I think you really do need "the man" to come down and dictate that you have to make efforts to accommodate disabled persons.
Ok, here's the devil's advocate question: if none of my business is done with disabled folks, why should "the man" force me to produce web content suitable for them? They aren't coming to my website anyway. They don't care.
Someone said that flash is the bane of the disabled. Well, it's the bane for me, too, because I don't run an OS with a flash player. (One of my systems is so old that Netscape 4.7 is the most current browser, and even on systems with an available flash player I disable it because it's distracting and a waste of CPU cycles for the vast majority of cases.)
Nobody gives a damn that I can't use their website (and when I run into idiot companies who think a flash animation should be the sole content of their entry-level home page, I go elsewhere). Now, I'd benefit from some laws passed that make this kind of nonsense illegal, but I don't think they ought to be.
Got a video or audio file? Subtitle it or add a document which has a transcription.
I deal with image data. Pictures. Automatically taken, from many places many times a day. If I have to "add a document" describing each picture I would have no time to eat or sleep anymore.
...and AA compliance is really not difficult, unless you ignore accessibility until after you've finished designing a site.
So what you're saying is that compliance will be difficult for any site that was designed before the new rules (which will come out in a year or two) go into effect.
You can't ignore what doesn't currently exist, you can only ignore it after it exists.
If any of the sites I run falls under these requirements, they will probably have to come down, since I don't have time to go back and redo everything that has already been done. That means that people who can't currently get to my content still won't be able to, and those who can will lose it. That sounds like a lose-lose situation to me.
I can’t even remember the last time I had a bill rejected by one of those. It must have been at least several years ago.
The ones I have start being rejected when the ink cartridges in my printer get old/low. I guess the quality of the ink changes and no longer triggers the right detectors.
Some of this new super-bright paper stock also causes a lot of rejects.
Not by itself, but combined with a known destination and typical; flight paths, it gives you a rather good idea of where it would be and when.
I'm sorry, but a SID for Honolulu Airport will have absolutely no relevance to finding the location of an aircraft by the time it gets near the west coast of the US. The furthest a SID covers from PHNL that I could find is about 200 miles. The most likely one goes 54 miles out. The distance to the mainland is 2500 miles. In general, some SIDs are as simple as "fly vectors as assigned", which will tell you nothing about where the airplane will be.
Knowing the takeoff and landing airports and enroute jet-routes is what you need to have any guess.
Even if you knew the original filed flight plan, you'd not be sure of the actual route. ATC often gives an aircraft a clearance different than what was requested (filed), and then pilots can ask for modification enroute. The actual route a scheduled flight takes can differ from day to day depending on weather and the whims of ATC. If you get a controller that doesn't want to coordinate with the next sector controller or the next center, you will fly what you were assigned. If he isn't too busy to help, and the route is clear, you might get cleared direct from where you are to where you want to go.
So far as I know, the airports and Air Force bases don't keep recordings of their radar tracks, they have no way to look back at what was happening at that time.
Air traffic control certainly does keep "tapes" of radar signals. Whether it is really a tape or some other digital recording is irrelevant. These tapes are often used to help locate missing aircraft. After a plane is reported missing they can often "replay the tape" and identify the point of last radar contact, even for non-transpondered or VFR targets.
This, of course, takes resources and time.
As for the GP who talks about using "Standard Instrument Depatures" for an airport to locate a plane, ummmm.... A SID for Honolulu (departure airport) will have no relevance to the location of any aircraft by the time it hits the west coast. SIDs apply only close to the airport (<30nm in most cases), until a plane gets onto one of the Victor or Juliette (low level and "jet route" high level) airways.
Rat bastards made me drive fifteen miles to the nearest UPS pickup point because they wouldn't leave
AN ENVELOPE with an Amazon GC at my house without a signature and wouldn't deliver it to an address where someone was available to sign for it -- without charging extra.
And they won't leave things at my house without a signature anymore because one of the drivers pried open my locked screen door and hid a package behind it, which I didn't find for THREE MONTHS. I reported it as non-delivered and then reported him for prying open a locked door.
Uh dude, if Aunt Mildred is just ordering me some shit off of Amazon and not picking it out in a physical store and shipping it (or, *gasp*, bringing it over herself), she doesn't expect gratitude and respect for her gift.
How little you understand the Aunt Mildreds of the world, and how few gifts you probably get from them.
Most likely the grandparent poster meant that if I send you a song, you should not be held accountable for whatever I did to aquire that song.
Then you aren't a merchant. You're right, I should not be accountable for the crimes you committed getting that song. But I should be accountable for any crime I commit after I get it. Like, if I make copies that aren't authorized by the copyright holder. Like, if I distribute copies in a manner not authorized by the copyright holder. My crimes, not yours.
I don't think anyone is holding Jammie accountable for the "crimes of the merchant", are they? Nor would anyone downstream be accountable for Jammie's actions.
Removing copyright would allow market forces to set the actual value for copies of items (zero) and cause people to charge for their time and services which have real value. Pretty simple economics.
Who is the musical artist going to charge for his time and services? If he's getting only "time and services" why bother being creative, just play the sheet music put in front of him. Who is the movie director going to charge for "time and services"? Who is going to have the money to pay either of them if they cannot charge for the product that those "time and services" produced?
The only way to remove copyright and not destroy the creative process is for a few altruists to pay the artist out of their own pocket and then donate the work to everyone else. That means the artist can still make a living making art; the public can copy it as much as their little hearts desire. The only people who are harmed by this are the rich who can afford to pay full price for the time of Steely Dan or Mick Jagger to sing a few songs without any ability to recoup the costs from selling copies of the work.
Yeah, let advertising support the distribution. Do you realize how much advertising is for intellectual property items, and that that advertising goes away because there is no return on the ads for the advertiser. After all, anything that can be copied easily is basically free. Books, records, videos. Since we've abolished copyright, then there is no reason why the first person to get a copy "with ads" cannot simply remove the ads and pass the copies along. The distributor's site may have ads embedded in the web page, but you can bet the copy up for torrent about ten minutes after first release won't have them.
You are the fool that allows an idiotic fine like this to happen. Pirating music is not like stealing cars. I'll repeat: pirating music is not like stealing cars.
Irrelevant. The OP I replied to said "crime" and "convicted". That means a criminal proceeding, not a civil one.
And, of course, you conveniently forgot that I've already said I wasn't arguing that this fine was appropriate, only that the proposed justice was not.
NO ONE LOSES ANYTHING.
You know, if that was true, then the original framers of the US Constitution were morons. They should have known that copying something from someone caused no harm to anyone and didn't justify the explicit creation of copyright.
You don't, however, have any argument to the common sense that of course someone loses when free copies replace commercially available ones in the consumer library. Money not spent buying a copy of a song is money not received by the artist and producer and distributor. That's unquestionable. The only argument that can be made is MAYBE someone who got an illegal copy thought enough of the artist to then buy the CD and would not have done so by simply hearing the song on the radio, but that's assuming an altruism on the part of the consumer that is rarely demonstrated in real life.
For tofubeer, who asks why I would download something if I wouldn't pay for it, the answer is obvious: because I don't have to pay for the download and would have to pay for the legal copy. I download lots of things I won't pay for because I don't HAVE to pay for them when I get them for free. That's what "free" means. The important question is not why I would download them for free if I wouldn't pay, but why would I pay for what I can download for free? Again, the latter assumes an altruism that I don't particularly feel towards most of the current music or literature producers, or even the dead ones' estates.
A trivial example is an aviation-related book I needed for about two days so I could take a test and then never need to look at again. I could have mail-ordered the book, waited for it to arrive, took the test, then try to find somewhere to sell my copy for a lot less than I paid for it, or I could download the book from the net for free. Which do you think took less effort and was faster? Why should I have paid for the copy I don't need anymore when it was free elsewhere? (And just to make this clear, the downloaded copy was from the author himself and was completely legal. The author was a government employee in the course of his work, so he got paid anyway.)
Where's proof... but the opposite isn't true beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt either.
The legal system could not function if you put a burden of "beyond a shadow of a doubt" on it. You could catch the perp with the gun in his hand standing over the dead body, after everyone in the neighborhood heard them violently arguing an hour before, and not get a conviction because "beyond a shadow of doubt" couldn't be met. "There was a one-armed man I saw shoot my wife and run out the back door, and I picked up the gun for defense in case he came back."
The current standards are "beyond a reasonable doubt" for criminal cases, and "preponderance of evidence" for civil. Since this is a civil case, all that is required is a preponderance of the evidence. (That means "more likely than not".) I don't think there is any question that the act occurred, is there?
If you steal a car you will not be paying millions, maybe a few times the cost of the car but no way millions.
If I steal a car I will probably not be paying a fine, I'll be going to jail. Paying a fine: $1000. Not being raped in prison by Bubba: priceless.
Let see 1 song is $0.99 on itunes, and 5X damages, so $4.95 seems about fair.
That's assuming that the author is distributing his songs on iTunes and you're intervening to set what you think a fair price is for him. Might as well do away with copyright altogether, then, since my idea of a fair price for a lot of modern music is "I'll give you ten dollars to stop playing that crap."
The fairest penalty is no penalty. We need to end the war on sharing by legalizing noncommercial copyright infringement.
Then exactly what incentive does the distributor (or author) have to produce anything, if he knows that as soon as the first CD/DVD/whatever shows up in the stores someone can simply copy the material digitally and put it up for free download to everyone else?
Yes, I know, there are some artists who fly the flag and give out their material for free already. There are a lot more who don't, and many of them who need to feed a family.
What you are arguing for is, in essence, an end to having to pay for ANY copyrighted works. Nobody can charge for something because there will always be someone who copies it and gives it out for free "on their behalf". Eventually the few altruistic people who buy a CD from a band they like because they know the band needs the money to keep playing will give up (or die, eventually) and the culture of "free copies" will take over.
Maximum of $50/song with a maximum total cap of $50,000.
What if I make $100 per song selling your songs, and you lose $500 in sales because I undersold you? Still $50/song then?
So someone who accidentally shares their music library for a couple days...
Should not be in court at all, since there is no intent to commit a crime or violate copyright.
... someone who seeds torrents on their company's 100mbit tube for a year.
Is showing an explicit intent to both violate copyright by copying AND distributing, and since it is torrent, is probably profiting in some other way (getting files in exchange that he would otherwise have to pay for).
So, if I steal half a dozen cars from the local car dealer and give them to people, I get no punishment at all. My "proceeds" are exactly 0. In fact, there is some cost out of my pocket; do you think maybe the car dealer should have to reimburse me for expenses?
Really, there is the concept of damages and punitive damages in existing law. If all you got reimbursed for was the actual amount of damages, then people who commit the offences would, on average, profit, because they, on average, don't get caught all the time.
That's not saying that $1.5 mil is a good judgement, just that "proceeds" is a very poor way to levy fines or jury awards in civil cases.
You're paying the ISP to transfer the data, Hulu is providing the content which is supported by the ads.
You're paying the cable company to transfer the data, the networks are providing the content supported by ads.
The OP was saying that "people learned their lesson from cable TV" and wouldn't pay and watch ads. And yet they don't complain when they pay and watch ads with hulu now. If it's a lesson learned from cable, then more people would complain that they're paying and watching ads on the current hulu.
I bet this fails. Miserably. People will pay or watch commercials, but not both. They learned their lessons from the move to cable TV. Plus they expect more now.
How many people complain when they pay their ISP for network access to watch Hulu which has ads? Do you think Hulu should not play ads because you pay the ISP for access to it?
For example, the Supreme Court felt that videotaping an entire movie from the television, so that it could be watched later -- a complete copy made for personal use, in other words -- could be a fair use
yes, that is one current judicially-created exemption. The basis for that was that 1) the ads were (usually) taped and viewed, so the advertiser's investment was protected somewhat, and 2) the material had been broadcast over free TV to start with, so there were, essentially, already an infinite number of transient copies floating around.
The implication from the OP was that it was a general concept that copying an entire work for personal use was not illegal, and that is not the view of the courts. You cannot legally take a library book and copy the entire thing for personal use. The law does say that it is illegal to "copy the entire thing", with some limited exceptions, which is not the same as "the law doesn't say it is illegal".
The only IP law I know of that does exempt "for personal use" in a blanket sense is patent law, where you can, indeed, take a patent and build the device described therein for personal use. You cannot, of course, copy any copyrighted software that is part of that device, but you can certainly write your own that performs the same function, as long as the device is for personal use.
As to your question... yes, the formatting is enough to make it acceptable,
So then, if I take something for free and reformat it, I can sell it without being a hypocrite? The statement I responded to was "if you take something for free and sell it...". I was pointing out that "taking something for free" was not the important criterion, it was "taking a COPYRIGHTED something without permission of the copyright holder...".
If you take something for free and sell it ahead, you're being a hypocrite.
So all those places that are selling formatted and proofread copies of books that have entered the public domain are being hypocrites? They are selling something that they downloaded for free.
Or is the formatting enough to make it acceptable?
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, here's the devil's advocate question: if none of my business is done with disabled folks, why should "the man" force me to produce web content suitable for them? They aren't coming to my website anyway. They don't care.
Someone said that flash is the bane of the disabled. Well, it's the bane for me, too, because I don't run an OS with a flash player. (One of my systems is so old that Netscape 4.7 is the most current browser, and even on systems with an available flash player I disable it because it's distracting and a waste of CPU cycles for the vast majority of cases.)
Nobody gives a damn that I can't use their website (and when I run into idiot companies who think a flash animation should be the sole content of their entry-level home page, I go elsewhere). Now, I'd benefit from some laws passed that make this kind of nonsense illegal, but I don't think they ought to be.
I deal with image data. Pictures. Automatically taken, from many places many times a day. If I have to "add a document" describing each picture I would have no time to eat or sleep anymore.
So what you're saying is that compliance will be difficult for any site that was designed before the new rules (which will come out in a year or two) go into effect.
You can't ignore what doesn't currently exist, you can only ignore it after it exists.
If any of the sites I run falls under these requirements, they will probably have to come down, since I don't have time to go back and redo everything that has already been done. That means that people who can't currently get to my content still won't be able to, and those who can will lose it. That sounds like a lose-lose situation to me.
The ones I have start being rejected when the ink cartridges in my printer get old/low. I guess the quality of the ink changes and no longer triggers the right detectors.
Some of this new super-bright paper stock also causes a lot of rejects.
I'm sorry, but a SID for Honolulu Airport will have absolutely no relevance to finding the location of an aircraft by the time it gets near the west coast of the US. The furthest a SID covers from PHNL that I could find is about 200 miles. The most likely one goes 54 miles out. The distance to the mainland is 2500 miles. In general, some SIDs are as simple as "fly vectors as assigned", which will tell you nothing about where the airplane will be.
Knowing the takeoff and landing airports and enroute jet-routes is what you need to have any guess.
Even if you knew the original filed flight plan, you'd not be sure of the actual route. ATC often gives an aircraft a clearance different than what was requested (filed), and then pilots can ask for modification enroute. The actual route a scheduled flight takes can differ from day to day depending on weather and the whims of ATC. If you get a controller that doesn't want to coordinate with the next sector controller or the next center, you will fly what you were assigned. If he isn't too busy to help, and the route is clear, you might get cleared direct from where you are to where you want to go.
Saw it on CBS Morning Show. They claimed it was "scary".
The next story was about something "scary", too.
Then a story that was "frightening".
Those are the words used by the nitwits Harry Smith and generic talking-head woman anchor.
Watched ABC GMA this morning. Everything they reported was "disturbing".
I wonder what kind of stories NBC Today reports. No, really, I don't care.
But 30 nautical miles isn't.
Air traffic control certainly does keep "tapes" of radar signals. Whether it is really a tape or some other digital recording is irrelevant. These tapes are often used to help locate missing aircraft. After a plane is reported missing they can often "replay the tape" and identify the point of last radar contact, even for non-transpondered or VFR targets.
This, of course, takes resources and time.
As for the GP who talks about using "Standard Instrument Depatures" for an airport to locate a plane, ummmm.... A SID for Honolulu (departure airport) will have no relevance to the location of any aircraft by the time it hits the west coast. SIDs apply only close to the airport (<30nm in most cases), until a plane gets onto one of the Victor or Juliette (low level and "jet route" high level) airways.
A loss for UPS is a win for everyone else.
Rat bastards made me drive fifteen miles to the nearest UPS pickup point because they wouldn't leave AN ENVELOPE with an Amazon GC at my house without a signature and wouldn't deliver it to an address where someone was available to sign for it -- without charging extra.
And they won't leave things at my house without a signature anymore because one of the drivers pried open my locked screen door and hid a package behind it, which I didn't find for THREE MONTHS. I reported it as non-delivered and then reported him for prying open a locked door.
What can Brown do for me today? Go bankrupt.
How little you understand the Aunt Mildreds of the world, and how few gifts you probably get from them.
More like, I know there must be a horse in here somewhere...
Then you aren't a merchant. You're right, I should not be accountable for the crimes you committed getting that song. But I should be accountable for any crime I commit after I get it. Like, if I make copies that aren't authorized by the copyright holder. Like, if I distribute copies in a manner not authorized by the copyright holder. My crimes, not yours.
I don't think anyone is holding Jammie accountable for the "crimes of the merchant", are they? Nor would anyone downstream be accountable for Jammie's actions.
Who is the musical artist going to charge for his time and services? If he's getting only "time and services" why bother being creative, just play the sheet music put in front of him. Who is the movie director going to charge for "time and services"? Who is going to have the money to pay either of them if they cannot charge for the product that those "time and services" produced?
The only way to remove copyright and not destroy the creative process is for a few altruists to pay the artist out of their own pocket and then donate the work to everyone else. That means the artist can still make a living making art; the public can copy it as much as their little hearts desire. The only people who are harmed by this are the rich who can afford to pay full price for the time of Steely Dan or Mick Jagger to sing a few songs without any ability to recoup the costs from selling copies of the work.
Yeah, let advertising support the distribution. Do you realize how much advertising is for intellectual property items, and that that advertising goes away because there is no return on the ads for the advertiser. After all, anything that can be copied easily is basically free. Books, records, videos. Since we've abolished copyright, then there is no reason why the first person to get a copy "with ads" cannot simply remove the ads and pass the copies along. The distributor's site may have ads embedded in the web page, but you can bet the copy up for torrent about ten minutes after first release won't have them.
Irrelevant. The OP I replied to said "crime" and "convicted". That means a criminal proceeding, not a civil one.
And, of course, you conveniently forgot that I've already said I wasn't arguing that this fine was appropriate, only that the proposed justice was not.
NO ONE LOSES ANYTHING.
You know, if that was true, then the original framers of the US Constitution were morons. They should have known that copying something from someone caused no harm to anyone and didn't justify the explicit creation of copyright.
You don't, however, have any argument to the common sense that of course someone loses when free copies replace commercially available ones in the consumer library. Money not spent buying a copy of a song is money not received by the artist and producer and distributor. That's unquestionable. The only argument that can be made is MAYBE someone who got an illegal copy thought enough of the artist to then buy the CD and would not have done so by simply hearing the song on the radio, but that's assuming an altruism on the part of the consumer that is rarely demonstrated in real life.
For tofubeer, who asks why I would download something if I wouldn't pay for it, the answer is obvious: because I don't have to pay for the download and would have to pay for the legal copy. I download lots of things I won't pay for because I don't HAVE to pay for them when I get them for free. That's what "free" means. The important question is not why I would download them for free if I wouldn't pay, but why would I pay for what I can download for free? Again, the latter assumes an altruism that I don't particularly feel towards most of the current music or literature producers, or even the dead ones' estates.
A trivial example is an aviation-related book I needed for about two days so I could take a test and then never need to look at again. I could have mail-ordered the book, waited for it to arrive, took the test, then try to find somewhere to sell my copy for a lot less than I paid for it, or I could download the book from the net for free. Which do you think took less effort and was faster? Why should I have paid for the copy I don't need anymore when it was free elsewhere? (And just to make this clear, the downloaded copy was from the author himself and was completely legal. The author was a government employee in the course of his work, so he got paid anyway.)
The legal system could not function if you put a burden of "beyond a shadow of a doubt" on it. You could catch the perp with the gun in his hand standing over the dead body, after everyone in the neighborhood heard them violently arguing an hour before, and not get a conviction because "beyond a shadow of doubt" couldn't be met. "There was a one-armed man I saw shoot my wife and run out the back door, and I picked up the gun for defense in case he came back."
The current standards are "beyond a reasonable doubt" for criminal cases, and "preponderance of evidence" for civil. Since this is a civil case, all that is required is a preponderance of the evidence. (That means "more likely than not".) I don't think there is any question that the act occurred, is there?
If I steal a car I will probably not be paying a fine, I'll be going to jail. Paying a fine: $1000. Not being raped in prison by Bubba: priceless.
Let see 1 song is $0.99 on itunes, and 5X damages, so $4.95 seems about fair.
That's assuming that the author is distributing his songs on iTunes and you're intervening to set what you think a fair price is for him. Might as well do away with copyright altogether, then, since my idea of a fair price for a lot of modern music is "I'll give you ten dollars to stop playing that crap."
Then exactly what incentive does the distributor (or author) have to produce anything, if he knows that as soon as the first CD/DVD/whatever shows up in the stores someone can simply copy the material digitally and put it up for free download to everyone else?
Yes, I know, there are some artists who fly the flag and give out their material for free already. There are a lot more who don't, and many of them who need to feed a family.
What you are arguing for is, in essence, an end to having to pay for ANY copyrighted works. Nobody can charge for something because there will always be someone who copies it and gives it out for free "on their behalf". Eventually the few altruistic people who buy a CD from a band they like because they know the band needs the money to keep playing will give up (or die, eventually) and the culture of "free copies" will take over.
Exactly what crimes has the merchant committed if someone rips a CD they bought from him and makes the content available for download?
The ripper has copied and distributed the content illegally. The downloader has copied it illegally. But the merchant? What has he done?
What if I make $100 per song selling your songs, and you lose $500 in sales because I undersold you? Still $50/song then?
So someone who accidentally shares their music library for a couple days...
Should not be in court at all, since there is no intent to commit a crime or violate copyright.
Is showing an explicit intent to both violate copyright by copying AND distributing, and since it is torrent, is probably profiting in some other way (getting files in exchange that he would otherwise have to pay for).
Really, there is the concept of damages and punitive damages in existing law. If all you got reimbursed for was the actual amount of damages, then people who commit the offences would, on average, profit, because they, on average, don't get caught all the time.
That's not saying that $1.5 mil is a good judgement, just that "proceeds" is a very poor way to levy fines or jury awards in civil cases.
You're paying the cable company to transfer the data, the networks are providing the content supported by ads.
The OP was saying that "people learned their lesson from cable TV" and wouldn't pay and watch ads. And yet they don't complain when they pay and watch ads with hulu now. If it's a lesson learned from cable, then more people would complain that they're paying and watching ads on the current hulu.
How many people complain when they pay their ISP for network access to watch Hulu which has ads? Do you think Hulu should not play ads because you pay the ISP for access to it?
yes, that is one current judicially-created exemption. The basis for that was that 1) the ads were (usually) taped and viewed, so the advertiser's investment was protected somewhat, and 2) the material had been broadcast over free TV to start with, so there were, essentially, already an infinite number of transient copies floating around.
The implication from the OP was that it was a general concept that copying an entire work for personal use was not illegal, and that is not the view of the courts. You cannot legally take a library book and copy the entire thing for personal use. The law does say that it is illegal to "copy the entire thing", with some limited exceptions, which is not the same as "the law doesn't say it is illegal".
The only IP law I know of that does exempt "for personal use" in a blanket sense is patent law, where you can, indeed, take a patent and build the device described therein for personal use. You cannot, of course, copy any copyrighted software that is part of that device, but you can certainly write your own that performs the same function, as long as the device is for personal use.
So then, if I take something for free and reformat it, I can sell it without being a hypocrite? The statement I responded to was "if you take something for free and sell it...". I was pointing out that "taking something for free" was not the important criterion, it was "taking a COPYRIGHTED something without permission of the copyright holder...".
So all those places that are selling formatted and proofread copies of books that have entered the public domain are being hypocrites? They are selling something that they downloaded for free.
Or is the formatting enough to make it acceptable?