybody else use it. Of course, this has nothing to do with this case at all.
Genericide is not a legal term but a marketing term. The case you quote has to do with a company not policing its trademark when it is used in business by other businesses. We discussed that already. That has nothing to do with this case.
A joke is never commerce. Your example is a joke. A comedian using a trademark name in an act in no way would confuse people to think that that joke is a product of the company holding the trademark. That might be the lamest argument I have ever read. Do you think that every stand up comedian gets permission from every company that it jokes about. Absolute nonsense.
Policing a trademark means not allowing other businesses to use the trademark in business. How many times do I need to repeat this?
Copyright on the other requires no such policing. It is in no way similar to Trademarks. It is covered under different laws and maintainted by the Library of Congress not the US Patent and Trademark Office.
You have made no substantial rebuttals to any of my points. Policing trademarks has nothing to do with people using a trademark in a conversation. It is an abuse of the system to even suggest it.
"Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, Aspirin ® and Heroin ® were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919."
That has nothing to do with not protecting trademarks. It has to do with losing a war.
First - That's a load of bullshit. There is no such thing as protecting your trademark. As long as you continue to use it in the course of business it is protected. It is an urban legend, an old wives tales, general bullshit. There has never been a case where a company failed to protect its trademark and lost.
Second - Trademark infringement can only come when another company uses your trademark in business. Just using the name of a company in a joke is not trademark infringement any more than me typing MasterCard right here is not infringement.
Third - Contrary to the moron AC below Kleenex still holds its trademark. You will never see Scotties Kleenex - they are called Scotties Tissues. People can refer to common items (like band aids, kleenex, vasoline, etc) but when a company sells a similar product they can not use that name. Just go to a grocery store and that is plain to see.
Fourth - This has nothing to do with trademarks. this is about Copyrights. You don't trademark a commercial. It is copyrighted. Parody is allowed under copyright law and this is surely a parody.
You are way off base. Use and distribution are two different things. Fair use does not include the distribution of copyrighted material. And either way those aren't clauses they are factors. They are saying that a judge can say that something is fair use based on those factors. And just read what you posted:
"for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research,"
Abandonware sites have nothing to do with any of those things.
And just not publishing a new version does not mean that old versions are now abandoned. That is like saying that since a publisher isn't releasing a new edition of a book I can copy and distribute that book to whoever I want.
I respectfully suggest you stick to what you know.
Censor - to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
Where in there does it say anything about federal government? I am not sure where you even got the idea that only a government can censor. It makes little sense to me.
Software that is no longer being sold or supported by its publisher. Most abandonware is still considered illegal unless the publisher has re-released the software as freeware.
U.S. copyright laws state that copyrights owned by corporations are valid for 75 years from the date the software was first published. So the current availability of a product is irrelevant to its copyrighted status. Unlike trademarks, copyrights are not considered abandoned if they are no longer enforced. Copyrights do not enter the public domain just because they are no longer commercially exploited or widely available.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of how you feel about filesharing - this is far worse. I don't think anybody on Slashdot likes when somebody's work is taken and they aren't at least given credit for creating the work. I don't think anybody here is downloading Britney Spears and then selling it as their own.
It would still depend on what format the books are in. It doesn't say in the article. Just because your MBA programs used a format that could be copied doesn't mean that these documents can be.
And that doesn't address the real question. A teacher who suspects plagiarism would have the same resources to search upon. Teachers are pretty good at telling when a writing style doesn't match the student and they could search on a phrase and find out if they copied it.
Why would this increase plagiarism in any way? I am sure the files are locked PDF's so cutting and pasting are out of the question. Teachers will still be able to easily tell when a student copies from a work as they do now.
Microsoft won the first was against WordPerfect (well I think 95% market share is winning). OpenOffice and Star Office were not even competitors at the time. If they start competiting now (and that is a BIG if) then a new war would start. Sort of like how there was two World Wars but both involved Germany.
Nobody in their right mind installs either of those crapware apps. Quicktime Alternative and Real Alternative work great.
1) Google has more money.
Check out my post above. Google most likely does NOT have nearly as much money as AXA's competitors.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that google's pockets are not deeper than any competitor of AXA. A quick search shows that the industry average is around $1 Billion in revenue with some around $100 Billion. Google is not yet public so their financials are not available but I think it is a safe be they aren't in that league.
It protects them from somebody going out and writing an entirely new Operating System and selling it under the name NetBSD.
Copyrights are issued by the Library of Congress no the USPTO. I suppose it would be the USPTCO if they did.
The best way to end the spyware threat is education. We send out periodic email reminders and we make very clear that installing applications on your machine is a fireable offense as mentioned in the employee handbook. We also list out the types of applications that contain spyware and remind them to never hit yes or ok to a pop-up in their browser. It is not perfect but the number of people installing this crap has greatly reduced.
What are you talking about? How are their trademarks diluted? When I go to buy bandages I don't even think about it. I go straight for Band-Aid brand. I don't call that diluted. I call that reinforced.
Trademarks are essential to commerce. They are the only IP that benefits both the consumer and the manufacturer. The consumer benefits because they can be sure that when they by Brand A widgets that they are getting THE Brand A widgets and not a cheap knock-off. Sort of like Rolex vs the Rollex you get on the street. The company benefits because they get exclusive right to the name and can build an image around that name.
Saying that trademarks are over-rated is really ridiculous.
I can't believe you would dare post an argument using WikiPedia. Amateur opinions have no place in an argument. There is absolutely no corresponding law that agrees with "genericized" trademarks. Do a search on that and you will only find the same article on a dozen different sites. From the law itself:
"A registered mark shall not be deemed to be the generic name of goods or services solely because such mark is also used as a name of or to identify a unique product or service."
Amazing how many arm-chair lawyers there are on slashdot who have no clue what they are talking about. A trademark holder only has to protect its trademark from being used by other companies in commerce. They don't have to try and stop people from using their brand name to refer to the generic term. There are dozens of examples of company's that make no effort to discourage use and they have not lost their trademark - Band-Aid, Vasoline, and Kleenex are just a few.
That is patently untrue. Trademark holders need only defend their trademark if another company tries to use it in the commerce. They do not lose it because people mistakingly use their brand name in place of the generic term.
You joke but there are three things I would like to see fines for:
1) Two women talking side by side and walking at a snails pace forcing people to either walk in the street or crawl behind them (never seen men do this so I not being sexist).
2) Smoking while walking. There is nothing worse then getting stuck walking behind a smoker and having their smoke in your face until you can pass them. Luckily most smokers can't walk very fast.
3) Using umbrellas under scaffolding. I don't know how people avoid getting their eyes poked out with all the umbrella jockeying going on.
Walking in Manhattan is alright an art form and introducing segways would just make it a worse nightmare. As it is we enough asshole rollerbladers and bikers who think that it is ok to use the sidewalk from time to time.
They are the different faces but as a law student you know that small distinctions mean everything. To give a clearer example:
Band-Aid is commonly used when referring to bandages. Just the other day we referred to a small system change as a band aid. J&J does not need to worry about that common use. They don't have to go out of their way to make sure that band aid is not used in things like TV shows, articles, etc. in order to protect their trademark. Their trademark is safe even though everybody uses it.
If Nexcare or some other bandage company comes along and starts calling their product Band-Aids instead of bandages THEN J&J has to go after them. They have to police to make sure nobody is breaking the rules.
Yes policing does protect your trademark but protecting is not just policing. It is that old man evolved from monkeys but monkeys didn't evolve from man thing.
I would think that as a law student you would already be going nuts with these tiny logistic arguments. As an accountant with a strong business law background I know it very well.
Protecting your trademark and policing it are two different things. You don't lose your trademark just by your name being common place. You don't have to actively attack people who use your name to protect it. Policing it means not allowing other companies to use it in the course of business.
Protect in this instance means - to maintain the status or integrity of
While police in this case means - detect and prosecute violations of rules and regulations
Do you understand the distinction?
A joke can never be construed as being used in commerce. You are not selling the joke. If the comedian took the joke and wrote it down and called it a "MasterCard joke" and sold it then it would be using it is commerce and even then it might not be infringement because MasterCard doesn't hold a trademark on jokes.
If MasterCard and AmEx have registered trademarks, they need to assert trademark infringement as much as they would need to assert copyright infringement related to the style and structure of the ads.
Now that seems to me like you said that they have to pursue copyright infringers in order to keep their copyright much like they have to with Trademarks. This is not true. A copyright never loses his copyright even if he never sues anybody.
This case has absolutely no weight and arguing about it is silly. You will never see this case even get close to court. It was a C&D letter to cover their ass in case of fallout of being associated with a joke told in bad taste.
Perhaps the fact that no one has a picture of God is a measure of the ferocity with which God defends himself from photographers.
Point being - absence of proof is not proof in itself.
Companies must defend their trademarks when other companies use them and it must be in a fair manner. The idea is that McDonald's can't let Wendy's get away with selling a Big Mac and then sue Burger King for doing the same (without licensing the name of course). Once you let one company get away with using it in their business then you have to let everybody else use it. Of course, this has nothing to do with this case at all.
Genericide is not a legal term but a marketing term. The case you quote has to do with a company not policing its trademark when it is used in business by other businesses. We discussed that already. That has nothing to do with this case.
A joke is never commerce. Your example is a joke. A comedian using a trademark name in an act in no way would confuse people to think that that joke is a product of the company holding the trademark. That might be the lamest argument I have ever read. Do you think that every stand up comedian gets permission from every company that it jokes about. Absolute nonsense.
Policing a trademark means not allowing other businesses to use the trademark in business. How many times do I need to repeat this?
Copyright on the other requires no such policing. It is in no way similar to Trademarks. It is covered under different laws and maintainted by the Library of Congress not the US Patent and Trademark Office.
You have made no substantial rebuttals to any of my points. Policing trademarks has nothing to do with people using a trademark in a conversation. It is an abuse of the system to even suggest it.
And learn how to format your posts.
"Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, Aspirin ® and Heroin ® were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919."
That has nothing to do with not protecting trademarks. It has to do with losing a war.
First - That's a load of bullshit. There is no such thing as protecting your trademark. As long as you continue to use it in the course of business it is protected. It is an urban legend, an old wives tales, general bullshit. There has never been a case where a company failed to protect its trademark and lost.
Second - Trademark infringement can only come when another company uses your trademark in business. Just using the name of a company in a joke is not trademark infringement any more than me typing MasterCard right here is not infringement.
Third - Contrary to the moron AC below Kleenex still holds its trademark. You will never see Scotties Kleenex - they are called Scotties Tissues. People can refer to common items (like band aids, kleenex, vasoline, etc) but when a company sells a similar product they can not use that name. Just go to a grocery store and that is plain to see.
Fourth - This has nothing to do with trademarks. this is about Copyrights. You don't trademark a commercial. It is copyrighted. Parody is allowed under copyright law and this is surely a parody.
(which is has to be if you are going to accuse it of monopolistic practices)
Says who? You can have monopolistic practices without being a monopoly. Isn't that what everybody has been saying about Microsoft all these years?
According to Columbia Guide to Standard American English the -istic suffix means:
"in imitation of" or "having some characteristics of,"
You are way off base. Use and distribution are two different things. Fair use does not include the distribution of copyrighted material. And either way those aren't clauses they are factors. They are saying that a judge can say that something is fair use based on those factors. And just read what you posted:
"for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research,"
Abandonware sites have nothing to do with any of those things.
And just not publishing a new version does not mean that old versions are now abandoned. That is like saying that since a publisher isn't releasing a new edition of a book I can copy and distribute that book to whoever I want.
I respectfully suggest you stick to what you know.
Censor - to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
Where in there does it say anything about federal government? I am not sure where you even got the idea that only a government can censor. It makes little sense to me.
Software that is no longer being sold or supported by its publisher. Most abandonware is still considered illegal unless the publisher has re-released the software as freeware.
U.S. copyright laws state that copyrights owned by corporations are valid for 75 years from the date the software was first published. So the current availability of a product is irrelevant to its copyrighted status. Unlike trademarks, copyrights are not considered abandoned if they are no longer enforced. Copyrights do not enter the public domain just because they are no longer commercially exploited or widely available.