That's because no California court has ever awarded punitive damages in a derivative suit. Derivative suits, like this one, are about equity - not punishment.
As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. The fact that you have to 'filter through a whole lotta crap' is precisely why I've been becoming a Digg user instead of a slashdot user of the past month or so.
You can view the Digg queue and see what gets submitted and I find awesome links that are useful/interesting to me that never make it to the main page. That may be 'crap' to you, but that's a whole hell of a lot cooler in my eyes than just consuming whatever biased/inaccurate/flamebait articles the slashdot 'editors' deem worthy enough to send down from the mountaintop.
I will say though that for in-depth technical comments, slashdot is the place to be. Digg comments leave much to be desired, but because stories hit the main page faster than slashdot can keep pace with and the fact that I can see what is going on behind the scenes has converted me to Digg.
The new Office is amazing, check out a 40 minute video of it here. The video is about 600mb, so I fully expect their servers to catch on fire once it gets slashdotted, but have at it.
Can I just say that if you do write in, don't flame. Be intelligent, clear, concise, to the point, and most of all RESPECTFUL. This isn't a rant, this is a opportunity to voice a legitimate gripe. Since they're requesting our opinions, they'll likely listen - let's not blow it.
1.) You don't have nearly as much money as your employer, so a software company isn't going to sue you. They're going to sue the employer. Seriously, you go for the deep pockets - not the guy installing software.
2.) The legal doctrine of "Respondeat Superior" covers you. It pretty much means that the "Employer answers for the crimes of the Employee". If a software company is going to sue for infringment, it's as if the lawsuit passes through you and onto your employer BUT only if what you did was within the scope of your employment. If you were installing the infringing software on your own free will, then you're in trouble. However, if you installed the software at the direction of your superior, then they're the one that is in hot water - not you.
So in sum - you are not in trouble and have no duty to disclose under the law, although whistleblower statutes would protect you if you did. I think the best thing for you to do is realize that it's friday and that pretty soon you should be drinking mass quantities of beer. Cheers!
***This is NOT legal advice and I am not you're attorney. If you have serious legal questions, you should seek counsel in your jurisdiction - the laws may be different***
I don't want to get into a pissing contest and rebut everything you say point by point all night long because it's obvious you're not an attorney, but you said the following:
The section places NO WEIGHT on any single one of those, each is as equal when determining whether the usage is fair use or not. The fiar usage exclusions within copyright law all use language which leans toward partial redistribution and now redistribution of the entire work.
Those are indeed the factors, but like I said before, a statute is nothing by itself - you have to check your case law. There isn't any weight listed for those 4 factors you mention because you're not going to find anything like that in the statute itself, it's in the damn CASE LAW!! And courts have held over and over that the most important factor is if it's a commercial or non-commerical use. I don't have any cases in front of me and I don't feel like digging on lexis, but I'm sure somebody else here can cite some cases for me that back this up.
Not only that, but those factors CAME FIRST, before the statute. It even says that in the statute that you cited!! Have a look....
Sec. 107: Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
"Codified" means that a judge made law existed (you may know this as "common law"), and then the legislature then took the rules that the judiciary made and wrote them down into a statute. The common law was written into the code, hence the term "codified". The case law is still valid though, that is why the 4 different factors have differing weights - it's in the cases.
It actually amuses me the extent Fair Use is misunderstood on slashdot
Yeah me too, so let me point out where you have an almost criminal misunderstanding as to what fair use is...
You do realise that 'Fair Use' rarely if ever extends to sharing copyrighted material that you dont own copyright to?
No I didn't realize that, but that may be because Fair Use rights only come into play when you don't own the copyright!! Fair Use is when you use a copyrighted work without having to ask permission from the copyright owner.
You can cite statutes all you want, but unless you know the case law behind it, you don't know what it has been interpreted to mean. For instance, did you know that the Supreme Court has held that "any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use;' the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." SONY CORP. OF AMER. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 US 417 (1984).? I can tell that you didn't.
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use:
Did you even read what you cited? That is a list of "EXAMPLES", and the list is not exclusive. Again, if you did any research you'd find that there is no exhaustive list for "fair uses" nor is there any bright line test for what constitutes fair use. The factor that has the most weight to ascertain whether or not a use is a fair use is "was it for commercial purposes?". That's the biggy, so if you're using it for personal use (does that include sharing? we don't know yet) then it is more likely that your use is non-infringing, but even that is not dispositive.
So basically, unless its incidental or judicial in some fashion, Fair Use has generally been found to be not applicable to the entire item, only excerpts or quotations, and rarely the whole content.
OK, you just contradicted yourself. You said previously that you can't copy an entire work without infringing, but now you say that Fair Use has only been generally (read: not entirely) applicable to copies of whole works? As I said before, there is no bright line test for what is inringing or non-infringing, but it is entirely legal to copy an entire cd under the doctrine of fair use. Will saving a television show and sending it to Aunt Sally fall under the auspices of "fair use"? I don't know because the case isn't in front of me, but I do know that you are completely off-base to that unequivocally that doing so is an abolute infringing act.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but the next time you try to slap someone down, make sure your facts are correct and that you indeed know what you are talking about.
This is the guy that wants to trade the broadcast flag for our fair use rights. Our representatives shouldn't be trading one set of our rights in order to keep a right we already have. Fair use means nothing if everything is controlled with a broadcast flag and there is nothing for us to share.
Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.
"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."
As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."
"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.
Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.
Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists
"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."
Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."
Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."
Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.
Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition
"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."
The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
A real lawyer would have thrown in "reasonable person" and "It depends" for good measure.
Why is it that everything you say on slashdot is so fucking stupid?
"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
How Much Did This Search Engine Pay To Advertise On The Main Page of Slashdot?
One of the user names is "das"
I knew zee germans were behind this!
1.) Only $100 million?
That's because no California court has ever awarded punitive damages in a derivative suit. Derivative suits, like this one, are about equity - not punishment.
2.) No criminal record?
Derivative suits are civil, not criminal.
As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. The fact that you have to 'filter through a whole lotta crap' is precisely why I've been becoming a Digg user instead of a slashdot user of the past month or so.
You can view the Digg queue and see what gets submitted and I find awesome links that are useful/interesting to me that never make it to the main page. That may be 'crap' to you, but that's a whole hell of a lot cooler in my eyes than just consuming whatever biased/inaccurate/flamebait articles the slashdot 'editors' deem worthy enough to send down from the mountaintop.
I will say though that for in-depth technical comments, slashdot is the place to be. Digg comments leave much to be desired, but because stories hit the main page faster than slashdot can keep pace with and the fact that I can see what is going on behind the scenes has converted me to Digg.
So what happens when the overwhelming majority of journalists working for a network are members of the Democratic party?
The new Office is amazing, check out a 40 minute video of it here. The video is about 600mb, so I fully expect their servers to catch on fire once it gets slashdotted, but have at it.
John Paul Stevens is 85, and could possibly retire or die before the end of GWB's term.
The only way Stevens is leaving the Supreme Court is if there is a democratic president or if he is taken out feet first.
Can I just say that if you do write in, don't flame. Be intelligent, clear, concise, to the point, and most of all RESPECTFUL. This isn't a rant, this is a opportunity to voice a legitimate gripe. Since they're requesting our opinions, they'll likely listen - let's not blow it.
Spark plugs?
So Longhorn is going to be like pretty much the rest of their operating systems? ;-)
You're in the clear for two reasons:
1.) You don't have nearly as much money as your employer, so a software company isn't going to sue you. They're going to sue the employer. Seriously, you go for the deep pockets - not the guy installing software.
2.) The legal doctrine of "Respondeat Superior" covers you. It pretty much means that the "Employer answers for the crimes of the Employee". If a software company is going to sue for infringment, it's as if the lawsuit passes through you and onto your employer BUT only if what you did was within the scope of your employment. If you were installing the infringing software on your own free will, then you're in trouble. However, if you installed the software at the direction of your superior, then they're the one that is in hot water - not you.
So in sum - you are not in trouble and have no duty to disclose under the law, although whistleblower statutes would protect you if you did. I think the best thing for you to do is realize that it's friday and that pretty soon you should be drinking mass quantities of beer. Cheers!
***This is NOT legal advice and I am not you're attorney. If you have serious legal questions, you should seek counsel in your jurisdiction - the laws may be different***
You'll find that reverse psychology works best, but I'll probably get modded down for saying that.
then that makes this guy a genius
Those are indeed the factors, but like I said before, a statute is nothing by itself - you have to check your case law. There isn't any weight listed for those 4 factors you mention because you're not going to find anything like that in the statute itself, it's in the damn CASE LAW!! And courts have held over and over that the most important factor is if it's a commercial or non-commerical use. I don't have any cases in front of me and I don't feel like digging on lexis, but I'm sure somebody else here can cite some cases for me that back this up.
Not only that, but those factors CAME FIRST, before the statute. It even says that in the statute that you cited!! Have a look....
"Codified" means that a judge made law existed (you may know this as "common law"), and then the legislature then took the rules that the judiciary made and wrote them down into a statute. The common law was written into the code, hence the term "codified". The case law is still valid though, that is why the 4 different factors have differing weights - it's in the cases.
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is working on a spreadsheet app called "Numbers""...take it for what it's worth.
Yeah me too, so let me point out where you have an almost criminal misunderstanding as to what fair use is...
No I didn't realize that, but that may be because Fair Use rights only come into play when you don't own the copyright!! Fair Use is when you use a copyrighted work without having to ask permission from the copyright owner.
You can cite statutes all you want, but unless you know the case law behind it, you don't know what it has been interpreted to mean. For instance, did you know that the Supreme Court has held that "any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use;' the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." SONY CORP. OF AMER. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 US 417 (1984).? I can tell that you didn't.
Did you even read what you cited? That is a list of "EXAMPLES", and the list is not exclusive. Again, if you did any research you'd find that there is no exhaustive list for "fair uses" nor is there any bright line test for what constitutes fair use. The factor that has the most weight to ascertain whether or not a use is a fair use is "was it for commercial purposes?". That's the biggy, so if you're using it for personal use (does that include sharing? we don't know yet) then it is more likely that your use is non-infringing, but even that is not dispositive.
OK, you just contradicted yourself. You said previously that you can't copy an entire work without infringing, but now you say that Fair Use has only been generally (read: not entirely) applicable to copies of whole works? As I said before, there is no bright line test for what is inringing or non-infringing, but it is entirely legal to copy an entire cd under the doctrine of fair use. Will saving a television show and sending it to Aunt Sally fall under the auspices of "fair use"? I don't know because the case isn't in front of me, but I do know that you are completely off-base to that unequivocally that doing so is an abolute infringing act.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but the next time you try to slap someone down, make sure your facts are correct and that you indeed know what you are talking about.
This is the guy that wants to trade the broadcast flag for our fair use rights. Our representatives shouldn't be trading one set of our rights in order to keep a right we already have. Fair use means nothing if everything is controlled with a broadcast flag and there is nothing for us to share.
This just came across the wire as well:
"Apple will offer a Developer Kit, which includes 3.6GHz Pentium 4. OS X 10.4.1 for Intel (preview release). Order today; available in two weeks."
Not sure of the cost or if it will be tied to specific hardware somehow, but *damn*!
The rumors are true: Intel will be inside
Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.
"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."
As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."
"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.
Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.
Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists
"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."
Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."
Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."
Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.
Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition
"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."
The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.
Editing should be done BEFORE the article is posted
Jobs quoted in TODAY's WSJ...
Market share is "a lot less important than it once was," Mr. Jobs says. "I'm not sure it matters."