Against the USPTO. Why? For starters, someone should sue them for being a monopoly. Granted - not possible since they are a government run agency. Regulated by who? Seriously though, the people granting these patents must live in caves. While I cant speak for REGISTERING the names - if memory serves - my fiancee in college (in 1987-88) worked for a company that used a MiniVax - and high end workstations running on Unix - or the variant for those particlar machines. DEC, whatever. Their machines were named in the fashion stationname.companyname.com and each had its own email address in the form of stationname@companyname.com. And I'm sure there are hundreds of companies who back in the late 80's had their systems set up that way. Most sysadmins back then had that type of common sense to do it. And they didnt patent the idea. Why? Common Sense. It seems what the USPTO need to do is grab a lot of the still unemployed techincal people in the country , who have some sense, pay them as consultants, and use their brains to help figure out what patents ought to be passed, since its very apparent the staff there now is clueless.
An interesting note in the bill. It provides for 20% of the civil damages awarded in a case where a spammer violates the bill, for parties who provide information (proof, evidence, what have you) that leads to the successful procecution of a spammer. Sadly, by the way the bill reads, that's not a huge incentive, after all - the max cap for any civil suit seems to be US $1 million, and standard being $25.00.
Of course the main issue is how effective will the bill be? We all know the truth - it won't be. Why? No one in Congress has any idea how to technically stop SPAM, or trace it, or the ability to enforce it outside the US.
My suggestion on the issue of the bill? Grab all the SPAM you can that you get sent, and forward it to (a) your Representative, (b) your Senator, (c) the President. Challenge them to track it down. Be sure to give 'em all the header info, of course. I'd love to see in a week how many of the SPAM messages they get - they can actually trace to the companies that sent them.
Nice try Congress. Better luck next time.
Sources tell us Darl McBride has been named in a class-action lawsuit, agisnt himself, and the SCO Group. Evidently the PC industry has decided that the collective SCO suing ensemble have been over-exposing themsleves to the public as major dickheads. The suit is for an unspecified amount of damages for visual damages to the PC community from their obvious indecent exposure. (Film of the dickheads at 11pm)
Well - lets go "innovate" something someone else has already done. Messengers, a WINDOWED operating system, Multitasking - hey look a company we cant bully into selling out to us! Lets duplicate what they do, grease our little friend at the USPO, put a patent on it - and then sue 'em for violating OUR patent!!!
(sounds of applause, yeeehas, and fists hammering the table in the Microsoft boardroom as Bill Gates stalks the podium in his "Emperor Gates" outfit)
If you actually read the article carefully you'll also notice one thing. It refers to SERVERSnotworkstations. If you look at Windows breached machines as a whole - yes there are an awesome munber of screwed up machines if you look at it that way, then yes, the article problaby is wrong in its assertions. BUT.... if you take out the workstations - i.e. MOST end/home users - the numbers probably shift quite dramatically.
Furthermore, think of this: a good portion of the Windows admins out there are "trained." Likely they run large numbers of servers and patch them correctly and secure them. Its the samll businesses with no real IT staff that probably have more problems than anyone. Now - give all the Windows "trained" admins who have a Linux server running and dont do anything because it's got this unbreachable, uninfectable reputation. It sits, and never gets patched, updated etc.
Is the article right? Hard to say. It all depends on how you look at the real world big picture. Linux is good yes. I trust it for my firewall at home. I'd never trust anything else at this point. But is it perfect, and unhackable? Give me a break. All it takes it time an motivation.
Just remember, make it idiot proof, and someone will build a better idiot!
For the artists, especially those who aren't part of the small handful of superstars who get massive marketing, it allows their music to be heard.
Even better - let those small artists, or new artists looking for contracts, use the reports to either land new contracts, or to push their labels/agents to make the song get more airplay. The way the industry is now, the release of songs, decision of what going to be played, etc. is all controlled by the labels, and the person they have working the artist. What's more objective - the public who listens to what they like, or some putz behind a desk?
The problem is when someone important (a customer, a government) expects you to read a file in the locked-in format and you don't have MS Office. It's troublesome to convince your customers to save the files into HTML/CSV/TXT/whatever before sending them to you or publishing on the Web.
Excellent point. I deal with several companies since we are a Health Care Provider. Almost EVERYTHING that comes from these vendors, etc is in the latest greatest MS Word, or Excel format. End-users arent always the brightest stars in the sky when it comes to software, but neither are 3rd party vendors.
Which raises the question - if you pay a vendor for updates, information, etc.... should they be required to send it in a "unlocked" format? Or at least a openly accepted format that all systems can read?
MS Office aside - Pennsylvania's Department of Health now REQUIRES you to use IE 5.5 or better to do MANDATORY submissions to them as of the end of August. It doesnt matter what browser you use, or how compatible it is - they wont work with anything else. So basically - if any healthcare organization based in PA wanted to move to Linux, they can't. After all - MicroSnot isn't ever going to do a browser for anything other than themselves in the future.
And to think.. there are still people who think they aren't a monopoly, or that the government put an end to it.
.....notes that interoperating with the next version of the Word format may soon be a DMCA violation due to design decisions being made by MS.....
I for one will be looking into this closely. And not from the OSS end either. My company made a business decision before I started to use all Dell workstations, and of course Win XP, and MS Office as its standard packages. Now we all know how MS is - once the new office is out - the major vendors wont be allowed to sell the old versions bundled into new PC's, or end up charging a premium price for older versions.
Considering the number of PC's I have here with MS Office on them, and that we keep buying new PC's now and then, if I end up with this "new and immproved" version of MS Office - whats the legality of making the older versions interoperate with the new ones? I have yet to go digging thru MSoft's site and notes on the subject, but to me this sounds as if MSoft set their licensing up correctly, it would be illegal to interface any new Office documents with old versions of Office. This goes beyond compatibility issues - its upgrade or your breaking the law.
Seriously - they wonder why they get such a bad rap from the internet community at large. Most likey what has happend is that "Upper Management" made the decision to do it for some reason (although the journal conspiracy sounds quite probable), and they did't bother to ask the "real staff" what kind of an impact it would have. Now, once again, they've managed to piss a whole lot of people off. Makes you wonder what else they've blocked (censored) that thier users don't know about. I've heard rumblings on NANOG that they are trying to whitelist thier email too. There's a bright idea - a customer base the size AOL has, and their gonna whitelist mailservers. and my cutsomers wonder why I get ready to slap them when they suggest using AOL for a provider.
I think the way the US gov't shoudl handle sentencing for this kid, and the real originator of the worm is simple.
Forget fines.
Forget jail time.
Forget community service.
Just turn em over to a mob of sysadmins who had to deal with the dammned thing. I'm suite sure they could come up with something do do with them. (Like seeing how many transitors they could shove up his ass...)
I'm on the National AND state (PA) do not call lists - got on both the first day possible. I'm still getting unwanted phone soliciations, mainly from automated machines that I cannot argue with.
I'm on both as well. In fact I just added both of my cell phones to them since I started getting telemarketing calls on them. So if you think cell phones are exempt from getting calls - think again. Telemarketers have no scruples, morals, or common sense even.
As an example. I got a call 2 days ago at 8:55 am. Came up on the caller ID as an Unknown Caller. Big surprise. Answered the phone. (Yeah I know - but I've got friends who block their numbers and blah blah blah.) Its a recording telling em I've won a Disney trip, and to call an 800 number and give them a code to claim my trip. My fiancee called em.
She asks who they are. They refuse to tell her. They push for her name, address and phone number. She tells them she's on a do not call list and where did they get this number. She was told "That's not important." Bullshit! She tells them she lives in PA and is on their do not call list, and the National List. Guess what these people tell her? "Oh - we don't use those." She flipped, and hung up. I called them back about an hour later. "Can I help you?" Yes - who are you? "Consumer Services." Good enough - that fills out the form to have you sued by PA state. Have a nice day.
Now according to PA state's site on the issue - telemarketers who violate the law on telemarketing will be fined $1,000.00 per call, or $5,000.00 if its to a senior citizen. 10% goes back to the consumer. What I want to know now is - how do I track my case? When do I get paid? Yeah.... RIGHT!
The law would have been more useful if they FTC/Congress made all business phone lines to show who the business is... and their phone number. That way they COULD be reported ACCURATELY to the FTC. We'd also be able to ignore the calls far easier.
Just my.02 cents. Wait - I dont have.02 cents!
Why exactly are the ISPs so concerned with the user privacy? As an end user I'm certainly concerned with it, but you'd think that ISPs wouldn't really care that much. Fighting the RIAA will cost them money, just to protect privacy? What have they to gain from that?
Look at it in a slightly different light - and ignore RIAA for the moment. If RIAA manages to coerce the bigger ISPs into turning over records of their customers, the smaller ISP's are going to follow suit. Why? Legal Precedence.
Now, assume RIAA has pulled this off, and sues the hell out of all the P2P filesharers in the USA. (Hey Pres. Bush - RIAA is out to really screw up your economy - there suing 25% of the US population into poverty.) By getting the information from the ISP's under the DMCA, you can bet it wont be long thereafter until other companies start tossing out subpoenas for other "violations." SCO? Microsoft? The way is paved, thanks to RIAA.
Then, it gets worse. The government starts, and other businesses get involved to. And soon - an individuals right to privacy is gone, and the ISP's of the US have become nothing expect a research faciltity at the mercy of courts and lawsuits.
I helped build an ISP some years back. We did it for 2 reasons - money (of course) and to give the people in the area which we lived access to information on the Internet, anonymously if they wanted. And I suspect a fair number of the smaller ISPs out there were started by people who remember back when the net was anonymous and you didnt get your life poked and prodded by marketing agencies, sales companies, RIAA, and who knows who else, because you felt like finding a tip on how to set up Slackware!
With all the posts about his idea is poorly thought out, and the problems with it being legal, the people at RIAA are no doubt now looking at a way to do this themselves. After all - THEY own the rights to the CDs remember? Face it - the artists really don't - they have to obey whatever the labels put in thier contracts, which almost all will in some way or form, put the rights of distribution in the hands of the labels.
Now they have a way where they can control the distribution of music over the internet, and make money off of it as well.
As for the part of the fair-use law specifying personal use, and not a "collective ownership" remember - this is RIAA - they'll just get the law changed. Not possible? This is the same bunch of folks who wanted Congress to make it legal for them to hack in to your PC to look for pirated files, and then have the right to damange your PC to shut it down.
Cringely didnt come up with that far-fetched of an idea - he just came up with one to fatten RIAA's pockets more and let them keep control over the music industry - which is exactly what they want.
The US Govt - by the way, has a monopoly on awarding patents.
Exactly. And do you notice that those who have monopolies tend to do a shoddy job of things? Face it - MSoft has got their OS monopoly - well basically. And inlight of "spending millions on security" they still come out with holes in thier software. Am I about to rant on Microsoft? Nope.
But consider this: if MSoft holds soo much of the world market share in OS and according to most./'ers does such a horrific job of it - what has the US patent office been doing lately?
It seems these days that anyone can get a patent on anything. Have we taken the idea of IP too far? or patents in general? Patents on something very specific are understandable. You come up with a new data encoding technology for hard drives for example. At this point its a wonder the Patent office isnt issuing IP patents for say... "a device to reproduce audible information from a personal computer by electrical impulses." Wham, US patent office grants it and suddenly our $10.00 PC speakers are 200.00 because someone sues the hell out of every speaker manufacturer on the planet for patent infringement.
Pretty soon ideal growth is going to grind to a halt. Why? no one will develop new ideas or technologies for fear of getting sued by someone else claiming they had the idea first.
And the source of the problem? People working in the patent office who don't realize that granteing these broad encompassing patents hurts growth, industry, research, courts, and the economy.
Wonder if I can get a patent on air? I bet if I phrase it right I can be granted a US patent, and therfore a monopoly on Oxygen. Think not? give someone time and the right phrasing. I'm sure the patent office will be happy to oblige.
No no, SCO didnt invent Al Gore....
They cloned him from a bone found in an Inca excavation dig. That way they figure since they thereby "own" Al Gore - the newest Inca - they cricumnavigate the patent the Inca's filed 500 years ago on alternative information representation systems by using encoding technology.
I agree. The kids usually aren't the ones buying the games. I read a study recently - offline even - where they found most of the major market stores kids buy games in - like Wal-mart and BestBuy, do enforce the ratings by not letting kids by M rated games. In most cases, the parents are buying them, and not being responsible, either by buying them for thier kids without looking into what the game is really like, or by purchasing the game for themselves, then letting kids play it. I've been an RPG fan for years - Squaresoft junkie, old AD&D fan, but I still wont let my young kids play those games. Thier stepfather however, seems to think its ok for them to play, or WATCH him play GTA II and III. While the ESRB is doing a good job of it - its just like the internet with kids - parents have got to take part in what thier kids do and pay attention to thier enviornments. Hell, you check out babysitters before you leave kids with them, why on earth wouldnt you do the same with an electronic one like a video game? Just my 2 cents.
Face it. Think about it? What other electronics company is out there that you know of (other than perhaps RCA, and I dont think THEY are doing this anymore) who not only make the CD playing hardware, recording hardware, duplicating hardware, etc... but ALSO are their OWN RECORDING LABEL??? Sony's doing it to try to keep THIER labels under control. Want it fixed? want it changed? Email your artist, group, fan club for them, whatever. Tell them that Sony, as thier label, is trying to make it so that they effectively sell lower grade music, crippled music CDs, however you want to term it.... but basically as long as its not on a Sony CD system, you wont "get what you pay for." To me, Sony's new scheme sounds like a violation of their agreements with their recording artists. Just what gives Sony the right to distribute thier music in different formats based soley on how the consumer chiooses to listen to it?
I've run into a sort of related problem. My ISP I use at home now uses a Danish reference list to help filter spam. Somehow, my work mailserver turned up on it. The reason? It seems to have a dynamic IP address. Granted, my work mailserver hangs off of a business DSL account which has a block of 16 IPs. Its behind my router/firewall running NAT. the reject message from my ISP is as follows :.. the remote server gave us this error response... 554 Service unavailable; [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx] blocked using dynablock.wirehub.net, reason: Dynamic IP range listed by Wirehub! Internet DynaBlock - http://doema.wirehub.nl/error/errors.html#dynabloc k
So now I'm off to have fun to try to convince these people that just because it MAY be a dyanmic address, even though its a block assigned by my ISP, that they should remove me. Thier other solution? Find a relay server!!!
This company should hook up with Bill! Imagine a Windows XP disc that you cant copy AND you have to register it with The Great God Gates!
I just hope if they do sell it to Microsoft that the company (a) gets a damn goot patent 1st, and (b) nails the SHIT out of Microsnot in licensing fees:-) Or better still - reel em in with a cheap but restrictive EULA... then sock it to em fo more expensive licences!!!!
Here's a case for the DoJ to sort out. Lets say I have a 100 Disc CXD Jukebox, connected to my stereo. lets also say I rip those 100 CD's to MP'3s on one of my PC's so that I can easily transfer them to portbale devices. (As far as I can tell I DO have legal right to do this.) Now 2 scenarios -
1) the RIAA hacks into my PC (protected by the feds - of course) and sees a large volume of Mp3's. They IMPLY to the DoJ that I am a pirate. Now I have legal fees up the wazoo to defend myself for doing something that is my legal right.
2) Someone hacks into my PC and downloads stuff from my mp3 library. I'm NOT sharing - I've been hacked - which will soon be impossible to prosecute against thanks to the geniuses in Congress getting kickbacks from RIAA - and RIAA decides to prosecute me for file sharing and piracy. Does ANYONE think RIAA's lawyers will give a damn that I didnt share these files? Or that I didn't have a p2p server or client on my PC? hmm lets see - RIAA can pay $100k to its attorneys to harass me on my 50k/year salary off which I have to live then suddenly pay an attorney.
So here I am, a average guy who likes music, and gets fucked, with no intention of sharing. Now nice. I suppose I should just walk around with a jar of Vaseline in case I breathe wrong on someone who is a part of RIAA.
I'm a sysdamin, netengineer, etc. I deal with employyes with liek 80 machines - not a huge net. But if I need to upgrade my hardware (read buy new boxes) and not my version of Windows- Microsoft says no? Hey Bill - I paid you when I bought my LAST round of new PCs. The new ones will run Windows 98 just FINE, and no one here NEEDS Windows 2000 or XP. So now I can't buy new machines from Dell or other major companies without new software. Hmmm. I dont think i get an upgrade price break when I buy my new machine do I? Whats that Mr. Bill? You dont support Windows 98 anymore? Hmmm - when I called in for support after Windows 98 was introduced I had to PAY for support on software I JUST bought. Same idea goes for MSOffice. buy a new PC - get the new version. Not to mention it confuses the hell out of all of my end users as to why thier documents are able to be opened on other machines. Why don't we just unmask MR Bill for what he really is... the green skinned master of the Borg. Oh - we cant do that. Hes far uglier than the Borg in Star Trek:-)
So now Sony can "legally" spy on who the like hiding beind an EULA of sorts (I'm assuming) under the guide - its the ditributors property and can therefore be tracked and controlled. Hmmm. Last I knew my personal information, consumption rates, usage, and date belonged to me. Since someones collecting MY information, do I get free access to all of THEIR systems to see what they are doing with MY personal information? I think I'll go get a copyright and patent on my personal info then sue the MPAA or Sony for unfair use, collection and distribution. Wonder what kind of royalties I can charge?
Ok, if the FBI, or any other government agency is required by law to do a wiretap - which is roughlyy that this "technology" is - why is it that Spyware apps, and the like can't be prosecuted under federal wiretap laws? Face it, we can't legally record our own damn phone calls - what gives Sony, or any other company, the right to monitor what we do, or how we do it? The EULA's? Somehow I doubt Sony's VIAO PC line has anything in its EULA's about this software, or thier right to run it. The way things are going with EULA's and al the copyright protection schemes, spyware and so forth, the EULA on audio CD's alone will take up the entire back over of a CD case in 4 point type.
Since RIAA and the MPAA think that being allowed to inflict a DoS attack on anyone they suspect of wrongdoing, and there seem to be a few people in Congress who agree... perhaps they should all experience one. People talk about boycotting CD sales, listening to the radio, renting movies, etc. None of this will really make a dent in the industry. But imagine what could happen if say a few thousand internt savvy users decided to lauch a several day long DoS attack on RIAA, the MPAA, and even a few of our wonderful representatives in Congress? Oh - wait - that's against the law. Wonder if we can convince the Aussies to do it??
So the goverment wants us all to switch to digital TV. How nice. Wonder if these people are going to help fund the changeovers for PBS stations? Its bad enough that PBS stations have to get public funds to help support them because the government won't help enough. Is this the end of children's educational TV programming? Who is going to pay for new HDTVs or converters for all of the schools who use PBS programming as part of their teaching curriculum? Oh that's right I forgot - cartoons from Nick and Cartoon Network have FAR more value than PBS programming, plus they make members of the NAB money!!! So much for educational programming.
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Against the USPTO. Why? For starters, someone should sue them for being a monopoly. Granted - not possible since they are a government run agency. Regulated by who? Seriously though, the people granting these patents must live in caves. While I cant speak for REGISTERING the names - if memory serves - my fiancee in college (in 1987-88) worked for a company that used a MiniVax - and high end workstations running on Unix - or the variant for those particlar machines. DEC, whatever. Their machines were named in the fashion stationname.companyname.com and each had its own email address in the form of stationname@companyname.com. And I'm sure there are hundreds of companies who back in the late 80's had their systems set up that way. Most sysadmins back then had that type of common sense to do it. And they didnt patent the idea. Why? Common Sense. It seems what the USPTO need to do is grab a lot of the still unemployed techincal people in the country , who have some sense, pay them as consultants, and use their brains to help figure out what patents ought to be passed, since its very apparent the staff there now is clueless.
An interesting note in the bill. It provides for 20% of the civil damages awarded in a case where a spammer violates the bill, for parties who provide information (proof, evidence, what have you) that leads to the successful procecution of a spammer. Sadly, by the way the bill reads, that's not a huge incentive, after all - the max cap for any civil suit seems to be US $1 million, and standard being $25.00. Of course the main issue is how effective will the bill be? We all know the truth - it won't be. Why? No one in Congress has any idea how to technically stop SPAM, or trace it, or the ability to enforce it outside the US. My suggestion on the issue of the bill? Grab all the SPAM you can that you get sent, and forward it to (a) your Representative, (b) your Senator, (c) the President. Challenge them to track it down. Be sure to give 'em all the header info, of course. I'd love to see in a week how many of the SPAM messages they get - they can actually trace to the companies that sent them. Nice try Congress. Better luck next time.
Sources tell us Darl McBride has been named in a class-action lawsuit, agisnt himself, and the SCO Group. Evidently the PC industry has decided that the collective SCO suing ensemble have been over-exposing themsleves to the public as major dickheads. The suit is for an unspecified amount of damages for visual damages to the PC community from their obvious indecent exposure. (Film of the dickheads at 11pm)
Well - lets go "innovate" something someone else has already done. Messengers, a WINDOWED operating system, Multitasking - hey look a company we cant bully into selling out to us! Lets duplicate what they do, grease our little friend at the USPO, put a patent on it - and then sue 'em for violating OUR patent!!! (sounds of applause, yeeehas, and fists hammering the table in the Microsoft boardroom as Bill Gates stalks the podium in his "Emperor Gates" outfit)
Furthermore, think of this: a good portion of the Windows admins out there are "trained." Likely they run large numbers of servers and patch them correctly and secure them. Its the samll businesses with no real IT staff that probably have more problems than anyone. Now - give all the Windows "trained" admins who have a Linux server running and dont do anything because it's got this unbreachable, uninfectable reputation. It sits, and never gets patched, updated etc.
Is the article right? Hard to say. It all depends on how you look at the real world big picture. Linux is good yes. I trust it for my firewall at home. I'd never trust anything else at this point. But is it perfect, and unhackable? Give me a break. All it takes it time an motivation.
Just remember, make it idiot proof, and someone will build a better idiot!
Even better - let those small artists, or new artists looking for contracts, use the reports to either land new contracts, or to push their labels/agents to make the song get more airplay. The way the industry is now, the release of songs, decision of what going to be played, etc. is all controlled by the labels, and the person they have working the artist. What's more objective - the public who listens to what they like, or some putz behind a desk?
Excellent point. I deal with several companies since we are a Health Care Provider. Almost EVERYTHING that comes from these vendors, etc is in the latest greatest MS Word, or Excel format. End-users arent always the brightest stars in the sky when it comes to software, but neither are 3rd party vendors.
Which raises the question - if you pay a vendor for updates, information, etc.... should they be required to send it in a "unlocked" format? Or at least a openly accepted format that all systems can read?
MS Office aside - Pennsylvania's Department of Health now REQUIRES you to use IE 5.5 or better to do MANDATORY submissions to them as of the end of August. It doesnt matter what browser you use, or how compatible it is - they wont work with anything else. So basically - if any healthcare organization based in PA wanted to move to Linux, they can't. After all - MicroSnot isn't ever going to do a browser for anything other than themselves in the future.
And to think.. there are still people who think they aren't a monopoly, or that the government put an end to it.
I for one will be looking into this closely. And not from the OSS end either. My company made a business decision before I started to use all Dell workstations, and of course Win XP, and MS Office as its standard packages. Now we all know how MS is - once the new office is out - the major vendors wont be allowed to sell the old versions bundled into new PC's, or end up charging a premium price for older versions.
Considering the number of PC's I have here with MS Office on them, and that we keep buying new PC's now and then, if I end up with this "new and immproved" version of MS Office - whats the legality of making the older versions interoperate with the new ones? I have yet to go digging thru MSoft's site and notes on the subject, but to me this sounds as if MSoft set their licensing up correctly, it would be illegal to interface any new Office documents with old versions of Office. This goes beyond compatibility issues - its upgrade or your breaking the law.
Forget fines.
Forget jail time.
Forget community service.
Just turn em over to a mob of sysadmins who had to deal with the dammned thing.
I'm suite sure they could come up with something do do with them. (Like seeing how many transitors they could shove up his ass...)
I'm on both as well. In fact I just added both of my cell phones to them since I started getting telemarketing calls on them. So if you think cell phones are exempt from getting calls - think again. Telemarketers have no scruples, morals, or common sense even.
As an example. I got a call 2 days ago at 8:55 am. Came up on the caller ID as an Unknown Caller. Big surprise. Answered the phone. (Yeah I know - but I've got friends who block their numbers and blah blah blah.) Its a recording telling em I've won a Disney trip, and to call an 800 number and give them a code to claim my trip. My fiancee called em.
She asks who they are. They refuse to tell her. They push for her name, address and phone number. She tells them she's on a do not call list and where did they get this number. She was told "That's not important." Bullshit! She tells them she lives in PA and is on their do not call list, and the National List. Guess what these people tell her? "Oh - we don't use those." She flipped, and hung up. I called them back about an hour later. "Can I help you?" Yes - who are you? "Consumer Services." Good enough - that fills out the form to have you sued by PA state. Have a nice day.
Now according to PA state's site on the issue - telemarketers who violate the law on telemarketing will be fined $1,000.00 per call, or $5,000.00 if its to a senior citizen. 10% goes back to the consumer. What I want to know now is - how do I track my case? When do I get paid? Yeah.... RIGHT!
The law would have been more useful if they FTC/Congress made all business phone lines to show who the business is ... and their phone number. That way they COULD be reported ACCURATELY to the FTC. We'd also be able to ignore the calls far easier.
Just my .02 cents. Wait - I dont have .02 cents!
Look at it in a slightly different light - and ignore RIAA for the moment. If RIAA manages to coerce the bigger ISPs into turning over records of their customers, the smaller ISP's are going to follow suit. Why? Legal Precedence.
Now, assume RIAA has pulled this off, and sues the hell out of all the P2P filesharers in the USA. (Hey Pres. Bush - RIAA is out to really screw up your economy - there suing 25% of the US population into poverty.) By getting the information from the ISP's under the DMCA, you can bet it wont be long thereafter until other companies start tossing out subpoenas for other "violations." SCO? Microsoft? The way is paved, thanks to RIAA.
Then, it gets worse. The government starts, and other businesses get involved to. And soon - an individuals right to privacy is gone, and the ISP's of the US have become nothing expect a research faciltity at the mercy of courts and lawsuits.
I helped build an ISP some years back. We did it for 2 reasons - money (of course) and to give the people in the area which we lived access to information on the Internet, anonymously if they wanted. And I suspect a fair number of the smaller ISPs out there were started by people who remember back when the net was anonymous and you didnt get your life poked and prodded by marketing agencies, sales companies, RIAA, and who knows who else, because you felt like finding a tip on how to set up Slackware!
Now they have a way where they can control the distribution of music over the internet, and make money off of it as well.
As for the part of the fair-use law specifying personal use, and not a "collective ownership" remember - this is RIAA - they'll just get the law changed. Not possible? This is the same bunch of folks who wanted Congress to make it legal for them to hack in to your PC to look for pirated files, and then have the right to damange your PC to shut it down.
Cringely didnt come up with that far-fetched of an idea - he just came up with one to fatten RIAA's pockets more and let them keep control over the music industry - which is exactly what they want.
Exactly. And do you notice that those who have monopolies tend to do a shoddy job of things? Face it - MSoft has got their OS monopoly - well basically. And inlight of "spending millions on security" they still come out with holes in thier software. Am I about to rant on Microsoft? Nope.
But consider this: if MSoft holds soo much of the world market share in OS and according to most ./'ers does such a horrific job of it - what has the US patent office been doing lately?
It seems these days that anyone can get a patent on anything. Have we taken the idea of IP too far? or patents in general? Patents on something very specific are understandable. You come up with a new data encoding technology for hard drives for example. At this point its a wonder the Patent office isnt issuing IP patents for say... "a device to reproduce audible information from a personal computer by electrical impulses." Wham, US patent office grants it and suddenly our $10.00 PC speakers are 200.00 because someone sues the hell out of every speaker manufacturer on the planet for patent infringement.
Pretty soon ideal growth is going to grind to a halt. Why? no one will develop new ideas or technologies for fear of getting sued by someone else claiming they had the idea first.
And the source of the problem? People working in the patent office who don't realize that granteing these broad encompassing patents hurts growth, industry, research, courts, and the economy.
Wonder if I can get a patent on air? I bet if I phrase it right I can be granted a US patent, and therfore a monopoly on Oxygen. Think not? give someone time and the right phrasing. I'm sure the patent office will be happy to oblige.
No no, SCO didnt invent Al Gore.... They cloned him from a bone found in an Inca excavation dig. That way they figure since they thereby "own" Al Gore - the newest Inca - they cricumnavigate the patent the Inca's filed 500 years ago on alternative information representation systems by using encoding technology.
I agree. The kids usually aren't the ones buying the games. I read a study recently - offline even - where they found most of the major market stores kids buy games in - like Wal-mart and BestBuy, do enforce the ratings by not letting kids by M rated games. In most cases, the parents are buying them, and not being responsible, either by buying them for thier kids without looking into what the game is really like, or by purchasing the game for themselves, then letting kids play it. I've been an RPG fan for years - Squaresoft junkie, old AD&D fan, but I still wont let my young kids play those games. Thier stepfather however, seems to think its ok for them to play, or WATCH him play GTA II and III. While the ESRB is doing a good job of it - its just like the internet with kids - parents have got to take part in what thier kids do and pay attention to thier enviornments. Hell, you check out babysitters before you leave kids with them, why on earth wouldnt you do the same with an electronic one like a video game? Just my 2 cents.
Face it. Think about it? What other electronics company is out there that you know of (other than perhaps RCA, and I dont think THEY are doing this anymore) who not only make the CD playing hardware, recording hardware, duplicating hardware, etc... but ALSO are their OWN RECORDING LABEL??? Sony's doing it to try to keep THIER labels under control. Want it fixed? want it changed? Email your artist, group, fan club for them, whatever. Tell them that Sony, as thier label, is trying to make it so that they effectively sell lower grade music, crippled music CDs, however you want to term it.... but basically as long as its not on a Sony CD system, you wont "get what you pay for." To me, Sony's new scheme sounds like a violation of their agreements with their recording artists. Just what gives Sony the right to distribute thier music in different formats based soley on how the consumer chiooses to listen to it?
I've run into a sort of related problem. My ISP I use at home now uses a Danish reference list to help filter spam. Somehow, my work mailserver turned up on it. The reason? It seems to have a dynamic IP address. Granted, my work mailserver hangs off of a business DSL account which has a block of 16 IPs. Its behind my router/firewall running NAT. the reject message from my ISP is as follows : .. the remote server gave us this error response ... 554 Service unavailable; [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx] blocked using dynablock.wirehub.net, reason: Dynamic IP range listed by Wirehub! Internet DynaBlock - http://doema.wirehub.nl/error/errors.html#dynabloc k
So now I'm off to have fun to try to convince these people that just because it MAY be a dyanmic address, even though its a block assigned by my ISP, that they should remove me. Thier other solution? Find a relay server!!!
This company should hook up with Bill! Imagine a Windows XP disc that you cant copy AND you have to register it with The Great God Gates! I just hope if they do sell it to Microsoft that the company (a) gets a damn goot patent 1st, and (b) nails the SHIT out of Microsnot in licensing fees :-) Or better still - reel em in with a cheap but restrictive EULA... then sock it to em fo more expensive licences!!!!
Here's a case for the DoJ to sort out. Lets say I have a 100 Disc CXD Jukebox, connected to my stereo. lets also say I rip those 100 CD's to MP'3s on one of my PC's so that I can easily transfer them to portbale devices. (As far as I can tell I DO have legal right to do this.) Now 2 scenarios - 1) the RIAA hacks into my PC (protected by the feds - of course) and sees a large volume of Mp3's. They IMPLY to the DoJ that I am a pirate. Now I have legal fees up the wazoo to defend myself for doing something that is my legal right. 2) Someone hacks into my PC and downloads stuff from my mp3 library. I'm NOT sharing - I've been hacked - which will soon be impossible to prosecute against thanks to the geniuses in Congress getting kickbacks from RIAA - and RIAA decides to prosecute me for file sharing and piracy. Does ANYONE think RIAA's lawyers will give a damn that I didnt share these files? Or that I didn't have a p2p server or client on my PC? hmm lets see - RIAA can pay $100k to its attorneys to harass me on my 50k/year salary off which I have to live then suddenly pay an attorney. So here I am, a average guy who likes music, and gets fucked, with no intention of sharing. Now nice. I suppose I should just walk around with a jar of Vaseline in case I breathe wrong on someone who is a part of RIAA.
I'm a sysdamin, netengineer, etc. I deal with employyes with liek 80 machines - not a huge net. But if I need to upgrade my hardware (read buy new boxes) and not my version of Windows- Microsoft says no? Hey Bill - I paid you when I bought my LAST round of new PCs. The new ones will run Windows 98 just FINE, and no one here NEEDS Windows 2000 or XP. So now I can't buy new machines from Dell or other major companies without new software. Hmmm. I dont think i get an upgrade price break when I buy my new machine do I? Whats that Mr. Bill? You dont support Windows 98 anymore? Hmmm - when I called in for support after Windows 98 was introduced I had to PAY for support on software I JUST bought. Same idea goes for MSOffice. buy a new PC - get the new version. Not to mention it confuses the hell out of all of my end users as to why thier documents are able to be opened on other machines. Why don't we just unmask MR Bill for what he really is... the green skinned master of the Borg. Oh - we cant do that. Hes far uglier than the Borg in Star Trek :-)
So now Sony can "legally" spy on who the like hiding beind an EULA of sorts (I'm assuming) under the guide - its the ditributors property and can therefore be tracked and controlled. Hmmm. Last I knew my personal information, consumption rates, usage, and date belonged to me. Since someones collecting MY information, do I get free access to all of THEIR systems to see what they are doing with MY personal information? I think I'll go get a copyright and patent on my personal info then sue the MPAA or Sony for unfair use, collection and distribution. Wonder what kind of royalties I can charge?
Ok, if the FBI, or any other government agency is required by law to do a wiretap - which is roughlyy that this "technology" is - why is it that Spyware apps, and the like can't be prosecuted under federal wiretap laws? Face it, we can't legally record our own damn phone calls - what gives Sony, or any other company, the right to monitor what we do, or how we do it? The EULA's? Somehow I doubt Sony's VIAO PC line has anything in its EULA's about this software, or thier right to run it. The way things are going with EULA's and al the copyright protection schemes, spyware and so forth, the EULA on audio CD's alone will take up the entire back over of a CD case in 4 point type.
Since RIAA and the MPAA think that being allowed to inflict a DoS attack on anyone they suspect of wrongdoing, and there seem to be a few people in Congress who agree... perhaps they should all experience one. People talk about boycotting CD sales, listening to the radio, renting movies, etc. None of this will really make a dent in the industry. But imagine what could happen if say a few thousand internt savvy users decided to lauch a several day long DoS attack on RIAA, the MPAA, and even a few of our wonderful representatives in Congress? Oh - wait - that's against the law. Wonder if we can convince the Aussies to do it??
So the goverment wants us all to switch to digital TV. How nice. Wonder if these people are going to help fund the changeovers for PBS stations? Its bad enough that PBS stations have to get public funds to help support them because the government won't help enough. Is this the end of children's educational TV programming? Who is going to pay for new HDTVs or converters for all of the schools who use PBS programming as part of their teaching curriculum? Oh that's right I forgot - cartoons from Nick and Cartoon Network have FAR more value than PBS programming, plus they make members of the NAB money!!! So much for educational programming.