Bands/artists rarely, if ever, make money on album sales. Don't let the RIAA fool you. If Radiohead was making a significant amount of money on album sales with their old label, do you think they would have changed to this new method? Most likely not. Radiohead has already succeeded on this album simply by the new found hype surrounding their music. Now when they go on tour they'll have even more sold venues and more merch sales. Artists make their millions by touring, not by selling albums.
"Sounds like stupid college students working at Best Buy getting a monthly prize for signing people up for MSN. Doesn't sound like a giant corporate scam. It also doesn't sound like this involves Microsoft at all. I've read the same story online, but replace Microsoft with Comcast (Cable or HSI) or DirecTV"
I haven't bought much from Best Buy lately but a few years back my roomates and I pitched in for a DirectTV setup and the Best Buy rep was hounding us to sign up for what I believe was AOL. I can't remember exactly what the service was but my point is that he was pushing it really hard to the point that the corporation was most likely hounding him to do it. Even if they aren't pushing it too hard, if they have a bonus system in place and their employees do it, they are still liable for anything their employees do. It doesn't really matter if it's coming the top or not.
Even poor older people can get healthcare. When my cousin had her first baby she had very little income and was considered poor. She had no insurance at the time but didn't pay a dime for her doctor or hospital visits. Government paid it all. It's called Medicaid. The poorer you are, the less you have to pay for.
Can you link me to any info on that lawsuit? Last I heard was that the adword trigger method was legal under federal law and only Utah has passed a controversial law banning that type of triggering. That law has been criticized by many people, including law professors, as being unconstitutional. The Federal trademark act doesn't allow protection against that type of thing. So...please link me.
Whoever modded you down obviously has a motive. This has lawsuit written all over it. And you are correct, if EA is purposely trying to damage your computer, then criminal charges should be filed against them. Intent may not even be required. And for those thinking "yea but it's in the contract/EULA" . . the contract would be immediately voided if it allows illegal activity.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
"Subsection 1030(a)(5) prohibits transmitting "a program, information, code, or command" that causes damage to a computer system. Those with authority to access the computer are criminally liable only for intentional damage, while those without authority are liable for any damage that they cause.
. . .
Penalties under most of the provisions can be up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for a first offense, and up to ten years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine for a second offense. The Act also authorizes the victims of computer crime to maintain a civil action for damages and other equitable relief."
Everyone is quick to call IP Innovations the troll here and no one seems to notice that Xerox is the one who sold this patent in 2005 to them. It was definitely obvious to Xerox at that time that IP Innovations was going to start trolling it around. IMO, Xerox is the troll here. I doubt they needed the money.
28 U.S.C 271. Infringement of patent
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
(b) Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.
(c) Whoever offers to sell or sells within the United States or imports into the United States a component of a patented machine, manufacture, combination or composition, or a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, shall be liable as a contributory infringer.
My question is, what product does this company sell that they can claim to have lost revenue on? Or is IP law so crap that there is no need to even have made an attempt at creating a product to be able to sue someone for damages? I mean, I can understand royalties, but damages?
Their IP is their product. They are losing profits by Novell's and Red Hat's refusals to pay them royalties.
I'm not saying I support this, I'm just explaining to you how it works.
"I bet they also didn't consider that signing the MS deal might look like an admission of guilt in lawsuits with other companies."
If Novell doesn't have a clause in that deal that states something along the lines of "By entering into this agreement, Novell is in no way admitting to infringement of current MS patents" then their attorneys who wrote the agreement might need to call their malpractice insurance provider.
My point really has nothing to do with whether or not he was resisting with extreme force. My point is that when there are 3 or 4 officers just standing by watching the situation, they just be ordered to help before the other cops use a taser on the suspect.
"Disabling" is not the same as "disconnecting." If you have them disable it "over the air" all they have to do is reenable it "over the air" without your permission. OnStar has already been used by the FBI to listen to conversations taking place in the car. The only way to rid yourself of this problem is to tear the thing out of your car.
The problem is that OnStar has already cooperated with the FBI and eavesdropped on a suspect through the mic in the car. (See the FBI case in San Diego against the city official and strip club owners.)
Yea, they denied it. No, we're not stupid enough to believe them. There's no reason to trust that they won't abuse this new system.
If I ever buy a car with OnStar, I'm gonna do like Tony Soprano and have it ripped out of the car before I drive off the lot. My AAA membership works just fine.
"You can also call OnStar and ask that you have your unit disabled. Just as effective but it does more to retain your vehicles resale value. Once disabled, it won't work until you call back into OnStar and ask for them to reactivate the unit."
I think you misunderstand the point of disconnecting the system from OnStar.
Re:It doesn't "remotely shut down vehicles"
on
Stalling Cars Via OnStar
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
"You people screech about tasers being over used, but i'm yet to see a single video of a cop using a taser on someone who didn't deserve it."
Have you not seen video of the University of Florida student at the John Kerry speech who was tased? There were about 6 cops holding him down and they tased him simply because he wouldn't stay still. I agree that the guy was being a total idiot and he brought it on himself but tasers have taught cops that instead of holding down a suspect, they can now just yell at them a couple times and tase away.
I know you're being funny but I just wanted to point something out. Novelty is not a requirement for obtaining a copyright. Independent creation is a defense to copyright. Sure, it's pretty rare for two people to come up with exactly the same thing but it's theoretically possible. This is especially true for literary works where one can be infringing even if it's a nonliteral copy. Originality is required for a copyright but that is not the same as novelty.
Slashdot Mirror
"Perhaps people just didn't want to overload their servers?"
Perhaps if they offered it in a bit rate higher than crappy 160 Kbps then more people would buy it.
Bands/artists rarely, if ever, make money on album sales. Don't let the RIAA fool you. If Radiohead was making a significant amount of money on album sales with their old label, do you think they would have changed to this new method? Most likely not. Radiohead has already succeeded on this album simply by the new found hype surrounding their music. Now when they go on tour they'll have even more sold venues and more merch sales. Artists make their millions by touring, not by selling albums.
"Sounds like stupid college students working at Best Buy getting a monthly prize for signing people up for MSN. Doesn't sound like a giant corporate scam. It also doesn't sound like this involves Microsoft at all. I've read the same story online, but replace Microsoft with Comcast (Cable or HSI) or DirecTV"
I haven't bought much from Best Buy lately but a few years back my roomates and I pitched in for a DirectTV setup and the Best Buy rep was hounding us to sign up for what I believe was AOL. I can't remember exactly what the service was but my point is that he was pushing it really hard to the point that the corporation was most likely hounding him to do it. Even if they aren't pushing it too hard, if they have a bonus system in place and their employees do it, they are still liable for anything their employees do. It doesn't really matter if it's coming the top or not.
Poor children have health care.
Even poor older people can get healthcare. When my cousin had her first baby she had very little income and was considered poor. She had no insurance at the time but didn't pay a dime for her doctor or hospital visits. Government paid it all. It's called Medicaid. The poorer you are, the less you have to pay for.
Can you link me to any info on that lawsuit? Last I heard was that the adword trigger method was legal under federal law and only Utah has passed a controversial law banning that type of triggering. That law has been criticized by many people, including law professors, as being unconstitutional. The Federal trademark act doesn't allow protection against that type of thing. So...please link me.
EVERY game on Steam.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
http://www.brownraysman.com/index.cfm?section=articles&function=ViewArticle&articleID=1393
Everyone is quick to call IP Innovations the troll here and no one seems to notice that Xerox is the one who sold this patent in 2005 to them. It was definitely obvious to Xerox at that time that IP Innovations was going to start trolling it around. IMO, Xerox is the troll here. I doubt they needed the money.
If you want to see the patent assignment activity, you can do so at www.uspto.gov. This is a link to it but it might not work:
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&qt=pat&reel=&frame=&pat=5072412&pub=&asnr=&asnri=&asne=&asnei=&asns=
28 U.S.C 271. Infringement of patent
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
(b) Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.
(c) Whoever offers to sell or sells within the United States or imports into the United States a component of a patented machine, manufacture, combination or composition, or a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, shall be liable as a contributory infringer.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode35/usc_sec_35_00000271----000-.html
My question is, what product does this company sell that they can claim to have lost revenue on? Or is IP law so crap that there is no need to even have made an attempt at creating a product to be able to sue someone for damages? I mean, I can understand royalties, but damages?
Their IP is their product. They are losing profits by Novell's and Red Hat's refusals to pay them royalties.
I'm not saying I support this, I'm just explaining to you how it works.
"I bet they also didn't consider that signing the MS deal might look like an admission of guilt in lawsuits with other companies."
If Novell doesn't have a clause in that deal that states something along the lines of "By entering into this agreement, Novell is in no way admitting to infringement of current MS patents" then their attorneys who wrote the agreement might need to call their malpractice insurance provider.
In short, the DMCA doesn't really apply to contracts.
My point really has nothing to do with whether or not he was resisting with extreme force. My point is that when there are 3 or 4 officers just standing by watching the situation, they just be ordered to help before the other cops use a taser on the suspect.
Give me a break. You think 6 cops can't hold one small guy down? Each cop, by the way, was at least 1.5-2 times larger than the kid.
Actually 4 of the cops were just standing there watching. Go watch yourself on youtube.
Wiretapping calls are not the issue. It's an always-on mic for the FBI to listen to if they so choose.
"Disabling" is not the same as "disconnecting." If you have them disable it "over the air" all they have to do is reenable it "over the air" without your permission. OnStar has already been used by the FBI to listen to conversations taking place in the car. The only way to rid yourself of this problem is to tear the thing out of your car.
The problem is that OnStar has already cooperated with the FBI and eavesdropped on a suspect through the mic in the car. (See the FBI case in San Diego against the city official and strip club owners.)
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Nov-19-Wed-2003/news/22620787.html
Yea, they denied it. No, we're not stupid enough to believe them. There's no reason to trust that they won't abuse this new system.
If I ever buy a car with OnStar, I'm gonna do like Tony Soprano and have it ripped out of the car before I drive off the lot. My AAA membership works just fine.
"You can also call OnStar and ask that you have your unit disabled. Just as effective but it does more to retain your vehicles resale value. Once disabled, it won't work until you call back into OnStar and ask for them to reactivate the unit."
I think you misunderstand the point of disconnecting the system from OnStar.
"You people screech about tasers being over used, but i'm yet to see a single video of a cop using a taser on someone who didn't deserve it."
Have you not seen video of the University of Florida student at the John Kerry speech who was tased? There were about 6 cops holding him down and they tased him simply because he wouldn't stay still. I agree that the guy was being a total idiot and he brought it on himself but tasers have taught cops that instead of holding down a suspect, they can now just yell at them a couple times and tase away.
IIRC, USPTO examiners are not allowed to use Google when doing prior art searches.
I haven't read the patent but I'm sure the U.S. military has plenty of prior art on this topic.
I know you're being funny but I just wanted to point something out. Novelty is not a requirement for obtaining a copyright. Independent creation is a defense to copyright. Sure, it's pretty rare for two people to come up with exactly the same thing but it's theoretically possible. This is especially true for literary works where one can be infringing even if it's a nonliteral copy. Originality is required for a copyright but that is not the same as novelty.
Unfortunately an appeal will probably cost her another 100k in attorney's fees. Appeals are expensive.
"Disbarment would have to be used much more frequently than it currently is to be an effective deterrent."
Perfect example: Jack Thompson. That guy should have been disbarred years ago.