Apple does have 100% of the Apple PC users. This does count for something. You are telling me there is no reason you might want to target Apple users only for some sort of advertisement or video? What would you be forced to use if you produced some really cool trailer for an Apple PC game you just wrote?
The media player market, specifically the streaming video market requires bandwidth.
People that have the bandwidth really don't have all that much of a problem getting these free products.
I could understand what MS did to Netscape back in the early 90's as being a problem as downloading a browser on dial-up can take forever, but with the media playing devices, on high speed connections, with links from the media you are trying to view to the product download, we are talking 4 minutes.
This does not seem to me as an unreasonable road block to quicktime and real player
As I understand EU law, they deal in dominance and not necessarily a monopoly. It is a lower standard. And you can almost always define a product market small enough to screw any fortune 1000 company.
Really Apple and Intel compatiable hardware systems have their own software markets. So if you are looking at as % of apple hardware shipped with quicktime they have dominance. But if you look at it as % of PC's shipped with quicktime there isn't dominance
Actually Thomas Jefferson stated that he believed the constitution to be a living document, and that each generation should have thier own. So I think he would be more concerend that we were trying to interpret it the same way as the founding fathers.
We are stuck with the policy considerations of 9 old people who spent their whole life studying the past, because the constitution is more or less unamendable. With the right 5% of the population you can block any amendment.
Look at how beign the last 10 amendments to the constitution have been
27 - congressional pay raise occurs in next term 26 - voting age 18 24 - poll tax 23 - DC residents get to vote for president 19 - women's right to vote
These are all no brainers in today's society for various reasons.
I wonder if it would be possible to sue these spammers for interfering with a business transaction. Granted, the amount in question here is minimal, but just the possibility that a spammer could be found liable for this might deter some of them.
If that doesn't work we should sign up every megacorp CEO on every spammer list possible, and hope s/he misses an important memo costing megacorp millions. Then megacorp could sue spammer into oblivion.
No one is saying you aren't getting emergency services. You can achieve the same result by calling your local police/fire/ambulence, whatever that 7-10 digit number may be. 911 is that nice little feature whereby you get multiple services with an easy to remember 3 digit code.
911 has several benefits being 1. easy to use/remember 2. portability
If you are talking about your residential line you can argue that there isn't much more to ease of use between remembering 3 phone numbers and 3 digits. Of couse in a panic you could get them confused.
The other prong of portability isn't important b/c you aren't moving the physical location and therefore the emergency numbers a fixed.
Of course while you may not be worried about portability in your house, children/visitors/contractors/servants might need to use it in an emergency.
Really it is everybody's individual interest to not pay the $1.50 or whatever they are charging these days, but it is in everybody's group interest to have 911. Thats where the government comes in and mandates it.
I mean, one phone call? one credit card application in the mail? one car insurance quote in email?
You may think these are each a form of harrassment but try getting a judge/jury to agree with you. And then try to get the Supreme Court to agree with you.
The Supreme Court has more or less taken the stance that as long as it isn't obscene you can send unsolicited mail to anyone. Of course that costs some $.30/mailing address. The cost is prohibitive to most companies who want to carpet bomb the country, so you only get people with high profit margins doing this. Hence every person on this planet has 23 AOL floppy/CD/DVDs.
Email is different. The cost/email is insanely low something like 1 penny/100 emails. This is where the real problem comes in b/c so many companies can afford this. 1 spam/day isn't harrassment, and for the government to deny that 1 spam is a first amendment violation.
Here is the problem. 100 spams/day probably is harrassment (opinions will vary). But these could very well be from 100 different Spammers. So none of them individually harrassed you. So you are looking at enacting some collective harrassment law
There are so many problems it isn't even funny How many unsolicited emails is harrassment? Who should get the rights to the non harrassment emails? How will the government even police this?
It would be nice and easy to completely ban spam, but the first amendment won't let us.
The analogy to drug dealing is tenuous at best, because there aren't any first amendment issues. Although it does bring up a great point. Why should the government waste its time and money going after and prosecuting Spammers when they could be spending it on getting real criminals?
Sure John and Jane Doe don't want little Timmy seeing ads for penis enlargement, and all the wonderful things Amber will do on her webcam. But ask them would they like the government to 1) tax them more to take care of the problem or 2) leave the dealers/drunks/muggers/rapist/kidnappers/murders on the street while little Timmy is out playing.
Pixarland that would be great we could ride in the hotrod roller coster with Buzz. No wait that belongs to Disney. And so does everything else. Basically they won't have any content to stick in their theme park for a dozen years.
And I know Pixar is hot, and I am not saying that anybody can render a movie, but what they really have going for them is Originality of idea. I know right now Pixar can do no wrong, but innovation is seriously unpredictable.
Disney brought on Eisner 20 years ago and he did wonders for Disney. The problem is that he dried up a decade ago.
Another example is that the highest rated network in television changes hands every few years.
Actually they probably will. As every other cable/sat/broadcast will be screaming. At the very least they will force certain terms on the new company or force them to sell something. What I don't know, as the best thing to make them sell is ESPN, and that is probably why Comcast is going to all this trouble
You must have a college degree in the field you are going to be an examiner for, and generally they require some experience.
The pay might not be competitive as it is a government job. And really if you were talented in a field would you want to sit at a desk and read this stuff all day?
Then there are like a half dozen appeals one can make to get a patent through.
Don't get me wrong I think there are a lot of stuipd patents, but the other alternative is to charge more money for the review process and that is just going to hose the little guy. But keep in mind, A patent is supposed to novel and useful at the time it was issued.
Autorun as a concept is really old. Pluging a lightblub into a lamp that is already turned on is autorun, and I don't think applying it to computers is unique.
Take finding Finding Nemo which cost 90 million to produce and about 40 million to market. So Disney put up 85 million to Pixars 45 million. Seems to me everybody is getting back the % they stuck in financially.
From what I can gather what Pixar wanted was the rights to their films back, in addition to the rights of the films to be produced. I don't think the cost split ratio and the profit assignments are the problem. Disney would probably have been willing to match any offer from Time Warner, News Corp, Universal, or Sony could make. Disney has something that none of those companies have which Pixar wanted back. And knowing Jobs he probably felt he deserved it, and threw a fit when Eisner rightfully said "you signed a contract"
ESPN is very powerful. Most males get cable because of ESPN. If Comcast is in an area like Chicago where it competes with another cable company (RCN) then it will deny RCN use of ESPN. So now you are sitting there deciding which cable company to go with. On the one hand you have Comcast with ESPN and you have Company B without.
Comcast is pretty big. They bought AT&T's cable division which was formally TCI. It is the largest cable provider in the country. They do more than just cable, they also do Broadband, and Digital Telephone.
I suspect they would keep the disney name as that is much more recognizeable. Really this isn't a purchase, it is a merger. The term "buying" just indicates whose management is staying and whose is going.
I am not sure this is a great idea. The whole concept behind the AOL-Time Warner merger was Content and distribution. That didn't work out very well.
Almost anything written in any language is prior art. Something that is only on file in some remote German city, written in german, is prior art for your US patent.
Thus, I am pretty sure that you cannot file prior art at the PTO. It would simply be impractical and ultimately pointless as you would still be responsible for anything that wouldn't be filed with them.
Well if you believe that this sort of file sharing is wrong, as the RIAA does, then this really boils down to a matter of principle than anything else. You will find people are quite stubborn when it comes to principle regardless of cost.
For every person they sue 100 people probably stop sharing music. How much money is this saving them? probably not a whole lot, b/c the people that are going to steal/sample are going to find other places. People that steal weren't going to spend the money on the CD's anyway.
I really wouldn't call this fear more than I would call it respect. Few people are going to respect a law that isn't going to get enforced. Raise your hand if you would pay the IRS if they weren't going to take your money anyway and throw you in jail.
At the very least, parents are now asking their kids what they are doing with the internet connection.
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Apple does have 100% of the Apple PC users. This does count for something. You are telling me there is no reason you might want to target Apple users only for some sort of advertisement or video? What would you be forced to use if you produced some really cool trailer for an Apple PC game you just wrote?
My problem with all of this is the following
The media player market, specifically the streaming video market requires bandwidth.
People that have the bandwidth really don't have all that much of a problem getting these free products.
I could understand what MS did to Netscape back in the early 90's as being a problem as downloading a browser on dial-up can take forever, but with the media playing devices, on high speed connections, with links from the media you are trying to view to the product download, we are talking 4 minutes.
This does not seem to me as an unreasonable road block to quicktime and real player
As I understand EU law, they deal in dominance and not necessarily a monopoly. It is a lower standard. And you can almost always define a product market small enough to screw any fortune 1000 company.
Really Apple and Intel compatiable hardware systems have their own software markets. So if you are looking at as % of apple hardware shipped with quicktime they have dominance. But if you look at it as % of PC's shipped with quicktime there isn't dominance
Actually Thomas Jefferson stated that he believed the constitution to be a living document, and that each generation should have thier own. So I think he would be more concerend that we were trying to interpret it the same way as the founding fathers.
We are stuck with the policy considerations of 9 old people who spent their whole life studying the past, because the constitution is more or less unamendable. With the right 5% of the population you can block any amendment.
Look at how beign the last 10 amendments to the constitution have been
27 - congressional pay raise occurs in next term
26 - voting age 18
24 - poll tax
23 - DC residents get to vote for president
19 - women's right to vote
These are all no brainers in today's society for various reasons.
25 - presidential succession
20 - presidential term/succession
This was important to spell out in order to make sure the government worked in a crisis
22 - presidential Term limits
21 - legalization of alcohol
18 - alcohol illegal
These are true policy decisions made by the country. And really these pale in comparison to the previous 17.
Not to sound like a litigation whore, but ...
I wonder if it would be possible to sue these spammers for interfering with a business transaction. Granted, the amount in question here is minimal, but just the possibility that a spammer could be found liable for this might deter some of them.
If that doesn't work we should sign up every megacorp CEO on every spammer list possible, and hope s/he misses an important memo costing megacorp millions. Then megacorp could sue spammer into oblivion.
No one is saying you aren't getting emergency services. You can achieve the same result by calling your local police/fire/ambulence, whatever that 7-10 digit number may be. 911 is that nice little feature whereby you get multiple services with an easy to remember 3 digit code.
911 has several benefits being
1. easy to use/remember
2. portability
If you are talking about your residential line you can argue that there isn't much more to ease of use between remembering 3 phone numbers and 3 digits. Of couse in a panic you could get them confused.
The other prong of portability isn't important b/c you aren't moving the physical location and therefore the emergency numbers a fixed.
Of course while you may not be worried about portability in your house, children/visitors/contractors/servants might need to use it in an emergency.
Really it is everybody's individual interest to not pay the $1.50 or whatever they are charging these days, but it is in everybody's group interest to have 911. Thats where the government comes in and mandates it.
What are you classifying as harrassment?
I mean, one phone call? one credit card application in the mail? one car insurance quote in email?
You may think these are each a form of harrassment but try getting a judge/jury to agree with you. And then try to get the Supreme Court to agree with you.
The Supreme Court has more or less taken the stance that as long as it isn't obscene you can send unsolicited mail to anyone. Of course that costs some $.30/mailing address. The cost is prohibitive to most companies who want to carpet bomb the country, so you only get people with high profit margins doing this. Hence every person on this planet has 23 AOL floppy/CD/DVDs.
Email is different. The cost/email is insanely low something like 1 penny/100 emails. This is where the real problem comes in b/c so many companies can afford this. 1 spam/day isn't harrassment, and for the government to deny that 1 spam is a first amendment violation.
Here is the problem. 100 spams/day probably is harrassment (opinions will vary). But these could very well be from 100 different Spammers. So none of them individually harrassed you. So you are looking at enacting some collective harrassment law
There are so many problems it isn't even funny
How many unsolicited emails is harrassment?
Who should get the rights to the non harrassment emails?
How will the government even police this?
It would be nice and easy to completely ban spam, but the first amendment won't let us.
The analogy to drug dealing is tenuous at best, because there aren't any first amendment issues. Although it does bring up a great point. Why should the government waste its time and money going after and prosecuting Spammers when they could be spending it on getting real criminals?
Sure John and Jane Doe don't want little Timmy seeing ads for penis enlargement, and all the wonderful things Amber will do on her webcam. But ask them would they like the government to 1) tax them more to take care of the problem or 2) leave the dealers/drunks/muggers/rapist/kidnappers/murders on the street while little Timmy is out playing.
Pixarland that would be great we could ride in the hotrod roller coster with Buzz. No wait that belongs to Disney. And so does everything else. Basically they won't have any content to stick in their theme park for a dozen years.
And I know Pixar is hot, and I am not saying that anybody can render a movie, but what they really have going for them is Originality of idea. I know right now Pixar can do no wrong, but innovation is seriously unpredictable.
Disney brought on Eisner 20 years ago and he did wonders for Disney. The problem is that he dried up a decade ago.
Another example is that the highest rated network in television changes hands every few years.
Isn't kinda like forming a Rock Band, you pick the name, and the image. The music comes to you after you sell your soul to the RIAA?
Actually they probably will. As every other cable/sat/broadcast will be screaming. At the very least they will force certain terms on the new company or force them to sell something. What I don't know, as the best thing to make them sell is ESPN, and that is probably why Comcast is going to all this trouble
The patent office is over worked
You must have a college degree in the field you are going to be an examiner for, and generally they require some experience.
The pay might not be competitive as it is a government job. And really if you were talented in a field would you want to sit at a desk and read this stuff all day?
Then there are like a half dozen appeals one can make to get a patent through.
Don't get me wrong I think there are a lot of stuipd patents, but the other alternative is to charge more money for the review process and that is just going to hose the little guy. But keep in mind, A patent is supposed to novel and useful at the time it was issued.
Autorun as a concept is really old. Pluging a lightblub into a lamp that is already turned on is autorun, and I don't think applying it to computers is unique.
This really isn't all that bad of a deal.
Take finding Finding Nemo which cost 90 million to produce and about 40 million to market. So Disney put up 85 million to Pixars 45 million. Seems to me everybody is getting back the % they stuck in financially.
From what I can gather what Pixar wanted was the rights to their films back, in addition to the rights of the films to be produced. I don't think the cost split ratio and the profit assignments are the problem. Disney would probably have been willing to match any offer from Time Warner, News Corp, Universal, or Sony could make. Disney has something that none of those companies have which Pixar wanted back. And knowing Jobs he probably felt he deserved it, and threw a fit when Eisner rightfully said "you signed a contract"
The FCC is going to have a fit
ESPN is very powerful. Most males get cable because of ESPN. If Comcast is in an area like Chicago where it competes with another cable company (RCN) then it will deny RCN use of ESPN. So now you are sitting there deciding which cable company to go with. On the one hand you have Comcast with ESPN and you have Company B without.
Goodbye Company B.
Comcast is pretty big. They bought AT&T's cable division which was formally TCI. It is the largest cable provider in the country. They do more than just cable, they also do Broadband, and Digital Telephone.
I suspect they would keep the disney name as that is much more recognizeable. Really this isn't a purchase, it is a merger. The term "buying" just indicates whose management is staying and whose is going.
I am not sure this is a great idea. The whole concept behind the AOL-Time Warner merger was Content and distribution. That didn't work out very well.
Almost anything written in any language is prior art. Something that is only on file in some remote German city, written in german, is prior art for your US patent.
Thus, I am pretty sure that you cannot file prior art at the PTO. It would simply be impractical and ultimately pointless as you would still be responsible for anything that wouldn't be filed with them.
Well if you believe that this sort of file sharing is wrong, as the RIAA does, then this really boils down to a matter of principle than anything else. You will find people are quite stubborn when it comes to principle regardless of cost.
For every person they sue 100 people probably stop sharing music. How much money is this saving them? probably not a whole lot, b/c the people that are going to steal/sample are going to find other places. People that steal weren't going to spend the money on the CD's anyway.
I really wouldn't call this fear more than I would call it respect. Few people are going to respect a law that isn't going to get enforced. Raise your hand if you would pay the IRS if they weren't going to take your money anyway and throw you in jail.
At the very least, parents are now asking their kids what they are doing with the internet connection.