Isn't what you describing what they call price discrimination in economics and when doing so means an abuse of monopoly power?
You're half right. It's called price discrimination, but doing so is rarely an abuse of monopoly power. Where it becomes illegal is when a monopoly manufacturer engages in price discrimination between different distributors - this is a form of collusion.
The term "price discrimination" sounds like it might have a negative connotation, but it really doesn't have one among economists.
I know you were being sarcastic, but you are almost correct. The real reason they invaded iraq was money. Oil is just the means of making money. Essentially, the war with iraq was nothing more than a business venture to Bush/Cheney. So, using logic, we can derive that lowering the price of oil was never on the agenda. I think all bush/cheney care about is money.
That's a reasonable explanation, but the way Bush would make money off oil is for the price of oil to go up, not down. In that sense, I think it's misleading to say the war was fought over oil. (I did, however say from the beginning that "he motive clearly wasn't oil either, unless maybe you think Cheney wanted the price of oil to go up to boost his Halliburton stock.")
So when they get more oil, why would they want to keep the profit margins the same by making it cheaper?
The thing is, "they" aren't going to get more oil.
"Everyone is already paying $x.xx, they'll probably continue to pay that much, even though we've now got a larger supply. This way we make more money."
Oil companies make more money when supply is smaller. This is obvious to anyone who studies either economics or history.
No. i observed events which, when considered logically, point to the fact that he invaded iraq to make money (indirectly) from selling oil.
Quite indirectly. But yeah, I can agree with that to some extent.
And it wasn't tough to come to this conclusion. Mainly because of the lack of any other viable reason to invade iraq.
There are lots of viable reasons to invade Iraq. Saddam wasn't exactly the friendliest guy, you know. In fact, we've been in an ongoing conflict with Iraq at least since they invaded Kuwait, including through the entire time Bill Clinton was in office. You don't think Clinton was enforcing the no-fly zones because of oil, do you?
When the only possible righteous reason can be ruled out because it applied to many other countries with greater urgency, you know something is up.
No, you don't, because having a reason to want to invade a country isn't enough. You have to have a certain level of international support, and a certain level of assurance of victory. When Bush went into Iraq the US had all three of those things, at least in the mind of Bush (in hindsight, as well as in the minds of many including myself he didn't have enough of an assurance of easy victory, but I think it's clear Bush *thought* he was going to win the war fairly easily).
With what other countries do we have all these things? I'd say none. We're not going to invade China. We already lost the war with South Korea. We'd face a tough battle of questionable international support against Iran. No, I don't think there are any other countries it makes even remote sense to invade (maybe Iran could be argued, though I'd disagree, and if we had really won the war in Iraq as quickly as Bush had hoped we might be losing the war in Iran right now).
Bush was coming off a relatively successful war in Afghanistan with tons of international support. He convinced roughly half the relevant nations to support a war in Iraq, and he calculated quite correctly that the other nations wouldn't do much other than hem and haw about it. It seems to me, and actually all the evidence that has come out suggests, that he thought the war would be quite quick and relatively casualty free.
But maybe it's better if I just put it this way: why did Bush invade Iraq for oil when there are many other countries which have more oil than Iraq? Why didn't we invade Canada, or Mexico, or Nigeria, or Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia? Hell, there are plenty of reasons to invade Saudi Arabia that both are oil and non-oil related. Reasons aren't enough.
Also, please don't assume that i want you to believe what i'm saying. I simply want you to consider it. Belief is a dangerous thing. Even i don't fully believe what i'm saying, but it seem
If you're suggesting that bush declared war on Iraq as revenge for his father... No, i simply refuse to believe that anyone in this world is that goddamn selfish. It obviously wasn't to quell human rights violations, or we'd have invaded a whole bunch of other countries before we got to Iraq.
Well, there you go. Obviously it wasn't solely because of those two strawman reasons, so it must be because of oil.
"Just where are you getting these ludicrous ideas?" It's called observation.
You observed Bush saying that he invaded Iraq to get cheap oil? I think you're confusing observation with speculation.
It may be that what i've observed is incorrect, but when all i have to go on is lies and conjecture, that's all that can be expected. I assume nothing, i look at evidence objectively, and i draw conclusions.
I'd love to hear what observations you've made to come to this conclusion.
At least i don't watch fox news and just swallow their "truth" without tasting it first.
Nor do I. I'm not a fan of Bush. I voted against him twice, in fact. But to think that he invaded Iraq so that he could bring down the price of oil doesn't make any sense. Why would Bush want to lower the price of oil in the first place? For the fame? Do you really think Americans are that shallow?
Oil is priced by how much there is, and how much it costs to retrieve.
To some extent, but since oil is largely controlled by a cartel demand is usually actually a larger factor in price than supply.
The war was( and still is) pretty fucking expensive. The price of oil went up, but the security of having a larger supply was worth it, supposedly.
According to whom? You say you're not getting this from Michael Moore. You're obviously not getting it from Bush or his aides. Just where are you getting these ludicrous ideas?
and i hate michael moore. He's just another member of the media. Oh right, i suppose because i'm giving a dissenting viewpoint, that automatically makes me a socialist scumbag who blindly supports left-wing propogandists because they further my ideals. Grow up.
I've really never heard a non-partisan make a serious argument that the reason Dubya went into Iraq is because of oil. It just doesn't make any sense. In fact, I suspect Bush's motives are probably much more selfish than that. Why would Bush care if the United States has cheap oil? Between WMD and oil both sides have been sold lies.
If oil is so unimportant, why did bush/cheney wage war against iraq.
If Bush/Cheney waged war against Iraq because of oil, then why have oil prices only gone up since doing so?
Bush's motive clearly wasn't WMDs, WMDs were just the *excuse* to convince the rest of the world not to be even more pissed than they already were. But the motive clearly wasn't oil either, unless maybe you think Cheney wanted the price of oil to go up to boost his Halliburton stock.
Seriously, sometimes you Michael Moore cronies are as bad as the Bush apologists.
I don't think you can find this mentioned in statutory law, but instead is something that comes from common law. Copyright law is full of that, including seemingly contradictory legal precedence that seems to support and deny certain activities.
Well, federal copyright law actually supercedes common law. There is some common law (and statutory law) concerning privacy and publicity rights, though. But I seriously doubt it would apply to a picture of some lizard, and I'm certain it wouldn't apply to noncommercial distribution for editorial purposes such as that of Wikimedia.
In short, while it may not be strictly necessary to get a property or landmark release, it would still be a good idea as a sort of insurance.
If you're in the business of selling pictures, yeah, it would be smart. There are exceptions, though. Sometimes you have no chance of getting a release, and the very fact that what you are doing is unauthorized is the whole point. Then you hire lawyers instead of getting releases. Just ask Michael Moore.
By using the word "certainly" not only is what he is saying false but he's implying I'm either a fool who doesn't know what he's on about or a liar because supposedly I've said something false.
My work "certainly" was qualified with "not an aspect of US copyright law". What I'm saying is that the law you claim exists is definitely not a part of Title 17 of the US Code (which is referred to as "US copyright law"). I'm quite sure of this. I've read the title several times and I've examined a lot of the case law that goes along with it. There's nothing even remotely approaching what you've described, which if anything would probably fall under state privacy/publicity law.
Given that he's just said it's certainly no aspect of US copyright law, he then sarcastically invites me to provide evidence, which he's sure I can't produce.
The US Code consists of more than just Title 17. I was admitting that there was an outside chance that some federal statute *other than* US Copyright Law might have applied. But you've now made it fairly clear that you're talking about state privacy/publicity law.
Again implying i don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm obviously mistaking law in my neck of the woods for US law (again implying US law is superior because it doesn't allow such things)
You apparently *don't* know what you're talking about. And US law *is* superior in the sense that it doesn't allow such things, but neither was my point at the time.
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
This was absolutely blantantly false.
I wasn't sure if your original statement was true or not. In fact, not I'm fairly convinced it isn't. And the law you claimed is *not* an aspect of US copyright law. I know enough about about US copyright law to state that unequivically. The issue of "Property Release" is state privacy/publicity law, which is altogether a different thing from US copyright law.
He was basically telling me I'm an idiot that got it wrong because I don't live in the US and where I'm from the laws are obviously inferior.
No, the fact that you're an idiot that got it wrong has nothing to do with the facts that you don't live in the US and where you're from the IP laws are obviously inferior.
How is it polite to call someone a liar without checking the facts?
I didn't call you a liar. I didn't even say you were wrong. I said "'m not even sure that's true." I said I'm not sure. I said *if* it's a law, it's certainly not part of US Copyright Law. I asked you to point me to the law. You still haven't done so.
Typical BS on/. - you're not even sure if that's right and you're certainly not an expert - so go ahead and slam someone who is, even if you haven't checked your facts.
I don't believe I slammed anyone. You claimed there was a law, I said I wasn't sure that was a law, and if so it's definitely not a copyright law. I asked for further information.
These laws and principles of law aren't an Australian exclusive.
Maybe not. I never said they were. In fact, I know very little about non-US law. But the photo you pointed to was taken in a US park, was it not?
I'll talk about US law, because it's what I know, and it's what applies to the situation. If you're talking about some other jurisdictions law, feel free to just ignore the rest of this post.
http://www.shutterpoint.com/Help-Selling.cfm#relea ses
"Property releases are required for any recognizable and uniquely identifiable property (including your own) on your photos that you are selling for commercial use. Usually a property is a building, but it can also be an automobile, boat, or any unique item in a private owner's possession. Some parks, national reserves, and landmarks can also require permits to take photos or use photos taken there on the commercial basis." There are many problems with this. The photo of that lizard probably wouldn't be considered a "uniquely identifiable property" (if it is, then perhaps Disney could provide the name or serial number of the lizard), and Wikimedia is *not* selling the photos for commercial use. Finally, just because it's written somewhere on the internet doesn't make it true. Show me an actual law or a case where it was decided that a photo of some random animal in a park was protected under publicity law and then we can argue how that case or law doesn't apply.
"What are Model Releases and Property Releases?" They certainly aren't a part of copyright law. "If you want to use a stock photo that includes an image of a person for commercial purposes in an annual report, advertisement, etc. We recommend that you use a photo that has a Model Release." Nice grammar, but that's a fairly useless "sentence". "The issue can also extend to pets and property as well. Then the image will need a Property Release." OK, so the issue (that some stock photographer thinks you should get a Property Release) might be extended to "pets and property", presumably if the image is used "for commercial purposes in an annual report, advertisement, etc." I must be missing the punch line. How does this relate to the photo in Wikimedia Commons?
"ASMP has never seen a statute or a legal case that requires a release for property. The recommendation that you get one is based upon two legal theories."
"The first theory is that a person's identity might be connected to the property." This one certainly doesn't apply, because the park is open to the public.
"The second theory is that there is an offense called conversion, which means that you used another's property to your own personal gain without the owner's permission. [....] The question is this: Is it conversion if I rent out a picture of your house for an advertisement without your permission? We know of no case that has ever settled those kinds of questions." Frankly, that's a pretty ridiculous theory. Conversion is a tort which involves interfering with someone's right to physical property. It doesn't apply to taking a picture of something, because taking a picture doesn't affect the owner's dominion over the property. Furthermore, this case deals with copyright law and interstate commerce, and the state law of conversion would almost surely be exempted by the federal law. And finally, even if this *was* an act of conversion, it wouldn't affect *oth
I think people who consider getting up to turn the TV on to be such a big deal are funny. It's really not that hard to turn the TV on before you sit down, instead of afterwards.
Maybe they're just conserving energy. How many watts does it take to stand up and turn on the TV? How much CO2 is produced by the average human who does that task?
Yes, I'm kidding, but still. If devices are using up too much power on standby, that's one thing. But the solution isn't to remove standby altogether. Surely a standby mode can be devised which uses very little power.
What i'm talking about is the western public's passive nature toward the coming energy crisis. Oil is running out fast, and everyone knows it. Natural gas is disappearing even faster. But for some reason, people have this "everything's gonna be fine" attitude to the whole situation.
Because everything *is* going to be fine. As oil gets more expensive (it'll never run out completely, because it'll get prohibitively expensive to extract first), we'll either find a new power source or we'll use less power. Why use less power now, when we *definitely* don't have cheaper alternatives?
There's no need to panic. We just might lose those SUVs in the future. I actually kind of like the idea of electric cars for everyone - I look forward to the day when we run out of oil.
It's amazing the extent to which we either forget about or just don't care about turning stuff off these days.
Either energy taxes aren't high enough, or the amount of energy wasted isn't really that big of a deal. Which do you think it is? I'm betting on the latter.
The problem is that standby is very convenient. I don't want to have to walk upto my TV to turn it on. I want to sit down and press the power button on the remote. For me to be able to do this the TV has to be using a bit of power (how much I am not sure of).
It doesn't *have* to have power. You could always send it the power through the air, a la RFID.
Of course I have no idea how safe/expensive such a transmitter would be.
Did you know that video or photography taken on private property or of private property requires the permission of the owner before you can exhibit them?
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law. If you can point me to the part of the US Code which covers it I'd appreciate it.
Well, many of the images are not original, in fact a large portion of them are public domain due to age or some other reason. But Wikimedia Commons is much better than Wikipedia with regard to inclusion of copyright violations. The vast majority of images on Wikimedia Commons are in fact public domain or under a free license.
We definitely won't run out of water, since deuterium is a small fraction of the water supply. But that doesn't mean there won't be other negative effects.
Will there be an environmental impact? Almost certainly. After all, that's the Law of Unintended Consequences. But we'll probably be able to contain or reverse the impact before it grows out of control.
I actually fell for that once. But as it turns out when I called the credit card company to complain they reversed the charge. So I wound up being up $10. (Note that I won't do it again and I wouldn't suggesting anyone else trying the same thing, you very well might not be as fortunate as I was.)
One thing that really helps in dealing with credit card companies is to realize that they are usually very willing to negotiate. I'm not sure exactly why, I guess just because they make such insane amounts of money off all the other suckers, but I've almost never had a credit card company say "no" to me (and I don't even use Capital One). I've occassionally been a few days late with a payment, gotten late payments fees and my rate raised to 28% or whatever. On every occassion except for one I called them, asked them to waive the fee and reduce my rate, and they've said yes - without me even explaining what happened.
I've had friends and family who I've convinced to try this and it's worked with them too. Credit card companies are assholes, but so are used car salesmen. It doesn't mean you can't negotiate a decent deal, if you know how to do it.
Somehow people who would never think of stealing a candy bar from a convenience store become completely immoral when they are part of a corporation.
Probably largely out of fear, both legitimate and due to lack of education. People fear losing their job, their health insurance, their wife, their children, all because they stood up to some faceless corporation in a battle they're in all likelihood going to lose (cut to scenes from The Insider).
But that doesn't really go to your point, which is about sleazy lawyers who for the most part probably *would* steal a candy bar from a convenience store, if they could find some loophole in the law which would allow them to do so.
I personally think any institution that uses a scoring system to rate you should be required to give you the exact details of how that system works.
Just wondering, would you apply this to Google Pagerank?
You should be able to take your credit report and generate your own score to verify the score they have generated.
It'd be nice for the consumer, but it would pretty much put the people who create the scoring algorithms out of business, because once the algorithm was public the businesses that use the scores could just calculate them on their own. I guess a patent could protect the system even though it was public, for a while, but that'd require the scoring companies to make significant improvements to stay ahead of their own expiring patents.
With as many errors as there are in credit reports (and the kludgy system for getting them fixed), can anyone have any faith that they've been scored correctly?
To some degree, sure. While the exact algorithms are kept secret, it's very easy to find the general constituents of the score. And, of course, all the inputs can be obtained from the credit reporting agencies. If there are errors in the credit reports, you can find and fix them (fixing them might take some significant time and effort in some unusual cases, but this is a different problem). If the algorithm has errors which cause significant deviations (changing someone's credit from excellent to poor, for instance), then this will be obvious.
Ultimately, it's up to you to get a good deal. If your lender insists on using a hidden scoring algorithm, and won't listen to your appeal, then it's up to you to find another lender. We don't need the government getting involved in telling people who they can and can't lend to. *That* would be a system which would screw those with moderate resources out of as many of those resources as possible.
I'm thankful for my credit union, that's for sure.
See? The free market can and does provide a good system. Granted, not everyone is educated enough to utilize credit unions when appropriate, but letting the geeks of the world who would understand how to recalculate their credit score to check up on it wouldn't solve that. The government can only do so much to protect uneducated people from getting exploited. Ultimately people need to step up and protect themselves.
Sounds like the two of you are talking about different types of companies. He mentioned the credit card companies themselves, and you seem to be talking about the credit reporting agencies.
Closing down these accounts hurts your FICO score in two ways. First, it can reduce the amount of credit history that is used to compute your FICO score.
What, 5 years later? Your credit history stays on your credit report even after you've closed the account.
Keep in mind, that having a lot of available credit won't hurt your FICO score, and, your FICO score is only used to determine the interest rate that you will pay on loans.
The first part of that isn't true. I've personally experienced my FICO score being lowered in part because I had too much available credit (at least that's what it said in the "factors that are lowering your score" section). Of course, I still had excellent credit, so this is probably a very minor factor.
Personally I just did cancel one of my credit cards which I wasn't using. But the main reason I did so was because they got bought out by some other company and weren't giving me good offers any more (I even called them to ask what's up and they basically said this). So I'll just replace this card with another one in a few months. Credit card companies don't like you having too many other cards, especially ones which you aren't utilizing. But in some ways the credit card companies are backwards from other lending entities. They're like the drug dealers, they want you to get hooked.
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If there were no rebates, the price would be higher.
Isn't what you describing what they call price discrimination in economics and when doing so means an abuse of monopoly power?
You're half right. It's called price discrimination, but doing so is rarely an abuse of monopoly power. Where it becomes illegal is when a monopoly manufacturer engages in price discrimination between different distributors - this is a form of collusion.
The term "price discrimination" sounds like it might have a negative connotation, but it really doesn't have one among economists.
I know you were being sarcastic, but you are almost correct. The real reason they invaded iraq was money. Oil is just the means of making money. Essentially, the war with iraq was nothing more than a business venture to Bush/Cheney. So, using logic, we can derive that lowering the price of oil was never on the agenda. I think all bush/cheney care about is money.
That's a reasonable explanation, but the way Bush would make money off oil is for the price of oil to go up, not down. In that sense, I think it's misleading to say the war was fought over oil. (I did, however say from the beginning that "he motive clearly wasn't oil either, unless maybe you think Cheney wanted the price of oil to go up to boost his Halliburton stock.")
So when they get more oil, why would they want to keep the profit margins the same by making it cheaper?
The thing is, "they" aren't going to get more oil.
"Everyone is already paying $x.xx, they'll probably continue to pay that much, even though we've now got a larger supply. This way we make more money."
Oil companies make more money when supply is smaller. This is obvious to anyone who studies either economics or history.
No. i observed events which, when considered logically, point to the fact that he invaded iraq to make money (indirectly) from selling oil.
Quite indirectly. But yeah, I can agree with that to some extent.
And it wasn't tough to come to this conclusion. Mainly because of the lack of any other viable reason to invade iraq.
There are lots of viable reasons to invade Iraq. Saddam wasn't exactly the friendliest guy, you know. In fact, we've been in an ongoing conflict with Iraq at least since they invaded Kuwait, including through the entire time Bill Clinton was in office. You don't think Clinton was enforcing the no-fly zones because of oil, do you?
When the only possible righteous reason can be ruled out because it applied to many other countries with greater urgency, you know something is up.
No, you don't, because having a reason to want to invade a country isn't enough. You have to have a certain level of international support, and a certain level of assurance of victory. When Bush went into Iraq the US had all three of those things, at least in the mind of Bush (in hindsight, as well as in the minds of many including myself he didn't have enough of an assurance of easy victory, but I think it's clear Bush *thought* he was going to win the war fairly easily).
With what other countries do we have all these things? I'd say none. We're not going to invade China. We already lost the war with South Korea. We'd face a tough battle of questionable international support against Iran. No, I don't think there are any other countries it makes even remote sense to invade (maybe Iran could be argued, though I'd disagree, and if we had really won the war in Iraq as quickly as Bush had hoped we might be losing the war in Iran right now).
Bush was coming off a relatively successful war in Afghanistan with tons of international support. He convinced roughly half the relevant nations to support a war in Iraq, and he calculated quite correctly that the other nations wouldn't do much other than hem and haw about it. It seems to me, and actually all the evidence that has come out suggests, that he thought the war would be quite quick and relatively casualty free.
But maybe it's better if I just put it this way: why did Bush invade Iraq for oil when there are many other countries which have more oil than Iraq? Why didn't we invade Canada, or Mexico, or Nigeria, or Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia? Hell, there are plenty of reasons to invade Saudi Arabia that both are oil and non-oil related. Reasons aren't enough.
Also, please don't assume that i want you to believe what i'm saying. I simply want you to consider it. Belief is a dangerous thing. Even i don't fully believe what i'm saying, but it seem
If you're suggesting that bush declared war on Iraq as revenge for his father... No, i simply refuse to believe that anyone in this world is that goddamn selfish. It obviously wasn't to quell human rights violations, or we'd have invaded a whole bunch of other countries before we got to Iraq.
Well, there you go. Obviously it wasn't solely because of those two strawman reasons, so it must be because of oil.
"Just where are you getting these ludicrous ideas?" It's called observation.
You observed Bush saying that he invaded Iraq to get cheap oil? I think you're confusing observation with speculation.
It may be that what i've observed is incorrect, but when all i have to go on is lies and conjecture, that's all that can be expected. I assume nothing, i look at evidence objectively, and i draw conclusions.
I'd love to hear what observations you've made to come to this conclusion.
At least i don't watch fox news and just swallow their "truth" without tasting it first.
Nor do I. I'm not a fan of Bush. I voted against him twice, in fact. But to think that he invaded Iraq so that he could bring down the price of oil doesn't make any sense. Why would Bush want to lower the price of oil in the first place? For the fame? Do you really think Americans are that shallow?
Oil is priced by how much there is, and how much it costs to retrieve.
To some extent, but since oil is largely controlled by a cartel demand is usually actually a larger factor in price than supply.
The war was( and still is) pretty fucking expensive. The price of oil went up, but the security of having a larger supply was worth it, supposedly.
According to whom? You say you're not getting this from Michael Moore. You're obviously not getting it from Bush or his aides. Just where are you getting these ludicrous ideas?
and i hate michael moore. He's just another member of the media. Oh right, i suppose because i'm giving a dissenting viewpoint, that automatically makes me a socialist scumbag who blindly supports left-wing propogandists because they further my ideals. Grow up.
I've really never heard a non-partisan make a serious argument that the reason Dubya went into Iraq is because of oil. It just doesn't make any sense. In fact, I suspect Bush's motives are probably much more selfish than that. Why would Bush care if the United States has cheap oil? Between WMD and oil both sides have been sold lies.
If oil is so unimportant, why did bush/cheney wage war against iraq.
If Bush/Cheney waged war against Iraq because of oil, then why have oil prices only gone up since doing so?
Bush's motive clearly wasn't WMDs, WMDs were just the *excuse* to convince the rest of the world not to be even more pissed than they already were. But the motive clearly wasn't oil either, unless maybe you think Cheney wanted the price of oil to go up to boost his Halliburton stock.
Seriously, sometimes you Michael Moore cronies are as bad as the Bush apologists.
That is like me running up massive debt on my credit card.
Sure, if your interest rate was zero.
I don't think you can find this mentioned in statutory law, but instead is something that comes from common law. Copyright law is full of that, including seemingly contradictory legal precedence that seems to support and deny certain activities.
Well, federal copyright law actually supercedes common law. There is some common law (and statutory law) concerning privacy and publicity rights, though. But I seriously doubt it would apply to a picture of some lizard, and I'm certain it wouldn't apply to noncommercial distribution for editorial purposes such as that of Wikimedia.
In short, while it may not be strictly necessary to get a property or landmark release, it would still be a good idea as a sort of insurance.
If you're in the business of selling pictures, yeah, it would be smart. There are exceptions, though. Sometimes you have no chance of getting a release, and the very fact that what you are doing is unauthorized is the whole point. Then you hire lawyers instead of getting releases. Just ask Michael Moore.
By using the word "certainly" not only is what he is saying false but he's implying I'm either a fool who doesn't know what he's on about or a liar because supposedly I've said something false.
My work "certainly" was qualified with "not an aspect of US copyright law". What I'm saying is that the law you claim exists is definitely not a part of Title 17 of the US Code (which is referred to as "US copyright law"). I'm quite sure of this. I've read the title several times and I've examined a lot of the case law that goes along with it. There's nothing even remotely approaching what you've described, which if anything would probably fall under state privacy/publicity law.
Given that he's just said it's certainly no aspect of US copyright law, he then sarcastically invites me to provide evidence, which he's sure I can't produce.
The US Code consists of more than just Title 17. I was admitting that there was an outside chance that some federal statute *other than* US Copyright Law might have applied. But you've now made it fairly clear that you're talking about state privacy/publicity law.
Again implying i don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm obviously mistaking law in my neck of the woods for US law (again implying US law is superior because it doesn't allow such things)
You apparently *don't* know what you're talking about. And US law *is* superior in the sense that it doesn't allow such things, but neither was my point at the time.
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
This was absolutely blantantly false.
I wasn't sure if your original statement was true or not. In fact, not I'm fairly convinced it isn't. And the law you claimed is *not* an aspect of US copyright law. I know enough about about US copyright law to state that unequivically. The issue of "Property Release" is state privacy/publicity law, which is altogether a different thing from US copyright law.
He was basically telling me I'm an idiot that got it wrong because I don't live in the US and where I'm from the laws are obviously inferior.
No, the fact that you're an idiot that got it wrong has nothing to do with the facts that you don't live in the US and where you're from the IP laws are obviously inferior.
How is it polite to call someone a liar without checking the facts?
I didn't call you a liar. I didn't even say you were wrong. I said "'m not even sure that's true." I said I'm not sure. I said *if* it's a law, it's certainly not part of US Copyright Law. I asked you to point me to the law. You still haven't done so.
Typical BS on /. - you're not even sure if that's right and you're certainly not an expert - so go ahead and slam someone who is, even if you haven't checked your facts.
I don't believe I slammed anyone. You claimed there was a law, I said I wasn't sure that was a law, and if so it's definitely not a copyright law. I asked for further information.
These laws and principles of law aren't an Australian exclusive.
Maybe not. I never said they were. In fact, I know very little about non-US law. But the photo you pointed to was taken in a US park, was it not?
I'll talk about US law, because it's what I know, and it's what applies to the situation. If you're talking about some other jurisdictions law, feel free to just ignore the rest of this post.
http://www.shutterpoint.com/Help-Selling.cfm#relea ses
"Property releases are required for any recognizable and uniquely identifiable property (including your own) on your photos that you are selling for commercial use. Usually a property is a building, but it can also be an automobile, boat, or any unique item in a private owner's possession. Some parks, national reserves, and landmarks can also require permits to take photos or use photos taken there on the commercial basis." There are many problems with this. The photo of that lizard probably wouldn't be considered a "uniquely identifiable property" (if it is, then perhaps Disney could provide the name or serial number of the lizard), and Wikimedia is *not* selling the photos for commercial use. Finally, just because it's written somewhere on the internet doesn't make it true. Show me an actual law or a case where it was decided that a photo of some random animal in a park was protected under publicity law and then we can argue how that case or law doesn't apply.
http://www.indexstock.com/content/help/modelproper tyrelease.asp
"What are Model Releases and Property Releases?" They certainly aren't a part of copyright law. "If you want to use a stock photo that includes an image of a person for commercial purposes in an annual report, advertisement, etc. We recommend that you use a photo that has a Model Release." Nice grammar, but that's a fairly useless "sentence". "The issue can also extend to pets and property as well. Then the image will need a Property Release." OK, so the issue (that some stock photographer thinks you should get a Property Release) might be extended to "pets and property", presumably if the image is used "for commercial purposes in an annual report, advertisement, etc." I must be missing the punch line. How does this relate to the photo in Wikimedia Commons?
http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/AboutP ropertyRel.php
"ASMP has never seen a statute or a legal case that requires a release for property. The recommendation that you get one is based upon two legal theories."
"The first theory is that a person's identity might be connected to the property." This one certainly doesn't apply, because the park is open to the public.
"The second theory is that there is an offense called conversion, which means that you used another's property to your own personal gain without the owner's permission. [....] The question is this: Is it conversion if I rent out a picture of your house for an advertisement without your permission? We know of no case that has ever settled those kinds of questions." Frankly, that's a pretty ridiculous theory. Conversion is a tort which involves interfering with someone's right to physical property. It doesn't apply to taking a picture of something, because taking a picture doesn't affect the owner's dominion over the property. Furthermore, this case deals with copyright law and interstate commerce, and the state law of conversion would almost surely be exempted by the federal law. And finally, even if this *was* an act of conversion, it wouldn't affect *oth
I think people who consider getting up to turn the TV on to be such a big deal are funny. It's really not that hard to turn the TV on before you sit down, instead of afterwards.
Maybe they're just conserving energy. How many watts does it take to stand up and turn on the TV? How much CO2 is produced by the average human who does that task?
Yes, I'm kidding, but still. If devices are using up too much power on standby, that's one thing. But the solution isn't to remove standby altogether. Surely a standby mode can be devised which uses very little power.
What i'm talking about is the western public's passive nature toward the coming energy crisis. Oil is running out fast, and everyone knows it. Natural gas is disappearing even faster. But for some reason, people have this "everything's gonna be fine" attitude to the whole situation.
Because everything *is* going to be fine. As oil gets more expensive (it'll never run out completely, because it'll get prohibitively expensive to extract first), we'll either find a new power source or we'll use less power. Why use less power now, when we *definitely* don't have cheaper alternatives?
There's no need to panic. We just might lose those SUVs in the future. I actually kind of like the idea of electric cars for everyone - I look forward to the day when we run out of oil.
It's amazing the extent to which we either forget about or just don't care about turning stuff off these days.
Either energy taxes aren't high enough, or the amount of energy wasted isn't really that big of a deal. Which do you think it is? I'm betting on the latter.
The problem is that standby is very convenient. I don't want to have to walk upto my TV to turn it on. I want to sit down and press the power button on the remote. For me to be able to do this the TV has to be using a bit of power (how much I am not sure of).
It doesn't *have* to have power. You could always send it the power through the air, a la RFID.
Of course I have no idea how safe/expensive such a transmitter would be.
Did you know that video or photography taken on private property or of private property requires the permission of the owner before you can exhibit them?
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law. If you can point me to the part of the US Code which covers it I'd appreciate it.
Or maybe you're thinking of Australian law.
Have a look at this - one of a collection taken at Disney's Animal Kingdom: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Varanus_ko modoensis2.jpg
Do you think the owner got permission from Disney to put this up on Wikimedia?
Why don't you ask him yourself? I'd say he probably didn't. But I also don't think this image was taken in Australia.
Well, many of the images are not original, in fact a large portion of them are public domain due to age or some other reason. But Wikimedia Commons is much better than Wikipedia with regard to inclusion of copyright violations. The vast majority of images on Wikimedia Commons are in fact public domain or under a free license.
We definitely won't run out of water, since deuterium is a small fraction of the water supply. But that doesn't mean there won't be other negative effects.
Will there be an environmental impact? Almost certainly. After all, that's the Law of Unintended Consequences. But we'll probably be able to contain or reverse the impact before it grows out of control.
You're assuming "intelligence" is quantifiable in the first place.
I actually fell for that once. But as it turns out when I called the credit card company to complain they reversed the charge. So I wound up being up $10. (Note that I won't do it again and I wouldn't suggesting anyone else trying the same thing, you very well might not be as fortunate as I was.)
One thing that really helps in dealing with credit card companies is to realize that they are usually very willing to negotiate. I'm not sure exactly why, I guess just because they make such insane amounts of money off all the other suckers, but I've almost never had a credit card company say "no" to me (and I don't even use Capital One). I've occassionally been a few days late with a payment, gotten late payments fees and my rate raised to 28% or whatever. On every occassion except for one I called them, asked them to waive the fee and reduce my rate, and they've said yes - without me even explaining what happened.
I've had friends and family who I've convinced to try this and it's worked with them too. Credit card companies are assholes, but so are used car salesmen. It doesn't mean you can't negotiate a decent deal, if you know how to do it.
Somehow people who would never think of stealing a candy bar from a convenience store become completely immoral when they are part of a corporation.
Probably largely out of fear, both legitimate and due to lack of education. People fear losing their job, their health insurance, their wife, their children, all because they stood up to some faceless corporation in a battle they're in all likelihood going to lose (cut to scenes from The Insider).
But that doesn't really go to your point, which is about sleazy lawyers who for the most part probably *would* steal a candy bar from a convenience store, if they could find some loophole in the law which would allow them to do so.
I personally think any institution that uses a scoring system to rate you should be required to give you the exact details of how that system works.
Just wondering, would you apply this to Google Pagerank?
You should be able to take your credit report and generate your own score to verify the score they have generated.
It'd be nice for the consumer, but it would pretty much put the people who create the scoring algorithms out of business, because once the algorithm was public the businesses that use the scores could just calculate them on their own. I guess a patent could protect the system even though it was public, for a while, but that'd require the scoring companies to make significant improvements to stay ahead of their own expiring patents.
With as many errors as there are in credit reports (and the kludgy system for getting them fixed), can anyone have any faith that they've been scored correctly?
To some degree, sure. While the exact algorithms are kept secret, it's very easy to find the general constituents of the score. And, of course, all the inputs can be obtained from the credit reporting agencies. If there are errors in the credit reports, you can find and fix them (fixing them might take some significant time and effort in some unusual cases, but this is a different problem). If the algorithm has errors which cause significant deviations (changing someone's credit from excellent to poor, for instance), then this will be obvious.
Ultimately, it's up to you to get a good deal. If your lender insists on using a hidden scoring algorithm, and won't listen to your appeal, then it's up to you to find another lender. We don't need the government getting involved in telling people who they can and can't lend to. *That* would be a system which would screw those with moderate resources out of as many of those resources as possible.
I'm thankful for my credit union, that's for sure.
See? The free market can and does provide a good system. Granted, not everyone is educated enough to utilize credit unions when appropriate, but letting the geeks of the world who would understand how to recalculate their credit score to check up on it wouldn't solve that. The government can only do so much to protect uneducated people from getting exploited. Ultimately people need to step up and protect themselves.
Sounds like the two of you are talking about different types of companies. He mentioned the credit card companies themselves, and you seem to be talking about the credit reporting agencies.
Closing down these accounts hurts your FICO score in two ways. First, it can reduce the amount of credit history that is used to compute your FICO score.
What, 5 years later? Your credit history stays on your credit report even after you've closed the account.
Keep in mind, that having a lot of available credit won't hurt your FICO score, and, your FICO score is only used to determine the interest rate that you will pay on loans.
The first part of that isn't true. I've personally experienced my FICO score being lowered in part because I had too much available credit (at least that's what it said in the "factors that are lowering your score" section). Of course, I still had excellent credit, so this is probably a very minor factor.
Personally I just did cancel one of my credit cards which I wasn't using. But the main reason I did so was because they got bought out by some other company and weren't giving me good offers any more (I even called them to ask what's up and they basically said this). So I'll just replace this card with another one in a few months. Credit card companies don't like you having too many other cards, especially ones which you aren't utilizing. But in some ways the credit card companies are backwards from other lending entities. They're like the drug dealers, they want you to get hooked.
You apparently don't know very much about credit cards. I carry a balance from month to month on my Citibank card at an average APR of 3.5%.