I suppose you could put in serial numbers until you find the $25,000 winner. You wouldn't get anything out of it.
Are the serial numbers distributed in some predictable order? Once you have the winning serial number, then you can find the store which is distributing that serial number.
Not exactly. I don't deny that speed contributes to the severity of an accident. But I am claiming that breaking the speed limit (within reason) reduces the chances of getting into an accident in the first place.
Breaking the speed-limit laws makes a driver much more likely to kill someone.
Umm, care to back that up? When all the traffic is doing 70 and the speed limit is 55, you're more likely to kill someone by doing the speed limit then by breaking it.
The NET Act [usdoj.gov] asserts criminality in the event of deliberate money making or valuable materials copying as opposed to simple breach of copyright.
by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $ 1,000 shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code.
At the $50/CD I'm sure the RIAA will attach to their mp3s, that's only 20 mp3 in half a year. I'd say that's not a very high threshold.
Now the problem is that the infringement must be willful. That'd be a lot harder to prove in the case of P2P.
Because if the files you were exchanging were legitimate, you wouldn't need to use peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella, Freenet etc etc, which add a lot of inefficiency just to make it harder to find the source of a file. If what you are sending weren't in some way illegal, you would just stick it on a web page.
Somehow I doubt most P2P filesharing falls under the NET act. First of all, only reproduction and distribution (arguably not downloading) applies, and secondly, the infringement has to be willful. Since "For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement," I think you'd have an uphill battle proving beyond a reasonabe doubt that a student using Gnutella knew what he was doing was illegal. They couldn't even prove that about Dmitry.
The "No Electronic Theft Act" sets the penalties way to high for committing a crime which is way too widespread. It's like here in New Jersey where tailgating carries with it a penalty of 5 points (the same as reckless driving), and as such cops are very hesitant to give out tickets for it. Lower the penalties to something reasonable, and you'll see Universities reporting the crime more often.
Odd that Microsoft is simultaneously trying to stop spam sent to Hotmail users, and to make sure that it can send unsolicited commercial email without penalties.
Right. About as odd as a football player who is simultaneously trying to stop the other team from scoring a touchdown, and to make sure that his team can score a touchdown without penalties.
Actually, it's an advance - but if you are bending the definition of "insurance" enough to consider the advance a label pays a band to qualify, then you can bend the definition of "loan" to fit even easier.
In case it's not abundantly obvious, I disagree.
In insurance, I pay someone now to assume my monetary risk later.
What about PMI (mortgage insurance)? You pay later to get a mortgage now.
In an advance, the label pays the band now, and the label is the one taking the monetary risk, and that money is supossed to be repaid later.
Actually the money is not required to be repaid later, it is drawn against future earnings.
How is that insurance? Sounds a LOT more like a loan to me. There is no transferral of risk taking place, which is the key element of insurance - you are paying someone to take on your future risk.
There is absolutely a transferral of risk. The risk that the CD will bomb.
RTFA. "Because the band was hot, they got an advance from the record company of $300,000. They spent $200,000 of that recording the album, which included a $50,000 advance to the producer. They pocketed the remaining $100,000."
They still would have owed the money, however. So it's a loan.
They only would have owed the money as a draw against future payments. If the label can demand full payment then it's a loan, but they generally can't, so it's not, it's essentially insurance.
Not just a loan, also insurance. The band got $100,000 advance before they sold a single album. Had they failed, they still would have been able to keep the advance.
Slashdot Mirror
How exactly does making fun of welfare recipients "approach the problem of getting people off of welfare?"
I'm sure they don't publish it, but that doesn't mean you couldn't figure it out.
I suppose you could put in serial numbers until you find the $25,000 winner. You wouldn't get anything out of it.
Are the serial numbers distributed in some predictable order? Once you have the winning serial number, then you can find the store which is distributing that serial number.
You make fun of welfare recipients yet you can't spell "its."
Has anyone checked the source code!?!?
They helped participate in the coverup though, didn't they?
When the government comes to you and tells you to cooperate or face charges for aiding terrorism, what would you say?
to make sure the DoHS hasn't gotten Sendmail Inc. to insert any "additional [homeland] security patches" into the build?
While I agree it wouldn't make encryption worthless, it would render all existing common encryption systems as such.
Umm, that would be all existing common public key encryption systems. DES, for instance, would be perfectly fine.
How is this any different from using a journaling filesystem and mmap?
Just seems kind of obvious.
Not exactly. I don't deny that speed contributes to the severity of an accident. But I am claiming that breaking the speed limit (within reason) reduces the chances of getting into an accident in the first place.
Breaking the speed-limit laws makes a driver much more likely to kill someone.
Umm, care to back that up? When all the traffic is doing 70 and the speed limit is 55, you're more likely to kill someone by doing the speed limit then by breaking it.
It's just a misstatement by the article. It's only a crime if you willfully share copies of copyrighted products without permission.
The NET Act [usdoj.gov] asserts criminality in the event of deliberate money making or valuable materials copying as opposed to simple breach of copyright.
At the $50/CD I'm sure the RIAA will attach to their mp3s, that's only 20 mp3 in half a year. I'd say that's not a very high threshold.
Now the problem is that the infringement must be willful. That'd be a lot harder to prove in the case of P2P.
Because if the files you were exchanging were legitimate, you wouldn't need to use peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella, Freenet etc etc, which add a lot of inefficiency just to make it harder to find the source of a file. If what you are sending weren't in some way illegal, you would just stick it on a web page.
Somehow I doubt most P2P filesharing falls under the NET act. First of all, only reproduction and distribution (arguably not downloading) applies, and secondly, the infringement has to be willful. Since "For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement," I think you'd have an uphill battle proving beyond a reasonabe doubt that a student using Gnutella knew what he was doing was illegal. They couldn't even prove that about Dmitry.
The "No Electronic Theft Act" sets the penalties way to high for committing a crime which is way too widespread. It's like here in New Jersey where tailgating carries with it a penalty of 5 points (the same as reckless driving), and as such cops are very hesitant to give out tickets for it. Lower the penalties to something reasonable, and you'll see Universities reporting the crime more often.
This isn't one of those overly broad patents where every search engine is covered.
Most aren't. The difference is with Google we already know this, and don't jump to conclusions when we read "Google has a patent on crawling the web!"
Spin is everthing.
Commercial speech is not protected by the First Amendment.
Bull Shit
Odd that Microsoft is simultaneously trying to stop spam sent to Hotmail users, and to make sure that it can send unsolicited commercial email without penalties.
Right. About as odd as a football player who is simultaneously trying to stop the other team from scoring a touchdown, and to make sure that his team can score a touchdown without penalties.
These things are great. Can I put them on my packages so I don't have to pay for delivery confirmation?
Actually, it's an advance - but if you are bending the definition of "insurance" enough to consider the advance a label pays a band to qualify, then you can bend the definition of "loan" to fit even easier.
In case it's not abundantly obvious, I disagree.
In insurance, I pay someone now to assume my monetary risk later.
What about PMI (mortgage insurance)? You pay later to get a mortgage now.
In an advance, the label pays the band now, and the label is the one taking the monetary risk, and that money is supossed to be repaid later.
Actually the money is not required to be repaid later, it is drawn against future earnings.
How is that insurance? Sounds a LOT more like a loan to me. There is no transferral of risk taking place, which is the key element of insurance - you are paying someone to take on your future risk.
There is absolutely a transferral of risk. The risk that the CD will bomb.
RTFA. "Because the band was hot, they got an advance from the record company of $300,000. They spent $200,000 of that recording the album, which included a $50,000 advance to the producer. They pocketed the remaining $100,000."
They still would have owed the money, however. So it's a loan.
They only would have owed the money as a draw against future payments. If the label can demand full payment then it's a loan, but they generally can't, so it's not, it's essentially insurance.
Thats not the point - the point is that he did it damn well. He made it into the top 2%. Most don't.
Even if they didn't make it they still would have gotten to keep the $100,000 advance. And then they would have lost millions for for other people.
Not just a loan, also insurance. The band got $100,000 advance before they sold a single album. Had they failed, they still would have been able to keep the advance.