Well, it's more likely they've found a loophole. The way I read it (very briefly) Microsoft likely doesn't fall under the category of "Personal Holding Company", because 50% of the corporation's stock is not held by fewer than 5 individuals. Microsoft also can argue that they're actually going to use all that cash - someday. IAAPTP, but this is not legal or tax advice.
You have it backward. Trademark infringement focuses on likelihood of confusion, and has nothing to do with whether or not the infringement is commercial. It does exempt certain non-commercial fair use situations, but that's merely a single factor.
Trademark dilution law on the other hand is much nastier, because it does not require likelihood of confusion, but it does specifically exempt fair use, noncommercial use, and all forms of news reporting and news commentary. Trademark dilution is the law which covers "blurring" and "tarnishment". It requires the mark to be "famous".
Good ol' Douglass is being sued for violating both.
But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page.
God Forbid! Someone helping LSU students without permission of the school! We certainly can't have that!
Since DeCSS bypasses the encryption and, as you say, is primarily designed for that purpose, it is illegal.
I am not manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS. I am merely using it for fair use puposes, which is specifically exempted from the law.
That is exactly what it says. See above excerpt from the DMCA.
Now you're testing my patience. "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of" does not mean anything remotely similar to "can be used to".
Killing someone is most certainly illegal.
Murder is illegal. Killing someone may or may not be.
Breaking windows, as in "someone else's window", is most certainly illegal.
And so is selling something made primarily for the purpose of breaking someone else's windows without their permission.
Handguns are designed to put holes in people. Not animals for hunting, people. Doing so is illegal, except in certain cases like self-defense. And yet there is a large industry devoted to making and selling them. And it is legal. Why is software any different?
It's not any different. If you sell someone a handgun for the primary purpose of committing murder, you're committing a crime.
But I think it is extremely hypocritical of you to call the DMCA a godsend and the SSSCA/CBDTPA disgusting.
You're misusing the word "hypocritical". And I'm not calling the DMCA a godsend, I'm simply saying that it is no worse than any other copyright law. And the DMCA, SSSCA, and CBDTPA are three utterly different laws.
They both try to achieve the same goal: making it illegal to create or distribute tools that can be used to do something that is already illegal.
And killing all bad drivers tries to achieve the same goal as forcing bad drivers to take a driver's ed class. But it's not hypocritical to find one disgusting and the other reasonable.
All the horrible things that you're claiming the DMCA does. The SSSCA actually does them. That's the difference.
The DMCA says that fair use is protected, but that has been seen to be a crock of sewage.
No one has been prosecuted or even sued over the DMCA for exercising fair use. I'll even admit that I possess DeCSS and use it for fair use purposes. And no one can sue me for that, because it's legal.
Which is why a law saying "anything that can be used to do this illegal thing is illegal itself" is so incredibly stupid.
That's not what the law says, and I suspect that you already knew that.
Do tell. How? If I run Linux, how do I play a DVD I purchased on a DVD drive that I purcahsed? And exactly how should Jon Johansen have written DeCSS so that it could never be used to copy an unencrypted DVD?
DeCSS was not written for linux, it was written for windows. DeCSS is not a DVD player, it decrypts the encrypted files and outputs the unencrypted mpegs. DeCSS does not obey region encoding. If Johansen had written a Linux DVD player which made a good faith attempt to obey region encoding and which made it difficult to output the raw mpeg to a file, it probably would have been legal. But instead he made a program whose sole purpose is to bypass the CSS encryption scheme. It seems absolutely clear to me that DeCSS was created and marketed to be used for illegal purposes. It has other fair uses, but they were an afterthought. I have a strong suspicion that anyone claiming otherwise is practicing doublethink.
Do we demand guns that can't possibly be used to kill people? Food that can't possibly be choked on? Cars that can't possibly crash? Crowbars that can't possibly be used to break windows?
No but killing people, breaking windows, and crashing cars are not illegal, and food which is primarily created to cause people to choke is.
Embracing copyleft is a good approach, but getting inane leislation like the DMCA off the books would be even better.
I just don't see the DMCA as inane. I think it makes sense. What was inane was when we had all these copyright laws protecting software and then we allowed cracks and serial numbers to be distributed freely on the internet. That was inane.
Free (as in love) software would likely be illegal under something like the CBDTPA/SSSCA, should they ever pass it.
The SSSCA was the most disgusting law I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating. Had that passed not only would linux and most free software have probably been made illegal, basically any software and hardware which didn't get the seal of approval of the big media companies and anyone else who had the money to bribe the Secretary of Commerce would be made illegal - and not just illegal to sell - illegal to manufacture, illegal to possess, illegal to use, illegal to give away.
As for the CBDTPA, I have no idea what that law would do. Probably the same thing, ultimately, but it was written so ambiguously that it's really impossible to be more precise. It was another terrible law and it sickens me that there are any people in congress that would support it. There are almost 300 million people in this country. You'd think we could do a better job of picking the top 0.0001%.
And we're guaranteed a right to a speedy trial, yet Dmitri spent a month in jail before he even got a bail hearing.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with the DMCA.
News flash: the infamous They don't seem to care about fair use. As long as something can conceivably be used illegally, it risks falling victim to the DMCA.
Anything can conceivably be used illegally. And anything could fall victim to any law (hell, if we're going to use hyperbole, might as well use hyperbole).
The legitimate and fair uses of DeCSS are too numerous to count, yet it's illegal to post it.
All the legitimate and fair uses of DeCSS could easily be accomplished in a way which discourages illegimate and unfair uses. If the makers of the software had done that, they likely would be allowed to distribute their software. They didn't, so they aren't.
But hey, at least you're willing to argue the issue about a legitimate point. I think it's within the government's rights to ban DeCSS. I think it's clear that the primary purpose of DeCSS is to promote copyright infringement.
I don't like our copyright infringement laws, but I think it's within our government's rights to enact them. I'll fight back by releasing free content, and by releasing content under a license which explicitly permits circumvention. I'll also fight back by choosing to purchase free alternatives whenever it's feasible (yes, that means I'm not becoming a slashdot subscriber until they open content their content).
I thought of an example. my.mp3.com. In that case, the court ruled that it was illegal for mp3.com to maintain one master mp3 copy and then to stream those copies to licensed users upon demand. This is essentially identical to the right that Microsoft gives in its EULA.
Sorry, don't see how that is any additional right you don't have under copyright law.
Fair enough. I think the courts would disagree with you. In fact, I think they have, in the past. If I can find any examples, I'll let you know.
Copyright law requires that you pay for every copy you use.
That part is just plain old false. I can loan a DVD to a friend, and that friend can use the DVD all s/he wants without paying anyone. I can't, however, do the same thing with software. Lending software without a license is illegal.
C:\> dd if=/dev/dvd of=~/matrix.css
'dd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
I guess linux really is a circumvention device.
But seriously, you make a good point. Unfortunately, the DMCA has nothing to do with whether or not the "technological measure" controls copying. It has to do with whether or not the "techonological measure...effectively controls access".
How do you propose to pay for the enforcement of these spam laws?
Whether or not you get support from 99% of the public depends on how you phrase the question. "Do you want to make spam illegal?" is one thing. "Do you want to spend billions of dollars without making any progress toward solving the problem?" is another.
That clause says that you must pay for a seperate copy of the software for each computer on which it is installed. How is this different existing copyright law?
Existing copyright law would require that you buy separate physical copies and install them on each computer separately. This allows you to have one master copy which is shared by each computer.
I have read a few MS EULAs; and, I don't recall seeing any rights their EULA gives you that doesn't already exist for a legally obtained copy of software. Can you give an example?
Well, proof by example isn't valid, but here goes anyway. Windows 98 EULA:
You may also store or install a copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install or run the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on your other COMPUTERS over an internal network; however, you must acquire and dedicate a license for each separate COMPUTER on or from which the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is installed, used, accessed, displayed or run.
In the case of the GPL, I can't think of a way where one would be able to run the software, but not be (or be authorized by (see the statute)) the owner of a lawfully obtained copy.
Try thinking outside your little box of ideas. I could name a million situations, but I won't bother.
No, the GPL unilaterally grants that right, whether or not you agree to its other provisions -- RTFL, esp. section 0, para 2 and section 5 (noting the omission of the word run).
Wrong.
Except that it doesn't remove any rights you might otherwise have under copyright law.
Wrong.
If you do agree to the GPL, you still have the right of first sale, with respect to copies you obtained other than by copying (i.e. copies you bought on CD).
Maybe, but if that's true then it's true for all EULAs.
Of course, the right of first sale simply doesn't apply to copies that you made yourself, since you had to agree to the terms of the GPL to make them.
Wrong. Read the law again.
No rights are taken away -- you have more rights than you had before you agreed to the GPL (see chart above).
Wrong.
But you are clearly too stupid to understand this point (I saw another whole thread about this, and concluded that you were a moron, but I was already in this discussion), so I won't bother to argue it with you.
No, if I was stupid I would agree with you.
I had roughly this same argument from another perspective with aozilla a while back, and s/he's a moron too.
Everyone's a moron except you. Go on believing that.
So, you get the last post. You're still a moron.
There. You've said it three times, so it must be true now...
Duh. But it may affect the rights of users of proprietary software.
That's what I meant, obviously.
How could the GPL possibly change the law? It could (and does) affect your rights as a redistributor,
Obviously I meant that it supercedes the law, not that it changes the law.
but in the US, it does not affect your rights as a user (one who only runs the program).
Sure it does. It affects your rights as a user if you are not the owner of a lawfully obtained copy of the software.
I take no position on that -- but proprietary software companies and courts do. The difference between the GPL and a EULA is that the GPL does not even *try* to put any restrictions on users who merely run the program.
The difference is that the GPL admits that it cannot. Some propritary software companies try to claim that they can, but this is merely a scare tactic, nothing more. Courts have never ruled against end-users who merely run the software. Not in the last 20 years, anyway.
Except that EULAs claim to be binding merely by running the software, while the GPL does not. Whether those claims hold up in courts is irrelevant. And the crucial difference is that the GPL grants additional rights, EULAs claim to remove rights.
If Microsoft's EULA is binding merely by running the software, then so is the GPL. The right to run the software is one of the rights given by the GPL. If you don't have a Section 117 right to run the software, then you must accept the GPL in order to run the software. Every EULA I've ever read granted additional rights, and removed others. The GPL is no exception. It grants additional rights, and removes others.
Lawfully made copies of GPL software are those made pursuant to sections 1-3. That is, if you wish to lawfully make copies (except as provided for in section 117 (a)(1) and various other sections involving fair use etc.), you must agree to the terms of the GPL, which govern how you may sell those copies.
Right. If you don't agree to the GPL, you are permitted to first sale rights. If you do agree to the GPL, those rights are taken away. It's just like any other EULA. It gives some rights, in exchange for others.
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct. "Tax evasion" was the wrong phrase. "Screwing over the American public by legally avoiding taxes" would be better.
Well, it's more likely they've found a loophole. The way I read it (very briefly) Microsoft likely doesn't fall under the category of "Personal Holding Company", because 50% of the corporation's stock is not held by fewer than 5 individuals. Microsoft also can argue that they're actually going to use all that cash - someday. IAAPTP, but this is not legal or tax advice.
If Microsoft declares a dividend, the shareholders have to pay taxes. If they hold the money in reserve, they only pay taxes when they sell.
They just realized that most people hear ".0" and think "unstable".
"Used in commerce" hardly means the same thing as "commercial".
For extra credit, explain why Californians can't have non-profit medical marijuana cooperatives.
So what if the site looks like an official site? The kid ain't hurting anyone, I say he should be able to keep doing what he's doing.
You have posted a link to a NYT article without saying (free registration blah, blah, blah).
Here is the article on The Advocate, as posted by SlashdotSucks.
You have it backward. Trademark infringement focuses on likelihood of confusion, and has nothing to do with whether or not the infringement is commercial. It does exempt certain non-commercial fair use situations, but that's merely a single factor.
Trademark dilution law on the other hand is much nastier, because it does not require likelihood of confusion, but it does specifically exempt fair use, noncommercial use, and all forms of news reporting and news commentary. Trademark dilution is the law which covers "blurring" and "tarnishment". It requires the mark to be "famous".
Good ol' Douglass is being sued for violating both.
But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page.
God Forbid! Someone helping LSU students without permission of the school! We certainly can't have that!
Wow, an article from the future! No wonder they call it "Time" magazine.
Since DeCSS bypasses the encryption and, as you say, is primarily designed for that purpose, it is illegal.
I am not manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS. I am merely using it for fair use puposes, which is specifically exempted from the law.
That is exactly what it says. See above excerpt from the DMCA.
Now you're testing my patience. "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of" does not mean anything remotely similar to "can be used to".
Killing someone is most certainly illegal.
Murder is illegal. Killing someone may or may not be.
Breaking windows, as in "someone else's window", is most certainly illegal.
And so is selling something made primarily for the purpose of breaking someone else's windows without their permission.
Handguns are designed to put holes in people. Not animals for hunting, people. Doing so is illegal, except in certain cases like self-defense. And yet there is a large industry devoted to making and selling them. And it is legal. Why is software any different?
It's not any different. If you sell someone a handgun for the primary purpose of committing murder, you're committing a crime.
But I think it is extremely hypocritical of you to call the DMCA a godsend and the SSSCA/CBDTPA disgusting.
You're misusing the word "hypocritical". And I'm not calling the DMCA a godsend, I'm simply saying that it is no worse than any other copyright law. And the DMCA, SSSCA, and CBDTPA are three utterly different laws.
They both try to achieve the same goal: making it illegal to create or distribute tools that can be used to do something that is already illegal.
And killing all bad drivers tries to achieve the same goal as forcing bad drivers to take a driver's ed class. But it's not hypocritical to find one disgusting and the other reasonable.
All the horrible things that you're claiming the DMCA does. The SSSCA actually does them. That's the difference.
The DMCA says that fair use is protected, but that has been seen to be a crock of sewage.
No one has been prosecuted or even sued over the DMCA for exercising fair use. I'll even admit that I possess DeCSS and use it for fair use purposes. And no one can sue me for that, because it's legal.
Which is why a law saying "anything that can be used to do this illegal thing is illegal itself" is so incredibly stupid.
That's not what the law says, and I suspect that you already knew that.
Do tell. How? If I run Linux, how do I play a DVD I purchased on a DVD drive that I purcahsed? And exactly how should Jon Johansen have written DeCSS so that it could never be used to copy an unencrypted DVD?
DeCSS was not written for linux, it was written for windows. DeCSS is not a DVD player, it decrypts the encrypted files and outputs the unencrypted mpegs. DeCSS does not obey region encoding. If Johansen had written a Linux DVD player which made a good faith attempt to obey region encoding and which made it difficult to output the raw mpeg to a file, it probably would have been legal. But instead he made a program whose sole purpose is to bypass the CSS encryption scheme. It seems absolutely clear to me that DeCSS was created and marketed to be used for illegal purposes. It has other fair uses, but they were an afterthought. I have a strong suspicion that anyone claiming otherwise is practicing doublethink.
Do we demand guns that can't possibly be used to kill people? Food that can't possibly be choked on? Cars that can't possibly crash? Crowbars that can't possibly be used to break windows?
No but killing people, breaking windows, and crashing cars are not illegal, and food which is primarily created to cause people to choke is.
Embracing copyleft is a good approach, but getting inane leislation like the DMCA off the books would be even better.
I just don't see the DMCA as inane. I think it makes sense. What was inane was when we had all these copyright laws protecting software and then we allowed cracks and serial numbers to be distributed freely on the internet. That was inane.
Free (as in love) software would likely be illegal under something like the CBDTPA/SSSCA, should they ever pass it.
The SSSCA was the most disgusting law I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating. Had that passed not only would linux and most free software have probably been made illegal, basically any software and hardware which didn't get the seal of approval of the big media companies and anyone else who had the money to bribe the Secretary of Commerce would be made illegal - and not just illegal to sell - illegal to manufacture, illegal to possess, illegal to use, illegal to give away.
As for the CBDTPA, I have no idea what that law would do. Probably the same thing, ultimately, but it was written so ambiguously that it's really impossible to be more precise. It was another terrible law and it sickens me that there are any people in congress that would support it. There are almost 300 million people in this country. You'd think we could do a better job of picking the top 0.0001%.
And we're guaranteed a right to a speedy trial, yet Dmitri spent a month in jail before he even got a bail hearing.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with the DMCA.
News flash: the infamous They don't seem to care about fair use. As long as something can conceivably be used illegally, it risks falling victim to the DMCA.
Anything can conceivably be used illegally. And anything could fall victim to any law (hell, if we're going to use hyperbole, might as well use hyperbole).
The legitimate and fair uses of DeCSS are too numerous to count, yet it's illegal to post it.
All the legitimate and fair uses of DeCSS could easily be accomplished in a way which discourages illegimate and unfair uses. If the makers of the software had done that, they likely would be allowed to distribute their software. They didn't, so they aren't.
But hey, at least you're willing to argue the issue about a legitimate point. I think it's within the government's rights to ban DeCSS. I think it's clear that the primary purpose of DeCSS is to promote copyright infringement.
I don't like our copyright infringement laws, but I think it's within our government's rights to enact them. I'll fight back by releasing free content, and by releasing content under a license which explicitly permits circumvention. I'll also fight back by choosing to purchase free alternatives whenever it's feasible (yes, that means I'm not becoming a slashdot subscriber until they open content their content).
And then make it illegal to get around those technical difficulties and exercise fair use.
The DMCA specifically allows fair use as a defense against circumvention.
I thought of an example. my.mp3.com. In that case, the court ruled that it was illegal for mp3.com to maintain one master mp3 copy and then to stream those copies to licensed users upon demand. This is essentially identical to the right that Microsoft gives in its EULA.
Sorry, don't see how that is any additional right you don't have under copyright law.
Fair enough. I think the courts would disagree with you. In fact, I think they have, in the past. If I can find any examples, I'll let you know.
Copyright law requires that you pay for every copy you use.
That part is just plain old false. I can loan a DVD to a friend, and that friend can use the DVD all s/he wants without paying anyone. I can't, however, do the same thing with software. Lending software without a license is illegal.
C:\> dd if=/dev/dvd of=~/matrix.css
'dd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
I guess linux really is a circumvention device.
But seriously, you make a good point. Unfortunately, the DMCA has nothing to do with whether or not the "technological measure" controls copying. It has to do with whether or not the "techonological measure...effectively controls access".
How do you propose to pay for the enforcement of these spam laws?
Whether or not you get support from 99% of the public depends on how you phrase the question. "Do you want to make spam illegal?" is one thing. "Do you want to spend billions of dollars without making any progress toward solving the problem?" is another.
How much are you willing to spend to stop spam?
The problem, legally speaking, comes in because they take away your right of fair use.
"They" don't take away your right to fair use. "They" make it technically difficult to exercise your right to fair use. Big difference.
It's perfectly possible to do a bit-by-bit copy of an encrypted DVD and play it back on your MPAA certified equipment.
How would one go about doing this, without using a DMCA-restricted product? I know I can't drag-and-drop.
DeCSS doesn't do diddly to aid in the copying of DVDs except for enabling the content to be compressed down for easier transit across the Internet.
That's not true. I just put "The Matrix" into my DVD drive. Now how do I copy it to my hard drive without using DeCSS?
That clause says that you must pay for a seperate copy of the software for each computer on which it is installed. How is this different existing copyright law?
Existing copyright law would require that you buy separate physical copies and install them on each computer separately. This allows you to have one master copy which is shared by each computer.
I have read a few MS EULAs; and, I don't recall seeing any rights their EULA gives you that doesn't already exist for a legally obtained copy of software. Can you give an example?
Well, proof by example isn't valid, but here goes anyway. Windows 98 EULA:
In the case of the GPL, I can't think of a way where one would be able to run the software, but not be (or be authorized by (see the statute)) the owner of a lawfully obtained copy.
Try thinking outside your little box of ideas. I could name a million situations, but I won't bother.
No, the GPL unilaterally grants that right, whether or not you agree to its other provisions -- RTFL, esp. section 0, para 2 and section 5 (noting the omission of the word run).
Wrong.
Except that it doesn't remove any rights you might otherwise have under copyright law.
Wrong.
If you do agree to the GPL, you still have the right of first sale, with respect to copies you obtained other than by copying (i.e. copies you bought on CD).
Maybe, but if that's true then it's true for all EULAs.
Of course, the right of first sale simply doesn't apply to copies that you made yourself, since you had to agree to the terms of the GPL to make them.
Wrong. Read the law again.
No rights are taken away -- you have more rights than you had before you agreed to the GPL (see chart above).
Wrong.
But you are clearly too stupid to understand this point (I saw another whole thread about this, and concluded that you were a moron, but I was already in this discussion), so I won't bother to argue it with you.
No, if I was stupid I would agree with you.
I had roughly this same argument from another perspective with aozilla a while back, and s/he's a moron too.
Everyone's a moron except you. Go on believing that.
So, you get the last post. You're still a moron.
There. You've said it three times, so it must be true now...
Duh. But it may affect the rights of users of proprietary software.
That's what I meant, obviously.
How could the GPL possibly change the law? It could (and does) affect your rights as a redistributor,
Obviously I meant that it supercedes the law, not that it changes the law.
but in the US, it does not affect your rights as a user (one who only runs the program).
Sure it does. It affects your rights as a user if you are not the owner of a lawfully obtained copy of the software.
I take no position on that -- but proprietary software companies and courts do. The difference between the GPL and a EULA is that the GPL does not even *try* to put any restrictions on users who merely run the program.
The difference is that the GPL admits that it cannot. Some propritary software companies try to claim that they can, but this is merely a scare tactic, nothing more. Courts have never ruled against end-users who merely run the software. Not in the last 20 years, anyway.
Except that EULAs claim to be binding merely by running the software, while the GPL does not. Whether those claims hold up in courts is irrelevant. And the crucial difference is that the GPL grants additional rights, EULAs claim to remove rights.
If Microsoft's EULA is binding merely by running the software, then so is the GPL. The right to run the software is one of the rights given by the GPL. If you don't have a Section 117 right to run the software, then you must accept the GPL in order to run the software. Every EULA I've ever read granted additional rights, and removed others. The GPL is no exception. It grants additional rights, and removes others.
Lawfully made copies of GPL software are those made pursuant to sections 1-3. That is, if you wish to lawfully make copies (except as provided for in section 117 (a)(1) and various other sections involving fair use etc.), you must agree to the terms of the GPL, which govern how you may sell those copies.
Right. If you don't agree to the GPL, you are permitted to first sale rights. If you do agree to the GPL, those rights are taken away. It's just like any other EULA. It gives some rights, in exchange for others.
No, he said err(momentum)*err(position)>=constant.
Yes, yes, you're right. (Does "momentum * position" even make sense?)