They're not claiming that they're not violating the DMCA. They're challenging the constitutionality of the DMCA.
You're not allowed to challenge the constitutionality of the DMCA unless you intend to violate the DMCA. Look up the term "standing" in a legal dictionary.
Re:Saw something similar about EULAs in general
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 1
[They] put 3 - 4 pages of mind-numbing legalese in a tiny scroll box without the option of printing the license.
I'm one of those strange people who occassionally actually reads (well, usually skims) the agreements before clicking "I agree", and I've found that about 1/5th of the time the link to the agreement is actually broken! I really don't see how that agreement could possibly hold up in court, but you never know, I guess.
I can only remember one time that I've actually declined clicking "I agree" due to the contents of the agreement. That was for a certain company's tax return service where I interpreted their policy as allowing them to give information from my tax return to third parties. But most of the time I just assume that whatever the company can do without my knowledge they will do, and whatever I can do without their knowledge they won't sue me over. Taking somone's database and letting people access it over the web doesn't really fall into that category.
Re:Saw something similar about EULAs in general
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 2
I agree with you that clickwrap licenses should not be considered a valid contract. Unfortunately, the courts, specifically the Seventh Circuit, does not agree. see ProCD vs Zeidenberg
Matthew Zeidenberg bought a consumer package of SelectPhone
(trademark) in 1994 from a retail outlet in Madison, Wisconsin,
but decided to ignore the license.
That's disturbing, but fortunately I don't live in Wisconsin or under the seventh circuit. Also, while the argument is sound in the case where the sale is directly between ProCD and Zeidenberg, the court for some reason failed to address the fact that the sale was between a retail outlet and Zeidenberg. What happens if I buy software, disagree with the license, try to return it, but the store refuses to accept the return?
Really I don't care all that much either way. If shrinkwrap licenses are enforcible, I'll just have to buy less software, and read the terms. But as of now I don't read the terms, because it is my opinion (for myself, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah) that shrinkwrap licenses are unenforcible (in my jurisdiction). It's sad that we have to be so informed on the law (or hire a lawyer) just to open a box of software, but that's the way it is.
The mirroring site is illegally using my words without my permission.
It's at least arguable that it's fair use.
If they want to mirror something I say, they are welcome to contact me & get my permission.
May I mirror your content on my site?
VA suing saves me from having to pursue such legal action individually.
VA has no right to sue over copyright infringement of your content. None.
If you don't want slashdot to make a profit off your words, DON'T POST.
Where did I say that? I don't care if slashdot profits off my words. I just take offense when they try to compare it to "throwing-quarters-in-the-guitar-case". I also find it hypocritical that there are so many slashdot stories critical over the RIAA, when slashdot does the exact same thing.
Re:Saw something similar about EULAs in general
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 1
It appears that even though I bought the software from a retailer, Microsoft thinks it is a contract between them and me.
Right, but that is a contract which exists separately from the contract to buy the physical media. And that contract is only valid if there is consideration for both parties, as well as some kind of assent of both parties. The right to use the software is not consideration. That is already given under copyright law.
so could you explain where in that text they do that ?
I license my content to them under the terms of the QingPL. That requires that they license their derivitive works under the QingPL as well. Do you care to explain where they have indicated that they have done that?
A/. mirror would be illegal. That is assuming, of course, that you did not go through the trouble of contacting every person who has ever posted & get their permission to reproduce their comment.
Well, I'm more concerned with whether or not VA Software could sue, not the individuals. The individuals presumably are giving an implicit license to distribute their content.
Either way it doesn't change the matter that slashdot is trying to profit off other people's content, without even paying the people who create that content. Do they have a legal right to do that? Probably. But don't try to make VA Software out to be the good guys.
In fact, if slashdot would do one single thing I would stop complaining. Put a checkbox next to "post anonymously" which says "Allow third party mirrors" (and something similar for article submissions). Then indicate the results of that checkbox somewhere in every post.
Hmm... RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE and others are profitting by selling volunteer content (i.e., Free Software). There is NOTHING wrong with this! The volunteer content is available with or without these companies.
I agree. But that's not what slashdot is doing. Slashdot is taking volunteer content and then copyrighting the derivitive work, and not licensing the derivitive work as open content.
even if they only sell some percentage, the total number of hits they are calculating that percentage off goes down if subscribers aren't seeing the ads - it still comes up to less ad-views. What am I missing?
They don't sell a % of hits, they sell impressions. If slashdot gets 1,000,000 impressions a day, and they sell 100,000 at $10 CPM, they make $1000. If they get 1,000,000 impressions, and 20,000 are from subscribers, they still sell 100,000 at $10 CPM, and still make $1000.
So to make up for the lost viewing revenues that Slashdot would get if you viewed the ads,/. has to charge you in the same way they charge the advertisers.
Slashdot doesn't lose any revenues from subscribers since they don't sell 100% of their impressions anyway.
Programmer time to re-integrate local changes into new externally-released version of program ($ppp, recurring, and probably much larger than $mmm, at least).
That's actually an excellent point. If you're making changes to a moving target, and the maintainer seems agreeable to letting in your enhancements, then not only do you save money by not having to constantly merge, but you also get a less buggy product due to increased testing.
Yep, I overlooked that factor. Thanks for the insight.
What's wrong with paying for the services that/. provides?
I'll pay for the bandwidth slashdot provides when slashdot stops claiming copyright on derivitive works of the content I provide. I'll also start redistributing those derivitive works myself.
At it's "heart" Slashdot may be free, but they live in a world of non-free bandwidth.
That's not the real reason they charge. If that was the true problem they could just allow mirrors. People would surely be willing to mirror slashdot content. That they say there would be legal issues is ridiculous. Slashdot seems to have no problem changing the rules and putting BFAs on my content. That they couldn't change the rules again, and allow mirrors, is simply untrue.
The issue is simple. Slashdot wants to profit off what is primarily volunteer content. And so far they're getting away with it. Hell, even I'm letting them get away with it. I'll tell you one thing though. As soon as there's a dmoz-like site for news and posting (with a decent number of users), I'm switching.
However, release code, ask for feature, 2 weeks later function Y is in product X. Take code. Use Code.
Well, first of all that doesn't appear to be the case here. It appears that these people have made fixes to an already existing product.
Secondly, you assume that people are just going to write code for you. It doesn't work that way. Release code, sit around for months waiting, nothing happens. Even for insanely important code like mozilla, AOL employees do almost all of the work. If you want help, you need to market and advertise, and that costs $$$.
Thirdly, even if someone does write your feature, the way you want it, they aren't necessarily going to give you that code they wrote.
Fourthly, you're still going to have to review the new code, at the very least for backdoors.
Fifthly, the poster specifically said that lawyers would need to be consulted before code could be released. Lawyers are at least as expensive as coders, so your "Net loss: $0" is certainly not accurate.
The list goes on and on. Sure, it's sometimes profitable to release code, but certainly not always, and doubtfully in this particular situation.
We have to convince management that it makes sense to give this Intellectual Property away, and then (more difficult) convince Legal that we aren't going to get sued for doing it.
It doesn't make sense to give the Intellectual Property away. Your company exists to make profit. I highly doubt giving away your IP is somehow going to make you more profit than you lose.
Of course, this assumes that you aren't legally required to give away the IP, in which case it probably is profitible to stop breaking the law.
Re:Saw something similar about EULAs in general
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 1
This page isn't a derivative of Slashcode, it's a derivative of the comments.
No, it's a derivitive of both. Slashcode contains the layout of the page. It contains some of the HTML of the page. It contains a few of the images. This page is clearly a derivitive of that layout, that HTML, and those images.
E.g. if I burn a piece of wood, the ashes are not a derivative of fire, but of wood.
I never really understood why people would expect privacy in public places.
Are public bathrooms private places? What about dressing rooms? Underneath the tables at resturants?
Privacy is a matter of where we expect to be private. If the cameras are obvious, or otherwise publicized, and they are in "public places", then I agree with you (and that appears to be the case in this article). But if the cameras are hidden, even if it's a public place, I think that's problematic.
Above all though the key is to have checks to make sure the system is working properly. If used properly, cameras in public places could stop police brutality and could save some innocent people from being falsely imprisoned. But if used improperly, well, we've all read that book.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. If Einstein had posted relativity to slashdot it would receive +26 Interesting, +28 Insightful, +10 Underrated, -2 Troll, -64 Offtopic, for a grand total of -1.
Re:Saw something similar about EULAs in general
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 2
So, the consideration is clearly the purchase price, and the agreement (ie licence) the quid pro quo for your purchase price.
Did you pay Microsoft for your copy of Windows, or did you pay someone else? If you paid Microsoft, maybe you can use this argument, but if you paid someone else, then any "contract" is between you and them. Microsoft has no right to sue you for breaching a contract between the two of you.
Of course this is one particular problem with GPLed software. If someone makes GPLed software, and a company then takes that GPLed software and makes modifications, then a third party modifies that software, the company could still sue the third party for copyright infringement, and there's nothing the third party can do about it, without help from the original author.
It makes for an interesting case for places like slashdot. This web page you're reading is clearly a derivitive work of slashcode, and slashcode is clearly GPLed, but could slashdot sue someone for copying it? It's unclear. But now I've digressed into my GPL rant...
Slashdot Mirror
They're not claiming that they're not violating the DMCA. They're challenging the constitutionality of the DMCA.
You're not allowed to challenge the constitutionality of the DMCA unless you intend to violate the DMCA. Look up the term "standing" in a legal dictionary.
[They] put 3 - 4 pages of mind-numbing legalese in a tiny scroll box without the option of printing the license.
I'm one of those strange people who occassionally actually reads (well, usually skims) the agreements before clicking "I agree", and I've found that about 1/5th of the time the link to the agreement is actually broken! I really don't see how that agreement could possibly hold up in court, but you never know, I guess.
I can only remember one time that I've actually declined clicking "I agree" due to the contents of the agreement. That was for a certain company's tax return service where I interpreted their policy as allowing them to give information from my tax return to third parties. But most of the time I just assume that whatever the company can do without my knowledge they will do, and whatever I can do without their knowledge they won't sue me over. Taking somone's database and letting people access it over the web doesn't really fall into that category.
I agree with you that clickwrap licenses should not be considered a valid contract. Unfortunately, the courts, specifically the Seventh Circuit, does not agree. see ProCD vs Zeidenberg
That's disturbing, but fortunately I don't live in Wisconsin or under the seventh circuit. Also, while the argument is sound in the case where the sale is directly between ProCD and Zeidenberg, the court for some reason failed to address the fact that the sale was between a retail outlet and Zeidenberg. What happens if I buy software, disagree with the license, try to return it, but the store refuses to accept the return?
Really I don't care all that much either way. If shrinkwrap licenses are enforcible, I'll just have to buy less software, and read the terms. But as of now I don't read the terms, because it is my opinion (for myself, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah) that shrinkwrap licenses are unenforcible (in my jurisdiction). It's sad that we have to be so informed on the law (or hire a lawyer) just to open a box of software, but that's the way it is.
The mirroring site is illegally using my words without my permission.
It's at least arguable that it's fair use.
If they want to mirror something I say, they are welcome to contact me & get my permission.
May I mirror your content on my site?
VA suing saves me from having to pursue such legal action individually.
VA has no right to sue over copyright infringement of your content. None.
If you don't want slashdot to make a profit off your words, DON'T POST.
Where did I say that? I don't care if slashdot profits off my words. I just take offense when they try to compare it to "throwing-quarters-in-the-guitar-case". I also find it hypocritical that there are so many slashdot stories critical over the RIAA, when slashdot does the exact same thing.
crash mozilla (warning, will crash mozilla).
slashdot.org& lt;/A> [slashdot.org]
It appears that even though I bought the software from a retailer, Microsoft thinks it is a contract between them and me.
Right, but that is a contract which exists separately from the contract to buy the physical media. And that contract is only valid if there is consideration for both parties, as well as some kind of assent of both parties. The right to use the software is not consideration. That is already given under copyright law.
so could you explain where in that text they do that ?
I license my content to them under the terms of the QingPL. That requires that they license their derivitive works under the QingPL as well. Do you care to explain where they have indicated that they have done that?
A /. mirror would be illegal. That is assuming, of course, that you did not go through the trouble of contacting every person who has ever posted & get their permission to reproduce their comment.
Well, I'm more concerned with whether or not VA Software could sue, not the individuals. The individuals presumably are giving an implicit license to distribute their content.
Either way it doesn't change the matter that slashdot is trying to profit off other people's content, without even paying the people who create that content. Do they have a legal right to do that? Probably. But don't try to make VA Software out to be the good guys.
In fact, if slashdot would do one single thing I would stop complaining. Put a checkbox next to "post anonymously" which says "Allow third party mirrors" (and something similar for article submissions). Then indicate the results of that checkbox somewhere in every post.
Yep. Happens to me with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.9+), which is Mozilla 0.9.9 on Win2K.
So a slashdot mirror would be legal, or not?
Hmm... RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE and others are profitting by selling volunteer content (i.e., Free Software). There is NOTHING wrong with this! The volunteer content is available with or without these companies.
I agree. But that's not what slashdot is doing. Slashdot is taking volunteer content and then copyrighting the derivitive work, and not licensing the derivitive work as open content.
even if they only sell some percentage, the total number of hits they are calculating that percentage off goes down if subscribers aren't seeing the ads - it still comes up to less ad-views. What am I missing?
They don't sell a % of hits, they sell impressions. If slashdot gets 1,000,000 impressions a day, and they sell 100,000 at $10 CPM, they make $1000. If they get 1,000,000 impressions, and 20,000 are from subscribers, they still sell 100,000 at $10 CPM, and still make $1000.
So to make up for the lost viewing revenues that Slashdot would get if you viewed the ads, /. has to charge you in the same way they charge the advertisers.
Slashdot doesn't lose any revenues from subscribers since they don't sell 100% of their impressions anyway.
Uh...OK. How about we host it on your server?
Or how about this guy's server.
Programmer time to re-integrate local changes into new externally-released version of program ($ppp, recurring, and probably much larger than $mmm, at least).
That's actually an excellent point. If you're making changes to a moving target, and the maintainer seems agreeable to letting in your enhancements, then not only do you save money by not having to constantly merge, but you also get a less buggy product due to increased testing.
Yep, I overlooked that factor. Thanks for the insight.
What's wrong with paying for the services that /. provides?
I'll pay for the bandwidth slashdot provides when slashdot stops claiming copyright on derivitive works of the content I provide. I'll also start redistributing those derivitive works myself.
At it's "heart" Slashdot may be free, but they live in a world of non-free bandwidth.
That's not the real reason they charge. If that was the true problem they could just allow mirrors. People would surely be willing to mirror slashdot content. That they say there would be legal issues is ridiculous. Slashdot seems to have no problem changing the rules and putting BFAs on my content. That they couldn't change the rules again, and allow mirrors, is simply untrue.
The issue is simple. Slashdot wants to profit off what is primarily volunteer content. And so far they're getting away with it. Hell, even I'm letting them get away with it. I'll tell you one thing though. As soon as there's a dmoz-like site for news and posting (with a decent number of users), I'm switching.
However, release code, ask for feature, 2 weeks later function Y is in product X. Take code. Use Code.
Well, first of all that doesn't appear to be the case here. It appears that these people have made fixes to an already existing product.
Secondly, you assume that people are just going to write code for you. It doesn't work that way. Release code, sit around for months waiting, nothing happens. Even for insanely important code like mozilla, AOL employees do almost all of the work. If you want help, you need to market and advertise, and that costs $$$.
Thirdly, even if someone does write your feature, the way you want it, they aren't necessarily going to give you that code they wrote.
Fourthly, you're still going to have to review the new code, at the very least for backdoors.
Fifthly, the poster specifically said that lawyers would need to be consulted before code could be released. Lawyers are at least as expensive as coders, so your "Net loss: $0" is certainly not accurate.
The list goes on and on. Sure, it's sometimes profitable to release code, but certainly not always, and doubtfully in this particular situation.
Here are some of the reasons...
We have to convince management that it makes sense to give this Intellectual Property away, and then (more difficult) convince Legal that we aren't going to get sued for doing it.
It doesn't make sense to give the Intellectual Property away. Your company exists to make profit. I highly doubt giving away your IP is somehow going to make you more profit than you lose.
Of course, this assumes that you aren't legally required to give away the IP, in which case it probably is profitible to stop breaking the law.
This page isn't a derivative of Slashcode, it's a derivative of the comments.
No, it's a derivitive of both. Slashcode contains the layout of the page. It contains some of the HTML of the page. It contains a few of the images. This page is clearly a derivitive of that layout, that HTML, and those images.
E.g. if I burn a piece of wood, the ashes are not a derivative of fire, but of wood.
I don't see the relevance.
I never really understood why people would expect privacy in public places.
Are public bathrooms private places? What about dressing rooms? Underneath the tables at resturants?
Privacy is a matter of where we expect to be private. If the cameras are obvious, or otherwise publicized, and they are in "public places", then I agree with you (and that appears to be the case in this article). But if the cameras are hidden, even if it's a public place, I think that's problematic.
Above all though the key is to have checks to make sure the system is working properly. If used properly, cameras in public places could stop police brutality and could save some innocent people from being falsely imprisoned. But if used improperly, well, we've all read that book.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. If Einstein had posted relativity to slashdot it would receive +26 Interesting, +28 Insightful, +10 Underrated, -2 Troll, -64 Offtopic, for a grand total of -1.
So, the consideration is clearly the purchase price, and the agreement (ie licence) the quid pro quo for your purchase price.
Did you pay Microsoft for your copy of Windows, or did you pay someone else? If you paid Microsoft, maybe you can use this argument, but if you paid someone else, then any "contract" is between you and them. Microsoft has no right to sue you for breaching a contract between the two of you.
Of course this is one particular problem with GPLed software. If someone makes GPLed software, and a company then takes that GPLed software and makes modifications, then a third party modifies that software, the company could still sue the third party for copyright infringement, and there's nothing the third party can do about it, without help from the original author.
It makes for an interesting case for places like slashdot. This web page you're reading is clearly a derivitive work of slashcode, and slashcode is clearly GPLed, but could slashdot sue someone for copying it? It's unclear. But now I've digressed into my GPL rant...