Intent is NOT everything. With the DMCA, it's almost nothing. The prohibited act is not fraud, or copyright violation. The prohibited act the circumvention or the creation/trafficking/marketing of circumvention tools. It's enough to intend to do THAT -- it doesn't matter whether the purpose of the circumvention is benign or to break some other law.
Free speech ain't absolute. There is a large (and growing!) number of exceptions, stuff that you are, quite simply, not allowed to say. And punished if you say them anyway. How to bypass an "effective access-control mechanism" that is used for protecting a copyrigthed work is just one of this class of forbidden utterances.
First Amendment, meet the bottom of the slippery slope.
Has the DMCA actually been challenged in supreme court on first amendment / free speech grounds?
No. The EFF got cold feet and decided not to attempt to bring the 2600 case to the Supreme Court, presumably because they figured they'd lose. Thus the DMCA stands. This one isn't going to make it to the Supreme Court either.
Yes, the courts haven't been able to figure out that an EULA can't be a valid contract because there's no consideration offered to one side. That should be enough to defeat "shrinkwrap" or "clickwrap" agreements, as even if breaking the seal or clicking past the on-screen box could be considered an "agreement", at that point the user _already has_ (under 17 USC 117) the right to use the software, and the so-called agreement thus merely restricts his rights while offering nothing in return.
I don't expect this to change... all the little "gotchas" in law like the invalidity of contracts without consideration only apply to the little guy. If I try to use those technicalities in my favor by opening the envelope without breaking the seal and changing the text on the clickwrap "OK" box to indicate "I disagree", the courts will still consider me to have "agreed".
Yeah, Linux is right. Git is great and CVS and Subversion are crap. That's why everyone has migrated away from CVS and Subversion to Git, the fantastic new tool he wrote. Oh wait. They haven't? Wonder why.
They actually have, but haven't figured out how to use git to commit the change yet.
WTF is "international studies"? Oh, it's the kind of trivial fluffy stuff that you need to study if you want to become a diplomat, head of state, or UN official.
Michael A. Polizzi, an assistant superintendent, said the district carefully researched future demand for jobs, examined college programs and surveyed students about their interests before settling on its first six majors: sports management, fine and performing arts, health sciences, international studies and global commerce, communications and new media and or liberal arts.
Um, where's the hard sciences? Where's the math-heavy subjects (including CS)? What is something as narrow as sports management doing in that list? WTF is "international studies" anyway?
When I was in school I took shop one year (it was actually required for all students) What I learned was that I could solder OK with a torch (I already could solder with an iron), could do a halfway-decent welding job with acetylene, but don't let me near an arc welder unless you want metal with ragged holes in it. Certainly it was more relevant to my future than Freshman English (a class taught by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing -- and I did not learn that line in that class), and more interesting as well. If these majors are so all-inclusive as to lock students into a single track with no opportunity to try other things, it'll make high school an even worse grind than it already is.
Anyway, I know people about my own age (mid-thirties) who had a major in high school. It seems to be a fad some schools go through from time to time. Actual practical effect is likely negligible, at least for college-bound students.
_True Lies_ has a sequence where Jamie Lee Curtis drops a machine pistol and it falls down the steps, firing a burst every time it hits. I'm pretty sure the filmmakers knew that firearms weren't being depicted in a manner conducive to their safe operation:-)
By the standards of "derivative work" many purists would like to impose, any program written for Windows is a derivative work thereof, and therefore requires the permission of Microsoft to distribute.
IMO, a derivative work has to include some significant* part the work from which it is derived, not merely reference it. But I don't have a team of lawyers to back up that opinion, alas.
*by which I mean things like the names of API functions aren't sufficient.
The code you're quoting isn't grossly messy because of the GOTO statements. It's grossly messy because PDP-10 Fortran didn't have a CHARACTER type -- instead, you could pack 5 characters to a 36-bit integer, with the low-bit unused. The M2 array contained integer masks with one bit set, the low bit of one of the characters. Multiplying that mask by octal 177 got you a mask which selected a single character, except for the first character where the multiplication would overflow. The octal constant 201004020100 is 5 space characters. The "S" flag indicated whether a space had been found yet.
So the little snippet you posted goes to label 3 if the current character (selected by J for the integer and K for the character within the integer) is a space, and to 2 if no space has been found yet, and continues without branching if a space has been found but the current character is not a space.
If A were, more sensibly, a character array, the above would be written as
IF(A(J:J).EQ.' ')GOTO 3
IF(S.EQ.0) GOTO 2
which is no problem to read at all, despite the gotos.
Since the summary doesn't mention it, I'll do a bit of karma-whoring and answer the obvious question: they're using sugar, derived from corn, as a food source for the bacteria. They're aware that this is less than ideal from the total volume and a competing-with-food standpoints. The goal is to replace the use of sugar with cellulosic material.
Yeah, so aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Efficiently converting cellulose to sugar is one of the big problems in biofuels; converting sugar to fuels is relatively easy. It's nice to get gasoline instead of alcohol, but it doesn't solve the fundamental issues.
I figured firefighters were either "friends" or "enemies" depending on the specific department, and I lumped your three middle categories together, but I accept that your more detailed taxonomy is likely more accurate.
Some carriers use AGPS. However, other carriers (the former Cingular, for instance) do use TDOA (time difference of arrival) to locate your phone. GPS is not necessary.
In both systems, the location feature can be activated by the cell provider at any time. Does the FBI use this? I'd bet on it. The NSA or other shadowy TLAs? Let's put it this way -- AT&T built them a facility specifically for surreptitiously monitoring Internet traffic. Do you really think they wouldn't give them similar access to phone location information?
There's rumors about the system working even with the phone off, but that would be technically difficult unless off didn't mean the RF section was off (which would tend to reveal itself in battery life). Easy enough for someone with the right equipment to check; if the receiver or transmitter powers up while the phone is off, something's up.
Suppose they did manage to protect it completely on the disk, while in Windows, while in the frame buffer, and while it's going over the line. The display still has to decode it before it goes to the LCD panel itself. Unless all the decoding hardware is actually potted in the glass, THAT interface is snoopable. Sure, it's expensive to get at, and more processed than the frame buffer... but the pirates only have to win once per movie, and a little extra loss isn't likely to be noticed.
Cops divide the world into three groups -- cops, friends of cops (including families of cops, possibly EMTs and such), and enemies (everyone else). If most people see cops as the enemy, they are just returning the favor.
There are no tuner cards supported under Linux which have the "out of band" tuner necessary to receive the cable guide data. There's only one card I know of which will (one of the ATI All-in-wonders), and I don't think it's available except as part of a full system.
I don't think the out-of-band data is encrypted, so in principle there's no reason a card for Linux couldn't read it.
If the evidence all points toward one person, and that person does NOT provide ('show', 'prove') any contradictory evidence, they should be found guilty.
Not in any standard stronger than "preponderance of the evidence". If the cops find my gun at a murder scene, charge me with homicide, and the state presents no other evidence connecting me with the crime other than that gun, they have failed to satisfy the burden of proof (the standard being "guilt beyond resonable doubt"), and I should be acquitted without presenting a defense.
I think the RIAAs point is that whoever runs that router (and, presumably, the network connection) is responsible for the traffic it passes.
But they aren't. This has been established in a number of court decisions, and made into statute by the RIAA's own law -- the DMCA. DMCA 512(a) says specifically that network providers are NOT responsible for copyright violations.
With great power, comes great responsibility. With absolute power comes no responsibility at all (cut to mad scientist's face illuminated by lightning bolts. Or Galadriel's test in LOTR).
Triggering section 4 is a one time activity; if you get a new license you don't trigger its section 4 merely because you violated the old one, only if you do it again.
GPLv3 plugs this loophole.
Doing the modification on the binary doesn't put them in the clear. They've still created a derivative work, and are subject to paragraph 2 of the GPL.
You receive a new license every time you download the software. GPLv2 can say that if it wants, but it's not enforceable.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Section 4 provides that attempting to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the work in violation of the license terminates the license. Section 6 says that whenever the program is redistributed, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor. So, the GP is technically right; if you lose your license due to violating the GPL, you can be relicensed by getting another copy from a licensed distributor.
If what he says (and I quoted) is true, then if an intern at IBM accidentally omits the COPYING file from a minor patch then IBM better be closing its illegal GPL enterprise, quickly!
Look up "de minimis non curat lex". Even if the copyright holder were to press a case based on an inadvertant and easily curable violation, it's extremely likely he'd obtain the injunction he sought.
Slashdot Mirror
Intent is NOT everything. With the DMCA, it's almost nothing. The prohibited act is not fraud, or copyright violation. The prohibited act the circumvention or the creation/trafficking/marketing of circumvention tools. It's enough to intend to do THAT -- it doesn't matter whether the purpose of the circumvention is benign or to break some other law.
Yes, the courts haven't been able to figure out that an EULA can't be a valid contract because there's no consideration offered to one side. That should be enough to defeat "shrinkwrap" or "clickwrap" agreements, as even if breaking the seal or clicking past the on-screen box could be considered an "agreement", at that point the user _already has_ (under 17 USC 117) the right to use the software, and the so-called agreement thus merely restricts his rights while offering nothing in return.
I don't expect this to change... all the little "gotchas" in law like the invalidity of contracts without consideration only apply to the little guy. If I try to use those technicalities in my favor by opening the envelope without breaking the seal and changing the text on the clickwrap "OK" box to indicate "I disagree", the courts will still consider me to have "agreed".
They actually have, but haven't figured out how to use git to commit the change yet.
Um, where's the hard sciences? Where's the math-heavy subjects (including CS)? What is something as narrow as sports management doing in that list? WTF is "international studies" anyway?
When I was in school I took shop one year (it was actually required for all students) What I learned was that I could solder OK with a torch (I already could solder with an iron), could do a halfway-decent welding job with acetylene, but don't let me near an arc welder unless you want metal with ragged holes in it. Certainly it was more relevant to my future than Freshman English (a class taught by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing -- and I did not learn that line in that class), and more interesting as well. If these majors are so all-inclusive as to lock students into a single track with no opportunity to try other things, it'll make high school an even worse grind than it already is.
Anyway, I know people about my own age (mid-thirties) who had a major in high school. It seems to be a fad some schools go through from time to time. Actual practical effect is likely negligible, at least for college-bound students.
_True Lies_ has a sequence where Jamie Lee Curtis drops a machine pistol and it falls down the steps, firing a burst every time it hits. I'm pretty sure the filmmakers knew that firearms weren't being depicted in a manner conducive to their safe operation :-)
By the standards of "derivative work" many purists would like to impose, any program written for Windows is a derivative work thereof, and therefore requires the permission of Microsoft to distribute.
IMO, a derivative work has to include some significant* part the work from which it is derived, not merely reference it. But I don't have a team of lawyers to back up that opinion, alas.
*by which I mean things like the names of API functions aren't sufficient.
So the little snippet you posted goes to label 3 if the current character (selected by J for the integer and K for the character within the integer) is a space, and to 2 if no space has been found yet, and continues without branching if a space has been found but the current character is not a space.
If A were, more sensibly, a character array, the above would be written as
IF(A(J:J).EQ.' ')GOTO 3
IF(S.EQ.0) GOTO 2
which is no problem to read at all, despite the gotos.
Yeah, so aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Efficiently converting cellulose to sugar is one of the big problems in biofuels; converting sugar to fuels is relatively easy. It's nice to get gasoline instead of alcohol, but it doesn't solve the fundamental issues.
I figured firefighters were either "friends" or "enemies" depending on the specific department, and I lumped your three middle categories together, but I accept that your more detailed taxonomy is likely more accurate.
Some carriers use AGPS. However, other carriers (the former Cingular, for instance) do use TDOA (time difference of arrival) to locate your phone. GPS is not necessary.
In both systems, the location feature can be activated by the cell provider at any time. Does the FBI use this? I'd bet on it. The NSA or other shadowy TLAs? Let's put it this way -- AT&T built them a facility specifically for surreptitiously monitoring Internet traffic. Do you really think they wouldn't give them similar access to phone location information?
There's rumors about the system working even with the phone off, but that would be technically difficult unless off didn't mean the RF section was off (which would tend to reveal itself in battery life). Easy enough for someone with the right equipment to check; if the receiver or transmitter powers up while the phone is off, something's up.
Suppose they did manage to protect it completely on the disk, while in Windows, while in the frame buffer, and while it's going over the line. The display still has to decode it before it goes to the LCD panel itself. Unless all the decoding hardware is actually potted in the glass, THAT interface is snoopable. Sure, it's expensive to get at, and more processed than the frame buffer... but the pirates only have to win once per movie, and a little extra loss isn't likely to be noticed.
Cops divide the world into three groups -- cops, friends of cops (including families of cops, possibly EMTs and such), and enemies (everyone else). If most people see cops as the enemy, they are just returning the favor.
There are no tuner cards supported under Linux which have the "out of band" tuner necessary to receive the cable guide data. There's only one card I know of which will (one of the ATI All-in-wonders), and I don't think it's available except as part of a full system.
I don't think the out-of-band data is encrypted, so in principle there's no reason a card for Linux couldn't read it.
Not in any standard stronger than "preponderance of the evidence". If the cops find my gun at a murder scene, charge me with homicide, and the state presents no other evidence connecting me with the crime other than that gun, they have failed to satisfy the burden of proof (the standard being "guilt beyond resonable doubt"), and I should be acquitted without presenting a defense.
With great power, comes great responsibility. With absolute power comes no responsibility at all (cut to mad scientist's face illuminated by lightning bolts. Or Galadriel's test in LOTR).
Triggering section 4 is a one time activity; if you get a new license you don't trigger its section 4 merely because you violated the old one, only if you do it again. GPLv3 plugs this loophole.
Doing the modification on the binary doesn't put them in the clear. They've still created a derivative work, and are subject to paragraph 2 of the GPL.