And I suspect that comes down in pretty good agreement with what Google's lawyer is saying; but I always do worry when people throw non-sequiturs into their copyright arguments, like "I'm really helping the copyright owner"... maybe; so what?
That goes to one of the four factors of the fair use test -- the effect upon the work's value in the marketplace. So it's actually not irrelevant. If my use of your work makes your work MORE valuable to you rather than less, that's a good argument that my use is fair (assuming enough of the other factors are satisfied).
AP may be hurting themselves by doing this, or they may have, you know, actually studied their own buisness and concluded that this is how they will survive.
From the article:
The policies were adopted by the A.P. board, composed mostly of newspaper industry executives.
Despite what Monopoly may have taught you, there is NEVER a bank error in your favor. If a financial institution screws up in a way that benefits you, you can GUARANTEE they will eventually find it and fix it, and if you've tried to take advantage of the situation in the meantime you're going to get hosed.
Not so; due to a screw-up on the part of a finance company, my property taxes ended up getting double-paid, once by the old bank and once by the title company at settlement. I arranged for the double payment to be refunded, but due to another screw up, the refund went to the new company (which hadn't paid it). The old company had already credited the money to me as part of the settlement transaction. The new company didn't know what to do with it, so they put it in an escrow account (the new loan was not escrowed). I didn't know what had happened, but I had the escrow balance sent to me, and put it in an interest-bearing account. About a year later, the old company must have done an audit and caught the discrepency, and sent me a letter requesting the money back. I sent it to them -- but I kept the interest.
There seem to be two classes of work in question here. One is out of print works for whom the rightsholders are identified. The other is what is being called "orphaned" works, for whom the rightsholders cannot be identified. The identified works are being non-exclusively licensed to Google and a new Books Rights Registry. The complaint seems to be over the non-identified works; if no one claims them, the Books Rights Registry won't sublicense them, so only Google can use them.
This wouldn't be a problem in itself; under normal circumstances, Google couldn't use those books anyway unless it was willing to risk a copyright lawsuit when the rightsholder came forward. But this _class action_ settlement changes that. Not only does it settle any claims from those authors and publishers involved in the suit, but it settles future claims from every other author and publisher who may have a complaint about those books in the future. But only for Google. So if Google wants to provide access to an orphaned work, they can do so without risk of copyright penalties. If anyone else scans and provides access to that same work, they could be hit with a copyright suit if the missing rightsholder comes forward.
Google isn't exactly being evil here. But they are solving a major problem (orphaned works) in such a way that the solution benefits only themselves. And it is, IMO, a misuse of the class action process.
Exactly. The RIAA would have to track her down in the country she moved to and then get a court there to rule that she had to pay up. Good luck with that, though, because foreign courts are rather reluctant to involve themselves of civil matters that happened outside of their jurisdiction. In fact, they pretty much flat out refuse to.
For that matter, she could flee to Canada or Mexico.
There's no need for any country-fleeing for someone without significant assets or income. Just pull a Bernie Goetz: do nothing. Let the RIAA obtain all the judgments they can. Declare bankruptcy (the BARF bill a few years ago made it harder, but someone with no assets and low income still has the option). Laugh at the RIAA.
There's also no point in threatening suicide. For students to threaten or even attempt and/or complete suicide over these cases is playing directly into the RIAAs hands; they're trying to frighten people into obeying them, and convincing people that the disobedience is worse than death by one's own hand is an effective motivator.
I think the Chinese will think twice about attacking North Korea, just because China has so many nukable cities within reach.
China has no shortage of either land or people. If they want to attack North Korea, the prospect of a few nuked cities won't deter them. It would take a superpower-sized arsenal to do so. (of course they'd move their govt leaders out of Beijing before attacking)
It's hard to imagine a software glitch causing this exact behavior.
Ever enter an address into an on-line mapping program that it didn't recognize? They'll often show a map at a default location at the center of the zip code you entered. Same idea here.
Unless the camera is specifically made for it (e.g. cameras which digitally sign the RAW), faking a RAW isn't as hard as you make it out to be. Converting a JPEG back to a RAW and putting in a phony serial number is certainly within the realm of possibility for a dedicated fraudster. And not having the RAW doesn't mean you weren't the photographer either, obviously.
Next thing he knew, another guy was selling the exact same spreadsheet templates but with a couple of the columns swapped around. There really wasn't anything he could do.
Sure he could. He could give away his originals, or sell them at a lower price. The spreadsheet template may or may not be copyrightable (in a just world they likely wouldn't be, but the bar for copyrightability is ridiculously low), but either way the second guy doesn't have copyright on them.
As for the expert system... well, you give something away you can hardly complain when someone uses it. It's pretty common for software makers to claim to be able to control the use of their product after sale, but IMO such claims are bogus whether the software was sold or given away. Copyright law doesn't control use, so assuming the consultant was merely using the system, and not redistributing it, he was in the clear.
No, "C" thinks it has legitimate claim to the images. Not the same thing.
Whether or not "C" was tricked by "B", they still have no claim against "A" (the actual author). And by going after "A"s clients, they threw away any chance to settle their mistake amicably, so now "A" is perfectly justified in releasing the lawyers on "C".
No, don't try to pretend you don't understand me. If you publish the fact that you have evidence of a crime, but you don't offer that evidence to law enforcement -- and especially if you name the criminal -- you've committed a crime yourself.
No, you haven't. Check Wikipedia on "misprision of felony", and (of course) the case law that page references.
I do understand you. You're claiming that a person who has evidence of a crime by police officers is legally obligated to go to that police department and report it, thus sticking his head in the lion's den. That's ridiculous.
I used to get at least one ear infection a year, usually more. If I took antibiotics, I would be functional again within about 24 hours. If I didn't, I couldn't sleep, was crabby, dizzy and otherwise non-functional for several days. So even though I could possibly recover just fine without them, I'd much rather not miss work and be in pain for several days. I'll take the antibiotics thank you very much.
Part of the problem of the euphemistically-named "evidence-based medicine" is that it treats conditions statistically instead of individually. Oh, you have an ear infection; statistically, 95% of cases clear up, so no antibiotics for you. Someone I know had a similar problem -- the infection would occur, it wouldn't go away on its own, antibiotics would be prescribed, and it would go away. Then it would come back a few weeks later. Turns out there were two infections, a strep infection which caused the obvious symptoms, and a staph infection which was largely asymptomatic but was depressing the immune system. The drugs would eliminate the strep but the staph was partially resistant. So the staph would remain and lay the groundwork for re-infection by strep. A longer course of different anti-biotics, and no more infection. But that's a bit on the zebra side, so "evidence-based medicine" wouldn't admit to its existence.
The guy was, at best, running an ongoing campaign of character assassination against certain Phoenix police officers. No crime there, although what he said may have been libelous.
And the smoke blowing begins.
But if he was accusing police officers of breaking the law, then it is his duty as a citizen to present his evidence to whatever the local equivalent of the Internal Affairs Department is.
Said the spider to the fly.
If he was withholding that evidence, he was obstructing justice.
You seem to have confused "withholding" and "publishing". And not presenting evidence of wrongdoing to the very organization accused of that wrongdoing isn't "obstruction of justice", it's "common sense".
If the guy's done nothing wrong, the department either fabricated information in requesting the warrant, in which case heads should roll, or the judge is incompetent, in which case the judge should be fired.
However in the, let's just say really "interesting" US patent system, I believe that someone else can read your invention online and patent it themselves within a year,
and then force you yourself to stop using your invention.
I could be wrong but that is my interpretation of the US rules.
They could (and I've seen a few patents where it appears someone did exactly that -- there's even a recent one for a mousetrap that appeared in a very old advertisement). But that's fraud.
Then there's the patent troll game where you file a bunch of vague patents, see what someone else does, and file a continuation which makes your patent cover their invention.
It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. But I am mild by nature, and do not wish to see the destruction of democracy. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated.
The headlined tyranny is only the start of the ugliness with this bill. The first part smells heavily of pig product, but it gets worse.
Some lowlights:
Section 5 introduces a 747-load of red tape related to "cybersecurity standards" for anyone doing business with the Federal Government.
Section 6 goes beyond that and introduces some requirements for "private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks". Which, if I'm reading it right, means the Feds get to dictate to e.g. Google (assuming someone classifies Google as critical) how they set up their networks and what software they run on it.
Section 7 introduces a federal license for a "provider of cybersecurity services". All contractors and employees providing "cybersecurity services" on any Federal or designated network would be required to have these. Want to install antivirus software on some "critical" network? Sorry dude, need a license. *shudder*
I don't see IBM maintaining two operating systems long term.
You don't know IBM very well, then.
You're not kidding. MVS lasted for what, 30 years or so, alongside VM/CMS (and both OSs still have supported descendants). IBM even kept OS/2 on life support until 2007.
Even if the content providers are getting money through Hulu, they can't afford to lose audience members from the channel to Hulu any faster than they have to.
Slashdot Mirror
That goes to one of the four factors of the fair use test -- the effect upon the work's value in the marketplace. So it's actually not irrelevant. If my use of your work makes your work MORE valuable to you rather than less, that's a good argument that my use is fair (assuming enough of the other factors are satisfied).
Design your instrument packages to look like mobile homes and let the tornadoes come to you.
From the article:
I think we can discount the second option.
Asimov may have invented the name "robotics", but isn't it more notable that "robot" itself also comes from SF Rossum's Universal Robots?
Not so; due to a screw-up on the part of a finance company, my property taxes ended up getting double-paid, once by the old bank and once by the title company at settlement. I arranged for the double payment to be refunded, but due to another screw up, the refund went to the new company (which hadn't paid it). The old company had already credited the money to me as part of the settlement transaction. The new company didn't know what to do with it, so they put it in an escrow account (the new loan was not escrowed). I didn't know what had happened, but I had the escrow balance sent to me, and put it in an interest-bearing account. About a year later, the old company must have done an audit and caught the discrepency, and sent me a letter requesting the money back. I sent it to them -- but I kept the interest.
There seem to be two classes of work in question here. One is out of print works for whom the rightsholders are identified. The other is what is being called "orphaned" works, for whom the rightsholders cannot be identified. The identified works are being non-exclusively licensed to Google and a new Books Rights Registry. The complaint seems to be over the non-identified works; if no one claims them, the Books Rights Registry won't sublicense them, so only Google can use them.
This wouldn't be a problem in itself; under normal circumstances, Google couldn't use those books anyway unless it was willing to risk a copyright lawsuit when the rightsholder came forward. But this _class action_ settlement changes that. Not only does it settle any claims from those authors and publishers involved in the suit, but it settles future claims from every other author and publisher who may have a complaint about those books in the future. But only for Google. So if Google wants to provide access to an orphaned work, they can do so without risk of copyright penalties. If anyone else scans and provides access to that same work, they could be hit with a copyright suit if the missing rightsholder comes forward.
Google isn't exactly being evil here. But they are solving a major problem (orphaned works) in such a way that the solution benefits only themselves. And it is, IMO, a misuse of the class action process.
Of course not. Well established, well heeled middle aged people don't bother to obtain music illegally.
They download movies instead.
There's no need for any country-fleeing for someone without significant assets or income. Just pull a Bernie Goetz: do nothing. Let the RIAA obtain all the judgments they can. Declare bankruptcy (the BARF bill a few years ago made it harder, but someone with no assets and low income still has the option). Laugh at the RIAA.
There's also no point in threatening suicide. For students to threaten or even attempt and/or complete suicide over these cases is playing directly into the RIAAs hands; they're trying to frighten people into obeying them, and convincing people that the disobedience is worse than death by one's own hand is an effective motivator.
You'd think even North Korea could get a missile launch right. I mean, it's not rocke...err, oh yeah, nevermind.
China has no shortage of either land or people. If they want to attack North Korea, the prospect of a few nuked cities won't deter them. It would take a superpower-sized arsenal to do so. (of course they'd move their govt leaders out of Beijing before attacking)
By prior agreement.
Ever enter an address into an on-line mapping program that it didn't recognize? They'll often show a map at a default location at the center of the zip code you entered. Same idea here.
If so, he's even further off. Libel is rarely a crime, and failure to give evidence to the police is never, as far as I know, an element of it.
Unless the camera is specifically made for it (e.g. cameras which digitally sign the RAW), faking a RAW isn't as hard as you make it out to be. Converting a JPEG back to a RAW and putting in a phony serial number is certainly within the realm of possibility for a dedicated fraudster. And not having the RAW doesn't mean you weren't the photographer either, obviously.
Sure he could. He could give away his originals, or sell them at a lower price. The spreadsheet template may or may not be copyrightable (in a just world they likely wouldn't be, but the bar for copyrightability is ridiculously low), but either way the second guy doesn't have copyright on them.
As for the expert system... well, you give something away you can hardly complain when someone uses it. It's pretty common for software makers to claim to be able to control the use of their product after sale, but IMO such claims are bogus whether the software was sold or given away. Copyright law doesn't control use, so assuming the consultant was merely using the system, and not redistributing it, he was in the clear.
No, "C" thinks it has legitimate claim to the images. Not the same thing.
Whether or not "C" was tricked by "B", they still have no claim against "A" (the actual author). And by going after "A"s clients, they threw away any chance to settle their mistake amicably, so now "A" is perfectly justified in releasing the lawyers on "C".
No, you haven't. Check Wikipedia on "misprision of felony", and (of course) the case law that page references.
I do understand you. You're claiming that a person who has evidence of a crime by police officers is legally obligated to go to that police department and report it, thus sticking his head in the lion's den. That's ridiculous.
Part of the problem of the euphemistically-named "evidence-based medicine" is that it treats conditions statistically instead of individually. Oh, you have an ear infection; statistically, 95% of cases clear up, so no antibiotics for you. Someone I know had a similar problem -- the infection would occur, it wouldn't go away on its own, antibiotics would be prescribed, and it would go away. Then it would come back a few weeks later. Turns out there were two infections, a strep infection which caused the obvious symptoms, and a staph infection which was largely asymptomatic but was depressing the immune system. The drugs would eliminate the strep but the staph was partially resistant. So the staph would remain and lay the groundwork for re-infection by strep. A longer course of different anti-biotics, and no more infection. But that's a bit on the zebra side, so "evidence-based medicine" wouldn't admit to its existence.
And the smoke blowing begins.
Said the spider to the fly.
You seem to have confused "withholding" and "publishing". And not presenting evidence of wrongdoing to the very organization accused of that wrongdoing isn't "obstruction of justice", it's "common sense".
How do you fire a rubber stamp?
They could (and I've seen a few patents where it appears someone did exactly that -- there's even a recent one for a mousetrap that appeared in a very old advertisement). But that's fraud. Then there's the patent troll game where you file a bunch of vague patents, see what someone else does, and file a continuation which makes your patent cover their invention.
Wasn't he paraphrasing Caesar?
The headlined tyranny is only the start of the ugliness with this bill. The first part smells heavily of pig product, but it gets worse.
Some lowlights:
Section 5 introduces a 747-load of red tape related to "cybersecurity standards" for anyone doing business with the Federal Government.
Section 6 goes beyond that and introduces some requirements for "private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks". Which, if I'm reading it right, means the Feds get to dictate to e.g. Google (assuming someone classifies Google as critical) how they set up their networks and what software they run on it.
Section 7 introduces a federal license for a "provider of cybersecurity services". All contractors and employees providing "cybersecurity services" on any Federal or designated network would be required to have these. Want to install antivirus software on some "critical" network? Sorry dude, need a license. *shudder*
You're not kidding. MVS lasted for what, 30 years or so, alongside VM/CMS (and both OSs still have supported descendants). IBM even kept OS/2 on life support until 2007.
Then why are they advertising Hulu ON TV?
(reads note again)
Oh, right.