This all started with the question, "Aren't they supposed to make this stuff generally available, when it's based on GPL'd software?
That was a valid question. Although the company doesn't need to provide the software to the public, they must allow their customers to do so. That means its highly likely that in just a few days, a customer will slap it up on the web or bittorrent someplace.
So, asking if any existing subscribers are redistributing the project is a reasonable query.
"Jumping the shark" means the last important, exciting act, after which nothing important happened.
No it doesn't. That mis-definition implies that "jumping the shark" is an entertaining climax, and a show that ended right then would be positively remembered by viewers and critics alike.
But it really means an action AFTER the final important/exciting event, which serves as a graphic reminder that the best times are over, and the show will never be that good again.
Oh thats not technical enough! comes the reply....
Nope. Your reply wasn't just non-technical, it was WRONG. Calling Groove "web based" is a vile misrepresenation of what it does. That's about as bad as describing the Dodge Viper as a "horse based vehicle" just because you saw the phrase "550 horsepower" on its spec sheet.
It suggests that Groove uses some protocols similar to HTTP or HTML (and thus that it might be interoperable with non-proprietary client software). If a solution is "web based", it implies that I can open up Firefox or at least IE and go connect.
Somtimes people just want a general clue.
Someone who read & believed your message will be worse off than if she knew nothing- at least in that case, she might google around and find the truth on her own.
What does the Wisconsin state government do to support the e-commerce system?
Nevermind the "e-" part of it- governments support commerce in general by funding police (and all kinds of related services to reduce crime and disasters), which allow people to hold onto cash money long enough to actually perform commerce.
Users will have to pay tax each time they visit a webpage on a subscription based website?
No, of course not. Calling it a tax on "downloading" is really inaccurate- it's a tax on "paying for downloads". Possibly, it could apply to a subscription website (maybe even preimum Slashdot), but if so, the tax would only be applied as you make the payment, not when you download each page.
Suppose that Utah has a tax on ski resorts. They'd charge 5% at the time you buy the tickets- it would be stupid to suppose a tax collector would be stationed at the ski lift, collecting $0.50 each time a person rides up the mountain.
Its generally much more efficient and less obtrusive to collect taxes at the same time another payment is being made. Otherwise, the government must hire a whole new collection-person, devastating the new income stream.
I was under the impression that states could only tax items purchased which originated in their state, is this true?
That's only true practically, but not legally. If you look closely at your annual state tax forms, there is a blank where you insert the total value of all goods purchases by mail from out of state, to have the sales tax retroactively calculated.
Nobody bothers to fill them in, because the state government so far has no real way to check... but theoretically, they could be collecting that sales tax.
Keep in mind that many of those 'kiddie cartoons' were not originally made for kids. The were made for older audiences and shown before the main feature at the movies.
No, they were made for kids. The experience of a weekly movie visit was meant for the whole family, and each element ("picture", newsreel, and cartoon) had to appeal to all ages and genders (with a bias towards the adult males who bought the tickets). But the cartoons where intentionally the childrens' favorite parts.
When you record a broadcast, that is a lawfully made copy that you own. It seems to me that first sale says you can sell it.
No. Maybe you need to understand more of what "Fair Use" requires. Two of the considerations for qualifying as Fair Use are the nature of the use, and how that usage effects the market for the published work.
Whether or not your copies are protected fair use depends upon what you actually do with those copies. Videorecord it for yourself to watch later- fine. But since the fact that only you would watch it was one of the factors that allowed you to legally create the copy at all, you do not enjoy the "first sale" right to sell that copy.
(Or rather, if you later perform an unfair act like sale, the previous copy becomes retroactively infringing...)
I'm not sure what your point is, but wasn't the WTC owned by PANYNJ?
Yes, it was. The panynj.gov is the government, and leasing office space for life insurance companies is the kind of real estate business thats supposed to be the exclusive domain of private-sector capitalists like Donald Trump.
The NYC WTC was a violation (or counterexample) of a suggested principle that a city shouldn't be able to go into business.
PS. Maybe you don't know that the PANYNJ is government... don't be fooled just because they no longer collect taxes from non-users...
organize a charity where people can adopt a poor family to get them the fast Internet access they obviously have a "right" and "need" to use.
We did that back in 1929... that charity is called "the government". Everyone around here contributes and agrees with it. If you don't, you're welcome to emigrate.
You keep using that word, and you don't know what it means. By your interpretations, public libraries are a monopoly, and there is no such thing as a private bookstore.
Offering a product or service for $0 is not a monopoly- "monopoly" means that you enforce nobody else providing that service, typically under threat of force from police collaborators.
You might have caught that fact if you had read the other reply to my comment, which gave almost the exact argument you are giving but with better logic and without the snideness
Incorrect. The other comment only sufficed to make you declare the issue could be seen "either way". That is not true- there's only one right way to see it, and your position is completely wrong.
If you do truely believe you are sometimes correct, then please submit a single counterexample. (Repeating my invitation for you to list any software emulators for which that stated pattern does not apply)
where in copyright law does it state that I can't view it multiple times?
The 1984 case between Sony and Universal. You cited it, so maybe you should read it. That case found that "time shifting", and only "time shifting", was a legal use. That means that you tape the show once, and watch it later ONCE, and WITHOUT fast-forwarding through commercials.
Anything else, such as multiple views, sharing with friends, or commercial skipping, is outside the scope of that decision.
Yes. I get it from title 17, obviously. Private performance has nothing to do with it, as recording a show off the air is not a "performance" in any way. It is an act of "reproduce"tion, which infringes title 17, chapter 1, section 106, paragraph 1. (Unless an exception exists under section 107, just like I already said)
Not if the copy was lawfully made. If it was lawfully made, it is then eligible for the
The strong contextual implication was that the VHS in question was recorded yourself, rather than purchased in a sale.
The only form of recording television that has been explicitly declared legal is "time shifting", although other kinds may be Fair Use too.
It's probably the only way you'll get people to actually watch the commercials anyway, in this PVR-laden age.
What you propose is yet another example of "security through obscurity". The commericals viewed this way would be secured against skipping only as long as very few sci-fi movies are distributed in this manner. Once they become common, someone will publish a modified video-player application including the same commerical detection+avoidance techniques as in any set-top PVR.
Perhaps I'm confused, but it's my understanding that it's NOT specifically illegal to record, and trade, television shows, provided that no money changes hands.
Yes, you are confused. It's not specifically illegal, but dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either. One is a kind of copyright infringement, and the other is a kind of murder, and those two things are illegal.
Whether you earn money directly is irrelevant, theoretically. (Exchanging cash money isn't really a factor for many definitions of criminality- besides prostitution). Practically, the exchange of money creates further legal jeopardy, because it leaves an undeniable trail of evidence, and the appearance of greed will make a jury less sympathetic to you.
Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use. However, if you watch it more than once, that's illegal again.
and sharing recordings (which is akin to recording a show on your VCR and letting a friend borrow/copy the tape).
Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too, although it's such a minor offense that no one would bother to press charges. Because it's a slow process of physical transmission, you are unable to commit nearly as many illegal acts as a megabit P2P operation can. Digital data transmission renders the infringement fast enough to endanger the TV-advertising revenue model.
they were envisioning a rush to Win95, and didn't want folk backsliding.
I don't know what Microsoft hoped, but from a corporate/industrial standpoint, Win95 was a scary, major upgrade, requiring new hardware and end-user retraining. The shift from 3.1 to 3.11/WfW was trivial by comparison, so it's understandable that big customers held back from Win95 until it was years old.
Nope, Win3.11 (Workgroups or otherwise) did NOT have a TCP/IP stack.
That is completely wrong. When WfW came out, I was supporting Oracle Database apps, and we were quite happy to be now able to install the client interfaces without needing Trumpet Winsock. For many corps, the TCP/IP was a big selling point.
You might be confused because the TCP/IP driver wasn't included on the install floppies, but was instead a separate download from Microsoft. Regardless, it was definitely a Microsoft product, and not anything 3rd party.
In this scenario, the WINE authors can use the large existing base of libraries to do the real work.
Please, list any emulators where that pattern does not apply. Just to think of one famous example, MAME translates calls in arcade ROMS and sends them to Linux libraries (such as SDL). By your baselessly arbitrary distinction, "emulators" can only be programs which don't link in any other libraries. (I could probably recompile WINE to include all the Linux libs internally- would that transform it into an "emulator" for you?)
Wrong. VMWare is not an emulator in any way. Well, an argument could be made that it emulates an x86 chip (but it really only virtualizes one), but it certainly doesn't emulate Windows at all: you must purchase Windows to run inside VMWare.
Slashdot Mirror
This all started with the question, "Aren't they supposed to make this stuff generally available, when it's based on GPL'd software?
That was a valid question. Although the company doesn't need to provide the software to the public, they must allow their customers to do so. That means its highly likely that in just a few days, a customer will slap it up on the web or bittorrent someplace.
So, asking if any existing subscribers are redistributing the project is a reasonable query.
Get it through your heads:
Watch where you click, because that reply obviously wasn't pertinent to me. Maybe you meant it for captwheeler?
PS. In practice, Groove isn't even peer-to-peer. Typically one computer is left "always on" as a de-facto dedicated server.
"Jumping the shark" means the last important, exciting act, after which nothing important happened.
No it doesn't. That mis-definition implies that "jumping the shark" is an entertaining climax, and a show that ended right then would be positively remembered by viewers and critics alike.
But it really means an action AFTER the final important/exciting event, which serves as a graphic reminder that the best times are over, and the show will never be that good again.
I just assumed from this that they would release the specs of the WinFS filesystem so that any OS could read them.
Yeah, that does make sense. Just like the released the NTFS specs, after all... those were critically useful in adding NTFS-write to Linux.
Oh thats not technical enough! comes the reply....
Nope. Your reply wasn't just non-technical, it was WRONG. Calling Groove "web based" is a vile misrepresenation of what it does. That's about as bad as describing the Dodge Viper as a "horse based vehicle" just because you saw the phrase "550 horsepower" on its spec sheet.
It suggests that Groove uses some protocols similar to HTTP or HTML (and thus that it might be interoperable with non-proprietary client software). If a solution is "web based", it implies that I can open up Firefox or at least IE and go connect.
Somtimes people just want a general clue.
Someone who read & believed your message will be worse off than if she knew nothing- at least in that case, she might google around and find the truth on her own.
What does the Wisconsin state government do to support the e-commerce system?
Nevermind the "e-" part of it- governments support commerce in general by funding police (and all kinds of related services to reduce crime and disasters), which allow people to hold onto cash money long enough to actually perform commerce.
Users will have to pay tax each time they visit a webpage on a subscription based website?
No, of course not. Calling it a tax on "downloading" is really inaccurate- it's a tax on "paying for downloads". Possibly, it could apply to a subscription website (maybe even preimum Slashdot), but if so, the tax would only be applied as you make the payment, not when you download each page.
Suppose that Utah has a tax on ski resorts. They'd charge 5% at the time you buy the tickets- it would be stupid to suppose a tax collector would be stationed at the ski lift, collecting $0.50 each time a person rides up the mountain.
Its generally much more efficient and less obtrusive to collect taxes at the same time another payment is being made. Otherwise, the government must hire a whole new collection-person, devastating the new income stream.
I was under the impression that states could only tax items purchased which originated in their state, is this true?
That's only true practically, but not legally. If you look closely at your annual state tax forms, there is a blank where you insert the total value of all goods purchases by mail from out of state, to have the sales tax retroactively calculated.
Nobody bothers to fill them in, because the state government so far has no real way to check... but theoretically, they could be collecting that sales tax.
Keep in mind that many of those 'kiddie cartoons' were not originally made for kids. The were made for older audiences and shown before the main feature at the movies.
No, they were made for kids. The experience of a weekly movie visit was meant for the whole family, and each element ("picture", newsreel, and cartoon) had to appeal to all ages and genders (with a bias towards the adult males who bought the tickets). But the cartoons where intentionally the childrens' favorite parts.
When you record a broadcast, that is a lawfully made copy that you own. It seems to me that first sale says you can sell it.
No. Maybe you need to understand more of what "Fair Use" requires. Two of the considerations for qualifying as Fair Use are the nature of the use, and how that usage effects the market for the published work.
Whether or not your copies are protected fair use depends upon what you actually do with those copies. Videorecord it for yourself to watch later- fine. But since the fact that only you would watch it was one of the factors that allowed you to legally create the copy at all, you do not enjoy the "first sale" right to sell that copy.
(Or rather, if you later perform an unfair act like sale, the previous copy becomes retroactively infringing...)
I'm not sure what your point is, but wasn't the WTC owned by PANYNJ?
Yes, it was. The panynj.gov is the government, and leasing office space for life insurance companies is the kind of real estate business thats supposed to be the exclusive domain of private-sector capitalists like Donald Trump.
The NYC WTC was a violation (or counterexample) of a suggested principle that a city shouldn't be able to go into business.
PS. Maybe you don't know that the PANYNJ is government... don't be fooled just because they no longer collect taxes from non-users...
organize a charity where people can adopt a poor family to get them the fast Internet access they obviously have a "right" and "need" to use.
We did that back in 1929... that charity is called "the government". Everyone around here contributes and agrees with it. If you don't, you're welcome to emigrate.
Of course, you could include an copy of SDL with the game like with games that need the latest version of DirectX.
The SDL library is almost 400 kilobytes. Therefore, all your comments about needing to "install" it are quite irrelevant.
It isn't included with Linux, Windows, or Mac systems, but SDL games run fine on all of those.
absuing a monopoly position.
You keep using that word, and you don't know what it means. By your interpretations, public libraries are a monopoly, and there is no such thing as a private bookstore.
Offering a product or service for $0 is not a monopoly- "monopoly" means that you enforce nobody else providing that service, typically under threat of force from police collaborators.
No company can compete via price against a government monopoly.
Good thing there will never be a government monopoly in this field, then! (Or do you think they'll actually use up ALL of the WiFi frequencies?)
Everyone who isn't wealthy will end up with sub-par government controlled and outdated technology because it's "free".
That's exactly the benefit desired! The poor get low-quality service, instead of none at all.
For the same reason, a city is can't "decide" to go into any business. It just doesn't belong there
Tell that to the NYC WTC... oh wait, it fell over, nevermind.
You might have caught that fact if you had read the other reply to my comment, which gave almost the exact argument you are giving but with better logic and without the snideness
Incorrect. The other comment only sufficed to make you declare the issue could be seen "either way". That is not true- there's only one right way to see it, and your position is completely wrong.
If you do truely believe you are sometimes correct, then please submit a single counterexample. (Repeating my invitation for you to list any software emulators for which that stated pattern does not apply)
where in copyright law does it state that I can't view it multiple times?
The 1984 case between Sony and Universal. You cited it, so maybe you should read it. That case found that "time shifting", and only "time shifting", was a legal use. That means that you tape the show once, and watch it later ONCE, and WITHOUT fast-forwarding through commercials.
Anything else, such as multiple views, sharing with friends, or commercial skipping, is outside the scope of that decision.
No. Where the hell are you getting this, anyway?
Yes. I get it from title 17, obviously. Private performance has nothing to do with it, as recording a show off the air is not a "performance" in any way. It is an act of "reproduce"tion, which infringes title 17, chapter 1, section 106, paragraph 1. (Unless an exception exists under section 107, just like I already said)
Not if the copy was lawfully made. If it was lawfully made, it is then eligible for the
The strong contextual implication was that the VHS in question was recorded yourself, rather than purchased in a sale.
The only form of recording television that has been explicitly declared legal is "time shifting", although other kinds may be Fair Use too.
It's probably the only way you'll get people to actually watch the commercials anyway, in this PVR-laden age.
What you propose is yet another example of "security through obscurity". The commericals viewed this way would be secured against skipping only as long as very few sci-fi movies are distributed in this manner. Once they become common, someone will publish a modified video-player application including the same commerical detection+avoidance techniques as in any set-top PVR.
Perhaps I'm confused, but it's my understanding that it's NOT specifically illegal to record, and trade, television shows, provided that no money changes hands.
Yes, you are confused. It's not specifically illegal, but dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either. One is a kind of copyright infringement, and the other is a kind of murder, and those two things are illegal.
Whether you earn money directly is irrelevant, theoretically. (Exchanging cash money isn't really a factor for many definitions of criminality- besides prostitution). Practically, the exchange of money creates further legal jeopardy, because it leaves an undeniable trail of evidence, and the appearance of greed will make a jury less sympathetic to you.
Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use. However, if you watch it more than once, that's illegal again.
and sharing recordings (which is akin to recording a show on your VCR and letting a friend borrow/copy the tape).
Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too, although it's such a minor offense that no one would bother to press charges. Because it's a slow process of physical transmission, you are unable to commit nearly as many illegal acts as a megabit P2P operation can. Digital data transmission renders the infringement fast enough to endanger the TV-advertising revenue model.
they were envisioning a rush to Win95, and didn't want folk backsliding.
I don't know what Microsoft hoped, but from a corporate/industrial standpoint, Win95 was a scary, major upgrade, requiring new hardware and end-user retraining. The shift from 3.1 to 3.11/WfW was trivial by comparison, so it's understandable that big customers held back from Win95 until it was years old.
Nope, Win3.11 (Workgroups or otherwise) did NOT have a TCP/IP stack.
That is completely wrong. When WfW came out, I was supporting Oracle Database apps, and we were quite happy to be now able to install the client interfaces without needing Trumpet Winsock. For many corps, the TCP/IP was a big selling point.
You might be confused because the TCP/IP driver wasn't included on the install floppies, but was instead a separate download from Microsoft. Regardless, it was definitely a Microsoft product, and not anything 3rd party.
In this scenario, the WINE authors can use the large existing base of libraries to do the real work.
Please, list any emulators where that pattern does not apply. Just to think of one famous example, MAME translates calls in arcade ROMS and sends them to Linux libraries (such as SDL). By your baselessly arbitrary distinction, "emulators" can only be programs which don't link in any other libraries. (I could probably recompile WINE to include all the Linux libs internally- would that transform it into an "emulator" for you?)
There's always VMWare.
Wrong. VMWare is not an emulator in any way. Well, an argument could be made that it emulates an x86 chip (but it really only virtualizes one), but it certainly doesn't emulate Windows at all: you must purchase Windows to run inside VMWare.