According to 17 USC 107, the section of Copyright law which establishes fair use:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
I would try to qualify it as fair not as a parody but as criticism, comment, and research and (to a much lesser extent) news reporting (creating some news), teaching (the public), and scholarship (teaching and research). I would also qualify it under (1) and (2), not (3), and probably (4) since this will almost certainly not affect anyone's decision of whether or not to buy an airline ticket.
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However, I highly doubt the airline ticket is copyright to begin with. The individual words could be, but this program is generating those, isn't it? Presentation, color, and layout aren't copyright (and I've just read 17 USC 101-102 to confirm it.)
What happens if some virus overwrites the portion of the OS responsible for reserving the virtualization? It becomes just as undetectable on the next reboot.
And since when do you believe everything you read?
The emphasis is on "unauthorized lending and yada yada", and it turns out that quite a bit of lending is perfectly authorized. It's called the First Sale doctrine: after the first sale of a given media (that is, the first time the actual DVD you hold in your hand was sold, not the first time that movie was sold), Copyright law does not impose restrictions on the sale, rental, lending, etc. of a work.
For figuring out what, exactly, Copyright regulates, it's best to look at exactly what copyright does protect for the owners of a work:
Reproduction "in copies or phonorecords"
Preparation of derivative works
Public distribution of "copies or phonorecords by transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or lending
Public performance (applicable types of copyrighted works)
Public display (applicable types of copyrighted works)
Performing music "publicly by means of digital audio transmission"
(In addition, authors of visual works (possibly distinct from those works' owners) can claim the works, and not have their name on other works, etc.)
The above lumps conceptually to me into four distinct categories: Reproduction, Derivative works, Distribution/Performance, and Integrity (the thing with authors of visual works.)(Performance seems a lot like distribution to me: you're giving new people the content both ways, and the only difference is whether or not the medium is light/sound or something tangible.)
However, one example you cite is "lending". That is, in fact, considered distribution by Copyright Law.
Earlier, however, I said not to believe everything you read, so don't take my word for all this. See:
DRM (in its current form) does not stop pirates. At all. Ever notice how quickly copy protection on audio CDs keeps being broken? It's the same with DVDs, and online music. Pirates can get around the DRM trivially: easiest of all, in fact, because they'll be able to devote the most resources to breaking the DRM (as doing so is essentially their job.)
DRM (in its current form) does hurt consumers. Copyright holders can, by applying DRM to their works, completely control what consumers can legally do with those works, since breaking the DRM is illegal under the DMCA, even what the consumer does by breaking the DRM (e.g. making a backup copy) would not otherwise be illegal. This is the way copyright holders are using DRM, and consumers are losing the ability to do things with their media.
Thus, DRM does not help, and it does hurt. That seems like a net loss to me.
When GP says he can't do something (e.g. "record shows freely from TV to VHS"), he's not implying that that exact action is what's forbidden [1] now. Rather, it's the corresponding action with current media which is impossible; he wants to freely record TV. This was possible with VHS, but isn't with today's media.
Much earlier, you said,
Hopefully, once they've figured out their One True DRM, it'll be incorporated into everything, so I'll be able to copy shows from my TiVo onto a DVD so my daughter can watch them in the car. And yeah, I realize that if there wasn't any DRM I could probably do that today, but that's not the point. The industry is fixated on curbing piracy, and I'm not a pirate, so I say the sooner they get something they're comfortable with in place, the sooner I can start lobbying for digital medium independence. Once the DRM BS is settled, we can start agitating for our rights under fair use again, and have a better argument ("Hey, as long as it's protected, I can copy my own DVDs onto my media server and watch them from a hotel in Bangkok, right? I mean, I purchased the right to view them, didn't I?").
Well, you'll be able to copy stuff from a TiVo to a DVD if they want you to. If how they act now is any indication of how they'll continue to act, they won't want you to do that, and you won't be able to legally. If, as you say, the One True DRM is incorporated into everything, you won't be able to at all either. If there wasn't any DRM today, you could do that now; true. You won't be able to as long as there is DRM, though. Consider:
The DRM will not support everything you want to do with your music
The idea of DRM is fundamentally flawed. Your device has to be able to decrypt the media, therefore, you can discover the keys, and the DRM scheme can be cracked. [[ Assuming no Trusted Computing-ish scheme ]]
If we did convert to the One True DRM, as you say, there'd be a rather painful time where we didn't have the ability to do much of anything
DRM cannot stop pirates efficiently without preventing people from creating their own content. Pirates (by definition) don't care about illegal things. They will be able to get at the content (by finding a crypto weakness in the DRM, by discovering some key, by physically hacking a device, by tapping the video output signal of a decoder, by pointing a camcorder at a TV, etc...) and release that content in DRM-free form. The only way to stop piracy completely would involve having all technology refuse to play anything which isn't signed by a valid authority That authority would not be able to allow everyone to create content, since they would have no way to effectively verify what they were signing was not pirated content anymore than YouTube can.
Mandatory DRM of that sort would prevent any homebrew technology from being workable, because it would have to be unable to decode the DRM (if the DRM is going to actually stop piracy.) That effectively ends all DIY projects and all FOSS operating systems, drivers, and media players.
No, actually, bash doesn't. Try something like echo.* , and you'll see that . and.. are, in face, there. What protection that does exist is that on many modern systems, rm will refuse to remove . or.. (though the truly motivated can foil that with a rm `pwd`)
You know, I read the first word of your blog and had already decided it wasn't going to be worth my time read. You never capitalized any of sentences.
I haven't read your blog, but I'm assuming it is as described. Both of those sentences are almost certainly true and aren't things you can argue about (fact and opinion presented as such.)
It makes you look unprofessional, ignorant, and most of all someone who doesn't know how to write. So if you expect to be taken seriously, go back and fix your work.
These statements are on shakier ground, but they're still true. You may not like it, but there is a stereotype of professionalism, and that stereotype does include grammatically correct writing. Some people will most certainly not take you seriously because of your presentation. (Whether or not that's what they should be doing is another question.)
In short, the GPs points, while they could have been presented a bit more nicely, were valid.
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That's unfortunate that you feel that way. I don't have time to fix it, and I guess, I prefer that you not read it. I find content to be more important, and as you can see, I can use capitols when I feel like it. Considering this article made it to the front page of digg, I assumed that it's lack of capitols was undershot by it's actual useful and interesting content.
That's all fine too; if you care about the part of your audience that will disregard grammar, others can think that's a bad decision, but that's all they can do, for it's certainly your decision to make.
It's good to see Anonymous Cowards bitching about other people's work. Maybe you could post some of yours so we can pick it apart.
This, however, is just plain immature and is the reason I reply. (Really? Wow.)
In order to make valid points, perhaps-constructive criticism (not bitching), the GP should post non-anonymously? Should post some of his own work? Do you honestly think his identity or credentials should have an impact on facts he notes about your work?
The WRT54G is capable of running multiple virtual wireless networks, each with their own encryption scheme, if you flash it with an alternative firmware. IIRC, one called DD-WRT supports it. I've never tried.
Keep in mind, though, that if you have any VWLAN with WEP, your network will only be as secure as WEP.
I'll again point out my parallel with IE, which was also a very expensive to write program integrated with the OS for free.
That doesn't seem to have hurt Firefox. I don't think it's a bad thing that Microsoft has made it impractical to charge for a web browser. How is it a bad thing if they make it impractical to charge for anti-virus software?
Are you kidding? According to this page, Firefox right now has a market share of 27%, compared to 62% for MSIE. Can you imagine how differently things would have been if MSIE hadn't been bundled with Windows? Even if it was distributed freely, people would still have had to find it, and would have had to decide to use it over Netscape, which was dominant at the time. I highly doubt its dominance would have slipped to something else more suddenly. I also think (though not so strongly), other browsers would still have been developed roughly similarly to how they have been developed.
Even now, Firefox is gaining, but many people still have reasons for keeping MSIE which stem from its integration with the OS. What about the people on dialup who don't want to download Firefox? What about people on older computers? Firefox renders more quickly, but it sure takes a while to load. What about big organizations that run Windows? MSIE is a hell of a lot easier to deploy. (Try making forced settings on Firefox. Even setting a default profile requires medium-level hackery.)
(Before people start to flame me, BTW, while all those reasons are valid, I don't think they should be enough to keep somebody from using Firefox. THe problem is that they do exist, and they do matter to some people.)
Something McAfee, Symantec and all other anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall/spam-filter companies should bear in mind, if operating systems, applications and other software had been properly designed in the beginning these companies wouldn't exist. These aftermarket companies are effectively parasites. Once the host changes significantly the parasites advantage is gone.
This would be true IF Microsoft had removed the need for av/as/s/sf software but it hasnt. All it has done is changed how the software innterfaces with the OS in an attempt to make it more secure.
No, it's true still true. It may not be a relevant point towards GP's argument, but it's still true. Don't confuse "true" and "relevant".
Your sig says The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammer ain't important, but you're wrong there.
The purpose of language is communication, true. In simpler sentences, you can often communicate the idea clearly enough with bad grammar. The grammar is still important, however, because both readers and writers need to understand the rules properly so that more complex sentences still communicate their ideas clearly.
If you prefer all could use sentences of course like this.
You said, "it had trouble coping with the concept that there were multiple users on the machine, kept separate music libraries for root and me". Not to be rude, but are you serious?
You say that the expected behavior would be for iTunes to keep the same music library for two distinct users on the system. The whole point of having a multi-user system is so that different users have distinct settings and documents. iTunes behaved perfectly correctly, and, if it had done anything else, it would have been buggy.
You use two user accounts on your system to get privilege separation, and that's fine. Then, because you want the two accounts to share data (not the typical multi-user paradigm), you use trickery to get it to work, and that's fine too. What you shouldn't do is complain when software breaks it.
So, perhaps in a pedantic sense photons travel at c.
Yet, it is accepted usage (pick up any high school physics textbook) to say that light travels slightly slower when not in a vacuum.
(Note both a slight stretch of the definition, and use of "light traveling" vs "photons traveling". I'm not sure if the latter is my own invention or not.)
Don't forget what about it? It's completely correct-- the photons are traveling only close to the speed of light, because the inside of the waveguide almost certainly isn't a vacuum.
Oh, c'mon. If an ISP said, "We provide you with an Internet connection. We believe in doing only some things, but doing them very well," and sincerely meant it, I think a decent number of people (especially Slashdottians) would flock to them. *Cough*google*cough*
The problem is that all the big, established broadband companies have monopolies on local lines (especially in DSL-less markets.)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, fair use is a copyright concept, not a trademark concept. Learn the difference... :-P
I would try to qualify it as fair not as a parody but as criticism, comment, and research and (to a much lesser extent) news reporting (creating some news), teaching (the public), and scholarship (teaching and research). I would also qualify it under (1) and (2), not (3), and probably (4) since this will almost certainly not affect anyone's decision of whether or not to buy an airline ticket.
___
However, I highly doubt the airline ticket is copyright to begin with. The individual words could be, but this program is generating those, isn't it? Presentation, color, and layout aren't copyright (and I've just read 17 USC 101-102 to confirm it.)
Ah, but whichever hypervisor you're using is your primary OS, isn't it? ;-)
What happens if some virus overwrites the portion of the OS responsible for reserving the virtualization? It becomes just as undetectable on the next reboot.
Oh. I thought the style was interesting, actually. You shouldn't have corrected yourself. :-)
On a more serious note, though, do you have a citation for any of the stuff you said? (I'm curious. It could prove useful later.)
Parodies. Paradies are something else entirely. (Much as they encrypt the data, I doubt they can stop us from checksumming it :-) )
The emphasis is on "unauthorized lending and yada yada", and it turns out that quite a bit of lending is perfectly authorized. It's called the First Sale doctrine: after the first sale of a given media (that is, the first time the actual DVD you hold in your hand was sold, not the first time that movie was sold), Copyright law does not impose restrictions on the sale, rental, lending, etc. of a work.
For figuring out what, exactly, Copyright regulates, it's best to look at exactly what copyright does protect for the owners of a work:
(In addition, authors of visual works (possibly distinct from those works' owners) can claim the works, and not have their name on other works, etc.)
The above lumps conceptually to me into four distinct categories: Reproduction, Derivative works, Distribution/Performance, and Integrity (the thing with authors of visual works.)(Performance seems a lot like distribution to me: you're giving new people the content both ways, and the only difference is whether or not the medium is light/sound or something tangible.)
However, one example you cite is "lending". That is, in fact, considered distribution by Copyright Law.
Earlier, however, I said not to believe everything you read, so don't take my word for all this. See:
Maybe what's stopping him is that artists don't exactly advertise their home addresses, and agents don't sometimes cash things like this?
See here
DRM (in its current form) does not stop pirates. At all. Ever notice how quickly copy protection on audio CDs keeps being broken? It's the same with DVDs, and online music. Pirates can get around the DRM trivially: easiest of all, in fact, because they'll be able to devote the most resources to breaking the DRM (as doing so is essentially their job.)
DRM (in its current form) does hurt consumers. Copyright holders can, by applying DRM to their works, completely control what consumers can legally do with those works, since breaking the DRM is illegal under the DMCA, even what the consumer does by breaking the DRM (e.g. making a backup copy) would not otherwise be illegal. This is the way copyright holders are using DRM, and consumers are losing the ability to do things with their media.
Thus, DRM does not help, and it does hurt. That seems like a net loss to me.
When GP says he can't do something (e.g. "record shows freely from TV to VHS"), he's not implying that that exact action is what's forbidden [1] now. Rather, it's the corresponding action with current media which is impossible; he wants to freely record TV. This was possible with VHS, but isn't with today's media.
Much earlier, you said,
Well, you'll be able to copy stuff from a TiVo to a DVD if they want you to. If how they act now is any indication of how they'll continue to act, they won't want you to do that, and you won't be able to legally. If, as you say, the One True DRM is incorporated into everything, you won't be able to at all either. If there wasn't any DRM today, you could do that now; true. You won't be able to as long as there is DRM, though. Consider:
Do you still think DRM is worth it?
No, actually, bash doesn't. Try something like echo .* , and you'll see that . and .. are, in face, there. What protection that does exist is that on many modern systems, rm will refuse to remove . or .. (though the truly motivated can foil that with a rm `pwd`)
I haven't read your blog, but I'm assuming it is as described. Both of those sentences are almost certainly true and aren't things you can argue about (fact and opinion presented as such.)
These statements are on shakier ground, but they're still true. You may not like it, but there is a stereotype of professionalism, and that stereotype does include grammatically correct writing. Some people will most certainly not take you seriously because of your presentation. (Whether or not that's what they should be doing is another question.)
In short, the GPs points, while they could have been presented a bit more nicely, were valid.
-------
That's all fine too; if you care about the part of your audience that will disregard grammar, others can think that's a bad decision, but that's all they can do, for it's certainly your decision to make.
This, however, is just plain immature and is the reason I reply. (Really? Wow.)
In order to make valid points, perhaps-constructive criticism (not bitching), the GP should post non-anonymously? Should post some of his own work? Do you honestly think his identity or credentials should have an impact on facts he notes about your work?
Sprint?
That wouldn't matter because the bottleneck is (almost certainly) not between the WAP and the clients, but rather between the WAP and the Internet.
Mods: it's not offtopic, it's funny!
The WRT54G is capable of running multiple virtual wireless networks, each with their own encryption scheme, if you flash it with an alternative firmware. IIRC, one called DD-WRT supports it. I've never tried.
Keep in mind, though, that if you have any VWLAN with WEP, your network will only be as secure as WEP.
Are you kidding? According to this page, Firefox right now has a market share of 27%, compared to 62% for MSIE. Can you imagine how differently things would have been if MSIE hadn't been bundled with Windows? Even if it was distributed freely, people would still have had to find it, and would have had to decide to use it over Netscape, which was dominant at the time. I highly doubt its dominance would have slipped to something else more suddenly. I also think (though not so strongly), other browsers would still have been developed roughly similarly to how they have been developed.
Even now, Firefox is gaining, but many people still have reasons for keeping MSIE which stem from its integration with the OS. What about the people on dialup who don't want to download Firefox? What about people on older computers? Firefox renders more quickly, but it sure takes a while to load. What about big organizations that run Windows? MSIE is a hell of a lot easier to deploy. (Try making forced settings on Firefox. Even setting a default profile requires medium-level hackery.)
(Before people start to flame me, BTW, while all those reasons are valid, I don't think they should be enough to keep somebody from using Firefox. THe problem is that they do exist, and they do matter to some people.)
No, it's true still true. It may not be a relevant point towards GP's argument, but it's still true. Don't confuse "true" and "relevant".
Your sig says The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammer ain't important, but you're wrong there.
The purpose of language is communication, true. In simpler sentences, you can often communicate the idea clearly enough with bad grammar. The grammar is still important, however, because both readers and writers need to understand the rules properly so that more complex sentences still communicate their ideas clearly.
If you prefer all could use sentences of course like this.
Additionally, the period always goes inside the quotation.
It does so only in some places. The UK comes to mind as a counter-example.
That's not a great situation. Apple should, of course, be helping you, and if they're not, there are steps you can take to get them to do so.
That said, if that's the worst thing you've ever had a company do to you, you're pretty lucky.
You said, "it had trouble coping with the concept that there were multiple users on the machine, kept separate music libraries for root and me". Not to be rude, but are you serious?
You say that the expected behavior would be for iTunes to keep the same music library for two distinct users on the system. The whole point of having a multi-user system is so that different users have distinct settings and documents. iTunes behaved perfectly correctly, and, if it had done anything else, it would have been buggy.
You use two user accounts on your system to get privilege separation, and that's fine. Then, because you want the two accounts to share data (not the typical multi-user paradigm), you use trickery to get it to work, and that's fine too. What you shouldn't do is complain when software breaks it.
So, perhaps in a pedantic sense photons travel at c.
Yet, it is accepted usage (pick up any high school physics textbook) to say that light travels slightly slower when not in a vacuum.
(Note both a slight stretch of the definition, and use of "light traveling" vs "photons traveling". I'm not sure if the latter is my own invention or not.)
Don't forget what about it? It's completely correct-- the photons are traveling only close to the speed of light, because the inside of the waveguide almost certainly isn't a vacuum.
Until, of course, their profits vanish (hopefully.)
Oh, c'mon. If an ISP said, "We provide you with an Internet connection. We believe in doing only some things, but doing them very well," and sincerely meant it, I think a decent number of people (especially Slashdottians) would flock to them. *Cough*google*cough*
The problem is that all the big, established broadband companies have monopolies on local lines (especially in DSL-less markets.)