Exaktly, the Betamax all over again. If the court upholds the law, TPB will go free. If the court do not uphold the law (sic), much worse things will come down the road when makers of general tools can be convicted of contribution to copyright infringiment. It is huge. Makers of most electronic goods around the world will be affected and maybe forced to close down if they refuse to pay the masters of MPAA and friends. Very few people have understood this, and certainly not the lawyers involved in this political trial, they think it is about filesharing.
In this case it is not a fallacy, since it does not follow that logic. The government do not run our telcos anymore like they once did. It is illegal for the operator the owner of the hardware, what the government agency thinks is irrelevant - today. The company would not do anything illegal especially if it is only associated with a cost and no income. The point is that it is illegal for the owner of the hardware, the bill would turn that upside doown, ordering them to do what is illegal today.
If the FRA would go to them today, they would get an healthy "up yours" as an answer. But not after this bill..
Why they would wait? Because they cannot do it today.
The state simply do not have the access today, the infrastructure required is not built.
What the bill proposes is that the owners of all bordering nodes should install special hardware and cables to the FRA, but not paid by the FRA. This copying would also be illegal today. So, none of the telcos have this infrastructure today, because it would both make no sense and be illegal.
It is not absurd when looked upon from a power perspective. Yes google can see any searches i do, but they wont see what i do at yahoo, so can site owners and most important, neither google, yahoo or any site owner has any way near the power to hurt me as my govenment has. Is is about the trust of the messenger, the same goes for the old postal service, snail-mail. This trust comes from the law. Today it is illegal to eavesdrop on private communication, this is what ISPs earn their trust from. The trusted part is allways the one who can hurt you the most, since you do not allow any info in the hands of the untrusted. This bill is forcing the owners of nodes to copy everything, even ordinary phone calls, to FRA for further analysis. This breakes the postal secret and the messengers trust.
The anology is that the post office opens all letters but only looks closer on those meeting some criteria. The invasion of privacy is not in the first place to be looked upon closer, it is when the letters are opened by someone other than the reciever.
The government should be transparent, not citizens. All countries where the opposite have been true, have been very nasty places to live in.
In the seventies we had a scandal uncovered where the top suits in the byggest political party had created their own police who registered people. This had the result that many people that just happend to at the wrong place at wrong time got secretly blacklisted from job offerings, careers and some government services open to the rest of the society, in secret. Blacklisted people did not know, they did not have any way of defending them self. Half shut out from the society. This bill opens up for more of that, this is also exactly the reason behind the basic principles of human rights. To protect citizens from the regime, not protecting citizens from citizens or heaven forbid, protecting states from citizens.
Citizens should be allowed to do anything not forbidden, for the state the opposite is true, it is not allowed to do anything without support in the law. This bill is creating a law-support governments should not have. Because as a citizen you cannot escape the government.
So the trust will be lost. I will take the consequences if this bill gets passed. It is very sad, i will stop using the net completley, stop all my participation in communitys and program developing, no more mails. Shure i will miss it, but this is the end. I will not miss cellphones, because i have never owned one. In my 25 year working career i have never owned credit card either, so that i can do without in the future too. But the Internet i will miss. As i see it, they (actually the straussistic USA) demolished the library of Alexsandria once again. The end.
So you are not visiting other sites than encrypted ones?
People seem to forget that aspect, what sites you are visiting is often more sensitive than what info you transmit. Think of those times you are searching the net for something, drowning in irrelevant hits, visiting sites just to discover it did not contain what you where looking for. The state cannot see what you thought of the page you just where visiting, the only see that you requested and got it sent to you. So, do not visit wrong pages in the future, that can be used against you.
The difference is that the FRA have not been spying in wire before. That is illegal, today the telcos are not allowed to give out any traffic or personal data without a specific court order, some of the data they are not even allowed to save. This bill, and the EU-dataretention bill is about to change all of that.
The FRA (roughly The Defence Radio Agency) have been listening only to radio, satellites and such. But in the recent debate we have come to learn that even that practise is illegal according to swedish constitution and the european human rights. It is not allowed for the state to actively take part of private communications without a positive law support. This bill will of course change that too (and be in breach of human rights, and probably upset citizens in other cuntries since IP-traffic usually takes "the scenic route"). The base is: Citizens are allowed to do anything not forbidden, for the state it is the other way around, anything they do must be allowed by law first. This have not been the case, and the normal thing to do, is not to allow things afterwards and pretend its raining, it is to prosecute the perps.
The FRA have also recently bought the 5th most powerful computer in the world (on top500.org), gee wonder why..
All foreigners are treated as criminals - talk about a psycological weak nation in fear. Like a bodybuilder who has taken too many steriods and are affraid of anything, seeing ghosts everywere and in the end making him his own enemy. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists", well that is a strange view on opposition coming from someone who belive he is defending democracy.. Why on earth do someone want to visit such a country?
His patents _are_ on the internet, the PTO publishes them, and they are free to download...
Please do not mix the immaterial that we cannot either see or touch with physical things that goes as property. Yea, there is no such thing as "inetellectual property" it is a contradiction in terms.
A court in Kopenhagen (Fogderetten) has now delivered its verdict (Oktober 25 2006) between IFPI and the Danish ISP Tele2, where IFPI wanted to force Tele2 to block AllofMP3.
This court verdict (21 pages PDF in Danish) is quite suprising, not that it forces Tele2 to block access to Allofmp3.com, but rather how the verdict does it. Among other things the court says (transladed to english below):
The court finds.... that also the temporary fixation of the work in the form of electronic impulses, that goes on in the routers while transmitting the data packets over the internet, is covered by the 2 in copyright law.
This means that the court ruling finds that Tele2 are unlawfully making copies while routing their customers communication. So they are not directly forced to block information from Allofmp3.com, they are found to be making "pirate copies" when doing their job of directing communication on the internet, that is what a router does, and internet cannot function without it. This basicly means that this court has forbidden the internet in denmark, since an ISP can be held responsible for its customers communication. This goes also for modern mobile communication too, since a mobile phone also can be used to unlawfully communicate otherwise allredy published and not stamped with secrecy information. It is a lot like if the old telephone company had been held responsible for what its customers said on the phone. Tele2 has appealed this ruling.
Well, the good ol snail-mail postal service is a "common carrier". Do you think it is within reason if they start to demand your fingerprint when you post a snail-mail? And how does that correspond to basic human rights, where we all should have the right to recive and impart information in private?
Software isn't something you manufacture industrially, developed software is something you publish. The question you americans has to start asking is whether your constitution really allowes that publishing can lead to patent infringiment. I do not think it does.
Compare to a method patent, a method is also something that you can publish, but the publisher does not infringe any patents (copyright maybee), the PTO publishes, it is only the one hwo actually is using the method hwo infringes.
If it is possible to infringe with a published work, then it belongs under copyright, not patents. Anything else could be called a sort of neufeudalism, does your constitution allow feudalism?
SW is not anything you manufacture, developed SW is something you publish. The question EFF should be asking insted of prior art is whether it is possible to infringe by publishing. If it is, then the matter belongs under copyright, not patent because it is not an invention then, no matter if it is new or not. Something that you only publish should never ever be able to infringe a patent, thats plain wrong.
Compare to a method patent, a method is also something that you can publish, the publisher does not infringe any patents (copyright maybee), the PTO publishes... With this line of thinking i even think that EFF can find support in the US constitution to ban all SWP, but hey i am no lawyer..
Because you do not want expropriation of copyrighted goods. You do not want to make publication a possible patent infringiment, publication sorts under copyright. And a good way of distiguish between them is to specify industry to "automaded production of material goods" and technology to knowledge around the use of natural forces. This way you can patent the programmable "gizmo" as a hwole, but not the programs in it. And this way you can realize the new "gizmo" without infringing on somebodys softwarepatent. And this way you can publish your new innovative computerprogram without risking anything as long as you wrote it from your head.
Why isn't this article on the/. main page? If europe would say no to SWP it would send a very strong signal to the US, and maybe act as a catalyst world wide against SWP. I think this "online-event" can be a quite effective demontration if it gets adopted by _many_ sites world wide. [irony] But of course, i am dreaming now, people are way to lasy and have the politicians they deserve [/irony].
Linux is completley open, SCO could have pointed out the code they don't like, but they havent done that. That says it all. Please Slashdot, don't do their dirtywork, stop spreading their FUD.
Lets say someone has a programming problem in a newsgroup. I read it, and out of the the blue i find the solution, i post it as an answer. The hwole world can see his question, the same to my answer. Six months later both him and mee are being sued for patent intrusion, he for implementing it in his program, and i for publishing it for the world. So, if you allow software patents, you can bee sued for something you wrote out of your own head!
When talking copyright this isn't possible, if it came from my head, i am the copyright holder. Patents go further, they cover the undelying idea.
In a classic patent there is nothing wrong with publishing, it is allredy published. But in the software-case i can be publishing the product, this is the _big_ difference. Software is it's own description, you just have too feed your compiler with the blueprint and the product is made.
I can verify this, I also got a mail today from a Swedish MEP (Olle Schmidt) that said:
Concerning JURI Committee reports for next's week plenary, please find below the modifications of the agenda adopted by the Conference of Presidents:
First, for your information, to confirm that the McCarthy report on patentability of computer-implemented inventions will be in the agenda for the September plenary (doc A5-238/2003) and not now.
You can save a PNG with as few colors as you like, and with PNG you have the option to have more than 256 colors if needed. And for mng..
Try to make a text-scroller like this MNG with GIF and get it under 1.5kb, use as few colors as you like.
http://w1.970.telia.com/~u97007522/tester/webcolor.htm#mngjng
It is rather sad that the patent on GIF expires since it will prolong the life of an outdated file format and make it harder for the world to adopt a better one.
Yes thats right, it is allowed for a number of copies for private use (more than personal, it is OK to send a copy to your mother, brother or close friend). This is allowed in this new law-proposal too and is the reason to the 0.2$ CD-R levy.
Slashdot Mirror
Exaktly, the Betamax all over again. If the court upholds the law, TPB will go free. If the court do not uphold the law (sic), much worse things will come down the road when makers of general tools can be convicted of contribution to copyright infringiment. It is huge. Makers of most electronic goods around the world will be affected and maybe forced to close down if they refuse to pay the masters of MPAA and friends. Very few people have understood this, and certainly not the lawyers involved in this political trial, they think it is about filesharing.
In this case it is not a fallacy, since it does not follow that logic. The government do not run our telcos anymore like they once did. It is illegal for the operator the owner of the hardware, what the government agency thinks is irrelevant - today. The company would not do anything illegal especially if it is only associated with a cost and no income. The point is that it is illegal for the owner of the hardware, the bill would turn that upside doown, ordering them to do what is illegal today. If the FRA would go to them today, they would get an healthy "up yours" as an answer. But not after this bill..
Why they would wait? Because they cannot do it today. The state simply do not have the access today, the infrastructure required is not built. What the bill proposes is that the owners of all bordering nodes should install special hardware and cables to the FRA, but not paid by the FRA. This copying would also be illegal today. So, none of the telcos have this infrastructure today, because it would both make no sense and be illegal.
It is not absurd when looked upon from a power perspective. Yes google can see any searches i do, but they wont see what i do at yahoo, so can site owners and most important, neither google, yahoo or any site owner has any way near the power to hurt me as my govenment has. Is is about the trust of the messenger, the same goes for the old postal service, snail-mail. This trust comes from the law. Today it is illegal to eavesdrop on private communication, this is what ISPs earn their trust from. The trusted part is allways the one who can hurt you the most, since you do not allow any info in the hands of the untrusted. This bill is forcing the owners of nodes to copy everything, even ordinary phone calls, to FRA for further analysis. This breakes the postal secret and the messengers trust. The anology is that the post office opens all letters but only looks closer on those meeting some criteria. The invasion of privacy is not in the first place to be looked upon closer, it is when the letters are opened by someone other than the reciever. The government should be transparent, not citizens. All countries where the opposite have been true, have been very nasty places to live in. In the seventies we had a scandal uncovered where the top suits in the byggest political party had created their own police who registered people. This had the result that many people that just happend to at the wrong place at wrong time got secretly blacklisted from job offerings, careers and some government services open to the rest of the society, in secret. Blacklisted people did not know, they did not have any way of defending them self. Half shut out from the society. This bill opens up for more of that, this is also exactly the reason behind the basic principles of human rights. To protect citizens from the regime, not protecting citizens from citizens or heaven forbid, protecting states from citizens. Citizens should be allowed to do anything not forbidden, for the state the opposite is true, it is not allowed to do anything without support in the law. This bill is creating a law-support governments should not have. Because as a citizen you cannot escape the government. So the trust will be lost. I will take the consequences if this bill gets passed. It is very sad, i will stop using the net completley, stop all my participation in communitys and program developing, no more mails. Shure i will miss it, but this is the end. I will not miss cellphones, because i have never owned one. In my 25 year working career i have never owned credit card either, so that i can do without in the future too. But the Internet i will miss. As i see it, they (actually the straussistic USA) demolished the library of Alexsandria once again. The end.
So you are not visiting other sites than encrypted ones? People seem to forget that aspect, what sites you are visiting is often more sensitive than what info you transmit. Think of those times you are searching the net for something, drowning in irrelevant hits, visiting sites just to discover it did not contain what you where looking for. The state cannot see what you thought of the page you just where visiting, the only see that you requested and got it sent to you. So, do not visit wrong pages in the future, that can be used against you.
The difference is that the FRA have not been spying in wire before. That is illegal, today the telcos are not allowed to give out any traffic or personal data without a specific court order, some of the data they are not even allowed to save. This bill, and the EU-dataretention bill is about to change all of that. The FRA (roughly The Defence Radio Agency) have been listening only to radio, satellites and such. But in the recent debate we have come to learn that even that practise is illegal according to swedish constitution and the european human rights. It is not allowed for the state to actively take part of private communications without a positive law support. This bill will of course change that too (and be in breach of human rights, and probably upset citizens in other cuntries since IP-traffic usually takes "the scenic route"). The base is: Citizens are allowed to do anything not forbidden, for the state it is the other way around, anything they do must be allowed by law first. This have not been the case, and the normal thing to do, is not to allow things afterwards and pretend its raining, it is to prosecute the perps. The FRA have also recently bought the 5th most powerful computer in the world (on top500.org), gee wonder why..
All foreigners are treated as criminals - talk about a psycological weak nation in fear. Like a bodybuilder who has taken too many steriods and are affraid of anything, seeing ghosts everywere and in the end making him his own enemy. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists", well that is a strange view on opposition coming from someone who belive he is defending democracy.. Why on earth do someone want to visit such a country?
His patents _are_ on the internet, the PTO publishes them, and they are free to download... Please do not mix the immaterial that we cannot either see or touch with physical things that goes as property. Yea, there is no such thing as "inetellectual property" it is a contradiction in terms.
A lttle more on AllofMP3.
A court in Kopenhagen (Fogderetten) has now delivered its verdict (Oktober 25 2006) between IFPI and the Danish ISP Tele2, where IFPI wanted to force Tele2 to block AllofMP3.
This court verdict (21 pages PDF in Danish) is quite suprising, not that it forces Tele2 to block access to Allofmp3.com, but rather how the verdict does it. Among other things the court says (transladed to english below):
The court finds .... that also the temporary fixation of the work in the form of electronic impulses, that goes on in the routers while transmitting the data packets over the internet, is covered by the 2 in copyright law.
This means that the court ruling finds that Tele2 are unlawfully making copies while routing their customers communication. So they are not directly forced to block information from Allofmp3.com, they are found to be making "pirate copies" when doing their job of directing communication on the internet, that is what a router does, and internet cannot function without it. This basicly means that this court has forbidden the internet in denmark, since an ISP can be held responsible for its customers communication. This goes also for modern mobile communication too, since a mobile phone also can be used to unlawfully communicate otherwise allredy published and not stamped with secrecy information. It is a lot like if the old telephone company had been held responsible for what its customers said on the phone. Tele2 has appealed this ruling.
Well, the good ol snail-mail postal service is a "common carrier". Do you think it is within reason if they start to demand your fingerprint when you post a snail-mail? And how does that correspond to basic human rights, where we all should have the right to recive and impart information in private?
Ohh, it will benefit you americans too, if we succeed that is. It will be a very strong signal to your politicians.
Software isn't something you manufacture industrially, developed software is something you publish. The question you americans has to start asking is whether your constitution really allowes that publishing can lead to patent infringiment. I do not think it does.
Compare to a method patent, a method is also something that you can publish, but the publisher does not infringe any patents (copyright maybee), the PTO publishes, it is only the one hwo actually is using the method hwo infringes.
If it is possible to infringe with a published work, then it belongs under copyright, not patents. Anything else could be called a sort of neufeudalism, does your constitution allow feudalism?
SW is not anything you manufacture, developed SW is something you publish. The question EFF should be asking insted of prior art is whether it is possible to infringe by publishing. If it is, then the matter belongs under copyright, not patent because it is not an invention then, no matter if it is new or not. Something that you only publish should never ever be able to infringe a patent, thats plain wrong. Compare to a method patent, a method is also something that you can publish, the publisher does not infringe any patents (copyright maybee), the PTO publishes... With this line of thinking i even think that EFF can find support in the US constitution to ban all SWP, but hey i am no lawyer..
Because you do not want expropriation of copyrighted goods. You do not want to make publication a possible patent infringiment, publication sorts under copyright. And a good way of distiguish between them is to specify industry to "automaded production of material goods" and technology to knowledge around the use of natural forces. This way you can patent the programmable "gizmo" as a hwole, but not the programs in it. And this way you can realize the new "gizmo" without infringing on somebodys softwarepatent. And this way you can publish your new innovative computerprogram without risking anything as long as you wrote it from your head.
Start recomending them other than Ms systems then. But since you get income by it....
Something, i don't know exctly what, reminded me of Mandrake in those screenshots. Just a feeling.
Why isn't this article on the /. main page? If europe would say no to SWP it would send a very strong signal to the US, and maybe act as a catalyst world wide against SWP. I think this "online-event" can be a quite effective demontration if it gets adopted by _many_ sites world wide. [irony] But of course, i am dreaming now, people are way to lasy and have the politicians they deserve [/irony].
Linux is completley open, SCO could have pointed out the code they don't like, but they havent done that. That says it all. Please Slashdot, don't do their dirtywork, stop spreading their FUD.
Lets say someone has a programming problem in a newsgroup. I read it, and out of the the blue i find the solution, i post it as an answer. The hwole world can see his question, the same to my answer. Six months later both him and mee are being sued for patent intrusion, he for implementing it in his program, and i for publishing it for the world. So, if you allow software patents, you can bee sued for something you wrote out of your own head! When talking copyright this isn't possible, if it came from my head, i am the copyright holder. Patents go further, they cover the undelying idea. In a classic patent there is nothing wrong with publishing, it is allredy published. But in the software-case i can be publishing the product, this is the _big_ difference. Software is it's own description, you just have too feed your compiler with the blueprint and the product is made.
I can verify this, I also got a mail today from a Swedish MEP (Olle Schmidt) that said:
You can save a PNG with as few colors as you like, and with PNG you have the option to have more than 256 colors if needed. And for mng.. Try to make a text-scroller like this MNG with GIF and get it under 1.5kb, use as few colors as you like.r .htm#mngjng
http://w1.970.telia.com/~u97007522/tester/webcolo
It is rather sad that the patent on GIF expires since it will prolong the life of an outdated file format and make it harder for the world to adopt a better one.
Yes thats right, it is allowed for a number of copies for private use (more than personal, it is OK to send a copy to your mother, brother or close friend). This is allowed in this new law-proposal too and is the reason to the 0.2$ CD-R levy.