I really don't think existing just to screw people over would make a very good business plan.
Although I'm sure Jobs and Wozniak built the entire company just to screw over Nick DePlume, before he was born, and the whole selling computers thing was just to kill time.
If you really want your family to read your email when you're dead, save it all somewhere and mention the location in letters left to them with your will. There's probably not much demand for a new online email service based entirely on the fact that you'll violate your user's privacy if someone shows to your satisfaction that they're dead.
Hell, just leave your family your passwords in the event of your death.
That's like claiming a publisher needs to provide an author with copies of his book because he owns the copyright.
They would be able to sue Yahoo! if they tried to publish or otherwise distribute the messages, but copyright law doesn't require them to provide copies of them. Their contract with their users might, but I doubt it, unless it was written by a really bad lawyer. Having clause like that would open them up to massive lawsuits if they had a catastrophic failure of their servers and lost people's messages.
Of course, we're not very good at seeing extrasolar planets, so anything we "know" about them in general terms is pretty fuzzy.
It was amusing a couple of years ago to read a story about extrasolar planets that had been found, which mentioned that none of them would be suitable for sustaining life forms like those found on earth, implying that this somehow meant it was unlikely that the stars involved had planets that could sustain life. Of course they never mention that a scientist on a planet orbiting the nearest sun-like stars wouldn't be able to observe the earth, either.
Good luck convincing right wing Americans the the federal government should be allowed to collect money owed to the states.
It would take about 10 minutes for one of them to accuse you of plotting to let the UN collect their property taxes to fund local schools, which would immediately be forced to teach all of the kids that Islam is the One True Religion and that everyone should participate in homosexual orgies (and don't even think about trying to convince them that those 2 ideas would contradict one another--it's an article of faith that fundamentalist Muslims are secretly liberal secular humanists.)
Oddly enough, my employer, though they withhold taxes from my paycheck, has no idea how much I pay in deductible mortgage taxes, or whether I have any icome from outside sources, and I for one don't think they have a right to that information.
I work for the University of Pittsburgh, which is part of the consortium that runs the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (along with CMU and Westinghouse). I don't really care about the lemieux terascale cluster which was once the 3rd fastest computer in the world. You know why? They won't let me play with it. I suspect no one at VA Tech cares about BigMac for the same reason.
Apple also wouldn't be shipping a product with a name it doesn't have trademarked before the packaging was printed. Especially if someone else has the name trademarked for use in "home entertainment systems."
That's my point. Microsoft is successful because they've achieved the ideal capitalist position. Not only do they have a monopoly, but they're able to maintain it within a system that's supposed to limit what corporations with monopolies are allowed to do (which, like it or not, is a socialist aspect of the system--government interference with corporations whether they're monoploes or not is the antithesis of laissez faire).
Although, to be fair, their success in that manner probably isn't their own doing; I don't think Microsoft had much of an impact in either of the last 2 presidential races; they were just lucky enough to get a pro-business administration with no interest in punishing their violations of anti-trust law. But it's hardly the fault of the laws or of the legislators who passed them (who are all long dead) that they're not being enforced. The problem is that the US Government has lost the value of the rule of law, not that the laws that exist aren't effective at restricting monopolies.
Remember, the AT&T breakup happened during the Reagan administration, where the Justice Dept. was known for pro-free market permissiveness toward anti-trust violations, throwing out a 13-year case against IBM in 1982.
I'm sure in the future when he's sued for malpractice after signing an order he didn't bother to read, the family of the deceased patient will drop their lawsuit when he admits his mistake, too.
You didn't mention OpenGL in your statement that porting games to OS X is like porting games to Linux. For the vast majority of games, porting from Windows to Linux and porting from Windows to OS X are going to be completely different processes.
Porting games that use APIs in Windows that are also available in both Linux and OS X will be easier, but they'd be easier to port to OS X even if Linux didn't exist, so I don't see the relevance.
Microsoft is not responsible for enforcing the EULA between the end user and the spyware maker.
If the spyware could be removed by dragging it to the recycle bin, would Microsoft be legally required to remove the ability to delete any files from the OS, because it could potentially allow a user to violate an agreement with someone else?
Microsoft is not the end user of Bonzai Buddy. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they tried to sue Microsoft for providing a tool that could remove their spyware.
They could probably sue their users for using the tool, but that would draw enough attention that keep anyone from downloading their software, plus in a jury trial they'd have very little chance of winning. Someone a week out of law school could convince a jury that burying something deep in a EULA doesn't give you the right to break someone's computer, regardless of what the letter of the law says.
I don't think there's a strong argument against what they're doing. I mean, if they actually fixed all of the flaws in Windows and IE that lead to spyware infestations (and, in turn, spyware removal companies' success), would that be unfair to the spyware removal companies?
What about to the companies making the spyware in the first place? Do they have a case against Microsoft if they make changes to their dominant OS that intentionally break spyware?
I don't think improving security in an OS, even if it harms third parties who make a profit off your bad security, is going to meet the standards for abuse of a monopoly in the same way that tying a new application that adds features instead of fixing problems to the OS would.
Apple does not own AAC. Anyone can license AAC from the MPEG group.
It's unknown exactly who has the rights to license FairPlay. Most likely, the Motorola deal is an indication that Apple can license it, but the details of the licensing agreement are not public. It's fairly reasonable to assume Apple isn't using pricing to keep people from using FairPlay; it's simply not available for licensing at any price without a special deal. Apple's has a good relationship with Motorola for years, so it's not surprising they were able to work out a deal with them.
RIAA will not allow Apple or anyone else to sell music distributed by RIAA member corporations in digital form online without DRM. In the United States, or anywhere else copyright law will let them prevent it.
Are you honestly suggesting iTMS could be successful if people couldn't buy the latest Britney Spears single from it? Independent music is all well and good, but people want the music RIAA owns. Their sales may be down, but they're still huge.
I don't buy diesel fuel because my car can't use it. Therefore, I'm all for someone else suing diesel fuel manufacturers. Screw them for making a product I don't want to buy.
You're not the target market for iTMS. Apple doesn't care if you buy music from them if you don't want an iPod. Why would you want someone to successfully sue them because you don't want to be a customer? Do you prefer Pepsi, and thus hope that Coke gets sued frequently?
Anyway, Apple does not claim to sell the iPod at a loss. The iPod has the highest profit margin of any Apple product. They're selling songs at a very small profit margin (or a loss, although I don't think they've made this claim anywhere) to get people to buy more iPods.
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Uh, yeah. You want to pay his legal expenses for that lawsuit, and then watch as he's laughed out of court?
Although I'm sure Jobs and Wozniak built the entire company just to screw over Nick DePlume, before he was born, and the whole selling computers thing was just to kill time.
Hell, just leave your family your passwords in the event of your death.
That's like claiming a publisher needs to provide an author with copies of his book because he owns the copyright.
They would be able to sue Yahoo! if they tried to publish or otherwise distribute the messages, but copyright law doesn't require them to provide copies of them. Their contract with their users might, but I doubt it, unless it was written by a really bad lawyer. Having clause like that would open them up to massive lawsuits if they had a catastrophic failure of their servers and lost people's messages.
It was amusing a couple of years ago to read a story about extrasolar planets that had been found, which mentioned that none of them would be suitable for sustaining life forms like those found on earth, implying that this somehow meant it was unlikely that the stars involved had planets that could sustain life. Of course they never mention that a scientist on a planet orbiting the nearest sun-like stars wouldn't be able to observe the earth, either.
It would take about 10 minutes for one of them to accuse you of plotting to let the UN collect their property taxes to fund local schools, which would immediately be forced to teach all of the kids that Islam is the One True Religion and that everyone should participate in homosexual orgies (and don't even think about trying to convince them that those 2 ideas would contradict one another--it's an article of faith that fundamentalist Muslims are secretly liberal secular humanists.)
Oddly enough, my employer, though they withhold taxes from my paycheck, has no idea how much I pay in deductible mortgage taxes, or whether I have any icome from outside sources, and I for one don't think they have a right to that information.
You can only deduct $3000 in capital losses in a year, but you can carry over additional losses to the next year.
I work for the University of Pittsburgh, which is part of the consortium that runs the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (along with CMU and Westinghouse). I don't really care about the lemieux terascale cluster which was once the 3rd fastest computer in the world. You know why? They won't let me play with it. I suspect no one at VA Tech cares about BigMac for the same reason.
No, really. It's a mathematical certainty.
Apple also wouldn't be shipping a product with a name it doesn't have trademarked before the packaging was printed. Especially if someone else has the name trademarked for use in "home entertainment systems."
Although, to be fair, their success in that manner probably isn't their own doing; I don't think Microsoft had much of an impact in either of the last 2 presidential races; they were just lucky enough to get a pro-business administration with no interest in punishing their violations of anti-trust law. But it's hardly the fault of the laws or of the legislators who passed them (who are all long dead) that they're not being enforced. The problem is that the US Government has lost the value of the rule of law, not that the laws that exist aren't effective at restricting monopolies.
Remember, the AT&T breakup happened during the Reagan administration, where the Justice Dept. was known for pro-free market permissiveness toward anti-trust violations, throwing out a 13-year case against IBM in 1982.
Obviously your first test post failed horribly and never made it to Usenet.
I'm sure in the future when he's sued for malpractice after signing an order he didn't bother to read, the family of the deceased patient will drop their lawsuit when he admits his mistake, too.
Porting games that use APIs in Windows that are also available in both Linux and OS X will be easier, but they'd be easier to port to OS X even if Linux didn't exist, so I don't see the relevance.
If the spyware could be removed by dragging it to the recycle bin, would Microsoft be legally required to remove the ability to delete any files from the OS, because it could potentially allow a user to violate an agreement with someone else?
However, your assertion that a page looking good in lynx means it will look good anywhere is ridiculous.
You can get like 400 pounds of titanium for the cost of an ounce of platinum.
Now Plutonium Edition would be plausible.
Took me all of 5 seconds to find it, too. Thanks for the FUD, though.
They could probably sue their users for using the tool, but that would draw enough attention that keep anyone from downloading their software, plus in a jury trial they'd have very little chance of winning. Someone a week out of law school could convince a jury that burying something deep in a EULA doesn't give you the right to break someone's computer, regardless of what the letter of the law says.
What about to the companies making the spyware in the first place? Do they have a case against Microsoft if they make changes to their dominant OS that intentionally break spyware?
I don't think improving security in an OS, even if it harms third parties who make a profit off your bad security, is going to meet the standards for abuse of a monopoly in the same way that tying a new application that adds features instead of fixing problems to the OS would.
It's unknown exactly who has the rights to license FairPlay. Most likely, the Motorola deal is an indication that Apple can license it, but the details of the licensing agreement are not public. It's fairly reasonable to assume Apple isn't using pricing to keep people from using FairPlay; it's simply not available for licensing at any price without a special deal. Apple's has a good relationship with Motorola for years, so it's not surprising they were able to work out a deal with them.
Apple pays considerably more than 7 cents per track for music they sell on their store. You have no idea what you're talking about.
RIAA will not allow Apple or anyone else to sell music distributed by RIAA member corporations in digital form online without DRM. In the United States, or anywhere else copyright law will let them prevent it.
Are you honestly suggesting iTMS could be successful if people couldn't buy the latest Britney Spears single from it? Independent music is all well and good, but people want the music RIAA owns. Their sales may be down, but they're still huge.
You're not the target market for iTMS. Apple doesn't care if you buy music from them if you don't want an iPod. Why would you want someone to successfully sue them because you don't want to be a customer? Do you prefer Pepsi, and thus hope that Coke gets sued frequently?
Anyway, Apple does not claim to sell the iPod at a loss. The iPod has the highest profit margin of any Apple product. They're selling songs at a very small profit margin (or a loss, although I don't think they've made this claim anywhere) to get people to buy more iPods.