When I make a cell phone call, I would bet that my voice is stored in RAM on the cell phone for some period of time. Does that make it available for discovery?
The basic rule is relevance. If it would be helpful to have the recording, you can ask for the recording.
Edison's early wax cylinders were only good for about 100 plays. The volatile RAM of another era. But that the recordings were ephemeral wouldn't have made them inadmissible.
And when flash drives become the norm that is more or less how the order will be worded. Temporary storage is still storage. The judge only cares that the information recorded "in RAM" still exists and can be retrieved.
what happens if you have 4 or 5 people split the cost of a few albums equally and then listen to the music between themselves on a folder available over a network connection...
Nothing at all.
Listening to shared music was a feature of Microsoft's P2P experiment, "threedegrees" [as in three degrees of separation.]
Windows Home Server products will be available from HP and others along about September. Includes a free {or vanity plate] Windows Live! address. Free SDK to develop your own home server apps available now.
The rules are really quite simple. You want to be an internet radio broadcaster or an internet music distributer? Then get the appropriate license. You want a risk-free download? Go to a known-good source like iTunes.
copyright infringement, they argue, requires both intent and commercial gain
Under U.S. law copyright infringement does not require commercial gain - even for a first offense that can put your behind bars in a federal pen for one to five years.
Copyright is a property right. You do not escape prosecution for grand theft auto because you were on a teenage joyride and not delivering the stolen Porsche to a chop shop.
I think a better analogy would be: If you had a case of beer in your unlocked car and some kids opened the door and took it, would you be liable for distributing alcohol to minors?
and the clueless Windows user responds:
I can't run a program like LimeWire without first creating a "Shared Files" folder and limiting its access to that particular "Shared Files" folder, a folder only I can fill.
My firewall will impose a block on external access until I explicitly give LimeWire permission to act as a server.
To me that sounds like setting out the kegs and erecting a neon sign flashing the message "Free Beer!!!" There is no way on God's Earth that anyone can mistake your intent to distribute.
There seems to be a great big PANIC at Microsoft,because nobody wants Vista
Microsoft is a thirty year old company, debt free, with tens of billions in liquid reserves, quarterly profits up and every other week or so another billion gets poured into the money bin. Microsoft plays for long-term gains.
"Nobody wants Vista." But Vista is selling.
Attracted by aggressive prices and the launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista OS, consumers purchased more notebooks during the first quarter than expected, pushing IDC to raise its 2007 PC industry forecast.
The PC industry is set to ship 256.7 million units in 2007, marking 12.2 percent growth over the previous year. IDC had previously forecast a growth rate of 11.1 percent and shipment volume of 254.2 million.
The primary engine of growth was a 28 percent jump in first quarter notebook shipments compared to the same period last year, a faster pace than the 25 percent increases seen in that segment for the past three quarters.Vista and notebooks boost PC sales
You know the Geek is living in a dream world when it is bad news for Microsoft that Acer's shipments are only expected to grow 30 to 40 percent this year. Vista knocks down Acer sales
I suspect we won't be hearing much more of Xandros and Linspire.
The distros of choice for the OEM market? Dell? The big box retailer like Walmart and Target?
Look around you. The home user. The small businessman. These are not sophisticated technical hobbyists. These are not ideologues. They are the polar opposite of the Slashdot Geek and they have money to spend.
- and if the chaff is Red Hot and the product Sun's OpenOffice what then?
The linux community has expanded far beyond the ideologues and enthusiasts that populate Slashdot.
Linspire, Xandros? These distros are going to find themselves unable to distribute GPL3 licensed software under the terms of their deals with Microsoft. Who cares?
These distros target end-users who don't give a damn about the GPL and never will.
The LInux business community...continues to hang itself. At least we still have Debian.
Cross-licensing in business is the norm and, if, like Linspire, you want a piece of home market, some accommodation with reality, the proprietary DVD codec, Windows 95% share, etc., is necessary.
If AT&T is going to start watching every single thing its users does and the users have no recourse whatsoever, I say it is time to end the monopoly that cable and wired ISPs and phone companies have in most areas and let competition reign
Your competition here would be Verizon - heir to NYTel (1896) - National Grid - heir to Niagara Mohawk and its predecessors [1896] and Time-Warner - heir to Adelphia Cable [1972].
These are the companies that own and built the existing infrastructure, reach to every doorstep, and all have enormous financial resources.
It is my understanding that recording a telephone conversation is against the law in most states, without notifying the other parties on the line.
Thus, a practical device for this patent would most likely be illegal.
Do you have to notify a caller that you are using caller ID? Do you have the right to make an anonymous phone call?
This guide for journalists may be helpful: "Can We Tape?"
But I am not sure that any existing law is a good fit for this new tech.
The sort of processing this patent covers is something that hasn't been possible until recently, but I think, in principle, is something absolutely necessary for robust AI.
Do you know if there are medical applications for tech like this? For example, could it warn "life-line" support for seniors, the 911 dispatcher or EMT of patterns or changes that are probably significant but not obvious to the layman?
When AT&T has only Hollywood Movie Companies subscribing to their internet service, they may change their mind about censoring/blocking Zero's & One's. The Almighty Dollar is what dictates any techno and when the money goes, so will the censorship.
The population of the U.S. is 300 million. The population of Slashdot 1 million. The legit movie download that can be sold in one click to a family of five vs. servicing the lone geek in his basement who soaks up bandwidth like a sponge. Tough choice.
my guess is that the MS Office code is pretty ugly and not easily comprehensible, let alone modifiable, by anyone who was not involved in its development.
you've just described OpenOffice.org which - for all practical purposes - is funded, staffed and managed by Sun. and has a code bas that makes MS Office look transparent.
Microsoft's got a tight-knit set of products out there
and then there are the must-have third-party apps and plug-ins that integrate with Office. along with the countless macros, templates, tutorials, etc., that do not exist for OpenOffice.org.
There is of course the OEM edition and academic pricing.
The Geek is far too quick to equate max retail list with the street price for a legit copy of Office. But the deeper truth is that MS Office is still overwhelmingly dominant in every market and still best of class.
Sun Star Office 8 - a solid alternative, one might argue, for the home user - is $73 at Amazon and #1000 in sales.
They are going to put cops in movie theaters to protect corporate profits?! What a joke!
Why do you think that cop is keeping watch on the neighborhood mini-mart after dark? Have you ever met a business man who didn't want a police presence on his street? The rules don't change simply because geek crime is white-collar crime.
The lines will be longer for a little while, but only 'til people are so fed up with being considered a criminal for wanting to watch a movie that even more refuse to go to the cinemas anymore.
It ain't gonna happen.
Going to the movies is a social experience that can't be replicated elsewhere. Soon to open: The Transfomers, Brad Bird's Ratatouille, Harry Potter, and The Fantastic Four [featuring The Silver Surfer and Galactus - nerd nirvana]
The Slashdot Geek and his talk of boycotts is going to shoved to the sidelines yet again. If the camcorders and the cell phones were locked out entirely you'd have audiences on their feet applauding.
Just say your project proves popular. Well in that case the chances are very high that you will find yourself in competition with an open source equivalent, either existing or created specifically because your software revealed a new need.
Without knowing what he is building I wouldn't care to call the odds. You won't get far programming an industrial controller for twenty-five tons of heavy machinery if you have never stepped foot on a shop room floor.
Free software gives everyone the freedom to run, study, change and redistribute software. It is these freedoms, not the price, that is important about free software.
It is easy to find programs that are free to run, study, modify, etc., that are not distributed under what many here would call a "free" license.
It is equally easy to find "free" software that is opague to all but the most experienced of programmers. You will not be dissecting the GIMP in the grade school classeoom.
What is difficult is finding software that is of genuine value in the classroom.
Teaching kids programming is almost never the goal. Introducing kids to the foundations of a general education is always the goal. That is not a narrow technical problem. That is not a problem the free software movement has solved.
But... who quantifies that? Is someone with an 80gig iPod carrying around -millions- of dollars of copyrighted material? By RIAA's definition... ?
Would it be more comforting if you were assessed based on the estimated retail value of the downloads from an alternative, legit, source like iTunes? It doesn't take long before that $3,500 out-of-court settlement begins to look pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
The basic rule is relevance. If it would be helpful to have the recording, you can ask for the recording.
Edison's early wax cylinders were only good for about 100 plays. The volatile RAM of another era. But that the recordings were ephemeral wouldn't have made them inadmissible.
And when flash drives become the norm that is more or less how the order will be worded. Temporary storage is still storage. The judge only cares that the information recorded "in RAM" still exists and can be retrieved.
Nothing at all.
Listening to shared music was a feature of Microsoft's P2P experiment, "threedegrees" [as in three degrees of separation.]
Windows Home Server products will be available from HP and others along about September. Includes a free {or vanity plate] Windows Live! address. Free SDK to develop your own home server apps available now.
Windows Home Server
The rules are really quite simple. You want to be an internet radio broadcaster or an internet music distributer? Then get the appropriate license. You want a risk-free download? Go to a known-good source like iTunes.
Under U.S. law copyright infringement does not require commercial gain - even for a first offense that can put your behind bars in a federal pen for one to five years.
Copyright is a property right. You do not escape prosecution for grand theft auto because you were on a teenage joyride and not delivering the stolen Porsche to a chop shop.
and the clueless Windows user responds:
I can't run a program like LimeWire without first creating a "Shared Files" folder and limiting its access to that particular "Shared Files" folder, a folder only I can fill.
My firewall will impose a block on external access until I explicitly give LimeWire permission to act as a server.
To me that sounds like setting out the kegs and erecting a neon sign flashing the message "Free Beer!!!" There is no way on God's Earth that anyone can mistake your intent to distribute.
Microsoft is a thirty year old company, debt free, with tens of billions in liquid reserves, quarterly profits up and every other week or so another billion gets poured into the money bin. Microsoft plays for long-term gains.
"Nobody wants Vista." But Vista is selling.
Attracted by aggressive prices and the launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista OS, consumers purchased more notebooks during the first quarter than expected, pushing IDC to raise its 2007 PC industry forecast.
The PC industry is set to ship 256.7 million units in 2007, marking 12.2 percent growth over the previous year. IDC had previously forecast a growth rate of 11.1 percent and shipment volume of 254.2 million.
The primary engine of growth was a 28 percent jump in first quarter notebook shipments compared to the same period last year, a faster pace than the 25 percent increases seen in that segment for the past three quarters. Vista and notebooks boost PC sales
You know the Geek is living in a dream world when it is bad news for Microsoft that Acer's shipments are only expected to grow 30 to 40 percent this year. Vista knocks down Acer sales
The distros of choice for the OEM market? Dell? The big box retailer like Walmart and Target?
Look around you. The home user. The small businessman. These are not sophisticated technical hobbyists. These are not ideologues. They are the polar opposite of the Slashdot Geek and they have money to spend.
- and if the chaff is Red Hot and the product Sun's OpenOffice what then?
The linux community has expanded far beyond the ideologues and enthusiasts that populate Slashdot.
These distros target end-users who don't give a damn about the GPL and never will.
Cross-licensing in business is the norm and, if, like Linspire, you want a piece of home market, some accommodation with reality, the proprietary DVD codec, Windows 95% share, etc., is necessary.
Your competition here would be Verizon - heir to NYTel (1896) - National Grid - heir to Niagara Mohawk and its predecessors [1896] and Time-Warner - heir to Adelphia Cable [1972]. These are the companies that own and built the existing infrastructure, reach to every doorstep, and all have enormous financial resources.
Thus, a practical device for this patent would most likely be illegal.
Do you have to notify a caller that you are using caller ID? Do you have the right to make an anonymous phone call?
This guide for journalists may be helpful: "Can We Tape?" But I am not sure that any existing law is a good fit for this new tech.
Do you know if there are medical applications for tech like this? For example, could it warn "life-line" support for seniors, the 911 dispatcher or EMT of patterns or changes that are probably significant but not obvious to the layman?
The population of the U.S. is 300 million. The population of Slashdot 1 million. The legit movie download that can be sold in one click to a family of five vs. servicing the lone geek in his basement who soaks up bandwidth like a sponge. Tough choice.
you've just described OpenOffice.org which - for all practical purposes - is funded, staffed and managed by Sun. and has a code bas that makes MS Office look transparent.
When OpenOffice.org has a site as helpful and accessible to end users as MS Office Home, then we can talk.
which kinda sucks if you making a case for the "free" Office alternative.
and then there are the must-have third-party apps and plug-ins that integrate with Office. along with the countless macros, templates, tutorials, etc., that do not exist for OpenOffice.org.
Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 is $122 from Amazon.com, retail boxed. Three seat license. Currently - and predictably - #1 on the Amazon software sales chart.
There is of course the OEM edition and academic pricing.
The Geek is far too quick to equate max retail list with the street price for a legit copy of Office. But the deeper truth is that MS Office is still overwhelmingly dominant in every market and still best of class.
Sun Star Office 8 - a solid alternative, one might argue, for the home user - is $73 at Amazon and #1000 in sales.
Why do you think that cop is keeping watch on the neighborhood mini-mart after dark? Have you ever met a business man who didn't want a police presence on his street? The rules don't change simply because geek crime is white-collar crime.
How many "Hollywood" productions have been filmed in Canada? You think Vancouver and Toronto don't like this mix of skilled jobs and cold hard cash?
It ain't gonna happen.
Going to the movies is a social experience that can't be replicated elsewhere. Soon to open: The Transfomers, Brad Bird's Ratatouille, Harry Potter, and The Fantastic Four [featuring The Silver Surfer and Galactus - nerd nirvana]
The Slashdot Geek and his talk of boycotts is going to shoved to the sidelines yet again. If the camcorders and the cell phones were locked out entirely you'd have audiences on their feet applauding.
Without knowing what he is building I wouldn't care to call the odds. You won't get far programming an industrial controller for twenty-five tons of heavy machinery if you have never stepped foot on a shop room floor.
It is easy to find programs that are free to run, study, modify, etc., that are not distributed under what many here would call a "free" license.
It is equally easy to find "free" software that is opague to all but the most experienced of programmers. You will not be dissecting the GIMP in the grade school classeoom.
What is difficult is finding software that is of genuine value in the classroom.
Teaching kids programming is almost never the goal. Introducing kids to the foundations of a general education is always the goal. That is not a narrow technical problem. That is not a problem the free software movement has solved.
Would it be more comforting if you were assessed based on the estimated retail value of the downloads from an alternative, legit, source like iTunes? It doesn't take long before that $3,500 out-of-court settlement begins to look pretty good.