you are still making use of code that bears a GPL license.
Irrelevant. "Making use" of GPL code has no relation to the GPL license. In fact, that license specifically says that people can use the supplied program without even agreeing to the license. The GPL only covers copying, modified copying, and distribution.
There is no 'slightly pregnant' here
Yes there is. This area is highly ambiguous, although it has nothing really do to with the GPL itself, and everything to do with the copyright law that gives the GPL its teeth.
Is "linking" to a program or piece of data an act of copyright infringement? Well, copyright law covers "reproduction" and "distribution", and by linking to an external library (or website) my program (or web page) neither reproduces nor distributes... so it doesn't infringe copyright in the straightfoward sense. There may be ways to stretch it to fit though, such as by arguing that the function name or URL used to accomplish the link was itself an item protected by copyright, and thus making the link was reproducing a small amount of protected material- but that's a tenuous reach.
Nonetheless, some plaintiffs have attempted to get linking interpreted as a means of copyright violation, but they haven't really suceeded yet.
As has been said before, the linking to a GPL library will violate the GPL if and only if linking to a copyrighted library is found to be a violation of copyright.
Well, it would if the company were to sell it to you on those terms.
Wrong. Once a person sells you something, you own it, and can do anything with it you can do with any other of your property.
I should point out to anyone else who reads this that you are (intentionally?) conflating "copy of" and "copyright to". Only the former is relevant here, as the selling of copies outnumbers the selling of copyrights by a billion to one.
Well, it would if the company were to sell it to you on those terms.
Please provide any example of a company establishing "terms" during (or prior to) the sale of a copy of software.
The clerk at Computer Land doesn't extract a promise not to execute the software unless you agree to an auxilliary license, to be displayed later. She takes the cash, you take the disc, she says "Have a nice day", and you walk out.
Do you somehow think it's illegal to buy an audio CD and listen to it, because the publisher didn't specifically authorize you to play it? Do you maybe not understand that buyers of media automatically get the right to view/use it in the most normal way?
Do you really think that large corporations would pay millions of additional dollars in order to comply with the terms of EULA's if they weren't valid?
No, I don't think they would. And since they DON'T do that, I haven't got any problem. (If you know a couterexample, go ahead)
Note that many corps do enter specific licenses for software, and will enter into an agreement if it gives them rights BEYOND what they get automatically when purchasing one copy of the software. Primarily, a site-license allows them to install more than 1 copy of a program from a single set of distribution media, something that otherwise would be copyright infringement.
Running a single install of a purchased program is not copyright infringing (in the USA), so it provides no leverage to the publisher.
GPL = gives additional rights = valid site-license = gives additional rights = valid normal EULA = takes away rights = invalid
So in typical software sales you note the message than indicates opening the seal on the CD means you agree with the EULA and you don't agree with it and return the software for a refund? I
Well, I personally am a Linux user, so don't have direct experience... but, I suppose that typical users see the message on the wrapper, don't agree with it, and go ahead and tear open the box anyway, regardless of their (dis)agreement.
That is their right, because the box itself is their own physical property. They can tear it, burn it, or dissolve it in acid, and no other entity can construe those actions as agreement to a legal contract.
For example, "If you agree to give me $500, please move away from this computer".
Just because I say/write "do XYZ to agree to a legally binding contract" doesn't meant that anyone who does XYZ is now bound by my document, unless XYZ was something they weren't allowed to do without my permission. Prior to selling you a copy of the software, the publisher had the right to hold out for agreements from you. Once the CD-ROMs were back in the buyer's home, however, the seller has no more leverage to demand an agreement (unless she extents some other consideration)
Why weren't the people forging evidence dragged before the judge?
That wasn't something specific to this case. Prosecutors in the USA hardly ever go after perjury accusations. Seriously, the annual perjury convictions is down in the 10s.
Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time
Non-modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is bluescreen time.
Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time
There are other ways you can pay for modularity. A clever pre-processing (really pre-linking) system can eliminate all the perceptible slowness... but of course, it comes at the cost of programmer time, and that's what Microsoft actually wins in. OpenOffice is slow relative to MS Office primarily because it's still working to catch up on features, and not optimize for speed. (Plus, OO is cross-platform, so they face obstacles the MSO team can ignore)
Some of your example are true, but I've seen exactly the reverse in my experience. On the same hardware, Linux mplayer can start playing a video almost instantly, while Microsoft's Media Player needs a significant, multi-stage startup time. (Presumably, some of that delay comes from it going onto the internet for little ads to draw in side panels).
And, KDE's icon-thumbnail previews outperform the same feature on MS Windows...
As far as the Help system is concerned, how would *you* suggest that it be set up?
The better design would be that a feature such as HTML display has a fixed, (subset) API attached to it, and the user/sysadmin can select any application or library providing those features to handle those operations on the system. (To some extent, Microsoft did this when the USA DOJ forced them to create the "Program Access and Defaults" panel, after an anti-trust suit)
Spagettii-modularity, where any component can link to an arbitrary subpart of any other component, is risky and unstable software design. Modules that interoperate with each other via interfaces of limited scope are not only more secure against software errors, but also allow opportunities for competitive programmers to release superior versions of individual systems. (which makes the OS more like a free market, and less a monopoly)
The defining characteristic of spyware in my view is that the provider does not intend to respect the machine owner's control over their machine.
Aside from diverging from the very definition of "spy" (as in "espionage", the secret recording of information), do you understand that your interpretation labels Microsoft Windows XP as spyware? (along with many other software products, including the whole upcoming "Trusted Computing" thing)
Doesn't work with slot-loading CD drives though...
Go to the computer shop, and swipe 5-10 of the complementary AOL cd adverts sitting by the doorway. Place one on your workbench, and then put the mini-cd on top of it. With a marker, trace the outline of the mini, then remove it to a safe place.
With a rotary tool, pulverize the portion of the AOL cd inside the mark. You now have a support frame which will allow the mini-cd to be played from a drop-slot drive.
How many CD's do you think they've burnt over the last 10 years (or so)?
That is a really good point, which deserves a little more emphasis. I walked through the shop today, and by the exit are piles of CDs promising 1075 hours of free AOL use. A hacker could grab 20 of those, copy the disc images to his PC, modify so that in addition to the AOL connect code, there is also a keylogger or bo2k, burn to CD-R, and drop them back in the same public pile.
Assuming that anyone ever really uses those free AOL preview CDs, you'd have an interesting way to lay attacks. (In reality, I suspect those CDs get more use for children to throw at each other than anyone really executing the code)
No, my point is that they are competing against themselves by making the content they sell freely available on their own website.
You are correct, in that newswire services like Reuters, Associated Press, and AFP are facing an oncoming "cannibal's dilemma".
That is the business-jargon for when your new product takes sales away from an existing product. It's hard to guess which one to focus on: short-term profits, or long-range survivability of the market segment.
Since The Internet makes it easier to exchange information, it's famous for pushing middlemen out of business, and allowing the source-producer and end-user to transact with each other directly. A regional newspaper is mostly a middleman: it buys global and national-level news from a wire service, does a small amount of reporting on local events, and then puts it all together in one printout to deliver each day. It is quite possible that that business model could be extinct within 10 years or so, and readers will all have their daily newspapers generated by pattern-matching search terms directly from wire-stories.
The wire services can't yet predict how long their existing customers will stay in business, or how fast they should move to an end-consumer focused organization. (That's the kind of strategic choice that MBAs are for, theoretically)
There are actually some tricky parts. The obvious question is, if AFP doesn't want people to read stories on their own web site, why do they even have them there?
Why not just take down the pages? Then Google won't index them, and users won't be able to see them.
The only explanation I can reach is laziness: AFP wants their customers (newspapers) to be easily able to look for stories they might want to publish, but doesn't want to bother creating a login/password system for them to use.
From the news organizations that realize being listed on Google News or other news aggregators (such as Topix.net) is beneficial to them because it directs users to their websites.
AFP doesn't want users directed to their website. Their business model is damaged by direct customer interaction: they want users directed to the websites of newspapers who reproduce their stories, and that won't happen if viewers can see the original source indexed alongside all the paying clones.
Who will decide to go read more ads and intrusive branding, when you can get the original just as easily?
In the case of closed source software, you pay money and agree to abide by the terms of the EULA.
Nope. In typical software sales, you never agree to follow the EULA.
In exchange, the company's allows you to use the software.
The company has no right to allow or disallow your use of the software, assuming they've already sold it to you. Their only controlling rights are copyright, which allows them to prohibit reproduction or distribution, not use.
Imagine if Bill Gates telephones you tonight and explains that he's decided everyone who's ever posted on Slashdot will no longer be allowed to use Windows XP, and that you'll be getting rebate checks in 2-6 weeks. That sounds implausible to me, but is consistent with the rules of a fantasy world where companies have the authority to "allow" users to run software.
Just imagine the consequences if a publisher could retroactively disallow the use of their products after the sale was finalized!
All software is tangible. It resides within a computer, floppy disk, hard drive, etc.... Therefore, your definition of intangible versus tangible is flawed.
Do you have ANY idea what "tangible" or "corporeal" means? Any at all?
All software is tangible.
Just wanted to repeat that again, because it's about the stupidest thing I've read in nearly 4 months. (This is the 2nd most stupid thing)
Incorrect again! Damn!
No, I was correct. Nothing you wrote refutes me, or even makes approximate sense. It's true that Superman and Luke Skywalker are covered by both trademarks and copyrights, but copyrights are by far the more important consideration. If Luke Skywalker was only trademarked and not copyrighted, then many comic-book authors would be happy to use that name inside their works without paying George Lucas.
Further, the books for both Superman and Luke Skywalker allow an extension of the copyright laws which deal with protecting specific instances of names.
Ok, that doesn't parse too well as an English sentence. But it appears to be an agreement with me, which makes your recent usage of "Incorrect again!" even less comprehensible.
. This isn't legal class 101 - it's just a chat board and the quote was taken, literally from the article.
No. It was a direct quote from USC copyright law, which you completely misinterpreted. And if you somehow thought that the text of an ancient, preexisting law somehow came "out of the case"... well, that suggests why nobody else bothered to reply to you.
Thus, if you have a problem with what he has said - maybe you should go discuss your differences with Mr. Eric Grimm himself.
Maybe if you practice coherent HTML formatting a little, you'll commit less accidental plagiarism.
And while we are on the subject of copyright and what is or is not protected I would like to draw your attention to BattleStar Glactica.
Maybe there's an interesting story behind that, but what you just wrote is too incoherent to allow me to make any guesses. WHY did Lucas decide to sue? What was his percieved grievance? You need to at least allude to details like that for an anecdote to be at all useful.
No, you can not. Public domain material remains in the public domain regardless of what piece of paper you include when you distribute it.
Yes, you can. Material released under some license remains available under that license, regardless of whatever other ways you release it later, even if they are less restrictive.
Correct. And the explanation goes even deeper than that
Wrong. False analogies.
What's bizarre is that people keep objecting to this use of "America", while not objecting to the similar shortening of other countries' names.
They aren't similar. If you are an MIT student, you should recognize the threat ambiguity poses to language as a tool for rational discourse.
Dropping "Republic of" or "United States of" from Germany, Mexico, or Taiwan doesn't remove any informational content, because in each case, the nation in question totally (or at least approximately) covers the geographical region for which it was named.
That isn't the case with the United States of America, which encompasses hardly 10% of the land mass known as America.
Language both reflects and directs though. When citizens of the USA call themselves Americans, they are reinforcing the opinion that only one country in that pair of continents has any value or rights.
Wrong. I can name 6 countries in America before the USA was there, and could probably find 10 more in the library without trouble. In 1730, prior to the USA Constitution or even Declaration of Independence, the word "American" was quite well known and universally comprehended.
The USA was the first country in America, therefore if anyone can claim that title, it should be them.
If anyone can claim that title, it should be someone who lives in America. Every other continent has a word which can be used to refer the people residing there. But the real meaning of American and America is eternally misunderstood, because many people wrongly use them as abbreviations for "United States of America", when the correct abbreviation is (obviously) "USA".
This is equivalent to how Microsoft embraces and extends a product category... they didn't invent the "*.DOC" file extension, but they act like they did.
You are expending far too much intellectual energy on someone who's proven herself not to be worth it. The only productive effect of a post there can be denying bonch the "last word", but since she won't care what it says (or even really read it), that could've been accomplished much more easily with 2 lines of quasi-witticisms.
Sig: Playgirl editor Michele Zipp was recently fired for being Republican.
In related news, Republican Michele Zipp was recently fired for being a pornographer.
(And in light of that, it's more plausible that she was fired from Playgirl for being a gargantuan hypocrite, a characteristic inherent in any Republican smut-peddler)
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no
Wrong. It comes down to the definition of "idea". Prehaps you don't know what "idea" means- prehaps you don't know how all-ecompassingly generic it is:
1. Something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity.
Absolutely anything you could read off one page, repeat in your brain, and then write on another page fits that description. Depending on your memorization skills, any kind of intellectual property is covered by that, and much else besides.
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no
For a similar level of truth, I might say that "Killing animals is not murder". That isn't true in general, and might be right or wrong in any particular instance, depending on whether or not the animal is of the species homo sapiens, and if there are other extenuating circumstances (war, self-defense, state-sponsored execution, etc).
Not all ideas can necessarily be copyrighted, but SOME ideas can be (others can be patented or trademarked). Superman and Luke Skywalker are both copyrighted and trademarked, even though they are inarguably the products of mental action, or "ideas".
Tangibles => copyrights Intanigbles => patents
Oversimplified so much that it's necessarily wrong. Many totally intangible things are copyrighted. I wonder if this is another case of you lacking a definition, this time of "intangible". (Hint: by definition, all software is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be hardware). Furthermore, pork futures are intangible too, and they're not patentable! (although they are ownable as simple property)
Do radio stations pay license fees to music artists? I didn't think they did.
Yes, but it's done in bulk. The station pays a single lump fee to the music publishing association, which then splits it up amoung all the musicians according to their popularity percentage. (So your little indie-rock jam tapes can pay the billboard top 40)
Asking the DJs to write down each song played might be fairer, but its a whole lot of work. Probably whoever owned your transmitter handled that fee already, and you DJs never even had to be told of it.
By taking it, you deprive me of the oppoerunity to sell it to you.
There are many people who want to sell me things, and many ways I can deprive them of the opportunity to do so. Most of those ways are legal, but even the ones which aren't legal are still not always theft.
For example, sneaking into a movie theater deprives them the chance to sell me a ticket, but isn't theft. It's trespassing. Calling it theft sounds idiotic, as if you can only concieve of one word for all possible crimes. "Help, police, there's a thief! He lit my house on fire!!"
The issue is whether you are using/taking someone else's property without permission.
If you think that's the issue, then say "using/taking" and not "stealing", and don't complain when people don't want to use "stealing".
It's like if there is a debate about abortion of human fetuses, and one side says "We shouldn't allow the murder of babies". It's completely correct for their opponents to dispute the use of those words- because accepting them would mean acquising to defeat. If the "pro-life" guys can trick the "pro-choice" debater into saying "Somtimes it should be legal to murder an unborn baby", they've won the PR battle.
The wrongness of abortion / copyright-infringement is a separate question from the wrongness of murder / theft. By attempting to use the latter severe terms for the former, separate actions, you attempt to prevent having a rational debate at all.
"Copyright infringment is theft" is just as dishonest a bumper-sticker sentiment as "abortion is murder"
Slashdot Mirror
you are still making use of code that bears a GPL license.
Irrelevant. "Making use" of GPL code has no relation to the GPL license. In fact, that license specifically says that people can use the supplied program without even agreeing to the license. The GPL only covers copying, modified copying, and distribution.
There is no 'slightly pregnant' here
Yes there is. This area is highly ambiguous, although it has nothing really do to with the GPL itself, and everything to do with the copyright law that gives the GPL its teeth.
Is "linking" to a program or piece of data an act of copyright infringement? Well, copyright law covers "reproduction" and "distribution", and by linking to an external library (or website) my program (or web page) neither reproduces nor distributes... so it doesn't infringe copyright in the straightfoward sense. There may be ways to stretch it to fit though, such as by arguing that the function name or URL used to accomplish the link was itself an item protected by copyright, and thus making the link was reproducing a small amount of protected material- but that's a tenuous reach.
Nonetheless, some plaintiffs have attempted to get linking interpreted as a means of copyright violation, but they haven't really suceeded yet.
As has been said before, the linking to a GPL library will violate the GPL if and only if linking to a copyrighted library is found to be a violation of copyright.
Well, it would if the company were to sell it to you on those terms.
Wrong. Once a person sells you something, you own it, and can do anything with it you can do with any other of your property.
I should point out to anyone else who reads this that you are (intentionally?) conflating "copy of" and "copyright to". Only the former is relevant here, as the selling of copies outnumbers the selling of copyrights by a billion to one.
Well, it would if the company were to sell it to you on those terms.
Please provide any example of a company establishing "terms" during (or prior to) the sale of a copy of software.
The clerk at Computer Land doesn't extract a promise not to execute the software unless you agree to an auxilliary license, to be displayed later. She takes the cash, you take the disc, she says "Have a nice day", and you walk out.
Do you somehow think it's illegal to buy an audio CD and listen to it, because the publisher didn't specifically authorize you to play it? Do you maybe not understand that buyers of media automatically get the right to view/use it in the most normal way?
Do you really think that large corporations would pay millions of additional dollars in order to comply with the terms of EULA's if they weren't valid?
No, I don't think they would. And since they DON'T do that, I haven't got any problem. (If you know a couterexample, go ahead)
Note that many corps do enter specific licenses for software, and will enter into an agreement if it gives them rights BEYOND what they get automatically when purchasing one copy of the software. Primarily, a site-license allows them to install more than 1 copy of a program from a single set of distribution media, something that otherwise would be copyright infringement.
Running a single install of a purchased program is not copyright infringing (in the USA), so it provides no leverage to the publisher.
GPL = gives additional rights = valid
site-license = gives additional rights = valid
normal EULA = takes away rights = invalid
So in typical software sales you note the message than indicates opening the seal on the CD means you agree with the EULA and you don't agree with it and return the software for a refund? I
Well, I personally am a Linux user, so don't have direct experience... but, I suppose that typical users see the message on the wrapper, don't agree with it, and go ahead and tear open the box anyway, regardless of their (dis)agreement.
That is their right, because the box itself is their own physical property. They can tear it, burn it, or dissolve it in acid, and no other entity can construe those actions as agreement to a legal contract.
For example, "If you agree to give me $500, please move away from this computer".
Just because I say/write "do XYZ to agree to a legally binding contract" doesn't meant that anyone who does XYZ is now bound by my document, unless XYZ was something they weren't allowed to do without my permission. Prior to selling you a copy of the software, the publisher had the right to hold out for agreements from you. Once the CD-ROMs were back in the buyer's home, however, the seller has no more leverage to demand an agreement (unless she extents some other consideration)
Why weren't the people forging evidence dragged before the judge?
That wasn't something specific to this case. Prosecutors in the USA hardly ever go after perjury accusations. Seriously, the annual perjury convictions is down in the 10s.
Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time
Non-modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is bluescreen time.
Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time
There are other ways you can pay for modularity. A clever pre-processing (really pre-linking) system can eliminate all the perceptible slowness... but of course, it comes at the cost of programmer time, and that's what Microsoft actually wins in. OpenOffice is slow relative to MS Office primarily because it's still working to catch up on features, and not optimize for speed. (Plus, OO is cross-platform, so they face obstacles the MSO team can ignore)
Some of your example are true, but I've seen exactly the reverse in my experience. On the same hardware, Linux mplayer can start playing a video almost instantly, while Microsoft's Media Player needs a significant, multi-stage startup time. (Presumably, some of that delay comes from it going onto the internet for little ads to draw in side panels).
And, KDE's icon-thumbnail previews outperform the same feature on MS Windows...
As far as the Help system is concerned, how would *you* suggest that it be set up?
The better design would be that a feature such as HTML display has a fixed, (subset) API attached to it, and the user/sysadmin can select any application or library providing those features to handle those operations on the system. (To some extent, Microsoft did this when the USA DOJ forced them to create the "Program Access and Defaults" panel, after an anti-trust suit)
Spagettii-modularity, where any component can link to an arbitrary subpart of any other component, is risky and unstable software design. Modules that interoperate with each other via interfaces of limited scope are not only more secure against software errors, but also allow opportunities for competitive programmers to release superior versions of individual systems. (which makes the OS more like a free market, and less a monopoly)
It's not like every inventor also figures out the inventions final use.
Just to anecdote that, Thomas Edison invented audio playback, but he found the concept of listening to music on phonograph completely laughable.
The defining characteristic of spyware in my view is that the provider does not intend to respect the machine owner's control over their machine.
Aside from diverging from the very definition of "spy" (as in "espionage", the secret recording of information), do you understand that your interpretation labels Microsoft Windows XP as spyware? (along with many other software products, including the whole upcoming "Trusted Computing" thing)
Doesn't work with slot-loading CD drives though...
Go to the computer shop, and swipe 5-10 of the complementary AOL cd adverts sitting by the doorway. Place one on your workbench, and then put the mini-cd on top of it. With a marker, trace the outline of the mini, then remove it to a safe place.
With a rotary tool, pulverize the portion of the AOL cd inside the mark. You now have a support frame which will allow the mini-cd to be played from a drop-slot drive.
Never stopped AOL.
How many CD's do you think they've burnt over the last 10 years (or so)?
That is a really good point, which deserves a little more emphasis. I walked through the shop today, and by the exit are piles of CDs promising 1075 hours of free AOL use. A hacker could grab 20 of those, copy the disc images to his PC, modify so that in addition to the AOL connect code, there is also a keylogger or bo2k, burn to CD-R, and drop them back in the same public pile.
Assuming that anyone ever really uses those free AOL preview CDs, you'd have an interesting way to lay attacks. (In reality, I suspect those CDs get more use for children to throw at each other than anyone really executing the code)
No, my point is that they are competing against themselves by making the content they sell freely available on their own website.
You are correct, in that newswire services like Reuters, Associated Press, and AFP are facing an oncoming "cannibal's dilemma".
That is the business-jargon for when your new product takes sales away from an existing product. It's hard to guess which one to focus on: short-term profits, or long-range survivability of the market segment.
Since The Internet makes it easier to exchange information, it's famous for pushing middlemen out of business, and allowing the source-producer and end-user to transact with each other directly. A regional newspaper is mostly a middleman: it buys global and national-level news from a wire service, does a small amount of reporting on local events, and then puts it all together in one printout to deliver each day. It is quite possible that that business model could be extinct within 10 years or so, and readers will all have their daily newspapers generated by pattern-matching search terms directly from wire-stories.
The wire services can't yet predict how long their existing customers will stay in business, or how fast they should move to an end-consumer focused organization. (That's the kind of strategic choice that MBAs are for, theoretically)
Is this so hard to understand...Repeat after me
There are actually some tricky parts. The obvious question is, if AFP doesn't want people to read stories on their own web site, why do they even have them there?
Why not just take down the pages? Then Google won't index them, and users won't be able to see them.
The only explanation I can reach is laziness: AFP wants their customers (newspapers) to be easily able to look for stories they might want to publish, but doesn't want to bother creating a login/password system for them to use.
From the news organizations that realize being listed on Google News or other news aggregators (such as Topix.net) is beneficial to them because it directs users to their websites.
AFP doesn't want users directed to their website. Their business model is damaged by direct customer interaction: they want users directed to the websites of newspapers who reproduce their stories, and that won't happen if viewers can see the original source indexed alongside all the paying clones.
Who will decide to go read more ads and intrusive branding, when you can get the original just as easily?
If those of us who do not agree with this AFP's actions were to null route it,
The internet treats null routing as damage, and routes around it.
No PC nonsense,
No, Mr. Wizard had a personal computer. I don't remember the exact brand- it had a corporate-style green text monitor, so probably an IBM PC or PC Jr.
It was great the way he could devote a whole segment to demonstrating Search and Replace to swap two names in a word processor.
In the case of closed source software, you pay money and agree to abide by the terms of the EULA.
Nope. In typical software sales, you never agree to follow the EULA.
In exchange, the company's allows you to use the software.
The company has no right to allow or disallow your use of the software, assuming they've already sold it to you. Their only controlling rights are copyright, which allows them to prohibit reproduction or distribution, not use.
Imagine if Bill Gates telephones you tonight and explains that he's decided everyone who's ever posted on Slashdot will no longer be allowed to use Windows XP, and that you'll be getting rebate checks in 2-6 weeks. That sounds implausible to me, but is consistent with the rules of a fantasy world where companies have the authority to "allow" users to run software.
Just imagine the consequences if a publisher could retroactively disallow the use of their products after the sale was finalized!
All software is tangible. It resides within a computer, floppy disk, hard drive, etc.... Therefore, your definition of intangible versus tangible is flawed.
Do you have ANY idea what "tangible" or "corporeal" means? Any at all?
All software is tangible.
Just wanted to repeat that again, because it's about the stupidest thing I've read in nearly 4 months. (This is the 2nd most stupid thing)
Incorrect again! Damn!
No, I was correct. Nothing you wrote refutes me, or even makes approximate sense. It's true that Superman and Luke Skywalker are covered by both trademarks and copyrights, but copyrights are by far the more important consideration. If Luke Skywalker was only trademarked and not copyrighted, then many comic-book authors would be happy to use that name inside their works without paying George Lucas.
Further, the books for both Superman and Luke Skywalker allow an extension of the copyright laws which deal with protecting specific instances of names.
Ok, that doesn't parse too well as an English sentence. But it appears to be an agreement with me, which makes your recent usage of "Incorrect again!" even less comprehensible.
. This isn't legal class 101 - it's just a chat board and the quote was taken, literally from the article.
No. It was a direct quote from USC copyright law, which you completely misinterpreted. And if you somehow thought that the text of an ancient, preexisting law somehow came "out of the case"... well, that suggests why nobody else bothered to reply to you.
Thus, if you have a problem with what he has said - maybe you should go discuss your differences with Mr. Eric Grimm himself.
Maybe if you practice coherent HTML formatting a little, you'll commit less accidental plagiarism.
And while we are on the subject of copyright and what is or is not protected I would like to draw your attention to BattleStar Glactica.
Maybe there's an interesting story behind that, but what you just wrote is too incoherent to allow me to make any guesses. WHY did Lucas decide to sue? What was his percieved grievance? You need to at least allude to details like that for an anecdote to be at all useful.
No, you can not. Public domain material remains in the public domain regardless of what piece of paper you include when you distribute it.
Yes, you can. Material released under some license remains available under that license, regardless of whatever other ways you release it later, even if they are less restrictive.
Correct. And the explanation goes even deeper than that
Wrong. False analogies.
What's bizarre is that people keep objecting to this use of "America", while not objecting to the similar shortening of other countries' names.
They aren't similar. If you are an MIT student, you should recognize the threat ambiguity poses to language as a tool for rational discourse.
Dropping "Republic of" or "United States of" from Germany, Mexico, or Taiwan doesn't remove any informational content, because in each case, the nation in question totally (or at least approximately) covers the geographical region for which it was named.
That isn't the case with the United States of America, which encompasses hardly 10% of the land mass known as America.
Language both reflects and directs though. When citizens of the USA call themselves Americans, they are reinforcing the opinion that only one country in that pair of continents has any value or rights.
The USA was the first country in America,
Wrong. I can name 6 countries in America before the USA was there, and could probably find 10 more in the library without trouble. In 1730, prior to the USA Constitution or even Declaration of Independence, the word "American" was quite well known and universally comprehended.
The USA was the first country in America, therefore if anyone can claim that title, it should be them.
If anyone can claim that title, it should be someone who lives in America. Every other continent has a word which can be used to refer the people residing there. But the real meaning of American and America is eternally misunderstood, because many people wrongly use them as abbreviations for "United States of America", when the correct abbreviation is (obviously) "USA".
This is equivalent to how Microsoft embraces and extends a product category... they didn't invent the "*.DOC" file extension, but they act like they did.
Suppose we take the proposition:
You are expending far too much intellectual energy on someone who's proven herself not to be worth it. The only productive effect of a post there can be denying bonch the "last word", but since she won't care what it says (or even really read it), that could've been accomplished much more easily with 2 lines of quasi-witticisms.
Sig: Playgirl editor Michele Zipp was recently fired for being Republican.
In related news, Republican Michele Zipp was recently fired for being a pornographer.
(And in light of that, it's more plausible that she was fired from Playgirl for being a gargantuan hypocrite, a characteristic inherent in any Republican smut-peddler)
Wrong. It comes down to the definition of "idea". Prehaps you don't know what "idea" means- prehaps you don't know how all-ecompassingly generic it is:
Absolutely anything you could read off one page, repeat in your brain, and then write on another page fits that description. Depending on your memorization skills, any kind of intellectual property is covered by that, and much else besides.
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no
For a similar level of truth, I might say that "Killing animals is not murder". That isn't true in general, and might be right or wrong in any particular instance, depending on whether or not the animal is of the species homo sapiens, and if there are other extenuating circumstances (war, self-defense, state-sponsored execution, etc).
Not all ideas can necessarily be copyrighted, but SOME ideas can be (others can be patented or trademarked). Superman and Luke Skywalker are both copyrighted and trademarked, even though they are inarguably the products of mental action, or "ideas".
Tangibles => copyrights
Intanigbles => patents
Oversimplified so much that it's necessarily wrong. Many totally intangible things are copyrighted. I wonder if this is another case of you lacking a definition, this time of "intangible". (Hint: by definition, all software is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be hardware). Furthermore, pork futures are intangible too, and they're not patentable! (although they are ownable as simple property)
Do radio stations pay license fees to music artists? I didn't think they did.
Yes, but it's done in bulk. The station pays a single lump fee to the music publishing association, which then splits it up amoung all the musicians according to their popularity percentage. (So your little indie-rock jam tapes can pay the billboard top 40)
Asking the DJs to write down each song played might be fairer, but its a whole lot of work. Probably whoever owned your transmitter handled that fee already, and you DJs never even had to be told of it.
By taking it, you deprive me of the oppoerunity to sell it to you.
There are many people who want to sell me things, and many ways I can deprive them of the opportunity to do so. Most of those ways are legal, but even the ones which aren't legal are still not always theft.
For example, sneaking into a movie theater deprives them the chance to sell me a ticket, but isn't theft. It's trespassing. Calling it theft sounds idiotic, as if you can only concieve of one word for all possible crimes. "Help, police, there's a thief! He lit my house on fire!!"
The issue is whether you are using/taking someone else's property without permission.
If you think that's the issue, then say "using/taking" and not "stealing", and don't complain when people don't want to use "stealing".
It's like if there is a debate about abortion of human fetuses, and one side says "We shouldn't allow the murder of babies". It's completely correct for their opponents to dispute the use of those words- because accepting them would mean acquising to defeat. If the "pro-life" guys can trick the "pro-choice" debater into saying "Somtimes it should be legal to murder an unborn baby", they've won the PR battle.
The wrongness of abortion / copyright-infringement is a separate question from the wrongness of murder / theft. By attempting to use the latter severe terms for the former, separate actions, you attempt to prevent having a rational debate at all.
"Copyright infringment is theft" is just as dishonest a bumper-sticker sentiment as "abortion is murder"