The evidence for this is that the majority of the content [on Google] appears to be legal
O RLY? Fine then, show me your license for every webpage in your browser's cache. Unless you have that, then for all you know they were all illegal too! And the mere fact that it was available means nothing; the stuff on The Pirate Bay is available too. Whether it was authorized or not is something neither Google nor TPB gives you any evidence of whatsoever.
Since most of the torrents on TPB have nothing to do with buccaneers, they are clearly using the word in the "copyright infringement" sense.
No, since most of the torrents on TPB have nothing to do with buccaneers, they clearly named their site poorly! Sort of like how Amazon.com has very little to do with the South American river, etc.
That's not enough. Merely posting something to the Internet, even if you're the copyright holder, doesn't necessarily give everybody else permission to download it.
In fact, nothing in either copyright law itself or the Slashdot Terms of Service gave you the right to download (and therefore copy) this message. Therefore, you have infringed my copyright by reading this. You're just lucky I'm not inclined to sue you.
The Internet itself is fundamentally incompatible with copyright, as it stands today. We can either fix copyright law or dismantle the entire Internet, and I, for one, prefer the former!
I never thought about this angle, that copying is natural.
It makes me very hopeful to hear this!
I think quite a lot of the popular support for "fighting piracy" and whatnot comes from people like you, who'd never really thought about it before. They just hear "copyright" and think it's actually a Right, or they hear "intellectual property" and think it's actually property.
The reality, of course, is just the opposite: copyright is actually nothing more than a tool created by the government for the purpose of enriching the Public Domain. "Intellectual Property" is a meaningless conglomeration of disparate concepts (patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets -- none of which have anything significant in common with each other) used as a rhetorical tool to appeal to the public's respect for genuine property rights.
I urge you to think about this some more, because it sounds like you're right on the edge of your epiphany (but that it hasn't quite happened yet). In particular, consider the clause of the Constitution that authorizes copyright:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Ask yourself these questions:
Since copyright is "for limited times," how could it be a property right? Can property "expire?"
What was the explicit stated purpose of this clause?
Do things like DRM and "life of the author plus 50 years" terms serve that purpose?
Who is more important, authors or society as a whole?
No, it should be exactly the opposite: DRM should be illegal until the first working crack, because until then it's essentially perpetual copyright. Once it's cracked (and therefore doesn't matter anymore anyway), then the manufacturer should be free to add it.
Also, you should go back to the store you bought the game from, ask to see the manager, and tell him one of his employees is stealing CD keys from the games.
It could just as easily be the fault of a keygen, rather than a criminal employee.
What he should really do is call up Visa and reverse the charge, if he paid with a credit card.
I thought they just had cd checks. Unless you're counting a simple "Do you have an original disc?" check when starting the game as DRM, which is surely not the problem.
The fact that the DRM is trivial does not make it stop being DRM. DRM is a description of the purpose of a technology, not the effectiveness of it.
Similarly, "to be" is a trivial verb, but that doesn't make it not a verb!
It is much harder to defeat the DMCA if you ignore the fallacy of DRM because, then, legislators will keep believing it helps a large part of the US economy (that is, the media industry).
Of course, that itself is a fallacy too! The media industry is not a large part of the US economy, by any measure. It's very visible because of its nature, but it's not large.
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb.
That's one possibility (and it might be a very good one; I'm not disputing that). But, there is another possibility, which is that the rate of incidence of autism has stayed the same, but that our ability to diagnose it has increased. How many people that we call "autistic" today would have just been called "weird" or "slow" 50 years ago?
Because I don't want, for example, Comcast to be allowed to throttle Hulu.com out of existence (or extort bandwidth fees from them, which amounts to the same thing) just because they compete with Comcast's cable TV service. Without network neutrality, Comcast could do that.
Thank you. You explained it at least as well as I would have. Also, "lack of consideration" -- that's the legal term I was looking for but couldn't remember earlier!
No, the purpose of the alterations are specifically to violate the license. If they were installing on Apple hardware, the alterations would not be at all necessary.
No, the purpose of the alterations is to make it run on the non-Apple hardware. If the alterations didn't violate the license, Psystar would still have made them!
It depends. The engineering value of a person's life is only a couple million dollars. If your confidential information is really valuable (like if it were financial info for millions of customers or something) then it could be worth more than the employee.
That doesn't mean the employee in question would see it that way, of course!
Well the purpose was explicitly to violate the license.
No, the purpose was to make the software work. Any potential license violation is incidental to that.
That has to be meaningful, or else I could just violate software copyrights and distribution licenses willy-nilly so long as I bundled it with hardware.
In law the intent matters. To say that excusing the violation of one particular license for one particular purpose would suddenly allow the "willy-nilly" violation of completely different licenses (and other types of legal constructs) for completely different purposes is patently absurd.
In a free market, there is no such thing as a license agreement! In a free market, if you buy a thing, you own it. If you own it, you can resell it. It's that simple.
Without a EULA at all, they simply don't have the right to do what they're doing. They're buying 1 copy of OSX, modifying it, and then selling the original copy plus a modified copy for the price of the original copy. This is simply copyright infringement.
I believe Psystar is going to argue that it is protected under Title 17, section 117 (a) and (b):
117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. -- Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
Fundamentally, Psystar's goal is to convince a judge that the modifications necessary for compatibility don't count as an "adaptation." In my opinion, the judge ought to agree with that, since Psystar's modifications were only for the purpose of function and not creative expression.
Because Psystar modifies OS X (including the kernel) to install on BIOS (non-EFI) systems, and modifies the binaries of every OS update Apple distributes.
So fucking what?! Are customers suddenly no longer allowed to modify their own property nowadays?!
If I buy a T-shirt, the manufacturer cannot prevent me from tie-dyeing it. If I buy a Mustang, Ford cannot prevent me from turbocharging it. If I buy a book, the author cannot prevent me from crossing out parts of the story and rewriting it.
If I buy a copy of OS X, Apple CANNOT prevent me from modifying the fucking kernel!
They are no selling OS X computers. They are selling computers with unauthorized distributed works of OS X, which is a clear violation of copyright law.
Bullshit. Apple voluntarily made those copies of OS X available for sale, and Psystar legally bought and paid for them. There was no violation of copyright law. Full stop. Period. Even if we assumed the EULA were valid, there still wouldn't be a violation of copyright law because the only distribution occurred before the EULA went into effect, and was therefore governed only by the Uniform Commercial Code and copyright law itself!
If you agree with this, then you agree with Microsoft using GPL code in Windows.
For the twenty-millionth time, the GPL is NOT an EULA! It is a DISTRIBUTION license, which is completely different from an EULA in every way that matters.
EULAs are imposed upon the "end user" (by definition!), after the purchase. Because of this, they are both inequitable (they do not convey any rights to the user that he didn't have already) and contracts of adhesion (the transfer of ownership already occurred; the user has no choice but to accept the terms). For both of these reasons, EULAs are unenforcible in any sane court.
In fact, the only reason EULAs were invented at all is that some asshole came up with the theory that, because computer programs -- unique in comparison to all other creative works -- had to be copied from disk to RAM to be used, that that copy was an act of copyright infringement, and gave the publisher an excuse to impose an onerous license. This theory is now completely bunk, because copyright law has an explicit exception for software allowing that necessary copy.
The way the GPL differs from all this, and the reason it is valid, is that it grants rights that the user didn't already have. Namely, it grants the right to redistribute the software. Because it grants rights, it can also impose conditions and still be equitable. Because it only comes into effect when you try to distribute the software, an act which you do not otherwise have the right to do, it is not a contract of adhesion. And because you'd have to have distributed the software in order to violate the GPL's terms, and violation revokes your right to distribute, violation of the GPL implies violation of copyright.
When you buy a PS3 game you can only legally play it on a PS3. When you buy an XBox 360 game I can only play it on an XBox 360.
No, that's not an apt analogy. The inability to play PS3 or XBox 360 games on other hardware is a technological restriction, not a legal one. What Apple is trying to do is disallow the user from doing something which would otherwise work, which is completely different than a hardware incompatibility.
Now, if you tried to run one of those games in an emulator and MS or Sony came along and tried to sue you for it, then it'd be a valid analogy.
Slashdot Mirror
O RLY? Fine then, show me your license for every webpage in your browser's cache. Unless you have that, then for all you know they were all illegal too! And the mere fact that it was available means nothing; the stuff on The Pirate Bay is available too. Whether it was authorized or not is something neither Google nor TPB gives you any evidence of whatsoever.
No, since most of the torrents on TPB have nothing to do with buccaneers, they clearly named their site poorly! Sort of like how Amazon.com has very little to do with the South American river, etc.
Picking a silly name is not a crime. : P
That's not enough. Merely posting something to the Internet, even if you're the copyright holder, doesn't necessarily give everybody else permission to download it.
In fact, nothing in either copyright law itself or the Slashdot Terms of Service gave you the right to download (and therefore copy) this message. Therefore, you have infringed my copyright by reading this. You're just lucky I'm not inclined to sue you.
The Internet itself is fundamentally incompatible with copyright, as it stands today. We can either fix copyright law or dismantle the entire Internet, and I, for one, prefer the former!
It makes me very hopeful to hear this!
I think quite a lot of the popular support for "fighting piracy" and whatnot comes from people like you, who'd never really thought about it before. They just hear "copyright" and think it's actually a Right, or they hear "intellectual property" and think it's actually property.
The reality, of course, is just the opposite: copyright is actually nothing more than a tool created by the government for the purpose of enriching the Public Domain. "Intellectual Property" is a meaningless conglomeration of disparate concepts (patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets -- none of which have anything significant in common with each other) used as a rhetorical tool to appeal to the public's respect for genuine property rights.
I urge you to think about this some more, because it sounds like you're right on the edge of your epiphany (but that it hasn't quite happened yet). In particular, consider the clause of the Constitution that authorizes copyright:
Ask yourself these questions:
No, it should be exactly the opposite: DRM should be illegal until the first working crack, because until then it's essentially perpetual copyright. Once it's cracked (and therefore doesn't matter anymore anyway), then the manufacturer should be free to add it.
: )
It could just as easily be the fault of a keygen, rather than a criminal employee.
What he should really do is call up Visa and reverse the charge, if he paid with a credit card.
The fact that the DRM is trivial does not make it stop being DRM. DRM is a description of the purpose of a technology, not the effectiveness of it.
Similarly, "to be" is a trivial verb, but that doesn't make it not a verb!
BnetD was after Vivendi? What about Freecraft (which I also haven't forgiven Blizzard for)?
All people who are anti-DRM are also necessarily anti-Windows, because Windows has DRM.
Of course, that itself is a fallacy too! The media industry is not a large part of the US economy, by any measure. It's very visible because of its nature, but it's not large.
That's one possibility (and it might be a very good one; I'm not disputing that). But, there is another possibility, which is that the rate of incidence of autism has stayed the same, but that our ability to diagnose it has increased. How many people that we call "autistic" today would have just been called "weird" or "slow" 50 years ago?
Because I don't want, for example, Comcast to be allowed to throttle Hulu.com out of existence (or extort bandwidth fees from them, which amounts to the same thing) just because they compete with Comcast's cable TV service. Without network neutrality, Comcast could do that.
Thank you. You explained it at least as well as I would have. Also, "lack of consideration" -- that's the legal term I was looking for but couldn't remember earlier!
No, the purpose of the alterations is to make it run on the non-Apple hardware. If the alterations didn't violate the license, Psystar would still have made them!
It depends. The engineering value of a person's life is only a couple million dollars. If your confidential information is really valuable (like if it were financial info for millions of customers or something) then it could be worth more than the employee.
That doesn't mean the employee in question would see it that way, of course!
No, I'm saying that the government wouldn't enforce it for you.
No, it doesn't! To comply with the license requires Apple hardware. To install OS X only requires OS X-compatible hardware.
No, the purpose was to make the software work. Any potential license violation is incidental to that.
In law the intent matters. To say that excusing the violation of one particular license for one particular purpose would suddenly allow the "willy-nilly" violation of completely different licenses (and other types of legal constructs) for completely different purposes is patently absurd.
Technically all versions are full versions, because they'll install on bare hardware.
In a free market, there is no such thing as a license agreement! In a free market, if you buy a thing, you own it. If you own it, you can resell it. It's that simple.
I believe Psystar is going to argue that it is protected under Title 17, section 117 (a) and (b):
Fundamentally, Psystar's goal is to convince a judge that the modifications necessary for compatibility don't count as an "adaptation." In my opinion, the judge ought to agree with that, since Psystar's modifications were only for the purpose of function and not creative expression.
So fucking what?! Are customers suddenly no longer allowed to modify their own property nowadays?!
If I buy a T-shirt, the manufacturer cannot prevent me from tie-dyeing it. If I buy a Mustang, Ford cannot prevent me from turbocharging it. If I buy a book, the author cannot prevent me from crossing out parts of the story and rewriting it.
If I buy a copy of OS X, Apple CANNOT prevent me from modifying the fucking kernel!
Bullshit. Apple voluntarily made those copies of OS X available for sale, and Psystar legally bought and paid for them. There was no violation of copyright law. Full stop. Period. Even if we assumed the EULA were valid, there still wouldn't be a violation of copyright law because the only distribution occurred before the EULA went into effect, and was therefore governed only by the Uniform Commercial Code and copyright law itself!
For the twenty-millionth time, the GPL is NOT an EULA! It is a DISTRIBUTION license, which is completely different from an EULA in every way that matters.
EULAs are imposed upon the "end user" (by definition!), after the purchase. Because of this, they are both inequitable (they do not convey any rights to the user that he didn't have already) and contracts of adhesion (the transfer of ownership already occurred; the user has no choice but to accept the terms). For both of these reasons, EULAs are unenforcible in any sane court.
In fact, the only reason EULAs were invented at all is that some asshole came up with the theory that, because computer programs -- unique in comparison to all other creative works -- had to be copied from disk to RAM to be used, that that copy was an act of copyright infringement, and gave the publisher an excuse to impose an onerous license. This theory is now completely bunk, because copyright law has an explicit exception for software allowing that necessary copy.
The way the GPL differs from all this, and the reason it is valid, is that it grants rights that the user didn't already have. Namely, it grants the right to redistribute the software. Because it grants rights, it can also impose conditions and still be equitable. Because it only comes into effect when you try to distribute the software, an act which you do not otherwise have the right to do, it is not a contract of adhesion. And because you'd have to have distributed the software in order to violate the GPL's terms, and violation revokes your right to distribute, violation of the GPL implies violation of copyright.
Now do you fucking get it?!
No, that's not an apt analogy. The inability to play PS3 or XBox 360 games on other hardware is a technological restriction, not a legal one. What Apple is trying to do is disallow the user from doing something which would otherwise work, which is completely different than a hardware incompatibility.
Now, if you tried to run one of those games in an emulator and MS or Sony came along and tried to sue you for it, then it'd be a valid analogy.
But on the bright side, at least you'd be able to eat cheap, bland food and not care.
But now, apparently, people confuse that with the character from Harry Potter.