Unfortunately for your argument, copyright isn't about the creation of information either. It's about created work. The blood, sweat, and tears of the creator. It's about the implementation, not the data, in computer terms.
Statistics are information. Anybody can put together information. A book that an author spends months working on isn't. It is a created work. It takes talent and skill to make a created work.
To take your own example, if I create some software, who am I to say that it can't be distributed by somebody else? I'm the author of the f*cking software, that's who. I'm the one who spent hours getting it to work, and if I hold the copyright and I don't want it distributed in a certain way, it is perfectly legitimate and moral for my wishes to be respected. If my software solves a specific problem, it's perfectly fine for somebody else to come up with their own solution to that problem and release it however they want. They do not, however, get to tell me what to do with my solution.
Why should the entire society be limited by copyright laws? Simple - to provide creative minds like myself with protection, so that we have the right to create what we want and do with it what we want. I'm a writer, and I decide what happens with my work, not some group of individuals who claim to represent "society". There is, however, a word for what happens when "the good of society" takes priority over individual rights and freedoms.
Well, a very decent argument, if you're living in a Jeffersonian democracy in the 18th century.
However, we are living in the 21st century, and the world is different. Jeffersonian democracy hasn't existed since the U.S. Civil War. I'd like to think our 21st century world is more enlightened.
My part time job is working at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at a university, and I can assure you, lots of research is going on - and if you honestly think that copyright law is going to hinder that research, you are very badly mistaken.
For that matter, copyright never did hinder it. You see, copyright deals with a specific implementation, if you want to put it that way. And holding the copyright means that you control how your work, be it sculpture, a novel, some programming code, will be distributed. If you want to release it to the public domain, that is your choice. If you want to give first publication rights to a publisher and try to make some money off it, that's your choice too. That's what copyright assures. It is, in the here and now, meant to keep artists and creative minds from having their work co-opted against their will.
You cannot copyright a name, any more than you can copyright an idea. All you can copyright is your implementation of it. So please don't talk about how copyrights restrict creativity - that's bullsh*t. It restricts plagerism.
There is nothing wrong with attacking the abuse of copyright law - certainly it exists. But don't attack copyright law because some people are abusing it. Go after the people abusing it.
There was once an author named Gerald Kersh - quite a successful one, as I understand it. He wrote Night and the City.
Well, he was very well read. Not necessarily successful. You see, his work was being reprinted in about 65 countries, but he was barely seeing a cent of it. It was copyright infringement.
So, while he was in theory one of the bestselling authors of his age, he was having to borrow money like a madman while he was fighting off the cancer that was killing him.
So, explain to me again how copyright infrigement doesn't hurt anybody directly.
No, you are reading it wrong. If Microsoft "steals" your patented parsing technology, and you whip up a patent covering Microsoft's XML schemas and sue them over those schemas, THEN Microsoft cancels your schema license. If you sue them for something else, then the schema license isn't affected at all. Go and read what you quoted again, I am sure you'll agree:)
You may very well be right. However, I think that there is some merit to my reading as well. I think it could be abused in that manner, and knowing Microsoft, well...
(Sorry, but speaking as a writer dealing with copyrights for stories and things, this software stuff is just convoluted. It makes the stuff I deal with look easy!)
For the record, many recent open source licenses from both IBM and SUN has this exact same term ("use our tech, except if you sue us over them using patents"). GNU is considering this kind of protection too, in the next version of the GPL.
"Now, my reading of it may be wrong, but it seems to me that the next paragraph is telling me that if I'm a developer using these schemas, and the U.S. State Department releases a document in Microsoft's XML format, then I'm not allowed to open that document and read it, unless I'm going to alter it. That's puzzling to me, as it makes no logical sense."
This is what happens when you try to read legalese right after putting together a proposal to a publisher. Going back over it, the section in question states it is not a violation of the license to read a government document using these formats. I took the sentence to be an imperative rather than a statement - my mistake (stupid fuzzy language).
I think the rest of the analysis stands, though. The patent bit requires a bit more explanation, however. Somebody rightfully point out that code is mainly protected by copyright, but certain technology using code is patented - so if Microsoft steals that technology from your word processor (say, if you've got some brand new way of parsing files, to take a fairly lame example), they're forbidding you to sue them unless you want to lose your compatibility.
Sometimes I think there needs to be a government body that sets software standards and licenses - that way you don't see licenses with clauses like this.
This is actually a very odd and frightening licensing agreement, when you look at it. Now, I am not a lawyer, but I can read a fair amount of legalese (you have to when you're a writer, otherwise you get ripped off), and this seems like a VERY bad document to me. I'm not allowed to quote it all here according to the copyright notices on the Microsoft site, but here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpaten tlicense.asp
Not too much surprising in the first section. It seems to me that it says essentially that you can use it, and there are patents involved.
That last paragraph of that section is a bit exclusionary, but again, not surprising - if you break the license, you can't use the product. Pretty standard. But this is where it starts to get interesting.
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights. (Quoted from the licensing agreement from the above link under fair use copyright laws)
This is the first section that makes me scratch my head. Who is Microsoft to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own intellectual rights? They're not prohibiting the transfer of Microsoft's rights, but the end user's.
Now, my reading of it may be wrong, but it seems to me that the next paragraph is telling me that if I'm a developer using these schemas, and the U.S. State Department releases a document in Microsoft's XML format, then I'm not allowed to open that document and read it, unless I'm going to alter it. That's puzzling to me, as it makes no logical sense. But the real kicker is the paragraph right after it, which really has to be quoted:
Microsoft reserves the right to terminate this license grant if you sue Microsoft or any of Microsoft's affiliates for patent infringement over claims relating to reading or writing of files that comply with the Office Schemas. This license is perpetual subject to this reservation. (Quoted from the licensing agreement from the above link under fair use copyright law)
Now this is a very bad clause, and that's the kicker. So if you create a word processor that can read these schemas, and Microsoft steals your technology, regardless of what it is, you're not allowed to sue them if you want to keep your license.
Or, put this way, the moment OpenOffice or StarOffice implements these schemas, Microsoft can plunder their source code, and the only way OO or Sun can fight it is to lose the compatibility that would make them competitive.
The rest is fairly standard stuff, although the indemnity clause is very frightening when considering the clause I quoted above. So, if Microsoft steals your word processor's technology when you're using these formats, they're not responsible for any damage that they cause, including running you out of business, if it comes to that.
Come to think of it, this is a VERY bad agreement.
I must say, it was a joy to read this article, particularly since it's the day after getting two wisdom teeth out, and then having to write a test less than twenty-four hours later. It REALY made my day - I needed that.
Re:Linux won't be a threat until
on
Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
I've got a Xandros Linux installation as my secondary operating system on my main computer, and as the primary operating system on my laptop - and of the two (Windows and Xandros), I'd actually say that overall Xandros is the easier to use, and far more intuitive in some ways.
"Windows is not that bad. Everyone says "oh, look at all the security holes," and yes, there are holes. But I'm willing to bet that Linux has twice as many. The holes in Windows are noticeable because it's profitable to find them. There are a million reasons why Windows is the best operating system in the world, and those who like to complain about it all the time, to me, are just being trendy."
There is some merit in that, but there is one thing that Microsoft has done that has made it VERY risky to use a Windows system - they've made the IE Web browser into an essential system component.
This means that all you have to do to compromise a Windows system is compromise the Web browser, and sadly IE just isn't all that secure. This has created a giant backdoor into any Windows system so long as the user is surfing the 'net with IE, which most people do. Linux doesn't have this problem.
This is not to say that Linux doesn't have its security holes. However, from what I've heard, none are as crippling as that IE hole in Windows.
"Rather, America was founded on the idea that each person could retain control over what they had created/built/earned/believed without someone "more deserving" taking that control away from them.
People chose to contribute to the common effort because they believed in it, not because they had to."
Very well said.
One of the things that constantly bugs me are the extremists. I'm an author - intellectual rights are very important to me, as a large part of my living right now depends on how they are used in regards to my work. Quite frankly, if I spend a year and a half writing a book, that book is mine, to do with as I please. That's the letter and spirit of the law.
But then you have the extremists on both sides, who abuse the spirit and/or letter of intellectual property law. Companies like Microsoft use it as a weapon to stifle others from innovating, essentially by trying to take their ideas away from them and claim them as their own. The extremists on the other side react by wanting to strip away intellectual property rights entirely, and make any new creation into part of the public domain.
When you think about it, both are theft. To use the chair example, the first group of extremists come to you after you've made a chair and demand that you give it to them and not make any more because they made it first. The second group of extremists come to you after you've made a chair and demand that you give it to them so that it can be contributed to the public good. Neither is terribly respectful to the person who made the chair in the first place, and who should be allowed to sell it if they want, give it away if they want, or just sit in it if they want.
No. Let's not. For a change, let's look at the issue as something complicated that can't be explained away by scapegoating somebody for it.
Articles like this always drive me nuts. When I was working on EverQuest Companion, one of the chapters was devoted to game addiction. My research for it entailed reading approximately 300 pages of psychology papers, interviewing people affected who had family members addicted to EverQuest, interviewing a psychologist who is working on game addiction (something only a handful of people are working on in North America, by the way), and reading a book by Doctor David Greenfield (who has so far conducted the largest study on Internet addiction). The research for that single chapter was massive, and longer than the entire manuscript for the book.
When I read this article, though, I can tell that all the reporter has done is interview a psychologist and throw in some pop psychology. And, as a result, a lot of wrong impressions have been given, and expressed.
Let's begin by dispelling a couple of myths:
1. There is a certain personality type that is more susceptible to addiction.
WRONG. The larger studies have actually confirmed that this is not the case, and that any personality type can become addicted. The only determining factor that seems to make any difference in how easily one becomes addicted is technical knowledge - it's easier to become addicted to the Internet if you know how to use it.
2. It's actually a simple matter, and there is one cause.
VERY WRONG. Every case of addiction is different in some way.
3. Game addiction doesn't really exist, and it is just people being lazy.
WRONG. Game addiction is a psychological addiction, and it is not only very real, but can be very damaging.
So, from my research, game addiction can be defined as this: a coping mechanism gone horribly wrong.
Computer game addiction is very similar to gambling addiction, but it is a coping mechanism. It just isn't a good one. There is no single reason for computer game addiction, simply because everybody who becomes addicted has a different trigger.
For example, in the case of Shawn Woolley, his trigger seems to have been mistreatment at work. He had epilepsy, had been playing recreationally and had a massive seizure, and then his boss (whose wife had epilepsy) forced him to work overtime even though Woolley could barely function. Woolley stormed off the job in disgust, and the addiction started shortly after.
(I know this because in my research, I got a full timeline from Liz Woolley, who is actually very grounded in reality. All of those problems that Woolley was suffering were actually symptoms of the addiction - the one thing that just about never shows up in articles about the case is that the Woolley family spent around a year and a half trying to get Shawn help, and NOBODY would recognize that it was even possible to get addicted to a game, and those who did only treated the symptoms, and not the addiction.)
The addiction cycle works something like this: You have the trigger. For argument's sake, let's say you're a student and you have a late assignment. This is very stressful, so you play some game X to relieve it. But, when you finish playing, since you were playing a game instead of finishing the assigment, it is now even more late, and the situation is worse. This causes even more stress, so you play a bit more to relieve the stress. And thus it becomes a cycle, and soon you need to play the game just to feel normal.
It isn't a simple issue, and there isn't a broadstroke cure. It also isn't some sort of disease, where everybody who plays a certain game will probably become addicted to it. That's horsesh*t, quite frankly. In fact, statistics collected by Nicholas Yee regarding EverQuest indicated that more people believed they had a problem than actually di
Well, I'm actually a published author who has written for two major publishers (Osborne/McGraw-Hill and Simon & Schuster), so I think I can actually add something here.
Regarding number one - is her publisher at fault? Well, yes and no.
Truth be told, the publisher frequently reserves control over the title of a book. Both of my books had titles chosen by the publisher (I got to put in a bit of input, but the final decision was theirs). A good friend of mine in the industry, Ed Greenwood, has had numerous books published both with Wizards of the Coast and Tor, and he told me recently that of all of them, he's chosen the titles of about two of them.
So, did Ms. Tarbox actually have control of the title? Probably not.
That being said, it sounds to me like the title was changed at a critical juncture. This may sound odd to those who don't know much about the industry, but the "point of no return" where the title cannot be changed actually occurs long before the book goes to the press.
It's a bit like one of those old Looney Toons where somebody rolls a snowball downhill and it grows and flattens a cottage. Up until the book goes into typesetting, major changes can be made. However, around the typesetting phase (which can be anywhere from 4 months to 8 months before publication), two things happen. The first is the typesetting itself, which is very time-intensive and quite expensive. In fact, my editor at both houses warned me that if I tried to make any major changes after typesetting began, I would actually be penalized for it. A new title counts as a major change, particularly if it's going to be used as a header.
The second thing is that the publicity for the book kicks into high gear. The book is going to be published within the next year, and to change a major part of the book being used in the advertising (such as the title) at that point is tantamount to shooting the book out of the window and starting again from scratch. If the President of the United States asks them to do it, they'll do it, but that's what it would take - it really is that expensive. The proverbial snowball is now the size of a house and halfway down the hill.
Once you get to the book going to the printer, there is just no way the title can be changed. Quite literally, if it was going to be changed, everything, including the typesetting and advertising, would have to be redone. That alone could destroy the profitability of the book, if it isn't a bestseller.
If the book is a bestseller, changing the title between paperback and hardcover, just because of the time, effort, and money spent on the advertising, would involve essentially starting everything over from typesetting - again, incredibly expensive, and now the publisher would be having to fight its own advertising. It just isn't worth it for the publisher to turn itself into a pretzel like that unless there may be a lawsuit that can bring the entire publishing house down (for that matter, a lawsuit might even be cheaper to deal with).
So, is Penguin Putnam to blame - as I said, yes and no. If the book had its title changed just as it was entering typesetting, which could have been as much as eight months before publication, the difficulties involved in changing the title again would simply be too great to be reasonable, particularly when there is no guarantee that the book will be successful enough to make an impact at all. The name may be changed in a future reprint, but at this point, a name change would be like trying to move a mountain. On the other hand, somebody really should have checked katie.com first to see what it was and contact the owner, but not doing so could have been an honest mistake by somebody in a really big rush.
As far as what the lawyer has done, it is unconscionable. However, it is also very possible that the lawyer was acting on Ms. Tarbox's behalf without contacting her first, in which case news of this would have arrived to the author after the fact (and after the damage had been done).
Time for an author to put in a word or two...
on
The Saga of Katie.com
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Hi all,
I've read the article and I think I can add a couple of things that haven't been added yet.
Knowing the publishing world as I do (I've got two books out, and plenty of friends who are authors), it seems to me that what may have happened on Penguin Putnam's side was that just before publication it was discovered that the original title linked to a XXX site. Books usually have to go into production a couple of months before release, and if it was close enough to the publication date, somebody in a rush may have figured that "katie.com" was innocuous enough and may not even have been in use. In that case, it is an honest mistake. As far as intellectual property goes, there actually isn't a violation on either side - unless the book directly mirrors the website or vice versa, neither can really complain on that end.
(It's rather like naming a character "Elric" in a story. Anybody can do it, but if the character is an albino from an island named Melnibone, that's when you get sued by Michael Moorcock. To cut a long story short, you can't copyright a name.)
As far as what Ms. Tarbox's lawyer is asking, it's intimidation, plain and simple. I very much doubt that Penguin is involved, though (partly because if they really wanted the domain name, they would go after it directly - they aren't a monopoly, and they don't need to use proxies).
The reason it's intimidation being used is that there really isn't anything Ms. Tarbox's lawyer can actually do to take the domain name away from Katie Jones. In order to dispute the name, the lawyer would have to take the dispute to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and than she would have to prove that Kate Jones registered the domain in bad faith (essentially, that she specifically registered the name so that she could sell it to Penguin after the book was published). However, since the domain name was registered before the book was retitled (and years before, in fact) the case would be extremely difficult to prove.
(I'm not a lawyer, but I covered this in an article I wrote back in 2001 that is located at http://www.tophosts.com/articles/print.shtml?10003.html)
I really do sympathize with Ms. Jones, and I hope that public opinion will effect a change that will get Ms. Tarbox's lawyer off her case. It really is sad when intimidation like this is used.
"Regarding jobs getting lost, I also agree. The problem is NOT as big as Gates says atm, but if OSS becomes much more popular in the future, it will be a problem for software engineers. You devalue your own profession."
I actually don't really agree with that. I've been watching and thinking about OSS for a while now, and I think it may actually help create new jobs that weren't there before.
The fact of the matter is that programming is a skill, and relatively few people out of the whole have it (it's a bit like writing, really - would-be writers are a dime a dozen, but the people who are actually good enough to succeed are relatively few - and even the wannabes are a small percentage of the population).
One of the things that makes OSS such a good idea is the way that you can customize the application at the code level to match what your company is doing. But who ends up rewriting the code? The averge businessperson can't, so a programmer gets hired to do it (which wouldn't have been possible if the software was closed source).
The place where it will be a problem is for the people who write the initial application (say, the Linux team, or the OpenOffice team) - they really don't get paid for what they do, which means they have to support themselves some other way. I think the key to making that work economically is a corporate approach, but one similar to Red Hat. The money made from consulting and customization subsidizes the programmers so that they can keep food on their table and a roof over their heads, and keep writing code.
"I heard rumors that MS ignored people who pirated their software, especially OS, for personal use because it made their software ubiquitous, and insured their dominance in the business world."
I'd take that with a grain of salt, though. Microsoft is one of those companies that has gone somewhat nuts trying to stop people from pirating their software - that's where product activation came from, after all
Um, I hate to point this out, but your online alias has to be the most tasteless thing I've ever seen. You've named yourself after a man responsible for the death of tens of millions.
Actually, I'm not surprised something like this has happened.
Microsoft is starting to see Linux as honest competition for the desktop market, and acting accordingly to become competitive again. I think you'll see something similar happen here - it wouldn't surprise me if the asking price for Microsoft software is cut dramatically in the next twenty-four months, and it also wouldn't surprise me if the quality starts to improve again.
All in all, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. The end users can only benefit from this.
"Guns destroyed Feudalism as the professional warrior class that protected it was wiped out by peasent armies with firearms."
Actually, that's not true. Gunpowder first appeared on the battlefield in the 14th century around the time of the Battle of Crecy, but various types of feudalism survived in Europe until the 18th century. It's the French Revolution that is often credited with putting a final end to the feudal order.
The truth is that what ended feudalism was the rising power of the middle class, which was changing the world so that the old feudal order was obsolete. It was a slow process, but an inevitable one.
Truth be told, I think that works as a better metaphor for Open Source vs. Closed Source. There is a place for both, but Open Source is starting to prove a better development model, and very likely may one day lead to the end of the Closed Source model (although that would be a very gradual process). It is not, however, a self-sufficient development model. In order for it to survive economically, the IT economy has to be service-based, and the money from those services has to be used to subsidize the software developers. Otherwise, the Open Source developers can't pay their bills, and Open Source remains a hobby rather than a professional model.
"Hope you don't like guns, because Canada is rabbidly anti-gun."
Um...actually, this is very much a nation of hunters. There are LOTS of guns up here. I think the statistic is that there are around 10,000,000 households, and 7,000,000 guns.
What is that line from Field of Dreams? "If you build it, they will come"?
Honestly, I'm not watching all that much TV, not really because of the Internet (let's face it - the Internet is actually pretty boring when you get right down to it; real life is so much better), but because it just isn't worth my time.
What shows do I like to watch? I've started watching Deadwood, because it's good. I would watch Stargate SG1 if I could get the new episodes (I've seen all the reruns). Angel is in reruns right now, but I watch that too. And other than that...well, I like The Movie Network, as it saves me money at the local Blockbuster.
Seriously, if they put something on TV that interested me and was worth watching, I'd watch it! But all we have now are lowest-common denominator shows that manage to royally insult the intelligence.
How is this different?
on
ICQ Universe
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Okay, I've read the article.
So, could somebody please explain something to me: how is this different from what ICQ and the other IMs already offer? It almost feels to me like somebody putting a nice new coat of paint on something that's already there, and then bragging about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately for your argument, copyright isn't about the creation of information either. It's about created work. The blood, sweat, and tears of the creator. It's about the implementation, not the data, in computer terms.
Statistics are information. Anybody can put together information. A book that an author spends months working on isn't. It is a created work. It takes talent and skill to make a created work.
To take your own example, if I create some software, who am I to say that it can't be distributed by somebody else? I'm the author of the f*cking software, that's who. I'm the one who spent hours getting it to work, and if I hold the copyright and I don't want it distributed in a certain way, it is perfectly legitimate and moral for my wishes to be respected. If my software solves a specific problem, it's perfectly fine for somebody else to come up with their own solution to that problem and release it however they want. They do not, however, get to tell me what to do with my solution.
Why should the entire society be limited by copyright laws? Simple - to provide creative minds like myself with protection, so that we have the right to create what we want and do with it what we want. I'm a writer, and I decide what happens with my work, not some group of individuals who claim to represent "society". There is, however, a word for what happens when "the good of society" takes priority over individual rights and freedoms.
Oppression.
Well, a very decent argument, if you're living in a Jeffersonian democracy in the 18th century.
.
However, we are living in the 21st century, and the world is different. Jeffersonian democracy hasn't existed since the U.S. Civil War. I'd like to think our 21st century world is more enlightened.
My part time job is working at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at a university, and I can assure you, lots of research is going on - and if you honestly think that copyright law is going to hinder that research, you are very badly mistaken.
For that matter, copyright never did hinder it. You see, copyright deals with a specific implementation, if you want to put it that way. And holding the copyright means that you control how your work, be it sculpture, a novel, some programming code, will be distributed. If you want to release it to the public domain, that is your choice. If you want to give first publication rights to a publisher and try to make some money off it, that's your choice too. That's what copyright assures. It is, in the here and now, meant to keep artists and creative minds from having their work co-opted against their will.
You cannot copyright a name, any more than you can copyright an idea. All you can copyright is your implementation of it. So please don't talk about how copyrights restrict creativity - that's bullsh*t. It restricts plagerism
There is nothing wrong with attacking the abuse of copyright law - certainly it exists. But don't attack copyright law because some people are abusing it. Go after the people abusing it.
There was once an author named Gerald Kersh - quite a successful one, as I understand it. He wrote Night and the City.
Well, he was very well read. Not necessarily successful. You see, his work was being reprinted in about 65 countries, but he was barely seeing a cent of it. It was copyright infringement.
So, while he was in theory one of the bestselling authors of his age, he was having to borrow money like a madman while he was fighting off the cancer that was killing him.
So, explain to me again how copyright infrigement doesn't hurt anybody directly.
No, you are reading it wrong. If Microsoft "steals" your patented parsing technology, and you whip up a patent covering Microsoft's XML schemas and sue them over those schemas, THEN Microsoft cancels your schema license. If you sue them for something else, then the schema license isn't affected at all. Go and read what you quoted again, I am sure you'll agree :)
You may very well be right. However, I think that there is some merit to my reading as well. I think it could be abused in that manner, and knowing Microsoft, well...
(Sorry, but speaking as a writer dealing with copyrights for stories and things, this software stuff is just convoluted. It makes the stuff I deal with look easy!)
For the record, many recent open source licenses from both IBM and SUN has this exact same term ("use our tech, except if you sue us over them using patents"). GNU is considering this kind of protection too, in the next version of the GPL.
I can see the merit in that.
"Now, my reading of it may be wrong, but it seems to me that the next paragraph is telling me that if I'm a developer using these schemas, and the U.S. State Department releases a document in Microsoft's XML format, then I'm not allowed to open that document and read it, unless I'm going to alter it. That's puzzling to me, as it makes no logical sense."
This is what happens when you try to read legalese right after putting together a proposal to a publisher. Going back over it, the section in question states it is not a violation of the license to read a government document using these formats. I took the sentence to be an imperative rather than a statement - my mistake (stupid fuzzy language).
I think the rest of the analysis stands, though. The patent bit requires a bit more explanation, however. Somebody rightfully point out that code is mainly protected by copyright, but certain technology using code is patented - so if Microsoft steals that technology from your word processor (say, if you've got some brand new way of parsing files, to take a fairly lame example), they're forbidding you to sue them unless you want to lose your compatibility.
Sometimes I think there needs to be a government body that sets software standards and licenses - that way you don't see licenses with clauses like this.
This is actually a very odd and frightening licensing agreement, when you look at it. Now, I am not a lawyer, but I can read a fair amount of legalese (you have to when you're a writer, otherwise you get ripped off), and this seems like a VERY bad document to me. I'm not allowed to quote it all here according to the copyright notices on the Microsoft site, but here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpaten tlicense.asp
Not too much surprising in the first section. It seems to me that it says essentially that you can use it, and there are patents involved.
That last paragraph of that section is a bit exclusionary, but again, not surprising - if you break the license, you can't use the product. Pretty standard. But this is where it starts to get interesting.
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights. (Quoted from the licensing agreement from the above link under fair use copyright laws)
This is the first section that makes me scratch my head. Who is Microsoft to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own intellectual rights? They're not prohibiting the transfer of Microsoft's rights, but the end user's.
Now, my reading of it may be wrong, but it seems to me that the next paragraph is telling me that if I'm a developer using these schemas, and the U.S. State Department releases a document in Microsoft's XML format, then I'm not allowed to open that document and read it, unless I'm going to alter it. That's puzzling to me, as it makes no logical sense. But the real kicker is the paragraph right after it, which really has to be quoted:
Microsoft reserves the right to terminate this license grant if you sue Microsoft or any of Microsoft's affiliates for patent infringement over claims relating to reading or writing of files that comply with the Office Schemas. This license is perpetual subject to this reservation. (Quoted from the licensing agreement from the above link under fair use copyright law)
Now this is a very bad clause, and that's the kicker. So if you create a word processor that can read these schemas, and Microsoft steals your technology, regardless of what it is, you're not allowed to sue them if you want to keep your license.
Or, put this way, the moment OpenOffice or StarOffice implements these schemas, Microsoft can plunder their source code, and the only way OO or Sun can fight it is to lose the compatibility that would make them competitive.
The rest is fairly standard stuff, although the indemnity clause is very frightening when considering the clause I quoted above. So, if Microsoft steals your word processor's technology when you're using these formats, they're not responsible for any damage that they cause, including running you out of business, if it comes to that.
Come to think of it, this is a VERY bad agreement.
I must say, it was a joy to read this article, particularly since it's the day after getting two wisdom teeth out, and then having to write a test less than twenty-four hours later. It REALY made my day - I needed that.
I've got a Xandros Linux installation as my secondary operating system on my main computer, and as the primary operating system on my laptop - and of the two (Windows and Xandros), I'd actually say that overall Xandros is the easier to use, and far more intuitive in some ways.
"Windows is not that bad. Everyone says "oh, look at all the security holes," and yes, there are holes. But I'm willing to bet that Linux has twice as many. The holes in Windows are noticeable because it's profitable to find them. There are a million reasons why Windows is the best operating system in the world, and those who like to complain about it all the time, to me, are just being trendy."
There is some merit in that, but there is one thing that Microsoft has done that has made it VERY risky to use a Windows system - they've made the IE Web browser into an essential system component.
This means that all you have to do to compromise a Windows system is compromise the Web browser, and sadly IE just isn't all that secure. This has created a giant backdoor into any Windows system so long as the user is surfing the 'net with IE, which most people do. Linux doesn't have this problem.
This is not to say that Linux doesn't have its security holes. However, from what I've heard, none are as crippling as that IE hole in Windows.
I'm satisfied with what's provided by the Berne convention.
"Rather, America was founded on the idea that each person could retain control over what they had created/built/earned/believed without someone "more deserving" taking that control away from them.
People chose to contribute to the common effort because they believed in it, not because they had to."
Very well said.
One of the things that constantly bugs me are the extremists. I'm an author - intellectual rights are very important to me, as a large part of my living right now depends on how they are used in regards to my work. Quite frankly, if I spend a year and a half writing a book, that book is mine, to do with as I please. That's the letter and spirit of the law.
But then you have the extremists on both sides, who abuse the spirit and/or letter of intellectual property law. Companies like Microsoft use it as a weapon to stifle others from innovating, essentially by trying to take their ideas away from them and claim them as their own. The extremists on the other side react by wanting to strip away intellectual property rights entirely, and make any new creation into part of the public domain.
When you think about it, both are theft. To use the chair example, the first group of extremists come to you after you've made a chair and demand that you give it to them and not make any more because they made it first. The second group of extremists come to you after you've made a chair and demand that you give it to them so that it can be contributed to the public good. Neither is terribly respectful to the person who made the chair in the first place, and who should be allowed to sell it if they want, give it away if they want, or just sit in it if they want.
" How many times do we have to go over this?
BLAME THE PARENTS..."
No. Let's not. For a change, let's look at the issue as something complicated that can't be explained away by scapegoating somebody for it.
Articles like this always drive me nuts. When I was working on EverQuest Companion, one of the chapters was devoted to game addiction. My research for it entailed reading approximately 300 pages of psychology papers, interviewing people affected who had family members addicted to EverQuest, interviewing a psychologist who is working on game addiction (something only a handful of people are working on in North America, by the way), and reading a book by Doctor David Greenfield (who has so far conducted the largest study on Internet addiction). The research for that single chapter was massive, and longer than the entire manuscript for the book.
When I read this article, though, I can tell that all the reporter has done is interview a psychologist and throw in some pop psychology. And, as a result, a lot of wrong impressions have been given, and expressed.
Let's begin by dispelling a couple of myths:
1. There is a certain personality type that is more susceptible to addiction.
WRONG. The larger studies have actually confirmed that this is not the case, and that any personality type can become addicted. The only determining factor that seems to make any difference in how easily one becomes addicted is technical knowledge - it's easier to become addicted to the Internet if you know how to use it.
2. It's actually a simple matter, and there is one cause.
VERY WRONG. Every case of addiction is different in some way.
3. Game addiction doesn't really exist, and it is just people being lazy.
WRONG. Game addiction is a psychological addiction, and it is not only very real, but can be very damaging.
So, from my research, game addiction can be defined as this: a coping mechanism gone horribly wrong.
Computer game addiction is very similar to gambling addiction, but it is a coping mechanism. It just isn't a good one. There is no single reason for computer game addiction, simply because everybody who becomes addicted has a different trigger.
For example, in the case of Shawn Woolley, his trigger seems to have been mistreatment at work. He had epilepsy, had been playing recreationally and had a massive seizure, and then his boss (whose wife had epilepsy) forced him to work overtime even though Woolley could barely function. Woolley stormed off the job in disgust, and the addiction started shortly after.
(I know this because in my research, I got a full timeline from Liz Woolley, who is actually very grounded in reality. All of those problems that Woolley was suffering were actually symptoms of the addiction - the one thing that just about never shows up in articles about the case is that the Woolley family spent around a year and a half trying to get Shawn help, and NOBODY would recognize that it was even possible to get addicted to a game, and those who did only treated the symptoms, and not the addiction.)
The addiction cycle works something like this: You have the trigger. For argument's sake, let's say you're a student and you have a late assignment. This is very stressful, so you play some game X to relieve it. But, when you finish playing, since you were playing a game instead of finishing the assigment, it is now even more late, and the situation is worse. This causes even more stress, so you play a bit more to relieve the stress. And thus it becomes a cycle, and soon you need to play the game just to feel normal.
It isn't a simple issue, and there isn't a broadstroke cure. It also isn't some sort of disease, where everybody who plays a certain game will probably become addicted to it. That's horsesh*t, quite frankly. In fact, statistics collected by Nicholas Yee regarding EverQuest indicated that more people believed they had a problem than actually di
"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
.sig file that you think you are a waffle...
Er...in the original "ergo" means "therefore." You've just declared in your
Congrats to Mozilla! Now don't get cocky...
Well, I'm actually a published author who has written for two major publishers (Osborne/McGraw-Hill and Simon & Schuster), so I think I can actually add something here.
Regarding number one - is her publisher at fault? Well, yes and no.
Truth be told, the publisher frequently reserves control over the title of a book. Both of my books had titles chosen by the publisher (I got to put in a bit of input, but the final decision was theirs). A good friend of mine in the industry, Ed Greenwood, has had numerous books published both with Wizards of the Coast and Tor, and he told me recently that of all of them, he's chosen the titles of about two of them.
So, did Ms. Tarbox actually have control of the title? Probably not.
That being said, it sounds to me like the title was changed at a critical juncture. This may sound odd to those who don't know much about the industry, but the "point of no return" where the title cannot be changed actually occurs long before the book goes to the press.
It's a bit like one of those old Looney Toons where somebody rolls a snowball downhill and it grows and flattens a cottage. Up until the book goes into typesetting, major changes can be made. However, around the typesetting phase (which can be anywhere from 4 months to 8 months before publication), two things happen. The first is the typesetting itself, which is very time-intensive and quite expensive. In fact, my editor at both houses warned me that if I tried to make any major changes after typesetting began, I would actually be penalized for it. A new title counts as a major change, particularly if it's going to be used as a header.
The second thing is that the publicity for the book kicks into high gear. The book is going to be published within the next year, and to change a major part of the book being used in the advertising (such as the title) at that point is tantamount to shooting the book out of the window and starting again from scratch. If the President of the United States asks them to do it, they'll do it, but that's what it would take - it really is that expensive. The proverbial snowball is now the size of a house and halfway down the hill.
Once you get to the book going to the printer, there is just no way the title can be changed. Quite literally, if it was going to be changed, everything, including the typesetting and advertising, would have to be redone. That alone could destroy the profitability of the book, if it isn't a bestseller.
If the book is a bestseller, changing the title between paperback and hardcover, just because of the time, effort, and money spent on the advertising, would involve essentially starting everything over from typesetting - again, incredibly expensive, and now the publisher would be having to fight its own advertising. It just isn't worth it for the publisher to turn itself into a pretzel like that unless there may be a lawsuit that can bring the entire publishing house down (for that matter, a lawsuit might even be cheaper to deal with).
So, is Penguin Putnam to blame - as I said, yes and no. If the book had its title changed just as it was entering typesetting, which could have been as much as eight months before publication, the difficulties involved in changing the title again would simply be too great to be reasonable, particularly when there is no guarantee that the book will be successful enough to make an impact at all. The name may be changed in a future reprint, but at this point, a name change would be like trying to move a mountain. On the other hand, somebody really should have checked katie.com first to see what it was and contact the owner, but not doing so could have been an honest mistake by somebody in a really big rush.
As far as what the lawyer has done, it is unconscionable. However, it is also very possible that the lawyer was acting on Ms. Tarbox's behalf without contacting her first, in which case news of this would have arrived to the author after the fact (and after the damage had been done).
Hi all,
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I've read the article and I think I can add a couple of things that haven't been added yet.
Knowing the publishing world as I do (I've got two books out, and plenty of friends who are authors), it seems to me that what may have happened on Penguin Putnam's side was that just before publication it was discovered that the original title linked to a XXX site. Books usually have to go into production a couple of months before release, and if it was close enough to the publication date, somebody in a rush may have figured that "katie.com" was innocuous enough and may not even have been in use. In that case, it is an honest mistake. As far as intellectual property goes, there actually isn't a violation on either side - unless the book directly mirrors the website or vice versa, neither can really complain on that end.
(It's rather like naming a character "Elric" in a story. Anybody can do it, but if the character is an albino from an island named Melnibone, that's when you get sued by Michael Moorcock. To cut a long story short, you can't copyright a name.)
As far as what Ms. Tarbox's lawyer is asking, it's intimidation, plain and simple. I very much doubt that Penguin is involved, though (partly because if they really wanted the domain name, they would go after it directly - they aren't a monopoly, and they don't need to use proxies).
The reason it's intimidation being used is that there really isn't anything Ms. Tarbox's lawyer can actually do to take the domain name away from Katie Jones. In order to dispute the name, the lawyer would have to take the dispute to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and than she would have to prove that Kate Jones registered the domain in bad faith (essentially, that she specifically registered the name so that she could sell it to Penguin after the book was published). However, since the domain name was registered before the book was retitled (and years before, in fact) the case would be extremely difficult to prove.
(I'm not a lawyer, but I covered this in an article I wrote back in 2001 that is located at http://www.tophosts.com/articles/print.shtml?1000
I really do sympathize with Ms. Jones, and I hope that public opinion will effect a change that will get Ms. Tarbox's lawyer off her case. It really is sad when intimidation like this is used.
"Regarding jobs getting lost, I also agree. The problem is NOT as big as Gates says atm, but if OSS becomes much more popular in the future, it will be a problem for software engineers. You devalue your own profession."
I actually don't really agree with that. I've been watching and thinking about OSS for a while now, and I think it may actually help create new jobs that weren't there before.
The fact of the matter is that programming is a skill, and relatively few people out of the whole have it (it's a bit like writing, really - would-be writers are a dime a dozen, but the people who are actually good enough to succeed are relatively few - and even the wannabes are a small percentage of the population).
One of the things that makes OSS such a good idea is the way that you can customize the application at the code level to match what your company is doing. But who ends up rewriting the code? The averge businessperson can't, so a programmer gets hired to do it (which wouldn't have been possible if the software was closed source).
The place where it will be a problem is for the people who write the initial application (say, the Linux team, or the OpenOffice team) - they really don't get paid for what they do, which means they have to support themselves some other way. I think the key to making that work economically is a corporate approach, but one similar to Red Hat. The money made from consulting and customization subsidizes the programmers so that they can keep food on their table and a roof over their heads, and keep writing code.
"I heard rumors that MS ignored people who pirated their software, especially OS, for personal use because it made their software ubiquitous, and insured their dominance in the business world."
I'd take that with a grain of salt, though. Microsoft is one of those companies that has gone somewhat nuts trying to stop people from pirating their software - that's where product activation came from, after all
Um, I hate to point this out, but your online alias has to be the most tasteless thing I've ever seen. You've named yourself after a man responsible for the death of tens of millions.
Actually, I'm not surprised something like this has happened.
Microsoft is starting to see Linux as honest competition for the desktop market, and acting accordingly to become competitive again. I think you'll see something similar happen here - it wouldn't surprise me if the asking price for Microsoft software is cut dramatically in the next twenty-four months, and it also wouldn't surprise me if the quality starts to improve again.
All in all, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. The end users can only benefit from this.
Sigh...this is what bugged me so much about this article...
That word, "commoditization" - it does not mean what you think it means. You're actually talking about the DECOMMODITIZATION of software and music.
When something becomes a commodity, it becomes a product that is sold. When it is decommoditized, it is no longer a product that can be sold.
"Guns destroyed Feudalism as the professional warrior class that protected it was wiped out by peasent armies with firearms."
Actually, that's not true. Gunpowder first appeared on the battlefield in the 14th century around the time of the Battle of Crecy, but various types of feudalism survived in Europe until the 18th century. It's the French Revolution that is often credited with putting a final end to the feudal order.
The truth is that what ended feudalism was the rising power of the middle class, which was changing the world so that the old feudal order was obsolete. It was a slow process, but an inevitable one.
Truth be told, I think that works as a better metaphor for Open Source vs. Closed Source. There is a place for both, but Open Source is starting to prove a better development model, and very likely may one day lead to the end of the Closed Source model (although that would be a very gradual process). It is not, however, a self-sufficient development model. In order for it to survive economically, the IT economy has to be service-based, and the money from those services has to be used to subsidize the software developers. Otherwise, the Open Source developers can't pay their bills, and Open Source remains a hobby rather than a professional model.
"Hope you don't like guns, because Canada is rabbidly anti-gun."
Um...actually, this is very much a nation of hunters. There are LOTS of guns up here. I think the statistic is that there are around 10,000,000 households, and 7,000,000 guns.
What is that line from Field of Dreams? "If you build it, they will come"?
Honestly, I'm not watching all that much TV, not really because of the Internet (let's face it - the Internet is actually pretty boring when you get right down to it; real life is so much better), but because it just isn't worth my time.
What shows do I like to watch? I've started watching Deadwood, because it's good. I would watch Stargate SG1 if I could get the new episodes (I've seen all the reruns). Angel is in reruns right now, but I watch that too. And other than that...well, I like The Movie Network, as it saves me money at the local Blockbuster.
Seriously, if they put something on TV that interested me and was worth watching, I'd watch it! But all we have now are lowest-common denominator shows that manage to royally insult the intelligence.
Okay, I've read the article.
So, could somebody please explain something to me: how is this different from what ICQ and the other IMs already offer? It almost feels to me like somebody putting a nice new coat of paint on something that's already there, and then bragging about it.