Yes but at least Apple coded it to assume that plugging in your new mouse, your not going to be trying to take over the US defense grid.
And woe be unto them that they didn't. However, when the gentlemen with the Uzis showed up (they left the hot chick back at the office, alas), I learned that sometimes thermonuclear death _doesn't_ trump a well placed firearm, and I gave it back.
Mod me to hell, but I gotta say it:
And by the time he gets through all the "You have turned the safety off - Cancel or Allow?", "You have pulled the trigger - Cancel or Allow?" BS
Ahh, for the good old days when it was the Mac which was sharply criticized by PC fans for exactly this sort of behavior...
And if software engineers were true professionals with a professional code of ethics, they probably would.
Would what? Would turn their consciences over to a governing body over which they have as much influence as any other large faceless entity? One which would be far more likely to institute a rule forbidding software engineers from working on ways to circumvent DRM than creating it.
I've been downloading DRM-free TV shows for a while now. And not paying anyone. I get them with HDTV quality, and at a speed of about 12MBits/second per show, all without tying up my internet connection. It's even legal, though the MPAA has been trying to change that.
Granted, there are disadvantages; rather than getting the show on demand, I have to wait until they schedule a "push". But generally the show is "pushed" before it is available through on-demand channels anyway, so that's not a big deal.
Yes, the bit about being a mutant appeared in the Apple II Reference Manual. Other early Apple manuals had such gems (?) as "on a clear disk you can seek forever" and "EXCESS INEPT VERBIAGE DISQUALIFIES NAMES".
I'm not sure if the mutant bit appeared in the earlier manuals.
It wasn't a large company named IBM which legitmized microcomputers for corporate use. It was a small company named Personal Software. Later known as VisiCorp.
You might not want to take the word of ex-Commodore employees on Woz's engineering. The 1541 disk drive is a testament to Commodore's engineering skill.
And, maybe even more critical: Will I be able to view/convert today's RAW files in 50 years time?
Yes, you will. It might take running the original software in emulation on your modern machine, but you will be able to do it. Provided the media is still readable, but that's a separate problem.
If developers don't have to follow rules on license agreements, shouldn't I be able to get some GPL'ed code and compile it to my companys product. And NOT to distribute the modified code. After all, it's only licence agreement that says I couldn't do it, and they have already given the code away for free.
That scenario is absolutely legal. And can be useful sometimes.
What you can't legally do is then distribute the resulting product.
But just as you don't need Linus's permission to make a Linux syscall, you don't need Microsoft's permission to call APIs they put in their product.
I'd put in a car analogy but it would make the issue so frigging obvious it makes lawyer's heads explode.
Illegal is another way to say your society has determined it is wrong.
No, it isn't. At best, it's a way to say your government has determined it is wrong. Government != society. And even that view requires an overly idealistic view of government. In this case, it means that various powerful and wealthy organizations have bribed government officials into making something illegal.
It's an example of how the _entire system_ is flawed because it's not an overly broad and abusive definition of derivative works being used here. It's a perfectly valid one. Stripped bare, the scenario is something like this
1) Person A writes music, including tabulature 2) Person B buys a copy of tabulature and plays it (either privately, or compensating A) 3) Person C listens to person B's performance, writes down tabulature.
Person C has now gotten some form of the tabulature without buying it from A. If the copy C wrote down isn't a derivative work (or a copy), you have a loophole in copyright law you could drive a truck through. If it IS, then it was illegal for person C to produce it, which is what I'm claiming is offensive.
Many of the abuses of copyright, including the DMCA, follow directly from the very core of copyright. If you don't like the abuses and don't want to reject the core of copyright, you either have to accept that staying under the radar is a legitimate thing -- that is, that much is illegal but unreachable by the law -- or you have to rely on fair use.
Staying under the radar doesn't work now that the music industry is suing individuals. Fair use is far too situational. Each particular use has to be evaluated by the courts, and you don't know if you've violated the law until you get sued and win or lose. And since their lawyers are almost certainly better than yours, the deck is stacked anyway.
Transcribing a song for your own study and private performance is covered under the Fair Use exception. Publishing it is not.
It's arguably fair use, but unless you're aware of a court case deciding it, it isn't definitely fair use. And I'm sure these music publishing companies would argue that it is not. Take a look at the four-part test on chillingeffects.org.
Writing down guitar tabulature by ear may fail factor 1, the purpose and character of the use -- the use is not at all transformative, it is rather an attempt to reproduce the work exactly. However, if one is writing it down in order to learn a song or learn guitar, it is an educational use, and that counts against the publishers.
Factor 2, the nature of the work, is a clear win for the publishers.
Factor 3, the amount used, is a clear win for the publishers; a guitar tabulature of entire song is certainly a quite substantial portion of the work (always remembering the "the work" in question is the music, not the performance).
Factor 4, the effect on the market, is less clear. Writing down the work on one's own does affect the market, but only the market for a single copy.
In practice, of course, the law simply can't reach those who write down tabulature on their own and then privately perform the work from that tabulature. But that doesn't mean it's legal. One could imagine the music mafia suing someone who publicly bragged how they'd written down the tabs for some song; it wouldn't be a slam dunk for the defendants by any means.
Actually, he wasn't. The US was funding a different set of Afghans versus the Soviets at the time (there were multiple groups fighting them), and bin Laden was getting his support from the Saudis and other Islamists. That's part of the reason he dislikes the US so much - we were funding his competition.
But, but, but, but... that would mean that there's something that's not the US's fault. That's non-possible.
The letter essentially says "Die. Now." And faced with overwhelming force, that's just what guitartabs.com did. The ugliest part of the letter, though, is probably this:
"Under the circumstances, both the transcriber of the compositions and you as the owner of the website are copyright infringers."
And they're right. Under copyright law, merely transcribing a song by ear (even without sending it to a website) is copyright infringement. Specifically, unauthorized creation of a derivative work. That is an illustration of how nasty and flawed the entire system of copyright is.
If they did those things no sane person could claim a Tivo is a tool for infrigement any more then a dvdrw drive is or a good old fashion VCR.
The MPAA is not made of of sane people. Neither, apparently, is the Supreme Court. While there hasn't actually been a case over a DVD-RW drive, the good old fashioned VCR was the subject of a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court. The VCR manufacturer won... in a 5-4 decision. And the MPAA has been attempting to effectively reverse that decision ever since.
Hmph. I've ported a GPL device driver to OS X (I don't know if it works under Darwin). I'm not sure why people think you can't do that. The device driver isn't a derivative work of OS X. Not even the binary. The in-memory image of the device driver linked with the kernel might be considered a derivative work of both (but might not; it might be considered separate works even then; Copyright law wasn't really meant to handle computer programs, and it often shows), but nothing under the GPL prevents a user from creating such a derivative work.
If I purchase a piece of TiVo equipment than I should expect that TiVo gets to determine how that piece of equipment works.
You have the emphasis in the wrong place:
If I purchase a piece of TiVo equipment
Get it? You've bought it. It's YOUR equipment now, not Tivos. Sure, they went through a lot of hard work and effort to build that hardware. Then they sold it. At that point, their claim on that particular piece of hardware was exhausted.
Like everything else that involves more than one person, its merely another way to decide where one freedom stops and another starts.
This sort of relativism is simply a smokescreen. Merely because two arguments can be made syntactically equivalent or parallel does mean they are of equal value. You can argue that my freedom to not be murdered is an infringment on your freedom to murder me, but it's pretty clear that there's more freedom with prohibitions against murder than without.
I'm surprised he was able to make Vista work at all. The solutions to Windoze driver problems are not something the average GNU/Linux person would know.
I think you're missing the fact that a lot of GNU/Linux people either are stuck dealing with Windows in their day jobs, and/or started using Linux because they got frustrated with Windoze.
Who else is going to do it? Microsoft isn't going to make a truly good PVR, because their corporate philosophy interferes; they'd want to control it, not let you do so. The open source community may come up with 80-90% of it (and I'd argue already has), but there are some things which it can't do. Produce a _device_, for one thing, a piece of hardware that is quiet, boots (or wakes from standby; standby with Linux and the V4L/DVB drivers is still not reliable IME) in seconds, can be turned on via remote, etc. Compatibility with premium content is another. Apple is in a position to provide both; we know they can build nice, small, quiet hardware. We know they can negotiate with content producers and not compromise EVERYTHING. So it's not going to be Microsoft, it's not going to be the open source community. That leaves no one, Apple, or some unknown third party. Apple seems like the best bet.
I suppose there's the electronics manufacturers -- e.g. Sony (too tied to locking everything down), Phillips, Toshiba, LG, Samsung, a boatload of Chinese companies... aside from Sony (which has no chance) I think they're long shots.
Slashdot Mirror
Tsukiko, is that you????
Would what? Would turn their consciences over to a governing body over which they have as much influence as any other large faceless entity? One which would be far more likely to institute a rule forbidding software engineers from working on ways to circumvent DRM than creating it.
I've been downloading DRM-free TV shows for a while now. And not paying anyone. I get them with HDTV quality, and at a speed of about 12MBits/second per show, all without tying up my internet connection. It's even legal, though the MPAA has been trying to change that.
Granted, there are disadvantages; rather than getting the show on demand, I have to wait until they schedule a "push". But generally the show is "pushed" before it is available through on-demand channels anyway, so that's not a big deal.
Yes, the bit about being a mutant appeared in the Apple II Reference Manual. Other early Apple manuals had such gems (?) as "on a clear disk you can seek forever" and "EXCESS INEPT VERBIAGE DISQUALIFIES NAMES".
I'm not sure if the mutant bit appeared in the earlier manuals.
It wasn't a large company named IBM which legitmized microcomputers for corporate use. It was a small company named Personal Software. Later known as VisiCorp.
You might not want to take the word of ex-Commodore employees on Woz's engineering. The 1541 disk drive is a testament to Commodore's engineering skill.
What you can't legally do is then distribute the resulting product.
But just as you don't need Linus's permission to make a Linux syscall, you don't need Microsoft's permission to call APIs they put in their product.
I'd put in a car analogy but it would make the issue so frigging obvious it makes lawyer's heads explode.
Yes, using software is copying it. But, if you're in the United States, look up 17 USC 117 -- and put the EULA in the shredder where it belongs.
So how many DVDs does this thing take up?
It's an example of how the _entire system_ is flawed because it's not an overly broad and abusive definition of derivative works being used here. It's a perfectly valid one. Stripped bare, the scenario is something like this
1) Person A writes music, including tabulature
2) Person B buys a copy of tabulature and plays it (either privately, or compensating A)
3) Person C listens to person B's performance, writes down tabulature.
Person C has now gotten some form of the tabulature without buying it from A. If the copy C wrote down isn't a derivative work (or a copy), you have a loophole in copyright law you could drive a truck through. If it IS, then it was illegal for person C to produce it, which is what I'm claiming is offensive.
Many of the abuses of copyright, including the DMCA, follow directly from the very core of copyright. If you don't like the abuses and don't want to reject the core of copyright, you either have to accept that staying under the radar is a legitimate thing -- that is, that much is illegal but unreachable by the law -- or you have to rely on fair use.
Staying under the radar doesn't work now that the music industry is suing individuals. Fair use is far too situational. Each particular use has to be evaluated by the courts, and you don't know if you've violated the law until you get sued and win or lose. And since their lawyers are almost certainly better than yours, the deck is stacked anyway.
It's arguably fair use, but unless you're aware of a court case deciding it, it isn't definitely fair use. And I'm sure these music publishing companies would argue that it is not. Take a look at the four-part test on chillingeffects.org.
Writing down guitar tabulature by ear may fail factor 1, the purpose and character of the use -- the use is not at all transformative, it is rather an attempt to reproduce the work exactly. However, if one is writing it down in order to learn a song or learn guitar, it is an educational use, and that counts against the publishers.
Factor 2, the nature of the work, is a clear win for the publishers.
Factor 3, the amount used, is a clear win for the publishers; a guitar tabulature of entire song is certainly a quite substantial portion of the work (always remembering the "the work" in question is the music, not the performance).
Factor 4, the effect on the market, is less clear. Writing down the work on one's own does affect the market, but only the market for a single copy.
In practice, of course, the law simply can't reach those who write down tabulature on their own and then privately perform the work from that tabulature. But that doesn't mean it's legal. One could imagine the music mafia suing someone who publicly bragged how they'd written down the tabs for some song; it wouldn't be a slam dunk for the defendants by any means.
The letter essentially says "Die. Now." And faced with overwhelming force, that's just what guitartabs.com did. The ugliest part of the letter, though, is probably this:
"Under the circumstances, both the transcriber of the compositions and you as the owner of the website are copyright infringers."
And they're right. Under copyright law, merely transcribing a song by ear (even without sending it to a website) is copyright infringement. Specifically, unauthorized creation of a derivative work. That is an illustration of how nasty and flawed the entire system of copyright is.
Hmph. I've ported a GPL device driver to OS X (I don't know if it works under Darwin). I'm not sure why people think you can't do that. The device driver isn't a derivative work of OS X. Not even the binary. The in-memory image of the device driver linked with the kernel might be considered a derivative work of both (but might not; it might be considered separate works even then; Copyright law wasn't really meant to handle computer programs, and it often shows), but nothing under the GPL prevents a user from creating such a derivative work.
You have the emphasis in the wrong place:
Get it? You've bought it. It's YOUR equipment now, not Tivos. Sure, they went through a lot of hard work and effort to build that hardware. Then they sold it. At that point, their claim on that particular piece of hardware was exhausted.
This sort of relativism is simply a smokescreen. Merely because two arguments can be made syntactically equivalent or parallel does mean they are of equal value. You can argue that my freedom to not be murdered is an infringment on your freedom to murder me, but it's pretty clear that there's more freedom with prohibitions against murder than without.
Who else is going to do it? Microsoft isn't going to make a truly good PVR, because their corporate philosophy interferes; they'd want to control it, not let you do so. The open source community may come up with 80-90% of it (and I'd argue already has), but there are some things which it can't do. Produce a _device_, for one thing, a piece of hardware that is quiet, boots (or wakes from standby; standby with Linux and the V4L/DVB drivers is still not reliable IME) in seconds, can be turned on via remote, etc. Compatibility with premium content is another. Apple is in a position to provide both; we know they can build nice, small, quiet hardware. We know they can negotiate with content producers and not compromise EVERYTHING. So it's not going to be Microsoft, it's not going to be the open source community. That leaves no one, Apple, or some unknown third party. Apple seems like the best bet.
I suppose there's the electronics manufacturers -- e.g. Sony (too tied to locking everything down), Phillips, Toshiba, LG, Samsung, a boatload of Chinese companies... aside from Sony (which has no chance) I think they're long shots.