Excellent point, except your example is from a California circuit court.
Yes, the 9th circut covers California. I'll grant you that.
It also covers a few other areas, including Washington. Therefore, the court case is perfectly relevent.
Second, the case you refer to is at the state level, specifically the Superior and Supreme courts of Washington state. I'm not claiming problems with the state law or at the state level. I'm claiming issue at the federal level, so the 9th circuit is the place to be, not the state.
Have you (legally) bought any software that wasn't licensed? Companies don't sell software; they never have. They sell the license to use their software. You don't own Windows, or Half-Life, or any other copyrighted software; you're bound by the license agreement, and all you own is what that agreement gives you.
Because we look to the economic realities of the agreement, the fact that the agreement labels itself a "license" and calls the payments "royalties," both terms that arguably imply periodic payment for the use rather than sale of technology, does not control our analysis..... Other courts have reached the same conclusion: software is sold and not licensed..... In particular, the following factors require a finding that distributing software under licenses transfers individual copy ownership: temporally unlimited possession, absence of time limits on copy possession, pricing and payment schemes that are unitary not serial, licenses under which subsequent transfer is neither prohibited nor conditioned on obtaining the licensor's prior approval (only subject to a prohibition against rental and a requirement that any transfer be of the entity), and licenses under which the use restrictions principal purpose is to protect intangible copyrightable subject matter, and not to preserve property interests in individual program copies.
So unless Valve lawyers are going to try to challenge the district appeals court, The individual own that copy. I can smell the lawsuits in the works.
People pirate software and music because it's easy to do, and easy to justify.
Valve is simply removing some of the ease, and not crossing any lines to do so.
Really? I understand that people had downloaded, installed, and were successfully playing warez versions almost immediatly, while the LEGITIMATE PURCHASERS who pre-ordered have been, and in some cases still are, trying to use their LEGITIMATE PURCHASE.
Any security professional can tell you what happens when it's easier to bypass the system than to use the system: The system will fail horribly. In this case, they're likely to see many LEGITIMATE CUSTOMERS go download warez versions simply because it's faster and easier than waiting for their servers. And they have a legitimate right to a copy of the program they paid for, so why shouldn't they be able to run it?
I'm not terribly thrilled with having to validate online before playing, but you're gonna be downloading patches, mods, etc. to avoid the starting bugs anyhow, so what does one more wait get ya?
That's fine, up until the server goes offline. When that happens, Valve might actually be breaking the law.
The 9th District Appeals Court (They are based in WA, which is in the 9th district) decided way back in 2001 that software sales are that, SALES, and not LICENSES. (See this court decision.)
This is an issue that is discussed very often inside the industry, and I was shocked when I heard Valve was going to do it. Required unlocking With a major title, it isn't quite as big of a concern since they'll probably have their servers up for 5 or 8 years.
When smaller companies start doing it (which more will decide to do), and they either fail or have their domain name expire or get hijacked, you can bet there'll be lawsuits following. Especially if the game is considered a sale, since the registration would effectivly block access to an object that the individual owns.
I think the parts of the court decision most applicable is:
Because we look to the economic realities of the agreement,
the fact that the agreement labels itself a "license" and
calls the payments "royalties," both terms that arguably imply
periodic payment for the use rather than sale of technology,
does not control our analysis..... Other courts have reached the same
conclusion: software is sold and not licensed..... In particular, the following factors require a finding that
distributing software under licenses transfers individual copy
ownership: temporally unlimited possession, absence of time limits
on copy possession, pricing and payment schemes that are unitary
not serial, licenses under which subsequent transfer is neither
prohibited nor conditioned on obtaining the licensor's prior
approval (only subject to a prohibition against rental and a
requirement that any transfer be of the entity), and licenses under
which the use restrictions principal purpose is to protect
intangible copyrightable subject matter, and not to preserve
property interests in individual program copies.
Of course, I'm not a laywer so maybe that means something else; It sure seems obviously bad or maybe illegal to me, and the other game developers I have talked to since Valve announced their decision a while back. IANAL,YMMV,ETC.
It only burnt the money because they had a whole stack of it. Usually RFID chips just have a single spark, or a flash of light, or something not really noticible as they short out.
I agree with your comments about kids NOT consenting. As their parent, I wouldn't consent to my kids being tracked, and having their info sent to the police.
Just like I wouldn't consent to my boss installing a tracker for when I arrive at work. Although they already use electronic door keycards to unlock the outside door, usually enough people arrive at the same time that only one or two people get scanned for the large group. And there's always people who forgot their cards and nobody knows.
I'm not normally a tin-foil hatter, but I'm already thinking about countermeasures to use when my passport expires in seven years and I get a shiny new one with an RFID tag in it.
The point is that the people whose jobs are outsourced are not competitive.... when somebody else will do your job for less money, employing you instead puts your employer in a disadvantageous position.... The question is: Does outsourcing save the jobs which are hard to outsource? emphasis added.
I would like to disagree that the cost of employees alone isn't the driving factor. Others include the number of defects, quality of work, oversight, and responsiveness.
I've recently been to two hardware companies, one a small business doing about $10 million in annual sales, another with $2.7 billion in annual sales. Both of them have attempted to outsource their hardware manufacturing to taiwan. Both of them ended up deciding they could do it cheaper and with better quality by keeping it in house.
For the small shop, the problem wasn't the cost, it was cheaper per-board to have it outsourced. Their biggest problem was that it took a month or more for turnaround. The next biggest problem was that they had to ship out the specified BOM to taiwan, since there were few manufacturers for some of the components.
For the big shop, the problem wasn't cost. It was the dynamic nature of the work. Every day, they fill and empty a warehouse of a different product. The complaints that the manager mentioned were that the products were more likely to break, were more often defective, and were often made with cheaper or inferior parts than the specification, sometimes causing the product to fail FCC standards. This was an intermittent problem, so they found that to preserve brand recognition for quality, they needed to keep it in house.
I don't believe that cost alone is the overriding factor. If a company decides based on that alone, the company will have shoddy products, choosing cost over quality.
Of course, I'm not saying that outsourced stuff is necessarily bad, only that the experineces of the companies I've worked with have found it to be the case.
The DOJ nabbed half a dozen guys running DC hubs containing over 40 PETABYTES of illegal/pirated materials. EACH.
Actually, arstechnica, among others mentions the mis-quote that you are talking about, that there was 40 terabytes available through the hub, and that the "agents were able to download 72GB of copyrighted material that included a variety of movies, music, applications, and games."
Now having terabytes available through a P2P network seems like a reasonable number, as does having only 72GB available on the few machines.
Note that they also don't make any distnction between copyrighted materiels which are distributed legally (as many indie composers, musicians, and other artists allow it) versus those materials that aren't authorized (like the cracked Doom3 versions).
Please actually check your sources, rather than just reciting the over-hyped misquotes.
Or, in other states theft of goods, theft of services, grand theft, and petty theft.
Those had crossed my mind when I posted it. I said "theft" is the blanket term for those other specific crimes. As another person stated, those specific crime names are being replaced with the type of terms you listed above.
...
It's been a few years since I took my few undergrad criminal justice classes. In one class, I remember this exact topic was discussed. Our professor (who was a lawyer) stopped another student, told him that 'theft' by itself is NOT a crime. He listed a bunch of other crimes (as I stated in my post) such as larceny, burglary, fraud, and so on.
He also listed several qualified forms of theft, but emphasised that they are never just called "theft". You will not be indicted for "theft". This is in line with what you said above. They are not just "theft".
Also, as another poster has commented, those (older) terms are being migrated over to variants of theft, as the form you specified, like 'theft of x'. Specifically, your list would probably have been larceny, fraud, grand larceny, and petty larceny, in that order, under the older naming.
But I'm not a lawyer nor do I hope to play one on here. I've just had a few law classes back in the day, and I try to point out the obvious mistakes in the "I wanna play slashdot lawyer" croud. And I stick with my original statement, if you care to re-read the grandparent post: THEFT itself isn't a crime under that name, in the US. Unless you care to point out a law or a court case where someone was simply accused of "theft", and not "theft of x", or "x theft".
My definition of "theft" is something physically taken. This is also yours, if you live in the United States and choose to be bound by our laws. For what I hope is the last time, copyright infringement is _not_ theft.
Learn before you speak, people. Neither "theft" nor "stealing" are a crime in the US.
There are many other crimes that might fall under the blanket terms: larceny, burlary, or unlawful posession, for example.
Of course, 'theft' of a term paper, plagerism, is also a copyright infringmenet but rarely called that. The accusation would be "He stole my paper."
On a similar vein, 'theft' of an idea, which can include things like patent infringment, alsu use the words 'stole' and 'theft', as in, "He stole my idea."
Other crimes that could be called 'theft' might be extortion (He stole my money) or fraud (He stole my identity).
THEFT itself isn't a crime under that name, in the US.
Anyway, I find that it's better to treat people with respect and go through the proper channels. You usually end up with what you want and you don't have to worry about people spitting in your food the next time you go there. Like the parent noted, never blame the peons who work at these places. They're not out to screw you, they just have to parrot those lines to keep their jobs. Most of the time if you ask a manager they'll be relieved to have someone else make a decision.
Also, being both firm and reasonable helps. Even the manager would prefer to just parrot the lines, if they can.
In my most recent run-in with returns at a different store (No, I will *never* shop at best-buy, for various reasons), there was a defective part. I was told when I called in that I wouldn't need to bring it in, just the sales receipt. When I arrived, the returns person told me I was basically SOL, so I asked, politely, to speak with their supervisor (not the always the manager, make sure you go through the proper chain of command). The assistant manager came, and simply said that company policy prohibits that type of return. I explained the situation, but was again met with 'company policy'. Only after management tried to brush me off did I act up, and even then, I made a polite show for other customers, not for the manager.
I politely but noisily stated that they have a 100% satisfaction guarenteed policy posted right there on the wall. I had purchaced something, and it was defective. I noisily stated that I had called ahead and done everything I was told to get a replacement, and that I was NOT satisfied. Finally, I stated that I believe they either needed to replace the one part ($4) or I'll be bringing in the entire unit ($75) as defective and demand my money refunded to the credit card, and take my business elsewhere.
For those not customary with returns, note the steps. 0. Be nice, work within the framework, assume they will try to help you, or they are stopped only by policy they can't work around. 1. Credit cards. I've worked with Visa several times. A few photos of a defective product, with the photos developed immediatly after the incident and therefore having the date printed on the paper, will usually mean Visa will side with you, few questions asked. Disputing a charge on a credit card is very easy, taking a single phone call and a certified-mail follow-up letter, including copies of photos. Visa even gave me back $1800 for a bad car repair, because I showed proper documentation that I had tried to work it out with the merchant, and that the merchant wasn't trying to help fix the problem. 2. I tried to work with the clerk, but I understand they have a policy. I even called ahead for verification of the actions I needed to take, and told this to the manager. 3. I politely but noisily pointed out the big 100% Satisfaction Guarenteed sign to nearby customers, stated directly that I was NOT happy with their service or their defective product. 4. I pointed out that they'll have to ship the damaged goods back, which will cost them money, and that it was cheaper for them to simply replace the one part than to lose a larger sale and go through the corporate returns process.
He walked behind the desk, looked for the right stack and pulled out a slip of paper labeled something like 'Replacement For Items Consumed/Damaged In Sales', wrote down the part number, and told me to go select what I felt was a fair replacement.
Even though I was treated well after making a stink, I still haven't been back to their store. The fact that I had to get the simple problem elevated to management, and the fact that I have several times received friendlier service at my locally-owned small business, convinced me to avoid chain stores if at all possible.
I no longer shop at most chain stores. No more Albertson's or Smith's. No more Rite-Aid or Walgreens. No more Wal*mart or Best-Buy. Especially no Target or Eag
Won't matter. Expect a settlement.
on
Best Buy Sued By Ohio
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
While I'd really like watching the state collect a huge sum of money for each violation, it would be tough to prove every single violation. The State knows it, BestBuy knows it.
In the end, I expect a big settlement. Best Buy will admit that they have done nothing wrong, and agree that they won't do something wrong again in the future.
The lawyers involved will recieve a payment of 200 million, the state will recieve a check for 5 million. Oh, and the people actually harmed will get some in-store settlement checks.
They'll end up giving out settlement checks for $4.93 to each customer who is or was a resident of Ohio during the time of their doing-nothing-wrong, and end up with a quarter of them actually redeemed, usually spent on items costing ten times the settlement check, ensuring continued profits for the company.
Just once, I'd like to see the lawyers and state paid with in-store credit settlement checks.
One wonders why someone that can't afford food would have spent money on a computer on which to play these games.
Assuming that even the poor can get credit, it's just too easy to "buy" things you want, but can't afford.
You don't have to be perpetually poor to qualify for food stamps. Temporary poor qualify as well.
You are apperently employed at the moment. But that could change. Lets assume you are suddenly unemployed, and you have a wife and two kids.
Now that you are suddently and hypothetically unemployed... Flipping burgers at minimum wage will not continue to pay your housing payments and whatever loans (car, student, consumer debt, whatever) that you have, plus food for your wife and kids. Regardless of if you qualify for unemployment checks, your total income is probably still less than the food stamp eligibility requirements for your area.
I doubt you, as a self-proclaimed nerd, will sell your computers just because you are suddenly unemployed, but qualify for food stamps.
If you qualify for food stamps, the little cash you have will go that much more toward other living expenses. In that situation, they are a god-send.
The US Bureau of Laber Statistics unemployemnt statistics released this month shows over 8 MILLION people currently unemployed. I know many geeks who are under-employed and qualify for food stamps, yet don't show up on the unemployed stats. Lots of these people will have computers and other goods, that you think they shouldn't have because of easy credit.
But you are still gainfully employed, unlike millions of others. You ought to be grateful.
...worthless for finding jobs. In "What Color Is Your Parachute", one of the...
Yes, I know. That wasn't what I was mentioning. And yes, it's a great book.
I was just commenting that IBM has spammed the databases with thousands of jobs, and that from a really quick sample, they were roughly 2/3 sales jobs, 1/3 installation jobs, and <1% programming jobs.
I was not implying anything about how likly it was for any individual to find a job using those engines, nor anything else about them. Only a quick point that dice lists over 1000 of the ~6000 jobs they say will be in the US, and their seeming lack of actual development work.
And of those 6K jobs, I'd wager most will be sales, marketing, or support roles with the actual development happening offshore.
IBM has been filling the job-hunting sites with lots of those jobs lately. For a list, try dice. Note that most, about 3/4, seem to be (sales) consultants. Of the remaining quarter, a majority seem to be supporting existing installations and require a significant amount of travel. The few developer jobs, all but one that I looked at had a relativly high level of travel.
Of course, that's just a sampling from the few pages of them I've looked at. I'm not going to go look through the almost 1000 jobs they have posted right now. Maybe on the last half, the ratios are reversed. But I doubt it.
As of last week our core group no longer uses email. We agreed, as a group, that email is not productive as compared to a combination of paper memos, phone calls, faxes and runners. The amount of spam that we had to sift through and the money and effort to fight it wasn't worth the trouble.
<snip>
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I love the disparity between your comment and your sig. It is trivial to set up a mail daemon that only runs inside the office or known set of offices, optionally requires a login, and doesn't accept external mail. If you have somebody who is competent at non-Microsoft system admin, they should be able to set up that kind of mail system with less total cost to the organization than a system of faxes and runners.
As so many people have commented, and so many have retorted, you don't need to sign an employment contract as written.
I've been through 5 jobs with various corps. At the good places to work, they had no problem whatever with me striking those lines. One of them didn't let me strike the line, but let me write my own ammendment (I have an employment lawyer friend who helped me) which was trivially accepted.
But as you pointed out, that isn't always the case. When I was offered a job at a large health company, they said basically "You sign it unmodified or you don't get the job." Fortunately, I had other offers on the table, so it wasn't a big deal to just walk away.
From what I have personally seen, and from what I've heard from co-workers, the only reason to be working for a company that has a non-negotiable employment contract is that you are really hard up for money, or you want a company that is very old and established (meaning you have more job security).
Just remember, your employment contract IS a contract, don't sign it if you don't agree to it. If that means your personal projects get put on hold while you work there, then so be it.
I dont think you get it. This is supposed to be aligned via software making it about 126487612834687913x easier. I mean even 4 doesnt seem bad but what if you had 24?
There have been conference papers for years about auto-calibration of multiple projectors.
At Vis2000 there were papers about automagically aligning and color-calibrating projectors (ie: the same seamless images using 4 or more displays) using only a set of projectors and a webcam. I have seen other papers on the topic at other conferences, but not attended their talks. Even their school website misses the signficant point, but that's expected from reporters.
THAT'S NOT WHAT THE TECHNOLOGY DEMO IS FOR. They're running the demo for the US Department of Homeland Security. The Homeland Security people aren't interested in the fact that they can align the displays. They're interested in the fact that they're doing it using encrypted scalable imaging.
The fact that they have a bunch of calibrated displays is not interesting. The fact that they're using CKMSS and encrypted video is interesting.
So it's between 0.5 and 2 million. That's a gigantic margin of error. I wonder who generated it and how they came to that conclusion.
Well, it isn't exactly like they went out and counted all the people who died when Saddam's administration gassed the countryside. They didn't exactly count the people who were put into mass graves for political crimes. They didn't exactly take keep a count of the number of agrarian and subsistance farmers who couldn't adapt and ended up dying reched deaths as poor vagabonds when their lands were made baren.
So even the best estimate will have a huge margin of error. If it didn't you can tell they're either lying, or omniscient. In the latter case, of course, the number wouldn't be an estimate.
I know that the DMCA restrict to do many of those things and the debate is not if the DMCA allow us to do them or not
Thank you, that makes a reasonable debate possible.
All your points are good. Let me play devil's advocate against each of them. I'm not going to argue about what should be, or what ought to be legal but isn't, I'm going to argue with what I know about copyright law and the EULA that come in the consoles I own. I will assume that all of them are enforcable.
There is an Open Source, Free, Legal Xbox Development Kit. And not only that but once you installed Linux on the Xbox you can program with regular development tools because you do not program for the "W2K modified for Xbox" that natively run on a Xbox anymore but for Linux.
I'd say that's akin to the burglary tools argument. The tool does have legitimate uses for developers right now, but not for many others. If a large enough base of games is developed, then people in possession of legally developed unsigned games should be permitted to have modchips, until they are widespread. But that isn't the case right now.
But before we get carried away on that, be honest: How many modchips are used for programing? How many are for homebrew games? How many are for illegally copied games?
Tools like OpenXDK (the "Open Source, Free, Legal Xbox Development Kit") requires an existing dev kit (which means you wouldn't need OpenXDK in the first place), or an illegal modchip, or an exploit that violates the license agreement printed on outside of the XBox's purchase box and its included EULA. Much of the development of OpenXDK is openly done by reverse engineering of the hardware, which strictly speaking, is also in violation of the EULA for the xbox. According to the terms of the licenses, doing that is a breach of contract for the terms of use.
Backup of the games that you purchase
Copyright law permits making a backup copy. The EULA of the consoles does not; they are more restrictive that copyright law in that respect. All major publishers that I have looked at offer a disc replacement policy for a reasonable price.Most ask you to call for details. If they didn't offer replacement of a copy-protected game, they'd have an open offer for lawsuits; simply having your call elevated to a manager, recording the call, and reminding them of that fact would be enough for even the most reluctant company. In many respects, this is better than what you are offered with books. My kids rip and draw in books, but I don't see the publishers offering to replace them at 10% of the original cost. Yes, I know that I am entitled to make a copy of the books, and pay to have them bound, but it isn't really worth the effort.
As far as kids trashing discs, yes, they do, and yes mine have damaged one disc. I do something that many parents apperently don't, which is to teach my kids how to treat discs. The one damaged disc was repaired by resurfacing. I don't disagree with your argument about making copies, but compared to the physical-world analog, you have a much better deal with software right now by having it replaced by the publisher. You don't usually see people complain to the publisher when a kid takes a marker to their hardbound, gold-gilt Tolkien series. Yes, kids like to get into games and do it all themselves, and yes it is easy to damage the discs. But it is also easy to take care of the discs, and prevent the kids from getting into them.
Installing Linux on Xbox... top-of-the-range DVD player
It isn't illegal to install Linux. There are (completely legal) tools out there to flash the XBox BIOS to install Linux, but it prevents you from playing legitamate xbox games. Going back to the vehicle analogy, it's like wanting to install a corn-burning engine, and then complaining that you can't use gasoline
Yes you do. You own a copy of a copyrighted work. That copy is yours as much as your car or your computer or your shoes.
That copy is yours, yes. But you DON'T own the IP rights, such as copyrights.
Let's assume you have a copy of Harry Potter 6, just a little bit early. If you don't have any other contractual oblications and are simply under copyright regulations, you are free to do just about anything EXCEPT copy it. You can highlight in it, you pass it on to your friends, you can read it aloud to your kids in private, you can give it to a library if you want. But you CANNOT LEGALLY put copies on the Internet, or the whole thing through the copier and give those copies to anybody who asks.
Just like your car and computer and shoes, you are free to use them, sell them, or dispose of them however you want. But you can't make an identical copy of your car and distribute it. You can't make a copy of your computer's nvidia 6800 gpu, manufacture it, and distribute it as your own. You can't disassemble your Nikes and make an identical one, mass produce them, and sell tham as your own.
Those rights WERE NOT TRANSFERRED through the sale.
Cars are used in bank robberies, but they are still legal.
Knives are used in murders, but they are still legal.
Computers are used for vandalism and fraud, but they are still legal.
Almost anything has an illegitimate use, but we don't outlaw the thing, we outlaw the use.
Lets start with the last statement first. That statement means it must be posited that possesion of drugs is legal, but use is a crime. You must posit that possesion of burglary tools by anyone is legal, but actually using them to commit a burglary is a crime. You must posit that possession of large arms is legal, but the use of them is a crime (internationally). You must posit that possession of stolen property is legal, but actually stealing it is not.
I have heard some people argue along those lines, but never successfully. Under common law, possession of an item for which you have no legal use AND where the primary observable purpose of possession is to commit a crime, is a crime. This generally includes possesion of controled substances (drugs), possesion of obscene material, possession of burglary tools, possession of stolen goods, and so on.
Possession of items is permitted when the item is demonstrably not going to be used for crime.
Example 1: burglary tools. People who use the tools in their employment or have other legitamate uses for a tool can possess them. Locksmiths can possess lock picks. Car dealerships can possess slim-jims. Carpenters can posses crowbars.
Example 2: hemp in the US. Possessing marijuana is a crime, except for a very short list of people who have medical permission. Companies who make things like hemp rope and bracelets can obtain proper permission to have and grow the Cannabis plants, for use in harvesting the seeds and fiber.
Now, for your other (awful) anologs:
Cars have other significant and legal uses. Knives have other signficant and legal uses. Computers have other signficant and legal uses.
BUT
Mod chips have only one signficant purpose: Copyright infringement.
Mod chips do not permit you to make your own games, you need a devkit to do that.
Mod chips do not permit you do legally modify a game. You might say you should be able to tweak a game and burn your own CD for that. But you're wrong. You must have permission from the copyright owner of the game, and I don't beleive any console game makers have granted that permission.
Mod chips DO permit you to play games made by somebody who legitimately has a devkit, but because of restrictions that the company places on the devkit, the company shouldn't be distributing those anyway. So that isn't a significant use.
This isn't the same as not being able to modify clothing or an engine. Modifying clothing doesn't (usually) violate copyright laws, doesn't have the possibility of harming other, or keeping businesses from earning their legitimate revenue. Modifying a car engine is legal, but for many modifications, you can't drive the car on the streets again until it is evaluated for safety and other standards, for the good of society. Copyright laws, generally, are also for the good of society. There are portions of the DMCA that I am against, but generally speaking, copyright means that when you write or publish something, you are going to get paid. Without copyright protection, your book could sell billions of copies and you'd never see a penny.
The courts and lawmakers have not outlawed other modifications, only the obvious case of copyright infringement. You are free to alter any other designs all you want. You are free to make a custom case that looks like your best friend Steve, with a slot-drive in his mouth, hands acting as the controller, and glasses that have little LCD screens on it. You are free to build a 100-disk changer for your console. You are free to make a new controller so you
The reason why SMP systems are more responsive for most people is because there's lots of "wasted" CPU - you can't easily use all CPUs. I'd like to see how responsive your system is when you have the same number of CPU intensive programs running as the number of processors you have.
Multiple CPUs *do* help on modern OS's. Most programs, including the OS and its API, spawn off threads for many reasons. You say I can't easily use all the CPUs. In reality, you could wake up a dozen or more threads (meaning that for an instant, you could use that many CPUs) by simply moving the mouse between two windows.
Just checking on four local boxes: On my XP development machine, I have 501 threads running under 44 processes, with about 5% CPU usage. On a small XP server box, I've got 258 & 18, and moderate load. Our multi-CPU linux and Solaris boxes are similarly not seriously loaded (about 95% idle, a few hundred processes, and I'm sure there are thousands of threads).
Most of us don't use ALL the CPU speed ALL the time, although math intensive simulations (such as games) can do that. More often, your apps end up waiting for the user, the disk, the network, and other I/O. But we don't think about that time. We don't care if the back buffers of the animated.GIF files are running 100 milliseconds behind what they ought to. Most of us only care that when I push the 'x' key, that the little glyph better show up on the screem immediatly; when we move the mouse around our desk, it better move the arrow at the same time, and light up any hover buttons instantly.
Usually when you interact with the box, you end up waking up lots of threads. Just moving the mouse around can wake up dozens or possibly even hundreds of threads. The mouse generates some interrupts, that needs to be processed by one or more drivers, drivers report to the OS which generates messages that are queued in the windowing system, movements generate even more messages which are all dispatched to programs, each program has to deal with the mouse movements individually. Events are handled by possibly several applications, each of these incuring their own set of scheduling problems, cache misses, and memory or disk accesses. It might not seem like much to you, but it really is a lot of CPU work to move the mouse out of one application window, and over an image-changing icon in another app. If it doesn't happen within 50 milliseconds or so, you normally feel that the system is pretty slow.
Every one of those things incurs a cost from scheduling and queuing to changing of the CPU protection ring. For that split second, your computer has lots of work to do.
The second processor cuts that split-second load almost in half, which is noticable to most of us. Sure, there is a tiny bit of overhead, but if you've did much low level programming, you'd know that all those CPU state changes and context switches are EXPENSIVE, splitting those expensive calls between two CPUs really helps.
For the price of most dual CPU systems I'd rather spend a bit more and get two PCs.
That is your choice. Seeing as I alrady have enough computers to do the work I need, I'd rather get a 2 CPU, or even a 4 CPU, box for my local software development. Spend the money where you get the most bang for your buck. For you, that might mean a second machine. For me, where I have multiple monitors hooked up to my XP boxes, for watching and debugging the interaction between applications, the most bang for my buck is in a multi-CPU system.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the 9th circut covers California. I'll grant you that.
It also covers a few other areas, including Washington. Therefore, the court case is perfectly relevent.
Second, the case you refer to is at the state level, specifically the Superior and Supreme courts of Washington state. I'm not claiming problems with the state law or at the state level. I'm claiming issue at the federal level, so the 9th circuit is the place to be, not the state.
frob
Specifically, from their court ruling,
So unless Valve lawyers are going to try to challenge the district appeals court, The individual own that copy. I can smell the lawsuits in the works.
frob
Any security professional can tell you what happens when it's easier to bypass the system than to use the system: The system will fail horribly. In this case, they're likely to see many LEGITIMATE CUSTOMERS go download warez versions simply because it's faster and easier than waiting for their servers. And they have a legitimate right to a copy of the program they paid for, so why shouldn't they be able to run it?
The 9th District Appeals Court (They are based in WA, which is in the 9th district) decided way back in 2001 that software sales are that, SALES, and not LICENSES. (See this court decision.)
This is an issue that is discussed very often inside the industry, and I was shocked when I heard Valve was going to do it. Required unlocking With a major title, it isn't quite as big of a concern since they'll probably have their servers up for 5 or 8 years.
When smaller companies start doing it (which more will decide to do), and they either fail or have their domain name expire or get hijacked, you can bet there'll be lawsuits following. Especially if the game is considered a sale, since the registration would effectivly block access to an object that the individual owns.
I think the parts of the court decision most applicable is:
Of course, I'm not a laywer so maybe that means something else; It sure seems obviously bad or maybe illegal to me, and the other game developers I have talked to since Valve announced their decision a while back. IANAL,YMMV,ETC.
It only burnt the money because they had a whole stack of it. Usually RFID chips just have a single spark, or a flash of light, or something not really noticible as they short out.
Just like I wouldn't consent to my boss installing a tracker for when I arrive at work. Although they already use electronic door keycards to unlock the outside door, usually enough people arrive at the same time that only one or two people get scanned for the large group. And there's always people who forgot their cards and nobody knows.
Put it in the microwave.- Mr. Nader thinks changing his decision on hot dogs is an issue of national significance.
- Mr. Kerry thinks trust and honesty is something that he can change his mind about.
- Mr. Bush declined to answer.
Relativly speaking, I think Mr. Bush had the smartest of the answers. But that's not saying much.I've recently been to two hardware companies, one a small business doing about $10 million in annual sales, another with $2.7 billion in annual sales. Both of them have attempted to outsource their hardware manufacturing to taiwan. Both of them ended up deciding they could do it cheaper and with better quality by keeping it in house.
For the small shop, the problem wasn't the cost, it was cheaper per-board to have it outsourced. Their biggest problem was that it took a month or more for turnaround. The next biggest problem was that they had to ship out the specified BOM to taiwan, since there were few manufacturers for some of the components.
For the big shop, the problem wasn't cost. It was the dynamic nature of the work. Every day, they fill and empty a warehouse of a different product. The complaints that the manager mentioned were that the products were more likely to break, were more often defective, and were often made with cheaper or inferior parts than the specification, sometimes causing the product to fail FCC standards. This was an intermittent problem, so they found that to preserve brand recognition for quality, they needed to keep it in house.
I don't believe that cost alone is the overriding factor. If a company decides based on that alone, the company will have shoddy products, choosing cost over quality.
Of course, I'm not saying that outsourced stuff is necessarily bad, only that the experineces of the companies I've worked with have found it to be the case.
frob
Actually, arstechnica, among others mentions the mis-quote that you are talking about, that there was 40 terabytes available through the hub, and that the "agents were able to download 72GB of copyrighted material that included a variety of movies, music, applications, and games."
Now having terabytes available through a P2P network seems like a reasonable number, as does having only 72GB available on the few machines.
Note that they also don't make any distnction between copyrighted materiels which are distributed legally (as many indie composers, musicians, and other artists allow it) versus those materials that aren't authorized (like the cracked Doom3 versions).
Please actually check your sources, rather than just reciting the over-hyped misquotes.
frob
...
It's been a few years since I took my few undergrad criminal justice classes. In one class, I remember this exact topic was discussed. Our professor (who was a lawyer) stopped another student, told him that 'theft' by itself is NOT a crime. He listed a bunch of other crimes (as I stated in my post) such as larceny, burglary, fraud, and so on.
He also listed several qualified forms of theft, but emphasised that they are never just called "theft". You will not be indicted for "theft". This is in line with what you said above. They are not just "theft".
Also, as another poster has commented, those (older) terms are being migrated over to variants of theft, as the form you specified, like 'theft of x'. Specifically, your list would probably have been larceny, fraud, grand larceny, and petty larceny, in that order, under the older naming.
But I'm not a lawyer nor do I hope to play one on here. I've just had a few law classes back in the day, and I try to point out the obvious mistakes in the "I wanna play slashdot lawyer" croud. And I stick with my original statement, if you care to re-read the grandparent post: THEFT itself isn't a crime under that name, in the US. Unless you care to point out a law or a court case where someone was simply accused of "theft", and not "theft of x", or "x theft".
frob
There are many other crimes that might fall under the blanket terms: larceny, burlary, or unlawful posession, for example.
Of course, 'theft' of a term paper, plagerism, is also a copyright infringmenet but rarely called that. The accusation would be "He stole my paper."
On a similar vein, 'theft' of an idea, which can include things like patent infringment, alsu use the words 'stole' and 'theft', as in, "He stole my idea."
Other crimes that could be called 'theft' might be extortion (He stole my money) or fraud (He stole my identity).
THEFT itself isn't a crime under that name, in the US.
Also, being both firm and reasonable helps. Even the manager would prefer to just parrot the lines, if they can.
In my most recent run-in with returns at a different store (No, I will *never* shop at best-buy, for various reasons), there was a defective part. I was told when I called in that I wouldn't need to bring it in, just the sales receipt. When I arrived, the returns person told me I was basically SOL, so I asked, politely, to speak with their supervisor (not the always the manager, make sure you go through the proper chain of command). The assistant manager came, and simply said that company policy prohibits that type of return. I explained the situation, but was again met with 'company policy'. Only after management tried to brush me off did I act up, and even then, I made a polite show for other customers, not for the manager.
I politely but noisily stated that they have a 100% satisfaction guarenteed policy posted right there on the wall. I had purchaced something, and it was defective. I noisily stated that I had called ahead and done everything I was told to get a replacement, and that I was NOT satisfied. Finally, I stated that I believe they either needed to replace the one part ($4) or I'll be bringing in the entire unit ($75) as defective and demand my money refunded to the credit card, and take my business elsewhere.
For those not customary with returns, note the steps. 0. Be nice, work within the framework, assume they will try to help you, or they are stopped only by policy they can't work around. 1. Credit cards. I've worked with Visa several times. A few photos of a defective product, with the photos developed immediatly after the incident and therefore having the date printed on the paper, will usually mean Visa will side with you, few questions asked. Disputing a charge on a credit card is very easy, taking a single phone call and a certified-mail follow-up letter, including copies of photos. Visa even gave me back $1800 for a bad car repair, because I showed proper documentation that I had tried to work it out with the merchant, and that the merchant wasn't trying to help fix the problem. 2. I tried to work with the clerk, but I understand they have a policy. I even called ahead for verification of the actions I needed to take, and told this to the manager. 3. I politely but noisily pointed out the big 100% Satisfaction Guarenteed sign to nearby customers, stated directly that I was NOT happy with their service or their defective product. 4. I pointed out that they'll have to ship the damaged goods back, which will cost them money, and that it was cheaper for them to simply replace the one part than to lose a larger sale and go through the corporate returns process.
He walked behind the desk, looked for the right stack and pulled out a slip of paper labeled something like 'Replacement For Items Consumed/Damaged In Sales', wrote down the part number, and told me to go select what I felt was a fair replacement.
Even though I was treated well after making a stink, I still haven't been back to their store. The fact that I had to get the simple problem elevated to management, and the fact that I have several times received friendlier service at my locally-owned small business, convinced me to avoid chain stores if at all possible.
I no longer shop at most chain stores. No more Albertson's or Smith's. No more Rite-Aid or Walgreens. No more Wal*mart or Best-Buy. Especially no Target or Eag
While I'd really like watching the state collect a huge sum of money for each violation, it would be tough to prove every single violation. The State knows it, BestBuy knows it.
In the end, I expect a big settlement. Best Buy will admit that they have done nothing wrong, and agree that they won't do something wrong again in the future.
The lawyers involved will recieve a payment of 200 million, the state will recieve a check for 5 million. Oh, and the people actually harmed will get some in-store settlement checks.
They'll end up giving out settlement checks for $4.93 to each customer who is or was a resident of Ohio during the time of their doing-nothing-wrong, and end up with a quarter of them actually redeemed, usually spent on items costing ten times the settlement check, ensuring continued profits for the company.
Just once, I'd like to see the lawyers and state paid with in-store credit settlement checks.
frob
You are apperently employed at the moment. But that could change. Lets assume you are suddenly unemployed, and you have a wife and two kids.
Now that you are suddently and hypothetically unemployed... Flipping burgers at minimum wage will not continue to pay your housing payments and whatever loans (car, student, consumer debt, whatever) that you have, plus food for your wife and kids. Regardless of if you qualify for unemployment checks, your total income is probably still less than the food stamp eligibility requirements for your area.
I doubt you, as a self-proclaimed nerd, will sell your computers just because you are suddenly unemployed, but qualify for food stamps.
If you qualify for food stamps, the little cash you have will go that much more toward other living expenses. In that situation, they are a god-send.
The US Bureau of Laber Statistics unemployemnt statistics released this month shows over 8 MILLION people currently unemployed. I know many geeks who are under-employed and qualify for food stamps, yet don't show up on the unemployed stats. Lots of these people will have computers and other goods, that you think they shouldn't have because of easy credit.
But you are still gainfully employed, unlike millions of others. You ought to be grateful.
I was just commenting that IBM has spammed the databases with thousands of jobs, and that from a really quick sample, they were roughly 2/3 sales jobs, 1/3 installation jobs, and <1% programming jobs.
I was not implying anything about how likly it was for any individual to find a job using those engines, nor anything else about them. Only a quick point that dice lists over 1000 of the ~6000 jobs they say will be in the US, and their seeming lack of actual development work.
Of course, that's just a sampling from the few pages of them I've looked at. I'm not going to go look through the almost 1000 jobs they have posted right now. Maybe on the last half, the ratios are reversed. But I doubt it.
I've been through 5 jobs with various corps. At the good places to work, they had no problem whatever with me striking those lines. One of them didn't let me strike the line, but let me write my own ammendment (I have an employment lawyer friend who helped me) which was trivially accepted.
But as you pointed out, that isn't always the case. When I was offered a job at a large health company, they said basically "You sign it unmodified or you don't get the job." Fortunately, I had other offers on the table, so it wasn't a big deal to just walk away.
From what I have personally seen, and from what I've heard from co-workers, the only reason to be working for a company that has a non-negotiable employment contract is that you are really hard up for money, or you want a company that is very old and established (meaning you have more job security).
Just remember, your employment contract IS a contract, don't sign it if you don't agree to it. If that means your personal projects get put on hold while you work there, then so be it.
One of the big point of his papers is copyright protection.
Think: Distributed DRM.
Think: Broadband Movie Distribution.
Think: Projectors and TVs can have CKMSS included in them.
Think: Keep the movie encrypted from the studio to the home theater projector, and REQUIRE the use of CKMSS-enabled projectors or TVs.
Think: MPAA looking to replace CSS with some new shared-key system like CKMSS.
Just some thoughts.
THAT'S NOT WHAT THE TECHNOLOGY DEMO IS FOR. They're running the demo for the US Department of Homeland Security. The Homeland Security people aren't interested in the fact that they can align the displays. They're interested in the fact that they're doing it using encrypted scalable imaging.
The fact that they have a bunch of calibrated displays is not interesting. The fact that they're using CKMSS and encrypted video is interesting.
So even the best estimate will have a huge margin of error. If it didn't you can tell they're either lying, or omniscient. In the latter case, of course, the number wouldn't be an estimate.
Thank you, that makes a reasonable debate possible.
All your points are good. Let me play devil's advocate against each of them. I'm not going to argue about what should be, or what ought to be legal but isn't, I'm going to argue with what I know about copyright law and the EULA that come in the consoles I own. I will assume that all of them are enforcable.
I'd say that's akin to the burglary tools argument. The tool does have legitimate uses for developers right now, but not for many others. If a large enough base of games is developed, then people in possession of legally developed unsigned games should be permitted to have modchips, until they are widespread. But that isn't the case right now.
But before we get carried away on that, be honest: How many modchips are used for programing? How many are for homebrew games? How many are for illegally copied games?
Tools like OpenXDK (the "Open Source, Free, Legal Xbox Development Kit") requires an existing dev kit (which means you wouldn't need OpenXDK in the first place), or an illegal modchip, or an exploit that violates the license agreement printed on outside of the XBox's purchase box and its included EULA. Much of the development of OpenXDK is openly done by reverse engineering of the hardware, which strictly speaking, is also in violation of the EULA for the xbox. According to the terms of the licenses, doing that is a breach of contract for the terms of use.
Copyright law permits making a backup copy. The EULA of the consoles does not; they are more restrictive that copyright law in that respect. All major publishers that I have looked at offer a disc replacement policy for a reasonable price. Most ask you to call for details. If they didn't offer replacement of a copy-protected game, they'd have an open offer for lawsuits; simply having your call elevated to a manager, recording the call, and reminding them of that fact would be enough for even the most reluctant company. In many respects, this is better than what you are offered with books. My kids rip and draw in books, but I don't see the publishers offering to replace them at 10% of the original cost. Yes, I know that I am entitled to make a copy of the books, and pay to have them bound, but it isn't really worth the effort.
As far as kids trashing discs, yes, they do, and yes mine have damaged one disc. I do something that many parents apperently don't, which is to teach my kids how to treat discs. The one damaged disc was repaired by resurfacing. I don't disagree with your argument about making copies, but compared to the physical-world analog, you have a much better deal with software right now by having it replaced by the publisher. You don't usually see people complain to the publisher when a kid takes a marker to their hardbound, gold-gilt Tolkien series. Yes, kids like to get into games and do it all themselves, and yes it is easy to damage the discs. But it is also easy to take care of the discs, and prevent the kids from getting into them.
It isn't illegal to install Linux. There are (completely legal) tools out there to flash the XBox BIOS to install Linux, but it prevents you from playing legitamate xbox games. Going back to the vehicle analogy, it's like wanting to install a corn-burning engine, and then complaining that you can't use gasoline
Let's assume you have a copy of Harry Potter 6, just a little bit early. If you don't have any other contractual oblications and are simply under copyright regulations, you are free to do just about anything EXCEPT copy it. You can highlight in it, you pass it on to your friends, you can read it aloud to your kids in private, you can give it to a library if you want. But you CANNOT LEGALLY put copies on the Internet, or the whole thing through the copier and give those copies to anybody who asks.
Just like your car and computer and shoes, you are free to use them, sell them, or dispose of them however you want. But you can't make an identical copy of your car and distribute it. You can't make a copy of your computer's nvidia 6800 gpu, manufacture it, and distribute it as your own. You can't disassemble your Nikes and make an identical one, mass produce them, and sell tham as your own.
Those rights WERE NOT TRANSFERRED through the sale.
frob
Lets start with the last statement first. That statement means it must be posited that possesion of drugs is legal, but use is a crime. You must posit that possesion of burglary tools by anyone is legal, but actually using them to commit a burglary is a crime. You must posit that possession of large arms is legal, but the use of them is a crime (internationally). You must posit that possession of stolen property is legal, but actually stealing it is not.
I have heard some people argue along those lines, but never successfully. Under common law, possession of an item for which you have no legal use AND where the primary observable purpose of possession is to commit a crime, is a crime. This generally includes possesion of controled substances (drugs), possesion of obscene material, possession of burglary tools, possession of stolen goods, and so on.
Possession of items is permitted when the item is demonstrably not going to be used for crime.
Example 1: burglary tools. People who use the tools in their employment or have other legitamate uses for a tool can possess them. Locksmiths can possess lock picks. Car dealerships can possess slim-jims. Carpenters can posses crowbars.
Example 2: hemp in the US. Possessing marijuana is a crime, except for a very short list of people who have medical permission. Companies who make things like hemp rope and bracelets can obtain proper permission to have and grow the Cannabis plants, for use in harvesting the seeds and fiber.
Now, for your other (awful) anologs:
Cars have other significant and legal uses.
Knives have other signficant and legal uses.
Computers have other signficant and legal uses.
BUT
Mod chips have only one signficant purpose: Copyright infringement.
Mod chips do not permit you to make your own games, you need a devkit to do that.
Mod chips do not permit you do legally modify a game. You might say you should be able to tweak a game and burn your own CD for that. But you're wrong. You must have permission from the copyright owner of the game, and I don't beleive any console game makers have granted that permission.
Mod chips DO permit you to play games made by somebody who legitimately has a devkit, but because of restrictions that the company places on the devkit, the company shouldn't be distributing those anyway. So that isn't a significant use.
This isn't the same as not being able to modify clothing or an engine. Modifying clothing doesn't (usually) violate copyright laws, doesn't have the possibility of harming other, or keeping businesses from earning their legitimate revenue. Modifying a car engine is legal, but for many modifications, you can't drive the car on the streets again until it is evaluated for safety and other standards, for the good of society. Copyright laws, generally, are also for the good of society. There are portions of the DMCA that I am against, but generally speaking, copyright means that when you write or publish something, you are going to get paid. Without copyright protection, your book could sell billions of copies and you'd never see a penny.
The courts and lawmakers have not outlawed other modifications, only the obvious case of copyright infringement. You are free to alter any other designs all you want. You are free to make a custom case that looks like your best friend Steve, with a slot-drive in his mouth, hands acting as the controller, and glasses that have little LCD screens on it. You are free to build a 100-disk changer for your console. You are free to make a new controller so you
Just checking on four local boxes: On my XP development machine, I have 501 threads running under 44 processes, with about 5% CPU usage. On a small XP server box, I've got 258 & 18, and moderate load. Our multi-CPU linux and Solaris boxes are similarly not seriously loaded (about 95% idle, a few hundred processes, and I'm sure there are thousands of threads).
Most of us don't use ALL the CPU speed ALL the time, although math intensive simulations (such as games) can do that. More often, your apps end up waiting for the user, the disk, the network, and other I/O. But we don't think about that time. We don't care if the back buffers of the animated .GIF files are running 100 milliseconds behind what they ought to. Most of us only care that when I push the 'x' key, that the little glyph better show up on the screem immediatly; when we move the mouse around our desk, it better move the arrow at the same time, and light up any hover buttons instantly.
Usually when you interact with the box, you end up waking up lots of threads. Just moving the mouse around can wake up dozens or possibly even hundreds of threads. The mouse generates some interrupts, that needs to be processed by one or more drivers, drivers report to the OS which generates messages that are queued in the windowing system, movements generate even more messages which are all dispatched to programs, each program has to deal with the mouse movements individually. Events are handled by possibly several applications, each of these incuring their own set of scheduling problems, cache misses, and memory or disk accesses. It might not seem like much to you, but it really is a lot of CPU work to move the mouse out of one application window, and over an image-changing icon in another app. If it doesn't happen within 50 milliseconds or so, you normally feel that the system is pretty slow.
Every one of those things incurs a cost from scheduling and queuing to changing of the CPU protection ring. For that split second, your computer has lots of work to do.
The second processor cuts that split-second load almost in half, which is noticable to most of us. Sure, there is a tiny bit of overhead, but if you've did much low level programming, you'd know that all those CPU state changes and context switches are EXPENSIVE, splitting those expensive calls between two CPUs really helps.
That is your choice. Seeing as I alrady have enough computers to do the work I need, I'd rather get a 2 CPU, or even a 4 CPU, box for my local software development. Spend the money where you get the most bang for your buck. For you, that might mean a second machine. For me, where I have multiple monitors hooked up to my XP boxes, for watching and debugging the interaction between applications, the most bang for my buck is in a multi-CPU system.frob