Yes, with a statistical sample of 1 we can draw all sorts of conclusions. That being said I too find Windows 2000 to be very stable. I still greatly perfer Linux, but you must admit that Microsoft products are getting better.
A number of them described the company's overall strategy as "integrated innovation," a reference to the drive to add a continual stream of features and services to Microsoft's Windows and Office software businesses.
A sure fire plan to increase security if I ever heard one.
Bill is becoming the world expert on increasing revenue without providing value to his customers.
I'd have to say that SCO has him beat. At least Microsoft sells products, SCO posted a profit for the first time in years based solely on licensing 20+ year old technology!
Exactly. That's why I haven't switched to Debian yet, still stuck on dialup (but DSL will be in my area "Real Soon Now"). Debian & other free software is one of my primary reasons for wanting hi-speed (Gawd I'm a geek;).
Yea, but see:
He was reauthing with a NON-US credit card.
His own failt for being a dumbass; and, of course, if he got his hands on a US credit card, he'd be fine.
I wouldn't call him a dumbass for assuming that he owned his purchases.
Well, then you're fine, unless you decide to redownload your music, like this guy did, outside the US with a non-US credit card.
He lost all of his music in a re-install; THEN he tried to readownload. They weren't just automagically deleted.
RTFA.
I sugest you RTFA:
I've recently moved to Canada and just this week had a problem with my
PowerBook that called for me undertaking a reinstall. After firing up
iTunes and attempting to play purchased songs, I was asked to reauthorize
those songs, using the Apple ID associated with the purchase.
He doesn't say he lost his music with a reinstall, it was probably backed up somewhere else or on a diferent partition or something. He specifically says that he was asked to reauthenticate the song copies which is where the problem showed up. However, no mention is made of Apple deleting his files, I have no idea where this came from.
Purchases from the iTunes Music Store are available only in the United States and are not available in any other location.
Well, this seems to clearly indicate that you can't listen to your purchases outside of the US. How they check and enforce this is not spelled out. It is likely that this guy only ran into trouble because he had to reinstall his operating system, which most people don't do all that frequently. So unless you do something drastic like reinstall your operating system and try to reauthenticate your computer from outside the US you likely won't have any problems, although it is pretty telling about who really "owns" your purchases.
How legal are terms of sale? They seem to be even worse then EULAs, since most times you are not even required to click through them. Any thoughts or legal precedents on this?
That four point test section is not the only basis for fair use. There are numberous(sic) other specific exemptions all over the place in copyright law.
Links please. You can't just throw this out there with nothing to back it up.
He is basing his plan on the right "to make copies for backup and for moving the content to other media". I'm not sure if it is a specific exemption in the law, or based on court rulings, but it is a recognized right that people have.
Links please. I don't know of anywhere where the "right" to make personal backups and media shift is codified in law. If it is I'd love to see it. AFAIK the 4 criteria above are the only criteria set down in law for fair use (with certain specific exceptions, such as VCR time shifting). Making backups and media shifting are probably considered fair use under criteria 1 & 4 (it is for personal use only, and has virtually no effect on the market since you've already purchased the goods).
Fair Use is not the holy grail of all copyright law--there are other limitations placed on the copyright holders, and they aren't all listed in the code. I mention one of them in my other post in this thread. I doubt that it could be used to justify what Cringley wants to do here, but it would be more likely to succeed than Fair Use.
You are correct that IANAL, but can you tell me what else besides fair use allows a non-copyright holder to make copies of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder's permission? (Gawd that sounded awful;). You mention the First Sale Doctrine elsewhere (I assume this is what you were referring to) but this does not apply since no copies are being made. I said in my earlier post that if the corporation wants to share the physical CDs with it's shareholders this would be perfectly legal (if inconvenient) since no copies are being made.
Incidentally, I end up with copyrighted material stored on my computer all the time. Corporations give it to me, and for free! Since no sale has taken place, they still have the right to do whatever they want with it, and could probably try to sue me depending upon the countries involved and their interpretations of the law. It's all hidden away in my browser cache.
You seem to be using a straw man argument here. Since when are copyright holders required to charge for their work? I have tons of GPLed code on my computer, and I'm downloading copyrighted music right now for free with iRATE (with the copyright holder's permission). I believe it is assumed that if corporations or individuals place content on the publicly accessible web they are giving you permission to make a copy of it for access purposes, since you have to download it to view it (or maybe making the copy is covered by fair use, I don't know). However, the copyright is retained by the owner and if you posted this content somewhere else you could very well be liable (unless it falls under fair use of course).
I don't think Cringely was using Fair Use as the basis for this, but rather actual (corporate) ownership.
RTFA, or at least the summary. The only person who has the right to copy a piece of work is the person who owns the copyright. This should be self explanatory, but surprisingly isn't. Fair Use is an exception to this rule, which allows someone other than the copyright holder to make copies under a very lmited set of circumstances. Unless all the shareholders of Cringley's corporation are going to pass around the single purchased CD (which would be legal), they will be making copies. Since they are not the copyright holders and this is way out of scope for fair use, this is clearly illegal.
I'm surpirsed he said that his lawyer friends found no problem with this. From the earlier/. interview with the DOJ IP Lawyers, Question #7:
The doctrine of fair use was originally adopted by judges ruling in early copyright cases. Ultimately, Congress incorporated the doctrine into the Copyright Act of 1976, where fair use is now codified at Section 107 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code. In creating section 107, Congress listed four factors to be considered in determining whether a use is fair or not:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
These factors are essentially the same factors that had been used over the years by judges, and Congress's stated intent was to preserve the fair use doctrine as it had evolved. However, as many courts have pointed out over the years, whether something constitutes fair use is very fact-specific. It is difficult to craft a clear, bright-line rule that explains which particular uses of a work are fair use and which are infringement. In short, the exact parameters of fair use are often determined based on the facts of specific cases.
Just from a quick look Cringely's idea, while novel, seems to violate several of the 4 criteria. This would be copyright infringement for comercial gain on a massive scale. No way any judge would believe that this falls under the intent of fair use.
"We're constantly improving it so the technology we have 10 years from now will be better than what we have today," Mr. Richardson said. "We're always open to anything that can improve our systems."
See, they still have 5 more years to fix the bugs! Plenty of time, right?
Sorry to respond to my own post, but I wanted to add somehing. The submitter for question #7 asked:
Do I have a right, that will stand up in a court of law, to make a copy of software/music/data for my own personal use?
It didn't seem like they really answered this question. They determined that, yes, fair use exists, but didn't go so far as to say that making personal copies falls under fair use. What if the software EULA expressly forbids making backups for "archival purposes"? What if you lose the original, what rights, if any, do you retain? Can you still legally use your backups (isn't this what backups are for)? How do you prove to the copyright holder that you purchased the original?
or did anyone else feel like they talked a lot but didn't say much? (Lawyers, I know)
This isn't surprising to me since most of the really interesting stuff is occurring in civil law, not criminal. These guys mostly go after rampant piracy for profit (i.e. large software counterfeit rings and such).
From question #7:
As to your final question, while there certainly is a right to fair use, it is not a violation of that right to make products that cannot be copied.
I was hoping that they would clarify whether it was legal to circumvent the copy protection to exercise fair use rights. They mentioned in question 3 that the DMCA contains fair use exceptions but this seems to be a legal gray area. Is it legal to use DeCSS to watch legally purchased DVDs on Linux? Is it legal to hack copy protected CDs to rip them to mp3s (for personal use)?
Is WineX affected by any chance? After all, aren't they supposed to be recreating the API exactly, bugs and all? Besides, it isn't fair that Linux users have to miss out on all the really cool highly publicized bugs.;)
About this exact situation - airplane crew is poisoned with their breakfast got from new (and untruthworthy) supplier, and passenger with some flight experience from WWII saves everyone onboard.
To be more specific: You have only to release the source code to the people you are distributing the binaries to.
Actually, the important point is that once you distribute your changes they must be GPL licensed. If you do not distribute the code you can keep your changes to GPL software closed source, once you distribute you must release them under the GPL. Although you are only required to release the source to people you distribute binaries to you lose any rights to restrict distribution. Those people can then post your changes on the internet for all to download and you can't do a thing to stop it.
I think it's rather unlikely for this to happen in the US anytime soon. The time it takes to disassemble electronics properly to separate them out into the varying material types would make the process very expensive, and seeing as how companies are already cutting corners in every way they can, I find it hard to believe they would bother pouring money into device disposal.
Well, that's where government regulation comes in. One of the ways a free market fails is the environment. If a good-hearted company incurs extra cost by being environmentally friendly while their evil competitors do not, their products will be more expensive than the competitors and they will fail. This is a very much an all or none deal, and the only way to make sure everyone helps the environment is with governmental laws. If you RTFA you will find that this is why the Japanese recycling plant was built, to comply with new environmental laws. Don't worry, I'm sure Congress and Bush will be drafting and approving a similar bill any day now.;)
Yes, I know NT was always just a marketing title. As I said I only just recently found out what it was supposed to be an acronym for and it was released how many years ago? BTW, can anyone tell me what the hell XP is supposed to stand for?
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What I was responding to was your "here's my personal experience, 'nuff said." It was the "'nuff said" part that I was reponding to mostly.
dont be a smart ass
Welcome to Slashdot, you must be new here!
Yes, with a statistical sample of 1 we can draw all sorts of conclusions. That being said I too find Windows 2000 to be very stable. I still greatly perfer Linux, but you must admit that Microsoft products are getting better.
A sure fire plan to increase security if I ever heard one.
I'd have to say that SCO has him beat. At least Microsoft sells products, SCO posted a profit for the first time in years based solely on licensing 20+ year old technology!
Exactly. That's why I haven't switched to Debian yet, still stuck on dialup (but DSL will be in my area "Real Soon Now"). Debian & other free software is one of my primary reasons for wanting hi-speed (Gawd I'm a geek;).
I wouldn't call him a dumbass for assuming that he owned his purchases.
The article does NOT says this. He did not redownload his purchases, iTunes asked him to reauthenticate his purchases (he must of had backups).
Well that doesn't say apple will suddenly disable all your music files if you step out of US soil for say a week or a month.
From the terms of sale:
Purchases from the iTunes Music Store are available only in the United States and are not available in any other location.
While the terms of sale doesn't say that they WILL disable your music if you leave the US, it does say that they CAN do so.
I sugest you RTFA:
I've recently moved to Canada and just this week had a problem with my PowerBook that called for me undertaking a reinstall. After firing up iTunes and attempting to play purchased songs, I was asked to reauthorize those songs, using the Apple ID associated with the purchase.
He doesn't say he lost his music with a reinstall, it was probably backed up somewhere else or on a diferent partition or something. He specifically says that he was asked to reauthenticate the song copies which is where the problem showed up. However, no mention is made of Apple deleting his files, I have no idea where this came from.
Well, this seems to clearly indicate that you can't listen to your purchases outside of the US. How they check and enforce this is not spelled out. It is likely that this guy only ran into trouble because he had to reinstall his operating system, which most people don't do all that frequently. So unless you do something drastic like reinstall your operating system and try to reauthenticate your computer from outside the US you likely won't have any problems, although it is pretty telling about who really "owns" your purchases.
How legal are terms of sale? They seem to be even worse then EULAs, since most times you are not even required to click through them. Any thoughts or legal precedents on this?
Links please. You can't just throw this out there with nothing to back it up.
He is basing his plan on the right "to make copies for backup and for moving the content to other media". I'm not sure if it is a specific exemption in the law, or based on court rulings, but it is a recognized right that people have.
Links please. I don't know of anywhere where the "right" to make personal backups and media shift is codified in law. If it is I'd love to see it. AFAIK the 4 criteria above are the only criteria set down in law for fair use (with certain specific exceptions, such as VCR time shifting). Making backups and media shifting are probably considered fair use under criteria 1 & 4 (it is for personal use only, and has virtually no effect on the market since you've already purchased the goods).
You are correct that IANAL, but can you tell me what else besides fair use allows a non-copyright holder to make copies of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder's permission? (Gawd that sounded awful ;). You mention the First Sale Doctrine elsewhere (I assume this is what you were referring to) but this does not apply since no copies are being made. I said in my earlier post that if the corporation wants to share the physical CDs with it's shareholders this would be perfectly legal (if inconvenient) since no copies are being made.
Incidentally, I end up with copyrighted material stored on my computer all the time. Corporations give it to me, and for free! Since no sale has taken place, they still have the right to do whatever they want with it, and could probably try to sue me depending upon the countries involved and their interpretations of the law. It's all hidden away in my browser cache.
You seem to be using a straw man argument here. Since when are copyright holders required to charge for their work? I have tons of GPLed code on my computer, and I'm downloading copyrighted music right now for free with iRATE (with the copyright holder's permission). I believe it is assumed that if corporations or individuals place content on the publicly accessible web they are giving you permission to make a copy of it for access purposes, since you have to download it to view it (or maybe making the copy is covered by fair use, I don't know). However, the copyright is retained by the owner and if you posted this content somewhere else you could very well be liable (unless it falls under fair use of course).
No. See my response to pb.
RTFA, or at least the summary. The only person who has the right to copy a piece of work is the person who owns the copyright. This should be self explanatory, but surprisingly isn't. Fair Use is an exception to this rule, which allows someone other than the copyright holder to make copies under a very lmited set of circumstances. Unless all the shareholders of Cringley's corporation are going to pass around the single purchased CD (which would be legal), they will be making copies. Since they are not the copyright holders and this is way out of scope for fair use, this is clearly illegal.
The doctrine of fair use was originally adopted by judges ruling in early copyright cases. Ultimately, Congress incorporated the doctrine into the Copyright Act of 1976, where fair use is now codified at Section 107 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code. In creating section 107, Congress listed four factors to be considered in determining whether a use is fair or not:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
These factors are essentially the same factors that had been used over the years by judges, and Congress's stated intent was to preserve the fair use doctrine as it had evolved. However, as many courts have pointed out over the years, whether something constitutes fair use is very fact-specific. It is difficult to craft a clear, bright-line rule that explains which particular uses of a work are fair use and which are infringement. In short, the exact parameters of fair use are often determined based on the facts of specific cases.
Just from a quick look Cringely's idea, while novel, seems to violate several of the 4 criteria. This would be copyright infringement for comercial gain on a massive scale. No way any judge would believe that this falls under the intent of fair use.
Actually, it's more like "We won't buy it, so we'll steal it and drink it anyway." Not quite the same selfless act, now is it?
See, they still have 5 more years to fix the bugs! Plenty of time, right?
Do I have a right, that will stand up in a court of law, to make a copy of software/music/data for my own personal use?
It didn't seem like they really answered this question. They determined that, yes, fair use exists, but didn't go so far as to say that making personal copies falls under fair use. What if the software EULA expressly forbids making backups for "archival purposes"? What if you lose the original, what rights, if any, do you retain? Can you still legally use your backups (isn't this what backups are for)? How do you prove to the copyright holder that you purchased the original?
This isn't surprising to me since most of the really interesting stuff is occurring in civil law, not criminal. These guys mostly go after rampant piracy for profit (i.e. large software counterfeit rings and such).
From question #7:
As to your final question, while there certainly is a right to fair use, it is not a violation of that right to make products that cannot be copied.
I was hoping that they would clarify whether it was legal to circumvent the copy protection to exercise fair use rights. They mentioned in question 3 that the DMCA contains fair use exceptions but this seems to be a legal gray area. Is it legal to use DeCSS to watch legally purchased DVDs on Linux? Is it legal to hack copy protected CDs to rip them to mp3s (for personal use)?
Is WineX affected by any chance? After all, aren't they supposed to be recreating the API exactly, bugs and all? Besides, it isn't fair that Linux users have to miss out on all the really cool highly publicized bugs. ;)
Hey, I saw Aiplane too! That movie's hilarious!
"Surely you can't be serious."
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."
Actually, the important point is that once you distribute your changes they must be GPL licensed. If you do not distribute the code you can keep your changes to GPL software closed source, once you distribute you must release them under the GPL. Although you are only required to release the source to people you distribute binaries to you lose any rights to restrict distribution. Those people can then post your changes on the internet for all to download and you can't do a thing to stop it.
Well, that's where government regulation comes in. One of the ways a free market fails is the environment. If a good-hearted company incurs extra cost by being environmentally friendly while their evil competitors do not, their products will be more expensive than the competitors and they will fail. This is a very much an all or none deal, and the only way to make sure everyone helps the environment is with governmental laws. If you RTFA you will find that this is why the Japanese recycling plant was built, to comply with new environmental laws. Don't worry, I'm sure Congress and Bush will be drafting and approving a similar bill any day now. ;)
Yes, I know NT was always just a marketing title. As I said I only just recently found out what it was supposed to be an acronym for and it was released how many years ago? BTW, can anyone tell me what the hell XP is supposed to stand for?
The Win2000 bootup screen says "Built with NT technology".
I just recently found out that NT stands for "New Technology" so if you expand out the 200 bootup message it says:
"Built with New Technology Technology"
Huh?