Actually, the constitutionality of warrantless GPS tracking is unclear, and courts have ruled both ways on the topic, generally depending on the facts of the case. Currently, one such case is being appealed by a defendant to the Supreme Court, which hasn't decided whether to grant cert yet.
How many of those defendants were joined to GeoTag's lawsuits solely for the purpose of getting jurisdiction in the Eastern District of Texas? The irony, of course, being that they would end up having to defend their other suit in Delaware anyway because they neglected to sue Google and Microsoft straight away.
Folks here are already saying things about this ruling diminishing the "person" aspect of corporations. The ruling doesn't really do that. Instead, it rests on a question of statutory construction. In particular, the court says that "personal privacy", a phrase used in FOIA, does not merely mean the privacy of a person, as AT&T argued, but instead refers to particular elements of privacy that only carry meaning when you're talking about an actual human being.
The case involves the use of images of Dorothy and friends from the Wizard of Oz. The characters were published, shortly before the movie was released, on promotional movie posters for which copyright was not sought (in those days, you had to register copyrights, unlike today, where the Berne Convention specifies automatic copyright upon publication). However, the district court ruled that the defendants, in selling various products featuring images of the Wizard of Oz characters (though not taken specifically from the movie, which is still under copyright) infringed upon the plaintiff's copyright in the movie because it used the images of the characters.
Of course, what the Ninth Circuit says in the case in TFA is apposite to the case in the Eighth Circuit. If one can infringe the copyright of a work by merely using images of characters depicted therein, then the copyright on a character can be maintained indefinitely by simply using the character in a new work from time to time. Even if the earliest works were in the public domain, the characters in those works would still be protected by the copyrights of the newer works, and this could be extended into perpetuity at the whim of the copyright holder. That clearly violates the "limited times" part of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution (although the Ninth Circuit addressed this in terms of the 1909 Copyright Act, which was the controlling law when the Wizard of Oz movie's copyright came into force, and which indicates that copyrights can't be extended in this fashion).
Although I have an EyeTV for my Mac and can record TV shows when I need to... my day to day TV recording needs are still met with my VCR that I've had for the past 10 years.
My eyes are bleeding from just reading that statement.
I hope you at least buy new blank tapes every now and then.
Also, JMS said that he didn't rush anything - all the plot threads relevant to ending the Shadow War and the Earth Alliance civil war were given the amount of time he wanted for them.
The real problem was that it forced him to put all the Telepath War stuff in season 5, and since the Telepath War stuff kind of sucked, it made season 5 kind of worse. The Fall of the Centauri Republic stuff made up for it, though.
Really, when it comes down to it, the two real tragedies were the miscommunication that resulted in Claudia Christian not returning for season 5, and TNT's total screwing up of Crusade through extensive meddling and canning the show after half a season. Oh, and Legend of the Rangers totally blew chunks, so I guess that's three.
Thanks for finding that. I can only assume that Google hadn't yet indexed the story when I did my search, since it was posted right around the same time I made my post.
So far, the only nominally credible journalistic outlet reporting on this story (and indexed so far by teh Google) is Huffington Post, which appears to be reporting solely based upon the press release.
This would be a great opportunity for some actual journalism - to find out why Paypal actually suspended access, what the reason behind the checking account access requirement is, whether or not there's government pressure at work here, and whether or not there's something that Courage to Resist knows about but isn't saying in their press release.
Or, we could just blindly accept everything Courage to Resist says as the unvarnished truth.
How is this any different than the collectable card series that were highly prevelent throughout my childhood - football, baseball, TMNT, Battlestar Galactica, and then on to the collectable card games like Spellfire, Magic etc etc. Not to mention the crap that came along with the interest in Warhammer 40K (what a scam! I occassionally pop into my local store to see what they are doing, and the prices are even more ludicrous today!) and the various AD&D packs.
Because when you were a kid, you had to bring actual physical cash to the comic book store to buy that stuff.
The transactions the FTC is looking at don't even require a credit card (at least, not in the child's possession) - just touch some smurfberries on your iPhone and you've bought $100 of worthless virtual crap.
TFA notes that the trojan intercepts the logout request and prevents the server from actually logging you out, even if you think you're logged out client-side.
Even if they did provide a list, all it would do is offer false complacency to the people whose banks weren't on it. As TFA notes, the trojan is continually being updated, and it's reasonable to assume that they're adding capabilities to attack more banks on a regular basis.
I would be willing to bet Real Cash Money that within ten years (and probably much sooner), BP will be selling biobutanol gasoline blends at their gas stations. That's the whole point - it's a replacement for ethanol, which is already widely used in gasoline blends.
There is certainly an argument to be made that the fact that the current patent system allows them to do this is contrary to the public interest.
The government would appear to disagree with that argument, because environmentally-beneficial inventions are one of the few kinds of inventions where patent applicants can request for free that their application be made "special" and therefore get examined sooner.
Slashdot Mirror
The court also had him define "newfag" and "rickroll".
Yeah, but that part the judge did just for the lulz.
Actually, the constitutionality of warrantless GPS tracking is unclear, and courts have ruled both ways on the topic, generally depending on the facts of the case. Currently, one such case is being appealed by a defendant to the Supreme Court, which hasn't decided whether to grant cert yet.
How many of those defendants were joined to GeoTag's lawsuits solely for the purpose of getting jurisdiction in the Eastern District of Texas? The irony, of course, being that they would end up having to defend their other suit in Delaware anyway because they neglected to sue Google and Microsoft straight away.
As an American, I can't really see how I've been aided by Manning's actions.
Folks here are already saying things about this ruling diminishing the "person" aspect of corporations. The ruling doesn't really do that. Instead, it rests on a question of statutory construction. In particular, the court says that "personal privacy", a phrase used in FOIA, does not merely mean the privacy of a person, as AT&T argued, but instead refers to particular elements of privacy that only carry meaning when you're talking about an actual human being.
On a side note, it's been great for playing MMO's
Leeroy Jenkins? Is that you?
You could always follow the bit.ly URLs yourself and then post the YouTube URL that results.
Oh, see also the Ninth Circuit's actual ruling.
There's another important case currently at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Warner Bros. Entertainment, et al. v. X One X Productions, et al., to which AVELA is also a defendant.
The case involves the use of images of Dorothy and friends from the Wizard of Oz. The characters were published, shortly before the movie was released, on promotional movie posters for which copyright was not sought (in those days, you had to register copyrights, unlike today, where the Berne Convention specifies automatic copyright upon publication). However, the district court ruled that the defendants, in selling various products featuring images of the Wizard of Oz characters (though not taken specifically from the movie, which is still under copyright) infringed upon the plaintiff's copyright in the movie because it used the images of the characters.
Of course, what the Ninth Circuit says in the case in TFA is apposite to the case in the Eighth Circuit. If one can infringe the copyright of a work by merely using images of characters depicted therein, then the copyright on a character can be maintained indefinitely by simply using the character in a new work from time to time. Even if the earliest works were in the public domain, the characters in those works would still be protected by the copyrights of the newer works, and this could be extended into perpetuity at the whim of the copyright holder. That clearly violates the "limited times" part of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution (although the Ninth Circuit addressed this in terms of the 1909 Copyright Act, which was the controlling law when the Wizard of Oz movie's copyright came into force, and which indicates that copyrights can't be extended in this fashion).
Copyright doesn't work that way. A copyright persists no matter how much you don't bother enforcing it. You're thinking of trademarks.
Also, names alone are generally not enough to merit copyright, but they can sometimes be trademarked.
Theia goes in, Moon comes out.
You can't explain that!
Although I have an EyeTV for my Mac and can record TV shows when I need to... my day to day TV recording needs are still met with my VCR that I've had for the past 10 years.
My eyes are bleeding from just reading that statement.
I hope you at least buy new blank tapes every now and then.
Where can I purchase this underwear you've described?
More or less. They extracted the denomination strip from a bill and claimed that it was used for remote tracking purposes.
Also, JMS said that he didn't rush anything - all the plot threads relevant to ending the Shadow War and the Earth Alliance civil war were given the amount of time he wanted for them.
The real problem was that it forced him to put all the Telepath War stuff in season 5, and since the Telepath War stuff kind of sucked, it made season 5 kind of worse. The Fall of the Centauri Republic stuff made up for it, though.
Really, when it comes down to it, the two real tragedies were the miscommunication that resulted in Claudia Christian not returning for season 5, and TNT's total screwing up of Crusade through extensive meddling and canning the show after half a season. Oh, and Legend of the Rangers totally blew chunks, so I guess that's three.
Thanks for finding that. I can only assume that Google hadn't yet indexed the story when I did my search, since it was posted right around the same time I made my post.
So far, the only nominally credible journalistic outlet reporting on this story (and indexed so far by teh Google) is Huffington Post, which appears to be reporting solely based upon the press release.
This would be a great opportunity for some actual journalism - to find out why Paypal actually suspended access, what the reason behind the checking account access requirement is, whether or not there's government pressure at work here, and whether or not there's something that Courage to Resist knows about but isn't saying in their press release.
Or, we could just blindly accept everything Courage to Resist says as the unvarnished truth.
I'm pretty sure the guys with the black helicopters aren't mystified by sarcasm.
How is this any different than the collectable card series that were highly prevelent throughout my childhood - football, baseball, TMNT, Battlestar Galactica, and then on to the collectable card games like Spellfire, Magic etc etc. Not to mention the crap that came along with the interest in Warhammer 40K (what a scam! I occassionally pop into my local store to see what they are doing, and the prices are even more ludicrous today!) and the various AD&D packs.
Because when you were a kid, you had to bring actual physical cash to the comic book store to buy that stuff.
The transactions the FTC is looking at don't even require a credit card (at least, not in the child's possession) - just touch some smurfberries on your iPhone and you've bought $100 of worthless virtual crap.
The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter.
TFA notes that the trojan intercepts the logout request and prevents the server from actually logging you out, even if you think you're logged out client-side.
Even if they did provide a list, all it would do is offer false complacency to the people whose banks weren't on it. As TFA notes, the trojan is continually being updated, and it's reasonable to assume that they're adding capabilities to attack more banks on a regular basis.
They are in the business of pumping oil from the ground and delivering it to your car.
What if that refined gas has 11.5% butanol in it? Then BP gets to be environmentally responsible and sell people gasoline at the same time.
I would be willing to bet Real Cash Money that within ten years (and probably much sooner), BP will be selling biobutanol gasoline blends at their gas stations. That's the whole point - it's a replacement for ethanol, which is already widely used in gasoline blends.
There is certainly an argument to be made that the fact that the current patent system allows them to do this is contrary to the public interest.
The government would appear to disagree with that argument, because environmentally-beneficial inventions are one of the few kinds of inventions where patent applicants can request for free that their application be made "special" and therefore get examined sooner.