the meaning is always clear in context and the rule violates ordinary usage of the 's to indicate possession. leaving the grammarian little hope that the rule will be remembered outside the classroom.
It seems that the only country left who don't want patents is China
For an introduction to the intellectual property law of China: Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, etc. Why does it always come as a surprise on Slashdot when an international trader brings it's laws into synch with it's major trading partners?
I think this is probably the case not only because Microsoft is "popular" (read: has 90+% of the OS market), but also because Microsoft software..is accepted by society because people aren't aware of the alternatives that are out there (Mac and Linux)
A product with greater than 90% market share can reasonably be considered popular, without the quotes, and if, after being trumpted from the rooftops for twenty years, people still aren't aware of the Mac, what hope is there for Linux?
"Student Teacher Office 2003" from Amazon probably doesn't even come close to Openoffice's million downloads a month totalling over 35 million
There are several stand-alone and upgrade versions of Office on the Amazon list. How many of those OpenOffice downloads represent new users rather than upgrades and how many are for Windows? Student-Teacher Office installs on up to three systems, which is probably an acceptable limitation to most home users. Office at $30-$50 a seat can compete against OSS. Amazon is damn big but still only one of many retail outlets for Microsoft.
You might usefully begin by asking yourself how many times you have seen "clever" mispellings of Microsoft used by anyone outside the Slashdot forums and their kin.
25 of the top 100 products on the Amazon.com Software sales chart are from Microsoft, with Student Teacher Office 2003 currently in third place. Christmas rebates bringing the price down to $99.
The Columbus, Ohio, resident began using the newer operating system when his son John, technology editor of Laptop Magazine, installed it on his $129 Pentium III
Here lies our proof of mass market acceptance of Linux in the home:
Linux as the O/S of choice for the lowest of low-end systems.
Linux installed by the techno-geek son.
WalMart sells Linux!
Four models with bottom feeder specs sold off a website and buried three layers deep. Be still my heart. Good luck getting free home delivery or a brand-name system with a monitor and printer. The chain has yet to spend a dime marketing Linux in it's brick and motar stores.
The Model T entered the market when there were no hard surfaced roads or trained auto mechanics outside the cities, no high octane gasolines, no gas stations, no certainty that fuel or lubricants would be as advertised. Under those conditions, a simple, tough, forgiving, automobile with a 20hp engine that can cruise comfortably at 35-40, and gets 20-30 mpg doesn't look half-bad.
XP has 60% of the market, W2K 24%. OS Platform Statistics These stats are probably weighted somewhat against XP, but it scarcely matters. People have moved and are moving to XP in very significant numbers, at some point, you have to let go the idea that it is a "forced upgrade" and not a perfectly normal migration to a newer O/S.
under Title 18 of the U.S. Code you can be sentenced for up to three years on a first offense for copyright infringement even if no money changes hands, six years on a second offense.
Unauthorized copying is not stealing. It is illegal, but it is not theft
The law reasons by analogies which, however imperfect, are still serviceable. In time these analogies become rooted in case law and statutes, what the law defines and punishes as theft has become theft, whether you accept the accept the reasoning or not.
Copyright infringement is a felony under Title 17 of the U.S. Code. When you can be sentenced to serve one to three years in a federal penitentiary on a first offense, with no money changing hands, your argument that copyright infringement is not stealing becomes dangerous to those who may be tempted to trust in it. Title 18: Part 1: Chapter 113: Sec. 2319
Wow, wouldn't you love to have a free webmail address with the AOL brandname attached to it, so you can email your friends with? Nothing says class, prestige and superior social status like a free webmail AOL address! Where do I sign up?
Even in decline, AOL has 23 million solidly middle class subscribers, none of whom has ever given a damn what a Geek thinks about the service and could care less if you have a Gmail account.
Geez, everything is entertainment related, with almost no educational value
All but a handful of the top-ranking searches required only one or two familiar keywords to yield meaningful results, a proper name, a place, a single object of interest, such as a sport like cricket.
But will the Zeitgeist total queries that ask the same question in many different ways because users don't know the keywords needed to define and limit their search?
And I assume by office integration, you mean MS Office integration in which case you've made your decision based on using other MS software too
of course it does. but it is not MS software alone. there are countless apps out there which integrate seamlessly with Office, down to the macros used for printing a shipping label.
Your average soccer mom buys her Dell with Windows installed and is good to go for the next three to five years, at a cost of about $45, or roughly the price of a single pair of ink jet cartridges.
It is not worth her time to spend hours or days retrieving a blocky, artifact-ridden, low-res DiVX rip of a movie she'll be able to buy for $20 or rent for $5 in all it's wide-screen, surround-sound DVD glory next spring.
b) If someone looks at child porn from Freenet, no child is harmed. Since it's on Freenet, not only has the producer not been paid, he has no way to know that anyone has even seen it. Obviously the act of producing porn can harm children, but I can't think of any reason that anonymously viewing it with Freenet would lead to any further harm. So it's pretty much a victimless crime.
Free-as-in-beer does not make it legal. The creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography remains criminal even when no money changes hands.
It doesn't matter if no one downloads your files, you have made the attempt to distribute through a plausible channel and that is enough to hang you.
"Mere viewing" is not a victimless crime. This is lazy, inexcusable, sloppy, thinking.
Put yourself in the place of the child, her guardians, her counselors, and ask if you would want still photos and videos of her rape to be broadcast over the net, to circulate for all eternity.
You haven't considered the possibility that the child might be identifiable and still at risk. You view her anonymously but do nothing to help. Silence gives consent.
Since the author of the virus actually is the owner of the copyright on the viral code, then the encryption should qualify as a copyright protection device under the DMCA. Law enforcement officials who decrypt the virus to reverse engineer it would be in violation of the DMCA
Let's begin with the most basic question, can you copyright the virus?
I suspect the argument would meet with the same hostility you would face if you argued for copyright protection of an encrypted blackmail letter, ransom note, forged commercial paper, etc.
In general there is no way you can give legal cover to an artifact created with criminal intent.
If common carrier status doesn't provide a moral defense, then we in the technology field all very evil people
Tell me how an individual can raise the "common carrier" defense if illegal traffic is being routed through or hosted on his system? I don't think it can be done.
should WalMart close its doors, because it sells food to anybody, even the bad guys?
WalMart is pretty much free to close it's doors to anyone it choses, so long as it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex or religion, physical or mental handicap. If your behavior is suspect, an inconvenience or danger to other patrons, or to the store's image and reputation, you will be quietly but efficiently shown the way out.
every time someone mentions Freenet on Slashdot, you write an essay equating it with child pornography, then you are...promoting the distribution of child porn on Freenet - you encourage pedophiles..to see what disgusting filth Freenet has to offer, while scaring away the many people who would otherwise use Freenet for legal and moral purposes.
This argument strikes me as altogether too clever and certainly presents a remarkably discouraging portrait of the Slashdot reader as easily frightened, voyeuristic, pedophilic. I think it must remain within bounds to ask whether Freenet's absolutist position on free speech ultimately cripples the network.
The trade associations don't have to sue millions, they only have to settle with up-loaders with significant bandwidth, large file libraries, and the most marketable titles. Bonus points if you shut down P2P at a big-ten college or university.
Sharks are opportunists not statisticians. Show them a wound and they will strike without mercy. Never give a sucker an even break.
Anonymity helps to assure (but not guarantee) the safety of a Tibetan lad tortured and raped by the Chinese as he uses Tor or Tor-like technologies to relay the story of his plight. In this way, we in the West can learn the extent of the suffering of the Tibetan people.
This assumes your Tibetan lad has secure access to the Internet. If all traffic is monitored at the border, the volume of traffic is light, and can be easily traced to it's point of origin, I don't see how you maintain anonymity,
The idea behind systems like this is that what people exchange electronically should be very much like what they discuss in private.
How does an "exchange" of photographs constitute a private "discussion" of any sort? There is no such thing as a legal right to create, possess, or distribute child pornography.
By partaking in such a system you are helping to ensure that the concept of online privacy isn't just the types of privacy that the combination of business and government decide to leave you with.
I can believe in privacy and free speech without allowing my home to be used as a secure forum and mail drop for the Ku Klux Klan. I retain this freedom everywhere it seems but in Freenet.
Government and business are usually slow-moving and pragmatic. Those who wield power are generally aware of it's limits. Rather I fear more the idealist who would impose his absolutist values on everyone.
but you attack that problem in the real world, not on-line
I distrust so easy and careless a distinction between the "real and "online" worlds. In the end, there can be only one. You attack an enemy where he is active and vulnerable, you are not obliged to provide him with a safe haven anywhere.
On-line communication is NOT child abuse; it's just communication.
The child might beg to differ, when images of her rape are distributed over the net.
Theater-worthy movies are mostly action flicks...chick flicks are almost never theater-worthy (there are circumstantial exceptions to this rule...none of them are ever based on the movie however).
The problem with a one-time pad is the pad itself. It's a dangerous thing to have in your possession and could be mathematically flawed or compromised in other ways. In World War II, the Russians recycled pages because of shortages in specialty inks and papers.
Slashdot Mirror
the meaning is always clear in context and the rule violates ordinary usage of the 's to indicate possession. leaving the grammarian little hope that the rule will be remembered outside the classroom.
For an introduction to the intellectual property law of China: Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, etc. Why does it always come as a surprise on Slashdot when an international trader brings it's laws into synch with it's major trading partners?
A product with greater than 90% market share can reasonably be considered popular, without the quotes, and if, after being trumpted from the rooftops for twenty years, people still aren't aware of the Mac, what hope is there for Linux?
There are several stand-alone and upgrade versions of Office on the Amazon list.
How many of those OpenOffice downloads represent new users rather than upgrades and how many are for Windows?
Student-Teacher Office installs on up to three systems, which is probably an acceptable limitation to most home users. Office at $30-$50 a seat can compete against OSS. Amazon is damn big but still only one of many retail outlets for Microsoft.
25 of the top 100 products on the Amazon.com Software sales chart are from Microsoft, with Student Teacher Office 2003 currently in third place. Christmas rebates bringing the price down to $99.
Here lies our proof of mass market acceptance of Linux in the home:
Linux as the O/S of choice for the lowest of low-end systems.
Linux installed by the techno-geek son.
WalMart sells Linux!
Four models with bottom feeder specs sold off a website and buried three layers deep. Be still my heart.
Good luck getting free home delivery or a brand-name system with a monitor and printer. The chain has yet to spend a dime marketing Linux in it's brick and motar stores.
The Model T entered the market when there were no hard surfaced roads or trained auto mechanics outside the cities, no high octane gasolines, no gas stations, no certainty that fuel or lubricants would be as advertised.
Under those conditions, a simple, tough, forgiving, automobile with a 20hp engine that can cruise comfortably at 35-40, and gets 20-30 mpg doesn't look half-bad.
XP has 60% of the market, W2K 24%. OS Platform Statistics These stats are probably weighted somewhat against XP, but it scarcely matters. People have moved and are moving to XP in very significant numbers, at some point, you have to let go the idea that it is a "forced upgrade" and not a perfectly normal migration to a newer O/S.
under Title 18 of the U.S. Code you can be sentenced for up to three years on a first offense for copyright infringement even if no money changes hands, six years on a second offense.
The minimum age is sixteen (fourteen states.) No juvenile younger than seventeen at the time his crime was committed has been executed in the United States in over thirty years. Age Requirements for the Death Penalty and the Execution of Juveniles
Is...showing a video clip of her in a game considered commercial use?..Her image is...being used as a minor reward in the game.
I think you have answered your own question.
The law reasons by analogies which, however imperfect, are still serviceable.
In time these analogies become rooted in case law and statutes, what the law defines and punishes as theft has become theft, whether you accept the accept the reasoning or not.
Copyright infringement is a felony under Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
When you can be sentenced to serve one to three years in a federal penitentiary on a first offense, with no money changing hands, your argument that copyright infringement is not stealing becomes dangerous to those who may be tempted to trust in it. Title 18: Part 1: Chapter 113: Sec. 2319
Even in decline, AOL has 23 million solidly middle class subscribers, none of whom has ever given a damn what a Geek thinks about the service and could care less if you have a Gmail account.
All but a handful of the top-ranking searches required only one or two familiar keywords to yield meaningful results, a proper name, a place, a single object of interest, such as a sport like cricket.
But will the Zeitgeist total queries that ask the same question in many different ways because users don't know the keywords needed to define and limit their search?
was there ever a time when humans did not engage in barter or exchange?
of course it does. but it is not MS software alone.
there are countless apps out there which integrate seamlessly with Office, down to the macros used for printing a shipping label.
Your average soccer mom buys her Dell with Windows installed and is good to go for the next three to five years, at a cost of about $45, or roughly the price of a single pair of ink jet cartridges.
It is not worth her time to spend hours or days retrieving a blocky, artifact-ridden, low-res DiVX rip of a movie she'll be able to buy for $20 or rent for $5 in all it's wide-screen, surround-sound DVD glory next spring.
Free-as-in-beer does not make it legal. The creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography remains criminal even when no money changes hands.
It doesn't matter if no one downloads your files, you have made the attempt to distribute through a plausible channel and that is enough to hang you.
"Mere viewing" is not a victimless crime. This is lazy, inexcusable, sloppy, thinking.
Put yourself in the place of the child, her guardians, her counselors, and ask if you would want still photos and videos of her rape to be broadcast over the net, to circulate for all eternity.
You haven't considered the possibility that the child might be identifiable and still at risk. You view her anonymously but do nothing to help. Silence gives consent.
Let's begin with the most basic question, can you copyright the virus?
I suspect the argument would meet with the same hostility you would face if you argued for copyright protection of an encrypted blackmail letter, ransom note, forged commercial paper, etc.
In general there is no way you can give legal cover to an artifact created with criminal intent.
reboot, what reboot? with the .NET framework in place, this is a 7 MB msi download that installs in under a minute
Tell me how an individual can raise the "common carrier" defense if illegal traffic is being routed through or hosted on his system? I don't think it can be done.
should WalMart close its doors, because it sells food to anybody, even the bad guys?
WalMart is pretty much free to close it's doors to anyone it choses, so long as it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex or religion, physical or mental handicap. If your behavior is suspect, an inconvenience or danger to other patrons, or to the store's image and reputation, you will be quietly but efficiently shown the way out.
every time someone mentions Freenet on Slashdot, you write an essay equating it with child pornography, then you are...promoting the distribution of child porn on Freenet - you encourage pedophiles..to see what disgusting filth Freenet has to offer, while scaring away the many people who would otherwise use Freenet for legal and moral purposes.
This argument strikes me as altogether too clever and certainly presents a remarkably discouraging portrait of the Slashdot reader as easily frightened, voyeuristic, pedophilic. I think it must remain within bounds to ask whether Freenet's absolutist position on free speech ultimately cripples the network.
Sharks are opportunists not statisticians.
Show them a wound and they will strike without mercy. Never give a sucker an even break.
This assumes your Tibetan lad has secure access to the Internet. If all traffic is monitored at the border, the volume of traffic is light, and can be easily traced to it's point of origin, I don't see how you maintain anonymity,
How does an "exchange" of photographs constitute a private "discussion" of any sort? There is no such thing as a legal right to create, possess, or distribute child pornography.
By partaking in such a system you are helping to ensure that the concept of online privacy isn't just the types of privacy that the combination of business and government decide to leave you with.
I can believe in privacy and free speech without allowing my home to be used as a secure forum and mail drop for the Ku Klux Klan. I retain this freedom everywhere it seems but in Freenet.
Government and business are usually slow-moving and pragmatic. Those who wield power are generally aware of it's limits. Rather I fear more the idealist who would impose his absolutist values on everyone.
but you attack that problem in the real world, not on-line
I distrust so easy and careless a distinction between the "real and "online" worlds. In the end, there can be only one. You attack an enemy where he is active and vulnerable, you are not obliged to provide him with a safe haven anywhere.
On-line communication is NOT child abuse; it's just communication.
The child might beg to differ, when images of her rape are distributed over the net.
translation: no chick, no flick.
The problem with a one-time pad is the pad itself. It's a dangerous thing to have in your possession and could be mathematically flawed or compromised in other ways.
In World War II, the Russians recycled pages because of shortages in specialty inks and papers.