When you can't pirate something you buy it or don't use it. Apple gains in hardware and software sales.
If people are pirating it at home (and they like it), those people will pressure their employers to give them legal machines at work.
The business market is much bigger than the consumer market. They've been trying to break into it for a long time. And they must realize that this is the best, if not the only way they can.
This is not a gamble at all. On the contrary, I believe it's necessary for their long-term survival.
In what conceivable way do these things impinge the rights of individuals to practice any religion or not as they please?
You're missing the point. Those cases are about the Establishment clause, not the Free Exercise clause. If you don't agree with the Establishment clause, you should blame the Founding Fathers rather than the ACLU.
The fact is they don't; it's petty, vindictive attacks on religion.
No. It's attacks on government getting involved in religion. The ACLU's stance is that government involvement in religion damages religion. It may help a particular group in the short-run. However, in the long run it has a very negative effect on religious freedom in general.
I think the problem you have with it is that they are very absolutist in their thinking. But keep in mind, they're fighting the government. If you give it an inch, it will take a mile.
Unfortunatly this scenario has nothing to do with religious freedom.
You are correct. The issue is not religion at all. It is freedom of speech.
This legislation gives the Attorney General of Utah power to determine which websites are "harmful to minors" and which ones are acceptable. How is the Attorney General supposed to decide what is "harmful to children"?
If you want to build a website for kids in Utah, how do you know what the Attorney General's criteria will be?
Does it mean pictures of naked people? Does it include websites about birth control? Does it include online support groups for gay teenagers? Does it include websites where teenagers discuss gangsta rap?
I think a lot of people have become disenthralled with the ACLU ever since they seem to have adopted "freedom from religion" as a civil right.
It wasn't the ACLU which adopted the "freedom from religion" concept. It was the Founding Fathers.
First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Notice that this says two things about religion. First, government cannot "respect an establishment of religion". This doesn't mean they have to "disrespect" religion. It is the other meaning of the word "respect". It means "having to do with". Congress cannot pass a law "having to do with" religion. The 14th Amendment makes this apply to the states.
Noone is saying that people cannot practice their religion. Your "freedom from religion" only applies to government action. Notice the second part of what I quoted. Congress (and the states) may not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. You have freedom to practice your religion, and the ACLU is not trying to take that away.
As a matter of fact, the ACLU frequently takes cases where they fight for peoples' right to "freely exercise" their religion.
This whole business about "freedom from religion" being something the ACLU made up is classic propaganda from Fundamentalist Theocrats. I find it surprising that as an avowed agnostic you would buy into their reasoning.
From the Microsoft page: You can restore your licenses on a maximum of two unique computers. If you replace hardware components in your computer or reinstall the operating system, Microsoft considers the changed computer to be a new unique computer.
So if I reinstall the operating system more than twice, ALL protected-wma music that I bought online is now GONE.
They must be on drugs to think people will knowingly go for this.
and as a laywer, I expect you to know the diff between SUCCESSFULLY suing someone and FILING a suit.
many people cannot afford the time/money/annoyance of a suit. simply bringing one up is enough to silence.
but of course, you're a lawyer. so you should know this better than most.
The threat of or the filing of a lawsuit is always a potential. But a lawsuit that has no basis in the law--not even an arguable basis--is not likely to deter a scientific journal from publishing an article.
This isn't about a personal website or someone distributing flyers. This is about established publishers who know their rights and can afford legal representation in the unlikely event that they have to hire a lawyer to draft a motion for summary judgment in a case that has no legal merit whatsoever.
but of course, you're a troll. so you should know this better than most.
You do have to wonder how much research is never published for fear of a lawsuit....
How about none, zip, zero.
In the US there is no basis for suing someone who insults your race or religion. First of all, it's simply not a claim; slander or libel do not apply to huge groups of people. Second of all, the constitution prevents it.
A French Jewish organization discovered this a few years ago when it sued Yahoo! for selling Nazi paraphernalia. The Jewish group won in the French courts, but Yahoo! had no assets in France. A federal court in the US refused to enforce the French judgment because it said that to do so would violate the First Amendment.
You still have freedom of speech. Political correctness is just other people reacting to your speech, which they also have the freedom to do. That's not a legal problem per se. It's more of a social and cultural problem.
From TFA: The rules require American software companies that wish to sell to the Chinese government to manufacture all of their products in China and to register their copyrights first in China. The proposed regulation would also require that at least 50 percent of the development be done in China.
So does this mean that China will not use Linux/BSD either? How can you determine that 50% of development is done in any one place with an open source project? The copyrights for almost all code in Linux and BSD were not registered "first in China".
Either the Chinese government will use domestic versions of Linux and BSD, or it will use completely new operating systems developed by Chinese companies.
If it's the former, it could be a very good thing for open source.
So we've got an unelected commission of five people here. And we're going to give them broad power to make whatever rules they want...
I think this is great. In fact, Congress should delegate ALL rule-making authority to independent agencies. That way, they can play more golf and spend more time shopping for nice suits.
These people REPRESENT us. Let's make sure that they look good, feel good, and don't have to do any work at all.
Doesn't this fly in the face of each States Rights to rule themselves?
It depends on how they are doing it. It's true that Congress is generally not allowed to directly command a state's executive or legislative branch. But Congress has found a lot of loopholes over the years. For example, it can condition funding based on a state legislatures passage of a statute.
Here they are simply making life difficult for a state's citizens if that state does not provide an ID in the format that the federal government prefers. This will put political pressure on those states' legislature to act.
Whether it is constitutional depends on how the Supreme Court feels about it.
I noticed a bunch of problems with my emusic.com mp3s. The ends of songs were shifted over a second or so. The end of song 1 would be at the beginning of song 2, etc, etc.
I haven't noticed anything like that... but that may be because I usually buy an entire album instead of single tracks.
It costs about 22 cents per track with the plan I'm on, and I haven't found anything cheaper.
Check the United States Constitution, wherein all executive power is vested in the President. Like it or not, all executive power is vested in the Oval Office. If the president wasn't ultimately responsible for the actions of the FCC, the FCC would have no authority whatsoever.
There are two kinds of federal administrative agencies: executive and independent. The President can fire the head of an executive agency at his whim.
Independent agencies, like the FCC, are not under the President's control because they do not serve at his pleasure.
They may do some things that seem like executive acts, but the President does not have control over them... Congress does.
You may not give your PDF version to other people. For your protection, the PDF file you order is personalized with your name and other identifying information.
So they watermark it apparently. That's still not DRM. You can print the file out. You can copy it all you want, but you are not allowed to give it to other people.
There's no technical restriction on giving it to other people. It's just made so that if you violate the copyright, they can catch you more easily.
You teach the fact, with respect for dissenting viewpoints, just like any other topic.
No. You teach with respect for dissenting viewpoints that have some evidence of truth. You don't just go out and teach whatever people want to hear.
"Respect for dissenting viewpoints" is code for "pretend that everyone is right, regardless of what the facts indicate."
If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question.
Sure, if there is some valid doubt. But not just because someone out there disagrees. A lot of people believe that Elvis is still alive. Our textbooks don't discuss that hypothesis.
Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
The problem with pointing out that it's a theory is that 5th graders, and apparently a lot of adults, do not understand what the word "theory" means in a scientific context.
Fundamentalists have been very successful with using that word to indicate to their followers that there exists no more evidence for evolution than for creationism, because heck! It's just a theory.
I am all for teaching kids about the scientific process and THEN teaching that evolution is a theory. But if you don't teach them how science really works, and you teach them that evolution is "just a theory" you're really just establishing Christian Fundamentalism as the religion of the state.
I think there might be something about that in our constitution.
You teach the fact, with respect for dissenting viewpoints, just like any other topic. If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question. Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
That is called a *sig*. You can turn it off in your preferences if it annoys you. But ignoring the opinion in favor of attacking the sig is considered poor form around here and will generally get you modded down. Now go back and read again.
You have every right to put whatever you want in your sig. And I have every right to make fun of you for it and ignore the substance of your comment.
Besides that, your sig reveals that you have a bias on this particular topic. Again, there's nothing wrong with having a bias. Nor is there anything wrong with my pointing it out. Breathe in... Breathe out... OK?
I haven't studied trademark law in a while, but what I do remember is that the mark itself does not have to be exactly the same for it to be infringing. The test (under US law) is the likelihood of consumer confusion.
My opinion--which I consider to be an unbiased opinion since I'm not trying to sell Apple or non-Apple computer products--is that this could lead to a lot of consumer confusion. For example, many consumers would likely think that tigerdirect.com is a place to buy Apple products and not a place to buy PC products. This could negatively affect TigerDirect's future business.
If you know more about trademark law than I do, go ahead and school me. But making an unelaborated argument that something is "not legally the same thing" doesn't help to convince anyone.
I am quite looking forward to the time when I only have to carry one device around, and it will do everything! (including allowing me to SSH into my home computer):)
Well, that capability has been out for at least a couple of years. I've been using ssh on my Nokia 3650 for a while now. The version I use is Putty for Symbian, but there is another SSH client written for the Java VM that comes on most cell phones.
... that they can't even get the journalists to understand their services.
RealNetworks Music Store and Rhapsody are two DIFFERENT services offered by the same company. They run on two different pieces of software.
Rhapsody is an on-demand streaming service that will let you burn songs to a CD for 79 cents a song. Currently, Rhapsody does NOT allow you to download a file that you could put on an mp3 player.
The Real Music Store is a service, much like Napster, BuyMusic.com or iTunes. They sell DRMed music files for 99 cents each. They use a unique format called RAX, which is actually AAC, the same format sold at iTunes, but with a different DRM system. Supposedly, those files can be played on an ipod using Real's "Harmony" technology, but Apple has broken that compatibility with firmware updates in the past.
Personally I think the Rhapsody service is very elegant, and the fact that you can't purchase DRMed files is actually a good thing. In a few years, any store selling DRMed files is going to have a rude awakening as its customers find out that the only way to play all these files that they "bought" is to keep their old computer.
Until the major labels start selling MP3s, indie music is the only music worth buying. Emusic.com sells a lot of good music on MP3 for as little as 22 cents a song. They also offer a different track in their library as a a free download each day.
For the major label stuff that I refuse to buy with DRM, Rhapsody is a good service for on-demand listening.
Yes, like any software project, someone can come along, acquire the copyrights and rerelease it under whatever license they want.
The difference with open source is that you have to track down individual contributors. With any popular open source project, it's going to be very difficult to find and get all those contributors to sell you their copyrights.
Even still, versions released prior to the buyout would still be subject to the GPL (for example) and only new versions could be made non-free.
Yes, it can happen. No it isn't anything to worry about.
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When you can't pirate something you buy it or don't use it. Apple gains in hardware and software sales.
If people are pirating it at home (and they like it), those people will pressure their employers to give them legal machines at work.
The business market is much bigger than the consumer market. They've been trying to break into it for a long time. And they must realize that this is the best, if not the only way they can.
This is not a gamble at all. On the contrary, I believe it's necessary for their long-term survival.
In what conceivable way do these things impinge the rights of individuals to practice any religion or not as they please?
You're missing the point. Those cases are about the Establishment clause, not the Free Exercise clause. If you don't agree with the Establishment clause, you should blame the Founding Fathers rather than the ACLU.
The fact is they don't; it's petty, vindictive attacks on religion.
No. It's attacks on government getting involved in religion. The ACLU's stance is that government involvement in religion damages religion. It may help a particular group in the short-run. However, in the long run it has a very negative effect on religious freedom in general.
I think the problem you have with it is that they are very absolutist in their thinking. But keep in mind, they're fighting the government. If you give it an inch, it will take a mile.
Unfortunatly this scenario has nothing to do with religious freedom.
You are correct. The issue is not religion at all. It is freedom of speech.
This legislation gives the Attorney General of Utah power to determine which websites are "harmful to minors" and which ones are acceptable. How is the Attorney General supposed to decide what is "harmful to children"?
If you want to build a website for kids in Utah, how do you know what the Attorney General's criteria will be?
Does it mean pictures of naked people? Does it include websites about birth control? Does it include online support groups for gay teenagers? Does it include websites where teenagers discuss gangsta rap?
I think a lot of people have become disenthralled with the ACLU ever since they seem to have adopted "freedom from religion" as a civil right.
It wasn't the ACLU which adopted the "freedom from religion" concept. It was the Founding Fathers.
First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Notice that this says two things about religion. First, government cannot "respect an establishment of religion". This doesn't mean they have to "disrespect" religion. It is the other meaning of the word "respect". It means "having to do with". Congress cannot pass a law "having to do with" religion. The 14th Amendment makes this apply to the states.
Noone is saying that people cannot practice their religion. Your "freedom from religion" only applies to government action. Notice the second part of what I quoted. Congress (and the states) may not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. You have freedom to practice your religion, and the ACLU is not trying to take that away.
As a matter of fact, the ACLU frequently takes cases where they fight for peoples' right to "freely exercise" their religion.
This whole business about "freedom from religion" being something the ACLU made up is classic propaganda from Fundamentalist Theocrats. I find it surprising that as an avowed agnostic you would buy into their reasoning.
From the Microsoft page:
You can restore your licenses on a maximum of two unique computers. If you replace hardware components in your computer or reinstall the operating system, Microsoft considers the changed computer to be a new unique computer.
So if I reinstall the operating system more than twice, ALL protected-wma music that I bought online is now GONE.
They must be on drugs to think people will knowingly go for this.
and as a laywer, I expect you to know the diff between SUCCESSFULLY suing someone and FILING a suit.
many people cannot afford the time/money/annoyance of a suit. simply bringing one up is enough to silence.
but of course, you're a lawyer. so you should know this better than most.
The threat of or the filing of a lawsuit is always a potential. But a lawsuit that has no basis in the law--not even an arguable basis--is not likely to deter a scientific journal from publishing an article.
This isn't about a personal website or someone distributing flyers. This is about established publishers who know their rights and can afford legal representation in the unlikely event that they have to hire a lawyer to draft a motion for summary judgment in a case that has no legal merit whatsoever.
but of course, you're a troll. so you should know this better than most.
How about none, zip, zero.
In the US there is no basis for suing someone who insults your race or religion. First of all, it's simply not a claim; slander or libel do not apply to huge groups of people. Second of all, the constitution prevents it.
A French Jewish organization discovered this a few years ago when it sued Yahoo! for selling Nazi paraphernalia. The Jewish group won in the French courts, but Yahoo! had no assets in France. A federal court in the US refused to enforce the French judgment because it said that to do so would violate the First Amendment.
You still have freedom of speech. Political correctness is just other people reacting to your speech, which they also have the freedom to do. That's not a legal problem per se. It's more of a social and cultural problem.
Creating a foreign subsidiary isn't going to get around those requirements.
The rules require American software companies that wish to sell to the Chinese government to manufacture all of their products in China and to register their copyrights first in China. The proposed regulation would also require that at least 50 percent of the development be done in China.
So does this mean that China will not use Linux/BSD either? How can you determine that 50% of development is done in any one place with an open source project? The copyrights for almost all code in Linux and BSD were not registered "first in China".
Either the Chinese government will use domestic versions of Linux and BSD, or it will use completely new operating systems developed by Chinese companies.
If it's the former, it could be a very good thing for open source.
I think this is great. In fact, Congress should delegate ALL rule-making authority to independent agencies. That way, they can play more golf and spend more time shopping for nice suits.
These people REPRESENT us. Let's make sure that they look good, feel good, and don't have to do any work at all.
It depends on how they are doing it. It's true that Congress is generally not allowed to directly command a state's executive or legislative branch. But Congress has found a lot of loopholes over the years. For example, it can condition funding based on a state legislatures passage of a statute.
Here they are simply making life difficult for a state's citizens if that state does not provide an ID in the format that the federal government prefers. This will put political pressure on those states' legislature to act.
Whether it is constitutional depends on how the Supreme Court feels about it.
I haven't noticed anything like that... but that may be because I usually buy an entire album instead of single tracks.
It costs about 22 cents per track with the plan I'm on, and I haven't found anything cheaper.
emusic.com has the best deal on REAL mp3s, and you can play them on an ipod or any other "MP3 player".
There are two kinds of federal administrative agencies: executive and independent. The President can fire the head of an executive agency at his whim.
Independent agencies, like the FCC, are not under the President's control because they do not serve at his pleasure.
They may do some things that seem like executive acts, but the President does not have control over them... Congress does.
Look here.
So they watermark it apparently. That's still not DRM. You can print the file out. You can copy it all you want, but you are not allowed to give it to other people.
There's no technical restriction on giving it to other people. It's just made so that if you violate the copyright, they can catch you more easily.
It's not DRM to ask for an email address.
No. You teach with respect for dissenting viewpoints that have some evidence of truth. You don't just go out and teach whatever people want to hear.
"Respect for dissenting viewpoints" is code for "pretend that everyone is right, regardless of what the facts indicate."
If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question.
Sure, if there is some valid doubt. But not just because someone out there disagrees. A lot of people believe that Elvis is still alive. Our textbooks don't discuss that hypothesis.
Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
The problem with pointing out that it's a theory is that 5th graders, and apparently a lot of adults, do not understand what the word "theory" means in a scientific context.
Fundamentalists have been very successful with using that word to indicate to their followers that there exists no more evidence for evolution than for creationism, because heck! It's just a theory.
I am all for teaching kids about the scientific process and THEN teaching that evolution is a theory. But if you don't teach them how science really works, and you teach them that evolution is "just a theory" you're really just establishing Christian Fundamentalism as the religion of the state.
I think there might be something about that in our constitution.
You teach the fact, with respect for dissenting viewpoints, just like any other topic. If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question. Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
You have every right to put whatever you want in your sig. And I have every right to make fun of you for it and ignore the substance of your comment.
Besides that, your sig reveals that you have a bias on this particular topic. Again, there's nothing wrong with having a bias. Nor is there anything wrong with my pointing it out. Breathe in... Breathe out... OK?
I haven't studied trademark law in a while, but what I do remember is that the mark itself does not have to be exactly the same for it to be infringing. The test (under US law) is the likelihood of consumer confusion.
My opinion--which I consider to be an unbiased opinion since I'm not trying to sell Apple or non-Apple computer products--is that this could lead to a lot of consumer confusion. For example, many consumers would likely think that tigerdirect.com is a place to buy Apple products and not a place to buy PC products. This could negatively affect TigerDirect's future business.
If you know more about trademark law than I do, go ahead and school me. But making an unelaborated argument that something is "not legally the same thing" doesn't help to convince anyone.
Uh... sorry, did you express an opinion somewhere in there? All I saw was that sales pitch at the end for Apple's new OSX Tiger.
They've been using the name to sell computer products since 1987. Apple has not even begun to sell products with that name yet.
I think TigerDirect has a good shot at getting some big money out of this.
This appears to be a very big screw-up on the part of Jobs & Co.
Well, that capability has been out for at least a couple of years. I've been using ssh on my Nokia 3650 for a while now. The version I use is Putty for Symbian, but there is another SSH client written for the Java VM that comes on most cell phones.
RealNetworks Music Store and Rhapsody are two DIFFERENT services offered by the same company. They run on two different pieces of software.
Rhapsody is an on-demand streaming service that will let you burn songs to a CD for 79 cents a song. Currently, Rhapsody does NOT allow you to download a file that you could put on an mp3 player.
The Real Music Store is a service, much like Napster, BuyMusic.com or iTunes. They sell DRMed music files for 99 cents each. They use a unique format called RAX, which is actually AAC, the same format sold at iTunes, but with a different DRM system. Supposedly, those files can be played on an ipod using Real's "Harmony" technology, but Apple has broken that compatibility with firmware updates in the past.
Personally I think the Rhapsody service is very elegant, and the fact that you can't purchase DRMed files is actually a good thing. In a few years, any store selling DRMed files is going to have a rude awakening as its customers find out that the only way to play all these files that they "bought" is to keep their old computer.
Until the major labels start selling MP3s, indie music is the only music worth buying. Emusic.com sells a lot of good music on MP3 for as little as 22 cents a song. They also offer a different track in their library as a a free download each day.
For the major label stuff that I refuse to buy with DRM, Rhapsody is a good service for on-demand listening.
Download non-DRMed music.
m /m p3tunes.com/: //www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/4686 46/l isten.com/en/w ww.downloadmusicmart.com/c om/
http://www.emusic.com/
http://audiolunchbox.co
http://www.warprecords.com/bleep/
http://www.
http://www.livedownloads.com/
http
http://www.downloadpunk.com/
http://www.web
http://www.magnatune.com/
http://
http://music.download.
Of the pay-per-song sites, emusic.com is the best deal out there by far.
The difference with open source is that you have to track down individual contributors. With any popular open source project, it's going to be very difficult to find and get all those contributors to sell you their copyrights.
Even still, versions released prior to the buyout would still be subject to the GPL (for example) and only new versions could be made non-free.
Yes, it can happen. No it isn't anything to worry about.