From TFA: Meanwhile, lawmakers are eager to reclaim the analog airwaves to improve public safety radio communication. Congress also wants to auction the spectrum to wireless high-speed Internet services. Such an auction is expected to raise up to $30 billion for federal coffers.
A draft bill setting the deadline has bogged down in the House over whether the government should subsidize the purchase of $50 converter boxes for the 15% of households that get their TV signals via antennas. The boxes would convert digital signals to analog.
2 things here. The first is that I have yet to see a converter box under $200. For that matter, most stores don't have any. The TV sets with built in ATSC tuners cost about $350 more than their analog counterparts. If there were $50 converter boxes available, I'd go out and buy one today. The second thing is that if the Feds are going to rake in $30 billion from the sale of spectrum, that should be more than enough to subsidize the purchase of converter boxes. Finally, I think the thing for the government to do is... nothing. Absolutely nothing. Wait until the technology matures on its own and then pull the plug.
I keep a 5.25" floppy drive next to my 3.5" - sitting on a shelf. Seriously, I have been meaning to install them both so I can play some old games I have lying around. Virtual PC + DOS or Win95 is a great way to play "classic" PC games. I just haven't gotten around to imaging everything yet.
"1. I know that there is a strong libertarian faction in this community, who might like to see public education disappear. Let's assume, though, that that isn't going to happen any time soon, and that there will be a public school system for the foreseeable future."
The problem is fundamentally that we have socialized education. Furthermore, the students and their parents have little or no say in the education provided. That's the problem, and that's where the solution has to be. If someone can come up with a solution that doesn't involve true school choice, then I'm all ears. And by true school choice, I mean that parents/students are give a stipend (regardless of income, need, or the government's perception of whether or not their designated public school is failing) that they can take to the school of their choice. All the efforts in the world to increase parental involvement or introduce standardized testing won't change a thing until the government quits hindering education.
I like price point. I think that implies turning product pricing into a science. I was at Target the other day, and they had Bourne Identity for $13.76. Now I know there had to be dozens of focus groups to come up with that number. But the fact is, at $14.99 it would not have landed in my cart. Somehow, $13.76 sounded reasonable to me. That's a price point. It's also much more concise and precise than "how much I'm wiling to pay".
Dude, if you don't like, start your own DNS structure. There's plenty of alt root domains out there. Really, though, I think the solution is for ICANN sell TLDs to anyone who wants them. Just make sure they charge enough to 1) cover all costs of running the root servers and 2) discourage people from registering every last letter in the alphabet. I would think that an annual registration in the realm of $500k ought to be sufficient. Or hell, open things up for auction starting at $100k/year for a 5 year contract.
In other news, Duke sucks.
Your dog wants steak.
FDA surrenders.
Some famous cancer patient unavailable for comment.
I'm sure they'll get along just fine. Cancer is still a long ways from being cured, and once it is, that just means more Boobies links. Won't someone please think of the kittens?
I don't. The price of freedom is eternal vigilence. Right now, the tool is very effective and I personally have the sense to flag Gator for removal. As the product evolves, I may change my evalutation of it. Many products get affected by mergers, acquisitions and threat of lawsuits. Microsoft deserves plenty of bad press for this. But to say that I'm going to throw out my mechanics tools because one wrench is broken is just plain silly.
I have to take a small exception to this. MS Antispyware, even with the downgrade on Claria garbage, is still one of the better products out there. First, I really see two possibilities here: MS completes their acquisition of Claria, at which point Gator will likely be on the chopping block or they don't and the threat level of Gator is restored. Secondly, while it changes the recommendation on Gator, it still detects Gator and the capability to remove Gator is still there. Many users, I'd be at least 50%, will recognize Gator for the junk that it is and want to get rid of it, regardless. Also, it's likely that enough bad press will get MS to rethink the downgrade. I'll keep the tool for now.
Normally I'd vote for the CowboyNeal option, but I gotta figure Taco would win this one hands down. The nice thing about CowboyNeal's dupes is that he confesses his sins on the front page.
Also providing an equivalent to all the thousands of applications and games that exist for Windows, that's the hard part. That's where they fail.
That's the problem: I don't want equivelents. I want my existing software to work. Not mostly work, but just plain work.
Also, I don't have the time for this stuff anymore, either. I used to. I used to download and install nearly any OS I could find and code for it and dink around with it. But I've got a small child now and a house that needs work and I just haven't got the time. I'm finding that a lot of my fellow code warriors are in the same boat and there aren't as many C and Assembly programmers filling in behind us lately. Heck, I haven't written anything in C is a couple of years now.
I've said it before, but it ain't a dupe until CmdrTaco posts it. That's what made his April fools joke of a few years ago particularly funny. Anyone else duping the same article 12 times in one day would be lame.
No, I think the parent post is saying that we, as a society, extend an enforaceable right to the creators of artistic works to thank them for contributing to the advancement of society. We do this by granting them a temporary monopoly on the distribution of their work so that they can in theory profit from the work in proportion to its value to society. Without a certain period of copyright, it's fair to assume that a lot of works would never be created or published. Many of these works, though, borrow from work that is already in the public domain. A rich public domain is also of tremendous value to society. The question to society then, is where do we draw the boundry? What is the ideal length of copyright to promote the creation of works, to fairly compensate the creators or works and to achieve the richest public domain possible? I don't think you'll find a majority of the population who think that a 95 year copyright is anywhere near ideal. Furthermore, I personally think this notion that the Internet changes everything is equally insane. Distribution may be far more efficient, but the obstacles to creation remain the same.
The parent post was not proposing to take anything away from anyone. The parent was merely claiming that there is a fundamental differnce between a granted right and physical property. I didn't take the parent to be anti-copyright either. I'm very much pro-copyright. Copyrights are good and benefit everyone. However a shorter copyright (say, 50 or even 20 years) would likely be far more beneficial to society as a whole.
Offshore servers are pretty useless. If you're transmitting to the US you can be held to answer in a US court. Regardless of where your server might happen to be, if you have assets in the US banking system, they can be siezed. Likewise, if you set foot in the US, you can be arrested. Courts take a very broad view of their jurisdiction.
In any event, regardless of where the servers might be, the courts interpretation of trademark law is correct. Despite some of the implications, this is still a good thing.
I certainly give a hoot. Heck, I'd like to have digital reception, but a new TV is not in the budget and I've yet to see an affordable set top converter box. I say keep the analog signals going until the local brodcasting stations no longer feel its worth the cost to keep them up.
Held: One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses. Pp. 10-24.
Who determines "intent", and how? That would, in most cases, be a jury. When you say loudly and clearly, "Hey, use our product to download copyrighted material for free!", you've pretty much hung yourself out to dry. Also, per your other question, even if you put a disclaimer that says, "DO NOT USE FOR ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING", but you have stacks of internal memos detailing how to make it easier for users to illegally download materials, that's sort of a smoking gun (that you just used to shoot yourself in the foot with). Again, a jury would decide this at trial (unless you opted for a bench trial). On the other hand, a stack of design documents that show you're trying to make legal uses easier and make infringing uses more difficult would tend to exonerate you.
The decision the court handed down clearly shows how this is different from the Sony BetaMax case. There, the court made up a new "fair use" right - timeshifting - and ruled that secondary use for infringement is not a cause of action, so long as the primary intended purpose is legitimate.
Only, firearms and other weapons are marketed towards legitmate uses - hunting and self defense. If someone were marketing a rifle to professional hit men they'd get sued out of existance in a hurry. However, a gun that you can keep in your purse to shoot a potential rapist, well, that's just pandering to paranoia, but perfectly legal none-the-less. The court is bascially saying that marketing a product for an illegal use is creating an ad-hoc conspiracy. The decision seems to be all about intent (which is really what creates a conspiracy in the first place.)
Firstly, I haven't had a chance to read the full ruling yet (I imagine it'll be up on FindLaw shortly), but the snippets I've seen indicate that what is important is intent. If your primary intent is to assist people in infringing copyrights, that creates a cause of action. If you're honestly trying to create something useful for legitimate purposes, then you're absolved. And really, all this ruling does is send the case to trial and let a jury sort it out. I don't think you'll find many people who honestly beleve that Kazaa had any legitimate intent. On the other hand, I think BitTorrent can easily demonstrate that it's legit. I've seen far more valid uses than ilicit uses of BitTorrent. It's clearly intended for legitmate use, even if some people use it improperly - much like the Sony Betamax case.
In fact, the dissenting judges in this case are very conservative-federalists that take a strict reading of the constitution. At least on property rights. The court as a whole is sorta schizophrenic. What really cracks me up is that Justice Thomas writes an excellent and thoughtful dissent - until the second to last paragraph. He then rants about how Emminent Domain laws have largely been used against the poor downtrodden minorities. I've read a number of his opinions and he would be a truly great justice if he didn't keep throwing his cred out the window complaining about how "the Man" is keepin' him and the brothers down.
Nice troll. I'll happily and proudly sign up when my country needs me. However, it'll be a cold day in Hades when I commit to a futile, pointless, preemptive war that only makes the problem of islamofacism worse. For every terrorist that's killed in Iraq, 3 more take his place. The fact is, I don't trust the US governemnt to use my service responsibly.
Of course, the dumbest thing I hear people say is "I'm against the war, but I support the troops." Bullshit. You can't oppose a war and support the people responsible. Responsibility for a war starts at the top and goes all the way down to every man and woman stationed on the front line. How the hell do you think Saddam Hussien stayed in power for so long? He had a quarter million loyal troops.
The reason the Pentagon can't meet recruiting targets is two-fold. They don't pay enough, but more than that, High-school grads don't believe in the war and don't trust the government to use them in an honorable and just fashion. Some creepy database isn't going to fix that. (Ha! See, I got on topic!) If you took the money it takes to build and run this database and put it into enlistment bonuses, you'd probably get more recurits.
How does something like a wedding photo not fall under the category of "work for hire?"
It's simple. In the photographer's standard contract it says that he owns the copyright. You sign the paper and it is so. On the other hand, as the one with the money, you're in a pretty good position to dictate terms. Most weeks, there are far more photographers than weddings. It's a scam. Everything's a scam.
Someone else in this thread had asked why you'd go to WalMart instead of printing photos yourself on an inkjet. The answer of course, is that it's cheaper and you get a better product. Inkjets do a crappy job on pictures. The ink and paper is expensive. The color balance is usually awfull and they never get the right brightness and intensity. There are printers out there that do a good job, but they cost a fortune to own and operate and you get at least as good a print from your local photo lab.
Lastly, as regards to the article, if WalMart won't process your pictures, there's dozens of other places that will, no questions asked. Locally and on the internet. So I say, screw'em.
They are like claiming a TV broadcast is in your possession.
No, they're claiming that anything on your TiVo is in your possession. Wether you know it's there or not. Even if TiVo thinks you're gay. The fundamental difference between the TV and the computer is that the TV doesn't have any short term storage. On the computer, anything you're viewing is explicitly held in RAM and you are therefore in possession while viewing. However, I believe the statute (the federal statute at least) requires 'knowing possession'. In that case, ignorance should be a valid defense, but don't count on it.
It's called being convicted of anti-trust violations and predatory business practices in the US and Europe. Windows sans Media Player was meant to restore competition to the marketplace. Much like the issues with IE and the US prosecution, the remedy doesn't address the problems and does nothing to restore competition. Being forced to do something is what happens when you're convicted in a criminal court.
And as a side note, Slashdot cracks me up sometimes. My parent post was modded many times as Insightful, Interesting, Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated. The correct mods should be Troll and Underrated, possibly Interesting with a final score of around 3. Given the nice assortment of responses I picked up, I think it was a fairly good troll.:)
I could say successful antitrust prosecutions in both the US and Europe are a good sign, but really, it's more because I say so. I think it would make the PC industry interesting for a while. I also believe I should to be in charge. Of everything. People would have fun, whether they wanted to or not.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA: Meanwhile, lawmakers are eager to reclaim the analog airwaves to improve public safety radio communication. Congress also wants to auction the spectrum to wireless high-speed Internet services. Such an auction is expected to raise up to $30 billion for federal coffers.
A draft bill setting the deadline has bogged down in the House over whether the government should subsidize the purchase of $50 converter boxes for the 15% of households that get their TV signals via antennas. The boxes would convert digital signals to analog.
2 things here. The first is that I have yet to see a converter box under $200. For that matter, most stores don't have any. The TV sets with built in ATSC tuners cost about $350 more than their analog counterparts. If there were $50 converter boxes available, I'd go out and buy one today. The second thing is that if the Feds are going to rake in $30 billion from the sale of spectrum, that should be more than enough to subsidize the purchase of converter boxes. Finally, I think the thing for the government to do is... nothing. Absolutely nothing. Wait until the technology matures on its own and then pull the plug.
I keep a 5.25" floppy drive next to my 3.5" - sitting on a shelf. Seriously, I have been meaning to install them both so I can play some old games I have lying around. Virtual PC + DOS or Win95 is a great way to play "classic" PC games. I just haven't gotten around to imaging everything yet.
"1. I know that there is a strong libertarian faction in this community, who might like to see public education disappear. Let's assume, though, that that isn't going to happen any time soon, and that there will be a public school system for the foreseeable future."
The problem is fundamentally that we have socialized education. Furthermore, the students and their parents have little or no say in the education provided. That's the problem, and that's where the solution has to be. If someone can come up with a solution that doesn't involve true school choice, then I'm all ears. And by true school choice, I mean that parents/students are give a stipend (regardless of income, need, or the government's perception of whether or not their designated public school is failing) that they can take to the school of their choice. All the efforts in the world to increase parental involvement or introduce standardized testing won't change a thing until the government quits hindering education.
I like price point. I think that implies turning product pricing into a science. I was at Target the other day, and they had Bourne Identity for $13.76. Now I know there had to be dozens of focus groups to come up with that number. But the fact is, at $14.99 it would not have landed in my cart. Somehow, $13.76 sounded reasonable to me. That's a price point. It's also much more concise and precise than "how much I'm wiling to pay".
Dude, if you don't like, start your own DNS structure. There's plenty of alt root domains out there. Really, though, I think the solution is for ICANN sell TLDs to anyone who wants them. Just make sure they charge enough to 1) cover all costs of running the root servers and 2) discourage people from registering every last letter in the alphabet. I would think that an annual registration in the realm of $500k ought to be sufficient. Or hell, open things up for auction starting at $100k/year for a 5 year contract.
In other news, Duke sucks.
Your dog wants steak.
FDA surrenders.
Some famous cancer patient unavailable for comment.
I'm sure they'll get along just fine. Cancer is still a long ways from being cured, and once it is, that just means more Boobies links. Won't someone please think of the kittens?
How can you possibly trust such a product
I don't. The price of freedom is eternal vigilence. Right now, the tool is very effective and I personally have the sense to flag Gator for removal. As the product evolves, I may change my evalutation of it. Many products get affected by mergers, acquisitions and threat of lawsuits. Microsoft deserves plenty of bad press for this. But to say that I'm going to throw out my mechanics tools because one wrench is broken is just plain silly.
I have to take a small exception to this. MS Antispyware, even with the downgrade on Claria garbage, is still one of the better products out there. First, I really see two possibilities here: MS completes their acquisition of Claria, at which point Gator will likely be on the chopping block or they don't and the threat level of Gator is restored. Secondly, while it changes the recommendation on Gator, it still detects Gator and the capability to remove Gator is still there. Many users, I'd be at least 50%, will recognize Gator for the junk that it is and want to get rid of it, regardless. Also, it's likely that enough bad press will get MS to rethink the downgrade. I'll keep the tool for now.
Normally I'd vote for the CowboyNeal option, but I gotta figure Taco would win this one hands down. The nice thing about CowboyNeal's dupes is that he confesses his sins on the front page.
Also providing an equivalent to all the thousands of applications and games that exist for Windows, that's the hard part. That's where they fail.
That's the problem: I don't want equivelents. I want my existing software to work. Not mostly work, but just plain work.
Also, I don't have the time for this stuff anymore, either. I used to. I used to download and install nearly any OS I could find and code for it and dink around with it. But I've got a small child now and a house that needs work and I just haven't got the time. I'm finding that a lot of my fellow code warriors are in the same boat and there aren't as many C and Assembly programmers filling in behind us lately. Heck, I haven't written anything in C is a couple of years now.
I've said it before, but it ain't a dupe until CmdrTaco posts it. That's what made his April fools joke of a few years ago particularly funny. Anyone else duping the same article 12 times in one day would be lame.
No, I think the parent post is saying that we, as a society, extend an enforaceable right to the creators of artistic works to thank them for contributing to the advancement of society. We do this by granting them a temporary monopoly on the distribution of their work so that they can in theory profit from the work in proportion to its value to society. Without a certain period of copyright, it's fair to assume that a lot of works would never be created or published. Many of these works, though, borrow from work that is already in the public domain. A rich public domain is also of tremendous value to society. The question to society then, is where do we draw the boundry? What is the ideal length of copyright to promote the creation of works, to fairly compensate the creators or works and to achieve the richest public domain possible? I don't think you'll find a majority of the population who think that a 95 year copyright is anywhere near ideal. Furthermore, I personally think this notion that the Internet changes everything is equally insane. Distribution may be far more efficient, but the obstacles to creation remain the same.
The parent post was not proposing to take anything away from anyone. The parent was merely claiming that there is a fundamental differnce between a granted right and physical property. I didn't take the parent to be anti-copyright either. I'm very much pro-copyright. Copyrights are good and benefit everyone. However a shorter copyright (say, 50 or even 20 years) would likely be far more beneficial to society as a whole.
Offshore servers are pretty useless. If you're transmitting to the US you can be held to answer in a US court. Regardless of where your server might happen to be, if you have assets in the US banking system, they can be siezed. Likewise, if you set foot in the US, you can be arrested. Courts take a very broad view of their jurisdiction.
In any event, regardless of where the servers might be, the courts interpretation of trademark law is correct. Despite some of the implications, this is still a good thing.
Hi, I'd like to renegotiate my social contract.
Seriously, the Berne convention only calls for a 50 year copyright minimum. I say, let's be slackers and return to the minimum.
I certainly give a hoot. Heck, I'd like to have digital reception, but a new TV is not in the budget and I've yet to see an affordable set top converter box. I say keep the analog signals going until the local brodcasting stations no longer feel its worth the cost to keep them up.
Held: One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses. Pp. 10-24.
Who determines "intent", and how? That would, in most cases, be a jury. When you say loudly and clearly, "Hey, use our product to download copyrighted material for free!", you've pretty much hung yourself out to dry. Also, per your other question, even if you put a disclaimer that says, "DO NOT USE FOR ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING", but you have stacks of internal memos detailing how to make it easier for users to illegally download materials, that's sort of a smoking gun (that you just used to shoot yourself in the foot with). Again, a jury would decide this at trial (unless you opted for a bench trial). On the other hand, a stack of design documents that show you're trying to make legal uses easier and make infringing uses more difficult would tend to exonerate you.
The decision the court handed down clearly shows how this is different from the Sony BetaMax case. There, the court made up a new "fair use" right - timeshifting - and ruled that secondary use for infringement is not a cause of action, so long as the primary intended purpose is legitimate.
Only, firearms and other weapons are marketed towards legitmate uses - hunting and self defense. If someone were marketing a rifle to professional hit men they'd get sued out of existance in a hurry. However, a gun that you can keep in your purse to shoot a potential rapist, well, that's just pandering to paranoia, but perfectly legal none-the-less. The court is bascially saying that marketing a product for an illegal use is creating an ad-hoc conspiracy. The decision seems to be all about intent (which is really what creates a conspiracy in the first place.)
Firstly, I haven't had a chance to read the full ruling yet (I imagine it'll be up on FindLaw shortly), but the snippets I've seen indicate that what is important is intent. If your primary intent is to assist people in infringing copyrights, that creates a cause of action. If you're honestly trying to create something useful for legitimate purposes, then you're absolved. And really, all this ruling does is send the case to trial and let a jury sort it out. I don't think you'll find many people who honestly beleve that Kazaa had any legitimate intent. On the other hand, I think BitTorrent can easily demonstrate that it's legit. I've seen far more valid uses than ilicit uses of BitTorrent. It's clearly intended for legitmate use, even if some people use it improperly - much like the Sony Betamax case.
In fact, the dissenting judges in this case are very conservative-federalists that take a strict reading of the constitution. At least on property rights. The court as a whole is sorta schizophrenic. What really cracks me up is that Justice Thomas writes an excellent and thoughtful dissent - until the second to last paragraph. He then rants about how Emminent Domain laws have largely been used against the poor downtrodden minorities. I've read a number of his opinions and he would be a truly great justice if he didn't keep throwing his cred out the window complaining about how "the Man" is keepin' him and the brothers down.
Nice troll. I'll happily and proudly sign up when my country needs me. However, it'll be a cold day in Hades when I commit to a futile, pointless, preemptive war that only makes the problem of islamofacism worse. For every terrorist that's killed in Iraq, 3 more take his place. The fact is, I don't trust the US governemnt to use my service responsibly.
Of course, the dumbest thing I hear people say is "I'm against the war, but I support the troops." Bullshit. You can't oppose a war and support the people responsible. Responsibility for a war starts at the top and goes all the way down to every man and woman stationed on the front line. How the hell do you think Saddam Hussien stayed in power for so long? He had a quarter million loyal troops.
The reason the Pentagon can't meet recruiting targets is two-fold. They don't pay enough, but more than that, High-school grads don't believe in the war and don't trust the government to use them in an honorable and just fashion. Some creepy database isn't going to fix that. (Ha! See, I got on topic!) If you took the money it takes to build and run this database and put it into enlistment bonuses, you'd probably get more recurits.
How about spreading some democracy in your own back-yard before trying to take over the world.
My dog spreads plenty of manure in my own back-yard as it is, thank you very much.
How does something like a wedding photo not fall under the category of "work for hire?"
It's simple. In the photographer's standard contract it says that he owns the copyright. You sign the paper and it is so. On the other hand, as the one with the money, you're in a pretty good position to dictate terms. Most weeks, there are far more photographers than weddings. It's a scam. Everything's a scam.
Someone else in this thread had asked why you'd go to WalMart instead of printing photos yourself on an inkjet. The answer of course, is that it's cheaper and you get a better product. Inkjets do a crappy job on pictures. The ink and paper is expensive. The color balance is usually awfull and they never get the right brightness and intensity. There are printers out there that do a good job, but they cost a fortune to own and operate and you get at least as good a print from your local photo lab.
Lastly, as regards to the article, if WalMart won't process your pictures, there's dozens of other places that will, no questions asked. Locally and on the internet. So I say, screw'em.
They are like claiming a TV broadcast is in your possession.
No, they're claiming that anything on your TiVo is in your possession. Wether you know it's there or not. Even if TiVo thinks you're gay. The fundamental difference between the TV and the computer is that the TV doesn't have any short term storage. On the computer, anything you're viewing is explicitly held in RAM and you are therefore in possession while viewing. However, I believe the statute (the federal statute at least) requires 'knowing possession'. In that case, ignorance should be a valid defense, but don't count on it.
It's called being convicted of anti-trust violations and predatory business practices in the US and Europe. Windows sans Media Player was meant to restore competition to the marketplace. Much like the issues with IE and the US prosecution, the remedy doesn't address the problems and does nothing to restore competition. Being forced to do something is what happens when you're convicted in a criminal court.
:)
And as a side note, Slashdot cracks me up sometimes. My parent post was modded many times as Insightful, Interesting, Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated. The correct mods should be Troll and Underrated, possibly Interesting with a final score of around 3. Given the nice assortment of responses I picked up, I think it was a fairly good troll.
I could say successful antitrust prosecutions in both the US and Europe are a good sign, but really, it's more because I say so. I think it would make the PC industry interesting for a while. I also believe I should to be in charge. Of everything. People would have fun, whether they wanted to or not.