If cases are reversed such that uppear and lower case letters switch places, does that protect the file?
Can the file be read without circumventing copy protection? Yes. The protection therefore is not effective.
What if the file is renamed from.txt to.pxt, but otherwise nothing changes?
Can the file be read without circumventing copy protection? Yes. The protection therefore is not effective.
These would, by your definition, be effective protection mechanisms.
No, they wouldn't.
Well, obviously she lost her credit card thanks to that rascal in Omaha. So when she calls tech support, they can't verify her ID easily.
She doesn't need to. All she has to provide is the serial number of her reader.
My point was that there are extenuating circumstances.
And my point is that the system takes these extenuating circumstances into account. You don't seriously think Adobe would release eBook without spending a little time thinking about "what if?" do you?
Now maybe I'm wrong, and we agree, but it seems you feel that the idea of "effective mechanism" is clean and legally sound.
The idea of "effective mechanism" is clear and legally sound. It is not vague at all. If the content of the work cannot be accessed without either going through the copy protection mechanism with permission from the licensor, or circumventing the copy protection mechanism, that mechanism is effective. If the content can be accessed without circumvention, then the mechanism is not effective.
This is a completely clear idea. What's your problem with it?
This is obviously an unknown usage of the English term 'effective'.
It is, in fact, the very first definition of "effective" in Webster's: "having the power to produce an effect or effects." Another dictionary says, "producing or capable of producing an intended result." Only further down the list do you find the definition you alluded to: "works well as a means or remedy."
An effective access control mechanism is one that prevents access unless circumvented. So ROT-13 is most definitely an effective access control mechanism; you can't read it until you ROT-13 it again. ROT-26, however, would not be an effective access control mechanism. The text is just as readable before and after the mechanism is applied, so no circumvention is necessary.
Your expert isn't going to see an obstacle at all; he runs the reverse ROT-13 or whatever and boom, there's the file.
A file that has been run through ROT-13 is not readable. It has to be run through ROT-13 again to be readable. So ROT-13 is an effective access control mechanism. You can't access the content until you get around the control mechanism. The fact that the access control mechanism is trivial doesn't matter at all.
The reason for looking at it this way should be obvious. A file that is well-protected today may be only trivially protected in 10 years, thanks to advances in technology. Does that mean that the file is "effectively" protected today, but not "effectively" protected in 2012? That's not cool, from a legal point of view. So the question is not how easy or hard is it to get past the protection mechanism. The question is whether there's one at all. It has to be that way in order to be fair.
Maybe my friend's mom lost her key to a Harry Potter book and can't read it anymore. Her credit is screwed up thanks to a vindictive bellhop in Omaha, so Adobe won't help her.
That's a reach. Why would Adobe care about your friend's mom's credit rating? All she has to do is call technical support; she doesn't have to buy anything new. Not that this invalidates your example, but I want to illustrate that it's harder to come up with a situation in which eBook gets in the way than you might think at first.
What if there is a backdoor password of "Adobe"; is this effective?
Yes. Because in order to access the data, you have to know the password. As long as the password isn't disclosed, this is an effective protection mechanism.
Please try to remember, the legal definition of "effective" is the most literal one: does the prevention mechanism have any effect at all? If the answer is yes, then it is an effective mechanism.
Someone else mentioned a "2%" maximum unavailability rate; I'd have to say fewer than 1% of my calls weren't able to go through. 'Course, this is only in my little corner of the state; YMMV.
It varies wildly depending on where you are when you're trying to place a call. The question isn't really whether the network is oversubscribed; the question is whether any given cell tower is oversubscribed at any given instant.
Try making a cell phone call at 5:30 pm in a major urban area. Chances are fair or better that your call won't go through the first time you dial, because the tower won't be able to handle it.
I doubt that they'll have to. If the case goes to court, the substantive question will probably have more to do with billing credit for dropped calls and misrepresentation of service levels than with oversubscription. There's nothing illegal about oversubscription, but it's illegal to deceive your customers about it. And not issuing credits over dropped calls when you said you would is definitely a big no-no.
The only problem I have with this is that the DMCA specifically outlaws the creation of keyblanks
Well, not necessarily. Section 1201(c)(1) says, "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." So in other words, one could argue that the DMCA doesn't apply, in any way, shape or form, to fair or otherwise noninfringing uses.
Since the authors of the law went to the trouble of putting this clause in, it makes the most sense to conclude that they never intended for chapter 12 to in any way prohibit the fair uses of copyrighted works. So the circumvention of copy protection and the manufacture, importation, and sale of devices for the circumvention of copy protection are legal in the context of fair use.
The burden is on the government to show that a given device for circumvention has no significant potential for application for the purpose of fair use.
Given the facts of the case, it seems like the government should be able to show that very easily here. The eBook system doesn't appear to prevent fair uses; it doesn't stop you, or even hinder you, from quoting sections of a work for criticism or comment, or from making backup copies for personal use, or any of those things. So it should not be necessary to circumvent copy protection in order to make fair use of an eBook-protected work. (It should be noted that wanting to read a work on a device for which there is no eBook reader is not, as yet, covered under fair use. The DeCSS case may change that.) If that's the case, then there's no significant noninfringing potential use for the Elcomsoft software, and the importation of it into the US should be illegal.
So what chapter 12 really criminalizes is the circumvention of copy protection for the purpose of copyright infringement, and more importantly the sale or distribution of devices to facilitate same. Which ought to be against the law, I think.
Doesn't sound like a bad law to me at all. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable law, badly misinterpreted.
So anybody who even mentions grammar or spelling is now a Nazi? Whatever, dude. If you either can't or won't spell correctly, expect to hear about it. If you don't want to hear about it, then just take the extra three seconds per post to make sure your words are spelled correctly, mean what you think they mean, and all come out in the right order.
If you read the text of the DMCA, one of the issues is whether the copy protection is "effective." And I'm surprised that Elcomsoft's attorney apparently didn't make some hay out of that.
"Effective" doesn't mean "really good." It just means that the mechanism does, on its face, restrict access to the work. It's not a question of how easy or hard it is to get around it. It's a question of whether it presents an obstacle at all.
This analogy isn't perfect, but I think it'll serve. Imagine that a policeman comes to your house. You have the severed head of your last victim in your freezer, and you decide (for whatever reason) to leave your freezer door open. The policeman walks in, sees the severed head in plain sight, and arrests you on the spot.
On the other hand, what if you had closed the freezer door? If the policeman had opened your freezer, seen the severed head, and then arrested you, your lawyer would immediately start drafting a motion to suppress evidence. If a policeman looks around and sees a severed head in plain sight, that's not a search and requires no warrant. If, on the other hand, he opens your freezer and finds the head, that's a search, and it requires a warrant in order to be legal.
The question of whether your freezer is a good place to hide things or not never comes into it. The point is that you had the severed head behind closed doors. That's all it takes.
This is the same thing. The important fact is that the content of the work is hidden behind an access control mechanism such that you have to circumvent it in order to get to the content. Even if the process of circumvention is trivial-- like opening a freezer door-- it's still circumvention, and (mostly) prohibited.
However, If I publish it, I sure as hell shouldn't be able to tell people who legally purchased it how they can view it.
Of course you can. It's a free country. You can tell people that they are only allowed to view your works while wearing a fez. If you make them sign a piece of paper stipulating such, that becomes a contract, and you're both bound to it. If somebody reads your work while wearing a bowler instead-- or, god forbid, no hat at all-- you can sue for breach of contract.
On the other side of the table, a potential buyer is free to reject your terms. In other words, if you don't like the deal, don't accept it.
Another reason is that it puts the burden of proof on the accused.
In what way? I'm not sure I know what you mean.
(I'll just ignore your personal remarks. If you don't want to talk with me, that's fine; you don't have to get all huffy.)
Then why is Dmitry Sklyarov on trial for violating the DMCA?
Because he didn't circumvent any copy protection mechanisms himself. Instead, he created-- as the copyright holder, he is the legal author-- a tool to circumvent copy protection, and then distributed his tool into the United States. That's illegal.
I don't see anything in there mentioning fair use, do you?
It's hidden under the word "noninfringing." You have the broad class of noninfringing uses; this class includes things like reproduction by libraries and archives. Within noninfringing use, you have fair use, which is a very specific kind of noninfringement.
All I see mentioned is that you can circumvent the protection if you are 'adversely affected' by it.
Read more carefully. It says that the prohibition doesn't apply to people who are "adversely affected... in their ability to make noninfringing uses." In other words, if the copy protection mechanism prevents you from making a noninfringing use, you are not prohibited from circumventing it in order to make that noninfringing use.
if I do any of them I am a criminal and I am placed in the same group as rapists, drug dealers, and murders.
Hardly. For a first offense, the absolute statutory maximum penalty is 5 years in prison. That's a serious sentence, but a far cry from "rapists, drug dealers, and murderers." Don't exaggerate, okay?
Adobe isn't merely failing to accomodate fair use. They are actively trying to block people from using their own resources to enable fair use.
My point was that this is entirely legal. If I want to release my (copyrighted, naturally) works encased in lucite and locked with a padlock, I am free to do so. The fact that this frustrates attempts to make noninfringing use of my works is not legally significant.
You're saying you can have your rights as long as you're an expert computer scientist and cryptographer?
Remember that fair use is not technically a right. It is an exception to someone else's rights. If the author of the work does not want you to make use, he has the right to protect it.
Did you know that copyright holders can bundle extra restrictions into their "copy protection" systems that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual rights granted to copyright holders?
Yes, absolutely. The seller of a good has the right to ask whatever terms or conditions of the buyer he likes, as long as those terms and conditions are legal, and are presented up front. If I wanted to sell you a car that you can only drive on Tuesdays, I can do that. If you sign the papers and then drive the car on Wednesday, I can sue you for breach of contract.
The court is then forced to 'read the mind' of the developer to attempt to divine his motivations for creating the tool.
The court usually has to "read the mind" of the accused. Intent is often a very important factor in deciding whether an act is in violation of the law or nor, or in deciding how severe a violation is. So the fact that the DMCA depends on intent would not, in and of itself, make it a bad law.
But as it turns out, that's not what the DMCA says. The DMCA says that tools that are primarily designed for circumventing the access controls on protected works, that have limited commercially significant purposes other than circumvention, and that are marketed for the purpose of circumvention may not be produced, imported, or distributed in the US. The question of the intent of the maker of the tool is not relevant. What's relevant is what the actual practical use for the tool is, and how the tool is described by its maker.
Read the whole statute. 17 U.S.C. 1201 (a)(1)(B) basically says that paragraph (A) doesn't apply to people who are attempting to make noninfringing use of a protected work. That hardly qualifies as a "narrow exception."
If the illegal technology is never trafficed--wow, now there is a word that needs a 'k'
That's why it's spelled with one. Webster's says that the plural of "traffic" is "trafficked," and the participle and gerund forms are both "trafficking."
Does Adobe give users the ability to print out copies of their e-books? If so, then they need to prosecute every manufacture of OCR software that exists.
Wrong. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent effective methods of protection. Once the work has been printed, it is not protected by any device or technology. So scanning those printed pages and OCR'ing them is not illegal under the DMCA. (Of course, you may or may not be violating the copyright itself once you've scanned it, depending on what you do with it.)
I'll say the same thing to you that I've said many times before: before making these kinds of wild-ass statements, please read the DMCA. It's Title 17, chapter 12, of the U.S. Code, and it's available on lots of web sites, including copyright.gov.
While the seller doesnt have to guarantee that his books can be read by the blind, the seller cant keep the blind from reading the book, ie using the software to 'open' the book and let him read it. I would like to hear a valid argument against this statement?
The Adobe eBook reader software includes text-to-speech already. Any blind person can use the eBook Reader to read-- or, more accurately, listen to-- any book in the eBook format.
So this is most decidedly not about a blind person's ability to read, or have read to them, anything.
Forget free speech, this case is about the basic rights to own and use one's private property.
Did you know that copyright holders are not required to do anything at all in order to ensure that users of their works can exercise all-- or even any!-- of the possible fair uses of their works?
Did you know that, under the DMCA, it is not illegal to circumvent copy protection mechanisms for the purpose of making fair use of a work? [17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(B)]
Did you know that this case rests on the DMCA's prohibition of the importation or sale of devices whose sole purpose is to circumvent copy protection? [17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2)]
Did you know that most people who complain with zeal that the DMCA is a bad law have never actually read it, or indeed any part of Title 17?
- We want elcomsoft to not release software that breaks our unbreakable security software.
No. First, Adobe says right there on the page that no technology can be 100% secure. They say that, when used properly, their software protects copyrighted works. That's all they claim.
They say that they encourage users, including "white hats," to give them feedback on their software and the security thereof.
They say that Elcomsoft broke US law by distributing their software. They say that the US Department of Justice took it upon themselves to make the arrest and to prosecute the case.
Whether or not Adobe's software is perfect isn't even remotely relevant to the issue.
My wife has some special dietary needs and it's nice to be able to look at a menu and nutrition information before we go out to make sure that the resturant in question has selections that are suitable for her to eat.
I won't pretend to speak for all, but I can't imagine a restaurant that wouldn't welcome a phone call from you. Ask to speak to the chef de cuisine, describe your situation, and ask for his opinion. Chances are, he'd (or she'd) be only too happy to accommodate your special needs. I've even gone so far as to adapt recipes for customers who call at least a few hours in advance; I had one customer, for example, who wouldn't eat shellfish for religious reasons, but who wanted to try a dish that I normally serve with a lobster stuffing. A replaced the lobster with minced red snapper for her, and she loved it. One week when lobster prices went through the roof, I put the snapper variant on the menu instead, and it sold well.
Though it probably doesn't apply too much to the fine dining area, I really like online ordering for takout food.
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Although there are two sides to that story, too. I've developed a relationship with the head waiter at a nearby Cantonese place, so when I want to order out from there, I just ask him to make us up an order for two, or four, or whatever. He always gives us something really amazing, and I can't recall having the same thing twice unless I ask for it specifically. Can't do that on a web site.
I can hardly imagine that everybody is only waiting for Quark so they can switch to X.
That's exactly what's happening in a lot of print and design shops, though. They're buying brand-new dual-processor G4s and running OS 9 on them full-time just for Quark. Every other program they'd need runs under OS X-- even though a few of them only run in Classic-- but they have to stay on OS 9 for Quark.
And it's not even that Quark is that great. InDesign has it beat in almost every category. But there are millions of Quark files out there that people still need to use. Dropping Quark completely just isn't a practical option.
What about existing workflows and applications for scanning, printing, ripping etc. that either don't exist on X or cost a fortune to update
Virtually everything you'd need to run a print shop has been ported to OS X. Practically everybody's using a PDF workflow these days, and OS X has better PDF support than any other OS. As for ripping and printing, all of that is being done with Windows. The Windows RIP just sits there in the corner, humming to itself, and chews through PDF all day and night. The interactive tools, though, are all on OS X except for Quark.
Why do you have such investment in these products?
I feel strongly that people's opinions should be balanced and reasoned. Your opinions are neither balanced nor reasoned. I'd love to be able to get to you realize this, and to get you to put a little more thought into them, but I've pretty much written this off by now. Now I'm just playing along with you to see how far you'll go to try to insult me. The more invective you spew, the more amusing I find it.
You have changed my mind on Office 2001, especially Outlook, however.
That's nice. I can't say I've thought about Office 2001 for quite a while now. Seeing as how Microsoft has been shipping Office v. X for so long and all.
Why would they change Office if it as perfect as you say?
Look back over my posts. Find the one where I said Office was perfect.
I've said, in case you haven't been listening, that Office is the best productivity product on the market. That doesn't mean it's flawless, and I have never even so much as implied such. It just means that it's better, overall, than all of its competitors. My point, of course, has been that the people who want Gobe Productive to be a serious player in the marketplace need to start working toward one all-important goal: making their product better than Office.
Your point, on the other hand, seems to have been that Office is obviously hammered shit, and that anybody who has a different opinion (and voices it) must be either an astroturfer, a liar, or stupid.
And you, sir, are ugly, and your mother dresses you funny. Are we done calling each other names now?
The restaurant business has always been the harshest start-up environment.
Yes, it's very tough, particularly in the city where I live. The difference between my last startup venture and my present one is that I love what I'm doing now. That's why I've done it. Long hours, hardly any money, but an overwhelming passion for the work. (As opposed to my other business venture, which involved long hours, hardly any money, and unbelievable boredom.) That's why we opened a restaurant in the middle of a recession. (Of course, we're not technically in the middle of a recession, but that's neither here nor there.) Fortunately, I've got a hell of a partner who acts as the business manager, and a positive review last month has sent bookings way up. I think we'll be okay.
Thanks for your concern, though.
Oh, and _your_ girlfriend is a PhD, too, who also wrote her dissertation in Word--even the same page count.
I pulled her thesis and checked, just for you. It's 224 pages of text, counting citations, and about 30 pages of charts, graphs, and other figures. So the total is 254 pages. I overestimated a bit, but I knew it was in that area.
And yes, she's a Ph.D., and an M.D. UT Southwestern Medical Center, MSTP program, class of 2002. She's a first-year resident in general surgery now. What of it?
Anyone who's used Word knows that something always gets fucked up.
So your argument is so strong that you believe anybody who has had a different experience from yours must be a liar? That's mature.
The only reason I'm still responding to you is that with every post you make yourself look like a bigger ass. It's entertaining, to say the least.
It would entail persons such as yourself dropping your "everything Microsoft does sucks" attitude and acknowledging that their software is neither universally good nor universally bad, but rather in between. It would also entail persons who develop or advocate alternatives to the good Microsoft products, like IE and Office, get a bit more serious about it, instead of maintaining the "it's good enough, more or less" approach.
You have done nothing but put down free and open software in every exchange we've had.
That's because it's generally not very good. If that makes me an astroturfer in your eyes, you need to reconsider what that means.
However, in deference to your piercing psychological insinuation, I will admit that I think that Office Productivity Suites, in general, are a dilettantish crutch for lazy & stupid people.
Well, then, I don't suppose I care much about what you think of Microsoft Office after all. I don't have much patience for elitism in any of its forms. It sounds to me like you're suffering from a delusion of superiority, and I can't help you with that.
I'd give that to the portable or perhaps the PB 140
I've owned 'em both. The PowerBook 140 was small, snazzy, and pretty fast running System 7.1 or whatever it was. The 5300 was slow, slow, slow. Who the hell cares about video out when the computer is so damn slow?
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If cases are reversed such that uppear and lower case letters switch places, does that protect the file?
.txt to .pxt, but otherwise nothing changes?
Can the file be read without circumventing copy protection? Yes. The protection therefore is not effective.
What if the file is renamed from
Can the file be read without circumventing copy protection? Yes. The protection therefore is not effective.
These would, by your definition, be effective protection mechanisms.
No, they wouldn't.
Well, obviously she lost her credit card thanks to that rascal in Omaha. So when she calls tech support, they can't verify her ID easily.
She doesn't need to. All she has to provide is the serial number of her reader.
My point was that there are extenuating circumstances.
And my point is that the system takes these extenuating circumstances into account. You don't seriously think Adobe would release eBook without spending a little time thinking about "what if?" do you?
Now maybe I'm wrong, and we agree, but it seems you feel that the idea of "effective mechanism" is clean and legally sound.
The idea of "effective mechanism" is clear and legally sound. It is not vague at all. If the content of the work cannot be accessed without either going through the copy protection mechanism with permission from the licensor, or circumventing the copy protection mechanism, that mechanism is effective. If the content can be accessed without circumvention, then the mechanism is not effective.
This is a completely clear idea. What's your problem with it?
This is obviously an unknown usage of the English term 'effective'.
It is, in fact, the very first definition of "effective" in Webster's: "having the power to produce an effect or effects." Another dictionary says, "producing or capable of producing an intended result." Only further down the list do you find the definition you alluded to: "works well as a means or remedy."
An effective access control mechanism is one that prevents access unless circumvented. So ROT-13 is most definitely an effective access control mechanism; you can't read it until you ROT-13 it again. ROT-26, however, would not be an effective access control mechanism. The text is just as readable before and after the mechanism is applied, so no circumvention is necessary.
Your expert isn't going to see an obstacle at all; he runs the reverse ROT-13 or whatever and boom, there's the file.
A file that has been run through ROT-13 is not readable. It has to be run through ROT-13 again to be readable. So ROT-13 is an effective access control mechanism. You can't access the content until you get around the control mechanism. The fact that the access control mechanism is trivial doesn't matter at all.
The reason for looking at it this way should be obvious. A file that is well-protected today may be only trivially protected in 10 years, thanks to advances in technology. Does that mean that the file is "effectively" protected today, but not "effectively" protected in 2012? That's not cool, from a legal point of view. So the question is not how easy or hard is it to get past the protection mechanism. The question is whether there's one at all. It has to be that way in order to be fair.
Maybe my friend's mom lost her key to a Harry Potter book and can't read it anymore. Her credit is screwed up thanks to a vindictive bellhop in Omaha, so Adobe won't help her.
That's a reach. Why would Adobe care about your friend's mom's credit rating? All she has to do is call technical support; she doesn't have to buy anything new. Not that this invalidates your example, but I want to illustrate that it's harder to come up with a situation in which eBook gets in the way than you might think at first.
What if there is a backdoor password of "Adobe"; is this effective?
Yes. Because in order to access the data, you have to know the password. As long as the password isn't disclosed, this is an effective protection mechanism.
Please try to remember, the legal definition of "effective" is the most literal one: does the prevention mechanism have any effect at all? If the answer is yes, then it is an effective mechanism.
Someone else mentioned a "2%" maximum unavailability rate; I'd have to say fewer than 1% of my calls weren't able to go through. 'Course, this is only in my little corner of the state; YMMV.
It varies wildly depending on where you are when you're trying to place a call. The question isn't really whether the network is oversubscribed; the question is whether any given cell tower is oversubscribed at any given instant.
Try making a cell phone call at 5:30 pm in a major urban area. Chances are fair or better that your call won't go through the first time you dial, because the tower won't be able to handle it.
I doubt that they'll have to. If the case goes to court, the substantive question will probably have more to do with billing credit for dropped calls and misrepresentation of service levels than with oversubscription. There's nothing illegal about oversubscription, but it's illegal to deceive your customers about it. And not issuing credits over dropped calls when you said you would is definitely a big no-no.
The only problem I have with this is that the DMCA specifically outlaws the creation of keyblanks
Well, not necessarily. Section 1201(c)(1) says, "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." So in other words, one could argue that the DMCA doesn't apply, in any way, shape or form, to fair or otherwise noninfringing uses.
Since the authors of the law went to the trouble of putting this clause in, it makes the most sense to conclude that they never intended for chapter 12 to in any way prohibit the fair uses of copyrighted works. So the circumvention of copy protection and the manufacture, importation, and sale of devices for the circumvention of copy protection are legal in the context of fair use.
The burden is on the government to show that a given device for circumvention has no significant potential for application for the purpose of fair use.
Given the facts of the case, it seems like the government should be able to show that very easily here. The eBook system doesn't appear to prevent fair uses; it doesn't stop you, or even hinder you, from quoting sections of a work for criticism or comment, or from making backup copies for personal use, or any of those things. So it should not be necessary to circumvent copy protection in order to make fair use of an eBook-protected work. (It should be noted that wanting to read a work on a device for which there is no eBook reader is not, as yet, covered under fair use. The DeCSS case may change that.) If that's the case, then there's no significant noninfringing potential use for the Elcomsoft software, and the importation of it into the US should be illegal.
So what chapter 12 really criminalizes is the circumvention of copy protection for the purpose of copyright infringement, and more importantly the sale or distribution of devices to facilitate same. Which ought to be against the law, I think.
Doesn't sound like a bad law to me at all. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable law, badly misinterpreted.
So anybody who even mentions grammar or spelling is now a Nazi? Whatever, dude. If you either can't or won't spell correctly, expect to hear about it. If you don't want to hear about it, then just take the extra three seconds per post to make sure your words are spelled correctly, mean what you think they mean, and all come out in the right order.
If you read the text of the DMCA, one of the issues is whether the copy protection is "effective." And I'm surprised that Elcomsoft's attorney apparently didn't make some hay out of that.
"Effective" doesn't mean "really good." It just means that the mechanism does, on its face, restrict access to the work. It's not a question of how easy or hard it is to get around it. It's a question of whether it presents an obstacle at all.
This analogy isn't perfect, but I think it'll serve. Imagine that a policeman comes to your house. You have the severed head of your last victim in your freezer, and you decide (for whatever reason) to leave your freezer door open. The policeman walks in, sees the severed head in plain sight, and arrests you on the spot.
On the other hand, what if you had closed the freezer door? If the policeman had opened your freezer, seen the severed head, and then arrested you, your lawyer would immediately start drafting a motion to suppress evidence. If a policeman looks around and sees a severed head in plain sight, that's not a search and requires no warrant. If, on the other hand, he opens your freezer and finds the head, that's a search, and it requires a warrant in order to be legal.
The question of whether your freezer is a good place to hide things or not never comes into it. The point is that you had the severed head behind closed doors. That's all it takes.
This is the same thing. The important fact is that the content of the work is hidden behind an access control mechanism such that you have to circumvent it in order to get to the content. Even if the process of circumvention is trivial-- like opening a freezer door-- it's still circumvention, and (mostly) prohibited.
However, If I publish it, I sure as hell shouldn't be able to tell people who legally purchased it how they can view it.
Of course you can. It's a free country. You can tell people that they are only allowed to view your works while wearing a fez. If you make them sign a piece of paper stipulating such, that becomes a contract, and you're both bound to it. If somebody reads your work while wearing a bowler instead-- or, god forbid, no hat at all-- you can sue for breach of contract.
On the other side of the table, a potential buyer is free to reject your terms. In other words, if you don't like the deal, don't accept it.
Another reason is that it puts the burden of proof on the accused.
In what way? I'm not sure I know what you mean.
(I'll just ignore your personal remarks. If you don't want to talk with me, that's fine; you don't have to get all huffy.)
Then why is Dmitry Sklyarov on trial for violating the DMCA?
Because he didn't circumvent any copy protection mechanisms himself. Instead, he created-- as the copyright holder, he is the legal author-- a tool to circumvent copy protection, and then distributed his tool into the United States. That's illegal.
I don't see anything in there mentioning fair use, do you?
It's hidden under the word "noninfringing." You have the broad class of noninfringing uses; this class includes things like reproduction by libraries and archives. Within noninfringing use, you have fair use, which is a very specific kind of noninfringement.
All I see mentioned is that you can circumvent the protection if you are 'adversely affected' by it.
Read more carefully. It says that the prohibition doesn't apply to people who are "adversely affected... in their ability to make noninfringing uses." In other words, if the copy protection mechanism prevents you from making a noninfringing use, you are not prohibited from circumventing it in order to make that noninfringing use.
if I do any of them I am a criminal and I am placed in the same group as rapists, drug dealers, and murders.
Hardly. For a first offense, the absolute statutory maximum penalty is 5 years in prison. That's a serious sentence, but a far cry from "rapists, drug dealers, and murderers." Don't exaggerate, okay?
Adobe isn't merely failing to accomodate fair use. They are actively trying to block people from using their own resources to enable fair use.
My point was that this is entirely legal. If I want to release my (copyrighted, naturally) works encased in lucite and locked with a padlock, I am free to do so. The fact that this frustrates attempts to make noninfringing use of my works is not legally significant.
You're saying you can have your rights as long as you're an expert computer scientist and cryptographer?
Remember that fair use is not technically a right. It is an exception to someone else's rights. If the author of the work does not want you to make use, he has the right to protect it.
Did you know that copyright holders can bundle extra restrictions into their "copy protection" systems that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual rights granted to copyright holders?
Yes, absolutely. The seller of a good has the right to ask whatever terms or conditions of the buyer he likes, as long as those terms and conditions are legal, and are presented up front. If I wanted to sell you a car that you can only drive on Tuesdays, I can do that. If you sign the papers and then drive the car on Wednesday, I can sue you for breach of contract.
If you don't like it, don't buy the product.
The court is then forced to 'read the mind' of the developer to attempt to divine his motivations for creating the tool.
The court usually has to "read the mind" of the accused. Intent is often a very important factor in deciding whether an act is in violation of the law or nor, or in deciding how severe a violation is. So the fact that the DMCA depends on intent would not, in and of itself, make it a bad law.
But as it turns out, that's not what the DMCA says. The DMCA says that tools that are primarily designed for circumventing the access controls on protected works, that have limited commercially significant purposes other than circumvention, and that are marketed for the purpose of circumvention may not be produced, imported, or distributed in the US. The question of the intent of the maker of the tool is not relevant. What's relevant is what the actual practical use for the tool is, and how the tool is described by its maker.
Read the whole statute. 17 U.S.C. 1201 (a)(1)(B) basically says that paragraph (A) doesn't apply to people who are attempting to make noninfringing use of a protected work. That hardly qualifies as a "narrow exception."
If the illegal technology is never trafficed--wow, now there is a word that needs a 'k'
That's why it's spelled with one. Webster's says that the plural of "traffic" is "trafficked," and the participle and gerund forms are both "trafficking."
Does Adobe give users the ability to print out copies of their e-books? If so, then they need to prosecute every manufacture of OCR software that exists.
Wrong. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent effective methods of protection. Once the work has been printed, it is not protected by any device or technology. So scanning those printed pages and OCR'ing them is not illegal under the DMCA. (Of course, you may or may not be violating the copyright itself once you've scanned it, depending on what you do with it.)
I'll say the same thing to you that I've said many times before: before making these kinds of wild-ass statements, please read the DMCA. It's Title 17, chapter 12, of the U.S. Code, and it's available on lots of web sites, including copyright.gov.
While the seller doesnt have to guarantee that his books can be read by the blind, the seller cant keep the blind from reading the book, ie using the software to 'open' the book and let him read it. I would like to hear a valid argument against this statement?
The Adobe eBook reader software includes text-to-speech already. Any blind person can use the eBook Reader to read-- or, more accurately, listen to-- any book in the eBook format.
So this is most decidedly not about a blind person's ability to read, or have read to them, anything.
Forget free speech, this case is about the basic rights to own and use one's private property.
Did you know that copyright holders are not required to do anything at all in order to ensure that users of their works can exercise all-- or even any!-- of the possible fair uses of their works?
Did you know that, under the DMCA, it is not illegal to circumvent copy protection mechanisms for the purpose of making fair use of a work? [17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(B)]
Did you know that this case rests on the DMCA's prohibition of the importation or sale of devices whose sole purpose is to circumvent copy protection? [17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2)]
Did you know that most people who complain with zeal that the DMCA is a bad law have never actually read it, or indeed any part of Title 17?
Just some legal trivia for y'all to chew on.
Basically what Adobe is saying.
- We want elcomsoft to not release software that breaks our unbreakable security software.
No. First, Adobe says right there on the page that no technology can be 100% secure. They say that, when used properly, their software protects copyrighted works. That's all they claim.
They say that they encourage users, including "white hats," to give them feedback on their software and the security thereof.
They say that Elcomsoft broke US law by distributing their software. They say that the US Department of Justice took it upon themselves to make the arrest and to prosecute the case.
Whether or not Adobe's software is perfect isn't even remotely relevant to the issue.
My wife has some special dietary needs and it's nice to be able to look at a menu and nutrition information before we go out to make sure that the resturant in question has selections that are suitable for her to eat.
I won't pretend to speak for all, but I can't imagine a restaurant that wouldn't welcome a phone call from you. Ask to speak to the chef de cuisine, describe your situation, and ask for his opinion. Chances are, he'd (or she'd) be only too happy to accommodate your special needs. I've even gone so far as to adapt recipes for customers who call at least a few hours in advance; I had one customer, for example, who wouldn't eat shellfish for religious reasons, but who wanted to try a dish that I normally serve with a lobster stuffing. A replaced the lobster with minced red snapper for her, and she loved it. One week when lobster prices went through the roof, I put the snapper variant on the menu instead, and it sold well.
Though it probably doesn't apply too much to the fine dining area, I really like online ordering for takout food.
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Although there are two sides to that story, too. I've developed a relationship with the head waiter at a nearby Cantonese place, so when I want to order out from there, I just ask him to make us up an order for two, or four, or whatever. He always gives us something really amazing, and I can't recall having the same thing twice unless I ask for it specifically. Can't do that on a web site.
I can hardly imagine that everybody is only waiting for Quark so they can switch to X.
That's exactly what's happening in a lot of print and design shops, though. They're buying brand-new dual-processor G4s and running OS 9 on them full-time just for Quark. Every other program they'd need runs under OS X-- even though a few of them only run in Classic-- but they have to stay on OS 9 for Quark.
And it's not even that Quark is that great. InDesign has it beat in almost every category. But there are millions of Quark files out there that people still need to use. Dropping Quark completely just isn't a practical option.
What about existing workflows and applications for scanning, printing, ripping etc. that either don't exist on X or cost a fortune to update
Virtually everything you'd need to run a print shop has been ported to OS X. Practically everybody's using a PDF workflow these days, and OS X has better PDF support than any other OS. As for ripping and printing, all of that is being done with Windows. The Windows RIP just sits there in the corner, humming to itself, and chews through PDF all day and night. The interactive tools, though, are all on OS X except for Quark.
Let me guess. Unemployed, no friends, too much free time. Did I get it right?
Why do you have such investment in these products?
I feel strongly that people's opinions should be balanced and reasoned. Your opinions are neither balanced nor reasoned. I'd love to be able to get to you realize this, and to get you to put a little more thought into them, but I've pretty much written this off by now. Now I'm just playing along with you to see how far you'll go to try to insult me. The more invective you spew, the more amusing I find it.
You have changed my mind on Office 2001, especially Outlook, however.
That's nice. I can't say I've thought about Office 2001 for quite a while now. Seeing as how Microsoft has been shipping Office v. X for so long and all.
Why would they change Office if it as perfect as you say?
Look back over my posts. Find the one where I said Office was perfect.
I've said, in case you haven't been listening, that Office is the best productivity product on the market. That doesn't mean it's flawless, and I have never even so much as implied such. It just means that it's better, overall, than all of its competitors. My point, of course, has been that the people who want Gobe Productive to be a serious player in the marketplace need to start working toward one all-important goal: making their product better than Office.
Your point, on the other hand, seems to have been that Office is obviously hammered shit, and that anybody who has a different opinion (and voices it) must be either an astroturfer, a liar, or stupid.
Kinda boggles the mind, doesn't it?
You're either lying or stupid.
And you, sir, are ugly, and your mother dresses you funny. Are we done calling each other names now?
The restaurant business has always been the harshest start-up environment.
Yes, it's very tough, particularly in the city where I live. The difference between my last startup venture and my present one is that I love what I'm doing now. That's why I've done it. Long hours, hardly any money, but an overwhelming passion for the work. (As opposed to my other business venture, which involved long hours, hardly any money, and unbelievable boredom.) That's why we opened a restaurant in the middle of a recession. (Of course, we're not technically in the middle of a recession, but that's neither here nor there.) Fortunately, I've got a hell of a partner who acts as the business manager, and a positive review last month has sent bookings way up. I think we'll be okay.
Thanks for your concern, though.
Oh, and _your_ girlfriend is a PhD, too, who also wrote her dissertation in Word--even the same page count.
I pulled her thesis and checked, just for you. It's 224 pages of text, counting citations, and about 30 pages of charts, graphs, and other figures. So the total is 254 pages. I overestimated a bit, but I knew it was in that area.
And yes, she's a Ph.D., and an M.D. UT Southwestern Medical Center, MSTP program, class of 2002. She's a first-year resident in general surgery now. What of it?
Anyone who's used Word knows that something always gets fucked up.
So your argument is so strong that you believe anybody who has had a different experience from yours must be a liar? That's mature.
The only reason I'm still responding to you is that with every post you make yourself look like a bigger ass. It's entertaining, to say the least.
Why does Microsoft deserve any credit?
Because they have produced some good software.
Is it necessary?
No, but it's the right thing to do.
What would this credit entail?
It would entail persons such as yourself dropping your "everything Microsoft does sucks" attitude and acknowledging that their software is neither universally good nor universally bad, but rather in between. It would also entail persons who develop or advocate alternatives to the good Microsoft products, like IE and Office, get a bit more serious about it, instead of maintaining the "it's good enough, more or less" approach.
You have done nothing but put down free and open software in every exchange we've had.
That's because it's generally not very good. If that makes me an astroturfer in your eyes, you need to reconsider what that means.
However, in deference to your piercing psychological insinuation, I will admit that I think that Office Productivity Suites, in general, are a dilettantish crutch for lazy & stupid people.
Well, then, I don't suppose I care much about what you think of Microsoft Office after all. I don't have much patience for elitism in any of its forms. It sounds to me like you're suffering from a delusion of superiority, and I can't help you with that.
Good day to you.
I'd give that to the portable or perhaps the PB 140
I've owned 'em both. The PowerBook 140 was small, snazzy, and pretty fast running System 7.1 or whatever it was. The 5300 was slow, slow, slow. Who the hell cares about video out when the computer is so damn slow?