.....instead of allowing any student to be given up.....
Why is it that a college or university needs to keep individual records of internet use at all? If any DHCP or other IP address info is recorded, why not purge it after a few days? Then, if their IT department gets one of these missives from the **AA, they can honestly tell them that they don't have the faintest idea who might have been using the particular address at the time for the alleged violation.
I can see that a commercial ISP may want to keep records at least until the user's bill is paid. Phone companies do this also for billing purposes. In some countries there are laws that mandate keeping such records. Is there one here in the USA also?
....it might be possible to teach enough young people values....
The big question is: "Whose values? When a increasingly large fraction of a society subscribes to the idea that there "are no absolutes" and humans are only a highly evolved cosmic accident, then the values themselves become subject to those with the most financial and/or political clout.
When this country was founded, the outlook of most people was oriented toward certain absolute truths, rooted in religious beliefs.
Apparently, they have to show that an illegal copy was actually made. Having a legally purchased song on your HD is not illegal, even if that HD or section thereof is visible to the entire world. The problem the **AA has is that there is no technical way to prove that someone actually accessed the HD and illegally or legally downloaded any file. That's why they are trying so hard to bend the copyright law in the direction of "making available". Recent court cases apparently have put severe crimp in that doctrine.
.....to search for others who are making the music available.....
Recent court cases indicate that "making available" is not against the copyright law. The **AA would certainly like that to be the case, so they and they alone are able to "make available" and nobody else. To violate copyright, there has to be an actual copy made by someone.
....but I have never seen it work that way in the real world.....
I am, like you also a little skeptical at times about fancy technology. Before totally committing to this Wiebetech RAID box, I did unplug one of the two drives for a while. It did indeed beep, but continue to work on the remaining drive. After a day or so I replace the second drive. The RAID controller immediately began re-imaging the replaced drive. The display indicated that this is what was happening. Later that day the normal DRIVE OK display returned for the second drive. The power was never turned off.
So it appears to work as advertised. I have to use the USB interface, but that little box also has a very much faster eSATA connection. The controller, by default is set up for drive mirroring (RAID1) but may be re-programmed for making one large volume out of the two drives. (RAID0)
....Or, better yet, set up those two drives as a RAID mirror...
For Macs with 10.5 that has become easier because of Time Machine. A 2x1000G RAID box connected to an Apple Extreme wireless router does backups for 6 Macs over the network.
If one of the drives fails, the RAID device makes an audible alarm and indicates which of the two drives has died. A new drive can be installed without shutting down the RAID system. Once the new drive is plugged in, the controller in that box automatically copies all the data from the still working drive.
So far, there have been no glitches or hiccups. Our lone PC user has to copy important files manually to the RAID box.
.....If someone wants to be a complete screw-up, then it is a requirement of a free society that we let them be a screw-up.....
That would only work if society were willing to let them reap what they sow. It seems that the do-gooders in this world will work very hard to prevent this. These kids can screw up and then when the chickens come home to roost, when the seeds of their foolishness begin to sprout, there are those who want to force the society, ie. the taxpayers, to bail the miscreants out of their self made predicaments.
It used to be that people were more or less responsible for their own actions, but nowadays many will blame everyone and everything but themselves for their troubles. If possible they will look for someone to sue or to the government, that is the tax payers to help them out of the holes they have dug for themselves.
...I don't really see what is patentable in this....
There isn't. All this patent and countless others do, is to provide employment to an army of lawyers. If somebody might be stupid enough to actually try to implement something similar to this, there will be said army of lawyers waiting with their writs and torts, ready to rake in more money yet.
....There are a few places where it makes sense....
Figuring out where those few places are seems to have escaped most planners of transit systems. If public transit makes it possible to get from home to work in less time and at the same expense as a car, then it may be better. Any place where that is not the case will be where the majority of people will spurn public transit.
..basically every modern desktop OS has grown far too complicated to restore easily...
Just get an external firewire HD and make a bootable clone of your main HD when you first get your computer working, with all the programs you use installed. Such external boxes are not very expensive any more. Now when you've messed up your Mac, just boot from the firewire drive. Next copy any user data from the now accessible internal HD not already backed up elsewhere. Run the disk utility program to check and repair the integrity of the internal disk. Try to now reboot the computer the normal way. Many times it will be fine after that. If not, use a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone you external HD back onto the internal drive.
.... On multiple occasions I've brought in ailing MacBooks (and MacBook Pros) to the Apple store and the only advice the "geniuses" have had for fixing the problem has been a clean reinstall.....
With the low costs of portable storage devices, I keep one with a clean OS handy. If the internal system fails, the computer can be re-started from the external fire wire drive. If there is an internal drive software failure, the disk repair program will usually take care of the problem. If not, the user data can be copied from the internal to the external drive. Then a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner can be used to re-copy the external drive onto the internal one. The end result us a working computer with minimal effort. With time machine, Apple has made it simple to also keep backups on a network volume.
....lay people don't want to know what a memory leak is,.....
Indeed, isn't that when you call a plumber, when there is a leak? Of course I have memory leaks from time to time when it comes to remembering names. I wonder if a plumber can fix that?
....Apple needs to launch some newer and more powerful products for the corporate user base...
A smaller brother, both in size and power, to the MacPro, priced between the lowest and highest price iMac would probably be a very popular item they should add to their list. It could have one expansion slot and let the customer use their old PC keyboards and monitors. This would save money and help the environment with less electronic garbage to dispose of. Apple could sell a sexy monitor, keyboard and mouse as an option.
....that state has enough jurisdiction to tax the sale....
The state may tax any sale, only on its own residents. What NY is trying to do is to make Amazon be their tax collector. Amazon does not owe NY a penny, but it is the buyer in NY that owes this tax.
The NY resident who has a referring web site is merely an advertiser for Amazon. It would be like Amazon taking out an ad in the NY times. Only instead of paying the Times a fixed fee, as paid by every advertiser, they paid the Times a percentage of each sale due to the reader buying something.
In the case of the Times, that would be impossible to track, but in the case of the Internet websites, it is no problem to track such sales and pay the advertiser accordingly. NY seems to think that this new method of advertising gives them the right to force Amazon to be the NY tax collector, just because it is possible to track the NY sales in the case of the Internet.
....we're charging a one-time tax on the use of products that were imported,....
Use and sales tax are basically the same thing by different names. It is a tax paid by the buyer, no matter where they bought the goods or service. It has nothing to do with import, export or the constitution. A state may lawfully charge a tax on its residents. Maybe a better name would be a buyer tax. Within each state, this tax is not paid by the sellers. They only collect it for that state.
What a state may not do, is to force an out of state seller to become their tax collector. That is something the federal government, either through their courts or the Congress may address. NY (and all the other states) could go to Congress and lobby for a law that would force all sellers to become the tax collectors for all states. That has not happened, because it would put a very large bookkeeping burden on all sellers.
Long before the Internet, in the days of mail order, the SCOTUS ruled that a seller has to be physically located in a state, before that state may force them to be a tax collector for the taxes lawfully payable by the buyers within that state.
NY is making the claim that any NY resident who advertises goods of an out of state seller, constitutes a physical presence and therefore the parent company for which that resident is advertising (and getting paid a commission) for must become a tax collector for NY. Having someone do advertising does not constitute a physical presence of the seller. Amazon can safely ignore NY on that law.
Politicians are good at inventing new taxes or new names for the same old taxes. Water, ice and steam are after all still H2O. Sales and USE and VAT are all basically the same. They tax falls on the buyer, not the seller. Because there are so many more buyer than sellers, the state forces the sellers to collect these taxes. In this case, NY has no recourse to force out of state retailers to be their tax collector, but has to try to collect the tax from each individual buyer. That has not been very successful, because most people don't keep accurate records of stuff they buy and of course don't enjoy paying taxes in the first place.
Income tax only works today, because most people work for relatively few employers who can be forced by law to be the tax collector. That did not work or at least would have been very difficult, in the early days of the USA, when most people were on individual farms. The industrialization changed all that.
....The sale occured where the merchant received payment,...
Not strictly true. The sales tax is determined by residency and state law. When I, as an Oregonian, go buy something in either CA or WA, I don't have to pay their sales taxes, since we don't have sales taxes here. In WA they make it easier than CA. In WA I can just show the merchant my Oregon ID, proving I am indeed and Oregon resident. The merchant will make note of that ID and not charge the WA sales tax. It obviously make sense to do this only for bigger purchases.
In CA they require a special notarized form stating that said object, usually a vehicle, will not be registered or used in CA but will be taken to OR, where it will remain for at least two years. It's generally not worth the hassle for lower cost items. Relatives of mine just went through this when they bought a fancy horse trailer in CA.
In the NY case, NY residents are obligated to pay the sales tax, for which use tax is just another name. Amazon however is not obligated to collect this tax from their NY customers, unless Amazon has a branch (physical presence) in NY.
This is nothing new. The SCOTUS has addressed this long ago, in the days of mail order. What is new, is that NY claims that a New York resident making a website with a sales link to Amazon constitutes a physical presence, obligating Amazon to become a tax collector for NY. This will have to be resolved in a Federal Court. I don't think NY will get very far with this, but it is an imaginative try for them to grab some extra cash.
take me to Federal Court if you want us to be your tax collector. The Supreme Court has already addressed that issue with mail order, long before anyone dreamed of the Internet. Good luck NY.
...But I sure would like to see the supreme Court act....
They did, years ago, in the days of mail order. They decided that a seller has to have a physical presence in a given state, before that state can force them to become a tax collector for them. The Internet is nothing more than a hi-tech, more convenient mail order system.
....New York can't go taxing the Californian business known as amazon...
NY is not taxing anyone other than NY residents. The issue is not taxes at all. The issue is whether NY or any other state enforce their laws outside of their own borders. The want to force Amazon to be their tax collector, even though Amazon is not located in NY.
They are not trying to tax anyone outside of NY. What they are trying to do is to force Amazon to be their tax collector for taxes that NY residents should rightfully pay. The issue is if one state can force someone in another state to obey their laws. This would have to be decided by the Federal Government.
So if someone in NY advertises something Amazon sells, they become their agent? I always was under the impression that to be someone's agent there had to be some sort of agreement that gave such an agent the right to speak for and do business for someone like Amazon.
Sales tax is always due from the buyer. All that NY is trying to do is to force Amazon to become their tax collector. NY has the perfect right to collect whatever taxes they wish from their resident's, but they don't have the right to force, by law, Amazon to collect the taxes NY residents should rightfully pay.
I's simply ignore that NY law and continue business as usual. NY then would have to file in Federal court to try to force Amazon to become a tax collector for NY.
...A state that is taxing a sale taking place in another state...
That is not the issue. If a NY resident buys something they are subject to NY tax, no matter where they bought it or how it was shipped to them, by truck or by wire. The sale takes place wherever the buyer lives.
What NY wants to do is to force Amazon and others to be their tax collector, just as they do with stores physically in NY. The US Supreme Court has ruled that a seller has to be PHYSICALLY located in the state that wishes that seller to become a tax collector for that state.
Amazon and others not in NY can safely ignore NY on this issue. There is no way NY can enforce this without Federal help, either Congress or the Federal Courts. NY would have to file suit in Federal Court to try to enforce their law. Good luck on that.
Slashdot Mirror
.....instead of allowing any student to be given up.....
Why is it that a college or university needs to keep individual records of internet use at all? If any DHCP or other IP address info is recorded, why not purge it after a few days? Then, if their IT department gets one of these missives from the **AA, they can honestly tell them that they don't have the faintest idea who might have been using the particular address at the time for the alleged violation.
I can see that a commercial ISP may want to keep records at least until the user's bill is paid. Phone companies do this also for billing purposes. In some countries there are laws that mandate keeping such records. Is there one here in the USA also?
....it might be possible to teach enough young people values ....
The big question is: "Whose values? When a increasingly large fraction of a society subscribes to the idea that there "are no absolutes" and humans are only a highly evolved cosmic accident, then the values themselves become subject to those with the most financial and/or political clout.
When this country was founded, the outlook of most people was oriented toward certain absolute truths, rooted in religious beliefs.
.that are illegally distributing the files...
Apparently, they have to show that an illegal copy was actually made. Having a legally purchased song on your HD is not illegal, even if that HD or section thereof is visible to the entire world. The problem the **AA has is that there is no technical way to prove that someone actually accessed the HD and illegally or legally downloaded any file. That's why they are trying so hard to bend the copyright law in the direction of "making available". Recent court cases apparently have put severe crimp in that doctrine.
.....to search for others who are making the music available.....
Recent court cases indicate that "making available" is not against the copyright law. The **AA would certainly like that to be the case, so they and they alone are able to "make available" and nobody else. To violate copyright, there has to be an actual copy made by someone.
....but I have never seen it work that way in the real world.....
I am, like you also a little skeptical at times about fancy technology. Before totally committing to this Wiebetech RAID box, I did unplug one of the two drives for a while. It did indeed beep, but continue to work on the remaining drive. After a day or so I replace the second drive. The RAID controller immediately began re-imaging the replaced drive. The display indicated that this is what was happening. Later that day the normal DRIVE OK display returned for the second drive. The power was never turned off.
So it appears to work as advertised. I have to use the USB interface, but that little box also has a very much faster eSATA connection. The controller, by default is set up for drive mirroring (RAID1) but may be re-programmed for making one large volume out of the two drives. (RAID0)
....Or, better yet, set up those two drives as a RAID mirror ...
For Macs with 10.5 that has become easier because of Time Machine. A 2x1000G RAID box connected to an Apple Extreme wireless router does backups for 6 Macs over the network.
If one of the drives fails, the RAID device makes an audible alarm and indicates which of the two drives has died. A new drive can be installed without shutting down the RAID system. Once the new drive is plugged in, the controller in that box automatically copies all the data from the still working drive.
So far, there have been no glitches or hiccups. Our lone PC user has to copy important files manually to the RAID box.
.....If someone wants to be a complete screw-up, then it is a requirement of a free society that we let them be a screw-up.....
That would only work if society were willing to let them reap what they sow. It seems that the do-gooders in this world will work very hard to prevent this. These kids can screw up and then when the chickens come home to roost, when the seeds of their foolishness begin to sprout, there are those who want to force the society, ie. the taxpayers, to bail the miscreants out of their self made predicaments.
It used to be that people were more or less responsible for their own actions, but nowadays many will blame everyone and everything but themselves for their troubles. If possible they will look for someone to sue or to the government, that is the tax payers to help them out of the holes they have dug for themselves.
...I don't really see what is patentable in this....
There isn't. All this patent and countless others do, is to provide employment to an army of lawyers. If somebody might be stupid enough to actually try to implement something similar to this, there will be said army of lawyers waiting with their writs and torts, ready to rake in more money yet.
....There are a few places where it makes sense....
Figuring out where those few places are seems to have escaped most planners of transit systems. If public transit makes it possible to get from home to work in less time and at the same expense as a car, then it may be better. Any place where that is not the case will be where the majority of people will spurn public transit.
..basically every modern desktop OS has grown far too complicated to restore easily...
Just get an external firewire HD and make a bootable clone of your main HD when you first get your computer working, with all the programs you use installed. Such external boxes are not very expensive any more. Now when you've messed up your Mac, just boot from the firewire drive. Next copy any user data from the now accessible internal HD not already backed up elsewhere. Run the disk utility program to check and repair the integrity of the internal disk. Try to now reboot the computer the normal way. Many times it will be fine after that. If not, use a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone you external HD back onto the internal drive.
.... On multiple occasions I've brought in ailing MacBooks (and MacBook Pros) to the Apple store and the only advice the "geniuses" have had for fixing the problem has been a clean reinstall. ....
With the low costs of portable storage devices, I keep one with a clean OS handy. If the internal system fails, the computer can be re-started from the external fire wire drive. If there is an internal drive software failure, the disk repair program will usually take care of the problem. If not, the user data can be copied from the internal to the external drive. Then a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner can be used to re-copy the external drive onto the internal one. The end result us a working computer with minimal effort. With time machine, Apple has made it simple to also keep backups on a network volume.
....lay people don't want to know what a memory leak is,.....
Indeed, isn't that when you call a plumber, when there is a leak? Of course I have memory leaks from time to time when it comes to remembering names. I wonder if a plumber can fix that?
....Apple needs to launch some newer and more powerful products for the corporate user base...
A smaller brother, both in size and power, to the MacPro, priced between the lowest and highest price iMac would probably be a very popular item they should add to their list. It could have one expansion slot and let the customer use their old PC keyboards and monitors. This would save money and help the environment with less electronic garbage to dispose of.
Apple could sell a sexy monitor, keyboard and mouse as an option.
....that state has enough jurisdiction to tax the sale....
The state may tax any sale, only on its own residents. What NY is trying to do is to make Amazon be their tax collector. Amazon does not owe NY a penny, but it is the buyer in NY that owes this tax.
The NY resident who has a referring web site is merely an advertiser for Amazon. It would be like Amazon taking out an ad in the NY times. Only instead of paying the Times a fixed fee, as paid by every advertiser, they paid the Times a percentage of each sale due to the reader buying something.
In the case of the Times, that would be impossible to track, but in the case of the Internet websites, it is no problem to track such sales and pay the advertiser accordingly. NY seems to think that this new method of advertising gives them the right to force Amazon to be the NY tax collector, just because it is possible to track the NY sales in the case of the Internet.
....we're charging a one-time tax on the use of products that were imported,....
Use and sales tax are basically the same thing by different names. It is a tax paid by the buyer, no matter where they bought the goods or service. It has nothing to do with import, export or the constitution. A state may lawfully charge a tax on its residents. Maybe a better name would be a buyer tax. Within each state, this tax is not paid by the sellers. They only collect it for that state.
What a state may not do, is to force an out of state seller to become their tax collector. That is something the federal government, either through their courts or the Congress may address. NY (and all the other states) could go to Congress and lobby for a law that would force all sellers to become the tax collectors for all states. That has not happened, because it would put a very large bookkeeping burden on all sellers.
Long before the Internet, in the days of mail order, the SCOTUS ruled that a seller has to be physically located in a state, before that state may force them to be a tax collector for the taxes lawfully payable by the buyers within that state.
NY is making the claim that any NY resident who advertises goods of an out of state seller, constitutes a physical presence and therefore the parent company for which that resident is advertising (and getting paid a commission) for must become a tax collector for NY. Having someone do advertising does not constitute a physical presence of the seller. Amazon can safely ignore NY on that law.
....I have to pay a USE tax....
Politicians are good at inventing new taxes or new names for the same old taxes. Water, ice and steam are after all still H2O. Sales and USE and VAT are all basically the same. They tax falls on the buyer, not the seller. Because there are so many more buyer than sellers, the state forces the sellers to collect these taxes. In this case, NY has no recourse to force out of state retailers to be their tax collector, but has to try to collect the tax from each individual buyer. That has not been very successful, because most people don't keep accurate records of stuff they buy and of course don't enjoy paying taxes in the first place.
Income tax only works today, because most people work for relatively few employers who can be forced by law to be the tax collector. That did not work or at least would have been very difficult, in the early days of the USA, when most people were on individual farms. The industrialization changed all that.
....The sale occured where the merchant received payment,...
Not strictly true. The sales tax is determined by residency and state law. When I, as an Oregonian, go buy something in either CA or WA, I don't have to pay their sales taxes, since we don't have sales taxes here. In WA they make it easier than CA. In WA I can just show the merchant my Oregon ID, proving I am indeed and Oregon resident. The merchant will make note of that ID and not charge the WA sales tax. It obviously make sense to do this only for bigger purchases.
In CA they require a special notarized form stating that said object, usually a vehicle, will not be registered or used in CA but will be taken to OR, where it will remain for at least two years. It's generally not worth the hassle for lower cost items. Relatives of mine just went through this when they bought a fancy horse trailer in CA.
In the NY case, NY residents are obligated to pay the sales tax, for which use tax is just another name. Amazon however is not obligated to collect this tax from their NY customers, unless Amazon has a branch (physical presence) in NY.
This is nothing new. The SCOTUS has addressed this long ago, in the days of mail order. What is new, is that NY claims that a New York resident making a website with a sales link to Amazon constitutes a physical presence, obligating Amazon to become a tax collector for NY. This will have to be resolved in a Federal Court. I don't think NY will get very far with this, but it is an imaginative try for them to grab some extra cash.
...If I were Amazon I'd say....
take me to Federal Court if you want us to be your tax collector. The Supreme Court has already addressed that issue with mail order, long before anyone dreamed of the Internet. Good luck NY.
...But I sure would like to see the supreme Court act....
They did, years ago, in the days of mail order. They decided that a seller has to have a physical presence in a given state, before that state can force them to become a tax collector for them. The Internet is nothing more than a hi-tech, more convenient mail order system.
...If I were CEO of Amazon...
I would simply ignore NY. Then NY would have to take Amazon to Federal Court, since NY courts cannot enforce NY laws in Washington State.
....New York can't go taxing the Californian business known as amazon...
NY is not taxing anyone other than NY residents. The issue is not taxes at all. The issue is whether NY or any other state enforce their laws outside of their own borders. The want to force Amazon to be their tax collector, even though Amazon is not located in NY.
...They cannot levy taxes on non-NY citizens...
They are not trying to tax anyone outside of NY. What they are trying to do is to force Amazon to be their tax collector for taxes that NY residents should rightfully pay. The issue is if one state can force someone in another state to obey their laws. This would have to be decided by the Federal Government.
...when they (or their agents) ...
So if someone in NY advertises something Amazon sells, they become their agent? I always was under the impression that to be someone's agent there had to be some sort of agreement that gave such an agent the right to speak for and do business for someone like Amazon.
Sales tax is always due from the buyer. All that NY is trying to do is to force Amazon to become their tax collector. NY has the perfect right to collect whatever taxes they wish from their resident's, but they don't have the right to force, by law, Amazon to collect the taxes NY residents should rightfully pay.
....If I WAS amazon,..
I's simply ignore that NY law and continue business as usual. NY then would have to file in Federal court to try to force Amazon to become a tax collector for NY.
...A state that is taxing a sale taking place in another state...
That is not the issue. If a NY resident buys something they are subject to NY tax, no matter where they bought it or how it was shipped to them, by truck or by wire. The sale takes place wherever the buyer lives.
What NY wants to do is to force Amazon and others to be their tax collector, just as they do with stores physically in NY. The US Supreme Court has ruled that a seller has to be PHYSICALLY located in the state that wishes that seller to become a tax collector for that state.
Amazon and others not in NY can safely ignore NY on this issue. There is no way NY can enforce this without Federal help, either Congress or the Federal Courts. NY would have to file suit in Federal Court to try to enforce their law. Good luck on that.