Tell me something I don't know.
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
So, the DMCA is, instead of being used to stop illegal hackers, being used by corporations as a tool to stop anyone from criticizing them, finding flaws in their products, or acting as though they aren't the unquestioned lords and masters of all they survey?
Maybe I'm just cynical, but this isn't really a surprise to me.
>> In politics, as in life, it is VERY important to allow people to save face. If people do not have a >> way they can exit gracefully from their current position, you will never convince them to change >> their point of view.
What's wrong with "In light of this new information, I see that I was mistaken"?
I use it all the time when I realize I screwed up.
There is nothing a license SHOULD prohibit that currently existing law does not already prohibit.
The whole POINT of a software license was originally to keep people from making illegal copies...hence the 'book' licenses of yore.
Interestingly, copyright law ALREADY prohibits that. If I sold a piece of software with no license agreement, and someone copied it and distributed it over the Internet for no charge, I could still sue them for copyright infringement. The existence (or lack thereof) of a software license does not change this basic fact.
Now, look at today's software licenses. The original point has been lost, and they are now used as chains with which to bind those who purchase software. (GPL excluded, of course.)
The fact that the UCITA is being amended, and not completely thrown out, shows that people are, as always, missing the forest for the trees.
...in case of Slashot Effect overloading the servers:
ICANN member wins records access
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Anick Jesdanun
July 29, 2002 | NEW YORK (AP) --
A board member for the Internet's key oversight body won the right Monday to inspect records without first agreeing to nondisclosure and other restrictions sought by its management.
But Karl Auerbach, a frequent critic of his own organization, must give the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at least 10 days notice before releasing any items marked "confidential," said Judge Dzintra Janavs of California Superior Court for Los Angeles County.
ICANN could then seek a court order to stop Auerbach from releasing the information.
Auerbach is among critics who contend that ICANN, which oversees Internet domain and addressing policies, is too secretive and caters more to commercial interests than the public good.
Ruling from the bench, Janavs also said ICANN must send Auerbach non-confidential electronic documents by Friday and allow him to inspect paper records at ICANN's Marina del Rey, Calif., office by next week.
The court did not grant Auerbach a right to copy documents, something he had sought.
Still, Auerbach said he was pleased with the ruling.
"Now I'm actually going to look at materials I should have been able to see 18 months ago," he said.
ICANN's bylaws gives directors "the right at any reasonable time to inspect and copy all books, records and documents of every kind." It also requires that ICANN establish reasonable procedures to protect confidentiality.
ICANN tried to require Auerbach to first sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Mary Hewitt, an ICANN spokeswoman, said the judge's order reflected much of what ICANN was prepared to permit if he had signed the agreement, noting that any disputes over disclosure would have ended in court anyhow.
Nevertheless, she said ICANN was considering an appeal.
The decisions of ICANN, which was selected in 1998 by the U.S. government, ultimately affect how users find Web sites and send e-mail.
Auerbach is one of five elected members on the 19- member ICANN board. His term expires in November, and ICANN already has said it will not hold another round of elections.
>> Next thing you know, companies will realise that 'paying money' is something that customers hate the >> most, so they will stop charging for things and use creative accounting to make money.
The real trick is to make the localization seamless. If I were to see a Russian OS that was later localized to fit the US market, I'd probably still think of it as this strange Russian thing that was trying to break into the US market. GNOME and KDE have major development efforts in Northern and Central Europe, and the Linux Kernel was started by an ethnic Swede. Yet things are still primarily in English (just look at dmesg or syslog!).
Think this guy played Ultima Online too?
You have found: a magic boardsword [accurate/power]
Setting aside the fact that you're spamming Slashdot (rarely an intelligent thing to BEGIN with), the words 'prestigious' and 'non-accredited' go together about as well as 'Bill Gates' and 'Linus Torvalds'
>> To me, a song counts as a copyrighted (copywritten?) work. Or an academic paper.
Good point about the song...though freeware could make up a fair number too.
As well as various free-for-download MP3s...I've got a surprising number of those on my WinAmp playlist.
The point I was trying to make is, not everything copyrighted costs money. So not many people grab open source software (sadly). What about software patches? Desktop wallpaper? All those are copyrighted. Doesn't mean they cost money.
>> "MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not >> required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs."
"Duhn duhn duhn du-duhn...oh, what's this? Incoming traffic? Hmm...doesn't seem to be requested...well, you're not getting through. Duhn duhn duhn du-duhn..."
>> i think this type of sharing should be illegal cause terrorists can use this as a way to communicate without being sufficiently tracable -- >> only the doer of the "good deed" gets hanged.
But if we keep using 56k modems, the terrorists win!
>> It will be like the "New Coke". They'll introduce the new versions, there will be an outcry, and they'll release the "Super Classic"
>> first trilogy. More money for everyone except us Star Wars geeks.
>> He forsook pay on episode IV in return for merchandizing rights. He was frankly laughed at for >> asking for this, but the studio happily gave away the "worthless" merchandizing rights.
You know, I think this explains the overmerchandising of Star Wars.
"Fine, we were idiots...George, we know you gave you too much...George...George, stop hitting us with Jar Jar Binks action figures."
>> people seem to be missing the point in this thread. Here is why this is very important.
>> When you pay money, say with paypal.com, you always want to check the URL. Of course someone could have fake link like: "click here >> to pay with paypal" and then redirect you to their bogus site with the intention of stealing your passwords. But it would be >> fairly obvious from the location bar in the broswer that the URL was not paypal.com. But if unicode can be used to spoof the location >> bar then it will rope in even cautious users.
Finally, someone gets it.
Figures it'd be an AC, and so this'd probably get ignored.
While I'm savvy enough to check the URL for that sort of thing, I'd probably miss it if they encoded it like that.
Imagine...a security hole that has NOTHING to do with Microsoft. (Proof-of-concept notwithstanding, of course.)
Slashdot Mirror
So, the DMCA is, instead of being used to stop illegal hackers, being used by corporations as a tool to stop anyone from criticizing them, finding flaws in their products, or acting as though they aren't the unquestioned lords and masters of all they survey?
Maybe I'm just cynical, but this isn't really a surprise to me.
Way back in the early days of my LiveJournal, I was working on a fantasy story called 'Chronicles of the Sunsword'.
I dropped a paragraph or two in each day.
Unfortunately, it didn't really work out for me.
Still, it's nice to see this as happening, and I hope he sticks with it longer than I did.
As I told U.S. Senators recently, ICANN can pass a law that supersedes any law they can pass.
This is bad. VERY bad.
And probably a wet dream for Hillary Rosen, but that's beside the point.
>> In politics, as in life, it is VERY important to allow people to save face. If people do not have a
>> way they can exit gracefully from their current position, you will never convince them to change
>> their point of view.
What's wrong with "In light of this new information, I see that I was mistaken"?
I use it all the time when I realize I screwed up.
...but how does it work when I'm browsing pr0n?
There is nothing a license SHOULD prohibit that currently existing law does not already prohibit.
The whole POINT of a software license was originally to keep people from making illegal copies...hence the 'book' licenses of yore.
Interestingly, copyright law ALREADY prohibits that. If I sold a piece of software with no license agreement, and someone copied it and distributed it over the Internet for no charge, I could still sue them for copyright infringement. The existence (or lack thereof) of a software license does not change this basic fact.
Now, look at today's software licenses. The original point has been lost, and they are now used as chains with which to bind those who purchase software. (GPL excluded, of course.)
The fact that the UCITA is being amended, and not completely thrown out, shows that people are, as always, missing the forest for the trees.
...in case of Slashot Effect overloading the servers:
ICANN member wins records access
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Anick Jesdanun
July 29, 2002 | NEW YORK (AP) --
A board member for the Internet's key oversight body won the right Monday to inspect records without first agreeing to nondisclosure and other restrictions sought by its management.
But Karl Auerbach, a frequent critic of his own organization, must give the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at least 10 days notice before releasing any items marked "confidential," said Judge Dzintra Janavs of California Superior Court for Los Angeles County.
ICANN could then seek a court order to stop Auerbach from releasing the information.
Auerbach is among critics who contend that ICANN, which oversees Internet domain and addressing policies, is too secretive and caters more to commercial interests than the public good.
Ruling from the bench, Janavs also said ICANN must send Auerbach non-confidential electronic documents by Friday and allow him to inspect paper records at ICANN's Marina del Rey, Calif., office by next week.
The court did not grant Auerbach a right to copy documents, something he had sought.
Still, Auerbach said he was pleased with the ruling.
"Now I'm actually going to look at materials I should have been able to see 18 months ago," he said.
ICANN's bylaws gives directors "the right at any reasonable time to inspect and copy all books, records and documents of every kind." It also requires that ICANN establish reasonable procedures to protect confidentiality.
ICANN tried to require Auerbach to first sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Mary Hewitt, an ICANN spokeswoman, said the judge's order reflected much of what ICANN was prepared to permit if he had signed the agreement, noting that any disputes over disclosure would have ended in court anyhow.
Nevertheless, she said ICANN was considering an appeal.
The decisions of ICANN, which was selected in 1998 by the U.S. government, ultimately affect how users find Web sites and send e-mail.
Auerbach is one of five elected members on the 19- member ICANN board. His term expires in November, and ICANN already has said it will not hold another round of elections.
>> Next thing you know, companies will realise that 'paying money' is something that customers hate the
>> most, so they will stop charging for things and use creative accounting to make money.
Don't they do that already?
...of Wolfenstein 3D.
If you translated the beeping in various levels of the third episode, it was a message in Morse Code telling you to defeat Hitler!
Think this guy played Ultima Online too?
You have found: a magic boardsword [accurate/power]
Hey, fucktard!
Setting aside the fact that you're spamming Slashdot (rarely an intelligent thing to BEGIN with), the words 'prestigious' and 'non-accredited' go together about as well as 'Bill Gates' and 'Linus Torvalds'
I did NOT want to see Jango Fett carrying a comlink instead of a blaster rifle.
The name of his dog!
What? He didn't have a dog?
Oh, well.
>> To me, a song counts as a copyrighted (copywritten?) work. Or an academic paper.
Good point about the song...though freeware could make up a fair number too.
As well as various free-for-download MP3s...I've got a surprising number of those on my WinAmp playlist.
The point I was trying to make is, not everything copyrighted costs money. So not many people grab open source software (sadly). What about software patches? Desktop wallpaper? All those are copyrighted. Doesn't mean they cost money.
>> "MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not
>> required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs."
"Duhn duhn duhn du-duhn...oh, what's this? Incoming traffic? Hmm...doesn't seem to be requested...well, you're not getting through. Duhn duhn duhn du-duhn..."
...that if they outlaw spam, only criminals will have spam!
>> i think this type of sharing should be illegal cause terrorists can use this as a way to communicate without being sufficiently tracable --
>> only the doer of the "good deed" gets hanged.
But if we keep using 56k modems, the terrorists win!
Damn...Bin Laden's got us either way.
>> Given that it's SF, would anyone notice if they became sterile?
Hey, not EVERYONE in SanFran is gay.
...some are bi.
>> first trilogy. More money for everyone except us Star Wars geeks.
Except New Coke wasn't a marketing ploy.
>> He forsook pay on episode IV in return for merchandizing rights. He was frankly laughed at for
>> asking for this, but the studio happily gave away the "worthless" merchandizing rights.
You know, I think this explains the overmerchandising of Star Wars.
"Fine, we were idiots...George, we know you gave you too much...George...George, stop hitting us with Jar Jar Binks action figures."
"We now return to The Return of the Pink Pather Returns. Starring Ken Walsh as Inspector Clouseau."
...to link to the latest Slackware distro.
>> people seem to be missing the point in this thread. Here is why this is very important.
>> When you pay money, say with paypal.com, you always want to check the URL. Of course someone could have fake link like: "click here
>> to pay with paypal" and then redirect you to their bogus site with the intention of stealing your passwords. But it would be
>> fairly obvious from the location bar in the broswer that the URL was not paypal.com. But if unicode can be used to spoof the location
>> bar then it will rope in even cautious users.
Finally, someone gets it.
Figures it'd be an AC, and so this'd probably get ignored.
While I'm savvy enough to check the URL for that sort of thing, I'd probably miss it if they encoded it like that.
Imagine...a security hole that has NOTHING to do with Microsoft. (Proof-of-concept notwithstanding, of course.)
True dat.
<STOLEN SIG> Karma capped. Replies preferred to mods</STOLEN SIG>