Parent misses the point. There are two ways to make money from patents:
Manufacture a product, and use the patent to keep others out of the market. I call this the 'passive' method, since the patent is not directly used to make money, the manufacturing is.
License a patent to someone else, earning royalties. I call this the 'active' method, since the patent 'property' itself is the source of the money (rental fees).
The first proposed short-term fix ignores the passive method, which is the traditional way patentees use patents. It penalizes the 'good guys', who are just trying to recoup R&D costs, etc. And since R&D costs are involved, cue the pharmaceutical companies. They would never go for mandatory licensing, so this 'fix' will never happen.
Second, if someone is developing an open standard, it's for the benefit of the public, right? So just take open standards out of the allowable subject matter -- no patents at all on open standards, and everyone can use them right away. Otherwise they're not really 'open', are they? Or is that too radical a proposal?
So, if they manage to convict him of breaking in to the systems, the money he made in the trades will be fair game since it was a result of the break in.
Not exactly. The money he made in the trades was a result of his making an independent act based on information he learned during the break in. There's no direct cause and effect there, since there's an intervening act of free will (he made a stock trade). This is entirely different from a bank robbery, where the money is stolen without an intervening act.
You could extend forfeiture to "anything he learned while digging around in there", but then how do you prove that in court?
Suppose someone else who didn't break into the computer system made the same 3-day put by sheer dumb luck? Is their profit forfeit?
Suppose someone else broke in, installed a botnet but didn't dig around for financial data, and made the same 3-day put? Is their profit forfeit?
Suppose someone made the 3-day put, THEN broke in after making the trade, etc.
In order to have a workable rule, you'd need to say something like: if someone
Broke into a computer system having financial data
Actually found financial data
That couldn't be located from a public source
Later made a financial transaction based on that data, and
Profited from the financial transaction
Then the profits from the transaction (gains minus losses) are subject to forfeit. I haven't looked at the SEC laws, but I imagine they're worded similarly.
A cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master. He will do it by removing an evil force from your soul that is there because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Passenger trains bleed money like a stuck pig. Amtrak is heavily subsidized by the government, and only makes money on the Boston-DC run with the Acela. Here's a quote from the 2009 Budget, just released:
Taking Steps to Rationalize the Nation's Intercity Passenger Rail System
Curtails Federal subsidies. $800 million for Amtrak, which represents a significant but necessary cut to the railroad's Federal subsidy.
Requires that Amtrak control its operating losses and focus on services that offer the most promise.
Reserves the bulk of funds for capital investment so improvements may continue along the heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor.
Reflects that Amtrak has taken few steps to align its business with the traveling public's demand for intercity rail service and that it consequently continues to hemorrhage taxpayer funds.
Provides State matching grants. $100 million for State matching grants for intercity passenger rail capital projects to empower States, not Amtrak, to address their transportation goals and priorities.
See for yourself: DOT budget. Notice, they used the word hemorrhage, not me.
If you're a mix of liberal and conservative, then maybe left-right politics isn't the most important issue. For people like you, ask how much government you want. If you want to take control of your life back from the bureaucrats in Washington, check out the Libertarians.
The court seems to have gotten their analysis wrong. Reasonable expectation of privacy applies in 4th Amendment cases, sure. But this isn't a 4th Amendment case. The guys at Circuit City weren't working for the government. No government action, no constitutional violation, no exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court is pretty clear on this. Not that this really means anything, but Wikipedia agrees.
The techs may have invaded his privacy, but that (probably) doesn't affect the criminal case. Sure, he may have a good invasion of privacy civil suit against the techs and/or Circuit City under State law, but fat lot of good that will do him when he's rotting in federal prison.
I think the $6700 per car is their estimate of the extra research, development, testing, factory re-tooling, parts, and manufacturing costs per car that must be incurred to comply with the new standards. These costs must be added to the purchase price, thereby making cars prohibitively expensive and costing them business. That's why they're complaining.
The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages.
See here. If you charge a gazillion bucks for your non-GPL software and no one buys it, you'll have a hell of a time proving in court that you suffered any actual damages. You have to price it competitively, and then you might as well be selling it for real. That's the difference with music: people still buy CDs for $20 (lord knows why). If the RIAA can make a plausible argument that they lost 10,000 sales because you were filesharing, at $750 a pop (statutory minimum) that adds up. More likely they just claim they lost 4 sales and demand a $3000 settlement.
Since when has it been the responsibility of Congress to enforce a private property right? If the MPAA or RIAA wants to sue, the law gives them that power, on exactly equal footing with any other copyright holder. Is Congress next going to pass a law that forces recording studios to provide detailed audits to their artists to ensure that the artists aren't screwed on revenues?
If so, my mom's neon would leave this thing in the dust.
Can your mom's Neon drive direct from point A to point B, ignoring trees, cliffs, rivers, etc? I'd laugh too, if I saw a flying car slumming it on a highway.
Disclaimer: I'm a private pilot. If I'm going 80 miles an hour, I'd much rather be 5000 vertical feet from the nearest car than 5 horizontal feet. It's far safer.
And misleading. This isn't a law until the President signs it. And he's been vetoing a lot lately, with the Democrats unable to get votes for an override.
Natalie Portman -- on topic! It must be Armageddon! Next thing you'll tell me Signal11, Jon Katz, and some ninjas are outside, waiting to pour hot grits down my pants...
This patent was in force on June 8, 1995. Therefore, its term ends the later of 17 years from grant or 20 years from filing, or Dec. 10, 2008. Read MPEP 2701.
So why the hell is this 3rd party suing over a patent it wasn't granted?
[No] action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.
That's the basic rule, not the whole story. Read the linked text for the rest of it.
Here's how you look up a patent application. Have a look at the first image. Find the application number. Here, it's 09/318,447. Then, go to the USPTO website and access Public PAIR here. Under "Search for Application" select "Application Number" and enter the number. Now you have access to all the documents in the case, probably way more than you're interested in. You get:
The title of the invention
The filing date
The examiner's name
The attorney's docket number
The first named inventor
The case status
Lots more stuff
and that's just on the summary page. Click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab and you can get PDFs of (nearly) every piece of paper that the applicant sent to or got from the patent office, including:
Information Disclosure Statements (telling the examiner what other patents and printed publications might prevent the applicant from getting a patent)
The full text of the application, including the claims and the drawings
Amendments to the application
Rejections (where the examiner gives the applicant arguments why they shouldn't get a patent using prior references)
Notices of appeal and the full appeal decision
Fee worksheets (find out how much they paid!)
Requests by the applicant for more time
etc ad infinitum.
Click on "Continuity Data" and you can find out what other patents and applications are in the "patent family" (cover similar subject matter). From this, you can build a family tree of related technology, and figure out when the applicant first filed for protection on what.
I use this tool all the time at work. Everyone here should know about it and use it.
Do not engage in filename-mangling! If a file is named "apicture.jpg.exe" then it MUST be displayed that way and must not undergo any automatic alteration (falsification) that, for instance, makes an executable appear as data.
Misses the point.
Do not attach semantic meaning to filenames in the first place! Windows has been broken like this from day one.
Disclaimer: IANAL either, but I might be in December depending on the July bar results. This is not legal advice.
if you owned a physical copy of a CD/Record/8-Track/phonograph of a song, you are legally able to make a copy of it, correct?
I think fair use is something that people around here have a hard time understanding. Fair use is totally unlike programming, where you have black-and-white rules that give you immediate results. Misplace a semicolon, get a compiler error. Fair use isn't like that.
The most important thing to remember is that fair use law is deliberately blurry, because "fairness" is really damn hard to define. The law lists some things that must be considered, but it also says they're not everything. The jury has to consider all of the circumstances, and you don't know whether your use is fair until you get a court ruling. Of course, by then it's too late to avoid infringement.
Let's apply this logic to some examples. Is it a fair use to make an archival copy? Maybe, maybe not. Will you get in trouble for making a 30-second "demo" clip? Maybe, maybe not.
So, would sending someone else a copy of a song you ripped from your recording be legal if they also owned a copy?
The answer is maybe, maybe not, and that's the best you're going to get until it's decided in court.
That said, there are guidelines. Certain fact patterns tend to come out the same way. The record companies tend not to sue for 30-second clips (but they could). Parody is a fair use (but the jury could decide what you did wasn't a parody). Using song or video clips in a classroom for instruction is OK. Newspapers usually win the fair use argument. But for specific questions like yours, there simply aren't yes-or-no answers.
Use your common sense -- if you were a judge deciding whether it's in the best interest of everyone (including record companies), would you think it's fair? Why or why not?
Slashdot Mirror
- Manufacture a product, and use the patent to keep others out of the market. I call this the 'passive' method, since the patent is not directly used to make money, the manufacturing is.
- License a patent to someone else, earning royalties. I call this the 'active' method, since the patent 'property' itself is the source of the money (rental fees).
The first proposed short-term fix ignores the passive method, which is the traditional way patentees use patents. It penalizes the 'good guys', who are just trying to recoup R&D costs, etc. And since R&D costs are involved, cue the pharmaceutical companies. They would never go for mandatory licensing, so this 'fix' will never happen.Second, if someone is developing an open standard, it's for the benefit of the public, right? So just take open standards out of the allowable subject matter -- no patents at all on open standards, and everyone can use them right away. Otherwise they're not really 'open', are they? Or is that too radical a proposal?
You could extend forfeiture to "anything he learned while digging around in there", but then how do you prove that in court?
- Suppose someone else who didn't break into the computer system made the same 3-day put by sheer dumb luck? Is their profit forfeit?
- Suppose someone else broke in, installed a botnet but didn't dig around for financial data, and made the same 3-day put? Is their profit forfeit?
- Suppose someone made the 3-day put, THEN broke in after making the trade, etc.
In order to have a workable rule, you'd need to say something like: if someone- Broke into a computer system having financial data
- Actually found financial data
- That couldn't be located from a public source
- Later made a financial transaction based on that data, and
- Profited from the financial transaction
Then the profits from the transaction (gains minus losses) are subject to forfeit. I haven't looked at the SEC laws, but I imagine they're worded similarly.That's how the universe works.
remember this?
That, and the rest of the universe blows.
If you're a mix of liberal and conservative, then maybe left-right politics isn't the most important issue. For people like you, ask how much government you want. If you want to take control of your life back from the bureaucrats in Washington, check out the Libertarians.
The techs may have invaded his privacy, but that (probably) doesn't affect the criminal case. Sure, he may have a good invasion of privacy civil suit against the techs and/or Circuit City under State law, but fat lot of good that will do him when he's rotting in federal prison.
I think the $6700 per car is their estimate of the extra research, development, testing, factory re-tooling, parts, and manufacturing costs per car that must be incurred to comply with the new standards. These costs must be added to the purchase price, thereby making cars prohibitively expensive and costing them business. That's why they're complaining.
See here. If you charge a gazillion bucks for your non-GPL software and no one buys it, you'll have a hell of a time proving in court that you suffered any actual damages. You have to price it competitively, and then you might as well be selling it for real. That's the difference with music: people still buy CDs for $20 (lord knows why). If the RIAA can make a plausible argument that they lost 10,000 sales because you were filesharing, at $750 a pop (statutory minimum) that adds up. More likely they just claim they lost 4 sales and demand a $3000 settlement.
I will trust the government with my secrets when they trust me with theirs.
You can't have it both ways.
Disclaimer: I'm a private pilot. If I'm going 80 miles an hour, I'd much rather be 5000 vertical feet from the nearest car than 5 horizontal feet. It's far safer.
And misleading. This isn't a law until the President signs it. And he's been vetoing a lot lately, with the Democrats unable to get votes for an override.
Natalie Portman -- on topic! It must be Armageddon! Next thing you'll tell me Signal11, Jon Katz, and some ninjas are outside, waiting to pour hot grits down my pants...
Stock Keeping Unit. "A thing that we sell." Ask just about anyone who has ever worked retail.
Computer security isn't hard science? Someone should point Linus to the Orange Book or the Common Criteria.
Here's how you look up a patent application. Have a look at the first image. Find the application number. Here, it's 09/318,447. Then, go to the USPTO website and access Public PAIR here. Under "Search for Application" select "Application Number" and enter the number. Now you have access to all the documents in the case, probably way more than you're interested in. You get:
- The title of the invention
- The filing date
- The examiner's name
- The attorney's docket number
- The first named inventor
- The case status
- Lots more stuff
and that's just on the summary page. Click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab and you can get PDFs of (nearly) every piece of paper that the applicant sent to or got from the patent office, including:- Information Disclosure Statements (telling the examiner what other patents and printed publications might prevent the applicant from getting a patent)
- The full text of the application, including the claims and the drawings
- Amendments to the application
- Rejections (where the examiner gives the applicant arguments why they shouldn't get a patent using prior references)
- Notices of appeal and the full appeal decision
- Fee worksheets (find out how much they paid!)
- Requests by the applicant for more time
- etc ad infinitum.
Click on "Continuity Data" and you can find out what other patents and applications are in the "patent family" (cover similar subject matter). From this, you can build a family tree of related technology, and figure out when the applicant first filed for protection on what.I use this tool all the time at work. Everyone here should know about it and use it.
If we don't continue to challenge ourselves socially, artistically, technologically, we stagnate. Then we crumble. That's why.
In related news, suprnova.org is back up. Saw it in a comment on the TPB post.
It's the moon. Just go there.
Do not attach semantic meaning to filenames in the first place! Windows has been broken like this from day one.
The most important thing to remember is that fair use law is deliberately blurry, because "fairness" is really damn hard to define. The law lists some things that must be considered, but it also says they're not everything. The jury has to consider all of the circumstances, and you don't know whether your use is fair until you get a court ruling. Of course, by then it's too late to avoid infringement.
Let's apply this logic to some examples. Is it a fair use to make an archival copy? Maybe, maybe not. Will you get in trouble for making a 30-second "demo" clip? Maybe, maybe not.
The answer is maybe, maybe not, and that's the best you're going to get until it's decided in court.That said, there are guidelines. Certain fact patterns tend to come out the same way. The record companies tend not to sue for 30-second clips (but they could). Parody is a fair use (but the jury could decide what you did wasn't a parody). Using song or video clips in a classroom for instruction is OK. Newspapers usually win the fair use argument. But for specific questions like yours, there simply aren't yes-or-no answers.
Use your common sense -- if you were a judge deciding whether it's in the best interest of everyone (including record companies), would you think it's fair? Why or why not?