If US law is so clear (that copies of public domain works are themselves public domain), then can anyone explain to me why Getty Images charges me full whack for pictures of works of art from days gone by; and gives me chapter and verse about what I can do with the images?
Because they can. Just because their claim wouldn't hold up in court doesn't prevent them from making it.
The situation in U.S. isn't any better. For one, you are assuming that the "right to transfer songs to your iPod from CD" is fair use under U.S. law. It may well be, but until a lawsuit is brought and litigated, we will never know for sure if it is
You mean a case like RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia?
(granted, it didn't concern the iPod specifically, but despite the RIAA's occasional claims otherwise, it goes directly to that point)
Having done museum copywork in the past, I can assure you that getting high-quality images of paintings is NOT simple - lighting is critical to capture the texture, color, and avoid reflections and shadows. It's not just point-and-click. I'd side with the museum here, sorry!
Does not matter. The US (where these images are hosted) does not accept "sweat of the brow" as a basis for copyright.
Or, if you're Google, you have a metric shit-ton of servers and don't care too much about reducing the MTBF of a few hundred racks by running them hot.
I was under the impression (mostly from tons of slashdot articles on the subject), that Google had done the research on this and determined that the higher temperatures did NOT reduce the MTBF of the hardware. Seriously, 90F into the equipment isn't that hot.
It's weird, sick and sad in equal measure. Poor bastards. This international symbol of power and grace is being wiped out in the wild by fear, ignorance and superstition and becomes little more than a colourful pet for rich, fat americans.
You say this as if it's somehow the Americans' fault.
A better book would be "How New Systems Succeed"..
on
Why New Systems Fail
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Because why they fail is not all that interesting. A project specified mostly by people who don't know what the system is supposed to do, implemented by people who don't understand the business, replacing a legacy system containing within its labyrinthine bowels the combined knowledge of tens or hundreds of expert users past and present. What could possibly go wrong?
Add on top of that a COTS requirement, so it's a matter of making the requirements fit the software's limitations (while still fitting the business), and you have an almost guaranteed recipe for failure. Particularly when the users _won't_ adapt.
"We did not decide against a back-up service. The fact of the matter is that the service provider took over the running of the test system, so it also has to warrant its continuous operation. How it fulfills this obligation is its own responsibility."'
If this were originally in English, it would mean "We knew this would happen and we tried to tell them, but those arrogant SOBs thought they knew it all and didn't want to listen to us. So we shut up, pulled up a chair, got some popcorn, and waited for the fireworks". I'm not sure that translates, though...
Only a few months ago, it was charged in the US Congress that record companies have been paying radio stations (again, like in the fifties) to play their records.
They never stopped. They just stopped saying they were doing so, and came up with laundering schemes so they could pretend they weren't.
It wouldn't kill music radio at all. The RIAA would take the fees from Clearchannel, and funnel them right back to them as promotional incentives or whatever. The only thing it would kill is any attempt at independent music radio.. and that's dead anyway.
Analog TV signals don't have a horizontal pixel resolution; the signal varies continuously along the scanline.
The CRT takes a continuous signal, but the effective horizontal resolution of a broadcast signal is limited by the 6MHz bandwidth of the channel; it's about 330 lines.
Attorney McKillop explains that to avoid suing itself a lender would typically release the lien against the property after the foreclosure goes through. By suing itself, the company avoids the step of having to file that additional paperwork. That, in effect, speeds up the time it takes to sell the property after foreclosing.
(McKillop represents the real defendant, the homeowner).
Seems like this is just a procedural trick to get the second lien dismissed during the original foreclosure case. Apparently Wells Fargo thinks it's worth paying an extra lawyer rather than having to wait for the voluntary release of the lien to go through. Pretty silly, but it is _Florida_ law at issue, after all...
I still have this (possibly naive) impression of what real engineer is supposed to be: self sufficient person capable in its own trade but also in organising people, dealing with authorities etc and with his activities helping out his small community in which s/he lives. I suppose this means really that particular branch of technology in which you are trained matters less than these other non technological skills.
Forget that. That's a business owner or entrepreneur. Leave some room (at the bottom, always at the bottom, alas) for us technical folks.
Exactly. Garcia claims (probably reciting some standard list) 1) Selection of a moment in time to capture Obama's Expression 2) Use of a particular lens and light for optimal impact 3) Careful and unique composition of the photograph.
Number 2 is easiest to dispose of -- the photo was taken at the National Press Club, and Garcia did not control or even select the lighting; he was stuck with what he had. The majority of elements related to the lens are not present in the poster image.
Number 3 is next... Fairey changed the composition of the image. So it isn't the same "unique" composition.
Number 1... claiming a copyright on a moment in time is obnoxious in itself, but here Garcia testifies against himself; he took 275 photos at that event, which strongly suggests that he did not "select a specific moment in time", but rather snapped away indiscriminately and later selected the best ones. Since a copyright exists upon fixation of the work, Garcia's _later_ selection of 16 photos of those 275 could not make the copyright on any of those particular photos stronger (though he could claim a compilation copyright on the group of 16).
The highlights and shadows in the photo are reproduced fairly similarly in the poster. But, those are mostly aspects of lighting, of Obama's position, and of the photographer's position... at least two of which Garcia did not control, and most likely he couldn't control any of them significantly.
The problem isn't just with computers, it's with English. A file is a bunch of documents. But it can also refer to the container which holds them. Or even the container which holds containers of them (such as a suspension file, which holds file folders).
An algorithm cannot be a "specific machine", as an algorithm isn't patentable subject matter in the first place. For years, software has been patented by using dodges like "A device consisting of CPU, storage, input device, output device executing algorithm X". Bilski makes that dodge invalid.
Some software patents are even sillier, in that they patent the _media_ containing the software. Some of Microsoft's FAT patents are that way, for instance. I don't know if that dodge has been tested in court since Bilski (or even before)
Then they are incredibly stupid. Kids in the West get brainwashed into believing Santa Claus exists, but how many carry that belief with them into adulthood when no one ever told them the brutal truth about the fat red guy?
The North Koreans probably all know someone who lost his or her hands after touching a South Korean pamphlet, which reinforces the belief. That the hands were actually lost though the efforts of the North Korean secret police is a minor detail.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't? What's with all the tarnish on the silverware, then?
Because they can. Just because their claim wouldn't hold up in court doesn't prevent them from making it.
You mean a case like RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia?
(granted, it didn't concern the iPod specifically, but despite the RIAA's occasional claims otherwise, it goes directly to that point)
The UK law in question states in part
which would seem to support the National Portrait Gallery... except that the work protected is not merely an artistic work but...
So, only original artistic works are protected (attempts to claim that "original" does not distribute shall be sneered at), leaving it muddy as ever.
Does not matter. The US (where these images are hosted) does not accept "sweat of the brow" as a basis for copyright.
I was under the impression (mostly from tons of slashdot articles on the subject), that Google had done the research on this and determined that the higher temperatures did NOT reduce the MTBF of the hardware. Seriously, 90F into the equipment isn't that hot.
You say this as if it's somehow the Americans' fault.
Because why they fail is not all that interesting. A project specified mostly by people who don't know what the system is supposed to do, implemented by people who don't understand the business, replacing a legacy system containing within its labyrinthine bowels the combined knowledge of tens or hundreds of expert users past and present. What could possibly go wrong?
Add on top of that a COTS requirement, so it's a matter of making the requirements fit the software's limitations (while still fitting the business), and you have an almost guaranteed recipe for failure. Particularly when the users _won't_ adapt.
"We did not decide against a back-up service. The fact of the matter is that the service provider took over the running of the test system, so it also has to warrant its continuous operation. How it fulfills this obligation is its own responsibility."' If this were originally in English, it would mean "We knew this would happen and we tried to tell them, but those arrogant SOBs thought they knew it all and didn't want to listen to us. So we shut up, pulled up a chair, got some popcorn, and waited for the fireworks". I'm not sure that translates, though...
I never heard of any of this guy's software, I don't use it, and I don't care. Sounds like he has an inflated sense of his own importance.
Nineties death metal band?
They never stopped. They just stopped saying they were doing so, and came up with laundering schemes so they could pretend they weren't.
It wouldn't kill music radio at all. The RIAA would take the fees from Clearchannel, and funnel them right back to them as promotional incentives or whatever. The only thing it would kill is any attempt at independent music radio.. and that's dead anyway.
The CRT takes a continuous signal, but the effective horizontal resolution of a broadcast signal is limited by the 6MHz bandwidth of the channel; it's about 330 lines.
From another article on the same subject http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php?action=printpage;topic=48933.0
(McKillop represents the real defendant, the homeowner).
Seems like this is just a procedural trick to get the second lien dismissed during the original foreclosure case. Apparently Wells Fargo thinks it's worth paying an extra lawyer rather than having to wait for the voluntary release of the lien to go through. Pretty silly, but it is _Florida_ law at issue, after all...
Forget that. That's a business owner or entrepreneur. Leave some room (at the bottom, always at the bottom, alas) for us technical folks.
Possibly true. That's about 59 minutes and 59.98 seconds longer than it took Garcia to take the photo.
Exactly. Garcia claims (probably reciting some standard list)
1) Selection of a moment in time to capture Obama's Expression
2) Use of a particular lens and light for optimal impact
3) Careful and unique composition of the photograph.
Number 2 is easiest to dispose of -- the photo was taken at the National Press Club, and Garcia did not control or even select the lighting; he was stuck with what he had. The majority of elements related to the lens are not present in the poster image.
Number 3 is next... Fairey changed the composition of the image. So it isn't the same "unique" composition.
Number 1... claiming a copyright on a moment in time is obnoxious in itself, but here Garcia testifies against himself; he took 275 photos at that event, which strongly suggests that he did not "select a specific moment in time", but rather snapped away indiscriminately and later selected the best ones. Since a copyright exists upon fixation of the work, Garcia's _later_ selection of 16 photos of those 275 could not make the copyright on any of those particular photos stronger (though he could claim a compilation copyright on the group of 16).
The highlights and shadows in the photo are reproduced fairly similarly in the poster. But, those are mostly aspects of lighting, of Obama's position, and of the photographer's position... at least two of which Garcia did not control, and most likely he couldn't control any of them significantly.
The problem isn't just with computers, it's with English. A file is a bunch of documents. But it can also refer to the container which holds them. Or even the container which holds containers of them (such as a suspension file, which holds file folders).
Sooner or later, everyone re-invents VMS.
Google should buy the British Museum (home of the real Rosetta Stone) and sue them back.
Nice of him to let AP do all the leg work on the case and THEN intervene.
I believe that would be referred to as a feature, not a bug. Eliminating the competition... what else would you expect from Microsoft's co-founder?
An algorithm cannot be a "specific machine", as an algorithm isn't patentable subject matter in the first place. For years, software has been patented by using dodges like "A device consisting of CPU, storage, input device, output device executing algorithm X". Bilski makes that dodge invalid.
Some software patents are even sillier, in that they patent the _media_ containing the software. Some of Microsoft's FAT patents are that way, for instance. I don't know if that dodge has been tested in court since Bilski (or even before)
The North Koreans probably all know someone who lost his or her hands after touching a South Korean pamphlet, which reinforces the belief. That the hands were actually lost though the efforts of the North Korean secret police is a minor detail.